Страница:
43 из 429
She had one arm tight around his waist but had her free hand reached out to hold Charlie’s. So many different kinds of love, harmonious in this one moment. It seemed a very hopeful picture to me.
Edward squeezed my hand.
“I love you,” he said.
I leaned my head against his arm. “That’s why we’re here,” I quoted him.
He kissed my hair.
As we turned onto the black highway and Edward really hit the accelerator, I heard a noise over the purr of the engine, coming from the forest behind us. If I could hear it, then he certainly could. But he said nothing as the sound slowly faded in the distance. I said nothing, either.
The piercing, heartbroken howling grew fainter and then disappeared entirely.
5 ISLE ESME
“Houston?” I asked, raising my eyebrows when we reached the gate in Seattle.
“Just a stop along the way,” Edward assured me with a grin.
It felt like I’d barely fallen asleep when he woke me. I was groggy as he pulled me through the terminals, struggling to remember how to open my eyes after every blink. It took me a few minutes to catch up with what was going on when we stopped at the international counter to check in for our next flight.
“Rio de Janeiro?” I asked with slightly more trepidation.
“Another stop,” he told me.
The flight to South America was long but comfortable in the wide first-class seat, with Edward’s arms cradled around me. I slept myself out and awoke unusually alert as we circled toward the airport with the light of the setting sun slanting through the plane’s windows.
We didn’t stay in the airport to connect with another flight as I’d expected. Instead we took a taxi through the dark, teeming, living streets of Rio. Unable to understand a word of Edward’s Portuguese instructions to the driver, I guessed that we were off to find a hotel before the next leg of our journey. A sharp twinge of something very close to stage fright twisted in the pit of my stomach as I considered that. The taxi continued through the swarming crowds until they thinned somewhat, and we appeared to be nearing the extreme western edge of the city, heading into the ocean.
We stopped at the docks.
Edward led the way down the long line of white yachts moored in the night-blackened water. The boat he stopped at was smaller than the others, sleeker, obviously built for speed instead of space. Still luxurious, though, and more graceful than the rest. He leaped in lightly, despite the heavy bags he carried. He dropped those on the deck and turned to help me carefully over the edge.
|< Пред. 41 42 43 44 45 След. >|