BEAUTIFUL STRANGER Page 4

  The only safe movie after that was Ferris Bueller, and she stuck it in the VCR and kicked back on the bed. In minutes she was sound asleep.

  * * *

  It wasn't as bad as Marissa expected, back at Louise's house. The rooms were bursting with Louise's three sons, their spouses and the grandchildren, who now totaled five with the birth of Anna and Tyler's second baby. Anna beamed tonight, looking like the ultimate Madonna as she nursed her black-haired boy, and she only smiled deliriously when people teased her about her three children, wondering if she planned on more. Tyler came to her defense. "We love babies. We're going to have twenty."

  Anna laughed at that. "Or maybe five."

  Robert was there, of course, quiet as he always was, laconically cracking dry jokes at odd moments, always eating whatever Louise piled on his plate. Often, Marissa noticed, Robert, and Louise's husband, Alonzo, could be found together, comfortably sitting side by side, exchanging a word now and then. And of course, he and Jake went way back, to Desert Storm. They talked in a kind of grunting guy shorthand, laughing at asides no one else ever got.

  But Marissa didn't have to deal much with him directly, and Louise showed no overt signs of matchmaking, so Marissa relaxed and accepted the gathering for what it appeared to be: another of Louise's rollicking, impromptu suppers.

  Marissa had never experienced such joyful family dynamics, and she loved being here. Filling her plate with the promised skinned, grilled chicken breast and a steaming pile of steamed summer squash, she settled in a corner near Ramona and tickled her baby's toes between bites.

  But over and over, her gaze flitted toward Robert. Studying him covertly, she thought his face was kind of harsh, as if that difficult past Ramona hinted at had been etched into the shape of it. His mouth was stern and his eyes watchful, and he had a penetrating way of looking at people, unsmiling and direct in a way most people simply could not tolerate. He did not smile often, unless he was trying to charm someone.

  Not someone. A woman. In spite of that dangerous aspect, or more likely because of it, he drew women in a way that amazed her. The first summer he'd lived in Red Creek, he'd worked in a little tourist trap near the grocery store, making tiny feather jewelry from carved rocks. Women did whatever they could to coax a smile from the wry mouth. Old women, young women, girls. All of them.

  And he accepted it as his due, with a mocking little glint in his eye that might have made Marissa dislike him, if she hadn't also been able to sense the sadness behind it, the same vast longing that made Crystal stare so hard out the windows at school, as if looking for a knight on a white horse.

  Dangerous, Marissa thought. She'd been doing pretty well these days at avoiding the lost men in the world, focusing instead on saving herself. And the odd kid.

  Her sister, Victoria, would have charmed him instantly, Marissa thought suddenly. But not her. Not even now. She didn't have that femme fatale gene. She was exactly who she appeared to be: open, direct, honest.

  Fatty, fatty, two by four, sang a nasally child's voice in her head. Couldn't get through the bathroom door.

  Robert looked up, caught her staring and raised his chin in her direction, a simple greeting. She looked away, wincing inwardly over the fact that she had, this very afternoon, been thinking he might be slightly interested. Just for a fleeting second his mouth had turned up in a distinctly flirtatious little smile.

  Standing, she pointed to Ramona's plate. "Finished with that? I'll take it in with me."

  "Thanks."

  Marissa retreated, dropping the paper plates in the trash, then heading for the sanctuary of the wide balcony attached to the back of the house, a wooden deck that overlooked a deep, long valley. At night, only the black zigzag of the mountains against the night sky could be seen. And it was a little cold, but Marissa breathed it in anyway—the stars, so bright and sharp and thick so far from the city, the utter silence of the land. She let go of a breath, relaxing.

  Resting her hands lightly on the wooden rail, she looked down at them and smiled ruefully as she admired the new ring she'd had to buy when none of the old ones would stay on her fingers anymore. That had been a rich, rich moment, and she wore the antique circlet of garnets every day to remind herself how far she'd come.

  Odd how those old tapes kept playing in her head anyway. She wondered, lifting her chin to drink in the crisp air, how long it would take them to go away.

