Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth) (16 page)

Actually, Cassidy knew Jo had been on a few first dates since she’d finished the lawsuit that had consumed two years of her life. But none of them had led anywhere.

They took the wine and cheese into the living room and settled, she and Jo on the heavily-pillowed couch, Perrin sitting in the matching, oversized chair. The warmth of the decorative swirls in the dark brown cloth and the nearly black wood of the overstuffed arms made her bright yellow attire stand out even more. Cassidy had always thought of them as hobbit couches, but Perrin was no hobbit. Perhaps a slender, shining elf come to visit her cozy cave, on the twentieth floor.

“Hey, those are new. They’re so cute. Like a set or something.” Jo turned to see where Perrin was pointing over their heads.

Cassidy’s
four lighthouse and sailboat pictures. The boat’s red and blue colors strong against the egg-cream walls.

“Where did you get those?”

“I took them.” The second she spoke she wished she’d said they were from a flea market.

“You did? They’re great. Who’s on the sailboat? Some hunky guy I hope. Most sailboat guys are hunky. Egos the size of the Space Needle, but hunky.”

“I, um, don’t know. He just shows up.”

Jo stood up to look at the pictures more closely. “But they were taken at different locations.”

She sighed. Leave it to the lawyer to catch the details. Cassidy pointed to the calendar hanging where next month’s photo would go. Moving the calendar slowly across the wall made it more of a journey.

“My theory is that we’re both following the same calendar. The first of each month, he’s there.”

“Following the same calendar? Is that like having the same period?” Perrin was giggling at her own joke. She really did look like a twenty-year old flapper talking about something terribly dirty.

“Yeah. Sort of. I guess. Not really.”

“Why are you there?” Jo took down the calendar and flipped through it for a moment as she settled back onto the couch. Then Jo focused on her.

Cassidy couldn’t look away from Jo’s dark eyes. Even the first day of school she hadn’t managed the slightest evasion once Jo focused that lawyer-to-be gaze on her.

“Look at the first day of each month.” Jo and Perrin did.

“ ‘Date with Ice Sweet?’ You seeing some boy-o and not telling us? I tell you, between you and Jo you always were a quiet pair. It’s a good thing I found you two or both would’ve graduated after four years without anyone knowing you were there. And you’d probably both still be virgins. Even today. You are both—”

“Dad’s nickname for me,” Cassidy cut her off. “Icewine, the sweetest and rarest wine.”

“So, you’re going even though he isn’t around anymore? That is sweet.” Perrin curled back into her chair and tucked her legs under her. “That’s really sweet. You and your dad are real close. I always envied that you are still. Um, now that he’s gone.”

She grimaced. “That came out all wrong as usual, but you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, thanks, Perrin. He left letters too.” She opened the drawer under the coffee table and pulled out the slim stack of envelopes. “They aren’t long, he wrote them in those last weeks when he was barely alive. One for each lighthouse.”

“Why didn’t you tell us? We’d have gone with you. Three women voyaging to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. We’d be like the three Musketeers when they traveled with Lewis and Clark on the voyage of discovery.”

“Perhaps, Perrin, she wanted to do it on her own.”

“Jo’s right. Though your adventuring sounds like fun, I want it to be just Dad and me. His first letter said that he wanted to go to these places with me, bring us closer together. He’s telling me stuff about the past I didn’t know.”

Perrin waved her glass of wine at the photos, came dangerously close to spilling the red shiraz on the white carpet. “So, there’s this sailor guy in each photo. Maybe you should forget Mr. Wrong and track down Mr. Hunky Sailor. It’s easy to test if he has a sailor’s ego. Poke it with a pin and if he explodes, you know it’s huge.”

Cassidy turned to look at the photos over her shoulder. West Point, Alki, Lime Kiln, Slip Point. There was a continuity to their relationship, even if whoever he was had no way of knowing about it. She’d never been out on a sailboat, only her Dad’s fishing skiff. What would it be like to go where the wind wanted to take you? To have so little control? Your life changing from one moment to the next due to the slightest whim of the winds?

