The Stuff of Dreams by James Swallow

Author:James Swallow [Swallow, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Media Tie-In, Adventure
ISBN: 9781451696615
Google: G4YAqB91Q9oC
Amazon: B007MB5Q7M
Barnesnoble: B007MB5Q7M
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2013-03-25T07:00:00+00:00

4

“Oh, come on, Jean-Luc. You can’t be that tired. At least stay awake to the end of the evening!”

His wife’s voice snapped him back to full awareness and he grinned. “I was just thinking . . .” The grin became brittle and faltered. Thinking . . . about what?

Across the table, Beverly’s expression became one of concern. “Is something wrong?”

She looked older and yet she was ageless. Still the brilliant, vital, warm woman he had fallen for so long ago. In that moment, he could not have loved her more. “Nothing is wrong.” He smiled again, taking in the room.

The pavilion erected in the garden was lit by hundreds of flickering candles—the real thing, not holographic, as Beverly had insisted—all of them warding off the sultry shadows of the evening. The smell of cool air, good food, and fine wine was in the atmosphere, and all around, the wedding guests were laughing and joking. A few danced, most talked. The place was joyful.

“As if joy were a tangible thing,” Picard said the words, uncertain of where they had come from.

“Like you could wrap yourself up in it?” asked Beverly, looking at him with a quizzical smile. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“I really don’t know.” It was strange. He was happy, and he wanted to surrender to it . . . but there was something else, a small tug on the edges of his thoughts. As if his spirit were gossamer, wanting to drift freely, but a thread of it lay snagged upon a thorn.

A chair scraped across the brick floor and he turned as his stepson sat down, an easy grin on his face. “Hey, you two.”

“Hello, Wes,” said Beverly, and her face lit up in a way that only her firstborn son could bring out.

Wesley tapped Picard on the shoulder. “Look at you. I never thought civilian life would agree with you so well.”

“And I never thought I’d see you back in a Starfleet uniform.” He nodded at the younger man’s dress whites and the captain’s insignia at his throat. “Plus ça change.” His stepson laughed and for a moment Picard was reminded of Wesley’s father, Jack, when they had both been younger men. If not for the beard, Wes would have been the double of Beverly’s first husband.

“Have you danced with the bride yet?” she asked.

Wesley gave a mock-serious nod. “René was very adamant that I did. Duties of the best man and all that.”

Picard frowned. “I haven’t had the chance yet. . . .” He looked away, across the pavilion to where his son, elegant and tall in his formal tails, was talking animatedly with the Rikers. René’s new wife—my new daughter-in-law, he thought—had her back to him and for one odd, dislocated moment he found he couldn’t recall her face. His son looked so handsome, so confident. Picard felt a great swell of pride for René.

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