“I didn’t want to keep him secret.”
But tears still pricked. Lexi reached for the mug of coffee. She’d noticed the way Marge’s hair flowed around her shoulders, loose and slightly tangled as if she’d been in a lover’s arms. A place near Lexi’s heart began to ache.
“Will you tell me about him?” she asked after a moment.
“Where should I start?”
“How did he find you?”
“Oh, that.” Marge sat down and sipped her coffee.
“Yes, that,” Lexi teased gently.
“Well, it started with boob lights.”
“Kinky.”
“In a way.” But Marge was smiling. “I was struggling with the dreams, so I went back to an old therapy mentor to talk about them. I’d already researched dream theory, even past life regression, but I wasn’t finding any credible information. I thought it might be a psychological condition.”
“I’m sorry, Marge.” Lexi leaned forward, lightly touched Marge’s hand. “I wish I’d known.”
“And if we’d been friends then,” Marge said, “I would have confided.”
“So, what did your therapy-buddy have to say?”
“That I had early onset midlife-crises disease.”
Lexi sipped the coffee and asked, “Did he prescribe a red convertible and a lover half your age?”
“He suggested I break out of my rut.”
“How does breaking out of your rut involve boob lights?”
“In the usual way. I’m home, on my bed staring up at the ceiling, and wondering how my life had gotten rutted and how I could get out of it—not getting anywhere because I didn’t think my life was rutted. And I look up and see I have a boob light on my ceiling.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know those half-dome ceiling light fixtures that are everywhere?”
“With the little gold knobs that you unscrew when you need to change a light bulb?”
“Exactly.” Marge flicked her hand. “Nipples, right? Boob lights. And once you see something like that, you can’t unsee it. Then I realized they were all over my house. But the worst was the pendent light in the kitchen.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. A penis. There, above my dining table. My house was having more sex than I was and I had to do something about it.”
“Robbie?” Lexi suggested hopefully.
“A big box store.” Marge got up to refill their mugs with coffee. “And there I was, standing in the light fixture aisle trying to decide which one to pick when this hunky guy stops and we started talking about—”
“Lighting fixtures? My god, Marge, it was a midlife crisis.”
“Well I thought about an affair but he was too young—”
“Prude.”
“And then he offered to stop by and help with the ladder. Said he knew all about handling… light fixtures.”
Lexi gulped the coffee. Marge tried to look indignant as she stood with a spoon in one hand and a container of cream in the other. They were both skilled in the art of innuendo and it was a game they played, to see who could come up with the most outrageous response.
“Well… there was that whole electricity thing to consider,” Lexi suggested.
“I certainly didn’t want my wires crossed.”
“I’m sure not. He untangled them okay?”
“You are awful.” Marge conceded defeat. Then she laughed. “It took him a few tries before I’d let him kiss me.”
Lexi stared at the mug in her hands. “Why did Robbie wait so long to approach you?”
Marge sat down before answering. “He tried several times, once when I was in grad school, another time when I was too focused on my career to see anything else.” She pushed at the hair drifting closer to her eyes.
“Marge.” Lexi touched the older woman’s hand; she understood the pressure of career no matter what the reason.
“I was driven,” Marge admitted. “I understand why, now. Robbie is a healer, a gifted one although he would never tell you so. I had this compulsion to be one, too. I couldn’t acknowledge any other aspect of life until I reached this one goal. Because then I would be happy.” Marge looked up. “But it was him. I needed Robbie. I couldn’t be happy without him. He told me that we’ve always been healers, working together in several lifetimes. I think I was trying to get back to him.”
“He let you go.”
“No.” Marge shook her head gently. “He let me grow until I could see him again—see who he was. Once I did that everything fell into place.”
Lexi pulled her pony tail over her shoulder and played with the ends. “What about the whole symbiotic I-need-you-and-you-need-me thing?”
“There’s a work-around,” Marge clarified. “He gets fractions of what he needs just by remaining close. Said I didn’t need to see him or interact with him, all he had to do was watch me and it would be enough.”
“Convenient.” Lexi wondered why Christan hadn’t taken that route. It might have been easier if he’d kept his distance. Her analysis, though, was that it had become a compulsion. For both of them. Christan seemed as driven to confront her as she was to answer him, and she realized, now, that their interactions had origins in the past. A past that had never been resolved. For either of them.
It was the dark isolation in his eyes that got to her. The loneliness. He made her crazy with thoughts she didn’t want, provoked her into emotional exchanges she would never win. Not against someone so male, who knew the secrets from lives she couldn’t remember. Maybe she’d been crazy in one of her past lives and that was it. Because when he’d wrapped his arms around her waist and dragged her close, she’d been so vividly aware of his hard body her mind had disintegrated.
Desperate little needs had driven her to stab her fingers into his wrists. Not that she’d had any chance of hurting him. His hands were massive. His arms had flexed, the muscles jumping and those tattoos had looked alive. So much energy rolling off him like a storm raging. He’d been angry and demanding, and scary as hell, but she would have melted against him if he’d touched her with tenderness. Asked her, instead of attacking her and forcing that one word into her mind. Which made her truly pathetic considering everything that he’d done. The silence became uncomfortable. A faint, lonely breeze drifted through the windows.
“Life can seem pointless,” Marge said, as if reading Lexi’s expression. “But not if it helps you get to where you’re meant to be.”
“True.” Lexi conceded the argument that had become too painful, and Marge reached out, touched Lexi’s hand, the one with the memory lines.
“I liked my life before Robbie.”
“I liked mine,” Lexi agreed.
“But I wasn’t truly happy until that day when he asked to change out my boob lights.”
Lexi’s laugh turned into a snort. She tried to drink coffee and failed. And just like that, the tension bled out of the kitchen. Marge stood, disappeared into the living room and returned with a silver laptop in her hands. She placed it on the edge of the table. “Are you through with the toast?”
Lexi nodded. “Is that mine?” she asked, indicating the electronics.
“Yes.” When Lexi rose to help with the dishes the older woman stood in her way. “I know you. Go do what you need to do.”
Wary, Lexi placed the glass she had been holding into the sink. “What is it you’re suggesting I need to do?”
“Research. You don’t accept things at face value. I told Arsen they could explain until they ran out of breath, but you would still need to find the evidence on your own.” Marge nodded toward the table. “He’s already coded in the password for their wi-fi and cleared it with his tech people.”