Нора Робертс - Key of Knowledge

When his eyes stayed so direct and easy on hers, she heard-—with some horror—the words tumbling out of her mouth. “Youre welcome to stay. Its just chicken.”

“Thatd be great.”

He swiveled back around to resume the game.

Mental note, Brad thought: Forget the roses and champagne. Home improvement supplies are the key to this particular ladys lock.

* * *

WHILEZoe was standing in her kitchen wondering how the hell she was going to turn her humble chicken into something worthy of a more sophisticated palate, Dana was soothing her ego with takeout pizza.

She hadnt meant to tell him. Ever. Why give him one more thing to smirk at her about?

But he hadnt smirked, she admitted, washing down the pizza with cold beer. In fact, hed looked as though shed put a bullet dead center of his forehead.

Neither could she claim hed looked pleased or puffed up about the knowledge that shed been in love with him.

The fact of it was, hed looked shocked, then sorry.

Oh, God, maybe that was worse.

She sulked over the pizza. Though she had her evening book open on the table beside her, she hadnt read a single word. She was just going to have to deal with this, she told herself.

She couldnt afford to obsess about Jordan. Not only because she had other things that should occupy her time and her thoughts, but it just wasnt healthy.

Since it was clear he was going to hang around for several weeks, and there was no avoiding him unless she avoided Flynn and Brad, they would be seeing each other regularly.

And if she accepted all that had happened in the last month, all shed learned, she was going to have to accept that Jordan had been meant to come back. He was a part of it all.

And damn it, he could be useful.

He had a good brain, one that picked up on and filed away details.

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.

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.