He could have walked up to the Drift and tried to talk to Helen again, but after the way he’d approached her last time, and then the violent way he’d left, he seriously doubted she’d tell him anything about Cat. Could he really blame her?
Cat was gone and he was back in White Clover Creek. A big circle, that was life. And his life? A set of overlapping circles laced with razor wire.
He stumbled into the bathroom and showered until the hot water heater couldn’t spit out anything more, then somehow made his way into his bedroom, kept in shadow by the drawn curtains. He deliberately didn’t look at the bed. He wouldn’t sleep there again. He didn’t look at the clothes he pulled out and put on. Didn’t care.
Then he locked up his house, and walked into town.
Pam would probably be at Shed, even though it was early on a Sunday. He paused at the back delivery door, hand on the knob. If it turned, he’d go in. If it didn’t, he’d go back the way he came and not look back.
It turned.
Pam was in the kitchen, trailing her fingers over the dangling pots and pans, notebook in hand and pen stuck behind her ear.
“Hey,” he said.
She turned and he was reminded of Kekona’s blazing eyes, the streams of fire that had erupted from her throat. And as frightening as Kekona had been, she had nothing on Pam.
“What the fuck are you doing back here?”
Being thrown from the Primary world, into the Secondary, and back again, gave him terrible mental whiplash.
Pam snatched the pen from behind her ear and whipped it across the kitchen. “How dare you. I mean, really. Leaving me a message, a goddamn voice mail, that you were taking off before the end of Turnkorner? Turnkorner, for chrissakes! Only the biggest two weeks of the year for us.” She threw up a hand in disgust and turned away like she’d just eaten McDonald’s. “You actually make me a little sick. Get out of here.”
He just shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry, Pam.”
She sighed, turned back around. “Is that why you came back? To apologize?”
“Yes.” He realized, above all, that that was true. Pam had helped him so much. She’d created him, essentially. She’d given him the dream of a career, a bigger life, and had unknowingly granted him a sliver of happiness. To disappoint her, to fail her…“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Tell me you at least got her.”
He put a hand to his chest, where it hurt the most. “No.”
She calmed down a bit, setting the notebook on his old station. Her lips tightened. “Aw, man. That sucks.”
He stepped farther into the kitchen, ran a hand over the burner knobs. “She hasn’t, um, been back here, has she?”
“No.” Pam looked at him funny. “What’s going on with you?”
Never had he ever been tempted to tell any Primary anything about his former life, until now.
He traced his fingers over the cold, black metal burners. He’d learned the most in Shed. He’d discovered quite a large part of himself here. Pam had seen promise in him back in San Francisco, and she’d brought him here. She’d planted him and watered him, and he’d grown so much.
“I’m leaving,” he told her.
“Ah, fuck.” She’d picked up the pen and it clattered to the tile again. “Knew that was coming.”
He cracked a smile. “Just last week you were wondering when I was going to head out.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d actually do it.” She sighed dramatically. “Where are you going?”
He knew she meant which kitchen. He shrugged. “Don’t know.”
That was the truth. He had no idea where he was going, where his steps would take him once he left White Clover Creek. Wandering sounded like the best idea, although “best” was a relative term.
So rarely did he see Pam genuinely surprised. Her face whitened, her eyes going wide. “Xavier. Are you okay?”
He touched the same pots she had earlier, sending them clanking. “I will be.”
She ran a hand through her short hair. “Jesus, X. Quitting your job over some girl—”
“It’s more than that.” He swept a gaze over the quiet dining room, lingering on booth six and seeing, against his will, Cat’s gorgeous body draped over it. Open and waiting. For him. “Remember those ghosts you mentioned?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Well, I’ve got some that need fighting.”
She didn’t look at all surprised by that. Just nodded. They stood there in companionable silence for several minutes.
“If you need a reference,” she said, “you’ve got mine. Despite what you did to me last week. You’re very talented. I’d hate to see you throw it away.”
So would he. But he just wasn’t sure where or when he’d want to cook again.
