Нора Робертс - Key of Knowledge

“No one thing.” She lifted her head just enough to sweep her hair aside so she could feel her cheek against his flesh. “I just feel like Im fumbling at most everything, but then I remembered this is one thing I do really well.”

“You wont hear any argument from me on the last part. Whats the fumble?”

“You want the list? I feel like Im so close to finding the key, then I dont. Then I feel like Im miles away from it, and the whole business is going to crash and burn. I spent most of the day painting because I exhibited very little, if any, aptitude for hand tools.”

“Then you probably dont want me to mention youve got some paint in your hair.”

She heaved a sigh. “I know it. Even Malorys better with a screwdriver than I am, and shes a total girl. AndZoe ? Shes a regular Bob Vila with breasts. Did you know shes got her belly button pierced?”

“Really?” There was a long pause. “Really,” he repeated with enough male interest to make her laugh.

“Anyway.” She flopped over on her back. “There was all that, then I started doing some mental number crunching and got depressed realizing how close to the edge financially all this stuff is taking me. All the output, no income—and without the output therell never be an income. And even when the income comes, its going to be a serious juggling act for the foreseeable future.”

“I could lend you some money, give you some breathing room.” Her silence spoke volumes. “Itd be an investment. Writer—bookstore. Makes sense.”

“Im not interested in a loan.” Her voice had chilled, and just under the chill was a sulk. “Im not looking for another partner.”

“Okay.” He shrugged it off, then tugged on her hair. “Ive got it. I can pay you for sex. Like you said, you are really good at it. But Id get to set the price for each specific act, and I think there should be something in the rates about buy three, get one free. Well work it out.”

Since he was watching her face, he saw her dimples flutter as she struggled with a grin. “Youre a pervert.” She rolled over on her stomach, braced herself on her elbows. “It was nice of you to reach .down into the gutter to cheer me up.”

“We do what we can.” He trailed a finger down her cheek. “I bet you could use some food. You want to go out to eat?”

“I absolutely dont want to go out.”

“Good. Neither do I.” He shifted a bit, worked considerable charm into his expression. “I dont suppose youd care to cook.”

“I dont suppose I would.”

“All right. I will.”

She blinked, then sat up and tapped her fingers on her head. “Excuse me, did you just say youd cook?”

“Dont get excited. I was thinking of something along the lines of scrambled eggs or grilledcheese sandwiches.”

“Lets damn the cholesterol and have both.” She leaned down, gave him a quick kiss. “Thanks. Im going to grab a shower.”

WHEN she came out, comfortable in sweats, he was in the kitchen, pouring eggs into one skillet while sandwiches browned in another, and the dog inhaled a bowl of kibble.

He was missing the frilly apron, Dana noted, but all in all, he made a hell of a picture.

“Look at Mr. Domestic.”

“Even living in New York, it pays to be able to throw an emergency meal together. You want to get out plates?”

New York, she thought, as she opened a cabinet. It wouldnt do to forget the guy lived in New York and wasnt going to be making her grilled-cheese sandwiches on a regular basis.

She pushed the thought away, set the table, and added a couple of candles for the fun of it.

“Nice,” she said over the first bite when theyd settled down. “Really, thanks.”

“My mother used to make me grilled-cheese sandwiches when I was feeling out of sorts.”

“Theyre comforting—the toasty bread, the butter, the warm,melty cheese.”

“Mmm. Look, if youre interested in my hands doing more than driving you wild with passion, I can give you some time tomorrow.”

“If youve got it.”

“Id have come by today, but I had homework.” He pointed toward the envelope hed dropped when hed come in.

“Oh. You wrote everything up.” “Think I got it all. You can look it over, see if I left anything out.”

“Cool.” She got up, hurried across the room to fetch the envelope.

“Didnt anyone ever tell you its impolite to read at the table?”

“Certainly not.” Tossing back her hair, she settled back down. “Its never impolite to read.” She tapped out the pages, surprised to see how many there were. “Busy boy.”

He forked up more eggs. “I figured it would work better to get it down in one big gush.”

“Lets see what weve got here.”

