“She told you all that while you were fixing the roof?”

“In between.” Rooke studied her beer can, turning it in her hands.

“I told her about the reading thing.”

“Did you.” Pops sipped his coffee. “Is that what’s chewing on your insides?”

Rooke looked up, startled. “What do you mean?”

“You came home this afternoon and went straight into your shop.

Usually when you do that, you don’t surface until breakfast the next day. But here you are, looking like you don’t know what to do with yourself.”

“It’s not Adrian.” Rooke drank some more beer. “She didn’t think it was such a big deal. About the reading.”

“She looked like a smart woman.”

Rooke smiled, thinking that Adrian wasn’t just smart. She was smart for sure, but she never made Rooke feel as if she wasn’t, even though Rooke had never been anywhere or done anything special in her life. When she was with Adrian, she felt as if what she thought or said mattered. Rooke set the beer aside and looked at her grandfather.

“Did you give one of my sculptures to Ida?”

Pops’s mouth turned down at the corners and he nodded. “About two years ago. I thought she ought to see what you were. Past time, maybe. I’m sorry for taking so long to get to that.”

Rooke waved a hand. “I don’t care what Ida Hancock thinks about me. It ended up with Bea Meriwether, and now an art dealer wants it.

She wants all my sculptures.”

“To do what with them?” Pops asked in surprise.

“Show them. Sell them.” Rooke shrugged. “In New York City.”

“Well, what do you know.” Pops walked to the back door and looked out. He spoke without looking back at Rooke. “Snow is supposed to start up again around midnight.”

“Another foot, they say.”

“What are you going to do about the art dealer?”

“What do you think?”

• 150 •

SecretS in the Stone

Pops was quiet a long time before turning back. “I don’t usually tell you what I think you ought to do.” He scratched the back of his head. “In fact, I don’t think I have in the last twenty years.” He blew out a breath. “But I think you should let her do it. You’ve got a talent, Rooke. Anyone can see that. Maybe her coming means it’s time for you to own that.”

“I’m afraid,” Rooke said quietly, “it might change everything.”

“Most everything changes.” Pops opened the refrigerator, pulled out a pound of hamburger, and handed it to Rooke. “Get started making these.” When Rooke reached for the package, he squeezed her shoulder.

“Being scared of the next step in life is okay. Just make sure you don’t let fear keep you from taking a step you should take.”

“How will I know what’s right?”

“How is it you know what to do with stone?” Pops asked.

“I feel it. Then I know.”

“Well then. There’s your answer.”

For some reason, Rooke thought of Adrian, but she didn’t know why. She wanted to call her, to ask her what she thought. She wanted to call just to talk to her. To hear her voice. She’d never called anyone just to talk before. She wondered how close Adrian and Melinda were. They both lived in New York City, they were both artists, they probably had a lot in common. A lot more in common than Adrian had with her. Maybe if she let Melinda have her sculptures, that would change.

• 151 •

• 152 •

SecretS in the Stone

ChapTER SEvEnTEEn

Melinda was pulled from sated slumber to the pinnacle of orgasm, where she teetered on the edge of a volcanic crater, dangerously close to plummeting into the fiery streams of molten rock below. She gasped, simultaneously registering hot, wet mouths on her breast and between her legs. A rush of pleasure engulfed her as she gripped the dark hair of the woman sucking her. Becky’s friend. Nina.

Her tongue was exquisite, teasing ever so lightly over the sweet spot that made Melinda swell and ache.

“Nina,” Melinda whispered, lifting her hips to slide her clitoris deeper between Nina’s lips, “Nina, take Becky while you suck me.

Inside her. Hurry, darling, you have me very close.”

Since Becky had arrived just after midnight with an eager playmate in tow, Becky and Nina had climaxed multiple times in multiple ways, leaving them drained and Melinda replete. They’d all drifted into a somnolent haze of sexual satisfaction moments before, but apparently her two resilient young lovers were still hungry.

“Oh God,” Becky moaned, jerking as Nina entered her. She rolled Melinda’s nipple feverishly between her fingers and pumped her sex on Nina’s hand. “Feels so good.”

“You’re going to come soon,” Melinda told Becky. “She’s going to make you come.”

“Oh yes. Oh God, yes. Fuck me, fuck me please. I’m coming.”

Nina set her teeth around Melinda’s clitoris and sucked. The tendrils of Melinda’s orgasm unraveled in a burst of heat and light, sparks igniting behind her nearly closed lids. Becky wailed and Melinda groaned, her control annihilated.

