''I Do''...Take Two! (7 page)

“Hold on! I have to tell Callie this!”

Kate waited while Dawn related the news that their absent landlord was a real, live prince. Then Callie took the phone to discuss a far more important issue.

“How's it going with you and Travis?”

“Good.” A pause, a sigh and a sappy smile. “Better than good.”

“Want to share some details?”

“I will. Tomorrow, I promise.”

“You sound happy, Kate.”

The soft observation brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them away but couldn't deny the joy behind them.

“I am. And I've got so much to tell you and Dawn. But we're just getting ready to go out and grab something to eat. I'll call you tomorrow.”

“You'd better! Ciao
for now.”

“Ciao.”

Travis was waiting when she hurried out of the bedroom. Slinging her purse strap over her shoulder, she issued a hurried apology. “Sorry. I had to return an urgent call from Dawn.”

“Is she okay?”

“She is. Mostly she just wanted to rhapsodize about Carlo's villa. She was also as surprised as I was to hear you're hobnobbing with royalty.”

He answered with a shrug and the highest accolade he could bestow on a comrade in arms. “Prince or not, he's solid. You ready?”

* * *

When they stepped out into night, she discovered that Venice in the moonlight was even more magical than in the bright light of day. The shimmering waters of the Grand Canal reflected a fat, glowing moon and the floodlit facades of its grand palazzi. The tall, narrow dwellings along the smaller side canals lost their slightly decrepit air of peeling plaster and displayed instead necklaces of brightly lit windows.

With the ease of long habit, Travis slipped an arm around Kate's waist and kept her close as they wove through tourists and locals out to enjoy a late dinner. Two turns, several twisting streets and three bridges later, they reached a tiny square bordered on three sides by residences, several of which featured business establishments on the ground floor.

The Trattoria di Pesce was one of these establishments. A string of lightbulbs cast halos over its half dozen outdoor tables. Large plate-glass windows showed an interior with rows of wooden booths dominated by shelves displaying red, black and green pasta in glass jars of every conceivable size and shape. At the very rear was a cutaway providing a glimpse of a kitchen with long strands of noodles hanging from wooden poles.

“Trust me,” Travis said as they made for the trattoria. “This place serves the best crab tagliatelle in town.”

“I'll take your word for... Oh!” Kate stopped dead. “Listen!”

Head cocked, she drank in the deep, rich notes of a cello. Spinning on one heel, she followed the dark, sensuous notes to the church that formed the fourth side of the square. Its doors stood open, spilling light and the cello's deep tones. Moments later, other strings added their voices. A violin, a viola, another violin, then the cello again.

“I think that's a Rossini sonata,” she murmured in delight.

“If you say so.” Eyes narrowed in the dim light, Travis squinted at a poster in a glass case beside the church's open doors. “If I'm translating this right, it says students from Venice's classical conservatory are performing here tonight.” He paused, gave the poster another squint and squared his shoulders. “The concert is free to the public. Do you want to slip inside and listen?”

If Kate wasn't already falling in love with her husband all over again, the heroic offer would push her over the edge. She and Travis shared so many passions. Walks in the pristine stillness of a fresh snowfall. Butter dripping from their chins while they pigged out on steamed lobster. The noise and mayhem when the Boston Bruins took to the ice. A mutual dedication to their work.

Classical music, however, was
not
one of their shared interests. In all their years together, Kate had dragged her reluctant fiancé and then husband to a total of three symphony concerts. After the first, he'd lied like hell in an unsuccessful attempt to convince her he'd enjoyed the experience. After the second, he'd admitted he wasn't quite there yet. Halfway through the third, his chin dropped to his chest and his snores took on the booming resonance of a tympanic roll. Kate had been forced to elbow him in the ribs throughout the rest of the concert to keep other members of the audience from zinging exasperated looks his way.

After that disaster, they'd worked out a comfortable compromise for their tastes in music. She would screw in her earbuds, he would plug his in and they'd hum along to different beats. Live performances were limited to entertainers they both liked. So the thought that he would brave yet another round of bruised ribs to attend a performance of chamber music made her heart sing along with the four-stringed instruments.

