From Glowing Embers (23 page)

“In a wet year, we might get five inches of rain, so the houses aren’t damp. Dark? Well, I reckon it depends on how good the architect was and how many air shafts he sank.”

“Architect?” Gray asked.

“Anybody with paper, pencil and access to a tunneling machine is an architect in Coober Pedy.”

“There must be something to keep you there,” Paige said, pouring herself more brandy.

Dillon’s eyes lit up. He set his glass on the coffee table and leaned back against the sofa cushions. With lazy grace he unbuttoned the top two buttons of his sport shirt and reached inside, lifting out a thick gold chain. A huge, uncut opal winked at them, its flashing colors resplendent in the candlelight. “This is what keeps me there,” he said, swinging the pendant from side to side. “Rainbow Fire. That’s the name of my mine.”

Entranced, Paige held out her hand. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

Dillon moved closer so she could see it better. “I never take it off,” he apologized. “Opal miners are a superstitious lot.”

“Did you find it yourself?”

“My first strike. Sorry to say, this was the only really good piece I found. I made just enough off the rest to keep myself going. But someday there’ll be a better one.”

“How long have you been mining opals?” Gray asked.

“Three years. I’m an engineer by trade. I still do consulting. To support my habit,” he added with a grin. “That’s why I was in the States. I don’t need much, but I do like to eat now and then.”

“And you don’t get discouraged?” Paige fingered Dillon’s pendant once more, then let it drop. “Three years is a long time with only this to show for it.”

“The day I get back I could find half a million dollars waiting in the Rainbow Fire.”

“You’re a gambler,” Julianna said, admiring Dillon’s easy grin and relaxed demeanor. He was an interesting man, an extraordinarily attractive man whom she would like to have gotten to know better if their situation had been different. She had seen his eyes follow her often enough to know that the feeling was mutual. But even though Dillon might be a gambler, he wasn’t enough of one to try and stake a claim where there was no possibility of success. While her relationship with Gray was unresolved, she was obviously not in the market for a new man in her life. Instead, in their brief days together, Dillon had become a friend.

“A gambler,” Dillon acknowledged. “I think you might be one, too.”

Julianna was pleased he had seen that about her. “Professionally, yes. If I weren’t, I’d still be sewing muumuus in a back room instead of designing my own fashions.”

“How did you come so far so quickly?” Paige asked.

Julianna had been looking for hostility ever since her conversation with Paige that morning. She had detected none.

“I came to Honolulu when I was twenty and took a job sewing clothes for tourists at one of the factories. After a few months I began to think of ways to improve the things I was working on, but, of course, nobody was willing to listen to a twenty-year-old nobody with a G.E.D. and no fashion training. I started putting in a lot of overtime, and with the extra money I made, I bought fabric and began to sew some of my own designs.”

She didn’t talk about the nights when she had slept two hours at most, or the weekends when she hadn’t seen the sun come up or go down because she was a virtual prisoner of her sewing machine. The exhausting work had kept her mind off her loneliness. There had been no room in her life for midnight-hour despair.

“When I finally got a batch of clothes together, I started making the rounds of the hotel boutiques,” she continued. “The big markets were closed to me, but some of the smaller ones were interested in taking my things on consignment. I priced the clothes fairly, and they were snapped up.”

“A one-woman cottage industry,” Paige said.

“Before long, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to keep my job and still keep my own customers supplied, so I quit my job.” Julianna smiled. “That was an act of great faith, believe me. But pretty soon I was breaking even, and I was a lot happier sewing my own designs.”

As they talked, Gray tried to picture her slow climb up the ladder of success. It was strange that they could sit next to each other and casually discuss the years since she had disappeared from his life, almost as if they had happened to someone else. He visualized a young woman, alone, grief stricken, working to forget the events that had caused her so much pain. He knew there was a lot she wasn’t saying, and although he’d thought he wanted to know everything, he was glad.

“You were always so talented,” he said when she seemed to have finished. “It must have felt like a gift just to have the time you needed to do what you liked best.”

