A Small-Town Reunion (13 page)

T
ESS COLLECTED
R
OSIE
shortly after four for a dentist appointment, and Dev doubled his efforts to catch up with Addie’s other students. But as the rest of the class stretched lengths of lead—lining up those molecules—and nipped neat bits of the stuff to begin assembling their pictures on their layout boards, he fell further behind.

Dev tried, again, to slip the orange piece into place. It didn’t fit. In fact, it knocked the entire top half out of whack.

Damn.

“I think I’m going to call it a day.” Virgil stood with a grunt and stretched. “I have to run a couple of errands before I head home.”

Addie suggested he hammer another nail in place to hold one section of his picture more securely and then gave his shoulder a friendly pat. “You’ve got quite a knack for this,” she said.

“I think so, too. I certainly do enjoy it.” He pulled on his jacket and lifted a hand in farewell. “See you all again in a couple of days.”

Addie strolled to the door with her star pupil, chatting about Thursday’s class plans. Dev picked up the orange half circle and trudged back to the grinder
bench. He flipped the switch on one of the machines, holding his jaw rigid at the nagging whine as he ran the protruding edge against the bit. Again.

When he returned to the worktable, he found Teddi admiring her work, “Isn’t this fun?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting to see how this is going to look when it’s finished.”

“Let me see.” Barb stood and peered across the table. “Oh, that’s beautiful. How’s yours coming, Dev?”

“It’s getting there.” He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the kink in his neck.

For the hundredth time, he lifted a curving piece to check his work against the light, but he could still see a sliver of green over the edge of the paper. While Barb and Teddi packed their supplies and headed out the door, he stalked back to the grinder to remove another miniscule slice of green. The soaked pattern piece slipped from the glass. Again. “Damn,” he muttered.

“Need some help, Dev?” Addie asked.

“No.”
I can make a complete mess of this all on my own
. “Thanks.”

He blotted the excess water from his work, feeling marginally better when he saw that the green had disappeared for good. And then he turned and saw Addie frowning at his project.

Uh-oh.

He braced for bad news and made his way back to his seat. “What is it?”

She poked at the pale blue glass near the top of his design. “See how this little bump on the orange piece is making these others shift to the right? I think if you
trim off just a bit here…” She grabbed his red pen and marked a tiny arc. “Just along this spot. Remember, don’t take off too much—”

“Because I can always take off more the next time,” he said, forcing himself to smile.

Great. Another problem piece. And only eleven more of them to finish. He headed back to the grinder.

He wished he hadn’t let Rosie choose this pattern. He wished he hadn’t noticed that flyer advertising this class. He wished he hadn’t returned to Carnelian Cove.

But then he wouldn’t be standing here in Addie’s shop. He wouldn’t have been here to watch her interact with her customers, and he wouldn’t have taken a closer look at her art.

He wouldn’t have reconnected with one of the best pieces of his past.

He heard Addie’s soft, tuneless humming, he glanced over his shoulder to find her sweeping the work area. Outside, early evening lengthened the shadows along Cove Street. Two young mothers pushed strollers past the window, laughing at a shared comment. A yellow balloon tethered to a stroller handle bobbed in the breeze, and a swooping gull dodged out of its way.

Good to know someone was enjoying a nice summer evening.

He dragged his stool closer to the table and dropped onto the seat. “Sorry it’s taking me so long. I don’t have to stay.”

“Take as long as you need to. Art doesn’t happen according to schedule.” She cast a shy glance in his direction as she wiped the counter near her work sink. “When you’re writing, do you take exactly the same amount of time to finish each page?”

“Good point.”

“I’ll be back in a minute.” She opened the elaborately leaded glass door at the rear of the shop and stepped into her apartment, closing the door behind her. A few seconds later an overhead fixture switched on, casting a weak band of light over her indistinct form as she moved toward the rear wall and disappeared from view.

Through the lace curtains, Dev thought he could make out a table and chairs. And was that a cabinet hanging from one of the side walls? A sofa against another?

