Once upon a Dream

by Nora Roberts

  Was it really the same necklace as the one in the drawing? Claire couldn’t be sure. And yet…

  For just a moment she could feel it: the coolness of the dream-necklace against her skin, the light weight of the pendant at her throat.

  Her heart fluttering as if it had wings, Claire reached out and tried the handle. The door opened softly.

  4

  THE SHOP WAS in shadows. She heard the soft tinkle of a bell as the door closed. When her eyes adjusted, she could make out a Venetian mirror, a pair of filigree lamps, and collars of old lace in glass cases. She jumped when something brushed the back of her neck. It was just a stuffed monkey, its black glass eyes staring back at her.

  “That’s it,” she murmured. “I’m out of here.”

  Before she could turn around, a curtain at the back of the shop parted and a plump, dark-eyed woman came out. She wore a marvelously tailored suit of black silk worsted and an armful of thin gold bracelets that jingled softly as she moved.

  “Bon giorno, signorina.”

  Claire answered in her fractured Italian, and the woman’s face changed. “Ah, good afternoon, signorina. I mistook you for…for someone else. You are American?”

  “Yes. I just arrived in Venice.”

  “We are honored. Is there something I can show you?”

  Claire hesitated, feeling foolish. The necklace couldn’t be the same.

  But it was. The moment she saw it laid out on the square of black velvet, she knew it. But the pendant was missing. She saw the bit of gold in the center from which it had hung.

  “There used to be a pendant.”

  The shop owner was startled. “Yes, signorina. I have it here.”

  Reaching inside the glass case, she removed a small box. When she straightened up and removed the lid, however, it was just a heart-shaped piece of granulated gold.

  “The ruby is missing,” Claire said, disappointed.

  “It may have been another stone,” the woman told her, smiling. “Or perhaps even a piece of Murano glass.”

  “No.” Claire was certain. “It was a ruby. Quando?”

  As soon as the word was out of her mouth, she realized she’d said the wrong thing. That meant “when,” not “how much?” “Er…Quant-e`, per favore?”

  The woman named a sum surprisingly low to Claire. A quick transaction, and the necklace was hers. She touched a fingertip to the pendant.

  It was cool, and yet a line of heat shot up Claire’s arm and burst into small golden sparks. The sensation was so sharp, so startling, that she pulled her finger back and looked at it, almost expecting to see blood.

  A vision floated between her and the necklace, took on shape and depth and texture:

  …light stuccoed walls. The parapet of a graceful bridge. A glimpse of a cloaked figure in a gilded Carnivale mask. Then a moving mosaic: pale paving stones, the hem of a gold velvet gown, the tip of a dainty embroidered slipper. The luminous sheen of scattered starlight, reflecting off the black-green waters of the canal.

  Numbing cold. Fear. Oh, God, the fear…

  The vision was gone in an instant, leaving her feeling dizzy and ill.

  The world had gone black, except for small, ragged spots of light. It was like looking through a black cloth full of moth holes. Then Claire realized that she was on the floor, with the shop woman leaning over her in concern.

  Her patchy vision began to clear, and her hearing came back. The world was still out of kilter. She caught the tinkle of bells, overlaid by an exchange of words in rapid Italian—and she understood every word.

  “She was just standing there, looking at the necklace. Then her face went white as this marble cherub, and she crumpled and fell.”

  “I’ll fetch a cold cloth and some water.”

  “Perhaps the doctor, nona?”

  A slight pause. An elderly face swam into view above her, and a pair of dark, dark eyes looked into Claire’s. She felt as if she looked through them and out the other side, into endless tomorrows. Or yesterdays.

  “She will be all right. She is sensitive, this one, and has had a glimpse of the past. It can be unsettling.”

  Both women looked up as a shadow fell across Claire, and the draft from an opened door swept past them like a wraith. She blinked. The women were still speaking in musical Italian, but suddenly she couldn’t understand a word. Then Val was kneeling at her side. Beneath his tan, his face was as white as hers felt.

