Real Men Do It Better (16 page)

“I saw her coming in the dream, Jorey. I woke up the next morning and I knew it made no sense, because you’re not doing retreats this month, but I knew she was coming. And what was so striking about the dream is that I kept thinking that you needed to save her, you needed to keep her from something dangerous and dark. And I told Archie—”

“She made me ride up here in the rain with them eggs! But I didn’t see any life mate hanging around, and I was about to head home when I saw her out in the rain like that.”

“Whoa.” Jorey felt his body hum with awareness. No coincidences, indeed.

Archie continued, now thoroughly engrossed in the story. “And sure enough, you had to save her! She was standing right there and the water was coming right at her—”

“That’s not what the dream meant, Archie.” Joan gave him a little smack on his arm. “It was
my
dream, and I know what I saw; and I saw—” Joan pointed toward the alcove at the other end of the lobby, where Kate had just run. “I saw her struggling like that—so angry and sad. That’s the saving you have to do.”

Jorey stood up, knowing instantly that Joan was right. “I’m fortunate to have you two as friends,” he said. He hurried around the table to give Joan a big kiss on her cheek, then he gave one to Archie.

Joan was on her feet. “I’ll take the meat home with us and leave most of the stew here for you two.”

“Thank you, Joan.”

“My pleasure,” she said. “Now go to her.”

*   *   *

“Go away.”

“Let me in, Kate. Right now.”

“It doesn’t matter, Jorey.” He could barely hear her soft voice from behind the locked door. “If you get me to Santa Fe tomorrow, you can go on with whatever it is that you’re going on to once I’m gone.”

He screwed up his face in bewilderment. “Would you mind repeating that?”

“I’m going to sleep. Please drive me into town first thing tomorrow. If you don’t want to take me all the way to Santa Fe, then get me to Chimayo and I’ll hitch a ride on one of the tour buses.”

Jorey took a moment to lean his forehead against the door and roll it from side to side, like that would give him a brilliant idea. No such luck.

“You need to talk to me, Kate. Tell me what happened when you came back here this afternoon. What happened to you?”

Her voice sounded tiny. “Reality happened.”

Jorey pulled his head from the cool wooden surface and let her words sink in. It dawned on him—the phones were up. She’d called Monica. Archie had been so right.

“Don’t doubt what you feel, Kate. You’ve got to trust yourself—trust your heart.”

He waited a few moments until he heard the slightest movement behind the door. The knob turned ever so slightly.

“Kate, I’m terrified, too.” He put his hand on the knob and willed her to feel his presence. “But sometimes we just have to go where the universe leads, and the universe led us to each other. I’m sure of it.”

The door opened a crack. He could see one very bloodshot blue eye stare him down.

“I love you, Kate.”

He heard a sharp intake of air. The door opened a bit more.

“Look, I realize this is insanely fast, but I’ve been working every day of the last five years to heal my heart enough so that when you came I would recognize you. And here you are, and I recognized you immediately. Now open this damn door.”

The door opened a little further. He got a glimpse of a baggy, green pant leg. “Are you wearing my pajama bottoms?”

She sniffled. “I wanted to smell you.”

Jorey laughed. “Princess, all you got to do is open this damn door and you can smell me to your heart’s content.”

“I think that’s why they call it falling,” she said with a big sigh, stretching out her leg so that he could see the fabric of his pants puddle on the floor around her dainty toes. It made him smile, even though he had no idea what she was talking about.

“See, Jorey, when you fall for someone, that automatically means you’ve let go of the rope, you have no control, and you’re going to hit the ground hard.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Interesting philosophy.” He wormed his hand through the door’s narrow opening and touched her cheek. “Now open the door, Kate, before I kick it in.”

She shook her head. “You know, it feels like a year ago that I was kicking at your front door in the middle of the night.”

Jorey thought of Joan’s dream. “Oh, yes—a woman with a purpose.”

Kate snorted. “My purpose was to get to your bathroom.”

“Your purpose was to get to me.” Jorey was done cajoling and needed to go straight to the caressing. He pushed the door with his flat palm and shoved through. Kate went stumbling backward and he took advantage of her being off balance and guided her to the bed. A light tap sent her sprawling on her back. He fell on top of her.

