shade of aqua. When Caleb said no more, she replied, “Really?”
“He never wants to take us with him.”
Belle, in her child seat, said, “Rory, can I learn to make the stick go around?”
Belle must be talking about staff twirling. She must have seen Lauren practicing with the broom handle Rory had given her. “I don’t see why not,” Rory answered. “But I’m pretty busy right now. Sometime when I’m not, we’ll find a stick your size and I can show you how to twirl it.”
“I like you,” Belle said simply.
Warmth suffused Rory. “Thank you. I like you, too. Caleb, does Seuss know ‘Sit’ yet?”
He never wants to take us with him. As she drove the children to their ski lesson, she mulled over Caleb’s revelations and the things Samantha had told her the night before about Seamus’s wife, Janine, and her death. Janine Jensen.
Oh, she kept her maiden name, Samantha had said.
What troubled Rory the most was nothing the children or Seamus or Samantha had said. It was that now, after knowing him just two days, she seemed to have in her mind’s eye details of Seamus—his cleft chin, his green eyes, the slight hollows in his cheeks, his jaw, the bass quality of his voice. She saw him so clearly. She saw him all the time, even when he wasn’t there.
Something was creeping up on her, something bigger and more frightening than a simple instructor-client relationship. And she was spending far too much energy thinking about Seamus Lee.
* * *
A T NOON , WHILE walking back from the Sultan Mountain School to his house, Seamus phoned Telluride to check in with Elizabeth, who was supervising the studio in his absence. The first topic of conversation was Ki-Rin, Seamus’s dragon-boy hero, who had provided so well for him and his family for so many years.
“Okay, so when he sees Koneko,” Elizabeth said, “he transforms...”
“Not yet,” Seamus interrupted. “She hasn’t threatened him yet. He doesn’t transform until she threatens him or someone else.” The boy Ki-Rin would take on his dragon form only when that occurred. It annoyed Seamus slightly that Elizabeth hadn’t yet picked up this fundamental aspect of the character. But there were other details to discuss related to the making of the latest Ki-Rin animated feature.
“How are you doing in Sultan?” Elizabeth asked at last.
“Good, good.”
“Do your children remember who you are?”
Seamus could have done without the dig. In retrospect, he didn’t like this woman, the last with whom he’d been involved. He liked her well enough as part of his studio team, but he didn’t like the memories of dating her nearly as much.
“Fiona called,” Elizabeth said. “Did she get you on your cell phone?”
“Actually, no. Is she all right?”
“Yes, but she’s thinking of traveling some more with her son and his wife. Maybe she doesn’t want to break it to you yet. You know what I mean.”
“Yes.” Fiona knew how he depended on her. But after only forty-eight hours without her... Well, it wasn’t that he felt more able to cope with his children. He certainly still felt all the same anxieties when he was near them. Only the previous night, for instance, Lauren had told Beau that their mother had skied down Uncompahgre Peak one year. She’s skied down the backs of lots of these mountains.
The resentment and anger had coursed through Seamus, and he’d gone outside so as not to have to hear, or comment on, what he’d heard.
Yes, Janine had been a good athlete.
Yes, she’d never let fear stop her from doing anything.
But she was... All the hard names for women came to his mind at the thought of her, at the thought of the handgun and the accident and...
And all of it.
And that reaction was the sole reason he had avoided spending time alone with his children since Janine’s death. Because the compulsion to say everything going through his mind was almost beyond his control. And what would that do to them?
Nonetheless, when
“He never wants to take us with him.”
Belle, in her child seat, said, “Rory, can I learn to make the stick go around?”
Belle must be talking about staff twirling. She must have seen Lauren practicing with the broom handle Rory had given her. “I don’t see why not,” Rory answered. “But I’m pretty busy right now. Sometime when I’m not, we’ll find a stick your size and I can show you how to twirl it.”
“I like you,” Belle said simply.
Warmth suffused Rory. “Thank you. I like you, too. Caleb, does Seuss know ‘Sit’ yet?”
He never wants to take us with him. As she drove the children to their ski lesson, she mulled over Caleb’s revelations and the things Samantha had told her the night before about Seamus’s wife, Janine, and her death. Janine Jensen.
Oh, she kept her maiden name, Samantha had said.
What troubled Rory the most was nothing the children or Seamus or Samantha had said. It was that now, after knowing him just two days, she seemed to have in her mind’s eye details of Seamus—his cleft chin, his green eyes, the slight hollows in his cheeks, his jaw, the bass quality of his voice. She saw him so clearly. She saw him all the time, even when he wasn’t there.
Something was creeping up on her, something bigger and more frightening than a simple instructor-client relationship. And she was spending far too much energy thinking about Seamus Lee.
* * *
A T NOON , WHILE walking back from the Sultan Mountain School to his house, Seamus phoned Telluride to check in with Elizabeth, who was supervising the studio in his absence. The first topic of conversation was Ki-Rin, Seamus’s dragon-boy hero, who had provided so well for him and his family for so many years.
“Okay, so when he sees Koneko,” Elizabeth said, “he transforms...”
“Not yet,” Seamus interrupted. “She hasn’t threatened him yet. He doesn’t transform until she threatens him or someone else.” The boy Ki-Rin would take on his dragon form only when that occurred. It annoyed Seamus slightly that Elizabeth hadn’t yet picked up this fundamental aspect of the character. But there were other details to discuss related to the making of the latest Ki-Rin animated feature.
“How are you doing in Sultan?” Elizabeth asked at last.
“Good, good.”
“Do your children remember who you are?”
Seamus could have done without the dig. In retrospect, he didn’t like this woman, the last with whom he’d been involved. He liked her well enough as part of his studio team, but he didn’t like the memories of dating her nearly as much.
“Fiona called,” Elizabeth said. “Did she get you on your cell phone?”
“Actually, no. Is she all right?”
“Yes, but she’s thinking of traveling some more with her son and his wife. Maybe she doesn’t want to break it to you yet. You know what I mean.”
“Yes.” Fiona knew how he depended on her. But after only forty-eight hours without her... Well, it wasn’t that he felt more able to cope with his children. He certainly still felt all the same anxieties when he was near them. Only the previous night, for instance, Lauren had told Beau that their mother had skied down Uncompahgre Peak one year. She’s skied down the backs of lots of these mountains.
The resentment and anger had coursed through Seamus, and he’d gone outside so as not to have to hear, or comment on, what he’d heard.
Yes, Janine had been a good athlete.
Yes, she’d never let fear stop her from doing anything.
But she was... All the hard names for women came to his mind at the thought of her, at the thought of the handgun and the accident and...
And all of it.
And that reaction was the sole reason he had avoided spending time alone with his children since Janine’s death. Because the compulsion to say everything going through his mind was almost beyond his control. And what would that do to them?
Nonetheless, when
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