Breathing Room (40 page)

He hadn't planned it, but he'd somehow managed to grow roots here. Ironic, since he couldn't come back, not for a very long time. Even if he waited until he was an old man to return, he knew he'd still see Isabel walking in the garden, her eyes shining just for him.

She'd seated herself at the opposite end of the table, as far from him as she could get.

Andrea sat on one side of her, Giancarlo on the other. Neither could take his eyes off her.

She was like a film running on fast forward. Her curls skipped about her head as she gestured. Her eyes flashed. Everything about her was charged with energy, but only he seemed able to feel the anger behind it.

The excitement had stirred appetites, and the soup quickly disappeared. The wind developed a chilly edge, and some of the women reached for their sweaters, but not Isabel. Her bare arms glowed with angry heat.

Oversize bowls of linguini with a red mussel sauce appeared on the table, along with a creamy risotto, and everyone dug in. This was the kind of occasion he most enjoyed, surrounded by friends, good food, great wine, and yet he'd never been more miserable.Giulia and Vittorio stole a kiss.Judging from the expression onTracy's face, Harry was groping her under the table. Ren wanted to grope Isabel.

Clouds rolled in, and gusts of wind rattled the trees. Isabel's angry energy kept her from sitting still, but every time she jumped up to grab a serving platter, he expected it to shatter in her hands. One person after another demanded her attention, drawn to her as if her skin had been magnetized. She splashed wine on the tablecloth when she refilled glasses. She knocked the butter dish to the ground. But she wasn't drunk. Her own glass had barely been touched.

The sun settled lower in the sky, the clouds darkened, but the town had its statue back, and the mood grew more festive. Giancarlo turned up the music, and some of the couples began to dance. Isabel leaned against Andrea's side, listening to him as if each word coming from his mouth were a drop of honey she wanted to lick up. Ren cracked his knuckles.

As the bottles of grappa andvinsanto appeared, Andrea rose. Ren heard him address Isabel over the music. "Come dance with me."

The canopy snapped in the wind. She stood and took his hand. As they began walking toward the loggia, the points of her fiery skirt sparked at her knees. She tossed her head, and her curls flew. Andrea's eyes nudged her breasts as he lit his cigarette.

Just like that, she plucked it from his mouth and stuck it between her own lips.

Ren jumped up so quickly he knocked over his chair. Before she could cough out her first inhalation, he'd covered the ground between them. "What in thehell do you think you're doing?"

She took a mouthful of smoke and blew it in his face. "Partying."

He shot Andrea the look he'd been saving up all afternoon. "I'll have her back to you in a few minutes, pal."

She didn't fight him, but as he dragged her away, the heat of her skin made his fingers burn. He ignored the amused expressions of the people they passed, and towed her behind the farthest statue. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Fuck you, loser." She hit him with another cloud of smoke.

He wanted to wash her mouth out with soap, except he was the one who'd done this to her. Instead of kissing all the anger out of her, he drew himself up like a pompous asshole. "I'd hoped we could talk, but you're obviously not in a mood to be rational."

"You've got that right. Now, get out of my way."

He never defended himself, but this time he had to "Isabel, it wasn't going to work. We're too different."

"The saint and the sinner, right?"

"You expect too much, that's all. You keep forgetting I'm the guy who has 'No Redeeming Social Value' tattooed across his forehead." He clenched his hands at his sides. "A reporter found me when I was inRome. He'd heard a rumor about us. I denied everything."

"You want a Boy Scout badge?"

"If the press finds out that we've had an affair, you're going to lose what little credibility you have left. Don't you understand? It's all gotten too complicated."

"I understand that you make me sick. I understand I gave you something important, and you didn't want it. And I understand I don't ever want to see you again." She flicked the cigarette at his feet, then stalked away, her dress flaming around her in a bonfire of rage.

For a few minutes he stood there trying to get his equilibrium back. He needed to talk to someone with a clear head – get some advice – but a glance toward the loggia told him that the wisest counselor he knew was dirty dancing with an Italian doctor.

