Where Dreams Books 1-3

by M. L. Buchman

  “Maybe it was just a coincidence.”

  “Every day for a week?” Cassidy grabbed a towel and tossed it at Jo, the sweat was forming below her white Nike headband.

  “What are you going to do? I could have a restraining order drawn up for you by nine a.m. tomorrow.”

  “But he hasn’t done anything.”

  Jo threw the towel back at Cassidy’s face.

  “That doesn’t mean he won’t do so in the future.” Jo was using her implacable lawyer voice.

  Cassidy considered it. But it wasn’t scary. It was just…weird. “It’s not about me.”

  “Oh, and how does Detective Knowles know that? Can her fine nose now scent a man’s true intentions?”

  It wasn’t like Jo. She didn’t usually resort to sarcasm. Cassidy swung her leg over the bench so that she and Jo were sitting knee-to-knee on the machine’s two benches.

  “It was like when we were out at the lighthouse. He was looking for something. Someone. He was harmless. He just looked lost…and disappointed.” By week’s end, he had added sullen to that look.

  “I still shiver when I think about the two of you being out there alone together.”

  Cassidy didn’t. She remembered his smile as he knelt before her, stray bits of sand still stuck to his forehead. Holding his arm as they walked out to the point. The absolute safety and peace that had washed through her as his hands wrapped around hers the moment before he drove off like a maniac.

  “No. I was fine. It was just weird.”

  “Hi, Ms. Knowles.”

  She looked up the dark muscular legs, bright blue gym shorts and matching tank top, and finally the powerful shoulders before she found Angelo’s face smiling down at her. A sheen of sweat covered his face and he dabbed at it with the ends of the towel hanging around his neck.

  “You know better, it’s Cassidy to you.”

  “Thank you, Cassidy. I didn’t want to stop your conversation, but I haven’t had a chance to say thanks for that wonderful review you gave me. Bookings are up.” He laughed with a flash of white teeth. “That’s an understatement. I was going to stop serving lunches, now I’m over half full. Dinners are booked out as often as not. It’s wonderful.”

  “It was my pleasure, Angelo, every mouthful. And I think your success has to do with more than my review. I’ve seen your new ads, they’re great.” He’d taken the Tuscan Hearth concept and run it heavily in the tourist magazines. Several clips from her review had appeared in the most recent set.

  “I got the best man on it. Russell is a-number-one.”

  “Russell, as in Russell Morgan?” Why didn’t she know this about him? She’d spent a whole meal with the man and a couple hours more in his company out at Cape Flattery. He’d never mentioned a single word about his past, his family, or what he did for a living. That was odd—not a single word.

  Angelo’s smile froze into a cautious look, then a reluctant nod. Suddenly aware of the dangers of mentioning his name in her presence. He’d couldn’t have missed the slash at Russell she’d put in the end of the review.

  How could a man with so much skill hide it so damn well? A useless bum, who drove a very fancy sports car and was an advertising wizard.

  There was something not right about him.

  “He’s not the most forthcoming person.”

  Angelo squinted his eyes for a moment. He opened his mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it and closed it again.

  She rested a hand on his arm. “He’s your friend, I understand. Topic closed.”

  He took a deep breath and covered it with a gentle laugh that spoke volumes about the challenges of being Russell’s friend.

  That’s when she caught Jo’s expression. She widened her eyes and nodded ever so slightly toward Angelo.

  “Oh, where is my head? Angelo Parrano,” she turned to Jo. “I told you about his restaurant. Jo Thompson, best lawyer alive and best friend ever.”

  Angelo bowed low keeping his hands on either end of his towel.

  “You two must come to the restaurant. I will promise more civilized company and as wonderful a meal. I will tr—”

  Cassidy held up a hand to cut him off. “No. No treats. We’ll bring a third and we’ll have a merry time of it.”

