A few hours later, the coast of Europe came into view, and I used the private jet’s bathroom to freshen up before landing at the airport near Florence. Life with Fletcher was one unbroken, luxurious cruise. It certainly felt better to be Fletcher’s packmate than his prey, I thought, remembering our first, disastrous dinner. Chuckling, I sat down next to Fletcher, buckling myself in before landing.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“I was thinking about Morton’s.”
“You’re not holding a grudge about that, are you?”
“Oh, no. I don’t hold grudges. Waste of time. I was just realizing how far you and I have come.”
He smiled, the golden flecks in his eyes glimmering. “I can take you even farther, if you’ll let me.”
“How far might that be?”
He sat back and buckled up. “You tell me, Cara Linda Fletcher. Where do you want to go in life? I’ll help you get there. What do you want? I’ll get it for you.”
I was startled by the turn the conversation had taken, but conversations with Fletcher often twisted and turned unexpectedly. That was part of the joy of Fletcher. One had to learn to ride the wave, so to speak. He generally sounded authoritative, and so now he spoke with total assurance, which I found both exciting and disturbing. I had no doubt he meant what he said, and that he could deliver. But at what price?
“I don’t quite know. All my life, I’ve only wanted to make gorgeous clothes.”
“But what about love? You’re a very beautiful woman.” Fletch’s hand shifted to touch mine. One finger stroked the sensitive skin on the inside of my wrist.
The delicious tingle was fraught with a mixture of nerves and pleasure, but I didn’t move my arm away. “I don’t think about that...that much, and certainly not since Natalie came to live with me.”
“Huh?” His finger stilled. He stared at her, his amber eyes blank and wide.
What didn’t he understand? “I said, I don’t think about relationships much and certainly not since last Christmas. Natalie’s father got custody when she was a baby, when I didn’t have any money to fight him. Then he just dumped her. She needs me.”
His chuckle was rueful. “I didn’t know. I thought she was just the average, umm, how can I say this? The average adolescent.”
“The average bratty adolescent, you mean. No, she has a little more than that going on. Plus, there are those panic attacks. Don’t you remember?”
“God, yes, I remember. How could I forget? It reminded me of my father.”
“What about your father?” My belly tensed.
He spoke in a flat, emotionless voice. “You witnessed a fatal car crash. I found my father. He’d blown his brains out at his desk.”
“Oh, my God.” I put my hand on his, squeezing tightly. I now realized what the stain on the desk had to be. Ick. “The same desk you use? But why? How do you—”
“So I’ll never forget.” His eyes, like ancient doubloons, looked metallic and hard.
“Forget what?”
“Anything. Everything. Listen, okay?” He shifted in his seat, facing me. “Fletcher Tool and Gear is a very old company, over three hundred years old. Fletcher’s a family name, and the firm was started by one of the first blacksmiths in colonial Virginia. When the Industrial Revolution came along, we changed with the times, grew bigger, made different products. We survived the War Between the States by marrying into the Wolf family, wealthy merchants from the winning side of the Mason-Dixon line.” He stopped speaking for a moment and blew out his accumulated breath in a sigh.
“Dad…I guess Dad didn’t inherit the business gene. Oh, he tried, but he simply didn’t have the knack. He never understood computer technology so he avoided it. His concepts of finance were a joke.” Fletcher’s tone grew a coldness I remembered from the settlement conference, when he’d judged my business practices as wanting. “He felt like a failure so he blew his brains out.”
“Dear God. How awful for your family.”
“Yes. His entire identity had been so tied up in the business that when it began to slip away, he couldn’t handle it.”
I didn’t know what to say. This old wound had festered for a long time, and perhaps never would heal. I pressed his hand with silent sympathy.
He lifted my hand and kissed my fingers. “I can’t get over it. I’m still so angry at his selfishness.” His voice was low and rough. “He had no idea how much we needed him. The sad part is that he wasn’t a failure, as far as we were concerned...until he left.”
