Acquainted With the Night (24 page)

Alex, dressed in T-shirt and shorts, said, “Not hardly.” How on earth could CJ think Alex would be able to sleep?

CJ lifted an eyebrow. Alex noticed that CJ had dyed her brows as well, to match her new, darker hair color. It was a good job, done no doubt in some expensive salon, but Alex preferred her natural shade of red.

Alex locked the door and said, “You look exhausted.”

CJ went wearily into the room and sat down to take off her shoes. “I am. We had a rehearsal dinner in the meeting room tonight and the food was not spicy enough for the bride’s family and much too spicy for the groom’s family.” She shook her head tiredly, and added lightly, “I give the marriage two years, tops.”

Alex sat down on the bed across from her. “I bet you sorted it all out.”

“As well as possible,” CJ admitted. “We couldn’t do anything about the tamales themselves, but we split the green chile to smother them in half, thinned one pot with some more stock and dumped a lot more Hatch chiles in the second. That seemed to satisfy everyone except the groom’s grandmother, who probably would have found the food too hot if I’d just waved a single poblano over the pot.”

Alex looked at her, faintly amused. “Look at you, talking about chiles like a native.”

CJ smiled a little, and said, “It’s impossible to be a chef in Santa Fe without being fluent in chile peppers, believe me.”

Just sitting there, talking about the day with CJ, made Alex’s chest ache with longing. She asked, “Has this made you want to open a restaurant?”

CJ slumped back in the chair and laughed a little. The laugh sounded forced to Alex. “Heavens, no,” she admitted. “Just the opposite. I love to cook, but running a kitchen is hell on your body. My knees hurt, my feet hurt, my back hurts. And it plays havoc with your hands.”

She turned them over for Alex’s inspection, and Alex leaned across to take them into her own hands. She felt, rather than heard, a tiny intake of breath from CJ, and she felt the sensation from the touch run up her arms into her own body.

Alex looked down at CJ’s palms. Her right hand had a couple of scars, healed knife cuts, which made sense since CJ would have had a knife in her left hand. Her left hand had a nasty burn scar on the fleshy pad below her thumb. It, too, was completely healed, but Alex winced at the sight of it. “Jesus,” she exclaimed. “That must have hurt like hell.”

CJ said ruefully, “It did. You should have heard me when it happened. I said curse words I don’t think I’ve ever actually used out loud before.”

“I’ll bet.” Alex was still holding her hands, and she ran her thumbs lightly across CJ’s palms, caressing the small scars. The next minute, CJ withdrew her hands and stood up.

“I’m really beat,” she said. “I’m going to take a quick shower to get the chile aroma off me, and go to bed. I have to be back downstairs by seven.”

Alex, disturbed at CJ’s matter-of-fact tone of voice, said, “Okay. Is there anything I can do for you?”

CJ hesitated, then said, “No. I’ll just be a couple of minutes.”

She left and went into the bathroom. A moment later Alex heard the water start in the shower.
Jesus Christ. She can’t even get undressed in front of me.

Alex turned down the bed, stood looking at it, then muttered aloud, “The hell with this.”

She stripped off her T-shirt and shorts, then got into the clean sheets naked, on her side of the bed. She listened to CJ turn off the shower after a minute, then heard a brief whirr of a hair dryer. Less than ten minutes after she’d gone into the bathroom, CJ emerged, clean and pink-skinned, the ends of her auburn hair still lying damp against her neck. She was wearing her green silk robe, her favorite.

Alex turned on her side facing her, said, “I missed seeing your robe hanging on the back of the door every morning.”

CJ seemed to freeze. “CJ,” Alex said softly. “Talk to me.”

CJ sat down on the side of the bed, turning to face Alex.

“Talk to me,” Alex said again.

“I can’t,” CJ said quietly. “Not yet. I’m still sorting out things, and I’m just not up to it tonight, all right? I’m sorry I had to work, and that I have to go in tomorrow, but I just can’t do this right now.”

Alex felt her heart breaking with every word. “Okay,” she said at last. “We’ll sleep, and you’ll go to work, and then we will spend some time together tomorrow, alone, and talk. Can you do that?”

She watched CJ’s shoulders relax a little. “Yes,” she said. “I can do that. I have a couple of days off after tomorrow, and so we’ll have some time. I just need to sleep, all right?”

