by Ann Warner
When he reached the lake, Alan dismounted and turned to watch Kathy riding toward him—a woman with red hair on a red horse, the sun catching fire in her hair. The light at the end of his five-year tunnel of darkness.
Kathy swung off Siesta, and Alan held out his hand to her. She placed her hand in his, and he led her to the edge of the water that lay silken and still, mirroring sky, trees, and mountains like an alternate reality.
Living with two realities. It was what he’d been doing since Meg’s death. Letting the past overshadow the present.
“When we were here before, you asked if the lake had a name.”
Kathy stood quietly, her hand still in his, and her calm gave him the strength to go on.
“Lago de Lágrimas. Lake of Tears. My. . . my wife named it.” He gulped in some air. “She died.”
The only way he knew Kathy had heard was from the slight tensing of her hand in his.
“It was. . . I lost my way. Stopped living. Then I met you.” He stumbled to a stop.
“Someone essential,” Kathy said. “You meant Meg, didn’t you?”
He glanced at her, shock coursing through him. “You know about Meg?”
She nodded. “Elaine told me.”
He looked away, feeling a nerve jumping in his cheek, wondering why he even felt surprised. “All of it?”
“Only that much. That you were married, and she died.”
He swallowed, his mouth dry, knowing he still needed to tell her the rest. Get it over with. Then they could go on.
“Meg died in Alaska. A place called Turnagain Arm. She was walking on the beach and got trapped.”
Kathy’s hand tightened in his.
He braced himself to say the next words. “The tide. . . she drowned. I blamed myself.” There. Done.
Only it wasn’t. Because what he’d managed to hold back all these years, finally rose up to meet him. Those last moments with Meg, when they’d both known she wasn’t going to be freed in time and their only choice was how to face it.
Meg’s face had been drenched with tears, her mouth quivering, but she had lifted her chin and looked right at him. “Alan, please. Promise me you won’t look away. I can’t do this without you.”
He’d met her gaze even though he felt as if every cell in his body was being sliced and torn. “I’ll never get over losing you.”
“You must, Alan. Please, I want you to be happy.”
I want you to be happy. He’d forgotten Meg said that.
Slowly, the image of Meg receded, and he became aware once again of Kathy’s hand in his.
“It’s okay.” Kathy’s voice was soft as a sigh. “I understand why we can only be friends.”
Had he actually believed that? That all he wanted from this woman was friendship?
Of course, he did want that. And so much more.
Still holding her hand, he turned and met her gaze and found her eyes brimming with tears. He looked into Kathy’s eyes, still under the spell of memory. Drifting between past and present, Kathy his only anchor.
He pulled on her hand, and surprise flowed through him at the solidity of her body against his. He folded her in, smoothing his hand along her back. “Kathy, Kathleen. Shhh. It’s okay. Shhh.” Comforting her, but comforting himself as well.
She put her arms around him and tucked her head into the curve of his neck.
Softly, like a magic incantation, he breathed her name. “Kathy, Kathleen, dearest Kath.”
She snuggled against him like someone burrowing into a warm quilt. Silken hair touched his cheek. Her tears wet his neck, mingling with the tears sliding down his own cheeks.
The past loosening its hold on the present. No longer powerful. A last sigh, and then gone, like a reflection in still water banished by the tossing of a single stone.
A woman with red hair and silver tears, lips pressing against his, her arms enfolding him. This moment, this delicate, blessed moment.
He took a deep breath of crystalline air and said the words he last spoke to a woman facing death on Turnagain Arm, words he never expected to say again.
“I love you.”
“Alan. Oh, my dear. I love you too. So much.” Her body shivered against his. “I’ve been so afraid. . . ”
So had he. But stronger than that fear was hope. He hugged her tighter, then stepped back slightly, and with gentle fingers wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. “Last chance, Kathleen. If you’re wise, you’ll run and not look back.”
His hands rested gently on her shoulders, holding her loosely, giving her the chance to change her mind. Tears still welled in her eyes, but she didn’t pull away.
“It won’t be easy, Kath.”
“I’m not asking for easy. As long as you love me a little.”
“Oh, much more than a little.” He gazed in her eyes and seeing the love shining there, gratitude flowed through him for this gift he’d done nothing to deserve.
Cupping her face between his hands, he kissed her, and his whole world narrowed down to this.
Kathy warm and real in his arms, her lips moving against his.
