Shaking off sleep and, with it, pointless fantasizing, I opened my eyes and stretched the kinks out of my neck. My breath tasted like week-old anchovies. A package of mints in my purse helped, but I waited until the fuzziness of lust faded before trusting my voice. “Where are we?”
“About three miles outside of Jesenice. Do you want to drive or give me directions?”
A second later, I remembered this part of the con. Sheesh. Sleeping had erased half of my brain, it seemed, had made me think Sam and I were college kids on a tour of Europe with nothing to concern me but when we’d give in to the tension between us.
The plan was to appear to be that couple on holiday, even though we weren’t that. One of us had to remember that fact, and since Sam had no idea what he’d actually signed up for, that person had to be me.
“I don’t know exactly where we’re going.” A road sign that promised food at an upcoming turn caught my attention. “Let’s get some breakfast and I’ll work some contacts, see what I can find out.”
“I’m not even going to ask what that means.”
“That’s probably best.” I smiled, unsure why. Maybe because Sam did it first.
He steered the car into the half-full parking lot of a restaurant. Jesenice was a small community nestled among mountains—beautiful and friendly enough, and more undiscovered than many places, at least as far as tourists were concerned. It made finding restaurants that didn’t give me the willies a little difficult. I’d spent perhaps a collective month here, a couple of two-week stays back when my mother had been alive. More than ten years had passed since she’d left me alone, since her attempts to keep me from my father’s life had been thwarted by cancer.
It felt good to have my feet on solid ground, even if it was dusty gravel and the sunlight had done even less to dispel the chill in the air at the higher altitude. A Whitman hoodie helped warm me up. I noticed Sam pull a Nike jacket out of his pack and shook my head. “Nope. You’re recognizable enough as it is, and putting you in Nike will make things click in people’s heads.”
He looked around at the mostly-empty parking lot, empty streets, and the ranges of hills surrounding us. “What people?”
“Hey, you’re the one who got all excited about disguises.” I shrugged. “It’s up to you.”
I hid a smile as he tossed the jacket into the Jetta’s backseat, then turned and trudged inside the restaurant. The interior was rustic and a little rundown, the booths sporting worn patches and rips in the vinyl, paint graying and seeming to sag off the walls. The other patrons glanced at us without much curiosity, returning to their conversations and coffee after quick glances.
Sam and I both ordered tea and breakfast, then stared at each other over steaming cups. My brain continued to feel sluggish, proof that the three hours of sleep in the past forty didn’t amount to nearly enough.
My phone distracted me from staring at Sam, and I pretended to send e-mails and texts, to research maps, for the next twenty minutes. He stared off into space, then at me, then at the two other patrons in a lazy pattern until our breakfast of eggs and potatoes landed on the table in front of us. I dug in, realizing that I hadn’t eaten anything but airport food since the room service in Melbourne. We ate in silence, which would have been weird except it wasn’t. It hadn’t occurred to me before now, but Sam and I spent a lot of time not talking. The comfort level between us increased without words to get in the way.
Of course, that might just be the discomfort of a girl who lied when she spoke.
The alarm I’d set on my phone went off, giving a single beep that mimicked the sound of my e-mail. I looked down to check the nonexistent message, then met Sam’s gaze. “I think we have the address.”
“That was fast.”
“Finding the addresses isn’t hard. I’ve taken care of communicating with our tax attorney ever since my mom died, so I just sent him an e-mail and asked for last year’s tax returns. The property tax deductions were listed with addresses. Only one in Slovenia.”
“When did your mother die?”
A little voice in the back of my head berated me for bringing her up. Too late now. “When I was eight. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry. That’s hard—the knowing. The watching.”
He spoke like someone who knew from experience, but commiserating had never helped. Sympathy grated on my patience and pity made me want to throw up. “It was less than six weeks, beginning to end. Not much waiting. Not as much pain as some. It was a long time ago.”
Sam opened his mouth like he wanted to say more. In his eyes I glimpsed more than one of those hated, common responses, and in mine he must have seen my determination to be fine about the whole thing. He put tea in his mouth instead of letting words come out, and the gesture flooded me with equal parts relief and concern.