Cat's Cradle

“Well, at least you look as if you’re recovering well enough.”

“More or less. Everything works, just slower and stiffer.” He raised his beer and drank. “So tell me about home.”

“What about it?”

“Well, the Beaudine family, for starters, I suppose. You can tell me how your mom is and how all your sisters turned out.”

She fiddled with the label on her beer bottle, as if she suspected he’d just thrown her a trick question. “My mother’s remarried.”

“No kidding?”

“Yep. Just a few years ago, to a retired housepainter. She met him playing bingo over at the community hall. You could say he sort of swept her off her feet, I guess. They tied the knot a few months after they met and they live in Tucson now.”

“What about the little ones?”

“Phoebe and Deirdre?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re not so little anymore. Both married, as a matter of fact. Deirdre lives in Loyalton. And Phoebe’s in Portola.”

“Not too far away, then?”

“Right.” She took another sip of beer.

“And how about you? Are you married?”

“Me?” She looked surprised that he’d ask such a question. “No, not me.”

It was the answer he’d expected, but still, he’d wanted to be sure. He was tempted to probe a little deeper on the subject, to ask her why not? just to see how she’d answer. But he decided against that. She was too edgy. Any probing on his part would probably send her flying out the door.

He kept it light and predictable. “How about nieces and nephews? Got any of those yet?”

“Five.” She was fiddling with the bottle’s label again. “Deirdre has three daughters. And Phoebe has two boys.”

“Wow. Now that’s hard to picture. Not only married, but with kids. They were just little girls when I left.”

She sipped from her beer again, looked away and then back.

He went on with the next question. “And what about Adora?”

He saw that he’d blown it as soon as the name was out of his mouth. Cat’s hand tightened around the beer bottle. A moment before she’d been edgy, but now she was ready to get the hell out. He knew exactly what was going through her mind: What in the world was she doing here, sharing a beer with her sister’s old flame?

She forced a tight smile and proceeded to tell him all about Adora. “Adora is just fine. Still single. She has her own beauty shop, right in town on Bridge Street. It’s called the Shear Elegance Salon of Beauty. She lives in an apartment above the shop.”

He cursed his careless mouth, yet saw no choice but to blunder along in the same vein. “So she’s doing well, then?”

“Yes, very well.” Cat set her nearly empty beer on a side table. “Listen, it really is getting late and I have to get going.” She turned for the door.

All Dillon could think of was that she was getting away from him. He reached out and grabbed her arm. “Wait.”

She froze, then whipped her head around to gape at him. Her stunned expression told it all: men rarely dared to touch her. And now that a man was touching her, she didn’t know what to make of it.

She was what—? A year older than he was, if Dillon remembered right. Thirty-five, maybe thirty-six. And right now, looking in her face, he could swear that in all those years, she’d never once moved in ecstasy beneath the hands of a man.

“What?” she asked in an astonished whisper.

Dillon said nothing. He really had nothing to say, except Don’t go, which he knew wouldn’t keep her there. The silence expanded, seeming to fill the large room.

“What do you want?” Her voice still sounded amazed, but there was a little more force in it than a moment ago.

Again, he didn’t answer.

Under the heavy fabric of her shirt, her skin was warm and supple, the muscles beneath like flexible steel. She was strong. “Let me go.” This time it was a command.

Dillon’s hand dropped away. There was no further point in holding on, anyway. The moment he’d stolen through the sheer audacity of daring to touch her had passed.

Like a person stirring from a waking dream, Cat blinked and shook her head. He wondered what she’d do next, if she would get mad because he’d grabbed her arm.

He didn’t think she would. Not if he handled it right. Not if he gave her an out she could live with—like pretending that nothing at all had occurred. Which it hadn’t. Not really. Not yet.

“Listen, thanks for warming things up.”

She studied him narrowly for a moment, then shrugged. “No problem.”

Her eyes were cool and level. He thought of the winter world beyond the window. To the untrained eye, it might seem a frozen expanse of white. But warm-blooded things moved there, if you knew where to look.

“Is there anything else I can take care of, before I go?”

A provocative remark occurred to him; he chose not to utter it. “No. Everything looks fine.”

“Well, then...”

“Thanks again.”

She gave a brief, tight nod. Then she turned and left him alone.

Dillon stood before the wall of windows for a long while after Cat was gone. He was feeling good. The best he’d felt in a long, long time.

After the wreck and the disappointments, after the long months of pain and sweat and fear as he forced his legs, through endless hours of physical therapy, to learn to carry him again, it was good to stand by a window in a house he loved and look out over the mountains in winter. It was good to be here. To be home.

And it was also good that Cat Beaudine was so damned competent. Because he’d already decided he was going to need a lot of help from the caretaker to get himself settled in.

Three

“Well? Have you seen him?”

Startled, Cat whirled around. Adora stood in the middle of Cat’s living room, smiling.