“Was it a good memory?”
He could only nod, a tightness in his throat had cut off any words. He’d lost so much. He’d lost his image of a happy family and a happy home. Worse, he’d lost any hope of a happy version of himself. But the espresso machine was from before that time. Vera had given the machine to him when they couldn’t afford it, by scraping together an entire year’s worth of a dollar per day stuffed into a jar. He’d bought her a used DVD set of some British comedy she’d liked, and she’d given him one of the best home espresso machines made.
What was he supposed to do with that? So much gone. This too?
He slumped back against one of the cabinets and slid down to sit on the floor. Tired. It had been too much, like a knife driven into his guts. It might hurt like hell, but to remove it would hurt even worse.
Maria settled to the floor beside him. It was jarring. He thought of her as so beautiful and such a lady. Yet, other than her dress forcing her to sit with her legs folded neatly to one side, she was probably younger than he was. She said she’d had Angelo when she was young. That meant before twenty. He was newly married at thirty. Maybe she was a year or so older than he was, though that was wholly impossible to credit. She looked and acted so much younger than he felt. Either way, he was sitting on the floor but it still felt strange to see her do so.
She bumped a shoulder against his. As if she were simply offering support. Which is exactly what she’d been doing for, he glanced at the kitchen clock, for almost two hours.
“I’m such a goddamn mess.”
“You are.”
He laughed, “At least you could not agree with me so readily.” He could smell her, without even turning to face her. Warm and spice. Like a winter cider but fresh, so fresh. Like mint or apples on the air.
“I hate to tell you this, Hogan, but you’re human. So, you’re a mess.” Her tone was completely matter of fact.
“But,” he didn’t know how to express it. “But you’re so perfect.”
“If you think that, Mr. Hogan Stanford, then perhaps it is time I was going.”
“No! You can’t. I need to figure this out first.” He scrambled around in his brain for some way to not admit out loud what an utterly ridiculous pedestal he had her on. Of course she was human, he just hadn’t thought it through until this moment. But he knew absolutely that he didn’t want her to leave.
“It’s a disguise right?” He turned to her and they were face-to-face only inches apart. The closeness did nothing to change his opinion of her. Her dusky complexion, her thoughtful dark eyes, her outrageously thick hair were all as real as they’d been when she sat in her window like a painted Venus.
“What’s a disguise?” Her voice was a little more than a whisper.
“Your perfection. You certainly had me fooled. Here I was thinking you were the perfect woman, which is, as you’ve pointed out, of course totally impossible. So, I figure you’re an alien in disguise. Am I right?”
She eyed him suspiciously, but couldn’t fight back the smile that tugged at those full lips.
No longer able to think while this close to her, he leaned in and kissed her.
# # #
Maria knew she should be shocked. She was, but not in a bad way. She’d been watching Hogan carefully as she helped him clear the apartment of the unwanted portion of his past. He was decisive. Not bull in a china shop like Russell or driven like Angelo into high-energy flurries that left her and everyone else around him, except apparently Jo, utterly exhausted. Hogan was steady, made decisions quickly with little fuss.
Maria would have said his movements were elegant, but that wasn’t quite right. What they were was immensely efficient. Never carry one thing when you could carry three. No returning to clean up what was left behind as pieces were removed, but rather fixing the space immediately. She’d have purged the place, then gone back and tried to figure out what to do with the mess she’d left behind. Hogan’s condo looked as well organized as the moment she’d come in; no sign, except in the mounds covering the dining table, that there was substantially less of it.
What shocked her about Hogan’s kiss was how good it felt, how natural. She barely knew the man.
For that matter, she barely knew the woman who slid a hand up to tickle her fingers through his hair. Not even with her boyfriend Angelo, the one who had seduced and left her before she was seventeen and for whom her son had been named, had she been so forward. And the men she’d chosen since coming to America, she’d chosen carefully and rarely.
Hogan eased back without pulling away.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” she whispered, her voice surprisingly husky.
“I’m not, trust me.” His voice was in little better condition. Then he kissed her on the forehead. “Surprised, yes. At both of us. But sorry, not one little bit.”
“Oh,” Maria was a little surprised at both of them as well. She waved a hand toward where they were sitting. “You appear to have swept my feet out from under me.”
“That too appears to be mutual. Hell of a place for a first kiss.”
“Yes. Years from now we’ll be able to say, ‘Well, we always had the kitchen floor’.”
He laughed, a warm, deep sound that welcomed her in.
“You know,” he kissed her forehead once more slowly. “You’re doing a lousy job of ruining your disguise of being perfect.”
“I’ll have to work on that.” But she wasn’t going to work at it too hard. Not with how good it felt to be leaning up against him.
Chapter 7
“And what then?” Perrin leaned in close and eager.
Maria wasn’t quite sure why she’d called Perrin for lunch. It was Monday and the restaurant was closed. She also hadn’t expected Jo and Cassidy to show up as well, though she should have. They were so close that you couldn’t call one without calling all three. Perrin’s shop was nearby, Cassidy’s office was in her home just a few blocks from the Market, and Jo was the Market’s Managing Director, even if it was technically her day off as well.
