Dreams for Stones Read online

  The remark was all the more startling, because Charles rarely mentioned Meg anymore.

  “I am out.” And he’d been enjoying himself, with the sun warming his bare arms and the beer cooling his throat.

  Until Charles reminded him Meg was gone.

  And everything went flat.

  Chapter Four

  Kathy’s heart was pounding with excitement by the time she reached the end of the Jetway at the San Francisco airport where Greg waited for her. Finally. They’d be able to talk about. . . everything. All the uncertainty, the discomfort, would go away. She knew it would. They just needed to be together. She and Greg. The man she loved. The man she was going to marry one year and ten months from today.

  “Kitten, it’s great to see you.”

  She dropped her carry-on and threw herself into his arms. He kissed her, then stepped back. Too soon for Kathy. It had, after all, been two long months since she’d last been kissed, or held.

  Still, they were in a public place. She took a steadying breath and squeezed his hands, enjoying the solidity of that touch after the weeks of disembodied phone and e-mail conversations.

  “Let me look at you,” he said. “You are so beautiful.”

  She’d missed that as well—Greg telling her she was beautiful. An exaggeration, but he always said it as if he believed it.

  He twined a lock of her hair around a large finger. “Your hair is the most amazing color. All copper, red, and gold.” His voice thickened and he pulled her close, then bent his head and kissed her again.

  She settled into the kiss. “You’re not bad, yourself,” she murmured against his lips. In his case, an understatement. He was take-your-breath-away gorgeous, and right now, smiling into his eyes, it was hard to recall why staying in Denver had ever seemed like a good idea.

  When they reached Greg’s apartment, he set her bag down inside the door and pulled her into his arms—the moment she’d been impatient for all the way from the airport.

  They kissed, undressing with clumsy haste, running their hands all over each other. Reconnecting after the long weeks apart.

  Afterward, Kathy sighed with happiness as she curled against Greg. He stroked her hip with a fingertip, the motion slowing as his breathing deepened and he drifted off to sleep. Kathy dozed as well, her excitement easing into satiety and peacefulness.

  When she awoke, Greg was still asleep. Knowing he slept whenever and wherever he could, she slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom to get dressed. Then, while she waited for Greg to wake up, she toured the apartment.

  She knew that Greg had taken over the lease along with the haphazard furnishings from the previous toxicology fellow. Those furnishings, a mix of obvious cast-offs, were, nonetheless, oddly charming.

  And she could easily make it more charming: some pillows, an afghan throw for the sofa, curtains.

  She wandered into the kitchen. Galley-size but adequate, with a small gas stove and an avocado-colored fridge. Greg’s additions were a microwave and coffee pot.

  Maybe the apartment’s owner would let her paint the cabinets. Currently they were a dirty beige, but painted white, with bright colored doors—red or green or. . .

  So. She was considering it, was she? Moving to San Francisco.

  She went back to the living room and sat on the sofa, curling her legs under her. From this angle, a slice of the Golden Gate Bridge was visible.

  She’d miss the mountains, of course, but this view might grow on her. Besides, it would be for only two—no less than two years now. A year and ten months. Actually, the move would take her at least a month. So, make that a year and nine months.

  She rolled the idea around like a toffee, tasting it.

  When Greg walked into the living room, yawning and rubbing his head, she was still staring out the window, trying to decide.

  “Hey, Kit. Deep thoughts?”

  She smiled at him. “Just resting. Flying always makes me tired. Must be all the energy I put into keeping the plane in the air.”

  “Nope, it’s the noise. Get yourself a pair of earplugs. Fix you right up.”

  She’d forgotten that—how often Greg took something she said in jest and treated it as if it were serious. Well, earplugs probably were a good idea.

  “If you’re hungry, we can walk over to Chinatown,” he said.

  “I’d like that. Besides, I can use the exercise.”

