by Nora Roberts
brilliant smile. “I don’t mind it at all. In fact, if you would put that on my finger, I’d like it to be the only thing I’m wearing for the next few minutes.” Holding out her hand, she took one quick, catchy breath. “I’d really love to wear that ring. I’d love to marry you, and all the rest of it, too.”
He took it out, set the box aside, then lifted her left hand. “This is one more beginning for us.”
“I’m looking forward to the rest of them.”
He slipped the ring on her finger. There was a little buzz of heat, then a lovely spread of warmth where the gold circled her finger. “It’s beautiful. It even fits.”
“Yeah? None of us knew your ring size, so that’s a bonus.” He turned her hand, watched the stone sparkle. “It looks good on you.”
She rose to her toes, took his mouth with hers. “You’re so full of surprises.”
“You’ve got that right. I might as well tell you the next one. I bought—or I’m buying—Warrior’s Peak.”
She blinked twice, very slowly. “Sorry. I thought you said you were buying the Peak.”
“That’s right. I want us to live there. I want us to make a family there.”
“You . . .” Though her knees wobbled, she didn’t give in and sit down again. “You’re not going back to New York?”
“Of course I’m not going back to New York.” Bafflement moved over his face. “How the hell am I supposed to be married to you and live in New York while you run a business in the Valley? Dana.”
“I thought . . . It’s where you live.”
He cupped her chin, unsure if he was impatient or amused. “You think I’d ask you to move to New York, throw away your store before it even gets started? I was never planning to go back there to live anyway, but if I had been, this would’ve changed it.”
“You weren’t going back?”
“No. There was a time when I had to leave. This was the time when I had to come back. I need to be here. I need to be with you.”
“I would’ve gone with you,” she managed. “I want points for that.”
“We’re not going anywhere. If the Peak doesn’t suit you, we’ll—”
“You’re just trying to get points back.” Overcome, she laughed and threw her arms around him. “You know it suits me. God, this is fantastic. It’s amazing. But please tell me that’s the last surprise. My head’s going to spin right off my shoulders.”
“That’s pretty much it for now.”
“Let’s get dressed, get over to Flynn’s.” She pressed her hands palm to palm and stared at her ring. “I can’t wait to tell everyone.”
“Flynn and Brad already know.”
“Men.” She flicked them away with a wave as she walked into the bedroom. “They don’t know anything. Boy, oh, boy, wait until Malory and Zoe get a load of this ring! I’ve got to find a really cool outfit to set it off.”
“I like the one you’re wearing now.”
She shot a look over her shoulder before she dived into her closet. “See? Men don’t know anything.”
Chapter Eighteen
WHEN Moe dragged Flynn into the house, they heard the single, high-pitched scream. Moe bared his teeth, Flynn bared his, and they raced toward the kitchen prepared to taste blood.
Malory stood in the center of the room, her hands crossed over her heart, laughing like an idiot.
“Where is he? What did he do? Son of a bitch.”
“Who?” Malory braced herself for Moe’s leap of love but wasn’t prepared to have Flynn lift her off her feet. “What?”
“You were screaming.”
“Oh. Okay, Moe, down you go. Flynn, put me down. I’m fine, I’m perfectly fine.” Other than the fact that she was flushed with embarrassment and trying not to giggle. “I thought I was alone.”
Reaction set in and made Flynn short of breath. He dropped Malory back on her feet with a little thump as his arms started to tremble. “You stand in the kitchen and scream when you think you’re alone?”
“Well, not usually. But look! Just look.” She did a fast-time step, followed by a neat little pirouette.
Clueless, Flynn tried again. “You’ve realized you want to fulfill a childhood dream and become a dancing star of stage and screen?”
“No!” With a laugh, she whirled Flynn into a circle that had Moe leaping again. “Look. We have a floor. A wonderful, beautiful hardwood floor.”
She executed what Flynn thought might be some sort of clog dance. “Sounds like wood, all right.”
“No more ugly linoleum for us. And look at this!” She whirled away from him and embraced the glossy new side-by-side refrigerator with the passion of a woman greeting a lover returning from the war. “Isn’t it wonderful? And see how it matches this?”
While Flynn watched, she spun to the range.
