Out of the Ashes

by Lori Dillon

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  His expression was like that of her father the last time she saw him—cold, blank—and it sent a shiver racing through her body.

  “David?” Her voice came out in a squeak.

  *

  Giovanni turned to smirk at David with a shit-eating grin before Sera pushed the man away, breaking their cozy embrace.

  David shifted his gaze to Sera. She looked… could that possibly be guilt in those beautiful blue eyes?

  “Don’t mind me. I’ll just be on my way.” He shoved the empty wheelbarrow around the pit, taking the long way around so he didn’t have to pass close to the two of them.

  What the hell was going on? What was that snake Giovanni doing slithering around Sera? And what was she doing with her arms coiled around him?

  He parked the wheelbarrow and picked up his shovel. Squeezing the wooden handle in his grip, he had to mentally slow his breathing, or he risked hitting someone with it. When he finally turned back, Giovanni was walking away down the road. Strutting like a cocky rooster was more like it.

  “David, it’s not what it looks like.”

  “Really?” He tried to cover his irritation with indifference. “It looked like two people playing a friendly game of chess to me. What else could it have been?”

  “That’s not funny. Let me explain.”

  “There’s nothing to explain. It’s obvious you have a boyfriend you forgot to tell me about.” David laughed humorlessly, thinking of the lie he had told her about his “girlfriend.” “I guess that makes us even.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Well, you could’ve fooled me. You two looked pretty chummy to me.” He stabbed his shovel into the dirt with a bit more force than was necessary. “Funny, from the way you talked about him, I thought you hated the guy’s guts. Guess I was wrong.”

  “You are wrong. I may not hate him, but that doesn’t mean I like him, either.”

  “Well, I’d say that lip-lock you were sharing says you feel different.”

  “I wasn’t kissing him. He was kissing me.”

  “Hmm, yeah. You’ll pardon me if I appear a little confused on that point.”

  Sera rested her fists on her hips, defensiveness displayed in every bone in her body.

  “Damn it, David. Giovanni probably knew you were close behind and did it on purpose just to irritate you. He’s not worth getting jealous over.”

  Jealous? Was that what he was feeling? If it was, he didn’t like it one bit, and the only thing that would make him feel better about the situation would be to pound Giovanni’s smug face into the dirt.

  Since the schmuck wasn’t around, he struck out at the next best thing.

  “I’m just surprised. I took you for a smart girl. I thought you had more sense than to get mixed up with a smooth talker like that.”

  “I’m not mixed up with him.”

  “Tell that to someone who might believe it.” He jabbed his shovel into the dirt and leaned on the handle. He stared intently at Sera, making her visibly squirm. “I watched him treat you like trash, and you didn’t do a thing about it. Now he makes a pass at you, and you don’t stop him. Come on, it’s obvious something is going on with you two.”

  “Nothing is going on between us. Not anymore.”

  “Not anymore?” His anger began to boil. Now the truth was coming out. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Sera huffed. “Giovanni and I… we were close once.”

  Close? Close with a guy like that could mean only one thing. David didn’t even want to think about the possibility, but that didn’t stop the accusing words from spilling out of his mouth.

  “Don’t tell me he was your lover.”

  “He was not my lover.” Her face glowed beet-red. She looked ready to scream. “If you must know, he’s my ex-fiancé.”

  David felt like he’d been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer. Her fiancé? The “ex” part didn’t factor in with his suddenly dazed mind. She and that scum had been close. They had obviously been lovers. He couldn’t believe it. She’d actually been in love with that snake. She’d almost married him. The thought made him angry as a newly gelded bull.

  He spun around and kicked at a rock, realizing too late that it was deeply imbedded in the soil and a good deal less fragile than the bones in his foot. As pain shot up his leg, he was sure he heard a crunch or two. He danced around on one foot, certain that he had broken his big toe.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Heaving the shovel through the air like a javelin, he let go with a continuous string of red, white, and blue curses. When he finally calmed down enough to let the throbbing subside, he looked up and saw Sera’s stunned expression.

  The look on her face had nothing to do with shock over his colorful choice of words.

  It was how he had shouted them. In English.

  With a sinking feeling, he realized Sera now knew his secret.

  David was an American.

  *

  Sera felt all the blood drain from her body. Her hands tingled and her heart thundered in her chest. At first, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. If David hadn’t kept carrying on like a raving lunatic, she might have thought it all her imagination.

  But there it was. She had spent enough time in America to know those words, and the truth slapped her in the face.

  David wasn’t Italian at all.

  She always thought there was something different about him, something she could never quite put her finger on. Now she knew what it was. All the pieces fit together. For someone supposedly from Italy, he knew very little about the history of Pompeii. His frequent questioning about her loyalty, or lack thereof, to the Fascist Regime. His ability to acquire an American record no one in Italy should own.

  But the most damning of all was his persistent need to be in this area of the ruins, and his constant sitting on the wall tower just above the German camp.

  The implications exploded like a ticking bomb in her brain. He was not just an American on enemy soil.