He wondered if she grew bored with her small world, if she tired of living a few steps from the place where she worked all day. There were shops crowding both sides of hers; her only other view must be of the alley in the rear. There was no assistant to cover for her coffee breaks, no coworker to chat with during the slow times.

The light inside her apartment switched off, and he redirected his gaze to his work as she returned to her shop. He carefully pushed the orange half circle into place, pleased to see it line up neatly with the pieces around it. Next he tried shifting the bottom half of the pattern into place. Still no good.

His stomach rumbled, and he realized he’d never had a chance to grab that quick lunch he’d planned after the meeting with Harve. He’d soon be running on empty—yet more trouble. “Addie?”

She moved to stand beside him. “Let’s see what’s going on here.”

A bandage flexed beneath one of her knuckles as she slowly, carefully pressed and prodded the glass into
position. The pale, fading nicks of healing cuts and the random scars of old burns formed a tiny network of jarring contrasts against such delicate, fragile skin. He silently promised them both he’d kiss every one of those marks and make them better.

“Here’s the problem,” she said. “It’s this green piece. See how everything seems to catch on this one corner?”

“Why can’t I see that for myself?”

“Practice.” She straightened, set her hands at her waist and arched back a little, stretching her spine. Stretching her T-shirt across her breasts. Testing the restraint of a starving, desperate man. “Believe me,” she said, “I’ve spent many long hours maneuvering hundreds of pieces into place in big, complicated patterns.”

“I don’t want to think about it.” He didn’t want to think about her breasts, either. He picked up the offending slice of glass and trudged back to the grinder.

“Do you mind if I turn on some music?” she asked.

“As long as it isn’t Kabuki.”

“Kabuki?”

“Japanese opera,” Dev told her. “Sounds like cats being tortured.”

“Good thing I’m fresh out of Kabuki CDs.”

A few seconds later a jazz trio’s smooth improvisation floated over the whir of the grinder. He smiled at her choice, and a layer of tension eased from his neck. “Nice.”

“You’ve been there, haven’t you? Japan, I mean.” She passed a feather duster over a stack of boxes on one of her shelves. “What’s it like?”

“Japanese.” He turned to see her outlined in one of her big front windows, the softening light of a begin
ning sunset touching her hair with gold. “You’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

She frowned and moved to the end of the shelving, turning her back on him.

“It’s not like what you see on TV,” he continued as he headed back to the table. “It’s not all cherry trees and geishas. Most of the cities are crowded and not all that attractive at street level. But the other parts—those perfectly sculptured parts you see on postcards—they’re amazing. It’s like moving through a fantasy.”

“I’d like to see it someday. I’d like to travel.”

“Then do it.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Easier than getting this thing to work,” he muttered as he took his seat.

“You’ll figure it out.” Setting her duster on her desk, she returned to his side. She grabbed a nearby stool, pulled it close and rested her elbow on the table, her face a few inches from his. “You did such a good job with your other pieces. You’re closer than you think.”

Her simple praise gave him a crazy thrill, along with a reason to hope he’d make it out of there before midnight. He picked up his ruler. Working from the corners, he pressed the pattern pieces toward the center, toward the orange sun at the heart of the design. The bits of glass seemed to shift and slide against each other as though they were living organisms, and then suddenly everything locked together, holding tight, no gaps in sight. The pattern fell into place with a silent click.

“That’s it,” she said. “You did it. See how perfectly everything fits together?”

He turned his face toward hers and found the old Addie in her eyes, the old smile on her lips.

Click
. Everything fell into place.

“We did it,” he said. “We made it work.”

“You made it work.” Her grin was wide and happy and uncomplicated. “All you had to do was smooth out the bumpy parts.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Like going to Japan?”

“No.” He took the opportunity to study, up close, her beautiful features. The cloud-soft curls teasing her forehead, the surprising silver streaks in her dark-blue eyes, the adorable slope of her nose, the lush curves of her cheeks. The slightly stubborn chin, the inviting lips. “As if it were easy to find the one thing I was looking for all this time.”

Her smile faded, and she dropped her gaze to the table. She straightened and waved awkwardly in the direction of his project. “Sometimes the answer is right there, in front of you.”