“It’s so beautiful.” She crooned it now. “So shiny and clean. And everything works. I tried all the buttons and dials, and it works! I actually can’t wait to cook something. I walked in, saw all this, and I just had to scream. They put in the floor, Flynn, and brought in the appliances. See the new microwave?”
“Very sexy.”
“It is.” Whirling into a dance again, she tried out a rhumba. “And we have pretty new cabinets with pretty glass fronts. I’m going to put pretty dishes in them, and sparkly glasses. It’s a kitchen. An actual kitchen.”
He was getting it now, and the charge of watching her revel. She’d switched from the rhumba to . . . he wasn’t sure what. But she looked really cute. “What was it before?”
“There is no name for what it was before. I’m so happy. I’m so grateful. You’re the most wonderful man in the world.” She caught his face in her hands and kissed him. “And I’m a terrible person.”
“Why? Not the ‘I’m wonderful’ part, because, hey. But why are you a terrible person?”
“Because I wouldn’t move in with you before you did this. I made the kitchen a kind of exchange. Remodel the kitchen and I’ll live with you. It was selfish. It worked,” she added, raining kisses over his face. “But it was selfish. You’re doing this for me. I know I said I wouldn’t move in until it was finished, and I even made snarky comments about the lamps up in the bedroom.”
“Something about not being fit to light a cave inhabited by bats and blind spiders.”
“Yes, that was one of them. Anyway, forgive me?”
“Okay.”
“I know it’s not quite finished. There’s still the counters and the backsplash and, oh, a few more things, but I don’t want to wait anymore. I’ll move in tomorrow, and we can start, officially, living together.”
“I don’t want to live together.”
Her face went blank.
“What?”
“Sorry, Mal.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I don’t want to live together.”
“But . . . but you asked me to move in with you weeks ago. You’ve asked me half a dozen times.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “I changed my mind.”
“You—you changed your mind?”
“That’s right.” Casually, he opened the new refrigerator. “Wow. Look at all this room. And it is shiny.”
She couldn’t do anything but stare at him. Her stomach had dropped to her feet, and those feet no longer felt like dancing. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you could just change your mind about something like this, from one minute to the next.”
“Me either. Actually, I don’t think I really changed it, I think I just realized it wasn’t what I wanted.”
“You just realized you don’t want me.” There was too much shock, too much anger for the pain to fight through. So she rode on the shock and the anger and stepped forward to give him a hard shove. “Well, that’s just fine.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want you. I said I didn’t want to live together.”
“You can take your new kitchen and stuff it. If you can’t handle a committed, adult relationship then you can’t han
dle me.”
“There you go, we’re right on the same page. Committed, adult relationship.” He pulled the box from his pocket, opened it. “This adult enough for you?”
Her mouth dropped open, and he thought she’d never looked more beautiful as she stared down, dumbstruck, at the diamond ring.
“Let’s be really grown-up, Malory. Let’s get married.”
“You want to marry me?”
“I do. Look, I already know my lines.” He grinned at her. “You look a little pale. I’m going to take that as a good sign. The jeweler said this was a classic, and Brad gave it a thumbs-up.” Flynn removed the ring from the box. “Brilliant-cut solitaire, blah-blah, whatever. You go for the classic look, right?”
A latch kept trying to slam shut in her throat, but she forced it open. “Yes, I do.”
“There, you know your lines, too.” He took her limp hand, slipped the ring on before she could say another word. “It fits. I didn’t think it would, you’ve got such delicate fingers, but it looks like we won’t have to have it sized after all.”
She felt the snap of heat, the spread of warmth from the gold circling her skin. Yes, it fit, she thought dreamily. It looked as if it had been made for her finger. “It’s beautiful. It’s absolutely beautiful.”
“You could say yes now.”
She looked up from the ring, into his eyes. “Life’s going to be a roller coaster with you. I used to be afraid of roller coasters because you just never know what they’re going to do next. They don’t scare me anymore.”
“Say yes. I’ll get rid of the lamps.”
On something between a sob and a laugh, she leaped into his arms. “Yes. You know it’s yes, even with the ugly lamps.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” With her cheek pressed to his, she held up her ring hand and watched the diamond glitter. “How could the same man who bought this gorgeous ring have bought those hideous lamps?”
