*
When Rose trotted down the hotel’s steps at seven the next morning, cell phone in hand and GPS providing directions to a Starbucks only yards away where she could obtain her first grande caramel macchiato in nearly a week, the last person she expected to see across the paver-lined street was Keenan.
But there he was. Dressed in jeans, a button-down, and a crew neck sweater. With his beard and sandy blond hair, he almost blended into the street. But that was the point of the SEALs. The quiet professionals. Right now Keenan looked very quiet, and very professional. Whatever kept him from a really excellent dinner the previous night still occupied ninety percent of his mind.
“Can you read minds?” she asked lightly as she crossed the pavers to stand in front of him.
“I figured you’d be on the hunt for fancy coffee.”
“I thought about going for a run,” she said, feeling marginally guilty. They were moving at a brisk pace down the nearly empty ?stiklal Avenue, sidestepping a street sweeper cleaning up the previous night’s trash.
He shot her a mischievous look, but let it go. “What’s the plan for today?”
“See everything. Pack. Thanks,” she said, and walked through the door he held for her. Just like that the pace of their feet became the pace of the conversation, equally brisk, superficial. She didn’t like it.
Her phone rang, a colleague’s number flashing on the screen. It was a supplier, someone who probably didn’t know she was on vacation. Instinct compelled her to answer it, even if just to say she was on vacation and could he please call Hua Li?
Keenan was sneaking a glance at her phone. “Stop that,” she said.
“Sorry. It’s the job.”
“I know. Jack does it too,” she said.
“You going to answer that?”
He was there, right there beside her, a Navy SEAL in a Starbucks in Istanbul. Hers for the next twenty-four hours. “No,” she said, and swiped the call to voice mail.
“One more day,” he said when they had their coffees.
“One more day.”
“And one more night.”
His voice was low, rough, nearly inaudible in the coffee shop’s noisy morning crowd, but there was no mistaking his tone, the desire.
“One more night,” she agreed. She’d figure out a way to explain it to Grannie. “Then I go home.”
At the word home, regret flashed over his face before he smoothed it away. Her heart was twitching and thumping in her chest as emotions tumbled through her. One more magical vacation day, one more stolen night with her secret lover tumbled together with mounting regret and imminent loss. Underneath it all was a question she could no longer ignore.
When would Keenan go home?
*
The day held an urban magic feel, where floors literally opened to reveal ancient Roman cisterns, and streets tapered into narrow alleys that had been inhabited for two thousand years. They started with the Hagia Sofia, marveling at the building’s Byzantine architecture and rich decorations, tracing the holes in thousand-year-old marble crosses worn through by countless pilgrims’ fingers. It was a short walk past the Hippodrome to the minarets, domes, and soaring arches of the Blue Mosque. They removed their shoes and covered their hair to step inside and stare at the intricate mosaics.
“I can’t imagine the planning that went into building this,” Rose murmured to Keenan.
A grin curved the corners of his mouth. “You could pull it off.”
“I’d love the challenge,” she said, then looked around. “We’ve lost Grannie again.”
They found her outside, helping a group of schoolgirls practice their English until their teacher gathered them up and brought them inside. Rose gathered her own chicks and followed Keenan to a dive of a restaurant. Keenan knew the family who ran the place, and the food was delicious, spicy and piping hot. Then they were off again, wandering through the Spice Market before boarding the boat for an hour-long cruise down the Bosphorus. The afternoon sun glinted off the modern buildings and picked out remnants of the city walls, hidden in the streets.
“I can see why you live here,” Rose said. They stood elbow-to-elbow at the rail of the cruise boat, drifting by trees bursting with pink cherry blooms amid elaborate mansions and crowded row housing. The sky was an unreal shade of blue, the sun glinted in the spray tossed from the waves. Keenan looked at home with the wind in his face and the boat’s motion.
He shrugged. “It’s convenient.”
“Could you live anywhere?” she asked, testing, probing. Curious.
He turned from examining the water to look at her. “This is a good location for work.”
“Oh.” She watched a yacht cruise by, the occupants loftily ignoring everyone else around them. “But you could do other work.”