by Anne Calhoun
When the gift shop cleared out momentarily, he ducked inside, made a beeline for the books, and snagged an anthology of Coleman Barks’ translation of Rumi’s poems, a couple of bookmarks, and a magnet. He paid, and was hunkered down on his heels by Florence’s chair when Rose walked out of the courtyard.
“Three minutes to spare,” she said, looking at her watch.
He felt his cheek crease with a smile. They walked back to the Land Rover through crowds streaming toward the entrance, the Babes in a huddle in front of them. Rose fell in beside him, and he handed her the brown paper sack from the gift shop.
“What’s this?” she asked, as she opened the bag, then, “Oh! Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Does anyone have to use the bathroom before we leave?”
The general consensus was no. He mentally prepared himself to stop at every rest stop and caravanserai between Konya and Ephesus.
* * *
Like most groups or teams, the Bucket List Babes had a routine: rehash the site, discuss vegetation, then a really pleasant silence would fall over the Land Rover as people read or listened to music and watched the countryside roll by. A little girl with wind-tangled hair and a pink dress tended sheep in a meadow just beginning to green into spring; a while later they watched a boy fly a kite. Keenan had expected nonstop chatter, but found to his relief they all knew how to keep their own company.
Rose flipped through Rumi’s poems, then dug The Iliad out of her shoulder tote. As the miles rolled by he watched her eyelids droop, then close briefly, open again, then finally shut for good. He kept an eye on her, waiting for the right moment to ease the books from her lap. Grannie worked her travel pillow between Rose’s seat and the door, holding it there while Keenan gathered the books from her unresisting hands, then gently nudged her head to the side so it rested on the pillow. A quick glance over his shoulder found Grannie smiling conspiratorially at him.
An hour later all the women were asleep, Marian and Grannie against the rear passenger doors, Florence with her head pillowed on Grannie’s shoulder. He scratched his ear and tried not to laugh. Keenan Parker, former U.S. Navy SEAL, chauffeuring three senior citizens and one jet-lagged Senior Director of Operations and Logistics through Turkey. It was almost ridiculous.
Except it felt really nice. Like he was responsible for everyday human beings doing everyday things. Almost ordinary.
They woke up in time for dinner at a roadside restaurant, a meal consumed in a friendly, companionable silence. Rose had the bleary, stunned look he saw too often in the mirror, coming down after days and days of little to no sleep, so he wasn’t surprised when she fell asleep again in the car. When they parked in front of the hotel’s entrance she didn’t even wake up. Grannie handled the room arrangements while he unloaded the baggage, then opened the passenger door.
Rose stared up at him. “We’re here, sweetheart,” he said. The endearment was out before he could think about it, much less stop it. “Ephesus,” he clarified, because she was looking around like she had no idea where she was.
“Okay,” she said, groggy, throaty.
“Come on, Rose,” Grannie said, holding out her hand. Keenan was struck by the tenderness in the gesture. Grannie had probably done that for Rose since Rose could toddle. Based on the way Rose slid out of the truck and went to her grandmother, it was as familiar as an old, soft T-shirt.
“Good night,” she said over her shoulder, her gaze sleepy, soft.
And that was that. No late-night conversations in the bar. No hot slippery sex. On the plus side, no difficult questions, no looks that cracked open that increasingly vulnerable space inside him, the one he hadn’t known existed until Rose walked up to him at the Ankara airport.
He should have been disappointed. Instead, all he felt was a flicker of the same tenderness for his jet-lagged girl.
Chapter Six
A rooster went off at crack-of-dawn o’clock the next morning. Rose sat bolt upright in bed, hand flailing for her phone to shut off the crowing alarm but succeeded only in knocking the small digital clock to the floor. “What the hell is going on?”
No answer. Grannie’s bed was empty, and the shower was running in the bathroom. Rose flung back the covers and padded over to the sliding doors that opened onto a small balcony. A big fan of fresh air and cool nights, Grannie had left the door partially open. Once outside on the patio she saw her barnyard alarm clock perched on a high stucco wall around a tiny garden, cock-a-doodle-dooing his proud bantam heart out.