She ate and she read, read and ate. He took her back to the very beginning, to the night shed driven through a storm to Warriors Peak. He made her see it again, feel it again. That and all that had happened since.

That was his gift, she realized. His art.

He told it like a story, each character vivid and true, each action ringing clear, so that when you came to the end, you wanted more.

“Flynn was right,” she said as she turned the last page over. “It helps to see it like this in my head. I need to absorb it, read it again. But it puts everything thats happened on one winding path instead of having a lot of offshoots that just happen to run into each other.”

“Im going to have to write it.”

“I thought you just did,” she replied, shaking her head.

“No, thats only part of it. Half of it at best. I realized today when I was putting it all down that Im going to have to write it when its all done, turn it into a book. Do you have any problem with that?”

“I dont know.” She smoothed her fingers over the pages. “I guess not, but it feels a little strange. Ive never been in a book before.”

He started to speak, then stopped himself and polished off his eggs. She hadnt been in a book shed read before, he thought. Which, when it came down to it, amounted to the same thing.

LOOK,” Kane said, “how you betray yourself in sleep. He stood looking down at the bed where she and Jordan slept. On the floor beside them, Moe twitched and made excited sounds.

“What did you do to Moe?” “I gave him a dream, a harmless, happy dream. He chases rabbits on a sunny spring day. It will keep him safe and occupied, as we have much to talk about, you and I.”

She watched Moes back right leg swing as if he was running. “I dont have much to say to anyone who sneaks into my bedroom at night to play Peeping Tom.”

“I dont peep, I watch. You interest me, Dana. You have intelligence I respect that. Scholars are valued in my world, on any world. And there we have the scholar and the bard.” He gestured toward the bed at her and Jordan. “One would think a fine combination. But we know better.”

It both frightened and fascinated her to see the couple on the bed, wrapped together in a tangle of limbs. “You dont know us. You never will. Thats why well beat you.”

He only smiled. The dark suited him, cloaked him like velvet and silk and left his eyes burning bright. “You search, but you dont find. How can you? Your life is pretense, Dana, a dream as much as this. Look how you cling to him in sleep. You, a strong, intelligent woman, one who considers herself independent, even willful. Yet you throw yourself at a man who tossed you aside once and will do so again. You allow yourself to be ruled by passion, and it makes you weak.”

“What rules you if not passion?” she countered. “Ambition, greed, hate, vanity. Theyre all passions.”

“Ah, this is why I enjoy you. We could have such interesting conversations. No, passions are not owned by the mortal world. But to invite pain merely for love and the pleasures of the flesh.” He shook his head. “You were wiser when you hated him. Now you let him use you again.”

He lies. He lies. She couldnt let herself fall into the trap of that seductive voice and forget how it lied. “Nobody uses me. Not even you.”

“Perhaps you need to remember more clearly.”

It was snowing. She felt the flakes—soft, cold, wet, on her skin, though she couldnt see them fall. They seemed to hang suspended in the air.

She felt the bite of the wind but couldnt hear it, nor did it chill her.

The world was a black-and-white photograph. Black trees, white snow. White mountains rising toward a white sky, and there, far up, the black silhouette of Warriors Peak.

All was still and cold and silent.

There was a man all the way down the block, frozen in the act of shoveling his walk. His shovel was lifted, and the scoop of snow was caught in its flight through the air.

“Do you know this place?” Kane asked her.

“Yes.” Three blocks south of Market, two blocks west of Pine Ridge.

“And this house.”

The tiny two-story box, painted white with black shutters. The two small dormer windows of the second floor, one for each small bedroom. The single dogwood, with snow adorning its thin branches, and the narrow driveway that ran beside it. Two cars in the driveway. The old station wagon and the secondhand Mustang.

“Its Jordans house.” Her mouth was dry. Her tongue felt thick and clumsy. “Its… it was Jordans house.”

“Is,” Kane corrected. “In this frozen moment.”

“Why am I here?”

He stepped around her, but left no mark, no print, in the snow. The hem of his black robe seemed to float just an inch above that white surface.

He wore a ruby, a large round cabochon on a chain that fell nearly to his waist. In the black-andwhite world it shone there like a fat drop of fresh blood.