“Why not enjoy the best of both worlds?” she suggested, gesturing to the trattoria. “If we sit outside, we can listen
and
eat.”

“Okay by me. But,” he added as they recrossed the tiny square, “don't think I don't recognize the ulterior motive here. You're hoping a plate of crab pasta will keep me awake.”

“Not hoping,” she countered. “Praying!”

She needn't have worried. They lucked out and got one of the outside tables. Just enough of the sonata floated across the square to enchant Kate and form easily ignorable background noise for Travis. They ordered a liter of the house
vino bianco
and sipped the light, fruity white while they studied the menu. It was simple, handwritten and all in Italian. Travis did his best to translate the four items offered.

“Those are tagliatelle,” he said, nodding to the broad flat noodles draped over wooden dowels at the rear of the restaurant. “Homemade and the specialty of the house. They're served with various seafoods and sauces.”

The gray-haired, stoop-shouldered server who'd delivered their wine filled in the gaps. Employing limited English and swooping hand gestures, he expanded on the menu. Travis went with spider-crab tagliatelle in a cream sauce. Kate opted for the porcini-mushrooms-and-scallops marinara. Their dinners came with cucumber salads and a basket of crusty bread perfect for sopping up olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The string quartet's performance ended halfway through the meal, which Travis wouldn't have noticed if not for the burst of applause and subsequent emptying of the church.

“That was nice,” he commented in a magnanimous concession to a music form that still made him all squinty eyed and sleepy.

“Very nice,” Kate agreed solemnly.

They lingered over a shared tiramisu before strolling back through the serpentine streets. Most of the gondolas had been docked and shrouded for the night, but a few water taxis still navigated the Grand Canal. The wooden boats moved slowly, their engines throttled back in deference to the late hour. Iridescent ripples from their wake lapped at the marble steps and landing sites of the palazzi lining this portion of Venice's main waterway.

Like the other palaces, Palazzo Alleghri's exterior was bathed in the light of the moon and discreetly placed floods. Its white columns seemed to rise directly from the shimmering water of the canal, while its tiers of arched windows shed a calm, welcoming glow.

Kate was feeling anything but calm, however. She'd departed the trattoria encased in a bubble of happiness and epicurean satisfaction. Those emotions quickly took a backseat to the pure joy of knowing she would sleep in the same bed as her husband tonight. But with each step closer to their hotel, her joy took on a sharp, shivery edge of anticipation that had everything to do with the bed and nothing to do with sleep.

* * *

Three times in one night wasn't their record, but it was enough to make Kate purr when she finally snuggled against Travis's side. Mere moments later, she was dead to the world.

Travis lay beside her, breathing in the scent of their lovemaking, feeling the gentle rise and fall of the breast pressed against his ribs. When he was sure she was out for the count, he glanced at the illuminated dial of the watch he'd left on the nightstand. It was just past midnight here, a little past 6:00 p.m. at his home base back in Florida. If his boss wasn't flying or attending yet another high-level conference on the employment of special ops assets, he might still be at his desk.

Moving carefully, Travis slid his arm from under Kate's head and eased out of bed. Although he'd acted blasé about telling the old man that he'd decided to leave the air force, the prospect sat like a dead weight in his gut. Best to get it done and over with.

Since this wasn't the kind of call he could make naked, he pulled on his jeans and took his cell phone into the other room. He almost hoped Hamilton's exec would say he was gone for a day or in DC or even down with the flu. No such luck.

The colonel was in his office, at his desk and in a blistering mood. “I hope to hell you're calling to tell me you're about to wrap up that project at Aviano.”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, get it in gear. I need you here, dammit.”

Travis had faced armed hostiles with steadier nerves than he felt at this moment. Unconsciously, he squared his shoulders. “I wanted to tell you I'm putting in a request to separate from active duty.”

“The hell you say!”

“I've received a job offer, a good one, and I'm going to accept it.”

The silence that followed was long, stark and brutal. Hamilton finally broke it with a terse question.

“Will this job get you and Kate back together?”

Travis wasn't surprised Hamilton knew about the split. Crews talked; secrets leaked; rumors spread. More to the point, the colonel's wife kept a finger on the pulse of every family in his command.

“I'm hoping so, sir.”

