Dev alone.

“Was it something I said?” Natalie asked.

Dev stared after Leslie, trying to decipher her attitude. She seemed angry, but

Dev had no idea why. “I don’t think so. At any rate, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Well, I don’t want to keep you from dinner, Dev,” Natalie said when they

stopped at the foot of the walkway to the house. “How about I swing by and

pick you up in the morning. Say seven o’clock?”

“That sounds Þ ne. Sorry about dinner.”

Natalie rested her hand on Dev’s shoulder and stood on tiptoe to kiss her

cheek. Her voice was low, throaty, when she said, “I’ll take a rain check.”

“Deal.”

Dev waved goodbye as Natalie crossed the parking lot and climbed into her

SUV, then turned toward the house. She was surprised to see Leslie standing

on the porch. She hadn’t noticed her before and wondered if she’d been there

the entire time.

“Your friend was welcome to stay,” Leslie said. More than just friend, it looks

like.

Dev joined Leslie. “Thanks, that’s nice of you. Maybe some other time, then.”

• 58 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

“My parents are big fans of all the park employees.” Leslie turned abruptly and

walked into the house, her words trailing behind her. “I’m sure they’d love her.”

Leslie crossed through the entryway that opened into an L-shaped room with

the great room off to the right and the dining room ahead. A buffet was set out

on several tables along the far wall. She nodded to the guests sitting at the small

square tables scattered through the room before pushing through the swinging

doors at the rear into the kitchen.

Beyond the cooking and prep area, an archway led to a combination

sitting/dining room on the adjacent screened-in back porch. That was where

she’d always taken her meals with her family. Her mother was at the stove now,

stirring something that smelled wonderful.

“Hi, sweetie,” Eileen said, glancing over her shoulder.

“Is Daddy home?” Leslie asked.

“Down at the boat dock. He’ll be up in a few minutes.”

“Is there any wine?”

“I just opened some. White okay?”

“Yes, thanks.”

Eileen smiled as Dev entered the kitchen. “Hi. Just make yourself comfortable

out on the porch. Something to drink?”

“Whatever everyone else is having. Can I do anything?”

“Yes,” Eileen said as she handed Dev and Leslie each a glass of wine. “Keep

Leslie company while I Þ nish in here.”

Leslie and Dev sat in two wicker porch chairs with ß oral print cushions and

watched the sun go down over the lake. Dev brushed her hand over the fabric,

thinking how some things never changed. Her parents had had the same chairs

on their small back porch behind the store. They’d had a small bit of land

running down to the lake too, and that was where she’d spent most of her time,

reading or daydreaming on the rickety, narrow dock.

“What is it exactly that you do, Dev,” Leslie asked, breaking the silence.

“My original focus was population dynamics among freshwater Þ sh.” She

grinned when Leslie’s eyebrows rose. “I know. Sounds sort of bizarre, doesn’t

it?”

“Just a little.” Leslie laughed. “I take it that led to other things.”

“Believe it or not, it has some practical application. I study the effects of

environmental pollutants on freshwater marine life. Mostly the Þ sh, but also the

other water life as well.”

• 59 •

RADCLY fFE

Leslie felt herself slide into that place of perfect emotional control where nothing

showed on the outside. She couldn’t remember when she’d learned to do that,

but it was one of the big reasons she’d advanced so quickly in the law. No

matter what she was feeling, no matter how unexpected the turn of events,

nothing in her expression or her tone of voice or her body posture ever gave her

away. “So you work for the state? Is that how you know the park ranger?”

“No, I’m a private consultant.” Dev stretched, enjoying the wine and the warmth

and Leslie’s company. “Right now, I’m at the Derrin Freshwater Institute in

Bolton in a short-term research position. But I do a lot of work with the

Department of Environmental Conservation when there are concerns about

industrial contamination. That sort of thing.”

“I see.”

Dev heard the chill in Leslie’s voice. “What?” Half joking, she said, “Are you

opposed to protecting the environment?”

“No,” Leslie said carefully, “I’m primarily opposed to the government forcing

unnecessary regulations with unproven results on private industry.”

“The government forcing…” Dev set her glass aside and regarded Leslie

intently. “What kind of law do you practice, Les?”

“I defend corporate clients, mostly.”

Dev was aware that Eileen had joined them, standing quietly off to one side of

the room. The tension had ratcheted up until it was visible in the air. “Like the

kind that violate EPA regulations.”

“Yes,” Leslie said, standing, “on occasion.” She smiled thinly at her mother.

“I’m going to walk down to the lake and tell Dad it’s time for dinner.”

Dev rose as well, watching Leslie go, her wine forgotten. She was trying to

come to terms with the fact that the young woman she had loved had turned out

to be someone she didn’t know at all.

“Have you and Leslie met before?” Eileen asked. “Before today, I mean.”

“No,” Dev said, then caught herself. This woman was a stranger to her, despite

their past. “We knew each other in high school. But things were different then.”

So very very different.

