Once upon a Dream

by Nora Roberts

  Shaking her head at her foolishness, she snatched out her own practical trousers, her torn sweater…but it wasn’t torn. Baffled, she turned it over, inside out, searching for the jagged rip in the arm. It wasn’t there.

  She hadn’t imagined that tear. She couldn’t have imagined it. Because she was beginning to shake, she dragged it over her head, yanked the trousers on. Trousers that were pristine, though they had been stained and muddy.

  She dove into the wardrobe, pushing through evening slippers, kid boots, and found her simple black flats. Flats that should have been well worn, caked with dirt, scarred just a little on the inside left where she had knocked against a chest the month before in her shop.

  But the shoes were unmarked and perfect, as if they’d just come out of the box.

  She would think about it later. She’d think about it all later. Now she had to get away from here, away from him. Away from whatever was happening to her.

  Her knees knocked together as she crept to the door, eased it open, and peeked out into the hallway. She saw beautiful rugs on a beautiful floor, paintings and tapestries on the walls, more doors, all closed. And no sign of Flynn.

  She slipped out, hurrying as quickly as she dared. Wild with relief, she bolted down the stairs, raced to the door, yanked it open with both hands.

  And barreling through, ran straight into Flynn.

  “Good morning.” He grasped her shoulders, steadying her even as he thought what a lovely thing it would be if she’d been running toward him instead of away from him. “It seems we’ve done with the rain for now.”

  “I was—I just—” Oh, God. “I want to go check on my car.”

  “Of course. You may want to wait till the mists burn off. Would you like your breakfast?”

  “No, no.” She made her lips curve. “I’d really like to see how badly I damaged the car. So, I’ll just go see and…let you know.”

  “Then I’ll take you to it.”

  “No, really.”

  But he turned away, whistled. He took her hand, ignoring her frantic tugs for release, and led her down the steps.

  Out of the mists came a white horse at the gallop, the charger of folklore with his mane flying, his silver bridle ringing. Kayleen managed one short shriek as he arrowed toward them, powerful legs shredding the mists, magnificent head tossing.

  He stopped inches from Flynn’s feet, blew softly, then nuzzled Flynn’s chest.

  With a laugh, Flynn threw his arms around the horse’s neck. With the same joy, she thought, that a boy might embrace a beloved dog. He spoke to the horse in low tones, crooning ones, in what she now recognized as Gaelic.

  Still grinning, Flynn eased back. He lifted a hand, flicked the wrist, and the palm that had been empty now held a glossy red apple. “No, I would never forget. There’s for my beauty,” he said, and the horse dipped his head and nipped the apple neatly out of Flynn’s palm.

  “His name is Dilis. It means faithful, and he is.” With economical and athletic grace, Flynn vaulted into the saddle, held down a hand for Kayleen.

  “Thank you all the same, and he’s very beautiful, but I don’t know how to ride. I’ll just—” The words slid back down her throat as Flynn leaned down, gripped her arm, and pulled her up in front of him as though she weighed less than a baby.

  “I know how to ride,” he assured her and tapped Dilis lightly with his heels.

  The horse reared, and Kayleen’s scream mixed with Flynn’s laughter as the fabulous beast pawed the air. Then they were leaping forward and flying into the forest.

  There was nothing to do but hold on. She banded her arms around Flynn, buried her face in his chest. It was insane, absolutely insane. She was an ordinary woman who led an ordinary life. How could she be galloping through some Irish forest on a great white horse, plastered against a man who claimed to be a fifteenth-century magician?

  It had to stop, and it had to stop now.

  She lifted her head, intending to tell him firmly to rein his horse in, to let her off and let her go. And all she did was stare. The sun was slipping in fingers through the arching branches of the trees. The air glowed like polished pearls.

  Beneath her the horse ran fast and smooth at a breathless, surely a reckless, pace. And the man who rode him was the most magnificent man she’d ever seen.

