Breathing Room

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  “Tempting. But I don’t have the handcuffs with me.”

  He abandoned her breasts and sprawled in the chair next to her, looking sulky. “We’re doing it in the car tonight just like everybody else in this town.”

  “You’re on.” She turned her face to the sun. “Assuming, that is, your female fan club doesn’t find you.”

  “I swear those little girls have radar.”

  “You’ve been amazingly tolerant. I’m surprised you’re spending so much time with them.”

  His eyes grew chilly. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Just what I said.”

  “I don’t want to talk about them.”

  She raised her eyebrows. He knew how to distance people just as effectively as he knew how to charm them, although she couldn’t imagine why he felt the need to do it now. “Somebody’s in a cheery mood.”

  “Sorry.” He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles, but the posture seemed more calculated than carefree, almost as if he were forcing himself to relax. “Did Tracy tell you she and Harry were going to rent a house in town?”

  She nodded. “That apartment in Zurich was contributing to their troubles. It’s too small for all of them. They decided it would be better if she and the kids stayed here, where they feel more at home, and let Harry commute on weekends.”

  “Am I the only one who finds it unnerving that my current lover is doing marriage counseling for my ex-wife?”

  “It’s not as if there’s much confidentiality involved. One or the other seems to tell you everything we talk about.”

  “Something I’ve been trying my best to discourage.” He picked up her hand and absentmindedly played with her fingers for a while. “Why are you putting yourself out like this? What’s in it for you?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “You’re on vacation.”

  “I don’t have the kind of job that allows vacations.”

  “Every job allows vacations.”

  “You can’t punch a time clock on what I do.”

  He frowned. “How can you be sure you’re helping? Isn’t there something arrogant in assuming you always know what’s best for other people?”

  “Do you think I’m arrogant?”

  He gazed off at a row of ornamental grasses drifting in the breeze. “No. You’re pushy and opinionated. But no, you’re not arrogant.”

  “You’re right, though. There is a kind of arrogance in thinking you know what’s best for other people.”

  “Yet you persevere.”

  “Sometimes we focus on others’ flaws so we don’t have to focus on our own.” She realized that her thumbnail had crept toward her teeth, and she dropped it back into her lap.

  “Is that what you think you’ve done?”

  She didn’t use to, but now she had to wonder, didn’t she? “I guess that’s what I came to Italy to find out.”

  “How’re you doin’ so far?”

  “Not too well.”

  He patted her leg. “If you need any help finding your flaws, you’ll be sure to let me know. Like your neat fetish and the way you try to manipulate everything so you’re in charge.”

  “I’m touched, but this is something I have to sort out for myself.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I think you’re a damn fine person.”

  “Thanks, but your standards are lower than mine.”

  He laughed, then squeezed her hand and gave her a sympathetic look. “Poor Dr. Fifi. Being a spiritual leader’s a real bitch, isn’t it?”

  “Not as much as being a clueless spiritual leader.”

  “You’re not clueless. You’re just evolving.” He brushed her cheek with his thumb.

  She didn’t want him turning sensitive on her. For days now she’d been trying to convince herself she wasn’t really in love with him, that her subconscious had invented the emotion so she didn’t have to feel guilty about the sex. But it wasn’t true. She loved him, all right, and this moment explained why. How could someone who was her polar opposite understand her so well? She felt a sense of completion when they were together. He needed someone to remind him of his decency, and she needed someone to keep her from becoming self-righteous. But she knew he didn’t see it the same way.

  “Ren!” Two little girls came bursting through the shrubbery.

  He dropped his head back and groaned. “They do have radar.”

  “We’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Steffie said. “We built a house, and we want you to play with us.”

  “Time to get to work.” He squeezed Isabel’s hand and rose. “Hey, go easy on yourself, okay?”

  As if that would ever happen . . . She watched him disappear. One part of her wanted to will away her love for him, but the other part wanted to hold on to it forever. A little well-deserved self-pity bubbled inside her.

  Way to go, God. You couldn’t have thrown somebody like Harry Briggs at me for a soul mate. Oh, no. You had to give me a man who murders women for a living. Nice going, Pal.

  She threw aside her notebook. She was too distracted to write anything, so she might as well go down to the farmhouse and take a turn with a shovel. Maybe she could work off some of her negative energy.

  Andrea Chiara was there when she arrived. He and Vittorio were cut from the same rogue’s cloth, but Dr. Andrea wasn’t quite as harmless, which made the immature part of her wish Ren were around to witness the way he kissed her hand in greeting.

  “With another beautiful woman to inspire us,” he said, “the work will go faster.”

  She glanced surreptitiously toward the villa, but alas, Ren was nowhere to be seen.

  Tracy showed up as Isabel was finishing her shift. Her eyes danced with excitement. “I just heard from Giulia, and the house we’re renting in town is going to be ready for us in three days.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “It’ll be hard being away from Harry so much, but we’ll talk on the phone every night, and he can work eighteen hours a day if he wants without feeling like he has to hurry home at night or I’ll bitch at him. Best of all, when he flies down on weekends, we’ll have him all to ourselves, no cell phone.”

  “I think it’s a good plan.”

