''I Do''...Take Two!

by Merline Lovelace

  “Why?” she asked cautiously. “Have you changed your mind about extending your stay in Italy to look after Tommy the Terrible?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  “Well, you and Carlo seemed to be getting pretty chummy last night.”

  “We had a great time. He’s a sweet little pooh bear, isn’t he?”

  Kate blinked, but decided not to suggest a major in Italy’s elite special ops unit might wince at that characterization.

  “If you say so. So what’s up?”

  “I talked to Brian before he and Tommy left for the hospital this morning. Since you and Callie don’t have to check in for your flight until Wednesday afternoon, she’s planning to take the early train down to Rome that morning. I thought Tommy and I might go with her. We’d see you two off at the airport, then head into town so the kid can do his gladiator thing at the Coliseum, then zip back up to Venice that evening.”

  Kate couldn’t help remembering the moments of sheer terror she’d experienced when Tommy had climbed up on the ledge at St. Mark’s and shuddered to think of the trouble he might get into in Rome.

  “Was Brian okay with that?”

  “He was, when I told him I would strong-arm Travis into going to the Coliseum with us. I know the Ferrari’s only a two-seater, so he’ll have to leave it at the airport and train into the city with us. Think he might be up for that?”

  “Hang on. I’ll let you ask him.”

  She passed Travis the phone and grinned while he listed at least a dozen different reasons why turning Thomas Ellis loose on Rome was a terrible idea. He eventually caved, though, as Kate knew he would.

  “Don’t look so put-upon,” she said when he disconnected. “Dawn’s always had your number. Under that tough, macho exterior she knows you’re as soft a touch as her new pooh bear.”

  Travis’s face went blank for a moment, then lit with unholy glee. “That’s how she referred to Carlo? Her pooh bear?”

  “Her sweet little pooh bear, to be exact.”

  “Good God! Wait until that works its way back to his crew.”

  Which it would, Kate guessed, aided by an oh-so-casual comment or two from Travis. She wasn’t wrong. Looking positively diabolical at the prospect, he reached for her hand and ejected her from her chair. “We’ve only got this one day left in Venice. Let’s get out and enjoy it.”

  * * *

  They did. So much that the rest of the time flew by and Kate regretted that she and Travis weren’t extending their stay in Venice until Wednesday, as Callie and Dawn were.

  But she’d agreed to have lunch with Signore Gallo in Bologna. So early the next morning, she slipped into her caramel-colored knit pants. She left the matching jacket off this time. Instead, she paired the pants with a short-sleeved black top and the necklace Travis had insisted on buying during their yesterday’s foray to the shops lining the Rialto Bridge. A swirl of turquoise, black and twenty-four-karat gold, the Murano glass heart dangling in the center was as big as a fist and cost more than Kate cared to think about.

  Packed and ready to hit the road, she and Travis checked out of the Palazzo Alleghri and took a vaporetto to the car park, where they reclaimed the Ferrari. Travis had timed the drive so they would arrive in Bologna with a comfortable margin before their one o’clock appointment. Since they knew the bank’s location and were confident Signore Gallo’s efficient assistant would reserve a parking space again, they spent the extra time exploring Bologna’s historic center.

  They strolled into the bank a few minutes before one. Maximo was waiting for them and once again escorted them up the wide, curving staircase. As before, Kate asked him and Travis to wait a moment while she ducked into the ladies’ room to freshen her makeup.

  She encountered no sobbing occupant with arms braced on the sides of the sink this time. But she recognized the woman when she and the two men entered the bank president’s outer office. The secretary returned Kate’s smile with a hesitant one of her own and quickly obeyed Maximo’s instruction to advise their boss that his guests had arrived.

  The leonine Signore Gallo emerged from his office wreathed in smiles and fervent hopes that Kate and Travis had enjoyed their time in Venice. Mere moments later, the three of them were ensconced in an executive dining room paneled in dark oak and lined with more portraits of the bank’s medieval founders.

