Vistaria Has Fallen

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  He considered that. “Duardo,” he said at last and gave a short laugh. He walked back towards her and reached out to the low cabinet by her hip. An automatic pistol lay there. She had not noticed it until now. Nick picked it up and with an absent-minded motion, flicked something on the gun that clicked. He pushed it inside his jacket.

  She remembered the quiet knock she’d heard when he’d first pulled her in here. He had been putting the gun down.

  Nick gave a grimace. “I had the gun in my hand before I even turned to confront you,” he said. “Such is my life.”

  Fright touched her. Now was the time to say what she had come to say. She spoke the words. “Is there room in that life for me, Nick? Even a temporary, hidden corner of it?”

  “Temporary?” He looked at her sideways. “You would settle for that?”

  “Temporary can last a long time. Besides, there are no guarantees, are there? That’s what Dominio de Leo taught me. You may have all the best intentions, the greatest plans in the world and it doesn’t matter a damn. It can all go—” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

  He sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. “Calli, the risks—”

  “And I could get run over by a bus tomorrow.”

  “The odds will be even shorter if you become involved in my life.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I do. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  She straightened up from the wall and walked towards him. “Keep me at your side. I’ll be safe there.”

  “That would be a dangerous illusion for both of us.”

  She’d drawn close, yet he gave no sign of relenting. She indulged in her private pleasure—she slid her hands under his jacket and rested them against his chest. Warm, delicate silk. Heated, firm flesh beneath. She looked up at him, pleased that she had to lift her chin to look him in the eye.

  “I’m willing to accept the risks, if I can have you. Even for a short time.”

  He swallowed. “Why me?” His voice was low.

  “The bastard son who cannot use his mother’s name?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he ground out.

  So many answers occurred to her. She picked and discarded a dozen. It came down to the fact that he had seen something in her, a potential she was beginning to discover for herself. “You know me,” she said at last. “Better than I know myself. You accept me.”

  Her fingers resting against his chest were not enough. She followed a blind instinct. She leaned forward to kiss his neck, to follow the beating pulse with her lips, tasting him, the salty heat of him, up to his ear, where his hair tickled her cheek. She lifted her hands and pushed the jacket off his shoulders. The jacket hit the floor with a heavy thud. Of course, the gun.

  His pulse raced beneath her lips and she heard his breath, a little unsteady, next to her ear. Still, he did not move. She thrust her tongue in his ear and he rewarded her with a deep groan. The sound fluttered through her with little tendrils of pleasure. His hands came down around her waist, almost defensively. Yet he did not push her back.

  Encouraged, she brought his head down to hers and kissed him. Her hands dropped to his waist, to the belt there.

  His hands came to life and snagged her wrists. He held her still. “Not here,” he said. “Not where Vistaria can intrude at any moment.” He looked her in the eye. “I want you for myself, with the world shut outside the door.”

  She shivered at the implied promise. “Where, then?”

  “My place.”

  She gave a small laugh. “Where is your place? I thought it was here.”

  “Here?” He looked around the room. “This is just a tool.” He took her face in his hands and gave her a firm kiss on the mouth, then smiled. “You are relentless, Miss Callida. You drug my sleep, invade my thoughts and bridge every defense I’ve built. I must concede because I am helpless to do anything else. Yet a voice inside me tells me this is right.”

  “Yay for small voices.” Calli couldn’t prevent her own smile of pure happiness.

  He pushed her away from him, bent and picked up his jacket. He slid it on. “Forgive me. For now we must be careful.”

  “Soon, Nick. Please make it soon.”

  “Is tomorrow soon enough?”

  “No.”

  He raised his brow. “I see. Then tonight it must be.”

  “You’re serious?”

  He laughed and kissed her mouth, his fingers sliding into her hair. Her breath deserted her again and she held onto his jacket. When he released her, she shook him a little. “Tonight?” she repeated.

  He frowned. “Can we be together tonight? I think the laws of physics are against us. I can start the arrangements now, though, and we can start out tonight. I’m afraid that is the best I can do. Can you live with that, Calli?”

  “If we start at once, yes. Can you walk away from here, just like that?”

  “There’s an advantage to being a bastard son without a formal position,” he said. “I can come and go as I please.”

  “Stop teasing.”

  “I’m not teasing. I exaggerate a little, though. I will have to make certain arrangements and they can be put into place tonight.”

  “You would do that for me?”

  “Certainly.” He raised his brow again. “What is it?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just that...after fighting so hard to reach this point, I’m suddenly in free fall.”

  He pushed his hand into his pocket. Studied her. “That’s because the brakes are off. I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you and I’ve fought harder and longer than I’ve ever fought to resist you. No more. I want you so badly that if I took you now, it would not be soon enough to suit me. You will find me more than willing to speed up arrangements in any way I can.”

  She swallowed, her throat dry and raspy. “And heaven help anyone who gets in the way?”

  “Yes, indeed,” he agreed, his voice low. His eyes, his gaze burrowed into her soul again. He cleared his throat and looked away.

  Calli shook off the spell.

