Perhaps even harder to deal with were the dreams where she saved Allistair and the two of them stayed together. They lived a life as a couple. Normal. Buying a house. Making dinner. Playing with a child that she couldn’t quite see clearly but knew was theirs. It all seemed so real. And because of that, when she woke up, she was devastated anew each time.
She tried to come fully awake and gather her thoughts. What was the worst was that they were just dreams. Zachary wasn’t there. And neither was Allistair. She remembered when he had been. She knew the difference. And this was just her subconscious trying to tell her something. Unfortunately, if it wanted her to understand, then it would need to let her get some sleep so she could process things. Clearly, it had other plans.
So this past week she’d been having the coffee shop guys add an extra shot of espresso to her drinks.
In a little while, when the caffeine kicked in, she’d be happy to be at her job, glad to be controlling where all the money went. But right now it was a two-shot morning. So she wasn’t really surprised when she reached up to grab the cup only to have someone else’s fingers brush hers.
As she raised the cup to her lips, he spoke rapidly. “Um, that’s my coffee.”
“Huh?” Well, she hadn’t slept in about a week really. Clearly, she wasn’t going to be eloquent today. She turned the drink around and tried to study it without spilling it. The cup was the right size, the marker scrawled across the lid looked like what she had ordered.
She was turning it the other way to look for a name as he spoke again. “I’m Aaron.”
She blinked and looked briefly at him, but only got the impression of clear green eyes and blond hair before she turned her attention back to the cup.
He was right that it wasn’t her coffee, but … “You’re E-R-I-N?”
This time she did look up and he grinned a little abashedly.
Her brain kicked in as she wanted to laugh and then realized she shouldn’t. “I’m sorry. It is L.A., and I shouldn’t judge.”
When he laughed, she decided she could too. Maybe she hadn’t made that big an ass out of herself. She could hope.
“No, I’m Aaron with the standard A.” He reached up to the counter and turned the other nearly identical cup around. “And you are … Catherine?”
She shook her head. “Almost.” She spelled out her name with a shrug.
“Hey, at least they got yours gender-appropriate.” He switched the two cups, gently lifting his out of her hand.
As she looked at her fingers oddly, thinking that it had been really dumb of her to stand there and talk to him about his coffee while she continued to hold on to it, he carefully slipped her drink into the curve of her hand.
“Thank you, Katharine with a K. It was nice to meet you.” He nodded at her slightly, then went on his way.
Katharine made her way out of the coffee shop, sipping her drink through the purple straw and starting to come just a little more awake as the caffeine and the wind off the ocean both hit her brain at the same time. The Green Sea office was just down the street. Close enough to the water to smell it, but far enough away to save the rent money for more important things.
She had two new employees coming in today, and grabbing someone else’s coffee from the counter wasn’t a good indicator of how she would fare in educating the newbies. But she was happy they had two new people. They needed them. Things had been slowly picking up speed since that emergency services device had hit the market. The current investors were seeing real profit in addition to the good feelings promised when they signed up with her firm. And the profits were bringing the investors’ friends on board, too.
They’d learned early on that Katharine’s connections into moneyed families had meant relatively little. Aside from the occasional relative here or there, old wealth didn’t have much concern about the air or the seas or even other people. And those occasional rebellious cousins usually wound up getting themselves disowned. No investment money there. No, they’d had to start from scratch.
And just under a year into it, they were beginning to break even. They worked day and night sometimes. Too many times Margot had been the bearer of bad news–namely, that a really good investment was involved in something they didn’t put money into. A new incubator for underdeveloped preemies was getting marketed at such a high cost that it was bankrupting the parents of the babies who needed it and lining the pockets of the manufacturer.
And that had just been the last disappointment in a long line. It was rare to find something worth her money. Something that would make the world better. So when they found those things, the whole office celebrated. And on the other days, they worked to find the investors who wanted to put their money into those things.
Margot grabbed her and started talking as soon as Katharine came through the door.
That was something else she had learned this past year. She’d never really been a morning person before. She’d just done the morning thing like everyone else in her office. But Margot was the real deal. She was up and around by six, seven at the absolute latest, and cheery-eyed to boot.
This morning, she was waving a stack of papers and no doubt knowing that the diamond on her left hand was glittering as she moved it. Liam had gotten her a princess-cut solitaire. And Katharine guessed that he had liked it because it was square. She didn’t doubt that the one sitting with military precision on Margot’s ring finger was perfectly even. And she knew it had come from upstate New York, not Africa or Australia. Someone had gotten a decent wage, plus hazard pay and benefits, to get that thing out of the ground.
Margot’s voice twinkled like her shiny rock. “Guess what I have?”
“A much better morning disposition than me?” Katharine wrinkled her nose and looked at her friend. The world still looked a little blurry.
“That, and a company that does eco-friendly oil spill clean up.”
