by Nora Roberts
coordinate with the local schools, know what teachers are assigning, and see if I can get at least one book club formed within the first six months.”
She picked up her wine. “And that’s just for starters. Mal and Zoe and I will be working together, and ideally we’ll overlap our customer base. You know, somebody comes in for a book and thinks, Wow, look at that terrific blown-glass vase. It’s just perfect for my sister’s birthday. Or someone’s going up to Zoe’s for a haircut and picks up a paperback to read while she’s getting done.”
“Or they come in to look at paintings and decide they could really use a manicure.”
She toasted him, sipped. “That’s the plan.”
“It’s a good one. The three of you look good together. You fit together, complement each other. You’ve all got different styles, but they mesh nicely.”
“Funny, I was thinking almost exactly that just the other day. It’s like if anyone had suggested I’d be going into business—putting basically every penny I have on the line—with two women I’ve known only about a month, I’d have laughed my butt off. But here I am. And it’s right. That’s one thing I’m absolutely sure of.”
“As far as the bookstore goes, I’d bet on you any day of the week.”
“Save your money. I may have to borrow some before it’s done. But following along, tell me what you would look for in a good neighborhood bookstore. From a writer’s perspective.”
Like Dana, he sat back, a signal to the waiter to clear. “You called me a writer without any derogatory adjectives.”
“Don’t get cocky. I’m just maintaining the mood of the evening.”
“Then let’s order dessert and coffee, and I’ll tell you.”
BY the time they were done, she was wishing she’d brought a notebook. He was good, she had to give him that. He touched on aspects she hadn’t thought of, expanded on others that she had.
When they spoke of books themselves, she realized how much she’d missed that perk. Having someone who shared her absolute devotion to stories. To devouring and dissecting them, to savoring and wallowing in them.
“It’s a nice night,” he said as he helped her to her feet. “Why don’t we walk around the grounds before we drive back?”
“Is that your way of saying that I ate so much I need to walk it off?”
“No. It’s my way of stretching out the time I have alone with you.”
“You really have gotten better at this,” she replied as he led her from the room.
Her coat reappeared nearly as quickly as it had been whisked away. And, she noted, Jordan didn’t miss a beat when the maître d’ presented one of his books and asked to have it signed.
He did that well, too, she thought. He kept it light, friendly, added some casual chatter and his thanks for the evening.
“How does it feel?” she asked when they’d stepped outside. “When someone asks you to sign a book?”
“A hell of a lot better than it does if they don’t give a damn.”
“No, seriously. Don’t brush the question off. What’s it like?”
“Satisfying.” Absently, he smoothed down the collar of her coat. “Flattering. Surprising. Unless they’ve got a crazed look in their eye and an unpublished manuscript under their arm.”
“Does that happen?”
“Often enough. But mostly it just feels good. Hey, here’s somebody who’s read my stuff, or is about to. And they think it’d be cool if I signed it.” He shrugged. “What’s not good about that?”
“That’s not very temperamental of you.”
“I’m not a temperamental guy.”
She snorted. “You always used to be.”
“You used to be argumentative and pigheaded.” He smiled broadly when she scowled at him. “See how we’ve changed?”
“I’m just going to let that go, because I’ve had a really good time.” She breathed deep as they wandered a bricked path, and looked up at the thick slice of waxing moon. “Into week two,” she murmured.
“You’re doing fine, Stretch.”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel like I’m getting to the meat of it. Not yet. The days are going by really fast. I’m not panicked or anything,” she added quickly, “but I’ve got serious concerns. So much is depending on me. People I care about. I’m afraid I’ll let them down. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes. You’re not alone in this. The brunt may be on you, but you’re not carrying all the weight.” He laid his hands on her shoulders, drew her toward him a little, until her body rested against his. “I want to help you, Dana.”
She fit well with him. She always had. And her realization of that made little warning bells sound in some dim part of her brain. “We already know you’re connected, somehow or other.”
“I want more.” He bent his head to brush his lips over her shoulder. “And I want you.”
“I’ve got enough to worry about right now.”
