by Cara Colter
“I’m so sorry, David,” she said softly, and then again, “I didn’t know.”
He smiled a little tightly. “No pity,” he warned her.
“It wasn’t pity,” she said, a little hotly.
“What, then?”
“It was compassion.”
“Ah.” He didn’t look convinced, or any more willing to accept whatever she was offering no matter what name she put on it. “What are you doing out here, anyway? What time is it?”
“After three.” No sense confessing all the terrible thoughts that had kept her from sleeping. “I was worried about my dog. I couldn’t sleep. I heard a noise out here and thought it might be Bastigal.”
“And it was Mom. It’s a mercy that you found her before she wandered off or hurt herself with the pruners.” He shook his head. “She can’t remember what she had for breakfast—”
Or her own son, Kayla thought sadly.
“—but she worked her way past two security locks, a dead bolt and a childproof handle on the door.”
Kayla was afraid to tell him, again, how sorry she was.
“There’s a live-in aide, but obviously she was distracted by something. I think she sneaks the odd cigarette out here on the deck. Maybe she left the door open behind her.”
Kayla shivered a little at his tone, very happy she was not in the aide’s shoes.
“How long has your mom been like that?” Kayla asked softly.
It looked like a conversation he didn’t want to have, but then he sighed, as if it was a surrender to confide in her.
“She’s been deteriorating for a couple of years,” he said softly. “It starts so small you can overlook it, or wish it away. I’d notice things when I visited: toothpaste in the refrigerator, mismatching socks, saying the same thing she just said. When I wasn’t here, she’d phone me. She lost the car. Where was Dad? That was when she could still remember my phone number.”
David stopped abruptly, took a deep breath, as if he was shaking off the need to confide. His voice cooled. “I’ve had live-in help for her for nearly two months. The last few weeks, the decline has seemed more rapid. I don’t think she’s going to be able to stay here any longer.”
So what could she say, if not “sorry”? But Kayla had dealt with her own grief, and sometimes she knew how words, intended to help, could just increase the feeling of being lonely and alone.
Instead of words she reached out and placed her palm over his heart. She wasn’t even sure why. Perhaps to let him know she could feel it breaking?
His skin felt beautiful under her fingertips, like silk that had been warmed in the sun. And his heartbeat was steady and strong. She didn’t know if the gesture comforted him, but it did her. She could feel his strength, and knew he had enough of it to cope with whatever came next.
For a moment he stood gazing down at her hand, transfixed. And then he covered it with his own.
Something more powerful than words passed between them, and she felt a shiver of something for David she had not felt ever before.
Certainly not with her own husband.
Shaken, and trying desperately not to show it, she withdrew her hand from under the warm, resilient promise of his.
For a moment, an electric silence ran between them. Then David ran his freed hand through the crisp darkness of his hair. “No dog, I assume?”
Kayla was inordinately relieved at the change of subject, at the words sliding like cooling raindrops into the place that sizzled like an electrical storm between them. “No. I hoped he might have found his way back to the yard.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t find him.”
“It’s not for lack of trying. Thank you for the posters—they brought out an army of children. I’ll reimburse you, of course.”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
“And naturally, I’ll pay the reward when we find him.”
“It’s okay, Kayla. I offered it, I’ll pay it.”
“No.”
“It’s probably a moot point, anyway.”
“You think we aren’t going to find him?” she asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice. David obviously had bigger things to think about than her dog.
“Oh, I think you’ll find him. I just don’t think the kids will. He’s a timid little guy, isn’t he?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Well, I saw him scurry away after he fell out of the basket when you got stung.”
“Did he look hurt?”
“Not at the rate he was running, no. I had spotted you before that. Riding down Main Street. Even then the dog had a distinctly worried look on his face.”
Despite herself, she chuckled. “That’s him—my little worrier. I’ll probably never get him to ride in the basket again!”
“A pair well matched. You’re both worriers!”
To be standing with such a gorgeous man and pegged as a worrier! What did she want to be seen as? Carefree? Lively? Happy?
But David always saw straight to the heart of things, and the last few years of her life had been rife with worry. Kayla self-consciously touched her brow, wondering if there was a permanent mark of it there.
Thankfully, David was scanning the bushes. “I don’t think he’s going to come out for the reward-hungry children running through the streets shrieking his name. Sorry. A misstep on my part.”
“He’ll show up,” she said, but she could hear the wistfulness—and worry—in her own voice.
“I hope so.” She knew she should say good-night and leave his porch, cross the little strip of grass that separated their properties and close the gate firmly between them.
But she didn’t.
When had she become this lonely? She felt like she ached for his company. Anyone’s company, probably. She didn’t want to return to that empty house, the wayward direction of her restless thoughts.
He was looking at her, smiling slightly.
“What?”
“There is a quality about you that begs to be painted.”
