A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) (11 page)

“It’s nice,” Kate agreed, looking past his shoulder at the monoliths dotting the landscape. “Do you believe in God?” She didn’t know why she asked it. Maybe because of his reference to God’s country.

“I don’t know. I guess that makes me agnostic,” he said. “But when I look at this place, and when I look into your eyes, I believe.”

Kate’s pulse raced and her stomach knotted.
He’s just being romantic, he doesn’t mean it,
she thought, trying to dismiss what he said. Will didn’t ask if she believed in God, she noticed, which was fine in her opinion, because she didn’t know if she did either.

“Remember this?” he asked, drawing her gaze away from the endless blue horizon. She looked at what he was offering her with his free hand, the other still holding onto her tightly. It was the dragonfly ring. He twirled it, grinning.

“You still have that?” 

“Put it on,” he urged.

“It’s big and unwieldy, and . . . and it’s purple,” she protested, worrying that she might be hurting his feelings.

He laughed. “This is a dream, Kate, it doesn’t have to match your pants.”

She slipped it on quickly and returned the hand to his back, where she clung to him, still worried about falling.

“You sweet girl, Kate. Thank you for wearing my ring.” He touched her chin and turned her face toward him. “And now let me kiss you. May I? A kiss here, in this temple to a God we’re not sure of, in respect to that strange God we don’t know, but in whose image we are supposedly made and who made me to hold such a perfect, beautiful woman like you.”

“Wow, how do I compete with poetry like that?” she whispered.

“Like this.” He bent his lips to hers. They were warm from the sunlight and soft from his blood, tender, yet eager. She dissolved into a thousand beams of desert sunlight in his arms, atop a spire that shot toward an eternal azure sky. 

***

Each time Kate woke from the dreams, she felt as infinite as the stars, before the shattering illusion fragmented into a million pieces like a supernova.

This time, tears ran down her cheeks as she searched across her bed in her darkened room.
Where’s Tom? No wait, Tom’s gone. Has been gone for months. That’s right. I am alone.

She switched on the bedside lamp without getting up. The light scorched the details of the dream-stranger from her memory and soon she could only remember his eyes and how he made her feel and that when she was in his arms, it was perfection. A shiver rippled through her and she drew her knees up to her chest, feeling cold, forgotten, and bereft. She snuggled the bed covers around herself tighter, trying to get warm, but it didn’t help to stave off the total loneliness of waking without him. She sobbed and recalled just some of the words he’d said, still echoing through her head, “Let me kiss you, Kate. . . . Made me to hold such a perfect, beautiful woman like you.”

His voice was fresh in her head, but his name was concealed beneath thick layers of fog. She tried to hold onto what she remembered and for a split second, there with her eyes closed and the tears slipping through, she almost caught his name. The fingers of her mind clenched around it like it was her salvation, groping, reaching, struggling. But it dissipated in a puff of mist.

The dragonfly was in the dream again, at the end. The hollow ache in her heart cried out that it meant something, maybe, but she still didn’t know what.

She let the tears soak into her pillow as she waited for sleep to take hold of her mind again with its black and shadowy veil. She knew the dream wouldn’t happen again for tonight, and for that she was thankful. Her heart couldn’t stand the anguish of waking up alone again.

7: A
“Date”

Ty picked Kate up in an old sky-blue BMW. There was a
Two For the Road
quality to it that defied how Kate had come to think of him. She’d pictured him in a Jeep or a Subaru Outback, the stereotypical car of the outdoorsy type. The roof of the BMW curved outward, a bulging dome that gave the impression it had come straight out of the Jetsons. Kate got in and they floated as though on a breeze through the city.

“What do you want to listen to?” Ty asked, turning his stereo down to speak. The stereo wasn’t the stock model. Black and sleek, a USB cable ran from it to Ty’s phone. Kate heard the telltale sounds of hardcore and grimaced inwardly, hoping she wouldn’t have to listen to the angry, primeval grunts of the singers the whole trip up the canyon. But at least it wasn’t Katy Perry. So she’d been
right
about the type of music he listened to. Thank goodness.

