Radclyffe - When Dreams Tremble

“A Coke would be great. Thanks.”

God, this is going to be an interminable ride home, Leslie thought as she

stood in line at the coffee bar. Maybe I should rethink my plans for this visit

if we might run into each other again.

“Large black coffee and a Coke, please,” Leslie said automatically while

checking her BlackBerry for messages. She didn’t give a second thought to the

fact that she was supposed to limit her coffee consumption. Upon her release

from the hospital the previous afternoon, part of the discharge instructions had

been no caffeine—along with an admonition to avoid chocolate, get plenty of

rest, reduce her stress level, and schedule the follow-up tests as soon as

possible. She’d also been given a prescription for a blood pressure med and

verapamil, which was supposed to keep her heart rate from rising too rapidly.

Thus far, her only form of compliance had been to limit her morning coffee to

three cups instead of Þ ve.

• 40 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

The fact was, she felt perfectly Þ ne.

By the time she’d gotten home the night before, she’d decided that the severity

of the entire episode had been vastly exaggerated. Whatever had happened

could easily be chalked up to a few days of excessive stress and poor eating

habits. Since she’d already cleared her calendar, and she’d still be able to work

while upstate, she decided to go through with her plans to spend a week or two

with her parents. Other than that, as far as she was concerned it was back to

business as usual.

As she carried the drinks to the truck, she observed Dev through the window. If

they had passed in the parking lot, Leslie wasn’t sure she would have

recognized her, although she certainly would have given her an appreciative

glance. Her hair was still on the shaggy side, but Dev had Þ lled out and grown

another inch or two, and she’d been taller than Leslie even in high school. Back

then Dev had been wiry and wild, and now she was broad shouldered and

muscular looking in her white button-down-collar shirt and black jeans. It

wasn’t just Dev’s body that had changed. They had once shared effortless

communication, but now all she felt was a distant reserve. That was good,

because the last thing she wanted was a trip down memory lane.

“Here you go.” Leslie passed the Coke across the passenger compartment

before grasping the handle above the door and climbing into the truck. Her skirt

rode up to mid-thigh before she had a chance to pull it down, but she noticed

out of the corner of her eye that Dev stared straight ahead out the windshield.

Leslie was slightly and quite irrationally annoyed at being pointedly ignored, not

that she wanted Dev to pay that kind of attention to her.

“Thanks.” Dev slotted the Coke into the cup holder on the dash and started the

truck. She pulled out of the parking lot, rapidly maneuvered the bypasses

around Albany and Troy, and headed north on Interstate 87.

Fifteen minutes passed in silence before Dev said, “Your mother tells me you’re

a lawyer.”

“Yes. I’m a partner in a law Þ rm in Manhattan.”

“Partner already. You must’ve worked your ass off,” Dev said, duly impressed.

“Not really,” Leslie said, unbuttoning her blazer as the cab warmed up in the late

afternoon sun. She wore an off-white silk shell beneath it, conscious of the fact

that a hint of her lace bra showed through when her blazer was open. Whereas

Dev felt like a stranger— was a

• 41 •

RADCLY fFE

stranger—Leslie was acutely conscious of her presence. Even if she had known

nothing about her, Leslie would have assumed she was a lesbian. Dev was

undeniably attractive in a rough, earthy kind of way.

But the last thing in the world she wanted was for Dev Weber to have the

slightest indication that she found her attractive.

Dev looked in Leslie’s direction for the Þ rst time, her expression one of mild

disbelief at Leslie’s easy dismissal of her accomplishments.

Dev’s glance drifted down, taking in Leslie’s long legs, sleek beneath her sheer

silk stockings, and the swell of her breasts beneath silk and lace. Leslie had

turned into the beautiful woman that the lovely teenager had foreshadowed.

Maybe it was the unexpected juxtaposition of the woman upon her memory of

the girl, because Dev ventured into territory she had never meant to revisit.

“What happened to landscape architecture?”

Taken by surprise at the question very few people in her life knew her well

enough to ask, Leslie laughed harshly. “I haven’t thought of that in ages. It was

just one of those things that kids think they want before they know anything

about life. Once I got to college, everything changed.”

No, Dev wanted to say, it changed long before that. But then she realized that

was just her truth, not Leslie’s.

“So you like what you’re doing?” Dev asked, hoping to Þ ll the time with safe

conversation until they reached the lake and could politely go their separate

ways once more.

“I don’t know that I’d say I like it,” Leslie said, “but it’s satisfying.”

She grinned. “I like winning cases. So what about you? Are you running the

store for your parents now?”

“No, they Þ nally sold the place and moved to Florida about six years ago.”

Leslie’s question brought home to Dev how little they knew of one another now.

There might have been a time when they’d understood each other without

words, but now there was nothing between them. “I’m working up at the lake

this summer, though. I’m a biologist.”

“You’re kidding,” Leslie said before she could catch herself.

“Jesus, I’m sorry. That was rude.”

Not insulted, Dev laughed as she exited onto Route 9 North, the twisting twolane

lake road that she once could have driven from memory. “No. I don’t

blame you. I’m sure it’s nothing anyone who knew me in high school would’ve

guessed I’d be doing.”

• 42 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

“I just never remember you being interested in that kind of thing.”

“I wasn’t.”

“So what caused the big switch?”

Dev swung into the driveway to Lakeview and parked in the lot beside Eileen

Harris’s Jeep. She shifted on the seat and met Leslie’s curious gaze. “After the

accident I couldn’t do much more than read, and studying kept my mind

occupied.”

Leslie paled at the unexpected reference to a time she assiduously avoided

thinking about. Ambushed by guilt and regret, she felt a sudden need for air. She

yanked the door handle up and stepped out in front of her childhood home. The

rambling, three-story white clapboard house with its wraparound porches and

gabled upper windows looked just the same as it always had. Her mother, also

seemingly unchanged in jeans and a sweater Leslie thought might once have

been hers, waved from the front porch. On the far side of the parking lot the

grassy slope led down to the boathouse. The boathouse. There were some

things she couldn’t forget, no matter how much she wanted to.

Leslie looked back into the truck. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I’d undo it all if I

could.”

As Dev watched Leslie walk quickly away from her and the painful past that

had suddenly resurfaced, she heard the words she’d never be able to forget.

She’s nothing to me. She’s nobody.

And still, even knowing she’d been wrong about everything, she’d never wanted