“All of you had to fend for yourselves.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Three kids and his wife.”
“Yes. My mother’s not stupid, but he’d never let her into the company. Griff was twelve and Damon seventeen. This happened at Christmas, too.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
He gave her a bleak smile. “Our family’s Christmases aren’t very merry. I don’t know what it is about the holidays, but apparently the suicide rate goes way up. Anyway, I had just begun my last year in college for my business degree. Fortunately, I’d trained myself to take over.”
“What happened?”
“I found out later that Dad had let multiple competitors invade our market niche, and we’d shrunk from a respected regional concern to a failing company mired in nineteenth century notions. So I took a big chance. I mortgaged our only remaining asset, our home, Darkrider Farm, and purchased a small firm that made precision tools used in laser surgeries. I knew from research that these operations would become a big business, because the technology had become accessible to doctors performing facelifts and eye operations.”
He took a deep breath. “I gambled, and I was right. Next I looked at computer components. It didn’t take a wizard to figure that tools to repair computers, tablets and the like were in short supply. So I refinanced the mortgage on Darkrider Farm and kept going.”
“But that’s why Damon had such a bad time.”
“Yes. I didn’t have time to feel abandoned, just angry. My mother didn’t fall apart, but she retreated with Griff into their private, horse-dominated world. Damon…Damon went to college as planned, but now I realize he felt totally adrift. He became one of those guys who drank too much, partied too much, and spent a lot of time looking for love in all the wrong places. He’s better, but he’s still hurting.”
“What about you?” I asked. “And what’s the lesson of your father’s desk?”
“That was when I started turning gray, at the ripe old age of twenty-two.”
“That’s the silver lining, so to speak. It’s very sexy.”
Fletch grimaced. “Makes me feel old.”
“So you’re human, after all.”
He barked out a gruff little laugh. “I never pretended I wasn’t.”
“And the desk?”
“Ah, the lesson of the desk.” He squeezed my hand. “The lesson, to me, is not to be selfish. Not to become so invested in business and forget what’s really important. So don’t work too hard making those clothes you love so much. Designing is great but it’s just a job.”
I took a sip of the Perrier the flight attendant had given me. “You’re right, I suppose.”
“You suppose? Aw, come on. You take care of your parents. You dote on your child. Family’s where it’s at, honey, and you know it.”
“So how come you don’t have one of your own, Fletch? Who cares for the caretaker?”
He looked blank for a moment, then stroked his chin while running his golden gaze over me. “I never thought about it. Maybe that will change. And you?”
I shook her head. “Nat’s enough for now. More than enough.”
“Nat might be happier with a man around.”
I frowned. “Maybe, but if you’re applying for the position of surrogate father you’d better stop talking down to her.”
He groaned. “I don’t know what it is about your kid, but every time I open my mouth around her I seem to stick my foot in it. And wiggle the toes for good measu
re.”
“She’s tough, I’ll admit.” I sighed.
“I’m sorry about Nat. Maybe I can figure out how to deal with her without acting like a buffoon.”
He pressed a kiss onto my wrist. The hum of the plane’s engines changed to a screechy whine as the craft braked for a landing. ““Now it’s time to forget about all that. We’re about to land with two days of freedom in Tuscany.”
“Two whole days?”
“A day and a half. It’s dark outside, but it’s daytime in New York City. Plenty of time to play.”
~*~
Fletcher tucked my arm into his and walked to the Italian Customs Authority window so that we could get our passports stamped with the proper visa. Pulling my passport out of my satchel, I flipped it open to my photograph and vital statistics. He peered over my shoulder.
“Ah, the truth revealed. Brown hair and hazel eyes.”
I glanced at him. “You’re still obsessed by that? I’m the one who’s supposed to be fascinated by appearances.”
“I’m not obsessed,” he said, sounding defensive. “Merely very interested.”
I pursed my lips. “At one point, I thought you wanted to get me naked just to check out my body hair.”
“The thought did flash through my mind...once. But believe me, when I get you naked, we’ll both be far too busy to worry about that.”