“I hadn’t even thought much beyond that point,” she said, pleased at his perception, “until one day I went to take some clothes to a shop on Waikiki. The owner gave me the card of a lady who had been asking about my product. I called her that night. Lehua owned a clothing factory, like the one I’d been working in, and she was interested in beginning a new designer line. She wanted me to be that designer.”

Julianna stared at her brandy and thought about those years, some of the happiest of her life. It would take all night to tell the whole story. There was no adequate way to put into words the gratitude she still felt to Lehua, who had shown her what success really meant. There was no way to explain the pride that Lehua’s recognition of her talent had instilled in her.

She condensed the next five years of her life in a few sentences. “Lehua essentially adopted me,” she said, swirling her snifter to watch the amber-colored whirlpool. “She was old and lonely; I was young and lonely. She died when I was twenty-five. By then I’d developed a clientele for myself, because even though I was designing for Lehua, the line carried my name. Lehua left the factory to me.” She looked up and smiled sadly. “I miss her.”

“That’s an amazing story.” Paige held out the brandy bottle to Julianna, who shook her head. “You’ve lived the American dream.”

As if to punctuate Paige’s sentence, a clap of thunder shook the house. Julianna got up and stood by the door to listen for Jody, but there was no sound from their bedroom.

“I envy you,” Paige continued as Julianna seated herself again, careful not to touch Gray.

“I find that surprising.”

“So do I, but it’s true. You can look at everything you’ve accomplished...” Her voice trailed off. For just a moment she seemed curiously vulnerable.

“You’ve accomplished a lot,” Gray reminded Paige. “You’re the vice president of a multimillion dollar development company.”

“A company my father owns,” she said dryly. “But thank you, Granger, for the kind thought.”

Julianna wondered if she had misinterpreted boredom as vulnerability. Either Paige was the most dispassionate woman she’d ever met, or one of the more emotional who had to sequester her feelings under lock and key to keep from being hurt.

“Your job must be interesting,” she said, probing. “A lot of traveling, a lot of contact with people.”

“One place is pretty much like the other, and underneath the exterior, all people are alike.”

“You’re too young to be so jaded,” Dillon told her. “And much too intelligent.”

“Not jaded, realistic.” Paige started to reach for the brandy bottle again, then seemed to think better of it. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Being rich and beautiful has its compensations. Right, Julianna?”

Julianna wanted to deny that she knew, but the truth stopped her. By Paige’s standards, she wasn’t rich, but her inheritance from Lehua and her personal success had ensured that she would never want for anything again. And enough men had told her she was beautiful that she wasn’t willing to dispute that.

“Maybe the difference between us is that I was neither for so long that I don’t take anything for granted.” She smiled at Paige, wanting a smile in return. “But we both know it’s not enough to make us happy. We have that much in common.”

Paige’s smile was touched with vulnerability again. “I’m not sure either of us knows how to recognize happiness.”

“And you, Gray. What’s your profession?” Dillon asked, obviously uncomfortable with all the undercurrents in the room.

“Architect. I specialize in restorations.”

“In Mississippi?”

“All over. My office is in Biloxi, and I do a fair amount of work along the Gulf coast. But I also have jobs as far away as California.”

Paige seemed to recover her equilibrium. “Granger’s one of the biggest names in his field. He’s won more awards than he has wall space to put them on.”

“That’s wonderful,” Julianna said, truly pleased for him.

“Nothing like a bottle of grog to loosen the tongue.” Dillon poured himself more brandy and held the bottle up for the others, before putting it back. “Or a storm we all want to forget.”

“Jody ought to be up to tell her story,” Paige said.

“I’m not sure Jody knows her story,” Gray said cryptically.

Julianna frowned. “What do you mean?”

Gray lifted his empty glass. “Nothing like a bottle of grog to loosen the tongue.”

“That’s not fair, Gray. If something’s wrong, I’d like to know what it is, in case she needs my help.”

Gray considered Julianna’s words. “I’d be happy to tell you, but knowing could cause you trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Trouble with the law.”

Julianna’s eyes widened. “You’d better clarify that before I start thinking the worst.”

Gray’s eyes swept the room. Dillon drained his glass and stood. “Early doors for me.”

