'I Do'...Take Two!

“Who died?”

The long-standing joke drew a chuckle. It was a more or less accepted axiom in the banking community that a manager only moved up when a superior keeled over at his or her desk.

Thankfully Kate hadn’t had to step over any corpses to reach her present position. Her undergraduate degree in business management from Boston College and a master’s in international finance and economic policy from Columbia had given her an edge in the race to the top. That and the fact that she’d begun her career at Bank of America. With BOA’s diversity of services and global reach, she’d been able to snag positions of increasing responsibility each time Travis transferred to a new base.

“No one that I know of,” she answered.

“Good to hear.” Mugging an expression of profound relief, he lifted his glass. “Here’s to the World Bank’s smartest and best-looking executive investments accounts officer.”

She clinked her glass to his, surprised and secretly grateful for the easy banter. She still hadn’t quite recovered from the shock of his unexpected appearance in Rome. Although...

She swirled the chianti inside her mouth for a moment, ostensibly to savor the rich, robust flavors of blueberry and clove. Not so ostensibly to deliver a swift mental kick.

She should have at least considered the possibility Travis would track her down. Especially since they’d planned and canceled a trip to Italy so many times that it, too, became a long-standing joke. Then an annoyance. Then one more casualty of their crumbling marriage.

“So how are you liking Washington?”

She let the wine slide down her throat and answered carefully. “So far, so good.”

Long, agonizing hours had gone into her decision to accept the job at the World Bank. Travis had agreed it was a fantastic opportunity, too good to pass up. He’d also acknowledged that they’d put his career ahead of hers up to that point. What neither of them could admit was that her move to DC had signaled the beginning of the end.

Even then they’d tried to make it work. He’d flown in between deployments for short visits. She’d zipped down to Florida for the ceremony awarding him the Silver Star—despite the fact his plane had taken hits from intense antiaircraft fire, Travis and his crew had managed a daring extraction of a navy SEAL team pinned down and about to be overrun. An air force general and a navy admiral had both been present at the ceremony. Each had commented on how proud Kate must be of her husband.

She was! So proud she often choked up when she tried to describe what he did to outsiders. Pride was cold comfort, though, when he grabbed his go kit and took off for another short-notice rotation to Afghanistan or Somalia or some other war-ravaged, disease-stricken area of operations.

Then there were the ops he couldn’t tell her about. Highly classified and often even more dangerous. Like, she guessed a moment later, the present one. She got her first clue when he glossed over her question about how long he’d be in Italy.

“We’re not sure. Could be another month, could be more. What about you? How long are you staying?”

“I fly home on the twentieth.”

He cocked his head. “Two days after our divorce becomes final.”

“Dawn and Callie thought it would be easier to... That is, I wanted to...” She played with her glass, swirling the dark red chianti, and dug deep for a smile. “I couldn’t think of a better distraction than touring Italy with the two of them.”

“How about touring it with me?”

Her hand jerked, almost slopping wine over the edge of the glass. “What?”

“I owe you this trip, Kate. Let me make good on that debt.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Yeah, I am.”

Stunned, she shook her head. “We’re too far down the road, Trav. We can’t backtrack now.”

“True.” He leaned forward into a slanting beam of sunlight, so close and intent she could see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes. “But we can take some time to see if there’s enough left to try a different track.”

“That’s crazy. All we’ll do is open ourselves up to more hurt when we say goodbye.”

“No, Kate, we won’t. Despite Dawn’s snide comment a few minutes ago, I hold to my word.” Reaching across the table, he curled a knuckle under her chin. “When and if we say goodbye, I promise you won’t regret this time together.”

Chapter Two

“Kate!” Dismay chased across Dawn’s expressive face. “Tell me you’re not actually going to traipse off with the man!”

“I said I’d consider it.”

“But...but...”

“I know,” Kate admitted with a grimace. “The whole idea of this trip was to help me remember there’s a big, wide world out there that doesn’t have to include Travis Westbrook.”

“Now you want to narrow it down again?”

“Maybe. For a week. Or not. I don’t know.”

