“No, you didn’t. You might as well have, though. It’s true. Perhaps at some point you’ll see me on a good day.” Kaylee patted her hair and ran her fingers through the length, trying to untangle it.
Bastian sat on the love seat. “How do you feel?”.
“About as good as I look. Enough said?” Kaylee retorted. “And you?”
“Cold, actually. That’s quite a storm out there.“ Bastian peered out the window at the huge white flakes silently tumbling from the heavens.
Kaylee drew the afghan over her body. “Isn’t it, though?” She twisted a section of the blanket in her hand. “I’d offer to make you some tea, but my head still aches and I’m freezing.” As if in response, the heater kicked on, blasting hot air from the ducts above.
“Would you like me to make some?” Bastian stood and started toward the kitchen.
“You’re an angel,” she said, smiling.
“What did you say?” Bastian stopped mid-stride.
“You’re an angel.”
“So there’s no longer any question about it, eh?” he asked, peering at a copy of “Innocence” painted by Bouguereau. In the painting, a woman stood with her hands to her ears as two cherubic angels hovered behind her head. One of them offered her a flower.
“What do you mean?” Kaylee looked at him with a puzzled expression and wound a strand of hair around her forefinger.
“Don’t you remember what you asked me when I fished you out of the pond?” Bastian stared at her as though studying her features.
Kaylee shook her head.
“You asked me if I were an angel.” He rubbed his chin with his index finger and thumb. “Must have been because of a street lamp behind me.”
“I don’t remember that. Mostly I remember the cold. Every part of my body felt like ice,” Kaylee said, shivering slightly. Her fingers gripped the blanket and drew it higher over her body.
“Yeah, I know that feeling. You probably picked the coldest night of the year to take a dip.” He slipped into the kitchen. Grabbing the teapot, he filled it with water and set it on the burner.
“Where do you keep the tea bags?” he yelled, opening a few cabinet doors, scouring the contents.
“In the pantry.”
Bastian peered around the kitchen and crossed to the pantry. “Why don’t you pick a more logical place to keep stuff?” he muttered. The tea bags (orange flavored?) stood at eye level, and Bastian snatched two bags from the box. He vaguely remembered which shelves held the mugs and quickly grabbed two. While waiting for the water to boil, he set a tea bag inside each mug and glanced around the pristine kitchen, its stark cleanliness overpowering. Formica counters, mini blinds, refrigerator, appliances, floor tiles—all blinding white as they were in his father’s house.
“What in the hell am I doing here?” he muttered, shaking his head. As he stood before the microwave, he peered at his disheveled reflection. The wind had done a number on his hair, and he tried to pat it back into place.
The teapot whistled sharply as a funnel of steam puffed through the spout and dissipated quickly. Once he’d filled the mugs, Bastian carried a cup to Kaylee, but his hand trembled and some of the hot liquid spilled down the side, burning his hand. He released his grip. As the cup crashed to the floor, it shattered. He closed his eyes and saw his father’s face. “Goddamned it. That cup cost money,” he could hear his father say. He gritted his teeth, bent, and picked up the fragments. After he tossed them in the trash, he grabbed the dishtowel and mopped up the tea.
“Damn,” Bastian swore. He walked over to the cabinet and pulled out another cup and two saucers. Sliding a saucer under each mug, he then picked up one in each of his hands and stepped into the living room.
As he approached Kaylee, Bastian saw that her head had fallen slightly askew from the pillow as sleep had reclaimed her; long strands of hair had slipped across her features. Realizing he was going to have to wake her, he set both saucers down and knelt in front of her. Without realizing what he was doing, his fingers drifted to her face and gingerly brushed the away.
“Kaylee?” he whispered softly.
No answer.
“Kaylee? I have your tea.” he said, a bit louder. She opened her eyes and peered at him.
“Thanks.”
She peered at the rising tendrils of steam wafting from the cup. “Looks hot.”