The wind cut through his silk shirt, and his sense of loss nearly brought him to his knees.

Right then he understood. He loved that woman with all his heart, and walking away from her was the biggest mistake of his life.

So what if she was too good for him? She was the strongest woman he knew, tough enough to tame the devil himself. If she put her mind to it, she'd eventually whip him into shape. Hell no, he didn't deserve her, but that only meant he'd have to do everything in his power to keep her from figuring that out.

Except Isabel was smart about people. She wasn't some emotionally needy female who was taken in by a pretty face. What if the things she said about him were true? What if she was right, and he'd grown so used to seeing himself through an old, worn-out lens that he couldn't see the man he'd become?

The idea made him dizzy. The freedom that a new view of himself could bring opened up too many possibilities to think about right now. First, he had to try to talk to her again, tell her how he felt, and he had a sinking feeling she wouldn't make it easy.

Until today he would have sworn that she had an unlimited capacity to forgive, but he was no longer so certain. He studied her as she danced. There was something different about her tonight that went well beyond the chopped hair, the dress, even her anger.

Something...

His eyes settled on her bare wrist, and the panic he'd been trying to hold off hit him like a sucker punch. Her bangle was missing. His mouth went dry as all the changes she'd made in herself suddenly fell into place.

Isabel had forgotten to breathe.

*

Isabel's hands curled into fists, and she couldn't draw enough air into her lungs. She pulled away from Andrea and stumbled through the dancers to the edge of the loggia. All around her, faces shone with happiness, but instead of calming her, their joy became gasoline to her anger.

The children raced past in a rowdy, noisy group. Andrea was heading toward her to see what was wrong. She turned away from him and stumbled into the garden. A shutter had come loose in the wind, and it banged against the side of the house.

Her anger consumed her, no longer directed just at Ren but at herself. Her orange dress burned like acid against her skin. She wanted to tear it off, to grow her hair smooth again, to scrub the makeup from her face. She wanted her calmness back, her control, her certainty about the order of life – everything that had been snatched away from her three nights ago when she'd read those letters and prayed by the fire.

The canopy snapped like a sail in a storm. The children shrieked, boys against girls, racing too close to the posts. They darted past the table where the statue stood. She stared at it, a solitary female figure holding the power of life.

EMBRACE...

The word hit her like an assault, no longer the quiet whisper from her prayers by the fire that night, the whisper she hadn't quite been able to hear. This was a shout.

EMBRACE...

She gazed at the statue. She didn't want to embrace. She wanted to destroy. Her old life.

Her old self. But she was too afraid of what lay on the other side.

Ren started to come toward her from across the garden, concern etched on his face. The racing boys catcalled; the girls squealed. Isabel made her way across the path toward the statue.

EMBRACE...

There was more. She knew it. The voice had more to tell her.

EMBRACE THE...

Anna cried out, ordering the swarming children to stay away from the canopy. But her warning came too late. The boy in the lead stumbled and crashed into the corner post.

EMBRACE THE...

"Isabel, watch out!" Ren shouted. The canopy wobbled. "Isabel!"

The voice roared in her head, and joy surged through her.

EMBRACE THE CHAOS!

She grabbed the statue from beneath the falling canopy and ran.

Chapter 24

Isabel's orderly world had split open, and she rushed into the heart of it. The voice snapped at her heels, rang in her head.Embrace the chaos!

She raced around the side of the house, the glorious statue clutched to her chest. She wanted to fly, but she had no wings, no plane, not even her Panda. All she had was...

Ren's Maserati.

She ran toward it. The top was down, and on this day of chaos she saw keys dangling from the ignition where Giancarlo had left them. She skidded to a stop next to it, kissed the statue, tossed it into the passenger's seat. Then she lifted her skirt and climbed over the door.

The powerful engine roared to life as she twisted the key in the ignition.

"Isabel!"

Cars blocked her on three sides. She wrenched the wheel, stepped on the accelerator, and shot across the lawn.

"Isabel!"

If this had been one of his films, Ren could have swung up onto a balcony, then dropped into the car as she drove beneath. But this was real life, and she had all the power.