The less-than-coherent reply had Dawn swiveling on the crimson brocade sofa lavishly trimmed with gold rope. It was one of two plush sofas in the sitting room of their suite at the five-star Rome Cavalieri. A member of the Waldorf chain, the hotel sat perched on fifteen acres of private parkland overlooking the Eternal City. With its elegant decor, breath-stealing view of St. Peter’s Basilica in the near distance and shuttle service to the heart of Rome, the Cavalieri provided a home base of unparalleled luxury and convenience. The stunning vista framed by the doors of their suite’s balcony was the last thing on the minds of anyone at the moment, however.

Ignoring the city lights twinkling like fireflies in the purple twilight, Dawn made an urgent appeal. “Talk to her, Callie. Remind her how many times she and Travis tried to bridge the gap. When he was home long enough to do any bridging, that is.”

“She doesn’t need reminding. She knows the count better than we do. And God knows you and I haven’t scored any better in the love-and-marriage game.”

Dawn scrunched her nose at the unwelcome reminder while Callie searched their friend’s face. “Which way are you leaning? Yea or nay?”

Sighing, Kate unclipped her hair and raked a hand through the sun-streaked blond spirals. She kept intending to get the shoulder-length curls cut, maybe have them tamed into a sleek bob. Another manifestation of the new Kate Westbrook, like the tailored suits she’d invested in for her move to the World Bank and the two-bedroom condo she’d rented in DC.

“I keep swinging back and forth,” she admitted. “My head says it would be a monumental mistake. If I think of it in terms of a return on investment, I can’t see how a few days together will alter the long-term viability of our marriage. Not unless we introduce some new variables into the equation.”

“Forget equations and investment returns,” Callie urged. “Don’t think like a banker. Think like a wife who has to decide whether she wants to give her husband one last chance. It’s that simple.”

“No, it isn’t! You and Dawn figure into the equation, too. I can’t desert you at the very start of our vacation.”

“Sure you can. Granted, it won’t be anywhere near as much fun without you. I suspect we’ll manage to keep ourselves entertained, though.”

“But I planned our itinerary in such detail.” Of all the iterations of this trip Kate had devised over the years, this was the most elaborate. “I’ve laid out all the train schedules, subway maps, museum hours, hotel locations.”

“Dawn and I are big girls. We can get ourselves from point A to point B. Can’t we?”

“I guess.”

With that reluctant concession, Dawn shoved off the sofa and skirted a coffee table topped with what seemed like an acre of black marble to plop down beside Kate. Tucking one leg under her, she reached for Kate’s hand and threaded their fingers.

“Much as I hate to admit it, Callie’s right. Rambling around Italy won’t be nearly as much fun without you. But she’ll get us where we need to go, and I’ll do my damnedest to hook us up with a couple of studly Fabios. So don’t factor us into your equation. All you have to do is decide whether you want to give Travis another chance to break your heart.”

“Oh, well, when you put it that way...”

“Dawn, for heaven’s sake!”

With an exasperated laugh, Callie joined them on the sofa. Wiggling her bottom, she wedged in on Kate’s other side and grasped her free hand.

They’d huddled together like this so many times as young girls to watch TV or giggle over the silliness of boys. As teens, to whisper secrets and weave dreams. As women, to share their joys and heartaches. More heartache in the past few years, it seemed, than joy.

“It sounds to me as though your head and your heart are pulling you in opposite directions,” Callie said quietly. “So my advice, girlfriend, is to go with your gut.”

* * *

When the three women went down to dinner, Travis was seated at a table in the Cavalieri’s gorgeously landscaped outdoor restaurant. Hurricane lamps flickered, the tables were draped in snowy linen and tall-stemmed crystal goblets gleamed. The floodlit dome of St. Peter’s Basilica looming against a star-studded sky a mile or so away took the setting out of the realm of sophisticated and straight into magical.

Kate suspected her husband would have preferred she deliver her answer to his outrageous proposal in private. Callie and Dawn had made no attempt to conceal their animosity at the Trevi Fountain, and Travis had to know they would be even less thrilled over the possibility Kate might abandon them. No special ops pilot would ever turn tail and run in the face of the enemy, however. Whatever her decision, he would take his licks.

