New Title 1 (19 page)

“Yes,” I agreed, looking out over the tiled rooftops towards the lake, “very pretty.”

He shrugged. “It’s all I need.”

I turned to flick through his books, needing a moment to
blink back the tears that threatened; he wouldn’t want my pity.

“Still the Conrad fan,” I said, trying to control my voice, although my throat was tight with unshed tears.

“Sure,” he said.

“Yo
u should get yourself an e-reader,” I said, trying to find a normal tone of voice. “The whole of Conrad’s oeuvre for two bucks.”

“Yeah, I guess I should,” he replied, his voice muffled as he reached und
er the bed for a small overnight bag, “if I knew there’d always be somewhere to charge it up when I’m in some shithole, stone age village.”

He stood up and tossed his bag on the bed, then rifled through the chest of draw
ers, pulling out half-a-dozen white T-shirts, and some of his gray briefs and black socks.

“What happened to all the colors?” I blurted out.

He threw me a puzzled look.

“Sebastian, the most colorful thing in this room
are your Dress Blues,” I pointed out helplessly. “The first time I met you, you were wearing those ridiculously bright red board shorts.”

He laughed lightly. “Oh yeah. I
’ve still got those somewhere. In a box in Ches’s garage, I think.”

“It sounds like Ches has all your worldly possessions.”

“Pretty much,” he said, shrugging. “I didn’t take a lot when I left my parents’ place. But what the hell: it’s easy to pack up and move on when you’re not laden down.”

My heart swelled with emotion. My poor, beautiful boy: his entire family was Ches
’s. He owned nothing, lived nowhere, and had no one.

Except, perhaps, me: if I let him. If he wanted me.

“Caro, how much of this stuff in your case do you need?” he said, pulling me away from my forlorn thoughts.

“I definitely need my laptop and notebooks…”

“I mean clothes, Caro. I wouldn’t dare suggest to a reporter that she goes anywhere without the tools of her trade.”

“That
’s right, Chief: you’d just stop her going where she needed to go in the first place.”

He pou
ted and I couldn’t help smiling: he was so cute when he did that. I wondered how many other Marines used pouting as their primary weapon.

I
picked out some T-shirts.

“See,” I said, arranging a
palette of pink, green, blue, yellow and orange T-shirts. These are called ‘colors’. They’re what you get when you’re not wearing black, white or gray.”

“My jeans are blue.”

I rolled my eyes. “So they are, Sebastian. Way to go.”

“I could maybe get into colors,” he commented, holding up my favorite, lacy bra,
which was a deep magenta.

“I don
’t think it would suit you.”

He added it to the pile of clothes I was taking with me.

“No, but I’m really looking forward to taking it off you.”

“That
’s assuming you get lucky, Hunter: you promised me separate rooms, remember?”

He looked like I
’d just told him Christmas was cancelled.

“You
’re not going to hold me to that, are you, Caro?”

I smiled at him.

“I don’t know: depends how irritating you are.”

“What if I promise t
o be on my best behavior, ma’am?”

“Mmm, maybe. I was impressed how well you took orders earlier today.”

His eyes darkened dangerously, and he licked his lips.

“Yes, and there
’ll be payback for that, Ms. Venzi.”

I tried to step away but he caught me in his arms, running his nose down my neck and kissing my throat.

“And I’m looking forward to collecting. Maybe we should christen this bed.”

“Christen it? I would have thought it had seen plenty of action.”

He stilled and looked up at me.

“No, you
’re the first woman I’ve brought here. It’s… private.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his head down, kissing him softly on the lips.

“We’ll christen it when we get back,” I whispered.

I felt his smile on my skin.

“Something to look forward to.”

I pulled away and continued with my packing.

“Okay, I’m done. By the way, where exactly are we going? It’s a pretty long way to Salerno, so I presume we’re going to stop somewhere en route.”

“Yeah, it
’s just over 1100 kilometers, so…”

“Give me that in good, old-
fashioned US miles, Chief.”

He chuckled. “Seven hundred miles. I thought we
’d stop at Genoa tonight – that’s just under 200 miles – take us about four hours.”

Or less, the way he drove
.

“How come you know all these distances off the top of your head?”

He hesitated, and I saw that he was stuffing a map of Italy into his jacket pocket.

