Where Dreams Books 1-3

by M. L. Buchman

  Maria knew that lack of a mother had been one of the common bonds between these three friends. Cassidy’s had died young, Jo’s had abandoned her family while Jo was still a toddler, and Perrin’s mother had been viciously cruel and abusive and did not deserve the title. Maria had to wipe her eyes at the pain she saw on Perrin’s features.

  “I could wish that too, dear,” she whispered to Perrin. “You are a wonderful woman and anyone who didn’t see that… Well, they didn’t deserve you.”

  Perrin looked up at her, staring until she could see that Maria meant it, tears began trickling down her cheeks and Maria wiped them away fighting against her own.

  “Hey,” Cassidy protested. “What did we just miss? No crying at this table unless we all do. That’s the rule.”

  Maria kept Perrin’s hand in her own as she faced the others. She looked at each of these amazing women.

  “I loved raising the boys. But I always dreamed of daughters. I just never dreamed of daughters like you three.”

  “Oh man.” Cassidy groaned.

  Jo blinked hard then actually sniffled in a terribly un-Jo-like fashion. “Okay, that did it. You are hereafter stuck with us forever.”

  Perrin looked away, studying the table in silence. But she didn’t release her tight hold on Maria’s hand.

  # # #

  It had taken a fresh round of appetizers and drinks to clear the mood of the table.

  Taylor Shellfish Farms Steamed Manila Clams saw them through several “Russell and Angelo as young boys” stories. A fresh basket of Cutter’s trademark focaccia, practically dripping with olive oil and garlic, covered the latest updates on Perrin’s love life. She was desperately in and out of love at least once a month. Her heart apparently only had two modes, full-on and full-off.

  Maria privately concluded that her own heart had perhaps been set to full-off without her realizing it. Perhaps it was time to change that as well.

  When Cassidy ordered another bottle of wine, this time a magnificent Willamette Valley Pinot Blanc, Maria began to worry about quite how much everyone was drinking, including herself.

  “Oh no, not to worry,” Perrin signaled the waiter for a fresh Cosmo. “It’s another rule of the Terrible Trio.”

  “Fearsome Foursome,” Cassidy corrected her absently as she inspected the new wine as only one of the nation’s leading food-and-wine critics could.

  “Fabulous Fivesome if one of you married types would please,please, please go ahead and get pregnant so I could be an auntie.” Perrin was on a roll. And when she was, there was clearly no stopping her.

  Jo and Cassidy both blanched white at the thought and raised their hands in surrender.

  “The rule is, we’re not allowed to get drunk unless we’re all together. Ever since college we’ve had that rule.”

  “And we’ve paid for it,” Jo’s tone was drily funny, suggesting wild escapades.

  Maria would guess that those wild times were Perrin’s doing. As a matter of fact, she would bet on it. And something about Jo’s eyes and a shared glance with Cassidy. Yes, they had made the rule to protect Perrin from herself.

  Perrin must not know that about her friends, for she took a totally different reading from Jo’s sidelong glance and poked a finger in Cassidy’s arm.

  “Of course one of us, and I am pointing fingers…” As a matter of fact she was forcing Cassidy to lean sideways towards Jo to escape the pressure. “…broke that rule and got horribly smashed in private.”

  “Those were special circumstances, Perrin.” Jo spoke in Cassidy’s defense even as she batted away Perrin’s hand and helped Cassidy back upright.

  “Yeah,” Perrin’s gaze returned to Maria. She leaned in confidentially and rested her chin on her fist, even though her elbow was nowhere near the table; as if she was so ethereal that she could rest in mid-air.

  “Such special circumstances that Russell had to break down the door with his shoulder.” Perrin winked and rolled her eyes back toward Cassidy before reaching once more for her drink.

  Cassidy and Jo might think they had Perrin bamboozled, but Maria wondered if it might not be the other way around. Perrin knew exactly why the “only get drunk together” rule existed, even if she cooperated with it for the sake of self-preservation, but she wasn’t above getting vengeance on Cassidy for underestimating her.

