If There Be Dragons

by Kay Hooper

  Quietly he said, “That was a cheap shot.”

  “Was it?” She refused to meet his eyes. “Yes, I suppose it was. You’ll have to forgive me; I seem to have forgotten the rules.”

  There was a long silence then Cody began speaking in a calm, level tone.

  “I’m thirty-five years old, single, a Scorpio if that matters. I work as a free-lance troubleshooter in computers—which just means that I travel from one company to another and untangle someone else’s problems. I was born and raised in Texas, and both my parents and my younger sister live there; I have an apartment in Virginia in which I seldom stay since I generally live out of a suitcase.”

  Brooke was looking at him now, puzzled and wary. “I don’t—”

  He cut her off, still calm, dispassionate. “I enjoy chess, poker, and jigsaw puzzles. I read mysteries and science-fiction. I’m a licensed pilot. My favorite colors are green and burgundy. I don’t bite my nails or snore. I’m a pretty fair cook, a first-rate dishwasher, and I was taught to put away my clothing neatly.”

  Brooke was beginning to smile.

  Satisfied. Cody kept going. “Since college, I’ve been gainfully employed in a job that pays exorbitant fees, so I’ve managed to salt away quite a bit for a rainy day. I’ve also been involved in at least two serious relationships. The first ended when I discovered that my fourth-grade English teacher was married to a fellow bearing a close resemblance to a Mack truck. The second ended some years later, mainly due to a conflict of careers…and of personalities.

  “Since then. I have—in the popular vernacular—dated occasionally. Nothing serious, because I’m never in one place long enough. I’m by no means avoiding matrimony, since I happen to believe it’s a dandy institution. In fact, I’d love an ivy-covered cottage, two-point-five kids, a mongrel dog, and a snooty cat. And a wife. The possibility of the latter, in fact, has been on my mind quite a bit lately.”

  “How lately?” she murmured.

  Cody pushed back the sleeve of his flannel shirt and looked rather pointedly at his watch. “Since a little less than two hours ago,” he told her, totally deadpan.

  Brooke was still smiling. “It’d never work,” she said gravely.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m a Scorpio too.” She shook her head. “Dragons are bad enough, but if you put two Scorpios in the same boat, there’s going to be a hell of a storm.”

  “I think we can weather it.”

  “I think you’re crazy.”

  “Not at all.” Conversationally he added, “I very much think I’m falling in love with you, you see. And love seems to make improbabilities turn into definite possibilities.”

  Brooke stopped smiling. She gazed across the oak table into golden eyes, and the calm conviction there stole her breath. “Now I know you’re crazy,” she said almost inaudibly.

  Soberly Cody said, “I almost wish I were. Because something tells me you were right about that storm. After thirty-five relatively blameless years, I had to go and fall for a woman who first kicks me in the stomach and then warns me to stay the hell away from her dragons. You never did tell me about your mother, you know.”

  She ignored that last. “You can’t fall in love with a stranger,” she told him tightly.

  “Don’t tell me that I can’t do what I am doing,” he said quietly.

  Brooke felt an almost overwhelming urge to burst into tears, and it shook her as she hadn’t been shaken by anything in a long time. “Don’t,” she murmured. “Don’t say that. You don’t know…what it means. You don’t know what I am….”

  Softly insistent, he said, “I know you’re a beautiful, intelligent woman who’s hidden herself away somewhere. I know that you’ve held yourself under rigid control for so long that something has to give.”

  “I’m a freak,” she burst out suddenly, that “something” finally giving way with an explosive sound. “Something unnatural to be stared at, and pointed at, and tested, and examined. Something to be afraid of because it isn’t normal. Something to hide and be ashamed of, something to put in a closet or in a sideshow—”

  Her voice broke off in pain and bitterness, and Brooke covered her face with her hands, trying desperately to regain the control that had splintered. And she might have been able to regain it, might have been able to hide herself away again. Except for Cody.

  He rose and came around to her chair, automatically careful of his injured ankle as he leaned back against the table and grasped her upper arms, drawing her to her feet.

