Dreams for Stones (13 page)

Before he could hand the baby back, or even
protest, Elaine was already across the room. “He’s just been fed.
All you have to worry about is a little spit-up. If you get
desperate, I’ll be in the kitchen helping Mom.”

Alan looked down at the baby and found Mark
looking considerably better than he had three months ago. His skin
was now a smooth pale ivory instead of being wrinkled and red, and
he opened dark blue eyes to give Alan a wise look. Alan put out a
tentative finger, and Mark grasped it with a tiny hand and pulled
it toward his mouth.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,
buddy.” Alan pulled his finger gently away. He always washed
thoroughly after chores, but still. Mark’s arms flailed for a
moment, then he settled on sucking his fist and examining Alan with
those solemn eyes.

Alan looked over at the Christmas tree and
the pile of presents they’d be opening in the morning. Christmas
was always the hardest day of the year for him since Meg’s death.
Meg, the brightness in his life. Brighter than the Christmas lights
and tinsel, the sun on the snow.

He looked back at the baby, now asleep,
finding it easier than usual to distract himself from the old pain.
That had no doubt been Elaine’s intention. She could annoy him more
easily than anyone he knew, but this time he felt a reluctant
gratitude.

When Elaine came back a few minutes later,
Alan shook his head at her. “He’s asleep.”

Elaine smiled a contented smile and went
back to the kitchen. Alan continued to sit, holding the sleeping
baby, feeling more at peace than he had in a long time.

“So, Dad, how’re the riding lessons going?” Elaine asked as they
were eating dinner.

“Not too good,” Robert answered. “Only had a
couple of takers, but since they’re friends of Alan’s, we don’t
charge them.”

“Surely not Charles?” Elaine gave Charles an
amused look.

“Absolutely not,” Alan said. “You know he
hyperventilates whenever he gets within twenty feet of a
horse.”

Charles simply raised his eyebrows and
continued eating.

“We’re not going to put the ad back in next
year,” Stella said.

“Nope,” Robert said. “Found we’ve got enough
on our hands working to get the yearlings trained so we can sell
them. More money in that.”

“Pass the rolls down here, would you,”
Stella said, and Alan breathed in relief that the subject of
exactly who his “friends” were had been cut off before it could be
fully explored. With any luck, Elaine, fighting the fatigue of new
motherhood, would forget about it. And hopefully, Charles would as
well.

Jade handed Kathy a mug of hot chocolate. “So, did you ever get
that dress altered?”

Kathy set the mug down, moved the galleys
she was working on out of the way, and sat back, stretching her
arms over her head. “You mean the velvet?”

“Umm.” Jade sipped her hot chocolate.

“It turned out really nice. I changed it a
bit, got rid of the collar.”

Jade raised eyebrows above the rim of the
cup. “Have you worn it yet?”

Kathy shook her head. “I’m saving it for a
special occasion.” She’d taken it home at Christmas, but decided
not to wear it.

“And the riding lessons?”

“Good. I don’t even get sore anymore.” That
was probably because she was riding regularly, except when the
occasional blasts of winter weather kept her in town.

“And Alan? You seem to have changed your
mind about him.”

“Naw.” Kathy picked up the mug and grinned
at Jade. “I’m just using him so I can ride his horses.”

Jade snorted. “And you expect me to believe
that? Whenever you mention him, you get a look.”

“What look?”

Jade demonstrated, gazing off in the
distance with a sappy expression. “That look,” she said.

Kathy was pretty sure she was blushing. At
any rate, she felt awfully warm all of a sudden, and it wasn’t
because of the hot chocolate.

“I no longer despise him, if that’s what you
mean.” She attempted nonchalance, but Jade wasn’t buying.

“Yeah, I kind of gathered that.”

After Jade went back to her own desk, Kathy
sipped her hot chocolate, thinking about Alan and their
interactions over the past four months. He was a pleasant,
undemanding, interesting, and sometimes funny companion.

Could Jade possibly be right? Was she
interested in Alan as more than a riding instructor?

She shook her head, dismissing the question
and went back to work.