Alex knew what she was asking, and her heart broke again.
Don’t touch me. Don’t try to touch me tonight.

“Yes,” Alex said, trying to conceal her sadness. “I understand.”

Something in CJ’s eyes flashed, and Alex thought perhaps that CJ saw her pain anyway. CJ had always read her so well, better than anyone. But CJ said nothing, just leaned over and turned out the lamp.

In the pearly light from outside, edging the closed curtains with silver, Alex watched CJ take off her robe and toss it onto the chair. She could see just the pale outline of CJ’s shape shining in the darkness for a moment before she slipped between the sheets. Alex lay motionless, feeling CJ turn on her side, away from Alex, then felt her shifting slightly toward the center of the bed.

Alex found that she was holding her breath. The heat from CJ’s body, trapped with Alex under the sheets, surrounded her like a wave of warm water washing over her. The aching need rose again in Alex, her craving to touch, enfold, to claim CJ again, almost overwhelmed her.

She stayed where she was, wondering how on earth she was going to be able to sleep with this yearning running through her. Then CJ shifted a little closer and said, in a voice that was barely a whisper in the darkness, “Do you think you could hold me?”

Alex couldn’t answer aloud, afraid she would cry or scream or just come completely apart. Instead she eased into CJ, pressing her front against CJ’s back. Just feeling the soft warmth of CJ’s skin against her breasts began to unravel the knot of anxiety inside of her.

Alex wrapped her arm securely around CJ’s waist, and dropped a single soft kiss onto her shoulder. “I’m here,” she said, one last time. “It’s going to be okay. Sleep, sweetheart.”

The moment she felt CJ relax into sleep, Alex followed her.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Alex slept through CJ’s alarm, her shower and CJ getting dressed. When she awoke, bright sunlight was peeking through the edges of the blackout curtains on the windows, and she looked at the clock in astonishment. She tried to remember the last time she’d slept until after nine.

There was a note on her nightstand.

I couldn’t bear to wake you up. Eat something, please, room service or otherwise. There’s a good breakfast place a block down from the Plaza called El Lugar, if you want to go. I’ll be back by around 2 p.m. and we can spend the rest of the day.

Alex stared at the words a moment. No “Love, CJ” at the end. She sighed, and got up to shower and dress.

Sitting there, waiting for CJ, waiting to find out what was happening was going to drive her insane. She walked two blocks to the Plaza, the town square built in colonial Spanish style. In the middle of the square was a small park, with iron benches, the grass and sidewalks already populated with tourists and vendors. On the four sides of the Plaza were buildings built in traditional Spanish colonial adobe, with wooden vigas visible as supports for the rooftops. Three sides had commercial enterprises, jewelry and clothing stores or restaurants. The north side of the Plaza was taken up completely with the Palace of the Governors, the seat of government for New Mexico which was, according to the plaque she read, the oldest public building in the country.

Beneath the shelter of the narrow overhang on the Palace, sellers of handmade jewelry lined the sidewalk, native woven blankets spread out to display their carefully wrought pieces. The sellers were all Native Americans from the various New Mexico pueblos, she supposed. Most were middle-aged or older women, but there were men and children, too. There was no raucous calling out to buyers. Instead, tourists strolled up and down, looking at the displays, and negotiations seemed to be conducted in quiet, respectful voices.

Something about the scene appealed to Alex, and she joined the slow line of onlookers despite her usual indifference to shopping of any kind. Her spirits were buoyed, not that she really understood why. She was suddenly and inexplicably in the mood to buy. In the space of less than an hour, she bought a necklace and matching earrings set with turquoise for Nicole, and a heavy silver-worked bracelet for Betty Duncan. She selected a handsome bolo tie for Rod Chavez, at least in part to thank him for his help in solving David’s murder. She’d seen him wearing a bolo several times. On impulse, she bought one for Paul, too. He seemed unlikely to wear it, but Alex liked the deep red color and got it anyway.

She wanted to maintain her momentum, so she crossed the park to go into a store on the other side of the Plaza that sold Santa Fe items, and bought food supplies for Ana Chavez: a sweet spices blend, and dried adobada marinating spices. In the rear of the store was a children’s section, and she debated over a gift for Charlie. The toy pearl-handled pistols tempted her, but she’d never discussed guns with Nicole, and after David’s murder, it occurred to her that Nicole was unlikely to approve. Instead, she bought a set of child-sized cowboy duds—a hat, fringed gloves and chaps.