  His dark hair flew, his eyes glittered. And that sadness he carried, which was somehow its own strange appeal, had lifted. What she saw on his face was joy, excitement, delight, challenge. A dozen things, and all of them strong.

  And seeing them, her heart beat as fast as the horse’s hooves. “Oh, my God!”

  It wasn’t possible to fall in love with a stranger. It didn’t happen in the real world.

  Weakly, she let her head fall back to his chest. But maybe it was time to admit, or at least consider, that she’d left the real world the evening before when she’d taken that wrong turn into the forest.

  Dilis slowed to a canter, stopped. Once again, Kayleen lifted her head. This time her eyes met Flynn’s. This time he read what was in them. As the pleasure of it rose in him, he leaned toward her.

  “No. Don’t.” She lifted her hand, pressed it to his lips. “Please.”

  His nod was curt. “As you wish.” He leapt off the horse, plucked her down. “It appears your mode of transportation is less reliable than mine,” he said, and turned her around.

  The car had smashed nearly headlong into an oak. The oak, quite naturally, had won the bout. The hood was buckled back like an accordion, the safety glass a surrealistic pattern of cracks. The air bag had deployed, undoubtedly saving her from serious injury. She’d been driving too fast for the conditions, she remembered. Entirely too fast.

  But how had she been driving at all?

  That was the question that struck her now. There was no road. The car sat broken on what was no more than a footpath through the forest. Trees crowded in everywhere, along with brambles and wild vines that bloomed with unearthly flowers. And when she slowly turned in a circle, she saw no route she could have maneuvered through them in the rain, in the dark.

  She saw no tracks from her tires in the damp ground. There was no trace of her journey; there was only the end of it.

  Cold, she hugged her arms. Her sweater, she thought, wasn’t ripped. Cautiously, she pushed up the sleeve, and there, where she’d been badly scraped and bruised, her skin was smooth and unmarred.

  She looked back at Flynn. He stood silently as his horse idly cropped at the ground. Temper was in his eyes, and she could all but see the sparks of impatience shooting off him.

  Well, she had a temper of her own if she was pushed far enough. And her own patience was at an end. “What is this place?” she demanded, striding up to him. “Who the hell are you, and what have you done? How have you done it? How the devil can I be here when I can’t possibly be here? That car—” She flung her hand out. “I couldn’t have driven it here. I couldn’t have.” Her arm dropped limply to her side. “How could I?”

  “You know what I told you last night was the truth.”

  She did know. With her anger burned away, she did know it. “I need to sit down.”

  “The ground’s damp.” He caught her arm before she could just sink to the floor of the forest. “Here, then.” And he lowered her gently into a high-backed chair with a plump cushion of velvet.

  “Thank you.” She began to laugh, and burying her face in her hands, shook with it. “Thank you very much. I’ve lost my mind. Completely lost my mind.”

  “You haven’t. But it would help us both considerably if you’d open it a bit.”

  She lowered her hands. She was not a hysterical woman, and would not become one. She no longer feared him. However savagely handsome his looks, he’d done her no harm. The fact was, he’d tended to her.

  But facts were the problem, weren’t they? The fact that she couldn’t be here, but was. That he couldn’t exist, yet did. The fact that she felt what she felt, without reason.

 
Once upon a time, she thought, then drew a long breath.

  “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

  “Now, then, that’s very sad. Why wouldn’t you? Do you think any world can exist without magic? Where does the color come from, and the beauty? Where are the miracles?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have any answers. Either I’m having a very complex dream or I’m sitting in the woods in a”—she got to her feet to turn and examine the chair—“a marquetry side chair, Dutch, I believe, early eighteenth century. Very nice. Yes, well.” She sat again. “I’m sitting here in this beautiful chair in a forest wrapped in mists, having ridden here on that magnificent horse, after having spent the night in a castle—”

  “ ’Tisn’t a castle, really. More a manor.”

  “Whatever, with a man who claims to be more than five hundred years old.”

  “Five hundred and twenty-eight, if we’re counting.”