“Tell me what happened, sweetie.”

She turned her face away from his, and he could see pain. He already knew what had happened, but she needed to get it out—she needed to talk to him. She would always need to talk to him. That was the only way to do it.

She kept her face turned away as she spoke. “Monica said you were quite the ladies’ man, that you were basically running an all-girl pilgrimage and stud service.”

Jorey didn’t think he’d ever laughed so hard in his life. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw that Kate didn’t share his enthusiasm. “Ah, Kate. There’s a story behind this. It’s always best to have the facts before you make up your mind.”

“Oh, really?” She shoved up against his chest and rolled away from him. Of course, the only reason she’d escaped was because he let her. Kate jumped from the bed and stood with her hands on her hips in defiance. Jorey was enjoying a flashback to that first morning in his kitchen, when she started to shout. “I thought I was special!”

Jorey looked up at her. “You are.”

“But I’m not sure anymore what part is my wishful thinking and what part is real!”

“It’s all real, Kate.” He tried to make his voice as soothing as he could. On her face, he could see the forces of doubt and hope duke it out. “Please sit down and let me tell you about Monica.”

Kate twisted up her pretty pink mouth and threw herself to the bed, where she sat against the headboard, arms crossed over her chest. “Let’s hear it.”

Jorey moved so that he sat cross-legged in front of her. “Monica’s group was, in fact, all women. It was the only all-women group I’d ever had, and, if there’s anything I have to say about it, the last.”

“Oh? Wore you out, did they?” She bobbled her head back and forth for emphasis.

Jorey chuckled. “Yes they did, Princess. Wore my nerves to nubbins. I felt like a mouse invited to have dinner with a girl gang of cats.” Kate wasn’t impressed. “The sexual tension was so thick that week that you could barely breathe. Two of the women were sisters, two more were best friends, and there was a mother-daughter team thrown into the mix for extra drama. They were single, married, and divorced. All of them hit on me.”

Kate wagged an eyebrow. “Monica, too?”

Jorey weighed his words carefully. “You’ve known Monica for how long?”

“We were best friends in high school.”

“Then maybe I don’t have to tell you the details.”

He watched Kate relax some. She lowered her head and nodded. “I know she can be aggressive.”

Jorey let out a quick laugh. “Yep. One night I finished getting the breakfast things together and answering e-mails, and I walk in here and she’s right where you are—except you’re wearing a whole lot more than she was.”

Kate raised her head and her mouth hung open.

“Talk about something that wasn’t in the brochure. I asked her to leave my room and respect my privacy. That was just two days into the pilgrimage—the rest of the week was pretty awkward. We made our peace by the end—at least I thought we had.”

Kate’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re saying she’s jealous.”

Jorey looked at her calm and steady. “I have no reason to lie to you, Kate. Those are the facts. As a rule, I do not sleep with people I lead on pilgrimage.”

“What about me?”

Jorey pulled one of her hands free and cradled it in both of his. Her skin was hot and sweaty. “There was no pilgrimage scheduled for this week.”

“But I paid you.”

“You can have your money back.”

Kate’s pretty little mouth pulled down at the corners. “I don’t want the money. I just want—” She stopped and shook her head, as if to chase away her feelings.

“Tell me what you want, Kate.”

She brought her soft blue eyes to his and sighed. “I just want to believe that this is what I think it is. I want to believe in this—in us.”

“Then do it.”

She fell into his arms, and Jorey finally got what he’d wanted all evening. Kate was tight in his arms. And that’s where she stayed until the morning, except for when Jorey slipped out to the kitchen to heat up the tortillas and green chile stew, then make a quick phone call.

It was sure nice to have friends.

*   *   *

Kate was awestruck by Santa Fe and the rugged magnificence that surrounded it. They’d spent the night twisted up in each other’s arms and legs, and left the lodge early. For the whole hour-long drive she’d bombarded Jorey with questions. What is the history here? What is that kind of valley called?

