Both the dancing stallion and the sleek vehicle it decorated lost their dazzle in Kate’s eyes. “Some good-luck charm,” she muttered. “I hope your pal Carlo hasn’t stenciled it on his plane.”
“No, the aircraft in his unit sport their own very distinctive nose art. The wing’s name in Italian is the Seventeenth Stormo Incursori, if that gives you any clue.”
When she shook her head, his grin widened.
“It translates literally to ‘a flock of raiders.’ Not so literally to ‘watch your asses, bad guys.’”
“Of course it does. Do they fly the K-2, too?”
K-2 was their shorthand for the Combat King II. The latest model of the HC-130 was still relatively new to the USAF inventory and dedicated to special ops.
“They do,” Travis confirmed. “Just got ’em in this year. Carlo and his crew were still doing a shakedown when we got tagged for that joint op.”
Kate dug in her purse for a fat plastic hair clip, thinking that her husband and his Italian counterpart had forged quite a bond. It might be of recent origin, but it sounded almost as deep and unbreakable as the one between her, Dawn and Callie.
“I’d like to meet this new friend of yours sometime,” she commented as she anchored her hair back with the clip.
“I’d like that, too.” He cut her a quick glance. “Want to amend our itinerary to include the base at Aviano? And maybe Venice?”
“I...uh...”
For pity’s sake! They hadn’t even left the Cavalieri’s landscaped grounds and were already making changes to the agenda. But the lure of Venice proved almost as powerful as the desire to meet this new friend of her husband’s.
“Okay by me.”
“Great.”
When they reached the bottom of the long, curving drive, Travis downshifted and hit the brake. His hand rested casually on the Ferrari’s burled walnut gearshift knob while its engine purred like a well-fed feline.
“This baby can go from zero to sixty in three-point-five seconds,” he confided as they waited for the cross street to clear. “Once we shake free of Rome, we’ll open her up.”
Despite the Ferrari’s impressive prowess, it took Kate and Travis all day to make what would ordinarily be a three-hour drive from Rome to Florence.
They left the autostrada about two hours north of Rome and made a leisurely side trip through the Chianti region, with several stops to sample wine and olive oil. After a light lunch in the historic center of Siena, they followed a winding country road to the fortified hilltop town of San Gimignano.
Its seven towers dated from the Middle Ages. Square and unyielding, they stood like sentinels against a sky puffy with white clouds. The town center was closed to nonlocal traffic, so they parked in a lot outside the main gate and explored the winding medieval streets on foot. By then it was late afternoon. A creamy gelato carried them until dinner, which they ate in a restaurant built into one of San Gimignano’s ancient walls. The view from the restaurant’s terrace of undulating vineyards and red-tiled farms guarded by tall cypresses was a landscape painter’s dream.
They hit the outskirts of Florence as a sky brilliant with purple and gold and red was darkening into night. With typical efficiency, Kate had called ahead to change the reservations she’d previously made at a small boutique hotel perched on a bank of the Arno River just a short distance from the famous Ponte Vecchio.
She felt pleasantly tired from the long day. Not tired enough, however, to banish the awkwardness and unavoidable hurt of checking into two separate rooms. She was the one who’d insisted, she reminded herself fiercely as they took the elevator to the second floor.
Still, she felt as though a fist had locked around her heart and was squeezing hard when she paused outside the door to her room. Key in one hand and the handle of her roller bag in the other, she covered the hurt with a smile.
“Thanks for today, Trav. I...I had fun.”
“Me, too, Katydid.”
They’d both been so careful. No casual physical contact, no sensitive subjects, no reminders of how many times they’d planned this trip. Now all she could think of was how much she ached to kick off her shoes and curl up beside him on a comfy sofa to review the day’s adventures.
Her memories of Italy, she realized suddenly, would always carry this bittersweet flavor. She had to turn away before the tears prickling her eyes welled up.
“I’m more tired than I realized,” she lied, shoving the key in the lock. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
When the door closed behind her, Travis stared at the white-painted wood panel. He was gripping his own key card so fiercely the edges cut into his palm.
He’d known this trip would be hard. Had fully anticipated spending most of the day with his insides balled in a knot. Turned out he’d grossly underestimated the degree of difficulty. It took everything he had to refrain from rapping on that door, folding his wife in his arms and kissing away the sadness that had flickered across her face for the briefest instant.
A low, vicious oath did little to relieve his frustration. Slinging his carryall onto the bed in his room didn’t help, either. Not when all he could think about, all he could see, was Kate’s long, slender body stretched out on the brocaded coverlet, her skin bathed in moonlight and her eyes languorous after a bout of serious sex.
“Dammit all to hell!”
He stalked to the minibar and ripped the cap off a plastic bottle of scotch. Glass in hand, he stood at the window and gazed unseeing at the floodlit dome of Florence’s famous duomo, just visible above the jumble of buildings in the heart of the city.
* * *
When he headed down to the hotel’s breakfast room the next morning, he was feeling the aftereffects of a restless night. Kate was already there, coffee cup in hand and a fistful of brochures fanned on the table in front of her.
Grunting, Travis squinted to block the glare from the picture windows framing the Ponte Vecchio. Despite the early hour, tourists were already streaming onto the medieval stone bridge that spanned the Arno River. The bridge was topped with multistory shops, just as it had been centuries ago, but shopkeepers now hawked gold instead of scalded chickens and haunches of raw meat dangling from iron hooks. Since the bridge no doubt topped Kate’s list of must-see sights, Travis gave fervent thanks they wouldn’t have to battle with the flies and smells of an open-air market like those he’d visited in Africa and Asia.
She looked up at his approach. The faint shadows under her eyes gave him a small, totally selfish dart of satisfaction. Apparently her night hadn’t been any more restful than his.
The rest of her looked good, though. Too good. He pulled out a chair, wondering how the hell he was going to get through another day without dropping a kiss on the soft skin left bare by the honey-colored curls she’d clipped up
