Key of Knowledge

by Nora Roberts

  decided, and detoured to grab a copy of Othello, the king of stories on jealousy.

  As she carted her load to checkout, Dana worked up a smile for one of the women she’d worked with for years. She dumped the books on the counter, dug out her card. “Hi, Annie. How’s it going?”

  “Good. Fine.” In an exaggerated motion, Annie slid her gaze to the right and cleared her throat.

  Following the direction, Dana spotted Sandi, arms crossed, lips tight, watching. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Dana said under her breath.

  “Sorry, Dana. Sorry about everything.” Keeping her voice low, Annie scanned the books, stacked them.

  “Don’t worry about it.” After jamming her card back in her purse, Dana scooped up her armload of books. She sent Sandi a wide, wide smile and walked out.

  ONE of the perks of having a mature adult relationship with a woman, to Flynn’s mind, was coming home from work and finding her.

  The smell of her, the look of her, the simple presence of her, made everything just a little clearer.

  And when that woman, that pretty, sexy, fascinating woman, was cooking, it added just one more delight to the day.

  He didn’t know what she had going on the stove, and he didn’t care. It was more than enough to see her, stirring something in a pot while Moe sprawled under the table, snoring like a freight train.

  His life, Flynn thought, had found its true rhythm when Malory Price had walked into it.

  He stepped up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pressed his lips to the side of her neck. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “I certainly am.” She turned her head so she could meet his lips with hers. “How are things?”

  “Things are good.” He nudged her around for a longer, more satisfying kiss. “And better now. You didn’t have to cook, Mal. I know you were working all day.”

  “I just punched up some jarred spaghetti sauce.”

  “Still, you don’t.” He took her hands, then frowned as he turned them over. “What’s this?”

  “Just some blisters. I’m telling myself they’re good for me. Shows I’m pulling my weight.”

  He kissed them. “You know, if you’d wait for the weekend, I could give you a hand with the place.”

  “We really want to do it ourselves, at least start on it ourselves. I’ve got a few blisters and pretty much ruined a pair of jeans, but we have the most beautifully painted porch in the Valley. I wouldn’t complain if you poured me a glass of wine, though.”

  He got out a bottle and two of the wineglasses she’d bought. It seemed to him there were more glasses in the cabinet than there had been the last time he’d looked.

  She was always slipping things in.

  Glasses, fluffy towels, fancy soaps that he hesitated to actually use. It was one of the oddities and interests of having a woman around the house.

  “Jordan told me what happened with Dana.”

  “I thought he would.” Though it wasn’t quite dark, she lit the long oval candle she’d picked up for the table. “We both know how horrible it must have been for her. I know how much you love her, Flynn. I love her too. But we can’t shield her from this as much as we can just be there for her.”

  “Maybe not, but Jordan had an idea that might do a little of both.”

  He poured the wine, told her about using Moe.

  “It’s brilliant,” Malory decided, then laughed down at the still snoring Moe. “She’ll certainly agree to it, and if nothing else, she won’t feel so alone at night.” After a sip of wine, she moved to the sink to fill a pot with water for the pasta. “I suppose Jordan told you they’re going out Saturday night?”

  He’d been staring at the candle, thinking how odd it was to see it flickering away on the ancient picnic table he used in the kitchen. “Who’s going out?” As it hit him, Flynn swallowed wine in one hard gulp. “Jordan and Dana? Going . . . out?”

  “So he didn’t tell you.”

  “No, it didn’t come up.”

  “And,” she concluded as she set the pot on the stove, “you’re not too keen on the idea.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to get into it. Damn it, I don’t want them messing each other up again.” Knowing that Jordan was working upstairs, Flynn glanced at the ceiling. “It’s the person who ends up in the middle, and that would be me, who gets his ass kicked from both sides.”

  “She still loves him.”

  “Loves who?” Shock jumped into his eyes. “Loves him? Jordan? She loves him? Shit. Shit! Why do you tell me these things?”