Three weeks later.
If Cat could have transported herself to Colorado with a snap of the fingers the moment the Chimeran chief had called off the attack, she would have. Instead, it had taken three long weeks to get back to White Clover Creek.
The Chimerans had insisted she remain in Hawaii until the situation had been smoothed out. Threat of imminent attack had calmed, but had not been killed. At least the two sides were talking. Both Ofarians and Chimerans had agreed that keeping Griffin and Kekona apart was a wise choice. Griffin had kept his leadership, but Kekona had been relieved of her command.
After the Chimerans had stood down and unpacked their transports, Griffin had asked Cat back to San Francisco to rehash everything that had happened in Hawaii for the Ofarian cabinet.
Then the Senatus Premier had called. He’d offered Griffin a stilted apology and allowed Griffin to make a heartfelt one of his own. When the Premier extended Griffin an invitation to a sit-down with the Senatus, Griffin had exhaled on a powerful sob. He’d pushed away from the table and left, disappearing for half a day. When he’d returned, the lines on his face had smoothed. He moved with a renewed grace.
Then he’d corralled Cat in private.
“How is Keko?”
It hadn’t been a question meant to gloat or belittle. The intense emotion on Griffin’s face screamed of his affection for the Chimeran woman. Cat had been forced to swallow her own tears, because she knew what it meant to be separated against your will.
“I think she’s full of regret,” she’d told him. “I think she’s sad.”
“Where is she?”
Cat had to shrug and answer honestly. “I don’t know. The chief gave her position to Bane, her brother.”
Griffin had nodded, then dismissed her. Then she’d literally run to catch a cab to SFO. The first available flight to Denver cost an arm and a leg, but she didn’t care.
In Hawaii, and then in San Francisco, she’d called Xavier’s house every chance she got, even though she hadn’t expected an answer. It wasn’t like he was going to install voice mail now. Not when he surely never wanted to speak to her again. And if he had tried to call her using the only number he had for her, he wouldn’t have gotten through because Lea had taken her cell phone all those weeks ago.
She’d been hoping that Xavier would’ve called Gwen, but at the same time she knew that hope was foolish. Made of wishes and spider silk.
That didn’t mean she was going to give up. Not like Griffin and Kekona, who’d surrendered to outside forces way too easily three years ago.
Now, back in White Clover Creek, she picked her way up Waterleaf from the square. The town was emptier now, in more ways than one.
Given that she was barely standing due to exhaustion, and her San Francisco jacket was wildly inappropriate for the winter that was still raging strong in the Rockies, she should have walked right over to the Margaret, maybe inhaled a burger or two, had a good, long sleep, and then bought some ridiculously overpriced but more suitable clothing in the gift shop.
She didn’t do any of that. She went right to Shed. It was nearing the end of lunch hours and Turnkorner was over. She didn’t expect Xavier to be there; that wasn’t
why she went there. Pam was in the kitchen, behind the glass in the spot where Xavier used to work. Cat went up to the glass and caught the chef’s eye. Pam did a double take then nodded in acknowledgement. Cat took a seat at the bar and waited an hour for Pam to come out.
“He’s gone,” Pam said without preamble, and Cat almost melted into the white leather bar stool cushion. It was what she’d expected to hear; it didn’t hurt any less.
“When…” Her voice died and she cleared her throat. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”
Pam pressed her lips together. “No, I mean like he’s gone. For good. Packed up. Gone.”
All oxygen left the world. Just…vanished. All those atoms swooped up into the sky, leaving Cat to choke. The sympathy on Pam’s face was killing her.
“You’d think he would’ve learned,” Pam added, “but he doesn’t have a cell phone as far as I know. Didn’t give me any other phone number either. I don’t know where he went. I’m sorry.”
She was so grateful that Pam didn’t ask what happened, but by the look on her face, Cat knew that Xavier had, at one time in the past three weeks, returned to White Clover Creek heartbroken or angry. He’d stayed just long enough to tell Pam good-bye. A solitary guy like Xavier wouldn’t have left word where he was going.
