Cover of Night

by Laura Griffin

  They reached a long line of booths and tables. People moved slowly down the rows, some carrying shopping bags, some carrying children, some carrying colorful umbrellas to shield them from the blazing sun. Ethan kept her hand in his, and it felt natural there.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “The wet market. You ever seen one?”

  “No. What do they sell?”

  “Everything.” He glanced at her. “It’s a good place to get lost in a crowd.”

  She let him take the lead, relieved not to have to choose a direction amid the kaleidoscope of offerings. The first section had giant tables heaped with seafood—fish, eels, prawns, oysters. The fish smell was overpowering. Other booths displayed pyramids of mangos and avocados. Everywhere she looked, baskets overflowed with coconuts and pineapples and red, fuzzy, softball-size fruits she couldn’t begin to identify. They reached another block with a vast selection of rices in big wooden trays. The meat booths offered ropes of sausages, along with chains of garlic and peppers.

  Ethan stopped at a long seafood table. He spoke to the vendor and pointed at the rows of fish arranged neatly on ice.

  “You speak Filipino?” Karly asked when he joined her again.

  “Tagalog. And only enough to get by.” He nodded at a giant heap of snails. “You ever eaten snails?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Is that a dare?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re on.”

  Ethan gave the vendor some pesos. The man made a cone with newspaper, loaded half a dozen snails into it, and gave it to Ethan.

  “Are they cooked?” Karly asked.

  “Boiled.”

  “Okay, what do I do?”

  Instead of answering, he showed her, tipping his head back and sucking out the meat. Then he handed her one.

  She did the same, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the pungent taste.

  “Pretty good, aren’t they?”

  “Great.” But her eyes started watering, and he grinned at her. He sucked down a few more, sparing her, then dropped the shells and the paper cone into a nearby bin.

  “You actually like them?” she asked.

  “I lived on them for a week when we were doing survival training in the South Pacific. Snails, plantains, grubs.”

  “Grubs? Eww.”

  He rested his hand on her waist and steered her down the row of booths. “They’re not bad. Nothing is if you’re hungry enough. The snails were my favorite.”

  Karly watched him beside her as they moved through the crowd. It was hard to imagine two people whose lives were more different. Ethan had a talent for covert jungle survival. Karly had a talent for interviewing pop stars.

  “How about a chaser?” he asked, stopping at a fruit booth.

  “Sure.”

  He traded some pesos for a yellow star fruit and then pulled out a pocketknife and cut it open. He handed her a piece, and the juice ran down her arm as she chomped into it. An explosion of sweet and tart filled her mouth.

  She glanced up at Ethan, and he was staring down at her, his blue eyes intent.

  Karly’s heart skittered. Was he going to—

  He kissed her, cupping the side of her face with his hand. His lips were firm and warm against hers, and he pulled her body snugly against him. Their tongues mingled—sweet and sour—but only for a moment, and then he eased back.

  She gazed up at him, and a smile spread over his face.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “For trusting me enough to eat snails.”

  She laughed. That made him want to kiss her?

  “And for coming with me in the first place.” He caught her hand and kept walking, as though he hadn’t turned her thoughts upside down with that kiss. “I take it you haven’t been on a bike before.”

  “You could tell?”

  “You held on pretty tight.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s good. You thirsty?”

  “Very.”

  Ethan dropped her hand as they reached a wooden pushcart loaded with coconuts. The man behind it looked about a thousand years old. Ethan spoke to him in rapid Tagalog and handed over some money. The man nodded, selected a coconut from the pile, and gave it a tap with his gnarled knuckles, then put it down and selected another one.

  “What’s he doing?” Karly asked.

  “Picking a full one.”

  The man set the green coconut on a chopping block, then picked up a machete and started hacking away at it, lopping off the husk until it looked like a six-sided block. He chopped off the top, plucked a bendy straw from a cup, and dropped it into the opening. With a nod, he handed it to Ethan and quickly went to work on another one.

  Ethan passed Karly the coconut, and she waited until his was finished to take a sip.

  “Umm.” She closed her eyes as liquid cooled her parched throat.

  “You like?”

  “It’s refreshing.” She smiled and nodded at the old man. “Thank you.”

  He grinned and said something to Ethan. Ethan laughed and said something back.

  They strolled down the street, sipping their drinks.

  “What did he say?”

  “That my wife has a pretty smile.”

  “Did you tell him I’m not your wife?”

  “He knows. He was just messing with me.”

  They finished the juice and tossed the husks into a bin. They’d reached the waterfront, and Karly surveyed the row of low concrete buildings. She spied an American flag flying above one.

  “That’s the embassy?”

  “Yep. And beyond it is Intramuros. It’s the original walled city that’s, like, four hundred years old.” He stopped and gazed down at her, and those intense blue eyes did something funny to her heart again.

  What was she doing here? Why had he tracked her down? She didn’t really want to think about the answer, but she was glad that he had.

