Eve’s Wedding Knight

say it. Wouldn’t they?

There was no answer from Jake-not in words. But his fingers played over her back as if he were a musician and she his instrument, lightly stroking the delicate cords of her neck, pressing deep into the thicker muscle along her spine, gentling the thin, ticklish places over her ribs and finding with unerring precision the sensitive pressure spots hidden among the complex bones of her shoulders.

Her mind wandered… She remembered the music she’d heard playing in Jake’s apartment that first crazy night, and thought of the old blues guitar man she’d interviewed for the music piece…rheumy-eyed and toothless, he’d been, wasted by a life of booze and poverty. But it had been his hands the camera had homed in on, and it was his hands she saw now in her mind’s eye, caressing the strings of that old acoustic guitar as if they were the body of a beautiful woman…

“Where’d you learn to do that?” she asked weakly.

Jake grunted. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist.”

No, she thought, just an extraordinarily gentle man. She’d been given massages before, by men who thought they were being gentle. Probably they’d thought they were being seductive, too, but invariably they’d be too rough, press too hard, and instead of relaxing, she’d feel the reflexive urge to tense her muscles to protect her tender places. Usually she’d been relieved when they’d abandoned the attempt at subtle seduction and switched to the more direct approach. But never before in her life could she remember feeling like this in a man’s hands-so relaxed, so pampered, so utterly and completely safe. And at the same time-ridiculous, for a woman just turned forty-three-so dreadfully, terrifyingly vulnerable. It was a contradiction she couldn’t begin to unravel.

“By the way…” It was his quiet, even-toned cop voice, as his hands, stroking lightly up and down her back, signaled an end to the massage. “A day late, but…happy birthday.”

And pleasure burst inside her as if he’d switched on a floodlight, pouring warmth and light and happiness into every corner of her being. She felt warm-cheeked and lightheaded, as if she’d been gulping champagne.

She sucked in air, and as she rolled over and into a sitting position, tugging her blouse back into place, gave it back, sparked with laughter. “How did you…? Oh, right-I guess you heard us last night-Sonny and me.” And was puzzled by the shadow of annoyance-and could it have been disappointment? -that flashed across his face as she said those words.

What now? she wondered, indefinably frustrated, sorry without knowing why she should be. What an enigma he was, this man from the FBI. Like a river of contradictions: deep dark pools and sweet, sunny shallows and just when you least expected, treacherous, nonnegotiable rapids.

“Thank you,” she rushed on, trying with her smile to tell him the secret she’d never reveal with words-that his words, just the acknowledgment, had given her more joy than all Sonny’s diamonds and pearls. “And thanks for the massage-best present I ever got.” She said it lightly, jokingly, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t believe it.

He grunted and muttered, “The massage is on the house.” Then he reached into his inside jacket pocket, giving her glimpses of a holster harness, and pulled out a plastic audiotape case. “I did get you something, though,” he said as he handed it to her. “Just a bunch of stuff I pulled off my albums that I thought you might like. There’s a pretty good mix-Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey… Billie Holiday, of course. B.B. King. I think there’s even some blues harmonica…” He gave a quick, almost negligent shrug. “You said you hadn’t had time to listen to music before. I thought maybe now you might.”

For perhaps the first time in her life, Eve fully understood the word speechless. There were feelings inside her-tremendous, enormous feelings-but no words at all. There were no words even in her mind, like the ones that formed sometimes but which she couldn’t quite bring herself to say. Without them she felt strangely defenseless…unarmed and exposed. She stared down at the cassette in her hand and waited for words to come to her rescue, and when they didn’t, finally lifted her eyes to Jake’s. His dark eyes gazed back at her with that inexplicable melancholy, and she felt her cheeks warm with a schoolgirl’s flush…

A breath sighed between her lips and she heard herself say, “Thank you…this is nice of you.” Thank God for habits and conventions, for the saving grace of manners. “I will play it.”

“I’ll know if you do.” One corner of his mouth lifted, in what might have been a smile. Yes! It was…definitely a smile.

Once, in Brazil, she’d caught a glimpse, just the smallest glimpse of a jaguar as it slipped away into the shadows of the rain forest. And her breath had stilled then and her chest had tightened in just this way, in homage and in awe of something miraculous and rare. Something wonderful.

Laughter hovered, balanced on her lips, the effervescence of pure joy. But at that moment the door opened, and instead of letting the joy flow forth, she swallowed it in a guilty gulp as Dr. Shepherd bounded into the room, carrying the collar over one arm. He looked them over from one to the other and back again and lifted one eyebrow, but if he’d felt any unusual tensions or undercurrents he wisely-in view of Jake’s black and forbidding glare-did not comment.

“There you go-all recharged, restocked and ready to go,” he said as he handed the collar over to Jake, who gave its cargo of listening devices a cursory inspection before he passed it on to Eve. “Now, this here-” and the doctor took a sheaf of papers from his lab coat pocket “-is all your documentation. Here’s your bill, with copies for your insurance company, and this here’s the order for your physical therapy. Now, there’s several different ways we can do this, but in the interest of keeping curiosity and medical community gossip to a minimum, you’re going to in effect be assigned a personal therapist who’ll have regular appointments with you at a local health club out there on the island. The therapist is gonna be one of our agents, and since this isn’t going to be happening at a medical facility, nobody else needs to be brought in on what’s going on. That okay with you?” He looked at Jake, who nodded. “So, if you need to get in touch with her, you’ll find a way to do it during her sessions.” Jake nodded again.

“All right, then, young lady, it looks like you’re good to go,” said Dr. Shepherd, turning his toothy smile back to Eve. “Shall I tell Agent Franco to have your driver bring the car around?”

“Give us a minute,” said Jake softly.

Dr. Shepherd nodded, gave Eve a jaunty little half wave, half salute and went out.

As the door clicked shut, Jake said abruptly, “Here, let me help you on with that.” He took the collar from her and hefted it impatiently while she slid down off the table, then helped settle it into place around her neck, all the while frowning with that curious combination of edginess and melancholy she’d come to accept as normal for him.

There was no need for anyone to say anything, and she was glad for that. Speech would have felt awkward and artificial just then, and silence without the activity to fill it infinitely worse. But she knew without being told the moment it was time to turn and give him access to the Velcro fasteners at the sides of the collar, and he seemed to know without asking whether it was too tight or too loose, instead gauging its adjustment with fingers slipped between the collar and her neck while she tried without success to still her own pulse.

When the collar was in place she turned again to face him, and found that his hands were on her shoulders still, and those grave and speculative eyes so close to hers, she couldn’t focus on them both at once.

For her, the world seemed to stand still and the moment stretch and swell and take on a stature far beyond a casual leave-taking. Because, for her, at least, it wasn’t just a casual leave-taking. Suddenly she knew that something had happened in that tiny room, between the moment of Jake’s walking in and now, this moment, the moment of his going. Something had happened to her, something had changed, and she was not the same person she’d been when she’d entered this room. It’s what’s between us that’s changed. It’s what I feel… what I know.

“Thank you,” she murmured, searching his eyes.

He returned the look, measure for measure, then said with unexpected harshness, “Don’t take chances. Screw the bugs.”

“But I thought-”

He shook his head with controlled violence, started to say something, then stopped. He closed his eyes briefly and drew in a breath and then, giving her shoulders a little shake to emphasize each word, growled, “Just…don’t… get… caught-capish?”

“I won’t.” Her heart hammered against her breastbone.

For a moment longer she felt the scorching weight of his eyes, and then he was gone.