Dreams for Stones (7 page)

After a while, the woman returned to the
waiting area, looking calmer, cried out perhaps. When the
receptionist handed over the extra money, saying the bill had been
paid, the woman turned wide, dark eyes on Alan. “
Ay bendito
.
It’s too much. I can’t let you do it.” She held out the money to
him.

He shook his head. “It’s from the turk—the
man who hit Blackie. He insisted.”

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.
“I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.” Her voice
caught as her eyes focused on his shirt. “And your clothes.
Lo
siento
.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been looking for an
excuse to get rid of the jacket. Actually, I’m not crazy about this
shirt either.” But he was even less crazy about shopping.

She gave him a watery smile, holding out the
money. “Please. Take this. To replace your clothes.”

He shook his head, refusing again. “Figured
you could use a ride home.”

“
Gracias
.” She held out a slim hand.
“I’m Grace Garibaldi.”

“Alan Francini.” He shook her hand briefly,
then opened the door and ushered her out of the clinic. “You live
on Albion, you said?”

“
Sí
. Near the medical center.” Her
voice was still uneven.

He kept the conversation going with simple
questions as he drove her home. He learned she was from Puerto Rica
and an ICU nurse who wrote children’s books in her spare time. In
turn, he talked about his border collie, Cormac, and told her he
was a professor at Denver State.

He turned on Albion. “Which house?”

“The white one on the left,” she said,
pointing. “I appreciate so much what you did today. For me and
Blackie. My daughter.” Her voice caught. “Delia. She’s only six. I
don’t know how I’m going to tell her.”

He pulled the car to a stop, and she turned
toward him, biting her lip and holding out her hand. “
Muchas
gracias
, Alan.”

He shook her hand gently. “
De nada
,
Grace.”

Sometimes he thought that would be a relief,
to live his life in a foreign language using words that held no
memories.

Grace slid out of the car and walked quickly
toward the small house, turning as she reached the front stoop to
wave at him. He acknowledged the wave, before driving away trying
not to picture an unknown little girl named Delia who would shortly
learn her dog was dead.

Charles called Alan that evening. “So, what happened with the
dog?”

“It had to be put down.”

“Too bad. Cute dog. Looked a lot like
Cormac. And the owner, she was cute too.”

“Was she? I didn’t notice.” Alan stood and
walked over to lean against the balcony door.

“You never do. You get her name or
anything?”

“Grace Garibaldi. Puerto Rican. Nurse at the
med center. Lives on Albion. Writes children’s books.” He rubbed
his forehead, trying to forget the rest of the details of his
meeting with Grace and Blackie. “I miss anything you want to
know?”

“She a
señora
or a
señorita
?”

“I’d guess
señora
.”

“Guess? How is it you can get into a
cultural, literary, and career discussion with a woman and fail to
get the basic stats.”

“She just lost her dog. Besides, she has a
little girl.” That should effectively end it. Charles had an
inflexible rule about dating women who had children, which meant he
could hardly insist Alan do it.

“Grace Garibaldi. Nice alliteration. That’s
a literary term, you know. Got to prepare for court. Catch you
later.” As usual, Charles stopped right before he tipped Alan into
saying something he’d regret.

Alan hung up and stood staring out at the
darkness feeling thoroughly annoyed with Charles for his eternal
nudging.

Alan answered the phone in his office to find Grace Garibaldi on
the other end. She’d obviously spent time tracking him down since
all he’d told her was his name and that he was a professor at
DSU.

“
Mira
, Alan,” Grace said. “I’m
calling to invite you to dinner. Delia and Frank want to meet you.
To thank you for helping with Blackie.”

Frank? Son or husband?

“Can you possibly come this Saturday?”

Since he spent all his weekends at the
ranch, he didn’t need to consult a calendar. Still he hesitated,
worrying the small mystery of Frank.

“Frank told me it was too short notice. But
I thought it was worth a try,” Grace continued, sounding
hopeful.

Okay. Frank had to be a husband. Which meant
this was exactly what it seemed: a friendly invitation to dinner.
“As a matter of fact, I can come.” He’d have to drive in from the
ranch, but that was no biggie.

