Calli looked at the flowers. Many of them she could not name. They were gorgeous. Beryl exclaimed over them while Calli got water and a vase.
“Whatever is this D person thanking you for?” Beryl asked.
“Calli saved his life,” Minnie said.
“No, really,” Beryl insisted.
“Really,” Minnie insisted right back.
“Oh,” Beryl said in a small voice.
Josh looked over his glasses at them. “D?” he asked.
“Duardo,” Minnie said.
“Army?” he asked, suspicion tingeing his tone.
“Captain,” Minnie said happily.
Josh’s gaze swiveled to Calli. “I see,” he said. He went back to his meal.
After dinner, when Calli stood out on the balcony grabbing fresh air, Josh found her there. He shut the sliding door soundlessly, then leaned against the balcony. “Tell me about this Duardo,” he said. “Is he a good man?”
“Yes,” Calli said, without hesitation.
“Does he care for her?”
“Yes.”
“Enough?”
She sighed. “I don’t know, Uncle Josh. I think so. I don’t know for sure. All I can say is that I’ll watch out for her.”
He thought about that one for a while. “It’s hard. She must take these bumps, make her own way. It’s hard, though, to watch your only daughter risk everything. I remember your father saying the same thing about Robert and now I know how he felt.”
Calli sighed. “I’m glad he died without knowing what Robert did.”
“He knew, Calli. He knew in his gut.”
She looked at him. “He never said anything.”
“You’d made your choice. What could he say? He hung around, hoping you’d figure it out and to be there to help you to pick up the pieces when it all fell apart, as he knew it would.”
“It must have killed him to stay out of it,” Calli murmured, tears stinging. “Maybe it did. They said the cancer was stress-related.”
“No, Calli, don’t go wearing that one too. You carry too much already.” Josh’s hand touched her shoulder.
She blinked the tears away. “He knew in his gut, about Robert?”
“Yes.”
“You believed him?”
“Without doubt.”
“That’s how I feel about Duardo, Uncle Josh. In my gut, I know he’s good. Minnie will be okay.”
Again he stayed silent, absorbing it. Then he straightened. “Thank you,” he murmured and went back inside, leaving her with her thoughts.
She had been alone barely a minute when the door slid aside again and Minnie stepped out. She held a cardboard box. “Another delivery for you.”
“Who is it this time?”
“I don’t know. Open it.”
Calli pulled the string off the box—it was the size of a cake box and brown like wrapping paper. She flipped the lid open. Inside sat a pair of Spanish tap shoes and resting on top of them a small, flat, thick blue velvet-covered presentation box. She smiled when she saw the shoes and held them up to Minnie. “Guess,” she said.
“Don’t have to,” Minnie said. She took the big cardboard carton from Calli and held it while Calli opened the smaller velvet one.
Inside lay an intricately worked silver belt buckle, made up of delicate filigree threads and adorned with green stones. Emeralds? A card sat tucked behind it. Calli plucked the card out and handed the box to Minnie.
Minnie gasped. “Holy Toledo!” she breathed. She pulled the buckle out and turned it over. “Yes, it is! This is Vistarian silver—see the stamp? These must be emeralds. I know they dig them up in the northern ranges.”
Calli opened the envelope. Inside was a small card.
In my soul, you will always be dancing. Keep it so in yours.
No signature. She didn’t need one. The strong, character-filled flourish on the down strokes was all she needed to know who signed it.
She handed the card to Minnie and leaned against the balcony rail again.
Minnie leaned beside her and swayed against her, a little companionable jostle. “I think you’re in trouble.”
“Me too.” She dropped her head into her hands.
“My warning this morning came too late, didn’t it? You’re already involved with him.”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I think so. Oh god, the risk, Minnie!”
“Isn’t just getting out of bed a risk?”
“Yes, but the odds now…”
“So what?”
Calli looked at her, a little surprised by the fierce tone in her voice.
“A long time ago, when you first met Robert, you said something I’ve never forgotten. I asked you how did you know Robert was the right one, that he was worth giving up college for, to support him while he went through medical school. You said—do you remember?”
“No.”
“You said lots of people fear risk, of the price it will ask of them at the end, yet people who lie on their death bed don’t bewail the price of risks they’ve taken. They regret the risks they didn’t take, the things they didn’t do because they were afraid. You didn’t want to get to the end of your life and regret what you didn’t do.”
Calli remembered the conversation now. “Instead, I’ve spent five years bewailing the price I paid for that risk.”
“I think you’ve paid enough,” Minnie murmured.
Chapter Nine
“There he is!” Minnie said, her voice lifting.
Duardo, again wearing jeans and a black sweater, lifted his hand when he saw them. He waited across the street, while Minnie rushed across without pausing to assess traffic. She dived between cars, causing at least one set of brakes to squeal, and made the other pavement with a jump. Still running, she pushed through the people strolling the Avenue, taking in the evening air. She threw herself at Duardo, wrapping herself around him, her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. He held onto her, grinning, and ran his hand through her hair, then kissed her, passionately and long.