  Blindly Brooke fought to pull away from him. “No,” she said unsteadily. “No, don’t be kind—”

  “It isn’t kindness, dammit,” he muttered roughly, ignoring her efforts and pulling her firmly against him. His arms went around her and held her tightly. “It isn’t kindness.”

  Brooke fought against the wrenching, tearing need to cry. But the tears were dragged up from some well deep within herself, pulled inexorably by the gentleness of his touch, his soothing, wordless murmur. She’d never known such compassion and understanding from a man; her father had died when she was very young, and her uncle Josh had been a brisk, undemonstrative man.

  She was tired from too many sleepless nights, bitter with years of memory, frightened by something she didn’t understand, and shaken by Cody’s declaration of falling in love with her. The haven of his arms was too powerful to resist.

  Cody held her tightly, still astonished by the depth of what he felt but not bothering to deny it. He’d never thought that love would be something that would creep up behind him and then knock him off his feet in a single blinding instant, but that was what had happened. And he didn’t deceive himself into thinking that it was going to be easy.

  The woman in his arms, crying with the jerky, shuddering sobs of someone who hadn’t let herself cry enough in her life, was complex and wary and unwilling to love easily. Her gift, he thought, had been her curse, and the hurt and bitterness of that went deep.

  He was nowhere near having all the answers, but Cody thought that he could guess a few of them. And his heart ached for the little girl who’d been the object of stares and whispers, who’d “heard” thoughts even a hardened adult would have been shocked by. A little girl who’d grown up knowing that she was different, and that people were afraid of her.

  And he ached even more for the woman who’d hidden herself away in this valley, allowing only rare and carefully spaced human contact for herself, cultivating a rigid control until it had very nearly drained the life out of her.

  As to why she was afraid, he couldn’t even begin to guess. He meant to find out; until then he wouldn’t leave her alone a moment longer than he had to. He’d stay with her and try to shield her from whatever had stirred the stark terror in her eyes.

  Brooke was too bewildered and uncertain of her rampaging emotions to fully give in to them. One by one she drew in the threads of control and pulled them tight until the sobs could be choked off. The unfamiliar hardness of Cody’s lean body unnerved her, and she could feel her heart thudding erratically against her ribs. She had to stop this insanity and get away from him, she told herself, before…before…before he made her feel—

  She broke away from the incompleted thought and his arms in the same moment. Turning her back to him, she rubbed the sleeve of her sweater, childlike, across her wet eyes and spoke huskily.

  “Well…you’ve certainly had an interesting evening. First you drive up an icy mountain road, then you’re kicked in the stomach and sprain your ankle, and then a crazy psychic woman cries all over you. If you had any sense, you’d just shake hands politely and say, ‘Gee, it’s been really strange knowing you,’ and then run like hell.”

  Cody chuckled softly, but his golden eyes were steady and gentle when she turned to look at him hesitantly. “I also started falling in love,” he said. “And I’m not about to run.”

  “Stop saying that!” she ordered almost frantically. nothing at all remote about her face or voice now.

&nbs
p; “It’s true.”

  Brooke got a grip on herself. “Look, it’s late. I’ll go out and get your suitcase—I assume you brought one—and then show you which room is yours. It’s been a long day. I’m sure you’re tired. I’m tired.” She realized that she was talking too quickly, and immediately shut down the flow, adding carefully, “All right?”

  He nodded. “All right. My case is in the Jeep out front.”

  Not trusting herself to say anything more, Brooke merely nodded in response. She picked up the lamp from the counter and headed for the doorway leading to the rest of the house.

  Immediately Cody picked up the lamp from the table and, pausing only to throw his jacket over his arm and pick up his boot, followed her. Bound, his ankle could stand a little weight, but Cody nonetheless moved gingerly as he went through the doorway and down a long hall.

  Halfway down the hall an archway on the right opened into a huge sunken room the size of an average house. He could barely discern its size and had no idea of the furnishings because of the darkness. Two closed doors were on the left side of the hall, and he didn’t bother to open them. He moved instead toward the end of the hall and the glow of Brooke’s lamp.