  The consummate host, Signore Gallo engaged Travis in the conversation by keeping it light and nonfiscal through the appetizers and pasta course. The heavy stuff came with the veal picatta. Bravely, Travis soldiered through a lengthy discussion of the liquidity index and analysis of the latest stats concerning high-volume bond market issuance.

  They lost him over coffee, tiramisu and long-term yields. Although Kate and Signore Gallo were enthusiastic over the fact that low-level volatility appeared to coincide with a rapid growth of cross-border banking, Travis looked as though his eyes might roll back in his head at any moment. Kate took pity on him and was about to thank Signore Gallo for a wonderful lunch when the banker extended an unexpected and completely astounding offer.

  “I must confess I’m quite impressed with your work at the World Bank, Signora Westbrook. You’ve come so far, so fast.”

  Not hard to do, Kate thought ruefully, when you lost the husband who constituted your entire universe and put your whole heart and soul into your job instead.

  “If you will permit me,” Gallo continued, “I should like to propose you for membership in the IBA. A vacancy on our junior associates’ committee just occurred, and we are anxious to fill it.”

  Kate’s jaw dropped. Literally and figuratively. The blandly labeled International Bankers’ Association was, in fact, an exclusive and extremely chauvinistic gentlemen’s club. Membership was limited to a dozen or so heads of banking consortiums with assets and investments totaling trillions of dollars. The IBA’s junior associates’ subcommittee was almost as exclusive. As far as Kate knew, no woman had ever been admitted to its ranks. That Signore Gallo would propose her for membership was beyond incredible.

  “I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say.”

  He responded with an understanding nod. “It’s a great honor for someone as young as you to be put up for membership. And a great responsibility. But everything I read about you reinforces the opinion I’ve formed in our brief acquaintance. You’ll be required to attend quarterly meetings in Bern, of course, but the IBA will cover all travel expenses. So a simple yes is all I need at this point to forward your name to the nominating committee.”

  Yes! Yes, yes, yes!

  Kate was a half breath away from shouting an agreement when her business sense kicked in. How stupid would she be to agree to something this momentous without taking time to weigh the pros and cons?

  And chief among those cons, she realized belatedly, would be the required attendance at IBA’s quarterly meetings. Including travel time, she could expect to spend days, if not weeks, in Switzerland every three months.

  Travis must have weighed the same pros and cons. His grin had stretched wide and proud when Signore Gallo first extended the invitation. It had pretty much disappeared now.

  “I can’t tell you how honored I am,” Kate responded. “May I think about this and get back to you?”

  Signore Gallo stared at her with undisguised astonishment. Not surprising, since she was probably the first woman to be invited into the centuries-old, all-male enclave.

  “Of course,” he said after an uncomfortable moment. “The vacancy will be filled quickly, however. Please let me know your decision as soon as possible.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  * * *

  Once again Maximo appeared to escort her and Travis out of Cassa di Molino. When he guided them past the bank president’s outer offices, Kate searched for the woman from the ladies’ room, but the dark-h
aired secretary wasn’t at her desk.

  Kate and Travis said goodbye to Maximo at the tall bronze doors guarding the entrance and stepped out into the bruising August sunshine. Heat slammed into her. Convinced the temperature had climbed ten or fifteen degrees during their extended lunch, she flung up a hand to block the shimmering, exhaust-fueled haze.

  Which was why she didn’t pick up on the drama occurring across the street as quickly as Travis did. She was still squinting through the exhaust fumes when she heard his smothered curse. Sensed him go rigid beside her. Caught a blur of movement as he burst into action.

  Zigzagging across four lanes of traffic, he dodged a furiously honking driver and aimed for two figures locked in a desperate struggle. Kate was still standing openmouthed on the opposite side of the street when the two combatants turned to meet the unexpected attack. One, she saw with a shock, was the older woman from the bank. The other was a younger, wiry man wearing a striped soccer shirt and a look of vicious desperation.

