Path of Love

by M. L. Buchman

  In just one day Erica herself had already slowed down so much that it seemed crass and uncouth, even to her.

  “Conrad sent you?” Bridget narrowed her eyes at him as she looked him up and down.

  “Slender guy. Posh accent. A glare that could melt steel.”

  Erica suspected that if even Conrad had disliked him, it boded very poorly for the stranger to find any accommodation.

  Bridget had shifted from disbelief to curiosity. Through Erica’s own hand on Snoop’s head, she could feel the subvocal growl was still in place.

  “I might have a room,” Bridget conceded reluctantly.

  Erica tried to warn her off with narrowed eyes, but Bridget offered a tiny “we’ll see” shrug. “Why don’t you eat something first and I’ll see what I can find for you.”

  “Awesome! Really appreciate it. I’ll have whatever. I’m not a real picky sort of guy.” He reached out and picked up Erica’s wine glass. “May I?”

  He barely waited for her astonished nod before tasting it.

  His face went quiet. Suddenly it was possible to see a different man sitting at the table. He sniffed the wine again, swirled the glass and held it up to the café lights as he inspected it with narrowed eyes. Another sniff.

  “Don’t know it, must be local. Good body,” he said mostly to himself. He swirled the glass and peered at it intently, “Great legs. Nice nose for a dry white.” Another sip, and a long moment where he closed his eyes as he tasted it. He set her glass back down and turned to Bridget, “Another glass of that would be awesome.”

  Then he turned to face her for the first time since he’d sat at her table uninvited. “Mind if I join you? Be nice to talk to a fellow Yank for a change.”

  “You’ve already had my wine.” But she said it too nicely. Erica really had to do something about her kneejerk politeness. Kneejerk politeness? Oh, that was far too accurate…politeness that always drew the jerks. She needed to toughen up and give them the knee right, well, there. But—she sighed to herself—that wasn’t any more likely to happen this week than last week.

  * * *

  The lady at the table wasn’t responding the way he was used to. Fancy bike, good looks, obvious money—they always drew a response. Until now it had always been a more enthusiastic one.

  Maybe she’d been waiting for someone? But she hadn’t used that excuse to shoo him off. Wanted to eat alone? Maybe. He tipped his chair back far enough to see inside the café…no open seats. A couple of men stood at a low counter, chatting with the bartender as he served them up espressos, despite the hour, and a bottle of beer. They all appeared happy to stand and chat. He dropped the iron chair back to the cobbles with a clank.

  “Popular place.”

  “Um,” it was a happy sound, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was eating the first bite of her dinner and that radiant smile was fast reappearing.

  “That good?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “I’m from California.”

  “Um-hmm.” Apparently she already knew that, but was less enthusiastic this time.

  “How about you?”

  She shrugged as she sipped her wine.

  “Just a traveler?” He guessed that’s all he was now. Bibi gone. The house closed to him. Oh, he could go back and fight for his rights—he owned half, not forty-nine percent—but who wanted that hassle. He was a big fan of the easy road.

  Again the shrug of those fine shoulders.

  “Not exactly thrilled with my intrusion?” Damn it! There were some thoughts he really should keep to himself.

  “No, it’s not that…” she leapt to the apology too quickly, then couldn’t seem to complete it.

  “Exactly that,” he sighed. “Sorry. Mind if I stay anyway? No other table open. Oh man. That’s a trap too. Seriously, not trying to do that either. Crap!” What was it about this woman that was screwing up his smooth? He never fumbled around women.

  Her smile didn’t go radiant, but at least it opened up enough to acknowledge his discomfiture.

  “Bibi always said I was too pushy.” But usually when he pushed, women fell over easily enough.

  “Our first dinner together and you’re already telling me about your ex?”

  “Worse, my mom.” Though he liked the sound of “first dinner” as if there might be more.

  “You call your mom by her first name?”