She walked back to her rental car and locked her packages in the trunk, feeling satisfied that she’d accomplished something. She found El Lugar a block south of the Plaza, and patiently waited in line for a seat in the tiny restaurant.

They were still serving breakfast, and she ordered fresh-squeezed orange juice, coffee and an omelet with green chiles. The omelet was enormous and she couldn’t finish it, but the flavorful, mellow chiles were the best she’d ever had.

Santa Fe was only a few hours from the Denver area by car, pretty much a straight shot south down Interstate 25. Why hadn’t she brought CJ down here before? Alex wondered. Museums, art, killer food. They would have to put it on their list for the next long weekend. That is, if CJ ever wanted to see Santa Fe again.

Alex walked slowly back to the hotel, the worry she’d been avoiding all morning catching up to her thoughts. It could not be that she had suffered all those months, longing for CJ every hour of the day and night, to find her again and then lose her to…what? Regret, or anger, or some other emotion she couldn’t even name? It didn’t look as if CJ had created any real life for herself here, to Alex’s immense relief: no home, no real career, she hoped. No new woman, thank God.

So what was wrong? Why was CJ so cold? No, not cold, exactly, just…distant. What was it that was lying between them, what barrier was Alex failing to see?

Only CJ could tell her, Alex realized. Somehow, some way, Alex needed for CJ to tell her what she was feeling, so that they could talk it out, or go to therapy, or do anything else they needed to deal with whatever it was.

Because she couldn’t live like this.

* * *

The Santa Fe River wound its way a few blocks south of the Plaza. There was a small parkway on either side of the trickle of water, the trunks of cottonwood trees just shading the benches and picnic tables as the limbs started to bud.

The April afternoon sun was bright and warm as Alex walked with CJ down to the park. “Not a lot of water,” Alex remarked, as they found an empty bench and sat down.

“No,” CJ agreed. “New Mexico dammed the river upstream somewhere, since it supplies a lot of the water for the city. This state has even less water than Colorado does.”

Another conversation about water, Alex thought, the bane of living in the West. She hoped they weren’t going to be reduced to talking about the weather next.

She studied CJ, her face so familiar and yet now changed. CJ had always looked young to her, fresh and unburdened by life. Now it seemed as if Alex could see every lonely moment marked in her face. CJ’s skin was fair, but now she looked pale, almost ghostly.

CJ said softly, “If it’s okay, I think I’d like to know how everybody at home is. I feel like I’ve been on some other planet all this time.”

Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, but Alex heard the longing in her voice. Alex said, “I don’t know where to start.”

CJ wasn’t looking at her but over the trees toward the Sangre de Cristo mountains west of town. The peaks still had traces of snow from the winter just past.

“How’s Charlie?” she finally asked.

“Charlie,” Alex answered, “is really okay. Kids recover faster sometimes. He still misses his dad, talks about him sometimes, but Nic says he’s really managing just fine. He’s doing well at school. No nightmares or anything. I think you saved him from a lot of that, the day it happened.”

Something shifted in CJ’s expression, but all she said was, “And how is your sister?”

Alex considered how to answer. “She’s starting to mend, I think,” she said at length. “It was really bad for a while, not just the shock, but the day-to-day living without David.”

It was hard for me, too,
living every day without you,
Alex wanted to say. But CJ knew exactly how hard it had been.

“Nic actually went on a date a little while ago,” Alex added, trying to sound upbeat. “She told me she’s seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. She will be all right, eventually, I think.”

“She’s a strong person,” CJ said, and Alex could see a slight easing in CJ’s expression. The burden of feeling responsible for David’s death must have been almost too heavy for her to bear.

“She is strong,” Alex agreed. “I keep forgetting that. When we were growing up, I was always trying to protect her, be the big sister, you know? Sometimes it’s hard for me to see her as the woman she is now.”

CJ nodded. “It’s always tough to see our families as they really are. We’re always seeing them through the lens of growing up with them.”

Alex said suddenly, “I didn’t know you had a niece.”