“Whether it worries you or not isn’t going to change a thing.” He turned her to face him. “I’m still going to want you. You’re still going to know it.” His lips curved as he ran his hands up and down her arms. “I’ve always liked that look.”
“What look?”
“That mildly irritated look you get when somebody gives you a problem to work out. The one that puts this little crease right here.” He touched his lips to her forehead, just between her eyebrows.
“I thought we were taking a walk.”
“We did. Now I’d say this evening calls for one more thing.”
He loved the way her lips curled just as much as he loved the flicker of surprise over her face when instead of kissing her, he slid her into a slow, swaying dance.
“Pretty clever,” she murmured, but she was moved.
“I always liked dancing with you. The way everything lines up. The way I can smell your hair, your skin. The way, if I get close enough, look close enough, I can see myself in your eyes. Your eyes always did me in. I never told you that, did I?”
“No.” She felt herself tremble, and the warning bells were lost under the thunder of her own heart.
“They did. Still do. Sometimes, when we managed to spend the night together, I’d wake up early to watch you sleep. Just so I could see you open your eyes.”
“It’s not fair.” Her voice shook. “It’s not fair to tell me something like that now.”
“I know. I should’ve told you then. But now’s all I’ve got.”
He touched his lips to hers, rubbed softly. Nipped gently. He felt her body slide toward surrender, and fought the urge to plunder.
He went slowly, for both of them, savoring what they’d once devoured, lingering where once they’d rushed. In the starlight, with her arms lifting to come around him, he wouldn’t allow himself to demand. Instead, he seduced.
He was still circling her in a dance. Or was it just that her head was spinning? His lips were warm, and patient, all the more arousing with the hints of heat and urgency she sensed strapped down inside him.
She sighed, drew him closer. And let him take her deeper.
Soft, slow, moist. The chill of the air against her heated skin, the scent of the night, the whisper of her name through lips moving, moving over her own.
If all the years between had formed a gulf between them, this one kiss in a deserted autumn garden began to forge the bridge.
It was he who drew back, then shook her to the core by grasping both of her hands, bringing them to his lips. “Give me a chance, Dana.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking. No, you don’t,” she said before he could speak. “And I don’t know the answer yet. If you want one that matters, you’re going to have to give me time to figure it out.”
“Okay.” He kept her hands in his, but stepped back. “I’ll wait. But I meant what I said before, about helping you. It hasn’t anything to do with this.”
“I have to think about that, too.”
“All right.”
But
there was one thing she knew, Dana realized as they walked back for his car. She wasn’t still in love with him. They were, as he’d said, different people now. And what she felt for him now made the love she’d had for the boy seem as pale and thin as morning mist.
JORDAN let himself into the house, switched off the porch light. It had been a very long time, he reflected, since anyone had left a light on for him.
His choice, of course. That was what everything came down to. He’d chosen to leave the Valley, to leave Dana, and his friends and all that was familiar.
It had been the right choice; he would stand by that. But he could see now that his method of making it had been the flaw. The flaw that had left a crack in what had been. Just how did a man go about building something new on a faulty foundation?
He started toward the steps, then stopped as Flynn came down them.
“Waiting up for me, Dad? Did I miss curfew?”
“I see your night on the town put you in a cheery mood. Why don’t we step back into my office?”
Without waiting for assent, Flynn strolled back to the kitchen. He took a look around. Okay, it was a hideous room, even he could see that. The ancient copper-tone appliances, the ugly cabinets and linoleum that possibly had looked fresh and jazzy in his grandfather’s generation.
But he still couldn’t visualize how it could, or would, look when Malory got done with it. No more than he could understand why the prospect of ripping it apart and putting it back together made her so happy.
“The guys are coming in Monday to bomb this place.”
“Not a moment too soon,” Jordan commented.
“I was going to get around to it, sooner or later. It wasn’t like I was using it. But since Malory, stuff actually gets cooked in here.” He bumped the stove with his foot. “She has a deep and violent hatred for this appliance. It’s kind of scary.”
“You brought me back here to talk about Malory’s obsession with kitchen appliances?”
