''I Do''...Take Two!

by Merline Lovelace

  “Very big,” she echoed, still trying to take this all in.

  “Given your financial background, I’m not surprised he wants your input before we finalize any deal.” His smile suggested that he anticipated some spirited salary negotiations. “That’s about as basic as I can get. Do you have any questions for me?”

  “Dozens,” she admitted, “but none that need asking until I talk to Travis.”

  “Understood. Well, I’d better head to my meeting.” When they got to their feet, Ellis enfolded her hand in his. “It’s good to meet you, Kate. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  She certainly couldn’t say the same.

  “Travis mentioned he was going to try and entice you up for a visit to the base at Aviano,” the executive said. “Maybe I’ll see you there or at the hotel in Venice. Although,” he added, his smile turning rueful, “I’d better warn you that I come prepackaged with a hyperactive six-year-old. He’s already tumbled into the Grand Canal once. I’d like to believe that’ll be his only swim, but I’m not putting any money on it. Or that he won’t take some unsuspecting bystander with him.”

  She had to laugh at his sardonic expression and couldn’t help thinking that he and Travis would be a good fit. They were both so down-to-earth, yet supremely confident in themselves and their abilities. When Ellis departed, however, the look she turned on her husband wasn’t exactly complimentary.

  Folding her arms, she skewered him with an ice-pick stare. “Why in hell did you let me walk into this cold?”

  “Two reasons. First, I wanted your no-frills, no-holds-barred gut reaction.”

  “Oh, you’ll get that.”

  “Second...”

  She waited, foot tapping, until he finished more slowly.

  “I guess I needed to hear the offer again before I let myself believe it might happen.”

  She dropped her arms, her throat suddenly tight. “Do you want it to happen, Trav?”

  “Only if you do.”

  The answer cut straight to the tangled knot of their marriage. Kate had always known he’d quit the service in a heartbeat if she asked him to. For that reason, she couldn’t ask him to.

  “We were at the bar in the hotel,” he related. “Brian and Carlo and me. The project we’re working on passed a major milestone earlier that day and we were having a few beers to celebrate. Brian let drop that the executive who runs his test-and-evaluation division is retiring and asked if I knew anyone with my kind of expertise and number of hours in the cockpit to replace him. I don’t know who was more shocked—him, Carlo or me—when I said I might be interested in the job.”

  Travis had heard the words come out of his mouth and been as stunned as the two men he’d come to know so well in recent weeks. Yet as soon as his brain had processed the audio signals, he’d recognized their unshakable truth. If trading his air force flight suit for one with an EAS patch on it would win Kate back, he’d make the change today.

  “So what do you think?” he asked her. “Again, your first, no-frills, no-holds-barred gut reaction?”

  “I won’t lie,” she admitted slowly, reluctantly. “My head, my heart, my gut all leaped for joy.”

  He started for her, elation pumping through his veins. The hand she slapped against his chest to stop him made only a tiny dent in his fierce joy.

  “Wait, Trav! This is too big a decision to make without talking it over. Let’s...let’s use this time together to make sure it’s what you really want.”

  “I’m sure. Now.”

  “Well, I’m not.” Her brown eyes showed an agony of doubt. “The military’s been your whole life up to now.”

  “Wrong.” He laid his hand over hers, felt the warmth of her palm against his sternum. “You came first, Katydid. Before the uniform, before the wings, before the head rush and stomach-twisting responsibilities of being part of a crew. I let those get in the way the past few years. That won’t happen again.”

  The doubt was still there in her eyes, swimming in a pool of indecision. He needed to back off, Travis conceded. Give her a few days to accept what was now a done deal in his mind.

  “Okay,” he said with a sense of rightness he hadn’t felt in longer than he could remember, “we’ll head up to Venice. Let Ellis’s proposal percolate for a day or two.”

  And then, he vowed, they would conduct a virtual burning of the divorce decree before he took his wife to bed.

