Kiss Me While I sleep (40 page)

Lily had to agree. Damone had evidently seized the opportunity to kill Rodrigo and make the murder look like an accident. It must have been an impulse, a spur-of-the-moment decision precipitated by the destruction of the laboratory. But Damone was widely reckoned as the brilliant one, the one with the Midas touch; would he have acted so impulsively, when the outcome could just as easily have resulted in his own death?

The only other possibility was that Rodrigo’s death wasn’t an impulse at all. And that could be only if-“My God,” she blurted. “He planned the whole thing.”

Three weeks later, Lily woke from a late afternoon nap to hear Swain out on the terrace, talking on the satellite telephone he’d wrangled from somewhere, saying angrily, “Damn it, Frank-No. No. Fuck it,
no.
All right. I said
all right,
but I don’t like it You owe me, big-time. Yeah, I said
you
owe
me,
so you’d better be damn sure you’re right.“ He slammed down the phone and walked to the low wall of the terrace, where he planted his hands on his hips and glared out at the blue Aegean.

She slipped from the bed and went out through the double doors onto the terrace, walking up behind him and sliding her arms around his waist. She laid her head against his bare back and kissed his warm shoulder blade. “You finally got to talk to Frank?” Frank was his friend who had been in the car accident. Two weeks earlier Frank had been moved out of ICU into a regular hospital bed, but he’d evidently been guarded by someone who had been adamant that he not be disturbed. The day before he’d been moved into a rehab facility, but judging from the way Swain had sounded, their first conversation hadn’t been to his liking.

“The hardheaded son of a bitch,” he growled, but he caught one of her hands and pressed it to his chest.

“What’s wrong?”

“He wants me to do something I don’t want to do.”

“Such as?”

“Take a job I don’t like.”

That wasn’t welcome news. In the three weeks they’d been in Greece, on the island of Ewoia, they had slipped into a lazy routine that felt like heaven. The days were often cloudy but definitely warmer than in Paris, with highs often reaching into the seventies. The nights got cold, but that was all the better for cuddling in bed. Today had been almost perfect, sunny all day long, and so warm Swain had been shirtless most of the day. Now that the sun was setting, the temperature would drop like a rock, but for just a few minutes more they were comfortable.

They made love; they slept late; they ate whenever they wanted; they strolled through town. They were staying in a house on the mountain slope above the port town of Rarystos, with a spectacular view of the sea. Lily had fallen in love with the house, a simple white house with bright blue shutters and an air of peace. She could have stayed there with him forever, though she knew the idyll would eventually end.

Evidently it was going to end sooner than she’d expected. If Swain took this job he didn’t want to take-and Frank was obviously twisting his arm to take it-he would have to leave the island. She could stay here without him, of course, but the big question was: Did she want to? An even bigger question was whether she’d have the option of going with him. They still hadn’t discussed the future; the present had been so very pleasant she had luxuriated in it, letting the days drift past.

“If you take the job, where will you have to go?”

“I don’t know yet”

“Then how do you know you don’t want it?”

“Because I won’t be here.” He turned in the circle of her arms and kissed her forehead. “I don’t want to leave.”

“Then don’t.”

“Frank’s pulling one of those ‘do it for me’ deals.”

“It’s obvious he can’t do it himself. How long will he be in rehab?”

“At least a month, he said, and God only knows how long it’ll be before he’s back to normal.”

“If you take the job, how long will you be gone?”

He was silent, and her heart sank. A long time, then. “I could go with you,” she offered, though she hadn’t meant to. If he wanted her with him, he would say so. Surely he did, didn’t he? He said “I love you” every day, several times a day. He showed it in the obvious enjoyment he took from being in her company, in the attention he paid to her, the way he touched her.

“You can’t,” he finally said. “If I take it, that won’t be an option.”

That was that, then. “When do you have to decide?”

“In a few days. Not right now, at any rate.” He cupped her chin and turned her face up, studying her features in the growing twilight as if he were trying to memorize them. His blue eyes were darkly intent. “I don’t know that I can do it,” he whispered. “I don’t want to leave here.”

“Then don’t,” she said simply, and he laughed.

“I wish it was that easy. Frank… well, he’s a hard man to turn down.”

“Does he have something on you?”

He laughed, though the sound was more wry than humorous. “It isn’t that. He’s just one of those persuasive people. And I hate to admit it, but I trust him more than any other man I know.” He shivered suddenly, as the dropping temperature finally got the best of him. “Let’s go inside. I can think of several things I’d rather be doing than worrying about a job I might not take.”

He didn’t mention it again, and because he didn’t, Lily left the subject alone. They went inside to a simple supper of new potatoes cooked with dill and capers, feta cheese in olive oil, bread, and Boutari wine. They had hired a woman from town named Chrisoula to come up and do the cooking for them every day; at first she had wanted to prepare large evening meals, in the Greek tradition, but they had impressed on her that they preferred to eel more lightly ;it night She didn’t like it. bill she complied. For one thing, this meant she got home at an earlier hour, where she could enjoy the long evening meal with her own family.

The house had no television, and neither of them missed it. In the three weeks they’d been there, Swain had bought a newspaper twice. That lack of outside interference had been just what she needed, a chance to just
be,
no pressures, no looking over her shoulder. On the warmer days she sat on the terrace for hours, soaking up the sunshine, letting her psyche heal. She had put one of Zia’s pictures out in the bedroom where she could see it, and a day later Swain had taken the pictures of his kids out of his wallet and propped them up beside Zia’s. Chrisoula thought all three kids were theirs, and they didn’t disabuse her of the notion, which wouldn’t have been that easy in any case, because neither of them had a good grasp of the Greek language and Chrisoula’s English wasn’t much better. They managed to eventually communicate on most things, but it was an effort.

