Fresh Tracks (19 page)

tracked down her cheeks. The sob that raced up from her chest nearly choked her.

"Molly, please hear me. Please see me." She looked around the room as if somebody there might help her, but nobody even knew she was present. She turned back to Molly and

looked at her. Just looked at her. "God, you're so pretty," she said. "You're so beautiful."

Molly's dark hair was loose and very wavy. She rarely let it air dry because she said the

waves annoyed her, but Kristin often begged her to let the waves come. She thought they

were sexy. Molly's sea green eyes were the definite focal point of her face, their color

startling amidst the dark hair and olive skin. Her eyebrows were dark and neatly shaped

and

her eyelashes were long and lush, like those of a teenaged boy. Straight friends were

always telling her they'd kill for eyelashes that thick. Her bottom lip was full and Kristin

had the sudden urge to kiss it, to suck it into her mouth, to nibble it with her teeth. She

couldn't recall the last time she'd felt such a primal, sexual pulse, and now she couldn't do a thing about it. It was torture.

"Molly, please." Her voice cracked and she dropped to her knees next to the chair, her face inches from Molly's. "We're a mess. I feel like I'm losing you and I don't know how to stop it from happening. Every day, I see you slipping further and further away from me and I

feel like I can't reach you. And even if I could, I wouldn't know how."

She stopped to catch her breath, willed herself to stop crying. It didn't work. The tears

continued to fall. The sobs were smaller, but still frequent. Kristin was losing control. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes for several seconds, then looked back at Molly

and continued to say whatever came into her head, unable to stop the flow of words.

"This is my fault, Molly. My fault. I know I work too much. I know I place too much

emphasis on my job. But I feel so stuck, so lost. I feel like I'm carrying so much weight and it's crushing me. Any minute, my legs are just going to give out and it's all going to flatten me forever."

She wiped angrily at the tears on her face. "You know what? I hate my job. I hate it. I

hate Jack Reeves and I hate most of my clients and I hate having to go in there every day.

I hate it, Mol. I want out. I need out, for my own sanity, and I don't know how to do it

without disappointing everybody. I don't want to disappoint you. I promised to take care of

you and I don't know how I can do that if I quit. I don't know what to do. I don't know

what to do." She looked up at the oblivious face of her partner, searching it for answers and knowing with sudden clarity that she didn't want to do anything without her. "I need your help, Molly. Please. Please help me."

The blinding pain came screaming out of nowhere and took her by surprise, closing on her

skull like a vise. Both hands flew to her head as she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched

her teeth. Then there was nothing but black.

LAURA

W

hen Laura and the terrier came in from their walk, the first thing Laura saw was Sophie

smiling at her from the dining room table. It was such a surprising change from the sour

expression Sophie usually shot her that she smiled back immediately. She unsnapped the

dog's leash and he skittered right to Sophie, putting his front paws up on her thigh.

"How was the walk?" Sophie asked as she stroked his wiry head.

"Nice." Laura shed her coat. "It's starting to snow again, but it's the pretty, fluffy stuff."

"I like that kind of snow."

"Me, too."

"How about some hot chocolate to warm you up? I just made myself a cup."

Laura grinned at the offer, touched. "That would be great." She stepped out of her boots and listened with a grin as Amy recounted a story about an obnoxious customer she'd dealt

with in the restaurant she owned. Exactly why I stay in the kitchen, she thought. She

noticed Molly sitting alone in the chair, staring out the window at the snow, and

remembered the scene between Darby and Kristin a little while earlier. She wondered what

had been said. It was obvious Darby was pushing Kristin's buttons, and Laura had cheered

internally when Jo had hauled her niece into another room for what she hoped had been

some sage advice. Darby was so young. She had some lessons to learn.

"You look puzzled." Sophie's voice broke her out of her reverie as Laura sat down at the table.

Taking the mug from Sophie's grasp, Laura laughed. "I was just thinking that I can barely remember my twenties."

