Chasing the Wind (14 page)

"Yes. I've kept those." Her tone was cool. "And yes, if you're not using the bookcase, I definitely can."

He nodded, uncertain. "I'll bring it over."

She began picking at her food in a distracted manner. He lifted his own fork, but the beef tasted like cardboard now. Minutes passed.

He shifted the subject to something he knew. "There are some things to be done in that back yard of yours," he said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

She looked up. "Like what?"

He shrugged. "Oh, fence boards that need replacing, things like that. I'll come around soon and fix them." He studied her. "Rebecca says you want a garden along the fence line. I could dig one, if you'd like."

She dug her fork into a carrot and put it in her mouth. Bemused, he watched her chew and swallow the food without looking up once at him. "No need for that," she said in an offhand tone. "Rebecca's got it wrong." She picked up the napkin and dabbed the corners of her mouth. "I don't have time for gardens right now. Not with everything going on at work."

Something was bothering her, and he hadn't a clue what it was. Feeling slightly irritable, he threw up his hands. "Fine. All right. But the fence needs work."

"Why do you say that?" She tilted her head and gave him a surprising, challenging look.

He set his fork down. Rested his hands on the table, one on each side of the plate and looked at her. "Have you checked it lately?"

"Checked the fence?" A short laugh escaped. "What would I be looking for?"

"Rotted wood."

She got a faraway look on her face and shrugged. Picked up her fork again, bent over her plate, and scooped up the last of the redfish. "It's not necessary."

Amalise could be inscrutable sometimes.

The waiter cleared their places and took off with the plates. Amalise folded her hands on the table before her and said nothing. It was time to get things back on track.

Jude pushed back his chair, angling it toward her. "There's something I want to talk about with you, chère."

She seemed to freeze. She sat very still, then dropped her hands in her lap and turned toward him. When she looked up, her face was etched with strain. "Go ahead."

He looked at her, confused, and decided that he'd just entered a no-wake zone. Women were strange; dead slow would be best in this situation. So he rearranged the plan. First, he'd make her understand his serious intent, that he wanted to settle down and create a home with her. And he needed to lighten things up—Amalise looked like she was going to a funeral.

So he slung one arm over the back of the chair, rested the other on the table, and fixed his eyes on the knife beside his plate. "I've been thinking of making big changes in my life, Amalise." Absently, he turned the knife over and over again as he spoke.

She said nothing.

Not a good start. He gave her a long look, conscious of her eyes, wide and round, fixed on him as if death had just knocked on the door. "To tell you the truth, I've been thinking of settling down here in the city."

Amalise blinked. "You mean giving up your work?"

His heart swooped in his chest. He nodded. "As a pilot. That's the idea, yes." Her lips parted, but he hurried on. No telling how Amalise could turn the conversation around if he let her jump in now. "I'm thinking of getting into real estate investment. Buying some properties, uptown at first, maybe in the Irish Channel. I've got my eye on two, for starters. I'd renovate them, fix them up, and sell them." He picked up his knife and tapped it gently on the white-clothed table, watching her.

"Why?"

That was always her first question. He almost smiled. This was the question he wanted to answer. But he reminded himself, dead slow ahead.

"Because I like the idea of living in one place, here in the city." He looked down at the knife, still tapping away. "And I like the idea of making a home."

He had plenty saved. He had learned the value of money from Dad, who'd never had a dime he didn't spend on drink. This had made him frugal. And with Amalise's long hours at work, well, he'd be around to help. His time would be flexible, and she'd have the support and freedom she'd need in the next few years for her career, if that's what she chose to do.

With children, one of us will have to change our schedules.

Amalise blinked. "I'm surprised, Jude." She hugged herself, as if she felt cold. "But there's money in fixing up old houses, and you'd be good at that." She looked off, over the table, toward the front door. "Rebecca thinks you're good at that, too."

"Yes. We've talked about it. She thinks it's a good idea."

Amalise went still, eyes riveted to the door. Jude followed her look but saw nothing to attract her attention.

Something was bothering Amalise this evening and she'd just disappeared down a rabbit hole. Her reserve put him on edge. So Jude filled the long silence by going on about his real estate idea, while part of his mind worked on putting the real question before her.

The waiter appeared. "Would you like coffee tonight?"

Still thinking about Amalise's odd behavior, he looked up at the waiter and then raised his brows toward Amalise. But her attention was fixed somewhere past him.

"Coffee, Amalise?" Jude tipped his head to one side. A busboy came and moved around them, whisking away their plates, silverware, and the basket of bread and refilling the water glasses.

She flinched. She looked up at the waiter and shook her head. "Not for me."

Jude suppressed an exasperated sigh. He looked at the waiter. "I'll have a cup, please. Cream and sugar." He turned to Amalise. "How about dessert?"

