"I feel better," he replied. "I supposed Gerald advises that we do not go back to the house, and is even now off to pack our bags and prepare a secure location."
"Yes -- he and Bruno," Karin said with a smile. "What kind of dog is he?"
"Giant and hairy," Murali replied. "He’s called a Leonberger, Gerald tells me. You don't mind Gerald burrowing among your unmentionables?"
Karin blushed. "I didn't want to leave you alone," she replied.
Murali grinned broadly and raised himself up to a sitting position. "Thank you. I was afraid you'd want to run the other way as fast as you could. Truth is, though, this has become a major deal and there will be other agents tasked with security -- no doubt already surrounding my room and the hospital and your apartment and the house. Gerald will commandeer a female agent to gather your things. I meant to tell you that is a lovely dress."
"Oh..." Karin looked down at the dress for the first time. She pushed and shoved at the wrinkles and rubbed at the stains. Nothing changed. "It was." She pulled her coat together to cover it, but he knew the room was too warm for that and she finally gave up trying to hide the damage.
"It will be my pleasure to have it repaired or replaced," Murali offered. "Since it was entirely my fault. I'm so sorry. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine anyone would come after me for that intel. I just hope whatever deadline they had has expired and they won't trouble us anymore."
"Is the information still valuable to someone?" Karin asked.
Murali appeared to consider that. "Yes," he replied, with obvious hesitation.
"Then I assume they will try again. I guess that means we'll be separated ... for my protection? And how long do you think it will be?"
Murali leaned back and closed his eyes. "Separation would be the most intelligent course of action. It's the only thing that makes sense to keep you safe. As to how long, I can't say. The information has certain long-term value, I'm afraid."
"And there's the matter of propriety," Karin said with great reluctance.
"Propriety?"
"I've already had my reputation called into question this week," she said, recalling Gail's insinuations. "People will have a field day with this."
"What?" Murali sat straight up and stared at her.
She repeated to him what Gail had said.
Murali said something under his breath that wasn't in English. "Where are my clothes?" He demanded, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed.
Karin jumped up to help push the IV stand and got him over to the closet. He found his damp wad of clothing in a plastic bag.
"You can't wear those. Gerald will bring fresh ones," Karin protested.
"Not going to put them on. Just hoping to find something. Ah!" He rummaged through his pockets and turned up a small velvet box. "Again, nothing is going as planned, but I need to do this. Karin, will you please marry me? Clearly, tonight is evidence that I cannot live without you."
Karin stared at a diamond ring that seemed to be made of platinum and fashioned in the shape of a snowflake.
"I know how much you like them," he ventured when she didn't respond. "I'm sorry about your earrings. I'll gladly replace those, too, though I can't match the sentimental value."
Karin reached up to her ears and discovered the missing snowflake for the first time. Tears started to fall. She made no move to take the box from Murali.
"What's going to happen if I say yes? Will Gerald perform the ceremony? Will we get whisked off somewhere, and I'll never see my family again? I thought meeting you would be exciting but it's just confusing and terrifying."
Murali dropped his arm down to his side. She watched his knuckles turn white on the little ring box. "Even if you say no, the terror doesn't end," he said softly. "With me or without me, to keep your family safe, you have to disappear until we can contain this breach. I don't know what that will involve. I don't know how long it will be. Now I wish I'd never involved you. I didn't have any living family when I got into this. I never stopped to think --"
Karin reached out and took the ring box from his hand. "I can't go back, though," she said. "And it's not as terrifying as thinking about going through it without you. The only way we can stay together ... with propriety ... is if I say yes. So ... yes."
Murali slid the ring onto her finger. "Thank you," he said. "This is the answer to my prayers. Soon I hope you can say the same."
A nurse and Gerald entered at the same time. He carried two suitcases, one that Karin recognized as hers.
"Sweetie, you can change out of that dress in the bathroom next door," the nurse said. "Oh, my goodness, look at that sparkler! Guess you got about the best Christmas present ever!"