“The many sides of Flynn Hennessy.”
“Lucky for me.” She heard the front door open and moved nearly as fast as Moe. “Oh, they’re coming. I have to show it off.” She pushed away from Flynn, then nipped back to kiss him again. “I have to show somebody.”
She hurried toward the front of the house, even as Dana hurried toward the back with Zoe at her heels.
“What is it?” Zoe demanded.
“Have to show you both at once. Boy, have I got news for you,” Dana said when Malory rushed toward her.
“Whatever it is, it can’t top mine. I’ve got news for you.”
Zoe pushed between them. “Jeez, somebody tell somebody something before I explode.”
“Me first,” Dana and Malory said in unison, then both held out their left hands.
There were screams, followed by a burst of unintelligible words. At least they were unintelligible to the three men and a boy who looked on.
Simon watched his mother and her two friends jump and squeal like the girls did on the playground at school. Wrinkling his brow, he looked up at Brad.
“How come they do that?”
“It’s just one of the many mysteries of life, kid.”
“Girls are dopey.” He clapped for the dog, who was blindly joining in the female ecstasy, and hunkered down for some wrestling.
Flynn looked past the women to Jordan. “Beer?” he asked.
“Beer,” Jordan agreed, and skirted the madness to seek the relative sanity of the kitchen.
“I can’t believe it!” Zoe gripped both Malory’s and Dana’s hands and bounced on her toes. “Engaged! You’re both engaged. At the same time. It’s like magic. The rings. They’re so beautiful. Oh, boy.” She dug into her pocket for a tissue.
“Sheesh. Mom, get a grip.”
Zoe sent her son a glare. “I’ll give you a grip.”
He snorted, rolled with a delighted Moe. “Are we getting pizza, or what?”
“Why don’t you go back in the kitchen and ask Flynn? Politely,” she added as he scrambled up.
“I’ve got to show you the kitchen,” Malory remembered. “But first.” She grabbed Dana’s hand again to admire the ruby. “It’s gorgeous. So perfect for you.”
“So’s he. Wait until I tell you how he asked me.”
“I can top it,” Malory claimed.
“Were you naked?”
“No.”
Dana licked a finger, swiped it down an imaginary scoreboard. “I win.”
“Mom!” Simon shouted from the kitchen door. “The guys say if you all want pizza you have to say what kind, or else you have to take what you get.”
“Tell you what.” Zoe draped an arm around her friends’ shoulders. “When we don’t have a bunch of guys cluttering things up, you can tell me, and each other, every detail. We’ll have a little celebration at Indulgence in the morning.”
“Works for me,” Dana agreed. “I’m starved, and I don’t want a bunch of onions and mushrooms messing up my pie.”
AN hour later, Dana was polishing off her third piece. She stretched out on the floor beside Simon and Moe and said, “Ugh.”
“On that note,” Flynn began, “let’s talk about finding this key.”
“Simon, why don’t you take your book upstairs? That’s all right, isn’t it?” Zoe asked Flynn.
“Sure. He knows the way.”
“You and Moe can hang out. I’ll call you when it’s time to go.”
“How come we can’t hang out here while you talk about the magic stuff?”
“Where do you get that?” Zoe demanded. “Simon, have you been eavesdropping?”
“Jeez, Mom.” He sent her an insulted, sulky frown. “I don’t have to go sneaking around, I just have to have ears.” He pinched them between his fingers, wiggled them. “Hey, look! I’ve got two of them.”
“We’ll talk about your ears later. Upstairs, to that horrible prison with a TV and a dog. You can write a letter of complaint to your congressman tomorrow.”
“Man.” Though his lips twitched, he rolled his eyes for form, then they widened and focused on what Brad held in his hand. “Holy Cow! WWF Smackdown!”
“Maybe you want to borrow it, take it for a few rounds.”
“Yeah? Smackdown! It really kicks—” He caught himself, swallowed back the word that would get him in serious hot water with his mother. “Really kicks,” he amended. “Thanks.”
“No problem. This way when we go mano a mano and I humiliate you, you won’t be able to whine that you didn’t get to practice.”
“Yeah, sure, right.” Simon took the video disk. “This is so way cool. Thanks.”