Pushing his chair back, he rose as a hostess escorted the three women to the table. He’d topped his jeans and blue Oxford shirt with the gray suede sport coat that Kate knew packed easily and wore well. All he needed was a salon tan and a leather shoulder satchel slung over the back of his chair to fit right in with the casually sophisticated European males in the restaurant.

Kate, too, had dressed for the occasion in the caramel-colored slacks and matching hip-length jacket she’d bought especially for this trip. Made of a slinky, packable knit, the outfit could be dressed up with the black silk camisole she now wore or down with a cotton tank and chunky wooden necklace. The appreciative gleam in her husband’s eyes as he seated her said he approved of her new purchase.

No surprise there, she thought ruefully as he and the hostess seated Callie and Dawn. Travis had pretty much approved of anything and everything Kate pulled on, from cutoffs and baggy T-shirts to tailored business suits to the strapless, backless gown in screaming red she’d bought for one of their formal military functions. He’d approved of that sinful creation even more, she remembered with a jolt low in her belly, when he’d discovered how easy it was to remove.

Oh, God! Burying her suddenly tight fists in her lap, she was asking herself for the twentieth time if she really wanted to put them both through all the hurt again when Travis reclaimed his seat.

“Almost like old times,” he said with a cautious smile.

“Which times?” Dawn oozed honey-coated acid. “Before or after you got up close and cuddly with your little captain?”

Callie winced. Kate’s nails dug deeper into her palms. Travis folded his elbows on the table and took the knife thrust head-on.

“Okay, I know Kate shared that Facebook business with you two. I’m sure she also shared my pathetic defense. I’ll state it once more, for the record. And only once.”

His eyes as hard and flat as agates, he held Dawn’s glare.

“I did spend time with Captain Chamberlain talking goals and career paths. More than I should have, obviously. I did not, however, touch, kiss or otherwise indicate I wanted to have sex with her. Nor did I have any idea she’d posted those pictures of me sweaty and stripped to the waist.”

Fairness compelled Kate to intervene before blood was spilled. “They were taken during a volleyball match between aircrews. Travis sent me the uncropped versions later, after...”

She lifted a hand, let it drop. No need to bring all the ugliness into this starlit night. She’d got past it. Mostly.

“After the crap hit the fan,” he finished when she didn’t. “Now do you think you can sheathe your claws long enough for us to have dinner, Dawn?”

“I can try. But I’m not making any promises.”

Surprisingly, the snarky reply took some of the stiffness out of his shoulders.

“Actually,” he said gruffly, “I asked Kate to let me buy the three of you dinner for a specific purpose. I want to thank you, Dawn. And you, Callie. You stood shoulder to shoulder with her all these months. I’m more grateful than I can say she had you to turn to.”

Dawn blinked, and even Callie was surprised into a semithaw. “It hasn’t been easy for you, either,” she replied. “We know that. And we want you to know we’re good with whatever Kate’s decided to do for the rest of her stay in Italy.”

“Yeah, well, I want to talk about that, too.”

Their server arrived at that point to take their drink orders. The women opted for the Italian classic Bellini, Travis for a scotch rocks. He waited for the server to retreat before laying his cards on the table.

“I know I’m putting a major dent in your plans by asking Kate to spend this time with me. I’d like to make up for it by proposing an alternative to your itinerary, too.”

Kate had to bite back an instinctive protest. All her work, all the timetables and reservations and prepaid museum passes stored in her iPhone, appeared to be going up in a puff of smoke right before her eyes.

“As Kate may have mentioned, I’m on temporary assignment to the NATO base up near Venice. I’m working with a project involving several of our closest allies, one of whom is an Italian Special Ops pilot.”

“So?”

Dawn wasn’t giving an inch. Travis took her belligerence in stride and continued. “So Carlo’s family owns a villa in Tuscany. He says it’s within easy driving distance of Florence and Siena and on the fast train line to Milan and Venice. He also says the villa is currently vacant but fully staffed. It’s yours if you want to make it your home base for the next week or so.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Dawn admitted, surprised out of her hostility by the generous offer, “but the hotel here in Rome was our big splurge. We can’t afford to spring for a fully staffed villa.”