  Well, as two could play at that game, she winked back at Perrin before turning to Cassidy.

  “So,” Maria took a careful sip of her wine and reached for another piece of focaccia. “After Russell broke down the door and you were drunk all by yourself, did he get you naked?”

  Perrin almost snorted her Cosmo.

  Chapter 5

  Maria decided she was awake, what she couldn’t decide was if it was safe to be. She eyed the alarm clock accusingly, but it hadn’t gone off. Not for three more minutes.

  She turned it off and sat up tentatively but with only a little twinge. Perhaps, as Cassidy claimed, hangovers were lessened by good vintages and exceptional friends. For whatever reason, other than a small headache that a few aspirin would easily cure, she felt surprisingly good. In some ways she felt better than she had in a long time.

  They been such…fun! Russell’s mother, Julia Morgan, despite how close they’d been, had been her employer. Julia was the billionaire’s wife, Maria was her personal chef. She’d had woman friends, but they had appeared and drifted away just as readily. Maria’s entire life had been the Morgan family and raising the boys.

  Last night had been a surprise in more ways than one. It hadn’t just been a discovery of friends, it had also been a discovery of self. Of how much she’d enjoyed being with other women. Once over the initial surprise, the Terrible Trio had settled in and treated her no differently than they did one another. No layers of respect or distance.

  Perrin had dubbed her Mama Maria and Cassidy had jumped right on board with the nickname. Only Jo, ever so reserved Jo, had called her simply Maria. And it hadn’t added distance, instead it had somehow been closer, as if she’d truly gained a daughter-in-law.

  They had even debated about who to set Maria up with. Perrin had offered several actors, a rock-and-roll guitarist, two different lawyers she’d become bored with, and might well have kept going if Maria hadn’t diverted the conversation to who was going to someday capture Perrin’s heart.

  Maria had now daydreamed past her normal rising time and the baking awaited. Angelo’s Pioneer Square condo had little personality, little to hold her here. When she first moved to Seattle, she’d considered fixing it up, imagining how she and Angelo would design it together. Place a large table in the middle of the dining room and always have it surrounded by friends and laughter and good food. Then Angelo had moved into Jo’s gorgeous high-rise.

  He, of course, in typical Angelo fashion had decorated nothing other than the kitchen. The rest of the rooms were clearly the result of a single run to IKEA. The darkly rich hardwood floor had a few scattered rugs. There were some cheery posters on the walls, but no art and little family.

  It didn’t feel neglected, it was far too nice a condominium for that. It was comfortable, but it didn’t feel like home either. Fixing it up didn’t seem important, not when it was just herself. As if it was temporary even though she had no reason to think it was.

  There was so little to hold her here. So, she showered, chose a soft-wool red dress and a matching coat that always made her feel as if she were wrapped in a winter fire’s warmth, and headed out.

  Pioneer Square was still dark and quiet on the cold December morning. Unusually, the sky was clear and she could see the brighter stars and a quarter moon despite the streetlights. A couple of very early risers were shuffling out of the Lawrence Shelter, grabbing a quick smoke huddled together on the sidewalk while waiting for breakfast. She could already smell the characteristic notes on the still air of warming griddles a
nd hot coffee. She hoped the man was still tucked in somewhere warm, she liked picturing the stranger that way.

  First Avenue showed only a little of its reputedly seedy past, especially at this hour. The streets were quiet except for the occasional bus. She knew from experience, these were the very first runs of the day. Some mornings she’d step aboard rather than make the eight-block, uphill trek, but today she chose to enjoy the walk. It would also help her work off some of the splendid excesses of last night.

  The sidewalk trees were lit with white Christmas lights strung through their branches making them appear coated in crystalline sugar. Shop windows had acquired buntings and garlands. Magic Mouse Toys was, of course, a child’s dream of quirky toys. It wasn’t New York’s mad display at FAO Schwartz at a tenth the size, but it had a sweetness that the other lacked. The gray stone building and its brightly lit windows invited you in, even though the interior would be dark for hours yet.

