pressure.
She smiled; it worked. That was the first time she’d ever equalized perfectly the first time. She snaked her hand around and grabbed the lines that held her gauges. She held them up to her mask. They were descending through forty feet. She smiled behind the regulator and held it out to Michael. He looked at it and gave her a thumbs-up.
Taylor looked down and was surprised to find the coral-encrusted ocean floor coming up toward her. She and Michael put a small burst of air into their vests to keep them off the coral, a few feet above. Michael shifted himself into a prone position, hovering above the ocean floor in a Superman pose. She felt herself smile again, her lips hard on the regulator, trying to remember to breathe slowly and rhythmically. She swam up to him and flattened herself out, then reached over and took his hand. The two began slowly kicking their fins in a scissorlike motion, quietly moving over the seabed plants and coral. A school of bright yellow fish that Taylor didn’t recognize swarmed around them. In the distance, she caught a glimpse of the other divers and remembered that they weren’t alone.
They swam slowly along, alternating that movement with a still, relaxed drift. They swam in circles, never too far away from the anchor chain. Taylor relaxed, trusting Michael to take care of her, to watch over her. She was glad she’d done this, glad she’d met him, glad she’d taken the biggest chance of her life.
Taylor realized that at this moment, sixty feet below the surface of the Caribbean just off the coast of Venezuela, in the early part of March, with a man she’d been with barely a month, she was happier than she’d ever been in her life. For perhaps the first time in her life, she was completely happy.
The last night in Bonaire, Taylor and Michael went to a local place called the Island Cafe for dinner. Michael had done some research into where the locals went when they wanted to celebrate something away from the tourists. They took a cab into Kralendijk, the only real town on the island, and found themselves in a narrow alleyway near the town center.
The alleyway was dimly lit, crowded with locals, and had a different feel than anyplace else they’d been.
Michael held her hand and walked ahead of her down the winding alley, taking one wrong turn, backing up, then taking another. The Island Cafe was tiny compared to the other restaurants they’d been to, but the smells coming from the kitchen were exquisite. With all the diving and exploring, not to mention the staying up half the night locked in each other’s arms, they had both lost a couple of pounds. Taylor was ravenously hungry.
They drank the local beer and ate pastechis, the plump little pastries full of spicy shrimp and meat. They ordered giambo, the thick, spicy okra soup that was sort of like gumbo, only with a twist. They ordered steaks and fish and wine and ate like starved, caged animals for the next hour, almost without talking. When they finished, Taylor leaned back in her chair and stared across the table at Michael.
“I don’t want to go,” she said simply.
“I don’t, either. But we have to. We have to get back to the real world.”
“Why?” she complained. “Why can’t this be the real world?”
“Because it isn’t,” he said. “I have a book to write and I’m on deadline. You have clients that need you. Joan needs you.”
“She can’t need me that much. I haven’t had a single call from her.”
“That could have something to do with the fact that you didn’t tell her where you were going,” Michael said, smiling.
“Maybe. But she has ways of finding out.”
“You know she’s champing at the bit for you to get back.”
“Maybe.”
Michael leaned forward on the table and took her hands in his, then pulled her toward him.
“There is one thing we can take with us from the island.
Something that will make this an even more important week than it’s already been.”
Taylor looked at him, questioning. “What?”
Michael squeezed her hands and they suddenly felt cold.
Taylor looked down at their hands and realized his palms were sweating.
“What? What’s the matter?”
“Oh,” he said slowly, “nothing’s the matter. I guess I’m just a little new at this.”
“New at what?” she said, almost exasperated.
He let go of her right hand with his left and reached into his pocket. When his hand came back up to the table, it held a small, velvet-covered cube.
Taylor stared at his hand, stunned. “Wha-”
Michael let go of her left hand and raised his right index finger to his lips. “Ssshh,” he said.
“What are you-”
“Let me,” he said hurriedly. “Please.”
She was silent for a moment, uncomprehending. “Ever since I met you, Taylor, it’s been like my life has come together. The day I met you is the day I turned the corner. It was the day when everything started to make sense. Suddenly, I know what I want with my life, and I know who I want to spend it with.”
“Michael, I-”
Michael’s voice rose just a notch, and he looked directly into her eyes. “Now that you’re in my life, I don’t ever want to take a chance that something might happen and you won’t be. I love you, and I want to be with you and nobody else, ever. I’m through with everything I used to do and used to want. I know what’s important to me now, and now that it’s here, right next to me, I don’t want to ever let it slip away.
“Taylor, will you marry me?”
He opened the small ring box and held it toward her.
Shocked beyond recognition, she stared at it a second before realizing what it was-a beautiful European cut diamond that had to be pushing three carats. It was the largest diamond she’d ever seen up close, even larger than her grandmother’s.
“My God,” she whispered. And as she finally got what he was saying and asking, her eyes began to fill. She looked up from the box, into Michael’s eyes, and looked at him through a film of tears.
“Are you sure?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
He nodded. “More sure than I can even begin to tell you.”
She laughed. “A writer at a loss for words. When’s the last time we saw that?”
She laughed again, louder this time. “Yes, Michael,” she said after a moment, taking the box from him and setting it on the table between them. She took his hands and squeezed them, hard.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
All around them, the other restaurant patrons began clap-ping and cheering.
CHAPTER 17
Hank Powell slipped his rented Mitsubishi Gallant into the first available space in the public parking garage across from the Nashville Criminal Justice Center and jerked the gearshift into park with a loud crunch. Next to him, Special Agent Fred Cowan, the resident agent who worked out of Nashville under the supervision of the Memphis Field Office, bounced forward and caught himself with his palm on the dashboard.
“Easy, Hank,” Cowan said. “We’ll make it.”
“We’re late,” Powell muttered. “I hate being late.”
“We’ve got a couple of minutes,” Cowan said, climbing slowly out of the car in a manner far too relaxed to suit Powell. “This is Nashville. Everybody gets hosed up in traffic sooner or later.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Powell said, slamming the door and turning for the exit at a near-trot.
“Wait up!” Cowan called, racing to catch up.
The two agents crossed the side street and walked hurriedly up to the main entrance. Powell already had his badge and credentials out when they got to the main reception desk. He fidgeted nervously as the desk officer
