The Burning Point

by Mary Jo Putney

  "If you say you didn't, I believe you."

  Their gazes locked. He knew he should move away, and couldn't. The erotic current that always pulsed between was rising to flood tide. It would be so easy to bend forward, to press his lips to hers. And this time, she wasn't distraught about another man. If she responded to him, it would be from choice, not desperation....

  "If sleet is coming, we should go home," she said.

  He clenched his hand, resisting the desire to touch her. "Do you want a ride? The Jeep will be better if the roads are bad."

  She peered outside. "Nothing falling yet. I'll take Sam's car. Better to put it in the garage than leave it here and have to chip ice off tomorrow."

  She left his office while he stared blindly out the window, and wished the ice was in his veins.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Julia had attended a committee meeting after lunch with her Kate, but she had to go home eventually. She'd never minded walking into an empty house when her husband was alive, because it would only be a matter of time before Sam would return, filling the quiet rooms with his booming voice and effusive personality. Now he'd never come home again, and there was a black core of grief at the center of her being. She found it curious that she could respond to Charles's kindness and passion, yet always be so aware of Sam's death. Charles, bless him, understood and didn't resent that.

  She was wondering if she had the appetite to heat up some food when she noticed a light coming from the family room. She went to investigate, and was startled to see a tall, dark-haired man kneeling by the fireplace with his back to her. Donovan had a key to the house, but this wasn't him. It was...

  "Tom!"

  He stood and turned to her. "Sorry to surprise you, Mother, but I came on impulse. When I called from the airport, all I got was the answering machine. A good thing you haven't changed the locks since I lived here."

  "Darling, how wonderful!" Julia hugged him, delight burning away her depression. While there had been no formal breach, she could count the number of times she'd seen him in the last decade, and have fingers left over. "After the way I failed you, I never thought I'd see you in this house again. I'm so sorry, Tom. For everything."

  He held her tightly, rocking them both a little. "I'm the one who should apologize. There was a small, childish part of me that wished you'd acted differently, but my head and heart never wanted that. You stood up for me when it counted. Anything more would have broken your marriage, and that would have devastated Sam and you both."

  "I can't believe you didn't feel at least some resentment."

  "Only a little, and that's gone now." Tom knelt by the fireplace again, where he'd already laid pieces of split wood on the grate. "I should have been here sooner. When I said I couldn't come to Sam's funeral because of a dying friend, it was the truth, but not the whole truth. Frankly, I was scared to death about returning. Afraid of the bad memories, I guess. Then Donovan read me the riot act when I saw him in San Francisco. Enough to make me recognize how badly I was behaving."

  "You're too hard on yourself. I suppose you get it from me. Even after all of these years, I keep brooding about how I could have handled the situation better."

  "What happened after I left?"

  "I told Sam that he might have disowned you, but I hadn't, and that if he objected to me keeping in touch with you, I'd file for a divorce."

  Tom struck a wooden match and lit the fire starter. "I gather that he backed down."

  "I think he was glad that I didn't agree with him. It...it was a way of keeping track of you at second hand. He couldn't free himself of his prejudices, but he loved you too much to lose you entirely. He never tried to take your pictures down."

  Tom gazed at the first flickering flames as they licked around the wood. "How convoluted and Sam-like."

  "Is being in Baltimore as bad as you expected?"

  He stood, his slow gaze going around the family room to the sofa where he and Kate and their friends would sprawl, the comfortable wing chairs that she and Sam had preferred, the corner that had always held the Christmas tree. "No. There are a lot more happy memories than bad ones." He smiled a little. In San Francisco, he'd found himself. In Maryland, his presence was healing a decade-old family schism.

  "I'm so glad." She linked her arm through his. "Would you like some coq au vin for dinner?"

  It was amazing how her appetite had come back.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The next morning, Kate studied the photo of the Concord Place demonstration on the front page of the local news section of the Sun. As Burke predicted, the protesters in front of PDI's historic mill house was newsworthy. The photo identified Burke and his friend, Joe Beekman. She was glad that neither she nor Donovan had been included. On impulse, she picked up the phone and called Val Covington at her office.