  “Deal!” He stuck out his hand and she shook it. When Jo offered her hand, he bent over it with a bow. He’d have clicked his heels if he hadn’t been wearing sneakers. “It shall be an honor. And don’t worry about the reservations. Let me know when and there will always be a table for you.”

  He turned and sauntered toward the locker rooms, his shorts hanging interestingly from his hip bones. He wasn’t as broad-shouldered as Russell, nor as tall, but was just as handsome in his own way. He pushed through the door and she turned to meet Jo’s eyes.

  “I think he likes you.”

  “No, you.”

  Cassidy shrugged, “He likes the review I wrote of his restaurant, but it wasn’t my hand he bowed over. And he wasn’t really looking at me when he promised a table would always be waiting.”

  Jo actually blushed. A most uncommon occurrence. “He was just being charming.” Sliding back on the bench, she continued her pec workout with renewed vigor.

  Cassidy cleared her throat significantly, but Jo didn’t turn, though it looked as if more color rose in her cheeks. Cassidy hooked her other leg on the kick bar and began her reps. Maybe tomorrow she’d go ask Russell who he was waiting for.

  # # #

  Russell sat in the cockpit and watched the marina come awake as he ate breakfast. Perry had been first up. Stopped by the boat to give Nutcase a good morning scritch before heading off without a word—though the old man had been smiling at him like a crazy leprechaun. Whatever the joke was, he was keeping it to himself.

  He spotted Dave and Betsy farther down the pier, sipping coffee in their own cockpit. They waved him over, but he was too lazily comfortable where he was so he casually waved back. The sun was reaching over the high bluff which made the west end of Ballard one of the best places to live in Seattle. The views from up there were incredible. But the lifestyle down here among the boats was the best.

  The sun was splashing down on Shilshole Marina. Hundreds of masts etched their sharp lines against the sky, cutting it up into brilliant blue patches of heavenly steel. The constant companionship of the water’s soft lapping against the various hulls lulled him like a cradle.

  He crumbled up the last bit of bacon, sprinkled it over the remaining forkful of eggs; it was the first meal on his new stove and he needed to share it with the rest of the crew. At his whistle, Nutcase hustled over from the bow and began wolfing it down. No, that was canine origin. Began, um, saber-toothing it down? Nutcase. The ultimate fluffy, tangle-haired descendant of the saber-tooth tiger. That was a laugh.

  Just like posting guard on that stupid street corner for a week. What had he been thinking? There were a million people in Seattle not counting transients, commuters, and tourists. And he was expecting to meet a specific unknown person on a specific street corner.

  She hadn’t been at the last lighthouse, so why would she be on the same street corner? She could have moved, given up, come at a different time, or gotten married. Or could she have been a mirage as Angelo kept insisting?

  Was he now hallucinating the perfect woman? It halfway wouldn’t surprise him—and with his rotten imagination she probably had a voice like a troll and would despise him on sight.

  It was all so stupid. He couldn’t get the lighthouse lady out of his head any more than he could eradicate Cassidy Knowles.

  Out at Cape Flattery it had been hard to keep his eyes off her. She looked like every sea captain’s wife as she stood and scanned the horizon. Every incredibly beautiful sea captain’s wife. Why did she have to be so stiff and stuck up?

  For a while he’d worried that b
y some cosmic joke, she’d been his lighthouse companion. But when they’d reached the parking lot, she drove a very unexpected BMW roadster, more high-end New York nonsense. It was also a car that had not been one of the three he’d photographed in the Slip Point lighthouse parking lot.

  He couldn’t find the Lady of the Lights and he couldn’t not find Cassidy. This was really getting ridiculous.

  Nutcase crawled onto his lap to clean herself. This was late May, that meant Perry had given him the kitten five months ago. Almost half a year together. Born Thanksgiving Day according to Perry. The day that had changed his life.

  But was it for the better? That was the thing he couldn’t be sure of.

