Rain of Fire (36 page)

Wyatt pushed through into his hall and smelled the comforting aroma of baked potatoes. Before he could reach the light switch, he heard, “Surprise!”

He stopped. “Alicia.”

Stunned, he took a second to remember he’d given her a house key. And another to realize that in the day’s events he’d forgotten to call and tell her he was back.

She launched at him, her face a pale oval against the darkened hall. On impact, her soft weight was all womanly curves. Kisses rained on his cheeks and tickled his moustache while she murmured, “I called around three and checked with Iniki that you were back, but I made her promise not to tell. I hid my Navigator around back.”

“This is a surprise.” The scent of roses wafted from her.

She pressed close. “I was afraid something might have happened on the mountain.”

“It did,” Wyatt said over her shoulder as he gave her a hard hug.

He flipped the light switch. Her black hair made a smooth fall over her shoulders. The cushy material under his hands was some kind of dark velvet that suggested silkier skin beneath.

He stepped back.

Her dark eyes widened when she saw his wrapped ankle.

“The quake set off a slide in the canyon. I turned my foot on a stone, but nothing serious.” He wasn’t ready to tell her about Thunder. “Let me get out of uniform.”

“I can draw a hot bath … for two?”

“I had a shower earlier.” He moved toward his bedroom. She didn’t follow.

The changes were subtle. A pair of candleholders he remembered from her place graced his nightstand. Thick wax columns smelled of spice. A foot-thick swath of feminine items peeked from his open closet door. A leopard print cosmetic bag lay open on the bathroom counter, with little jars and bottles spilling out.

What in hell was he going to do?

Alone in Wyatt’s kitchen, Alicia used the corkscrew on one of the good bottles of wine she’d bought. Her hand trembled, and she spilled red drops that stained the white counter.

She ought to be in the bedroom with Wyatt right now, but this wasn’t turning out the way she’d hoped. She’d left the front hall dark so their opening kiss would be more romantic. He’d turned on the overhead light. And she’d never known him to pass on one of her candlelit bubble baths. What had he meant about something happening on the mountain?

She told herself he must be exhausted from a long day in the saddle, especially with an injured ankle. It would probably be a good idea to back off and let him unwind.

Ten minutes passed. The potatoes were in, and they would keep. The salad waited to be dressed. The steaks were seasoned.

Wyatt spoke from the doorway. “Dinner looks wonderful.” He sounded distant.

“I was shopping for goodies this morning at the Pic and Sav when the big one hit. That’s a story.” She knew she was babbling.

“Are you okay?” His gray eyes flicked over her without the interest she’d expected after their time apart.

“Cut my hand on some glass.” She displayed a strip of bandage on her palm.

“I’m glad that was all.”

Alicia waited for him to pull her into his arms, but he turned his attention to the wine label, a California Cabernet. She poured for him.

“Nice,” he nodded after sampling. “You know, a guy could do a whole lot worse than to come home to all this.”

“You want to start the steaks?”

“In a bit.” He pulled out a chair, sat at the table and studied his hands. “We lost all three of the horses in the quake and came out by chopper. A big landslide … almost killed Nick Darden of USGS.”

Alicia sank into the chair next to Wyatt. “No wonder you seem upset.” She took a gulp of wine. “Is he all right?”

“Should be. We were damned lucky.”

Seeing the haggard look of Wyatt, she recalled his affection for Thunder. “I’m sorry about the horses.”

“They were good friends. Old Gray broke his neck … I had to shoot him.”

Her stomach turned. “Oh, dear.”

They sat for a moment in silence. Then it occurred to her that there was a piece missing from his explanation, and though it probably wasn’t the time or place … “What about Kyle Stone?”

“She was there. Up the hill on some rocks.” His shoulders tensed and he evaded her eyes.

Creeping dread came over Alicia as Wyatt drank off his wine in a single draught. In his room, her clothes, her candles, her cosmetics. With all her heart, she wished she hadn’t been so bold.

“So what were the sleeping arrangements up there?” It was like walking out onto a frozen lake, but she couldn’t stop.

“Alicia, don’t do this.” He wouldn’t meet her accusing stare. “We had a common bunkroom for the three of us.”

“No side deals?”

“For God’s sake,” he snapped. “Unless you count Darden sniffing out his old girlfriend.”

“You can lie to me, Wyatt, but don’t lie to yourself.” Blood beat in her temples. “I saw the way you kept making mooneyes at her in the Lake Hotel sunroom.”

“Get off my back. I just can’t stand to watch her make the same mistake she made years ago with Nick. She can do better than that.”

With an almost audible click, everything came into focus. The countertop with wine stains. The hum of the refrigerator and the furnace fan stirring warm air, frost forming patterns on the window above the kitchen sink.

“You poor son of a bitch,” she said. “You’re in love with her.”

Wyatt shoved back his chair, dragged Alicia up, and kissed her. It had always been good between them, and he could make it happen again. The last thing he wanted was to lie alone tonight and think about Kyle and Nick.

He should be glad he’d come home to find Alicia part of his welcome. How much darker would his hall have been without her embrace? How empty his bachelor housing?

She was out of his arms. The space she left felt cold. With her back to the refrigerator, she challenged, “If you can honestly tell me you’re not in love with Kyle Stone, I’ll stay.”

