Нора Робертс - Key of Knowledge

She whirled around, vibrant with fury, trembling with insult. The roller fell out of her hand and left a dull gold smear on the drop cloth. “For Christs sake, what do you take me for? Do you think Ive been sleeping with him just so I could kick him out and get back some of my own?”

“No, I dont. Im just thinking, if you really want that smooth stretch of road, you dont get it by running somebody else into a ditch, then leaving him there bleeding.”

Dana heaved the hair band to the floor and wished viciously she had something more satisfying to throw. “Youve got some goddamn nerve.”

“Yes, I guess I do.”

“This is my fucking spin on the wheel, Malory. I dont need you or anyone else telling me who to let into my life, or who to close out.”

“Seems to me thats just what youre letting Kane do. He had a direction he wanted you to take, andypure going right along with it. Youre not even asking yourself why he gave you the push.”

“So now I should stay with Jordan because of the key? Youre lecturing me about my own life, my own decisions, so I wont risk screwing up your deal?”

Malory drew a long breath. It wasnt the time for her to lose her temper, or, she decided, to blame Dana for losing hers. “If you believe that, you dont know me, and more, you dont know what it is youve agreed to do. So you can keep on painting, and congratulating yourself for avoiding all those bumps in the road, or you can stop being a coward and settle this with Jordan.”

Finished, Malory started out. “He shouldnt be hard to find,” she called back. “He told Flynn he was going to see his mother this morning.”

HE brought her carnations. Tulips had been her favorite, but it was the wrong season. Still, shed liked simple flowers the best. Tulips and daffodils, rambling roses and daisies. The carnations were simple, it seemed to him, and feminine in a soft, old-fashioned pink.

Shed have appreciated them, made a fuss, and put them in her good vase—the one her mother had given her some long ago Christmas.

He hadnt thought to buy anything to put them in, so the florists paper would have to do.

He hated the cemetery. All those stones and markers popping out of the ground like a crop of death in gray and white and black. All the names and dates inscribed on them were as much a reminder that no one beat fate in the end as a memorial to a lifetime.

Morbid thoughts, he supposed, but this was the place for them. The grass was bumpy and weedy, so the green was marred with brown patches where it had worn away, spindly where it hadnt been clipped close enough to the stones. Others had brought flowers to their dead, and some of the offerings were faded and withered. Some solved this remembrance of death by laying artificial blooms at the markers, but the bright colors struck him as false.

More lie, he thought, than tribute.

It was too windy here on the north end, and too cold, without the shelter of the small grove of trees to the east or the sunny rise just to the west.

Hed had the marker replaced a few years before with smooth white granite. Shed have considered that a foolish expense, but hed needed to do something.

It held her name. Susan Lee Hawke. And the span of her life, that short forty-six years. Beneath, in script, was the line hed paraphrased from Emily Dickinson.

Hope perches in the soul

Shed never lost hope. Shed lived her life believing in the power of hope, and faith, leavened with good, hard work. Even when the sickness had eaten away her beauty, had whittled her down to brittle bones shed had hope.

For him, Jordan thought now. Shed had hope for him, believed in him, and had loved him without qualification.

He crouched down to lay the flowers on her grave.

“I miss you, Mom. I miss talking to you, and hearing you laugh. I miss seeing that look in your eye that told me I was in trouble. And even when I was, you were there for me. You were always there for me.”

He stared at the words on the stone. It looked so formal. Shed always been Sue. Simple, straightforward Sue.

“I know youre not in there. This sort of thing, its just a way of letting other people know you were around, that you were loved. Sometimes I feel you, and its such a strong feeling its as if I could turn around and there youd be. You always believed in stuff like that, in the possibilities of what we are.”

He rose, slid his hands into his pockets. “Im wondering what the hell I am. Ive screwed up. Not everything, just one vital thing. Ive got the one thing I always wanted, and I lost the one thing I didnt know I always needed. Id say maybe its cosmic justice. Maybe you just cant have it all. But youd give me that look.”

