Kiss Me, Lynn (12 page)

Chapter 12

S
he entered the room quietly. Sharon, propped up in bed, put down the guide book next to the open laptop beside her.

Lynn didn’t say anything.
She went to the bathroom to change out of her clothes and into her pajamas and robe. When she emerged, Sharon was staring at her with a puzzled look on her face.

“Okay, either you went for broke, or broke it off.”

Lynn couldn’t look at her friend yet. She stacked the pillows behind her, climbed into bed, and pulled the covers up around her chin.

“You went for broke.”

Lynn nodded. “Actually, he went for broke. He wants me to stay in Cusco another two weeks after our tour ends.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I can’t. But I wish I could.”

“Flights can be rescheduled.”

“I know. I just wish things were easier at home.”

“Your dad and the lawyer will work things out.
There’s no way an Alzheimer’s patient can divorce her husband. And it may not be Alzheimer’s. It could be something else causing the confusion. Like a reaction to medication.”

“I hope you’re right.
I hope it will prove to be something that can be easily fixed.” Lynn turned on her side, facing Sharon. “I can’t believe I’ve let things get so out of control.”

Sharon released a huge sigh.
“You still think falling in love means you’re out of control.”

“That’s exactly what it means when the person you’re falling in love with lives so far away that calling it a ‘long distance romance’ is utterly ridiculous.
It isn’t as though we could see each other on weekends, or once a month. More like once a year, if I could afford the flight. It’s like loving someone who lives on the moon! Sharon, I have to wake up! This is a dream, and as wonderful as it’s been so far, it’s going to turn into a nightmare in a few days!”

“Maybe sooner.
You got a post from your dad.”

“When?”

“Right after I got back to the room. Not much you can do from here, though. Your mother left. He has no idea where she’s gone. Police are searching for her car, checking flights, but so far there’s no indication of where she’s going or exactly when she left. I answered and told him we’d be waiting for news.”

Lynn closed her eyes.
Her tears soaked into the pillow.

“There’s nothing you can do, Lynn.
They’ll find her and she’ll be all right. You have to believe that.”

Lynn turned over
to face the wall. Nothing she could do. She wished Alex were there to hold her, rub her back, kiss her and tell her… But he hadn’t told her he loved her. He’d shown her. How did that help this miserable situation? Falling in love with him would only complicate things to the point where she wanted to hide somewhere until, like a fairy tale, everyone lived happily ever after.

Sharon closed the laptop and put it on the dresser across the room.
“Time to get some sleep. But first, tell me if Cher was right.”

Lynn took a deep breath.
“She was right.”

<><><><>

The next morning, they had a quick breakfast in the restaurant. Lynn had two cups of Coca tea, hoping it would lift her spirits. She hadn’t slept well, which certainly wasn’t a surprise, and the tea helped wake her up a bit. Even though she wasn’t that hungry, she ate a full breakfast. It could be a long time until lunch.

Alex seemed almost embarrassed this morning.
Surely, he didn’t regret the time they’d spent together, and asking her to stay in Cusco. Maybe she’d misinterpreted his expression and the way he avoided looking into her eyes for longer than a few seconds. She wanted to see happiness on his face instead of confusion.

When Alex sat down adjacent from Lynn with his plate piled high and his cup of tea, he immediately started a conversation with Sharon and Barb, who sat at the table with them, about what they’d be seeing today.
Beneath the table, he reached for Lynn’s hand and caressed it while he talked.

“This morning we will go to the Cusco Market,
then we’ll visit the ruins of Tambomachay, the Red Fortress, then the fortress of Sacsayhuamán. It is one of the most important and famous Inca sites in all of South America. Its name is Quechua and means ‘satisfied falcon.’ Those who served at the fortress protected Cusco, which was the capital city of the Inca Empire.”

Also on the itinerary were two
museums, but Lynn’s mind wandered from Alex’s descriptions. She tried to pay attention but kept thinking about her father’s email. Holding Alex’s hand was another distraction, but a nicer one. She remembered last night, standing together at the planetarium, then hiding from everyone at the plaza, giving in to the feelings that had been building in her, day by day. She closed her eyes and remembered kissing him, then felt his hand tightening around hers. With a smile, she realized she’d squeezed his fingers during the memory.

<><><><>

They boarded the bus and rode to the Cusco Market, where they were given about an hour to wander through. When Lynn went inside and saw how massive the market was, she knew they could never do more than sample what lay before them in only an hour. Wandering, wishing she could go up and down the aisles and see everything, she marveled at what she was able to see.

People sat at tables eating chicken soup, which Alex said was the cheapest lunch in Cusco.
They passed dozens of vendors selling everything from clothing to dozens of varieties of potatoes—purple, green white, red, orange, yellow—a rainbow of potatoes—in the midst of multicolored varieties of corn, and dozens of fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and foods Lynn could only guess about.

T
hey had little time to stop and browse. But when Lynn spied some long-handled wooden spoons with bowls six inches in diameter, she had to stop and buy several. What an incredible soup ladle it would be!

After seeing just enough of the market to get a taste of
the quantity and variety of merchandise available, they were outside, where women sat with small grills, roasting guinea pigs! Flies hovered around the roasted pigs.

“It’s never good to buy
cuy
outside the market,” Alex said quietly. “You have no idea how long they’ve been trying to sell that same
cuy
.”

