by Nora Roberts
“You know best. Let me tell you something, as a woman.” Her lips curved. “As a witch. Knowing, not knowing, makes no difference with a man, once he touches your heart. No difference at all.”
Ana nodded. “Then I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t touch mine until I’m ready.”
* * *
“This is incredible,” Boone was saying as he surveyed Wicca. “Just incredible.”
“I thought so, too, the first time I walked in.” Nash picked up a crystal wand tipped at the end with a spear of amethyst. “I guess people in our line of work are suckers for this stuff.”
“Fairy tales,” Boone agreed, accepting the wand before running a finger over a bronze cast of a snarling wolf. “Or the occult. A fine line between the two. Your last movie chilled my blood even when it made me laugh.”
Nash grinned. “The humor in horror.”
“Nobody does it better.” He glanced over at his daughter. She was staring at a miniature silver castle surrounded by a moat of rainbow glass, her eyes huge, her hands behind her back. “I’ll never get out of here empty-handed.”
“She’s beautiful,” Nash said, wondering, as he often did, about the children that would be his before much longer.
“Looks like her mother.” He saw the question and the concern in his friend’s eyes. “Grief passes, Nash, whether you want it to or not. Alice was a wonderful part of my life, and she gave me the best thing in it. I’m grateful for every moment I had with her.” He set the wand down. “Now I’d like to know how you—the world’s most determined bachelor—came to be married and expecting twins.”
“Research.” Nash grinned and rocked back on his heels. “I wanted to get out of L.A., and keep within commuting distance. I’d only been here a short time when I needed to do some research on a script. I walked in here, and there she was.”
There was more, of course. A great deal more. But it wasn’t Nash’s place to tell Boone about the Donovan legacy. Not even if Boone would have believed him.
“When you decide to take the plunge, you take it big.”
“You, too. Indiana’s a long way from here.”
“I didn’t want to be able to commute,” Boone said with a grimace. “My parents, Alice’s parents. Jessie and I were becoming their life’s work. And I wanted a change, for both of us.”
“Next door to Ana, huh?” Nash narrowed his eyes. “The redwood place, with all the glass and decks?”
“That’s the one.”
“Good choice.” He glanced toward Jessie again. She’d wandered around the shop and had worked her way back to the little castle. She hadn’t once asked for it, and that made the naked desire in her eyes all the more effective. “If you don’t buy her that, I will.”
* * *
When Ana came out to restock a few shelves for Morgana, she saw not only the silver castle being rung up on the counter, but the wand, a three-foot sculpture of a winged fairy she’d had her eye on herself, a crystal sun-catcher in the shape of a unicorn, a pewter wizard holding a many-faceted ball, and a baseball-sized geode.
“We’re weak,” Boone said with a quick, sheepish grin as Ana lifted a brow. “No willpower.”
“But excellent taste.” She ran a fingertip over the fairy wings. “Lovely, isn’t she?”
“One of the best I’ve seen. I figured I’d put her in my office for inspiration.”
“Good idea.” She bent over a compartment containing tumbling stones. “Malachite, for clear thinking.” Her fingers walked through the smooth stones, testing, rejecting, selecting. “Sodalite to relieve mental confusion, moonstone for sensitivity. Amethyst, of course, for intuition.”
“Of course.”
She ignored him. “A crystal for all-around good things.” Tilting her head, she studied him. “Jessie says you’re trying to quit smoking.”
He shrugged. “I’m cutting down.”
She handed him the crystal. “Keep it in your pocket. Tumbling stones are on the house.” When she turned away with her colorful bottles, he picked up the crystal and rubbed it with his fingers.
It couldn’t hurt.
* * *
He didn’t believe in magic crystals or stone power—though he did think they had plot possibilities. Boone also had to admit they looked kind of nice in the little bowl on his desk. Atmosphere, he thought, like the geode he’d bought to use as a paperweight.
All in all, the afternoon had had several benefits. He and Jessie had enjoyed themselves thoroughly, riding the carousel at the Emporium, playing video games, just walking down Cannery Row and Fisherman’s Wharf. Running into Anastasia had been a plus, he mused as he toyed with the creamy moonstone. And seeing Nash again, discovering that he lived in the same area, was gold.
He’d been missing male companionship. Funny, he hadn’t realized it, as busy as his life had been over the past few months, with planning the move, executing the move, adjusting to the move. And Nash, though their friendship had primarily been through correspondence over the years, was exactly the kind of companion Boone preferred. Easygoing, loyal, imaginative.