  * * *

  They left the Ferrari in a patrolled section of the parking garage on Tronchetto Island and took a water taxi across the broad, slate-gray waters of the bay. The wind whipped Kate’s hair free of both her clip and colorful head scarf. She didn’t even notice as the vaporetto skimmed the choppy waters.

  The driver throttled back to enter the Grand Canal. Venice’s busy central waterway hummed with water taxis, gondolas filled with tourists snapping picture after picture, and the flat-bottomed scows that transported goods throughout the city. Kate stood braced against the vaporetto’s deck, her upper body exposed by its open hatch, her face alive with the delight of viewing one of the world’s great treasures for the first time.

  Travis had driven up and back from Aviano often enough to take the distinctive fusion of Byzantine, Moorish and Roman architecture in stride. Viewing it through his wife’s eyes, though, gave him a renewed appreciation of the arched bridges, domed churches and tall, narrow houses with laundry strung across their windows.

  As they curved past the Grand Canal’s first bend and headed for the Rialto Bridge, the houses became wider, grander...including the one the vaporetto driver nosed up to. Painted a deep terra-cotta red, it boasted a colonnade of white marble pillars topped by three stories of intricately arched windows.

  “This is our hotel?” Kate asked, her eyes wide as Travis helped her out of the boat and onto a marble landing slick with water that lapped from the canal.

  “It is.”

  “Travis!” Her gaze roamed the fifteenth-century exterior. “This has got to cost a fortune!”

  “Not as much as it would have if Carlo didn’t have an in with the owner. I think they’re cousins or something.”

  “Wow,” she murmured as the vaporetto driver handed up their cases. “Your friend and his family certainly live well.”

  “So it would seem. I don’t know the whole story, though. Carlo doesn’t talk about his background, and I’m not about to pry. All I know is that he prefers his air force rank of maggiore to the one he inherited.”

  “Which is?”

  “Prince of Lombard and Marino.”

  “What?” Disbelief and incredulity chased across her expressive face. “Have you stumbled into some alternate universe? One populated with Ferraris and Maseratis, Italian princes and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies?”

  “I’ve asked myself that same question the past few weeks,” Travis admitted as a uniformed bellman popped out of a door at the rear of the landing.

  “Buonasera. Benvenuti a Palazzo Alleghri.”

  “Thanks.”

  Switching seamlessly to English, the bellman gestured to a marble staircase. “The lobby is just up those stairs, signore. If you will check in, I’ll have your bags carried to your room.”

  The stairs led to a black-and-white-tiled loggia dominated by gilt-edged mirrors, six-foot-tall vases bursting with flowers and a statue of a muscular Roman goddess in flowing marble robes.

  “Ah, yes,” the receptionist said when Travis gave his name and a credit card. “Maggiore e Signora Westbrook. As il principe requested, we’ve put you in the blue suite. I think you will find it very comfortable.”

  Comfortable didn’t come close to describing the luxurious set of rooms. The source of the suite’s name was immediately apparent in the shimmering ultramarine brocade drapes in the sitting room. The same fabric covered the upholstered ch
airs and was picked up in the broad stripes of an Empire-style sofa with one rolled arm and gleaming gilt trim. A Murano glass chandelier in a rainbow of colors hung from an elaborately carved ceiling medallion, and the antique marble-topped bombé chest that served as a sideboard could have graced a medieval prince’s palace.

  Which it probably had, Kate thought as she paused in the arched entry to the bedroom to gape at its opulence. More rich brocade, more handblown glass, more sumptuously carved plasterwork...and a massive bed of silver-painted wood with four flat-topped posts entwined in gold-leaf vines. She was still taking in the suite’s splendor when the bellman arrived with their luggage. He placed their two small pieces on the bench at the foot of the bed before turning to ask if they cared to dine on the rooftop terrace.

  “The view is one such as you will see nowhere else.”