  “Claire? Can you hear me? What happened?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “A fainting spell, signor,” the elderly woman said. She shook her head. “It is not good to go all day without feeding the stomach. The bella signorina needs a bite to eat. Something more than gelato. La minestra for primo. Risi i funghi to follow. And,” she said firmly, “a glass of good vino rosso.”

  He helped Claire sit up slowly. At first she was glad for the warmth and comfort of his arm, but the moment she felt restored, it seemed too intimate. A reminder of what they’d had—and lost.

  “I’m okay. Help me up, please.”

  His eyes darkened, and his jaw squared, but Val pulled her easily to her feet, then removed his arm from around her shoulders. “You look like something the tide washed in.”

  She slanted a wry look at him from the corner of her eye. “I’m disappointed. Your skill at delivering graceful compliments seems to have deserted you.”

  “That’s better.” He grinned, but his eyes were still cool. “The signora’s advice is sound, Claire. Let’s get you out into the fresh air. There’s a neighborhood restaurant around the corner in the square. I can vouch for the food.”

  She knew he was right and didn’t argue. “The necklace…”

  “Of course, signorina.” The younger woman wrapped the box in gold tissue paper and put it into a little bag with a corded handle.

  As Claire and Val were about to leave, the elderly woman touched Claire’s wrist lightly. “It is good that you have come to Venice. It will be even better when you leave.”

  “Well,” Claire said later when she and Val were settled at a small table overlooking the calm Rio San Zulian. A gondola glided past, empty except for the lone gondolier. “I’ve never been told to ‘get out of Dodge’ before. That wasn’t very friendly of her.”

  He laughed at her joke, but his voice was serious. “I don’t think she was warning you off. I think she was telling your fortune.” Val dipped a spoon into his thick vegetable soup. “Everyone in San Marco has heard of Signora Frascatti. They call her nona—grandmother. She’s said to be able to see the future and cast love spells. Some say she can give the evil eye.”

  She examined his face. The reflection off the canal cast his face in light and shadow. “Do you believe such things are possible, Val?”

  “I don’t know if they are—but I hope so.” The lines of his face grew stern, and his eyes were haunted. “Life can be pretty grim at times without a little magic.”

  Without thinking, she stretched her hand across the table and covered his. She wanted to reach up and touch his face, smooth away the sudden frown, see the shadows vanish from his eyes.

  “Was it very bad?”

  His jaw clenched. “I was standing on a ridge with an eager young British journalist and our guide when the mortar round hit. The next moment I was alone.”

  He set his spoon down. “That’s enough of the soup for me. Let’s order dessert. I’d recommend anything on the menu.”

  She snatched her hand away. He was always like this, damn it. Shutting her out. She’d spent their entire marriage pounding on the locked door of his silence, never knowing exactly what was on the other side.

  The realization struck her then that she was being shallow and selfish. Stupid, too. Val wasn’t as lucky as she had always thought. In fact, given what he’d just told her, he was lucky to be alive.

  It had never occurred to her that he was in danger on his assignments. The air of golden invincibility that surrounded him had blinded her to it
. Val had seen and survived terrible things. He was just good at hiding it. Damned good.

  Their waiter came over. Claire let him take her half-finished dish of rice with mushrooms and frowned at the chalked menu on the board outside the cafe.

  The dark young woman across from them had a footed glass bowl of tiramisu, Val’s favorite dessert. She dipped her spoon into the frothy concoction of coffee-soaked ladyfingers, mascarpone, and whipped cream with gusto.

  Claire wavered. Tiramisu was one of her downfalls. She could almost taste the creamy confection on her own tongue right now. In a moment she’d be drooling. But she was afraid if she ate too much now she wouldn’t have room for dinner with Count Ludovici.