  The glass door slid open behind her, and Marissa turned to see Robert stepping outside. His braid fell over one shoulder. "Hi," he said, tucking his hands in his pockets. "You mind if I come out with you?"

  "Not at all," Marissa said politely, though of course he was the one she had been escaping.

  "I didn't have a chance to thank you for what you did for Crystal."

  "Oh, don't mention it, please. Is she better tonight?"

  "I think so." He joined her at the rail. "Bringing her here was a good idea."

  "I'm glad." Marissa curled her fingers around the railing, willing herself not to look at him. But it didn't particularly matter—she was still very aware of him, a scent of something fertile, verdant. He was tall and lean, bigger than she had previously noticed. His cocked elbow almost touched her arm. He shifted, hands still tucked lightly into the pockets of his jeans, and said nothing.

  But even in the silence, in their stillness, she could feel an electric hum between them, strong enough that she thought she'd see a faint blue light in the air between their bodies if she looked.

  The silence stretched. He shifted again, and she half expected—half wanted?—him to go back inside. He didn't, though. Just kept standing there, radiating that electromagnetic field.

  Finally she said, "This is such a peaceful town."

  "Yeah," he said, and as if he'd only needed an opening he couldn't come up with himself, added, "I kept thinking I'd leave, you know. Tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Kept somehow waking up here again every day."

  Marissa laughed. "I know the feeling. We used to come here to go skiing when I was a child, and I only came here to spite my father. Somehow I haven't managed to go anywhere else."

  "How long have you been here?" He eased a little, leaning his elbows on the rail.

  She had to think about it. "Seven years? No, eight. I turned down Dartmouth and ran to the Rockies." She dared to look at him. No crackling blue electricity visible, but there was a nice glissando of light on the crown of his head and his nose. "How about you?"

  "Three years. Didn't intend to stay more than a few weeks, really. But that was when Jake … uh…"

  "I remember," she said to spare him. When Jake had fallen down a cliff and nearly killed himself. "Where are you from originally?"

  He raised his head, met her eyes. "Albuquerque." He said it almost like a dare.

  "Is there supposed to be some meaning there? If so, I didn't catch it."

  "Are you disappointed?"

  Startled in a chuckle, Marissa asked, "No, why would I be?"

  A slight lift of one shoulder. "White girls always want to hear some romantic tale of the reservation."

  "Ah." She inclined her head. "Little chip on your shoulder there. Might want to knock it off."

  His teeth showed, just for a second, in the darkness. "I swear it's true."

  "Well, my disappointment is much more basic. I think you should have a name like … oh, Johnny Blue Raven or something."

  "Ravens are black." The smile broadened, and Marissa thought the air was definitely beginning to glow a pale blue, just right there around his head. "Where are you from?"

  "A castle in Switzerland."

  He laughed. "Touché."

  Marissa liked the sound of that laughter, a little rough and hoarse, as if he didn't indulge very often. It made her wonder what it would be like to hear him laugh really hard—or if he ever did. "It's actually true. I was born in a castle in Switzerland." She smiled. "It was an accident—my mother was supposed to be home, but she had to see these friends."

  "
I see. So did you grow up in the castle, too, princess?"

  "Not that one, sadly. A much gloomier castle in upstate New York, complete with ghoulish servants and guard dogs."

  "No kidding?"

  She rolled her eyes. "It was a mausoleum. My father was sure someone would snatch my sister and I if he let us out of his sight for three seconds, so we didn't even go to school—he sent tutors in to us."

  He peered at her for a long minute. "No wonder you wanted to break out."

  "Exactly." She brushed her hair out of her face. "Now you. Where'd you break out of?"

  "Hell," he said without a single beat of hesitation.

  Something told her to keep it light. "Pretty hot. I can see why you'd like the mountains."

  She'd surprised him again. His head came up, and there was an expression of measuring in his eyes. "Yeah." He looked away again, clicking his heel on the deck, and Marissa focused on the long length of his back beneath a simple cotton shirt, a blue plaid. The fabric stretched tight across his shoulders. "Ever been to Albuquerque?" he asked.

