Key Of Valor

Chapter Seventeen

Brad wasn't sure what had gotten into her, but he was pretty sure he liked it. Whatever had put that brilliantly sexy look on her face and had turned her voice into a laughing purr couldn't be bad.

He wondered what sort of strange and exotic female rituals she and the others had performed while he'd been watching football.

He wondered if they would perform them once a week.

The first chance he got, he was going to corner her and see that she made good on that promise to finish what she'd started with that long, smoldering kiss.

But from the looks of things, it wasn't going to be soon.

By the time Flynn and Jordan left, Simon claimed to be starving to death. The fact that the boy had been eating steadily all day didn't seem to matter. He was starving, the dogs were starving. They would all keel over and die if they didn't eat soon. To hold them off, Brad thrust what was left of a bag of corn chips in Simon's hands and chased the three of them outside.

But from Zoe there hadn't been a peep in over an hour. The woman had swept in, stirred him up, then swept out again, leaving the taste of her lingering on his lips.

Simon wasn't the only one who was starving.

Unwilling to wait for her to wander his way again, Brad went upstairs and knocked on her closed bedroom door.

"Come on in."

He opened it and saw her sitting on the bed, surrounded by stacks of paper and notebooks, library books and her borrowed laptop. She still looked sexy—he doubted she could look anything but—and very focused.

"What's up?" he asked her.

"The desk couldn't hold all this. It's a big bed." She had a pencil behind her ear and was idly chewing on another one. "I'm going through everything one more time, start to finish. I've got all this energy all of a sudden and all these ideas." She shook herself as if she couldn't hold them all comfortably. "I'm trying to organize them, but one thing just keeps slapping into another."

Watching her, he walked over to sit on the side of the bed. "You look excited."

"I am. It just sort of struck me as I was driving back, and I thought if I went back through each clue, each quest, each… Where's Simon?"

"He's outside with the dogs."

"It's getting late. I wasn't paying attention. I'd better throw something together for dinner, and get him in and settled down."

"Take a minute. Tell me where you're heading with this."

"That's one of the things I need to figure out. Where am I heading? I'll tell you while I see about dinner."

"You don't have to see about dinner," he said as she wound through her stacks and off the bed. Reaching out, he snagged the pencil from her ear, tossed it on her papers. "There's enough left over down there to forage through."

"I think better when I'm busy, and foraging isn't part of the deal. And I like fussing around in that kitchen of yours," she added as she started out. "That's one of the things I need to talk to you about."

"You want to talk to me about the kitchen?"

"That's part of it. Part of the whole." Catching his expression of pure male distress, she chuckled. "Don't panic, I'm not pulling a Malory on you. Your kitchen's wonderful just as it is. The fact is, this is the most wonderful house I've ever seen."

She trailed her fingers along the rail on the way downstairs. "Everything about it is just as it should be. I love my place. It means so much to me. There are still some mornings I wake up and just hug myself because it's mine."

She stepped into the kitchen. And let out a very long, very audible breath.

"We, ah, foraged considerably earlier."

"So I see." There were dishes, glasses, bottles of soda and beer, bags of chips and other jetsam of a male afternoon spread over the counters and table. "Well." So saying, she rolled up her sleeves.

"Wait a minute. Just wait." More than a little embarrassed that he'd let the state of the house get quite so out of hand, he grabbed her arm. "If we're talking about deals, you're not supposed to pick up after me."

"I'm not picking up after you." After brushing him off, she plucked up a half-empty bag of taco chips and rolled up the end. "I'm picking up after all of you, which balances out you having Simon underfoot all day while I was off doing something else. Do you have any clothespins?"

"Clothespins?" He struggled to find the connection. "You're going to hang out wash?"

"No. These chips'll stay fresher if you clip them closed. You can buy those plastic spring things they make for it, but clothespins work just as well."

Amused, he slid his hands into his pockets. "I don't believe I have any of those in stock at the moment. We could order them for you."

"I've got my own. I'll bring some by." With quick, efficient moves, she had the bags rolled and stored, or crushed and thrown away. And started straight in on the dishes. "A man's got a beautiful house like this, he shouldn't let it get to be such a mess. I imagine the game room looks like an army was bivouacked in it."

