Phoenix Falling (46 page)

"We practice sitting still for hours on end, and have the butts to prove it," Eva explained. "You eat and take your nap. I'll call in a couple of hours, after I've had lunch and worked up those three versions of the farewell scene for us to compare."

"Thanks. Talk to you then." Rainey hung up, then stood and stretched.

The long-distance editing was going well, but it took one hundred ten percent concentration to study the images and discuss the possibilities with Eva. Marcus had been right to insist that Rainey stay involved every step of the way. As good as her film editor was, God was in the details when it came to moviemaking, and editing was nothing but details.

She'd worked every day in the two weeks since Marcus's techies had arrived and installed the equipment, then taught her how to use it. Their presence hadn't disturbed Kenzie, because he'd saddled a horse and ridden into the hills for the day to avoid them.

She wandered to the window and looked up the hill. The labyrinth wasn't visible from the house, but she knew Kenzie would be working away up there. He was as obsessive about his project as she was about hers.

As soon as the computers were installed, he'd found internet instructions on how to design and build a labyrinth. He'd leveled the ground, then laid out the concentric circles with powdered chalk. Now he was painstakingly setting each tile in a bed of sand for stability, teaching himself how to do it as he went along.

Their lives hardly touched except once or twice a day at meals. Kenzie was unfailingly polite, but they might have been strangers living in the same boardinghouse rather than husband and wife. Conversation never got beyond the superficial, if they talked at all. She did as Marcus had suggested, playing cat, quiet and undemanding, hoping her presence had a beneficial effect. And very frustrating it was, too.

Maybe he'd like a picnic lunch, since otherwise he'd probably forget to eat. She packed a tote bag with food and drink, then hiked up the hill.

Kenzie was on his knees setting pavers in place, watched solemnly by Hambone. Both glanced up at her approach.

"Hi," she said cheerfully. "I thought you might like some lunch."

"Thank you. That would be nice." Kenzie stood, stretching the kinks from his muscles. He'd lost weight, and there'd been no fat on him to begin with, but he looked healthy enough otherwise, as long as his eyes were covered with sunglasses. He'd acquired a beautiful tan and a beard several shades redder than his long dark hair. Soon he'd be able to play a convincing mountain man without benefit of makeup.

She hadn't been up here in several days, and she was startled by the progress he'd made. The concentric circles that doubled back and forth, twining their way to the center, were almost complete. "You've worked fast. How long until you're done?'

"Later today or tomorrow morning."

"What will you work on when this is finished?"

"Landscaping, I think. Shifting rocks around and planting tough native bushes will enhance the site." He wiped his sweating face with a towel. His hands were grazed and bruised from the manual labor, but still beautiful in their shape and strength.

Accepting a tall glass of Alma's fresh, cold lemonade, he asked, "How is the editing going?"

"Pretty well." She spread a bright embroidered tablecloth on the pallet of remaining pavers, which was down to the height of a low table. Then she set out utensils, a bowl of Southwestern bean salad, and a couple of pita sandwiches filled with tomatoes, lettuce, and chicken salad.

"It's fascinating how easily we can try different scenes, different cuts, different optical effects, but it gives too blasted many choices," she continued. "A good thing I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted before starting, or I'd be paralyzed by all the options. Even so, it's hard to make the film match the story in my head."

"'Story is all,' Trevor used to say."

She scooped bean salad onto her plate. "What was Trevor like, besides being a good teacher?"

Kenzie's face blanked. "He was a brilliant man torn between what he knew was right, and urges he couldn't suppress."

She gave him a swift glance. "You said that he didn't have a physical relationship with you."

"True." His expression made it clear that he wouldn't say any more.

She changed the subject. "When you walk the labyrinth, can you feel the energy getting stronger as it comes closer to completion?"

"I haven't walked it yet." He bit into the pita sandwich, chewing and swallowing before he continued. "I'm waiting until it's finished."

"Why? I'd have thought that once the pattern was laid out, you'd be walking it at least once a day."

"It's... magical thinking, I suppose," he said slowly. "The hope that the longer I delay, the more powerful the calming effect when I finally do walk it. I need to conjure all the peace I can get."

She put down her sandwich, dismayed. "Kenzie, I don't know if a labyrinth is going to be enough to do the trick. Maybe it's time to consider stronger measures."

His expression darkened. "Have you and Marcus been debating whether to haul me off to some discreet, expensive clinic with soothing drugs and well-paid doctors?"

"Marcus suggested it once, but that will happen over my dead body." She sipped lemonade to lubricate the sudden dryness of her mouth. "No drugs, no committing you for your own good. But surely there's some middle ground between doing nothing and getting checked into an upscale asylum."

He tossed the remainder of his sandwich to Hambone, then began to prowl restlessly along the curving edge of the labyrinth, his body tense as a drumhead. "God knows I've thought about it, but I'm not going to talk to some shrink, Rainey. I couldn't bear to tell anyone what it was like to be Jamie Mackenzie. The memories churn like the evils released from Pandora's box, stinging and biting like poisonous snakes. I can't sleep, can't bear the thought of touching you, can't imagine this ever ending."

The raw emotion in his voice seared her. She'd hoped he was making headway in coming to terms with his demons, but obviously not. He wasn't even able to sweep them under the carpet again.

It seemed particularly horrible that his ravening memories had made it impossible for him to accept touch, the most basic of human comforts. Having him so close without being sleeping partners was miserable. Quite apart from the lack of sex, she missed the skin-to-skin contact of being with her mate. In the past, that intimacy had soothed them both, but no more.

"Time may be the only healer," she said hesitantly, "but perhaps small, careful steps can speed the process a bit."