  “She didn’t like Mom, said it made her feel too old. She had me when she was nineteen.”

  “What mother names her daughter Bibi?”

  “She named herself. Picked her name out of a James Bond movie somewhere in her teens after running away from an abusive home. She looked a lot like Bibi, the blonde bombshell skater in For Your Eyes Only. Father met her when she was working on one of the later Bond movies—minor role, sexy hostess at the Napa Valley resort in A View to a Kill. Dumped his first wife and kept her.”

  * * *

  And the glorious pesto turned to dry carboard in her mouth. A sip of the dry white wine threatened to shrivel her throat so badly that she had to gasp for breath.

  “You okay?”

  Erica tried to nod. Couldn’t. Tried shaking her head. Nothing.

  “I’m not going to apologize for being the son of a trophy wife. Bibi’s awesome. Father’s first wife was an avaricious, spoiled shrew.” His voice turned angry, defensive.

  She shook her head. That wasn’t the point at all.

  “Dwayne—” was all she managed to choke out. He’d promised he was leaving his wife, but never did. Not for her. Not for poor little Erica. It had been a trap. A tease. A weapon in his arsenal of control. She had loved him, or thought she had—though it had never felt like what she’d always thought love was supposed to feel like—and he had used that.

  Not this man’s mother. Bibi too had run away from home, and she’d found her love. But she’d found the man who loved her enough to keep his promises.

  Unable to sit still, she jolted to her feet and turned away.

  The man—she’d forgotten his name—stumbled to his feet.

  “Don’t!”

  The last thing she needed was a stranger’s sympathy to emphasize the depths of her failures.

  “Just…don’t.”

  She hurried off into the night, shivering beneath the thin shawl she’d tossed over her shoulders for a bit of style. Too thin to hide her shame.

  * * *

  “What did you do to her?”

  Ridley turned to face Bridget. She had shifted over to some darkly elemental state of fierce. She held his dinner and a glass of wine in such a way that they might be weapons. Not hard to picture her as some kind of shield maiden—tall, built, and lethal.

  “I don’t know.” He tried to see the woman down the shadowed street, but she was already gone from view. “I honestly don’t. We were just talking. I told her about my mom. She muttered someone’s name and bolted.”

  He turned back to Bridget.

  “Am I going to eat that?” he nodded down at the dinner plate of steaming seafood over pasta. “Or wear it?”

  Bridget inspected him for a long moment, “The jury remains out.”

  “The way it smells, I’d prefer the former. But if it’s the latter, I guess I’d understand. Though I swear that I don’t know what I said to upset your friend.”

  At length, Bridget set his plate and wineglass on the table, and cleared away…he hadn’t even gotten her name. Bibi had taught him to never forget a woman’s name, but he’d never even heard it.

  “I think I will believe you, Ridley.” Like a good hostess, Bridget hadn’t forgotten his. “As to what upset Erica, perhaps we need to find that out.” Then she reached into a pocket and dropped something on the table before turning to her other customers.

  Ridley looked one last time up the street, but saw only couples moving along, momentarily lit by the occasional glow from windows. He sat back in the chair and sipped the wine. It was different, richer, with a citrusy depth and a slightly mineral-salt
y finish. By the dim lighting it was more golden than Erica’s half-finished glass. It should be a nice match for the meal.

  Erica. Erica Schroeder wrote the theme song for Goldfinger—so easy enough to remember the woman’s first name.

  He set down the glass and looked at his dinner. Close beside the plate lay a room key with a dangle on it that said “2.”

  Chapter 3

  The warm glow of the sunrise woke her despite her late night. Erica had gotten miserably lost in the dark, twisting streets. She was fairly sure that the whole town only had three or four of them, but they seemed to curve the wrong way every time she thought she was close. It had taken forever to stumble once more upon the B&B. She must have walked every street of the entire town multiple times before finding her way home. Il Cane had been dark and shuttered and she might have passed it by in the thin moonlight if not for the monstrous motorcycle parked at the corner.

