She took on more commissions from the costume jewellery houses in Providence, drove her night class unmercifully. At home she rearranged the living room, washed the windows, cleaned the oven twice-weekly and even gave an outraged Yaffa the first bath of her life. Anything to kill the days.
The nights were unkillable ...
The Hotline office became a second home. She must have talked to every last runaway in the country and she was no help to any of them. She was lost herself.
It was past midnight when Jolian parked the car outside her house, and stopped to stare up at the sky. She had taken the eight-to-twelve shift at the Hotline—should have stayed on for the overnight shift as well, let her replacement stay home in a warm bed. She would have got more use from hers than Jolian would tonight from her bed. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, she chanted automatically. It was a phrase worn smooth with use by now. Cheer up, Jolian. Just look at that moon!
A disc of hammered silver, the moon rode the skies like a pale ship as wave after wave of silver-grey cloud swept past it. The whole sky was on the move tonight, a moontide streaming from the south-east and the ocean to storm the land. She could almost imagine the cloud-waves thundering against the White Mountains to the north, cloud-spray shooting diamond-bright towards the stars.
The wind rattled the black branches above her and she shivered. It was a restless, wanting night. A night to just tear away and blow with the wind ... A gust lifted the hair from her shoulders, tugged at her heart. There had been a full moon last month on that night. Don’t think about it! Don’t you dare! She shivered and went inside.
The moonlight came in at the window on the second floor landing. Fletch had met her here that day with the groceries. She could never sneak past this spot without remembering. Perhaps it was time to find a new apartment.
The stairs to the third floor were dark. She kept her eyes on the window above, a silver beacon at the end of her tunnel.
As she stepped on to the landing, the light went out—cloud-waves drowning the moon outside. She turned to the door and saw him, a black shadow seated on the dark floor, arms folded across up-bent knees, head tilted back against the wall.
There was only one man that it could be. Only one man in the whole world, as far as she knew. And this dizziness wasn’t shock, whatever it was, Jolian thought as she sagged back against the banister, squeezing it till her hands hurt. It wasn’t shocking to find Fletch here when he had been everywhere night and day for a month. It was just that, this time, he looked so real.
The moonlight returned, a silver line expanding slowly across the floor. It crept up those long legs, turned the tendons of those hands clenched round the elbows to slashes of black and silver. The moonlight climbed higher, lighting those wide shoulders, that strong neck and stubborn jaw, shining at last on that mouth she had once thought so beautiful, a mouth resting now in a grave, straight line. As the moon touched his eyes, she gasped—a tiny, echoing sound in this silence. They were open! He’d been so still, she’d thought—
Heart drumming in her ears, Jolian slid a hand backwards along the railing, found the corner post. Got to get out of here. Now. Real or not, sleeping or waking, she didn’t need this. She couldn’t, wouldn’t take it. His slow half-smile was exactly as she’d remembered it. Good God, he must be real!
‘You’re easier to love than you are to forget, silky cat.’ Fletch’s voice was a husky, caressing whisper in the stillness. The moon glittered in his eyes as he stared up at her.
Moonlight must be harder to breathe than air—thicker. That was why she was so dizzy, her breathing so ragged. She slid one foot backwards, feeling for that top step.
‘And if you run, I’ll be right behind you, kitten.’ It was a gentle, soothing murmur, sounded more promise than threat somehow.
And dizzy as she was, he would catch her, Jolian realised bitterly. ‘Damn you, Fletch,’ she whispered helplessly. ‘You can’t keep doing this to me. You can’t!’
‘Doing what?’ he asked tenderly.
‘You can’t keep stomping back into my life whenever you get the whim. It hurts too much ...’ The words came out almost a whimper, and she clenched her teeth till her jaws ached.
‘You still hurt, silky cat?’
She would not, could not answer that, but her eyes filled slowly with tears. Savagely she brushed them off her lashes.
‘Good,’ Fletch whispered. His low voice had none of the smoothness she’d remembered, didn’t even sound steady. ‘Thank God.’ He put a hand on the floor and leaned forward, starting to rise.