He began to jiggle his change. "Maybe. I have a cleaning crew—" He broke off at the single steely look she sent over her shoulder. "Am I going to have to vacuum?"

"No, Simon is, to thank you for the day. Meanwhile, I was talking about houses. Flynn's got a great house. I imagine he bought it because it pulled some string inside him and made him comfortable. Made him at home. He didn't do a lot with it until Malory came along, but there was something about that place that told him this is the one, this is my place."

"Okay, I'm following that."

With the dishes loaded, she damped a cloth to wipe off the counters. "There's the Peak. That's a fantastic place. A magic one. But it's a home, too. It was a place that meant something special to Jordan even as a boy. Something he aspired to. He and Dana are going to make it their own."

She poured a couple of swallows of warm beer in the sink, tossed bottles into the recycle bin. Watching, Brad was certain he'd never seen a room put so quickly to rights.

"I could never live in a place like that," she continued. "It's too big, too grand, too everything. But I can see how it's right for them."

She got out a pot, measured water by eye and set it on the range. While she spoke, she pulled out vegetables and the sealed bag of beef she'd marinated that morning. "Then there's Indulgence. As soon as I saw it, I knew, this is the place. The place where I could make something. Where Mal and Dana and I could make something. It was a crazy idea when you really think it through."

She julienned peppers and carrots with what looked to Brad like the skill of a veteran line chef. "How so?"

"Putting it all under one roof that way, with the bare minimum of seed money. Buying the place, too, instead of pushing just to rent. But I wanted to buy it, to have it, as soon as I saw it."

"You don't say it was a crazy idea for the three of you to go into business together so quickly after you'd met. Or that it was crazy to take on that much work."

"Those aren't the crazy parts for me." She cut strips of onions, minced garlic. "There was never any question for me about Malory and Dana. And work, that's just what you do. It was the place, Bradley. It held the same kind of magic for me as my house. That's why I thought, I really thought for a while that was where I'd find the key."

"You don't think so now."

"No, I don't."

She moved from one task to another without breaking rhythm, measuring out rice, cubing tomatoes, slicing beef. He thought it was like watching a kind of poetry.

"Malory's key was there. In the painting, yes, but she had to do the painting in that house. And Dana's was at the Peak—or in the book, in Phantom Watch , which was based on the Peak. When you look back through their clues, you can see them being led around to it. Through their connections with the place, through their connections with Flynn, and Jordan."

She drizzled olive oil in a skillet. "The painting for Malory. The book for Dana. But they needed the place, too."

"And for you?"

"For me, it's not a thing so much. It's a kind of journey with different paths. Some I took, some I didn't, and the whys of both, maybe. And it's a straggle, a kind of battle." She added garlic and onion to the sizzling oil. "Maybe it's understanding that the ones I lost were as important in their way as the ones I didn't. I think maybe you can't see clearly where you're going next if you don't see where you've been. And why."

He had to touch her, just to feel her under his hand for a moment. He brushed his fingers over her hair, down the long, lovely line of her neck. And got the absent smile of a busy woman in response. "Where are you going, Zoe?"

"I can't say I know that, not for sure. But I know where I am right now. In this house. In this house that pulled a string in me the first time I saw it. Here I am, cooking dinner in the kitchen, and Simon's out there playing with the dogs. I have a connection here. To this place. To you."

"Enough to stay?"

The beef she'd started to slide into the skillet slipped out of her fingers and plopped into the oil. "That's one sure way to scatter my thoughts." She picked up another slice, concentrated fiercely on the exact placement. "Bradley. I can't—I just can't step that far off the path. I made promises to myself when Simon was born. Promises to him."

"I want to make them to you."

"I've only got until Friday to do this," she said quickly. "Only a few more days. If I don't do this right, I feel like I may never do anything right again." She looked at him pleadingly. "I see her face in my sleep, Bradley. I see all of them, waiting for me to do this last thing."

"You're not the only one fighting a battle, Zoe. I'm in this as deep as you. And damned if I can figure out if loving you is a sword or a curse."

"Do you ever ask yourself, in some quiet moment, whether you think you love me because my face is in that painting?"

He started to speak, then stopped himself and gave her the plain truth. "Yes."

"So do I. One thing I do know is I don't want to lose you. I won't risk losing what we have now by making or asking for promises that neither of us may want to keep down the road."

