Where Dreams Begin (7 page)

Because Catherine Brooks appeared to go out of her way to annoy him, Luke half expected her to come in on Friday. Then when she failed to arrive, he was disgusted with himself for missing her.

Beverly Snodgrass worked in the office in the late afternoon, but he was immune to her seductive smiles and offered no more than a hurried hello. He liked to wrap up the week’s work and leave his desk clean for Monday morning, but that evening he sharpened pencils and cleaned out drawers until Pam assured him Beverly had gone home.

For a grown man to hide from a woman was absurd, but when he’d taken over as the director of Lost Angel, he’d quickly learned a closed door was the most effective way to discourage a woman’s interest without giving offense.

A married couple supervised Lost Angel on the weekends when the center offered prepackaged meals, and hot showers, but no counseling or job placement services. Dave Curtis was always there to handle any unforeseen emergencies, but as usual, Luke had to push himself to plan for the weekend.

He often went on long, strenuous hikes with the Sierra Club. Their members included a great many beautiful women with long, tanned legs, but the rambunctious outdoorsy type simply didn’t appeal to him. He’d built houses with Habitat for Humanity, which was exhausting as well as rewarding. On other weekends, he’d driven up to Santa Barbara or down to San Diego simply for a change of scene.

He’d been numb for so long, it didn’t really matter how he spent his free time, but that Friday night as he left the office, he felt lonely and wished for a noisy crowd. It might be a good weekend to catch up on laundry and new movies, but rather than action adventure films where he could drown in explosive sound, he thought he might seek out a couple of comedies. It amused him to think how much he might actually enjoy a good laugh, and he hummed to himself as he drove away.

Saturday afternoon, Joyce Quincy again joined Catherine out on her patio. “You have everything looking so pretty. Not that it didn’t when I was here last week, but I love pansies’ sweet little faces, and they always make me smile.”

Catherine propped her feet on the adjacent chair, but she was so restless it was an effort to appear relaxed. She would have welcomed Smoky’s calming presence, but he was napping in the sun and apparently too content to move to her lap.

“Thank you, but I still need to make a planting schedule rather than let everything slide again.”

“The yard had scarcely slid into ruin,” Joyce teased. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but did you actually volunteer at Lost Angel?”

“Yes, I was there twice, in fact,” Catherine replied, but she thought better of mentioning a meeting with two eyewitnesses to murder, or the maddeningly perverse Luke Starns. “I was given paperwork to sort, which wasn’t at all exciting. Now, tell me what’s happening with you.”

Joyce shrugged, then toyed with her bangle bracelets. “Nothing spectacular, either, I’m afraid. I’ve been redecorating an attorney’s office in Encino. Unfortunately, his tastes were so conservative that I was limited to forest greens and dark leather, but he was enormously pleased with my work, and there are sure to be several nice referrals.”

Catherine knew Joyce too well to overlook her preoccupied frown. “There must be more to the story,” she prompted.

Joyce paused to take a deep breath, and her glance again swept the colorful array of pansies bordering the lawn. “The office is in an impressive new building, and I’d hoped to meet a younger attorney, or perhaps a physician, at any rate, someone substantial. Then yesterday, as I was hanging the last of the paintings in the attorney’s office, in comes this gorgeous young man with a cart loaded with plants. He explained he had the contract for the building and was delivering the plants to improve the office’s feng shui.”

Catherine ran her fingers through her hair to catch the sun’s warmth and smiled. “Feng shui is popular, and I happen to agree that surrounding ourselves with beautiful living things does promote serenity.”

“You didn’t see the guy.” Joyce fanned her face with her hand. “He had the most beautiful blue eyes and dark, curly hair. He also had a tight, toned body like the men on the UPS calendar. I didn’t hear half of what he said about feng shui. Fortunately, we agreed on the placement of the plants.”

“Which were?”

“A ficus tree, a philodendron, something else I didn’t recognize. They were all big, healthy plants, so he must be a hell of a gardener.”

She pulled his card from her blouse pocket and handed it to Catherine. “A nurseryman, he called himself.”

“Shane Shephard. What a nice name,” Catherine responded.

“Everything about him was nice,” Joyce replied. “He probably has a kid brother named Sean and a sister Sharon.”

