“Like…somebody opened a door in my mind. It answered a lot of questions about myself, but created a whole mess of others.” She laughed. “Like a kid cooped up all winter and then running free outside the first warm day. That sound weird?”
He remembered the first day he’d been given a knife and told to dice a whole box of jalapenos, then to de-leaf another box of flat parsley. While the other cooks had snickered at him having to do the crap jobs, when he’d finished, he’d looked around for more.
“Not at all,” he said. “I bet when you put down your brush that door closed and that kid was locked back inside.” She sat
up straighter. “So you started to paint like crazy, just to keep that first feeling alive. To keep that door open. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
He shoved his plate away and asked, “Did it work?” even though he already knew her answer.
“No. It created a monster. I was barely eating, barely sleeping. Just painting. Trying to get it all out. Trying to
figure
it all out.” She stared deeply into his eyes. “It’s what I do. Still.”
“Working your life around it. Forever thinking about it.”
“Yeah. Oh, my God. You know.”
He knew. He knew it all too well.
“So this was different from the home thing? You said you left Indiana to find a home. Painting wasn’t part of that?”
She contemplated her orange juice again. “I don’t know. Maybe. All I know is that I took a bus east from Indiana, not caring where it went. It hit the coast. I’d never seen the ocean before. And the second I did, something came alive in me. So blue. Endless possibilities. And…something else. A kinship, maybe? I know that sounds silly. Anyway, I just kept traveling south, following the water. I knew I couldn’t ever leave it. I just kept going and going, until I couldn’t go any farther.” She let out an embarrassed laugh, but there was a gleam in her eye. “God, growing up in Indiana, never knowing there was a place like the islands…”
He watched the glow course through her, while a faint dread started to build within him. “When did you start to paint?”
“When I got to the Keys. I spent every day on or in or near the water, and still it wasn’t enough. Boating didn’t do it. Snorkeling or swimming didn’t do it. One day I was walking past an art supply shop and it just sort of hit me. I bought some paints and brushes and just…tried to get out what was in my heart.”
Xavier shoved his chair away from the table, the sound loud and abrupt in the hushed kitchen. The first woman he’d ever been interested in outside of orgasm, and she loved water. Enough to build her life around it.
“You have a funny look on your face,” she said. The second time she’d told him that.
It was stupid and reactionary to draw lines between Cat
and the Ofarians. First, any connection was impossible; the Ofarians knew where every single one of their kind was at all times. And second, Cat didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his baggage. He sure as hell had to stop thinking that he stood on one side and the rest of the world on the other. The Ofarians who had orchestrated and created his life, and then tossed it into the shitter, were locked away. Gone for good.
He met her eyes over the table. She made the whole kitchen warmer. She couldn’t be further from an Ofarian. Millions of people—women—loved water. Hell, Pam and Jill took yearly trips to Hawaii.
“You must have a lot of paintings,” he said, to cover up his awkward response and to fill the silence, “if you’ve been going at it as long as you have. If you need it as strongly as I need to cook.”
Her shoulders dropped in visible relief, and he knew she’d prepared herself for him running away again. “Hundreds. I rent a storage space for them all. But Michael says I won’t need that much longer if I start to sell.”
“Michael?”
She popped the last bite of her biscuit into her mouth. “Ebrecht? Film producer? Oh, you said you don’t watch movies. He bought one of my paintings a couple years ago, saw my other stuff, liked it, made some calls, and
voila
, here I am.”
He snatched his dish and dumped it into the sink with more force than usual. He slapped on the hot water, squirted the soap in a swirl.
Cat appeared at his side, holding out her dish. “He’s just a business acquaintance. I wouldn’t even call us friends.”
He’d never known the definition of
jealousy
in the Plant, where every man shared and you had no choice who you were with. He’d always thought it a silly emotion, a waste of energy, one that he never truly understood. Strange that the meaning finally came to him over a woman who wasn’t even his, talking about a man he didn’t even know.
The phone rang, a harsh jangling sound he didn’t immediately recognize. Utility companies had this number. And Pam, for emergencies. And one other person…but he hadn’t talked to Gwen Carroway since leaving San Francisco.