That night, knowing that Swain might leave soon, Zia was very much on Lily’s mind. Some days were like that, with memories ambushing her at every turn, though now she would go days without crying. And because she was thinking so much about Zia, she wondered if Swain had days when all he could think about was his kids.

“Don’t you miss them?” she asked. “Chrissy and Sam?”

“So much it hurts,” he readily replied. “I figure it’s what I deserve.”

She had known he felt guilty about his kids; she just hadn’t realized he embraced the guilt. “Instead of wearing that hair shirt, why don’t you move closer to them? You missed most of their childhood, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss their adulthood, too. One of these days you’ll be a grandfather. Are you going to keep yourself away from your grandchildren?“

He turned his glass of wine around and around, staring thoughtfully at it. “I’d love to see more of them. I just don’t know if they’d like to see more of
me.
When I do see them, they’re friendly, they’re fond of me, but maybe that’s because I’m on the periphery of their lives. If I try to horn in… who knows?”

“So ask them.”

He gave a quick grin. “A simple answer for a simple problem, huh? To a little kid, nothing matters as much as just being there, and I let them down. That’s the hard truth.”

“Yes, it is. Are you going to let it go on being the hard truth for the rest of your life?”

He stared at her for a long minute, then drank the rest of his wine and set the glass down on the table. “Maybe not. Maybe one day I’ll work up the nerve to ask them.”

“If Zia was still alive, there’s no way I wouldn’t be there.” That was another hard truth, and implicit in the statement was
She isn’t alive, but your children are.
She didn’t know why she was hammering at him about this, except that she’d been thinking of Zia and Swain might not be here much longer for her to say this to him. They had covered this ground once before, but it didn’t seem have to sunk in with him-either that or he was so acutely aware of the mistakes he’d made that he was punishing himself by staying away from his kids. The more she knew about him, the more she suspected the latter.

“All right,” he said with a wry smile. “I’ll think about it.”

“You’ve been thinking about it for years. When are you going to
do
something?”

The smile turned to a bark of laughter. “God, you’re as bad as a snapping turtle.”

“Turtles nag?”

“The old saying is that if a snapping turtle bites you, it won’t turn loose until it hears thunder.”

She tilted her head. “I don’t think I’ve heard thunder since we’ve been here.”

“I know we haven’t. Okay, I promise I’ll call my kids.”

“And-?”

“And tell them I know I was a lousy father, but ask would they hate it if I saw them more often?” He made it a question, as if he wasn’t certain that was the correct answer, but his blue eyes were dancing.

She clapped her hands, like someone applauding a performing child.

“Smart-ass.” He was laughing aloud now, getting to his feet and taking her hand to pull her up and into his arms. “I was going to show you something special tonight, but now I think you’ll just get the same old, same old.”

If he thought that was punishment, he was way off target. Lily hid a smile as she pressed her face into his shoulder. She loved him so much she would enjoy her time with him down to the last minute, and not worry about whether or not he took this job his friend Frank wanted him to take. Wasn’t that part of what she’d just been talking to him about, making the most of your time with the people you love, because you don’t know how long that time will be?

She wouldn’t think how unlucky she was to love him and lose him. Instead she would consider herself lucky for having met him at a time in her life when she had needed him so much.

The next day was another unusually sunny day, with the temperature warming as rapidly as it cooled down at night By April, the daytime temperature would be in the nineties; by July, soaring over a hundred wouldn’t be unusual. But the weather in early January was pleasant, if sometimes a bit rainy, especially when compared to Paris at this time of year.

Chrisoula prepared them a lunch of meat patties, flavored with herbs and fried in olive oil, served on saffron rice. They ate on the terrace, enjoying the weather. Because the stones of the terrace reflected the sun’s heat, Lily wore a loose, gauzy white dress that she’d bought in town, though she had a shawl nearby in case she needed it. She liked being able to wear whatever she wanted without having to worry about whether it concealed her ankle holster, and she had embraced the island’s tourist fashions with enthusiasm. The locals probably thought she was crazy for wearing summer fashions in January, but she didn’t care. She wanted to wear sandals, and she had bought a silver anklet that made her feel feminine and carefree. She might stay on Ewoia even if Swain left, she thought. She loved it here.

“Who was your handler?” he asked abruptly, telling her that his thoughts had been far different from her lazy enjoyment of the day. “The guy who got you into the business. What was his name?”

“Mr. Rogers,” she said, smiling ironically.

He almost choked on his wine.

“He never gave me his first name, but you can bet it wasn’t Fred. It doesn’t matter; I doubt that was his real name anyway. Why are you asking?”

“I was watching you and thinking how young you look, and wondering what kind of bastard could approach a kid with a job like that”

“The kind who gets the job done, regardless.”

After lunch she napped on one of the chaises on the terrace, and woke to incredible pleasure brought by Swain’s tongue. He had lifted her skirt to her waist and removed her underwear and knelt with his head between her spread thighs. lily gasped, her body arching in delight even as she choked, “Chrisoula will see-”

“She left a few minutes ago,” Swain murmured, and gently slipped two of his fingers into her. She climaxed rapidly under that double stimulation, and was still quivering with the last spasms when he loosened his pants and covered her with his body. His penetration was smooth and slow, the fit perfect now after making love so many times during the past month. He was tender and attentive, holding off until she had climaxed a second time, then going deep and holding himself there while he shuddered with his own release.

Making love alfresco was wonderful, she thought after they had tidied themselves and she was once more completely dressed. The air had felt like silk on her skin, heightening her response. She stretched, utterly relaxed, and smiled at Swain when he brought over their glasses of wine. She took hers and he sat down on the chaise beside her legs, his warm hand sliding under her skirt to lazily caress her thigh.