  “Hey, I thought we already took care of that.” He twitched his eyebrows in a fake leer, and laughing, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

  ~ ~ ~

  After dinner, as they opened their fortune cookies, Greg’s phone rang. He checked the number, frowning. “It’s the hospital, and after Walton promised no calls tonight.” He half turned away from her. “Yeah. What’s up?”

  Kathy unfolded her fortune: You will be lucky in love. She looked across at Greg, her heart lifting. She already was. Her decision to move to San Francisco solidified.

  While Greg talked on the phone, her attention drifted to a Chinese family seated nearby. The man and woman were helping their three young children to the dishes sitting on the lazy Susan in the middle of the table.

  The children, all boys, with solemn, dark eyes and quick, shy smiles, were neatly dressed. Children. Three was a perfect number. Two blonds and one redhead. Two boys and a girl, or two girls and a boy, Greg and herself. . .

  “I thought we agreed.” Greg’s voice dropped abruptly. A moment later he ended the conversation, closed the phone, and turned back to her.

  “Sorry, Kit. An acetaminophen overdose came in. Walton thinks I should see it. We’ll need to take a cab back so I can pick up the car.”

  She swallowed a spurt of irritation. Why didn’t people overdose between nine and five? They did, of course. It just seemed like more of them chose to do it at night. She sighed, letting the irritation go. She’d already learned it was a waste of time to get upset.

  ~ ~ ~

  Greg came in late, after Kathy was already asleep, but he got up with her the next morning and, after breakfast, drove her by the medical center and pointed out the emergency entrance. “I bet I can drive this route in my sleep. As a matter of fact, it’s highly probable I have.”

  “Aren’t we going in? I’d love to meet Walton.”

  “When we have a late case, he doesn’t come in until noon.”

  “We can stop by later, then.”

  “Sure.” Greg reached over to fiddle with the radio button, while Kathy tried to decide if he was twitchier than normal this morning. Or maybe it only seemed that way because she hadn’t been with him for a while. He never did sit still, incessantly jiggling a foot or tapping a finger. She’d found the only way to deal with it was to ignore it.

  “What do you want to do today?” he said.

  They decided on the Alcatraz tour, a visit to the Japanese Garden in Golden Gate Park, and a ride on a cable car. Greg said that would be more than enough.

  ~ ~ ~

  Kathy found Alcatraz haunting, but in the bright sun and brisk chop of the boat ride back to the mainland, her slight melancholy dissipated. And as it did, she realized San Francisco was beguiling her. Like Greg predicted it would in one of their first conversations after he moved. Guaranteed, Kit. Love at first sight. Just like us.

  A cool breeze brushed her cheek and made her shiver. Greg draped an arm on her shoulder, and she shrugged off her unease.

  After lunch, they wandered, sedate as fifty-year marrieds, through the Japanese Garden, then reverting to childhood, they raced each other across a stretch of grass. Greg built up a lead, then turned, caught her hands and swung her around and around in dizzying circles until they both collapsed to the ground laughing and exhilarated.

  In the late afternoon, they returned to the apartment and made love. Afterward, they caught a cable car to the waterfront for dinner.

  When they returned to the apartment, Kathy curled up on the couch with a book while Greg worked on a case presentation for the following week.
When his phone rang, he checked the number and, saying it was the hospital, went to the bedroom and closed the door. For the next twenty minutes, only the intermittent murmur of his voice was audible.

  When he came out, she looked up. “An emergency?”

  “Yeah.” His hair was standing up at odd angles as if he’d spent the entire call pulling on it.

  Noticing his strained tone, she set her book down. “You need to go in?” She wouldn’t even mind too much if he had to spend the night at the hospital after having him to herself all day.

  “Yes. . . no.”

  “You don’t have to go in?”

  “It wasn’t a case.” He sat in the chair next to the couch, rubbing his hands on his thighs.

  She sat up, put her feet on the floor and leaned toward him. “But it was a problem.”