  “Really? You wear it quite well. A five-hundred-and-twenty-eight-year-old magician who collects Pez dispensers.”

  “Canny little things.”

  “And I don’t know how any of it can be true, but I believe it. I believe all of it. Because continuing to deny what I see with my own eyes makes less sense than believing it.”

  “There.” He beamed at her. “I knew you were a sensible woman.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m very sensible, very steady. So I have to believe what I see, even if it’s irrational.”

  “If that which is rational exists, that which is irrational must as well. There is ever a balance to things, Kayleen.”

  “Well.” She sat calmly, glancing around. “I believe in balance.” The air sparkled. She could feel it on her face. She could smell the deep, dark richness of the woods. She could hear the trill of birdsong. She was where she was, and so was he.

  “So, I’m sitting in this lovely chair in an enchanted forest having a conversation with a five-hundred-and-twenty-eight-year-old magician. And, if all that isn’t crazy enough, there’s one more thing that tops it all off. I’m in love with him.”

  The easy smile on his face faded. What ran through him was so hot and tangled, so full of layers and routes he couldn’t breathe through it all. “I’ve waited for you, through time, through dreams, through those small windows of life that are as much torture as treasure. Will you come to me now, Kayleen? Freely?”

  She got to her feet, walked across the soft cushion of forest floor to him. “I don’t know how I can feel like this. I only know I do.”

  He pulled her into his arms, and this time the kiss was hungry. Possessive. When she pressed her body to his, wound her arms around his neck, he deepened the kiss, took more. Filled himself with her.

  Her head spun, and she reveled in the giddiness. No one had ever wanted her—not like this. Had ever touched her like this. Needed her. Desire was a hot spurt that fired the blood and made logic, reason, sanity laughable things.

  She had magic. What did she need of reason?

  “Mine.” He murmured it against her mouth. Said it again and again as his lips raced over her face, her throat. Then, throwing his head back, he shouted it.

  “She’s mine now and ever. I claim her, as is my right.”

  When he lifted her off her feet, lightning slashed across the sky. The world trembled.

  They rode through the forest. He showed her a stream where golden fish swam over silver rocks. Where a waterfall tumbled down into a pool clear as blue glass.

  He stopped to pick her wildflowers and thread them through her hair. And when he kissed her, it was soft and sweet.

  His moods, she thought, were as magical as the rest of him, and just as inexplicable. He courted her, making her laugh as he plucked baubles out of thin air and painted rainbows in the sky.

  She could feel the breeze on her cheeks, smell the flowers and the damp. What was in her heart was like music. Fairy tales were real, she thought. All the years she’d turned her back on them, dismissed the happily-ever-after that her mother sighed over, her own magic had been waiting for her.

  Nothing would ever, could ever, be the same again.

  Had she known it somehow? Deep inside, had she known it had only been waiting, that he had only been waiting for her to awake?

  They walked or rode while birds chorused around them and mists faded away into brilliant afternoon.

  There beside the pool he laid a picnic, pouring wine out of his open hand to amuse her. Touching her hair, her cheek, her shoulders dozens of times, as if the contact was as much reassurance as flirtation.

  She’d never had a romance. Never taken the time for one. Now it seemed a lifetime of love and anticipation could be fit into one perfect day.

  He knew something about everything. History, culture, art, literature, science. It was a new thrill to realize that the man who held her heart, who attracted her so completely, appealed to her mind as well. He could make her laugh, make her wonder, make her yearn. And he brought her a contentment she hadn’t known she’d lived without.

  If this was a dream, she thought, as twilight fell and they mounted the horse once more, she hoped never to wake.

  5

  APERFECT DAY deserved a perfect night. She had thought, hoped, that when they returned from their outing, he would take her inside. Take her to bed.

  But he had only kissed her in that stirring way that made her weak and jittery and asked if she might like to change for the evening.

