Handful of Dreams

by Heather Graham

  With a little cry she stood up and quickly shed the wet gown for her terry robe. She had loved Peter; he was too close here.

  She could hear a pounding sound from her bedroom. David had already found some kind of a board to seal over her bedroom window.

  Susan walked quietly down the stairs, through the parlor, and into the kitchen. She wanted something, but she wasn’t sure what. Maybe the soothing glass of wine David had denied her at dinner. She set her flashlight on the counter and opened the refrigerator to start groping through it. Just as her fingers closed around it a husky voice right behind her startled and challenged her.

  “What are you doing?”

  The wine bottle slipped through her fingers and shattered on the floor.

  “Damn! You are a disaster,” David muttered, already stooping to collect the large pieces of glass. “Get some towels and the broom, will you? And watch your feet.”

  Sighing, her heart pounding too quickly, Susan went for the broom and a roll of paper towels.

  “Smells like we just adopted five winos,” he muttered lightly, taking the towels to mop up the liquid. Then he stared at her with a curious light in his eyes. “How did anyone manage to live with you?”

  “I seldom drop things!” Susan protested. “And I can’t be blamed if a storm chose to break my window. Besides, this was your fault—you startled me. I didn’t hear you come in. For that matter, I wanted that wine!”

  “Need a drink that badly, huh?” She couldn’t quite fathom his meaning. He brushed the last of the glass on a dustpan and dumped it into the trash. “You’re lucky you didn’t break your toes this time.” He paused, his eyes on her feet. “And you’re still bleeding all over the place!” he said impatiently.

  Susan looked at her toe. “I—I really can’t feel it. I forgot.”

  She started for the cabinet over the sink where there were bandages and peroxide. She didn’t get there. She felt his hands around her waist, lifting her to the counter. She opened her mouth to protest, but he’d already spun her around so that her foot was beneath the tap. He let water run over it while he hunted out the peroxide, poured some over the cut, then managed to dry it with remarkable sensitivity before carefully winding a bandage around her toe.

  “You should live,” he told her.

  “I rather thought so myself.”

  “And you didn’t need the wine.”

  “What I don’t need is a watchdog!” she snapped. “If something dire were going to come of the lump on my head, it would have been here by now!”

  He shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.” Then he did what she had been afraid of earlier: He clutched her chin in his hand and twisted her head to probe the scalp behind her ear. When he released her, he shrugged again. “I guess you’re right. The swelling is gone.”

  “So is the wine,” she murmured.

  “Are you that much of a lush?”

  “No! I’d just give my eyeteeth to be able to go to sleep, and I don’t think I can right now.”

  “There’s brandy,” he offered flatly, hands on his hips as he studied her.

  “I hate brandy.”

  “Ah ha!” He arched a brow in a rather devastating fashion, almost like a playful buccaneer. “Not the way I can fix brandy, Miss Anderson!”

  He set her on the floor with a flourish. Even after he released her she could feel where his hands had been on her waist, as if the terry of her robe had been nonexistent.

  He lit the small stove and set the kettle on it, then glanced over his shoulder at her, his eyes a bright, rakish blue. “The fire is still burning low in the parlor. If you want to go out and wait, Miss Anderson, I promise to produce brandy that you will love.”

  Susan hugged her arms around herself and shrugged, then hurried out to the parlor. The Scrabble game had been put away. The fire was burning, and the warmth seemed wonderful. She added some wood, then sat before it, bringing her knees to her chest and resting her cheek on her arms there. She wasn’t so sure she liked this pleasant side of him, and she wasn’t sure she should be here at all.

  She just didn’t seem to be able to pick herself up and go elsewhere. Susan found herself wondering about him again. When he chose, he could be entirely charismatic—gallant and supportive and reckless and … fun. She could well imagine him on a date with a woman. He would be easy to be with, willing to try anything. Surely he wouldn’t be pushed around, but maybe he would send flowers on the spur of the moment, and if he planned to lure that woman, he might just be ready with iced champagne by the pillows….

