The Year of Luminous Love

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “You haven’t, have you?” Jon shook his head. “You should, you know.”

  “Did you come all this way to crab at me?”

  “I told you, I came for a lot of reasons.”

  “Well, I got the message. Now tell me what my mother wanted. Please,” she added in a less grouchy voice.

  “What do mothers ever want? She wanted me to evaluate you, tell her how you’re really doing. If you’re eating right.” He grinned. “Bet you haven’t had a decent burger in a month.”

  Arie rolled her eyes. “Tell her I’m just fine.” She didn’t dare confess about her bad days when her lower back ached horribly and she was forced to swallow a narcotic to dull the pain. “So what will you tell her?”

  “That I think you look thin.”

  “I eat plenty. Walking and sightseeing takes tons of energy.”

  Jon drained his beer. “Then let’s ride to wherever we’re going next.”

  The tourist places and museums were closed, so she took him to a street with rows of small shops. The sidewalks teemed with people coming out for a long evening. The air was chilly, but Arie was prepared with a jacket stuffed into her large purse. Jon bought a beautifully cut leather jacket that emphasized his broad shoulders and narrow waist. With his boots and Stetson, he looked like a cowboy from a spaghetti Western, and absolutely delicious.

  He bought his mother a silk scarf and Essie Pickins a pair of silver earrings. “She’s been like a second mother to me,” Jon said.

  They went to dinner closer to nine, in an intimate trattoria not far from his hotel. The place held only twelve tables, all lit by candles, and their waiter doted over them. Jon ordered two glasses of champagne. “To toast your birthday,” he said, clinking his glass to hers.

  Because he had bought it for them, Arie sipped the sparkling bubbly, felt it tickle her nose and spread warmth down her throat.

  Jon finished off his champagne and had the waiter bring him a beer. He raised the drink to Arie, then said, “So tell me about Eden and Ciana. How are they liking Italy? What are they up to?”

  “Eden doesn’t get out of bed until noon and Ciana’s up with the chickens. Says it’s country living in her blood. Some days we take day trips into nearby towns.” She did a brief countdown of the cities they’d visited. “Every place is old. Medieval. Craftsmen still make copper pots, stained-glass windows, leather goods, gold jewelry like their ancestors before them. Pretty amazing.”

  “What about nights?”

  “We meet up with a group of kids doing a walkabout—that’s a travel group that hangs, works, and travels together.” She warmed to telling him stories. “The leader of the group is an Aussie named Garret, and he’s taken a shine to Eden. She likes him, but she’s gun-shy after Tony. Can’t blame her. Shame too. Garret’s got it bad for her.”

  “And Ciana?” Jon rolled his finger around the top of his beer glass.

  Arie giggled, leaned forward. “Best story of all. We were touring a local winery and Ciana caught the eye of the owner, Enzo. He’s older but has some aristocratic heritage that goes way back, according to a Web search Eden did on him. He’s richer than all get-out. He has horses and he and Ciana go riding on his estate. Secretly I think she likes him but won’t say so to either me or Eden.” Arie rolled her eyes dramatically.

  Jon stared into his beer glass, where the liquid glowed in the candlelight.

  For a moment, Arie thought she’d lost him.

  He tossed the remainder of the beer down in one swallow, then reconnected with her. “Sounds like you’re all having a real good time.”

  A note of sarcasm in his voice made the moment feel awkward. “We are,” she said lamely. “But that’s why we came.”

  He raised his empty glass at her, offered a conciliatory smile. “I think I’m running out of steam. Guess the trip’s catching up to me.”

  “No problem,” she said, trying for cheerful and failing. He was ending their evening and Arie wasn’t ready. Time was going by too quickly. If she could have stopped the clock, she would have gladly, because time had never been on her side. Now she had even less of it.

  “Before I forget, your brother gave me a present to give you for your birthday. I’ll bring it tomorrow when I come and pick you up.”

  “Can’t we get my gift now?” she asked eagerly. “We’re not too far from your room … so close we can walk. I’m so full I could pop, so a walk would do me good.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded and he paid for the meal, and together they went out into the night. Although it was almost eleven, the sidewalks and streets were full.

