by Nora Roberts
It was one of the skills that made him such a strong writer. Oh, she hated to admit that one. She hoped her tongue would fall out before she spoke those words to him.
But he had such talent.
Hed chosen that talent over her, and that still hurt. But if he could help her find the key, she would have to put that hurt away. At least temporarily.
She could always kick his ass later.
Mollified, she ate some more pizza. Tomorrow she would get a fresh start. She had the whole day, the whole week, the whole month to do whatever she felt needed to be done. Thered be no need to set the alarm, dress for work.
She could spend the whole day in her pajamas if she wanted to, digging into her research, outlining a plan, surfing the Net for more data.
She would contactZoe and Malory and set up another summit meeting. They worked well together.
Maybe theyd start to work on the building. Physical labor could spark mental acuity. The first key had been hidden, in a manner of speaking, in the building they were buying. Of course, Malory had had to paint the key into existence before she could retrieve it from the painting.
Maybe the second, or at least the link to the second, was in the house as well.
In any case, it was a plan. Something solid to get her teeth into.
She shoved the pizza aside and rose to phone Malory first. With plans to meet for a full days painting set, she phonedZoe .
“Hey. Its Dana. Just got off the phone with Mal. Were going to start the great transformation at the house tomorrow. Nine oclock. Malory voted for eight, but theres no way in hell Im getting up that early when Im not drawing an actual paycheck.”
“Nines fine. Dana.” Her voice dropped to a hissing whisper. “Bradleys here.”
“Oh. Okay, Ill let you go, then. See—”
“No, no. What am I supposed to do with him?”
“Gee,Zoe , I dont know. What do you want to do with him?”
“Nothing.” Her voice went up a notch before lowering again. “I dont know how this happened. Hes out in the living room playing video baseball with Simon, in a suit.”
“Simons wearing a suit?” Dana tucked her tongue in her cheek. “Boy,thingsre pretty formal at your house.”
“Stop it.” But she laughed a little. “Hes wearing a suit. Bradley. He came to the door with a stepladder, and before I knew—”
“With a what? What for? To clean out your gutters? That was not a euphemism, by the way. But, come to think of it, itd be a pretty good one.”
“He gave it—the stepladder—to me—to us—” she corrected quickly. “For the painting and stuff. He thought we could use it.”
“That was nice of him. Hes a nice guy.”
“Thats not the point! What am I supposed to do with this chicken?”
“Brad brought you a chicken?”
“No.” There was helpless, hooting laughter over the line. “Why would anyone bring me a chicken?”
“I was just wondering the same thing.”
“I have chicken breasts defrosted, for dinner. What am I going to do with them now?”
“Id try cooking them. Jeez,Zoe , relax. Its just Brad. Throw the chicken in a pan, rustle up some rice or potatoes, whatever, add something green and toss it on a plate. Hes not fussy.”
“Dont tell me hes not fussy.” She went back to the hissing whisper. “We dont do cordon bleu in this house. I dont even know for sure what cordon bleu means. Hes wearing anAudemarsPiguet . Do you think I dont know what anAudemarsPiguet is?”
It was fascinating, really, Dana decided, to realize her old friend Brad turned a sensible woman likeZoe into a raving lunatic. “Okay, Ill bite. What is anAudemarsPiguet and is it really sexy?”
“Its a watch. A watch that costs more than my house. Or damn near. Never mind.” There was a long, long sigh. “Im making myself crazy, and its just stupid.”
“I cant argue with you about that.”
“Ill see you tomorrow.”
Shaking her head, Dana hung up. Now she had one more thing to look forward to in the morning. And that was hearing all about howZoe and Brad handled a chicken dinner.
But for now, she was switching gears. She was going to try out her tub book and a long, hot, soaking bath.
Chapter Five
SHE decided to make the bath an event. The first pure luxury of unemployment. Might as well celebrate it, Dana told herself, as cry over it.
She went for mango for that tropical sensation, and dumped a generous amount of the scented bubble bath under the running water. She lit candles, then decided a bottle of beer didnt quite measure up to the rest of the ambience.