  He’d barely spoken to his parents since then. He could feel their shame even if they never said it. Every conversation was beyond awkward. He could just imagine the dinner parties. “We had such hopes for the boy.” “We had no idea you could do so little with such an expensive education.” “We did our best not to spoil him, but what are you going to do. He grew up with money.”

  He had grown up with money—and he’d earned every cent he spent since the day he’d graduated from college. He’d busted his ass every summer of college, too, to pay for his room and board the rest of the year. They’d paid tuition and books, but he hadn’t let his parents pay for anything else any more than Angelo had.

  He wasn’t spoiled, he just wanted what he wanted.

  And that was half Cassidy Knowles and half his Lady of the Lights.

  Stupid pipe dream.

  He settled lower on the bench and pulled his cap down over his eyes. Nutcase curled up on his stomach for a nap.

  Maybe while he was sleeping, one would come out of his dreams into reality, and the other one would just go away.

  # # #

  He wasn’t there the next morning, no longer stationed at her street corner. Seattle information didn’t have a listing for Russell Morgan. Cassidy didn’t want to talk to him on the phone anyway; she wasn’t really sure that she wanted to talk to him at all. Definitely not enough to call Angelo for his phone number. It would be unfair to put him in the middle anyway.

  There were a lot of Russell Morgans on Google, thirty-five thousand hits. There was an American painter, a 1930s jazz trombonist, a UK drum teacher, a millionaire’s son on someone’s most-eligible bachelors list, a Santa Barbara algebra teacher, and finally an advertising photographer. Russell Morgan Studios in New York—but the link was broken, the website gone. She tried the phone number and got a Chinese dry cleaners.

  She did find some credits to a car ad. When she opened it up, there was Jo’s car against a mottled steel background. It looked fast and sexy. It had the inevitable cool dashboard shots and it also had a single red rose across the seat—just like the rose he’d given her at Angelo’s, now safely pressed in her favorite North Italian cookbook. Even if it was from a jerk, she couldn’t stop herself from keeping it. It had been a long time since anyone had given her a rose.

  He also had shots of watches, suits, her own boots on someone’s very long legs. Maybe Melanie’s. It took her a while to notice the pattern: no faces. An Armani ad with a very sexy woman in a man’s suit, with clearly nothing else on, but the hat was pulled low, the model looking down toward her hands ready to pull apart the lapels. All that showed was her neck and a hint of the cascading blond hair behind.

  Every ad was a gut punch. Each offered high emotional impact of sex, status, comfort, and class. He had an amazing eye, as acute in composition as Perrin’s in fashion.

  There it was.

  Some connection had been working its way through her consciousness, reaching for the light, and it had finally made it to the surface.

  She was dialing Angelo before she had a chance to second guess herself. He was surprised, but willing enough once she promised it wasn’t to gut Russell and string him out on a line as fish bait. Whatever Angelo might imply, he was a staunch friend.

  Russell’s phone was at the third ring before she realized what door she was opening. She should hang up, but he answered before she could take action. His deep-voiced hello was even mellower on the phone.

  “Hi, Russell?”

  “Cassidy? Didn’t expect to hear from you.”

  She didn’t either, but here she was. And he’d recognized her voice. That unnerved her so she spoke quickly before she could give up.

  “I was wondering if you would meet with me. I have a business proposition for you.”

  “I’m not in business.” His voice was gruff, even harsh.

  “I saw Angelo’s ads. They were… I saw your old ones, too. Armani, BMW, they were…are breathtaking.” She was babbling. What had been such a simple thought a moment before was becoming muddled.

  She shut up and tried looking at something that would relax her. Five lighthouse pictures, four with sailboats. She moved to the sliding glass door and out onto the deck. There wasn’t a single blue-hulled sailboat in Seattle’s harbor.

  The silence was getting long. Too long.

  “Hello, Russell. Are you still there?”

  Another pause, long enough for her to look at the phone’s screen, it said it was still connected.

  “I’m here.” It was quiet.

