Her Roman Holiday (2 page)

He just scowled at her.

“Right,” she said, nodding.
 
“Well, as it happens, I’m not totally all right, thanks for asking.
 
I’m still a bit shaken up.
 
But I’m sure that if you continue to snarl at me, I’ll be feeling right as rain in no time.”

His expression shifted to perplexed hostility as she spoke.
 
“My English must be failing me, since I have little idea what you are talking about.”

The train had begun to slow.
 
Her surly rescuer walked to the window.
 
“Just so you know, I told him to get off at this station, so if you want to press charges, then you will have to act quickly.”

The train pulled to a stop.

Calia shuddered.
 
“No, no.
 
Just as long as he’s gone, I don’t care.”
 
She stood and peered over his shoulder.
 
With a sense of relief, she spotted her former attacker walking swiftly across the platform, towards the station’s exit.
 
“He seems in something of a hurry.”

The broad shoulders shrugged.
 
“I also told him that if he didn’t get off here, I’d take great pleasure in ensuring he was off the train before we reached the next stop.”

“I see.”

He turned, and she was suddenly breathlessly conscious of the spicy darkness of his proximity.
 
Calia generally thought of herself as an independent woman
—
her older brother Matt had often joked that Calia’s stubborn self-reliance meant he got to slack off on the ‘protective’ aspect of his role.
 

Still, for a few moments, she wished that she could collapse against this man
—
who hadn’t even introduced himself
—
and lose herself in the comfort of his arms.
 
She swayed towards him, the full weight of reaction setting in.
 
Between her recent ordeal and her largely sleepless night, she suddenly felt deeply exhausted, and as out of her depth as he had accused her of being.

 
Then, just as she was pulling in another breath and reaching for the strength to step away from him and collapse into one of the seats, she felt his hands close over her shoulders, the grip firm, but surprisingly gentle.
 
Any final reserve of control was swept beyond her grasp by the warmth of that human contact.
 
She leaned against his chest with a shuddering sigh.

As his arms slipped around her, she found, to her horror, that her next breath was even shakier.
 
And then, the floodgates opened.

She felt herself being led to one of the seats.
 
Heard the murmured Italian as he stroked her hair and rocked her gently.
 
Slowly, the racking sobs abated, taking the jittery tension with them.
 
She found she was holding a tissue in one of her hands, and she used it to dab at her face, swiping away the eyeliner she had applied short minutes and long eternities ago.

She pulled away from him, suddenly conscious of the fact that she had just been bawling into the shoulder of this remote, disturbingly attractive, stranger.
 
She stared at her sodden tissue because she didn’t want to look at him.
 
Lucky fellow
—
always seeing her at her best.
 
First, all rumpled and groggy from a sleepless night.
 
And now, this.
 
She swallowed, feeling the rawness in her throat.
 

“So.
 
Better now?”
 
He spoke gently.

She nodded.
 
One of his arms remained draped across her shoulders.
 
Now that she felt more like herself, she was heatedly aware of his touch, as a different kind of tension suffused her.

“Good.”
 
His hand shifted so that he was rubbing her back soothingly.
 
At least, she suspected that was how he meant it to feel.
 
Calming.
 
Comforting.
 
The opposite of exciting.
 
“Do you want me to stay with you here?”

Yes.
 
But that was silly.
 
“No, no.
 
Of course not.
 
I’ll be fine.
 
Really.”

 
He pulled away to regard her.
 
Then, he shook his head.
 
“No.
 
I will stay.”

A silence.
 

She sighed.
 
“I could really do with a coffee right about now
—
there’s a cafeteria car on the train, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”
 
He stood.
 
His expression had become unreadable.
 
“I will get you a coffee while you check your bags to make sure nothing is missing.”

Calia smiled at him.
 
“You know what?
 
I think I actually need a bit of a walk.
 
It’ll help steady me.
 
But if you could just stay here, with my backpack?”
 
When he nodded, she continued, “Did you want anything?
 
It’s on me
—
as a thank you for helping me out.
 
I do appreciate it, you know.”

He shook his head.
 
“I am fine.”

She refused to be intimidated by his forbidding inscrutability.
 
“C’mon.
 
It would make me feel better if you’d let me buy you a coffee.”

His eyebrows rose.
 
“All right.
 
An espresso.
 
No sugar.”

“Great.
 
I’ll be back shortly.”

Except that Calia didn’t quite have enough change to pay for both the coffees and the calzone she had ordered.
 
And when she went to pull out her money belt, so she could dip into her larger stash, she discovered the belt was gone.
 
I must have shoved it into one of my packs.

She tried to push aside her rising uneasiness and gave the woman behind the counter an embarrassed smile.
 
She didn’t want to rummage through her daypack here in line, so instead she held out the small amount of cash she had left, which was just enough to cover the coffees.
 
“No
calzone, grazie,
” she said in her broken Italian.
 
“
’Scusi.
”

The woman’s friendly smile belied her keen scrutiny of Calia’s face.
 
Then, with a shrug, she accepted the money
—
and handed Calia the coffees and the calzone.
 
“Is okay.
 
Take it all.”