Already naked, she headed into the kitchen, poured the beer into a glass.
Back in the bath, she anchored her hair on top of her head, then, for the hell of it, slopped on some of the hydrating facial creamZoe had talked her into.
It couldnt hurt.
Realizing she was missing an important element, she went out to flip through her CDs, found an old JimmyBuffett . Time to go to the islands, she decided, and with Jimmy already nibbling on sponge cake, she sank with a long sigh into the hot, fragrant water.
For the first five minutes she simply basked, let the hot water, the scents, the absolute bliss do their work.
A big white ball bearing Joans irritated face bounced down a long incline, slapping into rocks, picking up grit. The face took on a shocked expression as it rolled straight off the edge of a cliff.
A bouncy blond ponytail followed it. Tension oozed away, drop by drop.
“Bye-bye,” Dana murmured, well satisfied.
She roused herself to rinse away the facial cream with a washcloth, and reminded herself to put on some moisturizer when she got out of the tub.
She frowned at her toes, turned her head this way and that. Maybe it was time for a pedicure, ending it with some sassy, liberating color suitable for the recently unemployed and the soon-tobe entrepreneur.
It was coming in damn handy having a stylist for a friend and business partner.
Ready for stage two, she decided, and picked up her book from the edge of the tub. With a sip of beer, the turn of a page, Dana slipped into the story.
The tropical setting, the romance and intrigue, perfectly suited her needs. She drifted along with the words, began to see the deep blue shine of the water, the sugar-white sparkle of the sand. She felt the warm, moist, air flutter over her skin and smelled the sea, the heat, the strong perfume of the lilies potted on the wide veranda.
She stepped offsunbaked wood and ontosunbaked sand. Gulls cried as they wheeled overhead, and the sound of them echoing was a kind of chant.
She felt the powdery grit of the sand under her bare feet, and the teasing way her thin silk wrap fluttered around her legs.
She walked to the water, then along its edge, basking in the beauty of the solitude.
She could go wherever she wanted, or nowhere at all.
All those years of responsibility and work, of schedules and obligations, were behind her now.
Why had she ever thought they mattered so much?
The water rolled toward shore, foamy lace at its edges, then waltzed back into its own heart with a sigh. She saw the silver flash and leap of dolphins at play, and beyond, so far beyond, the delicate line of the horizon. It was perfect and peaceful and lovely. And so liberating to know she was completely alone.
She wondered why shed ever felt compelled to work so hard, to worry, to care about what should be or had to be done, when all she really wanted was to be alone in a world of her own choosing.
A world, she understood without any sense of surprise or wonder, that she could change with a thought or on a whim.
There was no heartache unless she wished for it, no company unless she created it. Her life could spin out— color and movement and quiet and sound—like the pages of a book that never had to end.
If she wanted a companion, she had only to imagine one. Lover or friend.
But really, she needed no one
but herself. People brought problems, responsibilities, baggage, needs that were not her own. Life was so much simpler in solitude.
Her lips curved with contentment as she wandered along the sickle curve of beach where the only footprints were hers, toward the lush green shade of palms and trees heavy with fruit.
Cooler here, because she wished it to be. Soft, soft grass beneath her feet, sprinkles of sunlight through the fronds overhead, and the sharp, bright flash of birds with feathers the rich colors of jewels.
She plucked fruit from a branch—a mango, of course— and took the first sweet, juicy bite.
It was chilled, almost icy cold, just the way she liked it best, rather than warmed by that streaming sun.
She lifted her arms, saw they were tanned a smooth and dusky gold, and when she looked down she grinned to see her toes were painted a bold andcelebrational pink.
Exactly right, she realized. Thats exactly what I wanted.
Her mind began to wander as she roamed through the glade, watched goldfish dance in a pool of clear blue water. She wanted the fish to be red as rubies, and they were. Green as emeralds, and they became so.
The wonderful flash of bright color in the water made her laugh, and at the sound of it, birds— more jewels— glided into that perfect bowl of sky.