“You’re right.” He caught her wrist as he rose from the stool. “Sometimes it is. All you have to do is look.”

She stared at his fingers encircling her arm. “Dev, I—”

“I’ve been looking for a long, long time.”

“You haven’t been here that long.” She shook her head, and one of the clips in her hair slipped another fraction of an inch to the side. “A few hours is all. It only seems longer be—”

She stiffened with a funny, breathy squeak as he slid a hand along her waist. Her narrow, supple, feminine waist. Slowly, he spread his fingers over her lower back, dipping into the slight indentation along her
spine and tracing the subtle bumps below. He wanted to savor every touch, every scent, every sigh, every blush, every flutter. He’d missed so much.

“Because you had to make so many trips to the grinder,” she finished in a raspy whisper.

“No, I’ve been looking for years. And look what I’ve found.” He released her wrist to raise his hand to her hair. He’d been wanting—waiting, for a lifetime—to pull those clips and bands from the top of her head, to watch the sunshine-bright streamers fall around her shoulders, to plunge his hands into the thick, luscious mass and grab fistfuls. And now she was here, standing before him with her eyes wide and locked on his, and her lips parted in a breathless surprise that matched his own.

He released one clip, and another, and dropped them to the floor as his fantasy came to life. And then he slid his fingers through the hair above her ear. Cool, springy silk over heated, inviting skin.

He lowered his gaze from her curls to her face. Yes, look what he’d found—
Addie
. “Addie.”

“Yes?”

He lightly pressed his palm against her back, guiding her closer. “Have you been looking?”

“Yes,” she whispered. She lifted her hands between them, hesitated, and then settled them over his chest.

“For years?” he asked.

Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Yes.”

“Do you think you can smooth out my bumpy parts?”

Her fingers curled, catching the fabric of his T-shirt in tiny folds. “I don’t know.”

“I wish you’d give it a try.” He cupped the back of
her head and shifted still closer. “Will you? Will you try?”

“I—” Her lids fluttered closed as his thigh brushed hers. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Yes, you do.” He leaned in and tortured himself with a whiff of her scent. Lemony soap, artist’s solvents, faint florals, warm woman.
Addie
. “We could start with a kiss and go from there.”

“A kiss?”

“Do you need a demonstration?”

She huffed out a shaky little breath and opened her eyes, tilting back her head to give him a sassy smirk. “I know what a kiss is.”

“Yes, but you’ve never been kissed by me.”

Her palms flattened against the muscles of his chest, her fingers sliding over his shirt in a maddening exploration. A frown puckered her brow. “A kiss will change everything. If we do this, we’ll never be able to go back to the way things were.”

He lowered his head toward hers, tempting her. “Do you mean we’ll never be friends again?”

“We’re not friends. Not really.” Her breath caught in another tiny gasp as his mouth came within a few inches of hers. “You said you weren’t sure we could ever be friends.”

“I’m a fool.” He stroked his hand up her back, gently caging her. “You shouldn’t listen to a word I say.”

She swayed toward him and paused, tantalizingly close. “Friends don’t do what we’re thinking of doing.”

“No, they don’t.” He smiled and swept his gaze over her face. “But if we’ve never been friends, then we don’t have anything to lose, do we?”

“I don’t want to lose
you
.”

“Then hold on tight.”

He narrowed the gap between them and waited at the brink, feeling her surrender, inch by inch. A tremor, a sigh, the softening of her spine as she eased into his embrace. The whisper of skin sliding along cotton as she smoothed her hands up his body to circle his neck, the citrusy tang of the cleanser near her work sink, the faint laughter of passersby on Cove Street, the smooth concrete beneath their feet—everything surrounding them seemed to fade into the gathering dusk. The only things he knew were the thudding pressure in his chest, and the moist heat of her breath against his lips. And the need to press his mouth—his body—to hers.

Easy, he reminded himself as he brushed his lips along her jaw. Take it slow. This is Addie. Don’t ruin this any more than you already have. Don’t take too much at first—you can always take more the next time.