  By the time she was ready to return, even the wonderful scents of the café weren’t there to help her. Italy had smelled so…Italian in the evening: the air thick with cooking scents and laughter. She’d been able to smell the lemons hanging thick on their trees and the early roses that had perfumed the air. At night, all that had faded away and all she’d been able to smell was the all-knowing Mediterranean. All she’d been able to hear was the sea’s laughter of waves crashing on rocks.

  She hated—hated, hated, hated (repeating herself didn’t seem to help)—that Dwayne was able to gut her so thoroughly from five thousand miles away.

  Maybe, if the Roman gods were with her, (Please, Athena…or was Athena Greek? Either way: please, please, please. She was repeating herself a lot this morning), they’d let whatever his name and his motorcycle be gone this morning. Then she could start all over on her project of forgetting the man she was never going to think about again.

  The warm, brilliant morning gave her hope that maybe it would work today. Or at least be better today than it had yesterday. Which wouldn’t be hard.

  She was down less than a flight of the stone steps when the door on the next landing opened.

  The motorcyclist from last night looked up at her in some surprise. “The sunlight here is really something. Punches down like a monster headlamp on high beam.”

  “I suppose.” She had reveled in the cleansing wash of light emerging over the mountains to the east. It had painted the Mediterranean in its glorious color. It was hopeful somehow, especially after such a dark night. She had woken up in Italy after all. How many years had she dreamt of doing that? The air had smelled fresh from the sea, and of pastries from below—which is what had finally drawn her out.

  He frowned at her for a long moment. Enough that she considered going back up to her room, as the landing was too small to brush by him.

  “Look, I don’t know what I said to upset you last night. But I just wanted to say I’m sorry for ruining your dinner. I’ll steer clear.”

  “It’s not that. You don’t need too. I’m not feeling—” She didn’t know what she was feeling other than that she was babbling. She was a skilled business manager. Managing anything was easy, except her own life.

  Really suck at that, Erica. She sighed. She did.

  “Here,” she held out her hand. “We’re about to meet for the first time and pretend that last night—” and her entire life before this moment “—never happened. Hi, I’m Erica Barnett.”

  “Hey, Erica. Barnett, that’s easy to remember. Melina Havelock uses two different Barnett crossbows to kill…” His smile bloomed. “You don’t by any chance have a crossbow in your kit, do you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “For Your Eyes Only. James Bond. Never mind. Hi, I’m Ridley Claremont III,” he offered her a big smile and a warm handshake. “Pleased to meet you.” He had big hands, strong ones that made her own feel cool and fine. “Want to have breakfast together?”

  Erica hadn’t thought ahead about that obvious consequence of starting over. Trapped by her own words, she nodded her inevitable acceptance. At least he’d been nice enough to make the unavoidable into a question.

  Ridley was a surprisingly pleasant breakfast companion. At this hour, Il Cane was quiet. Just the occasional pastry and cappuccino to go—apparently espresso was for evenings. They’d taken a table inside as the morning was still cool along the shadowed carruggio. They ate apricot brioche, a hardboiled egg with the shell already cracked all over, and deep cups of hot chocolate so lush that you could paint walls with it.

  She’d asked about his motorcycle, expecting that to occupy him throughout the meal; he was a guy after all. But he moved on from it quickly. Atypically for a guy, he asked about her—a topic she had no interest in pursuing. That seemed to confuse him enough to dip his brioche into a glass of fruit juice.

  “My travels are only in Day Two, so I have nothing to tell. How about yours?” She congratulated herself on dodging that bullet, or crossbow bolt, fairly neatly.

  He harrumphed, “I’m around the end of Month Three. Sort of touring Europe.”

  “No job?” And she winced. The constant measure of someone back in America. What do you do? Who do you know? Where did you go to school? Yammer, yammer, yammer. “Ignore that, please.”