  David was a spy.

  As she stared at him, the dark tan of his face paled to the color of the sun-washed stones. He knew she’d heard him. Staring at her with those dark brown eyes, she could tell he was waiting to see what she would do.

  Sera did the only thing a good Italian girl could do when faced with the enemy.

  She ran.

  She didn’t dare look back. She could hear his footfalls behind her, coming faster, getting closer. She was almost to the end of the road. Just a bit farther, and she’d be close to where the tourists were. She could yell. She could scream. She would be safe.

  Suddenly he grabbed her from behind, squeezing her bruised ribs, and she cried out in pain. David covered her mouth with his hand and dragged her into one of the empty ruins. She fought him every step of the way, but he was too big, too strong, and it hurt too much to struggle. Setting her on her feet, he spun her around and shoved her up against the smooth plaster wall. With his hand still covering her mouth, she could do little but glare at him.

  “If you promise not to scream, I’ll let you go.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded her head. He slowly removed his hand, but she could still feel the pressure of it on her jaw. He eased his hold on her and, given that one bit of freedom, her arm shot out and her hand cracked against his cheek, echoing off the walls in the empty room as his head snapped to the side from the impact.

  “Don’t.” He turned his head slowly back around to face her. Was that remorse she saw in his eyes? She doubted it. Spies weren’t supposed to feel guilty for the things they did in the name of their country.

  “I never promised not to smack the shit out of you.”

  “Sera, I can explain.”

  “Explain what? That everything you’ve told me is a lie? That you’ve risked my career and my life spying on my country?” She used what space there was between them to cross her arms over her chest, trying to
put up some kind of barrier. David didn’t step back an inch, forcing her forearms to wedge against his hard wall of a chest. Fine, she wasn’t going to back down either. “Go ahead. Explain it to me.”

  “I wasn’t spying on your county. I was spying on the Germans.”

  “Last time I checked, Italy was on Germany’s side.”

  “Last time I checked, you were half-American.”

  Sera felt like she’d been slapped herself. How dare he? She had trusted him, confided in him. After everything she had told him about her father…how dare he be who he was?

  She struggled to understand what was happening. In a matter of a few moments, everything she believed about David had changed. Was everything he’d done and said to her just an act so he could be in a good position to spy on the Germans? Had he meant any of it, or had he just used her? When she thought of how he’d held her, kissed her, of how they’d almost…

  The hurt was unbearable. She could feel the anger and betrayal threatening to bubble over in the hot, scalding tears she tried in vain to hold back.

  He placed his hands on her head, forcing her to look at him. He looked desperate, almost panicked, like a hunted animal.

  “Sera, listen to me. You realize what will happen if anyone finds out who I am?”

  She nodded her head. Yes, she knew. He would be shot. Could she really turn him in, knowing it would probably mean his death?

  No, she could never do that. But it didn’t make the sting any less. She pushed his hands away from her face.

  “How could you do this to me? How could you hide this from me, knowing how I feel about America?”

  “It’s because I did know how you felt that I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Then why did you try to be my… friend, even though you knew what it would do to me when I found out the truth?”

  “Damn it, you were never supposed to find out.” He sighed heavily, but he never took his eyes off her face. “I’m sorry, but I can’t change who I am, any more than you can change who you are.”

  Oh, he was good. Why not add a punch in the stomach to the slap in the face? All these years, she had tried to deny her American heritage, and here he was throwing it in her face.

  “What am I supposed to do? It’s my duty to turn you in.”

  “Your duty? Just whose side are you on, Sera? You’re half-American, too.” If it were possible, he leaned in even closer. “Do you even really care about the war? Most of Italy doesn’t. They just want it to be over and the Germans to go home. Mussolini has bled this country dry and fed it to Hitler on a silver platter. Can you truly believe being on Germany’s side is the right thing?”

  “That’s not the point.” How was it that he could make her feel defensive when he was the one who was breaking the law? “It’s all so clear now, what you’ve been doing up there on that wall. You haven’t been looking at the scenery. All this time, you’ve been spying on the Germans.”

  “And the information I’ve learned sitting up on that wall will probably save thousands of lives. American and Italian.”

  Sera felt like she was caught in some bizarre dream. She rubbed at her throbbing temples, wishing it would all go away, wishing things could go back to the way they were before David ever walked into her life.

  “I can’t believe this is happening. Do you realize the position you’ve put me in? You’ve not only risked my career by having my dig site moved, now you’ve risked my life by my association with you.”

  She laughed bleakly as the reality of the situation settled in.

  “Everyone in Pompei knows I’m half-American, and if they find out you’re an American spy, they’re going to assume I’ve sympathized with you. The Italian authorities aren’t going to believe me. I’ll be put in a detention camp, and my life will be over… if I’m not shot standing beside you.”

  David lowered his eyes, a war of his own waging across his handsome face. Finally, he looked back up at her, regret and a plea for understanding where determination and loyalty had once been.

  “Is it worth my life?”