  The couple at one of the other tables were sharing a bowl of melon and berries. “That fruit looks good.” She smiled at the hovering waiter. “Il fritto misto, per favore.”

  The waiter seemed bemused. Val choked on his wine and shook his head vigorously. “La frutta mista.”

  The waiter hid his smile, nodded, and went inside. Claire folded her arms and sighed. “I take it I ordered the wrong thing?”

  He grinned. “Not if you wanted mixed fried fish for dessert.”

  “Ick.” She wanted to bang her head on the table.

  “You’re getting a mixed fruit plate instead.”

  “Thank God!” She made a face. “I was born here. I spent my first years in Venice and I’ve always been good at languages. Why is the simplest Italian so difficult for me?”

  Val sipped his vino rosso and shrugged. “Maybe you have a mental block about it: for some reason connected with the past, you don’t really want to learn it.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  He leaned forward. “I think you could learn anything you set your mind to. But you’ve always been as stubborn as a two-headed mule. And when there’s something you don’t want to discuss, you clam up. Shut yourself away.”

  Her temper fired. “Like you just did when I asked about your work. You always shut me out, Val. As if I were too stupid to understand.”

  “It’s not that,” he said sharply. “There are just some things that I want to forget. Maybe it’s not possible, but it’s the only way I can be at peace with what I’ve seen.”

  “I’m not a child. You don’t have to treat me like one.”

  There was hurt in her voice, but truth, too. He looked at her steadily, as if seeing her anew. “I’m sorry, Claire. That was part of the problem between us, wasn’t it?”

  “You cut me out of your life.”

  “I wanted to protect you from it.”

  She lifted her glass and watched the light turn the wine to liquid garnet. “I’m a big girl, Val. And you know what they say: Life Happens.”

  He shot her a wry look. “I think I’ve heard that phrase in the past expressed just a little less politely from time to time.”

  The laughter they shared was light and easy. Like old times. He wanted to reach over and pull her into his arms, tangle his fingers in those riotous golden curls. Kiss that rosy, stubborn little mouth until they were both dizzy with it.

  His voice was husky. “Do you miss me, Claire?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. “Not any more than I missed you when you were off with your cameras and gear to the ends of the earth.”

  The silence between them was cold and clear and thick as ice. Val tossed back the remnants of his wine and signaled for another. Nothing had changed.

  No, he thought. That isn’t exactly true.

  The Claire he had been married to would never have come to Venice on her own. She had shunted back and forth from Coeur d’Alene in Idaho to San Francisco as if there was an invisible rut in the sky. Once or twice she’d gone briefly to L.A. and even Chicago. But his suggestion of a honeymoon in Australia hadn’t been met with much enthusiasm. They’d spent it in San Francisco instead.

  In the end, she had been too afraid to leave her comfortable nest, and he’d been too angry to stay.

  She was such a curious mixture: hungry for knowledge but afraid of adventure. Happiest exploring some long-dead artist’s past instead of her own future. Confident on the outside, a bundle of jangled nerve endings inside. Strong and stubborn, yet afraid to trust. That had been the real rock their marriage had foundered on.

  Whatever hurt her so was buried deep. He had never been able to get to the heart of it. And, God Almighty, after all they’d been through, she still took his breath away.

  Need fisted in his gut. He wanted her as fiercely as ever.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said softly.

  He raised his brows and tried to look innocent. “Like what?”

  “Like I’m a bowl of tiramisu, and you’re going to scoop me up.”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “Of course.”

  He braced his hands behind his neck and smiled. “Good.”

  A flush of heat rose from the pit of her stomach and spread upward. She could feel the hot rush of blood stain her throat and warm her cheeks. Damn him! He still knew which buttons to push.

  Raised voices drew her attention. A young couple stood on the bridge beside the canal, quarreling. Hands waved and eyes flashed as the spat grew louder. Claire felt her stomach drop.

