Key of Knowledge

  Moe didn’t need a second invitation. He raced by her, skidded on the tiles, bumped into the archway on his turn into the parlor. When they caught up with him, he was curled into a chair, his chin resting on its velvet arm, his tail thumping.

  “Hey! Off the furniture, you ingrate.”

  Even as Flynn moved over to haul him down, Moe’s big brown eyes shifted to Rowena. His tail thumped harder.

  “No, please. He’s perfectly welcome to sit there. After all.” She hurried over to intervene. “After all, he’s a guest.”

  “He’s an operator.”

  “Yes.” She stroked one of his floppy ears. “And he . . . what’s the phrase? He has my number. No harm. Now what can I offer you? Coffee, tea?” The corner of her lips twitched as she looked at Flynn. “Perhaps a cold beer.”

  “Did you read my mind or do I just look like a guy who wants a beer right now?”

  “Perhaps a bit of both. Please, follow Moe’s lead, and sit. Be comfortable. I’ll just be a moment.”

  “Is Pitte available?” Jordan asked.

  “Certainly. I’ll ask him to join us.”

  Brad waited until she’d left the room, then turned to Jordan. “Okay, I can’t stand it. Don’t just blurt out how you want this house and always have, or something lamebrained like that.”

  “Do I look like I just fell out of the nest?”

  “Ever bought a house before?”

  “No, but—”

  “I have. You’re a successful author with a string of bestsellers. They know you’ve got money. Add some sparkly childhood dream to that and you’re just asking to get taken.”

  Jordan took a seat. “You know, I’m beginning to see why you irritate Zoe.”

  Brad looked down his nose. “I don’t irritate her, I make her nervous. The irritation is merely a side effect of the nerves.”

  “Yeah, I’m starting to get it, too,” Flynn put in, and flopped down in his chair, much like his dog. He perked up as Rowena came back, carrying a tray.

  “Hey, let me give you a hand with that.” Flynn pushed to his feet, took the tray that held five pilsners of beer.

  “Thank you. Please, help yourselves. Pitte will be right along.” She sat on the sofa, curled up her legs, and sent Flynn a silky smile when he offered her one of the glasses. “It’s an important day.”

  He felt his stomach clutch when she looked at him. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

  “You’re allowed to feel a bit off-center. It’s human. Ah, here’s Pitte.”

  “Good afternoon. Rowena tells me we’ve things to talk about.” He sat on the sofa beside her, reached for a beer. “You’re well?”

  “Seem to be,” Jordan answered. “Maybe I should start with what’s happened.”

  He told them first of Kane’s taking Dana back into their past.

  “It’s interesting.” Pitte studied his beer, considered. “More straightforward than one expects from him.”

  “A method that matches his quarry,” Rowena said. “Clever of him. He doesn’t attempt to trick or deceive her. Rather he tells her precisely what he’s doing, allows her to see, and still experience. Yes, it was a very good strategy.”

  “It might have worked. Nearly did. I don’t think we’d be where we are, at least not now, if Malory hadn’t given us both a push.”

  “The six of you are part of one whole. Vital and individual,” Rowena added, “but stronger yet for your connection. How did you resolve this thing with Dana?”

  “Do I have to tell you? I can just about see the little red hearts circling over my head myself.”

  “I’d still like to hear what you say, and how you say it.”

  As he complied, she nodded, slid her hand into Pitte’s. “It’s difficult,” she said, “to know what to let go of, what to hold. I’m happy for you both, that you held each other.”

  “So am I, for purely personal reasons. But it plays into the rest, doesn’t it?” Jordan watched her face, wished he could read it. “It’s part of the quest.”

  “In a tapestry, every thread matters. The length, the texture, the hue. He wished to separate you; you didn’t allow it. The thread between you is long, and rich, and strong.”

  “Why is it so important that he separate us?”

  “You’re more together than you are apart. You know that.”

  “It’s not only that.” He leaned forward. “Help me help her.”

  “You have. You will. I believe that.”

  “She’s nearly out of time.”

  “You’ve come farther than you think, so be careful. He’ll do whatever he can to break that thread.”

