"Well." Malory expelled a relieved breath. "That's more like it." She reached down, obligingly shook the offered paw. "Good for you, Moe."

"How the hell'd you do that?" Flynn wanted to know.

"I have a way with animals."

"I'll say. What was that, Gaelic?"

"Mmmm."

"Funny that Moe would understand a command in Gaelic when he mostly ignores them in plain English."

"Dogs understand more than words." She held out a hand for Flynn's. "I hope you'll all come back. We enjoy company."

"Thanks for your time." Malory walked to the car with Moe trotting happily beside her. The minute she sat, she tucked her purse on the floor like a guilty secret.

Rowena laughed, but the sound was a bit watery as Moe stuck his head out of the backseat window. She lifted a hand in a wave, then leaned against Pitte as Flynn drove away.

"I have real hope," she murmured. "I can't remember the last time I felt real hope. I—it frightens me. It actually frightens me to feel it."

Pitte wrapped an arm around her, drew her tighter to his side. "Don't weep, my heart."

"Foolish." She dashed a tear away. “To cry over a stranger's dog. When we get home…"

He shifted her, cupped her face in his hands. His tone was gentle, yet somehow urgent. "When we get home, you'll have a hundred dogs. A thousand."

"One will do." She rose on her toes to brush her lips across his.

In the car Malory let out a long, long breath.

"I take that sound of relief to mean you got the pictures."

"I did. I felt like an international art thief. I guess I have to give Moe points for being the main distraction. So, tell me what you thought of them."

"They're slick, smart, and full of secrets. But they don't seem crazy. They're used to money— real money. Used to drinking tea out of antique cups brought in by a servant. They're educated, cultured, and a little snobby with it. The place is full of stuff—fancy stuff. They've only been here a few weeks, so they didn't furnish those rooms locally. They had it shipped in. I should be able to track that."

Frowning, he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "She went goony on Moe."

"What?"

"She turned into a puddle the minute she saw him. I mean, he's got a lot of charm, but she melted. I have this impression of her from inside. Cool, confident, aloof. The kind of woman who's sexy because she knows she's in charge. Strolling up Madison Avenue with a Prada bag on her arm, or running a board meeting in L.A. Power, money, brains, and looks all wrapped up in sex."

"I get it. You thought she was sexy."

"Last checkup, I had a pulse, so, yeah. But you should've seen her face when Moe jumped out of the car. All that polish, that sheen just vanished. She lit up like Christmas morning."

"So, she likes dogs." "No, it was more. It wasn't the coochee-coo that some fancy women do with dogs. It was fall down on the ground, roll in the grass, and gut-laugh. So why doesn't she have one?"

"Maybe Pitte won't have one around."

Flynn shook his head. "You're more observant than that. The guy would slice open a vein for her if she asked him to. Something strange about the way she got Moe to shake hands. Something strange about the whole deal."

"No argument. I'm going to concentrate on the painting, at least until one of us comes up with a different angle. I'll leave you to try to pin down Rowena and Pitte."

"I've got to cover a town hall meeting tonight. How about we get together tomorrow?"

He maneuvers. He herds. She remembered Dana's words and shot him a quick, suspicious look. "Define 'get together.' "

"I'll adjust the definition any way you want."

"I've got four weeks—less now—to find this key. I'm currently unemployed and have to figure out what I'm going to do, at least professionally, for the rest of my life. I recently ended a relationship that was going nowhere. Add up all the above, and it's very clear I don't have time for dating and exploring a new personal relationship."

"Hold on a minute." He pulled off to the side of the windy road, unhooked his seat belt. He leaned over, took her shoulders, and eased her over as far as her own belt would allow while his mouth ravished hers.

A rocket of heat shot up her spine and left its edgy afterburn in her belly.

"You've, ah, really got a knack for that," she managed when she could breathe again.

"I practice as often as possible." To prove it, he kissed her again. Slower this time. Deeper. Until he felt her quiver. "I just wanted you to add that to your equation."

"I was an art major. Math isn't my strong suit. Come back here a minute." She grabbed his shirt, yanked him to her, and let herself go.

Everything inside her sparked. Blood and bone and brain.

If this was what it meant to be herded, she thought dimly, she could be flexible about her direction.