Sophie chuckled. "It seems like forever ago, doesn't it?" She followed Laura's gaze across the room to where Darby sat on the floor. "She's pretty damn young."

"Has Kristin come back yet?"

"No." Sophie sipped from her mug. The terrier jumped at her until she allowed him up on her lap. He curled up in a ball. "This boy needs a name, you know."

"He's probably got one."

"Then he needs a new one because we can't just keep calling him Dog."

"I'll think about it." For several long minutes Laura lapsed into listening to the conversation taking place between the others, then she asked quietly, "Do you think they'l be okay?"

"Who?"

"Molly and Kristin."

Sophie set down her cocoa. "Yes," she responded with certainty. "I do."

Laura was surprised. "What makes you so sure?"

"They love each other."

"A lot of people love each other. It doesn't mean they stay together forever."

"True enough. How can I explain this?" Sophie chewed on the inside of her cheek as she searched for the right words. "Those two have had their problems since they've been here.

That's been obvious. But they've never once been mean to each other. They haven't

disrespected one another in front of us. I think that's really important, and two people

who love each other and want their relationship to work understand that."

Laura studied Sophie's face. Her coffee-colored skin was so smooth, Laura was surprised

to find herself wanting to reach out and stroke it, just run her fingertips across Sophie's

cheek. "That's an excellent point. You sound like you speak from experience."

"Respect is the most important ingredient in a relationship, aside from love, of course. I didn't have enough respect for Kelly," Sophie said wistfully. Then her face cracked into a wry grin. "Of course, she didn't have much for me either, so I guess we were pretty even."

"I think I was hit with some poetic justice myself," Laura said. "I obviously didn't respect Stephen enough, but Amanda didn't respect me. I think I may have gotten what I

deserved."

"What goes around comes around, huh?"

"Evidently."

"You should keep the dog," Sophie blurted suddenly.

Laura blinked at the abrupt change in subject. "What?"

"The dog." Sophie stroked the brown fur as the words left her in a rush. "I heard a guy in the grocery store when we went to town yesterday. His wife left him and left the dog

behind, but he hates the dog and locked him out of the house. He was a big, skeevy, gross

guy and he doesn't want the dog back. And if he had him back, I don't think he'd be nice to

him." She took a breath. "So you should just keep him. He likes you. And you're good to him. You should be together."

Laura stared at her with raised eyebrows, trying to absorb everything.

"I should have told you sooner. I'm sorry."

As if on cue, the dog lifted his head and looked at Laura, his brown eyes blinking at her

with watery sleepiness. "He looks like a Ricky to me," she said finally.

Sophie smothered a relieved smile and glanced down at him. "He does, doesn't he?"

"Maybe we'll try that on for size and see if he likes it."

They sipped their cocoa in companionable silence, glancing at one another and grinning.

Finally, Sophie spoke. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"It's kind of personal."

"I don't mind."

"How did it feel when Amanda called things off? I mean, how did you get over her?"

Laura spent a few seconds contemplating the most honest answer. "Well, first of all, I was completely shocked. Here I was, head over heels in love with this woman—my first woman,

mind you—and in the process of leaving my husband for her. Now, in her defense, she

didn't know I had told Stephen about us. She had no idea I was leaving him."

"Seriously?"

"I did it as a surprise for her." She snorted at the irony. "I thought of it as a gift. Little did I know that she had no intention of embarking on any sort of life with me. As far as she

was concerned, we'd just go on as we were forever...married to our husbands and sleeping

with each other on the side. She liked her life just the way it was."

"Damn. She sounds cold."

"I didn't used to think so. But you're right. She's very cold and I'm amazed that I fell as hard as I did for her." Laura glanced out the window at the falling snow. "God, she was gorgeous."

"Yeah?"