  "Once or twice. Probably not to the hell parts, though."

  He laughed and stood up, turning to face her. "Now how'm I gonna be the poor beleaguered wounded guy if you keep making these jokes?"

  Marissa raised her eyebrows. "I guess you'll just have to come up with another act."

  "You're not at all who I thought you were."

  "Neither are you," she said honestly, and somehow that was a lot more unnerving than that blue energy humming between them. "I didn't know you could laugh."

  "It's been a while."

  * * *

  In the cool darkness, Robert did something he rarely allowed himself to do: he relaxed. Strange that he felt that freedom with this woman who was so far removed from his circle that she might as well have been a Martian, but there it was. Tonight she wore sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and she smelled a little of soap and deodorant and sweat. It all made her feel more approachable, more real.

  They talked, in that aimless way of people who want to keep each other company but aren't sure of the ground yet, of Red Creek and the historical project. Nothing important. But he found himself looking—almost helplessly—over her body now and then, discovering that he liked the ordinariness of it, too full across the bottom, still pretty solid in the thighs. A homey kind of body that made him want to sidle up to her, press himself close, feel all that giving terrain against the hard angles of his own shape.

  Weird. He knew it was weird for him even as he thought it, but there it was. As she laughed, he surprised himself by wanting to laugh, too. When she lifted her chin to point out a shooting star, he looked instead at the underside of her jaw and wanted to press his mouth there.

  Cool it. Obviously it had been just a bit too long since he'd indulged himself in some good old recreational sex. He hadn't felt right about it with Crystal in the house. Not surprising he was getting a little hungry. Pushing himself away from the railing, he thought about going inside before he got any more bright ideas.

  But Marissa said, "That hell you spoke of?"

  Spoke of. It made him smile. "Yeah?"

  "Is that where Crystal's from, too?"

  He turned his lips down, crossed his arms. A serious question. He shook his head. "Hers made mine look like heaven."

  "In what way?" The earnest teacher gazed out of bright blue eyes.

  What could she possibly understand about Crystal's life? Or his, for that matter? But she was so damned earnest, he had to at least give it a shot. "It was poor when I was there. Lot of drugs and booze and gangs. But no one could get their hands on guns. They do now."

  "The guns are the biggest difference?"

  He shook his head slowly, struggling to find some way to quantify the difference, put it in terms she could understand. All the images he came up with—war and revolution and bad morale seemed too male to fit her experience.

  "It's never quiet," he said finally. "Not ever. There's a siren or a party or a television or somebody's radio going twenty-four hours a day. It's never really clean. It's old and tired and forgotten."

  He narrowed his eyes against the memory, as if squinting would blur it enough to take the sting away. "If you want to walk down to the corner for a soda, you've gotta look out on the street to see who's out there, first." He paused, still thinking, and raised his finger to indicate there was more. "If you want to open the window, you better have bars. If you want to keep a pet, you'd better make damned sure it never goes outside. And at night, when things are bad, it's a good idea to put the mattress on the floor."

  A small, intense crease appeared between her eyebrows, but her eyes were steady and clear. "Thank you."

  He nodded. "Probably lucky for her that her mother kicked her out of the house."

  "She's pretty lucky to have you, that's for sure."

  That caught him in the solar plexus. "Thanks."

  "Do you know anything about the father of her baby?"

  He sighed. Shook his head. "She's not talking, and I haven't pushed. I gather it was consensual—beyond that, I guess it doesn't really matter."

  "I guess that's true." She seemed about to say something else, frowning into the distance. "It's just…"

  "What?"

  She shifted a little, brushed a wisp of dark hair from her cheek. "She stares out the window in class like she's waiting for someone to appear. Like she expects it."

  Robert suddenly thought of Crystal's favorite spot in the house: an overstuffed chair in front of the big picture window, where she would curl up as much as her growing belly would allow. She could sit there for literally hours, just looking outside. He'd thought she was simply looking at the mountains. "Very observant," he said. "Maybe I'll see if she has more to say."

