Dream Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  Josh heard the sound of girlish laughter as he circled the east terrace toward the pool. The squeals and splashing lightened his heart. As the curved sweep of water came into view, he grinned. A race was on.

  Obviously Laura was holding back, keeping her strokes small and slow. When she was serious about her pace, no one could beat her. It used to infuriate him, having his little sister outdistance him. But then as captain of her swim team, she’d gone All-State and had even flirted with the Olympics.

  Now she was letting her daughters overtake her, all but crawling to the edge as Ali put on a furious burst of speed.

  “I won!” Ali bounced in the water. “I beat you to the side.” Then her bottom lip poked out. “You let me.”

  “I gave you a handicap.” Laura ran a hand over Ali’s slicked-back hair, then smiled as Kayla surfaced, her mouth working like a guppy’s. “Just like you gave your sister a handicap because you’re bigger and faster and stronger.”

  “I want to win on my own.”

  “The way you’re going, you will.” She bent to kiss Kayla between the eyes. “Both of you swim like mermaids.”

  The thought of that made the mutiny die out of Ali’s eyes and Kayla swim backward with a dreamy smile. “I’m a mermaid,” Kayla claimed. “I swim all day with the dolphins.”

  “I’m still faster.” Ali started to push off, then caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She saw a man, tall, the suit, the glint of hair. Her heart speared up. But when she blinked her eyes clear of water, she saw it wasn’t her father after all. “Uncle Josh!”

  “Uncle Josh! Uncle Josh is here.” Kayla kicked her feet to send water flying. “Come in and swim with us. We’re mermaids.”

  “Anyone could see that. I’m afraid I’m not dressed to play with mermaids. But they’re fun to watch.”

  To entertain him, Kayla did handstands, somersaults. Not to be outdone, Ali rushed to the board to show him how her diving had improved. He whistled and applauded, offered advice as Laura climbed out and toweled off.

  She’d lost weight. Even a brother could see that. He had to concentrate on keeping his smile in place for the girls and not allowing his teeth to grind together.

  “Got a minute?” he asked her when she’d bundled into a terry-cloth robe.

  “Sure. Girls, shallow end.” That brought groans and complaints, but both of them paddled in. “Is there a problem at work?”

  “Not precisely. You mentioned you wanted to take a more active part.” The frown came as he wandered toward a gardenia bush. He wanted to be out of the girls’ hearing. “You’ve got a lot on your plate, Laura.”

  “I don’t want your job, Josh.” She smiled and combed her fingers through hair that the water had curling wildly. “I just think it’s time I paid attention. I let things slide by me before. It’s never going to happen again.”

  “You’ll piss me off if you start blaming yourself.”

  “It takes two people to make a marriage.” Laura sighed, making sure she kept her daughters in view as they walked along the edge of the garden. In the distance were the stables, the lovely old stucco and dark-beamed building, tucked behind the slope of the uneven land. She wished there were horses inside, or frisking in the paddock. She wished she had the time to tend to them as she did when she was a girl.

  “I’m not taking it on, Josh. What Peter did was inexcusable. It was bad enough that he ignored his children, but then to take what was theirs—”

  “And yours,” he reminded her.

  “Yes, and mine. I’m going to make it back. It’s going to take a while, but I’m going to make it back.”

  “Honey, you know if you need money—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, I’m not taking money from you or Mom and Dad, I’m not using Templeton money I haven’t earned to pay for my life. Not as long as the girls aren’t doing without.” She smiled a little, running a hand over his arm as they walked. “Let’s be realistic, Josh. The three of us have a beautiful home, food on the table. Their tuition’s paid. There are plenty of women who find themselves in my position and have nothing left.”

  “It doesn’t make your situation any less rotten. How long are you going to be able to pay the servants, Laura, and the tuition if you’re determined to use only your share of profits from the shop?”

  She’d worried about the servants. How could she let them go when most of them had been at Templeton House for years? What would Mrs. Williamson or old Joe the gardener do if she had to cut the staff?