  Val was right. She’d been blocking something out. It came rushing back now: a window overlooking a church, flowered curtains dancing in the breeze. The sound of her parents’ voices in Italian. They always switched to Italian when they argued, and they’d done so the day her mother died. Then footsteps, her mother racing around the corner to the landing, where someone had left a basket of laundry. Then a soft cry, something falling. After that, only a terrible, echoing silence. That’s why someone—a neighbor?—had taken Claire to the Piazza San Marco to see the pigeons. And while the woman hadn’t been looking, Claire had wandered off to see the birds at close hand.

  She’d been lost for hours, looking for home and her mother. When they found her, she didn’t have a mother anymore. Or a home. In less than three days, she was on a plane to Idaho.

  The quarreling had now escalated to heated outbursts, accompanied by emphatic gestures and much waving of arms.

  “What is it?” This time it was Val’s hand that covered hers. He felt it tremble in his grasp.

  “I…I don’t know. I can’t stand to hear a man and woman arguing like that. It upsets me.”

  He took her hand between his and smiled. “They’re Italian. From the south of Italy, by their conversation. They’re not arguing, sweetheart. They’re making love.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I ever…”

  She broke off. He was right. While the woman shouted and pounded the air with her fist, the man pulled her into his arms. He almost swept her off her feet and was kissing her passionately. She was responding with equal fervor. In fact, any more fervor and they’d both be cooling off in the canal together.

  The same electricity arced between Claire and Val. She knew he was as aware of it as she. “And don’t,” Claire said lightly as she pulled her hand away, “call me sweetheart.”

  The waiter returned with Val’s change. “Honeymoons? Newlywedded?” he ventured, practicing his English.

  “No,” said Claire.

  “Yes,” Val replied simultaneously.

  The waiter nodded, smiled, and walked away. He scratched his head, thinking he must have used the wrong phrase.

  “You shouldn’t have lied to him,” Claire said, rising.

  The slow, simmering look Val gave her made her tingle from head to toe. His arm slipped around her waist so naturally. “You could make an honest man of me.”

  “The honeymoon is supposed to come after the marriage,” she told him. “Not after the divorce.”

  But she let him take her hand and twine his long fingers through hers. As they walked back toward the Europa e Regina Hotel together, they fell into a natural rhythm, with Val shortening his long strides and Claire lengthening hers.

  The piazza was
less crowded, and they lingered outside Saint Mark’s Basilica, examining the golden mosaics on the facade, the way they caught the liquid light of Venice and sent it darting, dazzling, back.

  It was the long way around, but neither Claire nor Val cared. Something of the timelessness of Venice seeped into them, bringing an inner quiet that was both soothing and intimate. They were both silent as they walked from the piazetta to the waterfront. Lagoon and sky were the same hazy shade of aqua, and the buildings gleamed softly in every shade of rose and white.

  She wished they could have gone on for hours in such quiet companionship, but they reached the hotel all too soon. As she unlocked her door, Val stood looking down at her with a peculiar expression on his face.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  The corners of his firm mouth tilted up. “Tiramisu.”

  5

  HE WOUND ONE of her curls around his finger, the way he used to do. Dark lights shone in the depths of his eyes, and she was sure there was an answering spark in hers. She thought for a moment he might kiss her. Hoped it, too.

  But Val only touched her cheek. “Until tonight.”

  He opened the door, and it swung in on silent hinges. She went inside and closed it softly, then leaned against it for a minute. When she walked away from it eventually, she felt light and unsteady, as if she were walking on water.

  Until tonight.

  Claire was ready early, and they took a gondola after all.

  With the lantern lit and starry skies above, she thought this scene was straight out of a history book. Or a fairy tale.

  Val had negotiated with the gondolier in advance, and they left the brighter areas of the Grand Canal to glide along the smaller canale that served as the streets of Venice. They went along places where the water sparkled darkly, making false moonbeams on the faces of the tall buildings on either side, and past gaily lit squares full of music and laughter, only to glide back into darkness again.