Impossible Dreams (45 page)

Axell caught her head, and kissed her fiercely, then let her
walk off beside Cleo, with Matty between them. Both red heads held proudly,
they swam through the crowd as easily as fish.

He happened to think that Maya wore a rainbow-hued halo as she
gathered Alexa into her arms and turned to offer reassurances to anxious
parents and teachers. But then, he was crazy in love and capable of seeing
sunshine and roses in a rainstorm — she gave him hope, so much hope and joy the
future glowed with the brilliance of it.

He returned his glare to Ralph. “Spill.”

Ralph glared at Selene and Headley and the policeman. The
policeman hurried after Cleo. Headley crossed his arms stubbornly. Selene
patted the mayor’s cheek and strolled off to check the fire damage. Axell
lifted an eyebrow in her direction but didn’t question. Selene was as
unpredictable as a summer storm.

“Well?” he asked.

“She only meant to help,” Ralph insisted, before
Headley could speak. “She didn’t know the moron thought it was just
an insurance scam for a derelict building. I just said I wished the flood had
washed it away, and she took it a little too far.”

Axell lifted his eyebrows in Headley’s direction, but
he already knew the answer. A part of him should have known it from the
beginning. She’d always been too eager to please, too eager for
acceptance, too eager to be someone. And Maya and the school had stood in her
way.

“It’s Katherine,” Headley confirmed.
“Katherine hired the arsonist.”

If at first you do succeed, try not to look astonished.

November, 1999

I’ve seen them, Helen, our granddaughters. We’re
great-grandparents. Can you believe we’re that old? Not you. You’ll
be forever young in that place in my mind where I see you, but I’m a
senile old man now, weak and rotting at the core, as you discovered for
yourself.

It’s so damned difficult watching them make the same
mistakes we made, but I’m no example for them to follow, so I stay out of
their way. Maybe they’re forged of sterner stuff than you and me. Our
dreams died for lack of trying, but they don’t give up as easily as we
did.

For their sake, I’m mending my ways, Helen. I can see now
as you saw then that love and not money fulfills dreams and hopes. I’ve
been hoping to impress them with my wealth, hoping to make a difference in
their lives, but they’re carving their own paths without need of my help.
I can cut out the rottenness without fear now. If that means I’ll be
joining you soon, I won’t complain. I’d rather hope that, if I do
this right, some day, our daughter’s children will be proud to call me
granddad.

***

Maya propped her elbows on the step behind her and admired
the newly restored wood and glass of the foyer below them. The building was the
first of her grandfather’s properties to be renovated — an old Victorian on
the residential outskirts of town.

Axell slid his arm behind her and idly stroked the small of
her back. She loved the way he was always touching her. She’d missed that
desperately growing up. Perhaps Cleo had forgiven the people they knew now as
their grandparents, but she couldn’t, not entirely. How could anyone,
with any huge stretch of the imagination, believe cold hard cash or nasty
alcohol could replace the warmth and love of someone’s arms?

She felt sorry for those broken people in the papers Cleo
had saved, but she regretted more all the years wasted because no one cared to
give her grandparents a hug, and they, in turn, had never passed their hugs to
their daughter.

Perhaps they’d passed on their lesson anyway. Those
papers were an eternal reminder of the love she shared, the love she felt
compelled to pass along to all around her.

“I’ve never known anyone could actually make
dreams come true,” Axell murmured with an undertone of amazement as he
gazed at the new school created in just three months. “You must be a
fairy godmother.”

“Don’t be silly. I didn’t do all this. I
just nagged a lot.”

His hand rose higher to stroke the underside of her breast,
but she could tell by his voice that his thoughts were elsewhere, following
their own curious paths.

“No, you dreamed the impossible, and you persevered
through everything this town and fate and whatever threw at you. You never gave
up, Maya. And this school isn’t the only dream you’ve made come
true.”