  Travis hit the male with a flying tackle. The woman staggered back. A fist pressed to her bruised, bleeding mouth, she shouted something in Italian. Horrified, Kate picked up only one word.

  Pistola.

  “Travis!”

  Heedless of traffic, she charged into the street.

  “He’s got a gun!”

  She had to jump back to avoid being flattened by an oncoming bus. It was still rumbling by when a sharp crack split the hot, heavy air.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kate’s heart stopped dead in her chest. In the second or two it took for the bus to rumble by, she tried to convince herself that crack she’d heard was the sound of a backfire.

  Please, let it be backfire!

  A second, then a third sharp retort blasted that hope. Almost scorched by the searing exhaust from the tailpipe, she slapped a palm against the rear of the bus and cut around it.

  The tableau on the sidewalk seemed to unfold before her horrified eyes like a video played in ultra slo-mo. The soccer-shirted punk was flat on the pavement. Travis had the kid’s gun hand pinned to the sidewalk with one fist. His other was up and back and starting a vicious downward arc when the older woman threw herself at the two writhing combatants.

  “No!” Her eyes wild, she grabbed Travis’s wrist with both hands. “E mio figlio!”

  Kate didn’t try to translate the frantic cry. Her every thought, her entire being, was centered on the crimson splotch on Travis’s shoulder. It blossomed even bigger and darker in the few desperate heartbeats it took her to reach the woman hanging on to him with clawing hands.

  “E mio figlio! E mio figlio!”

  Kate leaped at the dark-haired secretary, fully prepared to pulverize both her and the young tough with the gun. Travis kept his death grip on the punk’s gun hand, but the unleashed energy went out of his upraised arm. He seemed to sag, his head down and his shoulders sloping. The momentary weakness combined with the spreading red stain struck terror into Kate’s heart.

  “Get off him!”

  With a viciousness she didn’t know she possessed, she grabbed the older woman’s hair and yanked. The secretary yelped in pain and put both hands up to her temples. Remorseless, Kate hauled her away from the two men.

  Only then did she realize a crowd had gathered. Other hands reached out to grab the older woman, to wrest the gun from the punk’s hand, to help Travis roll off him and into a loose slump. Voices pounded at Kate. Questions bombarded her from all directions. Someone was shouting an urgent report into a cell phone.

  The carabinieri who arrived on scene took Kate’s name and disjointed statement and didn’t protest when she insisted on climbing into the ambulance called to transport Travis to the hospital.

  He was still in surgery when two other police officers arrived in the waiting room of the sprawling Saint Ursula-Malpighi University Hospital. They checked with the charge nurse and was told the bullet had passed through the victim’s shoulder, causing as yet undetermined damage to muscle and the network of nerves running from his neck to his armpit. So Kate was less than sympathetic when the police sergeant confirmed what she’d already figured out for herself.

  “The one who shoots your husband, he is the woman’s son.”

  The lean, hard-eyed sergeant wore an olive-drab uniform crossed with a patent leather Sam Browne belt. Like Kate, he evinced little sympathy for the shooter.

  “We know him well. He’s... How do you say? Small-time. Too small to pay for the filth he pumps into his veins. He broke into his mother’s house when she refuses to give him money.” The sergeant’s mouth twisted. “She also refuses to press charges.”

  Kate wasn’t as forgiving. “Well, we will! This time,” she vowed fiercely, “he’s going down.”

  The sergeant nodded, took down her account of the event and promised he would have a translated copy ready for her signature when he returned to take Travis’s.

  “And these,” he said, holding up a set of keys, “we recovered from the street. We’ve matched them to the car parked in the visitor’s space at the bank, but this car is not yours.”

  Kate recognized the pawing black stallion on the key ring’s medallion. “No, it belongs to a friend of ours. Maggiore Carlo di Lorenzo. He loaned it to my husband.”

  “So we have ascertained,” the sergeant said, passing her the keys. “You have powerful friends, signora.”

