She smiled faintly, and then her expression turned sober and she said, "We went again five years ago when Grandfather died. We came back to arrange the funeral and see him buried, and the night before we left for home, Papa took me there again . . . the last time I was there was two years ago when Papa-" Much to Sarita's horror her voice cracked, and she bowed her head quickly and stared through eyes suddenly glazed with tears at the sirloin in mango salsa on her plate.
"When your father died and you brought him home to be buried between your mother and grandfather," Domitian finished for her solemnly.
Sarita nodded once, but was concentrating on her breathing. She was taking in repeated deep breaths that she then let out slowly, the whole time thinking, Dammit, I never cry!
"You ate in my restaurant the night before you flew back to Canada," he added. "This time alone."
Sarita closed her eyes as that last word cut through her. Alone.
She'd thought she'd lost everything when her mother died and her father moved her away from her friends and grandfather to live in Canada. But Sarita hadn't felt truly alone until the day her father had a heart attack and left this earth. Oh, she still had the friends she'd made in Canada, and the other cadets who had been in police training with her at the time. But she alone had flown home to Venezuela with her father's body, and she alone had seen him buried.
Even her grandmother hadn't been there, which was Sarita's fault. It had all happened so quickly and there had been so much to do to arrange to fly her father's body back to Caracas as well as make the funeral arrangements long distance that she hadn't thought to contact her grandmother until the morning of the funeral. By then it was too late. She hadn't had a phone number for the woman then. They'd only ever written. So she'd seen her father buried, and then she'd written and mailed a letter to her grandmother with the news of his death. That night she'd followed tradition and eaten at her father's favorite restaurant, alone.
"I wanted so much to comfort you that night," Domitian confided quietly and then admitted, "I got the latest report from my detective just that morning. I knew your father had died and that you had flown home with his body to see him buried. The moment I got the lone order for Lomito en salsa de mango I looked out. I could not see your face, you were sitting with your back to the kitchen, but I knew it was you. You looked so lost and alone sitting there all by yourself. It was a struggle for me not to go to you."
"Why didn't you?" she asked, her voice sharper than she'd intended. But she had really needed comfort that night. Sarita raised her head to peer at him through watery eyes.
"To you I was a stranger," he said simply. "You would not have wanted comfort from me. And had the natural attraction between life mates overwhelmed us, I feared you would hate yourself for whatever happened between us at such a tragic time."
Sarita gave a short nod of understanding, then peered down at her plate and breathed out slowly again. Sirloin in mango salsa. She would never look at it again without thinking of her father . . . and she simply couldn't eat it.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, pushing her chair back. "I think I just want to go to bed."
Domitian didn't protest or point out that he'd worked hard to make the meal that she wasn't eating. He simply murmured in understanding and let her go. Sarita was quite sure he couldn't know how much she appreciated that.
Sarita wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep or even what woke her up, but suddenly her eyes were open and she was staring into the dark, listening to a soft rustling sound somewhere at the bottom of the bed. Ears straining, she tried to figure out what it was without giving away that she was awake. When she couldn't, she reached slowly for the bedside lamp, only to pause as her hand encountered material.
Frowning, Sarita slid her hand first to the left and then to the right, but the material appeared to be hanging there like a wall. Easing silently up the bed a bit, she ran her hand along the cloth until she found the end, and then reached around it, felt for the lamp on the other side and turned it on.
Of course, she was immediately blinded by the light, but her eyes quickly adjusted and Sarita noted the wall of white cloth along the side of the bed, hanging from the top frame. Another ran along the bottom as well and Domitian stood on a chair, even now affixing a third swath of white cloth along the frame on the opposite side of the bed.
"Sheets?" she asked with amusement.
"Si." Domitian continued his work, stepping off the chair and onto the edge of the bed to string the cloth farther along the frame without having to move the chair now that she was awake.