The Charmers: A Novel(67)

Actually, that’s not quite true. I’m sitting here, on the Villa Romantica terrace sipping Mirabella’s awful concoction, waiting for “exactly” how I want it. Or rather “who” I want. I need to see him striding toward me, his cap, as always, clutched in his hand, his uniform immaculate, the gold stars shining on his epaulettes, his eyes alight with that special gleam that means “love.” Anyone who has seen it knows exactly what I mean. It can light even an ordinary face, and in a man it’s irresistible.

I am wearing a simple white cotton skirt that flares out from a narrow waist, tied with a black ribbon, fastened with a neat bow. I never thought I was a “bow” kind of girl but Mirabella informed me that I was. It was she who helped me choose this outfit on a recent shopping trip to Cannes, necessary because I’ve lost so much weight and am too skinny for my old clothes.

But I’m young, I’m healthy again, and I am much stronger than I ever was. That frightened girl running from “the cheater,” and the bad marriage, is no more. Soon I shall move in with my handsome Colonel. We shall marry as soon as I am free, and I shall become stepmother to two delightful girls who are as needy for a mom as I am to be one.

If anyone needed a happy ending, it was me. (Or do I mean “I”?)





56

Chad Prescott

I find myself once again at the Nice airport, awaiting a flight to Paris, delayed naturally, and from there, flight to Rio de Janeiro, where I shall overnight, just long enough to take in its staggering beauty. Flying into Rio is a wonder in itself, over that green, green ocean, those white surf-swept beaches, those twin mountains and of course the most spectacular of all, Corcovado where the statue of Christ the Redeemer holds his arms wide in welcome. I shall dine there in some white-tiled hole-in-the-wall where you can get the best feijoada, a dish of black beans cooked with pork and other succulent bits and probably unmentionable pieces, and which will most likely be the mainstay of my diet for the next couple of months. In the Amazon villages where I am going, there are no supermarkets, no corner stores, no cafés and local bistros, where a glass of red and a fresh-cooked omelette can make your day. And there is, of course, no mobile phone reception. It is the latter I regret most.

In just a few weeks, I’d fallen in love. I have become used to Mirabella’s soft voice, to her presence in my life, to opening my eyes in the morning and seeing her red hair spread on the pillow next to me, her sleeping face so tranquil, as though all the traumas and danger of the past weeks has finally disappeared from her mind. I’ve become used to thinking of the Villa Romantica as “home,” the place I shall always recall with longing and, to which I shall always return. It’s no longer just “my land” and “Mirabella’s land,” the two are joined together as inextricably as we are ourselves.

How could this happen? I’ve asked myself a hundred or more times. Here I was, the long-range doctor, content enough with my hardworking lifestyle, the quiet times alone at the villa on the South of France coast, where omelets were offered at every café and wine flowed from carafes placed automatically on the table, along with the basket of bread, and the good Normandy butter, and the small bowl of olive oil from the mill around the corner. I’ll still miss all that but, for the first time, I will miss a woman.

This is not just any woman. She is Mirabella Matthews, writer of detective novels of the kind I read myself with great enjoyment, in those free hours snatched from my work. She is Mirabella Matthews, the brave woman who faced up to life-threatening danger, took on a man so powerful, so clever and so ultimately evil, he would have sacrificed her along with the donkeys, and Verity, who had almost joined them on the wall.

Now, though, waiting for my delayed flight, the young man behind the bar offered me a glass of champagne. I refused. I was not in a champagne mood. No celebration. I was leaving the woman I loved behind. And I had not told her I loved her.

I ordered a beer instead, downing it, all the while staring morosely into space, not hearing the usual chatter, the gossip, the flights calls, uninterested in anything but my own thoughts. Which were all of a woman I was leaving behind.

I ordered a second beer, though I should have known better. Booze does not fix a broken heart. Not that mine was broken yet. But it was about to be if I got on that flight and ended up thousands of miles from where I was meant, right now, to be.

I canceled my flight, grabbed my old leather duffle, and made for the taxi line. As usual it was a mile long. It was also beginning to rain, that thin kind of rain that soaks you without you even noticing until it’s too late to do anything about it.

I stood there, in my old parka, clutching my battered bag, my wet hair stuck to my brow, scowling at a world that for the first time I did not want to leave, ignoring the car horns, the honking, the buses skidding to a stop, the people standing in line grumbling. Then I heard her voice.

“Get in here,” she yelled, throwing open the door of the miniature car she drove these days. I guessed it was better than the blue Maserati she’d crashed over the side of the canyon.

I got in, slamming the door shut as she took off, escaping the threats and catcalls coming her way.

She was grinning from ear to ear. Her red curls had gotten wet in the rain and she looked young and kind of innocent, despite the cocky grin.

She threw me a sideways glance. “You didn’t think I was going to let you get away that easily, did you?”