his skin, he felt strangely out of place. An older woman, dressed in gardening clogs and a loud floral print dress, stepped over a row of hedges and ambled toward him.
“Hey, Shirl.”
“Good heavens,” she said as she pulled off her work gloves and kissed Dom on the cheek. “I could hardly believe it when Chuck told me you were coming out. Not that I don’t love your visits, but look at you—out in the sunlight like this.” She held him at arm’s length and looked him up and down. “I want to hear what’s going on, but I expect you want to explain things to Chuck first.”
“Is he up yet?”
“Go on in—he’s down in the pool. Back’s been bothering him lately and he finds if he swims when he first wakes up, it doesn’t ache so much the rest of the night. Can I bring you something to eat? How does lentil soup with homemade sourdough bread sound?”
He didn’t want to give her any additional work, but he hadn’t eaten since last night and she was a fabulous cook. “Well…uh…”
She brushed the dirt off her hand shovel. “Off with you. I’ll bring it down in a few minutes. Chuck’s always starving when he gets out of the pool anyway.”
Dom looked around, didn’t see any other cars. “No guests?”
“Nope. The place is empty right now. But we’re booked up come June. Oh, ouch.” A thin line of blood beaded up on her palm and she hissed a breath through her teeth. “I forgot he just sharpened all my garden tools.”
“May I?” Dom asked.
“Would you? Chuck would think I wasn’t being careful and I really don’t want to hear him go on and on about humans and blood and the fragility of life. After fifty years of marriage, you’d think I’d be used to it by now.”
He licked his thumb, rubbed it over her wound, and the bleeding stopped. “He just worries about you, you know. It’s in our nature to be protective of the ones we love.”
“Well, it can really be a pain in the you-know-what sometimes. What a dear.” She smiled as she examined her hand and flexed her fingers. “Good as new. Thank you. Now run along. I’ll bring you that food in a few minutes.”
On the covered porch, even before he stepped inside the lodge, he smelled the freshly baked bread and was instantly starving. He took the stairs to the basement two at a time, pushed open the double doors and when he stepped onto the sea-green tiles, Frank Sinatra blasted through the speakers. In the summer the Olympic-sized pool would be packed with vamp families wanting to play in the water away from the sun, but today it was empty except for Chuck swimming laps in one of the middle lanes. The tempo of New York, New York matched the man’s slow, methodical crawl stroke. Figuring it’d take a while for him to make the turn and swim back, Dom sat on a nearby cedar bench, but he’d hardly made himself comfortable when Chuck gripped the edge of the pool at his feet.
“Jesus, you’re like an octogenarian Michael Phelps.”
“Who?” Chuck pulled off his swim goggles and scowled in that you’re-an-idiot manner perfected only by the elderly.
“Tarzan?” Chuck brightened as he pulled himself up onto the pool deck. “I’ll take it as a compliment, then. Put on a suit and get your ass into the Jacuzzi with me. I’m not about to talk to you if I have to crank my head up to see you. There are clean ones hanging inside the locker-room door. Just don’t grab one of those banana slings you European boys seem to be so fond of.”
After changing into a loose-fitting pair of swim trunks, Dom exited the locker room and stepped into the Jacuzzi. Chuck had turned off the music and sat with his eyes closed on the far side of the tub, up to his neck in the bubbling water. The temperature was a little cooler than Dom was accustomed to, but he supposed they’d be able to stay in longer. This wasn’t going to be a quick little hi-how-are-you.
“Why in the hell are you taking a job down in San Diego anyway? I thought you hated Markem and his band of merry men.”
So much for pussyfooting around. “Santiago told you, then.”
That shouldn’t surprise him. Santiago had taken over as Region Commander when Chuck retired, and he often consulted with the man. But what else