Nora Roberts' Key Trilogy by Nora Roberts

Author:Nora Roberts [Roberts, Nora]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

JORDAN slept with his arm flung over Dana’s waist, his leg hooked over hers, as if he would hold her in place. Though she hadn’t been the one to leave, this time around he was far from sure she would let him stay.

In her bed, or in her life.

But he held on to her as he wandered in dreams. Through the moonstruck night in the high summer heat where everything smelled ripe and green and secret.

The woods were locked in shadows, with the flicker of lightning bugs quick blinks of gold against the black. In dreams he knew, somehow knew, he was a man instead of the boy he’d been when he’d walked through the wild grass at the verge of those woods. His heart pounding with . . . fear? Anticipation? Knowledge? As he’d stared up at the great black house that rose regally toward the swimming moon.

His friends weren’t close by, as they had been on that hot summer night of his memory. Flynn and Brad weren’t there, with their contraband beer and cigarettes, the camping gear, or the youthful courage and carelessness three teenage boys made together.

He was alone, the warriors of the Peak guarding the gate behind him and the house empty of life and silent as a tomb.

No, not empty, he thought. It was a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as being empty. They were filled with memories, with the faded echoes of voices. Drops of tears, drops of blood, the ring of laughter, the edge of tempers that had ebbed and flowed between the walls, into the walls, over the years.

Wasn’t it, after all, a kind of life?

And there were houses, he knew it, that breathed. They carried in their wood and stone, their brick and mortar a kind of ego that was nearly, very nearly, human.

But there was something, something he needed to remember about this house, about this place. This night. Something he knew but couldn’t quite bring clear in his mind. It drifted in and out, like a half-remembered song, teasing and nagging at him.

It was important, even vital, that he turned whatever was in his mind, like a camera lens, until the image came into sharp focus.

In the dream he closed his eyes, breathed slow and deep as he tried to empty his mind so what needed to come would come.

When he opened them, he saw her. She walked along the parapet under the white ball of moon. Alone as he was alone. Dreaming, perhaps, as he was dreaming.

Her cloak billowed up, though there was no wind to lift it. It seemed to him the air held its breath, and all the sounds of the night—the rustles and peeps and hoots—fell like a crash into terrible silence.

In his chest his heart began to pound. On the parapet, the woman began to turn. In a moment, he thought, in just a moment, they would see each other.

Finally . . .

The sun was a violent flash that shocked his brain, blinded him.

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