River's End

by Nora Roberts

  monitoring two extra classes while shouldering an eighteen-credit load during her spring semester.

  That told him she was focused, dedicated and probably a little more than obsessive about her studies.

  But there were things he couldn’t research through computers, through transcripts. It didn’t tell him what she wanted, what she hoped for.

  What she felt about her parents.

  To know all that, he needed to know her. To write the book that fermented in the back of his heart and his mind, he had to get inside her head.

  The two images of her that burned brightest in his mind were of the child’s tear-stained face and the young girl’s solemn eyes. As he walked into the house, noted the hallway cutting the space precisely in two, he wondered what he would see now.

  He climbed the steps, noted the small plaque that identified apartment 2-B. No name, he thought. Just the number. The MacBrides still guarded their privacy like the last gold coin in an empty sack.

  “Here goes nothing,” he muttered, and pressed the buzzer.

  He had a couple of basic plans of approach in mind, believing it best to be flexible until he gauged his ground. Then she opened the door and every plan, every practical thought ran out of his mind like water from a tipped bowl. Slow and steady and completely.

  She wasn’t beautiful, certainly not if you measured her by her mother’s staggering image. It was almost impossible to do otherwise when you saw the eyes, rich golden brown under slashing dark brows.

  She was tall and slim, but with an efficient toughness to her build he found surprisingly, almost ridiculously sexy. Her hair had darkened since he’d seen her last, but was shades lighter than her eyes and drawn back in a smooth ponytail that left her face unframed.

  The child’s face had refined, sharpened and taken on the edge of young womanhood Noah always thought of as faintly feline.

  She wore jeans, a WSU sweatshirt, no shoes and a vaguely annoyed expression.

  He found himself standing, staring foolishly, unable to do anything but grin at her.

  She cocked one of those killer eyebrows, and a surprising kick of lust joined his sheer pleasure at seeing her again. “If you’re looking for Linda, she’s across the hall. Two-A.”

  She said it as though she said it often and in a voice that was throatier than he remembered.

  “I’m not looking for Linda. I’m looking for you.” And the thought crossed his mind that he always had been. That was so absurd, he dismissed it immediately. “And you just put a huge hole in my ego by not remembering me.”

  “Why should I remember . . . ?” She trailed off, focusing those fascinating eyes on him as she hadn’t when she’d thought he was just another of the nuisance men who flocked around her across-the-hall neighbor. And as she did, her lips parted, those eyes warmed. “You’re Noah. Noah Brady. Frank’s son.” Her gaze shifted from his, over his shoulder. “Is he—”

  “No, it’s just me. Got a minute?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. Come in.” Flustered, she stepped back. She’d been deep into the writing of a paper on the root symbiosis of fungus. Now she went from being buried in science to flying back over time, into memories.

  And into the lovely little crush she’d had on him when she’d been twelve.

  “I can make some coffee, or I probably have something cold.”

  “Either’s fine.” He took the first-time visitor’s circling scan of the tidy room, the organized desk with its humming computer, the soft cream walls, the deep blue sofa. The space was compact, creatively arranged and comfortably simple. “Nice place.”

  “Yes, I like it.” Relished, hoarded the blissful thrill of living alone for the first time in her life.

  She didn’t fuss, fluttering around as some women were prone to, apologizing for the mess even when there wasn’t one. She simply stood there, looking at him as if she didn’t know quite where to begin.

  He looked back and wondered the same thing himself.

  “Ah . . . I’ll just be a minute.”

  “No rush.”

  He followed her into the kitchen, flustering her again. It was hardly more than a passageway, with stove, refrigerator and sink lining one side and stingy counter space between.

  Despite the limited space, he managed to wander around. When he stood at the window, they were close enough to bump shoulders. She rarely let a man get close. “Coke or coffee?” she asked when she’d pulled open the fridge and taken a quick survey.

  “Coke’s fine. Thanks.”

  He would have taken the can from her, but she was already reaching for a glass.

  For God’s sake, Olivia, she scolded herself, open your mouth and speak. “What are you doing in Washington?”

  “I’m on vacation.” He smiled at her, and the drumming that had been under her heart six years before started up as if it had never stopped. “I work for the L.A. Times.” She smelled of soap and shampoo, and something else, something subtle. Vanilla, he realized, like the candles his mother liked.

  “You’re a reporter.”