Paige stood, too. “It’s been one of those days,” she said, motioning Gray back to his seat.

Julianna said good-night and watched them go.

“Do they know something I don’t?” she asked when the room was empty except for herself and Gray.

“Only when to leave well enough alone.”

“I care about Jody.” And about you, she almost added, but didn’t.

“I’m kidnapping Jody.” He waited for her protest, but her eyes only widened.

“Why?”

“Are you sure you want to hear this?”

She nodded, watching as he leaned back as if to make himself comfortable.

“Jody’s mother is a friend...” He hesitated, “...of a friend of mine,” he finished.

“You’re leaving something out.”

“Only names you don’t need to know. You might recognize them.”

She contemplated that, then nodded again. “Go on.”

“Our mutual friend came to me one day and asked for help. It seems that Jody’s mother needed to get Jody out of the country. I don’t know all the details, but I learned enough to convince me to help. So, posing as a family friend, I picked Jody up from school and brought her here with me. Her mother was supposed to fly a different route, through Canada, and meet us at the Honolulu airport, but you know how that turned out.”

“You could be in serious trouble.”

“Maybe.”

“Why maybe? Won’t somebody notice she’s missing?”

“Alexis, Jody’s mother, is divorced, but she has custody of Jody. Her ex-husband doesn’t even have visitation rights. Alexis notified the school that Jody would be absent for a week.”

“If she has custody, what’s the problem? Why didn’t she pick Jody up herself?”

“Alexis is watched all the time. Jody’s watched, too, but with some maneuvering, I was able to get her away undetected.”

“Watched? By whom?” Julianna leaned forward, forgetting that she was already too close to him.

“Jody’s father and the people he hires to harass Alexis.”

She was silent, searching his eyes. “How dangerous is this man?” she asked finally.

He shrugged, as if it were of no consequence.

“Gray, what have you gotten yourself into?”

“Are you worried?”

She realized she should deny it. She couldn’t, however. It was only too true.

She touched his arm. “Could you be in danger?”

“Alexis and Jody are in danger.” The unspoken corollary was that if he was also in danger, it didn’t matter.

“Why did you help? You didn’t even know them.”

“I helped because they needed help.” He hesitated. “And when I heard about Jody, I thought of Ellie and how little I’d been able to help her,” he finished.

How many other things had Gray done for Ellie’s sake? How many times had he paid penance for something that wasn’t his fault?

She forced herself to speak. “Will Jody be all right?”

“Jody doesn’t know what’s happening. She thinks she’s going on a vacation. But Alexis is taking her to Australia to live. She thinks her ex-husband will lose interest once they’re out of sight. She’s found a place there, on a remote island.”

“That poor woman.”

Gray shrugged. “People do what they have to do. You know that better than anyone.”

She was beginning to wonder if that was true. Now she knew she wasn’t the only one who’d had to find ways to make it through each day. She looked down at her hand and realized it was still on Gray’s arm. She moved it to the back of the love seat, asking her next question against her own better judgment.

“And what do you do to survive?”

He shrugged. “I work hard. I try not to think about the things I can’t change.”

“But you do think about them, don’t you?”

“We both do.”

“Maybe there’s really very little we can’t change.”

Gray cocked one brow in question, and Julianna went on before she lost her nerve. “I don’t mean we can change everything that happened, but we can change the way we think about it.”

“Philosophy, Julianna?”

“Not philosophy. Apology.” She met his eyes squarely. “I’ve wronged you. I know it now, and in the next few weeks, when this all begins to come together in my head, I’m afraid I’m going to know it even more. All these years...” She took a deep breath to keep her voice steady. “All these years I blamed you for everything that happened. But you were caught up in circumstances as thoroughly as I was.”

“Then you forgive me?”

“I’m no longer sure there’s anything to forgive.”

He moved his hand across the back of the love seat to cover hers. “Did I do the right thing by finding you?”

Julianna knew instinctively that Gray had grown into a man of few insecurities. She also knew he was allowing her to see this part of himself because it was important for both of them. She turned her hand up and threaded her fingers between his. Entwined, their hands fit together as if they’d been made for this intimacy.