He was alone now, with theafterburn of Danas words still singeing the air. He couldnt enjoy the solitude, couldnt fold himself into it or into his work.

A man was never so lonely, he thought, as when he was surrounded by the past.

There was no point in going out for a walk. Too many people who knew him would stop and speak, have questions, make comments. He couldnt lose himself in the Valley as he could in New York.

Which was one of the reasons hed bolted when and how he had. And one of the reasons hed come back.

So, he would go for a drive, get awayfrom,the echoes still bouncing off the walls.

I loved you.

Jesus! Jesus, how could he not have known? Had he been that clueless—or had she been that self-contained?

He walked out and climbed into his Thunderbird, gunned the engine. He felt like speed. A long, fast ride to no particular destination.

He punched in the CD player, cranked it up. He didnt care what pumped out, as long as it was loud. Claptons blistering guitar rode with him out of town.

He had known hed hurt Dana all those years ago. But hed assumed the nip had been to her ego, exactly where he thought hed aimed; Hed known he pissed her off—she made that crystalclear—but he assumed that was pride. If he had known she loved him, hed have found a way to break things off more gently.

Wouldnt he?

Christ, he hoped so. Theyd been friends. Even when they had been consumed with and by each other, theyd been friends. He would never deliberately wound a friend. Hed been no good for her, thats what it came down to. Hed been no good for anybody at that time in his life. She was better off that he had ended it.

He headed for the mountains and began the steep, twisty climb.

But shed loved him. There was little to nothing he could do about that now. He wasnt at all sure there was anything he could have done at the time. He wasnt ready for the Big Love then. He wouldnt have known how to define it, what to think about it.

Hell, he hadnt been able to think at all when it came to Dana. After one look at her when hed come home from college, every single thought of her had shot straight to his glands.

It had terrified him.

He could smile over that now. His initial shock at his own reaction to her, his overwhelming guilt that he was fantasizing about the sister of his closest friend.

Hed been horrified, and fascinated, and ultimately obsessed.

Tall, curvy, sharp-tongued Dana Steele, with her big, full bodied laugh, her questing mind, her punch-first temper.

Everything about her had pulled at him.

Damn if it still didnt.

When hed seen her again on this trip back, when she yanked open the door of Flynns house and stood there snarling at him, the sheer want for her had blown straight through him.

Just as her sheer dislike for him had all but taken off his head.

If they could work their way around to being friends again, to finding that connection, that affection that had always been between them, maybe they could work their way forward to something more.

To what, he couldnt say. But he wanted Dana back in his life.

And, there was no point in denying it, he wanted her back in his bed. Theyd made progress toward friendship during that shopping stint. Theyd been easy with each other for a while, as if the years between hadnt happened.

But, of course, they had. And as soon as he and Dana had remembered those years, the progress had taken an abrupt turn and stomped away in a huff.

So now he had a mission, Jordan decided. He had to find a way to win her back. Friend and lover—in whatever order suited them both best.

The search for the key had, among other things, given him an opening. He intended to use it.

When he realized that hed driven to Warriors Peak, he stopped, pulled to the side of the road.

He remembered climbing that high stone wall as a teenager with Brad and Flynn. They had camped in the woods, with a hijacked six-pack that none of them was old enough to drink.

The Peak was untenanted then, a big, fanciful, spooky place. The perfect place to fascinate a trio of boys with a couple of beers in them.

A high, full moon, he recalled as he climbed out of the car. A black-glass sky and just enough wind, just a hint of wind, to stir the leaves and whisper.

He could see it all now, as clearly as hed seen it then. Maybe more clearly, he thought, amused at himself. He was older, and stone-cold sober, and he had—admittedly— added a few flourishes to the memory.

He liked to think of the scene with a layer of fog drifting over the ground, and a moon so round and white it looked carved into the glass of the sky. Stars sharp as the points of darts. The low, haunting call of an owl, and the rustle of night prey in the high grass. In the distance, with an echo that rolled through the night, the baying of a dog.