When Callie crossed the street and made her way through the flow of pedestrians to the place where they stood, Minnie had regained her feet and Duardo caressed her face. The gentleness of his touch made Calli’s heart ache. Oh, how she hoped for Minnie’s sake that he loved her!
Duardo turned to face her, came to loose attention and bowed. Vistarian men did it often, she realized, and it did not seem silly or archaic. It seemed like a very genuine expression of honor. He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Miss Calli.”
“Thank you for the flowers, Duardo.”
“They were not enough,” he declared. He lifted her hand to his head, pushing her fingers under the hair. She felt beneath her fingers a long, hard welt of skin about an inch across.
“Ugh,” she said.
Minnie lifted her hand to check, too, and pulled it away with a grimace.
Duardo grinned. He pointed to his temple. “I still see double a little. So I am off duty until I see just one.” He tucked Minnie under his arm and squeezed her. “We walk, okay?”
“Yes.”
Calli noticed bruises and scrapes around his wrist, peeping beneath the sleeve of the sweater. However, he used the hand without hesitation, gripping Minnie’s. “Hey, you guys should go on without me,” she said. “I can go get dinner somewhere.”
“No,” Duardo said firmly, even as Minnie protested. “You come with us.”
“I don’t want to be in the way,” she said.
“No,” Duardo said again. He pulled her around and made her walk beside him, keeping a grip on her elbow.
Realizing she wouldn’t be able to leave them alone without creating a scene, she tried to relax and enjoy the stroll. Many people seemed to be doing the same thing, in twos, threes, even more. It seemed fashionable to stroll the Avenue of Nations in the evening. The cars on the four-lane paved road also moved leisurely and passengers in the cars would call out to pedestrians. Along the pavement many pushcarts sol
d flowers, food, cheap jewelry, clothing and trinkets. There was no hard commercial push. They seemed content to watch the crowd wander past and chat with people they knew.
“This street, they see many parades,” Duardo explained.
“It’s wide enough.”
“That’s the palace up there, isn’t it?” Minnie asked.
Calli looked up. The road sloped upwards from here, a gentle incline that ended at a semi-circular building in white stone, bathed in spotlights.
“That is el Edificio Legislativo,” Duardo said. “The President’s residence is behind it. There is much park in between.”
At the top of the hill, the road widened out into a very large circle, matching the curve of the legislative building. In the middle of the circle was a fountain, which seemed to be the center of social activity on the Avenue. Many people sat around the fountain and many more lingered in the area, talking and walking about.
A wrought-iron fence separated the public circus from the legislative building, and in the middle, two gates stood open, with armed soldiers at attention. Duardo headed toward the gates.
“We’re allowed in there?” Calli asked.
“The public, no. Me, they let in. I am part of the government.” He lifted his hand in a salute to the guards, who brought their feet together at parade attention as they passed by. Duardo walked over to the gate house, where a man in normal army uniform sat behind the glass. He chatted to him for a minute, then pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and showed the man the inside of it.
The man behind the glass pushed a clipboard through the slot. Duardo signed it. The man gave a salute, which Duardo returned. He tucked Minnie back under his arm. “No sweat,” he told Calli.
“I’m sure they don’t let just any soldier in here,” Calli said.
“Ah, no, but I am walking wounded. They feel sorry for me.” He grinned.
“You’re lying,” Calli said.
“It is perfectly true!” Duardo protested.
A great archway lay ahead. It burrowed through the middle of the building, in the manner of some of the European buildings where the road ran through the middle for coachmen and horses to drop their privileged passengers right at the door. Duardo led them under the arch. Their footsteps echoed across the old cobblestones.
At the other end of the archway, the road became a covered walkway, well lit, with slim columns lining each side. It was a modern addition, designed to provide shade and protection from daily rain for those walking to the legislature. Along the walkway, guards stood between the pillars at regular intervals, facing each other. The walkway ran straight toward another three-story building. There were no spotlights on this building. Windows showed lights inside, while most of them were dark. The Presidential residence.
Duardo did not walk down the pathway. Instead, he slipped out between the pillars, across well-tended lawn and around huge beds of flowers surrounding shady trees, in a big arc that would bring them toward the north wing of the palace.
“You’re heading somewhere,” Calli guessed. “This isn’t simply a stroll in a pretty garden.”
“We are just walking,” Duardo said. He halted them, a hand on Calli’s arm and called out something in a low voice. An equally low response came from their right and Duardo answered. Calli heard the sound of metal clinking. Duardo let her arm go. “Come,” he declared.
“We were challenged by someone with a gun!” Calli said. “Hidden away where no one could see them.”
“You do not think those guards standing so stiff would see everything, did you?”
“They didn’t let you in here on a whim, did they?” Calli said.
“Not quite,” Duardo admitted. He brought them to a halt, next to a tall bed of flowers and grasses. She could smell the dry, herbal odor and a strong, almost intoxicating scent of a type of lily nearby. They faced the covered walkway, about thirty feet away from it and they would be invisible in the darkness beyond reach of the lights.
“See?” Duardo said, nodding towards the walkway.
Calli drew a sharp breath, her heart jumping. Nick strode down the walkway, obviously in a hurry.