Got to get out of here! Jolian snatched at the bannister and half-fell, half-slipped, backwards down one step, her eyes wild.
Fletch froze, his eyes on her face. In the silence she could hear both of them breathing, the moonlight seemed to come and go with the sound. ‘Wait,’ he murmured at last. It was a soothing, hypnotic sound that went well with the moonlight. Slowly he leaned back against the wall, holding on to her with those glittering eyes, the soothing murmur, ‘Please, wait.’
Jolian waited, watching the moonlight ebb and then slowly flow again across the hard planes of his face, waited for her dizziness to pass. He would be stiff from sitting, looked from his pose as if he’d been there a long time. If she was quick, and didn’t fall, she might just beat him to the car. Slowly, with her toes, she felt behind her for the next step.
‘What have you been doing, this last month?’ Fletch asked finally, softly.
‘Oh ... working. Having the time of my life,’ she answered savagely. ‘What about you?’ No doubt he’d gone back to his fun and games. All of them.
‘Thinking. And nursing Jem and ... thinking...’
She shouldn’t ask. Shouldn’t. ‘Jem?’
His half-smile was rueful. ‘A light case of pneumonia which turned into a whopping case of collegiate mononucleosis. The doctor says he can get out of bed next week ... in time for Thanksgiving.’ He moved restlessly, then froze as she flinched and leaned backwards a little. ‘It’s given us a lot of time for talking,’ he added quietly.
Putting a casual foot down on the next step, Jolian shifted her weight towards it, then stopped as his eyebrow slanted up. ‘How’s Ralph?’ she asked quickly.
It hurt to hear his soft laughter, in the seventh heaven! ‘Hasn’t budged from Jem’s pillow all month.’
Keep him distracted—that was the idea—his eyes on her face, not her feet. ‘Did Jem ever forgive me?’
‘Forgive you?’ Fletch’s crooked smile seemed to hurt his face. ‘He misses you, lady ... almost as much as I do...’
Damn him. Oh, damn him. She had to go quickly now. Jolian dragged her toe delicately backwards across the stair tread. ‘And your business?’ She glanced down to check where she was, gathering her muscles for the spin.
‘Sold last week.’ The words were flat, but they carried a faint ring of satisfaction, maybe even triumph. He grinned as her widening eyes jerked up to his face.
‘Sol—’ She stopped, feeling dizzy again. ‘But ... so ... what will you do now, Fletch?’
‘Build a house.’ His low voice was casual, sounded a little smoother now.
‘A ... house?’ Jolian was lost. This wasn’t the man she had known. She stepped up one step to peer at him. He didn’t look as if he was joking ...
Fletch nodded. ‘It was a dream I used to have ... to build my own house and all the furniture in it. Jem says he’s going to help.’
‘Where—’ Her voice sounded funny and she swallowed, tried again. ‘Where’s it going to be, Fletch?’
His eyes gleamed as they stroked slowly across her face. ‘We both liked Boston,’ he said huskily, ‘but we like the country too. Say twenty-five or thirty miles out, in sight of the ocean?’
The questioning note in his voice brought her up the last step. ‘And then what will you do, Fletch?’
He smiled slowly, staring up at her with an odd, almost hungry look in those dark eyes. ‘Well, I think I’ll be a furniture designer
when I grow up,’ he teased softly.
Her knees were shaking as she crossed the moonlit floor to stand above him. ‘And how long do you think that will take, Fletcher McKay?’
His smile vanished. The eyes on her face were unwavering. ‘With your help, Jolian? Maybe ... five years. Without it?’ His dark head shook faintly, but his eyes never lost her face. ‘Maybe never.’
Laughing softly, she reached for his outstretched hand, found it in spite of the silvery, blinding tears. Her body answered the warmth of his lips against her wrist with a blazing surge of joy. By God, he was real! ‘Fletch!’ Laughing, she leaned back against his hand, tugged gently to bring him to his big feet. ‘Come inside.’
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