“Thank you,” Tara responded.
I stepped forward and took Tara’s bag from Lucia. “I’ll just take this upstairs…later,” I added when Tara’s eyes opened wide.
“I’ll be going, then. Arrivederci.”
Relieved the agent wasn’t trying to push Tara to talk, I closed the door behind Lucia and sat on the sofa where I’d been before we heard the knock. “Where were we?” I asked, pulling her back into my arms, happy when she came willingly. “By the way, she’s here at Valentini for another reason. Something that has nothing to do with you.” It occurred to me that I shouldn’t have said that. “Something Pia knows nothing about, but it is to her benefit.”
“In other words, you don’t want me to say anything to her.”
I angled my face so I could see hers. She didn’t appear angry.
r /> “I know I said we didn’t need to talk tonight, but I would like to talk about you and me.”
“The last thing I want to talk about,” she muttered.
“Ouch.” I tightened my grip. “Maybe, instead, I’ll tell you a story.” I saw a slight smile on her face. “The same day you ‘disappeared,’ I almost died in a plane crash.”
“You did?”
“Yep. I was on a mission, heading to Columbia, and the plane I was on took a dive. As you can see, I lived through it.”
“Did everyone?”
I shook my head but had no intention of telling her why not. “My best friend was on the same plane, and he lived too. We call him Tackle. Anyway, there’s a point I’m trying to make. I called him the other day, the morning after you, Pia, and I first spent the afternoon and evening together. I told him about you.”
She angled her head and buried it in my shoulder. “Are you going to tell me what you said?”
“I am.”
“Do you have to?”
“You’re assuming it was something bad.”
She shrugged like she had earlier.
“I told him that you and I connected. Straight off. I asked him what he thought I should do.”
“Did he tell you to run as fast and as far as you could?”
There’d be time for me to figure out why Tara had such a low opinion of herself, but now, I needed to reassure her.
“He said I should reach out and grab every bit of happiness I could. When I asked if that would be the case even if it affected my job, he told me to fuck my job.”
“That doesn’t sound like very good advice.”
“Maybe not to someone who hasn’t been in a plane crash.”
“Ben…um…is that what I should call you?”
I thought about the first night she was at the farmhouse and how when I came inside her the first time, I wanted to be able to call out her name. Her real name. I also wanted to hear my real name on her lips.
“Call me Knox.”
“Knox…”
“Yes?”
“I forgot what I was going to ask you. I like that name better than Ben, by the way. No offense.”