"And Leah. We don't know what she would—” The tingle had flashed to singing electricity. “—do,” she finished weakly.
"Leah who?” he muttered.
It was his eyes that were her undoing. Gentle, teasing, questioning. Laughing. She sighed and relaxed against him.
In that split second before his lips met hers, the telephone rang.
She tensed.
Cass groaned. “Let it go."
"I can't.” She pulled back. He pulled her tighter to him.
"Sure you can. Just don't answer.” His mouth sought hers again.
"Cass! Max isn't upstairs in bed. He's at someone else's house. I have to answer the phone."
Reluctantly, he let her go, stuffing his hands in his pockets and following her to the phone.
She hesitated only a second before picking it up, hoping against hope it wouldn't be another prank call.
It wasn't. It was Max and he was crying. “I want to come home, Mommy. I don't feel good."
Mommy? Max hadn't called her Mommy in a long time. “I'll be right there. It's okay, Max. I'm coming right now."
"What? Is he sick?” Cass was at her elbow.
"I'm not sure. He said he didn't feel good, but he sounded more scared to me than anything else.” She slipped her bag from the newel post and started for the door.
"I'm sorry, Cass. It was a fun evening. I enjoyed it enormously. I'm sorry it had to end so abruptly, but..."
Somehow he managed to beat her to the door and leaned all his weight on one splayed hand. “I'll drive you. Where does this Lionel live?"
"He's only in the next block, but you don't need to drive me."
With one hand at her back he ushered her out the door, closed it behind them and guided her down the steps. “Yes, I do. Got to find out what's wrong with Max, don't I? You expect me to just disappear without knowing if my catcher is sick? We have a game tomorrow."
"Oh, the game."
He shot her a promissory look that said there was more to his accompanying her than the possibility of his catcher missing a game. Her mind, however, was on Max and she didn't respond.
Max was standing in a puddle of lamplight on the porch when they arrived, with Lionel's mother beside him. He ran down the steps, half dragging and half carrying all his overnight stuff with him and climbed into the car as if he were running from a thirsty vampire.
"What in the world? Max?” Kate looked at Lionel's mother as she followed him down the drive.
"He got homesick, I think,” the woman said, holding her robe closed with one hand. “All at once he simply had to go home. We'll try it again another time."
Kate thanked her and they left, Max sitting as close to her as he could get without being on her lap.
"Problems?” Cass asked.
"Tell you later,” she whispered. Max was trembling.
"What is it, honey? What happened?"
He shook his head. “I just wanted to come home."
"Does your tummy hurt? Your head?"
Again, he shook his head. “I needed Lambie. And you weren't there."
"Okay. It's okay. We'll take you home and tuck you into your own bed with Lambie and you'll sleep tight all the rest of the night.” She cuddled him close, and he began to relax.
Cass was following every word with anxious eyes on the child. “Who was there?"
Max burrowed sleepily into Kate's shoulder. “Lionel's dad talks loud. I don't like him."
And all of a sudden it made sense. Kate's eyes met Cass's and they shared a moment of unspoken understanding. Huey had talked loud and shouted when he was angry. Usually just before he threw something and slammed out of the house.
Cass said, “He probably wasn't mad though, Max. Lionel's dad just has a big voice. He always talks loud, even on the telephone when I call about a game. I'll bet he can't even ask to pass the potatoes at the table without yelling. Actually, he's a very nice man."
"He gave me a camera."
"A what?"
"When I got there he gave both me and Lionel a camera, the kind that you can throw away, and told us to take all the pictures we wanted."
"I think it was very nice of him to give you both a camera, so you can remember your sleepover. Even if you didn't make it all night. Don't worry. You'll see Lionel tomorrow."
Max didn't answer and Kate didn't press the point. Max had associated Lionel's dad's loud voice with Huey's fits of violence and gotten frightened. She understood. She'd speak to Lionel's mom later and explain.