  Kate looked to Travis, who endorsed the recommendation. “He’s right. Once you see Venice in the moonlight, you’ll forget that coin you tossed in the Trevi Fountain and always come back here instead of Rome.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.”

  “Then the terrace it is.”

  “Bene. What time shall I tell the concierge to reserve your table?”

  Since they’d eaten breakfast on the run and skipped lunch, they opted for an early dinner.

  “I shall see to it.”

  Silence descended after the bellman’s departure. Travis lingered at the foot of the bed; Kate stood by the windows. Her hair was a wind-tossed tangle from the drive and vaporetto ride. Her expression reflected none of the enchantment she’d displayed earlier.

  He had a good idea why and gestured to the four-poster. “Sorry about the one bed. I can bunk on the sofa in the other room.”

  She nodded, but the troubled look didn’t leave her eyes.

  “We don’t have to stay here, Kate. Or in Venice, for that matter. Aviano’s only an hour away. My hotel outside the base doesn’t have anywhere near the view or elegance, but...”

  “It’s not the palazzo.” She carved a vague circle in the air. “It’s everything. This trip. Ellis. His job offer. Your prince. Us. I feel as though I’ve jumped on a speeding train and don’t have a clue where it’s heading.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “Unsettling.”

  Good, Travis thought fiercely. Unsettled was good. He’d take uncertainty any day over her previous insistence they’d grown too far apart to find their way back. And just to inject a little more doubt...

  He crossed the room and brushed a knuckle down her cheek. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t draw back.

  “Maybe our approach to life was too deliberate the first time around, Katydid. Looking back, we laid it out like a playbook. You would finish your undergraduate degree. I would go through flight school. We’d get engaged, get married, work our way up the chain, take on more challenges, more responsibilities. Start a family only when we were ready.”

  “That was the plan,” she agreed, sighing as he made another light pass over her cheek. “What we didn’t take into account was how those challenges and responsibilities would force us into such separate worlds. You gone so much, me turning more and more to work to fill the void.”

  She hesitated but had to tackle the subject that had become increasingly painful for them both. “It wouldn’t have been smart or right or fair to bring a baby into that void and expect him or her to fill it.”

  “So we throw that plan out the window,” Travis said with rigidly subdued violence. “Start new. Here. Now. That’s why I wanted you to meet Ellis. Why I’m ready to hand in my papers as soon as I return to the base and complete this project.” He tipped her chin up, drew his thumb along her lower lip. “I know you need more time. I won’t push you. But while you’re weighing the pros and cons, don’t forget to include this in your calculations.”

  He lowered his head, giving her time to draw back, feeling the jolt when she didn’t. At the first brush of his mouth on hers, hunger too long held in check kicked like an afterburner at full thrust. The heat, the fury burned like a blowtorch.

  His palm slid to her nape. His mouth went from gentle to coaxing. From giving to taking. He circled her waist, drew her into him. They were hip to hip, thigh to thigh, her breasts pressed against his chest, her palms easing over his shoulders.

  This was what he needed. What he’d ached for. The feel of her. The taste of her. The pleasure was sharp, knifing and so welcome he had to tap his last reserve of willpower before he could raise his head.

  When her lids lifted, the smoky desire in her eyes almost snapped his last thread of restraint. He was a breath away from scooping her up and depositing her on that shimmering blue bedspread when she huffed out a husky laugh.

  “Well, looks like there’s one aspect of our relationship we won’t have to restart.”

  “You sure?” He waggled his brows. “That was a pretty small sample. Maybe we should run another test.”

  Her laugh was more natural this time, although she didn’t quite meet his eyes as she eased out of his arms.

  “No time for another test if we’re going to make an early dinner. As much as I enjoy swanking around in a Ferrari convertible, I need to soak the road and wind out of my pores. It may take a while,” she warned. “Do you want the shower first?”

  “You go ahead.” He paused for a beat. “Give a shout if you need me to scrub your back. I’m pretty good at it, if you recall.”

