Her eyes snapped up to meet mine. “I bet you can tell me how many people there are in the restaurant without looking,” she challenged.
I was surprised that she’d noticed me checking out the place; I thought she’d been concentrating on the newspaper.
“Six couples, a table of three men, two male waiters, and a kid filling the water glasses who had better take his eyes off of your tits if he wants to live.”
Caro laughed. “See! You’re always working, too. Did you think I hadn’t noticed that each time you sit with your back to the wall so you can see who’s coming in?”
I smiled but didn’t answer. She was right, but the other reason I kept my back to the wall was so that I knew an attack couldn’t come from behind.
One of the waiters handed us each a menu.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, pointing at one of the items. “Cipolline agrodolci alla Cinque Terre. Is that onions?”
“Yes, sweet and sour onions: it’s a local delicacy. You want to try them?”
“Normally I’d say yes, but I’m really craving … steak,” I grinned at her.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re so American! You want fries with that?”
“Yeah, now you mention it. Anyway, I’ve got to keep my strength up. This woman I’ve met is milking me dry. She can’t keep her hands off me.”
“What a slut.”
I winked at her. “Well, she hasn’t been that slutty, but I’d really like to see her in slutty stockings and garter straps—no panties.” Oh freakin’ yeah!
“Hmm, well I’m sure we can arrange it at some point, but I have to admit, Sebastian, I don’t actually own anything like that.”
“Not at all? I thought all women…”
I stopped when I saw the expression on her face. I was kind of a novice at relationships, but even a dumb grunt like me knew that you don’t talk about past women with your present woman. Major fail.
“Maybe all your previous women, Sebastian,” she said snippily, “but no, not me, I don’t.”
I winced and kept my eyes on the menu.
“Sebastian,” she said, slightly more calmly, “apart from you, I last had a date nearly three years ago. And there’s not a lot of need for slinky underwear on assignment to military bases—well, not for me, anyway. Maybe you know differently?” she raised her eyebrows, making a joke of the situation, but I was caught up by something else she said.
“Why don’t you date, Caro? I mean, you’re fucking gorgeous, anyone can see that, and you’re clever and funny. Any man would have to be blind not to want you.”
Her expression softened and she glanced away briefly before looking back at me and meeting my gaze.
“I’ve just … not been that interested. No one’s really caught my eye.”
I still found it crazy that she’d been single for so long. Fuckin’ happy about it, though.
“Oh, wait, Major Parsons asked me out,” she smiled. “Mike—from the hostile environment training. He was pretty cute.”
“That bastard!”
She looked a little surprised at my reaction. Really? She wanted to tell me that Limey guy had hit on my woman and didn’t think I’d be pissed as all hell?
“Sebastian, I said no,” she said hurriedly. “And actually, he was really sweet about it. He wasn’t pushy or anything.” Then a puzzled look crossed her face. “What were you thinking, that first day, when we saw each other at the press training? You looked really mad.”
Wow, was that only a week ago?
“Just so fucking shocked,” I admitted. “I saw the name ‘Lee Venzi’ on the training list. I recognized it because I’d read some of your articles…”
“Really?”
“Yeah, sure. I check out all the journos who go on these gigs. I want to know what kind of shit … sorry, what kind of writing they do. I thought yours was good.”
She shot me a look.
“No, really. I’m not just saying that. I kind of assumed you were ex-Forces because of the way you understood the military. And we were all expecting you’d be a guy. Obviously somebody screwed up on the background checks…” Dickwad Crawley was supposed to be taking care of that. “But as far as your online presence, you’re definitely a man.”
She smiled happily. “That’s the general idea. I’ve had quite a few assignments given to me because people assume I’m a man; jobs they wouldn’t give to a woman.”
“Yeah, but there could be a good reason for it, too. I mean, some of the places you go are dangerous and…”
But she stopped the rest of my rant by pressing her fingers over my lips.
“Shh, tesoro. They’re a lot less dangerous than where you go, and we’re not having this conversation.”
“The fuck we aren’t!”
“No, I mean it. This is my work. Please drop it.”
I could tell by the look on her face that she meant it. I wasn’t happy, but a smart Devil Dog knew when to withdraw and regroup.
“You were going to tell me what you thought when you first saw me,” she repeated.
“Shock. At first I thought you’d done it deliberately somehow. And then I saw the look on your face, like you didn’t know what to say to me either, and I realized it was just as weird for you as it was for me.”
“And then?”
“I just kept thinking how mad I was at you; blaming you for all the shit. I kept trying to hold on to all that anger, but you just looked so … you looked just the same. And I kept thinking, maybe I got it wrong. And then I remembered that you hadn’t come looking for me and … it was so fucking confusing, Caro.”
I stared out at the surf washing across the beach, smaller now as the high pressure continued to push in from the west.
“And then you tried to talk to me and I just freaked. I couldn’t … not in front of all those people, not with all the things I wanted to … I found a bar and just started drinking… getting up the courage to go see you. I really screwed that up, didn’t I?”
“Completely,” she said, her voice sad.
I dropped my eyes and stared at my hands. They were still callused from all the training I did, despite the fact that I’d had a desk job for most of the last three years. I wondered again what she was doing with a guy like me who’d never even gotten a college degree. If I left the Marines I’d be nothing, no one. What then?
“It doesn’t matter now, Sebastian,” she said quietly.
I shook my head, trying to fight off the darkness that was threatening to pull me down again.
“What did you think, when you saw me?” I asked.
“You mean after the oh-my-God moment? I thought you looked bitter: your eyes looked so cold and hard. Gorgeous, of course, but you looked like you’d really changed. I was … intimidated. And then Liz told me you had gotten this reputation … as something of a lady-killer…”
Fuckin’ bitch.
“Well, you did ask,” she said, reaching out to take my hand.
“Yeah, well … what else did you think?”
“She said you were brilliant, too, if that makes you feel any better.”
“Not much.”
She sighed. “I just thought I’d try and talk to you by yourself, but you kept avoiding me. So, I assumed you didn’t want anything to do with me. I was … hurt, but I guess I accepted it. Can we talk about something else? This is making me feel blue.”
“Sure, baby,” I said, kicking myself because my depression was bringing her down, too. “How about we plan the rest of the trip?”
“Yes, please,” she responded quickly.
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the map.
“Well, it’s up to you, Caro. We could keep going down the coast road to Salerno, look up your dad’s old village. Or take it slower, go see some of Tuscany. Siena is supposed to be amazing and there’s this old hilltop town, Montepulciano that looks really cool. Or go right down to the bottom—check out Sicily.”
She studied the map for a moment, her eyes tracing the route south.
“What do you want to do, Sebastian? I don’t mind having another day on the beach if you want to do some more surfing—it’s your vacation, too.”