  “Pretenses is bringing in money, and I have the dividends from Templeton stock—which I intend to start earning. I’ve got time on my hands, Josh, and I’m tired of filling it up with committees and lunches and fundraisers. That was Peter’s lifestyle.”

  “You want a job?”

  “Actually, I thought I might be able to work part time. It’s not that I’m destitute, it’s that it’s long past time that I started to make my own way. I look at Kate and the way she’s always worked toward what she wanted. And Margo. Then I look at me.”

  “Just stop it.”

  “I’ve got something to prove,” she said evenly. “And I’m damn well going to do it. You’re not the only Templeton in this generation who knows hotels. I know about putting events together, catering, entertainment. I’d have to juggle time with the shop and the girls, of course.”

  “When can you start?”

  She stopped dead. “Do you mean it?”

  “Laura, you have just as much interest in Templeton as I do.”

  “I’ve never done anything for it, or about it. Not for years, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  She grimaced. “Because Peter didn’t want me to. My job, as he told me often, was being Mrs. Peter Ridgeway.” It would, she understood, always humiliate her to admit it. “You know what finally occurred to me a year or so ago, Josh? My name was nowhere in there. I was nowhere in there.”

  Uncomfortable, he looked over toward the pool where his nieces were having a contest to see who could hold her breath longer. “I guess marriage is a loss of identity.”

  “No, it isn’t. It shouldn’t be.” It was salt in a raw wound to admit it, but . . . “I let it be. I always wanted to be perfect. Perfect daughter, perfect wife, perfect mother. It’s been a hard slap in the face to realize I couldn’t be any of those things.”

  He laid his hands on her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “How about perfect sister? You won’t hear any complaints from me.”

  Touched, she rested her hands on top of his. “If I were the perfect sister, I’d be asking you why you haven’t asked Margo to marry you.” She tightened her grip when he would have slipped his hands away. “You love each other, understand each other. I’d say you have more in common than any two people I know, including fear of taking the next step.”

  “Maybe I like the step I’m on.”

  “Is it enough, Josh? Really enough for you, or for Margo?”

  “Damn, you’re pushy.”

  “That’s only one required element of the perfect sister.”

  Restless, he moved away, stopped to toy with a pale pink rosebud. “I’ve thought about it. Marriage, kids, the whole package. Pretty big package,” he murmured. “Lots of surprises inside.”

  “You used to like surprises.”

  “Yeah. But one thing Margo and I have in common is an appreciation for being able to pick up and move whenever we like. I’ve lived in hotels for the last dozen years because I like the transience, the convenience. Hell.” He broke off the bloom, handed it absently to Laura. “I’ve been waiting for her all my life. I always figured after the wait was over, I’d bide my time. A year or two of fun and games—which is exactly what she expects of me. How she thinks of me. Then I’d sneak the idea of marriage in on her.”

  With a half laugh, Laura shook her head. “Is this a chess game or a relationship, Josh?”

  “It’s been a chess game until recently. Move and countermove. I finessed her into f
alling in love with me.”

  “Do you really think so?” Laura clucked her tongue and slid the rosebud into the lapel of his jacket. “Men are such boobs.” She rose on her toes to kiss him lightly. “Ask her. I dare you.”

  He had to wince. “I wish you hadn’t put it like that.”

  “One more element of the perfect sister is knowing her brother’s deepest weakness.”

  Blissfully ignorant of the plans afoot, Margo watched a satisfied customer walk out the door. The way her feet were aching she was relieved that Laura would be putting in a half day tomorrow. As it was five-forty-five, she considered cashing out for the day, maybe nipping out just a few minutes early to go back to the suite and make herself beautiful for the fabulous dinner Josh had promised her.

  The advantages to her new life were just piling up, she decided as she swung around the counter and slipped out of her shoes. Not only was she proving that she had a brain as well as a body, but she had discovered a whole new aspect of her background to explore.