  “As we get closer to my due date, he’s going to work from here. The kids are over the moon, knowing they don’t have to go back to Zurich. They’re picking up Italian a lot faster than I am, and they’ve gotten attached to Anna and Marta. You’ll be here for another month, and Ren’s going to be around for almost three weeks. We’ll be so much happier here.”

  Three weeks. He hadn’t told her. She could have asked, but she’d hoped he’d say something instead of acting as though the future didn’t exist for them, even though it didn’t. Ren was hardly the serial womanizer the media depicted him to be, but different times in his life seemed to be marked with different relationships. Years from now he’d remember her only as his Tuscan affair. She didn’t like how vulnerable she’d made herself, but she hadn’t figured out any other way to live.

  Tracy had stopped talking long enough to regard her with amusement. “You’re the only person I’ve ever met who can do manual labor and not get dirty.”

  “Years of practice.”

  Tracy gestured toward the olive grove, where Andrea was smoking a cigarette as he finished his turn with a metal detector. “I made an appointment with Dr. Wet Dream for next week. Anna said he’s a wonderful doctor, despite his playboy reputation. I might as well enjoy myself while my feet are in the stirrups.”

  “Let me add some more good news, then. I think it’s time to lift the sex ban.”

  Tracy rubbed her stomach and looked thoughtful. “Okay.”

  This was hardly the reaction Isabel had expected. “Is there a problem?”

  “Not exactly.” She reached under her knit top to scratch. “But . . . would you mind not telling Harry you lifted the ban?”

  “Your marriage is about open communication, remember?”

  “I know, but�
�oh, Isabel, I love the talking. Last night we talked about whales—and not the shape of my body either. We were trying to think of how many species we could name. And the scariest movie we could remember from when we were kids. He let me tell him about this argument I had with my roommate in college that still makes me mad, and all this time I thought chocolate ripple was his favorite ice cream, but it’s butter pecan. We listed every present we could remember that we’d ever given each other and whether we really liked it or not. Even though I’ve been walking around with my legs crossed all week because I’m so horny I can’t stand it, I don’t want to give up the talking. It’s not just my looks after all. He loves the whole package.”

  Isabel felt another pang in the vicinity of her heart. For all their emotional disorder, Tracy and Harry shared something precious. “I’m lifting the ban,” she said. “As far as telling Harry, let your conscience be your guide.”

  “Great,” Tracy said glumly.

  Tracy exchanged a few words with Andrea, then set off for the villa. She worked with the girls on their reading for a while and tried to give Jeremy a history lesson, but she had trouble concentrating. What was she going to do about Isabel’s decision to lift the sex ban?

  She was still wrestling with the problem that night as she and Harry walked hand in hand back to the farmhouse. She was a spoiled rich girl, and she hated moral dilemmas, but her marriage wasn’t going to work if she didn’t have the courage to face the challenges straight on. As they entered through the kitchen door, she decided this would be a good time to use a few of the new skills Isabel had been teaching them, so she took both his hands and looked him straight in the eye.

  “Harry, there’s something I’m supposed to tell you, but I don’t want to. I have a very good reason, and I’d like your permission to withhold the information.”

  She knew he’d want some time to think this over, and she was more than happy to study his dear, familiar face while she waited.

  “Does it involve life and death?” he finally asked.

  Now she was the one who needed to think. “Almost, but not quite.”

  “Is it something I want to know?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But you don’t want to tell me.”

  “I really don’t. Not right now. Soon. Very soon.”

  He lifted one eyebrow ever so slightly. “Because . . . ?”

  “Because I love you so much. I love talking to you. Talking is important to me, and once you know this thing that I don’t want you to know yet, I’m afraid we won’t talk so much, and I’ll start thinking you only love me for my face.”

  His eyes lit up. “Isabel lifted the sex ban!”

  She dropped his hands and stomped away. “I hate honest communication.”

  He was chuckling as he caught up with her. He scooped her into his arms and kissed her forehead. The baby kicked between them. “Hey, you’re not the only one who loves talking. And you know by now that I’d love you if you were as ugly as my Uncle Walt. Let’s make a deal: For every minute we spend naked, we’ll triple that time in conversation. Which, with the way I’m feeling now, means a lot of conversation.”

  She smiled into his neck. Just the smell of his skin made her blood rush. But what if they slipped back into old patterns? They’d had a brutal lesson in what it took to make their relationship work. Maybe it was time to trust in the tough new fabric of their marriage.

  “First you’ve got to make out with me,” she said. “Clothes on. No hands below the waist.”

  “Deal. And the first one who breaks down has to give the other a full-body massage.”

  “You’re on.” What the heck. She loved giving him full-body massages.

  He grabbed her and pulled her onto the couch in front of the fireplace, but she’d barely leaned into the cradle of his shoulder before she groaned. “I have to pee. I always have to pee. If I ever even mention getting pregnant again, leave me on a mountaintop to die.”

  He laughed and hoisted her up. “I’ll come along.”