“He was alerted by the gatehouse,” Duardo said. “No one comes in here without el leopardo knowing about it. Because it is me, he hurries to find out what is wrong, for he knows I would not come here without just cause. In a moment, when he finds me gone, he will go back to the palace, puzzled and concerned.”
“Why, Duardo?”
He looked at her and in the darkness she saw him smile. “It is time for you to surprise him instead of always being surprised by the leopard. Take the choice away from him this time.”
There remained so much unspoken in his words, a wealth of knowledge and understanding that made her a little uneasy.
Minnie held out her hand. “I told Duardo, Calli. All of it. Even Robert.”
Calli was glad of the dark that hid her burning cheeks. “Jesus Christ, Minnie!”
“This is right,” Minnie said firmly. “Take the risk. Take the leap.”
“Yes, the leap,” Duardo said. “Minnie knows. You listen to her. You, the strong one, here is what you must do.” He took her arm and led her around the far side of the flower bed beside them. They came right up to the palace itself, on the far corner. The stone walls were still warm from soaking in the day’s sunlight. Duardo pointed up at the second balcony, then at the concrete screen that blocked off the end of the lower floor veranda. “A good ladder, yes?” he asked.
“Up there?” Calli asked.
“His rooms are there, where he stays when he is in the city.”
“How do you know so much, Duardo?”
“In the last few days I have learned very, very much, because I met you and Minnie. I have become...a channel.”
“Conduit.”
“Sí.” He glanced over her shoulder. “He comes.” He patted her shoulder, then vanished. The trained soldier moving in stealth.
Calli moved around to face the concrete blocks. Their intricate patterns provided toe and finger holds everywhere. Duardo proved right—it was as good as a ladder. She climbed, wishing she had worn jeans. At least her short skirt didn’t get in the way. It didn’t protect her knees, though. A cotton skirt and spaghetti strap top was not her apparel of choice for climbing walls.
The blocks went all the way to the roof of the building. When she had climbed high enough, she moved sideways to reach the balcony rail, a concrete balustrade two feet thick. She jumped down to the floor and looked about. A massive, old Banyan tree spread its branches out a few feet further along the veranda, giving her a place to hide from observers down below.
She sat on the balcony rail behind the tree and rested against the pillar there, hidden from all but someone standing at the end of the second floor balcony. If Nick’s rooms were at the end, as Duardo said, he would walk past her to reach either one of the three French doors there.
She hugged her knees to her chest. It reminded her of Minnie’s confession the other day. What would Nick say? The speedy approach of the moment of confrontation made her heart beat so hard it hurt.
She heard a door close and footsteps come closer. She held her breath as Nick passed her. His head was down, his hand in his pocket. He was deep in thought.
Calli slipped off the balcony and ran up behind him, intending to catch at his arm and turn him around. Her sandals must have made a noise. Perhaps her clothing rustled. Before she laid a finger on him, Nick spun and caught her wrist in a vice-like grip. He thrust her up against the wall. The impact pushed the wind out of her. He’d pinned her arm above her head, his arm across her throat, his body slammed up against hers, holding her there—all before her own instincts reacted. Her gasp of surprise remained locked in her chest. She stared at his eyes, four inches from hers.
They stayed locked in that position for what seemed like eternity, while her heart stopped beating altogether. He had thought her the enemy. He’d defended himself with a speed and agility th
at told her he was practiced at this, that he was prepared. It gave her an insight into his life she had not considered before.
All the words she had rehearsed, the explanations and justifications, fled her mind.
The cut beneath his right eye had almost healed. He seemed untouched. She was absurdly glad to see him.
With a groan, he let her wrist go. The arm against her throat slipped over her head to pull her to him. His lips crushed hers. He kissed her with a thoroughness that left her breathless. He kissed her face, her eyes, her nose, her chin. He rained kisses upon her in a soft barrage that left her trembling for more.
His hand held her head steady while he plundered her mouth. She felt his heart under her hands, under silk and she groaned, her eyes closing.
His arms tightened about her. He picked her up, bringing her with him as he turned and pushed open the French door. He pulled her inside and shut the door with one hand. She heard a solid, small thud.
He pushed her up against the wall again. His mouth came back against hers. His kiss left her breathless. His hands seemed to be everywhere at once, building an erotic storm of sensations she could not track and could not prevent. Caresses covered her body—through her clothing or under it, she didn’t know.
If he wanted her now, this moment, she would comply willingly. She wrapped her leg around his hip and threaded her fingers through the soft, heavy silk of his hair. She opened her body and soul to him, drunk with the joy of it. Eons passed within a heartbeat.
Nick lifted his head from tasting the skin at the base of her throat. He kissed her throat, her chin and finally her mouth. He grew still, his head resting against hers. They were both breathing heavily. His body, a solid mass, held her against the wall—a support she needed.
He shifted his weight away from her, a little at a time. Then he stepped away from her altogether.
She marveled that her clothes were still in place.
Nick backed to the center of the room, his gaze not leaving her. “Why did you come here?”
“For you.”
He shook his head. “Heads will roll for this.” His voice was low. “How you got in here—”
“Your security is intact.”
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