  “Look, I don’t know if you need the money, but I’ve got a friend whose business needs help.”

  “One of those college friends?”

  “Yes. You remembered.”

  “I’m not an idiot.” The words were abrupt, then he burst out with a laugh. “Okay, except around you.”

  “So, do you want to meet? Are you interested?”

  Another of those pauses. She’d give a pretty penny to know what he was thinking.

  “You know where the Chittendon Locks are?”

  # # #

  Cassidy parked her Jetta, no sign of his little black sports car. She took her time wandering through the gardens and over to the boat locks.

  It was a busy day. A whole flock of boats were jostling for position above and below the locks. This was the connection from Lake Washington and all of its multimillion-dollar homes to the ocean, making it a very busy thoroughfare. There was also a large haven of steel commercial fishing boats from Fisherman’s Wharf that added to the mayhem.

  Boats jostled about waiting their turns to be raised or lowered from one to the other. Tourists wandered up and down the concrete walls on either side as the Army Corps of Engineers did their best to escort the boats in and tie them up.

  Cassidy leaned on one of the steel rails to watch.

  An eighty-foot fishing boat dominated the group, but the fisherman made the easiest work of it. Little speed boats got in the way of sailboats. Sailboats bumped against the big cruisers. The big cruisers couldn’t muster enough sober hands to catch and throw lines and they drifted about the lock as if bobbing in a giant bathtub.

  “Idiots.”

  Russell leaned against the railing beside her. Even as he said it, one of the big cruisers turned completely sideways, scraping the bow along one concrete wall and the stern across the other and getting stuck that way. The lock attendants started swearing to themselves as they hurried over to help. The guys on the fishing boat, covered in clothes that had seen far more fish guts than laundry soap, were all lined up at their railing to watch the show. Not one of them lifted a finger.

  “Shouldn’t they be helping?”

  “No. They know enough to keep out of the attendants’ way. To let them do their job.”

  She inspected the man beside her. Dark jeans, practically new, a polo shirt that hugged his shape tucked in tightly at the waistband. Was it knowing that he was a New York professional that changed how he looked? She couldn’t be sure.

  “What?” He caught her inspection.

  “You clean up nice.”

  His smile lit up and she felt a warmth that might have been a Februar
y frost just moments before.

  “So Angelo keeps telling me.”

  “You two are close.” Not a question. She knew it as fact. “One of those long-term, can-screw-up-and-still-get-help kind of friends. Those are few and far between.”

  “He’s the best. Closer than blood.”

  “I’ve got a friend—”

  “The lawyer or the clothes designer?”

  He was right, he wasn’t an idiot. She’d mentioned them once at their dinner nearly two months ago and he had that information right on tap.

  “The lawyer doesn’t need that kind of help, she’s already at the top of her field.”

  He nodded and stared out at the boats. They’d gotten the front end tied off though the steel railing was pretty chewed up. Now they were trying to lever the stern free.

  “Fashion. I know a bit about that.”

  “Perrin’s really brilliant, but she has no direction. She won’t accept help from her friends, but she might from you.”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?” Perrin really was struggling and she and Jo hadn’t found a way to help her.

  “How is it going to work?” He turned to face her and his dark eyes weren’t distant or closed, but looking right at her from an arm’s-length away. “I waltz in and announce that you sent me, that’s sure not going to go over big. No bigger than you doing it yourself.”

  She hadn’t really thought that part through.

  “Perhaps you could ‘waltz in’ and, hell, I don’t know. This is your specialty.” She was at a loss. It had sounded good when she thought it up, but he was right, there was no way for it to work.

  “You trying to set me up with her?”

  “No! I—” She wasn’t. Hadn’t even thought of that. But what about it? Russell and Perrin, she liked macho and he might be just the stable influence… But Cassidy didn’t want to see them together. She didn’t know why. Couldn’t go there, not with him so close that she could smell the ocean and sky on him. So close she could move against that wonderful chest with just the smallest step forward.