"Watching." There was something sad about Isobel tonight, something restless. "There"s trouble in the air. I don"t know what it is."
Elena narrowed her eyes, but really, she was a little worn out for portents. She picked another piece of baklava from the box and sucked it off her fingers. "This is so amazing." She offered it, but Isobel never took anything while Elena was watching. She left it open and went to wash her hands. When she turned back, Isobel was gone, but so was a corner of the pastry. Smiling, Elena headed outside.
Julian"s Range Rover was parked under a tree. She opened the door and got in, suddenly smelling the apple and sunlight scent of him, and thinking Oh, this wasn"t smart. Oh, this wasn"t smart. Not with her nerves humming the way they were, with her hungers loosed by pomegranates and tequila and cooking. Not with her nerves humming the way they were, with her hungers loosed by pomegranates and tequila and cooking.
And-be real-Julian himself.
"How did it go?" he asked, starting the engine.
Beneath her, the seat was heated. "Good. I won. But I brought you some of the dessert Ivan made. To. Die. For. I"m not kidding. The man is an amazing cook."
"Yes." He backed out and drove through the quiet streets. "What is it?"
"I"ll just let you taste it. You need to see it, too. How is my dog?"
"Fine. He was asleep on Portia"s bed when I left."
"That"s very sweet."
It didn"t take long to get there, or at least Elena"s mind was tired enough that she didn"t notice if it did. The cab was warm, the music sweetly seductive. "You are a big fan of the blues, aren"t you?"
He chuckled. "You noticed."
"How"d that happen?"
"Lived in a lot of mixed neighborhoods." He shrugged. "The blues say things nothing else can."
She nodded, leaning her head back on the seat. White thick snow fell from a sky made pale by clouds. She thought again of Ivan"s words, there at the end, sounding exactly like Edwin, and it spooked her. "Do you ever wish you could have a conversation with somebody who died?" she asked.
He glanced at her. "My mother. How about you?"
She remembered, suddenly, that he said his mother had died violently. But if she asked about it, she"d have to share her own story. "I never want to talk to my real mother, though she isn"t dead as far as I know. Isn"t that funny?"
"Not really. Not if she was a bad mother."
"I can"t really remember her."
"I have to work pretty hard to remember mine anymore. It"s like I have memories of memories, nothing real anymore."
"Memories of memories," she echoed. "I know that feeling."
"What dead person do you want to talk to?"
She leaned against the window, looking up toward the sky. "All of them. My little brother. My old boyfriend. My grandmother, the one who died when I was eight."
"What would you talk about?"
"I don"t know," Elena said, realizing that she was a little drunker than she"d first thought. "I"d ask my grandmother what was in her French toast that made it so amazing."
Julian chuckled.
"How about you?" she said quietly.
He shook his head. "I"d be afraid to ask the things I really want to know." He paused. "If she suffered."
Elena thought of Isobel. Blinked a rush of emotion away. "Yeah." They were pulling into his driveway, a light shining from the tower like a beacon, snowflakes falling through the beam of light. "Fairy tale," she murmured.
"That"s how I feel sometimes, too."
"Really?"
"Yeah." He braked before he went into the garage so that he could gesture at the house. "I mean, Jesus, look at it. I"m used to it, mostly, but if I remember to stop and think, it"s amazing."
Elena liked him for admitting that. He pulled the Rover into its bay and the garage door went down. The garage was clean, everything organized by unseen minions, no stacks of stereo boxes or discarded toys or athletic equipment, the floor swept, the concrete clean beneath their feet. She picked up the box with the baklava and followed him inside.
They entered a family room area with a pool table and a bar in one corner. A bank of windows with French doors looked out to a patio with a hot tub. Elena felt disoriented. "Are we in the bas.e.m.e.nt or something?"
He nodded. "This is where Portia"s room is. Let"s get your dog."
Oh, yeah. She took a breath and resolved to pretend to be sober, and followed Julian down the quiet hallway to an open door. The light from the hallway showed a big bed. Portia"s blonde hair tumbled down the side of the bed, and her slim white arm was flung over the furry red body of Alvin, who snored contentedly, his head nestled on the pillow.
