by Nora Roberts
She rolled over lazily, blinked. Something odd hung over her mind. Not really unpleasant, just odd.
The dream. The strangest dream.
She sat up and stretched, feeling the healthy pull of muscles. Naked, and easy with it, she slid out of bed, sniffed the butter-yellow roses on the dresser before picking up her robe. She paused by the window to admire her garden, draw in the fragrant air. She pushed the window open wider and let the sound of birdsong follow her out of the room.
The odd feeling was already fading—as a dream does on waking—as she glided down the stairs, trailing a hand over the silky wood of the banister. Jewel lights from the window over the door played on the floor. More flowers, exotic sprays of white orchids, speared out of the antique vase on the entrance table.
His keys were tossed beside them, in the little mosaic bowl she’d bought just for that purpose.
She wound her way through the house to the kitchen, then grinned. He was at the stove, sliding a battered slice of bread into the skillet. There was a tray beside him, already topped with a flute of sparkling juice, a single rose in a bud vase, her pretty coffee cup.
The back door was open. Through it, she could hear the birds continuing to sing and the dog’s occasional happy barks. Blissful, she crept forward, then wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck.
“Watch it. My wife could wake up any minute.”
“Let’s risk it.”
He turned, caught her up in a long, hard kiss. Her heart leaped, her blood fired, even as she thought, Perfect. It’s all so perfect.
“I was going to surprise you.” Flynn ran his hands over her back as he eased her away. “Breakfast in bed. The Hennessy Special.”
“Make it a better surprise, and have breakfast in bed with me.”
“I could probably be persuaded. Hold on.” He grabbed a spatula, flipped the bread over.
“Mmm. It’s after eight. You shouldn’t have let me sleep so late.”
“I didn’t let you get much sleep last night.” He winked at her. “Seemed only fair to let you catch a little this morning. You’ve been working so hard, Mal, getting ready for your show.”
“I’m nearly done.”
“And when it’s over, I’m going to take my incredibly beautiful and talented wife on a well-deserved vacation. Do you remember that week we spent in Florence?”
Sun-drenched days, love-drenched nights. “How could I forget? Are you sure you can take the time off? I’m not the only one who’s been busy around here.”
“We’ll make time.” He flipped the French toast onto a plate. “Why don’t you grab the paper, and we’ll crawl back into bed for an hour . . . or two.”
Sleepy cries began to sound from the baby monitor on the counter. Flynn glanced toward it. “Or maybe not.”
“I’ll get him. Meet me upstairs.”
She hurried up, part of her mind acknowledging the paintings lining the walls. The street scene she’d done in Florence, the seascape from the Outer Banks, the portrait of Flynn sitting at his desk in his office.
She turned toward the nursery. The walls there were decorated with her paintings as well. The bright faerie-tale scenes she’d done the entire time she’d been pregnant.
And in the crib with its glossy spindle bars, her little boy cried impatiently for attention.
“There now, sweetheart. Mama’s right here.” She picked him up, cuddled him close.
He would have his father’s hair, she thought, as she cooed and swayed. It was already coming in dark, with those hints of chestnut shining through when the light caught it.
He was so perfect. So absolutely perfect.
But as she carried him toward the changing table, her legs went weak.
What was his name? What was her baby’s name? Panicked, she clutched him close, then whirled as she heard Flynn come to the door.
“You look so beautiful, Malory. I love you.”
“Flynn.” Something was wrong with her eyes. It was as if she could see through him, as if he were fading away. “Something’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s exactly right. Everything’s just the way you wanted it to be.”
“It’s not real, is it?” Tears began to sting her eyes. “It’s not real.”
“It could be.”
A light flashed, and she was standing in a studio awash with light. Canvases were stacked against the walls or rested on easels. She faced another, brilliant with color and shape. A brush was in her hand, and she was already daubing it on her palette.