“No. I wanted cookies. Malory has this rule against eating them in bed. This is something else I can’t figure,” he continued as he got a bag of Chips Ahoy out of the cupboard. “But I’m an easygoing guy. You want milk?”
“No.”
His friend was wearing gray sweats and a T-shirt that might have been new during his sophomore year of college. His feet were bare, his expression easy.
Looks, Jordan knew, could be very deceiving.
“And you’re not easygoing, Hennessy. You pretend to be easygoing so you can get your own way.”
“I’m not eating these in bed, am I?”
“Small potatoes, son. You got the woman in your bed.”
“Yeah.” Grinning, Flynn poured a glass of milk, then sat down, stretched out his legs. “I do. Of course, she’s up there reading instead of offering me intriguing and varied sexual favors, but I can bide my time.”
Jordan sat. Flynn, he knew from long experience, would get to his point eventually. “So, you want to talk about your sex life? Is this going to be a bragging session, or are you looking for advice?”
“I’d rather do it than brag about it, and I’m doing just fine on my own. But thanks for the offer.” He dunked a cookie. “So, how’s Dana?”
And there would be the point, Jordan thought. “A little anxious about the task at hand, I’d say, but diving in headfirst. You must have seen the mountain range of books she’s hiking through when you dropped off Moe.”
“Yeah, I got eyestrain just thinking about reading half of them. And otherwise?”
“It looks like she’s steadied herself after what happened to her the other night. She may be spooked by it, but she’s just as curious. You know how she is.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Why don’t you just ask me how things are with us?”
“And pry into your private and personal lives? Me?”
“Up yours, Hennessy.”
“Wow, that was so creative, so succinct. I immediately see why you’re a successful novelist.”
“Sideways.” And though he had absolutely no desire for one, Jordan pulled a cookie from the bag. “I screwed up with her, all those years ago. ‘I’m going, it’s been fun, see you around.’ ”
It caused a low burn in his gut to remember it now.
“Maybe not that cut and dried, but close enough.” He bit into the cookie as he studied his friend’s face. “Did I screw up with you, too?”
“Maybe some.” Flynn nudged Malory’s pretty candle aside so he could move the cookie bag between them. “I can’t say I didn’t feel a little deserted when you took off, but I got why you had to leave. Hell, I was planning on doing the same myself.”
“The business exec, the struggling writer, and the dedicated reporter. Hell of a trio.”
“Yeah, we all got there, too, didn’t we? One way or the other. I never left the Valley to do it, but I thought I was going to, so I could look at you, and Brad, as sort of the advance guard. But then again, I wasn’t sleeping with you.”
“She was in love with me.”
Flynn waited a beat, absorbed the baffled frustration on Jordan’s face. “What, did that lightbulb just go off? You’ve got some faulty wiring in there, pal.”
“I knew she loved me.” Disgusted, Jordan shoved up to get a glass of milk after all. “Hell, Flynn, we all loved each other. We were as much family as any who share blood. I didn’t know it was the big L for her. How the hell is a guy supposed to know that sort of thing unless the woman looks him in the eye and says, ‘I’m in love with you, you asshole.’ Which would,” he continued, working up to fury, “have been something you’d expect from Dana. That’s just how she does things. But she didn’t, so I didn’t know. And I’m the slug because of it.”
Because he’d been concerned by Jordan’s steady cool, the spike of temper relieved him. “Yeah, but you’re a slug for a lot of reasons. I could write up a list.”
“The one I’d write up on you would be longer,” Jordan muttered.
“Great, a contest.” Not just angry, Flynn noted as he studied Jordan’s face, but unhappy. Still, it had to be finished out, had to be said.
“Look, when Lily dumped me and took off for fame and fortune in the big bad city, it hurt. And I wasn’t in love with her. You and Brad had that one right. But I thought I was, I was ready to be, and her brushing me off messed me up. Dana was in love with you. You’ve got to expect that your going, whatever your reasons, messed her up.”
Jordan sat again, thoughtfully broke a cookie in two. “You’re telling me not to mess her up again.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”
Chapter Nine
DANA tried working off her sexual and emotional frustration with the books. She focused on the goal, and spent half the night sifting through data, words, notes, and her own speculations about the location of the key.