It would be a kick to be able to pass on a few fatherly hints to Nash once his twins were born.
Oh, yeah, he reflected as he held up the moonstone, watching it gleam in the bright wash of moonlight through his office window, it certainly was a small and fascinating world.
One of his oldest friends, married to the cousin of the woman next door. It would certainly be hard for Anastasia to avoid him now.
And, no matter what she said, that was exactly what she’d been doing. He had a very strong feeling—and he couldn’t help being a bit smug about it—that he was making the fair maiden nervous.
He’d nearly forgotten what it was like to approach a woman who reacted with faint blushes, confused eyes and rapid pulses. Most of the women he’d escorted over the past couple of years had been sleek and sophisticated—and safe, he added with a little shrug. He’d enjoyed their companionship, and he’d never lost his basic enjoyment of female company. But there’d been no tug, no mystery, no illusion.
He supposed he was still the kind of man attracted to the old-fashioned type. The roses-and-moonlight type, he thought with a half laugh. Then he saw her, and the laugh caught in his throat.
Down in her garden, walking, almost gliding through the silvery light, with the gray cat slipping in and out of the shadows. Her hair loose, sprinkling gold dust down her back and over the sheer shoulders of a pale blue robe. She carried a basket, and he thought he could hear her singing as she cut flowers and slipped them into it.
She was singing an old chant that had been passed down generation to generation. It was well past midnight, and Ana thought herself alone and unobserved. The first night of the full moon in autumn was the time to harvest, just as the first night of the full moon in spring was the time to sow. She had already cast the circle, purifying the area.
She laid the flowers and herbs in the basket as gently as children.
There was magic in her eyes. In her blood.
“Under the moon, through shadow and light, these blooms I chose by touch, by sight. Spells to weave to ease and free. As I will, so mote it be.”
She plucked betony and heliotrope, dug mandrake root and selected tansy and balsam. Blood roses for strength, and sage for wisdom. The basket grew heavy and fragrant.
“Tonight to reap, tomorrow to sow. To take only that which I’ve caused to grow. Remembering always what is begun. To serve, to aid, an it harm none.”
As the charm was cast, she lowered her face to the blooms, drawing in the ripe melody of the fragrance.
“I wondered if you were real.”
Her head came up quickly, and she saw him, hardly more than a shadow by the hedge. Then he stepped through, into her garden, and became a man.
The heart that had leapt to her throat gradually settled again. “You startled me.”
“I’m sorry.” It must be the moonlight, he thought, that made her look so … enchanting. “I
was working late, and I looked out and saw you. It seemed late to be picking flowers.”
“There’s a lot of moonlight.” She smiled. He had seen nothing it wasn’t safe for him to see. “I would think you’d know that anything picked under the full moon is charmed.”
He returned the smile. “Got any rampion?”
The reference to Rapunzel made her laugh. “As a matter of fact, I do. No magic garden is complete without it. I’ll pot some for you, if you like.”
“I rarely say no to magic.” The breeze fluttered her hair. Giving in to the moment, he reached out, took a handful. He watched the smile in her eyes fade. What replaced it had his blood singing.
“You should go in. Jessie’s alone.”
“She’s asleep.” He moved closer, as if the hair he’d twined around his finger were a rope and she were drawing him to her. He was within the circle now, within the magic she’d cast. “The windows are open, so I’d hear her if she called for me.”
“It’s late.” Ana gripped the basket so tightly that the wicker dug into her skin. “I need to …”
Gently he took the basket and set it on the ground. “So do I.” His other hand moved into her hair, combing it back from her face. “Very much.”
As he lowered his mouth toward hers, she shivered and tried one last time to take control. “Boone, starting something like this could complicate things for all of us.”
“Maybe I’m tired of things being simple.” But he turned his head, just a fraction, so that his lips cruised up her cheek, over her temple. “I’m surprised you don’t know that when a man finds a woman picking flowers in the moonlight, he has no choice but to kiss her.”
She felt her bones melting. Her body was pliant when she slipped into his arms. “And she has no choice but to want him to.”
Her head fell back, and she offered. He thought he would take gently. The night seemed to call for it, with its perfumed breezes and the dreamy music of sea against rock. The woman in his arms was wand-slender, and the thin silk of her robe was cool over the warmth of satin skin.