  She had set her lamp on a long table near the front door and shrugged into the quilted hooded coat he’d first seen her in. She looked back over her shoulder before opening the door, and for a moment he thought that he saw the fear in her eyes. Then she’d opened the door and headed out for the Jeep.

  She left the door open.

  Within moments she was back, closing the front door and removing her coat silently. Holding his case, she picked up her lamp again and motioned toward another hallway leading off to the left of the front door.

  “Two of the downstairs bedrooms have kerosene heaters and fireplaces,” she murmured. “The fires are already banked for the night, but the heaters are on. This way.”

  The room she showed him to a moment later was as warm as the kitchen; the banked fire in the stone hearth was glowing and the heater was whirring softly. There were bookshelves lining one wall, and a high double bed, sturdy furniture, and bright rugs on the hardwood floor. An old rolltop desk sat in the corner by one window.

  Cody knew instinctively that this had been her uncle’s room. He set his lamp down on a low chest by the door, watching as she set his case down and stepped quickly back out into the hallway.

  “If—if you need anything,” she began awkwardly.

  He caught her wrist gently. “Will you be all right alone?” he asked.

  She looked up at him. “I told you. I’m used to being alone.”

  His hand released her wrist, lifting to cup her cheek warmly. “You’ll have to get used to not being alone,” he said.

  Brooke swallowed hard as the tingling touch of his hand brought a flush to her face. “Good night,” she said hastily, turning away.

  Cody watched the light from her lamp fade away into the darkness. After a moment he quietly shut the door.

  For the first time in more than a week Brooke slept well. She realized that it was because of Cody’s presence, because she wasn’t totally alone in the huge lodge, but she didn’t care to examine that too closely. Being alone had become an acceptable, if lonely, way of life.

  God knew, it was better than being the focus of nervous, wary eyes….

  Brooke shoved that thought into a compartment of her mind as she slid out of her bed the next morning. Weak sunlight filtered through the crack in the closed drapes and cast a dim beam across her bedroom; when the drapes were opened a moment later, the cheery room immediately flaunted its bright orange and rust color scheme and lost its murky shadows.

  The room was large and comfortable, the furnishings—like most of those in the lodge—were of sturdy oak. Braided rugs brightened the gleaming hardwood floor and the sheer panels behind the drapes allowed lots of light.

  Brooke automatically built a fire in the stone fireplace, a bit puzzled by the warmth of the room since she’d cut her kerosene heater off before going to bed. She’d just straightened from the hearth when she heard the furnace come on, and that puzzled her even more. The generator was out. Or at least it had been out last night. And the power lines from town couldn’t have been repaired so quickly. What on earth…?

  Cody?

  Hastily she stepped into the adjoining bathroom and went through her morning ritual of waking up and getting ready to face another day. Then she donned jeans and a bulky knit bright green sweater, warm socks, and loafers. She left her hair hanging straight and gleaming and, except for a moisturizer to combat the dry winter air, wore no makeup.

  A glance at the windup clock on her nightstand hurried her steps as she left the bedroom; it was almost ten A.M.

  Passing Cody’s bedroom, she noted that it was empty and neat. Where was he? Quickly she made her way through the silent house to the kitchen. The tantalizing aroma of coffee pleased her senses in the warm, cheery room, and Brooke paused for a moment to note the freshly built fire in the hearth and the merrily bubbling coffee on her little butane stove.

  So he’d made the coffee before the generator was fixed? Experimentally she reached for a light switch. Plenty of juice for the lights and furnace anyway, she realized. Turning the unnecessary light back off, she poured out a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, sipping it.