  “These people ever go home?” Jon asked.

  “Not until very late. Getting on their schedule takes some getting used to.”

  As they walked, she wanted him to take her hand, but he didn’t. When they were at his hotel, she followed him into the elevator. “You don’t have to come up. I’ll bring it down,” he said.

  “I want to see your room.” Any excuse to linger.

  “Very ordinary.”

  “Enzo upgraded our room to his favorite suite, as a surprise, so that’s why we’re in the best place,” she explained, realizing she was babbling useless information.

  “Thoughtful guy,” Jon said, sliding his old-fashioned key into the lock of his third-floor-room door.

  The room wasn’t large, but there was a curtain separating the space into two sections. A table and two chairs stood in one half. Arie surmised the sleeping area was behind the curtain, where Jon disappeared, reemerging a minute later with a small wrapped box. She took it, smiled. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll take you down and put you in a cab to your hotel and call you in the morning. We’ll spend the whole day going wherever you like, birthday girl.”

  Arie’s heart raced. Jon had been kind to her, but she wanted more than his kindness. She stood with her head bowed like a marble statue, her voice as frozen as her body. Seconds passed. Using the back of the table chair for support, she eased into the seat, staring down at her trembling hands.

  He crouched beside the chair, peering at her anxiously. “Is something wrong, Arie?”

  She lifted her head, connecting with his green eyes, his look of concern. “I … I don’t want to leave you.” Her voice quivered slightly over the words. “I want to stay with you tonight.”

  A look of confusion crossed his face. “Here?”

  She nodded.

  Then his expression changed from one of confusion to one of understanding as to what she was asking of him. He searched her face. “Look, Arie, I don’t think—”

  She stopped his words with her fingertips. “I’ve practiced this speech in my head for weeks. Please hear me out.” She took a deep breath to calm her jitters, then began pulling out the words from the depths of her soul. “I know you don’t love me, Jon, but that’s okay. I have enough love inside me for both of us. I know you’ll be gone when I get home, so there aren’t any strings or conditions on tonight. I … I just want to stay. Tonight. In your bed. With you.” She fell silent, afraid to look him in the eye.

  He reached out, lifted her chin. “Look at me.”

  She did so slowly, feeling tears swimming in her eyes. Don’t cry, she commanded herself. Do. Not. Cry. His face was tanned with crinkles at the corners of his eyes, his sensuous mouth serious.

  “Have you ever—”

  “No.”

  “I shouldn’t be the one. Not the first—”

  Not only the first, but the only, her heart cried. She said, “I want you to be the one. Don’t you see? I love you. I trust you.” Jon blew out a breath and stood, still holding her hand in silence. He smoothed her silky hair.

  Whatever courage she’d had fled. What had she been thinking? That he would magically want her just because she wanted him? That he’d take all the facts about her relapse into consideration and feel obligated? Humiliation seeped through her. Haltingly she said, “Look, I understand. I should … should never have asked.” Brave
ly, she looked up at him. His expression was pensive, his thoughts unreadable.

  After a long minute, he asked, “Are you sure about this?”

  Her heart sped up. Her nerves steadied. No need to mince words now. “I’m sure. But please, not out of pity,” she whispered. “And if you … don’t want to … if you want to send me back in a cab, it’s all right. We’ll chalk it up to the champagne and birthday euphoria.”

  Without a word, he bent, scooped her into his arms, and lifted her as if she weighed nothing.

  She clung to him, nestling her face into the crook of his neck, hoping his shirt would soak up the wetness on her cheeks. She loved him so much. As he carried her behind the curtain and gently laid her on the bed, she whispered, “She’s very lucky.”

  “Who’s lucky?” he asked.

  “The girl you’ll one day truly love,” she said.

  Something was going on, and Eden was determined to get to the bottom of it if it took all night. Ciana lay on the sofa, her arm across her eyes, jumping every time she heard a horn honk on the street below or a noise in the hallway outside their room. She was strung as tight as a hunter’s bow. Eden’s stomach growled. “I’m hungry. Time for antipasto.”