  And the only problem would be that, in the morning, he would don his suit, run out to battle the business world, eyes ice-blue and shrewd, and forget all about the woman.

  Unless he loved her. And then he would stand like an oak, he would demand, he would dominate, he would hold her and force her to love him in return with the sheer force of his will.

  But David Lane didn’t fall in love. He…

  She felt like laughing at herself. She didn’t know David Lane. She didn’t know anything about him. But that wasn’t exactly true. She knew all the things that Peter had told her. And that he didn’t fall in love was one of them. Peter would shake his head in bafflement. “Don’t know what’s with the lad. He’s had some bloody lovely lady friends, he has. And I could tell by their eyes that they’d all be willing to give me a grandson or two to toss on the old knees. David just won’t marry one and give her the chance!”

  After she had seen David Lane—the top of his head, at least—and heard his voice, she had been certain that she did, understand. He felt that he was composed of superior rock!

  “Miss Anderson? Watch out, the glass is hot.”

  She looked up quickly, then reached for the snifter being offered her, wrapped in a napkin. He sat before her cross-legged, the smoking jacket falling just right to keep him decent.

  Susan sniffed at the liquid. She could smell the brandy, and something else, and see that a shot of cream had been added to the hot concoction.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure what they call it. Kind of like a White Russian, except that it’s brandy instead of vodka, you add a little hot water and sugar, and you drink it hot.”

  She took a sip. It was sweet but very good, and it seemed the perfect thing to sip in front of a fire when a storm still raged outside.

  She glanced at David. He was staring into the fire, his thoughts far away.

  “It’s … nice,” she said. “Thanks.”

  He didn’t turn to her. His eyes maintained their look of seeing a distant world. He smiled slightly.

  “My father taught me to make them.” He took a sip of his own and set it on the brick of the hearth, then shifted to rest his elbows on his kneecaps as he idly played with a twig. “I was up here about three years ago for Christmas, and the weather was just like this. Dad loved it. He always said that next to a good book, there was nothing like—”

  “A good storm,” Susan finished.

  He glanced her way, a little startled. Then, as he was so prone to do, he picked up his drink and studied her thoughtfully over the rim of the glass.

  He lifted the snifter to her slightly. “So, Miss Anderson, where did my father find a science-fiction-reading twenty-five-year-old?”

  “I’m not twenty-five.”

  “How old are you?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Twenty-four?”

  “Twenty-six, Mr. Lane,” Susan retorted, draining more of her brandy. It was nice; it gave her back some of her confidence, false though it was, and most of all, it relaxed her. She could have said then, “I met your father at the hospital, Mr. Lane. My brother was in his last stages of dying when your father was in the first.” But she didn’t say it. It would shock him; oh, yes, it would shock him.

  But for all that he had said and done to her, she knew that he had loved Peter. And the longer the night wore on, the less she was hating him—no matter how she tried to hold on to tha
t hate. If they just could have parted ways, she would have been fine. But they hadn’t parted. The fickle winds beyond the cozy circle of the fire had decreed that they would know one another. He was an autocrat, used to snapping his fingers and being obeyed, but the hours had forced her to see other sides of him. Concern, capability, responsibility. A gentle touch, a winning smile, a dash of humor and adventure.

  She lowered her head, smiling a little. “I met your father on the beach. I was an orphaned alien, dropped down from above. Peter came by and offered me shelter, and here I am.”

  He chuckled softly, and she couldn’t help but look at him, savoring the warm amusement in his eyes, the crinkle of laughter around his mouth that etched lines more deeply into his features.

  “A twenty-six-year-old alien, dropped in from Venus, no doubt,” he returned. “Tell me, have you parents anywhere?”

  “Mr. Lane,” she said, drawling with mock humor, “surely you don’t think that I was actually born, do you? Women of my type are most obviously hatched!”

