Indelible (15 page)

She laughed, pyrotechnics behind the bar being part of the draw. “If it’s fire you want …” She motioned him in, but headed through the house, grabbing a big, down-filled throw off the couch. “Wrap this around you.”

He wrinkled his brow, perplexed.

“I don’t have a coat that’ll fit.” She pulled on her own, and pushed open the back door to her small flagstone patio and an abundance of stars.

He cocked his head in the doorway. “You have a thing for the dark?”

“It’s not dark.” The gibbous moon made a lopsided spotlight that revealed shrubbery and a low fence. She crossed the flagstone to the covered wrought-iron fire pit, a serendipitous castoff from the previous owners.

He pulled the comforter around his shoulders. “So.” He cleared his throat. “You heard, last night—what Sara said?”

Using a lighter on the tinder in the fire pit, she got a flame going all around. “She’s not subtle.”

“But she’s wrong. I’m not leading you on. I’d have cleared that up right away, but then that mail …”

“It’s okay.” She added fresh fuel as the fire demanded.

“I’m honest with people I date. They know that’s all it is.”

With tongs she closed the diamond mesh door. “Good thing we’re not dating.”

“What do you mean?”

She straightened. “All it is? You have to know when you spend time with someone in the cultural method of choosing mates, certain expectations will develop.” A glimpse of his face showed amusement. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“What’s funny?”

“I just—you don’t usually flash your smarts.”

Heat found her face. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

He raised his hands. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m not threatened by intelligence. I worship from afar.”

“You’re just a dumb jock?”

“I’m smart enough, but my diploma’s from the school of hard knocks.”

“Hard knocks and celebrity.” She laid the poker on the ground. “Want to sit?”

“Will it be culturally misunderstood?”

“That depends on your intentions.”

“They’re a little confused right now.”

“Confused is okay.” She settled onto the wrought-iron love seat, near enough to the fire for the pine-scented smoke to sting her eyes and the flames to flood her with golden warmth. “You’re making it too hard.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” He sat down beside her.

“Forget dating. This is better.”

“What’s this?”

“Being.”

His fire-gilded features revealed another pull of amusement. “Maybe that’s it,” he said, half to himself.

They sat in the quiet crackling of the fire, the night stars flickering in the smoke. Aspen leaves whispered in the language of their pivotal stems. He reached over and twined her fingers with his, resting their hands on his thigh. “Do you mind?”

“No.” Her heart skipped.

“I don’t know what it means culturally, but I’m different with you.”

“That’s what Sara saw.”

“I guess.” He frowned at the flames. “And I guess it matters, although it shouldn’t. She loves Whit.”

“It’s not that simple, though, is it?”

“Apparently not. I told them to take off for a while. Go be together with Braden.”

She nodded. “That’s good.”

His chin brushed the top of her head. “You smell nice.”

“I don’t know how you can tell over the smoke.”

“I have a finely tuned olfactory system, but I don’t recognize the fragrance.”

“It’s an essential oil from a shop in town. Tia Westfall makes the scents.”

“Tia.” He smiled.

“That’s right, you know her from search and rescue. She used to have a candle store. Now she’s a counselor.”

“I heard.”

“You should ask her what kind of person would send those photos.”

He tensed. “She’s no profiler.”

“No, but she and the chief dealt with a bizarre situation last fall. Fleur’s roommate told me.”

He brought his heel up against the edge of the seat. “I have my brother working on it.”

“The cop?”

“He has a contact with the FBI.”

“I guess that covers it.” She shuddered, thinking once more of that little child.

“Cold?”

She shook her head. “But I can put more wood on the fire.”

“No.” Adjusting the comforter, he slid his arm over her shoulders. “That’s better.”

Calming her quickened breath, she said, “What are you doing?”

He tipped his face to the stars. “Being.”

Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

S
centing the coming storm, he sat, hooded, his visage shadowed as people passed, thinking him unfortunate, unwashed, reviled. None saw the power he held in check, the will that stayed his hand. No harm came through him, but through their carelessness.

Thunder rumbled. The setting for Act Four, but where was the subject? Still far, lightning flashed. It seemed God himself would play a part.

The park was beginning to clear. He slid his hand beneath the cloak, pulled out the quivering rabbit and stroked between its ears. The pet had come with him from the home he slept in, its food running low and water dry. Perhaps someone had been asked to feed it in their absence, but the care was insufficient, callous.

He stroked and smoothed the fur, waiting until the sight of it drew them, all wanting to touch, to hold, to manhandle the quaking creature. Only one held back, scratch marks on thin, sweaty arms. A lip chewed raw.

Misfortune had a scent. Its memory filled his nostrils. Casting his eyes to the bulbous water tower, he decided. Into those hands he placed the bunny. “Come.”

Ten

N
atalie screamed as the cougar charged, its bloody maw flashing saber teeth, leaping, snatching Cody, his eyes drenched in terror as the crowd snapped pictures. Somewhere a carnival barker called out,
“Come one, come all.”
The scent of popcorn cloyed.