“You followed them all the way through?” They had to know what the ramifications were, had to be sure of exactly what they were putting their customers’ and their own investments into.
“I wouldn’t be this happy if I hadn’t.”
That was debatable. Katharine thought her friend always seemed overly chipper in the mornings. Of course, Margot not only slept at night, she slept beside Liam. But Katharine’s thoughts didn’t get much further than that before Margot was speaking again.
“They are not only clean, they are green. As in give-back green.”
“That’s fantastic.” She spontaneously hugged her friend and was instantly glad that her coffee had a lid. Then she made her way into her office where her two newest recruits were waiting.
Today, exactly one year after the earthquake, her world was very different than it had been.
That was her routine.
Sleep poorly, drink espresso shots mixed into something to dull the taste, and work her days away.
She was waiting on her standard morning drink a few days later when she saw the cup go up on the counter and a hand reach over her shoulder to get it.
She looked at the cup, then up at the guy behind her. “Hey, they spelled your name right.” She smiled.
He grabbed a second cup and handed it down to her. Apparently, hers had been sitting there and she hadn’t seen it come up or hadn’t heard her name called. Well, that’s why she was back up to two shots today. Well, that and the crying jag that had hit her at 4:00 a.m.
His voice cut through her attempt to not feel sorry for herself again.
“Sadly, they did not get yours right. You could tell them ‘Katharine with a K.”
She shook her head but didn’t look up. The not-feeling-sorry-for-herself wasn’t working. For the last week the dream had been different. In it, she was lying in bed, and the doorbell would ring. When she answered, it would be Allistair. Waking up from that one was painful in the worst way. And she couldn’t seem to get to sleep again. Katharine pulled her thoughts back to the conversation in front of her. “What’s the point
? They’d get the K but give me an E in the middle.”
She shrugged at the same time the tears started flowing. She shouldn’t miss him this much still, should she? But somehow she did.
“Oh.” Aaron looked down at her, not seeming to know what to do. “It’s not that bad. The coffee’s good even if they never spell your name right.”
This time when she looked up, she made real eye contact with him.
She’d seen him only enough last time to recognize him again today. But now she saw that he was tall, a bit older than she was. She probably wouldn’t have called him handsome; in fact, he looked a little battered, like he’d lived more than maybe he’d ought to.
“I’m not crying about the coffee.” She sniffed, embarrassed at the tears that were somehow escaping and running down her face. “I had a really great dream last night.”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Okay, this I have to hear. Come outside.”
His expression was compassionate as he turned and grabbed her by the hand not holding the coffee. He was pulling her through the crowd, so he didn’t see her eyes widen at the jolt she had felt when he touched her.
Her brain snapped itself alert and her own eyes widened, though she had no idea what had caused the current she’d felt.
The crowd barely moved to let them pass, and with each step they took she tried to look at him. Really look at him, through him.
It only took a moment to assess that he wasn’t otherworldly. He was human. The jolt hadn’t been strong enough for him to be more than just what he appeared to be. He didn’t have the beauty that the others had come in with. It just didn’t fit. His body had been born and had grown this way; it wasn’t knit by a power beyond her.
But that jolt.
She’d never felt it from another person before.
And while she was trying to figure out what he was, he had seated her at an outside table and had taken the chair facing her. “You’re looking at me weird.”
“Sorry.” Tears were still absently rolling down her cheeks, though she suspected it was mostly from exhaustion now.
Leaning a little forward, he looked right into her eyes. “Do you recognize me?”
With that, the spell was broken. She immediately jerked back and felt her face flush. She was acting like an idiot. It was L.A., she’d seen a handful of people on the street that she thought she knew, only to realize later that she’d seen them on some TV show or in a movie. She was really glad she didn’t make a practice out of walking up to people and saying, “I think I know you from somewhere.”
So she scanned Aaron’s face, trying to put it and the name together. But that didn’t work. She concentrated on just his face, knowing that he may have told the guy behind the counter his name was Aaron rather than having someone call out something akin to “Brad Pitt!” when the coffee came up. After a moment she gave up. “No, I don’t recognize you. Should I?”
He shook his head even as she asked him, “Are you an actor?”
“No.”
“Then why would you ask me that? Do you recognize me?” Now she was just puzzled.
He sighed. “No, I don’t, but it’s a long story. And this is your turn. How did a really great dream make you cry? Oh, unless it’s a sex dream; then I don’t need to hear about it.”
At last she laughed. “Unfortunately, no. It wasn’t a really great sex dream. I wish.” She looked far away, at the sky and the clouds tripping past in the wind. She didn’t know why she told him, but she did. “I dreamed about an old friend. I dreamed he was here … He died. And I’m partly responsible.”
“Oh.” But he didn’t look away. Somehow he didn’t get uncomfortable and didn’t make her uncomfortable; he just exuded sympathy. “That’s a lot to carry around.”
