'I Do'...Take Two!

“Well.” She sat back, her brown eyes wide. “That’s certainly honest enough.”

“Good.” He pushed back his chair, figuring he’d better make tracks before she added to their list of rules. “Why don’t you text me a proposed itinerary? I’ll look at it tonight and we can negotiate if necessary. Just be sure to factor in some driving time. I want you to see Italy the way it should be seen.”

“I, uh... Fine.”

* * *

The blunt declaration left Kate feeling flustered as they crossed the Cavalieri’s elegant lobby to the elevators. Travis didn’t touch her this time, not even a gentlemanly hand on her elbow, and she was furious with herself for missing that small courtesy. So furious she jabbed the elevator button before she could miss more than his touch. Like the feel of his breath tickling her ear. The whisper of her name when he...

The elevator doors pinged open. Kate almost jumped in with a promise to zap him a proposed agenda within an hour.

Dawn and Callie were still up and open to further discussion on plans for the remainder of their time in Italy. Snatching up her notebook filled with maps and detailed descriptions of major tourist attractions, Kate worked up an alternate itinerary for them based out of the Tuscan villa. Then she went to work on one for her and Travis.

Driving time. He’d said to factor in driving time. So...

Lips pursed, Kate studied her heavily annotated map of Italy. Since driving in Rome was a nightmare, Kate decided she and Travis should depart the city in the morning, tour the countryside and save Rome for the end of the trip...assuming they were still together at that point. The uncertainty of that churned in her belly as she emailed the proposed itinerary to Travis’s phone.

He emailed back while she was still studying her map. The flight plan looked good. No negotiations or changes necessary. He’d pick her up at eight thirty.

* * *

Kate fully expected to lie awake the rest of the night riddled by doubts. She slid between the satiny sheets, still mulling over Travis’s stated intention to do whatever he could to change her mind about their future. But almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, the combination of rich food, several glasses of wine and mental exhaustion following hours of wildly conflicting emotions put her out.

The alarm she’d set on her iPhone went off at 7:00 a.m., but the happy marimba barely penetrated. Fumbling for the phone, she hit the snooze button. Twice. So when she finally came fully awake, she glanced at the time, let out a yelp and scrambled to get showered, dressed and packed.

Luckily, she’d packed light for the trip. All three of them had. Just one tote and roll-on each. The absence of heavy luggage made traveling so much easier but restricted choices. Kate had opted for two pairs of jeans, one pair of khaki twill slacks, tanks and Ts in various colors, a lightweight cotton sundress, and her slinky, caramel-colored pants and jacket. Since she would spend the day driving, she decided on jeans and a cap-sleeved black T paired with the chunky wooden necklace.

Callie was up when Kate dashed out of her bedroom, but Dawn hadn’t seen the light of day yet. Noting the tote and roll-on, Callie smiled.

“No second thoughts?”

“God, yes! Second, third and fourth. But... Well...”

“You don’t have to explain. Just keep safe, Kate, and keep us posted on how things go.”

“I will.”

The doubts hit with a vengeance while she waited in the Cavalieri’s lobby. The break with Travis had been agony enough four months ago. She had to be certifiable to court that kind of pain again.

She swiped her palms down the sides of her jeans and tried to settle her nerves by admiring the magnificent triptych that dominated the wall above the reception desk. The Cavalieri’s website boasted that it was home to one of the greatest private collections in the world. The hotel’s art historian even offered private tours of the old masters, rare tapestries and priceless antiques that included, among other things, a crib commissioned by Napoleon for his baby son.

At the moment, Kate was too revved to appreciate the art displayed in niches and on pedestals. Last night she’d thought she’d been so precise, so clearheaded and unemotional by laying out those ground rules. Then Travis had to turn them—and her—upside down with his statement of intent.

And that nickname. Katydid. He’d tagged her with it one hot summer evening when they’d spread a blanket under the stars and listened to the quivering whir of grasshoppers feasting on fresh-cut grass. Only he could call her an insect and make it feel like the soft stroke of a palm against her skin. And only he could blot out every one of those zillion stars with a single kiss.

