One Got Away

by S. A. Lelchuk

  I smiled. “Doesn’t sound like the robots will be taking your job any time soon.”

  He didn’t return the smile. “I’m serious, you know. That, in a nutshell, is what I do. And I’ll never have to worry about robots.”

  “So, what are my fears? And a free hint to a new friend—I’ve never been scared of the monsters under the bed.”

  “No, I don’t imagine you are.” His eyes bored into mine as he studied me without bothering to hide it. “I don’t think the monsters particularly scare you. No—you fear yourself.”

  “Myself?” I repeated. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?” For the first time all evening, my voice sounded fake.

  “I get the impression that you’re a woman who is not especially frightened of anything—except perhaps yourself.”

  My face showed skepticism. “Isn’t that a pretty universal prediction that anyone could say about anyone? Like a fortune-teller promising I’ll experience great joy and sadness somewhere in life?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t believe that’s the case. Not at all. Not in my experience. Everyone is different and everyone fears different things. I’ve met people frightened of relationships, solitude, poverty, physical appearance, intelligence, lack of purpose, being forgotten, being remembered for the wrong reasons—I could go on and on. Lately, I’ve been speaking to an impressive woman, someone who wouldn’t appear to have any reason to worry about anything. But I realized that her greatest fear was her own family, her children—the crippling of a legacy she spent a lifetime building. No, most people are far more afraid of what’s under the bed than of what they see in the mirror.”

  I was struggling not to get lost in the conversation, lost in the man in front of me. “Okay, so I fear myself. What does that even mean?”

  “You fear your reactions,” he replied. “Like when I watched you rap that idiot’s knuckles—for a moment, you looked as though you wanted to stick that butter knife straight through his hand. Did you? I wonder. Could you have? A big, strong clod like that? I was watching you—and I know where my money would have been. You fear losing control. You fear your impulses. That’s what keeps you up at night.”

  Prepared as I was, his words had pushed me off balance. “So how about you?” I returned. “What keeps you up at night?”

  He relaxed into his seat. “Nothing a good brandy can’t fix.”

  “Now you’re dodging.”

  He laughed. “Fair.”

  With a little electric rush, I felt his leg brush mine under the table. As though in approval. As though I had scored a point.

  I didn’t move my leg. Even as I kept talking. “And that’s what scares you.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

  “You’re good at dodging—but maybe that’s because you have a lot to dodge? A handsome, exciting man like yourself? I’m sure you find plenty of adventure. And maybe one day something will come along that you can’t dodge. And all the brandy in the world couldn’t fix that, and all the brandy in the world couldn’t get you to sleep if that’s what you’re worrying about as your head hits the pillow. You don’t seem to mind flirting with trouble.”

  “Interesting.” He fell quiet and regarded the candle flame that flickered between us. “I’m flirting with you,” he finally said, raising his eyes to mine. “Are you trouble, then?”

  “You don’t know what I am. And you like that. Just like I do.”

  His hands unfolded and he smiled as if I had passed a test. “I believe,” he said, “that I’ve never met anyone precisely like you before.”

  “So now what?”

  His leg pressed harder against mine. “Now we keep getting to know each other.”

  Guiltily, I was aware I wasn’t moving my own leg. I tried to ignore the undeniable thrill the contact sent up my skin. Tried to ignore the excitement of the moment. It had been a long time since I’d felt totally locked in with another person. Connected. Not only his charm or looks, or the setting, or the wine, or the physical brush of contact. Those things were nice, but nothing more than the frame around a picture. What mattered was that I was sitting across a table from someone who knew me—somehow, instinctively, and deeply.

  A man who wasn’t a civilian. A man who was like me. A man whose words made me feel alert and alive in a terribly exciting way.

  I had told my boyfriend I was meeting a man for dinner. I hadn’t known that the man in question would turn out to have a more intuitive sense of who I was than perhaps anyone I had ever met. And I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.

  “So, you have no problem sucking face with this dude all night?”

  We both looked up, the mood snapping. The tech bro was back, drunker and more obnoxious than ever. He wavered on his feet, the endless drinking taking hold.

  “I own suits ten times more expensive than that boat jacket,” he sneered. “I just don’t pack them to the beach.”

  Coombs’s eyes were cold but his voice stayed perfectly measured. “I don’t recall anyone inviting you over here.”

  “What are you going to do?” the guy challenged. “You don’t own the place.”

  I was running through scenarios in my mind. A fight would be a disaster. Even this might have ruined things. The mood, so carefully attained, had been broken into pieces. I felt a burst of fury and tried to tamp the anger down, knowing it was useless. I was in character. I couldn’t do anything even if I wanted to.

  “Perhaps we all need to take a breath,” Coombs said.

  He pushed his chair back from the table.

  I tensed. My companion didn’t seem like the violent type, but that didn’t mean anything.

  After all, neither did I.

  The tech bro clenched his fists.

  Coombs snapped his fingers.

  Within seconds, the maître d’ materialized. Coombs didn’t bother to raise his voice or stand as he said, “I fear our young friend has overdone it on the sauce. He’s become quite the bother.”