Catherine noted the address on his card. “Oxnard is a prime agricultural region. I visited an orchid grower’s greenhouse there once. But clearly your interest wasn’t in horticulture.”

“Damn right, but I doubt Shane was more than thirty.”

“Would a thirty-seven-year-old man balk at dating a thirty-year-old woman?” Catherine asked pointedly.

“Never, but I can’t see myself living in the back of a greenhouse in Oxnard with a nurseryman. I’d probably get a striped tan from the building’s little slats.”

It was an image that made Catherine laugh. “Oxnard is on the coast, and it has a beautiful marina.” She was delighted Joyce had been so captivated by Shane Shephard that she hadn’t pried into her work at Lost Angel. A scrub jay swooped down to sit on the back wall, and she made a mental note to purchase a new bird feeder.

“Oh, like a nurseryman would own a yacht,” Joyce scoffed.

“Stop making excuses. Did he ask you out?”

Joyce brushed a crumb from her blouse and waved her beautifully manicured nails. “Just for coffee, but I told him I was late for an appointment.”

“Which you now regret?”

Joyce shook her head. “Regret is too strong a word, but I’m definitely ambivalent.”

“I can appreciate ambivalence,” Catherine mused quietly without confiding her own dilemma. She handed over Shane’s card. “Why not call him?”

Joyce slid the card back into her pocket and gave it a light pat. “I’d be too embarrassed to make any sense.”

Catherine shot her a skeptical glance. “Your field is interior design. Tell him you need a variety of plants for a new job.”

Joyce took a moment to consider the suggestion. “While it’s not very original, I suppose it would work. But still, he’s too young and scarcely what I’d call substantial.”

“So what? You can provide for yourself, and he might surprise you,” Catherine chided.

“Oh, I’m surprised all the time, but it’s never good.” Joyce sat back in her chair, but she gripped the arms tightly. “Here I am trying to avoid trouble, like Shane Shephard surely is, and you’re out looking for it at Lost Angel. One of us has to be misguided.”

Catherine considered Joyce a dear friend. She’d been there for her when Sam had died, even slept at her house that first terrible week so she wouldn’t have to wake up alone. But there were times, like today, when Catherine wondered if the only thing they truly had in common was an address on the same street.

“Please don’t misunderstand me,” Catherine warned softly. “I had such a marvelous life with Sam, but now I need to do something that matters on my own. Lost Angel provides that opportunity.”

Joyce rose and stretched her arms above her head. “Well, what I need is a man who’ll take care of me because I’m sick to death of making ends meet on my own. Why don’t we go into Pasadena’s Old Town tonight? It’ll be noisy and crowded, but it sure beats staying home alone. We can just walk around, eat at one of the new restaurants, maybe go to a movie.”

Catherine stood to walk her friend to the side gate. She actually enjoyed being home alone, but her nights were simply a comfortable blur. Perhaps it was time to make some changes in her weekends.

“I remember a place filled with scented candles. Could we go by there?” she asked.

“Of course,” Joyce exclaimed. “I didn’t mean we wouldn’t shop. Walk up to my house at seven and I’ll drive.”

“I’ll see you later,” Catherine promised, but as she bathed and dressed that night, she wondered if Luke Starns ever dated any of Lost Angel’s volunteers. If so, she sure hoped Beverly Snodgrass wasn’t among them.

Monday morning, Luke was back at his desk to tackle a fresh batch of grant applications. At noon, he left his office and purposely ignored the giant calendar where volunteers penciled in their time. While he’d struggled all weekend to suppress thoughts of Catherine Brooks, he’d eventually come to the depressing conclusion that she would probably not be coming back. He just didn’t want to verify the fact by searching for her name.

None of their conversations had gone well, and even worse, he’d begun to suspect he might be to blame for discouraging some of the other sophisticated women who’d failed to honor their initial commitment to Lost Angel. It was an uncomfortable supposition, and he did his best to shake it off as he crossed the courtyard and joined the lunch line in the hall.

He ate with the kids several times a week. Mabel usually served spaghetti with a fresh green salad and garlic bread on Monday, and it was one of his favorite meals. As he approached the counter, he joked easily with the kids in line, and then Catherine Brooks handed him a plate and, shocked, he nearly dropped it.