She rose and intercepted him, laying one hand on his right wrist. He stopped, the muscles tensing under her palm. "Just a touch, Kenzie," she said softly. "Nothing sexual about it. A touch between people who have known and trusted each other for years."

Slowly his arm relaxed under her palm. Though she guessed that it was an act of will rather than genuine relaxation, at least he wasn't ill. Progress of sorts.

He raised his hand and caught hers, squeezing briefly before releasing it. "It's a start. Thanks for understanding, Rainey."

Knowing she'd pushed enough for one day, she started packing up the picnic. "I'll leave the lemonade in its cooler. See you at dinner? Alma's going to town, and she promised to pick up some of those great ribs from the barbecue shack."

Then she left, wondering how one could close Pandora's box.

* * *

He laid the last paver in the row with hands that had almost stopped trembling. He had hoped that time would bring a measure of peace. Having lived with his past for over two decades, he should be able to again. Instead, every day deepened the pressure of corrosive memories. He couldn't even name the volatile mix of emotions bubbling like lava inside him.

Worst was the way his thoughts about sex were so intertwined with pain and fear and degradation that he couldn't remember the joyful, tender lovemaking he and Rainey had shared. Childhood horrors now contaminated what had been perhaps the most satisfying part of his life. He wondered with despair if he would ever experience such intimacy again.

Which was why he was building a labyrinth. Three tiles across, the labyrinth path was about eighteen inches wide, with another eighteen inches between one circle and the next. Enough so that a number of people could walk at the same time without crowding each other, though he doubted that this particular labyrinth would ever host more than one or two walkers at once. It was coming into existence mostly as his private attempt to maintain sanity through physical labor.

Laboring in the scorching noonday sun gave him a vague, satisfying sense of penitence. It was absurd to feel like a sinner when he'd been the one sinned against, but the mind was not a particularly logical instrument.

He laid pavers for the next row, thinking of how Rainey had touched his wrist. His nerves had jangled like an electrical overload, and he'd had to control the impulse to flinch. Ironic that he couldn't bear physical closeness, yet he was intensely grateful that she had stayed near him. She was his anchor in hurricane winds.

It was good not to be alone.

* * *

Brooding, Rainey returned to the house. She needed a dose of her old friend Kate Corsi's sunny good nature and unconditional sympathy. Kate's remarriage to her ex-husband made her a role model of sorts. If Kate could rebuild a badly damaged relationship, maybe Rainey could, too.

Luckily, Kate was in her office. She and her husband were co-owners of the world's top explosive demolition firm, and her biggest complaint in life was the time she had to spend on paper shuffling rather than working in the field, blowing up buildings.

Just hearing her friend's familiar
hello
made Rainey feel better. "Hi, Kate, it's me. Is this a good time to talk?"

"Perfect. You'll give me an excuse to delay some number crunching," Kate assured her. "Val tells me that you and Kenzie are in the high desert. Have you recovered from location shooting yet?"

That had been the official explanation for this retreat to New Mexico, but Rainey was too frayed to maintain the facade. "We're suffering from more than movie fatigue, Kate." She hesitated, wondering how much she could say without betraying her husband's confidence. "Being in England stirred up a... a lot of childhood issues for Kenzie. He's going through a very bad time."

"I'm so sorry, Rainey. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Not unless you and Donovan devised a magic formula for sorting out the past and getting on with life."

"That wasn't magic. Just a lot of talk, and years of growth between our divorce and when we met up again," Kate said. "As hellacious as the breakdown of our first marriage was, now I'm glad for it. We know ourselves and each other so much better than we would have otherwise. We appreciate each other more now, too. On our second honeymoon, we laid out new ground rules, chief of which is that the marriage always comes first. Next to that, nothing seems important enough to fight about."

Which did sound like magic, but not of a sort that would help Kenzie. "Since Englishmen don't talk about their feelings, that won't work here." She meant the remark to be humorous, but her voice cracked.

"You sound seriously stressed. Why don't you visit Tom? He's probably only about an hour or so away from you, and it sounds like you could use a big brotherly hug."

Tom Corsi, Kate's brother, had been a surrogate sibling to all of Kate's friends. He was also one of the kindest, wisest people Rainey had ever known. "I didn't realize his monastery was that close. Can he have visitors?"

"Yes, though you'll have to wait if they're in one of the seven daily prayer services Benedictines are so fond of. Why not drive over? It's a beautiful trip."

"Maybe I will. Where is this monastery?" Rainey wrote down Kate's directions, then hung up when her friend had to field a phone call from Saudi Arabia.

The thought of getting away from Cibola was appealing, but Rainey hesitated. It would take all afternoon to go to Our Lady of the High Desert, talk to Tom, then come home, time she should put into
The Centurion
.

To hell with the movie. She'd worked seven days a week for months. She was entitled to a half day off.

After leaving a message on Eva's voice mail, she wrote a note to Kenzie and stuck it on the refrigerator with a magnet on the off chance that he might notice she was gone. Then she changed into an ankle-length, navy blue cotton skirt and a matching tunic with long sleeves and a hood. It seemed suitably sober for a visit to a monastery.

To find the keys to the SUV, she had to enter Kenzie's painfully neat room. He'd left no mark of his presence here.

The keys lay on the dresser, untouched for weeks. As she pocketed them, she noticed a framed photo of Kenzie, Charles Winfield, and Trevor Scott-Wallace. It must have come from the memorabilia Charles had left to Kenzie.

She lifted the pictures and studied the faces. Having met Charles, she could see his irony and humor easily. Kenzie was... himself: young, handsome, contained, with haunted eyes that she understood much better than the first time she'd seen the photo.

Reading Professor Scott-Wallace was harder. In his own way, he also looked haunted. From what she'd read about pedophilia, it was an unalterable sexual preference. How horrible to have those yearnings while knowing they were deeply wrong.