Dream Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  “No getting out of it, Laura. You’re a Templeton. You’re expected.”

  “I know, I know.” There went the long, indulgent bath-and-early-to-bed night she’d been fantasizing about. “I’ll be there. I would have remembered.”

  “If you hadn’t, Kate and Margo would have reminded you. Look, why don’t you let your partners handle the shop this afternoon? Go take a nap.”

  “J. T. is having his checkup this afternoon. I can’t leave Kate on her own. We’re inundated with the Valentine’s Day sale.”

  “Which reminds me . . .”

  Understanding, she smiled. “It’s only the tenth, Byron. You still have time to pick up that well-thought-out, loving gift. And no matter what Kate says, don’t buy her computer software. Flowers always work for me.”

  And no one had sent her flowers, she thought, in too long to remember. When her mind drifted to a tiny yellow wildflower, she pulled it back, and called herself an idiot.

  “She’s not getting that new calculator she’s been hinting for, either.” He rose. “Do you want a lift to the club tonight?”

  So went the life of a single woman, Laura mused. Always tagging along with couples. “No, thanks. I’ll see you there.”

  “I’m not the country club type, Josh.” As if someone had already forced him into a suit, Michael rolled his shoulders.

  “I’d consider it a favor.”

  Scowling, Michael measured out grain. “I hate it when you do that.”

  “And I’d be able to introduce you to a lot of potential horse owners. I happen to know someone who has an impressive stud. You did say you have a mare ready to breed.”

  “Yeah, she’s ready.” And he wanted the right sire for her. “So, you’ll give me his name, and I’ll talk to him. I don’t have to go to some lame dance. And I’m the last person your sister wants taking her to some lame dance.”

  “It’s not like a date.” So Margo had said when she’d drilled the request into his head. “It’s just that Laura’s feeling like a third wheel at these things. I didn’t realize it myself, but Margo pointed it out.”

  And, Josh thought as he watched Michael divvy up grains, had made him feel like a lower form of life. “Then I realized how often Laura either skips going to events, or cuts out early. It would be nice for her to have an escort, that’s all.”

  “A woman like your sister ought to have a platoon of likely escorts lined up and waiting.” And all with the proper pedigree, Michael thought.

  “Yeah, well, she doesn’t seem interested in swimming with the sharks in the dating pool.” Was he supposed to do something about that, too? Josh wondered and nearly shuddered. “She knows you, Mick. She’d be comfortable with you. And it would give you the chance to make some contacts. Everybody’s happy.”

  “I’m not happy when I have to wear a tie.” He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “Not like you, Harvard, in your fancy Italian suit. Get the hell out of my barn.”

  “Come on, Mick. It’s just one night out of your fascinating and fun-filled life. We’ll hit the game room, play some billiards, tell some lies.”

  There was that, Michael considered. And the alternative was a sandwich and an evening hunkered over his drawings for his projected house. “I can still bury your ass at pool.”

  “I’ll lend you a tie.”

  “Fuck you.” One of the cats streaked by, pounced in a blur of black. There was a short squeal.

  “Christ, that’s disgusting.”

  “That’s life, Harvard.” Michael moved back to deal with Darling’s meal, measuring the additives necessary for her condition.

  “You really know what you’re doing around here, don’t you?”

  “Apparently we all have our niche.”

  Josh mused over how many niches Michael had already found and rejected. Yet he had a feeling this one was different. They’d known each other too long and too well for Josh to miss the easy contentment in his friend’s moves. A contentment, he thought, that had never quite been there before.

  “This is the one, isn’t it?”

  Michael glanced over. He didn’t need to explain, not to Josh. He only needed to say one word. “Yeah.”

  “If I know you, you want to make something big out of it.”

  He yearned to. “In my own time.”

  Josh took his, waiting while Michael fed the expectant mother, checked her hay-net, babied her. “Monterey Riding Academy? The owners are friends of the family.”

  “So?”

  “They’ll be at the club tonight. Kate was their accountant when she was with Bittle and Associates. They do a lot of buying and selling. So do their students.”

