Page 24 of Vistaria Has Fallen
Break time.
Peter led her back to the table. Their meals had been cleared. As Calli no longer dithered about how the evening would finish, the accelerationof the end of the meal was of no consequence. She would let Peter know that if he pressed his luck, he’d find a willing mate. She would cooperate with full enthusiasm. If she let herself sink into the experience, she could wipe out any lingering needs Nicolás Escobedo had stirred in her. Then the slate would be clean.
After that, she would stay in bed with Peter and thank him the only appropriateway possible. All that remained now was to get to the end of the evening.
Peter looked around for a waiter. “Would you like another drink?” he asked. “They have excellent tea here.”
Tea. Calli shook her head. “I’d prefer coffee if I must, but—”
“Coffee. No problem.” He waved his hand.
“No, really, I could live without it.”
“It’s no problem,” he assured her.
She sighed and sat back.
“It’sKaestner, isn’t it?” said a new voice from behind her.
Calli didn’t have to look to know Nicolás stood there. The voice could belong to no one else. The American accent with the deliberate pronunciation, as if he concentrated on every word, which he might well be. Even without the accent, no man she knew had that gravelly, low timbre that caressed her spine and made her gut turn with a slow rollthat left every nerve in her body awake and tingling.
Peter stood up again, grasping the napkin in his lap and trying to shake hands at the same time. He did it awkwardly, caught by surprise. “Yes, Peter Kaestner, Señor Escobedo. I didn’t realize you dined here—I wouldn’t have ignored you.”
“No, it’s all right,” Nicolás said, waving him down. “I am here on private family business—Ashcroft’sis good for not being noticed, I’ve found. You too, I see.”
“Yeah, you can really get away from people here,” Peter agreed. “Please...sit down.”
Nicolás sat in the chair to Calli’s left and looked at her. “Miss Munro, yes? You were at the General’s birthday party last night.”
“That’s right.” Calli’s voice emerged husky.
Peter looked shocked. “You got an invite tothat?”
“Callida has madean impression on Vistarians in her short time here,” Nicolás said.
“I guess,” Peter said with a half laugh, half exhalation.
“We met at Las Piedras Grandes,didn’t we?” Nicolás asked him. “At the opening ceremony for the mine?”
Peter nodded enthusiastically. Nicolás drew him out, getting Peter to talk about his work, his worries. Calli tuned out the conversation. Instead, she watched them.While Peter spoke, Nicolás played with the stem of the empty water glass in front of him, absently sliding his fingers up and down the length of it. Calli watched the motion, almost hypnotized by it. His fingers slid around the bottom of the glass itself, to cup the curve there.
She released the breath she’d been holding. Was he doing it deliberately? Yet he did not glance at her even once.
Abruptly, she stood. “Will you excuse me?” she murmured before either of them could react and hurried to the door into the wide hallway that led to the main entrance. A waitress with a starched apron spoke to her. Calli heard ‘help’ amidst the blur of Spanish.
“Sí,” she said. “Washrooms? Um...” She frowned, recalling the phrases she had been studying, groping for an appropriate word. “La conveniencia?”
“Sí.” The woman pointed toward the wide carpeted stairs running along the opposite wall of the hallway. The heavy paneling repeated there, and a thick railing of carved wood glowed with age and care.
“Up?” Calli questioned, also pointing.
“Sí, up.” The waitress agreed with a wide smile.
The stairway broke into a square landing close to the bottom of the case. The wall there featured a largepicture window, framed with lavish green velvet swags and curtains. At ninety degrees to the rest of the stairs, three more steps reached down to the hallway floor. Calli climbed the steps and saw why the window had been placed there. The lights ofla colinaspread out before her, undulating down the hillside and off to the north and south for miles.
She didn’t admire the view, for she wantedto reach a place where no one could find her, yet she moved slowly. The longer she stayed away from the table, the higher the probability that Nicolás would be gone when she returned.
Why had he come over? There had been no reason she could see. His talk with Peter had been mindless, yet someone like Nicolás Escobedo did not engage in superficial conversation without reason.