“What?” She wanted to press her brow again!
“I noticed it when I saw you on the bike. I could almost see a painting of you—Girl on a Bicycle.
“And now, out here in your white nightdress on the porch. Girl on a Summer Night.” He shrugged, embarrassed.
But she felt as if she drank in the words like a flower deprived too long of water.
In that Lakeside Life feature on David and Blaze Enterprises, it had said, almost as an aside, that David had one of the largest private collections of art in the country. Again, the man who stood in front of her did not seem like the same boy who had raced her on bicycles down these tree-lined streets.
This David, this man of the world and collector of art, thought she was worthy of a painting? He saw something else in her besides a furrow-browed worrier?
Kayla could feel tears smarting her eyes, so she said swiftly, carelessly, turning her head from his gaze and pressing her fingers into her forehead to erase any remaining worry lines,“I guess the swelling has gone down, then.” She pretended she was concerned about the swelling from the beesting rather than the worry lines!
She felt his fingers on her chin, turning her unwilling gaze back to him.
He searched her face, and she felt as if she was wide open to him: the loneliness, the crushing disappointment, the constant worry, all of it. She felt as if he could see her.
And she realized, stunned, she had always felt like that. As if David could see her.
The longing that leaped within her terrified her. The longing and the recrimination. She suddenly felt as if every choice she had ever made had been wrong.
And she probably still could not be trusted with choices!
Kayla reminded herself she had made a v
ow that she was not going to offer herself on the altar of love anymore.
She had vowed to be content with the house Kevin’s parents had given her—restoring it to some semblance of order, never mind its former glory, should be enough to fill her days! Add to that her dog, when she found him, and eventually her business when she discovered the right one.
Those things would fill her, complete her, give her purpose, without leaving her open to the pain and heartache of loving.
She hated it that the night was working some odd magic on her, that she would even think the word love in the presence of David.
She broke free of his fingers and his searching gaze, darted down the steps and across the back lawn.
“Kayla,” he called. “Stop.”
But she didn’t. Stop why? So that he could dissect her heartbreak? Lay open her disappointments with his eyes? No, she kept on going. Nothing could stop her.
Except his next words.
“Kayla, stop. I think I see the dog.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
AT FIRST KAYLA THOUGHT it was a trick. Kevin had not been above using what she wanted most to get his own way.
Once we get established, in our new town, then we can talk about a baby.
She whirled, already angry that something about David being here was bringing all this stuff up. She was prepared to be very angry if David had used her dog to make her do what he wanted.
He was not looking at her, but had gone to the railing of his deck and was watching something intently. She followed David’ gaze, and though it was dark, she saw Bastigal’s little rump, tail tucked hard between his legs, disappearing through the Blazes’ hedges and heading out onto the street.
Kayla’s heart leaped with hope.
David stepped back inside the door, shoved his feet in a pair of sneakers and went down the back porch steps two at a time. He blasted through the boxwood, careless of the branches scraping him.
Kayla looked down at her own bare feet, and contemplated the skimpy fabric of her nightgown. By the time she went and got shoes on, or grabbed a sweater to cover herself—her sweater had gone inside with Mrs. Blaze—the dog would be gone. She doubted Bastigal would come to David even if he did manage to catch up to him.
It was the middle of the night. It was not as if anyone was going to see her.
Except him. David. And he thought I should be painted.
Without nearly enough thought, with a spontaneity that felt wonderfully freeing, Kayla took off through the hedge after David.
She saw he was crossing the deserted street at a dead run. If Kayla had had any doubt that he had maintained the athleticism of a decade before, it was vanquished. He ran like the wind, effortless, his strides long and ground covering. In the blink of an eye, David had crossed the silvered front lawn of a house across the street. Without breaking stride he charged around the side of a house and disappeared into the backyard.
She followed him. She thought her feet would give her grief, but in actual fact she had spent all the summers of her life barefoot, and she loved the feeling of the grass on them, velvety, dewy, perfect lawns springing beneath her feet.
She arrived in the backyard just in time to watch David hurdle effortlessly over a low picket fence into the next yard. She scrambled over it, catching her nightie. She yanked it free and kept running. She didn’t see Bastigal, but David must have seen the dog, because he was chasing after something like a hound on the scent.
She caught up with David after finding her way through a set of particularly prickly hedges. They were in the middle of someone’s back lawn. She cast a glance at the darkened windows.
“Do you see him?” she whispered.
He held a finger to his lips, and they both listened, and heard a rustle in the thick shrubs that bordered the lawn.
“Bastigal!” Kayla called in a stage whisper, both not wanting to frighten the dog or wake the neighbors.
Twigs cracked and leaves rustled, but she didn’t catch so much as a glimpse of her dog, and the sound was moving determinedly away from them.
