Once Upon a Star

by Nora Roberts

  “That was two years ago, and I’ve thought about her a dozen times since. Isn’t it amazing that she was yours?”

  Muttering an oath, he strode to her, pulled her to the window. “Lift your head, like that. Hold it there. And be quiet.”

  “Are you going to draw me?”

  “No, I’m after building a boat here. Of course I’m drawing you. Now be quiet for one bloody minute.”

  She shut her mouth, but couldn’t do anything about the grin that trembled on her lips. And that, he thought, was precisely what he wanted. Just that trace of humor, of energy, of personal delight.

  He would do a clay model, he thought, and cast her in bronze. Something that gleamed gold and warmed to the touch. She wasn’t for stone or wood. He did three quick studies of her face, moving around her for a change of angle. Then he lowered his pad.

  “I need the line of your body. Your shape. Take off your clothes.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I have to see how you’re made. The clothes are in the way of you.”

  “You want me to pose nude?”

  With an effort, he brought himself back from his plans, met her eyes. “If this was a matter of sex, I wouldn’t have slept on that rock in the corner last night. You’ve my word I won’t touch you. But I have to see you.”

  “If this was a matter of sex, I wouldn’t be so nervous. Okay.” She shut her eyes a minute, bolstered her courage. “I’m like a bowl of fruit,” she told herself and unbuttoned her shirt.

  When she slipped it off, folded it, set it aside, Conal lifted a brow. “No, you’re like a woman. If I wanted a bowl of fruit, I’d get one.”

  6

  SHE WAS SLIM, leaning toward angular, and exactly right. Eyes narrowed, mind focused, he flipped up a fresh page and began.

  “No, keep your head up,” he ordered, faintly irritated that she should be so exactly right. “Hold your arms back. Just a bit more. Palms down and flat. No, you’re not a flaming penguin, spread your fingers a little. Ah.”

  It was then he noticed the faint flush spreading over her skin, the stiffness in her movements. Moron, he told himself and bit back a sigh. Of course she was nervous and embarrassed. And he’d done nothing to put her at ease.

  He’d grown too used, he supposed, to professional models who undraped without a thought. She liked to talk, so he would let her talk.

  “Tell me about these lessons of yours.”

  “What?”

  “The lessons. You said you’d taken a number of lessons on this and that. What was it you studied?”

  She pressed her lips together, fought back the foolish urge to cross her arms over her breasts. “I thought you said I wasn’t supposed to talk.”

  “Now I’m saying you can.”

  She heard the exasperation, rolled her eyes. What was she, a mind reader? “I, ah, took art lessons.”

  “Did you now? Turn to the right just a bit. And what did you learn from them?”

  “That I’m not an artist.” She smiled a little. “I’m told I have a good eye for color and shapes and aesthetics, but no great skill with the execution.”

  Yes, it was better when she talked. Her face became mobile again. Alive again. “That discouraged you?”

  “Not really. I draw now and then when I’m in the mood.”

  “Another hobby?”

  “Oh, I’m loaded with them. Like music. I took music lessons.”

  Ah, she was relaxing. The doe-in-the-crosshairs look was fading from her eyes. “What’s your instrument?”

  “The flute. I’m reasonably adept, but I’m never going to have a chair with the Philharmonic.”

  She shrugged, and he bit back a sharp order for her not to change the line.

  “I took a course in computer programming, and that was a complete wash. As most of my business courses were, which scuttled the idea I had of opening a little craft shop. I could handle the craft part, but not the shop part.”

  Her gaze was drawn back to the mermaid. She coveted that, not just the piece itself, but the talent and vision that had created it.

  “Stand on your toes. That’s it, that’s lovely. Hold a minute. Why don’t you take on a partner?”

  “For what?”

  “The shop, if it’s what you want. Someone business-minded.”

  “Mostly because I have enough business sense to know I could never afford the rent in New York, the start-up costs.” She moved a shoulder. “Overhead, equipment, stock. I guess running a business is a study in stress. Margaret always says so.”