“I
’ve been planning to do this road trip for a while.”

Oh. So not something special to do with me after all.

“You and I talked about it once, you remember? All the things we were going to do, all the places we were going to see? I just figured that as I was here, I’d go anyway. And… I remembered that you said your dad came from that village near Salerno. I thought I might find… I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to see it.”

I shook my head. Every time
,
every time
, he surprised the hell out of me.

“Then let
’s get going,” I said, smiling up at him.

As I made my way down the gloomy stairs, I heard
the lock click as he closed the door. I still felt sad that this was the only place he had to call home. But when I tried to imagine him in my tiny bungalow at Long Beach, somehow the picture didn’t fit. I shook the thought away, concentrating instead on the here and now.

“We could go straight to Genoa, using the Mont Blanc tunnel,” he said, pulling me from
my maudlin thoughts again, “but I really like the idea of going up through the high pass. There’ll still be quite a bit of snow around – you up for that?”

Hmm, snowy roads, two wheels: I didn
’t like the math. On the other hand, long tunnel and large trucks.

“I vote for the route over the Alps,” I said, sounding a lot braver than I felt.

Sebastian dropped our bag to the ground and picked me up, swinging me around. I laughed delightedly, happy that he was happy. When he finally put me down, he kissed me sweetly.

“God, you
’re amazing, woman!”

“Wait, I should write that down,” I replied, making a grab for my notebook.

“No way! You might use that against me in court. Do I have the right to an attorney?”

“Get on the damn bike, Sebastian, before I change my mind.”

He grinned and stowed our overnight bag in one of the saddlebags. I was impressed how light we could both travel: something we had in common after all.

We had a quick breakfast
of sweet rolls and coffee in a café overlooking the lake, then headed up into the mountains. I was very glad I had my horribly expensive ski gloves to wear, because we hadn’t gone far before I started seeing heaps of snow at the sides of the road. Some were as high as six or seven feet: I assumed they’d been piled up as snowplows cleared the road. A couple of miles later we really began to climb; the tarmac disappeared and we were riding on compressed snow. Sebastian dropped the speed as the hairpin bends began to live up to their name.

The bike wobbled dangerously
, and Sebastian pulled to the side of the road. He twisted around and lifted up his visor.

“Baby, you
’re going to tip us over if you do that, and I don’t know about you but it looks like a helluva long way down to me.”

“What… what did I do?” I said, nervously looking down the
sheer drop.

“You
’re trying to sit upright on the bike: don’t. You’ve got to lean into it or the balance goes for shit. Don’t try and do anything, just sit real tight and hang onto me.”

“
Okay, good safety tip, Chief: glad you mentioned it.”

His eyes crinkled in a smile
, and he snapped the visor down again.

We took off slowly
, zigzagging our way up the mountain. The views became more spectacular the higher we climbed, but commensurately more terrifying. My arms were wrapped around Sebastian’s waist with a death-grip that was probably crushing his ribs. I was thankful he couldn’t see my face because half the time my eyes were closed. So much for being fearless; so much for enjoying the view.

Twenty minutes later we reached the
highest point of the pass, and Sebastian stopped again. He pulled off his helmet and grinned at me.

“It
’s really something, isn’t it?”

Awkwardly, I clambered off
the bike, tugging at my helmet and shaking my hair free. Then I turned to look at the view.

“Wow,” I breathed.

Geneva was spread out below us, the lake mirror-like in the chilly sunshine. Disappearing into the valley, I saw the Z-bends that we’d just driven up. Even here, from the safety of the summit, they looked hair-raising; and I still had to make it down the other side. But it was beautiful, too: the air was crystal clear and the sky too blue to be real. I felt grateful to be here, enjoying this moment with this man: second chances didn’t come any better.

“Thank you for this, Sebastian. Thank you for bringing me.”

I leaned against him and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, kissing me softly. I twisted in his arms so I was facing him, and gave his kiss the attention it deserved, expressing my gratitude wordlessly, pouring all my happiness into that one moment.

When I pulled away from him, my face felt flushed, along with other parts of my body. Sebastian
’s expression told me that outdoor sex at the top of a mountain pass in the snow was suddenly on his ‘to do’ list.