If There Be Dragons

by Kay Hooper

  Brooke started to tell him that she knew exactly where he’d been, but swallowed the words. And she realized that last night’s declaration wasn’t going to be referred to; Cody apparently understood that she was hardly ready for love from a stranger. She said, “I gather you’ve also been fixing the generator.”

  He shrugged out of his jacket and crossed the room to hang it on the back of a kitchen chair, limping only slightly. “It wasn’t hard. I scrounged a bit and found some spare parts in the shed with the generator. Besides, I thought we’d probably need the juice; there’s a blizzard starting up out there.”

  She turned to look out the window, a little surprised to realize that she hadn’t thought to check the weather before. She saw snow beginning to blow around outside, the flakes ominously large. Absently she said, “I wondered why last night’s storm never hit; it looks like it was holding back until today.”

  “Stranded for days.”

  “I can always take you down in the Sno-Cat.” Brooke turned away from the window and looked at Cody, noting his startled expression. “The Cat can get through anything.”

  Cody stared at her for a long moment. “How about some breakfast first?”

  Brooke felt herself flush. She wondered if Cody understood why she was trying to send him on his way. Would that startle him? “Sorry. I guess I’m being a bad hostess. What would you like?”

  “Whatever you’re having.” Cody eased his weight down into a chair, watching her and still wearing a bemused expression.

  Brooke turned away again and busied herself with preparing breakfast. Anything to avoid thinking about how right he looked in her home.

  “Do you cook when you have guests?”

  “I help.” With her back still to him, she began mixing pancake batter. “There’s a lady in town who comes up when I have guests. She’s a retired cook, and enjoys keeping her hand in occasionally.”

  “Do you like music?”

  Amused at the leapfrogging subjects, Brooke asked, “What is this, Twenty Questions?”

  “Humor me.”

  “I love music.”

  “Animals?”

  “Yes, although I haven’t been around them much.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Alabama. Next question?” she asked wryly, carefully pouring the batter onto the heated griddle.

  “What do you like to read?”

  “Murder mysteries, intrigue, and science fiction.”

  “Do you realize you’ve been reading my mind?”

  THREE

  BROOKE SET THE mixing bowl down on the counter with exaggerated care and slowly turned to look at him. He was sitting by the table, one elbow resting on its polished surface and his hand cupping his chin. The golden eyes were still a bit bemused, but steady.

  She realized then that only the sound of her own voice had disturbed the silence between them. Cody hadn’t said a word aloud since he’d told her that he would have whatever she was having for breakfast.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, horrified.

  Philosophically Cody said. “That’s the damnedest thing I ever saw. Or heard. Whatever. At least I’ll never have to worry about holding up my end of a conversation with you, will I?”

  Hardly hearing him, Brooke lifted a hand to rub her forehead fretfully. “That shouldn’t have happened,” she muttered. “How did that happen?”

  “It jarred me at first,” Cody said, musingly. “You said something about the storm waiting to hit today and I thought, stranded for days. It was a delighted thought, by the way. Then you said you could take me down in the Sno-Cat, and I realized you’d read the thought. The rest was—uh—an experiment.”

  Shaken by the slip in her control, Brooke snapped, “That was a sneaky trick.”

  “I know.” He was disarmingly rueful. “But I wanted to know if you could read me, and I had a feeling you wouldn’t try if I’d asked.”

  “I wouldn’t have.” Brooke turned back to the griddle and flipped the pancakes over. “Don’t—don’t do that again, Cody.”

  “I won’t.” There was a pause, then he asked softly, “Forgive me?”

  Irritably she said, “If your ankle was strong enough to carry you down to the barn, it’s strong enough to move around the kitchen. There’s orange juice in the refrigerator and the plates are in that cabinet.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Amused, Cody got up and began to set the table. A moment later he said conversationally, “It doesn’t bother me if you read my mind, you know.”

  “It bothers me,” she said briefly.

