Sailing to Capri (26 page)

Montana was a mystery man in more ways than one and now at least I was about to solve the mystery of his body and his lovemaking. Would it be the way I thought it might? Would
I fall into his arms, swooning like a lovesick maiden, trembling as I waited for his touch? Not
me.
I wasted no time. Shameless in my need, I had my dress unzipped in half a second and he was helping me off with it in another second more.

“Daisy, Daisy … sweet, perfect Daisy,” he said, admiring my breasts, which pointed upward, longing for his touch. Then, like a knight in shining armor, he picked me up and carried me to my bed.

Pushing the turn-down chocolates out of the way, I lay back against the pillows, watching as he stripped then stood before me, as beautiful as any man could be. I beckoned him closer, sitting up as he came to me and took me in his arms, naked body against naked body, flaming with heat, sinking under his small tender kisses, reeling under his touch, kissing him back as though I couldn’t bear to ever let him go.

“Touch me,”
I whispered, drunk with the sensation of his fingers on my skin. “Touch me,” I murmured again … and again … as his lips caressed me … And “Ah, Montana,
Montana
…”

“Don’t you think you should at least call me Harry?”

I opened my eyes and looked at him. “Oh. Yes. Right.
Harry.
Do it some more …
Harry …
”

Much later, my legs still wrapped around him, arms flung out across the bed, I lay like a spent firework, all my stars and shimmering spangles shot into the night sky.

I ran my hand over the mysterious tattoo. “What does this mean?” I asked.

“It’s a Tibetan saying. It means ‘Love and kindness.’ Three
of us buddies in Delta Force had it done. They were the best men you’d ever meet in your life. Both were killed in Afghanistan.” He paused, thinking. “I miss them,” he said.

Untangling himself, he lay back. Eyes closed, he said, “The time I spent with them was the best of my life; they were like the brothers I never had.”

The hard man was showing his soft underbelly, suddenly vulnerable, suddenly human. I stroked the tattoo gently with a finger, wishing I’d never asked. “I’m so sorry.”

He looked at me and seeing the sympathy in my eyes he said, “The other great event in my life was meeting the man I called my father. He wasn’t my real father, of course, I had no relationship with
him
from the day I was born to the day he died. But this man saved my life. This man raised me—because before I met him I was just another tough kid heading for trouble. His name was Phineas Cloudwalker, and he was a Native American of the Comanche tribe. He was sixty-seven years old then, whip-thin, with a body hard as nails. He picked me up on a dirt road in the Texas backlands, driving a Ford pickup so old it looked as though he might have inherited it from Grandpa Clampett. I was hitchhiking, thumbing a lift on a cold forsaken night when no person with any options would have been outside. Rain was slicing down and I was soaked to the skin, but Cloudwalker had a sick dog and he’d taken him to the vet. He cried as he told me that the dog had been put down, and I remember marveling that a grown man was actually brave enough to cry. I’d never seen anyone show emotion before.”

Montana was quiet and I held my breath, waiting for what
might come next. I could almost hear the hard shell I’d grown around my broken heart when the husband left me cracking. Montana, this tough man, had opened himself to me, shown me his deepest feelings, his sorrow at the tragic loss of his buddies and his true father. I thought his Cloudwalker had meant what Bob had meant to me: salvation. They were men who had taken us, broken as we were, and fixed us, made us whole again; living, breathing, feeling human beings.

“And now there’s you,” Montana said softly. “The kind of woman a man likes to love.”

I didn’t dare to ask, Well then, do you love me? It was too early to talk of love. After all, what we had going here was just a physical connection. Instead I said, “Would you cry in front of me, Harry Montana?”

“I cried at Bob’s funeral.” He surprised me. “I’d lost a great man. A friend.”

“I cried too,” I admitted. “And I’ve cried so much since I don’t know where all the tears come from.”

He twined a strand of my hair around his finger. “Daisy?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want you to be afraid.”

What did he mean? Should I be afraid of falling for him? Or afraid of what Dopplemann might do next?

“Oh, I’m not, really I’m not,” I said, sounding much more confident than I felt.

“Good girl.” He put his arms around me and pulled me to him. “You’re very beautiful, you know that?”

“Well, nobody much has told me that lately,” I admitted.

“Then listen to me now. Take notes. Imprint it in your brain. You are
beautiful.
I want you to repeat that to yourself thirty times a day. Promise?”

I laughed. “I’ll try.”

Pushing me away, he got up, took the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket and opened it. He poured two glasses and handed me one.

“Let’s drink to us,” he said, smiling. So we did, and then I ate all the bedtime chocolate, suddenly ravenous from all that lovemaking.

“There’s twenty-four-hour room service,” he reminded me.

“But what would they think if they saw you in my room?” I asked, shocked.

He shook his head, laughing. “Come here, you silly, proper prudish woman,” he said and dragged me onto his lap. Forgetting all about champagne and room service, I started kissing him all over again.