Once she’d sat upright, Bastian offered her the tea. “You didn’t want it cold, did you? It wouldn’t help.” Bastian lifted his cup to his lips and took a burning sip that forced him to set down the mug. He glanced toward the kitchen. “I accidentally broke a cup. I’ll pay you for it,” he offered, staring at the carpet.
“No need. I have others. What made you come by? Don’t tell me you just happened to be in the neighborhood.” She tipped the cup to her lips and closed her eyes, savoring the tea. She resettled the cup on the saucer before placing both on the table.
Bastian took a drink. “Actually, I don’t make a habit of driving through this part of town.” He tapped his foot nervously and looked out the window at the snow still wisping across the ground. Ice had frosted the tree limbs, bowing them.
“So? You didn’t answer my question.” Her hand trembled and she gripped the mug more tightly.
“I didn’t know if you’d be going for swim. You seem to have a knack for that sort of thing.” He set his tea on the table, got up, and walked toward the window as though mesmerized by the snow.
“You were checking up on me—admit it,” Kaylee said.
Bastian shook his head. “Maybe I just like driving in the snow.”
Kaylee snorted. “In a truck that has no heater and sometimes doesn’t start? Yeah that’s just what I would do all right.”
“We can’t all have limos. I should go.” Bastian stiffened and gritted his teeth, thinking just what a loser he must seem. He ducked into the hall and reached the entryway in three long strides.
Kaylee jumped up and followed. She touched his arm. “I didn’t mean it that way, Bastian.”
He jerked from her hand, ripping his arm away from her fingers. “Like hell you didn’t.”
As he reached for the front door, Kaylee stepped in front of him. Her chest rose and fell quickly as though she’d just run a marathon. Her cheeks flushed, she looked around the room and noticed, for the first time in a long time, all the fine things—the paintings, the marble tile, the floral arrangements.
“It’s about all this stuff, isn’t it? You think I just snubbed you because we’re from different backgrounds, right?” She slowly shook her head and blinked. “What is it you see?”
Kaylee’s hair had slipped down her chest, leveling at her breasts. “You think this is about money? And what if I told you that one day you’d be so rich you wouldn’t know how to spend all your money? Even so, you’d still be unhappy. What would you say to me, Bastian?” She leaned against the front door, her fingers splayed against the wood, pressing it closed. She could feel the cold through the door.
“Get out of the way,” he growled, his hands balled into fists.
“Some people don’t give a damn about money.” She glared at him, refusing to budge.
“Yeah, right.” Bastian laughed incredulously. He raised his hand and swept it around the room. “You have a friggin’ $5000.00 painting on that wall. God only knows what these marble floors cost, and you don’t care about money?”
“It’s just stuff, Bastian. Stuff.” Kaylee moved from the door to the corner where a fancy decorative vase stood. As she took it in hand, Kaylee felt the weight of the glass chips inside. “This vase cost $500.00 when I bought it a year ago. I thought it would go well with these marbled floors—and the marbled floors went so well with the décor of the next room, and so on and so forth. The whole house is set up to match, but you know what? It’s never really been a home.” Kaylee looked down at the black-and-white vase. Tentatively, she trickled her fingers along the pattern. “Five hundred bucks. And this is what happens one day when someone isn’t care
ful or God isn’t paying attention.” She loosened her fingers one by one until the vase slipped.
Bastian stooped and tried to catch it, but the vase crashed to the floor and shattered, scattering the glass chips across the floor.
“Geez, Kaylee—that was an expensive vase.” He looked up at her, his eyes narrowed in bewilderment.
Kaylee shook her head as Bastian collected the fragments. “It doesn’t matter, Bastian. In the end, even expensive things break like cheap ones, and all that remains are pieces. Still, I’d rather have the pieces than the money because maybe the things bought with the money, if they are the right things, mean something, and if you put the pieces back together, just maybe you have that moment of perfection before everything comes apart again.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I could give you all this, and you know what, Bastian? It wouldn’t make you happy. Maybe at first it would seem like it, but then, day after day, you’d realize all the things money isn’t, and all the things money can’t do. And then, God help you, you’d realize just how empty you are because you don’t even have that illusion anymore.”
