traits she’d treasured in her husband. He’d grown up in a grimy Massachusetts mill town still struggling to emerge from its sweatshop past. Yet his fiercely determined mother had managed to blunt the rough edges he’d had to develop to survive in the gang-ridden town. In the process, she’d instilled an almost Victorian set of manners. A full scholarship to UMass followed by his introduction to the hallowed traditions of the air force officer ranks had added more layers of polish.
And there was another irony, Kate mused as her husband held out a chair for her at one of the rickety tables set under a green-and-white-striped awning. The magna cum laude grad and the thoughtful, courteous gentleman seemed to have no problem coexisting with the gladiator honed by street brawls and the brutal training he’d gone through to become a special operations pilot.
The thought spawned another, one that made her chest hurt as she waited for Travis to claim his seat. Loyalty was another character trait she’d always believed went bone-deep in her husband. He was part of an elite cadre chosen to fly the HC-130J, the latest version of the venerable Hercules transport that performed yeoman service in the Vietnam War. Dubbed the Combat King II, this modern-day, technically sophisticated version of the Herc was the only dedicated personnel recovery platform in the air force inventory. That meant it could fly high over extended distances with air-to-air refueling or go in low and slow to drop, land or recover special operations teams.
Most of the Combat King crew members Kate met over the years were too macho to spout platitudes about the brotherhood of arms or the bonds forged by battle. They didn’t have to. The racks of ribbons decorating their service uniforms said it for them. Was it that closeness, the exclusivity of the war fighters’ world, that had prompted Travis to take such a personal interest in Captain Diane Chamberlain? He swore it was. Swore he’d only intended to mentor the bright young communications officer.
Kate had ached to believe him. If she hadn’t been all too aware of the unwritten rule that what happened when deployed, stayed deployed... If his ambitious protégée hadn’t included those graphic details in her Facebook post... If Kate and Trav hadn’t already drifted so far apart...
And that, she’d admitted—to him and to herself, when she’d worked through the initial anger and hurt—was the real crux of the matter. Their careers had taken them down such different paths. His from a brand-new pilot with shiny wings to a commander of battle-hardened air crews. Hers from a starting job as a foreign accounts manager at a Bank of America branch to the Washington, DC, headquarters of the World Bank.
Now here they were. Four years of tumultuous courtship and five years of marriage later. Near strangers sharing a tiny table in the city they’d always planned to explore together. As Travis tipped wine from the waiting bottle into dark green glasses, Kate let her gaze drift from the gloriously baroque Trevi Fountain to the tall earth-toned hotels and residences ringing the piazza’s other three sides.
“I can’t believe we’re really in Rome,” she murmured.
“Took us long enough to get here.”
The rueful acknowledgment drew her gaze from the vibrant scene to her husband. She searched his face, seeing again the weariness etched into the white squint lines at the corners of his eyes. Seeing, too, the scatter of silver in the dark chestnut hair he always kept regulation short.
She couldn’t help herself. Before she even realized what she was doing, she reached across the tiny table and feathered a finger along his temple. “Is this gray I see?”
“It is. Helluva note when heredity and the job conspire to make you an old man at thirty-two.”
Her gaze dropped to the muscled shoulders molded by his blue Oxford shirt. Its open collar showcased the strong column of his neck, the rolled-up sleeves his tanned forearms. Withdrawing her hand, she sat back and accepted the wine he passed her with a reluctant smile.
“You’re not totally decrepit yet, Major Westbrook.”
“You, either, Ms. Westbrook. Does it violate the ground rules of our truce if I say that you look damned good for a senior investment accounts officer?”
“Make that executive investments accounts officer. I was promoted two months ago.”
“Who died?”
The long-standing joke drew a chuckle. It was a more or less accepted axiom in the banking community that a manager only moved up when a superior keeled over at his or her desk.
Thankfully Kate hadn’t had to step over any corpses to reach her present position. Her undergraduate degree in business management from Boston College and a master’s in international finance and economic policy from Columbia had given her an edge in the race to the top. That and the fact that she’d begun her career at Bank of America. With BOA’s diversity of services and global reach, she’d been able to snag positions of increasing responsibility each time Travis transferred to a new base.
“No one that I know of,” she answered.
“Good to hear.” Mugging an expression of profound relief, he lifted his glass. “Here’s to the World Bank’s smartest and best-looking executive investments accounts officer.”
She clinked her glass to his, surprised and secretly grateful for the easy banter. She still hadn’t quite recovered from the shock of his unexpected appearance in Rome. Although...
She swirled the chianti inside her mouth for a moment, ostensibly to savor the rich, robust flavors of blueberry and clove. Not so ostensibly to deliver a swift mental kick.
She should have at least considered the possibility Travis would track her down. Especially since they’d planned and canceled a trip to Italy so many times that it, too, became a long-standing joke. Then an annoyance. Then one more casualty of their crumbling marriage.
“So how are you liking Washington?”
She let the wine slide down her throat and answered carefully. “So far, so good.”
Long, agonizing hours had gone into her decision to accept the job at the World Bank. Travis had agreed it was a fantastic opportunity, too good to pass up. He’d also acknowledged that they’d put his career ahead of hers up to that point. What neither of them could admit was that her move to DC had signaled the beginning of the end.
Even then they’d tried to make it work. He’d flown in between deployments for short visits. She’d zipped down to Florida for the ceremony awarding him the Silver Star—despite the fact his plane had taken hits from intense antiaircraft fire, Travis and his crew had managed a daring extraction of a navy SEAL team pinned down and about to be overrun. An air force general and a navy admiral had both been present at the ceremony. Each had commented on how proud Kate must be of her husband.
She was! So proud she often choked up when she tried to describe what he did to outsiders. Pride was cold comfort, though, when he grabbed his go kit and took off for another short-notice rotation to Afghanistan or Somalia or some other war-ravaged, disease-stricken area of operations.
Then there were the ops he couldn’t tell her about. Highly classified and often even more dangerous. Like, she guessed a moment later, the present one. She got her first clue when he glossed over her question about how long he’d be in Italy.
“We’re not sure. Could be another month, could be more. What about you? How long are you staying?”
“I fly home on the twentieth.”
He