There was no silence this time, no hesitation. The response came fast and straight from the gut of a man who thought his wife was womanhood incarnate.

“Then do it. I sure as hell would.”

Travis breathed easy for the first time since picking up the phone. He could feel the relief—and guilt—rolling off him in waves when the colonel barked a final order before cutting the connection.

“Just make sure you haul your ass back here before you separate, Westbrook. You've got a few things to wrap up at this end, too.”

Chapter Six

K
ate woke to a day that seemed tinted gold around the edges. The bedroom's heavy drapes shut out most of the light, but a few thin rays sneaked through. Enough to brighten the gilt trim on the chandelier and the gold-leaf vines twining up the bed's four flat-topped posts. Stretching sinuously, she was admiring the intricate woodwork when her husband strolled in.

He'd already showered, shaved and dressed. He'd also obviously ordered from room service. She eyed the silver tray he was carrying avidly.

“Please tell me that's coffee.”

“Coffee and
pagnottini
.”

“Which is?”

“Sort of a sweet roll stuffed with raisins.”

Wiggling upright, she tucked the sheet under her armpits and scooted over to make room for the tray while he tore off a bite for her to sample. It was sweet and yeasty and good.
Really
good!

“Carlo got Brian and me hooked on these little suckers,” Travis explained as she savored the delicious morsel. “Wasn't hard to do, since he has them delivered fresh each morning. I'm guessing they come from the same bakery that supplies this hotel.”

“Carlo certainly lives the good life,” Kate commented. “When do I get to meet this new friend of yours?”

“Well, I thought we could spend today sightseeing in Venice and drive up to the base tomorrow.”

Where he would put in an application to separate from the air force. The thought filled her with a pounding eagerness.

“That works for me!”

He tore off another bit of roll and popped it into her mouth. “I called Colonel Hamilton last night, after you fell asleep.”

She swallowed the half-chewed lump, felt it stick in her throat. Breathing hard, she got it down before asking hesitantly, “And?”

“I told him I'm putting in my papers.”

Her heart thumped painfully. “And?”

“And I'm putting in my papers.”

She let that sink in for a few precious seconds. “Did he try to talk you out of it?”

“Actually, he didn't. Just said he'd do the same, given the circumstances.”

She should have felt nothing but relief that Travis had taken the first step in what she knew had to be an excruciating process. Stupidly, what she felt was indignant.

“I'm glad he took it so well,” she muttered, tearing off another chunk of pastry. “I mean, why should he care if you walk? You've only racked up more combat hours than any other pilot in wing.”

“I expect he'll peel a strip off my hide when I get back to base. But until then...”

She didn't mistake either his smile or his meaning. Her indignation on his behalf fading, she finished the thought. “Until then we enjoy ourselves.”

“Exactly.”

“Just what did you have in mind, flyboy?”

“Well, for starters, I was thinking we could blow off sightseeing and spend the day in bed.”

He added incentive by dipping down to drop a kiss on the slope of one breast. Kate gave the proposal the due diligence it deserved before reluctantly shaking her head.

“As tempting as that sounds, I need more than coffee and a sweet roll before we pick up where we left off last night.”

She also needed another soak in that decadent claw-foot tub. Travis had stretched muscles last night that hadn't been stretched in too long.

“Let's have breakfast in that rooftop restaurant we didn't get to last night. We can decide where to go from there.”

“All right.” He conceded the point with feigned reluctance, as if Kate wasn't very well aware he required a man-sized breakfast to jump-start every day. “But you'd better get it in gear. This is the height of tourist season. Lines form early and long.”

She snatched another pagni-whatever from the silver basket and balanced it with her coffee as she rolled out of bed. That left no hands for the sheet, which peeled down over her hips. Travis's appreciative wolf whistle followed her into the bathroom.

* * *

The realization that it was going to happen, that their lives were really going to take an entirely new direction, filled Kate with as much effervescence as the perfumed bubbles.

She was still high when she made the promised call to Dawn and Callie. Her friends put her on speakerphone, so they both heard the news that Travis was separating from the air force to take a job with Ellis Aeronautical Systems. Their reactions ranged from a disbelieving snort (Dawn) to a careful question (Callie).

