Trouble In Tourmaline

Then why didn’t he feel relieved?

Amy watched David leave the hotel, then pushed her plate to one side, her appetite gone. What a boor. Though she hadn’t wanted to explore what might have been between them any more than he did, he didn’t need to be so abrupt. With time maybe they could have managed to become friends.

Friends? Ha. Who was she trying to snow? Hadn’t she learned not to fool herself? If anything had ever been going to happen between her and David, it wouldn’t be friendship. She’d never gone in for brief, hot affairs—like any relationship with him would have been—so it was just as well their acquaintance had ended on a sour note.

She should be glad. She was glad. With luck he’d finish the yard work at Dr. Severin’s quickly and then be out of her life completely. He was as forgettable as any other man.

And if he knew what was good for him, he’d better keep out of her dreams, too.

Chapter Two

C al was unloading a new batch of greenery from the nursery truck when David reached Aunt Gert’s.

“Wanted to be sure you got the rest of the stuff you need early,” Cal said.

“Thanks.” David pitched in to help, thinking again of how he’d used Cal. What he’d done wouldn’t harm Cal in any way, but he was unpleasantly reminded of how Murdock had patronized him last year. In no way, shape or form did he want to be like that bastard.

“The boss says you ever want a job, just ask,” Cal told him when they finished. “He drove by yesterday while you was putting in them shrubs. Said you’re a damn good worker.”

“Tell him I appreciate the compliment.” Which was the truth. Not that he intended to do landscaping for a living.

David watched Cal pull away in the truck. In a way, he envied the man. Cal liked his job and seemed to be satisfied with his life, which was a hell of a lot more than could be said about David Severin. He lived comfortably enough, having been lucky enough to put the money his grandfather had left him in investments that proved both sound and profitable. Still, he was getting restless doing nothing. Aunt Gert had urged him to take both the Nevada bar exams, which he’d passed, but he had no heart for law after what had happened in New Mexico. The truth was, he didn’t know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

A few plantings later, his gloomy mood began to lift. Gert was right about hard work in the open air easing depression. He peeled off his T-shirt, hung it on the porch railing and picked up a spirea bush. He’d just finished digging the hole for it when he saw Gert’s car pulling into the drive. She waved at him on her way back to the garage. He dropped the bush into the hole, quickly covered the roots and set aside the spade.

As he walked toward the garage, the overhead door went down and Gert emerged from the side door, carrying a small overnight case.

“You’re home early,” he told her. “Let me take that inside for you.”

She handed him the case. “A delegation from the Walker Valley reservation called on Grandfather, wanting advice. What they really wanted, I soon saw, was for him to go back there with them, so I gracefully bowed out.”

David knew she meant her friend, a Paiute medicine man who insisted everyone call him Grandfather.

She stopped in the utility room and told him to leave the case by the washer. “He’d had one of his dreams, by the way,” she said. “Something about two red-tailed hawks. You were one of them, apparently.”

Since Grandfather’s dreams often had some bearing on reality, David waited for her to go on. Instead, she switched subjects. “Now I’m going to take a shower, change and come sit on the front porch and watch you work.”

“The hawks?”

“I’m still thinking about that dream. When I have it figured out I’ll let you know.” She left him in the utility room.

David retraced his steps out the back door and around to the front again. He picked up the spade and set to work once more. He’d gotten more than half the plantings in when his aunt appeared on the porch with a pitcher of limeade and two glasses.

“Join me?” she invited.

After using the hose to wash some of the dirt off his bare skin, he donned his T-shirt and took a chair beside his aunt, who was sitting on the glider, moving gently back and forth. He reached for the drink she’d poured for him and swallowed half the contents of the tall glass.

“This is hand-squeezed limeade,” his aunt said. “You’re supposed to sip and savor the result of my efforts.”

“Too thirsty.” The words reminded him of his first sight of Amy. “By the way, someone came by yesterday to see you—I think she might have been a new patient. I told her you’d be back tomorrow.”

“All my regulars knew I was out of town,” Gert said.

David leaned back in the chair, stretching out his legs. Felt good to take a break. Like yesterday when he’d had lunch with Amy at Tiny Tim’s. He closed his eyes and there she was in her blue suit, the way he’d seen her that day…

“Penny for your thoughts,” Gert said. “They must be pleasant, since you’re smiling.”

Without opening his eyes he told a half-truth. “Just relaxed.”

Still thinking about yesterday, he was falling into a half doze when Gert exclaimed, “Why, look who’s here. You’ve come early.”

David’s eyes popped open and for a moment he thought he was having a vision straight out of his daydream. Amy was climbing the front steps to the porch. He stumbled to his feet, unable to believe his eyes.

“I know I wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow, Dr. Severin,” Amy said. “I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you.” She didn’t look at him.

“Not a bit. I’m just glad I came home a day early,” Gert said. “Amy, this is my nephew, David Severin. David, Amy Simon, whom I told you would be coming to work with me.”

It all came back to him then. Dr. Simon, Gert had said, was finishing up her probationary year toward getting her license, in which she had to be under the supervision of a licensed psychologist or a board-certified psychiatrist. He’d remembered Dr. Simon was female, but he’d forgotten her first name. He’d assumed she’d be older. And definitely not a sexy blonde.

“Hello, Mr. Severin,” Amy said, those green eyes of hers as cold as the limeade he’d downed.

He swallowed and inclined his head. “Dr. Simon.”

“Heavens, such formality,” his aunt said, giving him an odd look. “I’m Gert, she’s Amy and you’re David.”

“Yes,” he muttered, “she’s Amy, all right.”

“And you’re David.” Amy’s voice was as frosty as her eyes.

Gert rose from the glider to look at one, then the other of them. “Such antipathy can only mean, I do believe, that you’ve met before. This does explain at least part of Grandfather’s dream about the male hawk and the female hawk.”

Recovering somewhat from the shock of discovering David was Dr. Severin’s nephew, Amy was confused anew by his aunt’s words. Gert had to be in her seventies and she had a grandfather? Good grief, how old would he be?

“I’m forgetting my manners,” Gert said to her. “As I mentioned when we had that brief meeting in Reno last month, you’ll stay with me until you find a place to live. Do come in and I’ll show you to your room.”

“Well, um, I’m at the Cottonwood Hotel at the moment.” The last place Amy wanted to stay was anywhere David might be living.

Apparently sensing this, Gert said, “David has his own apartment to the west of town so you don’t need to worry about putting him out. It’ll be handier for you here than at the hotel until you find a place of your own.”

Which was true. Especially if David planned to eat breakfast at the Cottonwood every morning. “It’s very kind of you, Dr.—”

“Didn’t I just say the name is Gert?”

Amy managed a smile, beginning to feel she was going to get along with her new employer. “Thanks, Gert.”

“This yardman better get back to work,” David said.

Amy slanted him a dirty look. Sure, rub it in, she thought, when you deliberately let me believe that’s what you were. She wondered why he didn’t explain himself right away.