  Ah, he thought, the inestimable Margaret, whom he’d already decided to detest. “What do you care what she says? No, that’s not right. It’s not quite right. Turn around. You have a beautiful back.”

  “I do?” Surprise had her turning her head to look at him.

  “There! Hold that. Lower your chin a little more to your shoulder, keep your eyes on me.”

  That was what he wanted. No shyness here. Coyness was something different altogether. There was a hint of that in the upward angle of her gaze, the tilt of her head. And just a bit of smugness as well, in the slight curve of her lips.

  Allena of the Faeries, he thought, already eager to begin in clay. He ripped the sheets off the pad, began tacking them to the wall.

  “I’ll do better with you as well as the sketches. Relax a minute while I prep the clay.” As he passed, he touched a hand absently to her shoulder. He stopped. “Christ, you’re cold. Why didn’t you say something?”

  She was turning toward him, a slow shift of her body. “I didn’t notice.”

  “I didn’t think to keep the fire going.” His hand skimmed over her shoulder, fingers tracing the blade where he imagined wings. “I’ll build one now.” Even as he spoke he was leaning toward her, his eyes locked on hers. Her lips parted, and he could feel the flutter of her breath.

  He jerked back, like a man snapping out of a dream. Lifted his hand, then held them both up, away from her. “I said I wouldn’t touch you. I’m sorry.”

  The rising wave of anticipation in her broke, then vanished as he walked away to yank a blanket from the cot. “I wish you weren’t. Sorry, I mean.”

  He stood with the table between them, the blanket in his hands, and felt like a man drowning. There was no shyness in her now, nor coyness. But the patience was there, and the promise.

  “I don’t want this need for you. Do you understand?”

  “You want me to say yes.” She was laid bare now, she realized. Much more than her body laid bare. “It would make it easier if I said that I understand. But I can’t, I don’t. I want that need, Conal. And you.”

  “Another place, another time,” he murmured. “There’d be no need to understand. Another place, another time, I’d want it as well.”

  “This is here,” she said quietly. “And this is now. It’s still your choice.”

  He wanted to be sure of it, wanted to know there was nothing but her. “Will you take that off?”

  She lifted a hand to the pendant, her last shield. Saying nothing, she slipped the chain over her head, then walked to the table, set it down. “Do you think I’ll feel differently without it?”

  “There’s no magic between us now. We’re only who and what we are.” He stepped to her, swept the blanket around her shoulders. “It’s as much your choice as mine, Allena. You’ve a right to say no.”

  “Then…”She laid her hands on his shoulders, brought her lips to within a breath of his. “I’ve also a right to say yes.”

  It was she who closed that tenuous distance so mouths and bodies met. And she who let the blanket drop when her arms went around him.

  She gave, completely, utterly. All the love, so newly discovered in her heart, poured out for him. Her lips seduced, her hands soothed, her body yielded.

  There was a choice. She had made hers, but he still had his own. To draw back, step away and refuse. Or to gather close and take. Before his blood could take over, before it was all need and heat, he took her
face in his hands until their eyes met again.

  “With no promises, Allena.”

  He suffered. She could see the clouds and worry in his eyes, and said what she hoped would comfort. And be the truth as well. “And no regrets.”

  His thumbs skimmed over her cheeks, tracing the shape of her face as skillfully as he’d drawn it on paper. “Be with me, then.”

  The cot was hard and narrow, but might have been a bed of rose petals as they lay on it. The air was chill, still damp from the storm, but she felt only warmth when his body covered hers.

  Here. At last.

  He knew his hands were big, the palms rough and calloused from his work, and very often careless. He would not be careless with her, would not rush through the moment they offered each other. So he touched her, gently, giving himself the pleasure of the body he’d sketched. Long limbs, long bones, and soft white skin. Her sigh was like music, the song his name.

  She tugged off his sweater, sighing again when flesh met flesh, and again murmuring his name against the pulse of his own throat. With only that, she gave him the sweetness he’d denied himself. Whatever he had of that simple gift inside him, he offered back.