There were a few rules when it came to a man/potential boyfriend and music. He couldn’t listen to Barbara Streisand, Dolly Parton, and singers of their ilk. If he did, there was a good chance he was gay, whether he knew it or not. There was nothing wrong with a guy being gay, so far as Kate was concerned, she just didn’t want to date him and get mixed up in that kind of drama.

There was one other rule, and it was only that men that she wanted to be with couldn’t listen to rap and buy into the rapper lifestyle, a la Crime Mob, Lil’ Jon or other crunk masters like that who referred to girls as bitches and hos meant for throwing down and
having
, sans a single thought to how the woman felt about it. Hardcore or metal music with a bit of testosterone to it was fine. Mostly. Kate just didn’t want to listen to it. There was nothing melodic about hardcore for the most part and she preferred to be able to distinguish words from grunts.

Kate sighed when Ty turned his music down.

He laughed. “That bad, eh?”

“What? No, nah, no big deal. At least it’s not, you know, Katy Perry, or Barbara Streisand,” she said, chuckling casually.

“What? I love Barbara Streisand.”

“Yeah, yeah, so do I. I mean, she’s great. Beautiful voice. I loved her in
Beaches
. Was she in
Beaches
?”

“I have no idea. I was just messing with you.”

“Right. I knew you were,” Kate said, lying.

“Actually, my mom used to listen to Barbara Streisand, so I don’t mind her too much. I would never admit to listening to her, or broadcast that. There’s kind of a stigma to listening to that sort of music—for a guy. A straight guy, I mean.”

So he knew her rule, in a manner of speaking.

“I get it, I get it. Your secret is safe with me,” she said. Well, that was something. He was on her wavelength, a bit. “For the record, when we’re together, you can just call her Babs and I’ll know who you’re talking about. If you ever want to talk about her, that is,” she said, giving him a sideways glance, wondering if he’d catch onto her sarcasm.

“Fantastic. That’s what I call her when I’m alone and I’m having one of my infamous conversations with her. They’re more of a heart-to-heart, where I spill my guts about my hopes, dreams, and fears. She really gets me. I’m so glad we have this in common, Kate,” he said, deadpan. He touched her thigh lightly, in a gesture of camaraderie or finality. Kate studied his face, searching for a tremble in his lip or a crinkling at the corner of his eye that would give away suppressed mirth. Her leg burned pleasantly where his fingers grazed it before he returned his hand to the knobby gear shift.

“Very funny,” Kate said at last. He would have let the joke go forever! Letting her wonder if he was closeted or just crazy.

His face finally broke into an indulgent grin. “I had you going, didn’t I? That was pretty good.”

“Yeah, you weirdo,” Kate said, jabbing him in the arm, which hurt her fingers more than his muscled bicep.

“We can still call her Babs, though. I love that. Great nickname.”

Kate just laughed and shook her head. Complex sense of humor, she noted. That was nice. There was nothing worse than being with a guy who didn’t
get
you.

They reached the opening of Quaking Aspen Canyon exchanging small talk about the weather and the season and how it affected climbing. The road wound higher, through steep cliffs covered in spruce and pine, a rich blanket of green, interrupted here and there by copses of aspens or steep fields of rockslides.

“So, you mentioned that your mom
used
to listen to Babs. Did she stop for some reason?” Kate asked, just catching his usage of the past tense as one part of her brain relived their conversation, searching for more material for conversation.

Ty gripped the steering wheel with both hands suddenly, shrugging his shoulders at the same time. But it was a stiff motion that reminded Kate of a hobbled horse more than the casual gesture it was intended for. Was Ty hobbled?