“Mrs. Brooks? I had no idea you possessed any culinary skills,” he exclaimed in surprise. With a bright yellow oilcloth apron over a pale green shirt and matching jeans, he thought she looked not merely efficient, but awfully cute as well.

“I can dice fresh vegetables with the best of them,” Catherine responded playfully. “Apparently I failed to check that box on my application. Would you please add it for me?”

“Be glad to,” Luke replied. Rather than slow the line any further, he hurried away, but as soon as he’d taken a chair at the nearest long table, Nick Bohler dropped down beside him.

“Man, she was flirting with you!” Nick exclaimed. “What’ll you do if her husband shows up here looking for you?”

Luke feigned a rapt interest in his spaghetti and twirled it around his fork. “She’s a widow, so there’s no danger of that.”

Nick snorted. “Then you’re in more danger than you think. Want to talk about it this afternoon in our group?”

Luke readily grasped Nick’s warning, but laughed it off. “No thanks. How’s the job search going?”

“Please,” Nick groaned, “I’m trying to eat. Everything is especially tasty today, isn’t it? Must be the new cook.”

Luke could barely contain his smile. “Yeah, I’m sure it is.”

Upon her arrival that morning, Catherine had been asked to take the place of a loyal kitchen volunteer who’d called in sick. So it wasn’t until after everyone had eaten and the kitchen had been thoroughly cleaned that she went out to her car to bring in books. She’d stopped by Target to buy two sturdy folding bookshelves, and she asked Rafael and Max, a couple of brawny boys, to carry them inside.

“I sorted my books into categories,” she explained, “but it looks as though what you have here was simply shoved onto the shelves wherever the books would fit.”

Rafael was a Latino who had bleached his jet black hair to a pale orange and wore it teased into spikes. “What’s the use of sorting them when most of the kids who borrow them don’t bring them back?”

“As long as they’re read and passed along, I doubt it matters if they aren’t returned,” Catherine argued. “They can be replaced easily enough.”

“Yeah, like everybody here can read,” Rafael muttered under his breath.

“Cut it out,” Max emphasized with a shove. “She’s trying to do something good here.”

“You go on and help her spread sunshine. I’ll be outside.” Rafael slung his backpack over his shoulder and left Max to deal with the books.

“He’s just being a jerk,” Max complained. “He only reads comics.”

After lunch, the crowd in the hall had thinned, but Nick ambled up to join them, followed by Polly, again wearing her purple high-tops and a print dress. “Need some help?” Nick asked.

Catherine hoped that if she stepped out of the way, they would take the initiative and organize the center’s small library. “I brought some new shelves,” she said, “but I’m not sure how best to go about using them.”

“Why don’t we take all the books off the old shelves and make sections for science fiction, true crime and chicks’ books,” Nick suggested.

“I like science fiction, and I’m a chick,” Polly announced proudly.

“Whatever.” Max sighed, but he began removing the books from the shelves and scattering them into piles on the floor.

Luke walked up behind Catherine so quietly that she jumped when he spoke her name. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Where did you get the new bookcases?”

“Target. They’re inexpensive and sturdy, and there wasn’t room on the old shelves for the books I brought in.”

“Get a form from Pam so you can list the donation on your taxes.”

“Thank you, I will.” Catherine folded her arms across her waist and watched Max, Nick and Polly sort the books into several categories she would never have even considered.

Luke turned his back toward the teens. “It’s clever of you to get them to do the work,” he whispered.

“It’s a technique I found useful as a teacher,” Catherine confided softly. “If an adult appears perplexed by a problem, kids will leap in to solve it. Besides, they’re the ones who’ll be using the books, so they ought to put them where they can find them.”

Luke’s voice was still low, but his meaning clear. “I won’t argue with your strategy, but in the future, make sure you have my approval before you purchase anything for use here at Lost Angel.”

Catherine had expected him to thank her for not only keeping her promise about the books, but for providing additional shelves. It would have been the courteous thing to do, but clearly he preferred protocol to manners. She dropped her hands to her sides and turned to face him squarely.

“As I’m sure you’ll recall, I received your approval to donate books last Thursday. They couldn’t be left on the floor.” Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Max, Nick and Polly pretending to sort books while they strained to listen.