"You keep waiting for me to let you down, Zoe. You're going to have a long wait."

Surprised, she turned around. "I don't. I'm not. It's—"

She broke off as Simon burst in the back door. "I'm starving ."

"Dinner's in ten minutes." She reached out to stroke his hair. "Go ahead and wash up. I got off the track," she said to Brad as Simon zoomed out in a flurry of dogs. "I was working my way around to asking you if I could go through your house."

Irritation flickered over his face. "You try my patience, Zoe."

"I imagine I do," she said calmly, and turned back to finish sautйing the beef and vegetables. "And I wouldn't blame you for wanting to give me a good kick in the ass. But I've got a lot of important balls in the air right now, and I'm not going to drop any of them."

He remembered the way her face had glowed when she'd come home that afternoon. What was the point, he asked himself, in dimming that light because he was frustrated, even angry, that she didn't just leap into his arms and give him everything he wanted, all on one big plate?

"I reserve the right for the ass-kicking. Why ask me if you can go through the house when you're living… when you're staying here?"

"I mean go through it like I did my own and Indulgence. Top to bottom, which would mean poking into personal spaces." She got out a platter, scooped her finished rice onto it. "I think the key's in this house, Bradley. No, that's not right. I know it is. I feel it."

Efficiently, she topped the mound of rice with the contents of the skillet. "Something just opened up for me today when I drove up here, and I know it. I don't know where or how, I just know it is."

He looked at her, looked at the platter. In under thirty minutes, he calculated, she had talked him through another stage in her quest, irritated him, amused him, fended off a proposal, and cooked a very attractive meal.

Was it any wonder she fascinated him?

"When do you want to start?"

They gave it two hours after Simon was in bed, starting with the lower level. She searched every inch of the great room, moving furniture, rolling up rugs, going through drawers, into closets. Armed with a flashlight, she checked the fireplace, testing each stone, running her fingers over the mantel.

She started the same treatment on the dining room, then stopped and sent Brad an apologetic look. "Would you mind if I did this by myself? Maybe it takes doing it alone."

"Maybe you think you have to do too much alone, but all right. I'll be upstairs."

She was fumbling one of those important balls, Zoe admitted when he left her. And she was counting, maybe a little too much, on his patience. Still, she didn't know what else to do, or how else to do it.

For now, her wants, and his, would have to wait until she had completed her quest and what she loved was safe.

She moved to the buffet, ran her hands over the wood.

Cherry, she thought. A warm, rich wood, and the curves of the design made the piece airy while the mirrored back added a sparkle.

He'd arranged a few pieces on it, a thick bowl of hazy green glass, a colorful tray that was probably French or Italian, a couple of fat candle stands, and a brass dish with a woman's face carved into the lid. Lovely pieces, artful, she thought. The sort of things Malory would sell in her gallery.

She lifted the lid on the dish and found a few coins inside. Foreign coins, she realized with delight. Irish pounds, French francs, Italian lire, Japanese yen. What a wonder that was, she mused, to have those careless pieces of such fascinating places tossed inside a dish.

He might not even remember they were there, and that was more amazing. She closed the lid, and put aside the vague guilt of peeking into personal spaces as she opened the first drawer.

It was a silverware drawer, lined in deep burgundy velvet. She lifted out a spoon, turned it under the light. It looked old to her, like something that had been used for generations and kept polished and ready.

Perfect for Thanksgiving, she decided, and filed that away as she went carefully through each slot.

She found china in the base of the buffet, an elegant white on white. As she searched she began mentally setting the holiday table with the dishes and bowls, the platters and stemware she found stored in sideboards and servers.

She sighed over linens and damask and a set of bone-white napkin rings. But she found no key.

She was shaking out books in the library when the clock on the mantel chimed one. Enough, she told herself. Enough for one night. She wasn't going to let herself get discouraged.

The fact was, she realized as she switched off the lamps, she didn't feel discouraged. More, she felt on the verge of something. As if she'd made some turn, or crested a hill. Maybe it wasn't the last leg, she thought as she started upstairs. But she was focused on the goal now.

She checked on Simon, going in automatically to tuck him in. Moe lifted his head from the foot of the bed where he stretched out, scented her and gave one halfhearted slap of his tail before starting to snore again.

