Dream Runner (26 page)

Rissa quickly touched her glass to Marlea’s, and the other women joined them in turn. Only Jeanette heard Libby murmur, “Never say never,” as she brought her drink to her lips.

Chapter 26

…I’ve got him back in my arms again, so satisfied…
The old song played through Marlea’s thoughts for the thousandth time since she had awakened in AJ’s arms.
He’s back from New York; he’s back in my bed. Does it get any better than this?
Turning from the broad library windows, Marlea pulled her thoughts back into the house and cradled her mug of herbal tea. Looking over Rissa’s shoulder, her mind caressed thoughts too precious to share, and her skin shivered beneath her cotton shirt, remembering his touch.

AJ’s back and things are better than I could have ever dreamed.
It seemed that he held her closer since his return, treasuring her as never before.
I’ve never felt like this about a man, and I swear that if anyone had ever told me I could feel this good about another human, I would have called him or her a fool.
Her skin remembered what it was like to feel his warm length, and tingled.

Marlea lowered her face to the cup and sipped lightly. It wouldn’t do for Rissa to catch her looking so happy.
She would only run off and tell her brother what he already knew.

“Darn, I thought I’d bookmarked it. I thought it was DreenScapes.com. Am I right? Read the Website off to me again. It’s www…what’s the rest of it?” Rissa looked up from the computer’s flat screen and waved her hand in front of Marlea’s face. “Hello? Are you in there?”

“Yeah, of course. What did you ask me?” Marlea sipped more tea.

“That must be some awfully good tea,” Rissa observed. “I asked if you remembered the DreenScape Website. I wanted to show you her new designs. She’s got some things that would be perfect…Marlea! Are you listening to me?”

“Um,” Marlea was saved by the telephone. She pointed to the one on the desk at Rissa elbow. “Telephone,” she announced brightly.

“You’re nuts.” Rissa’s eyes were on Marlea as she answered the telephone, and they changed to marked curiosity as she greeted the caller. “How can I help you, Mr. Charles?” She listened and nodded. “Could you hold for just a moment?”

Pressing the mute button, Rissa turned to Marlea. She held the phone out in front of her, but gripped it tightly. “This is Dexter Charles. He’s Parker Reynolds’s attorney, and he wants to speak to you.”

“To me?” Marlea’s fingers lost their strength and the thick mug fell to the floor, sloshing warm tea over her bare feet. “Why? What does he want with me?”

A dozen explanations rushed across Rissa’s pretty face. “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“You never kept a secret in your life, Rissa. What does he want with me?”

Gesturing with the phone, she shook her head. “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

Taking the phone, Marlea pressed the mute button. She could hear rustling in the background, but no voices. “Hello?”

“Good morning, Ms. Kellogg.” Dexter Charles had a surprisingly pleasant voice, but it did little to calm the oily wave of anger-tinged fear that ambushed Marlea. “I’m calling at the request of my client, Dr. Parker Reynolds.”

“Why?” Fumbling backward, the back of Marlea’s leg found the edge of the deep leather sofa fronting the mahogany shelves. She fell to the cushions.

“I’m sure that you’re aware that after his arrest, Dr. Reynolds admitted his part in your accident. His guilty plea was entered and accepted, subsequently the criminal portion of your case has been completed. Dr. Reynolds is currently serving his sentence in the Fulton County jail.”

“That doesn’t explain your calling me.” Marlea held the phone in both hands and tried to keep it still against her ear. “How did you know I was here, and why are you calling me?”

“I admit that it took some doing to locate you, but Grady Hospital was helpful. The reason for my call is that my client has asked to see you.”

“I can’t imagine why. It’s not like we have anything in common except, oh yeah, he’s the man who nearly killed me in an accident, then cut off my toes and ended any chance I had at completing a goal I worked toward my entire life, and then lied about it. Gee, I’m not feeling very chatty, and especially not with him. Does this surprise you?”

“Certainly. Your feelings are highly understandable, so I’m not going to hold you,” Dexter soothed. “But I would like to leave you with a thought.”

“What is it?”

“You will have to face this if you intend to get on with your life. And you’re a young woman, Ms. Kellogg. You’ll be on this planet for, oh, another fifty or sixty years. That’s a long time to leave hate and anger unresolved.”

