The Med by David Poyer Read Free Book Online

accepted his miniature, a little Academy ring she never had had the courage to wear at school. When she graduated they lived together for six months. Except for one nasty scene with Mr. Lenson—his father hated anyone, Dan said, who didn’t look just like him, which meant white—it was all right, and one day they were married. Almost offhand, as if she had accepted it without thinking. Then Nan … she had not been planned; nothing was 100 percent effective, but they had never discussed not having her.
    And so Susan Chan, who was once going to be the Margaret Mead of archaeology, was in Italy at last. But not for field work. Instead she was a Navy wife, a mother, following the gray ships from port to port.…
    â€œCome on,” she said, shaking him. “It’s eight o’clock, sleepy. I want some breakfast.”
    He came awake like a tiger, and she gasped once and then reached to guide him as his long body moved over her. And the miles were no more; the long parting was forgotten, almost, and they were together.
    *   *   *
    After breakfast they walked together through the hilly town. He wore civilian slacks, a jacket, a short-sleeved shirt. Susan left her traveling jeans and pack for a navy skirt and tweed coat. The tables were already set out in front of street cafés. Trellised roses arched above the tables; the heating sky arched above all. She matched her stride to his long legs, glancing up at him. It was always like this, she thought, when they met again. Joy, but with a sense of strain. As if they had grown out of step during the months apart, and needed to rematch their pace. It takes awhile, she thought, to feel close to someone again.
    And then, as usual, it would be time for him to leave.…
    â€œSo how was the trip?” he asked her. “Did you mind traveling with Mrs. Hogan?”
    Susan made a face. “Alicia’s okay, but I can’t take that bunch long. All through France, don’t do this, don’t drink that, I got sick in this hotel once, why don’t you wear something more ladylike … oh, I’m sure they’re real people, Dan. But I had to get away. I left them at Nice.”
    â€œYou came here from the Riviera alone?”
    â€œIt wasn’t hard. Nan was good. We met a lot of people on the train.” She told him an amusing story of going through customs at the Franco-Italian border between Menton and Ventimiglia, of Italian paratroopers in the second-class car smuggling wine under the skirts of fat peasant women. “And then I stopped in Genoa, and saw the city, and spent most of the next week in Rome. That was tremendous, the Museo Vaticano, the digs in the subway. I went down to see Dr. Biccari’s team at work. Then Alicia and the others came through and I came down here with them.”
    â€œWhere are they staying? Here?”
    â€œNo, no. They’re down in Giardini, closer to the fleet landing.” She laughed. “But I came up here on the bus, I couldn’t resist it. The view! And it gets you away from the ship, doesn’t it?”
    â€œIt sure does.” He grinned down at her. “You know what I need, all right. So you’ve had a week to see the town?”
    â€œI haven’t seen squat. We stayed in our room and I read François Bordes and Nan watched ‘The Three Stooges’ in Italian and we waited for you.”
    He reached out to her in the middle of the street, and looked down into her dark eyes; laughing, slightly hard for everyone but him. She was so vibrant, so alive, that she made him feel stiff and dull. But in spite of that he loved her more intensely than he had ever thought he could love a human being.
    â€œGive me a kiss.”
    â€œI thought you Navy types didn’t like affection in public.”
    â€œPretend I’m a civilian, just for today, all right?” He joked. She put her face up then. But her remark had spoiled