  “I’m not hungry. Go get yourself something.”

  “I don’t want to go by myself.”

  “So order room service.”

  Eden said, “Look, I’ve been hammered with some bad news. I could use some support here.”

  Ciana raised her arm just high enough to see Eden sitting on the floor hugging her knees. She recalled her promise to not let Eden be alone. However, at the moment her own emotional ocean was swallowing her alive. Seeing Jon, watching him walk out the door with Arie, felt like a knife in her gut. She was nauseated with jealousy. She lowered her arm, covered her eyes. “Tony’s dead. You’re free of him. I don’t see the problem.”

  She heard Eden stand up, felt a small sofa pillow slap her in the head.

  “Well, aren’t you just the friend of the year!”

  Ciana righted herself, angry, but also stricken by her own insensitivity. Unforgivable. “All right, we’ll eat antipasto,” she said, as if that would make up for her hateful remark.

  Eden glared. “Not here. I want to go out. I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin.”

  “What if Arie comes back?”

  “We’ll leave her a note.”

  Irritated at Eden and anxious to see Arie come in, Ciana agreed.

  Eden, looking relieved, said, “I’ll be back in a flash. First, I want to speak to the concierge.”

  Ciana waved her off, lay back down, and gave in to her feelings of self-pity. She had not expected Jon’s physical presence to hold such power over her. Arie loved Jon and Arie was her best friend. Always. Ever since fifth grade they’d been inseparable. Yet today, from the moment Jon had walked out the door, Ciana had been gripped by unrelenting, gut-gnawing jealousy. Now she was sick with it.

  Her grandmother had once warned Ciana about jealousy, the green-eyed monster—a vicious emotion that only corrodes from the inside out. But even knowing that, even applying the Beauchamp rule that such an emotion must be controlled, Ciana was facing a monster that threatened to consume her. And she also wondered if she was partly to blame for Jon’s visit. Hadn’t she asked him to be nice to Arie? He’d said he had come to see Ciana too. Had he meant it? She wanted to believe him but knew she shouldn’t. It only made the monster inside her bigger.

  The door flew open and Eden entered, looking all mysterious and self-satisfied. “Grab your purse and come down to the lobby. I have a surprise.”

  “What?”

  “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it?” Eden was determined to get inside Ciana’s head and pull out her secrets. The girl was in pain, and it had everything to do with Jon Mercer. Ciana had helped her escape Tony; now it was her turn to help Ciana.

  “A scooter! Seriously, Eden?”

  “Seriously,” Eden told Ciana, pointing to the bright red scooter parked in front of the bell captain’s station. “I’ve been wanting to try one for ages, but we can’t do that with three of us. Tonight, we can.”

  “We have a rental car,” Ciana countered.

  Eden handed Ciana a helmet and mounted the scooter. “Too much traffic. This will be more fun.”

  “Says who? Do you even know how to drive the thing?”

  “Garret lets me drive his all the time. So, yes, I know how. Now get on or I’ll start yelling.”

  Ciana scowled but jammed on the helmet and took the narrow seat behind Eden. In truth, she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts, so a traffic accident seemed preferable.

  “Hold on,” Eden said.

  “To what?”

  “To me. If you don’t, you’ll fall off and break your butt.” Eden started the machine and gunned the engine. Eden drove slowly at first, as she hadn’t been entirely truthful about driving Garret’s scooter “all the time,” but it didn’t take long to get the feel of it, and soon she was weaving in and out of traffic and around slow-moving cars at will.

  “You’ll kill us!” Ciana called out.

  Eden stopped and parked at a trattoria on a narrow cobblestone street miles away.

  Ciana followed her inside.

  “A bottle of wine. And an antipasto platter,” Eden told the waiter in flawless Italian.

  “You speak like a native,” Ciana said grudgingly, dropping into a chair at a table beside a window.

  “Yeah, who knew I could pick up languages so easily? Should have taken one in high school instead of faking my way through math.”