  “Want to see it?” he asked.

  She looked off in the distance. “It looks pretty far.”

  “Not on the bike.”

  “Okay, why not?”

  They spent the next several hours exploring the crumbling ruins of the old colonial city, and Karly savored the distraction. She probably had a ton of messages waiting for her back at the hotel—including several from Rachel—but she couldn’t bring herself to think about it. She didn’t want to think about anything besides Ethan and the reassuring feel of his hand wrapped around hers as they wandered the city together. After the ruins were exhausted, they strolled down the street, and their shadows were long in the late-afternoon sun. Karly stopped beside a narrow little church with a colonial facade. She glanced up, and a statue of an angel stared down at her.

  A pair of old ladies exited the church, and Karly caught the door.

  She looked at Ethan. “Mind if we . . . ?”

  “Sure.”

  Karly stepped inside, immediately relieved by the cool darkness after hours in the relentless heat. The musky smell of incense hung in the air. She paused in the center aisle as her eyes adjusted and was surprised when Ethan dipped his fingers in water and crossed himself.

  She walked down the aisle and slid into a pew. A few moments later, he joined her, and they simply sat there in silence for several minutes, letting the quiet surround them. When her eyes had completely adjusted, she looked up and admired the intricate stonework, dark and sooty from centuries of candlelit rituals.

  “It’s peaceful,” she whispered.

  Ethan covered her hand with his.

  She scanned the dark space, grateful for the cool air and the break from the churning city. Flickering votives were clustered at several niches. Karly’s gaze settled on a nearby alcove where a woman was lighting a candle. She knelt to pray at the base o
f a statue—a Madonna and child.

  Malai’s smiling face flashed into Karly’s mind. She was climbing the ladder to the boat, water dripping down her smooth cheeks.

  Karly’s throat closed. Her chest tightened. She sucked in air, but her lungs wouldn’t expand. She stood up.

  “You okay?”

  “I need some air.”

  She hurried from the church, pushing through the heavy door and into the heat. Noise and light surrounded her, and she glanced up and down the street.

  “Karly?”

  She turned around. “Sorry. It was just . . . stuffy in there.”

  He gazed down at her.

  “You know, I should get back to my hotel.”

  “Have dinner with me.”

  Her eyebrows tipped up. “Don’t you have to head back soon?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, well . . .” She looked up and down the block, then back up at him, torn over what to do. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Come on.”

  * * *

  Dusk had settled over the city by the time they finished eating. They’d decided on a pizza café in the business district, but Karly had picked at her food and hardly said a word during the meal, and with every passing minute, the knot of dread in Ethan’s stomach grew.

  Karly insisted on paying for dinner because Ethan had paid for everything else. When they left the restaurant, she stopped on the sidewalk and glanced around. “Did you park . . . ?”

  “Your hotel’s right there.” He nodded at the tall glass building directly across the boulevard.

  She shook her head. “Guess I’m turned around. I haven’t really been out here at night.”

  Ethan figured she’d checked in at oh-dark-hundred and gone straight to bed. Or tried to. She showed all the signs of someone who hadn’t slept in a while—disorientation, mood shifts, forgetfulness. Ethan knew the symptoms well.

  She didn’t talk as they crossed the intersection, and the dread that had been hounding him increased as they walked up the sloping driveway to the hotel’s opulent glass doors. He had two minutes—three at most—to talk her out of saying good-bye right now. She’d been pulling away from him since the church, and if he didn’t come up with something soon, she was going to send him on his way, and he might never see her again.

  Karly cleared her throat. “I was thinking . . . we never got to have that drink on the mezzanine.”

  Ethan’s heart skipped a beat, and he looked at her.

  “Unless you’d rather be with your buddies tonight.”

  “No.” Hell, no. She was inviting him back to her hotel, and the very last place he wanted to be was with his teammates.

  “So is that a yes?”

  A uniformed attendant greeted them and opened the door. Ethan halted. He took Karly’s arm and pulled her behind the valet stand.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “That news guy—he’s there in the lobby. Armchair by the fountain.”

  She whirled around. “Still? Unbelievable!”

  “Not really. They could be staked out here in shifts, waiting for you or Mancuso, hoping to get a sound bite.”

  Her expression darkened with a combination of worry and outrage, and he could tell she didn’t know what to do.

  “This was a bad plan,” she muttered. “I never should have left in the first place.”

  Ethan watched her, hoping she wasn’t about to take back her drink invitation.

  “Forget the mezzanine bar.” She bit her lip. “But . . . there’s a minibar in my room.”

  Her gaze locked on his, and a lightning bolt of lust shot through him. Did she really just invite him . . . ?

  She gazed up at him, and once again, Ethan knew this was wrong. He should have left her alone. She had PTSD, and seeing him again—much less spending the day with him—had to be messing with her head.