  He was, Kate admitted as she dug out her cosmetic case and clean underwear. Very good! Really excellent, in fact, at scrubbing her back, her front and everywhere in between. They must have slopped an ocean of soapy water onto the tiles in the bathroom of their first apartment.

  The erotic mental image took on a more vivid texture with her nerves still skittering from the feel of his mouth and body against hers. Just the sight of the claw-foot tub set in solitary splendor on a raised dais brought the heat rushing back. She sat on the tub’s edge, set the old-fashioned black plug and twirled the gilt-edged taps. Steam rose almost instantly from the gushing spout, as hot and vaporous as Kate’s memories.

  It was only after she’d added floral-scented bath salts and adjusted the temperature that all-too-familiar guilt edged out the memories. Guilt that her pride in her husband’s service to his country didn’t compensate for empty days and lonely nights. Guilt that she couldn’t adjust to the long rotations and short-notice deployments with the same seeming ease as other wives in his unit. Guilt that her gnawing loneliness only added to the stress Travis carried into every op.

  Now he was ready to leave the military. Walk away from a job he loved and the comrades in arms who understood the dangers and frustrations and challenges he faced every day. The men and women who spoke the same language and shared the same highs and lows.

  As Kate stripped down and slid into the frothy bubbles, her rational self reared up to do battle with the ever-present guilt. Theirs wasn’t the only marriage to crack under the pressure. The divorce rate in the air force was the highest in more than two decades. It ran even higher for special ops. Separations, stress and the high risk of the job all took their toll.

  And dammit, she shouldn’t feel so guilty at the prospect of Travis walking away from that close-knit special ops community. Judging by the interaction between him and Brian Ellis earlier this afternoon, her husband might well find the same satisfaction, the same camaraderie, outside the military as he did in it.

  Buoyed by the thought, she grabbed the puffy sponge supplied by the hotel and dunked it in the still-fragrant froth. A thorough scrubbing left her skin tingling and her thoughts free to dwell on something other than the guilt she’d carried for so long.

  Like the kiss Travis had laid on her a few moments ago. And the feel of his shoulders bunching under her palms. And her almost suffocating need to
glide her palms over that smooth, hard muscle again. Tonight. After a candlelit dinner on the terrace, with the grand palazzi and glistening canals of Venice.

  Oh, hell! Who needs candlelight and canals?

  Travis was willing to risk all to save their marriage. Could she do any less?

  The decision came without conscious thought, so sudden and sure it brought her out of the tub draped in a slick sheen of bubbles. Plucking a towel from the rack, she wrapped it around her. With only a fleeting prayer of thanks that she’d continued on the pill, she left a trail of wet footprints all the way through the bedroom.

  Travis was in the sitting room, his shoes kicked off and ankles crossed on a hassock as he surfed channels on the sixty-inch flat-screen TV. Kate caught snippets of Italian, German and Japanese before she cleared her throat.

  The ostentatious “ahem” brought his head around. The sight of her towel-draped body froze his thumb on the remote. The channel stuck on an Asian newscaster with a mellifluous voice describing what looked like a typhoon forming in the South Pacific. The swirling turbulence on-screen matched the chaotic thump of Kate’s heart.

  “You were right,” she said, her pulse pounding.

  The remote hovered midair. Caution threaded his voice. “About?”

  “The sample was too small. We should run another test.”

  She almost laughed at his look of blank confusion. It took him a few seconds to make the connection to their kiss right before she’d retreated to the bathroom.

  Then his feet hit the floor, the remote hit the hassock and he was out of the chair in one fluid move.

  Chapter Five

  Travis had vowed to give Kate the romantic Italian interlude she’d always dreamed of. He’d constructed contingency plans for every possible variation, from exploring the hustle and history of Rome to roaming sun-kissed Tuscan vineyards to braving Naples’s teeming streets and feasting on the city’s famous margherita pizza. Each contingency included the admittedly tenuous hope that they would make slow, delicious love every night they were together.