Epilogue
Excerpt from the diaries of Emily Kowalski
1990
I am beginning to see at long last the symmetry and balance in my life.
First came the happy time when I met Jess and we had Bobby, and it seemed that all my dreams had come true. But then the dark time came, when our beautiful dreams turned to stones—dull, ugly stones.
Now I have been given enough time to discover that when I turn and look at those stones, they have a sheen, and in their depths is a dark beauty.
And I know I have lived the life I was supposed to live, and I am content
<<<>>>
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Excerpt
Persistence of Dreams
The Sequel to Dreams for Stones
Now available in print and electronic editions.
Alan, Kathy, and Charles’s story continues.
Alan, Kathy, and Charles's story continues. The ending of his love affair with Kathy and an arsonist seeking revenge are the catalysts that alter the shape and direction of Charles's life. Forced to find both a new place to live and a way to ease his heartache, Charles finds much more as he reaches out to help his neighbor Luz Montalvo. Helping Luz forces Charles to come to grips with his fractured friendships and the fragmented memories of his childhood.
Prologue
He hesitated in the doorway—a tal
l man in a suit and tie with a hopeful expression on his face. Several women stopped eating or talking to look him over, but his attention was focused on one woman, sitting by herself.
Lucky woman, they thought, as the man made his way to her table. The lucky woman’s eyes met his. And the man knew he’d lost.
The temptation to turn around and walk out was overwhelming, but after a brief hesitation, Charles Larimore slid onto the seat across from Kathy Jamison.
Her lips moved in a tentative smile of welcome, but her eyes were solemn. A solemnity in direct contrast to the gaiety of freckles dusted across her nose and the bright copper of her hair.
“Charles. Thank you for coming. And thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful.”
“I just wanted to set the record straight.” That he was in love with her, whether she was in love with him or not.
And clearly she was not. He knew that, even though she didn’t say the I’m so sorry that hovered delicately in the space between them.
He had done the right thing, hadn’t he? But once he’d discovered that Kathy loved someone she was estranged from, he’d had only two choices—stick it out and hope for the best, or cut his losses.
Except, given that the someone turned out to be his best friend, he’d had one other option. The option he’d chosen and now regretted.
“Alan came to see me,” Kathy said, eyes lowered.
“I know. He called me.”
“You’re good friends, aren’t you.”
“The best.”
She picked up a knife and began fiddling with it. “Then you must have known Meg.”
Surprising how much it still hurt to be reminded of Meg, but she’d been his friend as well as Alan’s wife.
“She was his whole world. When he lost her. . . ”
Kathy sat silently, waiting no doubt for him to continue, but he was finished.
“How. . . d-do you know how she died?”
No way was he going to be the one to answer that question. “You’re taking an awful chance, Kathy Jamison.”
“I don’t understand.”
Her eyes, wide and guileless, tipped him into agony. “You’ll always be second best with Alan. He doesn’t have a free heart to offer you. But I do.”
Seeing the shock on her face, he realized he’d done an awful thing. But he wasn’t sorry, not if it gave him another chance with her.
After a moment, she laid a hand on his arm. “I am so sorry. It seems I don’t have a free heart either.”
Flinching from her touch, he struggled to summon the cool persona that stood him in such good stead with juries. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, wouldn’t they.” He stopped, to pull in a breath to try to expand a chest and throat that were tight with pain.
Then he forced the rest of the words out while he was still capable of speaking. “Thank you, for meeting with me. For not leaving me hanging.”
“You’re a good man, Charles Larimore. Any woman in her right mind would find it so easy to love you.”
“Just my luck, you aren’t in your right mind.” He maintained the light tone and even appended a smile, but it was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. He picked up her hand and rubbed his thumb gently across her palm. The knowledge it was the last time he would touch her almost did him in.
Looking troubled, she met his gaze. “What about you and Alan?”
“We’ll be fine. Might take a while.” Not that he believed it. “You know, I’m really not very hungry all of a sudden.” He released her hand and stood. “You and Alan. . . just be happy. Okay?” Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked quickly, blindly, out of the restaurant.
It was all his own fault. After all, he was the one who’d helped Kathy and Alan reconcile.
And lost them both.
One
Luz made it through the funeral in the daze that had descended on her with her step-aunt’s phone call. Her parents dead. In an auto accident. Gone so abruptly and completely that she still didn’t totally believe it. Except some part of her must be beginning to accept, because the world had turned dark and frightening.