“I’ve done this,” she whispered as she stared at the canvas. It was a forest, misty with green light. The figure walking on the path was alone. Not lonely, she thought, but solitary. There was home at the end of the path, and a bit of time yet to enjoy the quiet and the magic of the woods.
Her hand had done that. Her mind, her heart. She could feel it, just as she could feel and remember every brushstroke on every canvas in the room.
The power of that, the glory of it with all its pain and pleasure.
“I can do this.” With a kind of frantic glee, she continued to paint. “I have to do this.”
The joy was like a drug, and she was greedy for it. She knew how to mix just the right tone of color, when to sweep it on, when to switch for the fine, fine details.
How to create that light, that shadow so one might feel as if he or she could slip inside, walk that path, and find home at the end of it.
But even as she painted, tears began to run down her cheeks. “It’s not real.”
“It could be.”
The brush clattered to the floor, splattering paint, as she whirled.
He stood beside her, with the sun’s rays flooding over him. And still he was dark. His hair, black and glossy, spread like wings to his shoulders. His eyes were a strong stone gray. Sharp, high cheekbones hollowed his cheeks, and his mouth was full, appealingly wicked.
Beautiful, she thought. How could he be beautiful?
“Did you think I’d look like a demon? Like something out of a nightmare?” His amusement only added charm. “Why should I? They’ve made you think poorly of me, haven’t they?”
“You’re Kane.” Fear was alive in her, with its cold hands closing around her throat. “You stole the souls from the Daughters of Glass.”
“It needn’t concern you.” His voice was beautiful as well. Melodic, soothing. “You’re an ordinary woman in an ordinary world. You know nothing of me or mine. I wish you no harm. The opposite, in fact.” With a dancer’s grace, he wandered the room, his soft boots silent on the paint-splattered floor. “This is your work.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes, you know it.” He lifted a canvas, studied the sinuous lines of a mermaid lounging on a rock. “You remember painting this, and the others. You know now how it feels to have that power. Art makes gods out of men.” He set the canvas down again. “Or women. What are we, in my world, but artists and bards, magicians and warriors? You want to keep the power, Malory?”
She swiped at the tears, saw her work through them. “Yes.”
“You can have it, all of it, and more. The man you want, the life, the family. I’ll give them to you. The child you held in your arms? It can all be real, it can all belong to you.”
“At what price?”
“So little.” He slid a finger over her damp cheek, and the tear he stole flamed on its tip. “So very little. You’ve only to stay within this dream. To wake and sleep within it, to walk, to speak, to eat, to love. All you can wish for will be here for you. Perfection—without pain, without death.”
She let out a shuddering breath. “There are no keys in this dream.”
“You’re a clever woman. Why care about keys, about bastard goddesses who have nothing to do with you? Why risk yourself and those you love for foolish girls who should never have been born? Would you give up your own dream for strangers?”
“I don’t want a dream. I want my life. I won’t trade my life for yo
ur illusions.”
His skin went white, his eyes black. “Then lose all!”
She screamed as he reached for her, and again when the cold speared through her. Then she was pulled clear, tumbled free, to wake gasping in her own bed.
She heard the banging on the door, the shouting. Terror leaped out of bed with her. She made it to the living room at a stumbling run and spotted Flynn on the other side of her patio doors, about to smash one of her chairs through the glass.
He tossed it aside as she unlocked the door, shoved it open.
“Who’s in here?” He grabbed her shoulders, lifted her right off her feet, and set her out of his way. “Who hurt you?”
“Nobody’s here.”
“You were screaming. I heard you screaming.” He strode into the bedroom, fists ready.
“I had a nightmare. It was just a bad dream. No one’s here but me. I have to sit down.” She braced a hand on the couch, lowered herself.
His own legs felt a little shaky. She’d screamed as if something was tearing her to pieces. He’d had a good taste of terror the night before, but it had been nothing compared to what had pumped into him on the other side of that glass door.