  He walked over to a desk in the corner and lifted the phone. “One moment,” he told her and spoke into the phone. He had a quick exchange in Spanish. Then a second conversation, at a slower pace. He finished the call and hung up, picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. “All has been arranged.”

  “Really?”

  “You doubt me?”

  “It seems a little simple.”

  “Simple enough. I always keep my options open. Now, you must play your part.”

  “What do I do?”

  “You and Minnie must go to Pascuallita with Duardo.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Oh, yes, that might create problems.”

  “Can you handle them?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. Duardo can pay penance for interfering with my personal affairs by playing nursemaid to two American women who want to sight-see around the top of the island. He will be bored and charming in turns and you two will pretend a total fascination with the country.”

  “That’s the easy part. Vistaria is a fascinating country.”

  He smiled a little. “Vistaria can also be a deadly country. Don’t underestimate my fellow countrymen, Calli. You have only seen a glimpse of the passion and drive that runs in their blood. Vistaria has been self-determining since we threw off the Spanish yoke and men will give up their lives to ensure it stays that way.”

  She thought of the gun in his jacket. How could she underestimate Vistarians when the gun proved that Nicolás would not take any chances? “I won’t.”

  “Good. Now, you should scale whatever wall you scaled to reach me and go give Duardo his orders.”

  “Then what?”

  “Enjoy your trip to Pascuallita.” He walked her towards the door, his hand on her waist.

  It was moving too fast. “Wait,” she said, turning. “What happens after that?”

&nb
sp; “I will find you.”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t feel that way. Nick, I’m afraid that if I step out of this room, I’ll never see you again.”

  He didn’t dismiss her fears as foolish. “Do you trust me?”

  She answered honestly. “With my life.”

  “Yet you still believe I will not come to you. Hmm.” He thought about it for a moment. He reached into his pocket as she had seen him do a hundred times since she had known him. His hand emerged, snarled with a gold chain. He lifted it up, so the pendant attached to it swung clear. “St. Christopher,” he explained. “Patron saint of—”

  “Travelers,” Calli finished. “My grandmother was Irish.”

  “My mother was Irish, too. This pendant traveled with her father through Europe during the war. She wore it until the day she died and swore it saved her life a hundred times in Northern Ireland. She gave it to me and I have carried it with me ever since.” He held it out to her.

  “No, Nick, I can’t.”

  He shook his head and turned her around. “Your hair. Pull it aside,” he told her.

  She pulled her hair aside and watched as the pendant descended in front of her. It settled on her chest. He turned her back to face him. “Believe that I will come for you,” he said and kissed her.

  Chapter Ten

  They traveled by train, a slow, picturesque journey through the mountains. The train stopped at every station along the way. At every stop dozens of people got off and three dozen more squeezed on.

  The windows remained wide open throughout the trip. Fresh air bathed their faces as they sat on the wooden seats facing each other, their luggage piled up on the seat next to Calli. Duardo, she noticed, did not give Minnie any of the overt signs of affection she had seen in the city. As he approached home base and his family, did he grow more wary of his reputation? She didn’t speak of it, yet worried that while he had been in the city Minnie had provided a nice distraction. Now he was forced to bring her back home, he was putting distance between them.

  Minnie did not seem to notice the difference in his behavior. She had accepted with serene calm everything that had happened since Calli had shinnied back down the bricks of the Presidential residence last evening.

  Calli had found them sitting on the lawn at the base of the flowerbed, Duardo’s arm around her and their heads close together. When her vision adjusted to the dark of the night, she saw that only a few dozen paces away, a soldier stood with his rifle resting across his hips. He did not overtly watch them yet he hovered, just the same.

  Calli dropped to the grass in front of them and told Duardo what Nicolás had said. Duardo listened with his head cocked. It seemed he read more into Nick’s instructions than she did for he accepted the news with a sober expression, the twinkle of merriment in his eyes fading.

  “I’d like to see Pascuallita,” Minnie said.

  They traveled back to the apartment, catching the last streetcar of the night. There, they packed hurriedly. Calli finished before Minnie because she had less to pack. Minnie and Calli discussed the pros and cons of telling Joshua what they planned, then decided a note would delay the delivery of the news until they had left the city. They’d written a jointly authored letter, assuring him they were snatching a last-minute chance to tour the north of the island. They promised to phone him from Pascuallita.

  Then on to the house where Duardo had been staying while he was in the city, this time by taxi, which they hailed from the main street that ran below the apartment. Duardo quartered in a small, older house with a distinct lean, tucked away off the main square. Four or five army people shared the house. Duardo packed while Minnie and Calli sat on the front stoop to wait for him. He had explained it would not be appropriate for women to go inside a male-only household. He slipped out through the door barely fifteen minutes later, an army issue suit bag over his shoulder and a Nike sports bag in his other hand.

  They walked to the train station, at the bottom of el colinas, passing through silent streets where it seemed everyone slumbered. At the train station they curled up on benches and dozed with their heads on their luggage until the ticket office opened an hour before the train departed.

