Candlelight gleamed gold on her skin as she began the ancient dance.

At five to midnight, Nash pulled up in Morgana's driveway. He swore, noting that not a single light glowed in a single window.

He'd have to wake her up, he thought philosophically. How much sleep did a witch need, anyway? He grinned to himself. He'd have to ask her.

Still, she was a woman. Women had a tendency to get ticked off if you dropped by in the middle of the night and got them out of bed. It might help to have something to pave the way.

Inspired, he tucked the envelope under his arm and began to raid her flower bed. He doubted she'd notice that he'd stolen a few blooms. After all, it seemed she had hundreds. Awash in the scent of them, he got carried away, gathering an overflowing armful of tulips and sweet peas, narcissi and wallflowers.

Pleased with himself, he adjusted the load and strolled to her front door. Pan barked twice before Nash could knock. But no light flicked on at the dog's greeting, or at the pounding Nash set up.

He glanced back to the driveway to assure himself her car was there and then pounded again. Probably sleeps like a stone, he thought, and felt the first pricklings of annoyance. There was something working in him, some urgency. He had to see her, and it had to be tonight.

Refusing to be put off, he laid the script on the stoop and tried the knob. Pan barked again, but to Nash the dog sounded more amused than aroused. Finding the door locked, Nash started around the side. He was damn well getting in, and getting to her, before the night was done.

A sudden rush of immediacy quickened his step, but somewhere between the front of the house and the side terrace he found himself looking toward the grove.

It was there he needed to go. Had to go. Though his brain told him it was utterly foolish to go traipsing into the woods at night, he followed his heart.

Perhaps it was the shadows, or the sighing of the wind, that had him moving so quietly. He felt somehow it would be blasphemous to make unnecessary noise. There was a quality in the air here tonight, and it was almost unbearably lovely.

Yet, with every step he took, the blood seemed to pound faster in his head.

Then he saw, in the distance, a ghostly shimmer of white. He started to call out, but a rustle of movement had him glancing up. There, on a twisted cypress branch, stood a huge white owl. As Nash watched, the bird glided soundlessly from its perch and flew toward the heart of the grove.

His pulse was drumming in his ears, and his heart was rapping hard against his ribs. He knew that, even if he turned and walked away, he would be drawn again to that same center.

So he moved forward.

She was there, kneeling on a white cloth. Moonlight poured over her like silver wine. Again he started to call her name, but the sight of her forming a circle of candles, jewels at her waist, flowers in her hair, struck him mute.

Trapped in the shadows, he stood as she made the small golden fires spark atop the snowy candles. As she disrobed to stand gloriously naked in the center of flames. As she moved into a dance so graceful it stopped his breath.

Moonlight slithered over her skin, tipped her breasts, caressed her thighs. Her hair rained, an ebony waterfall, down her back as she lifted her face to the stars.

And he remembered his dream, remembered it so vividly that the fantasy and the reality merged into one potent image, with Morgana dancing at its center. The scent of flowers grew so strong that he was nearly dizzy with it. For an instant, his vision dimmed. He shook his head to clear it and struggled to focus.

The image had changed. She was kneeling again, sipping from a silver cup while the flames from the candles rose impossibly high, surrounding her like golden bars. Through them he could see the shimmer of her skin, the glint of silver between her breasts, at her wrists. He could hear her voice, softly chanting, then rising so that it seemed to be joined by thousands of others.

For a moment, the grove was filled with a soft, ethereal glow. Different from light, different from shadow, it pulsed and shivered, glinting like the edge of a silver sword in the sun. He could feel the warmth of it bathing his face.

Then the candle flames ebbed once again to small points, and the sound of chanting echoed away into silence.

She was rising. She slipped the white robe on, belted it.

The owl, the great white bird he had forgotten in his fascination with the woman, called twice before gliding like a cloud through the night.

She turned, her breath rising high in her throat. He stepped from the shadows, his heart hammering in his breast.

For a moment she hesitated. A warning whispered to her. Tonight would bring her pleasure. More than she had known. And its price would be pain. More than she would wish.

Then she smiled and stepped from the circle.

Chapter 7

Thousands of thoughts avalanched into his brain. Thousands of feelings flooded into his heart. As she moved toward him, her robe flowing around her like moondust, all those thoughts, all those feelings, shivered down to one. Down to her.

He wanted to speak, to tell her something, anything, that would explain how he felt at that moment. But his heart stuttered in his throat, making words impossible. He knew this was more than the simple desire of a man for a woman, yet whatever was spiraling through him was so far out of his experience that he was sure he could never describe it, never explain it.

He knew only that in this place of magic, at this moment of enchantment, there was only one woman. Some quiet, patient voice was whispering inside his heart that there had always been only one woman and he had been waiting all his life for her.

Morgana stopped, only an arm span away. Soft, silent shadows waltzed between them. She had only to step into that lazy dance to be in his arms. He would not turn from her. And she was afraid she had gone beyond the point where it was possible for her to turn from him.