But as he felt himself sink into that soft, lush mouth, as her fragrance whispered seductively around him, he dragged her hard against him and plundered.
Instantly desperate, instantly greedy. No rational thought could fight its way through the maze of sensations she brought to him. A sharp arrow of hunger pierced him, bringing on a groan that was only part pleasure.
Pain. He felt the aches of a thousand pricks of pain. Yet he couldn’t pull himself away from her, couldn’t stop his mouth from seeking more of hers. He was afraid, afraid that if he released her she would disappear like smoke—and he would never, never feel this way again.
She couldn’t soothe him. Part of her wanted to stroke him and ease him and promise him that it would be all right, for both of them. But she couldn’t. He devastated her. Whether it was her own grinding needs, the echo of his need seeping into her or a mix of both, the result was a complete loss of will.
She had known, yes, she had known that this first meeting would be wild and strong. She’d craved it even as she’d feared it. Now she was beyond fear. Like him, she found the mixture of pain and pleasure irresistible.
Her trembling hands skimmed over his face, into his hair and locked there. Her body, shuddering from the onslaught, pressed urgently to his. When she murmured his name, she was breathless.
But he heard her, heard her through the blood pounding in his head, heard that soft, shaky sound. She was trembling—or he was. The uncertainty about who was more dazed had him slowly, carefully drawing away.
He held her still, his hands on her shoulders, his gaze on her face. In the moonlight, she could see herself there, trapped in that sea of blue. Trapped in him.
“Boone …”
“Not yet.” He needed a moment to steady himself. By God, he’d nearly swallowed her whole. “Not just yet.” Holding himself back, he touched his lips to hers, lightly, in a long, quiet kiss that wrecked whatever was left of her defenses. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.” She pressed her lips together and tried to bring her voice over a whisper. “You didn’t hurt me. You staggered me.”
“I thought I was ready for this.” He ran his hands down her arms before he released her. “I don’t know if anyone could be.” Because he wasn’t sure what would happen if he touched her again, he slipped his hands into his pockets. “Maybe it’s the moonlight, maybe it’s just you. I have to be straight with you, Anastasia, I don’t know quite how to handle this.”
“Well.” She wrapped her arms tight and cupped her elbows. “That makes two of us.”
“If it wasn’t for Jessie, you wouldn’t go into that house alone tonight. And I don’t take intimacy lightly.”
Steadier now, she nodded. “If it wasn’t for Jessie, I might ask you to stay with me tonight.” She took a long breath. She knew it was important to be honest, at least in this. “You would be my first.”
“Your—” His hands went limp. Now he felt both a lick of fear and an incredible excitement at the thought of her innocence. “Oh, God.”
Her chin came up. “I’m not ashamed of it.”
“No, I didn’t mean …” Speechless, he dragged a hand through his hair. Innocent. A golden-haired virgin in a thin blue robe with flowers at her feet. And a man was supposed to resist, and walk away alone. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what that does to a man.”
“Not precisely, since I’m not a man.” She bent down for her basket. “But I do know what realizing that you may soon be giving yourself for the first time does to a woman. So it seems to me we should both give this some clear thinking.” She smiled, or tried to. “And it’s very difficult to think clearly after midnight, when the moon’s full and the flowers are ripe. I’ll say good night, Boone.”
“Ana.” He touched her arm, but didn’t hold on. “Nothing will happen until you’re ready.”
She shook her head. “Yes, it will. But nothing will happen unless it’s meant.”
With her robe billowing around her, she raced toward the house.
Chapter 5
Sleep had been a long time coming. Boone hadn’t tossed and turned so much as lain, staring up at the ceiling. He’d watched the moonlight fade into that final deep darkness before dawn.
Now, with the sun streaming in bright ribbons over the bed, he was facedown, spread out and fast asleep. In the dream floating through his brain, he scooped Ana into his arms and carried her up a long curved staircase of white marble. At the top, suspended above puffy cotton clouds, was an enormous bed pooled in waterfalls of white satin. Hundreds of long, slender candles burned in a drifting light. He could smell them—the soft tang of vanilla, the mystique of jasmine. And her—that quietly sexy scent that went everywhere with her.
She smiled. Hair like sunlight. Eyes like smoke. When he laid her on the bed, they sank deep, as if into the clouds themselves. There was harpsong, romantic as tears, and a whisper that was nothing more than the clouds themselves breathing.