It was time to leave.
Lynn wished she had another month to explore every shop inside the market and every shop on the streets of Cusco. She knew if she had enough time, she’d fall in love with Cusco…just as she’d fallen in love with Pisco Sours…and just as she was falling in love with Alex.

Back on the bus, Sharon tried to check e-mail but co
uldn’t find a wireless signal.

Next, t
hey stopped at a place Lynn knew she’d never forget. Alex seemed especially happy to be there. “This is a sanctuary for injured animals and birds. They built it among the ruins of Qenko, where they found a huge rock shaped like a puma.” He pointed toward it, explaining that the rock stood almost twenty feet tall. “There are also drawings and carvings of pumas here in underground rooms and along stairways. But the wonder of this place is the animals that have been brought here to get well.”

They followed a walkway with trellises covered with plants and vines, creating a shady retreat from the strong Peruvian sunshine.
Off to the right were pens with llamas, alpacas, and, higher on the hillside, vicuñas.

“It’s all right to pet the llamas and alpacas, if they agree, but no one pets the
vicuñas. They spit and bite.”

Lynn went straight to a brown llama that had come to the fence bordering the walkway.
She gave the shaggy llama time to get used to her being there, then raised her hand slowly to pet the side of its face. “I’ve heard there’s nothing more wonderful than being ‘kissed’ by a llama.”

Alex grinned and lowered his face to the llama’s nose, which twitched, then moved over Alex’s mouth and chin, brushing the long hairs on its nose across his skin.
“It’s a feeling like no other,” he said after leaning back.

Lynn tried it next.
He was right. She’d never felt anything like it.

Another group of tourists had parked behind their bus and several rowdy children pushed past them.

Alex took Lynn’s arm and eased her back from the llama. “Look at his ears.”

“He flattened them.
Why?”

“Probably the children, but you are the one he’ll spit on if we don’t back away.”

“Good idea.”

They went on down the walkway.
Lynn petted two more llamas and one alpaca. The vicuñas watched from their higher pens and one of them stomped at the activity down below. Lynn wished she could’ve seen them up close.

Walking betwee
n buildings that held small mountain cats and other mammals, they came to a wire gate and went inside a large enclosure that had wire mesh walls and ceiling. At the back of the enclosure was a cliff, with alcoves and shelves where birds perched. But they weren’t just any birds. They were huge and black and almost vicious looking.

“What are they?” Lynn whispered.

“Andean condors.”

“They’re enormous!”

Without warning, a condor that had been standing behind Lynn walked past her, brushing her legs with its enormous wings. Startled, she backed away, but the condor didn’t seem to notice her at all. The huge bird spread its wings and hurried toward the back wall, where Lynn saw several men climbing from shelf to shelf.

“Watch, everyone!”
Alex called to the group.

The men took turns “spooking” the condors roosting on the shelves and
then pitching them into the air. Their incredible wings spread in flight, with spans of more than eight feet. They flew above everyone’s heads to the far side of the enclosure, where other attendants waited with food for them.

Spectacular
! Even though their faces resembled vultures, Lynn thought seeing them in flight was one of the most breathtaking things she’d ever witnessed.

Back on the bus, Alex took his place at the front and began his talk about the ruins they were going to see
next.

Sacsayhuamán was an enormous place with incredible Inca stonework.
Some of the stones in the wall were more than thirty feet tall and perfectly carved to fit the stones on either side, and above them. Alex told them with a feisty grin that most people thought the name sounded like “sexy woman.” He winked at Lynn.

The ruins were incredible and massive.
It took a long time to walk from one end to the other, then back to the bus.

<><><><>

The afternoon, as full as the morning had been, included a museum that rapidly became Lynn’s favorite. La Casa Concha Museum of Machu Picchu, a colonial Spanish mansion, contained thousands of artifacts from Machu Picchu that had been discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1912 and taken out of Peru to Yale University. It was only during the past decade that an agreement had been made to bring the artifacts back to Peru, to the museum. There, in ten exhibition rooms, the amazing artifacts of Machu Picchu were on display, along with enlarged photographs taken by Hiram Bingham.

They wandered through all the rooms, marveling at what was discovered beneath the plants that covered the city after it was abandoned in 1572.
It was only by accident that Bingham happened upon the ruins and mistakenly identified it as Vilcabamba, the lost city of the Inca. The fact that the city had not been destroyed, though, disproved Bingham’s theory. The city he found had never been found by the Spanish, which made it a previously unknown find and one of immeasurably greater value than the ruins of Vilcabamba would’ve been.

The room at La Casa Concha that affected Lynn the most contained a model of Machu Picchu at least twenty feet long and spotlighted to identify the various parts of the city.
When she saw the model, her throat tightened and tears came without warning. She sat on a bench near the model, emotion overwhelming her.

Alex came to the door and looked inside.
When he saw her sitting there, he hesitated. “Lynn? Are you all right?”

She turned to look at him, tears still falling, and held out her hand to him.
He sat beside her, then embraced her.

“What’s wrong,
Querida?
Has there been news of your mother?”

“No, it isn’t that.” She held him tighter.
“It’s silly, I guess, but when I saw the model, my first thought was that I’ll actually be there the day after tomorrow. It took me by surprise.” She looked back at the model, then wiped her eyes with one hand. “It’s something I’ve dreamed about my whole life.”

Alex squeezed her tighter.
“I understand. Even now, though I have been there hundreds of times, I still feel awe when I see it.”

When she turned to look at him again, knowing they would be sharing her life-long dream, she knew the experience would be even more amazing and memorable.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, and he was happy to comply.