She nodded, realizing for the first time that he was right. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t change it. She was changing what she could, everything she could, in every way she could. But she couldn’t change that, couldn’t fix it. And she was struggling under the weight of it. “I was so happy, until I woke up and realized it was all just a dream. And that he was still gone. Then I cried for a while, and I haven’t gotten enough sleep, so that doesn’t help much, does it? And that’s probably more than you bargained for.”
He grinned. “Actually, I’d say you bargain for quite a bit more than that when you ask a beautiful woman why she’s crying in the coffee shop.”
CHAPTER 30
She didn’t tell Aaron much about Allistair. What could she say, really? Somehow, she had managed to avoid getting locked up through the whole ordeal. She wasn’t about to give a near stranger enough ammunition to have her involuntarily committed now.
Still, she told what she could. That her ignorance and bad decisions had led directly to this man’s death. It wasn’t the usual get-to-know-you conversation. But she wasn’t surprised when he turned up next to her at the coffee shop the following day.
At least this time she wasn’t crying. The same dream had woken her up again the night before, and she told him so. She also told him that she had somehow managed to get back to sleep after it. A first for her.
Aaron tapped his plastic coffee cup to hers in a mock toast and congratulated her on the extra three hours of sleep.
They sat there at the metal mesh table, and he waited a beat before he asked her last name and told her his. He was Aaron Brown, and though the name was common enough that she thought she should have recognized it, he was still mildly disappointed that she didn’t.
This time she made him explain.
He confessed to being a cocaine and heroin addict, as well as an alcoholic. And he added in that he didn’t remember any of it.
Luckily, Margot wasn’t expecting her at any particular time. They’d agreed that Katharine would come into the office when she could and that if she got the opportunity to sleep in, she should take it and not worry about the company. There were no pressing meetings today, so she sat and drank her coffee and continued to listen to his story even after her cup had been empty for a while.
He remembered only the last half year of his life. Apparently, he had done so many drugs that he’d messed up his memory. However, he could recall everything with perfect clarity from one day about six months ago.
Aaron had woken up after a drug-induced cardiac arrest in a hospital in Michigan. He’d been half crazed from the drugs in his system, and the detox had been terrible. He’d been a John Doe then, his brain too warped to even remember his own name.
His sister had found him. She had been looking for him for a while, and she had narrowed down her search to a general area where she thought she might find him. According to what she said, he’d been homeless for years, living only for the next high. But she’d been trolling the hospitals regularly just in case he came in. She’d been ready when he did.
Fingerprints had proved he was her brother. He sure didn’t recognize her.
The family had rallied around him, even though he didn’t remember anything about a single one of them.
When he paused in his story, they walked down to the beach and watched the traffic on the walkway go by on skateboards, bikes, and rollerblades. Katharine confessed that she didn’t rollerblade. Aaron had no idea if he did. He’d only been in L.A. for a week, and there wasn’t much rollerblading in the winter in Michigan.
She told him about Light & Geryon and about Green Sea.
He said he was impressed she’d turned her tragedy into something good.
They had talked long enough that part of the day had passed, and he pulled her into a small Thai place a few blocks up from the beach. It was an interesting mix of smells and textures, linen napkins looking out of sorts, folded neatly on sparkly seventies Formica tabletops. Katharine didn’t think they were modern tables in an old style; they were worn enough to look like the real thing.
The food was served on cafeteria-style scratched white china plates. And as she watched, Aaron savored each bite, traded pieces with her, and inhaled th
e scent of each new item before he rolled it on his tongue. The man clearly enjoyed his food.
By the time they had finished, she knew he’d come to L.A. because he thought he’d been here before, though he had no idea when, and he wanted to see if he could find anyone who could tell him anything about his past.
For her part, she’d fielded a call from Margot, who had grown worried when 1:00 p.m. had come and gone.
Her friend had laughed in her ear when she said she’d met a guy and was hanging out for the day. “Katharine, if you met someone you want to spend your day with, then please play hooky. We don’t mind at all.”
She’d hung up before Katharine could say anything. So Katharine held the now blank-faced phone up to Aaron. “Apparently, I’m now playing hooky for the day.”
“You’re the boss, right?” He sat down in the sand and motioned for her to sit beside him. He leaned back and breathed in the salt-laden air. “I really love the sea. I think I need to see the Atlantic, too.”
“You’ve never been?” Even as the words left her mouth, she regretted them.
But he didn’t seem to mind. He shrugged. “Not that I remember.” He looked out over the water as he absently shifted the sand through his fingers.
“Do you think you’ll go? Do you have a plan for when?” She took off her shoes and buried her toes in the cold grains. Though the day was warm, the sand hadn’t heated yet. That wouldn’t happen for another month.
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