“‘When’, not ‘if?’“ I gave him a harsh stare.
“Yes,” he said deliberately. “When, not if. Buona sera,” he said to the man who stood behind the counter. The inspector, a small chirpy fellow with a clipped moustache, looked me over with a gleam in his eye. I ignored the gleam and handed my passport to the inspector with a smile.
“Ah, Cara Linda Fletcher,” he said in strongly accented English. “Cara.” He looked at the passport photo and then back at me. His brows lifted so high that he looked like Marcel Marceau in a uniform.
Small wonder. Today, I didn’t look much like the drab girl in the passport photo. I hoped that in the post-nine-eleven world of heightened security concerns, my fondness for Clairol and contacts wouldn’t land us in trouble.
The inspector checked me out again, a lascivious twinkle appearing in his brown eyes. “You are Cara Fletcher? Your pasaporte, it says brown hair and hazel eyes.”
“I dyed my hair and have contact lenses. See?” I popped out me left lens and blinked at the inspector, whose eyebrows jerked skyward. I guess I looked pretty bizarre, with one green eye glaring like a “go” light. I fumbled in my satchel and found a lens case. I put the left lens away, then took out the right, blinking some more with relief.
After putting the case away, I rubbed my eyes. “Eye-gasm,” I grinned at Fletch, wondering if he’d get the joke.
“Eyegasm, eyegasm,” the inspector muttered, clearly as lost at sea as the Flying Dutchman. He shrugged. “Hokay, mia Cara. You pass.” He stamped the passport.
“No,” Fletch said, pointing at his own chest. “Mia Cara!”
The inspector laughed, white teeth vivid against swarthy skin. “Hokay, hokay, la mia Carissima!” He turned his attention to Fletch, whose passport merited no more than a cursory glance.
“What was all that macho chest-banging about?” I asked as we went to find our luggage.
“He was making a pass at you. I warned him off.”
“Huh. I’ve been claimed, like real estate in the Oklahoma land rush.”
“Something like that. Take my briefcase, will you?” He hefted my tapestry garment bag over one shoulder and took his suitcase with his other hand. “Let’s get a taxi.”
“Why did he call me Carissima?”
“You know what your name means, don’t you?”
“No, I never thought about it.”
Fletch put the bags in the trunk of a taxi, then followed her into the back seat. “The guide I have says that Cara means ‘dear one.’ In Italian, ‘--issima’ is a superlative. So when he called you Carissima, he called you ‘dearest one.’“
“He called me his dearest one? Whatever for?”
“Honey, this is Italy. He was flirting. So then I made sure he knew whose girl you are.” He slipped his arm around me, kissing my forehead.
Leaving aside my past doubts, I cuddled into his chest. He felt great. “Time to play, you said?”
~*~
Even after we’d found the hotel near the city center and unpacked, it was still only eight o’clock in Manhattan. Having sat all day, I felt restless and ready to explore Florence after midnight.
I was excited by fantasies of what the night could bring. Fletcher had made his intentions extremely clear. I wanted him too, but then again, I was in Florence, one of the great cities of the world, and for only a few days. I wanted to explore. Sex could wait.
“It’s late. We might have a hard time finding someplace to eat,” I said to Fletch as we met in the living room of the two bedroom, two bath suite.
Seated on a red and gold brocade sofa, Fletch waved a copy of Let’s Go! in the air. The Fodor’s and Michelin guides sat on an inlaid coffee table in front of him. “Never fear, Fletch is here. All the answers are in these books.”
“Three books for three days! Where’s your sense of adventure? You want to play, but you’re planning our every move. Let’s just walk out and see what we can find.”
“Yeah, but we could wander around this city until dawn and starve to death.”
I shoved the coffee table aside and grabbed his hand, tugging him off the couch. “Come on, you big bad wolf. Let’s go explore. Bring that green guide if you want. Isn’t it the best one?”
“That’s what they say.” He locked the door of our suite behind us.
