Where Dreams Books 1-3

by M. L. Buchman

  “Where were you? I tried calling.”

  “I disconnected the damn thing.”

  “Why?” As if she didn’t know. To avoid her.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “When?” He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not without a goodbye. Not without…

  He pointed north. He had the same calendar she did. Ediz Hook lighthouse was the December lighthouse—one of the very last in Puget Sound on the way to the open ocean.

  “Now?” She choked out the word.

  He nodded without softening. He kept the boat away from the dock with practiced nudges of the controls and the tiller.

  She had to think of what to say. Had to get it right. Had to let him know that…

  “I’m giving up the angels’ share.”

  “What’s that, some special condo deal they offered you on the beach?”

  “It’s the second reason they use oak barrels in making wine. The first is flavor. The second—the angels’ share—is what they call the part that escapes through the porous wood. The extra that is lost, let go of, to make the wine that remains behind even better.”

  “And what have you let go of?”

  How should she know? She didn’t have all the answers on tap. She was making this up as she went. She flapped her arms and let them drop to her side. Then wrapped them about herself because she was rapidly turning into a human popsicle. Maybe not sweet, but certainly icy and soaked through to the skin.

  “How about this? Crazy idea.” And she’d think of it in a second. “Hear me out. Okay?”

  “I won’t live in Napa.”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “Or Sienna.”

  “Will you shut up for a second?”

  “Amazing pictures by the way. You have a great eye.”

  “I have two of them. Now, be quiet.”

  He bit his upper lip and nodded.

  He’d noticed the pictures. She’d loved taking them; loved that connection to place and time. Maybe, just maybe that was a part the answer. Anything was better than the bitter dregs that had chewed up her life these last three weeks.

  “You’re leaving now because you can’t stand to see all of the places we were happy together.”

  He didn’t speak, but she knew now. She knew how to read the pain in his eyes. The wound to his heart shot across his face and he looked away. But he didn’t hit the throttle. He didn’t leave. Russell simply hung his head against the pain.

  She raised her voice, to make sure he could hear her over the rain.

  “I have an offer. It’s a crazy offer. They don’t even know what they need, but I do. I haven’t told you about it yet. They don’t even know about it yet.” Neither did she, but an idea, or the idea of an idea was forming. If she could think fast enough, maybe she’d find it.

  “I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.” Please, Russell, you made the offer once, make it again? Please.

  “Who? China? India?”

  “I told you to shut up.” But the words came gently from her throat. She imagined, hoped that they sounded like the caress they were.

  “It’s got a lot of great sailing and great people. I know you’ll feel connection there. I know it. They need help. They need my help.”

  He didn’t react.

  Think, Cassidy. Think harder.

  “And, uh, they need an advertising specialist, too. Not some high-end New York studio godlike grunt who doesn’t really care. They need someone who is only happy when he connects with his heart. With his really loving heart.”

  He stopped fussing with the controls. The boat began to twist a bit in the protected waters along the dock. He still looked away, but she could see the shift in his shoulders, in his stance, and read her first signs of hope there. The stark anger was gone. She had a chance. She hopped on one foot and then the other hoping to jog some words loose from her freezing body. Standing out in the November rain just might be colder than falling overboard, but she wasn’t about to jump into the water to find out.

  The chance that Russell would freeze her out was many times scarier than merely being dragged out to sea.

  “It would give me a chance to really be involved in the whole process. Cultivation to viticulture to marketing. Not control, but involved, understanding. Like you said on our first date, I’d get to know the whole story of the wine. And I’ll, I’ll make it a cooperative of some sort. I’m sure they’ll do it. They’re really good people. They could be world class with my help. With our help”—there it was—“but it only works with the two of us.”

  He turned to face her.

  “They have just a dozen or so wineries but with amazing potential. If they could work together, we could make them into the next great wine region. It’s a little place, probably less total acreage than Mondavi, never mind Napa. It’s called Puget Sound. Maybe you’ve heard of it?” Maybe, just maybe you’ll remember that you proposed to me among the Italian vineyards and forget that I was too wrapped up in my own world to hear it.

  The boat drifted a few feet closer to the dock.

  “So I was thinking. We could, um, sail all over the Sound, up the Inside Passage to Alaska on occasion and... Then, you know, we’d…” what Cassidy?

  “…together we’d…” What is it you really want? Help me, Daddy.

  That was it. He already had.

  She stood up straight, moved to the edge of the dock until her toes hung over the ocean, raised her arm, and pointed a finger at his heart now so close as the Lady drifted near.

  “As long as we’re together, that’s all that matters.”

  The stern bumped against the dock, closing the last of the gap between them, her finger actually came to rest against the center of his slicker-covered chest. He looked at her with the eyes she remembered, the ocean-deep eyes that she’d gotten lost in the first time she’d seen them.

  This time she knew what to say and how to say it.

  “You are my home.”

  END NOTES

  My apologies to Brown Point lighthouse for the addition of a dock. The original, much larger dock, installed to service the logging on the hills beyond, was removed in the 1930s.

  My joy, to take a year and travel with my wife to the dozen lighthouses pictured on a calendar that she gave me for Christmas. She is my home.

