“Nope,” John Lee agreed, and sipped his own chocolate while he backed out into the drive. “I want to do a little experiment. You ready?”

  She eyed him doubtfully.

  “Put the cup down.”

  She secured it in the holder and waited. He signaled a left turn and waited until they were on Grand Avenue before looking at her.

  “How do you feel when I say Fall Creek?”

  A subliminal rush of heat under her skin. Fear.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How do you feel?”

  “I don’t feel anything.” She shifted her weight away from him and looked out the window. Afternoon was fading toward evening, the sun already misted with clouds. “Why? Should I?”

  “You got some mighty strange reactions for a lady who’s never been there before. How about if I say my mother’s name?”

  She shrugged, still watching the darkened windows glide by outside. The town had a sepia look.

  “Pearl Jordan.”

  She gritted her teeth hard enough to feel her jaw muscles crack. Gray swam over her but she fought it back, fought hard, and blinked away tears.

  “I don’t feel anything,” she said. He threw her a look of sheer disbelief. “I can’t feel anything, can I? Because I’ve never met the woman! I’ve never been to Fall Creek in my life! How the hell can I feel anything—”

  Her voice sounded ragged and hysterical. She swallowed the rest and concentrated on slow, quiet breathing. Look for Carlton. Just look.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “But you do, Abby. You know you do.”

  She shoved the subject away with a wave of her hand and picked up her hot chocolate, drew comfort from the warmth and sweetness.

  John Lee turned right on State Highway 115 West, and they left the weak sepia-toned lights of Midland in the distance. Behind that, the sister city of Odessa glimmered like the richer, prouder stepsister. They headed into growing darkness, into a flat vast horizon of tawny sand and black twisted Joshua trees and the round spiky skeletons of tumbleweeds drifting over the road.

  No Carlton.

  Half an hour later it was dark enough that John Lee turned on his headlights; the white stripe in the road caught fire and made the road dead black, like a burned-out cinder. The car shuddered as headwinds pushed hard. Behind them, Midland had disappeared into the sand, only a glimmer on the clouds marking it, and ahead there was nothing. It was like driving into space.

  “Maybe he’s already made it to town,” John Lee said quietly, bringing Abby out of her miserable roadside watch. “Might be laid up someplace warm in a house, some nice folks feeding him steak.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  He shook his head and looked over at her. “You okay? You feeling okay?”

  They passed a shield-shaped road sign that said TEXAS 115 WEST, words almost obscured by scouring dirt and rusted pitting from an ancient shotgun blast. The reflective paint was old enough to have a soft yellowish tint to it.

  “Where are we?”

  “About ten minutes from town. My house is over that way.” He pointed off to the left into the dark. “Hard to find, but I like it that way. Keeps down the Jehovah’s Witnesses and vacuum salesmen.”

  “And over there?” She pointed to the right. An old house bulked black in the distance, more shadow than substance. John Lee glanced over and quickly away, face gone blank and closed.

  “Just an old house. Lot of those old wrecks out here. Couple of years and the desert pretty much takes them back.”

  He wasn’t lying, but she was sure he wasn’t telling the truth, either. She twisted to look over her shoulder at the dim outline of the house.

  “Farm?” she guessed.

  “They’re all farms out here. Cotton farms, mostly. Or ranches.”

  “How long has that house been—”

  “Look for your dog.” His voice had a hard edge to it that surprised her. She turned to face forward and caught sight of another house, set farther back from the road. Windows glowed dull yellow against the night.

  The gray hit her again, a riptide of emotion, things clutching at her shaking and screaming. She pressed one hand flat on the car window to block out the sight of the house but it seemed to be burned into her eyes, like an image of the sun.

  She’d seen it in the daylight. Dusty broken pansies struggling out of harsh heat-dried ground. Wood gone gray from the relentless sun. The rusted screen door, squeaking on its hinges. The shock of darkness after the blaze of sun, a hot, close, diseased darkness—

  Pearl. A man’s voice, whispering and distorted. You know what to do.

