The Burning Point

by Mary Jo Putney

  "The Church is more than bricks and mortar and decrees. I accept its failings even if it won't accept me. Luckily, San Francisco has a number of parishes that welcome gays. One of many reasons for moving out here."

  He halted at the rack of votive candles, where only a single, nearly exhausted, candle burned. After clunking a few coins into the metal box, he took a fresh candle and lighted it from the one that was guttering to its end. "For my father," he said softly. "With his rock-hard head and generous heart."

  It had been years since Donovan had lit a candle for anyone. Now he was struck by the power of the symbolism. The triumph of light over darkness. Perhaps a purification by fire of complicated feelings.

  He pulled a ten dollar bill from his wallet and folded it small enough to fit into the box. Then he took a short white candle and lit it from Tom's. "For Sam, who was maybe a better father to me than he was to you."

  He lighted another candle for Mary Beth, his sweet little sister who had never had a chance to grow up. Another for his mother, whose deep religious faith had been unwavering despite the hardships she had endured. Then a candle for his own father, who had done bad things but had not always been a bad man.

  Enough flames were burning to create perceptible warmth. On impulse, Donovan ignited one more. "For Mick."

  Tom gave him a sharp look.

  "Kate told me. I know how hard it is to lose a love, for whatever reason," Donovan said. "For what it's worth--I was never as upset by your...your orientation as I was by the effect it had on your father. Even since you came out, I've regretted that my desire to support Sam seemed like an attack on you. I've regretted it a lot."

  "I figured that out, eventually. I was even glad that Sam had you, since he blew his relationships with me and Kate so badly." Tom lit another candle, placing it on the top row of the rack. "What do you want of Kate?"

  They had reached the crux of this discussion. "What makes you think I want something?"

  "No games, Donovan."

  "Kate told you why she left me?"

  Tom nodded. "As far as I know, she only ever told two people,"

  "I want her to get over the damage I did to her. Then...I want her to fall in love with me again."

  Tom showed no reaction. "Do you want her, or that crazy-in-love feeling of being nineteen?"

  "It's Kate herself I want," he said. "God knows I don't deserve her, but she moves me like no one else ever has. I...I would do anything for her."

  "If you say so. What would she get out of a renewed relationship?"

  A good question. "For what it's worth, I doubt that any other man will ever love her as much as I do."

  "Is that why you hit her?"

  The cool words were like a slap in the face. "The terrible truth is that the love and the violence were undoubtedly connected."

  "Recognition is a step in the right direction, but sex and violence are a scary mix. Sometimes fatal." His troubled gaze moved over Donovan. "You should know that."

  "I haven't forgotten for a single damned moment." He wondered if it made sense to light a candle for a dead marriage. Worth a try. As he touched the wick to a flame, he asked, "Are you going to tell Kate what I've said?"

  "Not unless she asks. She needs to work things out in her own way."

  "Good." Donovan wasn't ready to bare his heart to her just yet, not when she would probably stamp on it.

  Tom turned away from the candle rack, stopping to genuflect again. This time, Donovan did the same. There was comfort in old rituals.

  As they left the church, Tom said, "Time to go back to Kate's. I'm ready for coffee and elephant ears."

  "I can go for the coffee, but I'm going to require some explanations before I eat any elephant ears."

  "They're sheets of puff pastry about the size of a dinner plate, flavored with powdered sugar and cardamom."

  "Ah. The Afghan version of fried dough. That I can manage."

  After several blocks, Tom asked, "My father. Did he ever talk about me?"

  "He hadn't in years, but just before his walk-through at the Jefferson Arms, he said that maybe he should give you a call one of these days."

  After a shocked moment, Tom breathed, "My God. Really?"

  "Really."

  "He must have been thinking about that for a while to put me in his will. A pity he didn't get around to actually making that call."

  "The will was his way of apologizing. He wasn't good at making the first move, so he started by making the last one."

  "Sometimes I've wondered if I should have flown back to Baltimore and just walked unannounced into the house. What do you think he'd have done?"