  Susan could see the humor leaving him, and she was suddenly desperate to get it back. She reached out with little thought, her hand resting on his bare knee. “Sorry. I did have parents, of course. I don’t remember them, though. They’d gone over to Bonn for a second honeymoon when I was about three and were killed when two trains collided.”

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured softly. She realized that her hand was still on his knee and drew it away quickly, determined to be light.

  She shrugged and sipped more brandy. “As I said, I don’t remember them at all. Carl did, of course. He was older—”

  “Who’s Carl?”

  She glanced at him, realizing that she had gone farther with pleasant honesty than she had intended. “My brother,” she said briefly, then she smiled with cheerful charm and raised her snifter to him. “Could I have another one of these things?”

  She wasn’t sure if she wanted another and she certainly didn’t need it, but she had to change the conversation.

  He gave her a rather odd look, then rose slowly, stooping for her glass. His eyes met hers. “Sure.”

  She stared at the fire, lost in thought, as he left her. She started when something fell on her—it was the feather comforter kept on the end of the couch.

  “You’re shivering,” David said simply.

  “I’m really not—”

  “You are. Get comfortable and I’ll hand you your drink.”

  Susan groaned softly, but the temptation to curl up in the soft feather ticking was strong. He tossed her one of the throw pillows to lean against the coffee table. She hesitated, then took the pillow, rested her back against it, and drew the comforter to her waist.

  He handed her the drink she had almost forgotten and sat before her again, his back to the fire this time.

  “Well, you’ve quizzed me long enough, I think,” Susan said beneath his direct, intrigued stare. “I think I’m due a few returns.”

  “Well,” he murmured, “let’s see. I’m not an alien, I’m not twenty-five, and I have no siblings. That about covers what you’ve told me.”

  Susan smiled, lowering her head. “You’ll be thirty-five on November second. Your middle name is Daniel, you were an incorrigible child, you graduated from Columbia, you spent three years in the Air Force. You’ve been president and major stockholder of Lane Publications for the past seven years, and you despise artichokes and anchovies. You were an absolutely adorable child on a bearskin rug once, though what happened to that cute little kid, I’ll never know.”

  He watched her, neither smiling nor scowling, while she went on with her recital. Then he shrugged. “I’m rather at a disadvantage, aren’t I? My, my, Miss Anderson, you are a veritable encyclopedia on my life.”

  Only the brandy could have brought out her next taunting words. “Not really. I told you, I listened to your father, to anything that he had to say. But, of course, your father didn’t know everything. He seemed to have thought that there was some trauma in your life that he missed out on. Something, somewhere, that turned you against natural feeling. Love, in his opinion—consideration in mine. Was there a trauma, Mr. Lane? Haven’t you ever been in love?”

  He seemed very relaxed. She didn’t see his fingers clench around the stem of his snifter.

  “Trauma?” He arched a brow pleasantly. “Sorry, I don’t recall any great trauma. And, yes, I’ve been in love. At least a dozen times. Hasn’t everyone?”

  She lowered her head, feeling a little guilty. It wasn’t the response she had wanted—it was a light, polite response that left her feeling as if she had been disciplined for getting too personal.

  She looked up, sensing his movements. He had stood up and was now standing over her. He lowered slowly, down on a knee, and tilted her chin with his knuckle, drawing her eyes to his. “Hasn’t everyone, Miss Anderson?” he whispered in a husky refrain.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she murmured in return.

  She should have jerked from him then and reminded him that she didn’t want him touching her, that he had already labeled her as everything bad beneath the sun.

  She didn’t. Later she would never understand why. She didn’t even know exactly why she didn’t at the moment.

  But that was exactly it, really. The moment. The moment was everything; the fire burning in the grate, creating mysterious shadows and beautiful glows; the storm raging outside; the intimate comfort that their sheltered haven provided.