She shook her head. “No, I’ll do as I’ve always done and leave the wild ones to their own devices.”

“Wimp!” Perrin waved her glass at her in a mock toast.

“Sensible,” Jo nodded her approval before turning to Perrin. “Have you had so much luck with the wild ones?”

Perrin grimaced. “Not much. Hell of a lot of fun while the ride is on its way up. A mess when it comes crashing back down on me. You remember Jeffie, he was so cute and I was so gone on him. Do think I’m the reason he went to India to follow that Swami somebody?”

“And now who is it this month?” She always had the best stories.

“No one worth even telling about. But,” Perrin pointed a long finger at her. “You never told us about Mr. Wrong. Illegal change of subject. Five yard penalty.”

Cassidy grimaced, the last sip of wine distinctly sour.

“Did the sweater work? Did he,” Perrin leaned in and dropped her voice to a throaty whisper, “ravish you with his eyes?”

“Yeah. The sweater was perfect, just like you said. I guess I owe you some champagne. He was pretty decent about it once he realized what he was doing, but that sweater certainly gave him trouble more than once.”

“Kept him off balance, I bet.”

“Yeah. Right until the end when he hit me.”

“Hit you?” Jo and Perrin both jerked forward.

She raised her hands. “No, not that. Just metaphorically. A punch right to my gut.” She hunched forward and rubbed her face with her hands.

“It wasn’t good.” Her gut twisted once again, just as it had last night. Just as it had when she’d been trying to finish the article. The date had been going so well. A bit awkward now and then, but a nice change from the boring sameness of Jack James. She’d discussed the tastes of the food and wine to cover the silences. He’d really liked her, or so she’d thought. And she’d definitely started to think he had possibility.

“Turns out he’s from New York. For ten years we’d lived in the same city, me down by Greenwich, him, the Upper West Side. We saw some of the same plays, ate in a lot of the same restaurants.” They’d both been gentle with each other as they recalled the day the world changed when the Twin Towers fell, but folks outside of New York would never really understood what that day had been like. Even Perrin and Jo had only been able to give sympathy, rather than true understanding, when she’d finally been able to get a call out that she was okay.

“It was all going so well. Then over dessert he attacked my career. When I couldn’t figure out the last wine, one I’d never had before, he practically threw it in my face. Tossed money on the table and stormed out.”

“He threw money on the table?” Jo asked quietly and Perrin covered her mouth, her eyes wide.

She could only nod.

“Asshole.” Jo rarely swore. “What did you do?” She rubbed a soothing hand up Cassidy’s back.

She had to gulp for air in her aching lungs. By force of will alone she sat up straight, but couldn’t shake off how used she’d felt.

“I paid for the meal in full. Told the owner to return the money to the bastard, or give it to the poor. Then I left. Thank God for that power coat. Perrin, you’re the best. It was the only thing that held me together until I got home.” And then she’d wept in the shower until she’d nearly drowned. Wept like she hadn’t in years. Wept for her loneliness and the gap left in her life by her father’s death. Her gut was still sore from the weeping.

Perrin moved to the couch and her two best friends hugged her from either side.

“He doesn’t deserve you. You are so much better than him.”

She wrapped her hands around her friends’ arms.

“I am, aren’t I?”

“You is,” Perrin whispered in one ear. She could feel Jo’s nod.

She was. Way better.

“You don’t need him. Who cares what a jerk thinks anyway. If he doesn’t like our Cassidy, we won’t like him either, will we, Jo? Not ever. No matter how nice the restaurant was. Never. Never. Never.”

“Ha!” She sat upright and nearly clipped Perrin’s chin with her shoulder.

“What?”

“You’re brilliant, Perrin. I know exactly how to finish my review of Angelo’s.”

“I am? How?”

Jo squinted her eyes for a moment and then smiled a smile that would look good on an angel. A wicked angel. “Oh yes, Cassidy. National. Oh my, yes.”

