“Uploading the pictures I took today,” Grannie said absently. “I want to label them as I go, or I’ll forget what I saw.”
Laptop in hand, Rose peered over her shoulder. Grannie was a not bad amateur photographer. The album was labeled “Bucket List—Turkey,” and she was organizing the pictures by date, then by location.
“Nice,” Rose said as Grannie tabbed through the pictures she’d taken. There were several in the caves, and two of Marian disassembling a toilet tank. “She’s so handy.”
“She worked in her father’s garage before she married Tom,” Grannie said.
“I didn’t know that,” Rose said, surprised.
“Ask her about it some time.”
“I’d love to get copies of those.”
“I’ll make a slideshow and upload it to the cloud”
“Not on this WiFi.”
A text message pinged on Grannie’s computer. Florence, down the hall, with a text message that read I was right! It’s a relative of the forget-me-not!
“You three are as bad as teenage girls,” Rose said fondly.
“It’s so much fun,” Grannie said.
“I’m going down to the bar to work for a while. Don’t wait up for me. And take it easy on that screen time. Research shows the light prevents your body from transitioning to sleep.”
As soon as the words left Rose’s mouth, she wished she could take them back. Grannie looked up at her, a familiar fond exasperation in her cornflower blue eyes. “Rose. Honey. Go to the bar. I’ll sleep, or I won’t sleep tonight and I’ll sleep in the car tomorrow.”
“Sorry, Grannie,” she said, and let herself out.
Habits forged in a cauldron of childhood uncertainty die hard, she reflected as she waited in the hallway for the elevator to take her to the lobby. The little girl labeled bossy and a know-it-all grew up to be a woman responsible for the operations of a global energy company … who lived with her cat in her hometown. Alone. Except for Rufus, the cat. Until she met the right man, who also wanted a white picket fence and a couple of kids, and a stable home and family life.
Someone unlike Keenan.
Satisfied with that little bit of organizational efficiency, she strode into the hotel lobby already scanning the bar for signs of the bartender and a wall with an outlet she could plug her laptop into. But when she saw Keenan standing at the front desk, she stopped short. It wasn’t the relaxed, aware way he conversed with the desk clerk, in fluent Turkish, no less. It wasn’t the way his shoulders stretched his shirt, or the sight of his forearms, dusted with golden hair, so tempting in the Land Rover.
It was the book he held in his left hand, his fingers curled around the edge, hiding the title. She recognized the cover design, black with an orange stripe, used for modern editions of classic books, but her brain filed that little detail away in favor of remembering how those fingers tightened in her hair, held her wrists, clamped over her mouth while she shuddered out her climax.
Her body awakened, the tiny dents along her jaw and bands around her wrists throbbing back into her awareness. He hadn’t seemed to notice her, so she let herself look, and feel, let it spread through her body to the tips of her fingers and toes, to her nipples and clit.
Without breaking the conversation or looking her way, Keenan lifted the hand holding the book and held up his index finger, indicating she should wait for him. He finished the conversation with a smile and a nod and an inshallah, then crossed the lobby, all loose joints and pantherlike.
Get a grip, Rose. She lifted her chin. “I didn’t think you saw me,” she said when he was right in front of her.
“Mirrors,” he said succinctly.
Rose looked over his shoulder, saw herself reflected in the mirror on the wall behind the desk. “Damn,” she said.
“Work?”
“Yes. The Bucket List Babes are settled in for the night. They’re texting each other from their rooms.”
He chuckled, soft and genuinely amused, and held out his hand to indicate she should precede him into the bar. “They’re a fun group.”
“Apparently Marian’s skill with toilets comes from working in a garage before she got married,” she said. “I had no idea. Grannie just told me.”
He chuckled again as they sat down across from each other. The room was dark, intimate seating arranged around small tables. The bartender came over to their table.
“An Efes,” Keenan said, then looked at Rose. “Red wine again?”
“No,” she said fervently, focused on opening the laptop and watching it search for a WiFi connection. “I’ll have the same. And a glass of water. Thank you.”
The bartender disappeared, reappearing with bottles of beer and her water around the time Rose connected to the WiFi. She logged in through the secure website, and signed in to her email.
“Oh, great,” she groaned.