  Ambition, Michael admitted, was always a trap. “You’re a slick son of a bitch, Harvard. You always were.”

  Josh merely grinned. “We all have our niche.”

  “Laura might not go for this little arrangement of yours.”

  “I can handle Laura,” Josh said confidently, and checked his watch. “I’ve got enough time to slip by the shop and do just that before my last meeting today. The dance is at nine. I’ll tell her you’ll pick her up at eight-thirty—wearing a tie.”

  “If you don’t make this worth my while, pal, I’ll have to kick your ass.” He brushed grain dust from his hands. “I won’t enjoy it, but I’ll have to do it.”

  “Understood.” Satisfied with the outcome of his mission, Josh headed for the door. “Ah, you do know the way to the club, don’t you?”

  Appreciating the sarcasm, Michael tilted his head. “Maybe I will enjoy it after all.”

  She was furious, livid. And trapped. They’d ganged up on her, Laura fumed as she yanked the pearl gray Miska cocktail dress out of her closet. Josh and Margo and Kate, cornering her at Pretenses and all but presenting her with a fait accompli.

  Michael Fury was escorting her to the country club dance. The arrangement would suit everyone. They wouldn’t have to worry about her driving there and back alone or about her feeling awkward at an event designed for couples. Michael would gain an entrée and make contacts in the horse world.

  Oh, yeah, it suited everyone just fine. Everyone but herself.

  It was humiliating, she thought as she jerked the zipper up. A thirty-year-old woman being fixed up by her big brother. Worse, now Michael knew that she was the pathetic divorcée who couldn’t get her own date. As if she wanted one in the first place, or the last place, or any place at all, for that matter.

  “Which I don’t,” she told the dog, who had come into her room to watch her every move with adoring eyes. “I don’t even want to go to the damn country club tonight. I’m tired.”

  Sympathetically he wiggled his butt as she stormed over to the closet for shoes and a beaded jacket. She didn’t need to hang on to a man’s arm to feel complete. She didn’t need to hang on to anything, anyone. Why couldn’t she just crawl into bed and read a book, she wondered. Eat popcorn and watch an old movie on TV until she fell asleep with the set still on.

  Why did she have to dress up, go out in public, and be Laura Templeton? She stopped, sighed. Because she was Laura Templeton. That was something she couldn’t forget. Laura Templeton had responsibilities, she had an image to maintain.

  So, she told herself as she picked up her lipstick and applied it skillfully, she would maintain it. She would get through the evening, say the right things to the right people. She would be as polite and friendly to Michael as necessary. And when the whole blasted thing was over, she would fall facedown on her bed and forget it. Until the next time.

  She checked her hair. God, she needed a trim. And when was she going to fit that in? She turned for her bag and watched in mild horror as the pup wet on her Aubusson.

  “Oh, Bongo!”

  He grinned up at her and sat in his own pee.

  It was only a small rebellion, but Michael didn’t wear a tie. He figured that with Laura Templeton at his side they wouldn’t boot him out for wearing a black turtleneck under his jacket.

 
He parked between the island of spring bulbs and the grand front entrance. And if he’d been wearing a tie, he would have tugged at it.

  Nerves. They amazed him, disgusted him. But no matter how much he wanted to deny it, he felt like some pimply-faced teenager on a first date.

  Ignoring the sky dusted with icy stars, the sheen of silvering moonlight, the scent of sea and flowers, he walked to the door like a man taking his last mile in shackles.

  How the hell had he let himself get talked into this?

  He’d never used the front door at Templeton House. As a boy, if he came by for Josh, or came along with him, he used the side or rear. The entrance was so damned imposing, grandly tall, recessed, and framed in tile. The knocker was a huge brass affair in the shape of a stylized T. Over his head hung an antique carriage light.

  It didn’t make him feel welcome.

  Nor did Ann Sullivan when she opened the door to his knock. She stood, tight-lipped, in her starched black dress. He noted first that the years sat lightly on her. She was a lovely woman, if you looked past the jaundiced eye. Margo had come by her looks naturally.