  “Stop!” she screamed. John Lee slammed on the brakes and the car fishtailed to a stop. She couldn’t get her breath against the weight on her chest. “Carlton. Carlton!”

  A rush of cold air on her face as John Lee opened his door and got out. She watched him walk in front of the halogen glare of headlights and he seemed taller, thinner.

  He turned to look at her and his face changed. His eyes became hell-blue.

  He mouthed her name, but she heard him say, through a mist of years, Missy.

  She fumbled for the door and got it open. The cold breeze steadied her a little. John Lee’s eyes went dark again as he moved out of the headlights to stand in the shadows by the roadside.

  Carlton lay on his side on the sharp tarry rocks of the shoulder, chest heaving. He lifted his head as Abby came closer, licked his chops and whined unhappily. She dropped down next to him and cradled him in her lap. His fur was matted with blood where the glass had cut him. He’d run the bandages off his feet.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. She buried her face in the warm thick comfort of the coat. “Oh, sweetie, why? Why’d you do this?”

  Carlton licked her hand and whined. When she tried to pick him up he got shakily to his feet and limped off, toward the glow of windows in the distance.

  “Jesus God,” John Lee said, and shook his head. He picked Carlton up and lifted him like a baby. “Open up the back door.”

  Abby ran ahead to hold it open as John Lee eased the dog inside.

  “No, wait, the blood—” Abby struggled out of her coat. “Here, put him on this.”

  Carlton buried his nose in the arm of her coat and watched her with great, dark eyes as she shut the door. She leaned against the cold metal and looked at John Lee, at the blood on his hands. For a flash of a second John Lee’s eyes were blue again.

  “He was going back to my mom’s place,” he said, and jerked his chin toward the glowing windows. “Again.”

  Carlton howled, a long, lonely, frightening sound.

  The vet wanted to keep Carlton overnight for observation, though none of his cuts seemed serious. Abby was secretly grateful. She didn’t think she could stand staying awake all night with him, and she wasn’t sure if she could trust the dog to stay put, even sedated as he was. If he squirmed out of the window again while she slept—

  “Dinner or home?”

  She looked over at John Lee and smiled slightly, which was more than she’d felt capable of ten minutes earlier. Something about that road, the dog, the house—no, the two houses. He was right, there was something strange going on. Something she could no more explain than Carlton could.

  “Dinner,” she said. “Oh, God, yes. Dinner.”

  “Fair enough. I said I’d make the burgers if we found him.” John Lee put the car in gear and pulled out of the animal hospital parking lot, heading for darkness again, only the brilliant white line for a guide. “You like beer?”

  “A little,” she said, cautiously. A very little.

  “I got a buddy that brews his own. Very good. You’ll like it. Hamburgers okay with you?”

  “Fine.” She traced a treble clef sign on her jeans with a fingertip. “You were right about … the feelings I get.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “When you say Fall Creek, I feel—I don’t know—uneasy. Afraid.” She drew in the sharps for the key of A next to the treble clef. “When you say your mother’s name I feel something else.”

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “Fear. Anger. I hear voices. God, do you think I need to see somebody?” She added in two or three bars of notes, painstakingly drawn.

  “Thought you were seeing me, at least tonight.” He smiled. “Look, I admit, maybe you should talk it over with somebody who knows about stuff like this. Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow.” She let her head drop back against the seat. “God, I feel so drained.”

  He reached over and rested his hand on top of hers, a warm, unexpected contact that made her shiver.

  Ten minutes later, they turned down a dark, barely visible road. She opened her eyes to see a stretch of jet-black with red reflective markers on either side. The road stretched off into the distance like an airplane runway. John Lee took it fast, maneuvering around the small curves with expert care. They pulled up in front of what looked like a small weather-beaten barn. She tried to make out the sign hanging above the door but the angle was wrong, and then John Lee was out of the car and ushering her into the cold, biting air.

