So very very different.

• 60 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

CHAPTER SEVEN

Naked on top of the sheets, Dev turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

Though the windows were open, there was very little breeze and the room was

warm. She couldn’t sleep, but it wasn’t because of the heat. She kept replaying

the events of the day. She’d picked up Leslie at the train station less than ten

hours ago, and now she couldn’t stop thinking about things she had assiduously

avoided recalling for Þ fteen years. Memories were deceptive, she knew that.

The sun always shone brighter, the water was always bluer, the pleasure always

so much more poignant when viewed from afar. But even the ache of betrayal

and abandonment had not tarnished the simple truth of what she’d felt, and what

she’d tried so hard to forget.

The room was suddenly too small to contain the images that assaulted her.

Leslie sitting on the bank of the lake beneath fresh spring pines, her cheek

resting on the top of her bent knees, her face soft as she conÞ ded her dreams.

Leslie curled up beside her on a bench in the park, listening intently as Dev told

her about a book she’d read or how she planned to dress out her motorcycle as

soon as she had the money. Leslie laughing and nudging her shoulder, trying to

get Dev to crack a smile when she was pretending to be cool. Leslie that last

night, reaching for her, moaning into her mouth, burning her alive with kisses.

“Christ,” Dev muttered, jumping from bed. She couldn’t believe that a kiss

she’d shared with a teenager could arouse her now, but it did.

She was wet and throbbing and seconds away from reaching down for relief.

Somehow, the idea of climaxing to the image of a woman, no, a girl, who no

longer existed seemed wrong.

• 61 •

RADCLY fFE

She fumbled in the dark for jeans and a T-shirt and pulled them on without

bothering to Þ nd underwear. She stepped into the boots she’d left by the door

and started down the path to the lake with the moonlight as her guide. The water

was black as it always was at night, an onyx surface that glistened beneath a sky

gleaming with stars. The water lapped gently inches from her feet, a soothing

sound like the murmur of lovers in the dark. Dev took a deep breath and

smelled pine sap and rich earth.

The tension in her chest and groin began to ease. She remembered who she

was, where she was, and she remembered, too, how that long-ago kiss had

ended. The phantom passion, like the taunting memory of a lost limb, might

refuse to die, but she did not need to breathe life into it.

She took another deep breath and turned to go back to the cabin.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a ß icker of light from a hundred feet

away. The lake curved inward to form a tiny bay just below the lodge, and the

boathouse, almost as large as the lodge itself, extended out into the water. Dev

stared, wondering if the light she’d seen had just been moonlight glinting off the

water, but then she saw it again, shining for an instant through one of the

windows in the center of the building.

It was probably one of the guests, suffering from insomnia like herself, or a pair

of lovers looking for a private place to share their passion. But as she watched

the light glimmer in one window and then the next, she started walking toward it.

The air was still and quiet, unlike the last time she’d approached the boathouse,

and when she stepped inside, the music played only in her memory. Still, the

shadows undulated as if those long-ago dancers had left their energy and their

desires behind. As on that last night, she had only one destination. When she

reached the far end of the room, she wasn’t surprised to see Leslie perched on

the windowsill, her head tilted back and her eyes closed. The wash of moonlight

erased the years from her face, and Dev gasped as the old familiar connection

punched through her.

Leslie turned her head and regarded the dim Þ gure standing by her side. “Hello,

Dev.”

“Hi, Les,” Dev said, her throat raspy. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No. You?”

• 62 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

Dev shook her head.

“I’m sorry about dinner,” Leslie said.

“What do you mean?” Dev leaned her shoulder against the window frame

opposite Leslie. A few inches of hot summer air and a heart full of broken

dreams separated them.

“It couldn’t have been pleasant for you trying to eat with all that tension in the

room.” Leslie shrugged. “I’d forgotten why I don’t visit very often. My parents

don’t approve of me.”

“I got the impression they didn’t approve of your job,” Dev said, recalling just

how carefully Leslie and her parents had tiptoed around anything that broached

upon Leslie’s life in Manhattan or her career.

Instead, Eileen and Paul Harris, a tall, thin quiet man, had questioned Dev with

enthusiasm about the Institute and her work for the Department of

Environmental Conservation.

“Is there a difference?” Leslie couldn’t quite keep the bitterness from her voice.

“After all, we are what we do.”

“Why do you do it?” Dev asked mildly.

“Because I’m good at it.”

Dev laughed. “I bet. But, I mean…what made you decide to do it?

What made you change your plans?”

Leslie hesitated, sorting through any number of answers that would sufÞ ce

while revealing nothing personal. Personal revelation was not something she did

lightly. If she was honest, it wasn’t something she did at all. And she was very

good at deß ecting conversations that verged too close to the intimate. “You Þ

rst.”

“Me? All right.” Dev paused, giving the issue serious thought.

“I’ve always liked Þ sh.”

“That’s not an answer,” Leslie said, but she couldn’t help smiling.

“Actually, it’s the truth. When I Þ nally started studying, I realized how much

there was to learn about the things I saw every day. The lake is part of me, I

guess.” Dev sighed. “And the Þ sh, well, besides creating interesting social

orders, they’re beautiful.”

“You make it sound romantic,” Leslie said seriously.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Dev said, thinking that romance was something she’d

changed her mind about since last they’d met. “Your turn.”

“Remember how I used to hate math?”

• 63 •

RADCLY fFE

Dev nearly gasped at the unexpected twist of pain. She wondered how Leslie

imagined she could forget anything that had happened between them. “Yeah. I

remember.”

“I thought it was because I didn’t have a logical mind. You know, back then I

wanted to work outside, tend the land, that kind of thing.

That was probably me channeling my parents’ dreams.” Leslie swiveled on the

wide window ledge and swung her legs outside the building to dangle in the

moonlight. “Once I got away, got exposed to other things, I discovered that I

was actually very good at dissecting complex issues.

I also have a knack for Þ nding ß aws in arguments.”

“So you got interested in the law.” Dev spoke carefully, recalling how defensive

Leslie had seemed earlier when the subject of her work had come up. “So what

about the rest of it? Why the kind of law that you practice?”

“I like competition.” Leslie glanced at Dev. “It’s just a big chess game.”

“You were always good at that, but…defending big businesses that operate

with no concern for what they might be doing to anyone else? Jesus, Les.”

“The simple answer is that everyone is entitled to the best defense possible,

including corporations.” Leslie slid off the windowsill. “But it’s not that simple,

Dev. Sure, some of the regulations are reasonable, even if they are almost

prohibitively costly to implement. But even my parents, if they just thought about

it, would admit that government intrusion in the private sector isn’t always the

answer. In fact, sometimes it just creates more problems.”

Dev caught Leslie’s arm as she turned her back to walk away.

“Look, I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Leslie snapped. “Clearly, you and my parents are on the side of the

angels. And I’ve sided with the devil.”

“It’s not my place to judge you. Or theirs either.”

“Well, thank you very much for that.”

Dev couldn’t see Leslie’s face in the shadows, but she could feel her shaking.

Underneath the anger was pain, and Dev felt it as if it were her own. She slid her

hand along Leslie’s forearm until she reached her hand and squeezed Leslie’s Þ

ngers before letting go. “I didn’t mean to bring up a sensitive subject.”

“Forget it.” Leslie stepped close to the window again and curled

• 64 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

her Þ ngers around the sill. She leaned out and let the breeze cool the heat of

anger from her face. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

“I saw the light. What are you doing down here?”

“Trying to Þ gure out why the hell I came home.”

A hint of Leslie’s perfume drifted to Dev. She had no idea what it was, but it