Glancing at the big man sprawling across the stairs with
her, Maya felt the love welling up within her. Once, she would have sworn he
didn’t know how to relax enough to sprawl. Shrugging off his
philosophical fantasies, she followed the path of Axell’s long legs to
the crumpled cuff of his expensive trousers, and grinned. The chaos of their
life had diminished the importance of his immaculate attire, along with some of
his uptight habits. She caught him in shirt sleeves more often now, although
she noticed he’d carefully hung his coat over the newel post today.

“I still don’t know what you’re going to
do with this place here in town once the school is rebuilt out in the
county,” he continued idly, not expecting a response to his wilder
theories.

She knew he wasn’t criticizing her. All summer, he
hadn’t told her what to do unless asked, and he had accepted her
eccentric, impractical ideas without question, because he actually believed she
knew what she was doing. Maya beamed at him for that.

“The church across the street will need a new Sunday
school building if it continues growing as it has. In two years, when my school
is finished, Selene will persuade the church that this is the perfect property.
If they don’t think so” —she shrugged— “maybe
we’ll be big enough to need two schools by then.”

Axell shot her a skeptical look but didn’t comment on
the likelihood of that. He couldn’t, she knew. Their enrollment had
tripled for the fall semester.

“Well, it’s better than letting this old
building sit here and rot, I suppose. Still, Selene and Cleo are taking a lot of
chances by renovating all these old buildings instead of ripping them down. The
land alone is worth a fortune.”

They’d had this argument before and both knew the
routine. Axell didn’t like taking risks, but it wasn’t his
inheritance. Working with Selene had given Cleo a new lease on life, a reason
to get up in the mornings, a life without the ceaseless worry of finding the
next meal. Maya would exchange her entire inheritance just to see her sister
drug-free. She didn’t mind the risk.

“Our grandfather took from the community and never
gave anything back,” she replied complacently, watching the sun sparkle
over the prisms hanging from the old chandelier they’d rescued from the
fire remains. “He took drug money to buy some of these buildings. Maybe
he tried to make up for his wrongs by renting the school and shop to us cheaply
and telling the dealer to take a hike, but that doesn’t right the wrongs
he committed. But we can see downtown restored, see that the tenants have
decent places to live, offer their children an education they wouldn’t
get elsewhere. It’s a start.”

Axell was watching her, and Maya wanted to bask in the
warmth of his approval and the stirring awareness between them, but she
continued staring at the prisms. The opening ceremonies for the fall session of
the Impossible Dream in its new location were about to start in half an hour.
They didn’t have time for what he was thinking, what they both were
thinking. On some subjects, they were perfectly attuned. Her breasts tingled
beneath his lightest touch.

“That’s a nice thick carpet you had installed in
the office,” he murmured.

Maya darted him a hasty look. “We can’t,”
she whispered. “There isn’t time. Cleo and Selene...”

“Will be running late, as usual. Do you realize this
is the first time in months we haven’t had the kids underfoot?”

Oh, dear Lord, he was such a beautiful man. Maya gazed up
into dreamy gray eyes and got lost in them. When Axell lowered his head and
scorched her lips with his, she melted bonelessly and would have flowed down
the stairs like hot molasses if he hadn’t caught her waist and dragged
her up.

“I hope you have ocean tides in the CD player.”
He hit the stereo button as he hauled her into the office and the crashing
waves exploded from the speakers overhead.

“Axell, this is insane,” Maya protested as he
laid her down on the thick carpet and pinned her with his weight. He had his
necktie on, for pity’s sake, and his best white shirt.

Anyone could walk in downstairs. She forgot her objections
as he slid his hand down the scooped neck of her summer dress. “Ummm,
Axell, don’t...” Her voice trailed off as his lips found a more
interesting place to play and she arched upward for more.

“Don’t what?” he murmured, trailing kisses
up her throat. “Don’t kiss my wife in the middle of the day?
We’re perfectly respectable, you know.”

No, they weren’t. He had his big hand up her dress and
she was frantically loosening his tie and looking for his buttons. There was
nothing respectable about this. But it was wonderful, just the same.

“We’re an old married couple,” she
whispered. “We should have grown out of this by now.”

Axell snorted as he nibbled her ear. “We’ve been
married all of five months and two don’t count. I figure we’ve got
another five good years at least.” His fingers found her panties and
stroked. “Maybe ten. Then I’ll be over the hill and what will you
do?”

