“I was upset that you and I were apart. My milk didn’t come,” Tanja said with an apologetic smile toward the soldiers for speaking of such things.
“See?” Leon leaped on her remark to prove his lie. “Her brother told me diapers and formula were difficult to find here. I brought them for my daughter.”
One of the soldiers accepted that with a bored look toward his compatriot. He seemed ready to leave. His fellow soldier wore the look of a man with a hard-on for power. Leon hated men like that. He’d been raised by one and feared he had turned into one, which was why he was so filled with bitter self-loathing.
“Why were you here and not with your husband when you had the baby?” the antagonistic one asked Tanja.
“Things are different in Canada,” she began while Leon spoke at the same time. “My father died—”
Leon bit back a curse and set his arm around her again, squeezing in a signal to let him do the talking.
She was nothing but skin and bones. That alarmed him, but he was more concerned with getting through the next few minutes without an arrest.
“We married in Canada, but I had to return to Greece when my father died.” Ancient history, but true. “Tanja was already scheduled to come to work here. She didn’t know she was pregnant or she wouldn’t have traveled.” He gave her a stern frown. Naughty wife.
He felt her stiffen, but she smiled apologetically at the men. “By the time I realized, I was too far along to go back. It’s been difficult to make arrangements to leave.”
Flights had to be chartered and women weren’t allowed to leave the house, let alone the country, without a male relative.
The soldiers flicked their attention between him and Tanja, seemingly aware they were being strung along but unsure what the truth really was.
“My sister is a widow,” the man from across the street piped up. “She let Mrs. Petrakis and the baby stay here as an act of charity. My uncle is a cleric.” He mentioned the man’s name, and presumably the uncle outranked these foot soldiers because they both stood straighter. “He’s aware of all of this. Let me fetch him. He will determine if all is in order with her departure. Then we’ll have no more inquiries from their governments.”
The bored one nudged the grumpy one and gave a coaxing nod. The other sighed and jerked his head to send the brother out into the night.
From behind them, the baby’s fussing abruptly ceased. Tanja broke away to say, “Why don’t you feed Illi while I pack?”
Leon was starting to think they had a Broadway act in their future, if not a career in espionage. “I’d love to.”
The little midge was placed in the crook of his arm. Milk leaked from the corners of her greedy mouth as she pulled at the nipple on the bottle. Sleepy brown eyes blinked open briefly. Her damp lashes were ridiculously long, her gaze trusting and oblivious of the thick undercurrents threatening to swamp and drown all of them. She let her eyelids grow heavy enough to close again, the simple action causing something to shift uncomfortably in his chest. Like the door on a stone vault was set ajar and a whistling breeze was stealing in. It ought to have been cold and uncomfortable, but it was warm and beckoning.
From the bedroom, he heard the swift thump of drawers and zippers being opened and shut. If the women communicated, they did it silently enough that the only other sound was the gulping from the baby.
Leon didn’t bother contemplating how outrageous it was that he was pretending to be this baby’s father. All he cared about was getting off this island with Tanja. Zach could have warned him she had a kid, but fine. Package deal. Whatever. His help with the baby should encourage Tanja toward an amicable dissolution of their marriage.
Tanja reappeared with a small case and an overstuffed bag that she pushed an empty baby bottle into. “Is she finished? I’ll make another so it’s ready while we travel.”
She draped a cloth on his shoulder and guided him to hold the infant there.
The baby wobbled her head, then burped and let her head drop into the hollow of his shoulder. She was the tiniest creature he’d ever held and provoked a strange fire of protectiveness that stung his arteries. Her little noises of distress had him rubbing her back, silently conveying that she was safe, even though they were all balanced on a knife’s edge.
Tanja rattled around in the kitchen. One of the soldiers checked his watch.
The door opened and the brother returned. “My uncle is on his way,” he assured them, sounding as though he’d been running. “Five minutes.”
Five minutes stretched to a tension-filled ten, then an excruciating fifteen. At least the baby fell asleep. Tanja held her and gently swayed, her movement hypnotic enough they all watched.
She looked like she hadn’t eaten in a month, Leon noted. Her cheeks were hollow, her mouth tense, her eyes bruised with sleeplessness.
That fragility made the pit of his stomach feel loaded with gravel. His memory of her was one of athletic leanness with firm, subtle curves. She’d been quick with smiles and banter, and had possessed a core of surety that had made him think their affair would be a simple pleasure between unfettered adults.
Discovering the incredible sensuality beneath her veneer of sunny confidence had been as unexpected as it was dangerous. He’d had a brief surge of craving for her particular brand of heat and had wound up blinded by lust into marrying her.
He’d since told himself he’d imagined that depth of passion, but her siren-like allure was still going strong. It was stinging his lips after a kiss that was supposed to have been a one-act play. He’d had to press her back out of self-preservation or he might have let it engulf them both.
He steered his mind from further exploring that pointless fantasy. A car was approaching. An engine cut and footsteps arrived on the stoop. The door opened and an older man with a white beard and a black robe and cap entered.
Words were exchanged in the local dialect. Tanja offered their marriage certificate.
Leon had a fleeting thought at how strange it was that she had the document on her, but nodded verification that it was his name.
Passports were produced. Leon’s came from the pocket of one of the soldiers. He’d had to keep his cool when that jackass had taken it at the marina. Thankfully, once the cleric recorded details from both, he handed everything back to Leon.
The cleric asked Tanja a few other things in the local dialect, recording her answers on a form. Leon wasn’t sure what that was about. An exit permit, perhaps. There were so many threads of strain in the room, he couldn’t tell which ones were being pulled. Was there some irregularity in her answers? Her allies, the woman who owned this house and the brother from across the street, seemed to be holding their breath and standing very still. Leon had the sense they expected this entire house to cave in on all of them at any second.