  "I honestly don't know. He might have exploded, but there's a chance he would have given you a glass of red wine and showed a DVD of the latest demolition."

  "Maybe I should have taken my chances and gone back for a visit, but...I was afraid. My life was working, I was happy. I had a terrible fear that if I went back to Baltimore and saw Sam, I would...would lose myself," Tom said. "It sounds absurd when I put it into words."

  Donovan thought of the times he'd considered flying to San Francisco to visit Kate, then decided against it. "Rejection hurts. It hurts like hell. Don't be too hard on yourself for not wanting to risk Sam's bigotry again."

  Tom said quietly, "Thanks, Donovan."

  "You're welcome. Now that you've had your chance to point out my despicable behavior, it's my turn. Why haven't you come East to see your mother? Julia needs you, but she won't ask you to come."

  "I've been trying to persuade her to visit me here."

  "That's not good enough. She needs to know that you care enough to disrupt your life and do something you'd rather avoid. You and Julia aren't as close as you once were, but she's still your mother. She did her best in an impossible situation. Don't let your problems with Sam get in the way of doing the right thing."

  The fog was thickening, cool and mysterious. When they reached the top of the hill, Tom said, "I hate it when someone tells me I'm being a jerk, and he's right."

  "You're not a jerk, but you have your share of Corsi stubbornness and pride."

  "What a horrible thought. But...you're right."

  Given the havoc that pride had wreaked on all their lives, Donovan understood why it was considered a deadly sin.

  Chapter 24

  Kate's house was pure San Francisco, a small Victorian with bay windows and woodwork painted to highlight the elaborate trim. Inside, Kate and Liz were curled up on the right-angled sofas, talking and drinking cappuccinos while a marmalade tomcat purred possessively on Kate's lap. Even if Kate hadn't been present, Donovan would have known the house was hers as soon as he entered. It glowed with her personality.

  He glanced around, noting how she'd opened up the space without sacrificing a funky period flavor. One would expect an architect to have a great house, but Kate's went beyond impressive into the more challenging territory of welcoming. Warmth was in the lovingly refinished furniture and moldings, and the textured fabrics that begged to be touched. In the eclectic little objects tucked into open spots in the bookcases, and the clustered photographs of family and friends artfully arranged on one wall.

  His own remodeling had been done with dedication and painstaking care, but he was an engineer to the bone. The special touches that made a home memorable were not in his vocabulary. "It's a lovely house, Kate."

  "Thanks. After dealing with eccentric clients, it's a pleasure to come back home and do exactly what I want." Kate uncoiled from the sofa. "Cappuccino?"

  "Please."

  Donovan handed his coat to Tom, then studied the photo collection. Kate and her oldest four friends were photographed together on a California beach, probably at the reunion they'd had ten years after graduating from Friends School. Val had mentioned the meeting to him once.

  Next to it was a picture of Tom and a red-bearded man who was too thin, but had a wonderful smile. Mick, presumably. As Kate had said, he looked like a great guy. There were plen
ty of other pictures of family and friends, including a number he didn't recognize. None of Kate's ex-husband, which was no surprise.

  Interspersed with the photos were several framed certificates from community groups. Apparently Kate donated her time and skills to projects such as playground design. Friends School would be proud of her. Taken together, the pictures and certificates were the portrait of a life. She had prospered here in San Francisco.

  Kate appeared and handed him a glass mug topped with whipped cream. "I gather you and Tom managed to bury the hatchet somewhere other than between each other's shoulder blades?"

  "Yes. It was good to clear the air."

  They joined Liz and Tom. The coffee and dessert session was more relaxed than dinner had been, and the elephant ears tasted better than their name. The best part was the powdered sugar mustache Kate briefly wore, and the delicate lap of her tongue when she licked it off.

  The party broke up about nine-thirty, with Tom and Liz leaving together so he could walk her to her car before continuing to his own apartment. After bidding them good-bye, Kate lingered on the small porch, her gaze going over the city. "I can't imagine San Francisco without hills. When I first came out here, I kept wondering how people managed when these steep streets iced up."