  The tech bro glared. “You’re the bother, dude.”

  “Is there a problem?” The maître d’ had been joined by a large man in a black polo with the Cypress logo.

  Coombs said, “This fellow intruded and insulted us without cause. In fact, he’s doing his best to muck up quite a nice evening for no good reason.”

  The maître d’ didn’t hesitate as he turned to the tech bro. “Please come with us.”

  The tech bro swayed and glared. “I’m a guest. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Two of his friends had joined our group. They looked more sober, and more nervous. “Come on, man,” one of them said. “Let’s go back to the room and party there.”

  “You go back to the room, asshole!” he said, loudly enough that every nearby table turned to him. “I do what I want!” His eyes swiveled around. “Do you people even understand how much Facebook paid us?”

  The other guy pulled his arm. “You’re gonna get us booted, man. Come on.”

  The big guy put his hand on the tech bro’s shoulder. “This way, sir.”

  Gradually, the small group exited. There were scattered claps from watching diners as peace descended once again. As the waiter came back to check on us, Coombs said, “All that excitement gave me an appetite. Shall we order dinner?”

  To hear him talk, nothing had ever happened.

  I nodded, feeling the mood recalibrating to its former place. The energy between us returning. His skin glowed warm in the candlelight. The conversation came easily and the food, when it arrived, was predictably delicious. As we finished a shared chocolate lava cake and the last of the champagne, he rested his hand against mine.

  The first time I felt his skin against my own. My skin prickled at the touch.

  “I always like a short stroll after dinner,” Coombs said. “Care to join me?”

  “I can’t think of any good reason to say no.”

  He insisted on paying the bill. Signing it to his room with an onyx and silver Montblanc pen that he sl
id from his jacket pocket. He pulled back the table slightly so I could stand, then rose in a smooth motion.

  “Shall we?”

  Together, we left the terrace and walked into the night.

  13

  The two of us walked side by side. His body brushing against mine. Down the sloping ground, away from the lights of the restaurant. Voices faded behind us. We passed the deserted, glowing pools in their manmade oasis, the surrounding trees now black curtains. The emerald and sapphire water shone with unearthly light. Above, a sliver of moon looked plastered onto a black sky tattooed by stars. A cold breeze rushed in from the ocean and I shivered, wishing I had brought a jacket.

  Coombs must have noticed the shiver. The way he noticed everything. Without a word, he removed his jacket and draped it around my bare shoulders. It was strange to feel his jacket cloaking me. A more personal feeling than I would have thought. As though he had covered me with something beyond inanimate cloth. Cologne, rich and spicy with masculinity, drifted from soft fabric that was weightier than it had looked against his broad frame.

  We left the last of the guest bungalows behind. The terrain falling away more steeply, our feet sending pebbles and little clods of soil rolling down the dirt path. The night was completely quiet. The stars overhead shone with intensity, no longer leashed by urban smog. Neither of us talked. Walking together, yet alone with our thoughts.

  I wondered what the man next to me was thinking. I wondered if he wondered the same of me.

  There was no one else in sight as we neared the cliffs.

  My foot snagged painfully on a root and I lurched, feet skidding on the pebbly dirt as I flung out an arm for balance. Coombs’s hand was on my arm, steadying me, holding me for a moment longer than necessary. His body very close to mine.

  “Careful,” he said. “It appears we’ve reached hazardous terrain.”

  I knelt and pulled off my heels. I wasn’t used to heels. I hated wearing them and avoided doing so whenever possible. I regretted choosing them. Being off balance was the last thing I needed tonight. I stood, holding the shoes by their straps in one hand, welcoming the feeling of the cool dirt against my bare toes.

  “Isn’t hazardous terrain the most exciting kind?” I replied.

  “For a certain type. Others prefer simply being able to stand on solid ground.”

  “What kind of terrain do you prefer?” I asked.

  “The kind that allows me to spot the cliffs before I step over the edge.”

  “I think we’re at the edge right now,” I said.

  We were. We slowed as we reached the sudden drop. It was the same place I had stood earlier in the day. Then, the sunshine and blue sky had endowed the ocean with a fierce postcard beauty. Now, at night, the landscape had a different power. With eyesight so limited, the rest of my senses sharpened. The noises of the ocean filled the air, the waves rushing and crashing into stone. I smelled brine, sea salt, the fecundity of moldering algae or rotting kelp that had washed up on the rocks. The easterly breeze whipped against us. The dagger-sharp rocks beneath us were invisible in the moonlight, but I could hear the ocean plunging and bucking around them. It was hard to tell how far below the water was. The sheer drop was at least a hundred feet straight down.

  The two of us stood still, in silence. Taking in the night, the ocean. The breeze had strengthened and chilled. The wind scattered my hair and flattened my dress against my body as I crossed my arms against its strength. Tufts of pale clouds fled against the sky.

  “How many ships, do you suppose, have met their ends upon these rocks?” Coombs mused. “How many sailors, hoping only for a safe harbor and a warm bed, have been flung into these icy currents?”

  “That’s hardly a romantic line of thought.”