I slept the sleep of angels, fitting into Montana’s body like it was meant to be. The next morning, vaguely aware of daylight behind the closed curtains, I finally surfaced from beneath contented layers of drowsiness, opened my eyes, and looked for him. He wasn’t there. I searched for a note, checked the sitting room and the bathroom. Empty. I stared around, stunned. Montana had left me and without even a good-bye.

It’s foolish I suppose but the pain of rejection hit me one more time, the same awful agony I’d felt when the husband had left. Those cracks in the shell around my crusted heart I’d experienced last night when Montana had revealed his more vulnerable side to me, sealed up again with the finality of superglue. I told myself I was a fool and men were men, only after sex and nothing more. Yet hadn’t
I
seduced
him?
He’d asked if I knew what I was doing, and I had, so blithely, said yes. Now I’d gotten what I’d asked for. Nothing more, nothing
less. It wouldn’t happen again, though; this one was over before it even began.

It slowly dawned on me that outside the big picture window lay the magical little port of Saint-Tropez. I could see the pine-clad hills of Ramatuelle curving into a clear blue sky, I could hear gulls calling and when I opened the window there was the scent of flowers and the sea. I needed a beach and the warmth of the sun dappling my love-bruised body; I needed to cool my pain in that cool blue sea, to breathe close up the refreshing scent of those flowers. I needed rosé wine and fresh-caught fish and those tiny wild strawberries called
fraises des bois. Of course
I did not need Harry Montana.

In the shower I let the water flow over me, washing away all traces of our lovemaking. Squeaky clean, I emerged wrapped in a soft cotton robe, just as my stewardess, Camille, arrived with breakfast. I poured a cup of coffee and took a bite of the buttery flaky croissant, baked the way only the French can. Then I rang Bordelaise’s room.

“What?” she answered.

“You awake?”

“I am now.”

“Open the curtains and take a look outside.”

I heard her grumbling as she got out of bed, and the sound of the curtains being pulled back. Then
“Ohh!
Will you just take a look at
that!?

“Awake now?” I asked, grinning.

“You betcha. What have you got planned?”

“Beach. Swimming. Lunch. Wine drinking. People watching. Maybe a little light shopping later …”

“Give me half an hour, babe, and I’m all yours. Oh, wait a minute, what about the suspects? Are you just going to let them go off on their own?”

“Well, do
you
want to go swimming with Dopplemann?
Or
Charlie Clement?” I heard her groan. “Of course you don’t and neither do I. The hell with it, Bordelaise, I’m going to leave Montana to deal with them.”

“Hmmm.” I could almost hear her brain clicking. “So,
exactly
where
are
you with Montana? I thought you looked pretty chummy last night. And don’t bother to tell me I’m wrong. I can smell the start of a love affair at fifty paces.”

“Well, this time you
are
wrong. It’s all over.”

“Over?
I thought you were going to tell me it had just begun?”

Sighing, I gave her a quick summary of the events of the past few hours. Finally I said, “So when a man picks up and leaves without so much as a good-bye, not even a note—not even a phone call—what’s a woman supposed to think?”

“The worst,” Bordelaise agreed.

Sighing, I slipped into a turquoise bikini and a gauzy light blue caftan—part of my Harvey Nick’s London purchases. I called Patrice de Colmont, Club 55’s owner, and made reservations for lunch at two o’clock, grabbed my straw tote and went and hammered on Bordelaise’s door. She flung it open, beaming.

“Quick, let’s make a run for it before Dopplemann finds us,” she said in a loud whisper, already scampering along the corridor with me behind her, giggling like naughty children as we trotted down the gangway onto the dock.

We strolled about in the sun, inspecting the stalls selling
jewelry and belts, T-shirts and scarves, sunglasses and souvenirs. Getting a taxi is not easy in small crowded Saint-Tropez and there only ever seem to be about two of them anyway, but I knew where to call and we waited by the port for it to arrive.

The taxi driver was cute and his name was Paul. He chatted us up in French as we wound our way through the fifteenth-century town’s narrow streets and alleys and out onto the main road. He turned at the sign that read “Plages,” driving past endless vineyards, the source of the delicious local rosé wine, and turned again at the sign that read “Pampelonne,” all the way to the end of the road and, at last, the beautiful beach. Paul told us to call him when we wanted to return and took off, leaving us staring at the Bentleys and Ferraris in the parking lot.

Despite its chic clientele, Le Club 55 is a simple place. The entrance is a boardwalk shaded by tall bamboos. It leads to a terrace and the outdoor restaurant and popular bar. Woven reeds and white canvas awnings are slung like overhead sails, and the place is awash in bougainvillea, oleander, and tamarisk. In front is the golden, umbrella-dotted beach and the sea, and a lot of “beautiful” people.

In the shady dining area, the tables are set with pale blue cloths and fresh flowers and the breeze blows from the beach, bringing in with it a slew of small motorboats from the grand yachts moored offshore. On them are the designer-clad rich folk and pretty young things in the tiniest of bikinis, all heading for lunch at the classiest and most popular beach club in Saint-Tropez.