Stone Kissed (7 page)

Kelsey Hardcastle quivered behind the hospital reception desk. She had always been hostile and annoying. Apparently, she was also a slut because even the high counter could not disguise her swollen belly. No sooner had Cecily stepped through the heavy wooden door than Kelsey hissed, “Get out.”

“I just came to see how Uncle Vernon is doing.”

“Same as two days ago.” Kelsey scanned the foyer, then leaned in. “You’re not getting anywhere near him.”

Cecily sighed. Really, Kelsey had no reason to bear a grudge. The thing with her daddy had lasted less than a minute, and Kelsey’s momma had taken him right back.

“You have no right to stop me.”

“You have no right to be here.”

“I’m family.”

“Like hell. Leave my hospital.”

Her chunky little cheeks were mottled red, and she had a line of zits across her forehead Pregnancy did awful things to some women. Perhaps it was best Cecily and her husband hadn’t managed to conceive before his demise.

“How’s the morning sickness?” Cecily was trying to be sweet. Really she was. She’d never quite gotten the hang of the whole girlfriend scene. Kelsey and her ilk had never gotten past their jealousy of Cecily, who was and always had been the total package—beauty, brains and ambition. It drove a wedge between her and lesser women.

Kelsey reared back, then pressed her lips together and leaned in. “I’ll call Carl. At home. I’ll tell his wife you’re disturbing the peace.”

Cow.

“Are you having a boy?” Cecily asked, showing her teeth when she smiled. “I do hope you’re having a boy.”

Kelsey kept her piggy little eyes locked on Cecily’s as she reached for the phone.

“You have to go home sometime, Kelsey. At the very least, you’ll need a rice field soon.”

Kelsey dialed and Cecily held up her hand. “You win. He won’t know I’m there anyway, will he?”

Kelsey shook her head slowly, her face still suspicious.

Unless he woke up and told people about Russ, Cecily was safe. No one would associate her with him or the fire unless she called attention to herself again.

In the meantime Grant Wolverton, who looked right handsome in the internet photos, had the deed to her property and a fortune of his own.

“Sorry to run out on our little reunion, but I’ve got a welcome wagon basket to pack.”

“Don’t let the door—”

Cecily raised her middle finger over her shoulder as the door creaked shut behind her.

Delia spent early April coated in dust, overseeing the salvage crew Grant had called in to clean out the house. They worked like professional movers, labeling each item with numbered stickers, writing every detail down on a long inventory slate:

132. Grand piano, rosewood antique, two missing ivories, gouge on the left side panel, water and smoke damage.

335. Miscellaneous children’s books, smoke damage and mildew.

464. Five iron.

556. Set of hot rollers, 3pc missing.

Burly men lined up the treasures and detritus of her childhood in neat, orderly rows down the driveway to the street. Most of it was too damaged to salvage. But her mother had read her a few of those books. And, she remembered, her father had too.

“We’ll keep box 335,” she told Ralph, the foreman. He pushed his dust mask up into his shock of red hair.

“You’ll never get the smoke out. You’re better off buying new copies.”

“Please.”

He hefted the box and moved down to the far row. His crew moved with surprising grace and efficiency, carrying battered armchairs and grit-coated marble-topped tables as if they weighed only ounces. Even the largest of them moved like dancers in their sooty overalls, placing each foot gracefully and deliberately on the beams and temporary planks designated by Grant’s structural engineer. All these people—and she was the boss.

Well, almost.

“What now, Grant?” she asked, not even bothering to turn around. Perhaps she’d subconsciously noticed Ralph straighten. Perhaps the gravel had crunched behind her. Delia was certain there was a logical explanation why, when he was yards away, her body awoke to him. Her neck lengthened and her breasts swelled. Her hips and thighs settled and relaxed in readiness for a man she hadn’t had and never would. Her treacherous, stupid body didn’t care that she was sweaty and mousy and sunburned and gross.

Grant stepped up behind her, and her back warmed even as the sun beat down on her face. He handed her a warm paper bag and she could smell the salty fries. She smiled before she could school it away.

“You haven’t eaten yet,” he said.

“I’m working here.”

“You’ve got to eat. Come on.” He took her hand and pulled her back to the bench. Reaching into the bag on her lap, Grant pulled out a double-decker burger.

Delia reached for a fry and began her report. She babbled as usual, talking too fast, listing every piece of furniture she could strip down, stain or reupholster. She filled the space between them with words.

Today she went on a tangent about replacing the household art. Grant interrupted her monologue about the landscape paintings from the library.

