Katy wrinkled her nose. “Who?”
“Myself from five years ago. Quite a stud, if I recall correctly. Hadn’t even been a homeless convict. Lots of potential.”
Katy laughed. “Oh, please.”
“Bulging with muscles, a gift to women everywhere,” David went on. “You were a lucky girl back then.”
“Maybe I’ll get lucky again,” Katy said with a mischievous smile.
David looked over at his wife beside him on the bed. She was still in her vintage gown, though she’d long since kicked off her heels. Her hair was tousled from wind and fun. Her lipstick had faded away, but her face was still bright as ever, the natural color glowing in her lips and cheeks.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. And he knew then, deep down, that she always would be. Even when she was old and gray. Because it wasn’t just about a pretty face.
David loved Katy for everything that she was.
He kicked off his shoes and pulled his legs up onto the bed. Katy lay back, her head on a pillow, gazing hungrily up at him with bright gray eyes as David planted his hands on either side of her to support himself. He looked down at her tenderly, and one of her hands came up to rest on the side of his face, her fingers sending a trail of tingles through his skin.
“I love you,” Katy said softly. Her chest was heaving in short, nervous breaths. Her skin was flushed and warm beneath David. He could feel her hesitation and her excitement all at once; her body seemed to quiver with it.
“I love you,” David replied firmly, “Mrs. Rosen.”
Then he lowered his weight down upon her, feeling the electricity as their bodies touched even through their clothing, and pressed his lips to hers.
39
Katy
Five years.
Five long years since Katy had felt the lingering touch of a lover. Five years since she had allowed herself to close her eyes and be lost, fully trusting her body to another. Five years since she had felt the distinct gnaw of desire in her belly, or the rush of pleasure as it flowed from the core of her body to her toes and fingertips and lips.
Like everything else in their renewed relationship, making love to David for the first time in more than five years felt familiar and totally uncharted all at once. As his fingertips trailed over her body, gently sliding the straps of her dress off of her shoulder so he could lay feathery kisses down her neck, Katy felt echoes of that same touch resound in her memories. As his lips pressed between her collarbones in the hollow at the base of her throat, and her pulse fluttered, she remembered David’s questing, teasing lips going other places, the memories as clear as if they’d happened yesterday.
But it also felt new, awakening an almost painful hunger inside of her that she was almost afraid to give in to fully. When her nails trailed down David’s back, digging into his flesh with a sudden need, she felt like something primal had taken over her. And when David grabbed her wrist, taking it from his hip to press it down into the mattress above, and held her there, she was briefly surprised at how simply, easily he’d taken charge.
But while with some men perhaps the gesture would’ve brought out Katy’s fear, with David, her hunger only sharpened. Her mind and her whole body knew that David was a compassionate and attentive lover, and he effortlessly made her feel safe and secure.
And, after the surprise of his bold action wore off, Katy became more forward in her own right. She gave in to her own need for David’s body, the closeness of him, the touch of his fingers, the taste of his skin. She submerged herself in the joining of their bodies and their love, feeling the full effect of two lovers who had longed for so long. She let herself cry out in her ecstasy. And afterward, when they were a sweaty tangle of exertion, their breathing rapid and their faces flushed in the deep night, she wrapped her arms around David from behind and hoped that she could make him feel just as loved and protected as she did whenever he was near.
For a long while they didn’t speak, communicating only by touch and gentle kisses. But finally, Katy broke the silence.
“Don’t you dare make me wait five years for that ever again,” she said softly.
David chuckled. “You’ll be lucky if you get five minutes.”
He rolled onto his back, and Katy propped herself up on one arm, draping the other across David’s strong chest, her fingers tracing absent shapes on his skin. So this is what married life is like? What bliss.
And I get it forever.
“But what next?” she asked him, feeling not sleepy yet but wildly awake, as the concepts of reality began to come back to her, alive with possibilities. “Are we going to live at the Wayland for the rest of our lives?”
David put his hands behind his head, a perfect pantomime of relaxation that also happened to flex the long, lean muscles of his torso deliciously. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea,” he joked. “We’d never have to make our own bed again.”
“I’m serious,” Katy chided her husband playfully. “I mean, where are we going to live? What are we going to do for a living? Now that I’m not next in line for the throne, I don’t really know what our financial situation is going to look like.”
David rubbed one of Katy’s forearms. “Well, if there’s anything I learned from living under a bridge, it’s that things aren’t ever really that bad. You can make do with only a little if you have to. We still have our health. We have each other. If we don’t have riches or crowns or mansions, I think we’ll be okay.”
“So I can move in with you under your bridge?” Katy asked, shaking her head amusedly. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“It’d be a pretty tight fit in my fridge box.”
“Even better,” Katy said with a wink. But the memory of David’s hardships came back to her, causing her smile to slip away. She didn’t want to make light of the fact that he really had been living in a fridge box.
David propped himself up quickly and went on, probably to keep her mind off of it.
“Where do you want to live, my love? Anywhere in the world. We’ll go there. Why not?”
