“I don’t-” he said, just as she began, “I know-” And it was she who paused and said politely, “Go ahead.”
He looked at her for a moment, and she thought she’d never seen eyes so intense. Then he smiled unexpectedly, his mouth slipping awry in that poignant and so familiar way of his, and he shrugged and said, “That’s just it-I don’t know what to say.”
Jane laughed. Unevenly. I don’t dare pick up my coffee, she thought. My hands will shake and I will spill it for sure. Lightly, she said, “It’s okay, really. I know what you were trying to do. And congratulations-it worked very well. I didn’t get seasick”
He shifted in his chair. “Well, I think there was more to it than that.”
She couldn’t for the life of her think what to reply. It would have been easier, she thought, if he’d just shrugged off what had happened between them in the van, made nothing of it. Pretended it hadn’t mattered. And then, perhaps, she could have done the same.
Heat engulfed her, setting her cheeks on fire. Don’t do this, she pleaded silently. Don’t do this to me.
“I think I got a little carried away,” he said, lopsidedly smiling.
“1 think we both did.” Jane lifted her mug and, supporting it with both hands, lowered her mouth to the rim. She closed her eyes as fragrant steam misted her hot cheeks and sweet warmth filled her insides, and thought that from now on, as long as she lived, she would always remember this particular cup of coffee. Just as she remembered the piece of cherry pie that had been sitting before her when she’d uttered the words, “David, I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”
She lowered her cup and smiled brilliantly at the man across the table. “No big deal. Completely understandable, under the circumstances. I consider my honor unsullied, and I promise not to cringe and blush every time I look at you.” At least, I hope I won’t. Oh, God, I hope.
“I sure wouldn’t want that.” And studying her, he added with unexpected and devastating softness, “I’d really miss your smile.”
“Here you go,” the waitress trilled, blowing in like a nor’easter, dispersing the sultry, weighted atmosphere that had settled over them with gusts of good cheer and wonderful fragrances. And as she briskly deposited plates and bowls in their proper places and left them with instructions to “Enjoy your meal!,” Jane thought what a relief it was, for a time, to have to deal only with a hunger so uncomplicated, and so easily assuaged.
After the waitress left, for a while they did just that, other needs put aside while they attended with silent concentration to one perhaps even more fundamental. Perhaps. Because, with an empty bowl and a full stomach, Jane found her thoughts returning to-if indeed they’d ever really left-that other hunger, the one so rudely, so voraciously awakened by the gentle press of this stranger’s mouth on hers. By the weight and warmth of his body, the electrifying caress of his fingers. The hunger that, once awakened, stubbornly refused to creep back into hibernation.
Tom Hawkins… Always a fast eater, having disposed of her bowl of chowder while her companion was barely beginning his assault on his steak, she watched him narrowly through the steam from her refilled coffee cup and thought how strange it was that features so forbidding and irregular should have become, in so short a time, so pleasing to her eyes.
Man From Interpol… How alien that sounded, without reality, like the title of a book, or a movie. And how impossible now to think of him that way. Now he was just…a man, a flesh-and-blood man, in need of a shave, a shower and a good night’s sleep, a man who had covered her with his jacket and watched over her while she slept, a man whose hands had touched her in intimate places, a man whose tongue she’d tasted.
A man who played games in which the stakes were human lives.
How could this have happened? she thought. To me.
“I think,” said Hawk, pushing aside his plate and reaching for his coffee, “we’d better talk about what we’re going to do.” He felt much better for having a decent meal under his belt, much less off balance, much more in control. A good night’s sleep, he thought with dogged optimism, and I’ll be back on track again.
Jane was nodding, regarding him steadily, as she had been for a while now, across the rim of her coffee mug. She’d been hiding behind that damn mug, it seemed to him, ever since they’d sat down. Which was probably just as well. Her eyes were bad enough, dark and disturbing as the sea just before a storm, but vulnerable, too, and smudged with shadows. He wasn’t sure that in his own exhausted state he would have been able to look at her mouth and have the willpower and concentration to block out the way it had felt…tasted… Or to stop himself from thinking about how much he wanted to taste her again.
He lit a cigarette, then said, “I still don’t think there’s much use trying to get back to the mainland tonight. It would take us till morning to get anything accomplished anyway. Better we check into a motel here, get some rest I’ve, uh, arranged for a flight out in the morning.”
She’d been nodding, going along with him, but when he said that, she pulled up, looking surprised. “A flight? You mean, an airplane?”
“Yeah, there’s an airstrip here.”
“Air…strip. You mean, a small plane.”
He quirked a smile at her. “Little one.”
She murmured, “Oh,” and her eyes flicked sideways in a way that made him uneasy.
“Don’t tell me-you get airsick.”
Her eyes were wide, the smudges under them making her seem very young and apprehensive, like a child contemplating a Ferris wheel. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in a little plane before.”
He felt a sudden and unsettling tenderness toward her, which probably accounted for the brusqueness with which he said, “Hey-don’t worry. You’re gonna love it”
The funny thing was, he realized as he stubbed out his cigarette, reached for the check and shoved back his chair, that he knew it was true. Once she got used to the idea, she would love flying, the adventure of it, the breathtaking thrill, the excitement. And it wouldn’t make any difference to her if she did get airsick, she’d enjoy it anyway, just because the experience was new. And how was it he knew so much about her, when he actually knew her barely at all?
“My kids are never going to believe this,” he heard her mutter as she followed him to the cash register.
He turned to scowl at her, one hand in his pocket, groping for change. “You got kids?” Of course she had kids. The woman practically had a sign around her neck that said MOM. Just another thing he’d managed to forget while he was doing the tongue tango with her back there in the truck. One more reason why he had to forget about it, put it out of his mind.
Sure. The way he could forget the taste of a ripe peach, or a fine, sweet Tuscany wine.
“Two daughters,” she said, hitching her tote bag onto her shoulder. “Lynn’s in college and Tracy’s a senior in high school. What about you?”
He didn’t reply, pretending his business with the cashier was occupying so much of his attention that he hadn’t heard the question. Because another thing he’d come to understand about her in the brief time he’d known her was that she was too polite-or maybe too sensitive-to ask again.
He turned from the register with a frown to inquire as he tucked away his wallet, “You need to call? Let somebody know where you are?” Like your husband, he thought, and put the leaden feeling in his chest down to tiredness.
The question had been meant to distract, and it did, even though he had a feeling she knew perfectly well what he’d done. She made a wry little grimace. “I tried, from the terminal.” Then, with a smile and a shrug, “It is Saturday night. I got the answering machine. I left a message-just told them I’d call tomorrow. Even if they had tried to reach me at the hotel, I don’t think they’d worry. They’d just assume I was out seeing the sights in Washington, or maybe having dinner, or something.”