  “Yeah. You could call it that.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  He closed his eyes, then opened them and turned away. “I need to tell you something.”

  His expression and the tone of his voice were scaring her. Her heart began thudding in a dull, heavy rhythm, and her stomach swooped as if she were in a free-falling elevator.

  “. . . didn’t plan it, Kit. Julie and me. We, well we just. . . clicked.”

  She shook her head. The words he’d spoken rattled around inside, like a handful of pebbles that needed to be sorted out and lined up before they made any sense.

  “I don’t understand.” Her mouth was almost too dry to form the words.

  He gave her an anguished glance and started wringing his hands. “I know. I know. I should have told you right away. No excuse. Stupid. Julie told me to.”

  The elevator jarred to a halt as the words made sudden, awful sense.

  No! You can’t possibly love someone else. We’re engaged. You’re marrying me!

  The words piled up, broke free. “Why didn’t you tell me not to come?” Not what she thought she was going to say. Surprising her even more was the calm, detached manner in which she’d said it.

  “I thought it would be easier. Better, if I told you in person.”

  “You slept with me. Twice!” Her control slipped as the words lurched from her mouth.

  He sat back abruptly, as if he’d been slapped.

  Now there was an idea. Although she didn’t believe in violence, right this minute, she understood why it happened—could almost feel the relief a hard physical connection between her hand and his face would bring. Except. She didn’t want to touch him. Ever again. Or let him touch her.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, holding on tight as he shifted around like a man with ants in his pants. Nasty, stinging, fire ants if the choice were up to her.

  “I still have. . . feelings for you.” He gave her a pleading look. “I wasn’t sure. It’s been confusing, you know?”

  No, she didn’t know.

  “I had to see if what we had. . . If it’s over.”

  “And is it?” She almost choked on the words, overwhelmed by the sudden, vivid memory of him swinging her around this afternoon, the two of them laughing with the joy of being together. Or so she’d thought.

  He nodded.

  She clamped her lips shut to keep the whimper clogging her throat from emerging. A sudden pain made her realize she was digging her fingernails into her arms. Fingernails she’d splurged to have manicured for this trip. Probably he hadn’t even noticed.

  She pushed back against the sofa cushions to get further away from him, fighting the temptation to leap up and rake her perfectly shaped nails across his beautiful, deceitful face. Carefully, she loosened her grip, slid her hands together in her lap, and took a breath. When she tried to speak, she found she had to stop to clear her throat. “I expect you’ll want your ring back.”

  “That’s okay. You can keep it.”

  And let him think he’d bought her off? Absolutely not. “Here. I obviously have no use for it anymore.” She slid the ring off and laid it on the end table next to him, then re-clenched her hands in her lap.

  She didn’t know how she was managing to sit on the couch as prim and composed as if she were at a tea party. Shock maybe. But whatever its cause, she was grateful for it. She would not break down in front of him.

  “Look, Kitten. I didn’t do it to—”

  “Don’t. Call. Me. Kitten.” The words ground out, surprising her as much as they seemed to surprise him. But, after all, she’d never used that tone with him before. Quite possibly she’d never used that tone with anyone before.

  “Sorry. Sorry.” He stood and backed carefully away from her, as if she were a rattlesnake coiled to strike. “I’ll get some things. Leave. You can stay here until you go back.”

  “Just a minute.” She unclenched her jaw, but kept her tone firm. “I’m not through here.”

  He froze.

  “I want to get this straight. You’re in love with another woman, but you still slept with me.”

  His eyes appeared glazed, and a feeling of power swept through her, momentarily pushing aside any possibility she might start crying.

  “Do you have any idea what that makes you?” She thought of all the names she could call him. Delicious, colorful, awful names. “You’re. . . despicable. Dishonest. And dishonorable.” Good strong spitting words, and she made the most of them.

  His body bowed slightly, as if he were folding in on himself.