  “Why?” he asked, honestly interested.

  Brooke turned the strips of bacon sizzling in the pan, trying to think of some way to explain the inexplicable. “It just bothers me. Look, it’s very disconcerting to have someone else’s thought running through my mind.”

  “I’d think you’d be used to it by now.”

  “I’ll never get used to it.”

  “Which is why you live way up here like a hermit?”

  She looked back over her shoulder at him, surprised by the touch of anger in his voice. “I cope the best way I can,” she told him tightly.

  “By hiding away from the problem?”

  She carried the pancakes and bacon over to the table, his accusation getting to her in spite of herself. “Don’t lay that on me,” she snapped. “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “Then tell me,” he invited instantly.

  Brooke set the plate down and glared across the table at him. “No.”

  “I can’t fight the dragons until I can see them.”

  “You’re not going to fight anything.”

  “Brooke—”

  “I’ll take you back to town after breakfast. The Cat can—”

  “The hell you will,” he interrupted flatly. “I’m not going anywhere, Brooke.”

  “I’ll call the police and have you thrown out,” she said desperately, filled with the strong conviction that unless she got him out of her life immediately, she’d no longer be in control. And she’d fought too long and too hard for control to lose it willingly.

  “You can’t call them,” he taunted softly. “The phone’s out; I tried it this morning. And there’s no cell reception up here.”

  “Then I’ll go to town myself in the Cat, and—”

  He interrupted again. “If I could fix a generator, I could damn well disable a Sno-Cat.”

  Brooke stared at him.

  “You’re stuck with me.” His voice was still soft, but no longer taunting, his gaze level and calm. “And I’ve waited too long just to walk away because of a few lousy dragons.”

  “Waited?” She had the uneasy feeling that his silence on a certain unnerving subject was about to be broken. And she was right.

  “For love,” he said simply.

  “You don’t love me, Cody.” Brooke put every ounce of certainty she could muster into the words. “Because you don’t know me. Maybe you think you’re in love, but you aren’t. Love at first sight’s a myth. It—”

  “It wasn’t at first sight,” Cody said calmly. “It took a few minutes.”

  She ignored that. “You can’t love someone without knowing them, and you don’t know me. My God—we only met last night.”

  “Brooke, stop telling me that I can’t feel what I feel.”

  She tried another tack. “Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t feel what you think you feel.” Brooke felt a wild giggle trying to rise in her throat. Had that sentence been right? It hadn’t sounded right. Seeing that Cody was coming around the table to her, she added hastily, “And I won’t ever feel that way. Ever. So you’d better just go.”

  Cody’s grin was honestly amused, but there was a glint in his eyes. “The lady’s protesting awfully loud,” he noted, halting barely an arm’s length away from her.

  Brooke refused to back away from him physically. She lifted her chin and stared defiantly into the lazily smiling eyes. “If nothing else, the lady certainly knows her own m
ind. I’m not protesting, Cody. I’m stating a fact. And the fact is that I’m not interested. Period.”

  The next thing she knew, Brooke found herself hauled against his chest and locked in an embrace that was inescapable without being painful. Even through her sweater and his, she could feel his heart thudding against her in a rapid and erratic rhythm.

  “This is the second time I’ve held you,” he said huskily. “But this time, I’m afraid I don’t feel at all protective—or soothing.”

  “Cody!” She pushed against his chest, disconcerted by the way her senses flared at the contact with unyielding muscles. But then her senses overloaded in a burst of inner sparks as his mouth found hers.

  Brooke was hardly sweet-twenty-eight-and-never-been-kissed. There had been tentative beginnings during the last couple of years. But as she’d told Cody, it must have been very nerve-racking to discover that the lady could read minds; those tentative beginnings had remained only beginnings. Experience of sorts.

  But she had never in her life felt anything like this. The sensory overload was frightening and yet strangely, insidiously addictive. She felt blind, deaf, and mute—aware only of sensations exploding inside her too rapidly to be assimilated.