• 153 •

RADcLY fFe

“Becky, kiss me.” Abdomen rigid, Melinda thrust her hips to meet Nina’s eager tongue. “Kiss me. Come with me.”

Writhing in the throes of her climax, Becky sealed her lips to Melinda’s and poured her passion into Melinda’s waiting mouth.

Melinda drank, filling herself with Becky’s abandon as she emptied herself over and over into Nina. When Becky fell away, spent, Melinda reached for Nina.

“Satisfy yourself, darling,” Melinda urged. “Let me feel you come.”

Nina crawled up to curl against Melinda’s other side, plunging her hand between her legs. Melinda stroked her face and skimmed the tip of her tongue over Nina’s lips, tasting herself in the shadows of Nina’s pleasure. Beside her, Becky stirred and reached down to languidly fondle Melinda’s clitoris. Melinda’s lids fluttered as her sex tightened beneath Becky’s fingertips.

Nina, her mouth twisted in a grimace, undulated in the tangled sheets, her legs spread wide and her fingers strumming her clitoris. She whimpered. “Hurts.”

“You need to come so very badly, I can tell.” Melinda caressed Nina’s breast, plucking her taut nipple. “You want to come now, don’t you.”

“Yes, oh please, yes,” Nina gasped, open-mouthed against Melinda’s throat. “Want to come…for you.”

“Faster, darling. Let me have you. Come for me.” Melinda drew Nina’s tongue into her mouth and sucked. Nina’s arm blurred. Becky stroked Melinda harder. Nina arched, unleashing a string of broken cries. Melinda closed her eyes and rode the river of molten pleasure.

v

Rooke was cold, so cold her bones were about to shatter. The hands coursing over her were ice, the limbs entwined with hers slick and frigid as the marble that jutted from the snow-covered ground inches from her face. Twisting away from one writhing body, she slipped into another’s fervent embrace. Lips trailed fiery kisses down her throat, burning through the bitter frost to singe her blood. Two hands, four, caressed her breasts, her abdomen, between her legs. A tongue coated her sex with liquid flame and she convulsed under another mouth, biting at her

• 154 •

SecretS in the Stone

neck. Teeth tugged at her nipple, clamped down on her clitoris. The earth heaved and broken stone rained down on her, bruising her flesh and bone. A terrible madness churned inside, and she fixed on the pale surface of the grave marker. Help me, she pleaded, but got no answer.

Clawing her way free of the chaos that raged inside her, tearing her apart, she made one last desperate attempt to reach the sanctuary of the stone. Her grasp fell short.

At the moment darkness claimed her, Rooke’s eyes flew open. She was still in darkness, but she was no longer cold, and no stranger’s body hovered over her. Her skin was coated with sweat. Her heart hammered in her ears, in her chest, in her sex. Ignoring the aching throb of blood pulsing in her center, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. She padded into the living room in the sleeveless gray T-shirt and loose sweatpants she’d worn to bed. She found a pencil and pulled a pad of paper from a haphazard pile on the low table in front of the couch. Bending forward, she rapidly sketched the gravestone from her dream, including as many of the symbols as she could remember. When she was done, she stared at the name she couldn’t read.

v

The wall phone in Rooke’s shop rang just as she was putting away her tools. She’d been working since four, too disturbed by the distorted dream-collage of figures twisting on a snow-covered grave to sleep again. She’d put the women and their icy touch out of her mind as she drew warmth and strength from the figure emerging from the stone. She could almost see her clearly now—a woman standing with legs spread wide, one arm raised, her head thrown back in victory. A warrior, perhaps, or a savior.

Rooke gave the figure one last look, wishing she could see her face, and answered the phone. “Hello.”

“There’s someone here to see you,” Pops said. “We’re in the kitchen. Come on over.”

Rooke didn’t have time for questions before the call was disconnected. She hurried upstairs to wash her hands and change into clothes that weren’t covered with stone dust. Tucking the tails of a black button-down-collar shirt into her jeans, she hustled downstairs

• 155 •

RADcLY fFe

and headed for the house, not even bothering with a sweatshirt. She never had visitors. A familiar ache stirred in her chest, but this time she felt only fire. Maybe Adrian had come.

She didn’t see the Jeep or any other car in the driveway, but she was in too much of a hurry to consider what that meant. She barged into the kitchen and then stopped abruptly. Melinda sat at the table with her grandfather. Unlike Adrian, who had fit as naturally into the comfortable kitchen as Rooke and her grandfather, Melinda looked completely out of place, as if she had taken a wrong turn on her way to a cocktail party.