This could be her forever place, she realized, changing only as she wished it to change. Here, she would never hurt again, or need, or be disappointed.
Everything would always be just the way she wanted it to be… until she wanted it to be different.
She lifted the mango again, and a thought passed through her mind: But what will I do here, day after day?
She seemed to hear voices, just the murmur of them, far off. Even as the breeze kicked up, whisked them away, she turned, looked back.
Flowers tangled on lush green vines. Fruit dripped, glossy as gems, from the delicate branches of trees. The sound of the surf, a seductive whisper, shivered through the air.
She stood, alone, in the paradise she had made.
“No”
She said it out loud, as a kind of test.
This isnt right. This isnt who I am, isnt what I want.
The fruit she held slipped out of her fingers and hit the ground at her feet with an ugly splat. Her heart jolted in her chest as she saw it was rotten at the core.
The colors around her were too harsh, she realized, the textures too flat. Like a stage set, like standing on an elaborate set built for an endless play.
“This is a trick.” Angry wasps began to buzz around the spoiled fruit. “This is a lie!”
As she shouted it, the blue sky turned to boiling black. Wind screamed, ripping fronds, hurling flowers and fruit. The air turned bitterly cold.
She ran, with icy rain stinging her face, plastering the silk against her body.
In this wild and wicked world, trick or no trick, she knew she was no longer alone.
She ran, through the hurricane scream of the storm, through the lashing, razor-edged fronds that seemed to snatch at her arms and legs like grasping fingers.
Breathless, terrified, she spilled out onto the beach. The sea was a nightmare, walls of oily black water rising up, pounding down, eating away at the land bite by greedy bite. Palm trees crashed down behind her, and the white sand caved in on itself, like a world collapsing.
Even in the dark, in the cold, she felt the shadow spread over her. The pain shocked her to her feet again, had her stumbling forward as she felt something ripping inside her. Ripping out of her.
Gathering all her strength, all her will, she made her choice, and plunged into the killing sea.
* * *
SHE reared up, gasping, shuddering, a scream tearing at her throat.
And found herself sitting up in her tub, chilly water sloshing over the side. Her book was floating, her candles pooling in their own wax.
Panicked, she crawled out of the tub, and for a moment simply curled shivering on the bath mat.
With her teeth chattering, she forced herself up, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her. Suddenly the thought of being naked only added to the layers of fear. She stumbled out of the bathroom, her heart still heaving inside her chest, to fumble a robe out of her closet.
Shed wondered if she would ever be warm again.
Hed pulled her in. Kane. The dark sorcerer who had challenged the king of the gods and had stolen the souls of his daughters. Because they were half mortal, Dana thought, and that offended his sensibilities. And because he wanted to rule.
He had conjured the Box of Souls with its triple locks, and had forged the three keys that no god could turn. A kind of nasty joke, she thought as she struggled to catch her breath. A rude thumbing of his nose at the god who had had the bad taste to fall in love with a mortal woman.
The spell Kane had cast behind the Curtain of Dreams had held for three thousand years. Which meant he had plenty of punch—and hed just given her a good hard shot to remind her that he was watching. Hed slipped into her head and pulled her into one of her own fantasies. How long? she wondered, hugging herself for warmth. How long had she been lying there, naked, helpless, out of her own body?
It was dark now, fully dark, and she switched on the Light for fear of what might wait in the shadows. But the room was empty. She was alone in it, just as shed been alone on that illusion of beach.
At the hard rap on her front door the scream started building again. She clutched a hand to her throat to trap it and all but sprinted to the door.
Whoever it was, it was better than being alone.
Or so she thought until she saw Jordan.
Oh, God, not him. Not now. “What do you want?” she snapped. “Go away. Im busy.”
Before she could slam the door, he slapped a hand on it. “I want to talk to you about… What is it?” She was white as a ghost, her dark eyes enormous, and glassy with shock. “Whats wrong?”