After Max had been soothed and sung to in bed, after he'd snuggled down with Lambie beneath his chin, and his eyes were beginning to droop closed, Kate left his door ajar and went downstairs to where Cass paced in the living room.
"Thanks for waiting,” she said. “And thanks for explaining about the guy with the big voice. I've heard him at ball games. And you're right. Even in casual conversation you can hear him all over the ballpark. I'm sure he didn't mean to frighten Max. I'll talk to his wife."
Cass looked up the stairs. “He's been through the wars, hasn't he?"
"Actually, I didn't think it was that bad. I tried my best to shield him, but for all his in-your-face exuberance and energy, he's still a very sensitive little boy. He rarely asks about Huey, but he must wonder. He's never really expressed much interest in Huey's being gone. But maybe he was affected more than I knew."
"He'll be okay. It may take awhile, but he'll come to grips with his life. He has you. And he has me. I hope he thinks of me as a friend."
She took his hand. “I think of you as a friend. Max adores you. He can't speak three sentences without telling me your views on the subject. You are very good for him, and I'm grateful."
"No gratitude needed or wanted. He's a great kid.” He tugged on the hand that held him. “We're having a real struggle trying to take care of unfinished business here. I'm beginning to think in terms of a conspiracy."
She took a firm grip on the sudden flight of butterflies in her stomach and shook her head. “Really, Cass. I don't want to start something I have no intention of finishing. Let's not—"
"Oh, come on,” he wheedled. “We have to find out if it's as good as we—I—remember. I'm thinking about a night a long time ago in my dad's Buick. I didn't sleep for a week. And I'll bet it's even better as adults."
"But Leah..."
"We'll know where to look to stop the noise, won't we?"
In the moment while she hesitated, he took advantage with his hands on her elbows and pulled her to him. Not suddenly or hard, but firm and purposefully. Kate read in his eyes that he intended to kiss her, and a fleeting thought went through her head that he would be a difficult man to outmaneuver once his mind was made up.
The bottom line was that she wanted him to kiss her just as badly as he apparently wanted to kiss her. To finish what they'd started the night of the blaring horn. Why fight it, when she knew in her heart that the day would come when it would happen, anyway? Besides, she was as curious as he was. With a small sigh of resignation she leaned forward and tilted her head.
What began as a getting-to-know-you kiss, searching and gentle, swiftly became something far more. His arms went around her, molding her shape to his, and his breathing roughened. “Ah, Kate. Sweet,” he murmured against her lips, pulling her closer. “So damned sweet!"
His hand slid around her shoulder to cup the nape of her neck, and then his fingers threaded through her hair, positioning her head just so. The other hand crushed her even tighter against him and memories, long dead, came rushing back. This was the way it felt to want. To need. To anticipate fulfillment. And this was Cass. Not Huey. Just Cass. Cass...
Emotion washed over her. Pain, hope, and grief flooded in, colliding, peaking and ebbing like a tide on the ocean. This was how it was supposed to be. How it could have been all along. She was shaking before he released her.
He sucked in an edgy breath and stared at her with a quizzical look.
"Wait. Hang on—"
&n
bsp; With a tinge of wonderment, Cass said, “When I was seventeen I knew in my gut that you were the one for me."
Kate remembered the night in the car when he'd kissed her and ran. She whispered, “You didn't do anything about it."
"I was scared and stupid.” He whispered too, into her ear. “By the time I got smart and understood what I'd felt that night, I was in college and you were dating that Neanderthal from the football team."
No, she thought, even as she pulled back and tried to organize her thoughts. This was no ordinary kiss between friends. Even very, very good friends. And what he was saying in no way implied friendship.
I can't do this. Not again. It was an anguished cry of the heart. Love was a wicked lady. Promising and offering happiness with one hand and denying and destroying with the other. If she'd learned one thing from past experience it was that love was not to be trusted. But, oh, it felt so good to be held by him. Maybe...
