“I’m calling him Convict,” River said.
“Advertise the fact that you’re a thief!” Beluga shook his head.
River grinned.
“What you need, my friend, isn’t a dog. It’s a girl. A pretty girl. A Brazilian woman, someone with the sun racing hotly through her veins, who loves to dance. Beautiful and seductive. Yes, that’s what you need. You should pick flowers to bring to a pretty girl and maybe find a guitar and serenade her.”
“I can’t steal a girl from the market, Beluga—that would just be wrong.”
Beluga groaned. “Let’s finish these sheets. Then make the beds up for tonight. After that you can sit and draw, and Maria will have some dinner ready. You fed this dog already?”
“I gave him my breakfast.”
“We’ll have to go slow, but maybe there’s an old roast bone inside. That would be good; he could savor the taste and then we’ll get him something else later. I’ll have Maria stop at the market and find real dog food—you are not to go back there for a while!”
River nodded. “Thank you—and I’ll thank Maria.”
“You will do more than thank her. You will give her money for food—and for taking the trip,” Beluga said, wagging a finger at him.
“Of course.”
Beluga snorted and disappeared into his house. River smiled and leaned back, feeling the warmth of the sun and patting the dog.
A minute later, Beluga returned with a massive bone for Convict.
So much for going slowly. The bone was huge.
The dog seemed almost afraid to go to Beluga to take the bone, but Beluga spoke to him softly in Portuguese and, in a moment, Convict moved to him, his tail wagging low at first, and then higher as he accepted the bone and began to gnaw upon it.
The dog was not accustomed to kindness.
River studied Beluga as the giant man watched the dog, pleasure in his eyes as he saw how much the animal enjoyed it. Beluga, he thought, is an amazing man. He’d endured hardship and he knew pain. He had not become a cruel man because of it; he’d become a better man.
River marveled at how the dog’s life had changed, now that he was here.
A man’s life could change too, he thought.
Yes, he determined. His life had changed as well.
CHAPTER 3
River could feel the cool caress of an air conditioner against his skin and hear the hum of its motor.
Music played lightly in the background. It sounded like an old Fleetwood Mac CD.
The room where he dozed was in shadow. It was daytime, but the blinds had been drawn. Little streams of light seemed to peek through the blinds, bringing in a touch of golden warmth and a slight display of pastel colors; dust motes seemed magical in the little rays of light. From outside, he could hear children laughing as they played, a bouncing ball, and cars rolling by on a distant highway.
He felt a touch on his shoulder, as gentle as a balmy breeze. Smiling, he opened his eyes.
Her face was caught in shadow.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered, her voice a brush of tenderness that stirred his heart.
He reached for her. “I should be awake; it’s day.”
“Yes,” she teased, her fingers on his brow, sweeping back the lock of hair that fell across it. “It’s daytime, but you need some rest.”
Catching her by her shoulders, River drew her down to his side and rolled atop her, smiling. She was warm, living, vital, and he needed her so much. “It’s daytime, and the shades are down and…”
His whisper faded. He still couldn’t see her face; it was caught in a burst of light from outside the window.
Then he heard it; the whistle of a bomb. He cringed, trying to hold her close, bracing for the fallout that was sure to come. He held nothing; the gentleness, the cool whispers—gone.
He was alone on hard ground.
Pastel shades faded to the harshness of desert brown. He heard a scream of terror ripping through the air and suddenly, all was gone, and it seemed that he was caught in the stygian darkness of night …
River awoke in a flash, bolting to an upright position. He looked around, shaking off the remnants of the dream. The light in the room was shadowy and dim, but outside, the sun was just beginning to peek out. It was early morning—too early to be awake. He gritted his teeth and gave himself an irritated mental shake—and hoped he hadn’t screamed aloud.
He was on a cot in the back hallway of Beluga’s house; at his side, Convict whined softly. Beluga had given in on the dog and River had made him a bed out of one of his dirty shirts. There hadn’t been room in the hostel but, true to his word, Beluga had seen to it that he had a place to sleep. And since Convict had followed River and Beluga about—behaving with incredible manners—as the two men had worked together repairing window frames during the afternoon, River and Convict were both Beluga’s guests that night.
There were actually four cots in the back of Beluga’s house—in what he called his Florida room, since the floor was tiled and the walls were lined with frosted-glass windows and a giant mural of downtown Miami.
River was usually alone back here. But as his eyes adjusted and his mind cleared, he saw that the farthest bed was occupied.
It was a young woman—a strikingly beautiful young woman with rich dark hair that fell around her shoulders in tousled waves. She leaned on an elbow, watching him, almond eyes narrowed in concern. She was so striking, such a vision of absolute and ethereal beauty. He hadn’t expected to see someone like her, sleeping—or trying to sleep—in the same room.
He felt breathless.
She nodded and looked at him for another long moment. Then she turned around, cuddled her pillow, and adjusted her position on the cot, ready to go back to sleep. He flushed, sorry that he’d awakened her. At his side, Convict gave a little whine.
He set his hand on the dog’s head. “Pretty girl, huh, bud?” he whispered to the dog.
He lay back down himself, eyes open, intrigued. He couldn’t talk to her; she’d made it apparent that she wanted to go back to sleep.
Of course, there was the morning.
He wouldn’t bombard her. He would just hope to meet her.
He didn’t think that he’d sleep again, though. He lay awake, constantly aware that she was close, so close. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen anyone who had intrigued him as she had.
Was she Brazilian? Or a traveler from a faraway nation? Was she on an adventure …
Or escaping from something—or someone?
He rolled to face the wall—and not her sleeping form.
He didn’t think that he would sleep again.
But he did.
This time, there was no gentle trailer running before the onset of the nightmare. He was in a small, sand-covered desert town, moving carefully from house to house. It was a mission he hated; insurgents abounded in the mix of families just trying to survive. Most had abandoned the town, but he could turn a corner and find a cowering mother and child—or an enemy bearing an Uzi.