Holding the Dream Page 0,111

tell you and Laura. I was stupid."

"After you've said it at regular intervals for the next year or two, we'll forget all about it."

"I have such understanding friends. Christ, these are criminal," Kate mumbled through another cookie. "It must be great having Annie here baking and fussing."

"It really is. I never would have believed we could live under the same roof again, even for the short term. It was awfully sweet of Laura to insist that Mum stay here for a couple of weeks."

"Speaking of Laura." Kate had made a point of dropping by Margo's after work, knowing that Laura would be too busy for an early-evening visit. "Candy mentioned Peter."

"So?"

"It was the way she mentioned him. First she was on me and Byron."

"Excuse me." Margo indulged in a cookie herself. "In what way?"

"Well, she said how he's a corporate shill, and he's using me to earn points with the Templetons. You know, like he brings me to orgasm, and they give him another promotion."

"That's pathetic." She narrowed her eyes at Kate's face. "You didn't buy that?"

"No." She shook her head quickly. "No. I might have if it had been anyone other than Byron. It was a pretty clever chain to pull. But he's just not made that way. I laughed at her."

"Good for you. What does that have to do with Peter?"

"Apparently that's where she got the idea. At least partially. It sounds to me as if they've gotten... close."

"Jesus. What a frightening thought." She shuddered dramatically. "Two creeps in a pod."

"She wanted to make sure I mentioned it to Laura. I don't know if I should."

"Let it alone," Margo said immediately. "Laura doesn't need that. If she hears it, she hears it. Besides, with Candy's track record, it's probably already fizzled."

"I was leaning that way." Kate toyed with the rest of her cappuccino, studied the view. "It's so beautiful here. I never really told you what a terrific job you've done putting the place together. Making it like home."

"It is home. It was, straight off." Margo smiled. "I owe that to you. You're the one who told me about the place."

"It seemed right for you - you and Josh. Do you think you can tell sometimes if a place is where you want to be?''

"I know it It was Templeton House for me. I was too young to remember anything before we came there, but it was home, always. My flat in Milan."

When Margo broke off, Kate shifted uncomfortably. "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to stir up old memories."

"It's all right. I loved that flat. Everything about it. I was home there, too. It was right for me at the time." She shrugged her shoulders. "If things had stayed as they were, it would be right for me still. But they didn't. I didn't. Then there was the shop." She smiled and sat up straighter. "Remember how I was so dazzled by that big, empty building while you and Laura rolled your eyes and wondered if you should cart me off?"

"It smelled of stale marijuana and spiderwebs."

"And I loved it. I knew I could make something there. And I did." Her eyes glowed as she looked out to the cliffs. "Maybe childbirth has made me philosophical, but it's not hard for me to say I needed to make something there. And I wouldn't have without you and Laura. Let me be sappy for a minute," she ordered when Kate grimaced. "I'm entitled. I've started to think that things move in a circle, if you let them. We're together on this, through varying circumstances. But we're together. We always have been. It matters."

"Yes. It matters." Kate rose, wandered to the edge of the patio where the ground spread green and bloomed with colorful blossoms. The autumn sky was still brilliantly blue, ranging out to the rocking sea and beyond.

This was a home, she thought. Not hers, though she felt at home here as she did at Templeton House. It worried her that she'd fallen in love with the bent Cyprus, the blooming vines and wood and glass of a house on Seventeen Mile that wasn't her own.

"It was always Templeton House for me," she said, putting an image of the towers and stone over the image of multilevel decks and wide windows. "The view from my bedroom, the way it smelled after the floors were polished. I never felt that way about my apartment in town. It was just a convenient place to stay."

"Are you going to keep it?"

Puzzled, Kate