Karin blushed and smiled and fled the room with her suitcase. She quickly changed into slacks and a turtleneck, catching the ring inside the sweater and having to wrestle her way out without completely unraveling the sleeve. I'm not going to cry again. This is a good thing! Even if Gerald does marry us!
***
"How do you feel about Las Vegas?" Murali asked after they had eaten a quick meal at an all-night diner and settled in together in the back of Gerald's SUV with Bruno trying to climb into Karin's lap. He settled for laying his head there, oblivious to Gerald's commands to ... well ... to whatever commands Gerald gave him.
"I've never been there," Karin admitted. "Gerald, I believe Bruno suffers from selective obedience."
"He suffers from the need to comfort the afflicted," Gerald grumbled from the driver's seat. "And also the conflicted."
"I asked about Las Vegas, because that is the only place where we can get a special license and be married quickly," Murali said.
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm used to my life playing out at a more leisurely pace. Yes, certainly, we can go to Las Vegas."
"Believe it or not, my life usually proceeds at a more leisurely pace too," Murali sighed. He took her hand off Bruno's head and held it. "This operation has taken two years of my life. We knew it had great significance, but there's more to it than your head librarian snooping out my address.
"Someone breached the laptop security in a manner that was used five years ago and almost exposed the whole agency. That perpetrator was never caught."
"Considering what happened yesterday," Gerald put in, "all of them will be receiving additional protection. I just don't understand how it all happened so fast. We took the librarian into custody but we can't hold her without proof. She swore she didn't know anything. She actually seemed to believe our detaining her was Ms. Arthur playing a prank on her to pay her back for the nasty insinuations.
"I neglected to convey her apologies for that, Ms. Arthur. They seemed sincere. We thought perhaps that was the best way to leave things in her mind -- that our questioning her was something along the lines of payback. There's no way to tell if she was involved or not. We are watching her but it’s early times."
Karin stifled a yawn. "Sorry," she murmured.
"Sleep," Murali said. "We'll be driving for hours."
"Okay," Karin leaned back but immediately got a crick in her neck. Murali put his arm on the back of the seat and gently angled her head onto his shoulder. The crick subsided and Karin found herself burrowing into Murali's coat. "Doesn't Gerald need to sleep, too, though?"
Gerald and Murali both snorted. "That's the first training you get at the agency -- how not to sleep," Murali said. "We sort of forget how."
***
"Karin," Murali said softly in her ear.
She jolted up out of a dream about Gail and the two thugs chasing her through a cornfield in a biplane. Murali stood at the end of the rows of corn waving his arms and shouting, "Don't fall asleep, Karin! You'll turn into a pumpkin and roll away!"
"Was I snoring?" She asked, and turned crimson.
"You both were," Gerald said. "We've arrived at the hotel where we'll be staying."
Karin had forgotten how high off the ground the SUV was. Murali caught her before she broke her ankle. It shocked her, how m
uscular he was underneath the plain brown sports jacket. He kept a steadying hand on the small of her back as they walked into the hotel/casino done up in the style of the Egyptian Sphinx. Gerald veered off with Bruno and the baggage in tow.
She stared in wonder at the combination of Egyptian artifact facsimiles and Christmas decorations. Everything glittered gold, blue, and sandy white with twinkling quartz and millions of tiny lights.
"I feel like I'm marrying a pharaoh," Karin whispered.
"This is my favorite hotel when I come here," Murali said. "Are you still tired? I called ahead and arranged for you to look at some dresses after breakfast, and they just opened a wedding chapel right here in the hotel. But if you want to sleep more first...?"
"No. I want to see everything." Karin still felt muzzy and strange after sleeping on Murali's shoulder and awakening from that insane dream. She wanted time to collect her thoughts, and hoped some reality would sink in. I'm getting married to a man I just met last night, she told herself. No. I've known him for years.