“Do they belong in the house?”

It was a good question, the right question, and she chewed slowly, thinking about it. “One of them might—the Cloverham. He was a regional artist at the turn of the century. My great-greats would have known him and may have even commissioned the work. It’s a study of the old quarry, the source of the stone for this house and many of the buildings in town.”

“When did they close the quarry?”

“Early seventies, I think. It’s parkland now. Nice hiking, but many areas are gated off because they’re dangerous. One guy died there when I was a kid.”

“You knew him?”

“No, I was too young. He taught high school. He left a wife and a couple of daughters. It was two years before they found the bones. I was in fifth grade, I guess. It was the talk of the middle school.”

“Stewardsville has quite the crime wave.”

She went cold in spite of the April sun. “Anyone come forward with information yet?” She bit the words out, knowing her resentment showed.

“Plenty of people, with nothing about the fire. The consensus is your father had a cooking accident.” His voice was wry as he continued, “I, however, have been invited to join two bowling teams and the chamber of commerce.”

“You can’t join the chamber of commerce!”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a shark. And they’re…sea lions.”

“Not all of them.” He shook his head and glanced back at the drive with a mock shudder.

Delia felt a spurt of pleasure when she realized he was talking about Cecily. Her so-called cousin had dropped off two pies, a loaf of bread and her cell phone number—twice. Because Cecily was almost Grant’s height, she looked him in the eye, sex and self-satisfaction glowing from her dewy-fresh skin. She touched his wrist while she talked to him and placed salon-perfect nails on his biceps when he responded.

Every time she stopped by, Delia tormented herself with some critical task in the vicinity of the front walkway. She sketched the entry columns, even though all they needed was a coat of paint. She rolled the half-filled wheelbarrow with discarded chunks of lathe and plaster out to the rental dumpster and stopped on the porch again to brush a cobweb off the molding. She watched them together, Cecily all perfect-pretty and Grant all powerful and male.

But they didn’t notice her, and in her sweaty, grimy condition that was fine with her. Cecily no longer wasted even a glance at her, and Grant was charming, smiling for Cecily in a way he never smiled at Delia.

Perhaps it was a false smile, Delia allowed herself to hope. Maybe Grant only meant to mollify, distract and push Cecily away. She’d come back tomorrow, no doubt, or the day after. Delia needed to watch them again, to see whether the charm Grant showed Cecily was real or a lie. But unfortunately, Delia wouldn’t be here to pretend not to stare. She couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Grant, I need some time off.”

“Why?”

“I have to clear out my apartment in the city.”

She’d avoided saying it. She’d avoided thinking it. When she shut the door on her old apartment, she would shut the door on Forrest Restoration. She had the money to renew the lease, but when she was alone in bed at night—when she wasn’t clawing the sheets in frustrated desire or curled into a ball of sadness—she had moments of clarity. It was time to cut bait and come home for good.

“Will three days be enough?”

“I don’t have much…” She trailed off. “How did you know I have three days?”

“Background check.”

Goose bumps rose on the back of her arms. What else did he know about her?

“What’s my middle name, Grant?”

His grin was wicked. “Therèse.” He drawled it slowly, pulling out the long “ezzz” of the French pronunciation so it resonated in her sternum.

“Social security number?”

“Four-seven-three—uff!”

She slammed the fast food bag into his stomach. He grabbed hold of her wrist, lightly but firmly, and didn’t let go.

“We’ll leave tonight after you visit your father,” he replied. “You can have tomorrow to pack up your apartment and I’ll bring you back to the offices for a working lunch. I’ll arrange for Evans and Braun to be there so you can meet them face-to-face.”

She shielded her eyes with her other hand, tugging halfheartedly at her wrist. Four hours in his cool, clean, empty car. With Grant. Four whole hours alone in the night with Grant. “You don’t need to come with me. I can find my own way.”

“I’ll pick you up at six.”

“I won’t be ready until seven-thirty.”

“Seven.” His nostrils flared.

“Six forty-five.”

His grin was broad and breathtaking. “Deal.”

She’d done that. She’d made Grant Wolverton smile. And it was a real smile, not just a flash of teeth to charm and soothe her. She held the small glow of pleasure to herself, watching his ass flex as he walked back to his car. He was already opening the door when she realized he meant to pick her up at her at her new place. If he saw his statues…

“Grant,” she called, jogging up to his Lexus. He rolled down his window and she stared into his sunglasses. “I’ll drive myself to D.C. I can fit everything I’m keeping in my car.”

