Near Dark (Scot Harvath #20) - Brad Thor Page 0,120
key cards, they went upstairs and checked out the room.
Dominique hadn’t been kidding. It was romantic. Incredibly so.
The room maintained the overall La Mère Poulard color palette evident on the façade of the building, as well as throughout the restaurant. The draperies were gold, the chairs and carpet red, and the soft bed linens a crisp white.
None of it compared to the views over the water through the large, open French windows. For a moment, Harvath was almost able to forget that this was an assignment.
“Is this going to be okay?” Sølvi asked.
“It’s great,” he replied, still looking out.
“Hey,” she chastised him, “I’m not talking about the view. I’m talking about this.”
Harvath turned to see her pointing at the queen-sized bed. Unlike their room in Sirmione, here there was no couch.
“Setting aside for the moment that a true Norwegian girl would have gotten us upgraded to a suite, I guess I’ll just have to trust you to respect me.”
“Me?” she replied. “To respect you?”
“Yes. My modesty and my virtue.”
She shook her head. “We’re going to need to light a lot of candles at the abbey tonight.”
“That’s okay, I saw an ATM outside.”
“Very funny. How did it go with her phone?”
“Perfect,” said Harvath. “Remind me to start putting my wallet in my front pocket when you’re around.”
Sølvi smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It is, and you should.”
“How long until your people have something?”
Harvath checked his phone to see if he had any messages from Nicholas. So far, there was nothing. “Tech is always unpredictable,” he said. “Sometimes the hardest jobs are the easiest, and the jobs you think will be the easiest are the hardest.”
“Well, you get your beauty sleep. I’m going to go get our bags.”
“I’m happy to come along and help.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You want me to grab your black one, right?”
“They’re all black.”
“I know. It was a joke.”
Harvath smiled. “Just bring the one with the toothbrush, not the rifle.”
“I’m going to try really hard to remember that, but,” she said, pointing at her head, “you know, blond.”
Harvath smiled again. “Something tells me that even if you bring the wrong bag back, you’ll still find a way to get it past security.”
Batting her eyelashes, she flashed him another smile and left the room.
As soon as she did, Harvath—who had been holding himself up tall and straight—allowed himself to slump. Pulling out the drawer of the nightstand near the window, he began dumping all the gear he was carrying.
Then, sitting on the edge of the bed, he untied his boots and kicked them off. It wasn’t bad enough that he was operating on practically no sleep, but he had been on a two-and-a-half-hour walking tour, followed by a long, French lunch. He couldn’t wait to put his head back and close his eyes.
Giving his phone one last check, he then set it on the nightstand and lay down on the bed.
When sleep came, it came like a speeding train, drawn to a passenger who had just stepped off the platform. It hit him. And he was out.
CHAPTER 48
She could have slammed the door, kicked the edge of the bed, or done any number of things to wake him up. They were both ex-military. The obnoxious possibilities were endless.
Instead, she had chosen to be kind. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she had gently drawn him from his slumber. Placing a soft hand on his shoulder, she had woken him up.
“Time to go to work,” she said, as he opened his eyes.
“How long was I out?”
“Long enough. I made you a coffee and there’s a change of clothes hanging in the bathroom.”
“How much time do we have?” he asked, sitting up.
“We meet Dominique for drinks in half an hour.”
Harvath rubbed the sleep from his eyes and picked up his phone. There had been no updates from Nicholas.
“I had a dream about you,” he said.
Sølvi laughed. “You were out so hard, you’re lucky to have even gotten oxygen to your brain.”
“Seriously,” Harvath teased, a faint smile on his lips. “I saw a nice house in Norway. On the water. And a boat.”
“Hmmm,” Sølvi replied, indulging him. “A house and a boat. You nailed it. That’s the whole package. Every Norwegian girl’s dream.”
He knew she was being facetious, but he was concerned that he had offended her. “Did I miss something?”
“There’s a lot more to life than just a house and a boat,” she said, turning toward the open windows and looking out over the water.