Drawing a long breath, Marlea tried to frame an appropriate response. She settled for, “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”

“He wants to see you, right? To make amends?” From her place at the desk, Rissa watched Marlea’s face. The softly satisfied feminine glow she’d worn since AJ’s return was gone. “You gonna do it?”

“Hell, no.” Marlea dropped the phone to her side on the sofa. Wrapping her arms around herself, she slid lower into the cushions and shook her head. “It’s enough that he’s serving his misdemeanor charges consecutively. What possible good could it do for me to see him? So I could stand in front of him and call him a sorry son of a bitch?” She sucked her teeth and shook her head. “No, I can’t see it.”

“Are you really willing to let him off that easily?”

“What?” Marlea’s eyes searched the other woman’s face. “You want me to pursue a civil case? Cut him off at the fiscal knees for what he’s done?” She made a face. “The settlement we’ve already come to is fine, and he won’t be able to practice for a while. All he can do is offer more money, so what is there to talk about?”

“How about closure, Marlea?” On the desk, the computer screen snapped into darkness for a long moment before the screen saver activated, bringing bright tropical fish to roam the screen. Rissa’s fingers drummed the desk and her lips twitched. “Part of your healing lies in forgiveness, in letting go of the pain and getting on with your life, doesn’t it? How much more of your life are you going to let him take away from you—even by accident?”

“Is that part of the ‘Lawyer’s Creed’, or something? That’s basically what Charles Dexter said.”

“Don’t get crabby with me, girl. Even though I practice a whole different kind of law, Marlea, I don’t want to see you cut off your nose to spite your face.”

“And it’s such a pretty nose.” AJ stepped into the library and headed straight for Marlea. Dropping heavily to her side on the sofa, he stretched a long arm behind her, and seemed satisfied when she pulled her knees close to her body and leaned against him. “What’s going on? Why do you two look so tense?”

Marlea closed her eyes, anticipating the inevitable, and Rissa did not disappoint.

Standing, backing toward the door, Rissa tuned up. “Marlea just got a phone call.” Pausing in the doorway, she delivered the pitch. “Charles Dexter is Parker Reynolds’s attorney. He called because Reynolds wants to talk to Marlea, but she doesn’t want to talk to him. I think she should, for closure, but she definitely should and as soon as possible. It might be easier if you went with her, AJ, but she should definitely go.” And Rissa disappeared around the edge of the door.

“Big mouth,” Marlea sulked.

AJ’s brow rose. “You know, she’s done that ever since we were kids, and I’m still surprised every time it happens.” He sighed and looked down at the woman curled into his side. “So what do you want to do, Silk?”

Silk
. The nickname made her smile and Marlea moved her hand across his chest, comforted by his solidity.
I never had a real nickname before.
Oh, sure, kids had called her ‘Speedy’ and ‘Hotfoot’ and such, but she had never enjoyed the intimacy of a name so private and connecting until AJ. Returning from New York, embracing her in the night, holding her against his skin, he had told her that he had missed her, that he had never felt more whole. He had told her that she felt like silk, and held her closer than shadow. In silvery early morning light, he had called her Silk again, and she cherished the single word every time it crossed his lips.

“Silk?”

“I want to leave well enough alone, AJ. I want to run like I used to, but if I can’t have that, I have you and I have teaching. I want to leave well enough alone.”

“Can you do that?” Looking down, lifting her chin, he looked into the amber-flecked depths of her eyes. “Look, Silk, I’ve learned a few things about you. One, you’re stubborn as a mule. Two, you don’t give up easily. Three, things go real deep with you. So the way I figure it, if you don’t face this, it’s going to haunt you down the road, and sweet as you are, I don’t ever want anything bitter or hurtful in your life. But it’s on you.”

Pressing her lips together, Marlea looked at AJ and frowned.
How do I plan a life with this man if I leave this big stone unturned? Sure, he’ll tell me he understands, but every time I look at him, I’ll know that he knows that I ran away from the tail end of a fight.

AJ took the phone from the sofa and set it on a side table. “You need some time alone, Silk?”

So why see him? I didn’t go to court, because I had nothing to say to or about him. I didn’t go to his sentencing for the same reason, and now that he’s behind bars he’s asking to see me. Why?