“Nothing. Im fine.” The shakes started up again, harder this time. “I dont want to… oh, the hell with it. Youre better than nothing.”
She simply fell against him. “Im so cold. Im so goddamn cold.”
He scooped her right off her feet, then booted the door shut behind him. “Couch or bed?”
“Couch. Ive got the shakes. I cant stop.”
“Okay. Its okay.” He sat, kept her cradled in his lap as he tugged the throw off the back of the couch. “Youll warm up in a minute,” he comforted, and tucked the throw around her. “Just hold on to me.”
He rubbed her back, her arms, then just wrapped his own arms around her and banked on body heat to do the rest. “Why are you wet?”
“I was in the tub. Then I wasnt. I dont know how it works.” Her hand was fisted in his jacket, kneading there as she fought to steady herself. “The son of a bitch got inside my head. You dont even know its happening, it just does. Im not going to make any sense for a couple more minutes.”
“Its okay. I think Im following you.” His stroking hands bumped the band that tied her hair up. Without thinking, he slipped it off, combed his fingers through. “It was Kane? He was here?”
“I dont know.” Exhausted, she laid her head against his chest. She had her breath back at least. It no longer felt as if a hand was squeezing her racing heart. “Like I said, I dont know how it works. I wanted to take a bath, relax.”
To give her something else to think about, he deliberately sniffed her neck. “You smell terrific. Tasty. What is that?”
“Mango. Cut it out.” But she made no attempt to get off his lap. “I did the bubble bath routine. Lit candles, got my bath book. Its got a Caribbean setting—the book, so thats why the mango andBuffett . I put a JimmyBuffett CD on.”
She was rambling, but he let her talk it out.
“So, Im settling in—hot bubbles,Buffett , beer and book. The books a romantic thriller, nice fast pace, sharp dialogue. The scene Im reading was from the heroines viewpoint, during one of her breathers. Shes on the terrace of her room at this tropical reso
rt, thats actually a front for… Never mind, not important.”
She closed her eyes, soothed by the steady stroking of his hand over her hair. “So shes standing there, looking out at the water. Youve got the surf, the breeze, gulls. The writer paints a good picture, so Im seeing it.
“Then Im not just seeing it in my head, in the words on the page. But I dont even realize everything shifted, that Im inside the image in my own head. Thats the scariest part. You dont know.”
She rubbed her hands over her face. “Ive got to get up.” She tossed the throw aside and stood, then as an afterthought tightened the loose belt of her robe. “I was on the beach. Not just thinking about the beach, not just seeing it. I was there. I could smell the water, and flowers. Lilies, there were pots of white lilies. Didnt seem the least bit strange that I was all of a sudden walking over the sand, feeling the sun, the breeze. My feet are bare, my toes are painted, Im tanned and Im wearing this long silk thing, just a wrap. I can feel it fluttering around my legs.”
“I bet you looked terrific.”
She glanced over at him, and for the first time since hed come in, the dimples winked into her cheeks. “Youre trying to keep me from freaking again.”
“Thats a definite yes, but I still bet you looked terrific.”
“Sure I did. It was my fantasy. My own, personal tropical island. Perfect weather, blue sea, white sand, and solitude. I was even thinking, as I walked the beach, how foolish Id been to ever worry about responsibilities. I could do or have anything I wanted.”
“What did you want, Dane?”
“At that moment? Just to be alone, I guess, not to worry about anything. Not to think how upset I was that the evil Joan had manipulated me out of a job I really loved, and how Im a little scared about starting Act Two of the Life of Dana.”
“Thats human. Thats normal.”
“It is.” She glanced back at him—big, handsome Jordan Hawke watching her with those deep blue eyes. He understood she wasnt looking for meaningless words of comfort or sympathy.
“It is,” she repeated, as soothed by his understanding as shed been by his hands. “I walked toward this grove of palm and fruit trees. I picked a mango. I could taste it,” she paused, touching her fingers to her lips. “Basically, I just walked along thinking, boy, this is the life. But it wasnt the life, it wasnt my life. And its not what I want, not really.”