  She eased her hands apart and took a breath, but she was finished. Less is more, she told herself. Too many words would dilute her contempt. Besides, if she kept talking, she might not be able to stop. Might start weeping. And she would not cry in front of him.

  After a stunned moment, he turned and escaped into the bedroom, and she took a deep breath and closed her eyes against the pain beginning to spread inside her head and chest. A few minutes more, Kathleen Hope Jamison. Two minutes, three at the most. Then you can fall apart.

  When Greg came out of the bedroom, he’d recovered his composure. “I’m really, really sorry about this.”

  As if that would erase what he’d done.

  “We can talk more if you want. Tomorrow. And here, this will help pay for your ticket. It’s all I’ve got on me.”

  Kathy stared in disbelief at the hand holding money out to her. When she didn’t move to take it, he set the clutch of bills on the table.

  For a moment their eyes met before his skittered away. He cleared his throat as if to say something more, then apparently thinking better of it, he picked up his bag and left.

  She sagged in relief, taking several deep breaths, then glanced at the table. The money was where he’d placed it, but the ring was gone. She stared at the empty place where the ring had been, realizing abruptly how disappointed she’d been with it. The large emerald-cut diamond had been all Greg’s choice. “Hey, Kit, what’s more debt?” he’d said, when she protested it made more sense to pick a less expensive ring. “Only a couple of years before we hit the big time. Besides, you’ll have it forever.”

  Right.

  So, why hadn’t she thrown it at him? It was the least she could have done, and probably what he expected her to do. But no. She’d let him off with words.

  He’d taken her future and, with one sharp twist, skewed it into an unknowable shape. Then he walked out. Going to. . . what did he say her name was, Jeannie, Jennie? No. Julie, that was it. No longer Kathy and Greg. Now it was Greg and Julie. Julie and Greg.

  And why wasn’t she crying? Or yelling? Or something?

  Instead she felt hollowed out, as if Greg had walked out taking with him not only a change of underwear but her emotions.

  After a time, she managed to stand, her movements labored and stiff, like someone bruised all over from a terrible fall.

  Falling in love.

  Right. More like floating in love. But this. . . this. . . Angrily she gave up trying to find the right word. This other thing that just happened. That was falling.

  She searched until she found a phone book, called C
ontinental Airlines, and reserved a seat on the six a.m. flight to Denver.

  One step at a time.

  That done, she went to the bedroom and, averting her eyes from the bed, re-packed before consulting the phone book a second time to call a cab. When it arrived, she left without looking back.

  Continental’s ticket counter was closed for the night, and only a few people were scattered around the terminal.

  A janitor pushed a mop to the rhythms of whatever played in his headphones, and a young man slept on the floor with his backpack under his head, both of them blissfully unaware of their surroundings.

  Envy of their oblivion flared, faded as she chose a seat away from everyone else.

  The unreality that had set in after Greg left the apartment lasted through the remainder of the night. She knew it would eventually desert her, but as long as it lasted, she accepted it with relief.

  In the morning, as the clerk did the ticket rewrite, Kathy handed over her credit card, letting herself neither think about the additional cost nor question her decision to leave Greg’s money, torn into hundreds of tiny pieces, on the table. Shredding it had been a totally mad, but completely satisfying thing to do.

  Still numb, she boarded the flight, but halfway back to Denver, the numbness wore off, and pain and anger surged through her in a huge, swamping wave.

  She bit her lip, hard, to stop a howl and pressed her forehead against the window. Tears ran into her fingers, as six miles below, the landscape crept past, mostly a lifeless brown but here and there marked with the gaping red wounds of canyons.

  Words. She’d let him off with words. Not enough. Never again would she not fight back when someone hurt her.

  By the time they landed in Denver, the tears had stopped, and she was relieved to discover she no longer felt like crying. Instead she was so exhausted, she could barely keep her eyes open.

  But maybe that was just because she’d forgotten the earplugs.

  ~ ~ ~