Once upon a Dream (3 page)

Because the idea should have relieved her, she ignored the little sinking sensation in her belly and satisfied her curiosity by opening the opal bottle.

Wasn't that strange? she thought after a sniff. The bottle held her favorite perfume.

F
LYNN HAD A
stiff whiskey before he dealt with the food. It hit him like a hot fist.

Thank God there were still some things a man could count on.

He would feed his woman—for she was unquestionably his—and he would take some care with her. He would see to her comfort, as a man was meant to do, then he would let her know the way things were to be.

But first he would see that she was steadier on her feet.

The dining hall fireplace was lit. He had the table set with bone china, heavy silver, a pool of fragrant roses, the delicacy of slim white candles and the jewel sparkle of crystal.

Then closing his eyes, lifting his hands palms out, he began to lay the table with the foods that would please her most.

She was so lovely, his Kayleen. He wanted to put the bloom back in her cheeks. He wanted to hear her laugh.

He wanted her.

And so, that was the way things would be.

He stepped back, studied his work with cool satisfaction. Pleased with himself, Flynn went out again to wait at the base of the stairs.

And as she came down toward him, his heart staggered in his chest.
“Speirbhean.”

Kayleen hesitated. “I'm sorry?”

“You're beautiful. You should learn the Gaelic,” he said, taking her hand and leading her out of the hall. “I'll teach you.”

“Well, thank you, but I really don't think that'll be necessary. I really want to thank you, too, for taking me in like this, and I wonder if I might use your phone.” A little detail, Kayleen thought, that had suddenly come to her.

“I have no telephone. Does the gown please you?”

“No phone? Well, perhaps one of your neighbors might have one I can use.”

“I have no neighbors.”

“In the closest village,” she said, as panic began to tickle her throat again.

“There is no village. Why are you fretting, Kayleen? You're warm and dry and safe.”

“That may be, but…how do you know my name?”

“You told me.”

“I don't remember telling you. I don't remember how I—”

“You've no cause to worry. You'll feel better when you've eaten.”

She was beginning to think she had plenty of cause to worry. The well-being she'd felt upstairs in that lovely room was eroding quickly. But when she stepped into the dining room, she felt nothing but shock.

The table was large enough to seat fifty, and spread over it was enough food to feed every one of them.

Bowls and platters and tureens and plates were jammed end to end down the long oak surface. Fruit, fish, meat,
soups, a garden of vegetables, an ocean of pastas.

“Where—” Her voice rose, snapped, and had to be fought back under control. “Where did this come from?”

He sighed. He'd expected delight and instead was given shock. Another thing a man could count on, he thought. Women were forever a puzzle.

“Sit, please. Eat.”

Though she felt little flickers of panic, her voice was calm and firm. “I want to know where all this food came from. I want to know who else is here. Where's your wife?”

“I have no wife.”

“Don't give me that.” She spun to face him, steady enough now. And angry enough to stand and demand. “If you don't have a wife, you certainly have a woman.”

“Aye. I have you.”

“Just…stay back.” She grabbed a knife from the table, aimed it at him. “Don't come near me. I don't know what's going on here, and I'm not going to care. I'm going to walk out of this place and keep walking.”

“No.” He stepped forward and neatly plucked what was now a rose from her hand. “You're going to sit down and eat.”

“I'm in a coma.” She stared at the white rose in his hand, at her own empty one. “I had an accident. I've hit my head. I'm hallucinating all of this.”

“All of this is real. No one knows better than I the line between what's real and what isn't. Sit down.” He gestured to a chair, swore when she didn't move. “Have I said I wouldn't harm you? Among my sins has never been a lie or the harm of a woman. Here.” He held out his hand, and now it held the knife. “Take this, and feel free to use it should I break my word to you.”

“You're…” The knife was solid in her hand. A trick of the eye, she told herself. Just a trick of the eye. “You're a magician.”