His smile faded. “Suit yourself.” He pulled out without a backward glance.

***

Maybe she was a witch, after all. His sister, Randi, accused Grant of being overprotective and suspicious, but Delia had brought him to a new low.

He followed her old Civic down the highway, staying several cars behind her, expecting, hoping, the resonance in his blood would subside. Without question, the more time he spent at Steward House, the better he felt. It wasn’t just the labor, though it felt good to saw, hammer, pry wood and carry planks again. The land was greener when he stepped onto the grass. The stone wrapped around him, cooling him in the humidity of a Southern spring.

Every time he was there, however, Delia was too. The light shifted across her face as the shadows lengthened through the gaps in the stone. The honeysuckle in the air tickled his nose when she brushed past him to examine a piece of charred brick. The sweat trickled down his spine when she raised her arm to point up at a beam.

He needed to separate the two, to deal with Delia away from Steward House, to regain some perspective, some logic, some clarity of thought.

As he followed the Civic up the 95, however, the buzzing in his nerves didn’t abate. Rather, the opposite—he was on the hunt and his quarry was almost in his grasp.

The familiar nagging began as soon as she twisted the key in her old apartment’s lock.

“It’s about time,” grumbled Brogan from the stack of books against the wall next to the efficiency kitchen. He was a large stone foliate mask—a Green Man. Even though he was only a face covered with carved oak leaves, transporting him would be difficult. Green Men were invariably grumpy, and Brogan wouldn’t go gently into that packing crate. Nor would the bust of Athena mounted over the entry door.

“Where have you been, young lady? It has been years!”

Delia looked up at Athena and winced inwardly. She’d have to remove the shelf and patch the holes. She’d hoped to make quick work of moving out, but it would take her at least a day after all.

“How’s your Da?” Brogan asked.

“You remember?”

“What kind of a fool do you take me for? Of course I remember.”

She tossed her duffel through the bedroom door and turned back to them, rubbing the kink in the small of her back from driving so long.

“He’s in a coma.”

“Is he hollow?” Athena asked.

“Athena!” Brogan barked.

“It’s okay,” Delia said. “No. He’s still in there. The doctor says signs are good that he’ll wake up.”

“Well that’s all right, then,” Athena replied.

“So tell me, you two…” Delia paused for a big yawn. “You fancy a change of scenery?”

***

Delia had arrived at the Wolverton offices promptly at 9:00 in the morning in an ill-fitting blue suit that made her look even more delicate than usual. He’d been distant, pleasant and professional during the meetings all day. In spite of her neo-Luddite addiction to drawing everything out by hand, her quiet enthusiasm and creativity had charmed his chief architect and mollified the head of his design division. She worked hard, harder than she needed to. Now she was in his city, alone, and Grant was too. So he had come to find her and feed her—to be cordial. To be a good host.

Grant pulled open the door to the tenement Delia would call home, thankfully, for only a couple more days. The tinny bass of a cheap stereo system reverberated overhead. He looked for a buzzer bank, but only saw mail slots, most of them empty and unlabeled.

He shook his head—no security whatsoever. He’d throttle Randi if she spent even an evening in a place like this.

Based on the intelligence he occasionally requested from an increasingly begrudging Lars, however, Randi was too wise to contemplate walking on the wild side. Not for the first time he wondered if some vague memory of what their mother had been like influenced his sister’s choices. Grandfather had collected them when Randi was eight, and not once in the past nineteen years had she spoken of the time before mother died. Neither had he. Grant had been barely a teen himself when Grandfather had gathered his only grandchildren to his bony bosom. But by then, Grant had taken charge of Randi himself, making sure she was fed, clothed and safe.

He’d been lucky, he mused as he jogged up the stairs to the third floor, slowing at the top to hide his eagerness. Randi had never given him a day’s real trouble. His colleagues complained about rearing their children on a regular basis. Most of it was bluster or poor parenting on their part. He set rules for Randi. The old man set rules for Randi. She followed the rules. End of story.

As he pushed open the gray door from the third floor stairwell, the music blasted him from a doorway propped open by a trash bag full of clothes. Delia was playing a pop tune he remembered from when he was a kid—but it sounded different, richer, as if he were hearing it inside a cathedral with a choir of monks singing an antiphonal chorus. When he focused, however, he couldn’t hear anything specific. The song sounded just as it had on his cassette player years ago, with the exception of the lead vocals. In addition to the lead singer, he heard a clean soprano descant which didn’t quite match the music, but melded perfectly with it all the same.

