path to her own place, she felt a change in the air. She slowed.

“Les?”

“Can we talk?” Leslie said from the darkness.

• 127 •

RADCLY fFE

She sounded as weary as Dev felt.

“Okay,” Dev said as she climbed the steps to the porch. She sat next to her and

switched off her light. “Have you been here the whole time?”

“Yes.”

“You must be cold. I’ll get you a jacket.”

Leslie caught Dev’s arm to stop her, then quickly let go. “No.

That’s okay, I have one. What about you?”

“I’ll get one if I need it.” Her voice was raspy, as if she hadn’t used it in a long

time. She dangled her arms over her knees, careful not to touch Leslie. She

drew a breath to speak, but Leslie did Þ rst.

“There are some things I need to tell you,” Leslie said.

“No, you don’t. What happened—”

“Just wait. Just this once, don’t be so sure you know what I’m going to say.”

Dev stiffened, but nodded. “Okay.”

“What happened by the lake that night was…innocent. You kissed me and I

kissed you.” She laughed ß atly, thinking she’d heard that line somewhere

before, but it meant so much more now. “That happens millions of times

between teenagers everywhere, except it wasn’t supposed to happen between

us because we were both girls. Jesus.”

“It wasn’t all that innocent,” Dev said quietly. “I knew—in my heart, I knew

what I felt. What it meant.”

“It was still innocent,” Leslie said sharply. “How could it have been otherwise?

We were in love.”

The words tore through Dev’s heart and she gripped her knees harder.

“What Mike did was horrible.” Leslie paused, her breath shuddering from her.

“And what I did was worse. What I said—” She turned, trying to read Dev’s

face in the shadows. “I don’t know why I said what I said. It wasn’t true. I was

scared, I guess. Whatever, it doesn’t matter now. I just want you to know it

wasn’t true.”

“Thank you,” Dev whispered.

“There’s something else you need to know,” Leslie said, Þ nding the present

truths even more difÞ cult than the past.

Dev shook her head. “It’s time to let all that go, Les. For both of us.”

“I know. But it’s not about then. It’s about now.”

• 128 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

The hollow note in Leslie’s voice struck a deeper sense of dread in Dev’s heart

than Leslie’s shocked cry earlier. Suddenly, she felt cold.

She waited.

“I’m not sure exactly what happened down by the lake tonight,”

Leslie said hesitantly. “I think part of me was back there, the night we kissed

and then Mike…hurt you. I remember how good you felt to me that night. How

right.” Her voice dropped to a hush. “How much I wanted you to touch me.”

Dev’s nails dug into her palms, and she bit her lip so hard holding back a groan

that she drew blood.

“When you kissed me tonight, it was like before. All the old feelings came back

and it was like I knew you. I wanted you.”

“Except it wasn’t really us anymore.” Dev’s chest ached with the sadness that

welled within her.

“No.” Leslie started to reach out, but thought better of it. Nothing she could do

would change the truth. “Devon, you’re seeing Natalie and I’m involved with

someone too. We’re neither of us free.”

Free. The word mocked Dev, because she wondered if she would ever be free,

or if she would merely move on while leaving parts of herself behind. Trying to

explain that Natalie was a friend seemed pointless, because Leslie was with

someone else.

“I might not know you now,” Dev said, rising, “but you strike me as a onewoman

woman.”

“Well, one at a time anyways,” Leslie said, trying to lighten the moment. She

stood, noticing for the Þ rst time that Dev was shivering.

“You should go inside. I just want you to know that it wasn’t anything you did

that upset me. Ever.”

Dev put her hands in her pockets, because she knew Leslie was about to walk

away. And God help her, she didn’t want her to go. Even though every word

Leslie spoke hurt her in a way she hadn’t thought possible, she didn’t want her

to go. And that was exactly why one of them had to. And soon.

“Thanks, Leslie,” Dev said quietly.

“For what?”

“For being the one to say no.”