The four of them sat upstairs at Lowell’s Restaurant in the Market, a small table close against the windows facing the Sound. She and Perrin were splitting a Chicken Apple Salad, Jo and Cassidy a Grilled Vegetable Panzanella, a Tuscan rustic bread salad.
“He made me an espresso.”
Perrin’s eyes practically crossed in her confusion, or perhaps disappointment. “You didn’t push him down on the floor and use his body until you couldn’t stay conscious any longer?”
Maria could hear Cassidy and Jo trying to leap in and cover for her. But they didn’t understand yet that Maria needed no protecting, especially not from Perrin.
“I thought about it, but not yet.”
Perrin didn’t look away, as if Maria’s sex life was the most interesting thing on the planet.
“But I knew a part of him wanted me to. So, I left him something to think about.”
“Ooo, Jo was right. You are scary smart.” Perrin looked impressed. Impressed and thoughtful. She might do well with a little more thinking before she gave away her heart next time.
“So, espresso?” Cassidy went for the subject change.
“Yes, he had this beautiful machine that his wife had given him. He loved the machine, he just hated her connection to it. So I had him make me a decaf espresso which we drank with a delivered Chinese dinner.”
“So…” Perrin leaned back in, clearly still eager for more details. “You connected it to you.”
Maria guessed that she had, though that wasn’t her intent. Then she considered what else had happened last night.
She’d enjoyed herself. Immensely.
Hogan had been both interested in her and interesting himself. They had talked late into the evening. He had tried to call a cab for her, she’d insisted on walking, wanted the fresh air to clear her hea
d. He had insisted on walking with her, her hand comfortable in the crook of his arm as they strolled along.
At the front door to her building Hogan had proven two things. One, that he was an absolute gentleman; she’d had to be the one to kiss him. And second, that first kiss hadn’t been a fluke at all. He was very gentle, but he was also very thoughtful. She could practically hear his brain working on how to improve the kiss moment by moment. Maria had let him, simply enjoying the experience. She’d hoped for electricity and had actually found the lightning she’d asked for. Maria Parrano had gone to bed alone, but very content with the world.
“Better he connects with me than that awful woman. I don’t know what she did to him, but it must have been horrid.”
“Damaged goods,” Perrin nodded sagely. “They can be so much fun to fix up.”
Maria nodded to let Perrin have the round, but it wasn’t what she was thinking.
Hogan Stanford wasn’t damaged, but she’d wager he wasn’t often understood. Probably not even by himself, perhaps especially not. He was absolutely forthright. What he said, he was. His words fit him. If he disagreed with someone, he’d say it, often so bluntly that it sounded offensive, but it wasn’t. Because when he agreed, he was just as blunt and to the point. Other than his occasionally quirky sense of humor, he was exactly as he appeared to be.
Jo and Cassidy had turned to a discussion of the latest bizarre-husband behavior that their new spouses were exhibiting.
Maria interrupted, “To quote Julia Morgan when talking about Angelo and Russell: They’re perfect. Because they are perfectly themselves.”
“That, Maria, is absolute truth,” Jo agreed. The two girls continued comparing notes over their salad.
“Perfect.” Just like Hogan, she thought to herself. Perfectly himself.
“What was that?” Only Perrin had overheard Maria’s whisper to herself.
“That’s what Hogan said I was.”
Perrin studied her for a long moment, and then wrapped Maria in one of her open-hearted hugs and kissed Maria on the cheek.
“Of course you are. If he didn’t see that in you, he wouldn’t deserve you.”
Maria held onto her for an extra moment. Now she knew exactly why she’d called Perrin.
# # #
Hogan met her, as promised, right after he was finished with volunteering at the shelter.
Maria had offered to make him dinner, but he’d insisted that he had that covered and she should dress warmly. She waited for him outside the shelter, not minding the cold air, though she had worn slacks and a bright knit vest under her coat. Seattle’s damp chill was still not as penetrating as the deep cold of New York City winters.
“You’re here!” Hogan came up beside her, his face still bright from the kitchen’s heat.
“You thought I wouldn’t be?”
He kissed her quickly, though not the least perfunctorily, taking the initiative this time, which she liked. He lingered long enough to heat her blood like a schoolgirl’s and then began leading her down Yesler Way toward the waterfront.
“I thought that I had made it all up and you couldn’t possibly be real. Do you have any idea what it was like to wake up in my apartment without all of Ver—herself’s detritus in it?”
He gave her an effusive hug whirling her around three times until her own head was spinning and she actually needed his arm to stabilize herself.
“You’re a miracle!” He practically shouted it to the sky. “I dealt with everything last night. After you left, I took out all of the garbage, dropped the books off here at the shelter, and that last box of questionable stuff is down in my basement storage locker. I’m free!” He shot his arms above his head for a moment as if scoring a goal.
His transformation was startling. As if someone had taken away the Hogan Stanford that she was just starting to know and replaced him. He continued to guide her along the evening-lit streets, his left hand clasped warmly over where her own was tucked in his right elbow, she allowed herself to bask in his new-found energy.
Nor was she immune to the compliment of his constant glances in her direction. No woman could be.