  "Hi, Kate," Val said. "I was about to call you. Are you up for lunch two weeks from this Saturday? Rachel will be back from her fellowship in Australia, and I thought it would be nice to get together."

  "Great idea." After settling on a time, Kate said, "You're a lawyer and must know all about research. Could you run down the backgrounds of a couple of men?"

  "I could try," Val said cautiously. "Are they local?"

  "They're protesters of the Concord Place demolition. Probably they're just raising their voices, but I thought it might be handy to know if they might be likely to commit vandalism at the job site."

  "Worth looking at. Give me the names, and I'll check 'em out."

  Kate spelled the names and thanked Val. Probably neither of the men had anything to do with Sam's death--but it wouldn't hurt to know more about them.

  Chapter 28

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  From the door to the garage, Donovan called, "See you tonight."

  Kate glanced up from her newspaper, where an earthquake story was enlivening her breakfast. "Have fun. Say hi to Connie and Frank for me."

  "Will do." The door closed, and Donovan went off to spend Saturday helping his Uncle Frank remodel a bathroom in one of those male bonding projects men loved.

  Connie, smart woman, encouraged such projects. Her house certainly had benefited. The weekend before, she'd invited Kate and Donovan to dinner. It had been good to see the Russos again, though Kate knew darned well that she was being examined and judged for the sin of leaving Donovan. By the end of the evening, the Russos seemed to have accepted her again.

  Newspaper finished, Kate rose and washed her mug. She'd lived on Brandy Lane for three weeks now, and except for that first eventful day at PDI, life had been peaceful. Donovan had muttered several times about an unusually high rate of quirky accidents at scattered job sites, but otherwise, the company was running smoothly.

  She'd fallen into a routine where office work alternated with field training under Luther at Concord Place. As the demolition prep proceeded, the protests had ended, mostly because Steve Burke's demonstrations had embarrassed the city into finding housing for the remaining tenants.

  In the woods, the first cautious sprigs of green were raising their heads. The day before, Friday, she'd officially christened the new employees' lounge with a catered buffet luncheon. By the time people had eaten the apple kuchen, any uneasiness about the fact that the room had been Sam's office was gone for good.

  Time to get moving. Today was the luncheon with Val and Rachel. A pity Tom had returned to California, or he could have joined them. It had been wonderful having him around for a few days. Julia had glowed, and the aunts and uncles had greeted him with open arms and mounds of pasta. If any of them cared that he was gay, there'd been no sign of it.

  Before meeting her friends, Kate had an appointment at the vet for kitten shots. "Dinah, come to Mama."

  Dynamite the Blue Cream Cat had been snoozing, but when Kate called, the kitten decided it was play time. Dinah had only two speeds--full tilt boogie and coma. At the moment, she was in her active phase. Fat little tail straight up, except for the right angle bend at the tip, she dart
ed into the master bedroom and under the king-sized bed.

  Kate halted in the doorway. Donovan's room. It seemed like an invasion of his privacy to enter, but the kitten needed catching.

  "Dinah, sweetheart, you little demon, where are you?" Kate flattened herself on the carpet and peered under the bed. Dinah was under the headboard, and wanted to play. She skittered along the wall, eluding Kate's outstretched hand. When she retreated to the corner formed by the wall and the bed leg, Kate made a grab. Dinah squirted off, and Kate's middle finger stabbed into something sharp.

  A woman's earring had become wedged between the leg and the wall. Carefully Kate pulled the earring loose. Long and dangly, it was a distinctive creation of beads and amber. Lost by one of Donovan's girlfriends, a woman with a dramatic sense of style. Kate wanted to smash the earring into the floor.

  Instead, mouth tight, she got to her feet. Why was actual evidence of other women was so much more upsetting than abstract knowledge?

  As if by magic, Dinah materialized beside her, bumping her little head against Kate's shin as if she knew her adopted mother needed consolation. Kate scooped up the kitten and nuzzled the soft fur. No wonder single women traditionally kept cats. Much more reliable than men.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  As soon as Kate entered the restaurant, the hostess said with a smile, "Your friends are already seated."

