Lazlo’s Last Stand

could manage, when Corbett took her gently by the arms.

“You might as well get used to it, edesem,” he said softly as he guided her to a chair, pulled it out and sat her down. “The cat’s out of the bag, and no great surprise to them, either. Kati’s been after me to ‘find someone and settle down’ for years. Evidently, she decided the minute she laid eyes on you that you were the one.”

“Smart woman,” Lucia murmured shakily, smiling across the table at Kati, who beamed back at her.

“I seem to be surrounded with them,” Corbett said cheerfully. “Quite outnumbered, in fact.”

“Oh, please, what’s that song?” Lucia nodded toward Kati, who was now busily stirring something on the stove, both the stirring and the bobbing of her ample behind keeping time with the happy little tune she was singing. “She was singing the same song the first morning we were here. I heard it when I woke up. It stuck in my head, and I meant to ask you-”

“Ah-just a minute. I’ll ask. Kerem szepen…”

At Corbett’s query, Kati turned from the stove expectantly. There was a brief but spirited exchange between them, then she and Josef began to sing together with great enthusiasm:

“Kis kut kerekes kut van az udvarunkba

Egy szep barna kislany van a szomszedunkba

Csalfa szemeimet ra sem merem vetni

Fiatal az edesanyja azt is kell szeretni.”

Lucia listened avidly and thought it interesting that, while neither of them could be said to have particularly good voices, together they sounded wonderful.

“Okay,” Corbett said when they’d finished, while Lucia was still applauding, “I think I’ve got most of it. It’s quite an old song. Kati says her mother used to sing it to my father when she was his nanny. It goes, ‘There is a small well in our yard…There is a pretty brown girl in our neighborhood. I don’t dare to give her the eye…’ Dah dah dah dah-Fiatal az edesanyja-something about her having a young mother who needs love, too.”

“That darn age thing-it’ll get you every time,” Lucia said solemnly.

His eyes smiled deeply into hers. She’d never seen them so blue and bright. “Yes, well, I think where Kati’s concerned, the pertinent phrase is, ‘Pretty little brown girl.’ I must say, I find it appropriate, myself, if a bit inadequate.”

And just that easily the room and everything in it disappeared-everything but him…his voice…his eyes. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed. She didn’t care who knew, or what anyone might see in her eyes, her face. Just that quickly her world, her existence had come down to this: this man and the miracle that he loved her at last, the way she had always loved him.

And at that moment she was so happy, she hadn’t the sense to be terrified.

The midday meal went on and on, as it always did, while Corbett clung to his legendary self-control like a drowning man to a bit of flotsam. It did no good whatsoever to tell himself how absurd it was for a man his age to be in such a state. Neither did it help to remind himself that in the room next door to this one a very sophisticated communications system sat waiting to connect him at the click of a mouse to the agency he’d built and the responsibilities he’d abdicated. That people he cared about might at this very moment be wounded or dying, that one of those people had betrayed him and that the son he hadn’t known existed was lying paralyzed in a hospital.

All it did was make him feel guilty. Guilty because all he wanted to do at this moment was get to a quiet place where he could be alone with Lucia. Where he could explore bit by tantalizing bit the miracle that this woman who had loved him for so very long had reached so far into his heart that he was able to truly love her the same way. Where he could discover the mysteries of her body and her heart at the same time she was discovering his.

He’d waited long enough. Too long, but that was the past.

This was now. And since he had no way of knowing whether they would have a future, he meant to make the most of it.

Eventually, the last morsel of pastry had been offered and regretfully refused, the last cup of coffee poured and drunk, the last tiny glass of sweet tokai wine lifted in toast and swiftly downed. When Josef seemed about to relight his pipe and settle in for more conversation, his wife, with silent scoldings and meaningful looks toward the two younger people at the table, nudged him toward the door.

And suddenly they were alone.

In the silence, Corbett looked at Lucia and smiled-he thought a bit crookedly. She returned his gaze steadily, though a sweet pink blush rose to her cheeks as he watched. And his heart turned over.

“Still feel like that bath?” he asked, the huskiness in his voice the only outward sign of the strange new vulnerability that had come over him.

“I thought you’d never ask,” she murmured in reply. She pushed back her chair and reached for his hand.

He took it and held it for a moment, fighting the urge to pull her into his lap, weighing the immediacy of the pleasures that activity promised, versus the delay it would cause to his ultimate goal. As a compromise, he rose to his feet, drew her close and folded his arms around her. She nestled against him with a sigh and her arms came carefully to circle his waist.

“Are you sure?” she whispered, tilting her head back to look at him. “What about your ribs?”

He kissed her forehead. “Hmm. Sweet of you to ask. It may require some creativity on both our parts, but with your brains and my…shall we say…motivation, I’m sure we’ll manage.”

“Your motivation? What about mine? Do you know how long I’ve wanted-”

“My fault entirely. As I believe you pointed out to me the other day, I have been a complete idiot. I believe I may be cured of that malady, but if I should ever begin to show signs of relapse, please feel free to pummel me soundly about the-”

At that point, mercifully, she muttered, “Oh, do shut up,” hooked one hand around the back of his neck, pulled his head down and kissed him. Soundly.

When she released him some time later, he lifted his head, managed to pull her face into focus and said sternly, “Is that any way to speak to your-”

So she kissed him again.

This time when he’d recovered his senses somewhat, he had presence of mind to place a restraining finger across her lips before he attempted to speak. “As enjoyable as this is, my love, I have to ask…are you stalling? Because if you are-”

Above his hand her eyes grew wide and bright, and her head moved rapidly back and forth.

“In that case,” he said, kissing her on the tip of her nose, “go and fetch us some towels and whatever else you need. And don’t dawdle.” He took her firmly by the shoulders and turned her toward her bedroom.

She went but paused in the doorway to give him a look over one shoulder. “Hmm. I can see there are one or two old habits in this relationship that will have to be dealt with,” she said thoughtfully.

With the memory of Corbett’s chuckle filling her whole being with happiness, Lucia quickly gathered an armful of towels, clean clothes, soap, lotion and shampoo. But, when she returned to the kitchen, she found him standing in the doorway of his study. He had his back to her, and something about the set of his shoulders-as if he bore the weight of a hundred sorrows on them-made her heart drop sickeningly into the pit of her stomach.

He didn’t turn when she went to him, but silently reached an arm around her to pull her close.

“Corbett,” she said softly, “if you want to check in first…”

He shook his head. A smile flickered briefly as he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “No, love. It will all be here when I get to it. There’s nothing I can do anyway, is there?”

He pulled the door closed, and they turned together to the one next to it.

Corbett took the lantern from its hook on the wall of the storage room, lit it, then turned off the overhead lights. The absolute darkness of the cave moved closer, but instead of seeming mysterious and even creepy, it seemed to embrace them in quiet intimacy. He led the way, lifting the lantern high so Lucia could see to pick her way through the maze of rock formations, and as she followed him deeper into the cave she seemed to slip deeper and deeper into a sense of unreality.

This is Corbett Lazlo.

Whenever she could, she studied the man walking ahead of her, watched the way he moved, as he always did, with confidence and grace, his head held high, and everything about him-his height, the breadth of his shoulders, his