Oh, God! What was she doing?

She tightened her grip on the roll-on, almost ready to scurry back to her room, when she caught a flash from the corner of one eye. Turning, she spotted her husband at the wheel of the convertible that pulled up at the front entrance. It was low, sporty, hibiscus red, and it gleamed with chrome. It also, she saw when she exited the automatic doors, displayed a distinctive logo on its sloping hood. Like the bellman and parking attendant, she was riveted by the medallion depicting a rampant black stallion silhouetted against a field of yellow.

“Is this a Ferrari?”

“It is,” Travis confirmed as he waved off the parking attendant who hurried forward. Rounding the hood, he took Kate’s case and stashed it in the trunk. “Compliments of Carlo.”

“Free use of a villa and a Ferrari? He owes you that much?”

“He doesn’t owe me anything. He just thinks he does.”

Shadowy images of what must have gone down to rack up such a large debt, real or imagined, made Kate swallow. Hard. Trying to blank her mind to the possible circumstances, she folded herself into the cloud-soft black leather of the passenger seat.

“It’s got a retractable hardtop,” Travis said as he slid behind the wheel. “If the wind is too much, let me know and I’ll put it up.”

She nodded, still trying to force her thoughts away from downed aircraft and skies ablaze with tracers from enemy fire. Her husband didn’t help by sharing a bit of historical trivia.

“Did you know Ferrari derived his logo from the insignia of a World War I Italian ace?”

“Why am I not surprised?” Kate said drily. “The symbol for such a lean, mean muscle machine could only have come from a flier.”

“Damn straight.” Grinning, Travis keyed the ignition and steered past a parade of taxis waiting to pick up departing guests. “Count Francesco Baracca was cavalry before he took to the air, so he painted a prancing black stallion on the sides of his plane. Baracca racked up so many kills he became a national hero, and when Ferrari met the count’s mother some years later, she suggested he paint the same symbol on his racing car for good luck.”

“The ace didn’t object to having his personal symbol co-opted?”

“He probably wouldn’t have, but we’ll never know. He went down in flames just a few months before the end of the war.”

Both the dancing stallion and the sleek vehicle it decorated lost their dazzle in Kate’s eyes. “Some good-luck charm,” she muttered. “I hope your pal Carlo hasn’t stenciled it on his plane.”

“No, the aircraft in his unit sport their own very distinctive nose art. The wing’s name in Italian is the Seventeenth Stormo Incursori, if that gives you any clue.”

When she shook her head, his grin widened.

“It translates literally to ‘a flock of raiders.’ Not so literally to ‘watch your asses, bad guys.’”

“Of course it does. Do they fly the K-2, too?”

K-2 was their shorthand for the Combat King II. The latest model of the HC-130 was still relatively new to the USAF inventory and dedicated to special ops.

“They do,” Travis confirmed. “Just got ’em in this year. Carlo and his crew were still doing a shakedown when we got tagged for that joint op.”

Kate dug in her purse for a fat plastic hair clip, thinking that her husband and his Italian counterpart had forged quite a bond. It might be of recent origin, but it sounded almost as deep and unbreakable as the one between her, Dawn and Callie.

“I’d like to meet this new friend of yours sometime,” she commented as she anchored her hair back with the clip.

“I’d like that, too.” He cut her a quick glance. “Want to amend our itinerary to include the base at Aviano? And maybe Venice?”

“I...uh...”

For pity’s sake! They hadn’t even left the Cavalieri’s landscaped grounds and were already making changes to the agenda. But the lure of Venice proved almost as powerful as the desire to meet this new friend of her husband’s.

“Okay by me.”

“Great.”

When they reached the bottom of the long, curving drive, Travis downshifted and hit the brake. His hand rested casually on the Ferrari’s burled walnut gearshift knob while its engine purred like a well-fed feline.

“This baby can go from zero to sixty in three-point-five seconds,” he confided as they waited for the cross street to clear. “Once we shake free of Rome, we’ll open her up.”

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