Then he bent toward me and touched his mouth to mine.
He let me go, turned his head, mine followed the direction of his gaze and I saw the waiter there. But Sam didn’t disentangle our legs or move away when he leaned forward to pull his wallet out of his jeans and pay. He paid in cash, the waiter smiled, bowed and moved swiftly away and Sam’s hand went to my thigh, curled around and his fingers gave me a squeeze as he muttered without any enthusiasm whatsoever, “Let’s do this.”
“Wait,” I said quickly, his eyes came to mine and my hand went to the side of his neck. “Just to finish what we were talking about, when I go shopping with Luci, I’ll feel her out and let you know. If it would be uncool for me to say anything, ask anything, I promise, I won’t push it because she’ll know that’s coming from you. But, if I think I can get her to open up to me without any blow back on you, I’ll do it. Are you okay with that?”
He grinned and answered, “Yeah, honey, that works.”
“Good,” I whispered then pulled in a breath and muttered, “Let’s get this done.”
Sam, being Sam, curled a hand around the back of my knee, lifted my leg from his, set it gently down, got up, pulled out my chair and helped me out of it. Then I nabbed my purse, settled the strap on my shoulder, he grabbed my hand and led me to the American couple.
As we approached, I saw the woman was nearly bouncing in her chair. The man looked like he wished he had a syringe filled with a fast-acting sedative he could stick her with. And yes, I didn’t know the guy but that was exactly what he looked like.
“Ohmigod! You’re with your girlfriend!” the woman cried when we were within five feet of her table, she shot out of her chair (her husband coming up much more slowly) and her eyes shot to me. “Are you a model?”
“Uh… no,” I answered.
Her brows shot together. “An actress?”
“Uh –” I started but she cut me off.
“I haven’t seen you in any movies. What movies have you been in?”
“I’m not an actress. I’m an administrative assistant,” I told her and her jaw dropped.
Then she jabbed her husband with her elbow three times and exclaimed, “How neat is that!” Her eyes moved to Sam. “I love that! I just knew when you settled down it wouldn’t be with some fancy actress or something but a girl next door type. I knew it.” She turned to her husband. “Didn’t I know it?”
“How ‘bout we take this shot so you can get on with your dinner,” Sam suggested, tipping his head to the nearly full plates of food on their table.
“Oh, we’re good, we’re fine,” she assured Sam. “I know! Would you like to join us? I know you’re done eating but you could have a drink or a glass of wine or something.”
“Actually, I need to get my woman home,” Sam declined.
“Why? The night is young,” the woman noted truthfully but rudely.
“Tilda,” her husband muttered, taking her arm.
“Well it is,” she told him then looked at Sam. “We’d love it. It’d be an honor to have a drink with a hero.”
“Yeah, pumpkin,” her husband said with strained patience. “But maybe this hero would like some private time in a romantic place with his lovely lady.”
“Nonsense,” she shot back, indicating that the flame had died between Tilda and her hubby because if Lake Como couldn’t wake up the romance, nothing could and clearly the romance was dead between them, so dead, she couldn’t see that the romance might not be dead for everybody. Then she looked to Sam and me and declared, “Nothing better when you’re in a foreign place and you meet folks from home. Feels like you are home.”
This was an odd thing to say considering you were in a foreign place to experience that place and not be home.
Then again, Tilda was an odd woman.
But I couldn’t think of Tilda because, as this wore on, I felt Sam’s hand get tighter and tighter in mine so I felt it was time to step in before he broke bones.
“Actually,” I started my lie, “Sam needs to get me back to our hotel because I’m expecting an important call from home and I need privacy when I take it. Truthfully, we don’t have a great deal of time so I hate to be the one to rush this but do you mind awfully if I take the shot? Then we really need to go.”
“Oh,” Tilda mumbled, her face falling, “I hope everything is okay.”
“Me too,” I replied, taking matters into my own hands and reaching out to the camera that was sitting on their table. “But I’d hate for my call to come while we’re on the sidewalk or something so…” I trailed off, grabbed the camera and lifted it toward me. “Is there something special I need to do?”