  As Harry followed his wife upstairs, he couldn’t think of one thing he’d done in his life that made him deserve this woman. She was tempest to his calm, quicksilver to his base metal. He followed her into the bathroom. She didn’t protest when he took a seat on the side of the tub. Until Isabel and her lists, Tracy hadn’t known that he made excuses to join her when she was on the toilet simply because he loved the intimacy of it, the everyday coziness. Tracy’d laughed like hell when he’d tried to explain it, but he knew she understood.

  “Favorite vegetable?” she said. She hadn’t forgotten how much he wanted her, and she was making sure he remembered her concern. “Never mind. I know. It’s peas.”

  “Green beans,” he replied. “Not cooked too much. A little crisp.” He reached over and cupped her calf. He knew now that he had to say what he was feeling instead of assuming that Tracy already understood what was so obvious to him.

  “I love the talking, too, you know.” Honesty compelled him to add, “But right now I’m a lot more interested in sex. God, Trace, it’s been so long. Do you know what you do to me? Just being with you?”

  “Yes, because you’ve told me.” They smiled at each other, and a few moments later headed for the bedroom. Once inside the door she gave him her coquette’s sly gaze. “What if you get me pregnant?”

  “Then I’ll marry you. As many times as you like.”

  He kissed her awhile before she drew back. “This baby’s the last one, I swear. I’m getting my tubes tied.”

  “If you want to keep having babies, it’s okay with me. We can afford a few more.”

  “Five’s gonna do me. I always wanted five.” She nibbled at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, Harry, I’m so glad you’re not mad about this baby.”

  “It was never the baby. You know that now.” He touched her face. “I hate being so insecure.”

  “I thought I’d driven you away.”

  He followed the line of her jaw with his thumb. Her lips were puffy from their kisses, and he suspected his were, too. “We’re not taking any more chances, okay? Marriage counseling every six months, whether we need it or not. And I still think we should let Isabel know that we refuse to work with any shrink but her.”

  “She’ll figure it out when we show up on her doorstep twice a year.”

  They’d reached the bedroom, and they were ready to get down to the serious business of making out. At first they kept their mouths closed, but that didn’t last for long. When her lips went slack, he pressed his advantage, slipping his tongue into the honey-sweet recess of her mouth. They played that way for a while, but it wasn’t enough. His hand grew greedy, and he curled his palm around her breast. “From the waist up,” he whispered.

  “Waist up is fair.”

  He slipped her top over her head. She was studying his face as he unclasped her bra. She’d told him she never got tired of looking at him.

  Her breasts fell free, and his mouth went dry as he gazed down at her swollen nipples. He knew they were tender, just as he knew she liked having them touched anyway. He remembered her shock when she saw how high her pregnancy breasts ranked on his turn-on list. It had never occurred to him to tell her. He’d assumed she would have figured it out from the way he couldn’t keep his hands off them.

  She made a throaty exclamation as he dropped his head to suckle. Then she slipped her hand between his legs. “Oops. I lose.”

  His control broke, and their clothing flew. She gave him a hard shove, and he fell back on the bed. Her hair tumbled in an inky cloud over one shoulder as she mounted him, and then she lifted a bit so he could have the access she knew he craved. He stroked her with his fingers, moving up and down the wet, musky valley before he delved inside.

  The memory of what they’d almost lost made them fierce. He touched her everywhere, and she did the same to him. They gazed into each other’s eyes, treasuring what they saw.

  “I love you forever,” he whispered.

  “And ever,�
� she whispered back.

  Then their bodies found a perfect rhythm, and speech became impossible. Together they tumbled into the beautiful darkness.

  20

  The villa’s two-hundred-year-old dining room table groaned with food. Ornate oval platters offered up a roast leg of lamb as well as guinea hens stuffed with garlic and sage. Escarole leaves fried a golden brown held a pungent cargo of pine nuts, olives, anchovies, and raisins, while slivers of pancetta flavored a simple bowl of green beans. Fresh loaves of pane toscano spilled from a basket lined with antique linen towels bearing the family crest.

  Despite the room’s grand arches and religious frescoes, the atmosphere was informal. The Briggs children chased tiny meat ravioli around their plates and stuffed themselves with wedges of homemade pizza. Ren demanded a second helping of the chestnut pasta, and Isabel indulged in an extra slice of polenta, grilled crisp on the outside but soft and steaming inside. There were creamy wedges of pecorino, chocolate-dipped figs, and wine—a lively red from their own vineyard and a fruity white Cinque Terre.

  Ren was inherently Italian, therefore a man who enjoyed a good party, and he’d used the Briggs family’s impending departure the next morning as an excuse to invite company for dinner. Vittorio and Giulia sat at the table, along with the various members of Massimo and Anna’s family. Dr. Andrea Chiara was noticeably absent, even though Isabel had suggested he be invited.

  Massimo talked about the vendemmia, the grape harvest that would begin in two days, while Anna and Marta jumped up and down to bring more food to the table. No one spoke of the statue. They’d finished searching the olive grove with the metal detectors and turned up nothing.

  “You are always so nice to her,” Giulia said quietly to Isabel, so that Tracy, who was at the other end of the table, wouldn’t overhear. “If she had been Vittorio’s wife before me, I would hate her.”

  “Not if Vittorio had tried to get rid of her as hard as Ren did,” Isabel replied.