  It was the man touching her, searching out her eyes, his own so strange, as if he were mystified himself.

  And he was, of course. He had just been sitting there, watching her. Watching the firelight play against her hair, the way her eyes glimmered like emeralds in the night. He was mesmerized by the beautiful, delicate contours of her face, the length of her fingers curling around her glass. The storm outside had come in; it played havoc, sending vengeful winds through him, and he knew he had to touch her….

  And none of the words said meant anything. He forgot who she was, why they were together. He remembered only the sweet innocence in her face each time she saw that he was truly concerned and she assured him that she was really all right

  And now … now he plucked the brandy glass from her fingers and absently placed it on the table. He looked into her eyes and became as hopelessly entangled there as she had become in the sea.

  She was for sale, he tried to remind himself, and not even that to him—or so she claimed.

  Not even that mattered.

  “You are,” he told her, “the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Heaven help me or the devil take me.”

  And that was it. He kissed her.

  From the moment that his lips touched hers Susan knew that it was going to be no light play. His mouth was everything that she had imagined: gentle, coercive, firm … so undeniable. The stroke of his tongue was a liquid fire that engulfed her, probed her, demanded, and so subtly took everything that she was barely aware she had been seduced to surrender before the battle had begun. Her breathing grew ragged and her heart stopped, then raced ahead recklessly as it sent blood pounding through her veins.

  And still, still she had a chance to run. His lips parted from hers; his eyes, cobalt now, questioned her. She might have been hypnotized. She couldn’t even shake her head. She couldn’t begin to voice the no that raged, ignored, in the depths of her soul.

  He stroked her cheek softly and then again; it was all over for her. She was swept down into the comforter, and his arms were around her, his knee wedged between hers, the slit in the robe falling away easily.

  He was kissing her again. Hungrily his fingers twined through her hair, his lips moving restlessly now and then to touch her forehead, her cheeks, the corners of her mouth. His hand was on her throat, stroking it….

  Her arms had slipped around his neck. There was no excuse for it, would never be. She wanted him. He had awakened yearnings she thought she had left behind to voyage out into a sea of pain, always the strong
one, the one to be there, serene…

  She was anything but serene. She was alive, and he was masculinely beautiful, seducing everything within her. The wanting wasn’t shy, though she trembled. It was fierce, showing her that she was alive, on fire, a part of the tempest outside, a part of the blaze burning in the grate. Oh, God, yes, there was something about his touch, about the lightest graze of his fingers. It wasn’t so much tenderness, it was cherishing; it touched her as if he loved to do so, as if he truly needed her.

  It had been years since she had been touched, needed, loved, but never, never like this. Never had the feeling, the ache of desire, started from a distance, from a look in the eyes, from the softest touch against her flesh.

  There would be consequences. Even knowing what she wanted with a desperate desire, she recognized somewhere that there would be consequences. This was David Lane. David Lane …

  His body shifted against hers. She felt the hardness of his thighs and his desire, but his movement was both ardent and slow, as if he would never rush her. Each slight ripple of muscle, each movement, each breath, made love to her.

  She would bear the consequences, she thought in silent anguish. Whatever they were, she would bear the consequences.

  Her fingers raked through his hair as his kiss consumed and enflamed her. His lips brushed against her ear with a whisper, lowered down her throat again. His hand moved into the vee neck of the robe, parting it, freeing her breast, caressing the weight, stroking it, the heart of his palm moving slowly over her nipple until she moaned, twisting to bury her head against his neck. The robe continued to part, the belt giving away easily. His touch moved with bold possession over her hip, to her waist, to the shadows of her belly.

  She cried out softly when his mouth possessed her nipple, his tongue laving it, his teeth taunting it. Instinct decreed that she arch to him, and of its own accord, her body began to writhe. Her nails moved over the brocade fabric that stretched tightly over his shoulders; she felt his warmth beneath her fingers, the wave and ripple of muscle, the wonder of his strength.