“I mean . . . I’ll always love Lorria,” Katy said, looking away as she thought of her mother country. “But there’s so much of the world that I want to explore. And I don’t know if I want to be in such close proximity to my parents so soon.” Even being in the same country with them might not be enough space right now.
“Well, I know London pretty well. And of course there’s America. I’ve also heard New Zealand is beautiful,” David mused.
“I want to go somewhere with mountains. To remind me of home,” Katy said, looking back at her new husband. “A place that gets snow sometimes.”
David smiled. “You can have all the mountains and snow you want. We’re in no rush. We can start looking tomorrow or a month from now. We at least have the money to relax for a while, especially if we don’t always stay in the most expensive hotels in town.”
Katy cocked an eyebrow. “Marcos?”
“Trust me,” David replied. “I tried to turn him down. But he was insistent. Told me to consider it backpay for child support.”
Well, who am I to turn down a gift when I have almost nothing to my name?
“Okay,” Katy agreed. “You’re right. It’s late, anyway. But let’s start looking tomorrow! I’m ready to have a more permanent place to start our life together.”
David nodded. “Okay, Katy. We start looking tomorrow.”
Katy leaned down to gently kiss David goodnight, but David’s strong hands wrapped around her waist, holding her tightly, pulling her inexorably down on top of him.
“But, if you’re up for it,” he said in a low tone, “then I’m not quite ready to go to sleep yet.”
“You know what?” Katy smiled, feeling heat pulsate through her all over again. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
* * *
Marcos came by bright and early the next morning with breakfast.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” h
e said, looking from Katy’s tousled bed hair to David’s shirtless figure.
“Not at all,” Katy lied, tightening the rope of a robe around her waist.
David simply chuckled. Marcos was lucky he had knocked when he had. David had just gotten off the phone with an ecstatic Zeke, and after their long and laughter-filled conversation, Katy was pretty sure that her husband had been just about to pull her back into bed to celebrate all of the positives in his life.
But then Marcos had knocked.
“I brought croissants with butter and jams,” David’s father said, thoughtfully setting down a paper bag that smelled heavenly.
“Thank you,” Katy said with a polite smile. “Actually, you arrived at a great time. David and I were just talking about our next steps. Figured we’d definitely need to include you, since we wouldn’t want to leave you behind.”
Marcos grinned appreciatively. “It means a lot that you thought of me. But of course, I don’t want to intrude. If you two newlyweds need some space, I am happy to . . .”
David interrupted him. “Dad.” Marcos looked as surprised by the word as Katy felt. She wondered if it was the first time that he had called Marcos that, or if it naturally rolled off his tongue like this. “Of course we want you there with us. We’re a family.”
Marcos smiled broadly, then quickly wiped at one of his eyes. “Thank you, David. I can’t tell you what that means to me.” He looked back at Katy. “Thank you both.”
David slipped into a T-shirt and then walked over to his father, clapping him on the back. “Don’t mention it.”
But Marcos wouldn’t let him go that easily. As Katy watched in touched amusement, Marcos clasped his son in a tight embrace.
David’s eyes momentarily went wide with surprise and amusement, but then he wrapped his arms around his father in turn. The two men looked so similar, and yet worlds apart, as they hugged. Katy enjoyed the sight.
When they pulled away, Marcos looked down slightly at his son and heaved a sigh. “I’m so happy that I found you, David. I’m so happy to be here. But . . .”
He trailed off.
“But what?” David asked gently.
“Well . . . I just wish your mother was here to see this,” his father replied. “To be a part of this. She’d love Katy, and she’d be so happy for you.” Marcos looked down.
“What was she like?” David asked, a wondrous look on his face, as though he’d just realized what else Marcos’s presence in their life might mean.
Katy looked at David in surprise. She realized just how much she must have meant to David, then, that he hadn’t gotten the full story about his mother until Katy was safely back in his life. Katy’s heart bloomed with love for her husband.
Marcos smiled gently, but there was a sadness in him as he gazed aimlessly away, as if he was reliving a fond memory. “Jeanine was . . . wonderful. Kind, loving, compassionate. When she was in Bahia with me, we found a pygmy owl that had fallen out of a nest once that she insisted on raising up. I told her it wouldn’t work. But she convinced me. And, weeks later, we released that little owl into the air together.” Marcos looked at Katy. “Actually, you remind me a lot of her. Same gentle heart.”
Katy put a hand to her chest, honored by her father-in-law’s words. Marcos looked back to David, his reminiscing continuing, his eyes faraway.
“She was a dreamer, too. Big heart. She always said she wanted to work in education, to help kids rediscover and enjoy history. I loved that about her.”
Marcos’s voice was at once loving and pained, as if he was talking about someone who had passed. In a way, Katy realized that it must’ve felt that way. None of them had any idea what had happened to Jeanine or where she had gone—and from the little Katy had gathered about their story, maybe Marcos knew least of all.
“Did you ever look for her?” David asked.
