The Mingrelian (31 page)

Chapter 57: Six Months After the Crash

sound in the night awakens Niko Dadiani, now 10, from the sleep of a child. The fear and anxiety of being without his mother for a few weeks during the winter faded with the excitement of the wedding in June. He’d been to his grandfather’s home in Zugdidi many times, and there had been parties and celebrations there, but nothing like the celebration after Ekaterina Dadiani wed Boyd Chailland.

The entire Georgian National Ballet had travelled to the old Mingrelian capital to dance, and he’d been invited to share the stage with his heroes, the dancers. They leaped and swirled and the lady dancers, including a certain 12-year-old girl from Tbilisi who made Niko feel funny inside, were more beautiful than ever.

That afternoon the big American Air Force plane like the one Boyd Chailland had flown into Iran to rescue his mother had landed at the small airport in Zugdidi, and an American general had brought gifts to his mother and stepfather from America. The highlight, though, was when the Russian president landed in the biggest helicopter in the world, right on the lawn by his grandfather’s house. There were soldiers keeping the crowd back as the great man waved to the crowd, kissed the bride, shook hands with the groom, took a sip of good Georgian champagne, ate some Russian caviar and was gone, back to Sochi.

Niko drifts back to sleep with a vision of that big helicopter flying off into the distance.

Ekaterina Chailland collapses, breathless and happy, onto Boyd’s chest and nuzzles her face into his neck.

“You gonna wake the whole neighborhood every time you get some lovin’?” He laughs quietly.

“I will if it’s like that,” she says, rubbing her naked torso over his.

They lie quietly for several minutes.

“Boyd, do we have to go to Washington? You said you would be here flying the embassy run for three years.”

Ekaterina’s hand is exploring the warm soft space between them.

“General Ferguson got another star. He’s to be the Deputy Director of the National Security Agency, and he wants me on his staff.”

“Travel?” she asks, nuzzling his neck again. Her hand has found something.

“No, he said I’d work for him but not in an administrative role, more as an investigator, or fact-finder.”

“So, we’d live in Washington?”

She rolls off him to sit beside, hand firmly in control of his midsection.

“Northern Virginia probably.”

She is upright now and looking wistfully out the window into the courtyard of their apartment. “You might have some additional duties.”

“What additional duties?”

“At home.”

“Like what,” he asks, smile breaking across his face.

“Diapers, you dunce,” she says and throws her nude body across his. They roll off the bed, laughing and struggling.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ed Baldwin is the bestselling author of
The Other Pilot
, and
The Devil on Chardonnay
, both are Boyd Chailland adventures
. His first story
Bookman
, is
a southern tale.
He lives in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

http://www.edbaldwin.com