Her eyes remained on his, though the little fingers of nerves pinched her skin. He looked stunned, she realized, and she could hardly blame him. If he was feeling even a fraction of the needs and fears that were skidding through her, he had every right to be.

It would not be easy for them, she knew. After tonight, the bond would be sealed. Whatever decisions were made in the tomorrows, by both of them, that bond would not be broken.

She reached out to trail a hand over the flowers he still cradled in his arms. She wondered if he knew, by the blossoms he had chosen, that he was offering her love, passion, fidelity and hope.

"Blooms picked in moonlight carry the charms and secrets of the night."

He'd forgotten about them. Like a man waking from a dream, he glanced down. "I stole them from your garden."

Her lips curved beautifully. He wouldn't know the language of the flowers, she thought. Yet his hand had been guided. "That doesn't make their scent less sweet, or the gift less thoughtful." Lifting her hand from them, she touched his cheek. "You knew where to find me."

"I… Yes." He couldn't deny the urge that had brought him into the grove. "I did."

"Why did you come?"

"I wanted to…" He remembered his frantic rush to leave the house, his impatience to see her. But, no, it was more basic than that. And infinitely more simple. "I needed you."

For the first time, her gaze wavered. She could feel the need radiating from him like heat, to warm her and to tempt her. It could, if she did nothing to stop it, bind her to him so firmly that no charm, no spell, would ever free her.

Her power was not absolute. Her own wishes were not always granted. To take him tonight would be to risk everything, including her power to stand alone.

Until tonight, freedom had always been her most prized possession. Lifting her gaze to his again, she cast that possession away.

"What I give you tonight, I give with a free heart. What I take from you, I take without regrets." Her eyes glittered with visions he couldn't see. "Remember that. Come with me." She took his hand and drew him into the circle of light.

The moment he stepped through the flames, he felt the change. The air was purer here, its scent more vivid, as if they had climbed to the top of some high, untraveled cliff. Even the stars seemed closer, and he could see the trails of moonlight, silver-edged white streaks through the sheltering trees.

But she was the same, her hand firm in his.

"What is this place?" Instinctively he lowered his voice to a whisper, not in fear, but in reverence. It seemed to drift off, twining with the harp song that filled the air.

"It needs no name." She drew her hand from his. "There are many forms of magic," she said, and unfastened her belt of crystals. "We'll make our own here." She smiled again. "An it harm none."

Slowly she placed the crystal rope on the edge of the cloth, then turned to face him. With the moonlight silvering her eyes, she opened her arms.

She took him in, and the lips she offered were warm and soft. He could taste the lingering sweetness of the wine she had drunk, as well as her own richer, more potent flavor. He wondered that any man could survive without that heady, drugging taste. That any man would choose to. His head spun with it as she urged him to drink deeper.

On a moan that seemed to spring from his soul, he dragged her closer, crushing the flowers between them so that the night air swelled with their scent. His mouth branded hers before moving frantically over her face.

Behind her closed lids she could see the dance of candlelight, could see the single shadow her body and Nash's made sway. She could hear the deep, pure resonance of the breeze singing through the leaves, the night music that was its own kind of magic. And she heard the whisper of her name as it breathed through the lips that once again searched for hers.

But it was what she felt that was so much more real. This deep well of emotion that filled for him as it had never filled for anyone. As she gave him her heart for a second time, that well brimmed, then overflowed in a quiet, steady stream.

For a moment, she was afraid she might drown in it, and that fear brought on racking shudders. Murmuring to her, Nash drew her closer. Whether it was in need or comfort, Morgana didn't know, but she settled again. And accepted.

The captivator became the captivated.

He was struggling against some clawing beast prowling in his gut, demanding that he take her quickly, feed himself. He had never, never experienced such a violent surge of hunger for anything, or anyone, as he did for Morgana in that glowing circle of light.

He fisted his hands in her hair to keep them from tearing the robe from her. Some flicker shadowed by instinct told him she would accept the speed, respond to this gnawing appetite. But it wasn't the way. Not here. Not now.

Pressing his face to the curve of her neck, he held her close and fought it back.

Understanding didn't make her heartbeat less erratic. His desire to take warred with his desire to give, and both were ripe with power. His choice would make a difference. And, though she couldn't see, she knew that the texture of their loving tonight would matter to both of them in all the years to come.

"Nash, I—"

He shook his head, then leaned back and framed her face in his hands. They weren't steady. Nor was his breathing. His eyes were dark, intense. She wondered that they couldn't see into her and study her heart.

"You scare the hell out of me," he managed. "I scare the hell out of me. It's different now, Morgana. Do you understand?"

"Yes. It matters."

"It matters." He let out a long, unsteady breath. "I'm afraid I'll hurt you."

You will hurt me. The certainty of it shivered through her. The pain would come, no matter what defenses she used. But not tonight. "You won't." She kissed him gently.

No, he thought as his cheek rubbed against hers. He wouldn't. He couldn't. Though desire continued to beat in his blood, its tempo had slowed. His hands were steady again as he slipped the robe from her shoulders, followed it down her arms until they were both free of it.