Feet curling away from the chilly cement, Rose braced her palms on the railing and stretched onto tiptoe while she took stock. Anticipating the day’s events, she felt almost deliriously happy, body rested, mind clear and calm, like the blue sky stretching to the horizon. They would have a delicious breakfast, then drive to the premier archaeological site in Turkey, the highlight of Grannie’s bucket list, and spend the day wandering among the ruins. Then they’d drive to just outside Troy. The trip was a little less than half done, and every single moment that remained was full of promise.
Movement on the street caught her eye, a man in shorts, running shoes, and no shirt sprinting along the edge of the road. As he neared the hotel he slowed to a jog, then to a walk. His hair was damp with sweat, and he linked his hands behind his head as he strode up the semicircle drive in front of the hotel.
Keenan.
Rose waved to catch his attention. He waved back, then came to stand under her second-floor balcony. “Good morning,” he said.
“It is indeed,” she said.
He smiled, his gaze lingering on her cotton nightshirt. “Feeling better?”
“How long did I sleep?”
“You fell asleep around three yesterday afternoon. It’s now seven forty-five the next morning. A little less than sixteen hours, subtracting dinner.”
“I barely remember dinner,” she said wonderingly. “Did I eat? I’m starving.”
“You picked at a really good adana kebap,” he said.
“What time are we leaving?”
“In an hour, if you can manage it,” he said. “Same thing applies here as in Konya. The earlier we get there, the less crowded it is, and you really want a full day in Ephesus.”
“Grannie’s in the shower now. I just need to clean up and repack my bag,” she said.
“I’m out of the shower now,” Grannie said, fluffing her damp hair as she joined Rose at the balcony railing. She wore another pair of travel pants and fleece, zipped against the chilly morning air. “Good morning, Keenan.”
“Ma’am,” he said formally. “I’ll see you both at breakfast.”
“Hmmmm,” Grannie said, taking in Rose’s thin cotton nightdress. “I seem to remember something about balconies in a play about young lovers…”
“We’re not young,” Rose said, then rethought her automatic statement. She opened her mouth to correct herself, but gave up when she saw the twinkle in Grannie’s eyes. “It’s freezing out here. I’m going to take a shower,” Rose said, and fled for the steam-warmed bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later she shoved her heavy suitcase into the hallway, hoisted her tote a little higher on her shoulder, and followed Grannie down the hallway. Her laptop, balanced on her palm, was connected to top-of-the-line WiFi and downloading her email at an industrious clip. She sidestepped a group of Japanese tourists leaving the dining room just as the last email downloaded, then scrolled through the first forty to an email from Mindy Hong, another member of the management committee, flagged as important with a subject line READ ME FIRST.
Everything’s fine. Hua Li is handling the day-to-day situations with the marketers. There was a small crisis with the auditors, but Jensen called Travis, promised him a game of golf and a bottle of Macallan, and it’s under control. Attached are the latest batch of resumes for the open leadership positions. Something to read on the flight home.
Mindy
The attachments beckoned, the documents labeled by the efficient
HR director with names and positions. She almost opened them. Then she looked up to see the Babes and Keenan at the table, and the sea in the distance, sky and horizon blending to blue. Grannie waved. Keenan’s gaze flicked over her, head to toe.
She shut the laptop, tucked it in her tote, and left work and Lancaster behind.
“Listen up,” Keenan said when Rose sat down with her breakfast soup. He pulled up the map on Grannie’s iPad and pointed. “We’ve got a full day at Ephesus. I picked up some snacks we can take into the site, so we don’t have to leave for lunch. You wanted to visit a rug shop. I got a recommendation from a friend. It’s here”—he pointed—“on the way to Troy. I suggest we have a late lunch after we’re done with the site, drive to Troy, and get a light dinner once we’re there. Comments?”
