teeth on her
ear. She wanted him to bend her over the display case next to them
and have his way with her.
“We’re
going to have a life together after his,” he told her. “I
want you Monique. I want you to wear my ring and have my children.
You are as perfect a woman as I will ever find.” He heard her
sob through his embrace and held her tightly. “We’ll buy
the farm, you can open your day care and everything will be alright.
Just hang on tight and see this through with me.” Monique
clutched his hands, not even asking about how he knew about her plans
to open a daycare center or how in the world she could do it while
living on a farm.
“Remember I
said you were an easy woman to fall in love with?” Rick told
her while he held her. “I have fallen in love with you. I tried
not to, but I can’t help it. There is a reason we ended up in
the same place in Russia at the same time. Don’t you believe it
was meant to be?”
“I want to
believe everything you are saying,” she responded, through the
tears. “But why did it have to happen this way? Why couldn’t
we have met somewhere where people aren’t all trying to kill
us?”
“We might as
well ask why the Neva river freezes up every year,” he laughed
in response. “Or why Russia lacks a warm water port to the sea.
It’s just the way of the world.”
They stood silently
holding each other for a long time. But the sound of footsteps
alerted Rick they needed to keep moving. Other tourists were entering
the section where they found themselves. They separated, but
continued to hold hands like a high school boy and girlfriend as they
walked among the aisles. Monique would occasionally stop and read the
title cards, while Rick continued to look for his contact. He was
being quiet about who he was searching for, but he seemed to think
his contact would be in this part of the Hermitage.
“How many times
have you been here?” he asked her.
“This is the
first time,” she told him. “I just never had the
opportunity. Not enough money or no one to go with.”
“You must have
been awful lonely these past three years,” Rick commented.
“What did you do to occupy your spare time?”
“I read a lot,”
she said. “Russians do like to read, so no lack of books or
novels. You can get tired of the same ones after a while.”
“But you never
read Crime and Punishment?” he told her. “One of the
greatest books of the nineteenth century.”
“I didn’t
read everything,” she explained. “I read a lot of
Tolstoy. I read Lost Souls. And a lot of the newer writers. They
still discuss Solzhenitsyn around here, did you know that?”
Monique slipped her
hand into his jacket to feel Rick’s firm chest. He leaned over
and gave her a light kiss on the lips before pulling back. She knew
he wanted to kiss more, but they had to be careful. She didn’t
care; Monique was spending time with a man who had just expressed his
love for her. She wanted to believe him, but couldn’t give her
heart away this early. Here they were, having known each other for a
little more than twenty-four hours and already discussing marriage.
Life was too strange.
“So what did
you like to read, Rick?” she asked him. “Action books? I
can see you reading all those military books I used to see at the
airport. The Executioner? The Destroyer? Maybe a Doc Savage fan?
“Westerns,
believe it or not,” he said, running his hand through her hair.
It felt so soft and he loved the way it curled on her. “Louis
L'Amour, Max Brandt, the classics. Pretty standard stuff.” Her
leaned over and put his lips to her ear. “My favorite was one
where a cowboy rides up to a house and finds a school teacher living
by herself. He stays around to help her on the farm, chops wood and
gets a fire going. She makes him dinner. Later that evening he takes
her upstairs and makes her count the beams on her bedroom ceiling.”
A chill went through
Monique again. What was he doing to her? Rick was