AJ’s fingers curled at her cheek, stroking gently, and she took comfort from the gesture.
He was so good at lying to me, though. He was so good at making me think that he was my friend, that he had my best interests at heart. What kind of sociopath is he? Still…
AJ’s strong heartbeat sounded in her ear when she moved her face against his chest.
I would never have met AJ if not for Reynolds. And fate.

Maybe it was fate that sent both our cars down I-75 on Independence Day. Maybe it was a stroke of independence for both of us—breaking both of us away from the lives we thought we were destined for. Me, Olympic gold; him, a life of privilege and pleasure. Humph. Wonder what his money is buying him in jail.

Okay, there’s that bitterness AJ spoke of…maybe he’s right. I deserve the chance to face him and say, “I’m mad as hell at you”. I deserve to tell him that I’m glad he’s paying for what he did to me. I deserve the chance to tell him that I hope he has to think about what he did for the rest of his life. I deserve…

“Silk? Come on, baby, it’s all right.” AJ rocked her slowly to and fro, and Marlea realized she was crying.

She swiped a balled fist across her cheek and looked at it. “That son of a bitch made me cry. Nobody makes me cry.”

“‘…and nobody puts Baby in a corner…’,” AJ grinned, quoting the line from
Dirty Dancing
.

“That’s your sister’s favorite movie, not mine.”

“I know, Silk. Yours is
Independence Day
. I’m still a little jealous of Will Smith.”

“No need. I much prefer sexy good-looking football heroes,” Marlea smiled against his lips. “But you can pass me that phone.”

He did. “Want me to stay?”

“Nope. I can do this on my own.”

“What’s that line from the movie, the one you like so much?” he asked as he stood.

Marlea pressed the recall button and listened as the phone began to ring.
Welcome to earth.

* * *

“Marlea, you look wonderful.”

How does he do it?
Marlea wondered. Dressed in a bright jailhouse orange jumpsuit and obviously worn tennis shoes, Parker Reynolds entered the sterile visitor’s area with all the grace and aplomb of a gentleman in his drawing room.

Wary, she watched him take a seat in the ugly green vinyl chair across the steel table from her. Her eyes went from his neatly shaved, much leaner face to the round, brown face of his portly police escort. The officer tried to look bored, as if he had done this hundreds of times, but this visit promised to be interesting and he didn’t quite succeed.

This particular prisoner had only been here for a few weeks, and he hadn’t had a lot of visitors. His attorney of record, Charles Dexter, came regularly, but the officer guessed that the big-bucks lawyer wasn’t paying social calls. He was earning his fat fees. But the buxom sister who flirted her way past the guards was kind of a surprise. She didn’t look like this prisoner’s type at all, even though she claimed she was the doctor’s fiancée, or
feeansay
, as she called it. Whatever she was to the man, all anybody could think was
pump the booty
as she swung by. Well, that and knowing that the doctor must have been praying for conjugal visits from his Desireé.

The only other visitor Parker Reynolds had was an elegant, silver-haired, butter-colored woman, with a full entourage and the kind of demeanor and voice that meant she never had to use the words, ‘I’m better than you.’ She just took it for granted that she was, and people let her.

It was rumored that the refined and genteel woman was his mother. She only came once, she and her retinue, but word at the desk was that she had reduced the prisoner to a quivering mass.
Probably was his mother
, the thick officer decided.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I requested this meeting,” Parker began, his doctor’s persona exerting itself. “You see before you a much-humbled man, and I beg your forgiveness.”

“Oh, sure. You got any spare toes in your pocket?”

Parker dropped his eyes and a small muscle ticked in his cheek. “I suppose I deserve that.”

“You do? When did you grow a conscience? You certainly didn’t have one before you got caught.”

The officer shuffled his feet in the corner, angling to see better. This slender, good-looking woman had some fire in her, and he didn’t plan to miss a single word she said.

“Marlea,” Parker passed a suddenly shaky hand over his badly shaven face. “I did feel bad, especially when I got to know you. It’s just that this thing, this accident—and it was an accident—it took on a life of its own.” Entreating, he held out his hand, but lowered his eyes when she recoiled. “I know you don’t believe me, but I never knew how to tell you.”

“Dr. Reynolds. Parker. Why did you do surgery on me? You knew what you had done, and still, you used a knife on me. What if I had died?”