“Don’t play games.”

With a sigh, Alicia said, “I love you, Wyatt.”

A test. He reached his hand palm forward and she matched hers to it. He twined their fingers and squeezed but did not answer.

Her tears spilled over, mascara running. “I thought maybe you and I were each other’s answer. You could have been mine.”

Closing his eyes, Wyatt said, “I’m sorry.”

Two hours later, he sat alone in the living room recliner with an ice pack on his ankle. The TV was off and the only light rose from the candles Alicia had left behind. He’d brought them out from his bedroom and eaten steak, salad, and a piping hot baked potato by candlelight. Just because he was by himself didn’t mean he had to be a slob.

The spicy scent rising from the melting wax reminded him of Alicia’s bedroom. Torn between the desire to call her and the wisdom of leaving it alone, he mentally toasted her and drank off the last of the red wine.

He set his empty glass down so hard it fell over with a clink. Kyle was up at the hotel with Nick, and here he sat trying to pretend it wasn’t eating his heart out.

S
now was still falling when Kyle returned with Nick from the restaurant in Mammoth. He held her arm to help her across a patch of glazed ice in the parking lot, although she was probably more in command of her faculties than he. A drink of Crown in the room, a couple glasses of wine, and the medication he’d taken after all clearly had him feeling no pain.

Dressed in the sweats she’d bought, they stopped by the coin-operated washer to transfer their field clothes into the dryer. Nick kept up the banter he’d been throwing at her silence all evening. “At 21,000 feet in Tibet it was colder than a banker’s heart. The food was what we all looked forward to, something hot and filling like that steak tonight.”

She produced quarters, and he fed the metal slots.

“The Chinese couldn’t run the truck mounted seismic unit and get decent data. When we rejected it for poor quality, they killed a couple of the camp dogs and served them to us for dinner.”

Kyle grimaced. “What did it…?”

“Like chicken.”

She pressed a hand to her mouth.

“You see, some of us had sort of bonded with the dogs, so our punishment did double duty. Finally, I got in the seismic unit and taught the locals how to run it. After that, we got back to eating stewed yak.”

“Which also tastes like …?”

“Sorry, no. Like beef. Really, really well-aged.”

She laughed in spite of herself.

In their room, he went to the window and opened it to smoke a cigarette. She stood beside him and watched the snow whirl past a streetlight and coat the lawn. It felt like old times, listening to Nick spin stories.

Perhaps she’d been too quick to shut him down earlier when he’d trivialized death. Maybe it was just his way of coping. After all, though he’d figured out she didn’t like the dark, he had no idea why.

“How about a nightcap?” He poured himself one as he spoke.

She shook her head. “How are you feeling?”

“Head gives a throb now and then.” The patch of blood on the gauze had turned a rusty brown.

Kyle pulled off her boots. In the bathroom, she un-braided her hair and shook it loose over her shoulders. Despite a few streaks of gray, its burnished mahogany was intact. She looked into her eyes and remembered her youthful, sun-reddened face in the bathhouse mirror at field camp.

When she came back into the room, Nick had closed the window. “You wanted to know how I feel. Actually, I’m a little melancholy.”

“You?” In her sweat suit, she crawled onto the bed nearest the door and sat against the headboard. “You’ve been making me laugh for hours.”

With a dismissive hand, he waved away his clowning. “You should know I go on like that when I’m afraid to act serious.”

She pulled her knees up toward her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I don’t think you’ve ever admitted that before.”

“I thought everyone knew.”

“So why are you sad?”

“Guess I’ve been thinking too much. Close calls will do that to you.” Nick came to her and sat on the bed’s edge. “That summer, the weekend we stayed here in the cabins, was a time like nothing that has ever happened to me.”

“That’s flattering, but you must have felt something more when you got married.”

“All I can tell you is that was different. I was older, more jaded.”

She reached and took a swallow of his drink.

He met her eyes. “You scared me to death, Kyle. You made me want to settle down and raise babies and dogs. That fall I was scheduled to do field work in Antarctica.”

She wrapped her arms around her knees and drew into a tighter ball. “Don’t you see that you weren’t ready when we met, and not when you married.” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm. “One of the things that struck me about you when we met again was how little you had changed. I even worried that I wasn’t the girl you once knew.”

“You haven’t changed, babe.” He smoothed her hair.

Kyle sat up straighter, a move that pulled her out of his reach. It would be too easy to have a few more drinks and fall under the spell of being on a bed with him. “I’ve changed inside,” she persisted. “Are you willing to?”

“I have. I know better than to run from you a second time.” His eyes were as serious as she had ever seen them.

“But are you willing to make hard decisions? To settle down?”

Nick left his drink in her hand and walked to the window. “It always comes down to this, doesn’t it?”

“I may be a scientist, but earthquakes and volcanoes scare me witless, especially up close and personal. I don’t think I could stand waiting and worrying about you.”

“I can’t promise to stay out of the field. It’s my life.” He came back to Kyle and took her hand. “Ask me anything but that.”

“I’ll bet that’s exactly the way you proposed marriage,” Kyle said. “Twice.”

Nick pushed off the bed. “I’ll go check on the dryer.”