  Under him she lifted and moved as if they’d danced this dance together for a lifetime. Flowed with and against him, now fluid, now strong. And the quickening pulse that rose in her was like his own.

  Her scent was soap, her taste fresh as rain.

  He watched her glide up, the faerie again, soaring on one long spread of wings. As she crested, her eyes opened, met his. And she smiled.

  No one had brought her so much, or shown her how much she had to offer. Her body quivered from the thrill of it, and in her heart was the boundless joy of finding home.

  She arched up, opened so he would fill her. As he slid inside her, the beauty dazzled, and the power hummed.

  While they took each other, neither noticed the star carved in silver, glowing blue as flame.

  She lay over him now, snug under his arm with her cheek upon his chest. It was lovely to hear how his heart still pounded. A kind of rage, she thought, though he’d been the most tender of lovers.

  No one could have shown her that kind of caring if there wasn’t caring inside. And that, she thought, closing her eyes, was enough.

  “You’re cold,” he murmured.

  “Am not.” She snuggled against him and would have frozen to the bone before she let him move. But she lifted her head so she could grin at him.

  “Allena Kennedy.” His fingers trailed lightly down the back of her neck. “You look smug.”

  “I feel smug. Do you mind?”

  “I would be a foolish man to mind.”

  She bent down to kiss his chin, a sweet and casual gesture that moved him. “And Conal O’Neil is not a foolish man. Or is he?” She angled her head. “If we can’t go beyond a certain point and walk to the village, wouldn’t it follow that no one from the village can come here?”

  “I suppose it would.”

  “Then let’s do something foolish. Let’s go swim naked in the sea.”

  “You want to swim naked in the sea?”

  “I’ve always wanted to. I just realized it this minute.” She rolled off the cot and tugged at his hand. “Come be foolish with me, Conal.”

  “Leannan, the first wave’ll flatten you.”

  “Will not.” Leannan. She had no idea what it meant, but it sounded tender, and made her want to dance. She raked both hands through her hair, then the light of challenge lighted her eyes. “Race you.”

  She darted off like a rabbit and had him scrambling up. “Wait. Damn it, the seas are too rough for you.”

  Bird bones, he thought, snatching up the blanket on his way. She would crack half a dozen of them in minutes.

  No, she didn’t run like a rabbit, he realized. She ran like a bloody gazelle, with long, loping strides that had her nearly at the foaming surf. He called out her name, rushing after her. His heart simply stopped when she raced into the water and dived under its towering wall.

  “Sweet Jesus.”

  He’d gotten no farther than the beach when she surfaced, laughing. “Oh, it’s cold!” She struggled to the shallows, slicking her hair back, lifted her face, her arms. For the second time his heart stopped, but now it had nothing to do with alarm.

  “You’re a vision, Allena.”

  “No one’s ever said that to me before.” She held out a hand. “No one’s ever looked at me the way you do. Ride the sea with me.”

  It had been, he decided, much too long since he’d been foolish. “Hold on, then.”

  It tossed them up, a rush of power. It sucked them down into a blind, thundering world. The tumult of it was freedom, a cocky dare to fate. Wrapped around each other, they spun as the waves rolled over them.

  Breathless, they surfaced, only to plunge in again. Her scream wasn’t one of fear, but a cry of victory as, latched around him, she was swept into the air again.

  “You’ll drown us both!” he shouted, but his eyes were lit with wicked humor.

  “I won’t. I can’t. Nothing but wonders today. Once more.” She locked her arms around his neck. “Let’s go under just once more.”

  To her shrieking delight, he snatched her off her feet and dived into the cresting wave with her.

  When they stumbled out, panting, their hands were linked.

  “Your teeth are chattering.”

  “I know. I loved it.” But she snuggled into the blanket he wrapped around them both. “I’ve never done anything like that. I guess you’ve done it dozens of times.”

  “Not with the likes of you.”