“I am.” His grin was like lightning, fast and bright. Whereas he had been handsome, now he was devastating.
His pleasure shone. “That is what I am, exactly. Sit down, Kayleen, and break fast with me. For I've hungered a long time.”

She took one cautious step in retreat. “It's too much.”

Thinking she meant the food, he frowned at the table. Considered. “Perhaps you're right. I got a bit carried away with it all.” He scanned the selections, nodded, then sketched an arch with his hand.

Half the food vanished.

The knife dropped out of her numb fingers. Her eyes rolled straight back.

“Oh, Christ.” It was impatience as much as concern. At least this time he had the wit to catch her before she hit the floor. He sat her in a chair, gave her a little shake, then watched her eyes focus again.

“You didn't understand after all.”

“Understand? Understand?”

“It'll need to be explained, then.” He picked up a plate and began to fill it for her. “You need to eat or you'll beill. Your injuries will heal faster if you're strong.”

He set the plate in front of her, began to fill one for himself. “What do you know of magic, Kayleen Brennan of Boston?”

“It's fun to watch.”

“It can be.”

She would eat, she thought, because she did feel ill. “And it's an illusion.”

“It can be.” He took the first bite—rare roast beef—and moaned in ecstasy at the taste. The first time he'd come to his week, he'd gorged himself so that he was sick a full day. And had counted it worth it. But now he'd learned to take his time, and appreciate.

“Do you remember now how you came here?”

“It was raining.”

“Yes, and is still.”

“I was going…”

“How were you going?”

“How?” She picked up her fork, sampled the fish with
out thinking. “I was driving…I was driving,” she repeated, on a rising note of excitement. “Of course. I was driving, and I was lost. The storm. I was coming from—” She stopped, struggling through the mists. “Dublin. I'd been in Dublin. I'm on vacation. Oh, that's right, I'm on vacation and I was going to drive around the countryside. I got lost. Somehow. I was on one of the little roads through the forest, and it was storming. I could barely see. Then I…”

The relief in her eyes faded as they met his. “I saw you,” she whispered. “I saw you out in the storm.”

“Did you now?”

“You were out in the rain. You said my name. How could you have said my name before we met?”

She'd eaten little, but he thought a glass of wine might help her swallow what was to come. He poured it, handed it to her. “I've dreamed of you, Kayleen. Dreamed of you for longer than your lifetime. And dreaming of you I was when you were lost in my forest. And when I awoke, you'd come. Do you never dream of me, Kayleen?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. There was a storm. I was lost. Lightning hit very near, and there was a deer. A white deer in the road. I swerved to avoid it, and I crashed. I think I hit a tree. I probably have a concussion, and I'm imagining things.”

“A white hind.” The humor had gone from his face again. “You hit a tree with your car? They didn't have to hurt you,” he muttered. “They had no
right
to hurt you.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“My jailers.” He shoved his plate aside. “The bloody Keepers.”

“I need to check on my car.” She spoke slowly, calmly. Not just eccentric, she decided. The man was unbalanced. “Thank you so much for helping me.”

“If you want to check on your car, then we will. In the morning. There's hardly a point in going out in a storm in the middle of the night.” He laid his hand firmly on hers before she could rise. “You're thinking, ‘This Flynn,
he's lost his mind somewhere along the way.' Well, I haven't, though it was a near thing a time or two. Look at me,
leannana
. Do I mean nothing to you?”

“I don't know.” And that was what kept her from bolting. He could look at her, as he was now, and she felt tied to him. Not bound by force, but tied. By her own will. “I don't understand what you mean, or what's happening to me.”

“Then we'll sit by the fire, and I'll tell you what it all means.” He rose, held out his hand. Irritation washed over his face when she refused to take it. “Do you want the knife?”

She glanced down at it, back up at him. “Yes.”

“Then bring it along with you.”

He plucked up the wine, and the glasses, and led the way.

 

He sat by the fire, propped his boots on the hearth, savored his wine and the scent of the woman who sat so warily beside him. “I was born in magic,” he began. “Some are. Others apprentice and can learn well enough. But to be born in it is more a matter of controlling the art than of learning it.”