  Her parents had loved each other. Perhaps it was foolish for a grown woman to find such comfort and joy in that. But she knew it had opened something in her heart. Some things do last forever, she thought. Love held.

  And tonight, she was going to tell Josh what she knew, what she believed, and what she wanted. A real life, a full life.

  A married life.

  It made her laugh to imagine his face when she proposed to him. She would have to be clever in her phrasing, she mused while she transferred cash out of the till into the bag for deposit. A subtle challenge, she decided. But not too subtle.

  She would make him happy. They would travel the world together, go to all those exciting places they both loved. And always come back here. Because here was home for both of them.

  It had taken her much too long to accept that.

  She glanced up as the door opened, pushed back impatience with a shopkeeper’s smile. Then squealed.

  “Claudio!” She was around the counter in a dash, her hands flung out toward the tall, handsomely distinguished man. “This is wonderful.” She kissed both of his cheeks before drawing back to arm’s length to beam at him.

  He was, of course, as stunning as ever. Silver wings flew back from his temples into thick black hair. His face was smooth and tanned, set off by his long Roman nose and the light in his chocolate-brown eyes.

  “Bella.” He brought both of her hands to his lips. “Molta bella. I was set to be angry with you, Margo mia, but now, seeing you, I’m weak.”

  Appreciating him, she laughed. “What is Italy’s most successful film producer doing in my little corner of the world?”

  “Looking for you, my own true love.”

  “Ah.” That was nonsense, of course. But they had always understood each other perfectly. “Now you’ve found me, Claudio.”

  “So I have.” And he could see immediately that he need not have worried. She was glowing. “And the rumors and buzzing I heard when I returned from location were true after all. La Margo is running a shop.”

  With a challenging gleam in her eye, she lifted her chin. “So?”

  “So?” He spread his hands expressively. “So.”

  “Let me get you a glass of champagne, darling, and you can tell me what you’re really doing in Monterey.”

  “I tell you I come to search for my lost love.” But he winked at her as he accepted the glass. “I had a bit of business in Los Angeles. How could I come so close without seeing you?”

  “It was sweet of you. And I am glad to see you.”

  “You should have called me when there was trouble for you.”

  It seemed a lifetime ago. She only shrugged. “I got through it.”

  “That Alain. He’s a pig.” Claudio stalked around the shop in the long, limber strides he used to stalk a soundstage. His burst of gutter Italian termed Alain as a great deal more, and less, than a mere pig.

  “I cannot but agree,” Margo said when he had run down.

  “If you had called my offices, the studio, they would have gotten word to me. I would have swept down on my winged charger and saved you.”

  She could picture it. Claudio was one of the few men who wouldn’t look foolish on a winged charger. “I saved myself, but thanks.”

  “You lost Bella Donna. I’m sorry for it.”

  “So was I. But now I have this.”

  His head angled, his mouth quirked. “A shopkeeper, Margo mia.”

  “A shopkeeper, Claudio.”

  “Come.” He took her hand again, and though his voice was teasing, his eyes were serious. “Let me whisk you away from this. To Roma, with me. I have a new project to begin in a few months. There’s a part perfect for you, cara. She’s strong, sexy, glamorous. Heartless.”

  She laughed delightedly. “Claudio, you flatter me. Six months ago I’d have snapped it up, without worrying that I’m not an actress. Now I have a business.”

  “So, let someone else see to it. Come with me. I’ll take care of you.” He reached out, toyed with her hair, but his eyes were serious. “We’ll have that affair we always meant to have.”

  “We never got around to that, did we? That’s why we still like each other. No, Claudio, though I am very, very touched and very, very grateful.”

  “I don’t understand you.” He began to prowl again. “You weren’t meant to make change and box trinkets. This is not the— Dio! These are your dishes.” He stopped at a shelf and gawked. “You have served me pasta on these plates.”

  “Good eye,” she murmured.

  That eye was dazed as he turned back, began to recognize other things he had admired as a guest in her home in Milan. “I thought it was a joke, a poor one, that you were selling your possessions. Margo, it should not have come to this.”