He looked at the phone, a hunk of red plastic slapped crookedly on the wall. It kept ringing. He’d never had need for voice mail.
Cat jutted a thumb at the kitchen corner. “Are you going to get that?”
He frowned at the phone. Didn’t move. It kept ringing and ringing. Maybe it was Pam. Maybe, for the first time in three years, there actually was an emergency. Or maybe it was the electric company. At seven forty-five in the morning.
“You okay?” Cat’s voice barely broke through the terrible sound.
The phone clanged like an alarm. The world was testing him. To make a woman like Cat remind him of the Ofarians and then possibly have one of the most powerful Ofarians call him?
The ringing stopped.
The silence forced him to suck oxygen into his lungs. When he faced Cat, she wore a quizzical look, but also a compassionate one. Like she knew he was odd but didn’t care. She didn’t back away. She didn’t make a poor excuse and dive for her coat.
Gently, he added her plate to the scalding water and growing pile of bubbles in the sink. When he was done washing, she took the plates from his hands and dried them. The moment passed quietly, but in his head, the phone still reverberated.
The world was testing him, and he was going to pass.
He turned to face her, and she’d never looked more lovely. “Are you free tomorrow morning? I’d like to take you someplace.”
Michael
split
in order to spend the afternoon with two different
women.
He’d arranged a meeting between Cat and an L.A.-based publicist. She’d been spacey the past few days. Pulling away from him. She’d arrived at the publicist meeting wearing a secretive little smile, and when Michael had asked her about where she’d been that morning, she actually seemed offended he’d asked. As if he wasn’t in charge of her entire image and held her whole career in his hands.
He hadn’t liked that at all.
His main body went back up to the house. He’d thought he could last a whole day away, but the lure of his fire woman was too great. It had become a daily occurrence, him sitting in the garage and staring at her. He’d even rented a car specifically for these back-and-forth trips, and had slipped a valet at the Margaret three hundred dollars to let him park there whenever he wanted.
Michael tossed his coat over the banister of the curving staircase. The dim sound of television applause drew his attention. The TV in the game room was on, which wouldn’t have made him stop if it weren’t for the fact that he could see Sean’s short hair peeking over one of the leather recliners. Sean never watched TV.
Michael headed toward the game room. Picture windows lined the back wall. On the other side of the glass, beyond the frozen creek, rose a maze of white ski trails cutting through the snow-topped evergreens. The big-screen TV sat diagonally in a corner, with a semicircle of recliners facing it. The
channel was tuned to a talk show, but Sean wasn’t watching. He sat sprawled in a chair, his legs splayed out at angles, his arms dangling over the sides. His eyes gazed past the ski runs and seemingly into the heart of the mountain, and it was that troubled stare that drew Michael over.
He stood right in front of Sean. “Hey.” No response. Michael lightly kicked Sean’s sneakered toe. “I said, hey.”
Sean startled, straightening. “Oh. Hey.” He wouldn’t look Michael in the eye.
Michael tried to get right in Sean’s line of sight but the younger man’s eyes darted around. “You
splitting
?”
“What? No, Mike.”
“Good.” Michael exhaled. Sean couldn’t afford to be wandering around. You never knew who’d be watching. “So what’s up?”
“Nothing.”
Typical teenager response, except that Sean was twenty-two. He’d lost a lot of years to the hospital, and sometimes that lack of maturity came out in spades.
Michael ran a hand through his hair and watched a single skier round the last turn before the run ended at the lift. “How’s my girl?”
One of Sean’s hands clenched the armrest. “The same.”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
Sean’s hard blue eyes snapped to Michael’s. “I hate babysitting a chick who keeps trying to kill me, all right?”
“Did she hurt you?”
“No, but Jesus fucking Christ, Mike. You’ve got her
in a cage
.” Sean surged to his feet and Michael was forced to take a step back. Not good. “What the hell is this?” Sean demanded.
Michael calmly slid his hands into his pockets and recovered the ground lost. “You know what it is. It’s my collection.”