  It was, she thought, the perfect thing to say. She held the words to her for a moment even as she held him. Hard against her heart.

  “What does leannan mean?”

  “Hmm?” Her head was on his shoulder, her arms linked around his waist. Everything inside him was completely at peace.

  “Leannan. You said that to me, I wondered what it means.”

  His hand paused in midstroke on her hair. “It’s a casual term,” he said carefully. “A bit of an endearment, is all. ‘Sweetheart’ would be the closest.”

  “I like it.”

  He closed his eyes. “Allena, you ask for too little.”

  And hope for everything, she thought. “You shouldn’t worry, Conal. I’m not. Now, before we both turn blue out here, I’ll make fresh tea, and you’ll build up the fire.” She kissed him. “Right after I pick up some of these shells.”

  She wiggled away, leaving him holding the blanket and shaking his head. Most of the shells that littered the beach had been broken by the waves, but that didn’t appear to bother her. He left her to it and went into the studio to tug on his jeans.

  She had a pile of shells when he came back, offering her his sweater and her pendant.

  “I won’t wear it if it bothers you.”

  “It’s yours.” Deliberately, as if challenging the fates, he slipped it around her neck. “Here, put this on before you freeze.”

  She bundled into it, then crouched to put the shells into the blanket. “I love you, Conal, whether I’m wearing it or not. And since loving you makes me happy, it shouldn’t worry you.”

  She rose. “Don’t spoil it,” she murmured. “Let’s just take today, then see about tomorrow.”

  “All right.” He took her hand, brought it to his lips. “I’ll give you a promise after all.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Today will always be precious to me, and so will you.”

  7

  SHE DUG OUT an ancient pair of Conal’s jeans, found a hunk of frayed rope, and went to work with scissors. As a fashion statement the chopped jeans, rough belt, and baggy sweater said Island Shipwreck, but they did the job.

  As he insisted on making the tea this time around, she busied herself hanging the wash. And dreaming.

  It could be just this way, she thought. Long, wonderful days together. Conal would work in his studio, and she’d te
nd the house, the gardens…and, oh, the children when they came along.

  She would paint the shutters and the little back porch. She’d put an arbor in front, plant roses—the only roses she would have—so that they’d climb up and twine and ramble and it would be like walking through a fairy tale every time she went into the house.

  And it would be her fairy tale, ever after.

  They would need to add rooms, of course, for those children. A second floor, she imagined, with dormer windows. Another bath, a bigger kitchen, but nothing that would take away from the lovely cottage-by-the-sea feeling.

  She’d make wonderful meals, keep the windows sparkling, sew curtains that would flutter in the breeze.

  She stopped, pegging a sheet that flapped wetly. Her mother would be appalled. Household chores were something you hired other people to do because you had a career. You were a professional…something.

  Of course, it was all just fantasy, she told herself as she moved down the clothesline. She had to make a living somehow. But she’d worry about that later. For now, she was going to enjoy the moment, the thrilling rush of being in love, the jittery ache of waiting to be loved in return.

  They would have today, and their tomorrow. Whatever happened after, she’d have no regrets.

  With the last of the laundry hung, she stepped back, lifted the basket to rest it on her hip. She saw Hugh prancing down the hill.

  “Well, so you decided to come home. What have you got there?” Her eyes widened as she recognized the brown bulk he carried in his mouth. “My bag!”

  She dropped the basket and rushed to him. And Hugh, sensing a game, began to race in circles around her.

  Conal watched from the doorway. The tea was steeping in the pot, and he’d been about to call to her. Now he simply stood.

  Sheets billowed like sails in the wind. He caught the clean, wet scent of them, and the drift of rosemary and lemon balm from the herb bed she’d weeded that morning. Her laughter lifted up, bright and delighted, as she raced with the dog.

  His tattered old jeans hung on her, though she’d hacked them off to above her ankles. She’d rolled up the cuffs, pushed up the sleeves on his sweater, but now as she ran around with Hugh, they’d come down again and fell over her hands. She hadn’t put on her shoes.