  As soon as the waiter set the wine bottle on the table, Eden poured Ciana and herself generous glasses. She figured some alcohol would soften Ciana’s stubborn Beauchamp resistance to talk about herself. Realizing it might take a few glasses, she started her story first. “Just for the record, it did hurt when I heard that Tony was dead.”

  Ciana hung her head. “Sorry about the cheap shot in the room.”

  Eden heaved a sigh. “You know why I’m reluctant to get involved with Garret?”

  “Because Tony was a control freak?”

  “Because I stopped developing my emotions and dating skills when I was fourteen. Think about it. I’ve never had another boyfriend.”

  Ciana emptied her wineglass and Eden quickly poured her another. “Arie and I sure didn’t date much. The few college guys I dated only wanted one thing, which I wouldn’t give them. And poor Arie had her heart broken all through school. So we didn’t have much experience either.”

  “Maybe, but you both had variety. I didn’t. Tony consumed me. And by the time I wanted to move on, he had me all tangled up with him. What if that happens with Garret?”

  Ciana drank more wine and thought about it. “Garret’s a different guy. He’s nice. He’s kind. He hovers over you in a good way. He’s nothing like Tony, so don’t use that as an excuse.”

  “Scares me, though.” Eden nibbled on a piece of prosciutto and cheese. “I let him see some of my scars from my days of cutting.”

  “What did he say?”

  Her mind revisited her skinny-dip in the warm spring water with Garret. On land, as they both shivered and dressed, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. It wasn’t just her nakedness he was seeing. It was the scarring on her body, usually covered by clothing. When they were clothed, he gathered her in his arms and held her. He didn’t question her. He seemed to know and understand and accept her as she was, marred skin and all. He’d turned her arm and brought it to his lips, planting soft kisses on every self-inflicted mark. “Said he wished he could kiss them and make them go away.”

  “He sounds like a keeper to me.”

  Eden snapped back to the present with Ciana’s comment. She topped off Ciana’s wineglass. “Tony did cure me of cutting. Cold comfort.”

  Ciana reached for a slice of olive bread. “I’m getting dizzy.”

  Eden caught the waiter’s eye and he strolled over, whisk
ed away the antipasto plate, and handed them two menus. They ordered, and once the waiter left, Eden determined that her friend was sufficiently softened. She rested her forearms on the table and leaned forward. “So now you know my fears and secrets. It’s your turn, Ciana. Tell me what’s going on between you and Jon Mercer.”

  Ciana stiffened, then turned to stare out the window. “Nothing. Why do you ask?”

  Eden gritted her teeth. Ciana wasn’t going to make this easy. “At the suite, when he came in, the tension between you two was thick enough to cut with a knife. I’m not making it up.”

  Ciana wanted to tell her, get it out in the open, yet she’d kept it to herself for so long, it was difficult. Where would she start? How would she start? “You’re imagining—”

  Eden smacked the table, and Ciana jumped. “Stop denying it! I have eyes to see. So far Arie doesn’t. She’s head over heels for Jon, but her ignorance won’t last forever. Soon she’ll see that you are too. And you are, aren’t you? Tell me the truth.”

  Ciana’s heart lurched. Her composure stripped away. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, grinding back tears. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got time.” Eden reached out and stroked Ciana’s hand. “Maybe I can help.”

  Their waiter set their food in front of them, poured more wine into each glass, and slipped away from the table. The distraction gave Ciana time to regroup as she struggled to put her story into words. “Think back to June. To the night you dragged me to that dance saloon in Nashville.”

  “Okay,” Eden said, attempting to fix the night in her memory. “I danced and drank too much. You met someone and stayed out all night.” Suddenly Eden straightened. “Oh my God! You met Jon that night?”

  Ciana nodded. “He was my mystery man. I might have been blitzed at first, but some kind of magic happened between us. We connected in every way. I fell asleep in his arms, woke up to his smile. Everything else I told you was just the way it happened. I was so rattled after Mom’s text about Grandmother that I bolted without giving him any personal stats. That day we went out to see Arie’s horse, well, you could have blown me over with a sneeze when I saw the man she’d been raving about. It was him. My cowboy.”