Hed added those beats when he used that house and that night in his first major book.

But for Phantom Watch thered been one element of that night he hadnt had to imagine. Because it had happened. Because hed seen it.

Even now, as a man past thirty with none of the naпvetй of the boy left in him, he believed it.

Shed walked along the parapet, under the hard, white moon, sliding in and out of shadows like a ghost, with her hair flying, her cape—surely it had been a cape—billowing.

Shed owned the night. Hed thought that then and he thought it now. She had been the night.

Shed looked at him, Jordan remembered as he wandered to the iron gates, as he stared through them at the great stone house on the rise. He hadnt been able to see her face, but hed known she looked down, straight into his eyes. Hed felt the punch of it, the power, like a blow meant to awaken rather than to harm.

His mind had sizzled from it, and nothing—not the beer, not his youth, not even the shock—had been able to dull the thrill.

Shed looked at him, Jordan remembered again as he scanned the parapet. And shed known him.

Flynn and Brad hadnt seen her. By the time his mind had clicked back into gear and he shouted them over, she was gone.

It had spooked them, of course. Deliciously. The way sightings of ghosts and fanciful creatures are meant to.

Though years later, when he wrote of her, he made her a ghost, hed known then—he knew now—that she was as alive as he.

“Whoever you were,” he murmured, “you helped me make my mark. So, thanks.”

He stood there, hands in his pockets, peering through the bars. The house was part of his past, and oddly, hed considered making it part of his future. Hed been toying with calling to see if it was available just days before Flynn had contacted him about the portrait of the young Arthur of Britain. Hed bought that painting on impulse five years ago at the gallery where Malory used to work, though he hadnt met her then. Not only had it been a major element of Malorys quest, but theyd discovered the painting, along with The Daughters of Glass and one Brad had bought separately had all been painted by Rowena, Jordan thought, centuries ago.

New York, his present, had served its purpose for him. Hed been ready for a change. Ready to come home. Then Flynn had made it so very easy.

It gave him the opportunity to come back, test the waters, and his feelings. Hed known, this time hed known, as soon as he saw the majestic run of the Appalachians, that he wanted them back.

This time—surprise—he was back to stay:

He wanted those hills. The riot of them in fall, the lush green of them in summer. He wanted to stand and see them frozen in white, so still and regal, or hazed with the tender touch of spring.

He wanted the Valley, with its tidy streets and tourists. The familiarity of faces that had known him since his youth, the smell of backyard barbecues and the snippets of local gossip.

He wanted his friends, the comfort and the joy of them. Pizza out of the box, a beer on the porch, old jokes that no one laughed at the same way a childhood friend did.

And he still wanted that damn house, Jordan realized with a slow, dawning smile. He wanted it now every bit as much as he had when he was a sixteen-year-old dreamer with whole worlds yet to be explored.

So, he would bide his time there—he was cagier than hed been at sixteen. And he would find out what Rowena andPitte planned to do with the place when they moved on.

To wherever they moved on.

So, maybe the house was both his past and his future.

He ran bits of Rowenas clue through his head. He was part of Danas past, and like it or not, he was part of her present. Very probably he would be part—one way or another—of her future.

So what did he, and the Peak, have to do with her quest for the key?

And wasnt it incredibly self-serving to assume that he had anything to do with it.

“Maybe,” he said quietly to himself. “But right at the moment, I dont see a damn thing wrong with that.”

With one last look at the house, he turned and walked back to his ear. He would go back to Flynns and spend some time thinking it through, working out the angles.

Then he would present them to Dana, whether she wanted to hear them or not.

* * *

BRADLEY Vane had some plans and plots of his own.Zoe was a puzzlement to him. Prickly and argumentative one minute, scrupulously polite the next. He would knock, and the door to her would crack open. He could detect glimmers of humor and sweetness, then the door would slam shut in his face with a blast of cold air.