  She felt one of his hands tangle in her long hair, felt the other hand slide down to the small of her back and draw her impossibly closer. Warm lips moved demandingly on hers, taking with a fierce hunger that wouldn’t be denied. His tongue probed in the stark thrust of possession, igniting a fire that swept through Brooke in a raging, out-of-control blaze.

  When Cody finally lifted his head, Brooke had to force her eyes to open. With a dim, wondering sort of surprise she saw that her arms were up around his neck, her fingers locked in his thick golden hair. She told her fingers to let go, her arms to fall to her sides. Nothing happened. His voice distracted her from vague annoyance.

  “Time isn’t important,” Cody said hoarsely, golden eyes darkened to honey as he stared down at her. “Depth is. I may not know you with my mind yet, but I know you with my heart. And I’ve caught a glimpse of those dragons, Brooke. I’ll find them and slay them, or I’ll prove that they can’t hurt you anymore. And I’ll know you with my mind.”

  In a split second of understanding, Brooke realized why she’d felt threatened almost from the first moment she’d laid eyes on Cody: She’d known with some instinct beyond knowledge that this man could step inside her walls and, once inside, see her in a way she’d never been seen before. And the Brooke who’d searched most of her life for privacy and found it at last marching hand in hand with loneliness felt a tug-of-war beginning inside of her.

  She needed her privacy as balm for those bitter early years; at the same time what Cody was offering was almost irresistible. Offering? No. What he was demanding. It was almost irresistible, and scary as hell. He wanted to see her with walls down, wanted to see the parts of her hiding from the light.

  Brooke, who’d seen quite a few psychologists and parapsychologists in her time, knew what that was called: psychological visibility. It was a basic need of human beings, according to the theory, to be clearly seen by at least one other person.

  That was what Cody demanded as a lover’s right.

  And that scared the hell out of Brooke, because in all the years of seeing into other people’s minds, no one had yet looked into her own.

  This time her arms and hands obeyed her silent commands, and Brooke stepped back away from Cody. She broke the lock of his intense gaze, glancing down at the table. “The food’s cold,” she said in a faraway voice. “I’ll put it in the microwave.”

  “Brooke.”

  She picked the plate up before meeting his eyes. And her own was naked now, shutters unable to stand against him. She wasn’t sure that the walls would be able to either, and that fear was reflected in green depths.

  Cody swore softly. “Brooke, don’t look at me like that,” he said, and there was a rough note of pleading in his tone. “I won’t batter my way through those walls of yours, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I wouldn’t hurt you like that. All I’m asking for is time. Time to find out if you can meet me halfway. That’s all—I promise.”

  Brooke tried to ignore the pleading, and found it one of the hardest things she’d ever done in her life. “You’re asking too much. And you’re moving too fast.”

  “I’ll slow down,” he promised instantly.

  She looked into his eyes, startled, wondering at the intensity he seemed to feel so clearly. Did it matter so much to him? Was he really in love with her?

  A seed buried deep inside of her began to grow in that moment. Tentatively, afraid of its own vulnerability, it began to reach out for the warm light of hope.

  She was so tired of being alone.

  Nodding jerkily, Brooke turned away and toward the countertop microwave oven. “Better unpack your asbestos suit,” she warned shakily. “I think you just might need it.”

  They shared the cleaning-up chores in a companionable silence broken only by desultory conversation. Their words were meaningless, unimportant, but the very casualness of them helped to relax two wary people. Afterward Brooke showed Cody the lodge.

  The enormous place contained six bedrooms upstairs in addition to the two downstairs, four bathrooms, a large formal dining room, and—the room Cody had noticed the night before—a sunken great room.