“And bring a guest,” Grace said, clinching
the Frank-as-husband hypothesis.

“No. No guest.”

“Can you. . . This is going to seem silly,
but can you possibly bring your dog? Delia asked me to invite
him.”

“I think Cormac would enjoy a night
out.”

And Cormac wasn’t the only one. Alan was
surprised at how pleased he was with the invitation. Still, he was
glad he had the dog with him to help ease those first, awkward
moments when he arrived at the Garibaldis’.

Grace greeted him at the door. Behind her a
little girl came skipping down the hall, right up to Cormac. She
knelt and extended her hand for the dog to sniff, and when he gave
it a lick, she giggled. Since Cormac hadn’t been around children
much, Alan bent down to supervise the interaction, but clearly he
didn’t need to worry. The collie’s tail wagged furiously, and he
wiggled with pleasure as Delia hugged him.

“Traitor,” Alan muttered.

Grace laughed. “
Mira
. She does have a
way with animals.”

Then Grace introduced her husband. At first
glance, Frank Garibaldi, who seemed as imperturbable as an old dog
sleeping in the sun, seemed an odd choice for Grace, who was as
quick and vivid as a hummingbird. But it seemed to be a happy
union. And Delia was a delight, as sunny and good-natured as a
puppy.

After that first dinner, Alan went with Frank to the animal shelter
to help pick out a new dog for Delia.

“If Delia came, we’d end up with not only a
dog, but a brace of kittens and the miscellaneous gerbil or two,”
Frank said, as he and Alan moved from cage to cage, assessing the
available animals. They settled on a collie mix with a sweet
temperament that looked enough like Blackie to satisfy the little
girl.

Delia christened her new dog Blackie-two and
begged Alan to help her train it.

He began stopping by the Garibaldis’ a
couple of afternoons a week to work with Delia and her dog.
Afterward, Grace always insisted he stay for dinner.

“It’s the least I can do,
verdad
?
It’s so good of you to help, Alan.”

“It’s my pleasure, Grace. Delia and I are
pals.” He smiled at the little girl, who grinned back at him.

The only downside of becoming a regular part
of the Garibaldi family was that it made him more aware of how
alone he was the rest of the week.

Kathy located the library carrel she’d reserved after her encounter
with Alan Francini and got out paper and pens. She sat for a time,
letting her mind drift before she began writing:
So, Amanda,
tell me about yourself
.

I loves ’orses, you ken. Love ’em. When
everything else goes to pot, I can always count on Sukie, my black
stallion. He can pull me out of the worst funk. You cannot
imagine.”

Kathy stopped writing abruptly and stared at
the words. Who did Amanda think she was, Eliza Doolittle? And a
black stallion named Sukie—where did that come from?

Horses. What had made her come up with a
character who wanted to drag horses into the story, when Kathy was
scared to death of them? Well, she’d liked them once, before she
made the personal acquaintance of a fat, scruffy one named Peaches.
At a summer camp when she was ten.

The first time Peaches began to trot, Kathy
had bounced off, and everybody laughed. She’d climbed back on and
promptly bounced off again. Peaches was so fat, Kathy couldn’t get
a grip.

She’d brushed off her clothes, determined to
try yet again, when Peaches swung around and nipped her arm.
Granted it was more pinch than bite, but enough was enough. Kathy
had stomped away, trying not to cry. For the rest of her time at
camp, she gave the stables a wide berth.

So, if Amanda insisted on dragging horses
into the story, Kathy was going to have to make peace with the
equine world and possibly do some personal research.

Or, better, she could just get rid of
Amanda, who, at any rate, sounded like a ditz. But then again, if
Kathy didn’t follow up on this nudge, her muse might sulk, and
Kathy could end up sitting here night after night with nothing to
write about. It had happened before.

Surely she could manage one riding lesson.
She lived in Colorado, after all. She’d insist on a skinny,
geriatric horse that would be perfectly happy to plod along. And
maybe it wouldn’t be all bad. Facing an old fear might serve as a
distraction from the new fear she’d been struggling to
suppress.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and
there it was, the dark panic that came to keep her company whenever
she wasn’t busy.