  Jordan sat back. “He won’t break it. There’s another reason I’m here. I’m starting to wonder if it’s not part of the tapestry as well. I want to buy this house.”

  Brad made a strangled sound in his throat that had Pitte shooting him a dryly amused glance. “Would you care for some water?”

  “No. No.” With a sigh, Brad drank more beer. “No.”

  “The big businessman over there figures I should tap-dance around, and we’ll play let’s negotiate for an hour or two. I don’t see the point. I don’t know what your plans are for the place once this is all done, but if you’re willing to sell, I’m ready to buy.”

  Why doesn’t he just give them a blank check? Brad thought to himself. Access to his brokerage account, the deed to his condo in New York?

  “Your business-minded friend has some excellent points.” Sending Brad a nod of acknowledgment, Pitte swirled his beer. “I’ve developed a number of business interests over time. I enjoy . . .” He gave Rowena a questioning glance.

  “Wheeling and dealing.”

  “Yes. It’s an entertaining hobby. This property, beyond suiting our needs during this period, is quite desirable. A house of this size and material, with its history and its location—which includes twenty-five point three acres, both cleared and wooded, a six-car garage, an indoor swimming pool, with steam room and . . .”

  “Whirlpool tub,” Rowena supplied on a bubble of laughter. “We quite enjoy the whirlpool tub.”

  “Yes.” He lifted her hand, nipped her knuckles. “As well as a number of other details and amenities—”

  “Please.” Unable to hold back, Brad lifted a hand. “This place is an enormous white elephant. Amenities and history are one thing, but it’s twenty miles away from the Valley—”

  “Eighteen point six,” Pitte corrected blandly.

  “On a narrow road that twists straight up the mountain,” Brad continued. “It’s bound to cost a fortune to heat and cool. You put it on the market tomorrow, you’d be lucky to get a serious offer within the next decade.”

  Pitte stretched out his legs, crossed his ankles. It occurred to Jordan that this was the most relaxed he’d seen Pitte in the weeks of their acquaintance.

  “I would enjoy doing business with you,” he told Brad. “Perhaps, at some point, there will be an opportunity. I believe it would be very stimulating.”

  “Right now you’re doing business with me,” Jordan reminded him.

  “Yes, that’s true.” Pitte’s gaze shifted to Jordan.

  “I have a question first.” Rowena patted Pitte’s arm to hold him off, then looked at Jordan. “Why do you want this house?”

  “I’ve always wanted it.”

  Brad rolled his eyes toward heaven. “Have pity on him.”

  “The question is why.”

  “It . . . spoke to me. I don’t mean that literally.”

  “No.” Rowena nodded. “I understand you. Go on.”

  “When I was a kid, I would look up here and I’d think: That’s my house. It’s just waiting for me to grow up. I remember telling my mother that I was going to buy it for her one day, and she’d be able to stand up here, on the top of the world.”

  He shrugged. “When I was older, I would drive up here sometimes, look at the place and tell myself that one day I’d drive through the gates and walk right in the front door. It’s beautifu
l, and it’s strong, and it may be all the way up here, but it’s part of what makes the Valley what it is. I couldn’t give it to my mother. I want to give it to Dana. I want to build a life with her here, raise children with her here. I want to be able to look down at the Valley and know we’re all a part of something solid and real and important.”

  “You can have the house.”

  The gleam in Pitte’s eyes winked out. “Rowena!”

  “For its appraised value,” she continued, wagging a finger at her lover. “And not a penny more.”

  “You wound me, a ghra.”

  “You won’t charge him for the legal business of it, the settlement, the transfer, whatever it is. You will pay the fees and the . . . what are they called?” she asked Brad.

  “Points.” He had to swallow a laugh. “I think you mean points.”

  “Yes, all of that sort of business.” She thought for a moment. “I think that’s everything.”

  Pitte hissed out a breath. “Women are a trial to a man. Why don’t I just wrap bows around the place and gift it to him?”

  “Because he wouldn’t accept.” She leaned over to kiss Pitte’s cheek while he scowled. “It’s always been his,” she said. “You know that as well as I.”

  “Be that as it may.” He drummed his fingers on his knee. “You and I,” he said to Jordan, “will work out the details of the thing without the female buzzing about.”