***

“Delia!” She belted out the chorus to one of her mother’s favorite songs, replacing “Gloria” with her own name. She was still riding the wave of exhilaration she’d been on since the last meeting an hour ago. The architects had had nothing but praise for her designs and hadn’t smirked when she pushed aside their laptops to set out her sketch pad. She dropped books in the copy paper boxes and layered her sheets and winter sweaters on top. Grant had even smiled once during the meeting, as if he, too, were pleased with her work.

Brogan and Athena sang along from the nests of straw in their respective crates, and she bumped her hips left and right, punching her fists in the air to the song about a woman on the edge of cracking up, who also heard voices calling her name.

“Delia!” she shouted again as the chorus swelled to the finale.

“That’s not how it goes,” Grant interrupted.

Delia’s heart collapsed into her stomach, and she dropped her copy of
The Naked Ape
on her big toe. “Oh, damn!” She was amazed at how much it hurt. Tears filled her eyes and spilled over before she could stop them. As she panted from the pain, she hopped on her good foot. She stilled, immediately, however, when Grant wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close.

“Would you look at that?” Athena said.

“What? What’s going on out there?” Brogan barked from his crate.

“Shut up,” Delia moaned. She dropped her forehead against Grant’s muscled chest and closed her eyes. “Just…shut up.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Not…never mind.”

Taking her arms, Grant set her back. “Let me look at it.”

“Good God, no.” She cringed. “What are you doing here?”

“I figured you needed to eat.” He glanced around the room. “I’ll send a truck tomorrow.”

“No! No, you won’t. I can get all of this in my car tonight and be out of here by morning.”

Grant dropped back gracefully onto the futon, spreading his arm along the back like he owned it. He was long and large and dark, and the deep red fabric of the cover faded into shadow under him. The futon would be much too small to hold his sleeping body. She would have to curl up tight on top of him to even begin to fit herself.

“This won’t fit,” he said, and she started flushing. He cocked his head and spoke slowly. “In your car. You can’t get a futon in your car.”

“I don’t like his voice,” Brogan snarled, and Delia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she leaned across Grant, intending to snatch up the yellow chenille sofa pillow and stuff it in the box over Brogan’s face. Her breasts brushed Grant’s chest and his arm slipped around her waist, pulling her down into his lap.

She did fit. She knew she would. His breath feathered the curl above her left ear.

“I don’t need it.” Her voice was breathy, weak. “I won’t take it.” But her foot slid back, twining itself behind his as if it were a vine riding up the granite hardness of his calf, his thigh. She felt the hard bulge beneath her, and her buttocks ground down into him like stones settling into the welcoming earth. Heat shot in a starburst from her core through her fingertips, toes and lips, shocking her with its speed and force.

She shocked herself, grinding against this man like…like Claudel’s brazen nude.

She was Delia Forrest. She wasn’t brazen and she couldn’t get nude, no matter how tightly the rise of her jeans rose between her thighs, no matter how the rough fabric of her bra suddenly abraded her nipples, no matter how warm and all-encompassing his strong arm felt against the sliver of skin on her belly where her too-tight shirt had just come loose.

Sure, he was hard, but it meant nothing. A drunken date had explained it to her once.
It’s the binary system. Women are either ones or zeroes. Ones you fuck. Zeroes you don’t. Thing is, it’s not fifty-fifty—almost all women are ones in the dark.
She’d slid out of the booth to the ladies’ room and never gone back.

Gritting her teeth, Delia sought for her sense of self-preservation now. She lay panting on his chest and sought deeper. Nope. Nothing.

His lips found her neck, his tongue flicking the hollow curve below the tendon. She arched her neck to give him better access. She shuddered and her thighs clenched over his. Then he muttered, dropping his head back onto the metal futon frame,

“I didn’t come here for this. I came to take you to dinner.”

Her neck was cold in the spot he’d abandoned, and she felt her chest cave. This wasn’t how it was supposed to play out. She’d clawed holes in her sheets thinking about him, and chugged gallons of cocoa by the light of late-night Oprah reruns, while his statues babbled in her apartment about how she was working too hard and not taking care of her own needs.

Mortification gave Delia strength. She shoved down on the futon crossbar to lift herself off him. She couldn’t look him in the eye. She’d never thrown herself at a man before, and apparently she was rather bad at it.

“Zero,” she muttered as she set the pillow on the counter beside Brogan’s crate.

“He’s a bounder,” Brogan growled.

“Thanks,” she whispered, but Grant heard her anyway.

“No problem.” She heard a strange note in his voice. Delia glanced back as he adjusted his jeans. “You’ve got to eat.”

