“Hey yourself, Ade. You in the city?”

“Nope. Upstate at my grandmother’s place. What are you doing in the city?” Adrian teased.

“The team is editing the footage we brought back. In fact, I’m glad you called. Time is interested in us putting together a book on today’s soldier. When I get the stills sorted, I’ll send you the lot so you can work up the copy.”

“That’s great! Can’t wait to get at it.” Adrian liked being in the final phases of one project while she researched the beginnings of the next so there was no downtime. If she was working, she didn’t have time to wonder what might be missing from her life. “So you’re staying put for a while?”

“I am,” Jude said, sounding pensive. “Maybe for a little longer than usual.”

“Something wrong?”

“No. I think I’m just tired of sleeping on the ground and eating out of foil packages.” She laughed softly. “And I miss Sax.”

“I’m sure she won’t complain about having you around more.”

“She better not. Hopefully she’ll work a little less, eat better, and maybe even sleep once in a while,” Jude said, referring to her surgeon lover. “So what’s going on with you?”

• 145 •

RADcLY fFe

Adrian had called Jude because Jude was always so grounded, so rational, and Adrian trusted her. She hadn’t actually thought out what she was going to say, so the words just came out before she had a chance to censor them—before she had a chance to put her feelings into a neat little package that made sense to her. “I met this woman—two women, really—and I kind of feel like I fell down the rabbit hole.”

“Oho. Let me grab a beer and get comfortable.”

Adrian smiled as she heard the sound of a refrigerator opening and the clatter of a metal bottle top dancing across a counter.

“Okay,” Jude said, “I’m back. Two, hmmm. I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. I’m not having a lot of fun.”

“How come?”

“Because half the time I don’t feel like myself.”

“Meaning?” Jude asked.

“On my way up here I met a woman, an art dealer from the city.

Melinda Singer. She owns Osare—know her?”

“No. I’ve heard of the gallery, but we’ve never met. What’s she like?”

“Beautiful. Sexy. Relentless.”

Jude laughed. “Sounds interesting.”

“She’s very hard to resist, and she’s been coming on to me since the minute we met.”

“Really?” Jude made a little humming sound. “How do you feel about her?”

“Have you ever been turned on, I mean like full-tilt burning-up-your-skin turned on, by someone who you didn’t really want to be turned on by?”

“Yes,” Jude said, surprising Adrian. “Saxon, the first time I met her.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” Adrian moaned. “Because I don’t want to go there with Melinda Singer.”

“I also fell in love with Sax the first time I met her, although I didn’t realize it for quite a long time. I was too busy being pissed off at her.” Jude paused. “But I don’t gather that’s what you’re talking about.”

“No. With Melinda it’s a case of my mind screaming no while my body goes a million miles an hour in the other direction.”

“Good thing you’re so stubborn, then. Your head will win.”

• 146 •

SecretS in the Stone

“I used to think so,” Adrian muttered. “Lately I’m not so sure.”

“Tell me about woman number two.”

“She’s doing some work on my grandmother’s house,” Adrian said, and filled Jude in on what had happened since she’d arrived in the midst of the blizzard and discovered the damage to the house.

“So, what’s special about this one?”

“Um, everything?”

Jude made a choking sound followed by laughter. “Well, I guess that tells me everything I need to know. Really, though, does that mean smart, sexy, exciting, intriguing, dangerous…what?”

“All of the above.”

“Have you been secretly meeting with my lover?” Jude teased.

Adrian laughed, grateful all over again for Jude’s easy friendship.

“Well, Rooke—her name is Rooke—does have the dark and brooding thing going on a little bit.”

“What exactly does she do?”

“She’s a stonemason. She carves gravestones.” Adrian hesitated.

“And she sculpts.”

“Wow. Wow,” Jude repeated. “She sounds really interesting.”

“She is. Fascinating. I haven’t even seen her sculptures, but the things she does with the gravestone carvings is…it’s hard to describe how beautiful some of it is.”

“That all sounds pretty intense, but something tells me there’s more going on.”

“For starters, Melinda came up here to find Rooke. She wants to get Rooke’s sculptures into her gallery.” Adrian sighed. “There’s something else, too. Can you ask Sax a medical question for me, when she’s got a spare moment?”

“Sure. But she’ll be up in a few minutes and you can ask her yourself. She was on call last night and didn’t get home until almost ten this morning. I forced her to go to bed. Is something wrong?”