Kaylee walked away, leaving Bastian to collect the fragments. One small shard jabbed his finger and broke the skin. A pinpoint of blood welled up on his forefinger.
“Damn. I guess this is what I get for jumping in,” Bastian mumbled. He brushed the skin, feeling for more glass, but found none. He stared at his finger as blood beaded upon it, growing from a fine pinprick to a circle the size of a pencil eraser. Bastian shoved his finger in his mouth. Kneeling, he watched the doorway, but even as he expected her to come back, he knew better. He took his finger out of his mouth and sized up the cut, which had finally stopped bleeding. Once again he picked up the pieces, this time more carefully.
“You’re an enigma, Kaylee. You have all the money in the world you seem not to want, and you must be a black belt the way you keep your door unlocked. You even fraternize with somebody like me.” He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. His eyebrows furrowed as a frown overtook the neutral line of his mouth. When he opened his eyes, he peered down at the fragments in his hands.
“I know what to do with a vase, Kaylee. Pieces are a different story.”
He held the collection of fragments and carried them from the foyer into the kitchen, where he set them on the counter while he rummaged for a bag. After three drawers, he found Kaylee’s stash. He took a brown paper sack, opened it, and set all the pieces inside. As he walked back through the room, he looked around with a new perspective at all the things filling her house, things that didn’t really match Kaylee at all. It wasn’t that she didn’t go with beautiful things, exactly, or that she didn’t have money. She was more beautiful than anything and she had more money than even his family had, but there was something deeper to her that didn’t need money.
And, God knows, she certainly didn’t need him.
Bastian stepped into the foyer, opened the door, and started out into the snow of a landscape too cold to melt it away.
Chapter Four
Bastian trudged through the snow and found the drifts higher than before. The snow blinded him and had begun covering his truck, not to mention his feet and on up to his calves. He glanced at the washed-out clouds still freighted with winter.
“I hate snow,” Bastian muttered, slogging to the driver’s door. He brushed the recent flakes from his windshield, and the cold bit hard, reddening the flesh. Opening the door, he slipped inside and set the bag of pieces beside him.
He turned the key, but the starter simply clicked. “Damn,” he seethed. After the second try, it was clear he wouldn’t be going anywhere. He slammed his fist on the dash.
“You could have left me stranded on the road somewhere instead,” he snapped. “But no–you strand me here.”
Bastian glanced at the bag, wondering why the talk of money had set her off. “Damned female,” he muttered, knowing he’d have to trudge back inside because he couldn’t stay in the cold.
What had he gotten himself into, he wondered, retracing his steps. He touched the knob, half expecting to find it locked, but it wasn’t.
Bastian poked his head inside the doorway. “Kaylee? It’s me, Bastian. I’m sorry to bother you, but my truck won’t start, and it’s cold out here.” He waited, but only the grandfather clock down the hall chimed a response.
“Kaylee?” The clock fell silent as Bastian tentatively stepped into the foyer and stole into the living room. In passing, he looked around the empty room and frowned. Puzzled, he passed through to the kitchen. Each room was just as empty as the last, which ultimately brought Bastian to the staircase in the foyer.
As he placed his hand on the railing, he yelled, “Kaylee?”
Striding up the steps, Bastian found himself in a second-floor hallway with numerous doors. He sauntered down the hall.
“Kaylee?” he called loudly.
“I thought you left.”
“You would be so lucky,” he responded. “But my truck won’t start, and it’s snowing like crazy.” He stepped into a bathroom and found Kaylee half-sitting on the counter, dabbing a cotton ball to her bleeding temple. “What happened?”
“I had a nasty run-in with my dresser, and it won.” Kaylee peered at him.
“Let me take a look. “Swimming in winter and hitting your head on furniture. You’re an accident waiting to happen, aren’t you?” Brushing the bangs from her forehead, Bastian lifted the cotton and saw a gash seeping with blood.
“Thanks. How bad does it look?”