  A coffee shop, not yet open, had filled their window with an entire Santa’s village landscape of miniatures, ranging across imaginary coffee-cup icebergs, down bagged-coffee hills.

  She enjoyed her walk, a refreshing stroll. The three women, her three self-declared and sworn-for-life daughters, had given her much to think about last night.

  There was a change coming.

  She didn’t know what it might be, but could feel it as surely as a sauce finally coming together. Maria felt that her life, like her cooking, was perhaps best if she let it run intuitively, so she would let it this time as well.

  For thirty years her life had been about the stability of the Morgan household. Six months ago with her move to Seattle, it had become about Angelo’s restaurant and his courtship of Jo. Maybe this time it would be about her.

  She decided that her new friends would approve. If Maria saw change for herself coming, well, she’d welcome it.

  # # #

  Hogan loved the city in the morning, before it was filled with people and crowds. Vera had been a night owl, but he was a morning person, often going for long walks while she still slept. Merely one of the thousand complaints she’d leveled at him.

  He had leveled only one at her, infidelity. He only discovered in court the vast extent of her attempts to belittle his manhood, never mind their marriage. The worst part was that it had worked. His lawyer had made sure that she walked away without a single dime of his, and he’d crawled into his condo and disappeared.

  Well, he was sick of that. It was time for him to climb back out of his hole. And he knew right where he was going to start. The next time he saw Maria, he’d straighten out all this nonsense of his being homeless and destitute. He might be a lost cause, but he didn’t need charity. Not like so many he’d seen. He just needed—

  A vision riveted Hogan to the sidewalk by the flower stall at the top of the Market. It was as if his feet had been glued to the brickwork. A woman was walking toward him. She was a vision of fire in the dark, a flame-wrapped wonder with a shock of dark hair that caught red from the streetlights and offered it up as a beacon in the night.

  Maria. Before he could react, she had turned down the sidewalk into the Market, a turn that led her away from where he still stood in the shadows.

  There would be no better chance than the present. Before he could think of a hundred reasons not to, he called out her name. She turned, and then her face lit with a smile of recognition.

  She stopped and waited beneath the bright triple-globe of the antique streetlight that highlighted her like a shop-window ornament.

  It took consciously forcing his knees to bend, but he did get his feet moving.

  “Good morning, Maria.” It didn’t come out as too much of a croak, more as if he sinply hadn’t used his voice yet today. Didn’t it?

  “Good morning. You know, I don’t even know how to call you.”

  “Hogan,” Dummy would be bloody appropriate as well. “Hogan Stanford.”

  “A pleasure, Hogan Stanford.” She held out a gloved hand which he shook after too long a hesitation.

  He had lost all social graces.

  “You couldn’t have eaten before leaving the shelter. Aren’t their breakfasts any good?”

  “I, uh, wouldn’t know,” he only volunteered afternoons to help with the dinner service.

  “Then where do you normally eat?”

  He almost turned and pointed up at his condo window. It hung a dozen stories above them and a block to the side. But that felt stupid as if he were too clumsy to speak or explain. He started to form a sentence in his mind.

  “You don’t. Well, come with me. We’ll take care of that.” She slipped her hand about his elbow and began to lead him into the Market.

  “No, wait, you don’t even know me. I could be—” What, a crazed psycho? Even in her most vile epithets, Vera hadn’t accused him of that. Hogan Q. Milquetoast had been her nickname for him in the courtroom, which had won her little ground with the judge.

  Maria stopped and smiled up at him, as if she knew more about him that he did.

  “I’m not poor,” he finally blurted out.

  “Of course not,” Maria agreed amiably. “There are always people worse off than we are. That’s kind of you, Hogan Stanford.” She made to lead him off again.

  The fishmonger, the one always loudly professing his undying love, began opening his shop. Just an easy shout away. He began relaxing on Maria’s behalf, not that she needed protection from him.