"Not tonight."

The waiter nodded, seeming to sense the tension. He scooped up their napkins, handed them to the busboy, and hustled off.

The incipient hope had died.

Rebecca. Jude kept mentioning her name. Amalise turned this over in her mind as he spoke to the waiter, moved aside for the busboy, asked if she'd like some coffee or dessert. She knew she couldn't eat a thing right now.

This new plan, this huge change in his life—giving up his pilot's license—he'd been mulling it over awhile, he'd said. He had never mentioned it to her before, but it sounded like he'd talked it over with Rebecca. Giving up the river! She could hardly take it in.

How long had Rebecca known about this, and why hadn't she mentioned it to Amalise? A wave of misery rolled through her as she tracked back over everything that Jude had said tonight, and the truth unfolded methodically in her mind.

Jude was giving up the river for Rebecca, to make a home. They were in love. And the moment the thought was articulated in her mind, she realized it was true, precise and to the mark. Once again that void yawned inside—the hollow longing for something she couldn't identify, a feeling that she'd had since the accident, an emptiness that so far she'd been unable to fill with work, as she used to do, or with the new house she'd just bought. Not even by clinging to the old friendship with Jude because, with Jude, she wanted more.

But she'd probably lost any chance of love with Jude long ago, on the day she'd married Phillip. He was Rebecca's now.

Recognition came as a brutal blow but not as a complete surprise. She turned, looking at the front door and the maître d' manning the podium there, hiding the tears that threatened, tears she'd never let Jude see, and suddenly the need to flee before she broke down pushed all other thoughts aside. She'd learned well enough from Phillip that pity was a trap. She'd never hang that kind of guilt on Jude.

Jude. Oh Jude, if you only knew.

But emotions could not be trusted now. She knew what had to be done. Hands on the edges of the chair, she straightened, saying "Hmm" and "Yes" as he talked about this new business—he'd already bid for two properties, he said—all the while calculating how far it was to that door.

Abba! Ten steps to the door. Fifteen, maybe. Help me get there!

And then he touched her arm, and that drew her full attention.

As he looked into Amalise's eyes, gathering the words he'd come here to say, he felt the love inside him swell and he allowed himself to hope. Perhaps he'd misjudged her and when he spoke the words, he'd find that she loved him, too. Perhaps, perhaps . . .
Oh, just get the words out now, Perret.

So he reached over and picked up her hands and held them in his, and then he took a deep breath. "Amalise, I realize that this may sound a little strange . . ." And then he hesitated.

What
were
the right words? How do you tell your oldest friend that you're in love with her? That you love her, not just as an old friend loves a friend, but as a man loves a woman once in a lifetime. That you long to marry her, no matter the time you may have to wait. That you will love her for the rest of your life and into eternity beyond. That you want children together.

Even as that thought came, he could see himself and Amalise and their children—three or four or five—and the Judge and Maraine, all sitting together at the table on the pier over the lagoon at her family home in Marianus.

He closed his eyes for a second. That was his dream, but how to begin?

And then he opened his eyes, looked at her, and said, "You know, chère, relationships change over time. Even friendships like ours."

Relationships change
. His words tolled in her mind as a warning. She'd seen how hard the words were for him to actually say, to tell her of Rebecca. Her heart plunged, but she couldn't seem to move, to pull her hands from his. She was careful not to allow her face to betray her as the cold, heavy words sank in, words that would change her life, that would take Jude from her forever.

And underneath the words, the way he looked at her with such joy and sadness all at once, underneath those careful words she heard the unspoken name.
Rebecca
.

In that split second she looked down the stultifying years ahead, seeing the course their friendship would take after he married Rebecca. And he knew her well enough to understand that taking second place to someone else would require a huge adjustment on her part.

The observer whispered,
Remember, Amalise, he's being honest with you, respectful of your friendship. You didn't do the same for him with Phillip.

She glanced again at the door and knew that she had to leave before he spoke the words. However their relationship was going to change, she wanted to deal with her feelings on her own. And she knew that she couldn't let him finish what he was about to say, because no matter how gently he spoke the words, how carefully he phrased them, the weight of losing him and hearing about his love for Rebecca would break her.

Yes. Relationships do change.

As he sucked in a breath and opened his mouth to go on, Amalise pulled her hands from his. Leaning back, away from him, she held up one hand, palm out.

"Stop."
Stop!

A frown creased his forehead and he drew back, brows raised. "Amalise? What's wrong?"

And now the waiter stood before them with Jude's coffee.

Quickly, before Jude could say another word, she pushed back her chair and stood, wishing she didn't have to walk through the other diners to get to the door. Wishing that she could just snap her fingers and be at home, alone.