And that broke Cat’s heart a little more, because that morning in her hotel room, when he’d held her while she first talked to Gwen, he’d been on the verge of breaking away from that solitary existence. He’d actually agreed to go to Chicago with her.
She left Shed and walked to the top of Waterleaf.
It felt strange—almost like an out-of-body experience—for Cat to be back in the Drift, surrounded by the paintings that had started this all. Helen greeted her with a tight hug, telling her all about Michael’s death in between sobs. Cat had done some superior acting with her customers back at the hotel bar in the Keys, but nothing rivaled what she did for Helen that afternoon, pretending to just now learn about Michael’s plane crash. And it ripped her apart with guilt.
“There was a memorial,” Helen said, wiping her nose and pulling Cat over to sit on the chairs in front of her desk. “But the whole thing was very odd. Some horrible information came out after his death.”
“What kind of…information?”
Even though they were the only two in the small office, Helen leaned closer. “He’d been keeping his father alive, in an irreversible coma on life support, in his house, when everyone had thought he’d died two years ago.”
Cat’s blood iced over.
“There must have been someone living there with Raymond, taking care of him, because they found evidence of a nurse. But this person was gone by the time his house was opened. Raymond’s machines had been disconnected. He was dead, too.” Helen shuddered, looking so confused and sad. Then the curator waved her arms as if dissipating smoke. “I haven’t cried in over a week. I’m so sorry. I’ve been so worried about you. I haven’t been able to reach you anywhere.”
All Cat could do was apologize and hold Helen’s hand.
Helen searched Cat’s face. “Is everything okay at home? Did you lose everything?” When Cat just stared, Helen prompted with a frown, “In the fire. The reason you went back.”
“The fire.” So that was the excuse Lea had given for Cat’s unexpected disappearance. “Yeah,” Cat answered truthfully. “I did lose everything.”
Helen teared up again. “Maybe you can start over, with what you’ve made here. You’ve sold through. Every painting on display here, spoken for.”
Cat couldn’t breathe. “Every painting?”
“Every one. And Jim Porter, remember him? He wants your next show to be in L.A. He can represent you better than I can from here in the boonies. How do you like that?”
On the surface, Cat liked it a lot, but her state of mind wasn’t letting her feel anything but deep sorrow and need.
“Helen,” Cat asked, after they’d discussed Jim and L.A. a bit more, “you haven’t seen Xavier around town, have you?”
Then Helen described Xavier’s frantic behavior the day he’d realized Cat had gone missing, and Cat had to lower her head so Helen wouldn’t see the true depth of her emotions. He’d sacrificed his job and his safety for her. And then she’d destroyed him.
She left the Drift and went right for those cursed stairs leading up to Xavier’s neighborhood. Freezing, she stood on the sidewalk outside of his dark house. No For Sale sign. Maybe he hadn’t completely abandoned this place. The walkway up to the front stoop hadn’t been shoveled, but there was fresh snow settled into one set of old footprints going around back to the greenhouse, then the side door. Size thirteens.
She made new footprints. If he came back, he’d know she’d been there.
She went up to the front door and knocked. Hoping. Wishing for a miracle. Telling herself it was the cold that was making her eyes water.
She pulled out the note she’d written on her SFO-DEN airplane boarding pass. She stuffed it between the screen door and the chipped wood with the tilted triangular window.
It said: I am going to fight for you.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Six months later.
Cat was back on an island.
Dragging her small suitcase out of the airport doors, a hot blast of air greeted her. Enveloped her. She’d missed the tropical climate, living in San Francisco these past six months. The water magic was gone, but that didn’t mean she’d abandoned her love for salty breezes and the lap of the warm ocean. It was different now, yes, but the connection to water was still there. Instead of buzzing just underneath her skin, the peace of water embraced her, seeped into her heart. Made her happy.
And her art had evolved to show that.