She shoved against the bodies. “Cody!” She clawed and pounded as they pushed closer and tighter, reveling. “Trevor!” He wasn’t there. She had to save her nephew, but her feet were frozen and her eyes filled with other people’s faces.

Heart hammering, she jolted awake in the darkness, sucking deep, hard breaths. “Cody.” Her voice rasped. Why hadn’t she dreamed the rescue, Trevor’s strong back and powerful legs as he hurtled down the slope? Even terrified out there, some part of her had known he’d succeed. But this.

Her hands felt clammy where they gripped her arms. The ghoulish glee in the faces, the cameras flashing—the horrible reality of Trevor’s mail sank in. A cold sweat soaked into her shirt, fear and sorrow, but not … not for Cody.

She closed her eyes and groaned.
Whatever it is, whoever’s in need, please send an angel
.

Holding her telescoped pole beneath her arm, Fleur walked beside Natalie in their neighborhood of small, older houses. Sometimes they talked about art and life, but today she tipped her face up and said, “Tell me what I’m missing.”

“Well.” Natalie drew a deep breath. “In the valley, there’s a pearly gray bank of clouds, all lit up with opalescent lavender, and above that a vast cerulean dome.”

The sky came alive in her memory.

“The mountain cuts a dark, teal swath across the firs to the sun line, where they burst goldy moss—except for the beetle rust patches. The aspen are still kelly green but tingeing yellow up the slopes, their trunks stark white in the morning light with their black bands like staring eyes.”

“You could be a poet.”

Natalie laughed. “Just saying what I see.”

Fleur cocked her ear. “I hear something on the right.”

“The neighbor’s old gray tom. His bent tail looks like a periscope above the ferns he’s slinking through. The brown-tinged fronds are spoiling his stealth, though he’s pretending not to notice.”

“Do you read cats’ faces too?”

Her friend laughed. “If one would look at me long enough. The house on the corner, with the green shutters and tan siding is for rent. Looks like they’ve already moved out. The lawn is going to sandy gray hay.”

A bird sang, and Fleur said, “Tufted titmouse. In the old oak.”

“Show-off.” Natalie elbowed her. “What do you need me for?”

So much more than she knew.

Fleur recognized the wheezing battle a canine waged against his leash as William Farris approached with his indomitable pug. Reaching down, she waited for the imperious nose to butt her fingers, then petted the spongy head. The animal smelled of the canned sardines his master let him dance for.

Circling toward town, Fleur felt more grounded, once again part of the world that had been turned off for her. But after a while she realized they’d fallen silent. “Natalie?”

“Sorry, I was. Do you think dreams mean something?”

“Dreams like hopes, or sleeping ones?”

“I had a nightmare last night, and I can’t shake the bad feeling.”

Fleur paused. “Being without one sense has strengthened my other four. But I’m not sure they’re all we have. Maybe God’s talking to you.”

“It was Cody, and the cougar, of course. But when I woke it felt like someone else, someone I couldn’t see, couldn’t reach.”

“Someone specific?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed again. “I wish I could shake the foreboding.”

“I dreamed once that I was in a lake, sinking, sinking through the blue, blue water.”

“Were you terrified?”

“Not in the dream. But when I woke, I was too afraid to leave the house. So I took out paints I hadn’t used for years and painted my studies in blue.”

Natalie’s voice thickened. “Sometimes it shocks me how alike we are.”

“You sculpt what you can’t stop seeing; I paint what I long to see.”

Their hands came together in a tight clasp.

“I’m so happy to know you, Natalie.”

Her voice thickened. “I’ve waited a long time for you.”

Before she’d finished basking, Natalie looked up and saw Trevor, holding the bakery door. Unfiltered sunlight gilded his shaggy lashes, cutting sharp shadows around his nose, lips, and chin—and now that image blocked the upper-left quadrant of her vision. She didn’t care. The day that started in nightmare sweat had surely come full circle.

“Ladies.” He waved them in, clueing Fleur to his presence if not his identity. They’d talked about him, but as far as she knew, Fleur had never spoken to him.

“Fleur, this is Trevor, the one who rescued Cody.”

“Oh.” Fleur turned, uncannily aware of where he stood. “You have my
Musings in Blue.
”

“I love it.”

Natalie felt his hand on her back as she passed through the door, a brief, intentional gesture.

“Good morning!” Piper’s greeting drew them to the counter. “I have your order ready, Trevor.”

“Great. We’ll grab breakfast first. My treat, Natalie, Fleur.”

Fleur looked surprised, but she would see how he worked.

With a little shrug, she said, “I’m splurging on maple huckleberry coffeecake.”

“It’s the best thing I make.” Piper slid the platter from the case to the counter. “Miles found a source for wild huckleberries that are so much
nicer than blueberries. Look how they burst and bleed this beautiful deep violet. Sweet, tart, and flowery. And the crystallized maple sugar? Yum.”