  “Because that’s what people in love do, Flynn.” She got three woven place mats from a drawer he wasn’t sure he’d known was there and set them neatly on the table. “They tell each other things. And I don’t expect you to go running to Jordan with this information.”

  “Man.” Pacing now, he shoved a hand through his hair. “See, if you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t have to think about not saying anything to him, or not saying anything to her. I would just exist in a nice bubble of ignorance.”

  “And I think Zoe’s interested—extremely reluctantly—in Brad.”

  “Stop it. Stop this flood of information right now.”

  “You’re a newspaperman.” Enjoying herself, she pulled out the salad she’d put together and began to dress it. “You’re supposed to thrive on information.”

  He’d never seen the salad bowl before, or the wooden things she was using to toss the greens. “I’m going to get a headache.”

  “No, you’re not. You want your friends to be happy, don’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’re happy, aren’t we?”

  Cautious now, he replied, “Yes.”

  “We’re happy, and we’re in love. Ergo, you want your friends happy and in love, too. Right?”

  “This is a trick question. So rather than answer it, I’m going to distract you.”

  “I’m not making love with you while dinner’s cooking and Jordan’s upstairs.”

  “That wasn’t my idea, but I really like it. I’m going to distract you by telling you that the kitchen guys are coming on Monday to start the remodel.”

  “Really?” As he’d planned, every other thought spilled out of her mind. “Really?” she repeated and leaped at him. “Oh, this is great! This is wonderful!”

  “I thought that would do it. So, are you going to move in with me?”

  She touched her lips to his. “Ask me again when the kitchen’s done.”

  “You’re a tough one, Malory.”

  AFTER a day of manual labor, Dana longed for a soak in a hot tub before she dived into her new resource books. But she lacked the courage to do it.

  Since that realization was too mortifying to dwell on, she fantasized about the house she’d buy one day. The big, secluded house. With a library the size of a barn.

  And a Jacuzzi, she added as she pressed on the ache at the small of her back.

  But until that happy day, she would settle for her apartment. Eventually, for all the rooms in her apartment, which included the one with the tub in it.

  She could join a gym, she thought as she settled down to her books for an evening of research.

  She hated gyms. They were full of people. Sweaty people. Naked people who would insist on sharing her Jacuzzi time.

  It just wasn’t worth the aggravation. Better to wait until she could afford her own place. Of course, when she could afford her own place—with Jacuzzi—it was unlikely that she’d be spending eight hours scraping and painting until her back ached.

  Ordering herself to settle down, she started on Othello. She had her own copy, of course. She had a copy of everything Shakespeare had written, but she wanted a different volume. A kind of fresh look, she thought.

  It was jealousy and ambition that had driven Iago, she mused. He had planted “the green-ey’d monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on” in Othello, then had watched it devour him.

  It was jea
lousy and ambition that drove Kane, and so he watched as his monster devoured.

  She could learn from this, she thought, of what made a man—or a god—soulless.

  She’d barely started when the knock on the door interrupted.

  “What now?” Grumbling to herself, she went to answer it. Her irritation only increased when the door opened on Jordan.

  “This had better not become a habit.”

  “Let’s go for a ride.”

  Her response was to slam the door, but he anticipated her, slapped a hand on it, braced it open. “Let me put that another way. I’m heading up to Warrior’s Peak. Do you want to come?”

  “What are you going up there for? You’re a bystander in this deal.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion. I’m going up because I have some questions. Actually, I decided to get out of Flynn’s place after dinner. To give the lovebirds a little space.” He leaned comfortably on the jamb as he spoke but kept that hand firm on the door. “Found myself heading out of town and up the mountain road. Figured I might as well keep going, have myself a chat with Pitte and Rowena. Then I thought, You know, it’s just going to tick Dana off if I do that without running it by her. So I turned around and came back. I’m running it by you.”

  “I suppose you want points for that.”

  His mouth curved. “If you’re keeping score.”

  “I don’t see that you have anything to talk to them about.”

  “Let’s put this one more way. I’m going, with or without you.” He straightened, let his hand drop from the door. “But if you want to come along, you can drive.”

  “Big deal.”