"Legs to die for." Laura didn't often allow herself to revel in the past, to reflect on how good it was with Amanda before it all came tumbling down. How many weekends had they

spent together in bed while their husbands were away on business, leaving the bedroom

only to grab some food so they'd have enough energy to have more sex? Laura had learned

more about her body from Amanda than from anybody else in the previous thirty-plus

years of her life. "So.. .back to your question. How did it feel? It felt.. .it felt like my world had been ripped out from under my feet while I stood there completely oblivious to what

was going on. It felt like one minute I had two people that I cared very much about and the

next minute, I had nobody. Nobody and nothing. I lost my house, my stability, my life. And

I blamed her. Wrongly, but I blamed her."

Sophie nodded. "It's a lot easier to blame the other one than to look in the mirror, isn't it?"

"Way easier." Laura watched Sophie, who studied the contents of her cup. Her face had visibly softened since their earlier conversation. It was pretty amazing. Sophie's

judgmental expression was gone, replaced by something different. Something gentler. Her

hair was loose, falling around her shoulders in a mass of corkscrew curls. She seemed a

little thinner than she should be, and Laura found herself wanting to cook for her, to

fatten her up a bit with gourmet meals served by candlelight.

She shook her head and chuckled internally at how strange life could be. When she had

arrived barely two days ago, she'd been quite solitary and perfectly okay with that fact.

She had a great duplex, a job she loved, and the hope that she wouldn't be lonely for the

rest of her life. Now it looked like she had a new dog and a woman who would be—at the

very least—a friend. More specifically, a friend who

understood what she'd been through over the past year. Laura couldn't remember the last

time she'd met somebody she felt connected to. Well, Amanda, of course, but that had

obviously been some sort of lapse in judgment on her part...

Amanda.

She had taught Laura all about the opposite extremes of feeling. Nobody had ever made

her feel so much love and then so much pain within the space of a few months. If she

hadn't been so damn beautiful," Laura would never have been so easily seduced. Would she?

It was a question she pondered often, knowing now that she must have been a target for

Amanda, a challenge. She could see Amanda's gorgeous face in her mind's eye, calculating

how long she thought it would take for her to convince the naive and married straight girl

to sleep with her. How many other women had she seduced in the same way? Had they all

thought Amanda was in love with them or had Laura been the only one to be that stupid?

Did she have another conquest already? These were the questions that plagued her and

probably always would.

The last day she saw Amanda was etched into her brain forever and no matter how hard

she tried to forget it, she could still remember every detail, every word, exactly what

Amanda was wearing and how she smelled and the precise second that she knew it was over.

They'd met in the parking lot where Laura worked. She'd told Amanda that she was leaving

Stephen, that she'd admitted their affair to him and had told him that she was in love with

Amanda and Amanda was in love with her.

Amanda had looked at her with wide-open, wild eyes. "You told him what?" Her voice had registered disbelief and something else... finality? Resignation?

"I told him we're in love." Laura was giddy. She'd never felt so free in her life.

Amanda was looking edibly sexy, as always, in her black slacks and royal blue silk blouse, the simple gold chain Laura had given her as a gift sparkling invitingly at the base of her

throat. She reached out to touch a strand of Amanda's silky, dark hair. She was wearing it

loose that day, down around her shoulders the way Laura loved it and Laura wanted nothing

more than to bury her face in it, soak in the scent of this magnificent creature. She

wanted to take Amanda to bed right then and there, to lose herself in Amanda's body, to

hear her begging

Laura for release. She'd been thinking about it all morning, hadn't been able to

concentrate on work at all, her hands trembling and her panties uncomfortably damp.

Amanda caught Laura's wrist before she could touch her, and pushed her away. "God damn

it, Laura." She said it quietly and then she turned and opened the car door. She dropped into the driver's seat with a weary sigh.

"What? Honey? What is it?" Laura was confused and an inexplicable panic had suddenly seeped into her system like dry ice as she watched Amanda's movements, felt her