  This was all getting too muddled.

  “Maria,” he dug in his heels to keep them in place until this was settled.

  She turned to face him once again with absolute patience, as if she were dealing with the feeble-minded. Her face wasn’t angelic. It was far too filled with life to be so described. It was rich with laugh lines, full lips, and the most expressive eyes on the planet. Sophia Loren could envy such eyes.

  “I don’t eat at the shelter, because I volunteer there. I help out, I don’t want to take their food.”

  “And you dress…”

  He looked down and reassessed his clothes from an outsider’s perspective, she’d judged him as broke because his clothes were old and worn. That wasn’t it at all. He shrugged, “I dress…comfortably.”

  Maria covered her mouth with two gloved fingers of her free hand. In moments, he could see the look of consternation turning into a smile.

  He smiled in response.

  “Well, that’s one on me, isn’t it?” Her hand remained wrapped in the crook of his elbow. “Well, Mr. Stanford, I said that I was going to make you breakfast and I am. Come along.”

  Her gentle tug got him in motion.

  “And while I’m cooking, you can explain how a man who is not poor, came to be at my window with no money.”

  Great. Once he explained that he’d only had hundred-dollar bills in his pocket, she’d probably think he was a drug-runner. No, they probably dressed better than he did.

  # # #

  Maria was first into the restaurant. She had always enjoyed this part of the day. The front of the house dark except for a few small sconce lights left on for safety. The kitchen lit only over her workspace, the rest of it filled with soft shadows and the fading reminders of last night’s good smells.

  She placed Hogan on a nearby stool and started a small pot of coffee.

  “Can I help?”

  “No, you are my guest. You may sit and tell me about yourself while I recover from my deep embarrassment.”

  “You don’t look embarrassed, you look radiant.”

  She glanced up in time to see him blush. She was past blushing, but she wasn’t past being flattered. She allowed him a moment to recover as she sliced day-old baguette and put it in the toaster. A nice, ripe Roma tomato slice, paper-thin bits of prosciutto, a dusting of minced basil, and a drizzle of olive oil on the toast. It was all ready just as the coffee
finished brewing.

  He still hadn’t spoken, but it hadn’t been an uncomfortable silence. She’d rather enjoyed having him watch her cook. Radiant? That was a good word, she liked that one. She set the breakfast between them on a single plate, and two large mugs of coffee. That was one of the American innovations that she liked, the ridiculously oversized coffee mug. What they lacked was any idea of what coffee should taste like. Even Seattle, so famous for its roasts, was typically lacking.

  “Wow! That will wake you up,” Hogan was staring down into his coffee mug as if it had just attacked him.

  “What, you like weak American coffee?”

  “No,” he ignored her teasing tone. “But I do think that it’s a good thing I’m not planning to try and sleep again this week. Have you seen my eyebrows anywhere? I think your coffee knocked them off my forehead.” He began inspecting the kitchen floor as if he were indeed searching for them.

  She pointed above his eyes.

  He reached up and tested that they were still there before releasing a huge sigh of relief.

  Maria felt the lifting of her spirits, but masked them with a bite of bruschetta.

  He joined her. “Wow, that’s perfect. ‘The perfect bite’ as they say on the cooking shows. But this can’t be all you eat.”

  This time she actually laughed. “This is more than I usually eat. I make this for my guest. Italian breakfast is a biscuit or cornetto and strong coffee. It is enough.”

  “So, your morning window service, that is more properly Italian?”

  “If they are plain or filled with a little honey or marmalade, yes. As I make them for Americans?” she shrugged.

  # # #

  Hogan was finding Maria to be very easy to talk with. Casual conversation had always been one of his weakest skills. He could lead a programming team of a hundred individuals and a half-dozen supervisors. What he couldn’t do was meet them in the bar after work and not be stilted.

  “I arrived at Microsoft just as they were launching their first really stable Windows platform. That was version 3.0a, back in 1989. Summer intern, hotshot geek straight out of the University of Washington.”