  “I always wanted to write.” He took the glass from her. “I didn’t realize it until I was in college, but that’s what I wanted.” And because he felt her wariness slide between them like a band of smoke, he smiled again and decided there was no hurry about telling her what he’d come for. “I had a couple of weeks coming, and the friend I was going to flake out at the beach with for a few days couldn’t get away after all. So I decided to head north.”

  “You’re not up here on assignment, then.”

  “No.” That was the truth, absolutely true, he told himself. “I’m on my own. I decided to look you up, since you’re the only person I know in the entire state of Washington. How do you like college?”

  “Oh, very much.” Making a deliberate effort to relax, she led him back into the living room. “I miss home off and on, but classes keep me busy.”

  She sat on the couch, assuming he’d take the chair, but he sat beside her and companionably stretched out his legs. “What are you working on?” He nodded toward the computer.

  “Fungus.” She laughed, took a nervous sip of her drink. He was wonderful to look at, the untidy sun-streaked brown of his hair, the deep green eyes that reminded her of home, the easy sensuality of his smile.

  She remembered she’d once thought he looked like a rock star. He still did.

  “I’m a natural resource science major.”

  He started to tell her he knew, stopped himself. Too many explanations, he thought, and ignored the little whisper of guilt in his ear. “It fits.”

  “Like a glove,” she agreed. “How are your parents?”

  “They’re great. You told me once I should appreciate them. I do.” He shifted, his eyes meeting hers, holding hers, until the blood that had always remained calm and cool around men heated. “More, I guess, since I moved out, got my own place. That distance of the adult child, you know?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you still work at the lodge?”

  “Summers, over breaks.” Do other men look at me this way? she wondered. Wouldn’t she have noticed if one had ever looked at her as if her face were all that mattered? “I—did you ever learn to fish?”

  “No.” He grinned again and his fingers trailed lightly over the back of her hand.

  “So it’s still fish sandwiches at McDonald’s?”

  “They never miss. But I can occasionally do better. How about dinner?”

  “Dinner?”

  “As in eating, the evening meal. Even a natural resource science major must have heard of the ritual evening meal. Why don’t you have yours with me tonight?”

  Her ritual evening meal usually consisted of whatever she had time to toss together in her miniature kitchen or, failing that, what she picked up on the way home from a late class.

  Besides, she had a paper to finish, a test to study for, a lab project to prepare for. And he had the most beautiful green eyes. “That would be nice.”


  “Good. I’ll pick you up at seven. Got a favorite place?”

  “Place? Oh, no, no, not really.”

  “Then I’ll surprise you.” He got up, giving her hand an absentminded squeeze as she rose to lead him to the door. “Don’t fill up on fungus,” he told her, and grinned one last time before he left.

  Olivia quietly closed the door, quietly turned to lean back against it. She let out a long breath, told herself she was being ridiculous, that she was too old to indulge in silly crushes. Then for the first time in longer than she could remember, she had a purely frivolous thought:

  What in God’s name was she going to wear?

  He’d bring up the subject of her father, of the book, during dinner. Gently, Noah told himself. He wanted her to have time to consider it, to understand what he hoped to do and the vital part she’d play in it.

  It couldn’t be done without her cooperation. Without her family’s. Without, he thought, as he stuck his hands in his pockets and climbed the steps to her apartment again, Sam Tanner.

  She wasn’t a kid anymore. She’d be sensible. And when she understood his motivations, the results he wanted to accomplish, how could she refuse? The book he wanted to craft wouldn’t just be about murder, about blood and death, but about people. The human factor. The motivations, the mistakes, the steps. The heart, he thought.

  This kind of story began and ended with the heart. That’s what he had to make her understand.

  He was connected to it, and had been if not from the minute his father had answered the call to go to the house in Beverly Hills, then from the instant he himself had seen the image of the child on his living-room television screen.

  He didn’t just want to write about it. He had to.

  He’d be straight with her about that.

  Before he could push the buzzer of 2-B, the door of 2-A opened.

  “Well, hello.”

  And this, he thought, must be Linda. The smile was a knee-jerk reaction to the smoldering brunette with laser blue eyes. His blood ran just a few beats faster, as the little red dress painted over female curves meant it to.

  He knew her type and appreciated it. Just as he appreciated the way she moved, the metronome sway of hips, as she stepped out into the hall, crossing to him on ice-pick heels the same hot sex color as the dress.

  “Can you give me a hand with this? I’m just . . . all thumbs tonight.”