Athena tittered, and Delia scowled up at her. She had to get Grant out of here and away from them, or she’d never hear the end of it. Brogan was too paternal and Athena was too lewd.

“Let’s go.” Delia snatched up her purse. “Now.”

***

Delia stood in the central atrium of Grant’s place, craning her neck. The glossy photo spreads hadn’t done his home justice. It was a miracle of wood and light—vast, open and cool in spite of the sunlight drenching the space through the back wall of state-of-the-art low-E glass. Two staircases flanked the entry up to the mezzanine balconies of the second and third floors.

The walkways were all light wood and brushed nickel. The banister floated along the glass shielding the honey-gold wooden stairs. Through the wide archways above leading into the different suites, Delia caught glimpses of color—sapphire blue, cardinal red, emerald green. It was as if she were standing inside an exquisite jeweled egg made of silver, palest gold and precious gems. Once again, she felt small and grimy and out of place.

The centerpiece was the oasis gracing the atrium before her. A dozen palm trees in huge stone pots surrounded a sunken pond with a central fountain. Nestled among the fronds behind the pond sat a golden sandstone Egyptian cat, five feet tall, with large almond eyes full of confidence. Her low, gentle purr vibrated through the tile and into Delia’s bones.

“What a gorgeous Bast.”

“She was gift from a client.”

“Whose grave goods?”

“Unfortunately, the provenance doesn’t go back that far.”

“Come on, Grant. She was dug out—when? One hundred years ago?”

The purring stopped.

“She was part of a railroad estate. She wasn’t on the list. I did a reasonable job selling the rest, and the owner, who was a friend of the family, gave her to me.”

He was cold and the cat was quiet. She’d insulted him.

“I see. My Green Man came to me in much the same way,” she volunteered by way of apology. “Your Bast is quite a find. She fits here.”

The cat began purring again.

“Why do you talk to them, Delia?”

He’d heard. Of course he’d heard. He’d had her investigated, digging for dirt, and the rumors had come back to him of her eccentricity, of her “imaginary friends.”

She couldn’t blame him, because she was no better. The statue of the Virgin Mary in the garden at school had been the source of many secrets, which had protected Delia from the feral bullies at The Hancock School for Young Ladies of Character. It was less enticing to pick on the girl who could describe the tattoos on their butt—and name the guys who’d gotten to see their ink.
Fight dirty,
Mary had told her. So she had.

Delia could feel the truth pushing at her teeth and tongue. How did this man make her want to throw caution to the wind and rip herself open for him? “Because sometimes it’s the only intelligent conversation I can get.”

In Bast’s case, Delia was lying. Animal figures didn’t speak—they made the sounds their carvers intended for them. Humanized creatures, like Bert, were different—their creators intended them to have human speech. But in the main, granite serpents hissed, alabaster horses whinnied and marble busts chatted just as Delia expected them to do. This cat purred because Delia felt stone cats should purr.

Is this real, or am I nuts?
she asked herself for the thousand-thousandth time, her head beginning to hurt.

“Tour first, or dinner?”

“Does dinner include wine?”

“Yes.”

“Dinner, then.”

Delia followed Grant through the back of the central garden to an archway and a kingdom of stainless steel gleaming beyond.

“Watch your step, little bird,” a caramel-thick voice murmured behind her. “He is mine.”

Delia froze mid-stride. “What other pieces do you have?”

“Some smaller figures upstairs. Down here Bast is sufficient.”

“Indeed, I am.”

Pain spiked through Delia’s skull above her right temple. She closed her eyes and felt Grant’s hand on her arm.

“Delia?”

Bast was a goddess figure. That was it. That was the logical explanation for why the statue of the cat had begun to speak to her. Although the goddess cats never had before. Not one.

“You remember what I said, little bird.”

“She’s a formidable piece.” Delia grimaced, opening her eyes. “Where’s my wine?”

***

He cooked. He cooked so much better than Delia cooked. Normally she lived off takeout from the Chinese place down the block, or pancakes from the jumbo bag of mix she’d bought during a fit of idiocy at a warehouse club. If it couldn’t be held in one hand, Delia didn’t fix it. When Grant laid out a juicy seared steak, asparagus in wine, a crusty loaf of bread and creamy white cheese, her eyes went wide.

“Cooking relaxes me.” He picked up his fork.

The meat melted in her mouth, and she gave a little moan. He reached forward and touched the tip of his finger to the corner of her mouth. “Juice.” He licked his fingertip.