“Am
I
part of your collection?”
“No. You’re my brother.”
Sean ran an agitated hand around the back of his neck and let out a harsh laugh. “But you collected me, too, just like all the others. I didn’t ask to join you. The others didn’t come along until Lea found them, but I know they didn’t ask for it either.”
“Where is this coming from all of a sudden?” Truthfully, Michael had feared the day Sean started to question.
Sean ignored him. “For the longest time I thought they willingly came to us. But that’s bullshit, isn’t it? You think I haven’t noticed those little yellow pills you make Robert take every day? How he glares at you behind your back? I’m pretty sure he’d kill Lea if he had the chance.”
“So explain Jase then.” Michael shrugged, hands still in his pockets. “The guy’s as loyal as they come.”
Sean ignored him again. Michael was starting to lose his patience, and no one in the world was granted a wider window of patience than his half brother.
“What do you have on them? How is Lea getting them to work for you? For free?”
“She has her ways.”
“But she doesn’t have anything on the fire chick or else she wouldn’t be here against her will.” Sean thrust a finger toward the front door. “Now Lea’s gone off to bring back another water elemental? Are you crazy?”
Michael gave a stiff shake of the head. “The second one is her idea.”
“So was the fire elemental. Who will kill us all. Who you are keeping in a cage.”
Michael picked up the remote from where it rested on the recliner arm, and switched off the TV. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t like the cage either.” He wanted her as free as Jase and Robert and Fiona. He wanted her as his. But what he really wanted was to waltz her in front of Raymond. “You’re yelling at the wrong person. That was Lea’s call.”
“If you don’t like it, why is she here then? She’s a prisoner. You go in there every day and gape at her like she’s made of diamonds.”
Because she was. A rare, precious, beautiful thing that only he owned.
“What is this,” Sean barked, “the Middle Ages? That shit just doesn’t happen anymore.”
Michael got right in Sean’s face. “Don’t you dare let her out.”
Sean flinched back. “
Fuck
no, I’m not letting her out. Are you kidding me? I’m not dying that way.”
Michael recognized the disgust that twisted Sean’s mouth all too well. It’s how Michael had looked at their father pretty much every day since the morning his mom had walked out.
Sean was everything to Michael. After Michael had broken Sean out of that hospital, he vowed he’d be better to Sean than Raymond Ebrecht had ever been to him.
Michael placed his hands on the younger man’s shoulders. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?”
Sean went to the window and stared out again. Suddenly he looked so much older. Just yesterday, it seemed, the hired mercenary had retrieved the boy from that hospital, and Michael had brought the scared fifteen-year-old into his house and his life. Now here was this person with broad shoulders and a deep voice, wearing the same face as that kid.
“When are you bringing me in, Mike?”
“You are in.”
Sean released a shout of frustration that bounced over the pool table and around the room. Michael had never heard his brother make a sound like that before.
“No, I’m not.” Sean rounded on him. “I’m your goddamn errand boy. I hide out, waiting for you to tell me what to do. I’m bored, I’m useless, I’m kept in the dark, treated like a kid…and I want to know how you plan on using me like you’re using them.”
He didn’t admit it, but Michael had already used Sean. He’d shoved it in Raymond’s face that he was embracing the son Raymond had refused to acknowledge.
“Look.” Michael placed a hand on the window and leaned closer to his brother. “I’m not going to use you now or in the future. And I want you to be a part of the studio. I really do. But if you just reappear, the doctors—the government—will find you again. So much would be lost.”
Sean crossed his arms. He was shorter than Michael but twice as strong. “What if I walk?”
Michael’s hand dropped from the window, his fingers drawing sweat lines down the glass. “You wouldn’t. I’m your only family.”
“No, you’re not. I have parents. Who want to know where I am.”
“Who left you in a fucking hospital!”
Sean drew back as though Michael had slapped him. Good.
“If you left me now,” Michael said, “and went back to them, they’d call the hospital. It was a government hospital,
Sean. You’re not a minor, they couldn’t commit you against your will again, but your reappearance could ruin everything.”
“Ruin you, you mean.”