  “Snow,” he said, looking up. She raised her face and felt the feathery brush of flakes. “Better get inside.”

  As she went up the steps she looked up again at the sign. It said JORDAN GLASSWORKS. She pointed up toward it, a question on her lips, but John Lee was holding the door open and the wind was bitterly cold.

  “Whew!” He shook the chill out of his coat and brushed flakes from his hair as he shut the door behind her. “Hold on a second, let me turn off the alarm.”

  “Alarm?” She unzipped her coat and followed him out of the entry hall into a pitch-dark room where her footsteps echoed up toward a distant roof. “Out here?”

  “Hold it. Don’t move.” There was unmistakable tension in his voice. She stopped where she was, swaying. “Wait until I get the lights.”

  She heard several soft beeps and a longer, lower tone, and then the lights came up, flickering in banks toward the back of the room.

  She was standing in the middle of fairyland.

  The sign outside lied. John Lee didn’t make glass, he made beauty. What stood on the workroom floor were moments of time, frozen—a bird, launching into flight with its feathers gleaming iridescent behind it. A dragon breathing gold-green fire, the eyes winking red. An unfinished stained-glass window of a young woman reaching toward the sun, the colors as vivid and beautiful as grass and sky. She let her breath out slowly, afraid to breathe. Everywhere she looked, there was more. Tiny, casual pieces of beauty sitting on worktables. Glasses and bowls as thin as soap bubbles.

  John Lee touched her arm. She reached out and grabbed his hand and held it tight.

  “This … Her voice failed. She took a deep breath and tried again; the air tasted of the sawdust that covered the floor. “It’s amazing. It’s yours? You did all this?”

  “Well, yeah. All this is in production. Got to deliver that window next Week, don’t know when I’m going to finish it.” He frowned at the girl reaching for the sun. “Don’t have it right yet.”

  “Right!” She laughed aloud. “My God, John, it’s beautiful!”

  “Go ahead and look around if you want. I’ll make us something to eat.” He hesitated, watching her face; she focused on him with difficulty. “You okay?”

  She nodded. He squeezed her fingers and let her go. She watched him as he ambled around pieces of glass and through a door in the far wall.

  She sat down in the middle of all that beauty and stared.

  He came back carrying two frosted mugs filled with clear amber; as she took hers she realized that the mug wasn’t the smooth, store-bought, machine-made kind. These had been hand-blown, thick enough to knock out a drunk in a bar fight.

  She took a cautious sip of the beer. It tasted deceptively light, but when it hit the back of her throat it turned hot and thick as fermented honey. She coughed and swallowed two or three times before she was sure she’d gotten it down.

  “Good, huh?” He clinked mugs with her and draped himself over a handy battered recliner that squatted nearby. She’d chosen a padded camp stool that had seen more camps than the Boy Scouts. “Burgers coming up.”

  “Is this what you do full-time?”

  “Make burgers?” He gave her his quirky smile.

  “Make … all this beauty.” She felt a little foolish saying it, but the embarrassment faded when she saw the pleasure lighting his face. “It is beautiful, you know.”

  He glanced around at it, taking stock. “It’s just a hobby. I put in a hell of a lot of windshields and storm windows.”

  “Hobby?” She stood up to run her fingers gently over the cool curve of a glass lily. “No, no way. This has passion.”

  His eyes were fixed where her fingers rested, and she realized with a warm rush of embarrassment that he was probably worried she’d break it. She stepped away, ducking her head apologetically, and he immediately reached over and picked up the lily. He set it in her hand and folded her fingers around it. The glass felt heavy and strong and strangely alive.

  “I can’t…” she began, and looked away from the glitter of its beauty to stare at his face. His fingers lingered on hers, just for a second, and he let go and sat back without breaking the stare. She cradled the lily in both hands, the curves of it fitting naturally to her skin. “God, John, are you sure?”

  “Reminds me of you,” he said. She looked down at the strong, feminine curves of it and felt a bright, daring thrill of pride. “I’ve been carving glass since I was seventeen, learned glassblowing out in San Francisco a few years ago.”