  “At your convenience.”

  “Shake hands on it, Pitte.” Rowena gave him a nudge. “Shake hands on the terms just set.”

  “Bloody hell.” He shoved himself to his feet, held out a hand. “Might as well do it, then, or she’ll nag me hairless.”

  Jordan clasped Pitte’s hand, felt a quick jolt. It might have been power, he mused, or simple frustration. It was hard to tell when you were closing a deal with a god. “Thank you.”

  “So you should thank me. Your friend over there will know I could turn considerably more than the appraised value in this current market.”

  “That handshake binding?” Brad wondered.

  “It is.”

  “Without a full inspection of the property, I’d say you’d have gotten ten percent over appraisal. Minimum.”

  “More like fifteen.” Though he’d been carefully silent during the transaction, Flynn spoke up now. “When you publish the local paper, you know these things. There’s a hotelier who’s tried to buy it up, turn it into a resort. He got close a couple of times,” Flynn continued conversationally. “But something always screwed the deal. Bad luck for him.”

  Rowena met his quiet look, and smiled. “Indeed. Would you care to go through some of the house now, Jordan?”

  Before he could open his mouth, Flynn tapped his watch. “We’re running a little short on time.”

  “Ah, well. Soon, then.” She took Jordan’s hand as well, squeezed it once. “You must see more of it, and the views, of course, from the terraces and balcony and parapet.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. I’ll bring Dana and we’ll . . .”

  He trailed off, staring at her, the way she stood. Slim and quiet and somehow apart from the rest of them.

  And he saw the woman standing on the parapet under a gleaming moon with her dark cloak billowing in the wind.

  “It was you. All those years ago, I saw you.”

  “I saw you.” She touched a hand, very gently, to his cheek. “A young, handsome boy, so troubled, so full of thoughts. I wondered when you’d remember me.”

  “Why did I see you? Why didn’t they?”

  “They didn’t need to.”

  HE wasn’t sure what it all meant, and Rowena had left him wondering. What he needed, Jordan decided, as he let himself into Dana’s apartment, was a little time to get his thoughts into some sort of order.

  Maybe he should write them down, as he had with the sequence of events. He would sit down at Dana’s computer and just let it flow.

  But when he walked into the bedroom, he heard the shower running. He hadn’t noticed her car parked out front, which meant, he concluded, that his mind was somewhere else. He poked into the bathroom to let her know he was there.

  Her scream could have shattered brick when he tugged back the shower curtain.

  With one hand over her heart, the other shoving at her dripping hair, she gasped for air. “Why don’t you just make that squeaky violin music and finish the job?”

  “Hey, it’s not like I’m wearing a dress and carrying a knife. I just wanted to tell you I was here, so I wouldn’t scare you when you came out.”

  “Yeah, better to scare me when I’m wet and naked and helpless.”

  He pursed his lips. She’d always looked good wet and naked. “Helpless?”

  “Okay, maybe not helpless.” She reached out, grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “Get in here, big guy.”

  “Tempting, very tempting, but I need to talk to you about some stuff, and we need to get to Flynn’s.”

  “Talk later, hot, steamy sex now.”

  “It’s really hard to argue with that.” He toed off his shoes.

  She waited until he stepped in behind her, then handed him the soap and an over-the shoulder invitation. “Wash my back?”

  “I can start there.”

  “Mmm. I’m going to get all . . . slippery and . . . slick and . . . That’s not my back.”

  He slid his soapy hands over her butt. “It’s behind you, so it counts.” Bending his head, he skimmed his teeth over her shoulder. “You’ve got the most incredible body. Have I mentioned that before?”

  “Maybe once or twice, but I don’t mind redundancy under certain circumstances.” She dipped her head back as his hands sleeked up her torso, slithered over her breasts. “Such as that.”

  “Then I’ll risk repeating myself.” He turned her around. “I love you.” He laid his lips on hers. “I’m so in love with you.”

  With a sound of pleasure and joy, she hooked her arms around his neck, poured herself into him.

  Water sluiced over them, and the steam billowed up. Flesh slid over flesh, and soapy hands glided to tease and arouse. Lips rubbed and nibbled, then began to hunger.