“No, not really,” Adrian said quickly. “Rooke has a medical condition that I’ve never heard of before and I thought Sax might be able to explain it to me.”

“So how does Rooke feel about Melinda’s offer?”

“I don’t know. She never intended to sell her work, but Melinda can be very convincing.” Adrian picked at a chip on the edge of the kitchen counter, wondering if she was making any sense at all. “She was

• 147 •

RADcLY fFe

coming on to Rooke pretty hard this morning, and yesterday she kind of suggested she wouldn’t mind a threesome. Not Rooke specifically, just on general principle.”

“God, I really have to get out more. So, would you?”

“A threesome? It’s not anything I’ve given any thought to.”

Adrian let herself imagine Melinda and Rooke together and her head started to hurt. “If Rooke accepts Melinda’s offer to sell her sculptures, she’s going to be directly in Melinda’s sights. Who knows what will happen.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I really like Rooke,” Adrian said softly, “so I’m going to work on being friends. Rooke has some important decisions to make, and until she does, I think that’s about all that can happen.” She didn’t add that Rooke wasn’t the kind of woman to do anything casually, and casual was what Adrian was accustomed to. She was already uneasy about her inability to maintain any barriers where Rooke was concerned.

“Besides, I’m way out of my comfort zone here already.”

“Uh-huh. Well, friendship isn’t a bad idea.” Jude was momentarily silent. “I hear Sax. You want to talk to her now?”

“Yes. Thanks. And thanks for listening.”

“I expect you to call me again soon and let me know what’s happening.”

“I will. Promise.” Adrian heard the phone passed and then Saxon Sinclair, her deep voice still rough with sleep, greeted her.

“Adrian. How are you doing?”

“I’m great, Sax. Sorry to bother you with medical stuff on your day off.”

“No problem. What’s the situation?”

“What can you tell me about someone who’s had head trauma and isn’t able to read at all?”

“Posttraumatic alexia,” Sax said. “Give me the details.”

“I know she was very young at the time of the accident.” Adrian explained about the accident and that Rooke had told her she couldn’t recognize words or numbers. She also told Sax about the seizures.

“Well, it’s rare but not unheard of,” Sax said. “The nervous system in very young children is not mature—so a significant injury could disrupt development in unpredictable ways. If she hasn’t had any

• 148 •

SecretS in the Stone

improvement by adulthood, she’s not going to. As far as the seizures are concerned, it sounds as if she’s fairly well controlled on medication.”

“So she’s okay climbing around on my roof by herself and driving, things like that?”

“There are no guarantees that she won’t seize again. Her seizure threshold could be lowered by any number of things—change in medication or failure to take her medication, severe stress, physical illness, alcohol, or certain drugs. But it’s a good sign that it’s been a number of years since she had a problem.”

Adrian leaned her head against the cabinet behind her and closed her eyes. She’d secretly hoped that Rooke’s condition just hadn’t been investigated thoroughly enough and perhaps some kind of treatment might offer improvement. Apparently not. “Thanks, Sax. That helps a lot.”

“Her disorder presents a considerable challenge,” Sax said, “but not an insurmountable one.”

“Oh, I know. Believe me, Rooke is a perfectly competent, wholly functional human being. She’s also a remarkable artist.”

“Sounds pretty special.”

“She is.”

v

Rooke stood in the doorway of her shop, her gaze wandering over the shelves from one sculpture to another. She’d uncovered the unfinished work in the center of the room. The torso and chest, the breasts, and the arch of neck were all visible, but the face remained featureless. That would come, she knew, as she worked. She tried to imagine her sculptures in a gallery, isolated on stark, white pedestals under bright lights. This room, her sanctuary, would be bereft without them. She wondered if her dreams would be emptier too.

She switched off the light, locked the door, and walked over to the house. Pops was sitting in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in front of him.

She helped herself to a beer from the refrigerator, popped the top, and drank some while leaning against the refrigerator.

“I saw you out on the grounds today,” Pops said. “Pretty cold for a walk.”

• 149 •

RADcLY fFe

“Adrian wanted to see some of the markers. She’s going to write an article about them.”

Pops raised his eyebrows. “She’s a reporter?”

“Kind of. A freelance journalist. She writes about whatever she wants.” Rooke described some of the articles Adrian had written.