She laughed with a trill blending with the ebb tides on the
sound system. “Follow you over to see what’s on the other side.
You’ll never be old, Axell Holm, you have too much curiosity in
you.”

A hank of golden hair fell across his brow as his smile
gleamed down at her, and Maya’s heart pounded as it always did when he
looked at her like that. Nordic gods weren’t meant to be possessed, but
she thought maybe she owned just a little piece of him, or maybe more. She
cried out in delight as he finally unsnarled their hampering clothing and sank
into her.

Afterward, they lay in disarray upon the thick carpet,
listening to the sounds of bird song emanating from the speakers.

“I forgot to take my pill again last night,”
Maya worried out loud.

“You always forget to take it,” Axell replied
calmly, pulling her tighter against him. “One of these days, you’re
going to get caught.” He tickled her breast as he adjusted her head more
comfortably against his shoulder.

“You wouldn’t mind?” she asked as the
sensations he generated swept through her.

Axell propped himself up on one elbow. “Are you trying
to tell me something?”

She shook her head until her hair tumbled around her ears,
but she smiled. “No, I just wanted to know you wouldn’t mind. Alexa
is a handful already.”

He gazed speculatively at her still unbuttoned dress.
“Maybe breast-feeding makes them quieter?” he suggested with a
gleam of hope.

Hot waves of desire crashed through her at his words and
look and implication. She wanted more babies, Axell’s babies, and he
seemed equally interested. She breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t
certain, after that last episode...

“Shall I deliver them for you?” he inquired with
a mischievous curve to his smile as he followed the path of her thoughts.

Maya smacked his arm and struggled to sit up. “I want
sedation next time. Now, we’ve got to get up from here. Selene and Cleo
will be here any minute, then half the town will arrive.”

“You’re missing Matty,” he declared as he
helped her button her dress.

“He belongs with Cleo. She needs him.” Maya
shooed Axell’s hand away when it did more stroking than buttoning.
“But Constance misses him. There’s a boy in our summer class, one
of the scholarship kids who’s in a foster home...”

Axell sat up and straightened his tie while watching her
warily. “Maya...”

She hastened on. “He’s up for adoption but his
foster parents can’t afford another kid. He and Constance play well
together. He’s only six, Axell...”

He sighed with resignation and fastened his belt as the door
chimes rang below. “What’s one more?” he agreed.

Maya flung her arms around his neck and buried his cheek in
kisses. “I knew you’d say that. Thank you, thank you...” She
was so blessed. She only wished everyone could have a man like Axell in their
lives.

“Maya? Axell? You up there?”

“We’re coming, we’re coming!” Maya
called joyfully as she brushed down her skirt and raced toward the hall.

That was an understatement, Axell reflected as he watched
his wife flit from view. He shouldn’t still be thinking about sex after
just having it, but Maya did that to his mind. He wanted to pull her back down
on the rug and put babies in her. He was deranged. In a wild spurt of caveman
hunger to see his wife carrying his child, he’d agreed to take on another
six-year-old. Given a chance, she’d populate his house with strangers.

And why not? They had room for them, and Maya had enough
love in her heart for entire schools of children. With her help, he could learn
to love them all too. Tightening the knot in his tie, Axell wandered out to
greet Maya’s sister and partner. Hell, with Maya around, he
wouldn’t just accumulate kids, he’d have relatives and friends
crawling all over the damned place. The house would never be empty again.

Spirits decidedly high, he stood at the top of the stairs
and watched as Maya gesticulated wildly over whatever topic had popped into her
head now. Selene caught sight of him and blew him a kiss. Cleo frowned, but
Cleo always frowned.

“Cool dress,” Axell called down to his
sister-in-law, and she brightened perceptibly. Like a kid, Cleo just needed
attention.

As he sauntered down the stairs and all three women turned
to welcome him, Axell realized something else: for the first time in his life,
he was a participant and not an observer. He belonged in the world Maya created
around them. Reaching Maya and hugging her shoulders, he savored the moment.