  What did she expect from this? Ethan didn’t do relationships, even short ones. He’d been burned way too many times by women who swore they were fine with casual but then got all needy and clingy on him. He didn’t want that with Karly. He liked her too much to put that disappointed look in her eyes. Way, way too much.

  But he’d come here anyway. He’d had to see her. And now that he had, he couldn’t bring himself to leave, not when she was offering him more, even if it was only a few hours together or—please, God—an entire night.

  He didn’t dare hope. For her sake, he should forget this whole thing and politely tell her good-bye, so long, hope you recover and have a nice life.

  But he didn’t say any of that.

  “Sounds good.”

  Relief filled her eyes. “Okay, but we still have to get to the elevators without them seeing me. Or seeing us together.”

  “Put your hair up.”

  She gave him a puzzled look, but then he took off his baseball cap and arranged it on her head, and she picked up on his plan. She tucked her long blond ponytail underneath, making it appear like she had short hair, and she looked so damn cute in his hat that he wanted to kiss her, but he held off.

  “We’ll go through the back entrance, by the parking garage,” he said. “You go in first and cut through the gift shop. I’ll come in a few minutes later, and we’ll meet at the service elevator by the restaurant. That way, you don’t have to cross the entire lobby.”

  “You think that will work?”

  “Yes.”

  She bit her lip again. “But what if they see me?”

  “If they do, leave them to me.”

  SEVEN

  * * *

  Karly didn’t do things like this. She was rational. Clearheaded. Responsible. She didn’t invite strange men up to her hotel room for drinks.

  Damn, was she really doing this? The butterflies invading her stomach told her that she was.

  The doors parted, and Karly swallowed the lump of fear in her throat as they stepped off the service elevator. Ethan hadn’t said a word all the way up, and he didn’t say a word now, but Karly was acutely aware of his hand at the small of her back.

  The carpeted hallway felt endless, giving her time to think. Maybe this was a mistake. He was absolutely bound to get the wrong idea here. There was no way to invite a man to her hotel room for drinks and have him not think she wanted sex. And she didn’t. Not really.

  Well, maybe she did, but not right now, not when she’d just had a near-death experience and could barely think straight.

  On the other hand, maybe that was part of it. Maybe what had happened was precisely the reason she’d asked him up here. Maybe it was her traumatized brain’s way of telling her she wanted to feel something, anything besides this awful numbness that had plagued her since the attack.

  They reached her door. Karly dug her key card from her purse, trying not to think about Ethan’s solid presence beside her. Her hands trembled as she slid the card into the slot. The light blinked red. Another try, and it blinked red again.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, feeling her cheeks flush.

  Ethan put his hand over hers, and she looked up at him. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Of course. Why?”

  He gazed down at her—his worried look, the look he’d given her when she first met him.

  She tugged her hand away and jammed the key card into the slot, and this time, the light turned green.

  She stepped inside and flipped on the light, illuminating a messy room. The bed was still unmade from her failed attempt to take a nap earlier. Shopping bags littered the floor, reminding her of her whirlwind outing after Rachel had wired her money to replace the clothes she’d left behind at the Sapphire—which was now being swarmed by FBI agents and Thai officials. Karly’s gaze landed on the phone beside the bed, and the flashing red light told her she had another batch of messages to deal with.

  She st
rode over to the nightstand and jerked the cord from the wall. She walked to the desk and unplugged the phone there, too.

  Ethan watched from beside the door, his hands tucked casually into the pockets of his cargo shorts. The expression on his face was anything but casual, though. He had the dark, assessing look that made her nerves flutter. She noticed his T-shirt again and how it was stretched taut over his pecs. She noticed his wide shoulders and lean waist, and she imagined how those shoulders would feel under her fingertips.

  Hard. And hot. Just thinking about touching him made her skin flush all over again.

  The numbness was going away now. She could do this.

  “So.” She forced a smile and tried to sound confident. “I promised you a drink. What would you like?”

  For a long moment, he just looked at her. “You have any bourbon?”

  “I don’t know.” She walked over to the minibar, taking his hat off and tossing it onto the dresser. She reached down and tried to open the mini fridge, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried again, with the same result. She looked around but didn’t see a key.

  Ethan walked over. “Here,” he said, smoothly crouching down and opening the door. “There’s a button.”

  She stared down at him, once again embarrassed. It was probably beyond obvious that she was out of her league here.

  “Looks like you’ve got everything.” He glanced up at her. “What do you want?”

  She cleared her throat. “Rum and Coke.”

  He took out a little bottle of rum for her and one of bourbon for himself. He plunked the bottles and a can of Coke on the dresser.

  She grabbed two glasses and flipped them over. There was some watery ice left in the bucket from earlier, and she dropped a few pieces into his glass before adding bourbon. Then she twisted the cap off the rum and poured it.

  The smell wafted up, and a wave of dizziness hit her. Suddenly, she was back at the thatched-roof bar, drinking rum punches with Malai and laughing. Malai had her head tipped back, and her dark hair caught the sunlight.