  They met at the restaurant that was the neighborhood eatery of Roland Park, where Kate had grown up. She loved the comfortable atmosphere, the golden wood and patterned navy wallpaper. Good food, too.

  As she approached the booth, Val Covington got up to welcome her. Petite and vibrantly red-headed, Val bounced forward with a hug. "You look great, Kate. Being in Maryland agrees with you."

  "The same can be said for you, Val. Your love life must be blossoming."

  "In a manner of speaking. I'm doing celibacy now. Very empowering, just like all the feminist theoreticians say."

  "Celibacy? It will never last." Kate turned to the booth to greet Rachel, and saw another old friend. "Laurel, how wonderful!"

  Laurel Clark slid from the booth, looking very New York in black knits and a thick braid of cinnamon hair falling down her back. It was hard to imagine her in a fluffy white debutante dress. "Val persuaded me to come down for the day to surprise you."

  Kate embraced her with delight. The five members of the Circle of Friends had once been as close as sisters. They'd gone off in different directions after graduation, yet even after all these years, if one of them needed a sympathetic ear, she knew that another member was only a phone call away.

  When any of them met in person, the months and years dropped away and there was an instant sense of connection. Kate suspected that if they'd first met as adults, they probably would never have come to know each other well enough to become friends. Yet the shared past, and very real trust and affection, had forged enduring bonds.

  Kate turned to Rachel. Dark-haired and formidably composed, Rachel looked like the kind of doctor anyone would trust. Rachel had always known she wanted to go into medicine, and had pursued her goal with a single-mindedness that had awed Kate. "How was Australia?"

  "Busy. Hot. I should have stayed another few weeks, until spring made more progress in this hemisphere." She lowered her voice. "I'm so sorry about your father."

  "I got the note you sent. Thank you." Besides offering condolences, Rachel had written movingly of the shock she'd felt at the sudden loss of her own mother, showing an understanding that had made Kate cry. Sam's death had been a loss for Rachel, just as Kate had mourned the passing of Barbara Hamilton.

  Though each of the other women had visited Kate in San Francisco, having a Baltimore reunion made her think back nostalgically to high school days. Feeling young and giddy, she lifted her water glass. "To Rainey, who isn't here this time. May she join when next we meet!"

  "Hear, hear." With a solemn clinking of glasses, they made the toast.

  Val said, "Okay, guys, it's show time! Who has news? Any pictures?"

  "I've got a shot of Sandy and her family." Rachel clicked her cell phone to a picture, then laid it on the table.

  "You lucky aunt. What darlings the kids are," Laurel said admiringly.

  Rachel agreed, then started to tell about her months in Australia. It was interesting, but Kate couldn't help thinking that for a group of reasonably well-adjusted women, they hadn't done very well in terms of settling down and starting families. Rachel had dated Tom for years, and the two were still good friends, but that's all it was--a friendship.

  Val adored men, and with her red-headed zest and enthusiasm, they adored her back. But she had a record of picking losers. Under her New York polish Laurel was a little shy, so maybe she just hadn't found the right man yet. Well, at least there was Rainey. Kenzie seemed like a nice guy, even if he was a superstar, and they certainly seemed very much in love. Maybe there was hope for all of them.

  At the first lull, Kate asked, "What are you doing now, Laurel? Tell all."

  "Nothing too dramatic. The publisher I work for has moved into the Decatur Building, an early skyscraper. You'll have to come visit, Kate--I think it would be pretty interesting to an architect."

  "I studied that building in school," Kate said. "I'd love to see it. Maybe I can take a day trip to New York later in the spring. Any exciting men in your life?"

  "In New York City? Not likely. From a dating point of view, it's like a really large rummage sale--lots of strange items, but darned little that you'd want to take home. I'm holding out for a man with a voice like Sean Connery."

  "Sean Connery," Val repeated with a rapturous sigh. "If you find a man like that and decide not to keep him, I want an introduction."