  “Mr. Fury.” The faint hint of Ireland in her voice might have been charming if it hadn’t been so damning.

  Because for reasons he couldn’t name he’d always wanted her approval, she put his back up. His smile was insolent. His voice matched it. “Mrs. Sullivan. It’s been a while.”

  “It has,” she returned, clearly telling him it hadn’t been nearly long enough. “You’re to come in.”

  He accepted the grudging invitation and stepped into the soaring foyer. The ivory and peacock-blue tiles were the same, he noted. As was the gorgeously ornate chandelier that sprinkled light. The place was welcoming, even if its doyenne wasn’t. It was full of cozy scents, rich color, warming light.

  “I’ll tell Miss Laura you’re here.”

  But as she turned to do so, Laura came down the wide, curving steps. Though Michael would tell himself later that he was a fool, his heart stopped.

  The lights caught the fussy beads of her jacket and shot color. Beneath was a simple dress the color of moondust. There were jewels at her ears, sapphires and diamonds, framing the face that her swept-back hair accented.

  She looked so perfect, so lovely, with one ringless hand trailing along the glossy banister. She might have stepped out of a painting.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” Her voice was cool, betraying none of her panic at the way those eyes of his bored into her, or her fluster at having to mop up after the dog.

  “Just got here,” he said, equally cool. Then some of the absurdity struck him. Here he was, Michael Fury, holding out a hand for a princess. “I wasn’t supposed to bring, like, a corsage or something, was I?”

  She managed a small smile of her own. “It’s not the prom.”

  “Amen to that.”

  “You be careful, Miss Laura.” Ann shot a warning look at Michael. “And you drive responsibly, boy-o. It isn’t one of your races.”

  “Annie, the dog’s in with the girls, but—”

  “Don’t you worry.” She gestured toward the door, thinking philosophically that the sooner they were gone, the sooner she’d have her girl back. “I’ll take care of him, and them. Try to enjoy yourself.”

  “And I’ll try to bring her back in one piece,” Michael added, for the hell of it, as he opened the door.

  “See that you do,” Ann muttered and began to worry the moment the door closed.

  “It’s nice of you to drive me to the club.” She would put things on the proper footing, Laura determined. And keep them there. “You don’t have to feel obliged to entertain me once we’re there.”

  He’d been planning to say pretty much the same thing himself, but he resented her saying it first. He opened her door, leaned on it. “Who are you pissed off at, Laura? Me, or the world in general?”

  “I’m not angry with you or anyone.” Gracefully, she slipped into the passenger seat of his Porsche. “I’m simply explaining matters so that we get through the evening comfortably.”

  “And here you said you liked mongrels.”

  She blinked. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Right.” He resisted—barely—slamming the door. The evening, he thought as he rounded the hood, was off to a flying start.

  Chapter Six

  It could have been worse, Michael supposed. He could have been back in some Central American jungle sweating bullets and dodging them. He could have had his skull bashed in, as he had once when a stunt gag went wrong.

  Instead he was standing in a room with people he didn’t know and didn’t care to know.

  He’d rather have had his skull bashed in.

  He thought the room itself was overly cute, with its glossy red hearts hanging from swatches of paper lace. The flowers were nice, he supposed. He didn’t have any objection to flowers. But he thought they carried the obsessive red and white theme too far.

  All of the pink-draped tables were centered with a grouping of white tapers ringed by a halo of fluffy red and white carnations. At least he thought they were carnations. And the music. He decided it represented the widest culture clash, with its mild strings and discreet piano, all played by middle-aged men in white suits.

  Give him blues or honest rock any day.

  But there was a spiffy view of the coastline through a wall of windows. The drama of it, the war of fretful waves against mean-edged rocks, provided an interesting contrast to the quiet, undeniably stuffy group inside the polished, overheated club.