She couldn't forget the feeling of giving him mouth-to-mouth -- how icy and unresponsive he had been at first. But he had seemed to surge back to life beneath her lips. Whether or not he remembered how that had felt, Karin would never forget.
She kept trying to steal looks at him without finding his eyes glued on hers, so full of questions and uncertainty. She wondered how they managed to walk through the casino without tripping over anyone or anything. Finally they arrived at some doors and a hostess approached them.
"Mr. Nanda?" She asked.
Murali seemed to have to unstick his eyes from Karin but he turned to the hostess and nodded. She shook hands with both of them and led them through a door into a curtained room with two chairs placed alongside a runway.
"I'm sorry we don't have a better selection to show you," the woman said. "We should be used to short notice, but the fact is Las Vegas as a whole has had a record number of Christmas weddings this year. And our chapel is brand new so we didn't know what to expect. We'll get more deliveries later today, if you'd care to wait."
Models started to walk through a gap in the curtains. Karin stared. "Oh." Many of the gowns had some sort of Egyptian theme. Some included elaborate scented black wigs and next to nothing in coverage. Murali cleared his throat.
"I specifically said my fiancée prefers modest styles," he said when a girl walked by with a long white train and little else but some gold and blue accents. Their hostess smirked at first but when she saw their faces she sobered.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'll go back and speak to the wardrobe staff immediately. But I'm afraid that will narrow the selection even further."
"We can always go somewhere else," Murali said. The woman skittered away. The rest of the models were covered, at least. Finally Karin let out a gasp.
"Come closer, please," Murali said, motioning to a girl in a white velvet hooded cloak trimmed in gold embroidered and tinkling metal leaves. Her gown was plain white linen-like material, pleated all the way around, with a slender gold metal collar piece spilling over with golden leaves and a wide gold belt. The sleeves were pleated also and fell into gold cuffs at the wrists. A cascade of golden leaves formed a crown over the hood of the cloak.
The model turned and approached Karin. She reached out to touch the fabric. "Oh," she said.
"This one?" Murali asked.
"How much does it --?"
"Never mind that," he said. "Do you like it?"
"But it has to be so expensive," Karin protested.
"This is the one," he said to the hostess.
"Yes, sir," she replied. "Ma'am, if you'll follow me, we'll get the fitting taken care of. You and your fiancée can go next to see the chapel and decide what type of service and decorations you want. You can also choose who will officiate. We'll give you a call when everything's ready.
"Depending on what you select, it should be no more than two or three hours. Please enjoy the hotel's amenities in the meantime. We have a pool we call the Nile Delta Experience, created to look like an Egyptian pharaoh's bath, or you can both get a spa treatment, or –"
"Pool," Karin and Murali said at the same time. They looked at each other and laughed.
After they were alone again, on their way to the pool, she ventured, "I gathered from some of our online chats that you loved to swim. But I thought, as soon as that word popped out of my mouth, that your ... experience ... might have made it difficult ...."
"Nothing could make me afraid of the water," Murali said. "When I was a child in India we swam every day. I've been in every ocean and most of the rivers and lakes all around the world. I had to make myself stop laughing at the idea that they thought water could hurt me. The cold, and the -- the other things -- I don't want to go through that again. But I will always love the water. Always."
Karin agonized over seeing Murali’s battered body, but he insisted he felt little pain and was eager to work out his stiffness. She could not help noticing how muscular he was in spite of his slight build. He caught her watching him take off his robe and realized he was waiting for her to do the same.
She hesitated but finally let the robe drop with a weak "Ta-da!" The new turquoise swimsuit she had bought at the gift shop had a little pleated skirt and was modest as swimsuits went. A sudden shyness had overtaken her at the thought that she would have to get mentally prepared to show Murali more than this in a few hours. When he reached out a hand to her, she stepped forward and let him lead her down the ornate golden sand walkway into the pool.