As her arms lifted, wound around him, they were floating, like ghosts in some fantasy, bound together by needs and knowledge and the unbearable sweetness of that first long, lingering kiss. Her mouth moved under his, yielding as she murmured …
“Daddy!”
Boone came awake with a crash as his daughter landed with a thump on his back. His unintelligible grunt had her giggling and scooting down to smack a kiss on his stubbled cheek.
“Daddy, wake up! I fixed you breakfast!”
“Breakfast.” He grumbled into the pillow, struggling to clear the sleep from his throat and the dream from his system. “What time is it?”
“The little hand’s on the ten, and the big hand’s on the three. I made cinnamon toast and poured orange juice in the little glasses.”
He grunted again, rolling over to peer through gritty eyes at Jessie. She looked bright as a sunbeam in her pink cotton blouse and shorts. She’d done the buttons up wrong, but s
he’d brushed the tangles from her hair. “How long have you been up?”
“Hours and hours and hours. I let Daisy outside and gave her breakfast. And I got dressed all by myself and brushed my teeth and watched cartoons. Then I got hungry, so I fixed breakfast.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Uh-huh. And I was real quiet, too, so you didn’t have to wake up early on your sleep-in day.”
“You were real quiet,” Boone agreed, and reached up to fix her buttons. “I guess you deserve a prize.”
Her eyes lit. “What? What do I get?”
“How about a pink belly?” He rolled with her on the bed, wrestling while she squealed and wriggled. He let her win, pretending exhaustion and defeat when she bounced on his back. “Too tough for me.”
“That’s ’cause I eat my vegetables. You don’t.”
“I eat some.”
“Uh-uh, hardly any.”
“When you get to be thirty-three, you won’t have to eat your brussels sprouts, either.”
“But I like them.”
He grinned into the pillow. “That’s only because I’m such a good cook. My mother was lousy.”
“She doesn’t ever cook now.” Jessie printed her name with a fingertip on her father’s bare back. “Her and Grandpa Sawyer always go out to eat.”
“That’s because Grandpa Sawyer’s no fool.” She was having trouble with the letter S, Boone noted. They’d have to work on it.
“You said we could call Grandma and Grandpa Sawyer and Nana and Pop today. Can we?”
“Sure, in a couple of hours.” He turned over again, studying her. “Do you miss them, baby?”
“Yeah.” With her tongue between her teeth, she began to print Sawyer on his chest. “It seems funny that they’re not here. Will they come to visit us?”
“Sure, they will.” The guilt that was part and parcel of parenthood worked at him. “Do you wish we’d stayed in Indiana?”
“No way!” Her eyes went huge. “We didn’t have the beach there, and the seals and stuff, or the big carousel in town, or Ana living next door. This is the best place in the world.”
“I like it here, too.” He sat up and kissed her brow. “Now beat it, so I can get dressed.”
“You’ll come right downstairs for breakfast?” she asked as she slid from the bed.
“Absolutely. I’m so hungry I could eat a whole loaf of cinnamon toast.”
Delighted, she rushed for the door. “I’m going to make more, right now.”
Knowing she would take him at his word and go through an entire loaf of bread, Boone hurried through his shower, opted not to shave, and pulled on cutoffs and a T-shirt that would probably have done better in the rag pile.
He tried not to dwell on the dream. After all, it was simple enough to interpret. He wanted Ana—no big revelation there. And all that white—white on white—was obviously a symbol of her innocence.
It scared the hell out of him.
He found Jessie in the kitchen, busily slathering butter on another piece of toast. There was a plate heaped with them, more than a few of them burnt. The smell of cinnamon was everywhere.
Boone put on the coffee before he snagged a piece. It was cold, hard, and lumped with sugary cinnamon. Obviously, Jessie had inherited her grandmother’s culinary talents.
“It’s great,” he told her, and swallowed gamely. “My favorite Sunday breakfast.”
“Do you think Daisy can have some?”
Boone looked at the pile of toast again, then glanced down at the pup, whose tongue was lolling out. With any luck he might be able to pawn off half his Sunday breakfast on the dog. “I think she could.” Crouching, Boone held out a second piece of toast close enough for Daisy to sniff. “Sit,” he ordered, in the firm, no-nonsense voice the training books had suggested.
Daisy continued to loll her tongue and wag her tail.
“Daisy, sit.” He gave her rump a nudge. Daisy went down, then bounded back on all fours to jump at him. “Forget it.” He held the toast out of reach and