He streaked off, hooking his book bag under one arm and calling for Moe.
Zoe folded her hands in her lap. “That was very nice of you.”
“He may not think so when I trounce him in the upcoming match.”
“I don’t want you to feel obligated to—”
“I don’t.” Brad cut her off, coolly, firmly, then deliberately looked at Dana. “You want to get this rolling?”
“As long as I can start it from the supine position. As previously discussed, Jordan wrote up the sequence of events.”
“He gave me a copy,” Malory interrupted. “And I made copies for everyone. I’ll go get them.”
“She’s something, isn’t she?” Dana commented as Malory left the room. “Our own Debbie Detail. Since Mal’s already read it, and the rest of you will, I’ll just say that it puts everything into a comprehensive and cohesive form. It’s helpful to see just how everything’s unfolded to this point. Malory, Zoe, and I getting the invitation to Warrior’s Peak, meeting there for the first time. Our first contact with Rowena and Pitte, and hearing the story of the Daughters of Glass. Though we didn’t know they were called that until Flynn stepped in.”
“There’s the way Flynn met Malory, and became a part of the quest,” Jordan continued. “The fact that each of you was at a crossroads, jobwise.”
“We were in trouble, jobwise,” Zoe correcte
d. “And that made the offer of twenty-five thousand dollars for agreeing to look for keys—keys I don’t think any of us really believed in—that first night too tempting to pass up.”
“It’s more than that.” Malory came back in and distributed manila envelopes, neatly labeled with names. “There was the financial incentive, yes. But there was also a sense of mutual frustration, of being in flux, not knowing what we were going to do next. And that almost instant connection between us. Jordan caught that, very clearly, in writing it out.”
“Add to that how those tendrils spread out,” Dana went on. “How they hooked Jordan and Brad in. Connecting them to us, to the quest, to Rowena and Pitte, and to the daughters. I think that’s an important point. Each of us has a role, each of us has to be here for this thing to go through.”
“Then there’s Kane.” Malory slid her copy out of the envelope. “The way you describe him, Jordan, it’s so spooky—and so accurate. As if you’d seen him through my eyes.”
“Seeing him through my own was enough. I think we need to look at him as more than the bogeyman, more than a foe. He’s another element to the quest.”
“I agree with that.” Brad nodded. “He’s as essential to this as the rest of us are. In the end, I think, it’s not going to be just a matter of outwitting him, as Malory did, or twisting his game to our advantage, as Dana’s done so far. It’s going to be a matter of destroying him.”
“How do you destroy a god?” Zoe demanded.
“I don’t know, but first I’d say by believing you can do it.”
“Maybe. But right now I’ll settle for getting my hands on the key.” Dana sat up. “I’ve only got a few more days. And here’s what I know. While I may have to find it on my own, Jordan is essential to the search. Kane has tried to separate us or pull us apart, and it’s not just because he doesn’t want us to live happily ever after. What he did, however, was push us closer together. He’s not going to be pleased by that.”
She reached over, peeled a round of pepperoni off a slice of pizza and nibbled. “And he miscalculated by showing me the past. That was one of the steps I had to take, and might not have, at least not as decisively, if he hadn’t thrown me back in time. Past, present, and future. I’ve resolved and accepted the past, I’ve made my peace with the present, and . . .”
She held up her ring hand. “I’m looking toward the future. This is important stuff, not only to me personally but to what I’m meant to do. One of the constants in those three time frames is Jordan.”
“Thanks, Stretch.”
“Don’t get all puffed up. Some of this is just fate. Now if you read some of this stuff . . .” She plucked the copy out of Malory’s hands. “You start to feel it, see it, even if you weren’t part of that particular event. You get a good, clear picture. Here—that blue fog that took over Indulgence. The bone marrow chill of it, the oddness of the light, the color, the texture. You start to feel it creeping over your skin.”
“Writer’s tools,” Jordan said.
“Yeah, and you’re damn good with them.”
“Excuse me?”
Mildly annoyed with the interruption, she glanced up to see him staring at her with a kind of narrowed intensity that brought heat to her face. “I said you were good. So what?”
“So . . . there’s a first time for everything. Need another drink,” he said and walked out of the room.
Dana shifted, then huffed out a breath. “Short break,” she announced, and