  Where Dreams Reside

  Dedication

  To George,

  for the many times he helped me see the dreams waiting right in front of me

  Chapter 1

  Jo Thompson brushed at her eyes, again. She wasn’t the weepy sort. Even a sip of the exceptional champagne that sparkled across her tongue, the taste of spring, only helped a little. She focused on the laughter and bright music of the wedding reception to distract herself.

  The setting was so beautiful, a broad white canopy over the vibrant-green lawn. Through its open sides the Mukilteo lighthouse and the large green-and-white Whidbey Island ferry plying the waters of Puget Sound made such an ideal setting. So romantic that even contemplating it choked Jo up all over again. She turned back to the goings-on under the canopy.

  Her best friend looked so beautiful and so happy as a bride that it actually made Jo’s heart hurt. Cassidy wore a cream-and-ivory lace sheath wedding dress that clung to her shape like a caress. Every time she even breathed, hidden threads of metallic silver glinted and sparkled. On a more provocative woman, or even a lesser one, it would have been indecent. On Cassidy all it did was smolder, which was clearly giving her new husband something to think about.

  The first dance hadn’t been a tango, but she and Russell had certainly danced it like one, as if they were the only ones present. The reception might be winding down now, but they still moved together, constantly teetering on the edge of a tangle of hot passion.

  Jo searched out her other best friend. She
was innocently flirting with the father of the groom, who was almost as handsome as his son. And Perrin was doing so despite the wife happily draped on his arm. Julia Morgan took Jo’s arrival as an opportunity to get her husband back on the dance floor.

  It was clear from their moves that they’d been dancing together for years. Jo had never really learned, but they made it look so intimate and fun that maybe she’d have to find the time. Someday, in her copious spare minutes between lawsuits. Okay, perhaps not. She only really managed to carve out time with Cassidy this week because she was in between cases. A situation that would be ending on Monday morning.

  The large tent graced lightly over the lawn, lanterns warmed the scene as the summer evening slowly faded in the background. A live duo were knocking out songs that you couldn’t help tapping your foot to. Above them, the Mukilteo lighthouse spun and cast its beam upon the June waters.

  “We done good!” Perrin jarred Jo’s shoulder with a friendly nudge of her own.

  “No, you did. The dress you designed for her is a marvel.”

  “Does make her look pretty damn marvelous, not that she doesn’t normally. Still wish Russell had let me do something with his outfit.” They both looked to where he stood with his best man taking a momentary breather from the dance floor.

  Jo arched an eyebrow at her, “Do you think you could make him look even better than that?”

  Perrin offered her a bit of a grimace. “Probably not. He’s sooo damn hunky in that tux, but it would have been fun to try.”

  “He doesn’t just look hunky,” Cassidy slammed into them from behind and draped her arms over Perrin and Jo’s shoulders, the sweet peas laced into her hair scenting the June-summer air with spring. “He is! I can’t wait to rip that tux off him.” Then she blushed bright red and grinned at the same time.

  Jo pulled her in, “You done good, Cassie. Exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, and who with.”

  Cassidy laughed. A laugh she’d lost since they were college roommates over a decade before, but had rediscovered with Russell Morgan.

  “When do you fly out?”

  Cassidy grabbed a piece of prosciutto-wrapped shrimp from a passing waiter. She tried to eat it, speak, and chortle all at the same time and nearly choked herself.

  Jo handed over her glass of champagne from which Cassidy took several swallows and then released a loud hiccup.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Wellll,” Perrin drawled out the word. “I’m sure he’ll let you finally sleep on the flight, unless you’re going for an entry in the mile-high club.”

  Cassidy’s smile and blush definitely grew. “Russell might have mentioned something about that.”

  “Damn,” Perrin stamped her foot. “I am so jealous. I want reports. Perrin wants reports.” She began counting on her fingers. “Is married sex better than single sex? Does high altitude make it, well, better somehow? Pluses and minuses of doing it in four-star hotels, Italian villas, and sailboats on the Mediterranean. Take notes. You’ll be graded afterward.”

  “Yes, Perrin. I promise a report. When I get back from three weeks of sailing the Amalfi coast with the man of my dreams, we’ll all go out, get drunk, and I’ll tell you every little sordid detail about my most private sex life.”

  “Good.” Perrin nodded emphatically. Her hair, presently dyed as black as Jo’s, swirled about her thin face. As usual, she’d missed the sarcasm in Cassidy’s voice.

  Jo also knew from experience that Perrin would indeed be wheedling at least some of the juicier details out of their friend in due time. This allowed Jo to, without parsimony, both share Cassidy’s present amusement at Perrin’s expense and later enjoy the results of Perrin’s somewhat voyeuristic but highly effective curiosity.

  Cassidy hugged them both close, “Best friends ever.”

  “Best friends ever,” she and Perrin repeated.

  While Perrin was both more tipsy and much more emphatic, Jo could feel the truth of it once more bringing tears to her eyes.

  # # #

  “Damn it! Where’s my goddamn camera?”