  He turned from the water to regard me as if for the first time. His face looked different under the frail moon. Something colder in his eyes, or the way the shadows fell about his face. He looked older, more distant. At that moment he could have been an utter stranger.

  “I never claimed to be a romantic,” he reminded me. “Only you did.”

  “Should I feel deceived?”

  He stepped closer to me. “I thought you enjoyed standing on hazardous terrain.”

  “Everyone has a limit.”

  Another step toward me. “Why do I feel we haven’t yet reached yours?”

  I couldn’t help but be aware that the man in front of me was considerably bigger than I was. The six-inch height discrepancy was enhanced by my bare feet and his dress shoes. He must have outweighed me by sixty pounds if not more. The affable smile that had danced along his face and in his eyes all evening had disappeared.

  Gone as cleanly as if he had removed a mask.

  Our dinner, the restaurant, all felt very far away. Removed not by minutes and feet, but separated by endless years and infinite miles. We could have been the only two people in the world.

  Who was I looking at? Who was I seeing?

  This after-dinner stroll had become something else.

  Or had it?

  Nothing seemed clear. Was I standing here at the edge of this lonely cliff with a handsome, harmless con man? Or with someone of a more dangerous caliber?

  And was my heart hammering with fear—or with excitement?

  We both started as we heard a rustle from nearby bushes.

  “Is someone there?” I whispered.

  “Something,” he answered. He was watching the bushes intently. “I’m not sure what.”

  Our question was answered as a dark, low form emerged and took shape. Its ears and paws and eyes had the lithe felinity of a cat, but the body and head were much larger. I saw a triangular head, tufted ears, and green eyes, watching us. A thick tail stirred lazily.

  I took an involuntary step back. “What is it?”

  “A mountain lion,” Coombs answered in a low voice. “Stay still. Don’t back away.”

  The mountain lion watched us for another moment. It was big—bigger than I would have thought. It had to be close to 150 pounds.

  Its mouth opened in a yawn or silent growl. I saw fangs gleam under the strange, green light of its eyes.

  Then it was gone.

  My voice was quiet. “I’ve never seen one before.”

  “An omen?” Coombs wondered.

  “Good or bad?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see what happens.” He put his hand on my shoulder, the fingers resting comfortably on the fabric of his own jacket.

  The other hand slipped against my hip.

  I looked up at him. Acutely aware that the edge of the cliff was no more than a step from where I stood. I could hear the waves beating and crashing against the rocks, steady and vital as a heartbeat.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked him.

  He was very close to me. “I could ask you the same question.”

  “I told you. I want to know you better.”

  “Maybe I feel the same way.”

  I swallowed. It sounded loud in the still night. “So how does that happen?”

  Without a word he stepped forward and kissed me.

  I felt his lips against mine and filled with all kinds of contradictory wants and urges. Almost to my surprise, I realized I was returning his kiss, our lips interlocked, tongues probing, hard against each other as though in combat. Now he was pressed against me, one hand still on my hip, the other against the small of my back, his grip light but powerful. I didn’t know this man at all—I knew him so well—I didn’t know which was true. Dizzy, dangerous excitement pounded in my head.

  Still in the kiss, bodies against each other, I felt his weight shift. Our feet rotated slightly, as though without intention. Then my back was to the black water behind me. My bare toes curled into the rocky ground. I could feel the wind, cold against my neck, stirring my hair like an unseen hand.

  He stepped back. The kiss ended.

  I pushed thoughts of Ethan away. Not now. I couldn’t dare lose focus.

  We watched
each other.

  “You’re too close to the edge,” Coombs warned.

  I took a step toward him. Away from the water. “You’re right. I was.”

  He looked at me searchingly. “If you had fallen, do you think I’d dive in after you?”

  “I don’t know what you’d do,” I admitted.

  “And that excites you? Not knowing?”

  I answered almost reluctantly. “Maybe.”

  His eyes were still on mine. Probing, searching. “If I fell, do you know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think you’d try to save me without even thinking about it.”

  “Why do you think that?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I don’t believe I’m wrong.”

  “So, what does that mean?”

  His voice was light, flirtatious, but with something serious within, like a plain rubber cord hiding electric currents pulsing through copper innards. “It means I know something about you that you don’t know about me. Which is an advantage.”

  “If that’s true, lucky we seem to be so friendly.”

  “Lucky indeed,” he agreed. “But they say it’s easier to make friends than to keep them. Do you think we’ll stay friends?”

  I smiled and ran a finger down his cheek. His skin was warm and smooth, the faintest hint of stubble sandpapering my fingertips. “As long as we don’t kill each other first.”

  He took my hand and brushed his lips to my skin as he returned my smile. “I’ve never minded a gamble if the stakes are worth the risk.”

  “Are you saying I’m worth a lot? Or risky?”

  “Those two things go hand in hand. But you knew that already.”

  A spike of cold wind rushed in off the water, blowing my hair in a tangle around my face. I shivered even through the jacket that was still draped over me.

  He took my hand. His fingers strong against mine. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “I think you should come to my room for a nightcap.”

  “Isn’t it a bit late?”

  “Some nights are meant to end early. Others aren’t.”