Alan nodded at the plate of spaghetti sitting in front of Charles.
“If I ate all that, I’d spend the afternoon in a coma.”

“Brain needs lots of calories to function
optimally when faced with the cunning genus
Defenses
lawyerensis
.”

“It’s still a good thing you run ten miles a
day.”

Ignoring the jab, Charles picked up a piece
of bread and dipped it in olive oil. A moment later he took the
last drink from his glass, and it was no surprise to Alan when the
server came over immediately, carrying a refill.

Alan continued to eat peacefully, waiting
for Charles and the girl to finish flirting with each other.

The waitress left, and Charles looked back
at Alan. “By the way, the roommate ever show up?”

“Roommate?”

“The editor who was supposed to share your
office.”

“Oh yeah. Showed up, decided the office
didn’t meet her specifications, and left.”

It was always best to stick as close to the
truth as possible with Charles, whose ability to remember details
was disconcerting at times. Besides, if he told Charles the entire
story...that he had been giving Kathy riding lessons and having
dinner with her on a regular basis since the fall, Charles would
assume something was going on that he needed to know more
about.

Charles took another bite and squinted at
Alan. “Varicose veins, coke bottle glasses, and a lisp?”

“Psychic,” Alan said.

“Colored contacts,” Meg said the first time
she met Charles. “Nobody’s eyes are that blue.”

“His eyes are no bluer than yours.” Alan ran
a finger down her cheek. “And you don’t wear contacts.”

“He hit on me, you know.”

“You hit back?” Alan knew from the spark of
humor in her eyes she was teasing.

“Of course not. He’s too blond, too tall,
too Greek god-ish.”

“He likes you.”

“Yeah. I like him too, actually. Just tell
him he needs to chip a tooth or something. All that perfection.”
She shook her head in mock sorrow.

Alan blinked, refocusing on Charles before
the other man noticed his distraction.

If Charles did find out about Kathy, he’d
ruin it by asking questions, and he wouldn’t believe it was simply
a casual friendship.

Charles, always pushing at him. To go out
with someone. To move on. Watching for signs of how Alan was doing,
whether he asked the questions out loud or not.

But although Alan wasn’t yet ready to
mention Kathy to Charles, he did realize that spending time with
her was a partial step. Not that it was actually going anywhere. If
he was careful, it could remain what it was—a pleasant friendship,
nobody hurt. A win-win situation for them both.

The weather forecast was that it would be the first warm weekend of
the spring. Grace called Kathy to say she had to work, so she and
Delia wouldn't be able to go to the ranch. When Kathy told Alan
that news at dinner on Friday, he suggested she come early, and
he'd show her more of the ranch.

Kathy arrived to find the horses saddled and
ready to go. Alan led the way toward the foothills. After an hour
on a narrow trail, they emerged from the shadows of lodgepole pines
into a sunny meadow edged in the distance by the silver glimmer of
water.

“Oh, what a perfect place,” Kathy said,
feeling a quick burst of pleasure.

Cormac flushed a rabbit and bounded across
the meadow after it, while the horses ambled behind. At the edge of
the water, Alan helped her dismount.

“Does the lake have a name?”

“Nothing official.” His tone was oddly curt,
but maybe that was because he was bent over loosening Sonoro’s
girth. Then he loosened Siesta’s as well and led the two horses to
the stream that emptied into the lake for a drink.

The water, clear as air, purled over
boulders and stones, polishing them into opaque crystal. Kathy
glanced from the stream to Alan, still puzzling over his reaction
to her question about the lake’s name.

“We can hike to the top of that hill if you
like,” he said, pointing. “There's a nice view.”

“Sounds good.”

“You wading across, or do you want to be
carried?”

“Oh. I can wade.” Then she was immediately
sorry she’d turned him down. The offer to carry her presented
definite possibilities, although she did wonder why he’d suggested
it.

Leaving the horses to graze in the meadow,
they sat on adjacent boulders to remove their shoes and socks for
the stream crossing. Kathy rolled up her jeans before taking her
first step into the water. She jumped back out with a yelp. “Yikes,
that’s cold. You could’ve warned me.”