  "I had the same reaction. I assume the answer is that they never ice up."

  "Right." She turned to him, her earlier levity vanished. "I'm going out for a while. There's someone I have to see."

  He tensed. "Your boyfriend."

  "Right." She took her coat from the Victorian bentwood rack. "I shouldn't be out too late."

  Donovan managed to hold onto his control as she went down the steps. He closed the door, then turned blindly into the living room.

  She was going to another man.

  Christ! Once he would have slammed his fist into the wall, or maybe kicked a chair to pieces, but one thing he'd learned was that expressing anger violently usually just made the anger worse. He dropped onto the sofa, planted his elbows on his knees, and buried his head in his hands, blood pounding.

  Get over it. Their marriage was ancient history. Whatever his secret hopes, he had no legal or moral claims on her now. Kate had every right to take any lovers she wanted. It wasn't as if he'd lived a celibate life himself.

  He forced himself to imagine her in bed with another man. Laughing, sweating, sharing lovers' intimacies. Large male hands and body on her; Kate responding rapturously, her dark eyes soft with pleasure, as he remembered so well.

  At first the images almost made him ill. Gradually his anger faded to a more manageable level. He supposed he should be pleased that he'd managed to master his temper without lashing out. But he wondered if the day would ever come when the anger wouldn't be lurking inside him, waiting for a chance to boil over.

  Probably not.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Lights were on in Alec's house. Kate lingered in her car, thinking of the year she'd known him. She had met Alec Gregory when he hired Chen and Corsi to remodel his kitchen. He'd liked her work, and her. The feeling had been mutual, and they slid into a relationship effortlessly.

  A call to Alec's office earlier in the day had confirmed that he was returning from his Asian trip in late afternoon, so she'd left a message on his answering machine that she would stop by his house in mid-evening. She knew his routine. He'd spend the evening at home, going through the mail and doing laundry. In the past, he would invite her to join him later if she was free.

  Girding herself, Kate climbed from the car and went up the steps to ring the bell. He opened the door quickly, greeting her with a smile. In his mid-thirties, Alec Gregory had wavy brown hair, a square jaw that would do justice to an FBI recruiting poster, and expensive taste in clothes. At the moment, that meant a gray cashmere sweater that did lovely things for his light gray eyes.

  Liz, who prickled like an irritated cat around Alec, said he was a yuppie workaholic who'd never let anything but designer clothing touch his well-maintained body in his whole life. Maybe that was true, but he was a nice yuppie.

  "Kate, great timing. I was about to call you. I just got back from Singapore and I'm jet-lagged like crazy, but my stomach seems pretty sure that it's hungry. Shall we find some food?"

  Before he could kiss her, she walked past him. The exquisite Japanese tansu chest that he used as a hall table was one she had found and persuaded him to buy. "Sorry, I can't stay. I only stopped by because I have to talk to you."

  He followed her into the living room, where piles of mail overflowed a chair. "Better a few minutes than nothing. How is your mother doing?"

  He had met Julia when her mother had visited in San Francisco, and the two had liked each other. "She's as well as can be expected for a woman who just lost the man she was married to for over thirty-five years."

  "You're right, dumb question," he said wryly. "Give her my best wishes."

  "The flowers you sent were lovely." Enough small talk. "My father left a crazy will that's going to keep me in Maryland for the next year. I've already moved and this is just a flying visit back. I...I wanted to say good-bye in person."

  "So that's why your messages have been so cryptic. Oh, well, we can manage for a year. I get to the East Coast pretty regularly, and you can come out here now and then. It won't be so bad." He smiled. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it affects other body parts as well."

  "Alec, no. That won't work," she said. "Under the terms of my father's will, I have to share a house with my ex-husband. There's nothing romantic about the arrangement, but I can't imagine carrying on a long-distance affair at the same time."

  He stared at her. "You're kidding, right? No will can force you to do something so...so medieval."

  "I'm not being forced."