“Are you sure that's what you want?”

“Absolutely.”

“How about Travis? Is that what he wants?”

“It must be, since he called his boss last night. We're going up to the base at Aviano tomorrow. Travis will put in his papers then.”

“What about this big project he's working on?”

Kate hadn't asked him but could reply with absolute confidence. “He'll stay and finish it.”

“How long will that take?”

“I have no idea. He can't really...”

“...talk about it,” her friends chorused.

Chuckling, Kate redirected the conversation. “How long are you guys planning to wallow in decadent luxury?”

“As long as we can!”

Callie tempered Dawn's emphatic reply. “Another few days. Why?”

“I know Venice wasn't on our original itinerary, but it's too incredible for words. So is the hotel we're staying in. It's owned by one of Carlo's cousins...”

“Carlo, aka the prince?”

“One and the same.”

“I've
got
to meet this guy,” Dawn exclaimed.

“Me, too,” Kate said. “But back to Venice and the hotel. According to Travis, they gave us a very reasonable rate. I could try to get the same for you if you want to jump a train and zip over for the weekend.”

“I doubt Trav would appreciate us barging in,” Callie commented.

“Oh, I don't think he would mind
too
much.” Her lips curved. “We're making up for lost time. Come if you want to.”

“We'll think about it.”

The most important contact completed, Kate scrolled through her messages again and made a return call to the bank in Bologna. Signore Gallo's assistant, Maximo, wasn't in, but he'd left a message with his secretary.

“Signore Gallo would very much like to chat with you about changes to the liquidity index.”

The secretary's voice and heavy accent sounded familiar, but it took Kate a moment to connect them to the woman she'd surprised in the ladies' room at the bank, fighting tears. The odd encounter stuck in her mind as the secretary extended an invitation.

“Would it be possible for you and your husband to join him for lunch in our executive dining room on Monday? At one o'clock, if that's convenient.”

“I think we can work that. If not, I'll call back and let you know.”

“Grazie.”

She relayed the gist of both calls to Travis as they took the elevator to the hotel's rooftop restaurant for a late breakfast.

“If you don't mind, I'd like to make another stop at the bank in Bologna. Signore Gallo's invited us to lunch. It should work out perfectly with our revised itinerary.”

“Which version?” he asked with a grin.

“The one that has us in Venice today, Aviano tomorrow and wherever for the weekend. We could head back to Florence on Monday, with a stop in Bologna on the way.”

“Works for me.”

“I, uh, also told Callie and Dawn that we would check to see if there were any rooms available here at the hotel in case they wanted to zip over and see Venice this weekend.”

To her surprise and secret relief, Travis took the invitation in stride. “Be great if they decide to come.”

“You don't mind?”

“No, sweetheart, I don't.” The elevator door pinged open, but he held it with one hand and tipped her chin with the other.

“You three have been best pals for as long as I've known you. I'd be happy to squire the Invincibles around Venice during the day.” His voice dropped to a husky murmur. “As long as the nights are ours.”

Shivers of delight dancing along her nerves, she echoed his earlier agreement. “Works for me.”

But just in case, Travis thought as the hostess showed them to a table overlooking the Grand Canal, he might see what Brian had laid on for the weekend. Carlo, too. Never hurt to have a little diversionary tactic available when and if one became necessary.

In the meantime, he intended to sit back and enjoy his wife's delight in Venice, a city he'd come to know and appreciate these past weeks. Not that he'd experienced it in such sumptuous surroundings before.

Carlo kept insisting he owed Travis for covering his ass during a raid to rescue a captured Italian news crew. If so, the playboy prince had more than repaid the debt. Just watching Kate's face as she took in the restaurant's fairy-tale atmosphere tipped the scales in Carlo's favor.

Even Travis had to admit the restaurant would rank at the top of anyone's most-romantic list. Sunbeams filtered through vine-covered trellises, the buffet was fit for a king—correction, for a Venetian doge—and their table gave them a superb view of the vaporetti and gondolas gliding over the canal directly below.

The extravagant buffet also offered guests a choice of wine, mimosas, Bloody Marys or Bellinis. Although the latter was more of a cocktail than a morning eye-opener, it went with the setting.