“Perfect,” Grannie said.
They were packed up and in the Land Rover fifteen minutes later, and in the parking lot with the earliest tourist buses shortly after that. Everyone piled out and gathered around Keenan. “The only toilets are at the entrances.”
“Keenan, I have no idea why you think we’re so concerned with toilets,” Marian said.
“It’s probably my overactive imagination, ma’am,” he said formally, and distributed energy bars, apples, and a bottle of water to each of them. “I’m going to drive the car around to the other entrance, because that’s where you’ll exit, by the Great Theater. I’ll catch up with you inside.”
They paid their admission fee, bought tickets for the terrace houses, got their maps, then went inside. The Babes clustered around Marian, clutching the tour book. For a while Rose followed along with them, but after a while she just drifted down the main avenue, paved with marble, ruts worn into the stone by ancient wheels. What remained of the impressive library loomed in the distance. Chipped columns and stone and mortar walls interspersed with headless, limbless statues lined the route, and sections of clay piping used to transport hot and cold water to the villas were now stacked in empty spaces. Were they shops? Homes?
It was easy to just drift along, far easier than she thought it would be. Normally she needed to learn everything she could about a place or situation, but with nearly three thousand years of human history sprawling in front of her, the attempt was futile.
She’d paused by the Roman baths to scratch behind the ears of one of the site’s dozens of stray cats when Keenan appeared, jogging easily along the uneven marble. He stopped at her side, not even breathing hard, but his finely trained body broken out in a sweat. The scent, so familiar by now, made her quake deep inside.
“I should have guessed you’d find the toilets,” he quipped.
A knee-high marble box ran the length of three walls. Ten toilet-shaped openings were carved into each section of the marble. The cat abandoned her to wind around Keenan’s ankles, so she stepped into the room, leaned over, and peered into one of them. “Indoor plumbing?” she asked.
“And a sewer system.”
“I had no idea.”
Without speaking, they turned for the excavated Roman terrace houses. Translucent plastic protected the rooms; in one large space formerly a banquet hall workers were painstakingly reconstructing the mosaics formerly decorating floors and walls. “That’s one hell of a jigsaw puzzle,” Keenan remarked as they passed through narrow marble doorways set into uneven brick walls.
Precise marble designs formed the floors, while painted images of lions and flowers, faces and fish decorated the walls and floors of other rooms. Exiting the villas at the top floor, they walked down the uneven path and found the Babes in front of the library.
“Group picture?” Keenan asked.
“Oh, yes,” Florence said. “In front of the library!”
He was taking pictures with Grannie’s iPad and Rose’s phone when a guide waiting for her group asked Keenan if he’d like a picture of their whole group. Keenan tried to resist, but gave in when Grannie insisted. He stood close enough for Rose to feel the heat radiating from his body but not quite touch him, close enough to smell the scent of his skin and sweat now branded in her memory. The guide took Florence’s camera and snapped several shots for everyone.
“Have you seen the terrace houses?” Grannie asked.
“We just finished them,” Rose said.
“Oh,” Grannie said worriedly.
“Take your time,” Rose said gently. “It’s a beautiful day. Enjoy this.”
“You’re not bored?”
“I’m not bored.”
The Babes made their way to the terrace houses entrance. Without saying a word, Rose and Keenan strolled along the Harbour Street, pausing at the open air theater. “It seated twenty-four thousand people,” Rose said, looking at the guidebook. “Theater and gladiator contests.”
They stood silently on the stage, looking up the semicircular rows of seats. Tufts of grass grew between the marble stones, and three slender marble paths crossed a channel carved around the stage. “To carry away the water and blood after gladiator games,” Rose read from the guidebook.
“This used to be a harbor city,” Keenan said. “The river silted up and changed the landscape. I read that Ephesus was the second most important city in the Roman empire.”
“And now it’s in ruins,” Rose said absently. Everything seemed so far away, the span of time suddenly the weightiest thing in her world.