  Sera stopped. Was it? If his true identity were ever discovered, he would be shot. Did she want that? Could she bear that?

  Like a deflating balloon, she felt the fight go out of her.

  “No. It’s not.”

  With the calmness came a new awareness of her surroundings. She could feel every inch of him pressed up against her, the heat of his body penetrating her clothes. With every breath she took, her breasts crushed against his chest. His strong arms imprisoned her face on either side against the wall, and one of his thighs had managed to wedge in between her own.

  She was surprised that the position did not feel threatening—or rather, it did, but in an altogether different way. It was too intimate. He was much too close. She glanced up, his lips only inches from hers, his eyes boring into her soul.

  He seemed to realize the position they were in, too, and something in his expression changed, as if a shade had been drawn down over a lighted window. He stepped back, and she felt as if she might slide down the wall without his support. But she held her back stiff and straight.

  “Your secret is safe with me. For now.” She shoved herself away from the wall and walked to the door, praying he didn’t notice how much she shook with every step. This time, he didn’t try to stop her.

  Pausing in the doorway, she looked back over her shoulder.

  “I won’t turn you in. But if they come looking for you, I won’t protect you, either.”

  She stepped out into the street, the bright sunlight blinding her, and started walking in a daze, not sure where she was going.

  It wasn’t until Sera had reached the main area of the ruins and stood in the middle of all the tourists that she even realized their entire conversation had been spoken in English.

  Chapter 18

  “Heberto!”

  Hershel almost cried as he watched his wooden ball bounce across the ground, stopping a mile from the jack. Why did the woman have to shout just as he was about to win his match?

  “Yes, my love?” He didn’t even try to hide the sarcasm in his voice.

  “How can you be playing bocce at a time like this?”

  Hershel turned and eyed his extremely agitated wife.

  “It’s simple, really. I took the day off to play a few games of lawn bowling with my friends. Is that a crime?”

  Marsha grabbed him by his elbow and pulled him out of hearing distance from his old cronies.

  “It is when you miss an opportunity to prevent a disaster.”

  “Disaster? Serafina hasn’t gone and gotten herself buried again, has she?”

  “No. It’s worse.”

  Worse? How could anything be worse than being buried alive?

  “Oh, dear. What’s happened?”

  “I just received a call from Smithers’s secretary. Serafina found out David is American.”

  Hershel shook his head. Leave it to Marsha to overreact and ruin his bocce game at the same time.

  “So?”

  “So?” Her voice was getting dangerously high. “How could you let her find out? It could ruin everything.”

  “How is this my fault?”

  Marsha glared down her superior nose at him.

  “You should have been at work where you were supposed to be so you could stop it.”

  “For heaven’s sake. I’m not their babysitter. They’re adults. I can’t be with them every minute.”

  “You could if you weren’t taking time off to play games.”

  “Marsha, really.” The woman was being unrealistic. “Even if I were working today, I wouldn’t be with them in their area of the site. Anything could happen, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it. We’re not angels anymore, you know.”

  That took the wind out of Marsha’s sails.

  “I know. I know. It’s just so unfortunate that she found out.”

  “Well, you know we weren’t going to be able to keep it from her forever. She was going
to find out sooner or later.” Hershel glanced over at his friends to make sure no one was moving his balls while he was gone. “After all, if we succeed, they’re going to live together for the rest of their lives. I think she’ll notice something when he takes her back to Virginia.”

  “Virginia?” Marsha’s fair skin paled a shade whiter. “My stars, he can’t take her to Virginia. What about the ruins? She’ll die without the ruins.”

  “Hmmm. Seems like we have another kink to work out.”

  “Well, I can’t worry about that right now, can I?” Marsha shooed Hershel back to his game. “At the moment, I have to find a way to fix this problem you’ve gotten us into.”

  *

  Sera entered the back courtyard of the Angelicos’ quiet villa, parking her bicycle in the area reserved for tenants.

  Her arrival did not go unnoticed.

  Maria knelt on a green and white checkered blanket, weeding the vegetable garden that now consumed a majority of the courtyard. The scene was a common one throughout Pompei. Every available plot of ground in town was used to grow food, yet people were considered lucky if they were able to keep half of what they grew. The Italian and German armies tended to confiscate the majority of produce in the name of national support.

  Maria straightened up from her hunched-over position and rubbed at the small of her back.

  “Serafina? You’re home early. What’s wrong, my dear?”

  “Nothing.” Sera found it hard to look directly at her. “My ribs were starting to bother me, so I thought I would come home to rest.” She felt ashamed. It was like lying to her own grandmother.

  “Nonsense. You’ve been back at work for a week now, and your ribs haven’t slowed you down one bit. Something else is bothering you, I can tell.”

  “There’s nothing wrong. I just…”

  Maria patted the space on the blanket beside her.

  “Then come and sit with me for a while. Keep an old woman company.”

  Sera could hardly refuse. She sat beside the elderly lady, and Maria set a basket between them. The two women worked side-by-side, pulling stubborn weeds from the earth.