The puppy was snoozing with his head on the pillow beside Simon's. She supposed she should discourage that sort of thing, but she honestly couldn't see why.

They looked so cozy there together. Harmless and unharmed. If Simon was part of it, as Malory believed, then maybe the key was here, in this room where he was sleeping.

For a moment she sat on the edge of the bed, her hand idly stroking his back.

The light from the last quarter of the moon filtered through the window and washed pale light over her son's face. There was still light, she told herself, so there was still hope. She was holding on to it.

She rose and slipped quietly out of the room.

She glanced toward Brad's door. For what was left of the night, she would hold on to to him as well.

She went to her own room first and selected lotions and scents to prepare herself for him. She might not be able to give him all he wanted, or seemed to want, but she could give him this. They could give each other this.

It pleased her to massage fragrant lotion over her skin, to imagine his hands and mouth trailing over her. It pleased her to feel completely like a woman again. Not just a person, not just a mother, but a woman who could give and take from a man.

There was a knowledge here she hadn't felt as a girl, a yearning and a confidence she felt with no one else.

Wearing only a robe, she carried a white candle that wafted the scent of night-blooming jasmine over the air.

She didn't knock, but eased silently into the dark of his room, across the thin silver stream of moonlight that drifted through the open curtains.

She hadn't come inside this room before, and wondered if he would know, as she did, that this was another step for her. She saw the gleam of wood from the curved foot- and headboards, felt the soft brush of the rug under her bare feet.

She opened her robe, let herself tingle at the sensation of it falling away to pool at her feet. Carefully, she set the candle on the nightstand, lifted the covers, and slid into bed beside him.

She'd never watched him sleep before, she realized, and wanting to, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the shadow and light. She liked the way his hair fell over his forehead, and the fact that he looked no less powerfully handsome at rest than he did alert.

This time, Prince Charming would get the awakening treatment.

Interesting, she thought as she traced a finger lightly over his shoulder. She'd never seduced a man out of sleep before. It was a heady proposition and gave her, at least for the moment, complete control.

Should it be fast and hot and shocking? Slow and dreamy and romantic? Should it be sweet or smoky? It was for her to decide, her to create. And her, ultimately, to give.

Easing the covers down, she shifted to range herself above him and held on to that secret erotic charge another moment before she began to use her mouth. Began to use her hands.

Slowly, she thought, slowly to tease him out of sleep and prolong this fascinating interlude. His skin was warm and smooth, his body hard and firm. And she could feast freely.

He dreamed of her, gliding out of forest shadows, with her body slim and free. Dreamed of her low laugh as she turned toward him, then away, as her fingers trailed over his cheek. As she lured him to follow her into the forest, where the moonlight-dappled ground was blanketed with flowers.

She lay back on that sea of blooms. Her arms, gleaming like gold dust in the scattered light, lifted.

Her lips met his, then drew away again to leave him with one tantalizing taste.

He awoke in stages, craving more. And found her.

Her mouth was on his again, and as she sighed his name, her breath became his breath. And when his caught on a moan, he all but drowned in the scent of her.

"There you are," she whispered and caught his chin lightly in her teeth. "I've been taking horrible advantage of you."

"You've got ten years to stop that, or I'm calling the cops."

Playfully now, she scraped her nails down his belly, and muffled a giggle when he bit off an oath. "Ssh. We have to be quiet. I don't want Simon to hear us."

"Right. Don't want him to know we're in here having fun." His mind was still scrambling, but he could see her face clearly enough, and the surprise that flashed over it. "He happened to mention it."

"Oh, God." She had to press her lips together and plaster a hand over them to stifle her chuckle. "Oh, my God."

"Ssh." Brad reminded her, and rolled over until he pressed her into the mattress. "Now where were we?"

"I was sneaking into your bed in the middle of the night and waking you up."

"Oh, yeah, I really liked that part." His grin was quick. "I'm awake now," he said and slid down to take her breast into his mouth.

A fireball of heat burst in her belly. "I'll say."

She arched, riding up on the joy of it, before she rolled over again. "But I don't think I was quite finished."

They grappled, burying themselves under the blankets, tangling in them. Struggling with laughter, biting back gasps, they tormented each other. Pleasured each other until bodies were damp and quaking, until the playful became the intense.

