A Different Blue (35 page)

Tiffa smiled, “Because you were BLUE.”

“Yeah. I thought it was awesome.”

“Invisibility would come in handy, wouldn't it?” Tiffa handed me the bottle, but I begged off.

“You do it, please! She's hungry, and I don't want to make her cry again. She tried to get milk from my nose.”

Tiffa giggled, took Melody from my arms, and settled into the rocker. Melody began to suckle in earnest. Tiffa and I watched her, our eyes glued to her happy face, her cheeks moving in and out in ecstasy, so content and easy to please.

“Speaking of invisibility,” Tiffa said quietly, not raising her eyes from Melody's face, “I'm a little surprised to see you. Happy – but surprised. What's going on, Blue?”

“The lab called today. They said they have a match. They know who I am, Tiffa. They know who my mother is. They asked me to come to Reno.”

“Ohhhh, Blue,” Tiffa drew the words out in one long sigh. Her gaze was full of compassion and a lump rose in my throat. I swallowed hard and tried to laugh.

“I hope I didn't scare you, showing up here, wild-eyed and panic-stricken. I just needed to tell someone. And I thought of Melody, and how I need these answers for her sake, even if sometimes I would rather never know.”

“I'm so glad you did. It was time. And you weren't wild-eyed and panic-stricken. You are always as cool as a cucumber, Blue Echohawk. I read people pretty well, but you are always so self-contained, so private. What's that saying? Still waters run deep? In that way, you and Darcy are so much alike.” When I didn't comment, Tiffa just shook her head in exasperation, as if my silence proved her point.

“He came by yesterday, you know,” Tiffa said casually. “I think he's smitten.”

My heart dropped to my toes. My face must have registered my distress because Tiffa stopped rocking abruptly.

“What? Blue, what did I say?”

“Nothing,” I lied, shaking my head. “I figured as much.”

Tiffa cocked her head to the side, confused. “Figured what?”

“That he was smitten,” I responded flatly. I felt sick.

“He's smitten with Melody!” Tiffa cried, and shook her head, disbelieving. “You should have seen your face. Who did you think I was talking about? Pamela?”

I looked down at my feet, unwilling to answer.

“Blue. What in the world is going on with you two? I thought after New Year's that you would both finally admit you have feelings for each other. It's so obvious! I asked Wilson about you yesterday and he acted so aloof. I didn't know what to make of it.”

“Yeah. Wilson must be a rare breed of bird. Definitely not an owl because I've become completely invisible.”

“Oh, luv,” Tiffa sighed. “My brother is my mother's son. Maybe not biologically, but in every other way. His sense of propriety is positively archaic. I've been surprised he's allowed himself to get as close to you as he has. And that kiss? Alice and I were crowing about it for days.”

I kept my face averted, uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation, but Tiffa kept rocking and talking. “What my brother needs is a push. It sure worked when we dangled you in front of Justin. Maybe it's time for you to spread your wings and force him to make a choice,” she mused, patting Melody's back. The bottle was long gone and Melody was too, snoring softly with milk dribbling from the corner of her bow shaped mouth.

“I have been working on something, but I haven't wanted to tell you until it was a sure thing. I had an artist scheduled to be part of a exhibit at the Sheffield next Saturday night. He decided he wanted to renegotiate his contract, and ended up renegotiating himself right out the door. It just so happens that I think your work will gel nicely with the entire exhibit. In fact, I think your work will stand out. I've been holding back 'Bird Woman' and a few other pieces, simply because they demand a certain kind of audience. I think we will be able to sell 'Bird Woman' for $5,000 at the exhibit, where it might sit for months in the gallery.”

I gulped and swore under my breath. Tiffa just winked at me. “That's a bargain, luv. Someday your work will sell for far more, I guarantee it. 'Bird Woman,' 'Rubicon,' 'Witch,' and the one you named 'Armor' are the only pieces I have left. All of those will be stunning, but I need more. What do you have completed?”

I had carved one called 'The Saint.' It was St. Patrick immortalized in wood, though the stooped man with a shepherd's staff walking in the curling flames that appeared to dance around him could easily be mistaken for something entirely different. The one Wilson had named 'Loss' was in the basement too, covered by a sheet beside my workbench so I wouldn't have to see it. It might be my best work yet, but it hurt to look at it. And there were several others, including the intertwined branches that I had frenetically lost myself in a month ago.

“I can come up with ten.”

“Then it's set. Get me the pieces, and I will make it happen. And Blue? Don't tell Darcy. It will be our little surprise.”

I finished my shift at the cafe late Thursday night and headed for home, my mind on Saturday's exhibit, on the carvings I had assembled, and on the call to Reno I hadn't yet made. They must think I was nuts. Detective Moody had left two messages on my voicemail and I'd received another from Heidi Morgan at the lab. I told myself after the showcase I would call them.

A big part of my indecision was Wilson. I had shared this journey with him, and in the last month I had hardly seen him. He'd become my best friend, and I missed him desperately, and was angry with him for pulling away. I'd decided “space” was just another one of those, “it's not you, it's me” slogans people use when they want to end a relationship. But friendships weren't supposed to end. I wished we'd never shared that damned kiss. Wilson hadn't been the same since.

I was standing in front of my apartment door, perusing my mail, when I heard Wilson's door open and shut above me. I tensed, listening to his footsteps near the top of the stairs, and then grimaced as I heard Pamela's voice asking him about the exhibit at The Sheffield on Saturday.

“I saw the tickets. Were you going to surprise me? Is it my Valentine's Day surprise?” Pamela teased, and her flirtatious tone made me want to run up the stairs and hurl her over the banister. She must not have sensed my murderous intent, because she kept right on talking.