• 60 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

CHAPTER SEVEN

Naked on top of the sheets, Dev turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

Though the windows were open, there was very little breeze and the room was

warm. She couldn’t sleep, but it wasn’t because of the heat. She kept replaying

the events of the day. She’d picked up Leslie at the train station less than ten

hours ago, and now she couldn’t stop thinking about things she had assiduously

avoided recalling for Þ fteen years. Memories were deceptive, she knew that.

The sun always shone brighter, the water was always bluer, the pleasure always

so much more poignant when viewed from afar. But even the ache of betrayal

and abandonment had not tarnished the simple truth of what she’d felt, and what

she’d tried so hard to forget.

The room was suddenly too small to contain the images that assaulted her.

Leslie sitting on the bank of the lake beneath fresh spring pines, her cheek

resting on the top of her bent knees, her face soft as she conÞ ded her dreams.

Leslie curled up beside her on a bench in the park, listening intently as Dev told

her about a book she’d read or how she planned to dress out her motorcycle as

soon as she had the money. Leslie laughing and nudging her shoulder, trying to

get Dev to crack a smile when she was pretending to be cool. Leslie that last

night, reaching for her, moaning into her mouth, burning her alive with kisses.

“Christ,” Dev muttered, jumping from bed. She couldn’t believe that a kiss

she’d shared with a teenager could arouse her now, but it did.

She was wet and throbbing and seconds away from reaching down for relief.

Somehow, the idea of climaxing to the image of a woman, no, a girl, who no

longer existed seemed wrong.

• 61 •

RADCLY fFE

She fumbled in the dark for jeans and a T-shirt and pulled them on without

bothering to Þ nd underwear. She stepped into the boots she’d left by the door

and started down the path to the lake with the moonlight as her guide. The water

was black as it always was at night, an onyx surface that glistened beneath a sky

gleaming with stars. The water lapped gently inches from her feet, a soothing

sound like the murmur of lovers in the dark. Dev took a deep breath and

smelled pine sap and rich earth.

The tension in her chest and groin began to ease. She remembered who she

was, where she was, and she remembered, too, how that long-ago kiss had

ended. The phantom passion, like the taunting memory of a lost limb, might

refuse to die, but she did not need to breathe life into it.

She took another deep breath and turned to go back to the cabin.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a ß icker of light from a hundred feet

away. The lake curved inward to form a tiny bay just below the lodge, and the

boathouse, almost as large as the lodge itself, extended out into the water. Dev

stared, wondering if the light she’d seen had just been moonlight glinting off the

water, but then she saw it again, shining for an instant through one of the

windows in the center of the building.

It was probably one of the guests, suffering from insomnia like herself, or a pair

of lovers looking for a private place to share their passion. But as she watched

the light glimmer in one window and then the next, she started walking toward it.

The air was still and quiet, unlike the last time she’d approached the boathouse,

and when she stepped inside, the music played only in her memory. Still, the

shadows undulated as if those long-ago dancers had left their energy and their

desires behind. As on that last night, she had only one destination. When she

reached the far end of the room, she wasn’t surprised to see Leslie perched on

the windowsill, her head tilted back and her eyes closed. The wash of moonlight

erased the years from her face, and Dev gasped as the old familiar connection

punched through her.

Leslie turned her head and regarded the dim Þ gure standing by her side. “Hello,

Dev.”

“Hi, Les,” Dev said, her throat raspy. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No. You?”

• 62 •

WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE

Dev shook her head.

“I’m sorry about dinner,” Leslie said.

“What do you mean?” Dev leaned her shoulder against the window frame

opposite Leslie. A few inches of hot summer air and a heart full of broken

dreams separated them.

“It couldn’t have been pleasant for you trying to eat with all that tension in the

room.” Leslie shrugged. “I’d forgotten why I don’t visit very often. My parents

don’t approve of me.”

“I got the impression they didn’t approve of your job,” Dev said, recalling just

how carefully Leslie and her parents had tiptoed around anything that broached

upon Leslie’s life in Manhattan or her career.

Instead, Eileen and Paul Harris, a tall, thin quiet man, had questioned Dev with

enthusiasm about the Institute and her work for the Department of

Environmental Conservation.

“Is there a difference?” Leslie couldn’t quite keep the bitterness from her voice.

“After all, we are what we do.”

“Why do you do it?” Dev asked mildly.

“Because I’m good at it.”

Dev laughed. “I bet. But, I mean…what made you decide to do it?

What made you change your plans?”

Leslie hesitated, sorting through any number of answers that would sufÞ ce

while revealing nothing personal. Personal revelation was not something she did

lightly. If she was honest, it wasn’t something she did at all. And she was very

good at deß ecting conversations that verged too close to the intimate. “You Þ

rst.”

“Me? All right.” Dev paused, giving the issue serious thought.

“I’ve always liked Þ sh.”

“That’s not an answer,” Leslie said, but she couldn’t help smiling.

“Actually, it’s the truth. When I Þ nally started studying, I realized how much

there was to learn about the things I saw every day. The lake is part of me, I

guess.” Dev sighed. “And the Þ sh, well, besides creating interesting social

orders, they’re beautiful.”

“You make it sound romantic,” Leslie said seriously.