David moved cautiously toward it. She tiptoed after him. And then David was off like a sprinter out of the blocks, and Kayla kept on his heels.
Three blocks later, she had done the fast tour of every backyard in the neighborhood, and they now found themselves on Peachtree Lane, in the front yard of a house that was on Blossom Valley’s register of most notable heritage homes.
“I think we lost him,” David said, and put his hands on his knees, bent forward at the waist and tried to catch his breath.
“Dammit.” She followed his lead and rested her hands on her knees, bent over and gasping for air. She was so close to him she could see the shine of perspiration on his brow, the tangy, sweet scent of a clean man’s sweat tickled her nostrils.
“Don’t move a muscle,” David whispered. He nodded toward the deep shadow of a shrub drooping under the weight of heavy purple blossoms.
One of the blossoms stirred in the windless night. The leaves parted.
Kayla stopped gasping and held her breath.
A little beige-colored bunny came out, blinked its pinky eyes at them and wiggled its nose.
“Is that what we’ve been chasing?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“Dammit,” she said for the second time.
But despite her disappointment, Kayla was aware that her blood felt as if it were humming through her veins, and that she felt wonderfully, delightfully alive.
She began to laugh. She tried to muffle her laughter so as not to disturb the sleeping neighborhood.
David straightened, watched her, arms folded over his chest. He shook his head, and then smiled. Then he chuckled.
She collapsed on the grass, on her back, knees up. She tugged her nightie, now torn at the hem where it had snagged, down over her bare knees, and then spread her arms wide, giggling and still panting, trying to catch her breath.
After a moment, David flopped down on his back beside her, his arm thrown up over his forehead.
Their breathing became less ragged, and the night seemed deeply silent. Some delicious fragrance tickled her nostrils. The stars were magnificent in an inky black sky.
“This is one of the things I missed after we moved to Windsor,” Kayla whispered. “You don’t see the stars like this in the city.”
“No,” he agreed softly, “you don’t.”
The silence was deep and companionable between them. “Why did you move to Windsor?” he asked. “You always liked it here.”
I hoped for a fresh start. I hoped a baby could repair some of the things we had lost.
Out loud, she said, “Kevin got a job there.”
She didn’t say that Kevin’s job had not lasted, but by then they could not afford to move back, let alone have a baby. She did not say the kind of jobs she had done to keep them afloat. She had waitressed and cleaned and babysat children and even done yard work.
She did not say how she had longed for the sweetness of the life she had left behind in her hometown. Didn’t David long for it like that? She asked him.
“Do you miss it here? Ever?”
His silence was long. “No, Kayla. I don’t have time to miss it.”
“If you did have time, would you?”
Again the silence was long. And then, almost reluctantly, he said, “Yeah, I guess I would. Blossom Valley was the place of perfect summers, wasn’t it?”
The longing was poignant between them.
“I can’t remember the last time I looked at the stars like this,” she murmured. But she thought it was probably in those carefree days, those days before everything had changed.
“Me, either.”
It was one of those absolutely spontaneous perfect moments. His bare s
houlder was nearly touching hers. Peripherally, she was aware of the rise and fall of his naked chest, and that it was his scent, mingled with the pure scent of the dew on the grass and the night air and those flowers drooping under their own weight, that had made the night so deliciously fragrant.
“Is that Orion above us?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, “the hunter.”
“I remembered how you impressed me once by naming all the stars in that constellation.”
She laughed softly. “Zeta, Epsilon, Delta. That’s his belt.”
“Go on.”
So she did, naming the stars of the constellation, one by one, and then they lay in silence, contemplating the night sky above them.
“I always thought you’d become a teacher,” he said slowly. “You had such an amazing mind, took such delight in learning things.”
She said nothing, another road not taken rising up before her.
“I at least thought you’d have kids. You always loved kids. You were always a counselor at that awful day camp. What was it called?”
“Sparkling Waters. And it wasn’t awful. It was for kids who couldn’t afford camp.”
“Naturally,” he said drily. “One of the most affluent communities in Canada, and you find the needy kids. I didn’t even know there were any until you started working there.”
“That whole neighborhood south of the tracks is full of orchard workers and people who clean rooms at the motels and hotels.” She didn’t tell him that now that she had been one of those people she had even more of an affinity for them. “It was Blossom Valley’s dirty little secret then, and it still is today.”
“And how are you going to fix that?” he asked.
Instead of feeling annoyed, she felt oddly safe with him. She replied, “I bet I could think of some kind of coupon system so the kids can come for ice cream.”
“Ah, Kayla,” he said, but not with recrimination.
“That’s me. Changing the world, one ice cream cone at a time.”
“No wonder those kids adored you,” he remembered wryly. “What I remember is if we saw the kids you worked with during the day at night, they wanted to hang out with you. I hated that. Us ultracool teenagers with all these little tagalongs.”