He marched into the kitchen, poured a glass of water. “Here, drink some. Take it slow.”
“I’ll be okay in a minute. I woke up, and you were pounding and shouting. Everything’s still confused.”
“You’re trembling.” He glanced around, spotted a chenille throw. Wrapping it around her shoulders, he sat on the couch beside her. “Tell me about the dream.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to talk about it, or think about it right now. I just want to be alone for a while. I don’t want you here.”
“That’s the second time today you’ve said that to me. But this time you’re not getting your way. In fact, I’m calling Jordan and letting him know I’m staying here tonight.”
“This is my apartment. Nobody stays here unless I invite them.”
“Wrong again. Get undressed, get in bed. I’ll make you some soup or something.”
“I don’t want soup, I don’t want you. And I certainly don’t want to be coddled.”
“Then what the hell do you want?” He lunged to his feet, vibrating with fury and frustration. “One minute you’re all over me, telling me you’re in love with me, you want to spend your life with me. Then the next you want me to hit the road. I’m sick to death of women and their mixed signals and capricious minds and their goddamn expectations of me. Right now, you’re going to do what I want, and that’s getting into bed while I make you something to eat.”
She stared at him. A dozen vile and vicious words leaped into her throat. And she lost them all in a burst of tears.
“Oh, Christ.” Flynn scrubbed his hands over his face. “Nice job. Take a bow, Hennessy.”
He stalked to the window, stared out while she wept wildly behind him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do about you. I can’t keep up. You don’t want me here, fine. I’ll call Dana. But I don’t want you to be alone.”
“I don’t know what to do about me either.” She reached in the drawer for a pack of tissues. “If I’ve sent you mixed signals, it hasn’t been deliberately.” She mopped at her face, but the tears simply wouldn’t stop. “I don’t have a capricious mind—at least I never used to. And I don’t know what my goddamn expectations of you are. I don’t even know what my goddamn expectations are of me anymore. I used to. I’m scared. I’m scared of what’s happening around me and inside me. And I’m scared because I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know if you’re actually standing over there.”
He came back, sat beside her again. “I’m here,” he said as he took her hand firmly in his. “This is real.”
“Flynn.” She steadied herself by staring at their joined hands. “All my life I’ve wanted certain things. I wanted to paint. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be an artist. A wonderful artist. I studied, and I worked. And I never came close. I don’t have the gift.”
She closed her eyes. “It hurt, more than I can tell you, to accept that.” Steadier, she let out a breath, looked at him. “The best I could do was work with art, to be around it, to find some purpose for this love.” She fisted a hand on her heart. “And that I was good at.”
“Don’t you think there’s something noble about doing what we’re really good at, even if it wasn’t our first choice?”
“That’s a nice thought. But it’s hard to set a dream aside. I guess you know that.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“The other thing I wanted was to love someone, to be loved by him. Absolutely. To know when I went to bed at night, woke in the morning, that this someone was with me. Understood me and wanted me. I never had much luck with that one either. I might meet someone, and we’d seem to click. But it never got inside me. I never felt that leap, or the burn that eases into that wonderful, spreading warmth. When you just know this is the one you were waiting for. Until you. Don’t say anything,” she said quickly. “I need to finish.”
She picked up the water again, soothed her throat. “When you wait all your life for something and then you find it, it’s like a miracle. All the parts inside you that’ve been on hold, they open up and start beating. You were okay before, you were good. You had purpose and direction, and everything was just fine. But now it’s more. You can’t explain what that more is, but you know, if you lose it, you’ll never be able to fill those empty spaces in just the same way again. Not ever. That’s terrifying. I’m afraid that what’s inside me is just a trick. That I’ll wake up tomorrow and what’s beating in here will have stopped. It’ll be quiet again. I won’t feel this way. I won’t feel the way I’ve waited all my life to feel.”