After a few moments more, they turned and made their way along the wide Harbour Street. Formerly lined with shops accommodating the harbor, this road now lacked impressive buildings, and the tourists thinned out as they walked. Thick, tall shrubs grew rampant over the walls, shading the interiors and all but blocking the doors. Near the end of the path, Keenan took Rose’s hand, pulled her into one of the small buildings, and backed her into a chest-high wall.
The room was dappled like something out of a fairy tale, the kind where the princess walks into a magic-drenched bower and disappears for a hundred years. Blue sky, leaves in a dozen shapes and shades of green, red brick crumbling against her back, grass poking up through the broken-tile floor. Tiny roses spilled over the walls, giving off a delicate scent, tingeing the air pink. She felt suspended between reality and time out of time, when anything could happen and the only thing that mattered stood right in front of her. Close enough to touch, yet not touching. Her warrior, her gladiator, waiting for her.
She reached out and put her hand on his chest. He’d shed his fleece, leaving only a thin layer of fabric between his skin and hers. His heart thudded under the hard muscle and bone, picking up the pace when she turned her palm and angled her thumb to brush across his nipple. The tiny nub hardened at her touch, drawing a soft exhalation from his parted lips.
He stepped closer, his chest mere inches from her breasts, heat radiating from his torso, thighs, and pelvis, and slid his hand under her ponytail to grip her nape. Sparks danced between her thighs and in her nipples, made her lips tingle. Her entire body felt alive with a desire as ancient as the landscape surrounding them.
His eyes were dark, his breathing slow and measured. He was holding himself back, she realized, his body wordlessly communicating the language of desire, and restraint. How he knew she wanted that before she knew it herself was still a mystery to her, but this moment wasn’t about questions and answers, taking things apart and slotting them into a task list on a project plan. It was about the bow of his mouth, thin and elegant, hidden in an increasingly thick stubble.
She went on tiptoe and skated her fingers across the seam, luxuriating in the plush lower lip. Fingers paused at the corner of his mouth, she kissed him, soft and sweet, lips closed, feeling his mouth with her lips and fingers at the same time, brushing her mouth against his in almost imperceptible movements. When his lips didn’t part, she applied a hint of pressure with her fingers, drawing the soft flesh down, then licking inside. Teeth, the sensitive interior of his lower lip, a nip that finally parted his teeth on a gasp. With the tip of her index finger she stroked his tongue, then the edge of his teeth. Hi
s eyes were heavy-lidded and saturated with a dark promise when he bit down on her finger, licked the tip, then used the firm grip on the back of her neck to draw her back up on tiptoe.
She’d never felt so alive. Impressions bombarded her senses, colors and smells, the faint chatter of tourists hurrying to the exit, German, Japanese, French. Between her thighs heat grew molten.
He bent his head just enough to kiss her, keeping the pressure light, tantalizing, acknowledging the spell they wove without breaking it. If someone looked in, they were kissing. Nothing more. One hand rested on his hip. He had a thumb hooked through his backpack’s shoulder strap. No one could see the charged particles of desire vibrating in the air between them. They couldn’t see her hard nipples, or his erection pushing against his zipper and just barely brushing her belly.
His lips grew hot and soft, coaxing her to open to him, to take the thrust of his tongue stroking hers. She exhaled softly and opened wider, suspended in time, in the air charged with magic. It felt like forever.
“Rose,” he whispered. Her name sounded like a prayer, or a plea. “Rose.”
“… after we find Rose.” She heard her grandmother’s voice.
She stepped back, caught her hair on the roses’ leaves and thorns, then stared at him, wide-eyed. In her world, there was no “forever,” just little boxes of time sectioned into hours, days, weeks. “Forever” was a meaningless concept. “Right here, Grannie,” she called, twitching her hair free.
Keenan bent over, found her hair elastic in the grass, and handed it to her. “Go out first,” he said, and put his hands on his hips. “I need a minute.”