His luscious lips parted.
No,no,there was no such thing as magic, and Dree was just taking a pen out of his hand. It wasnothing.
She leaned back.
He leaned back.
She drew a careful line through the wordsVisit Nepal.
An ink-dot spread from the end of the line and bled into the napkin’s paper fibers.
Above where she had crossed out Visit Nepal, the items on her bucket list read,Play Baccarat at the Monte Carlo Casino, Meet someone royal, Swim in the Mediterranean Sea in the French Riviera,andMarry someone you love with all your heart because it’s worth it.
Yeah, well, maybe someday.
She leaned back over the coffee table, offering him the pen back. “Um, thanks.”
He took the pen back without looking her in the eyes that time, keeping his gaze on the pen and the table. “Of course.”
If she went on this mission, out into the wilderness of Nepal with this incredibly attractive man who thought he wanted to be a priest, she was going to have blue lady-balls the whole time. Even a waft of warmth from his hand was making her dizzy and distracted. “So, if I wasn’t going to go, what would you do for medical personnel?”
Deacon Father Maxence had crossed his legs away from her and was looking out of the front window over the small yard with carefully manicured hedges and bushes, almost like a labyrinth. He rested one elbow on the back of his couch and rested his knuckle on his lips. “I would call Father Thomas Aquinas in Phoenix and a few other network connections and see if they could find a replacement for you and how soon they could be here.”
She couldn’t look away from where his knuckle touched his full lips. “Could you do that?”
He nodded. “We’re supposed to leave on the day after tomorrow, early in the morning. We’re having a team meeting here tomorrow afternoon after I assist with Mass at Perpetual Help, and then we will arrange for permits and problems after that. We leave early Sunday morning. I can’t imagine that they could get someone here in time.”
“You could just postpone the beginning of the trip for a few days until someone got here. Father Thomas was supposed to send someone else. Maybe they could jump on a flight.”
“The doctor’s mother had a stroke. He had to drop out.”
“So, he can’t come.”
“And the flight time from the southwestern US to Nepal is over a day, sometimes more like thirty-two hours. Even if we found someone as close as India, getting them here and ready to travel would be problematic. Do you have cold-weather gear?”
“Yes, Father Moses in Paris set me up with all kinds of gear—”
“Father Moses Teklehaimanot? Black guy, African, missing part of his small finger of his right hand?
“Yeah, atSaint-SulpiceCathedral in Paris?”
“Yes, and of course, Father Thomas Aquinas sent you to Moses. They’re all connected. I think I met your Sister Annunciata in Rome a few years ago.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Nuns and religious sisters choose the best ecclesiastical names. Annunciata. Scholastica. Priests usually don’t choose such devotional names, and most keep their given names.”
“Anyway, Father Moses set me up with ski pants, a ski jacket, hockey gloves and liners, longies, thick socks, boots, everything. I was wearing half of it when I walked out of the airport in Kathmandu and about had heatstroke.”
Maxence chuckled and looked down, his thick eyelashes lying on his skin. “Southern parts of Nepal are covered by a subtropical rain forest. The climate here varies by region due to the altitude. Kathmandu is quite warm.”
“Yeah, it’s like winter in Phoenix.” She coughed because they were talking so much, and her throat felt a little abraded.
Maxence shot her a look. “Are you sick?”
“No, the air pollution is getting to me. It’s like Phoenix during a winter temperature inversion, when the air gets bad.”
He leaned over to a small dresser and opened a drawer. He removed some white half-domes and tossed them on the coffee table. “Those are N95 masks. Wear them around Kathmandu when you’re outside. Once we’re out of the city, the air becomes perfectly clean, so you won’t need them.”