Her eyes were dry again, her hand steady as she set the water down. “I can stand you not loving me back. There’s always the hope that you will. But I don’t know if I can stand not loving you. It would be like . . . like having something stolen from inside me. I don’t know if I can handle going back to the way I was.”
He brushed a hand down her hair, then drew her close to his side so her head rested on his shoulder. “Nobody’s ever loved me, not the way you’re talking about. I don’t know what to do about it, Malory, but I don’t want to lose it either.”
“I saw the way things could be, but it wasn’t true. Just an ordinary day that was so perfect it was like a jewel in the palm of my hand. He made me see it and feel it. And want it.”
He eased back, turning her to face him. “The dream?”
She nodded. “It hurt more than anything I’ve ever known to let it go. It’s a hard price, Flynn.”
“Can you tell me?”
“I think I have to. I was tired. I felt like I’d been through this emotional wringer. I just wanted to lie down, have it go away for a while.”
She took him through it, the waking with that sensation of absolute well-being, of moving through a house that was full of love, finding him in the kitchen making her breakfast.
“That should’ve clued you in. Me, cooking? An obvious delusion.”
“You were making me French toast. It’s my favorite lazy-morning treat. We talked about going on vacation, and I remembered all the other places we’d gone, what we’d done. Those memories were inside me. Then the baby woke up.”
“Baby?” He went icy pale. “We had—there was . . . a baby?”
“I went up to get him out of the crib.”
“Him?”
“Yes, him. Along the walls on the way were paintings I’d done. They were wonderful, and I could remember painting them. Just as I could remember painting the ones in the nursery. I picked the baby up, out of the crib, and this love, this terrible love for him. I was full of it. And then . . . and then I didn’t know his name. I had no name for him. I could feel the shape of him in my arms, and how soft and warm his skin was, but I didn’t know his name. You came to the door, and I could see through you. I knew it wasn’t real. None of it was r
eal.”
She had to stand up, to move. She walked over to open the curtains again. “Even as I started to hurt, I was in a studio. My studio, surrounded by my work. I could smell the paint and the turpentine. I had a brush in my hand, and I knew how to use it. I knew all the things I’d always wanted to know. It was powerful, like having the child who had come from me in my arms. And just as false. And he was there.”
“Who was there?”
She drew in a sharp breath, turned back. “His name is Kane. The stealer of souls. He spoke to me. I could have it all—the life, the love, the talent. It could be real. If I just stayed inside it, I’d never have to give it up. We would love each other. We’d have a son. I’d paint. It would all be perfect. Just live inside the dream, and the dream’s real.”
“Did he touch you?” He rushed to her to run his hands over her as if to check for wounds. “Did he hurt you?”
“This world or that,” she said, steady again. “My choice. I wanted to stay, but I couldn’t. I don’t want a dream, Flynn, no matter how perfect it is. If it’s not real, it means nothing. And if I’d stayed, isn’t that just another way of giving him my soul?”
“You were screaming.” Undone, Flynn laid his forehead on hers. “You were screaming.”
“He tried to take it, but I heard you shouting for me. Why did you come here?”
“You were upset, with me. I didn’t want you to be.”
“Annoyed,” she corrected and slid her arms around him. “I still am, but it’s a little hard to get through everything else to my irritation. I want you to stay. I’m afraid to sleep, afraid I might go back and this time I won’t be strong enough to come out again.”
“You’re strong enough. And if you need it, I’ll help pull you out.”
“This might not be real either.” She lifted her mouth to his. “But I need you.”
“It’s real.” He lifted her hands, kissed each one in turn. “That’s the only thing I’m sure of in this whole damn mess. Whatever I’m feeling for you, Malory, it’s real.”
“If you can’t tell me what you feel, then show me.” She drew him to her. “Show me now.”
All the conflicting emotions, the needs and doubts and wants, poured into the kiss. And as she accepted them, accepted him, he felt himself settle. Tenderness spread through him as he picked her up, cradled her in his arms.