Her primary reward was a massive headache.
What little sleep she managed to get was restless and unsatisfying. When even Moe failed to perk up her morning mood, she decided to give physical labor a try.
She dropped Moe back at Flynn’s by simply opening the front door with her key and letting him bullet inside. Since it was still short of nine of a Sunday morning, she imagined the household was sleeping.
In her current mood, the machine-gun barking that sprayed through the quiet as Moe charged up the stairs made her lips curve in a dark, wicked smile.
“You go, Moe,” she cheered, shut the door, and strolled back to her car.
She drove directly to the building. Indulgence, she corrected herself as she parked. It was going to be Indulgence, so she needed to start thinking of it that way instead of as “the house” or “the building.”
When she unlocked the door and stepped inside, the strong smell of fresh paint hit her. It was a good smell, she decided. The smell of progress, of newness, of accomplishment.
Maybe the white primer wasn’t pretty, but it was sure as hell bright, and looking at it, she could s
ee just how far they’d come already.
“So let’s keep going.”
She pushed up her sleeves and headed to the supplies and tools.
It occurred to her that this was the first time, the only time, she’d been alone here. On the heels of that came the thought that maybe she was asking for trouble being alone in a place where Kane had already wielded his sorcery.
She glanced uneasily up the steps. And thought of cold blue mist. As if the chill of it crept over her skin, she shuddered.
“I can’t be afraid to be here.” The way her voice echoed made her wish she’d brought along a radio. Anything to fill the silence with normal sound.
Won’t be afraid to be here, she corrected herself as she opened a can of paint. How could she, or any of them, make this place their own if they were afraid to come into it alone?
There were bound to be times when one of them came in early or stayed late. The three of them couldn’t be attached at the hip. She—all of them—would have to get used to the quiet of the place, and the settling noises. Normal quiet, normal noises, she assured herself. Hell, she liked being alone and having a big, empty house all to herself. It was tailor-made Dana time.
The memory of Kane’s nasty games wasn’t going to scare her off.
And since she was alone, she didn’t have to compete for the super paint machine.
Still, as she began to work she wished she could hear Malory’s and Zoe’s voices, as she had before, turning all those empty rooms into something bright and cheerful.
She comforted herself that they’d finished priming Malory’s section and had a good start on hers. It would be a kick to finish her own space with her own hands.
She could begin to play with different setups in her head. Should she shelve mysteries here, or was this a better spot for nonfiction? Local interest?
Wouldn’t it be fun to display coffee-table books on, ha ha, a coffee table?
Maybe she could find an old breakfront somewhere for the café section. She could display tins of tea, mugs, books. Should she go with those cute round tables that reminded her of an ice cream parlor, or the more substantial square ones? Wouldn’t this room be the perfect place to set up a cozy reading corner, or would it be smarter to use that space for a small children’s play area?
It was therapeutic to watch the clean white paint cover the dull beige, stroke by stroke marking the room as her own. No one could push her out of here as she’d been pushed out of the library. She was working for herself this time, and setting the rules herself.
No one could cut her off from this dream, from this love, as she’d been cut off from other dreams. From other loves.
“Do you think it matters? A little shop in a little town? Will you work, struggle, worry, pour your mind and your heart into something so meaningless? And why? Because you have nothing else.
“But you could.”
She felt the cold shiver over her skin. It made her breath come too fast, tightened the muscles of her stomach toward pain. She continued to paint, guiding the roller over the wall, listening to the faint hum of the motor. She couldn’t seem to stop.
“It matters to me. I know what I want.”
“Do you?”
He was there, somehow there. She could sense him in the chill. Perhaps he was the chill.
“A place of your own. You thought you had one before, all those years of work, of serving others. Yet does anyone care that you’re gone?”
It was a well-aimed arrow. Had anyone even noticed she was no longer at the library? All the people she’d worked with, worked for? All the patrons she’d helped? Had she been so replaceable that her absence hadn’t caused a single ripple?
Hadn’t she mattered at all?