She kept the car on the grass, racing between the rows of shrubbery toward the road.

Branches lashed the sides, and turf flew. A limb took off the outside mirror as she shot between the cypresses to reach the drive. The tires spit gravel. She shifted gears, and the Maserati fishtailed as she turned out onto the road, leaving them all behind on her way to the mountaintop.

EMBRACE THE CHAOS. The wind tore at her hair. She glanced over at the statue next to her and laughed.

A wooden sign splintered against her fender as she took the first turn. On her next she destroyed an abandoned hen-house. The dark clouds swirled lower in the sky. She remembered the way to the castle ruins from the day she and Ren had driven there to spy, but she overshot the road she was looking for and had to make a U-turn through someone's vineyard. When she found the right road, the deep ruts jarred the car. She pushed hard as she climbed. For a while the Maserati lurched along, then bottomed out just before she reached the top. She turned off the engine, grabbed the statue, and jumped out.

As she hit the trail, her sandals slipped on the stones. The wind blew stronger at the higher elevation, but the trees protected her from the worst of it. She gripped the statue tighter and kept climbing.

When she reached the end of the trail, she stepped out into the clearing. A gust caught her, and she stumbled but didn't fall. Ahead of her the ruins loomed against the stormy sky, and the dark clouds swirled so close overhead she wanted to sink her fingers into them.

She bent into the wind and made her way through the crumbling archways and fallen watchtowers to the wall at the very edge. She clutched the stones with one hand, the statue with the other, and climbed on top. Fighting the gusts, she rose to her feet.

A sense of ecstasy gripped her. Wind ripped at her skirt, clouds boiled above her, the world lay at her feet below. Finally she understood what had escaped her before. She had never thought too small. No, she had thought too big and lost sight of everything she wanted her life to be about. Now she knew what she had to do.

With her face turned to the sky, she surrendered to the mystery of life. The mess, the uproar, the glorious turmoil. Bracing her feet, she lifted the statue high above her head and offered herself to the gods of chaos.

*

The confusion after the canopy's collapse had slowed Ren down, and Isabel was already climbing into his Maserati by the time he reached the front of the villa. Bernardo had been on his heels, but since he wasn't on duty, he was driving his own Renault instead of the town's police car. They threw themselves inside and set off after her.

It hadn't taken Ren long to figure out where she was heading, but the Renault was no match for his Maserati. When they finally reached the base of the trail, he was in a cold sweat.

He managed to convince Bernardo to stay with the cars and went after her himself, racing from the mouth of the trail out into the castle's ruins. The hair rose on the back of his neck as he saw her in the distance. She stood on top of the crumbling wall, silhouetted against a sea of furious clouds. The wind battered her body, and the jagged hem of her dress flew around her like orange flames. Her face was turned to the heavens, and she had both arms raised, the statue held aloft in one hand.

In the distance a bolt of lightning split the sky, but from where he was standing it seemed to come from her fingertips. She was a female Moses receiving God's second set of Commandments.

He could no longer remember a single one of his well-reasoned arguments for walking away from her. She was a gift – a gift he nearly hadn't found the guts to claim. Now, as he watched her standing fearless against the elements, her power stole his breath. Cutting her out of his life would be like surrendering his soul. She was everything to him – his friend, his lover, his conscience, his passion. She was the answer to all the prayers he'd never had enough sense to pray. And if he wasn't as perfect for her as he wanted to be, she'd just have to work harder to improve him.

He watched as another bolt of lightning shot from her fingertips. Drops of rain began to pelt him, and the wind cut through his shirt. He began to run. Over the aged stones.

Across the graves of the ancients. Across time itself to become part of her tempest.

He pulled himself up next to her on the wall. The wind was making too much noise for her to hear his approach, but only mortals were caught unprepared, and she didn't jump when she realized she was no longer alone. She simply lowered her arms and turned to him.

He yearned to touch her, to calm those furious wisps of hair that flew about her head, to draw her into his arms and kiss her and love her, but something had changed forever, and his blood ran cold at the thought that it might be her love for him.