Perrin finally got it and jumped to her feet. She clapped her hands and started to dance, her tassels swirling about her thighs and shimmering about her hips.

In moments the three of them were dancing together in the middle of the living room.

# # #

Russell swung the sledgehammer again. The plywood cracked. Again and again he pounded against the counter the previous owner had installed as a galley. He’d used so much glue and near enough a thousand screws that a sledge was the only way to take it out.

He slammed it again and the right side finally broke free.

Demolition. It felt good. Exactly what he needed.

The left side was finally looser. His muscles burned as he drove the hammer repeatedly against the stubborn plywood.

Without warning the whole counter broke free and fell. Twisted as it bounced off the curve of the hull.

He jumped back, slammed his head on an open porthole, his legs were stopped by the pilot berth and the counter clipped his shins so sharply that he collapsed onto the bunk. He tried to kick the counter free, but it was wedged into place and had him pinned.

“Shit!” He managed to grab the edge of it and lift it just enough to pull his legs free. He dropped the counter to the companionway floor with a bang.

He pulled up his pantlegs, doing his best not to hiss at the pain. Blood. On both shins. He touched the back of his head where he’d clipped the porthole. No blood at least, but a painful bump was already rising.

“Double shit!”

He lay down on the pilot berth. Stretched out. Pounded his heels against the boards that would be covered with cushions at some later date. He was ten years old and pounding out his frustration in his final-ever temper tantrum. Everything had gone wrong.

“Triple Shit!” He’d really liked the lady despite herself
and despite her New York past and her fancy ways. Cassidy was the most attractive woman he’d met since… since he didn’t know when. It wasn’t that she was beautiful, though she certainly was. She was also intelligent, funny, and fantastic to look at. He could close his eyes and see her. Every shape of her face fit together into a unified whole. Not the studied and surgical elegance of Melanie, but what beauty really was about.

And her body was womanly rather than model gaunt. That sweater had almost killed him. Every few minutes his attention was dragged down from her face by that deepening fade of russet toward black and the hidden promise of the black turtleneck beneath. He’d give a pretty penny to know why she smiled rather than snarled each time he couldn’t stop his eyes from drifting. She certainly wasn’t a tramp. Angelo had been right about that, a real lady.

Nutcase crawled out of wherever she’d been hiding from all his pounding. Seeing him lying on his back, she leapt onto his chest, settled herself in a little ball, and, now in her favorite position, set into purring like a pint-sized buzzsaw.

“But it isn’t just her beauty that makes her attractive,” he explained to the cat. “See, there’s a difference between pretty and attractive that a lot of guys don’t understand.” Of course, neither had he until he’d started the inevitable comparing
of Melanie and Cassidy Knowles.

The cat buzzed a little louder. She loved when he talked and she was curled on his chest.

“Beauty is like stop you in the street ‘Wow!’ Attractive, that’s something different.” He slid a finger along Nutcase’s jaw and she closed her eyes with pleasure.

“It’s when everything combines in a certain way. She doesn’t have to be ‘stop in the street wow.’ Though she is. But you add that on top of funny, a real brain, and all that other stuff
and you get a killer combination.”

Killer.

He pounded the back of his head against the boards. And then you blow it by going out of your way to insult her.

The boards crinkled with paper. He reached back and pulled out the mail. He’d stopped by the post office box and grabbed it on his way home from the hardware store and then tossed it on the bench so he could try out his new sledge.

Bill. Bill. Junk mail. Victoria’s Secret catalog, toss that aside for later. Nah, chuck it. Just more vapid fantasy women. He gave it a quick flip before tossing it aside.

Melanie.
She got the center spread, good for her. Damn, she looked really fine with that long body and the red teddy. Shit! If she looked this good on the page, she must have been incredible in real life. And those eyes. He’d never captured that emotion on her. If he had, he would have used her face in some of the ads. But he’d never seen in the camera that wealth of calmness with the alluring dash of pity. Mere mortals couldn’t know the joy of wearing scarlet teddies for your man.