When his hands clenched in her hair, she felt a stir of power and anxiety that was as potent as a drug.

"We really can't do this." But she was tugging his shirt out of his waistband, desperate to get her hands on flesh.

"I know. Can't." He fumbled with the buckle of her seat belt. "We'll stop in a minute."

"Okay, but first…" She brought his hand to her breast, then moaned as her heart seemed to tip into his palm.

He shifted her, cursed when he rapped his elbow on the steering wheel. And Moe, delighted with the prospect of a wrestling match, squeezed his head between the seats and slathered both of them with sloppy kisses.

"Oh, God!" Torn between laughter and shock, Malory scrubbed at her mouth. "I really, really hope that was your tongue."

"Ditto." Struggling to get his breath back, Flynn stared down at her. Her hair was sexily tousled, her face flushed, her mouth just a little swollen from the assault of his.

With the flat of his hand, he shoved Moe's face away and snapped out a curt order to sit. The dog flopped back on his seat and whined as if he'd been beaten with a club.

"I wasn't planning on moving this fast."

Malory shook her head. "I wasn't planning on moving at all. And I've always got a plan."

"Been a while since I tried this in a car parked on the side of the road."

"Me, too." She slid her gaze toward the pathetic sounds coming from the backseat. "Under the circumstances…"

"Yeah. Better not. I want to make love with you." He drew her up. "To touch you. To feel you move under my hands. I want that, Malory."

"I need to think. Everything about this is complicated, so I have to think about it." She certainly had to think about the fact that she'd nearly torn the man's clothes off in the front seat of a car, on the side of a public road, in broad daylight.

"My life's a mess, Flynn." The thought depressed her enough to have her pulse calming again. "Whatever the equation, I've screwed things up, and I have to get back on track. I don't do well with messy situations. So, let's slow this down a little."

He hooked a finger in the V of her blouse. "How much is a little?"

"I don't know yet. Oh, I can't stand it." She scooted around, leaned over the seat. "Don't cry, you big baby." She ruffled the fur between Moe's ears. "Nobody's mad at you."

"Speak for yourself," Flynn grumbled.

Chapter Seven

I feel the sun, warm and somehow fluid like a quiet waterfall gliding from a golden river. It pours over me in a kind of baptism. I smell roses, and lilies, and some spicier flower that cuts the sweetness. I hear water, a playful trickle and plop as it rises up, then falls back into itself.

All these things slide over me, or I slide into them, but I see nothing but a dense white. Like a curtain I can't part.

Why am I not afraid?

Laughter floats toward me. Bright and easy and female. There's a youthful cheer in it that makes me smile, that brings a tickle of laughter to my own throat. I want to find the source of that laughter and join in.

Voices now, that quick bird-chatter that is again youth and female.

The sounds come and go, ebb and flow. Am I drifting toward it or away?

Slowly, slowly, the curtain thins. Only a mist now, soft as silken rain with sunlight sparkling through it. And through it, I see color. Such bold, rich color it sears through that thinning mist and stuns my eyes.

Tiles are gleaming silver and explode with sunlight in blinding flashes where the thick green leaves and hot-pink blossoms of trees don't shade or shelter. Flowers swim in pools or dance in swirling beds.

There are three women, girls, really, gathered around the fountain that plays its happy tune. It's their laughter I hear. One has a small harp in her lap, and the other a quill. But they're laughing at the wriggling puppy the third holds in her arms.

They're so lovely. There is about them a touching innocence that's so perfectly suited to the garden where they spend this bright afternoon. Then I see the sword sheathed at one's hip.

Innocent perhaps, but strong. There is power here; I can feel the tingle of it now sparking on the air.

And still I'm not afraid.

They call the puppy Diarmait, and set it down so it can romp around the fountain. Its excited yaps ring like bells. I see one girl slide her arm around the waist of another, and the third rest her head on the second's shoulder. There, they become a unit. A kind of triad. A whole of three parts that chatter about their new puppy, and laugh as he rolls gleefully in the flowers.

I hear them say names I know, somehow know, and look as they look. In the distance, in the shade of a tree that drips down with graceful branches heavy with jeweled fruit, are a couple caught in a passionate embrace.