  So she had gone up to her room to worry and wonder how a woman prepared, after the most magical of days, for the most momentous night of her life. Of one thing she was certain. It wouldn’t do to think. If she let her thoughts take shape, the doubts would creep in. Doubts about everything that had happened—and about what would happen yet.

  For once, she would simply act. She would simply be.

  The bath that adjoined her room was a testament to modern luxury. Stepping from the bedchamber with its antiques and plush velvets into this sea of tile and glass was like stepping from one world into another.

  Which was, she supposed, something she’d done already. She filled the huge tub with water and scent and oil, let the low hum of the motor and quiet jets relax her as she sank in up to her chin.

  Silver-topped pots sat on the long white counter. From them she scooped out cream to smooth over her skin. And watched herself in the steam-hazed window. This was the way women had prepared for a lover for centuries. Scenting and softening themselves for a man’s hands. For a man’s mouth.

  A woman’s magic.

  She wouldn’t be afraid, she wouldn’t let anxiety crowd out the pleasure.

  In the wardrobe she found a long gown of silk in the color of ripe plums. It slid over her body like sin and scooped low over her breasts. She slipped her feet into silver slippers, started to turn to the glass.

  No, she thought, she didn’t want to see herself reflected in a mirror. She wanted to see herself reflected in Flynn’s eyes.

  He felt like a green youth, all eager nerves and awkward moves. In his day, he’d had quite a way with the ladies. Though five hundred years could certainly make a man rusty in certain areas, he’d had dreams.

  But even in dreams, he hadn’t wanted so much.

  How could he? he thought as Kayleen started down the staircase toward him. Dreams paled next to the power of her.

  He reached out, almost afraid that his hand would pass through her and leave him nothing but this yearning. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

  “Tonight”—she linked her fingers with his—“everything’s beautiful.” She stepped toward him and was confused when he stepped back.

  “I thought…Will you dance with me, Kayleen?”

  As he spoke, the air filled with music. Candles, hundreds of them, spurted into flame. The light was pale gold now, and flowers blossomed down the walls, turning the hall into a garden.

  “I’d love to,” she said, and moved into his arms.

  They waltzed in the Great Hall, thr
ough the swaying candlelight and the perfume of roses that bloomed everywhere. Doors and windows sprang open, welcoming the glow of moon and stars and the fragrance of the night.

  Thrilled, Kayleen threw back her head and let him sweep her in stirring circles. “It’s wonderful! Everything’s wonderful. How can you know how to waltz like this when there was no waltz in your time?”

  “Watching through dreams. I see the world go by in them, and I take what pleases me most. I’ve danced with you in dreams, Kayleen. You don’t remember?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I don’t dream. And if I do, I never remember. But I’ll remember this.” She smiled at him. “Forever.”

  “You’re happy.”

  “I’ve never in my life been so happy.” Her hand slid from his shoulder, along his neck, to rest on his cheek. The blue of her eyes deepened. Went dreamy. “Flynn.”

  “Wine,” he said, when fresh nerves kicked in his belly. “You’ll want wine.”

  “No.” The music continued to swell as they stood. “I don’t want wine.”

  “Supper, then.”

  “No.” Her hand trailed over, cupped the back of his neck. “Not supper either,” she murmured and drew his mouth to hers. “You.” She breathed it. “Only you.”

  “Kayleen.” He’d intended to romance her, charm her. Seduce her. Now she had done all of that to him. “I don’t want to rush you.”

  “I’ve waited so long, without even knowing. There’s never been anyone else. Now I think there couldn’t have been, because there was you. Show me what it’s like to belong.”

  “There’s no woman I’ve touched who mattered. They’re shadows beside you, Kayleen. This,” he said and lifted her into his arms, “is real.”

  He carried her through the music and candlelight, up the grand stairs. And though she felt his arms, the beat of his heart, it was like floating.

  “Here is where I dreamed of you in the night.” He took her into his bedchamber, where the bed was covered with red silk and the petals of white roses, where candles stood flaming and the fire shimmered. “And here is where I’ll love you, this first time. Flesh to flesh.”