"So is Christmas!"
His weapons cache again concealed, Jason stumbled down the stairs and across the piazza and opened the gate.
"I thought I was being turned away," she said.
"No chance," he said.
Pangloss ran in circles, barking during what he clearly considered an unreasonably long embrace.
The Fiesta drove off.
Jason picked up a single suitcase. "I'll take it upstairs."
"What makes you think I am staying?"
"You've got a hell of a walk if you don't."
"You will not take me back to town?"
"Not a chance." "Good."
The piazza, stairs, and bedroom floor displayed a trail of increasingly intimate apparel. By the time they rolled onto the bed, she wore only the scarf.
Later, they both lay breathless, letting the overhead fan lazily stir the humid air.
"How'd you find me?" he asked.
"You kept in touch with Adrian. So did I."
Jason sat up, slipping a thin gold chain over his head, the chain with a simple gold wedding ring dangling from it.
"You do not need to do that," Maria said.
Jason folded the chain carefully, almost reverently, and put it in a drawer of the bedside table. "Yes, I do."
Jason was running a hand along her ribs and hips. "He convinced you to come?"
"He gave up on that months ago. I decided myself."
His hand had stopped in a particular place. She was beginning to breathe harder. "Either way, I am glad."
"Nice of you to say. I was beginning to wonder."
"As long as you are here."
She was moving in rhythm with his stroking hand. "I am not quitting my job."
"Good thing. You'll be supporting an artist."
"No more violence?"
"There're those who say I do it to my subjects with my brushes."
"I can live with that."
"For how long?"
She rolled away from him to stare at the ceiling. "Until tomorrow. Then I shall rethink it."
Jason was confident there would be a lot of tomorrows.