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dedicated to special ops.
    â€œThey do,” Travis confirmed. “Just got ’em in this year. Carlo and his crew were still doing a shakedown when we got tagged for that joint op.”
    Kate dug in her purse for a fat plastic hair clip, thinking that her husband and his Italian counterpart had forged quite a bond. It might be of recent origin, but it sounded almost as deep and unbreakable as the one between her, Dawn and Callie.
    â€œI’d like to meet this new friend of yours sometime,” she commented as she anchored her hair back with the clip.
    â€œI’d like that, too.” He cut her a quick glance. “Want to amend our itinerary to include the base at Aviano? And maybe Venice?”
    â€œI...uh...”
    For pity’s sake! They hadn’t even left the Cavalieri’s landscaped grounds and were already making changes to the agenda. But the lure of Venice proved almost as powerful as the desire to meet this new friend of her husband’s.
    â€œOkay by me.”
    â€œGreat.”
    When they reached the bottom of the long, curving drive, Travis downshifted and hit the brake. His hand rested casually on the Ferrari’s burled walnut gearshift knob while its engine purred like a well-fed feline.
    â€œThis baby can go from zero to sixty in three-point-five seconds,” he confided as they waited for the cross street to clear. “Once we shake free of Rome, we’ll open her up.”

Chapter Three
    D espite the Ferrari’s impressive prowess, it took Kate and Travis all day to make what would ordinarily be a three-hour drive from Rome to Florence.
    They left the autostrada about two hours north of Rome and made a leisurely side trip through the Chianti region, with several stops to sample wine and olive oil. After a light lunch in the historic center of Siena, they followed a winding country road to the fortified hilltop town of San Gimignano.
    Its seven towers dated from the Middle Ages. Square and unyielding, they stood like sentinels against a sky puffy with white clouds. The town center was closed to nonlocal traffic, so they parked in a lot outside the main gate and explored the winding medieval streets on foot. By then it was late afternoon. A creamy gelato carried them until dinner, which they ate in a restaurant built into one of San Gimignano’s ancient walls. The view from the restaurant’s terrace of undulating vineyards and red-tiled farms guarded by tall cypresses was a landscape painter’s dream.
    They hit the outskirts of Florence as a sky brilliant with purple and gold and red was darkening into night. With typical efficiency, Kate had called ahead to change the reservations she’d previously made at a small boutique hotel perched on a bank of the Arno River just a short distance from the famous Ponte Vecchio.
    She felt pleasantly tired from the long day. Not tired enough, however, to banish the awkwardness and unavoidable hurt of checking into two separate rooms. She was the one who’d insisted, she reminded herself fiercely as they took the elevator to the second floor.
    Still, she felt as though a fist had locked around her heart and was squeezing hard when she paused outside the door to her room. Key in one hand and the handle of her roller bag in the other, she covered the hurt with a smile.
    â€œThanks for today, Trav. I...I had fun.”
    â€œMe, too, Katydid.”
    They’d both been so careful. No casual physical contact, no sensitive subjects, no reminders of how many times they’d planned this trip. Now all she could think of was how much she ached to kick off her shoes and curl up beside him on a comfy sofa to review the day’s adventures.
    Her memories of Italy, she realized suddenly, would always carry this bittersweet flavor. She had to turn away before the tears prickling her eyes welled up.
    â€œI’m more tired than I realized,” she lied, shoving the key in the lock. “I’ll see