Free The Lioness by Mary Moriarty

then go get a bite to eat.” He watched as she got up off his
lap and walked over to the table where the tea pot was. It was a far cry from
what they had in Afghanistan, even Pakistan when they had gone for a week of
R& R.
    They walked hand and hand and watched the people who
passed them. She held his hand tight walking along, looking at the paintings
that hung in some of the shops on the street they were at. “What street is
this?”
    She looked up, a smile on her face. She was really
relaxed, enjoying herself, playing the relaxed tourist. They had never had this
before and it was a nice change of pace from all that they had gone through
back in Afghanistan. She tried not to think of after the Tsunami.
    Rose looked around and saw the street address on one
of the buildings. “Street 178. This is one of the streets around the Palace and
Silver Pagoda that is supposed to have the nicest shops. I always get this one
confused with Street 240. That’s our next stop.”
    They walked on till Rose stood still. “Look at those
watercolors. Do you like them?”
    Ty looked and had to admit he did. It seemed they had
more in common as they went on. “What’s your place decorated as, all feminine
and frills?”
    She looked up at him. “No, flea market finds from all
over the world. Quilts, lots of them, water colors, books all over. Plants when
I am home to take care of them. They’re all at my folks’ house so they won’t
die off. My apartment is hardwood floors and white walls. I need light. I
missed that in Afghanistan, but since we were out a lot it didn’t affect me
much.”
    Ty pulled her into him and tilted her chin. “So you say
you decorate in early hodgepodge.”
    Rose could feel herself get nervous. Would this cause
a rift? Some men liked their house to look a certain way. Was his apartment
really masculine, modern? Would he think her apartment a decorator’s nightmare?
She loved comfort. She had been brought up that way. She had some friends who
had these apartments that looked like they were show places for magazine
shoots. The couches pristine white, everything cold, uncomfortable. She felt
ill at ease when she went there. They always said relax, but she couldn’t. At her
place she could curl up and kick back, put her feet up if she wanted.
    “I guess you could call my apartment that. I have a
place that I can call home, that I’m comfortable with, it’s me. When you see it,
you know it’s my place.”
    “It sounds like a place I would be comfortable in.” He
turned to look at the paintings. “Do you see any besides that one you’d like?
We could purchase now and send back, have them framed and waiting for us.”
    Rose looked up at him. “Are you serious? What’s your
place like?”
    He looked down at her and smiled, oblivious to the
passersby who stopped and stared. “Well let’s see. You know in ‘You’ve got Mail’,
well Meg Ryan’s apartment, that’s like mine almost to a tee. So you see, we’re
pretty close. There won’t be any arguments over designs to give up. I’ve never
been big on having a decorator come in to do my place. I had a friend once who
said I should. That was a mistake.”
    “Was the friend a male or female?”
    “Female, we were trying to live together, she was
after something else, a man that I wasn’t. I went along with the redecorators
to a point but when it got out of hand I put a stop to that. Then she wanted a
round of parties all the time. I’d come home from Timbuktu and she’d want to
throw a party that night when all I wanted to do was have a quiet night, have
supper, relax and….”
    Rose put her head down, she understood and she felt so
jealous. To think he shared.... Well that was stupid, of course he did. He
wasn’t a virgin when they met but he also wasn’t the party animal that the
press painted him out to be, the wild playboy journalist who threw parties all
the time when he was home.
    Ty sensed a change in Rose, probably because he’d