  “No, it’s all right. Guess I’ve never really had a job.”

  Erica could only blink at him in surprise. “I scrabbled for everything from the moment I was born, or at least it seems that way.”

  He waved his soggy croissant in an inviting way and she surprised herself by continuing.

  “Kind of Cinderella. Mom’s second husband had a pair of daughters already. Then, when Mom bailed on him for Husband Number Three—who didn’t want someone else’s kid interfering with his new life—he somehow ended up stuck with me.”

  “Evil stepsisters, huh? Could introduce them to my evil half brothers.”

  “They weren’t bad, really. Just enough older that they had no real interest in a kid stepsister tagging along. Stephen tried, but he was a single-dad longshoreman with three daughters. Long hours, and money was always tight. Earned my own way from the time I could babysit. Made college at sixteen—so not ready for that social scene despite having older sisters.”

  “I’m in the presence of genius.”

  “Don’t say that!” Dway— He had always said that.

  “You’re clearly smarter than the av-er-age bear,” he said it just like Yogi Bear in the cartoons.

  And she was, “About some things.” And she was never going to talk about the others. “Tell me about your evil half brothers and how you never had a job.”

  He chose the former topic, even though she was more curious about the latter. The rest of the meal passed with funny stories of the rivalry between himself and “the boys” older than Ridley’s mother.

  “You really don’t have a problem with my mom being a younger wife?” Ridley seemed genuinely puzzled.

  Dwayne had been older as well—not May-December, but older. He’d been so worldly, so smoothly sophisticated. She’d initially been charmed that someone like him had even noticed her. So naive as to think that made her special rather than malleable.

  “Had to defend her a lot?”

  “Maybe,” Ridley shrugged, but she could see the tension under that. “Against my brothers. My friends at school. Everyone on the planet except for her friends, and even some of them because she was a runaway turned actress who married so well.”

  Which finally answered why he’d never had a job. And that’s when she connected the disparate pieces.

  Last night, she’d liked the wine. He had relished and analyzed it in minute detail, obviously possessing a highly-trained palate.

  San Francisco accent.

  Ridley Claremont III.

  Claremont Family Wines of Sonoma Valley. Down in Oakland they called them “lucky spermers”—the kids born into true winery wealth. And Claremont was near the very pinnacle of the vines. Lucky spermers were almost always trouble: wild,
conceited, thinking that women answered the merest snap of their fingers. Worse, they were usually right.

  Not her! She knew better now. A pleasant breakfast companion, but that’s all Ridley Claremont was going to ever be. Lucky spermers had no depth to them. No commitment. They didn’t hit college at sixteen—she done it with brutally hard work, not genius. Every single babysitting gig she’d ever had, she’d actually done her schoolwork from the moment the kids were asleep rather than watch TV. Which was why they never got to stay up a minute late. Full scholarship at sixteen was how she had escaped home and stopped being a burden to Stephen, her stepfather, to their mutual relief.

  Yet Ridley Claremont III had never had a job.

  Until this week, she’d never had a vacation. In the past, a week off from work was a week to revise a business plan, build a presentation, catch some online training, get her project management certification, or other ways to focus on anything but herself. Her time away with Dwayne had always been on business trips, which had saved him—she now realized—from ever explaining anything to his wife.

  “All work and no play makes Erica a dull girl.”

  “What’s that?” Ridley was actually listening to her. Strange. Not typical of guys, not even Dwayne, who’d only appeared to be interested. Instead, he’d taught her to be interested in him. Another pit she’d apparently crawled into without noticing, during yet another massive moment of inattention. Maybe it was the times she actually paid attention that were the exception. All it had taken was a the total train wreck of her life to snap her world into focus.

  “I’ve never had a vacation before. I’m not really sure what to do next. Yesterday all I did was crash a car into an olive grove. I don’t think that counts.”

  “That was you?” he pointed up into the hills and snorted out a laugh.