He peered through the binoculars he’d brought. “We haven’t been gone long enough. This is Italy. They need time to get organized.”
A bird flew from its nest in the wall behind them. Standing so close disturbed the peace of this place, and she moved away. Her feet crushed some wild mint. The sweet scent enveloped her.
She noticed a section of wall with a domed niche. As she moved closer, she saw that it was the apse of what must have been a chapel. Faint traces of color were still visible in what was left of the dome-a russet that might once have been crimson, dusty shadows of blue, faded ocher. “Everything is so peaceful. I wonder why they left.”
“The sign mentioned a plague in the fifteenth century combined with overtaxing by the neighborhood bishops. Or maybe they were driven away by the ghosts of the Etruscans buried here.”
He sounded irritable again. She turned her back on him and gazed up into the dome. Churches generally calmed her, but Ren was too close. She smelled smoke and spun around to see him light a cigarette.
“What are you
“I only smoke one a day.”
“Could you do it when I’m not around to watch?”
He ignored her and took a deep drag, then wandered toward one of the portals. As he leaned against the stone, he looked moody and withdrawn. Maybe she shouldn’t have forced him to poke around in his childhood.
“You’re wrong,” he said abruptly. “I’m perfectly capable of separating real life from the screen.”
“I never said you weren’t.” She sat down on a section of wall and studied his profile, so well proportioned and exquisitely carved. “I was only suggesting that the view of yourself you formed in childhood, when you were seeing and doing things no child should be exposed to, might not fit the man you’ve become.”
“Don’t you read the papers?”
She finally understood what was really bothering him. “You can’t stop brooding about what happened with Karli, can you?”
He inhaled, not saying anything.
“Why don’t you hold a press conference and tell the truth?” She plucked a stem of wild mint and crushed it between her fingers.
“People are jaded. They’ll believe what they want to.”
“You cared about her, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. She was a sweet kid… and, God, so talented. It was hard watching all that go to waste.”
She wrapped her arms around her knees. “How long were you together?”
“Only a couple of months before I figured out how bad her drug problem was. Then I got suckered into a rescue fantasy and spent another few months trying to help her.” He flicked an ash, took another drag. “I arranged an intervention. Tried to talk her into rehab. Nothing worked, so I finally walked.”
“I see.”
He shot her a dark look. “What?”
“Nothing.” She lifted the mint to her nose and wished she could let people be themselves without trying to fix them, especially when it was becoming increasingly obvious that the person who needed the most fixing was herself.
“What’s that ‘I see’ crap? Say what you’re thinking. God knows that shouldn’t be hard for you.”
“What do you think I’m thinking?”
Smoke curled from his nostrils. “Suppose you tell me.”
“I’m not your psychiatrist, Ren.”
“I’ll write you a check. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“What’s on my mind isn’t important. It’s what’s on yours that counts.”
“It sounds like you’re judging me.” He bristled with hostility. “It sounds like you think I could have done something to save her, and I don’t like it.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Judging you?”
He tossed down the cigarette. “It wasn’t my fault that she killed herself, damn it! I did everything I could.”
“Did you?”
“You think I should have stuck around?” He ground out the butt. “Should I have handed her the needle when she wanted to shoot up? Scored some blow for her? I told you I had drug problems when I was a kid. I can’t be around that shit.”
She remembered the joking reference he’d made to snorting cocaine, but he wasn’t joking now.
“I cleaned up when I was in my early twenties, but it still scares the hell out of me to think how close I came to screwing up my life. Since then I’ve made sure I stay as far away from it as I can.” He shook his head. “What happened to her was such a goddamn waste.”
Her heart ached for him. “And if you’d only stuck around, you might have been able to save her?”
He turned on her, his expression furious. “That’s bullshit. Nobody could save her.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do you think I was the only one who tried? Her family was there. A lot of her friends. But all she cared about was her next fix.”
“Maybe there was something you could have said? Something you could have done?”
“She was a junkie, damn it! At some point she had to help herself.”
“And she wouldn’t do that, would she?”
He stubbed his toe into the dirt.
Isabel rose. “You couldn’t do it for her, Ren, but you wanted to. And you’ve been going crazy ever since she died trying to figure out what you could have said or done that would have made a difference.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and gazed off into the distance. “There wasn’t anything.”
“Are you absolutely certain?”
His long sigh came from someplace deep inside. “Yeah, I am.”
She moved next to him and rubbed the small of his back. “Keep reminding yourself.”
He gazed down at her, the furrows between his eyebrows smoothing. “I really am going to have to write you a check, aren’t I?”
“Consider it barter for the cooking lesson.”
His lips curved ever so slightly. “Just don’t pray for me, okay? Freaks me out.”
“You don’t think you deserve a few prayers?”
“Not when I’m trying to remember what the person who’s praying for me looks like naked.”
Something hot leaped between them. He lifted his hand and took his time tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s just my luck. I stay on my good behavior for months, but then, when I’m finally ready to raise some hell, I get marooned on a desert island with a nun.”
“Is that the way you think of me?”
He toyed with her earlobe. “I’m trying, but it’s not working.”
“Good.”
“God, Isabel, you send out more mixed signals than a bad radio.” He dropped his hand in frustration.
She licked her lips. “It’s… because I’m conflicted.”
“You’re not conflicted at all. You want this just as much as I do, but you haven’t figured out how to work it into whatever your current life plan is, so you’re dragging your heels. The same heels, by the way, that I’d like to feel propped on my shoulders.”
Her mouth went dry.
“You’re driving me nuts!” he exclaimed.
“And you think you’re not doing the same to me?”
“The first good news I’ve had all day. So why are we standing around?”
He reached out, but she jumped back. “I-I need to get my bearings.
“Exactly what I don’t want.” Now he was the one who stepped back. “Damn it, I’m not getting interrupted again, and the minute I put my hands on you, someone’s guaranteed to show up at the farmhouse. How about you grab that picnic lunch, because I need a distraction in a big way.”