Calia thanked the woman and returned to the compartment to find the Lone Wolf had retreated behind a newspaper.
 
When he heard her fumbling with the handle, he opened the door for her, accepting the coffee she handed him with a nod.

“
Grazie.
”

“You’re welcome.”
 
Calia set her own food on the tray by the window and turned to her daypack.
 
The zip on the front pocket was open.

She frowned.
 
She was usually very careful about zipping her bags closed when she was done with them.

I must have forgotton.
 
But still.
 
It has to be in here.
 
Where else would I have put it?
 
Her heart had started to pound again.
 
After all, she only ever took off her money belt when she showered.
 
She even slept with it under her pillow…

Ohmigod.
 
She closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead as she tried to steady her breathing.
 
A 5 am transfer of trains in Nice.
 
She had that compartment to herself, and had taken advantage of the fact to stretch across the seats.
 
She had been exhausted.

Thinking back, a vague recollection emerged from the dimness of her early morning memories.
 
The Italian border guard, sometime between 5 and 9 am, rousing her in order to check her documents.
 
For some reason, it had seemed easier, amid all the fumbling, to remove the belt completely, before extracting her passport.

Then, still half asleep, she had shoved the passport and the money belt into the outer pocket of her daypack, with every intention of putting the passport back and tucking the flat pouch under her jeans later.
 
When she was more awake.
 

Except that she had forgotten all about it.
 
Until now.
 

And though her passport and railpass were still safely tucked into the outer pocket of her pack, her money belt was nowhere to be found.

She sank into her seat, the throbbing of her pulse loud in her ears as she sought to hold herself back from blind panic.
 

“What is wrong?”

His voice penetrated the rising tide of her horror.
 

“My money belt.
 
It’s gone.”

“You are sure?”

“Almost.
 
I’ll check through my packs again.
 
But I’m fairly sure, yes.”

“What was in it?”

She strove for a calm tone.
 
“Oh, pretty much everything.
 
My plane ticket.
 
My credit cards, bank card, travellers’ cheques, larger denominations of cash.
 
Yup, basically. Everything.”
 

“Passport?”

She let out a hard breath.
 
“No, I’ve still got that.
 
And my rail pass.
 
But that’s about it.”
 

Already, she was making frantic plans.
 
The train’s final destination was Rome
—
and while she wasn’t sure whether Florence had a Canadian Consul, Rome was bound to have an office…

“I see.
 
And you think he took them?”
 
Again, the question cut into her fevered thoughts.
 

“I can’t be sure.
 
But yes.
 
That would be my guess.”
 
Calia ground her teeth, suddenly furious at herself.
 
Why had she taken the stupid belt off in the first place?
 
“He must have unzipped my pack and grabbed the first thing that came to hand.
 
Maybe after he threw me onto the seat
—
I know I blacked out for a few seconds.”
 
Her lips pressed into a humourless smile as she glanced at her companion.
 
His nostrils were flared, his mouth hard.
 
“Just his luck, it was the paydirt.”

Something dark and ruthless stirred in his eyes.
 
“Just his luck, he is not still on this train.
 
I did not know he had pushed you, knocked you out.
 
If I had, he would not have gotten off so lightly.”
 
He stared out the window a few moments, his face a study of shadowed planes and hard angles.
 
“Do you know anything about him?
 
Did he give you a name, perhaps?
 
Anything we could go on?”

She shook her head.
 
“Nothing.
 
Sorry.
 
The only chance we’ve got is if he tries using one of my cards to buy something.”

“Then we will have to hope he will be foolish enough to do so.”
 
He shifted his fierce gaze back to her.
 
“In the mean time, do you need to use a phone?
 
To cancel credit cards, for example?”
 
He was already reaching into his briefcase.

She massaged her pounding temples.
 
“That’s okay, thanks.
 
I’ve got my own.”
 

She had brought her tri-band phone, which worked in Europe as well as North America.
 
She had figured it might come in handy for the business portion of her trip, but otherwise only planned on using it in case of an emergency.

She rummaged through her bag until she found that, as well as the photocopies she had made of the toll-free numbers she’d need if the worst happened and her money belt got stolen.
 
She had never actually expected to use them.
 

Calia made the calls to cancel her cards, all the while burningly aware of her companion’s presence in the compartment, even though he had taken out a laptop and was apparently engrossed by the contents of its screen.
 
As on the platform, she found herself glancing at him.
 
What could he be thinking about all this?
 
No doubt, he was counting the minutes till he could safely make his exit.

Between waiting on hold and sorting through labyrinths of recorded menus, by the time Calia flipped her phone shut, they had left Florence long behind and were well on the way to Rome.
 
But at least her cards were cancelled
—
with the assurance that anyone who tried to use them would be apprehended.
 
And, because her plane ticket was a virtual one, it turned out that she would just need her passport and a printout of the ticket information in order to board her plane home.

The rest of the news was less assuring.
 
Though her bank could courier a replacement card, they needed a fixed address in order to do that
—
and she wouldn’t have that, unless she had enough money for accommodations for the next day or two.
 
And meanwhile, she didn’t even have sufficient funds for the transportation to a hostel, never mind enough to cover the cost of a bed, once there.