“So your father was a magician.”

“No, he was a tailor. Magic doesn't have to come down through the blood. It simply has to
be
in the blood.” He paused because he didn't want to blunder again. He should know more of her, he decided, before he did. “What is it you are, back in your Boston?”

“I'm an antique dealer. That came through the blood. My uncles, my grandfather, and so on. Brennan's of Boston has been doing business for nearly a century.”

“Nearly a century, is it?” he chuckled. “So very long.”

“I suppose it doesn't seem so by European standards. But America's a young country. You have some magnificent pieces in your home.”

“I collect what appeals to me.”

“Apparently a wide range appeals to you. I've never
seen such a mix of styles and eras in one place before.”

He glanced around the room, considering. It wasn't something he'd thought of, but he'd had only himself to please up until now. “You don't like it?”

Because it seemed to matter to him, she worked up a smile. “No, I like it very much. In my business I see a lot of beautiful and interesting pieces, and I've always felt it was a shame more people don't just toss them together and make their own style rather than sticking so rigidly to a pattern. No one can accuse you of sticking to a pattern.”

“No. That's a certainty.”

She started to curl up her legs, caught herself. What in the world was wrong with her? She was relaxing into an easy conversation with what was very likely a madman. She cut her gaze toward the knife beside her, then back to him. And found him studying her contemplatively.

“I wonder if you could use it. There are two kinds of people in the world, don't you think? Those who fight and those who flee. Which are you, Kayleen?”

“I've never been in the position where I had to do either.”

“That's either fortunate or tedious. I'm not entirely sure which. I like a good fight myself,” he added with that quick grin. “Just one of my many flaws. Fact is, I miss going fist to fist with a man. I miss a great many things.”

“Why? Why do you have to miss anything?”

“That's the point, isn't it, of this fireside conversation. The why. Are you wondering,
mavourneen
, if I'm off in my head?”

“Yes,” she said, then immediately froze.

“I'm not, though perhaps it would've been easier if I'd gone a bit crazy along the way. They knew I had a strong mind—part of the problem, in their thinking, and part of the reason for the sentence weighed on me.”

“They?” Her fingers inched toward the handle of the knife. She could use it, she promised herself. She
would
use it if she had to, no matter how horribly sad and lonely he looked.

“The Keepers. The ancient and the revered who guard and who nurture magic. And have done so since the Waiting Time, when life was no more than the heavens taking their first breath.”

“Gods?” she said cautiously.

“In some ways of thinking.” He was brooding again, frowning into the flames. “I was born of magic, and when I was old enough I left my family to do the work. To heal and to help. Even to entertain. Some of us have more of a knack, you could say, for the fun of it.”

“Like, um, sawing a lady in half.”

He looked at her with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “This is illusion, Kayleen.”

“Yes.”

“I speak of magic, not pretense. Some prophesy, some travel and study, for the sake of it. Others devote their art to healing body or soul. Some choose to make a living performing. Some might serve a worthy master, as Merlin did Arthur. There are as many choices as there are people. And while none may choose to harm or profit for the sake of it, all are real.”

He slipped a long chain from under his shirt, held the pendant with its milky stone out for her to see. “A moonstone,” he told her. “And the words around are my name, and my title.
Draiodoir
. Magician.”

“It's beautiful.” Unable to resist, she curved her hand around the pendant. And felt a bolt of heat, like the rush of a comet, spurt from her fingertips to her toes. “God!”

Before she could snatch her hand away, Flynn closed his own over hers. “Power,” he murmured. “You feel it. Can all but taste it. A seductive thing. And inside, you can make yourself think there's nothing impossible. Look at me, Kayleen.”

She already was, could do nothing else. Wanted nothing else. There you are, she thought again. There you are, at last.

“I could have you now. You would willingly lie with me now, as you have in dreams. Without fear. Without questions.”