They rose up together, kneeling on the tumbled bed, locked tight. Breath heaving, she bowed back, an erotic bridge, and locked her legs around him.

In the thin light of the last quarter of the moon, they joined. They completed. Fluidly, she came back to him, pressed heart to heart, mouth to mouth, so they were wrapped together as they emptied.

"Don't let go." She burrowed into his shoulder. "Don't let go yet."

"I'm never going to let go." All but delirious, he ran his lips over her hair, her cheek. "I love you, Zoe. You know it. You love me. I can see it. Why won't you say it?"

"Bradley." Why shouldn't she say it, and damn all the consequences? Why shouldn't she take what she so desperately wanted? She turned her head, rubbing her cheek on his shoulder.

And saw, in the fading moonlight, the portrait that hung over the bedroom mantel.

After the Spell. That was the name of it, Zoe remembered. The Daughters of Glass lying in their transparent coffins.

Not dead. Worse than dead, she thought with a shiver.

Why shouldn't she say it? They were one reason, she knew. But even they weren't the heart of it. Kane couldn't see what was inside her—not what was deep inside her. He could neither see nor understand.

So she would keep it there, and keep Bradley as safe as she could, a few days longer.

"You put the portrait here."

"Damn it, Zoe." He yanked her back, then snapped out another oath at the plea on her face. "Yes, I hung it here."

He let her go.

She touched a hand to his shoulder. "I know I'm asking you for a lot."

"You're fucking testing me."

"Maybe I am. I don't know." She dragged her fingers through her hair. 'This has all been so fast for me. So fast and so big, sometimes it seems like I can't keep up with my own feelings. But I do know I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to fight with you. I have to take this at my own pace, and part of that's tied up with them." She gestured to the portrait before she rose and reached for her robe. "I can't help it."

"You think because there's some similarity between my background and James's, I'll turn away from you?"

"I did." She looked down as she belted her robe, then shifted her attention to him. "I did think that. And I thought maybe I was attracted to you because of those similarities. But I know better than that on both counts now. There's still a lot I have to work out, Bradley. I'm asking you to wait until I do."

He was silent for a moment, then reached over to flip a switch. Light washed over the portrait.

"When I first saw that, it was like being grabbed by the throat. I fell in love—in lust—whatever the hell it was, with that face. Your face, Zoe. When I first saw you, I had exactly the same reaction. But I didn't know you. I didn't know what was inside you. I didn't know how your mind or your heart worked, or what made you laugh, what irritated you. I didn't know you liked yellow roses and could handle a nail gun as well as I can. I didn't know dozens of the little details of you that I know now. What I felt for that face isn't a shadow of what I feel for the woman it belongs to."

She was afraid she wouldn't be able to speak. "The woman it belongs to has never known anyone like you. Never expected to."

"Get things worked out, Zoe. Because if you don't, I'm going to work them out for you."

She let out a small laugh. "No, never anyone like you. This is a big week for me, and by the time it's…" She trailed off as she looked at the portrait again.

Her heart began to thump. "Oh, God, could it have been that simple all along? Could it have been right there?"

Trembling, she walked toward the hearth, staring at the painting, her gaze riveted now to the three keys Rowena had painted, scattered over the ground by the coffins.

She stepped onto the hearth, held her breath, and reached up.

Her fingers bumped canvas.

She tried again, closing her eyes first, imagining her fingers reaching into the painting, closing over the key as Malory's had done.

But the painting stayed solid, the keys only color and shape.

"I thought…" Deflated, she stepped back. "For a minute, I thought maybe… It seems so stupid now."

"No, it doesn't. I tried it myself." He walked to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "A few times."

"Really? But it's not for you to find."

"Who knows? Maybe this one's different."

She kept her eyes on the portrait. "It isn't one of them. Rowena painted those keys, years ago. And they're, well, they're despair, aren't they? And loss. Not hope or fulfillment. Because they lie there where no mortal can find them, and no god can use them. It's not despair that leads to my key. It's getting through it. I understand that."

But when she slept that night, she dreamed she stepped into the portrait, walked beside the still and pale shells of the daughters inside their glass coffins. She dreamed she picked up the three keys and took them to the Box of Souls, where the blue lights beat sluggishly.

Though she put each key into its lock, none would turn.

It was despair she felt when those blue lights winked out, and the glass of their prison went black.