"Then why did you come?" I asked with genuine curiosity.
She looked away to the city lights flashing by her window, "Because I was asked to."
"By God?"
Maria nodded.
I sighed and glanced out my window.
So be it then.
I turned back to Maria, "Okay some ground rules to start out this working relationship, as you've termed it. I don't need a partner who is committed to stabbing me in the back verbally or figuratively every chance she gets because of past occurrences that she feels she is owed some level of revenge for."
She nodded, while still looking out her window.
"Call me old-fashioned, but I require a verbal answer to that, as it denotes the respect that I am worthy of as a man."
To my surprise Maria turned her head away from the window to meet my eyes and say, "Yes Sir."
Her eyes fell from mine as she asked, "Is there anything else?"
"Yes, there is. In this roundtable discussion platform we're having on joint relations I've expressed one of my desires for a better working experience together. Do you have a request of me in regards to something you'd like to see changed or different in my approach to you?"
Her eyes rose to mine and she softly said, "I would appreciate it if you'd stop looking at me as if you'd like to strangle me with your bare hands, burn my remains and toss the ash over a cliff into the sea."
I felt myself wince visibly. Had I been telegraphing my displeasure with the situation that morbidly? Apparently she thought so.
She was partially right about one thing. I had almost murdered her. To have walked away from her at the gravesite would have been murder, because I'd had the ability to help her. I hadn't walked away though and now her life was my responsibility.
I reached my hand out to her and offered it in the traditional form of a business partnership. She looked at my hand held in midair closely and for a moment I wondered if she was too much of a germaphope to shake it, but then I saw that she was looking at the interlaced scars on my palm.
Hesitantly her slim fingers slipped into my grasp and we shook.
Her eyes were still on my hand as I pulled it away and she asked, "How does that work? What you did to restore Utah and now me?"
"It's complicated, but if you would like I could teach you how to do it."
She gestured to herself in surprise, "I can do that?"
"Surprisingly yes."