“You know the Bellini was invented here,” Travis commented as Kate opted for the combination of sparkling wine and peach nectar served in a tall crystal flute.

“I know. At Harry's Bar, where Ernest Hemingway and Sinclair Lewis and a bunch of other literary greats hung out in the 1930s and '40s.” When their waiter delivered her drink, she held it up to the light to admire the pale pink hue. “Wonder why it's called a Bellini.”

Their server was only too happy to supply the answer. “It is named for one of our greatest painters, signora. When Giuseppe Cipriani, who owns Harry's Bar, combines sweet peach nectar with the wine, he says the color is the same as that of a saint's robe in a famous painting by Giovanni Bellini. So he names his creation in honor of this great artist.”

Tucking his tray under his arm, the man beamed with local pride. “If you wish to see this painting, it hangs in the Doge's Palace. You plan to visit the palace, yes?”

“We do. Sometime later today, hopefully.”

“It becomes very crowded,” he said, echoing Travis's earlier warning. “But the hotel can arrange a tour so you do not have to stand in long lines. Shall I call down to the concierge and see what times may be available?”

“That would be wonderful.”

She smiled her thanks but hooked a skeptical brow when the waiter departed. “The lines in Venice can't be any longer than the ones in Rome.”

“Guess again. The major tourist sights in Rome are spread out. Here, they're pretty much concentrated around St. Mark's Square and the Rialto Bridge.”

* * *

Kate acknowledged the point but remained dubious until the hotel's private vaporetto delivered them to St. Mark's Square for a one o'clock VIP tour of the pink-and-white Palazzo Ducale. The Doge's Palace had served as the residence of the supreme ruler of the Venetian republic since the eleventh century.

“Oh my god! I don't believe this crowd.”

Grasping Travis's hand, Kate stepped off the boat's gleaming gunwale onto the pier and descended into a teeming sea of humanity. Tourists of every age and nationality jammed the square. The lines that snaked toward the entrance of the cathedral and the palace were epic.

Yet somehow the cheerful throng only added to Venice's nowhere-else-in-the-world ambience. There was no pushing, no shoving, and hundreds of kiosks lined the broad walkway in front of the palazzo. Their colorful offerings ranged from inexpensive carnival masks to gondoliers' straw boaters to lace parasols and every conceivable variation of I Love Venice T-shirts.

Their concierge had worked magic. Either that or the name of the hotel he worked for did the trick. Kate felt guilty bypassing the long lines at the Doge's Palace. Not guilty enough to forfeit their VIP tickets, however.

The palace was as magnificent as the guidebooks advertised. Okay, maybe a little overwhelming. It contained so many opulent rooms filled with so many priceless masterpieces that Kate went into overload two-thirds of the way through the tour. She was as relieved as Travis when they escaped into the bright afternoon sunshine...and thoroughly enchanted when he guided her through the crowd to an outside table at a restaurant in St. Mark's Square.

The restaurant was one of several housed in the elegant arcade that surrounded the square on three sides. Each restaurant featured regimented rows of outdoor tables with different-colored chairs. To Kate's delight, each also offered its own orchestra mounted on a platform under gaily striped awnings. The orchestras took turns entertaining the tourists thronging the square as well as the customers willing to pay astronomical menu prices in exchange for a table.

Kate's residency in Washington, DC, had exposed her to the world of outrageously expensive dinners and drinks. Still, she blinked at prices on the tasseled menu. She was mentally converting the cost of a glass of red wine from euros to dollars for the third time when Travis's cell phone buzzed.

“It's Brian Ellis,” he announced after a glance at the digital display. “I left him a message earlier, asking for a return call.”

“You're going to tell him you want the VP job?”

“I am.”

“Make sure he understands it's contingent on giving me a better understanding of what you'll be doing. I want statistics,” she hissed as he hit the answer button. “Risk factors.”

“Christ, I thought you were kidding. What? No, not you, Brian.” He shot Kate a fulminating glance. “I was talking to my wife. Turns out she wants a little more information about the duties of Ellis Aeronautical's VP for test and evaluation before we sign on the dotted line.” He listened for a moment, then nodded. “Sure, we can do that. What time? Okay, we'll be there.”