  The women had decked themselves out, absolutely dripping bangles and beads and other jewelry, he noted. They wore layers of perfumes and silks and lace. Overdone, in his estimation, like the decor. He preferred Laura’s simple and feminine choice. It was class, he supposed, that set her apart. Simple class that came straight through the blood and bone. He might have mentioned it to her, but she had drifted away quickly, making, as he termed it, her Templeton rounds.

  Most of the men were in tuxes. A little fact that Josh had conveniently neglected to mention. Not that Michael minded. He wouldn’t have worn one anyway. If he’d had one to wear.

  Still it gave him another bone to pick with his old friend. If the slippery son of a bitch ever showed up.

  On the bright side, he had a cold beer in his hand. The finger food spread out artistically on buffet tables looked delicate, but it tasted fine. He’d already enjoyed a mild flirtation with a woman who mistook him for some Hollywood young gun. Michael hadn’t bothered to disabuse her.

  He was considering wandering about, maybe taking a turn outside in the fresh air or checking out one of the other rooms. He might find that pool table and a few suckers to fleece. Then Laura moved back to him.

  “I’m sorry. There were a few people I needed to speak with.” In a gesture that was both absentminded and automatic, she accepted a glass of champagne from a roving waiter, murmured her thanks.

  “No problem.”

  But it was, she thought, her problem. She’d had some time to think about it. “I am sorry, Michael. I was annoyed with Josh for maneuvering me into this evening and I took it out on you.” When he didn’t respond, she drummed up a smile. “So, what were you and Kitty Bennett talking about?”

  “Who? Oh, the ditzy brunette with all the teeth.”

  Laura choked on her champagne. She’d never heard the chair of the Monterey Arts Council described just that way. Or quite that accurately. “Yes.”

  “She dug my last flick.”

  “Did she?”

  He decided to be friendly, smiled. “Not Braveheart, though I had a couple of nice stunts in it. She thought I was the director of some art house film. Something about foot fetishes.”

  “Mm-hmm. And you discussed the metaphoric twists on our sex-obsessed society, along with the multiple layers of symbolism representing moral decay.”

  He started to feel better. “Something like that. She thinks I’m brilliant, and underrated. I think I m
ight be getting a grant.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Of course, she really only wanted my body.”

  “Well, an artist must make sacrifices. Ah, there’s Byron and Kate.”

  Michael glanced over. His brows rose in surprise as he saw the streamlined brunette in slinky black. The gamine face, all sloe-colored eyes, and the close-cropped dark hair tipped him off, though the girl he remembered had been skinny, coltish—a borderline nerd.

  “That’s Kate? Kate Powell?”

  “She works out now,” Laura muttered. “She’s gotten obsessive about it, so don’t get her started.”

  “That her trainer?” Michael muttered back, measuring the broad-shouldered, long-limbed man beside her.

  “And husband. He’s also my boss. Byron.” She held out a hand as the couple maneuvered through the crowd toward them. A quick kiss and she turned to Kate. “Margo was right, as usual. The Karan suits you. Byron De Witt, Michael Fury.”

  “Nice to meet you. Kate’s been telling me stories.”

  “And I didn’t even need to exaggerate.” Grinning, she stepped forward and gave Michael a quick, friendly hug.

  Her arms might have been lean, Michael noted, but they were tough. Enjoying her, he drew her back. “Katie Powell. Looking good.”

  Because she’d always enjoyed him as well, she wiggled her brows. “Same goes, Mick.”

  “Can I get drinks for anyone?” Byron asked in a voice that reminded Michael of mint juleps and magnolia.

  “I’ll have what Laura’s having,” Kate decided.

  “Michael?”

  “Bass ale.”

  “That ought to go down just fine,” Byron decided. “I think I’ll join you. Excuse me a minute.”

  “It’s the Southern,” Kate said, watching him walk toward the bar with a proprietary and satisfied gleam in her eye. “He’s just a gentleman.”

  “It doesn’t look like it’s just the dress that suits you,” Michael commented.

  “It’s not.” Kate turned back, smiled warmly. “And unlike the dress, which goes back into stock tomorrow, he’s all mine. So, how the hell are you, Michael Fury, and when do we get to see your horses?”