He patiently described the centuries-old clash and combination of cultures that made New Mexico what it was—the ancient Native American people, the Spanish conquerors, and the Anglos. He gave names to the wide variety of land formations—prehistoric fault lines, volcanic intrusions, mesas, canyons. He told her that he’d traveled here once as a teenager, and had never been able to shake the need to return.

“This is a sacred place, Kate. People have gravitated here for all of history for that reason. I’ve always believed it’s one of those places on Earth where the division between body and soul narrows, and spirit is made known to us.”

After a week in the wilderness, Kate felt giddy as she hit one boutique after the next. She chose a pair of dark blue jeans at one shop, several cotton sweaters and shirts at another, and a pair of her own cowboy boots—in a dusky purple leather. She still needed a jacket, because even in the bright sun it was cool. She and Jorey strolled through the plaza at the heart of the city, and wandered into the venerable old La Posada hotel. Jorey said he had a surprise for her.

Real coffee.
She could smell it. And within ten minutes they were seated on a bench in the plaza and she was smelling and tasting wonderful, rich, dark caffeine with real cream, supremely comforted by the knowledge that the fancy little paper bag at Jorey’s feet held three pounds of the treasure—just in case she decided to stay.

Jorey had tried several times to get her to talk about her decision to leave, but she didn’t feel capable. She’d told him the truth—that she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t have to go home immediately, but she knew it had been foolish to dream of staying for months on end. She wanted to take it a day at a time, and see what developed. Jorey said he couldn’t argue with that approach.

In search of a jacket for Kate, they strolled down Shelby Street and found themselves in an outdoor market. Kate’s eyes were immediately drawn to a rack of wool ponchos. They stood apart from all the rest she’d seen in town that day. Their texture was fine and soft. The patterns of the weave were intricate. The colors were the colors of the desert—browns and reds, muted purples, and sage greens.

Her eye fell on one in particular, and she was about to remove the hanger from the rack when a voice came behind her.

“I made this one for you, miss,” he said. She turned around to see a small man with a very big smile, obviously using a practiced salesman line on her. “Come and see for yourself.”

He led her to a full-length mirror propped against a tree and slipped it over her head. Sales pitch or no, the man was right. Kate looked at her reflection and laughed—jeans, cowboy boots, poncho, and a peaceful look on her face she was wholly unfamiliar with.

She watched in the mirror as Jorey walked up behind her, and something in her heart burst open. He was so tall and straight and handsome. The way he looked at her could not lie. Those dark and deep eyes could never lie. Those eyes were full of love.

He reached down into the nape of the poncho and set her hair free, then tenderly kissed her cheek.

It must have been the way the sunlight hit the mirror, but Kate was sure that for an instant, she and Jorey were surrounded by a cocoon of love. It shimmered gold and white and blue. She blinked and it was gone.

“Thanks. We’ll take it,” Jorey said, and within minutes, over Kate’s protests, he’d happily shelled out several hundred dollars he probably didn’t have.

After a delicious lunch at the New Mexican diner just off the plaza, Jorey told Kate that dessert was next, and he was taking her to the best place he knew.

“I can’t eat anything else or I’ll pop,” she said.

“This is food for the soul, my dear,” he said.

Another hour later, Jorey was driving down a two-lane road that ran parallel to a river lined with trees Jorey gave names to: Gambel Oak, Box Elder, and Cottonwood. They listened to a CD of Native American flute music that floated around them, creating a cocoon of beauty inside the Range Rover. And they continued to drive. Kate knew that the last town they passed was a crossroads with the strange name of Abiquiu, and that was several miles back. She looked at the sky and could see the beginnings of a fiery red sunset.

“May I ask where we’re going?”

“Nope.”

She laughed. “You love teasing me.”

“That’s true, but this is about me wanting you to just be, to just look around you and see. I don’t want you to have any preconceived notions. Just be open to what happens.”

Kate folded her hands in her lap and took a breath. She felt the car begin to slow and heard the click of Jorey’s turn signals. She had to squint and lean forward against her seat belt in order to read the small white wooden sign.

She snapped her head around and stared at Jorey. “You’re taking me to a mosque? Out in the middle of nowhere?”

“Ah, well, it’s a long story, but this community has always been kind to me. I bring groups here all the time and they never hesitate to give me permission. They own all the land around here.”