Before she could utter a sound or so much as flutter an eyelid, there was a crashing, bashing, ripping sound behind her that jerked them apart. A high wind seemed to rush through the room. The draperies bellied out from the windows to snap and whip around them. A newspaper lifted from the coffee table and came apart leaf by leaf to plaster itself against their legs. A pencil flew through the air like a missile. Kate staggered backward from the force of the wind. Her hair felt to be almost scraped from her head.
Cass grabbed her arm and held on with brute strength. Slowly he managed to pull her to him where he braced himself against a tall armoire and wrapped both arms around her.
As suddenly as it began, the wind stopped. The quiet was so total and complete that Kate wondered for a moment if she'd gone deaf. Neither of them moved.
Time was suspended. Forward progression halted in mid-breath.
The portrait of Kate and Leah, which had hung over the mantle, lay on the floor. The glass was shattered like a ruined spider web and the frame broken into pieces. From the wreckage, Leah's eyes seemed to bore into her own with a frightening intensity. To Kate's shocked surprise it was, indeed, possible for blood to run cold.
There was no longer a question of what Leah would do if Kate found happiness in Cass's arms.
Nine
Flameout: ‘Cherry'
Stunningly scarlet. Potinera Cattleya-type Mericlone Hybrid. Miniature.
Kate stared out the window over the sink, her hands in soapy dishwater up to her elbows. The steady drizzle appeared to have set in for the day. She'd heard it begin sometime during the night, and the over-cast, foggy, and rainy day only solidified her dismal mood.
In an effort to lighten her spirits, she'd mixed up a batch of pumpkin muffins, topped them with a crumb and crushed pecan topping, and the kitchen filled with a spicy aroma as they baked. Max would enjoy a couple for breakfast and she'd freeze some as well. Still, her spirit flagged.
It had been two weeks since Max stayed overnight with Lionel. Two weeks since Cass brought pizza and they'd watched the stars from Shooter's Hill. That had been some sort of benchmark in what she was beginning to think of as their relationship. A tiny band of something sweet and tender and—and what?—stable maybe, had begun to unfold. And, of course, there was the kicker: fourteen days since the portrait had crashed to the floor when Cass kissed her. She'd had the dream every single night since. The blasted dream which she thought she'd eradicated from her life years ago. The dream.
She hadn't told Cass about the nightmares her nights had become. He called every night before going to bed, and every night he'd ask, “Anything going on there? Are you okay?"
"Sure. I'm fine,” she'd answer, knowing it was a bald-faced lie. The possibility of Leah's constant presence loomed like a towering tidal wave. Every night was the same. It would be another bad night, but there was nothing he could do to help. She reasoned there wasn't any point in giving him fodder for applying pressure to move out of the house. Not that he'd been leaning on her. She was just afraid he might. It would be reasonable, after all. Who else did he know that lived with a resident, bona-fide ghost?
Over the weeks, their nightly phone conversations became longer and delved deeper into their past lives. Her grandmother, his grandfather. Past Christmases. Politics, where they differed radically and argued intently. Religion: he went to church sporadically, whenever the mood struck, and she never missed a Sunday, considering it important to give Max the structure of a formalized faith. She told him Max's latest knock-knock joke and he talked about his men on the job, what had gone wrong and what went better than expected. Within two weeks, just listening to him breathe on the other end of the line made her heart quicken.
Absently, she rinsed and wrung out the dishcloth and hung it over a towel rack. It frightened her in a way, this growing feeling for him. And she resolved every night after they hung up, to keep her feelings under tight reign. She didn't dare let go. Too much was at stake. And there was always Leah. The totally unpredictable Leah. Kate cared too much to let Cass get any deeper embroiled in whatever pot Leah was mixing. She didn't want him hurt because of her. And yet, when the phone rang at ten o'clock, her stomach went all fizzy in anticipation of it being Cass.
Damn! Her fingers searched for the plug in the sink. She should have loaded the dishes into the dishwasher, but somehow she'd thought having her hands in warm water would relax her. Heaven only knew why she imagined the mindless task of washing the bowls and cups would turn her thoughts away from the problems at hand, but it hadn't worked.