Elena couldn"t help it-she laughed. Quietly, covering her mouth. Whispering, she said, "Even I don"t let him sleep right on the pillows!"
The dog heard her, raised his head. "Come on, honey," she said, and made kissing noises to call him to her.
His tail thumped against the covers, and he licked his lips, but he didn"t get up.
"You traitor!" she said quietly, putting a hand on her hip.
Again his tail thumped, but as if he was absolutely too exhausted to hold up his head another second, he fell back to the pillows. In seconds, he was snoring again.
Elena rolled her eyes, but she was laughing. Waving her hand toward Julian, she went back down the hall. "Obviously, he"s not suffering from the loss of me."
"Oh, I"m sure he missed you. It"s just that Portia has a way with dogs. They all love her like that."
Elena touched the middle of her chest where a certain emptiness bloomed all of a sudden. "Well," she said. "I guess you can just take me home, then. I"ll come pick him up in the morning."
"You don"t have to go, Elena. It"s a giant house. I have seven bedrooms. I"m sure there"s one you"d find comfortable."
It seemed perfectly logical. Ordinary, even. "I was going to get in the steam shower," she said, mostly irrelevantly.
"Try the hot tub."
The light was ordinary, falling from overhead lights in an upscale but still rather plain family room. Julian wore a knit blue hat and a blue scarf and a leather bomber jacket that was really quite s.e.xy. She looked at him for a long time, thinking he had the best face, so subtly carved, a little too sharp, showing its age a little bit, but still just so good to look at.
He looked at her mouth.
A whirl of images blazed through her mind-his kiss earlier, the musky purple scent of that moment, heavy in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and thighs and lower belly; Ivan kissing her scar; Edwin speaking through Ivan"s mouth. "I think I"m probably crazy," she said suddenly.
"A little drunk, maybe?"
"Is it obvious?"
"No," he said.
"Your eyes are saying yes."
He laughed softly, showing his teeth, and that made her like him even more. "Crazy how?"
"Oh," she sighed, "a lot of ways. But right now, I think you should make me a cup of coffee and you can taste this baklava, and then, yes, I will sleep in one of your bedrooms. But not yours."
His eyes stayed slightly crinkled in a smiling way. "Okay," he said, taking her hand. "Come with me. I"ll give you your choice."
Up and up they went, to the first floor, and then the second, curving around the strings of waterfall, lit at night with very soft blue spots that made the water shine beautifully. Elena reached out and cut the water with her fingers. "Sorry," she said when Julian looked around.
"I do it all the time."
"It"s kind of fun."
On the landing of the second floor, he flipped on some lights. "Let me give you a few choices. My bedroom and offices are that way"-he pointed down a carpeted hallway-"and down the other direction are some ordinary rooms with good views. But I think you might like a quirky room."
"Okay."
He led around the gallery into a tower with a window seat and stairs going up to a loft. It was furnished with California missionstyle furniture, antiques she thought. There was a Frieda Kahlo print on the wall. "This is very good," she said. "I love this room."
"I thought so. Let"s have that cup of coffee, and you can get some sleep."
Elena didn"t move. The lamps were square stained gla.s.s, the linens in colors of wine and pale gold and earth. Julian stood a little too close, or maybe she had moved. She wanted to put her hand on his sleeve. Lean in and breathe his smell. Yearning buzzed in every nerve, not like the l.u.s.t she"d been feeling earlier, but a tangle of lures that seemed to tug on her cells equally, as if he were a giant magnet and she a.s.sembled of iron shavings.
She looked up at him and he was looking down, and then he said, "Maybe it will be better if I just let you get some sleep."
"Okay." She closed her eyes. Swallowed. "That"s probably a good idea."
But he didn"t move right away. There they stood, Elena with Ivan"s sinful pomegranate baklava in her hands, Julian with his hat on, his hands loose at his sides.
He said, "You have the most beautiful mouth I"ve ever seen."