“Still bleeding, which is normal. Head wounds bleed a lot.” He leaned closer, and her breath caressed his cheek as he lost himself in her eyes. He turned and put a fresh cotton ball over the gash.
“Is that the voice of experience?” she asked smugly, tilting her head so she could look Bastian in the eye.
“Not my experience, exactly,” he replied. “Did you use peroxide?”
“Yes, Mother,” she nodded.
“Good girl,” he said slowly. “Maybe I’ll give you a cookie after supper.” He lifted Kaylee’s hand and pushed her forefinger against the cotton. “Hold this.” Reaching past her, he opened the medicine cabinet. “Got any bandages?”
“Second shelf.” Kaylee pointed. Bastian pulled the box down, took out a bandage, and applied it. She swung her legs slightly. “Did you knock your head on something when you were a kid?”
“If I said yes, I’m sure that would explain quite a lot, but no, it wasn’t my head. It was my sister’s.” Bastian smoothed the bandage into place, then set the box back on the shelf, and closed the door.
“Younger or older?”
“Younger.” He gritted his teeth.
“So what happened?” Kaylee touched the bandage gingerly, her fingers probing where Bastian’s had just been.
Bastian focused on the circular pattern her finger rubbed against the bandage. “I’m assuming you weren’t watching where you were going, but then you’d know that better than I would.”
“No, not me–your sister?”
Bastian shrugged. “One day we were racing on a mountain path around a curve. She didn’t see the fallen branch until it was too late. She hit it and was thrown off her bike. She hit her head on a rock.” Bastian lifted Kaylee’s bangs.
“What happened then?” Kaylee fidgeted, tapping her fingers on the counter.
“There was blood everywhere, and Angie was crying, of course. She was wearing a white shirt and panicked when she saw the red. She didn’t like the sight of blood. So I took her to the emergency room and sat with her while she got twenty stitches.” Bastian touched the skin around the bandage, checking to make sure no blood seeped around the edges. Bastian closed the toilet lid and sat. “I think she got the easy part.” Bastian tossed the wrapper from the bandage into the trash.
Kaylee pushed her hair over her shoulder. “How so?”
“When we got home, my father lectured me about responsibility, and, just so the point made an impact on my teenage mind
, I also got a few swats.” Bastian stared into the space ahead of him. His eyebrows furrowed, and a frown deepened the creases on his forehead. His shoulders stiffened.
“That hardly seems fair.”
“What do you mean? What hardly seems fair?” Bastian blinked a few times and turned his gaze toward her. He stretched his back.
“The fact your dad punished you when you didn’t do anything wrong.” The counter rubbed the back of Kaylee’s legs and she stood.
Bastian followed suit. “It comes with being the sibling of the favored child who can do no wrong.”
At this point, Kaylee realized her head only came to his chin. It was a small bathroom, far too compact for the two of them, and only inches separated his body from hers. Clearing his throat, he focused on the aquamarine carpet beneath his feet.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t mean to impose upon you, Kaylee, and I didn’t mean to anger you earlier. I misjudged you.”
“It happens.”
“You get acquaintances who impose on you a lot?” Bastian asked.
Kaylee shook her head. “No, I get people who misjudge me a lot. Like you.” Kaylee peered at the whirlpool tub that comfortably seated two. She remembered thinking when she bought it that it would be nice to be able to have a whirlpool tub to enjoy with a man she loved, never mind that she’d never fallen in love.
Kaylee tried to imagine herself sitting in that tub, her body entangled with a lover’s. A male body popped into her mind, but he was faceless, forcing Kaylee to reach deeper, wanting a face—any face to help her see what she’d missed. Bastian’s midnight eyes and dark hair surfaced, along with his blunt chin and thick eyebrows. Those nameless arms became his—the legs, the chest, the fingers. She saw herself naked next to him, her head on his chest, her long hair spilling down her breasts, his fingers touching her neck and shoulders.
“Kaylee?”
“Hmm?” She jumped, and a flush heated her cheeks. She folded her arms across her chest and rubbed her arms, trying to brush away the coolness kissing her skin.
“You all right?”