  “You make it sound as though I’m living out of a shopping cart in an alley.”

  “It’s humiliating,” he said between his teeth.

  “No, it’s not.” She bristled, then calmed herself. He was only thinking of her. Or the woman he had known. She, Margo realized, would have been humiliated. “It’s not. I thought it would be, but I was wrong. Do you want to know what it is, Claudio?”

  He swore again, ripely, and gave serious thought to hauling her over his shoulder and carrying her off. “Yes, I want to know what it is.”

  She came close to him, until they were eye to eye. “It’s fun.”

  He nearly choked. “Fun?”

  “Great, wonderful, giddy fun. And do you know what else? I’m good at it. Really good at it.”

  “You mean this? You’re content?”

  “No, I’m not content. I’m happy. It’s mine. I sanded the floors. I painted the walls.”

  He paled a little, pressed a hand to his chest. “Please, my heart.”

  “I scrubbed the bathrooms.” She laughed and gave him a bracing kiss. “And I loved it.”

  He tried to nod, but couldn’t quite pull it off. “I’d have some more wine, if you please.”

  “All right, but then you have to browse.” She filled his glass and her own before tucking her arm through his. “And while we’re browsing, I’ll tell you what you can do for me.”

  “Anything.”

  “You know a lot of people.” Her mind was working quickly as she led him toward the stairs. “People who grow tired of last year’s fashions or the trinkets they bought. You could give them my name. I’d like first shot at the discards.”

  “Jesus” was all he could say as they climbed the stairs.

  The first thing Josh noted when he walked into the shop was the deposit bag. He shook his head at her carelessness, then locked the door. Going behind the counter, he tucked the bag back into the till—and noticed her shoes.

  He was going to have a little talk with her about basic precautions, but it could wait. In his pocket was his grandmother’s ring. He was still rolling with the excitement he’d felt when he’d lifted it out of the safety deposit box. The square-cut Russian white diamond might have
been fashioned with Margo in mind. It was sleek and glamorous and full of cold fire.

  He was going to dazzle her with it. He would even go so far as to get down on one knee—after he had plied her with a little champagne. A man needed an edge with Margo.

  She would probably balk at the idea of marriage, but he would sweet-talk her into it. Seduce her into it if necessary. It wouldn’t be such a sacrifice. The image of her wearing nothing but his ring was alluring enough to calm the nerves in the pit of his stomach.

  Enough fun and games, he told himself. Time for serious business.

  He started up the steps, nearly called out to her when he heard her laughter drift out like smoke. Nearly smiled before he heard the low male chuckle that followed.

  A customer, he told himself, furious at the instant knee jerk of jealousy. But when he walked to the doorway of the boudoir, the knee jerk jolted into a full, vicious kick.

  She was locked in a man’s arms, and the kiss had enough smolder to singe him where he stood.

  He thought of murder, bloody, bone-breaking, brain-splattering murder. His hands clenched into ready fists, the snarl already in his throat. But pride was nearly as violent an emotion as vengeance. It iced over him in a gale wind as Margo drew back.

  “Claudio.” Her voice was a silky purr. “I’m so glad you came. I hope we can—” She spotted Josh then, and myriad emotions flickered over her face. Surprise, pleasure, guilt, amusement. The amusement didn’t last. His eyes were hard and cold and much too easy to read. “Josh.”

  “I wasn’t expected,” he said coolly. “I know. But I don’t think an apology for the interruption’s in order.”

  “This is a friend from Rome,” she began, but he cut off her explanation with a look that sliced to the bone.

  “Save the introductions, Margo. I won’t keep you from entertaining your friend.”

  “Josh.” He was halfway down the stairs before she reached the landing. “Wait.”

  He shot her one last, lethal look as he flipped open the lock on the front door. “Stay healthy, Margo. Stay away from me.”

  “Cara.” Claudio laid a hand on Margo’s shoulder where she stood shivering at the base of the stairs. “I’m surprised he let us live.”