Chapter 10

It was late. Even Sinclair's body knew that. She'd been able to get more and more sleep since coming to the island, but that still only meant five hours of sleep each night if she was lucky. Four when she wasn't. Tonight the silence of the room wasn't nearly as comforting as it had been on other nights. Her earlier conversation with Victor still weighed on her mind. Disturbing thoughts of Lydia, Hunter, and of herself plagued her, precluding any possibility of rest. Finally she just couldn't lay in bed anymore. She crept through the house, picked a book from the shelf, and made it to the verandah without waking anybody up. It was nearly three o'clock in the morning.

Sinclair was just getting into the first chapter when she heard the distinctive rumble of Lydia's Cadillac pulling up to the gate. The half moon lit Lydia's way up the gravel path to the textured gray tile of the small square verandah with its ring of lush, flowering plants. Lydia sat in the chair beside Sinclair and took something out of the paper bag she carried. It was grape nut ice cream. With two plastic spoons.

"I knew you'd be awake. Hunter told me you have trouble sleeping at night."

Did she? Sinclair wondered what else she had told Lydia about her.

"It's not really trouble," Sinclair said. "My body doesn't need that much sleep so I end up staying awake most of the night." She took the spoon that her sister offered and waited while Lydia peeled the protective plastic from the top of the pint of ice cream. "So why are you up so late? Or so early?"

Lydia put the plastic wrap on the ground near the container's cover. "Well, I haven't been to bed yet. I spent the last few hours at Hunter's but didn't feel like going home to sleep."

Sinclair couldn't imagine spending an evening with Hunter and having the strength to do anything but sleep afterward.

"We just talked. She and I talk a lot." She dug her spoon into the ice cream, sounding disappointed. "I think that this relationship is going to drive me crazy."

Sinclair nodded although most of her attentions were focused on the dessert melting slowly in her mouth. The ice cream was sinful; a creamy French vanilla with grains of softened grape nuts spread throughout. Sinclair swirled the soft granules over her tongue and thought, reluctantly, of Lydia and Hunter together. She asked the question that Lydia seemed to be waiting for.

"Why?

"We're just not compatible." Her mouth smiled around the ice cream. "Although I usually like older women, from the beginning there was something about Hunter that really revved my engine." She licked her spoon clean and sat back with a tiny grin. "Her eyes are gorgeous. Have you ever really looked into them? God! There's a whole universe in there." Lydia shook her head. "But we're just not going to work out as a couple."

"Why?" Sinclair asked again, not really caring. She breathed out into the night air again pushing aside her irritation at having lost her night's peace to Lydia's romantic troubles. Then again, she said to herself, the woman did bring ice cream.

"Because she slept with Della. They used to be girlfriends."

Ah.

"I mean I understand that we live in a very small community. There's bound to be incestuous contact. But that's too much. "

"Just who is Della anyway?"

Lydia looked at Sinclair as if she'd forgotten that she was there, or that she had another function besides being the silent witness to her confessions. "She's a big flirt, that's what. And she doesn't mean a damn thing that she says."

What?

"She's also Papa's friend and Nikki's." She tucked a smooth sweep of hair behind her ear and considered the empty spoon in her hand. "She and your mother were lovers for a little while, too."

Sinclair stiffened and stared at her sibling. "How do you know that?"

"Like I said, the lesbian community here is very small." Lydia shrugged and looked at her through a lush forest of eyelashes. Sinclair had the sudden urge to pluck them out one by one. How do you just drop a thing like that on a person?... Later. I'll ask someone else about this later. She took a calming breath and forced herself to refocus on Lydia's problem.

"I still don't understand this compatibility thing with Hunter. So what if she slept with Della. That just means that she likes all kinds of women."

Lydia made a harsh noise. "I can't touch Hunter. I can't have sex with her, not even close." She stuck her spoon in one corner of the ice cream carton. "Every time we start to do something I tense up. I just can't do it."

Sinclair tapped the spoon against her mouth. "I still don't get it. It's not like she's your mother or even that she slept with your mother."

"It's just Della-she's disgusting. I can't stand to be in the same room with her."

"Did you feel this way after or before you found out that Hunter slept with her?"

"I'm not even sure," Lydia said. "I feel like she preyed on Hunter's feelings, that she's a viper or some sort of ... succubus."

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Sinclair said nothing, merely spooned more ice cream into her mouth. It melted over and around her tongue, sweet, rich, and impossibly delicious. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know." Lydia's voice sounded far away, as if she'd lost her favorite toy and didn't know where to look for it.

Sinclair gently patted her sister's hand and reached for the ice cream.