He gazed out toward the hills shed always loved, and the way the sky held a strong blue over the flame of the trees. “I dont know if I can fix it. Fact is, I dont know if I should even try.”

He closed his eyes a moment. “It hurts to be here. I guess its supposed to.” He touched his fingers to his lips, then pressed his fingers to the stone. “I love you. Ill come back.”

He turned, and stopped when he saw Dana standing on the edge of the access road, watching him.

He looked so sad, she thought. More than that, it was as if the sorrow had stripped away his defenses and left the emotions behind them open and raw. It was painful to see him this vulnerable, to understand that they both knew shed caught him unguarded in a moment meant to be private.

No longer sure what she would say, could say, she walked across the grass to stand with him by his mothers grave.

“Im sorry. I didnt want to… disturb you,” she began. “Thats why I was waiting over there.”

“Its all right.”

She looked down at the grave, the fresh flowers spread over the grass. Perhaps she did know what to say. “Flynn and I come here once a year.” She cleared her throat. “His father, my mother… and yours. We, ah, try to come right after the first real snowfall. Everythings so peaceful and white and clean. We bring her flowers.”

She shifted her gaze from the flowers and saw he was staring at her. “I thought youd like to know we always bring her flowers when we come.”

He didnt speak, but his eyes said everything. Then he simply lowered his forehead to hers.

They stood like that, silent, while the wind whipped around them and fluttered the petals of the pink carnations.

“Thanks.” He straightened slowly, as if he were afraid something in him might break. “Thank you.”

She nodded, and they stood, silent again, looking out at the hills.

“This is the first time Ive been out here since Ive been back,” he told her. “I never know what Im supposed to do-in a place like this.”

“You did it. Carnations are nice. Simple.” He let out a little laugh. “Yeah, that was my thought. Why are you here, Dana?”

“I had things to say to you, that maybe I didnt say the right way this morning.” “If its along the lines of we can still be friends, maybe you could wait a couple of days on that.”

“Not exactly. I dont know if this is the appropriate time or place to talk about this,” she began, “but after Malory finished reaming me out this morning, Idecidedshe had a few points, and that I owed you—myself—I owed both of us something better than the way I ended things.”

“I hurt you. I could see it on your face. I dont want to hurt you, Dana.”

“Too late for that.” She lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “You were careless with me, Jordan. You were careless and you were callous. And though I might have spent some happy hours over the years dreaming about paying you back in kind, I realize thats not really what I want. So my being careless and callous with you this morning wasnt any more satisfying for me than it was for you.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I went back last night, courtesy of Kane.” She frowned up at his pithy comment. “I dont think you should use that sort of language over your mothers grave.”

For some reason, the remark loosened a knot in his belly. “Shes heard it before.”

“Nevertheless.”

He, shrugged, and there was something of the boy shed loved in the gesture. Just enough of him to twist her heart again. “Where did you go?”

“I went back to the day you were packing to move to New York. I experienced it again. Watched my self experiencing it. It was very strange, and no less horrible knowing I was watching a rerun. It was like standing on both sides of a one-way mirror. Watching us, and still being a part of it. Everything you said to me, everything you didnt say to me, was just as painful as when it happened.”

“Im sorry.”

She tipped her face up to his, “I actually believe you are, which is why Im here rather than burning you in effigy. But you see, it hurt, all over again. And I have the right, I have the responsibility to myself, to step back from that. Im not willing to let my heart spill at your feet again, and I cant be with you and keep it intact. Maybe we can be friends, maybe we cant. But we cant be lovers. I just needed to explain that to you.”

When she stepped back, he laid a hand on her arm. “Would you walk with me?”

“Jordan—”

“Just walk with me for a few minutes. You said what you had to say. Im asking you to listen.” “All right.” She put her hands in her pockets to warm them, and to avoid contact with his.

“I didnt handle it well when my mother died.”

“I dont know that youre supposed to handle things like that well. My mothers buried over there.” She lifted a hand to gesture. “I dont really remember her. I dont remember losing her. But I miss her, and sometimes still I feel cheated. I have some of her things—a blouse my father saved that was her favorite, some of her jewelry, and photographs.