The hotel, a converted palace, had only one suite on each floor, so I bet I wouldn’t wake anyone else up with my chatter. I couldn’t help myself. The place was incredible, with unbelievable detail work.
“My bathroom has gold-leaf fixtures and malachite sinks. The bathtub is marble!”
“Yeah, they kicked ass on this place. Look at the moldings at the ceiling.” Fletch pointed upward. “I bet they had to replace and repaint everything.” He pushed open the glass and brass revolving doors, and we merged into the warm Tuscan night.
Though late, the streets were busy with sightseers sporting cameras and T-shirts emblazoned with their previous ports-of-call. The Florentines were harder to spot, but I imagined that the elegantly clad men and women without tourist trappings were the locals.
I adored the cobblestoned walkways, the old buildings, which had stood for centuries, and, surmounting it all, the massive orange dome of the Duomo, dramatically lit against the dark shield of the night sky. Like moths to its bright flame, we wandered through the narrow streets toward it. I led the way, laughing when I made a wrong turn into a dark, twisted alley, stinking of generations of Tuscan garbage. The ancient city, fantastic and picturesque, gave rise to wild fantasies of cloaked Medici assassins accosting their prey in dark corners while beautiful, exotically dressed women met their lovers in the moonlit gardens.
After crossing the square, I gazed at the Gates to Paradise, breathless with admiration. “What I would do to make something so extraordinary.”
“Why, Cara Fletcher. I had no idea you had such lofty aspirations. I thought you were strictly a buttons and bows kinda gal.”
I swatted his arm lightly. “Everyone wants to make an eternal mark.”
“We’re in Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance. I bet everyone gets bit by the art bug here.”
“Maybe.” Losing my serious mood, I pulled at his hand. “Come on, there’s lots more to see.” I zipped across the square to a brightly lit trattoria. “You hungry, Fletch?”
“For you,” he murmured.
I ignored him. Sex could wait. I wanted some of that famous Italian cuisine. I read the menu posted outside the restaurant. “Anguille. What’s that?”
“Eel.”
“Eel! Yuck. How do you know?”
“You scoffed at
my guides, but I read the glossary in the back of the Michelin.”
“I bow to your superior knowledge, oh my partner.” I gave him a mock curtsy. “Let’s go in.”
After I sat down, I took a sip of Chianti, closed my eyes, and pointed randomly at the menu. He glanced over and guffawed.
“What?” I asked.
“Have fun, honey.” He laughed harder as I ordered triglie alla livornese. Okay, so I mangled the Italian. Fletch, that coward, ordered only carpaccio and a salad.
My food arrived. Fish, but just any fish. Whole fried fish, but the thin breading had partially fallen off them. The glassy eyes of three dead mullet seemed to stare up at me. Eek. I gulped.
He couldn’t help rubbing it in. “Would you like some of my carpaccio?” He waved a forkful of raw beef in my face.
“Wretch. You saw that coming, didn’t you?”
“I have to get you out of the country more often. This is very entertaining.”
I stuck a fork into the nearest fish. Bringing a bite to my nose, I sniffed it before I chewed and swallowed. “Needs lemon, or maybe some tartar sauce.”
“Not very Italian.”
“But I’m not very Italian.”
“When in Rome, pretty lady.” He played with his salad, offering me a bite.
“We’re not in Rome, Mr. Wolf.” I ate the greens and daintily touched my lips with a napkin.
“Oh, so we’re back to Mr. Wolf. Well, Ms. Fletcher, I must say that I’m really enjoying this evening.”
“You have that look in your eyes again. Am I still prey?”
“I’m definitely on the prowl, honey, and I expect happy hunting.”
I giggled into my wine glass, feeling a little high and reckless. “You’re right. Take me on a plane, ply me with champagne and wine in an exotic port...and I’m yours to command.”
Desire flared in his eyes. “Good. Let’s get the check.”
Book Boyfriends Cafe Summer Lovin' Anthology 2015 Page 165