  Her heart was so full she wondered it didn’t burst like light and rock the room. “It’s different.” She kissed his mouth, his throat, his mouth. “It’s different now, knowing you love me.” She fisted her hands in his hair to draw him back an inch. “It’s different now, when I can tell you I love you.”

  “Then it’s always going to be different, because I’m never going to stop.”

  Their mouths met again.

  It was different. Every touch, every taste, every need was gilded with a sense of belonging. Water showered over them as he anchored her, as he slipped inside her. The beauty of it brought her a thousand sweet aches.

  Hers now, he was hers now. And she was his.

  She held tight, and matched him beat for beat.

  Emotions swamped him, sensations drowned him, and all he could see was her. The dark eyes, the sleek hair, the strong mouth, and water streaming down her face like tears. She held him, body and heart. And, he realized, she always had.

  He felt her tremble, heard her breath shudder and catch, then her eyes went beautiful and opaque as she came.

  As she tightened around him, he pressed his mouth to hers again, and gave himself to her.

  After, a long time after, they simply stood holding each other.

  “This is good, Jordan. This is really good.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Even though the water’s getting cold. I feel all lazy and sleepy. I wish we could slide into bed instead of getting dressed and going over to Flynn’s.”

  “If you’re too tired to go—”

  “That’s not it. I just want to lie around in bed with you.”

  He drew her back. “I can’t argue with that either.

  “But we’re going to get dressed and go over to Flynn’s because lying around in bed would be wrong.” She kissed him lightly. “Jesu
s, the water is getting cold.”

  He reached behind her and switched it off. “We can go over, then leave early and come back and lie around in bed.”

  “Good plan.” She stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel. “So, what’s this mysterious mission you went on today?” She wrapped her hair in the towel, grabbed a second one.

  He held out a hand, thinking it was for him, but she started drying her legs with it. He shook his head, got yet another towel for himself.

  “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “What’s wrong with now?”

  “Because we’re in the bathroom, naked. It’s just not the right place for it.”

  “That’s silly. We’ve had naked conversations before. In fact, we’ve had some very interesting naked conversations. Where did you go, and why did you need Brad and Flynn along? Because I know they went with you. I have ways of getting that sort of information.”

  She grabbed a bottle of body cream and poured some into her hand.

  “I’ll tell you later. You’ll appreciate the fact that we get into this in a more appropriate setting.”

  “See, now you’re making me crazy.” She slathered on cream. “Which forces me to grill you. You were gone for hours. Where did you go? What did you do?”

  “We went to a titty bar and drank cheap booze while women with fascinating man-made breasts slid around on long, shiny poles.”

  “You think that’ll irritate me and I’ll leave you alone, but you’re wrong.” She took the towel off her head and finger-combed her hair. “Personally, I don’t have a problem with guys going to strip clubs and making jackasses of themselves. So you might as well tell me the truth.”

  “Fine. Here and now, then.” He picked up his pants, dug the jeweler’s box out of the pocket. He held it out to her, flipped up the lid with his thumb.

  “Oh, my Jesus Christ,” she said and sat down heavily on the lid of the toilet.

  “Yeah, that’s romance. You like it or what?”

  She had to swallow. “Depends.”

  “On what?” He scowled, turned the box around to study the ring. It looked great, he decided, but there was never any certainty with women. “I figured you’d like this better than the standard diamond. But if you’d rather go that route, I can exchange it.”

  She shivered, but she didn’t feel cold. Not in the least. “Then that would be an engagement ring you’ve got there.”

  “What the hell do you think it is? Would you stand up? This is just a little too bizarre.”

  “Sorry.” She got to her feet. “I wasn’t sure what it meant.”

  “It means marry me, Dana.” He had to push his dripping hair back. “It means I love you, and I want to spend my life with you. I want to make children with you, and grow old with you.”

  She’d thought her heart was full, but it hadn’t been. There was still room, so much room for him. “Oh, well, that clears things up nicely. It’s a beautiful ring. It’s the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen. You were only wrong about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t mind the time and place, Jordan.” She looked up at him now with a