  She dangled a thin gold bracelet from her fingertips, breathed in and out slow and deep, just in case he hadn’t noticed the really lovely breasts straining against the slick red.

  “Sure.” There was nothing more flattering to the male ego than an obvious woman. He took the bracelet, circled it around her wrist and enjoyed the way she shifted her body closer, angled in to tip her face back and look into his.

  “If Liv’s had you tucked away, it’s no wonder she never goes out.”

  He fastened the bracelet and wallowed in the come-and-get-me fragrance pumping off Linda’s skin. “Doesn’t she?”

  “All work and all work, that’s our Liv.” She laughed and gave a skilled shake of her head that tossed her luxurious dark curls. “Me, I like to play.”

  “I bet you do.” He still had Linda’s wrist in his hand, and the friendly grin on his face, when the door behind him opened.

  He forgot Linda had ever been born. He forgot the book. He very nearly forgot his name.

  Olivia was anything but obvious. She stood in the doorway, wearing a dress of quiet blue that covered a lot more area than Linda’s red. And made him wonder just what was under all that soft material. She’d left her hair loose so that it fell straight as rain and gave him a glimpse of glints of gold at her ears.

  He already knew he’d have to get close, very close, to catch her scent. Her lips were unpainted, her eyes cool.

  No, she was definitely not a kid anymore, he thought, thankfully.

  “You look great.”

  She only lifted her eyebrows, skimmed her gaze over Linda. “I’ll just get a jacket.”

  She pivoted, walked back into her apartment on long, wonderful hiker’s legs.

  There was no reason to be angry, she told herself as she snatched up her jacket and bag. No reason for this grinding sense of disappointment. She wouldn’t have known he was flirting with Linda if she hadn’t been watching for his car like a love-struck teenager. If she hadn’t scurried over to the door to look out the Judas hole and watch him come toward the door.

  There was no point in feeling let down because she had agonized for two hours over the right dress, the right hairstyle. It was her own problem. Her own responsibility.

  She turned back toward the door and bumped right into him.

  “Sorry. Let me help you with that.” He was close now, and drew in her scent as he took the jacket from her. It was perfect for her. Just perfect.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Interrupt what?” He slipped the jacket on for her and indulged himself in a sniff at her hair.

  “You and Linda?”

  “Who? Oh.” He laughed, taking Olivia’s hand and walking to the door. “Not exactly shy, is she?”

  “No.”

  “Did you finish your paper?”

  “Yes, barely.”

  “Good. You can tell me all about fungus.”

  It made her laugh. He held her hand all the way down to the car, then he skimmed his fingers over her hair, brushing it back just as she started to climb in.

  Her heart stumbled, and fell right at his feet.

  He’d found an Italian place just casual enough not to intimidate. Tiny white candles flickered on soft, salmon-colored cloths. Conversation was muted and punctuated with laughter. The air was ripe with good, rich scents.

  He was easy to talk to. He was the first man, outside of family, she’d ever had dinner with who seemed actually interested in her studies and her plans to use them. Then she remembered his mother.

  “Is your mother still involved with causes?”

  “She and her congressmen are on a first-name basis. She never lets up. I think the current focus is the plight of the mustang. Are you going to let me taste that?”

  “What?” She’d just lifted a forkful of portobello mushroom. “Oh. Sure.”

  When she would have put the bite on his plate, he simply took her wrist, guided her hand toward his mouth. Heat washed into her belly as his eyes watched hers over the fork.

  “It’s terrific.”

  “Ah, there is a wide variety of edible mushrooms in the rain forest.”

  “Yeah. Maybe I’ll make it back up there one of these days and you can show me.”

  “I’m—we’re hoping to add a naturalist center to the lodge. There’d be lectures and talks on how to identify the edibles.”

  “Edible fungus—it never sounds as appetizing as it is.”

  “Actually, the mushroom isn’t the fungus. It’s a fruiting body of the fungus organism. Like an apple from the apple tree.”

  “No kidding?”

  “When you see a fairy ring, it’s the fruit of the continuous body of the fungus that grows in the soil, expanding year after year and—” She caught herself. “And you can’t possibly care.”

  “Hey, I like to know what I’m eating. Why do they call them fairy rings?”

  She blinked at him. “I suppose because that’s what they look like.”

  “Are there fairies in your forest, Liv?”

  “I used to think so. When I was little, I’d sit there, in the green light, and think if I was very quiet, I’d see them come out