Leslie trembled as a ß ood of longing washed through her. Strangers or not,

what she’d felt earlier in Dev’s arms had made her feel alive in every cell. She

was afraid to even think what that might mean.

• 129 •

RADCLY fFE

“I’m glad you understand,” was all Leslie could think to say.

“Good night.”

“Good night,” Dev whispered. She waited until she heard the soft slide of

Leslie’s cabin door opening and the quiet snick of it closing.

Then she sat back down on the steps and rested her face in her hands and wept

for the love they’d once shared.

• 130 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Leslie got up early the next morning after another night Þ lled with fractured

dreams and an impending sense of danger, although when she opened her eyes,

the elusive feelings ß ed like bits of sand in the wind. She showered quickly,

threw on jeans and a white boat-neck tee, and hurried to the lodge. Even though

she knew it was foolish, she was inordinately relieved to see Dev’s truck in the

lot next to her parents’ new Jeep. She had half expected Dev to be gone. The

thought of Dev just disappearing left her feeling frighteningly hollow.

She pushed the disquieting sensation aside, reminded herself that the truck was

still there and so was Dev, and went inside to take care of the work that needed

to be done. She was in the midst of removing a second tray of biscuits from the

oven when a sound behind her startled her into nearly dropping the entire thing.

“Ahh!” Leslie yelped. She managed to get the tray onto the counter before

spinning around to discover Dev in the doorway. “Can you please stop sneaking

up on me like that?”

“Sorry,” Dev said without the slightest hint of contrition. Leslie looked great, and

even in casual clothes, she deÞ nitely did not look like a woman who should be

slaving in the kitchen at six in the morning.

“Need some help?”

“Of course I need help.” Leslie waved an arm at the general chaos of the

kitchen, where baking pans, mixing bowls, and the ingredients for breakfast lay

scattered over the counters. “I need a chef and a busboy and a gardener and a

mechanic and someone to tell me how in God’s name my parents run this place

by themselves.”

• 131 •

RADCLY fFE

Dev frowned. “Are things really getting away from you?”

Leslie blew a loose strand of hair away from the corner of her mouth. “Not

really. I can probably manage another day, and my mother’s coming home later

this afternoon. But even then, she’s going to need help down at the dock and

taking care of all the other things my father does.”

“What about Þ nding new hires?”

“I’ve got several people coming by this evening for interviews.

At this point, anyone who hasn’t just escaped from Sing Sing will be perfect.”

Dev opened the refrigerator and started passing cardboard cartons of eggs to

Leslie. “Scrambled are easiest.” She checked the menu on the door. “Sausage.

Piece of cake.” She rummaged in the refrigerator’s meat drawer and found the

jumbo package of links, which she carried to the grill in the center of a cook

island.

“What are you doing?” Leslie asked.

“Making my part of breakfast.” Dev pointed a fork in the direction of the eggs.

“You should start too, or else we won’t be done at the same time.”

Leslie opened a container of eggs, then closed it and carefully set it down on the

counter. She watched the light blue denim shirt tighten across Dev’s shoulders

as Dev worked. Her hair curled over the collar, thick chestnut strands that were

wavier than Leslie remembered. Dev wore her shirt tucked into an almost-tight

pair of black jeans. It was an outÞ t Leslie had seen Dev wear many times when

they were younger, but Dev no longer looked like the rangy teenager she had

been. She looked like the strong, capable woman she was. They’d once been

so close. They could be friends now, couldn’t they?

After backing away from Dev last night and throwing up even more boundaries

between them, Leslie knew that she would need to be the one to reach across

the chasm. And since she’d been the one to walk away all those years before,

that seemed more than fair.

“I thought you might have left,” Leslie said softly.

Dev kept her back to Leslie and methodically arranged the sausages in two

precisely even, side-by-side rows on the grill. She’d come close to piling her

gear into the truck and driving away an hour earlier because she didn’t think she

could face Leslie and pretend she didn’t feel anything. Not when she could still

taste her. She might still

• 132 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

have to go, but she wasn’t ready yet. Leaving would be so Þ nal. “I thought