  “My car.”

  The image of his gorgeous, muscular, classic T-Bird flashed into her mind. She had to make a conscious effort not to drool. “You fight dirty.”

  He took his keys out of his pocket. And dangled them.

  Her internal war lasted about three seconds before she snatched the keys out of his hand. “Let me get a jacket.”

  WHATEVER his flaws, Jordan Hawke knew cars. The Thunderbird climbed the hills like a mountain cat, all sleek grace and muscle. It clung to curves and roared down straightaways.

  Some might think of it as a vehicle, others as a toy. But Dana knew it was a machine. A first-class one.

  Being behind the wheel wasn’t just a sexy pleasure. It let Dana shift the situation as smoothly as she shifted gears. She was in charge now. The trip to the Peak might have been Jordan’s idea, but by God, she was driving.

  The evening was brisk, and grew brisker yet as they climbed to higher elevations, but the top was down. She was glad to trade chilly fingers and the bite of the wind for the sheer joy of zipping along the roads in the open air.

  The trees were at their peak, the force of colors made only more brilliant by the sheen of gold from the setting sun. Fallen leaves skipped and skittered across the road where light and shadow danced.

  It was like driving into a story, she mused, where anything could happen around the next turn.

  “How’s it handling for you?” Jordan asked her.

  “She’s got style. And muscle.”

  “I always thought the same about you.”

  She slid her gaze in his direction, balefully, then focused on the road. However much fun she was having, it didn’t mean she couldn’t take a poke at him.

  “I don’t see why you need a car like this when you live in an urban environment where mass transit is not only readily available but efficient.”

  “Two reasons. First, for those times when I’m not in an urban environment, such as now. And second, I lusted after her.”

  “Yeah.” She couldn’t blame him. “Fifty-seven was the primo year for T-Birds.”

  “No question. I’ve got a ’63 Stingray.”

  Her eyes went glassy. “You do not.”

  “Four-speed, 327. Fuel injection.”

  She felt the long, liquid pull in her belly. “Shut up.”

  “I had her up to 120. She’d’ve given me more, but we were just getting to know each other.” He waited a beat. “I’ve got my eye on this very sweet Caddy convertible. Fifty-nine. Single quadajet carb.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Hey, a guy’s got to have a hobby.”

  “The ’63 Stingray’s my fantasy car. The one I’m going to have one day, when all my dreams come true.”

  He smiled a little. “What color?”

  “Black. Serious business black. Four-speed manual tranny. Doesn’t have to be the 327, though that’d be the cream. Gotta be the convertible, though. The coupe just won’t do.”

  She fell silent for a few minutes, just enjoying the ride.

  “Zoe mentioned you’d fixed her car.”

  “I stopped over. Timing was off, and the carb needed a little work. Nothing major.”

  She made herself say it. “It was a nice thing to do.”

  “I had the time.” He shrugged a shoulder, stretched his legs out a little more. “Just figured she could use a hand with it.”

  Suddenly she understood, and felt ashamed for her initial reaction when she’d heard he’d gone to Zoe’s. The hardworking single mother, raising a young boy.

  Just like his mother.

  Of course he’d gone by to help.

  “She really appreciated it,” Dana told him, but kept it light. “Especially since you don’t make her nervous the way Brad does.”

  “I don’t? I think I’m insulted and will now be honor-bound to work harder to make her nervous.”

  “What kind of watch you got there?”

  “Watch?” Baffled, he turned his wrist. “I don’t know. It tells time.”

  She shook her hair back and laughed. “That’s what I thought you’d say. Sorry, you’re never going to make her nervous.”

  She slowed, reluctantly, as they approached the gates. Then she stopped, looking at the house through them as she dug her brush out of her purse. “Some place,” she commented, brushing out the knots and tangles the wind had tied into her hair. “You live in a place like this, you could have that classic ’Vette. Keep it in a big, heated garage like it deserves. I wonder if Pitte and Rowena drive.”

  “That’s some segue.”