Actually, she could. Since Kate regularly advised her on various mutual funds and investments, she knew precisely how much her friend raked in each year as a graphic designer for a Fortune 500 health-and-fitness firm in Boston. She might come across as bubbly and carefree, but she was damned good at her job and had invested wisely.

Callie was a different story, however. She’d walked away from her job as a children’s ombudsman with the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate just weeks before this Roman holiday. After watching how the heartbreak of the cases she had to adjudicate shredded her emotions, both Dawn and Kate had cheered the decision. They’d also offered to pay her share of expenses for the trip, which she’d adamantly refused. Still, they suspected she’d had to dip into her savings, and neither wanted her to dig deeper.

Then Travis made it clear she wouldn’t have to. “Actually, there would be no charge. Carlo commands one of Italy’s crack special ops units. He and I took part in a joint mission some months back, and he now thinks he owes me.”

“For what?” Dawn wanted to know.

“Nothing worth writing home about.”

Although he dodged the question with a careless shrug, a familiar pressure built in Kate’s chest. The American media gave scant coverage to forces from other countries engaged in the war on terror, but she knew troops from dozens of different nations were engaged in the life-and-death struggle. They, like Travis and his crews, put their lives on the line every day.

If this Italian major thought her husband owed him, the joint mission they’d participated in had to have been hairy as hell. Kate’s chest squeezed again as she tried not to imagine the scenario.

Their server arrived at that point with the three Bellinis and a crystal tumbler of scotch. When she’d served the drinks, Travis picked up where he’d left off.

“So what do you think? Want to spend an all-expense-paid week in Tuscany?”

“That depends on what Kate’s decided.”

Three questioning faces turned her way. She looked at them blankly for a moment while she tried to factor this unexpected bonus for her friends into an equation made even more complicated by the stress of knowing Travis and this Italian commando had shared what she guessed had been a life-and-death situation. Torn, she took Callie’s advice and went with her gut.

“I think you should take this guy... What’s his name?”

“Carlo.”

“I think you should take Carlo up on his offer.” Her gaze turned to her husband. “And I’ll take you up on yours.”

* * *

Dinner went reasonably well after that. The tantalizing prospect of a week in a Tuscan villa with a full staff to see to her needs blunted the sharpest edges of Dawn’s antagonism. Kate knew the fiery redhead would snatch up the sword again in a heartbeat, though. So would Callie. Kate would have loved them for that no-questions-asked, just-let-us-at-him support even if the three of them weren’t already bonded by so many years of BFF-hood. She loved Travis, too, for setting them up so comfortably.

The insidious thought sneaked in before she could block it.

Damn! Had he preplanned this whole maneuver—leveraged whatever debt this guy Carlo owed him to preempt Kate’s nagging guilt over abandoning her friends? Was he that focused, that determined to achieve his objective?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Major Travis Westbrook never skimmed down a runway and lifted off without extensive preflight planning. Nor would he hesitate to deploy all available countermeasures to deflect or defeat enemy fire. Still, Kate had to admit he’d orchestrated a pretty impressive op plan for separating his primary target from its outer defenses.

Travis texted Carlo between drinks and dinner to let him know Ms. Dawn McGill and Ms. Callie Langston would arrive at his family’s villa the day after tomorrow, assuming it was still available. The Italian Air Force officer texted back confirming availability. The same text provided both directions and the code for the front gate.

Travis shot them to Callie’s and Dawn’s cell phones before the four of them settled in for a truly remarkable meal. Abandoning any inclination to count either carbs or calories, Kate ordered a grilled-peach-and-buffalo-mozzarella salad followed by a main course of lobster ravioli in a sinfully rich cream sauce.

She would have quit at that point if Dawn hadn’t talked her into sharing a spun-sugar-and-limoncello confection that depicted an iconic scene from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. She felt almost sacrilegious forking into the portrayal of Adam’s hand reaching up to touch God’s. After the first taste, though, she and Dawn attacked the edible art with the same fervor as the Visigoths who’d sacked Rome in 410 AD.