“There’s something terribly touristy, that any self-respecting local boy could never admit to wanting to do. But taking his girl on a date, that’s a good enough excuse, isn’t it?”
‘His girl?’ Maria could barely catch her breath. He made her feel absolutely giddy. “What happened to the Hogan Stanford I met only yesterday?”
“Only yesterday? Wow! That can’t be right.” He stopped for a moment to blink at her like a surprised owl caught unexpectedly in a searchlight. “Yesterday? And I just kissed you like…” He trailed off uncertainly.
She thought about repeating her warning to not say he was sorry. She didn’t want to be with a man who was sorry that he’d kissed her and made her feel so wonderful and desirable. Instead, she pulled him down to her and kissed him long and hard. He barely hesitated, wrapping her tight against him as they stood in the middle of a busy Seattle sidewalk.
They were quiet when they started walking again. It was as if they’d both gone too far and yet neither had gone far enough. She finally had to speak, to say something.
“You’re right. Yesterday can’t be right. If we met just yesterday then I would be a wanton hussy and you a hustler.”
“I dunno. A hustler?” He nodded to himself. “Never been accused of that, but it sounds kind of cool, doesn’t it?”
“I have no desire to be a hussy.”
“Couldn’t if you tried,” was his immediate response. “Too much of the lady in you.”
They continued until they crossed beneath the towering Seattle Viaduct. Two tiers, each three lanes wide, of highway that dominated the Seattle Waterfront. He had to speak up for her to hear him over the traffic noise.
“I don’t know if I’ll recognize Seattle when this comes down next year. My dad talked about this being built when he was kid. That would have been the fifties I guess.”
The change to the Seattle skyline would be dramatic. It was presently dark and dingy beneath the towering roadway. But old factories were being replaced with boutique stores in anticipation. The change was happening slowly, but it was coming. Soon they would all be exposed to the sunlight and the waterfront would bloom.
They crossed Alaskan Way and reached the broad sidewalk that ran in front of the piers, stretching off down the entire Seattle waterfront. Just two nights ago she had said to the other members of the Fearsome Foursome that she was open to change. Suddenly, everywhere she turned, change appeared to be confronting her.
“So, Mr. Whatever-you-have-done-with-Hogan, what is this terribly touristy thing?”
Like a conjuring magician, he waved his hand to the left. They stepped clear of the cheerfully jostling crowd at the outdoor counter of the Crab Pot Seafood Bar, busy despite the cold.
There, rising above the end of the old wooden pier soared Seattle’s newest wonder. The Seattle Great Wheel towered seventeen stories above the waterfront. The massive Ferris wheel, sporting thousands of white lights and dozens of gently swaying gondolas, commanded the waterfront.
Maria looked up at Hogan, who had paused to await her reaction.
“You’re right. It is terribly touristy. So, Mr. Stanford, if we get a gondola alone, what kind of a good time are you planning to show ‘your girl’?”
That got the expected blush and made her feel rather better. As if he’d just confirmed that the real Hogan Stanford hadn’t gone anywhere at all.
# # #
They did indeed get their own gondola, not much of a crowd appeared on a Monday evening in early December. Three times around the Great Wheel, just the two of them. Maria knew exactly how horrified Perrin would be that they didn’t make some use of their unexpected privacy, but the view out the window was too spectacular.
They sat
side-by-side on the padded bench seat, comfortably holding hands. First, they climbed toward the city. It revealed itself in layers, first Alaskan Way running along the waterfront, then the double-deck of the Viaduct, until it too lay far below. Finally the city itself, its soaring skyscrapers like torches lighting the night sky, striving ever upward.
“It’s such a young city,” Maria gazed out at the shining skyscrapers. So many of them clearly born just in that last decade or so.
“Are you implying that we aren’t?”
“I’m still young,” Maria laughed. “There is too much life still ahead of me for me to feel otherwise. How about you?”
He kissed her on the temple then turned back to the view. “You make me feel as foolish as when I was twenty. It’s quite an odd feeling. Had you asked me a week ago, I might have told you just how ancient I was feeling. But from the moment I saw you a dozen stories below, I began to understand that I was alive for the first time in far too long.”
As they reached the apex of the Ferris wheel, Maria tried not to feel uncomfortable. First, just how long had he been spying on her before she’d noticed him hovering beyond her take-out window? He was sounding a bit like a stalker.
Second, she was no one’s savior. She was no great heroine. And the man who saw her that way was due for a future let-down of immense proportion. Did she want to be around for that? For the chaos of his emotions? The fall was a long way down. The pity was that she really liked him and didn’t want to have to put up barriers between them.
Perhaps detecting her thoughts, Hogan leaned his shoulder gently against hers increasing their connection.
She considered pulling back, but was stopped by his soft voice, barely louder than the sighing of the wind around the gondola car and the gentle creak of its bearings.
“I’m not crazy, Maria. It is not because of you that I realized this, at least not really you.”
“You’re making even less sense than usual, Hogan.”
She could see his silhouette nodding in the dark as they started down. The wheel reached well out over the water of Elliot Bay, a vast darkness below lit only occasionally by ferries and other small boats.
Where Dreams Books 1-3 Page 59