On the busy airport sidewalk, Cat wove her suitcase through the maze of bags and trolleys. Taxis and hotel shuttles wedged themselves into spaces along the curb, and at the front of the line idled a white Mercedes. A man with silver-blond hair, a straw hat, and an almost unnatural tan stood near the trunk, holding a sign scrawled with her name.
“That’s me,” she said to him, smiling.
The driver reached for her rolling bag. “Welcome to the Virgin Islands.”
Though the car’s air was on, Cat rolled down the window, feeling like a dog with its ears flapping in the wind. The colors here were so bright, the air so clean. Inspiration tugged at her.
Maybe after her show opened next year at Jim’s L.A. gallery, she’d search for a permanent studio site someplace hot and tropical.
The Mercedes pulled into the drive of a nearly complete boutique resort done in pale blue stucco. The main construction was done, but the landscaping was pretty much just piles of dirt and two-by-fours.
The driver told her, “Mr. Brighton asked me to tell you he’ll meet you in the lobby after you’ve had time to freshen up. He apologizes in advance for any construction noise.”
Mr. Antoine Brighton, general manager for the newest Wave Resort in St. Croix, could have tossed her a sleeping bag and told her to curl up on the beach, and she wouldn’t have cared. Instead, the room she was given for the next two nights was a light, airy suite with a curving balcony that overlooked the central courtyard—currently dotted with orange construction cones surrounding what would eventually become a pool and waterfall—and the never-ending expanse of the turquoise Caribbean Sea. As far as resorts went, this place was going to be intimate but exotic. Pricey.
And Brighton wanted her artwork everywhere.
After rinsing off and changing into a light dress and heeled sandals, she grabbed her portfolio, made her way to the lobby and rang for Mr. Brighton. When he appeared, he looked exactly like he’d sounded on the phone: somewhere in his fifties, pasty British skin, on the shorter side, friendly but clearly “in charge.” He wore khaki pants and a pale green button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. With a firm handshake, he said, “So glad you could make it, Ms. Heddig.”
“Please. Call me Cat.”
“And I�
��m Antoine. I’m excited to see what you have for me. Come, let me show you where we’d like to showcase your work.”
He took her on a tour of the resort, pointing out the high, wide space behind the front desk, the taller, narrower spots between the windows in the lobby bar, and the rounded walls near the elevators. When they were done, they grabbed lemonades from the workers’ break room and sat down in Antoine’s office, an interior room that felt horribly closed in after what she’d just wandered through.
She opened her portfolio of works that were still available for sale and talked through her ideas for what could possibly go where. And because she’d learned well from Jim and Helen, she made suggestions for additional places Antoine hadn’t mentioned. She must have talked for twenty minutes straight, all her ideas just spilling out. Antoine listened, nodding, a twinkle in his eye. And she knew she had him. She sat back, satisfied.
“What about your new series?” Antoine asked. “What Jim’s seen, he says it transcends your earlier works.”
Cat gave him a gracious smile. “That’s very kind of him. I’m afraid the new pieces aren’t ready yet. And I’m not sure they’d be appropriate for this setting.”
The truth was, she didn’t know if the new series would ever be ready for public viewing. She’d painted them for herself, and approached them as though they’d never hang anywhere but where she eventually decided to set down roots. But the buzz about her work had been building steadily since White Clover Creek and many of her current buyers kept asking about what she was working on now.
Three months ago, Helen had visited San Francisco and Cat had revealed to her a few of the new pieces.
“They’re so…peaceful,” Helen had said, pushing her glasses onto her nose. “To have something from your early collections, and then one of these…to see how you’ve grown…well, I think you can expect collectors to become greedy.”
Cat had turned away at that, her first inkling that these would become private pieces.
“What are you calling them?” Helen had asked.
Cat had gazed at the seven-foot-tall tumble of green-white ice captured in paint and tried to ignore the tightening in her chest. The waterfall looked exactly as it had that day on the frozen lake. “The X Series,” she’d whispered.
A Taste of Ice (The Elementals) Page 36