  "Then why are you doing it? What is so important that you're willing to put your life on hold for a year?"

  She took a fresh look at her motives. "I'm moving back partly to work in the family business, but also because this is a chance to deal with a lot of emotional baggage that I've ignored for too many years."

  "In other words, you'll be so busy sorting baggage with your ex-husband that there's no room for me in your life."

  "I...I didn't think you'd want to try to keep the relationship going when I was three thousand miles away."

  The skin drew tightly over the bones of his face, and he looked ten years older. "No? I've been hoping that eventually we'd get to the point where the next logical step would be marriage. I guess I was kidding myself."

  If he'd asked, would she have accepted? Perhaps. She liked him better than anyone else she'd met since her divorce. Perhaps the desire to be settled, to start a family, would have made marrying Alec seem like the right thing to do.

  But getting along well wasn't love. Love meant craving another person with every fiber of being. Feeling complete only in his presence. She hadn't known that depth of emotion for years, had half forgotten it existed. Having met Patrick again, she remembered what it was like to love, and having remembered, she could no longer settle for less. "I'm sorry. I...I didn't realize you felt that way."

  "You didn't want to know."

  Silence, heavy and uncomfortable, lay between them. "You're right. I haven't wanted to know a lot of things. That's why I need to stay in Maryland--to figure out where I went off the track and how to get back on it. I'm sorry, Alec. I never wanted you to be hurt."

  "I know that, Kate. Just...don't throw away my phone number. I'm not going to sit at home and wait, but if you come back, maybe I'll still be on the market."

  "I'll be back. But for now--goodbye, and God bless."

  "Take care, Kate." He pulled her into a last embrace. The bleakness in his voice made her want to weep, but it was his whispered, "I love you," that sent her into the night with tears running down her cheeks.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Going to bed was impossible, so Donovan simply sprawled on one of the sofas, his mind circling uselessly. The sound of the key in the lock sn
apped him back to attention.

  Kate entered, wisps of blond hair curling wantonly around her face as if caressed by an intimate hand. He held very still, not allowing himself to react.

  "Just for the record," she said, "the man I've been sleeping with for the last year or so is named Alec."

  "I didn't need to know that."

  "He's a terrific lover. Surprisingly playful for a financial wizard. We would rip each other's clothes off. Give names to favorite body parts."

  She stopped beside Donovan, so close they were almost touching. "Sunday mornings were best. Food and sex and the Chronicle. The sex was even better than the Belgian waffles. Alec was really good with syrup. He used to--"

  "Stop it!" Donovan sprang up, catching her upper arms to save her being knocked over by his sudden movement. "What are you trying to do, Kate? Provoke me into proving I'm as bad as you remember?"

  "Maybe that is what I want. Then... then I'd have an excuse to fight. To yell and scream and be furious." Her voice sounded shaky.

  "That is crazy. Damned if I'll help you prove how worthless I am." He let her arms go and took a step backwards.

  Her anger crumbled into stark misery. "He said he loved me, Patrick. He never told me before because he knew I didn't want to hear it. There could have been so much more between us, but I wouldn't allow it. Couldn't even see it! What's wrong with me that I can't love, or let a man love me?"

  He pulled her onto the deep sofa, holding her as she sobbed. "You're capable of love, cara." He smoothed back her silky hair. "Endless, selfless, generous love. Maybe the ability is in deep freeze for now, but it can't have disappeared. It's part of you."

  He thought about Val, and how he'd been blind to any possibilities in that relationship. For two allegedly smart people, he and Kate had made a mess of their lives.

  As Kate's agitation faded, he became uncomfortably aware of how much he wanted to continue holding her. The curve of her body against his was as familiar as his own heartbeat. He rubbed her back, feeling the tension ease.

  Sensual awareness flared into life, taut and unmistakable. His pulse quickened, sending hot blood through his veins. He held very still, wondering what would happen if he gave her a gentle kiss, or if his stroking hand moved to one of her well-remembered curves. She was lonely, craving comfort...