The fear, still faint, but growing more
distinct, that she might never find a man she could love
unreservedly. Because even if that man existed, she no longer
trusted herself to recognize him.

Kathy glanced from the instructions to the dirt road coming up on
her right. This had to be it—exactly three point six miles from the
last turn. Then she saw the sign confirming it. TapDancer
Ranch.

The minivan she’d been following since
leaving the highway turned under the TapDancer sign as well.
Someone else arriving for a riding lesson, no doubt.

After another quarter of a mile, the road
topped a rise, and in front of Kathy lay a valley within the curve
of the foothills. She stopped the car to take it all in.

A large, weathered barn the color of brushed
pewter was the most prominent of the buildings clustered at this
end of the valley. There were also a number of newer structures,
surrounded by fenced-in pastures golden with grass and dotted with
grazing horses. A house of wood and glass perched on a hill
overlooking it all.

It was. . . beautiful was too insipid a
word. Beyond beauty, there was strength in the up-curving
lineaments of the land forming the valley’s boundaries and peace in
the slow movements of the horses.

She wondered if the people who lived here
realized how lucky they were. Sighing with envy, she drove slowly
down the hill and parked next to the minivan.

As she got out of her car, a dog came
rushing from the barn to greet the woman and little girl who had
arrived in the van. The girl gathered the dog in her arms.

Kathy looked away from the child and
delirious dog, to see a man walking toward them from the barn. She
took in scuffed boots, faded jeans, and well-worn Stetson.

The Virginian in the flesh. Charmed, she
watched him approach.

“Hi, Grace,” he said, pushing the hat back
and hugging the woman. “Welcome to TapDancer.”

No. It couldn’t be.

The little girl bounced over to him, and he
scooped her up.

“Hi, Alan.”

But it was. The “Alan” clinched it. Not the
Virginian or a close facsimile thereof, but the arrogant, obnoxious
professor.

She’d done nothing to deserve this, really
she hadn’t.
Pretending
to slam a tennis ball at someone
didn’t count, did it?

“Delia. How’s my best girl?”

“Ter-ri-fic.” Delia bobbed her head with
each syllable, then gave the man a smacking kiss, almost knocking
off his hat, before he set her down.

Kathy edged back toward her car, planning to
open the door, slide in, and drive away, as if she’d turned in here
by mistake—the truth, actually.

But before she reached safety, Alan looked
over at her, frowning. “Ms. . . Jamison isn’t it?”

“I-I was just—I mean, there’s been a
mistake.” She reached out a shaking hand to open the car door, but
found she’d locked it. She fumbled in her pocket for her keys, then
dropped them from fingers gone numb. As she bent to pick them up,
she saw that man, woman, and child were all staring at her.

Standing up, she flipped the keys to get at
the one to her elderly Toyota. “Umm. That is, I talked to Stella,
to schedule a riding lesson.” She blew out a breath to dislodge the
strands of hair that had blown across her face, remembering that
Stella had said her husband did the teaching.

But who knew her husband would be this man?
Odd, though, that he didn’t seem to know Kathy was coming. Didn’t
they talk to each other? “You weren’t expecting me, I can just. . .
” The car key had gotten caught in the keychain. She shook the
keys, trying to dislodge it.

“My folks rushed off to be with my sister,”
Alan said. “She’s having a baby. Guess they were so excited, they
forgot to mention you were coming.”

His folks? So, that meant Stella was. . .
his mother? And this Grace, whom he’d greeted so affectionately,
she was what? His date?

“That’s okay.” Kathy fumbled the key free
and tried to fit it in the lock. “I can come back another time.” As
if that were going to happen.

“
Ay Dios
mío
,” Grace said.
“You must stay.
It’s a long drive,
sí
?”

What was the woman, nuts? Two horses and a
pony were saddled and standing tethered to the side of the barn
awaiting the three of them. And Kathy had no intention of making it
a foursome. “No. Really. It’s okay. I’ll reschedule.”
Not
.