  “And the stained glass?” She nodded at the window. He cocked his head and looked at it ruefully.

  “Just learning, and not too damned good at it yet.”

  She put the lily carefully aside and looked at the window, the angelic perfection of the girl, the glowing warmth of the stained-glass sun. She backed up until she was next to his chair and tried to see it with him. Tried to see the flaws.

  “But it’s perfect,” she breathed, and sat down on the arm of his chair, still staring. “Absolutely perfect. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  His fingers closed over her arm. She turned to look at him.

  “Not much market for it out here,” he said. “Most of it’s done to special order or I ship it out of town to Dallas and Houston. People around here think it’s pretty strange stuff for a grown man to do.”

  “You mean art?”

  “Whatever you do, don’t call it art in a small town. It’s a craft, like painting sunsets on rusty saw blades. Craft’s a manly word. Art’s something ballet dancers do, and they better not do it around here.” He smiled, but she saw something dark flickering underneath it.

  “You could move,” she suggested.

  He rubbed his hands together and stared down at them as if they were strangers. “Could. Don’t think I will, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Must be about time for those burgers,” he said, and drew her to her feet. They were so close together that it made her breath catch. Still smiling, watching her eyes, he eased her coat—his coat, really, he’d insisted she wear it—off her shoulders and draped it over the back of the recliner.

  Liquid warmth flooded down through her. God, he had beautiful eyes, amber-gold, ringed in dark brown.

  “Stay awhile,” he said. “Please.”

  She watched him walk away toward the kitchen and sank down in the chair he’d abandoned, feeling the warmth he’d left behind like another touch. There was too much beauty in the room; it overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes on dizziness and searched for some sense of balance. Instead, she saw an image.

  A two-story farmhouse, weak-stemmed purple pansies nodding by cracked concrete steps. All the windows were open against the fierce summer heat Torn sheer curtains waved in and out, as if the house breathed.

  Up the steps.

  Rusted screen door, squealing as she pulled it open. Inside, darkness, furniture dim and dusty.

  Hands holding her wrists behind her. She blinked sweat out of her eyes.

  No sound, but she knew she was crying. Hands shoved her forward, through the tangled maze of furniture, past open doorways, into a filthy kitchen with a peeling yellowed floor.

  At the end of the kitchen, a door. It opened and yawned into blackness.

  She fell, screaming.

  “Abby?” Another hand on her, shaking her. She came awake with a violent shudder and found John Lee bending over her. “You all right?”

  “I … yes. Yes.” She tried to slow the pounding of her heart. “Dinner?”

  “Thought we’d eat like civilized people at the table. Bring your beer.”

  She fumbled for the mug and found it blessed solid; this was reality, not a dream. She’d never have a dream like that before, never. All her dreams has to do with doctors and hospitals and performing naked in front of ten thousand people.

  She shoved the vision away and followed him through the glass room and another door, into a room that smelled like apples and vanilla.

  He had a small table, barely big enough for four chairs to fit around it, and he’d taken two of them away to leave them elbow room. The table itself was black wood, smooth as glass, with matching chairs. On the other side of the raised serving bar was a white kitchen, not antiseptic but clean. John Lee set her plate on the table and turned toward the stove.

  “This is nice,” she said awkwardly. He handed her another plate, this one loaded with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles. She put it in the center of the table. “You live here, too?”

  “Saves money.” He shrugged and pulled out her chair for her. She sat and waited until he’d taken his seat before she started garnishing her steaming hamburger.

  Not that it needed much. It was a big, thick, delicious-looking thing, nestled in a toasted onion roll. Conversation lagged while they ate, sipped beer, listened as the wind rattled around outside. There was a window on the other side of the kitchen and it showed falling, swirling snow. Somewhere in the kitchen a radio played softly, golden rock ‘n’ roll oldies. She heard a Beatles song and glanced up, smiling, saw him looking back, sharing the joke.