  “No, really. Think about it. They are what they are, and they’ve been around since way before anybody even thought about the combustible engine. They can do what they do, but has either of them ever taken driving lessons, stood in line at the DMV, haggled over insurance?”

  She dropped the brush back in her purse, looked over at Jordan. His hair was as windblown as hers had been, yet, she noted, it didn’t look unkempt. Just sexy.

  “How do they live?” she continued. “We don’t really know what they do, when it comes to ordinary things. Human things. Do they watch TV? Play canasta? Do they cruise the mall? What about friends? Do they have any?”

  “If they do, there’d be a regular turnover. Friends, being human, would have that annoying habit of dying.”

  “That’s right.” She said it quietly as she looked back toward the house. “It must be lonely. Painfully lonely. All that power doesn’t make them one of us. Living in that great house doesn’t make it their home. It’s weird, isn’t it? Feeling sorry for gods.”

  “No. It’s intuitive. And just the kind of thing that’s going to help you find the key. The more you know and understand them, the closer you come to figuring out your part of the puzzle.”

  “Maybe.” Suddenly the iron gates swung open. “I guess that’s our invitation.”

  She drove, in the twilight, toward the great stone house.

  The old man she’d come to think of as the caretaker hurried up to the car to open her door. “Welcome. I’ll see to the car for you, miss.”

  “Thanks.” She studied him, trying to get a gauge on his age. Seventy? Eighty? Three thousand and two? “I never got your name,” she said to him.

  “Oh, I’d be Caddock, miss.”

  “Caddock. Is that Scots, Irish?”

  �
��Welsh. I’d be from Wales, in the original way of things, miss.”

  Like Rowena, she thought. “Have you worked for Pitte and Rowena long?”

  “Yes, indeed.” His eyes seemed to twinkle at her. “I’ve been in their service a number of years now.” He looked past her, nodded his head. “There’s a fine sight, isn’t it, then?”

  Dana turned, and stared at the huge buck that stood on the verge between lawn and forest. His rump seemed to glimmer white in the soft haze of twilight, and his rack shone silver.

  “Traditional symbolism,” Jordan said, though he was no less struck by the buck’s magnificence. “The seeker sees a white deer or hare at the start of a quest.”

  “Malory saw it,” Dana murmured over the lump in her throat. “The first night we came here. But I didn’t, Zoe didn’t.” She walked to stand beside Jordan. “Does that mean it was already ordained that Malory would search for the first key? That it had nothing to do with the luck of the draw? That was just show?”

  “Or ritual. You still had to choose to reach into the box for a disk. You decide to follow the deer, or turn away from it.”

  “But is it real? Is that deer really standing over there, or are we imagining it?”

  “That’s something else for you to decide.” He waited until the deer faded back into the shadows before he turned.

  Both the old man and the car were gone. After the initial jolt, Jordan slid his hands into his pockets. “You’ve got to admit, that is very cool.”

  The entrance doors opened. Rowena stood dead center, the foyer lights spilling over her fiery hair, glinting on the long silver dress she wore. “How lovely to see you both.” She held out a hand in welcome. “I was just pining for company.”

  Chapter Seven

  PITTE was already in the parlor, wearing a black shirt and trousers that echoed Rowena’s casual elegance.

  Dana wondered if they sat around looking beautiful all the time. Something else to think about, she supposed. Like did they ever have bad hair days, indigestion, sore feet?

  Or were those things too mundane for gods living in the mortal world?

  “We were just enjoying the fire, and a glass of wine. You’ll join us?” Rowena asked.

  “Sure, thanks.” Welcoming the heat, Dana walked toward the snapping fire. “You guys hang like this every evening?”

  In the process of pouring wine, Pitte stopped, frowned at her. “Hang?”

  “Hang out. You know, sit around in great clothes, drinking fine wine out of, what is that, Baccarat?”

  “I believe it is.” Pitte finished pouring, offered the glass to Dana. “We often take an hour or so to relax together at the end of the day.”

  “What about the rest of the time? Do you just putter around this place?”

  “Ah. You wonder what we do to entertain ourselves.” Rowena sat, patted the