  A nod. "Well, I guess we ought to go back in. I'm starting to get cold."

  "Yeah, me too." But before she moved, he touched her hand. It surprised him that he did it, and he wasn't aware that he had until he felt the tiny bones beneath his palm. She looked up at him, a little alarmed, and he was alarmed himself, though he didn't pull away. There were a million reasons that starting anything with her would be a mistake, so he wouldn't, but he wanted her to know that the thought had crossed his mind. It was an offering, maybe.

  He couldn't think of the right lightness of words to offer, so he only stood there, his hand covering hers, looking down into the wide dark blue eyes for a long, silent moment. "Don't let anybody ever tell you it's stupid to care," he said quietly, more fiercely than he intended. "You don't have to understand it to reach out."

  She nodded, dipped her head and slipped her hand from beneath his. "Thanks," she said. "We should go back in."

  * * *

  Every Saturday morning, Robert and Crystal did their chores, and this day was no different. The routine varied little—they put loud music on the stereo, taking turns choosing CDs, and scoured the house top to bottom. She liked tackling the kitchen, something he hated with all his heart, so he let her. Robert dusted and vacuumed the living room, shook out the couch cushions, singing along with the classic rock Crystal rolled her eyes over. Her choices were even sillier—movie soundtracks, mostly, with a lot of very gentle, pop love songs that she knew every word to. None of the rap or blaring rock some of the younger laborers on his crew were so fond of.

  Thank God.

  This Saturday-morning ritual delighted the girl. She rose early, pulled back her hair, discarded her windbreaker and rolled up her sleeves. Singing, she scoured the sink and stove, wiped down cupboards and walls, practically spit-shined the floors. Every other week, she even washed the windows, something it had never occurred to Robert to do. When she finished, she tackled the bathroom and gave it a similar polishing, then stripped off her rubber gloves and walked happily through the house, lighting strategic sticks of incense that smelled of grass and fresh air.

  Midmorning, he took a list—one that Crystal insisted on preparing every week—to the grocery store. When he re
turned, she popped her head out of the kitchen, grinning happily. "Hey, Uncle, come look what I did for you."

  He followed, dropping his bags on the counter. The room was fairly large, with a big window looking out toward the mountains, and all the cupboards, stove and refrigerator on one wall. A small windowed alcove had previously held a small breakfast bar and two stools, where they usually ate. But she'd dragged the breakfast bar into the kitchen below the window and dragged the old Formica-and-chrome table into the alcove.

  "You shouldn't have been moving this stuff, babe. I would have helped."

  "I used my butt," she said with a grin. "Look at what I brought in, though." She opened the drawers set into the alcove one by one. "All your stuff, so you can have a good place to work."

  "Ah, Crystal, this is so good," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. The drawers had held miscellaneous kitchen junk before, which she'd sorted out and moved. From his bedroom, she'd carried all his jewelry and glass supplies, and carefully organized them by type, even fitting the drawers with cardboard dividers to keep things neat. Touched, he kissed her head. "Thank you."

  "I know you gave up your workroom to give me a place to sleep," she said. "This will work pretty good, don't you think?"

  "It'll be even better. Look how much great light there is in here."

  "Okay." She slapped her hands together—that's that. "I'm going to get my sheets. Then will you show me again how to do those corners?" Now that the weather had warmed up, she loved washing the sheets and hanging them out on the line to dry.

  "Sure." He put the groceries away, then followed her to her room when she came in with an armload of sweet-smelling linens. On her narrow twin bed, he illustrated the army corner, tight and smooth, then pulled it loose. "You try."

  Adroitly she did it, but he saw her trouble was in the fact that she couldn't quite bend well enough to get it tight. "Let me help, babe."

  She straightened, laughing a little, her hand on her round belly. "It gets harder to do things, and I forget."

  It startled him, that happy, girlish laugh, especially in reference to her pregnancy. Trying not to make too much of it, he knelt and tucked the corners tight. "I don't want you to move anything heavy anymore, got it?"