Some instinct of self-preservation, some being of wisdom made her shake her head, take one half-step backward so she could open the box in her hands. "Here," she said, breaking off a piece of baklava and holding it out to him. "You have to try this."
Instead of taking it with his fingers, he bent and took it with his mouth, as she must have known he would do. His tongue touched her fingertips; his mouth closed around them.
Elena made a sound. Before she could draw away, he captured her wrist and held her there, sucking on her fingertips.
And then the tastes emerged, all that sweetness and texture, and he straightened. He swallowed. "Wow." He blinked. "Wow. More."
Elena laughed, shoved the box into his hands. "I absolutely cannot feed you pomegranates and still go to my bed alone."
"That"s what I was hoping, actually."
"Good night, Mr. Liswood," she said, shoving him out the door. "Don"t wake me too early. I"m sure I"m going to have a terrible hangover."
He gave her a sideways grin, pointed at a door. "There"s a pharmacy in that little bathroom there. Drink plenty of water."
"Thank you."
"Good night, Elena."
She closed the door. Leaned against it, closing her eyes.
After a moment, when the closed eyes made her feel dizzy, she straightened. It was almost as if this room had been created with her tastes in mind. The carpet was thick, dark brown, like chocolate, and the furniture seemed almost to whisper secrets from long-ago Spaniards, priests and conquistadores and pa.s.sionate women with mantillas over their hair. The walls were washed a terra-cotta color, earthy and rich. It was a room that made her think of Texas, of New Mexico, of the places she"d left behind. Edwin and Isobel and her mother, and the mother who"d left her.
A sharp, unexpected sense of loss, thickened by drink and exhaustion, rose in her throat. Maudlin tears rose in her eyes, and she recognized, just in time, the beginnings of a snuffling, embarra.s.sing crying jag.
Just don"t, she said to herself. she said to herself.
In the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, she found a selection of over-the-counter medicines, one of which was ibuprofen, which she downed with a giant gla.s.s of water. It was deadly silent in the rooms without Alvin, and she realized she hadn"t spent a night without him in years.
Glancing at the clock, she saw it was past two. A hollow feeling emptied her lungs. The silence was deep, deep, deep. Empty. In the morning, she would be hungover, but at least this way, she"d have her dog ASAP upon awakening.
She stripped out of her clothes and padded into the shower. The ma.s.sage and the tequila had helped-if she had a good steam in the morning, she"d probably be in pretty good shape. Humming under her breath, she turned on the shower and stepped into the spray, closing her eyes as the water scoured away the grease and sweat of cooking. The day rolled over her in tidbits. The dream last night. Julian"s kiss. Ivan"s touch on her back.
Edwin"s voice. A chill touched her. That was a little too weird.
Just h.o.r.n.y, she told herself as she climbed into bed. Naked, since she had nothing else to wear.
Get some sleep.
He was waiting for her by the fire, his coppery back facing her, cloaked in shadows, his shoulders gleaming in the fire-light. Elena recognized him-Edwin!-with a sharp catch to her breath. For a moment, she paused, worried that there was some breach in what she was going to do; perhaps she owed another allegiance or-she couldn"t remember. Something about it frightened her, something made her want to hesitate, even as she was drawn forward by his black hair, his silken skin. He turned and there was fire in his black eyes, a sharpness that- "I have been waiting," he said, in a voice that had the thick gold depth of buckwheat honey, almost too strong for pleasure. A woman collected it by the banks of the Rio Grande, and called it Pancho Villa honey because it was so strong.
Elena hesitated.
Beyond the windows, snow fell in thick, cottony flakes. Elena wore a long gown that b.u.t.toned up the front. The fire crackled, smelling of sap and pine and smoke. The warmth burned the front of her and left her back chilled. Always the way with a fire.
He held out his hand. "Come sit with me," he said.
"What are you doing here?"
"Sometimes, they let us come when you need us." He began to brush her hair. It sparked static.
"Do I need you?"
"Yes, Elena, I think you do." He bent and kissed the back of her neck. "I"m here to protect you."
"Protect me from who?"
He ran his hands through her hair. "From everything. Within and without."