Though she considered herself a good swimmer Karin tired quickly compared to this seemingly amphibious man. She ended up watching Murali lap and dive and perform a sort of solo water ballet, clapping her hands in delight as she sat on the side of the deep end. He burst out of the water like a dolphin in front of her, showering her with droplets as he fell backward. It was salt water, not chlorinated, and so warm she slid back in and let him pull her into his arms. He swirled their bodies in a circle.
"You're sure you want to do this?" Murali murmured. "Get married, in about two hours? I won't break these vows. This may seem like a dream, but it's real, and it's for the rest of our lives."
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I'm sure. God brought us together. That's how we'll stay together -- in Him."
Karin hurried away after showering to get her hair and makeup done. She realized she had no idea what Murali would even wear as she stood getting the final adjustments made to her gown. Several women worked on her dress and the small room was walled with mirrors.
She stared at her transformed self from every angle. Karin almost let tears ruin her makeup thinking about the fact that her sister and mother wouldn't even know about her marriage or meet Murali for -- how long?
She had no idea. Gerald had mailed a quick note she had written to her sister saying that she had accepted a last-minute invitation to travel out of state with friends. The note was not a lie, quite but it hardly satisfied her when she was bursting to tell someone about what was happening to her.
The hostess led Karin into the chapel and her breath left her body. Seeing computer images of the decorations had not prepared her for the real-life cypress trees wrapped in gold mesh, white gauzy fabric, and tiny lights. The hostess handed her a bouquet of lilies and white roses wrapped with gold leaves and she moved down the short aisle toward the altar. Murali wore a long, loose tunic and slacks of white linen over a high-collared shirt. His brown eyes glowed amber-bright as he watched her come closer.
Karin joined him and they held hands as a real minister, not a justice of the peace, led them through the ceremony. They had skyped with him as they finalized the arrangements and he had put them through a mini-counseling session and prayed with them.
At the end of the service, Karin pressed her lips into Murali's and marveled at experiencing the same life-spark and flood of energy she had felt when he revived on that freezing bathroom floor. This time, however, his mouth was warm and enveloping.
>
"I love you so much," she whispered as they parted.
Thank God," he whispered back. "I love you too."
***
Karin felt like they had hardly been in their suite. Murali lifted her up into his arms to cross the threshold and set her down on the deep blue plush carpet. A larger-than-life Egyptian king faced his queen on opposite plaster walls surrounded by hieroglyphic designs. Even the furnishings were gilded and ornamented in carnelian and blue. Mosaic pillars framed the gold and white curtains thatcovered the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"Thank you," Murali said, stepping back and looking at her.
"Why are you thanking me?" Karin suppressed another urge to burst into tears. "This is all so wonderful. I need to be thanking you."
"This is just the wrapping on the gift you have given me," Murali said softly. "I can hardly see the paper. I am overwhelmed by the present."
"Oh …" Karin realized she was saying that a lot lately. She had studied words all her life but had seldom had any opportunity to put them together into speeches. Maybe this wasn’t really the right time for talking, anyway. She slid off her velvet cloak and let it drop to the floor, reaching up to her necklace/dress clasp.
Seven
The next two days were bliss for Murali, just looking, and touching, and breathing in Karin. They saw magic shows, wild animal acts, and dinner theater musicals and swam at least once a day. Murali fell deeper in love with her as they read the Scriptures together and attended services at the church of the minister who had married them.
Tuesday morning, Murali said, "I have to go back to work."
"I thought you were retired," Karin said.
"I can't ask the agency to continue protecting us without helping them solve this problem. They're getting nowhere trying to find out who paid those thugs -- or was going to pay them. The one who's still alive refuses to talk. Someone has got to make him tell us what he knows."
"You're going to -- to interrogate him?" Karin asked.
"Yes. I am considered one of the agency's better interrogators. I need you to come with me, please, to the place where they're holding him."
Fall On Your Knees Page 5