  It was this room they wound up in. It was huge. At the front of the room was a tremendous stone fireplace with a raised hearth, before which lay an ankle-deep, snow-white polar bearskin rug. Synthetic, Brooke explained, since her uncle hadn’t believed in destroying animals for sport or decoration. Other rugs were scattered about the gleaming hardwood floor. Occasional chairs, couches, and love seats were placed seemingly at random in the room, lending an atmosphere of casual elegance. End tables and coffee tables were conveniently arranged. In one corner stood a tall, glass-fronted curio cabinet filled with ivory pieces.

  After Cody built a fire in the big fireplace, they settled in front of it. He sat on the comfortable couch and Brooke sank down on the bearskin rug. They were relaxed now, almost at ease with each other. And when Cody brought up her abilities, he did so casually, and Brooke responded in the same manner.

  “It really shook you when you read my thoughts,” he said musingly. “Why? I mean, it’s not something new.”

  “But it is.” She frowned a little, gazing into the fire. “It’s very rare that I actually read thoughts—clear sentences, I mean. People generally don’t think in complete sentences. So what I pick up are images; I know what they’re thinking, but I put the thought into words.” She turned her head to look at him. “You said you’re a troubleshooter in computers?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’ve been trained in logic?”

  Cody nodded.

  “I’ll bet you’re also exceptionally good at math.”

  He smiled a little. “That’s true. Do my mathematical and logical abilities explain how easily you read my mind?”

  “I think so. You’re obviously able to focus your thoughts very clearly. In fact”—she lifted a wry brow at him—“you threw them at me.”

  “Sorry.” He didn’t look it.

  “Sure.”

  “Really. You have my sincere apologies; I was taught never to throw things.”

  His solemn tone won a smile from Brooke. “Well. Just don’t do it again.”

  Encouraged, Cody decided that a bit of absurdity would go a long way toward promoting an even more relaxed atmosphere between them. And, being Cody, he dived in headfirst. “It’s amazing what a smile will do,” he told her confidentially. “I mean, when you walked back into the kitchen last night, I thought, My God, she’s as cold as ice!”

  Brooke gave him a startled look.

  “Well,” he explained gravely, “I did say that it wasn’t love at first sight.”

  Fighting back a giggle, Brooke managed a brief “Oh.”

  “But that face,” he went on rapturously, a kind
of besotted appreciation running rampant in his voice. “Such perfection! The face that launched a thousand hips—” Cody broke off abruptly, his eyes going wide and ludicrously woeful.

  Blinking just once, Brooke murmured politely, “Freudian slip?”

  Cody rested his forehead on an upraised hand. “Oh, Lord! Foot-in-mouth disease! Is there no cure?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “I did not mean to say that.”

  “Of course, you didn’t.”

  “My tongue got tangled.”

  “Happens to the best of us.”

  “If only thought could wed itself with speech,” Cody misquoted mournfully.

  “Tennyson,” Brooke observed companionably.

  Cody stared at her for a moment, then rubbed his hands together like a dastardly villain. “Ah-ha! I see I’ve found someone to sharpen my poetic sword on. Be warned, woman—poetry is my second language.”

  She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Really? Well, then, sharpen away.”

  Noting her slight smile, Cody quoted thoughtfully, “‘Flushed and confident.’”

  Still smiling, Brooke murmured, “The flush comes from the nearness of the fire. The confidence comes from lots of reading. And the quotation is from Ibsen.”

  Cody inclined his head in a small salute and racked his brain. “‘I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all winter,’” he said, altering the quotation’s last word.

  Brooke started laughing. “Not exactly a poet! That was Ulysses S. Grant, and he was going to fight all summer.”

  “‘Understand a plain man in his plain meaning,’” Cody told her in an offended tone.

  Soothingly Brooke said, “It’s always easy to fall back on Shakespeare when one runs out of other poets, isn’t it?”

  Cody visibly gritted his teeth. “‘Victory is not a name strong enough for such a scene.’”

  “Lord Nelson.”

  “‘We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.’”

  “Queen Victoria. You’re not a poet’s poet, are you? You just like words put together well.”