  After the tickets were bought, Duardo disappeared into the men’s room with his luggage and returned, shaved and clean. He also wore a light windbreaker, protection against the pre-dawn chill.

  Now they were on the train. Despite the heat of the day and the collective humidity of a dozen bodies squashed in around them, Duardo had not removed his jacket, although he had pushed up the sleeves. He left it zipped a third of the way up, too, which prevented the jacket from falling open.

  Calli waited until they approached the next station, then sat on the edge of her seat and twisted around, as if she inspected the view out of the window beyond their luggage. When the train came to halt with the shudder and jerk she had been anticipating, she let herself fall sideways, her shoulder landing against Duardo’s chest.

  She apologized, pushed herself back upright and ignored Duardo’s thoughtful expression.

  Minnie already showed signs that the restless night was catching up with her, so Calli waited. Soon, Minnie’s eyes slid closed and her head bumped against Duardo’s shoulder. He lifted his arm and settled her head on his legs and she curled up like a kitten and slept.

  Duardo looked at Calli expectantly.

  “How many people around us understand English, do you think?”

  He didn’t look around, which told her he had already assessed everyone near them. “None. They have not reacted to comments we have made.”

  “You have a pistol under your jacket.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Are we in that much danger?”

  “Pascuallita is only five miles from the area of a known rebel camp. I must act as if I am in enemy territory.”

  “It is your home town, isn’t it?”

  He grimaced. “Many call Tel-Aviv their home town. Belfast, too.”

  “There has been trouble in Pascuallita?”

  “Once.” Unconsciously, he rubbed his thigh.

  “You were part of that trouble, weren’t you? You were caught in it.”

  “Yes.”

  “That is what you did that earned you honor, that got you invited to General Blanco’s birthday. You said you protected your country.”

  “I did,” he agreed.

  “Would you be carrying the gun if you didn’t have us with you?”

  “Maybe not. I do not know. You are with me and—” He glanced around. “Nick asked me to get you to Pascuallita and so I shall.”

  “What did you tell the guard last night? The one that tried to stop us when we headed for the palace?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The one that put his rifle back on safety and melted into the dark. I’ve been thinking, Duardo. It seems odd that a security detail surrounding a Presidential residence would allow an American woman to climb up into the building, even if she was with one of their own. You said something—enough to allow me to wander freely into Nick’s rooms. What did you say?”

  He considered her for a moment. “I told him that—” Again the quick look around, an awareness of his audience disciplining his tongue. “That the long blonde heroine of Prince Leopold’s domain wished to speak to Nick.”

  “And just like that, he let you through?”

  “Your reputation has spread throughout the army, Callida. You are the strong one. They will allow you almost any liberty, if you say you want it.”

  She ran a hand through her hair, uneasy. “Don’t tell me they have some cute little Spanish name for me, like Nick’s?”

  Duardo grinned. “I translated it literally. ‘Long, strong, blonde’.”

  “Ouch.”

  He laughed properly then. “Vistarians are all poets, even the soldiers. You cannot stop them weaving tales around everything.”

  “I’m not a hero, Duardo. You know why I did what I did and it wasn’t for the sake of Vistar
ia.”

  His laughter fled. “It does not matter why you did it. You were scared and you didn’t know if you could do it, yet you did it anyway. That is a hero. Me, I will always be grateful you did what you did.” He looked down at Minnie and caressed her cheek.

  That gentle sweep of his fingers reassured Calli more than anything he could have said.

  “What do we do when we get to Pascuallita?” she asked.

  “Act like tourists, did he not say?”

  “Are there lots of tourists in Pascuallita?”

  “A few. It is an uncomfortable journey, so not as many as there should be. Pascuallita is very handsome.”

  “Pretty.”

  “Sì. The mountains, the old houses. To me it is simply home. People tell me it is charming.”

  “So charming, the rebels are within spitting distance,” Calli muttered. “What was he thinking of, bringing us there?”

  “He lives there,” Duardo said.

  “He does?”

  “Not in the town. Nearby. That is why I met him once before I met Minnie and you. When...” He touched his thigh. “He came to speak to those of us who fought that day.”

  A shiver climbed up her spine. Nick’s home.

  “How long till we get there?” she asked.

  “An hour, maybe. We will be there in time for a late lunch.”

  * * * * *

  Duardo took them to a public house across the road from the railway station. It appeared to be a custom of his when he arrived back in Pascuallita because the man behind the bar greeted him by name.

  They slid into a booth with high benches and wooden walls that blocked the table from the view of all but someone standing right next to it. Duardo ordered, chatting with the waiter. When the waiter nodded and walked away, he shrugged. “You must trust me. They don’t have a menu here and I know what is good.”

  “That’s fine, Duardo,” Calli assured him.

  Minnie, looking fresh and rested, rolled her eyes. “Just don’t let her gobble it down. She turned purple in the face last time because she bit into something too hot for her. You let her do that again and she’ll sue you for damages to her tongue.”

  Duardo seemed incapable of accepting teasing in his new role as their appointed guardian. He shook his head. “You will like this.”