She longed to lock herself in her room, huddle under the covers and give in to the grief that had wrapped around her so tightly she wondered how she was still able to move.
In the days that followed, she responded to the obligatory words of condolence, her voice sounding odd and disembodied, as if it were coming from a deep, hollow place. People hugged her, their tears wetting her cheeks, but she refused to cry.
The only thing forcing a normality on her that she no longer believed in were her brother and sister. Marisol, only six, had some inkling, although she still didn’t really understand she was never going to see Mami and Papi again, but Carlito, still an infant, had no idea what had happened. He still gurgled and smiled when she picked him up.
She made sure he was fed and dry, washed and clothed, hugged and cooed back at, surprised she could manage it.
For Marisol and Carlito’s sake, she pretended everything was going to be okay, and she was beginning to hope that might eventually be true, when her step-uncle, Martin Blair, stopped by the house two days after the funeral.
With him was a woman with a barracuda smile who wore a tailored suit and carried a designer briefcase. The two settled themselves in the living room.
“We have arrangements to make, Luz,” Martin said.
Arrangements? Like they’d had to make for the funeral? Martin hadn’t even asked her opinion about that, or she would have made sure the hymn “On Eagles’ Wings” wasn’t included since Mami disliked it.
“What arrangements?” And couldn’t she manage two words without them wobbling?
“Ms. Ross from Children’s Services is here to explain where Carlito and Marisol will be living.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. They’re going to live here with me.”
“Now, Luz, you know that just isn’t possible.”
No, she didn’t know that. Spots danced in front of her eyes, and her voice continued to betray her. “Why not? They’re my brother and sister. And this is our home.”
Ross’s and Martin’s faces wavered, and the edges of Luz’s vision darkened. She’d begun to float, when a sharp pressure on her arm and a push on the back of her neck jerked her back to earth.
“Here, keep your head down for a moment. Now, take a deep breath.” It was the tucked and tailored Ms. Ross who was pushing on the back of her head with more efficiency than sympathy.
Luz kept her head down. Gradually, the ringing in her ears subsided to be replaced by Martin’s voice.
“. . . house is in your parents’ names, but the bank owns a big piece of it.” He sighed, still trying for sympathy, no doubt. “I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, Luz, but there’s no money.”
Blinking, she sat up and pushed Ms. Ross away. “What do you mean there’s no money?”
“Sweetheart, I know this is a lot to take in all at once so soon after losing your parents. But I’m the executor, and I’ve already accessed all the bank accounts. There’s very little in them, and there are lots of debts. The funeral alone wiped out—”
“No!” Luz didn’t believe it. Some people lived on every penny, but not Mami and Papi. Especially not Papi, who had arrived in Scottsbluff with Luz and nothing else. Besides, when they’d discussed where she would go to college, Papi had told her his business was doing so well, as was Mami’s medical practice, that they could afford to send her to Colorado College. Even if she hadn’t won the scholarship, he’d said they’d be able to swing it.
“We’ll talk about all that later,” Martin said. “What we need to talk about right now are Carlito and Marisol.”
“Yes,” Ms. Ross added, after Martin nudged her with a look. “We’ll try to find them a foster home together, but there are no guarantees.”
“Foster home?”
“Of course, dear,” Ms. Ross said. “Since you’ll be away at
school, you won’t have to go into foster care yourself. But I know Judge Smale very well, and he would never grant custody for two young children to an underage sibling.”
Underage? She was nineteen. Old enough to get married, have her own children. Judge Smale had to be an idiot.
She sat with her mouth hanging open as the significance of what they were saying sank in. No money, which she found impossible to believe, and even more impossible, they planned to take Marisol and Carlito away from her and make them live with strangers. She wanted to howl, but she was too stunned.
“So. We need to set a time for me to pick the children up. I’d like them to be ready tomorrow morning. You’ll pack their things?”
The gall, the insensitivity, the idiocy, the evil. Luz ran out of labels for the outrage she felt. Martin was formidable, and she suspected this Ms. Ross was no pushover either. Highly unlikely she’d be able to change either of their minds.
The only option was to pretend to go along with it.
She dabbed at her eyes. “Tomorrow morning would be awfully difficult.” The tears were ones of rage, not sorrow, but she doubted either Martin or Ms. Ross could tell the difference. “I promised Marisol I’d take her riding tomorrow. This has been so hard on all of us.” She continued to mop up tears, her brain going into overdrive as she tried to read how they were responding.