Breathing Room

Connor took his time thinking it over. He stuffed his finger up his nose, inspected his belly button. Then he peed in the toilet.

Ren grinned. “Way to go, dude.”

Connor grinned back, then started to run for the door, only to stop in his tracks. “Poopy!”

“Aww, man… you sure?”

“Poopy!”

“I could do without this, you know.” Ren picked him up, flipped the seat back down, and plunked him on top.

“Poopy!”

Sure enough…

When the kid was done, Ren held him under the tub faucet for a while, then headed for the bedroom, where he located a big safety pin and his smallest pair of stretch bikini briefs-a pair he seemed to remember Isabel admiring. He fastened them on the kid as best he could, then gave him the hairy eyeball. “These are mine, and if you get ’em wet, you’re going to regret it. Understand?”

Connor stuck his thumb in his mouth, bent his head to inspect, then gave a deep, satisfied chortle.

The briefs stayed dry.

The next few days fell into a routine. Harry and Tracy appeared around breakfast time to attend to the children. Ren and Isabel spent part of the morning at the farmhouse, where they helped the others begin the laborious task of sweeping the area with metal detectors. Afterward Isabel headed off with her notebook, and Ren went to meet Massimo in the vineyard.

Massimo had been growing grapes all his life, and he didn’t need any supervision, but Ren found something satisfying about strolling through the shady rows and feeling the hard clay soil of his ancestors beneath the soles of his shoes. Besides, he needed to get away from Isabel. He liked being with her too much for his own good.

Massimo gave him a grape to crush. “Are your fingers sticking together?”

“Not yet.”

“Still not enough sugar. Maybe two more weeks, and then we will be ready for the vendemmia.”

In the late afternoon, when Ren got back to the villa, he’d invariably find Jeremy hanging around waiting for him. The kid never said anything, but it hadn’t taken Ren long to figure out that he wanted to practice his martial- arts moves. The boy was smart and well coordinated, and Ren didn’t mind. Harry and Tracy were usually sealed away with Isabel for their daily counseling, but if the session ended in time, Harry liked to join them. Ren got a kick out of watching Jeremy teach his father what he’d learned.

Sometimes Ren found himself wondering how he’d have turned out if he’d had a father like Harry Briggs. Even Ren’s success hadn’t won his father’s approval. Being an actor, especially a successful one, was too public, too vulgar-this from the man who’d been married to Ren’s playgirl, pothead mother.

Fortunately, Ren had stopped caring about his father’s opinion a long time ago. There was nothing useful about having the approval of a man he’d never respect.

Anna began pestering him about holding a festa after the harvest was in. “This was done for many years when I was a girl. Everyone who helped with the vendemmia would come to the villa on the first Sunday after the grapes were picked. There would be much food and laughter. But your Aunt Philomena decided it was too much trouble, and the tradition ended. Now that you are living here, we can begin again, yes?”

“I’m only living here temporarily.” He’d been in Italy nearly three weeks. He had to go to Rome next week to meet with Jenks for a few days, and filming would start a couple of weeks after that. He hadn’t discussed any of this with Isabel-not the meeting in Rome nor how much longer he’d be staying at the villa-and she hadn’t asked. But then, why should she? They both knew that this was short-term.

Maybe he’d invite her to come with him. Seeing familiar sights through her eyes gave him a whole new view. Except he couldn’t invite her. All the disguises in the world wouldn’t keep some sharp-eyed paparazzo from spotting them, and being seen with him would finish off what little was left of her good-girl reputation. There was also the inescapable fact that she’d refuse to go along once she discovered what Night Kill was really about.

His resentment resurfaced. She’d never understand what this role meant to him, just as she refused to understand that it wasn’t some distorted image of himself he carried around that made him want to play bad guys. He simply couldn’t identify with heroes, and that didn’t have a freakin’ thing to do with his demented childhood. Well, not much anyway. And since when did someone who hired crooked accountants and got engaged to an asshole have the right to sit in judgment?

It was a wonder their affair hadn’t already fizzled out, although it was hard to picture anything simply fizzling where Isabel was concerned. No, when this affair ended, it would go out with a bang. The idea was so depressing that it took him a moment to realize Anna was still talking to him.

“… but this is your home now-your family’s home-and you will keep coming back. So we will hold the festa this year to begin a new tradition, yes?”

He couldn’t imagine coming back, not when Isabel wasn’t here, but he told Anna to go ahead with her plans.

“You’re not one of those people who thinks pregnant women don’t need sex, are you?” Tracy regarded Isabel accusingly. “Because if you are, take a good look at this man and tell me how any woman, pregnant or not, could resist him?”

Harry managed to appear both embarrassed and happy. “I don’t know about that… But really, Isabel, it’s not necessary any longer. Definitely not necessary. We’ve had more than enough time to talk, and the lists you’ve asked us to make have been very helpful. I hadn’t quite realized… I just didn’t know…” A smile melted his face. “I never imagined all the ways she loves me.”

“And I had no idea he admired so many things about me. Me!” Tracy gave a shiver of delight. “I thought I knew everything about him, but I’d only scratched the surface.”

“Let’s give it a little longer,” Isabel said.

“What kind of marriage counselor are you?” Tracy retorted.

“No kind. I’m winging it. I told you that from the beginning. You’re the ones who insisted on this, remember?”

Tracy sighed. “We just don’t want to screw things up again.”

“Then let’s discuss today’s lists. Did each of you come up with twenty attributes the other one has that you wish you had yourself?”

“Twenty-one,” Tracy said. “I included his penis.”

Harry laughed, and they kissed, and the pang of envy Isabel felt made her ache. Marriage had its rewards for those who could survive the chaos.

“Hurry up! They’re gone.”

Isabel dropped her pen as Ren entered the villa’s rear salon, where she’d been sitting at a beautiful eighteenth-century desk writing a note to a friend in New York. Since the Briggs family had just left for dinner in Casalleone, she didn’t have to ask Ren whom he was talking about.

She reached down to pick up her pen, but he pulled her out of the chair before she could grab it. He’d been so moody lately, one minute acting as though he wanted to snap her head off, the next minute looking as he did now, full of devilry. The more she was with him, the more she sensed the battle he had going on inside him between the person he believed himself to be and the man who was no longer comfortable living inside his bad-guy skin.

He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go. I figure we’ve got two hours before they come back.”

“Anyplace in particular?”

“The farmhouse. Too many people around here.”

They raced down the hill, through the door, and up the farmhouse stairs. As they got to the top, she pushed him toward the smaller bedroom. “Clean sheets.”

“Like that’s going to last for long.”

She pulled off her clothes while he locked the door, closed the shutters, and flipped on a lamp. Its low-wattage bulb cast the small room into shadow.

He tossed the contents of his pockets onto the nightstand and undressed. She lay on the narrow bed, then