His eyes crinkled with amusement. “Why do
you think I offered to carry you?”

“It did seem odd.”

He laughed, looking suddenly ten years
younger. “Change your mind?”

“No, I can manage.” It had become a point of
honor, but one she’d just as soon concede.

Cormac splashed across the stream behind
them, then shook out his wet fur, sprinkling them with cool
droplets before they jumped out of range.

After they dried their feet and put their
socks and shoes back on, Alan led the way up a steep, barely
visible trail.

Man and dog were equally adept at
negotiating the rough terrain, Cormac scrambling up by himself and
Alan climbing, then reaching back a hand to help Kathy.
Periodically he pointed to something.

Once it was a lavender flower that looked
like a crocus, blooming in the shade of a fallen log. “We know
spring has officially arrived when we see one of these.” It was an
anemone, he added when she asked.

At the top of the hill, Kathy stood on a
flat shelf of granite catching her breath. While they’d climbed,
the day had turned into a typical blue Colorado day—crystal sky,
indigo mountains, amethystine peaks. The kind of day when she could
no longer imagine ever living anywhere else.

Taking in deep draughts of the cool, clean
air with its hint of pine spills and melting snow, she realized
that for the first time in months, she felt really okay.

Gone the holiday funk, fueled by memories of
how happy and excited she’d been in the first throes of love last
year. Gone as well the heavy weight of uncertainty that had
replaced her anger and grief over her broken engagement.

She didn’t know when it had lifted. Knew
only that this was the first time she’d noticed its absence. It was
such a relief, she wanted to fling her arms into the air and spin
in a mad choreography of joy.

Instead, she turned in a slow circle, trying
to imprint it all on her memory. “‘Nice view’ was an
understatement.”

“Didn’t want to oversell.” He sat back on
his heels and rubbed Cormac’s ears.

“It’s so. . . complete.”

He stood and stretched. “You a misanthrope,
Kathy Jamison?”

Taken off guard by his teasing tone, she
stopped turning to look at him. She wasn’t altogether certain, but
she thought a smile lurked around his eyes.

“Why do you ask?”

“All that completeness.” He gestured at the
view. “No people as far as the eye can see.”

“You’re here.” And it would be perfect if
he’d walk over and tip her face up to his and. . .

“So, what we have is a case of
semi-misanthropy.” He stayed where he was.

“Easier to cure,” she said. “Requires only
semi-biotics.”

A flock of crows chose that moment to land
noisily in a nearby tree, breaking off the delicate strand of
connection she and Alan had forged with their bantering. But a
feeling of ease stayed with Kathy all the way down the
mountain.

When they got back to the creek, Kathy was
warm from sun and exertion, and the water felt good for the first
two steps. But by the time she waded across, her feet were cramping
from the cold.

Alan pulled the towel from his backpack,
crouched down, and dried her feet. The sunlight glanced off his
head, picking up glints of warm gold among the darker strands.
Kathy reached out to smooth the cowlick that had sprung up when he
took off his hat, but before her hand reached him, Alan sat back
and looked up at her. “There, that should feel better.”

Smiling, she used the errant hand to hook
her own hair behind her ear. “It does. Thanks.”

She took a deep breath, trying to remember
if that had ever happened before—an urge to smooth her hand over
the head of a man she barely knew, or for that matter, one she knew
well.

Alan dried his own feet and put his boots
back on, walked over to Sonoro, and unstrapped a blanket from the
back of the saddle. While Kathy spread it in a patch of shade, he
unpacked the saddlebags, handing her packages containing pretzels,
apples, and sandwiches made with thick slices of homemade bread.
Then he walked over to the stream and fished out the beer and water
he’d left there to cool.

“You thought of everything,” she said.

“I’d love to take the credit, but Mom
helped.”

She watched him unwrap a sandwich, noticing,
as she had before, the oddly bent finger on his right hand,
fighting the urge to reach out and take his hand in hers and
measure that bent finger against one of hers. “What happened?”

“Oh. You mean this?” He glanced at his
finger, then away. “Umm. Fat calf, narrow chute.”