  Kate nodded and dropped the keys in her pocket. Mere moments after the carabinieri departed, Signore Gallo and his assistant hurried into the surgical waiting area.

  “Signora Westbrook!” The silver-maned bank executive grasped both of Kate’s hands. “I cannot tell you how distressed we are that this should have happened.”

  “Signora Constanza is one of our most valued employees,” Maximo put in. “She’s been with Cassa di Molino for more than twenty years. But that son of hers. Pah!”

  “The boy was such a bright child,” Gallo said, shaking his head mournfully. “So happy. Gabriella—Signora Constanza—would bring him to the bank and we all delighted in his quick, eager mind.” He sighed, and his expression folded into sorrowful lines. “Then came the drugs.”

  “Signore Gallo paid for him to go through rehab,” Maximo related indignantly. “Not once, but twice! And still the bastardo bleeds his mother dry with desperate tales of how his suppliers will break his arm or shoot him in the knee or cut his throat. Better for Gabriella that they had!”

  “Enough, Maximo. Let us focus instead on how we may assist Signora Westbrook in this unfortunate situation. Shall we arrange a place for you to stay while your husband recovers? A car and driver, perhaps, since you are unfamiliar with our city?”

  “I have a car, but it’s still parked in the visitor’s space at the bank.”

  “Ah, yes. The red Ferrari. If you give me the keys, we shall deliver it here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It is the least we can...”

  He broke off, his glance whipping to the woman in surgical scrubs who pushed through the swinging doors. She removed her cap and released a short sweep of rich chestnut hair as her gaze landed on Kate.

  “I am Dottore Bennati. You are Signora Westbrook?”

  “Yes. How’s my husband?”

  “We have done debridement and innesto di pelle.”

  The surgeon searched for the medical terms in English and looked relieved when Signore Gallo offered to translate.

  “She says they removed some damaged tissue and repaired an artery here.” The banker tapped a spot close to his shoulder joint. “Luckily, the bullet was small caliber and did not fragment. It is too early to tell if it caused nerve damage, however.”

  “But my husband will be okay?”

  “He will,” Gallo confirmed after a brief colloquy with the ER doc. “Whether he will regain f
ull use of his arm, however, must depend on the nerves.”

  Kate was so relieved by the first half of his comment that the second barely registered. “When can I see him?”

  “Very soon,” the banker translated. “He is in recovery now.”

  * * *

  While Kate waited to see her husband, Signore Gallo assured her that Saint Ursula’s School of Medicine and Surgery was the best in Italy and that Travis would recover speedily here. After repeating his offer of assistance, he and Maximo made sure Kate had their business cards and would call if she needed anything, anything at all.

  The surgical recovery unit contained eight glassed-in cubicles in a neat semicircle around a central monitoring station. The gleaming floors and what looked like state-of-the-art equipment reassured Kate almost as much as Travis’s wobbly smile when she entered his cubicle.

  “Heya, Katydid.”

  His voice was thick, the words slurred. Kate dropped her purse on a chair and carefully threaded her hand through IV lines to take his.

  “Heya, handsome. How do you feel?”

  “Woozy, but flying high.” He slicked his tongue across his lips and frowned in an obvious effort to clear the fog. “That kid? Wh-what happened to him?”

  “He’s in police custody.”

  “The woman?”

  “She’s his mother. He was trying to shake her down for drug money.”

  “Young...punk.”

  Kate’s sentiments exactly, although she didn’t voice them, as Travis’s lids had drifted down. She sat there, his hand clasped loosely in hers, and tried not to relive those moments of sheer terror outside the bank.

  * * *

  An hour later Travis was moved to a single room overlooking a small garden. She stood by the window, waiting while the floor staff got him settled, took his vitals and adjusted his various drips and monitors. They were still entering information into a small, portable computer on a wheeled stand when Callie and Dawn arrived.

  Callie eased past the nurses and wrapped an arm around Kate’s shoulders before giving Travis a warm smile. “You don’t look too bad for someone who got on the wrong side of a bullet.”