  “Let it go, mio amico. You’re the best man, Russell. No, wait. You’re the groom, I’m the best man, though with how Cassidy is looking in that dress, the groom really oughta be someone handsome and Italian like me.” Angelo Parrano slapped Russell on the back hard enough that the groom almost snorted his beer.

  “But just look at them.” Russell insisted.

  There was no question who “them” was.

  Angelo took in the scene. Russell had friends from the dock where his sailboat was moored in Seattle at Shilshole Marina. They were mostly dressed for the Northwest in slacks and a clean shirt. They clustered together by the buffet table Angelo had spent most of last night putting together, eating the gourmet food with as much attention as they’d eat a bucket of chicken. He’d bet money they were talking about sailing. It was a topic they never tired of.

  A bunch of his and Russell’s New York friends had flown out. They were dressed far more fashionably, looking dark, edgy, and wholly out of place at a Northwest wedding reception, outdoors at that, held beside a picturesque lighthouse. Clearly, in their opinions, the wedding of one of America’s wealthiest bachelors and an internationally known food-and-wine critic who was starting a cooperative of Pacific Northwest vineyards shouldn’t be in a setting more rustic than the ballroom at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

  Cassidy’s friends were a daunting slice of the restaurant world, chefs and food critics. A dozen or so of the Northwest’s top vintners from Cassidy’s new Northwest Wines venture were also in attendance. It shouldn’t be surprising who Cassidy’s friends were. Still, it was his restaurant, Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth, where they’d held the rehearsal dinner and it was his buffet they were presently tasting and judging. He looked away because he couldn’t stand to watch.

  No, there was no question which “them” Russell was referring to or why, as a professional photographer, he was desperate for his camera. The three women laughing together made an amazing picture.

  Cassidy was right out of a magazine shoot. As a matter of fact, she soon would be. Angelo knew Russell was planning to use her in that dress for the next ad campaign for Perrin’s Glorious Garb. Not just edgy clothes, but now astonishing wedding dresses as well.

  Actually he’d be an idiot if he didn’t use all three of them in exactly those getups. Perrin had also done one of her fashion-design numbers on herself and Jo Thompson. Courtesy of a dye job, Perrin’s hair matched Jo’s, a straight fall almost as black as night to the middle of their backs. Their dresses were cut from the same cloth, but that’s where the similarity ended.

  Perrin’s pale skin and blue eyes were offset against the light celery-green fabric by severe lines in the dress’ tailoring that accented the slender lines of her body and revealed unexpected flashes of that creamy skin. She looked long and dangerous, like a racing sailboat or a really fine chef’s knife.

  Jo’s darker skin, revealing her part-Alaskan heritage, was kissed by the gentle green curves of her dress. Each swoop and swirl accented her generous figure and the fitness he knew she earned through hard sweat at the gym. A man could become lost while navigating among those curves until there was no hope for his return.

  The three women had their foreheads together and their arms around each others’ waists.

  “Beauty, truth, and joy.” Josh Harper observed over Angelo’s shoulder even as Perrin burst forth with one of her bubbling laughs. The reviewer from Gourmet Week had come up between Angelo and Russell. He knew Josh from a couple of good reviews of Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth and his habit of eating at Angelo’s when he was in town, even when he wasn’t researching for a review.

  “Guess it wasn’t hard to tell what was grabbing our attention.” Russell noted. “You’re good with words, Josh. Maybe you should write for a living or something.”

/>   “Or something.” Josh sighed as he watched the three women. “There are moments when being happily married really sucks.”

  “And moments when it’s damn good.” Russell took a swallow from his bottle of beer. “So what’s your excuse, Angelo?”

  He tried to speak, he really did. But Jo Thompson had raised her head and was looking at him from between the other two women. Her dark eyes inspected him as only a top corporate lawyer could, slowly taking him apart like a fine chiffonade, one sliver-thin slice at a time.

  Russell’s punch on his arm sent him staggering to the side. His wine, thankfully a white Oregon Viognier, spilled down the leg of his gray suit pants, and perfumed him with its warm floral components.

  “Shit, Russell!”

  “Sorry buddy. I’d feel bad, but I have to go dance with the most beautiful woman here.” He finished his beer, handed Angelo the empty before going to fetch his wife. Having his hands full was the only thing that kept him from smacking the groom a good one.

  Angelo stood there, empty wine glass in one hand, a drained beer bottle in the other, and a stain down his tuxedo pant that made it look as if he’d just peed himself. Like a lush on display. He shook his leg to try and shake loose the wet pant leg clinging to his skin like cold clam sauce. It didn’t work.

  Then he looked up and saw that Jo was still watching him. A soft smile, the kind that came the instant before a laugh, lit her face.

  Josh clapped Angelo on the shoulder as Russell and Cassidy hit the dance floor, appearing to float several feet above it in their happiness.

  “Yep! Happily married has its points.” Josh was watching the newly-married couple sizzle across the dance floor.

  But Angelo couldn’t stop watching Jo Thompson.

  Chapter 2

  “You’ve got a special at table seven,” Graziella called out as she breezed through the swinging doors into the kitchen at Angelo’s restaurant. She dumped a stack of empty bowls with a clatter in front of Marko the dishwasher.