It was almost 10:00 p.m. when their server cleared the table and poured the last of the sweet, sparkling asti spumante Travis had ordered to accompany dessert. Another countermeasure, Kate guessed, to prevent a final round of hostile fire from either Dawn or Callie. If so, it didn’t work.

When Kate indicated she wanted to talk to Travis for a few moments, her friends waged a short but spirited battle to pay for their share of dinner. Defeated, they pushed away from the table. If Travis thought he’d bought a reprieve with the astronomically expensive dinner, he soon learned otherwise. Dawn took only a few steps, turned back and aimed her forefinger like a cocked Beretta.

“Do not forget, Westbrook. Callie and I are only a phone call away. All Kate has to do is hit speed dial, and we’re there.”

“Good to know that hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve known the Invincibles.”

His obvious sincerity angled Dawn’s chin down a notch. Just one. The mulish set to her mouth, however, suggested she wasn’t ready to quit the field until Callie bumped her hip.

“He got the message. Time for us to make an exit.”

“I guess I deserved that,” Travis commented as the two women wove their way through the candlelit tables.

“Actually, they let you off easy. You don’t want to know the various surgical procedures Dawn performed on you in absentia.”

“Most, I would guess, done with a rusty pocketknife.”

“In her more generous moments. Other times she went to work with a hacksaw.”

“Ouch.”

His exaggerated shudder earned him a faint smile. He had to fight the urge to follow it up by reaching across the table and folding her hand in his.

“I meant what I said earlier,” he told her instead.

“About?”

“About being grateful to them. They were there for you when you needed them.”

When he couldn’t be.

Facing his wife across the table, Travis acknowledged that he’d abrogated his role as a husband too many times. When the Bank of America promoted Kate in recognition of her adroit handling of foreign investments during the recession that panicked markets around the world, he’d been swatting mosquitoes at a remote airstrip in Kenya. And just months ago, while she’d agonized over whether to accept the offer from the World Bank and move to DC, he’d been freezing his ass off at a classified location he still couldn’t talk about. Time now, he vowed silently, to realign his priorities and reclaim a place in her life.

Assuming she would let him. He’d cracked the door open by getting her to spend this time with him, but the determined expression that now settled over her face suggested he’d have his work cut out to push it open all the way.

“What did you want to talk about?” he asked her.

“We need to discuss the ROE.”

“Are we speaking your language or mine?”

ROE in her world stood for return on equity, a formula that assessed a company’s efficiency at generating profits for its stockholders. In his, ROE stood for the rules of engagement outlining the type of force that could be employed in various situations.

“In this instance, they represent the same thing. We need a set of parameters that define what we should and shouldn’t do during this time together.”

Travis didn’t much like the sound of that. “I figured we would play it by ear.”

“Right. Like you did with the villa? Tell me you just pulled that idea out of the air.”

“Okay, I might have scoped out a few possible courses of action...”

“Exactly. And if I remember the principles of war correctly, the purpose of a course of action is to achieve an objective.”

She didn’t add at all costs, but the implication hung heavy on the air. His brows snapping together, Travis shook his head.

“We’re not at war, Kate. At least I hope to hell we’re not.”

“No, we’re not. Now. And I want to keep it that way.”

“All right,” he conceded, not particularly happy with the direction this conversation was taking. “Let’s hear your ROE.”

She raised a hand and ticked them off with a decisiveness that told him she didn’t intend to negotiate. “One, separate bedrooms. Two, we share all expenses. Three, we decide on the itinerary together. Four, no changes unless by mutual consent. Five, no surprises of any size, shape or dimension.”

He took a moment. “Okay.”

“That was too easy,” Kate said, frowning. “What am I missing?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you want to add to the list?”

“I think you’ve covered the essentials.”

Her frown deepened. “This won’t work if we’re not honest with each other, Trav.”

“I am being honest. I can live with those ROE. As long as you understand I intend to focus most of my energy on number four.”

Focus, hell. He intended to use every weapon at his disposal to make it happen.

“That’s my sole objective, Katydid. Gaining your consent...to changes in bedrooms, expenses, itinerary and—oh, yeah—our pending divorce.”