"So where are we sleeping tonight?" she asked as I reversed out of the driveway
"At my place, but that means that I'm going to have to introduce you to two very good friends of mine and sadly they will probably like you more than me."
"That sounds very interesting," she laughed. And she laughed even harder when she met my two very good friends.
"This is Casey the Springer Spaniel and this one that looks more like a Wombat than a dog is Sarah, the common variety Spaniel." They ran around her like they had gone crazy ... and totally ignored me.
Once inside, and free of the effusive welcome from the dogs, I took her in my arms and kissed her.
"Oh god," she whispered as she caught her breath and snuggled into me, "does this mean that it's really over?"
I could feel her shaking and I hugged her even tighter, "It does. I got a message from the Old Man, via someone he left behind to supervise the clean up that they rounded up the rest of the terrorist cell in Canberra.
They know that there is one other guy who may be hiding in one of the embassies but he's not seen as a threat to you and me now that the cells have been destroyed so it will be safe for us to go back to Canberra."
"When can we do that?"
"First thing tomorrow morning. I would say 'right now' but when you've spent part of the day running on adrenalin, like we were this morning, exhaustion can set in and that could turn the drive back into something of an ordeal."
"I think that it's already set in with me, I'm beginning to feel totally drained." I could feel her almost sagging in my arms and she had begun shaking again.
I suggested a shower and bed and she didn't resist when I began taking her clothes off. That was made a little difficult by the fact that she didn't want to be out of my arms but I improvised, adapted and overcame.
She wouldn't allow me to let go of her in the shower either and turning her back to me just wasn't going to happen. Despite that I managed to wash the smell of the morning out of her hair and off her body and was just letting the shower wash the conditioner out of her hair when she suddenly started to cry.
"I've never killed a man," she sobbed, "and to make it worse it was someone I cared about in a strange way. What we had was pretty dark and mostly on my side I think, but it was something,"
I pulled her close and began stroking her hair and whispering words of encouragement to her. It was obvious that she was beginning to remember the event and she needed all the support and encouragement I could give her.
"I know that sounds strange for a hooker to say that she cared for someone but, when you see guys week after week and share the most intimate moments with them, it's impossible for me not to feel something for them.
"I know some girls can do it without getting attached but, when you give yourself totally to a man as I do, you just can't avoid feeling something. And I had to be the one to shoot him!"
"If you hadn't shot him neither of us would be here now. I know how hard it must have been but you did the right thing."
"That's just it," she said as she leaned back and looked up at me, "it wasn't hard for me to do it because he was about to shoot you and I feel a lot more for you than I ever felt for him ... but it still seems wrong."
She was still shaking when I dried her and carried her into the bedroom, "Steve I know that 'to the victor go the spoils of war' but I just can't do it tonight," it was almost a whisper and so was my reply.
"I wasn't expecting you to my love, the spoils of war here are dead men and I don't revel in death." I gently put her down on the bed and then crawled in next to her and held her, within seconds she was sound asleep.
Sleep didn't come so easily to me and I must have relived those few minutes leading up to Naziri's death a dozen times before eventually my eyes closed and I slept.
I woke with a start to find Angela looking at me. She was neither smiling nor frowning and I was wondered if there had been a change in the way she felt about me. It seemed that her relationship with Naziri had been deeper than I imagined and it wouldn't be too much of a leap for her to begin to think that I was responsible for his death.
"How are you feeling this morning?" Always a good opening gambit.
"Mmm, I'm OK," No smile, no hint of anything good, I'm screwed. Give up now, drive her back to Canberra, pick up the Volkswagen and come back to my lonely existence ... no, I can't do that. She has totally disrupted my life and made me see what a lonely old man I could become.
But how to move this forward?