“It was just something she did when I was younger, as I was growing up. She’d put a greatest hits disc on when she was picking me up from school and whatever. I guess she got tired of it, because she just stopped one day.” His mouth was stiff—the corners pulled down and he stared at the road like a bull sizing up the bastard matador.

Kate realized she’d touched a nerve and cleared her throat. “It happens. My dad used to love Led Zeppelin. Then one day, nothing. It was like a switch had been flipped. I still miss that, how I’d get into the car with him and “Immigrant’s Song” would start up as he turned the key.”

“Yeah,” Ty said, nodding.

That
’s whatever you were talking about for you,
Kate mentally finished for him. His attention was off in the ether, driving on autopilot. At least he didn’t fly into a rage, she consoled herself.

They were both silent as the road turned and twisted and Ty focused on negotiating the winding curves over sheer cliffs down to the river. Kate caught his profile from the corner of her eye. He seemed to not notice the quiet, but at least that hardness that had etched irritation or grief or anger into his features had faded.  

An image was beginning to emerge of whom Ty was and she found herself liking him—despite that undercurrent of danger, or whatever it was that surfaced now and again. What she saw of him was just the initial reveal, where she got a glimpse of the style of his personality—frank, confident, and strong. He was the kind of guy who she could imagine rescuing a woman or a small child from a raging river on his horse, or with a rope and just . . . maybe swimming through the torrid flow despite the odds of getting swept away himself.

But how could she ever grow comfortable with a guy in possession of such good looks? She felt she wasn’t equal to him. He inhabited an echelon much higher than she ever would, even if she got an expensive makeover and a new hairstyle and—and an entire new wardrobe comprised of sorority girl outfits. She realized in a flash of insight that she was still used to Tom. She found herself peeking at Ty while trying to pretend to be staring straight ahead. She looked for the familiar lines of Tom’s face in Ty’s. But they were just too different. Tom had a soft, kind face that lit up a room with his innocent smile. Ty’s face was full of steep planes and sharp corners with an angular jaw and those haunting, immediate good looks that sucked the breath out of a roomful of people. 

“You like?” he asked, suddenly. The corners of his mouth tilted up in a grin, but he kept his eyes on the road, one hand on the wheel and the other on the stick shift.

Kate turned to look out her window, heat flashing through her cheeks. “Uh, what?”

“You were staring. I just wondered if you liked what you saw. That’s the usual reason for staring. Or the one I’d prefer, anyway.”

She didn’t know what to say. Her mind grappled to come up with a reason that could explain why she appeared to be staring. She could say she was just looking at the mountain out his window. He’d probably buy that. She cleared her throat. “What’s the other reason?”

“Oh, so it’s the other reason? I horrify you? Is that it?” he shook his head. “Ouch.”

“Wow. Um. No. It was the canyon. I was watching the river.”

It was his turn to clear his throat. And he did, and then asked, “So, did you grow up here?”

“Yes. You?”

“I moved from a small town south of here,” he answered.

“For school?”

He nodded. “I had a scholarship in art. I lost it, though. I’m only going to school part time. Working the rest of the time.”

“What happened? I mean, why did you lose it?” she blurted out. She regretted it immediately.

His eyes flickered toward her and then back to the road. It was a two lane road in the canyon—accidents happened easily because of the narrow shoulder and the proximity of oncoming traffic. Kate already knew that she appreciated his driving skills. He maneuvered expertly. “Uh, it’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you someday.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I mean, I’m sorry I asked. It was—it was a reaction. I don’t care, actually. I mean, I’m not one to judge, you know? I had my share of failures during college, which I’d never volunteer to anybody.”

“It’s OK, Kate. It was nothing like that. You cold?” he asked, turning down the fan. Kate noticed that she’d buried her hands under her legs and was hunching inward. Add chattering teeth to the picture and she would have been a public service ad for cold girl and the failure of a society that failed to prevent girls from getting too cold.

“I guess I am, thanks. I hadn’t noticed.”