  "I thought you were into celibacy," Laurel said. "That it was empowering."

  "If a man with Sean Connery's voice shows up, I'll show you how empowered I can be. He won't stand a chance!"

  Then it was Kate's turn to tell them about Kenzie Scott, who actually did have a voice rather like Sean Connery now that she thought about it.

  When Rachel and Laurel went off to the restroom, Val pulled a sheaf of papers from her voluminous purse. "Here are the results of the search you asked for. Sorry it took so long. If you ask me, either of these clowns could rationalize vandalism if he felt provoked enough."

  Kate read the papers, frowning. Burke had been a political activist since his college days in the late '60s. In fact, he'd been a member of a student protest group linked to bombing a university laboratory, although he hadn't been charged in the case.

  Joe Beekman was a decorated Vietnam combat veteran who knew something about explosives and weapons, and had learned to kill for his country. Now he ran a community drug rehabilitation program. A valuable man--but might his anger over his mother's eviction make him hark back to the violence of his younger days?

  Probably the investigators on Sam's case had already considered the protesters, but it wouldn't hurt to pass the information on. "Thanks Val. Things have calmed down at Concord Place, but if there's more trouble, we'll know where to start looking."

  "Any time."

  Kate noticed Val's colorful, gypsy-like jewelry. "I like the three gold ear hoops. Are you doing body piercing in any less visible spots?"

  "I've considered it," Val admitted, "but thinking about what might happen if a navel ring got caught in a zipper always freaks me out."

  Kate's gaze fell on a pendant hanging among Val's multiple necklaces. Dangly beads with amber, and very familiar.

  "Pretty, isn't it?" Val said. "Actually, it was one of a pair of earrings but the other got lost, so I put this on a chain."

  A woman with a dramatic sense of style. Donovan and Val, together in that bed. Kate felt as if she'd been kicked. She wanted to cry, But you were my friend first! Instead, she counted to ten, then said, "This is your lucky day. I found the lost earring this morning. Under Donovan's bed."

  Val's face went rigid. "I...I don't suppose there is any yarn I coul
d spin that would convince you of anything other than the obvious explanation."

  "You don't have to. I mean, it's hardly any of my business who either of you were sleeping with."

  "Maybe not, but you're human. Heck, we're all far, far too human. I broke the Good Girlfriends' Code by sleeping with your ex-husband."

  "Hardly. I hadn't laid eyes on the man for almost ten years. He was up for grabs." Then, hating herself for wanting to know, "How long did you go out together?"

  "About a year and a half. We ran into each other one day and got to talking, and, well, you know." Val shrugged uncomfortably.

  "Recently?"

  Val ran her fingers through her curly mop, looking like Little Orphan Annie on a bad hair day. "Yeah. He came to say goodbye after finding out about Sam's will."

  Wondering if that had been the same day he'd taken her out to Brandy Lane and persuaded her to stay in Baltimore, Kate moistened her dry lips. "He must have wanted PDI a lot to break up with you to get it."

  "We didn't have a big serious thing going, Kate. It was just fun. Company. Donovan is a hell of a nice guy, and he treated me so well that I couldn't remember why I've put up with what I did from so many jerks over the years. But it was no grand passion on either side."

  Telling herself that maturity was definitely in order here, Kate said, "I'm sorry my coming back messed things up for you. But I'll be gone again in a year. Less now. "

  "Your return didn't make that much difference." Val began twining red curls around her forefinger. "I'll admit I wouldn't have minded if things had developed further, but Donovan didn't want more, and if there's one thing I've learned to spot in my checkered career, it's a man who isn't interested in a deeper relationship. If anyone has the key to his heart, it's you."

  "I threw it away years ago." Kate tried to look composed since Laurel and Rachel were returning. "And I don't want to find it again."

  "If that's true, you're a damned fool, Kate. Take it from an expert--good men are hard to find." Val paused, then asked hesitantly, "Are we still friends? I couldn't forgive myself if I've wrecked that."