“We can have dinner with my parents before. They'll be staying at the hotel through next week.” I had forgotten about Pamela's connection to the hotel. Tiffa said the Sheffield family wasn't the sole owner of the hotel any longer, but money talked, and the hotel still bore the Sheffield name.

Pamela and Wilson reached the bottom of the stairs and I slunk back, hoping they wouldn't see me. I should have gone into my apartment and closed the door. Now it was too late to do so without alerting them of my presence. So I stood, frozen, watching Pamela loop her arms around Wilson's neck and stand up on her toes to place a quick kiss on his lips. I looked away. I should have watched, should have made myself acknowledge that she was the girl in his life. And I was the neighbor. The project. The whim? I had no idea what I was to Wilson anymore.

“See you Saturday?” Pamela asked.

I didn't hear Wilson's answer, I was too busy unlocking my door. I decided I didn't care if they knew I was there. I shut the door behind me. When I heard a soft knock several minutes later, I considered ignoring it. It could only be Wilson, and he would only make me feel worse. But I was just a girl. And the guy I liked stood on the other side of the door. So I opened it.

“Hi,” I said cheerfully, as if I was completely unaffected by what I had just seen. Wilson didn't look like a man who had just enjoyed a goodnight kiss. He looked a little upset. And a little stressed. I tried not to read anything into it.

“Hi,” he replied softly. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure. Mi casa es su casa . . . literally.” I turned and walked into my home, feeling him at my back. “Did Camilla just leave?” I asked pointedly. When Wilson didn't answer I looked up at him in question.

“Camilla?” he smirked, folding his arms. “You asked me if Camilla just left.”

“Is that what I said?” I frowned.

“Yes. You called Pamela Camilla.”

“Hmmm. Freudian slip,” I mumbled, a little embarrassed. It wasn't my fault. I had been thinking of kisses, and lately kisses made me think of Camilla . . . and The Golden Girls.

The carving I had been working on the last time we talked sat on my kitchen table, and Wilson halted beside it abruptly. He studied it intently, turning it this way and that, but I was distracted, knowing that any mention of Camilla had to remind him of what had transpired between us more than a month ago.

“Tell me what you see when you look at this sculpture,” Wilson asked after a while, his eyes roving down the sensual lines of the stained mahogany. His hand traced the contours reverently.

I had whittled away the heaviness from the branches, creating hollows and sinews and shaping the suggestion of lovers wrapped around each other while still maintaining the natural innocence and simplicity of the merging branches. The branches were mountain mahogany, the wood a natural reddish brown. I had rubbed several applications of black stain into one branch, and it gleamed like a black jungle cat, the golden red tones melding with the dark stain so the black looked like it was silhouetted in sunlight. I applied no stain to the other branch but had simply buffed and glossed the golden red wood until it glowed like amber. The effect was that the two limbs in the sculpture appeared to be different wood, branches from two different kinds of trees. The result was a statement all its own.

I looked away. I felt hot and angry, and my chest was tight with a feeling Wilson always seemed to stir in me.

“I'd rather not.”

“Why?” Wilson sounded genuinely confused by my refusal, since I was usually eager to discuss my carvings with him.

“Why do you want my explanation? What do
you
see when you look at it?” I said crossly. Wilson withdrew his hand from the sculpture and grabbed my braid where it hung over my shoulder. He tugged it gently, wrapping it around his hand as he did.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong. I'm preoccupied,” I protested. “And my art is not about what I see. It's about what I feel. And right now I don't really want to discuss what I feel.” I tried to pull my hair free from his hand, but he wound it tighter, pulling me toward him.

“I see limbs and love and lust,” Wilson stated flatly. I stopped resisting, and my eyes rose to his. Wilson's gaze was wide and frank, but his jaw was clenched as if he knew he was crossing that invisible line he had drawn for himself.

“I'm not surprised you see those things,” I said softly.

“Why?” His eyes were intense, and I was suddenly furious. I was in love with Wilson, no doubt about it, but I would not be toyed with, and I sure as hell wasn't going to play kissy face ten minutes after Pamela left.

“You've just spent the evening with Pamela,” I reminded him sweetly. “She is a beautiful woman.”

Wilson's eyes flashed, and he dropped my braid, turning back toward the sculpture. I could tell he was mentally counting to ten. If I made him angry, it was his own fault. What did he think I was going to do? Wrap myself around him after he had ignored me off and on for months? I wasn't that girl. But maybe he thought I was. I took several deep breaths and ignored the tension that simmered between us. It was thick enough to slice and serve with a big dollop of denial. He took several steps, his hands fisted in his hair, putting some distance between us.

I stood my ground, waiting for him to make the next move. I had no idea what he was doing here. And he didn't seem to know either. When he looked at me again, his mouth was set in a grim line, and his eyes held a note of pleading, as if he needed to convince me of something.

“You said your art is about what you feel, not what you see. I told you what I see. Now you tell me what you feel,” he demanded.

“What are we talking about, Wilson?” I shot back. I walked toward him, hands shoved in my pockets. “Are we talking about the sculpture?” He watched me as I approached, but I didn't stop until our toes were almost touching.

“If we're talking about the sculpture, fine. I see desire and belonging and love without space.” I said the words like I was a guide at an art museum, putting emphasis on the word space. “What do I feel? Well, that's easy. I've been at work all day. I'm tired, Wilson. And I'm hungry. And I don't like Pamela. There. That's what I feel. How about you?”

Wilson looked at me like he wanted to shake me until my teeth rattled. Then he just shook his head and walked to the door. “I'm sorry I asked, Blue,” he sighed. He sounded weary and resigned, like one of those TV dads just trying to tolerate his teen-aged daughter. “Goodnight, Blue.”

I was too confused and befuddled to even respond. He walked out of my apartment without another word.

Chapter Twenty-Five