  Granted a little time for thought, Brooke thought. She felt refreshed and calm after the much needed sleep, and blissfully free of the fear that haunted her at night. Tentatively she reached out, sensing. No. No, it was gone. It was always gone during the day. Only at night—

  Something slipped casually into the fringes of her exploring probe. Cody. He was in the barn, making friends with Mister. He was—

  Swiftly she pulled the probe back into her mind, frowning a little. Odd, that. She usually had to concentrate hard to sense a stranger. Why had it come so easily with him? Brooke frowned harder. She’d have to watch her guard with Cody Nash.

  Remembering the night before, she felt a flush rise in her cheeks. Lord, what must he be thinking? Cried all over by a hysterical woman…Brooke shook her head a little ruefully. He’d think she had a split personality in addition to her other weirdnesses when he discovered a totally different woman facing him today.

  After nearly three years of exposure to Pepper’s crazy friends, Brooke knew that her years of firm control were mostly a thing of the past. She could block out thoughts more without being stiff, and she usually enjoyed the contact with guests here at the lodge.

  A kind of acceptance of her abilities had bred relaxation, even amusement. It had begun with a friend she met through Pepper, who had called Brooke in a panic and asked if she would use her psychic abilities to find a lost child who’d wandered away during a camping trip. Doubtful, but wanting desperately to find the child, Brooke had reached out. And the little girl had been located within an hour.

  Wary of publicity, Brooke had nonetheless helped other friends periodically. For the first time in her life a sense of her own worth grew out of her abilities, and she’d begun to hope tentatively that they would one day be a blessing instead of a curse.

  Still…. She thought of the night before with another frown. The bitterness of those early years was still with her; the floodgates had burst with Cody’s gentle probing, and with the fear that had made her nervous and uneasy. She had never really come to terms with those early years, Brooke realized. Memory still had the power to hurt her.

  She wondered if Cody knew how much he’d unsettled her. She wasn’t used to meeting with compassion in strangers—particularly men. Few people casually met were unthreatened by her abilities. Only her friends—mostly unique people she’d met through Pepper—accepted her abilities without a blink. Those friends didn’t know of the early years and the bitter seeds sown, which was fine with Brooke; their easy acceptance helped her put everything in perspective.

  And so her painful words to Cody the night before had shocked her; she hadn’t realized that s
he still felt that unhappiness so strongly. Had Cody’s declaration of love frightened her so badly that she’d reached back into bitter memory for something to shove between them?

  Brooke swallowed the last of her coffee and immediately poured another cup. Love? The man was mad. Who would want to get involved with a woman who read minds and possessed dragons? That last brought a crooked smile to her lips. Dragons? Yes, and he’d neatly pounced on the biggest, most fire-breathing dragon of them all. A quick-witted, intelligent man, Brooke thought. And sensitive too. But she wasn’t about to get involved with him. Relationships between men and women had too many strikes against them to begin with without throwing psychic stuff into the pot.

  So. She’d try her damnedest to prove to him that there was absolutely nothing wrong. She was fine. And then he’d leave.

  Brooke felt a sharp pang, and instantly squashed it. He’d leave. If she could only get him away from here before night and the fear came—he’d leave. And she’d face that bogey in the dark the best way she could.

  She looked up quickly when the back door swung inward, not surprised by his entrance because she’d felt him coming. Almost absently she shored up her walls to guard against his odd ability to creep into her mind.

  “Morning.” Cody brushed snow off his shoulders, bright golden eyes looking at her intently.

  “Morning.” Brooke forced down the thought that last night’s lamplight hadn’t done him justice: how many hearts had he broken with those incredible golden eyes? Her eyes skimmed over his broad shoulders, the leanly muscular frame, then back up unconsciously to examine a face that was very nearly classical in its masculine beauty. A golden man, she thought dimly, with all the warmth and compelling attraction of the precious metal that had built kingdoms and toppled them.

  Gold fever, she thought, and then hastily dismissed the implications of that. “You’ve been busy, I see. How’s the ankle?”

  Cody was so fascinated by the easy amusement in her green eyes and the warmth in that gruff little voice that he nearly forgot to answer. “Oh, it’s better. The swelling’s gone down quite a bit. I’ve been making friends with Mister—although the effort was somewhat one-sided.”