Leah had not actually made another appearance—unless it was Leah causing the dream, not out of the realm of possibility—still her presence was as evident in every hour of the day and night as were the headaches Kate was trying to live with.
Mornings felt like she'd been doing battle all night long. Over and over again, she fought the river, trying to get to the car where Leah's eyes pleaded desperately for help—suffocating, frantic—and in the end she was washed away by the current, as always. Her heart pounded just as it had that afternoon ten years ago. Her stomach twisted. Her efforts hadn't been good enough. Even though she now knew the damage to Leah's spine had already happened before she went under the water, still, Kate's best hadn't been enough to help her sister. It had taken four boys to get her out of the car and to the surface. The lovely Leah, damaged beyond repair.
Kate's pain hadn't diminished. It was as fresh as if she stood, this very moment, dripping on the bank, watching them drag Leah, limp and choking, from the water.
Gasping, she splashed water from the faucet on her face and pulled herself forcefully back to the day at hand. The main thing was to focus on the facts and not get mired down in fear. Nothing could help if she was in a constant state of terror. Don't think about it. Put it out of your mind. Time progresses forward, she told herself, not backward. The past is over. Let it go. Paint!
Early morning and late at night, while Max still slept, were her best times for painting. Bracing, she told herself that anxiety over Leah was sheer self-indulgence and would have to wait. She had a commission that wouldn't. Her silk frame and paint brushes were sitting idle while she felt sorry for herself.
Bracing her shoulders, she headed for the stairs. So much depended on the next few months. Success or failure. She had the talent, she knew, but getting the breaks and being noticed in the right places, by the right people, was up to fate and her own determination. And in order for that to happen, she had to have a product to sell.
She turned around. Coffee. She needed a blast of caffeine. Hot and strong and fragrant. It would be a good day. She'd make it a good day. She wasn't all that picky anymore about what constituted a good day. She considered it a banner day if both she and Max had clean socks in the drawer and they weren't forcibly escorted from the grocery store. A day without any annoying caller on the phone was a blessing. One without Leah's ghostly presence was a major triumph.
Fifteen minutes later, coffee at her elbow, she looked critically at the huge frame. Yesterday, she'd received word,
along with a nice check, that the customer was thrilled with the ball gown and would be commissioning more work. Possibly three or four bridesmaid's gowns. The relief was enormous. Kate felt that she had moved up several rungs on the professional ladder with the successful completion of the gown. In the meantime, she had a couple of scarves and three hand-painted ties to do, and possibly an outfit with long, loose evening pants and flowing cape to match. The work in progress was a large wall hanging.
She'd already prepared the silk by painting the pale, almost iridescent, green background. The customer wanted Cattleyas swarming in a natural-looking setting. She envisioned dark green leaves with primrose-and-cream shaded blossoms, balancing on lighter green stems. The piece would be hung in a large room, effectively filling a blank wall and bringing in the outdoor garden. She would work with an enlarged photograph of the room.
When the phone rang, she was dipping a cotton swab in alcohol to fade and graduate the colors in the throat of the flower, a delicate operation. She needed both hands, paintbrush in one and cotton swab in the other, and could only do a small area at a time before stopping to dry quickly with a blow dryer. She let the answering machine pick up. Bree's voice, in a hurry as always.
"Hey. Got any free time today? I'm up for a cup of coffee somewhere. Give me a call."
Kate finished that particular orchid, turned off the hairdryer and straightened to stretch, examining what she'd done. She was pleased. Delicate and fragile-looking, the orchids seemed to float on the background, their colors blending so well the fading of one into the other was almost imperceptible. A glance at the clock showed that she'd worked for two hours and her coffee was long cold.
She had cleaned her brushes and was returning Bree's call when Max wandered into the room. His hair was standing on end and his p.j.s had slipped so low he was walking on the legs.
Cradling the receiver between ear and shoulder while the phone rang, she held out her arms. “Good morning, sleepy head. I love you.” It was a standard greeting, repeated nearly every morning of their lives.
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