Marcos shrugged. “My family told me that she left me, that she ran off with another man. I was just stupid enough to believe them.” His eyes were downcast. “By the time I found out the truth, she was long gone. And now I can’t even reach out to tell her that we’re safe. For all I know, she really could be dead.”
Katy’s heart broke at Marcos’s story. She saw so many parallels between his story and her own: a family that wouldn’t let love happen, threats and intimidation, lies and deceit . . . She knew that kind of pain all too well.
But she had gotten David back, finally. What would her life have been like if it had never happened? Her heart always would’ve felt empty without the man she loved.
If Jeanine was alive, was she feeling the same way? Had she moved on?
Did she think about Marcos—and about David—every single day?
“Do you have any idea where she might’ve gone?” Katy suddenly asked. “Did she ever tell you about a place that she wanted to visit? Her dream home? Anything like that?”
Marcos shrugged. “We used to joke that we would move to Switzerland one day, since our love could stretch from the beaches of Bahia to the Swiss mountaintops. But it was just something that silly kids in love would say, nothing that—”
Katy had heard enough. Maybe it was nothing, but it was a start.
She rushed to her phone and began scrolling through her contacts, her fingers flashing on the screen.
“Katy?” David asked, moving closer to her. “What is it?”
Katy had the phone pressed against her ear even as she mentally calculated the time zone difference.
“Katy?” David asked again. Marcos was looking at her suspiciously as well. But she didn’t answer. She was too busy with the phone, too excited to talk to the one person in the world who could possibly help.
It’s our only shot.
When a cool voice answered the phone, Katy barely gave her time to say hello.
“Mia. It’s Katy. That old case we worked on together five years ago . . . is it still open?”
40
David
David spent the next two weeks in complete bliss.
He was married to the most wonderful woman in the world. He was growing to know and love his father. He had his best friend and his cousins back in his life. Aunt Mary was still alive, and, though she was no longer in remission, she was still responding fairly well to treatment. Giles had agreed to go to the hospital to detox, something that Marcos was insistent upon paying for. Rufus had gotten his palace job back. Mick was . . . well, Mick was Mick. But he seemed as chipper as always.
And after many days of conversation and soul-searching, Katy and David had decided upon the Swiss countryside for permanent residency.
With a boost from an unexpected gift from the king and queen of Lorria.
“They’re begging me to take my inheritance early,” Katy had confided to David after she ended a phone call with her father.
“Do whatever feels right, Katy,” he’d told her. He’d known it had to be her decision, and hers alone. “If you don’t want to take their apology money, you know we’ll be able to make it regardless.”
“But that would definitely buy a nice little Swiss cottage,” Marcos had chipped in from the back of the room, ever the pragmatist.
And so it was settled. Katy donated a fair portion of the inheritance immediately, endowing the largest gift to London’s homeless shelters that any of the organizations had ever seen. Even then, David and Katy suddenly had the means to leave London and buy a home outright in Switzerland.
So they did.
David knew that his mother might not be there anymore. She might never even have gone to Switzerland to begin with. Or perhaps she had already left the mortal coil many years ago. But even so, going to Switzerland made him feel closer to her somehow, if just because it had been a special place for her. If she’d dreamed of it but never made it here, then he could tell himself he was fulfilling one of her life goals. And it certainly satisfied Katy’s mountains and snow requirements. Marcos moved in that first week, staying in their spare room—they had a spare room now!�
�while he house-hunted in the area.
Everything was perfect. So perfect, in fact, that when Mia called right after they’d finished furnishing their spacious but cozy home outside of Zurich, David had almost forgotten that she had been working behind the scenes.
For that week, he’d had everything that he needed. His life had lacked for nothing. He was eternally grateful for the way things had turned out, the chance he’d gotten to restart everything.
So he didn’t realize that any holes still existed in his life. He didn’t realize how badly he needed to hear the words until Mia said them aloud:“Señor. I found your mother.”
* * *
Jeanine didn’t have a landline. As far as Mia could determine, she didn’t have a cell phone either. All she’d discovered was a physical address.
So they had to arrive unannounced.
It was a sunny afternoon in Lucerne, Switzerland.
“This is just like the Jeanie I remember,” Marcos observed nervously as he closed his car door. “She was never much for technology. Liked things nice and quiet, just me and her books.”
David wanted to respond, but his throat was too tight to allow for any noise to escape. He had never been so anxious in his life.
But he had a lot of support.
Katy came around from the passenger side and quickly took hold of his clammy hand.
“Hey,” she said firmly. David looked over and down at her before she went on. “I’m here for you, okay? We both are.” She looked over at Marcos for confirmation.
“We’re here for you, David,” Marcos said gently. But it was obvious that he was almost as nervous himself.
“Or maybe I’ll be here for both of you,” Katy replied with a wink, patting her father-in-law’s shoulder.
David smiled distractedly. He took a deep breath and looked at the home of American expat Jeanine Schwartz.
It was just a small cottage on a plot of grassland that was host to a couple of clucking chickens and a fat goat. The porch was narrow and sparse, with a single rocking chair.
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