The pleasure of looking at her was like a velvet fist pressed against his heart. He had seen her body before, when he had watched her dance naked in the circle. But that had been like a dream, as if she were some beautiful phantom just out of his reach.

Now she was only a woman, and his hand would not pass through if he tried to touch.

Her face first. He glided his fingertips over her cheeks, her lips, her jaw, and down the slender column of her throat. And she was real. Hadn't he felt her warm breath against his skin? Wasn't he now feeling the hammerbeat of her pulse when his fingers lingered?

Witch or mortal, she was his, to cherish, to enjoy, to pleasure. It was meant to be here, surrounded by the old, silent trees, by shadowed light. By magic.

Her eyes changed, as a woman's would when her system was crowded with desire and anticipation. He watched them as he trailed those curious fingers over the slope of her shoulders, down her arms and back again. Her breath began to shiver through her parted lips.

Just as lightly, just as slowly, his touch skimmed down to her breasts. Now her breath caught on a moan, and she swayed, but he made no move to possess her. Only skimming patiently over those soft slopes, brushing his thumbs over nipples that hardened and ached in response.

She couldn't move. If the hounds of hell had burst out of the trees, jaws snapping, she would have stood just as she was, body throbbing, eyes fixed helplessly on his. Did he know? Could he know what a spell he had cast over her with this exquisite tenderness?

There was nothing else for her but him. She could see only his face, feel only his hands. With each unsteady breath she took, she was filled with him.

He followed the line of her body, down her rib cage, detouring around to her back, where her hair drifted over his hands and her spine trembled under them. He wondered why he had thought it necessary to speak, when he could tell her so much more with a touch.

Her body was a banquet of slender curves, smooth skin, subtle muscles. But he no longer felt the urge to ravish. How much better it was, this time, to sample, to savor, to seduce. How much more power did a man need than to feel a woman's skin singing under his hands?

He skimmed over her hips, let his fingers glide over those long, lovely thighs, changing the angle on the return journey so that he absorbed all the little bolts of pleasure at finding her already hot and damp for him.

When her knees buckled, he gathered her close, lowering her to the cloth so that he could begin the same glorious journey with his lips.

Steeped in sensation, she tugged his shirt away so that she could feel the wonder of his flesh sliding over hers. His muscles were taut, showing her that the gentleness he gave her took more strength than wild passion would have. She murmured something, and he brought his mouth back to hers so that she could slide the jeans over his hips, cast them away and make him as vulnerable as she.

Sweet, mindless pleasure. Long, lingering delights. The moon showered its fragile light as they offered each other the most precious of gifts. The scattered flowers they lay on sent up exotic perfumes to mix with the scent of the night. Though the breeze rustled the leaves, the encircling flames ran straight and true.

Even when passion gripped them, sending them rolling over crushed blooms and rumpled silk, there was no rush. Somewhere in the shadows, the owl called again, and the ring of flames shot up like lances. Closing them in, closing all else out.

Her body was shuddering, but there were no longer any nerves or fears. Her arms encircled him as he slipped inside her.

With his blood roaring in his head, he watched her eyes flutter open, saw those gold stars shining against the deep blue as magnificently as those overhead shone in the sky. He lowered his mouth to hers as they moved together in a dance older and more powerful than any other.

She felt the beauty of it, the magic that was more potent than anything she could conjure. He filled her utterly. Even when the ache drove them both, the tenderness remained. Two glistening tears slipped from her eyes as she arched for him, letting her body fly with that final staggering release. She heard him call out her name, like a prayer, as he poured himself into her.

When he buried his face in her hair, shuddering, she saw the flash of a shooting star, streaking like a flame through the velvet sky.

* * *

Time passed. Minutes, hours, it didn't concern him. All he knew was that she was as soft as a wish beneath him, her body relaxed but still curled into his. Nash thought it would be delightful for them to stay just like this until sunrise.

Then he thought, more practically, that he would probably end up smothering her.

When he started to shift, Morgana clamped herself around him like a vise. "Uh-uh," she said sleepily.

Since she insisted, he thought he might as well nibble on her neck. "I may be on the thin side, but I'd guess I have you by a good sixty pounds. Besides, I want to look at you."

He levered himself onto his elbows and pleased himself.

Her hair was spread out like tangled black silk on the white cloth. There were flowers caught in it, making him think of gypsies and faeries. And witches.

He let out a long, labored breath. "What happens when a mortal makes love to a witch?"

She had to smile, and did so slowly, sinuously. "Did you happen to notice the gargoyles on the tower of the house?" Nash's mouth opened, then closed again. Morgana let out a long, rich laugh as her fingers danced down his spine. "I love it when you're gullible."

He was feeling entirely too good to be annoyed. Instead, he played with her hair. "It seemed like a reasonable question. I mean, you are… I know you are. But it's still tough to swallow. Even after what I saw tonight." His eyes came back to hers. "I watched you."

She traced his lips with a fingertip. "I know."

"I've never seen anything more beautiful. You, the light. The music." His brows came together. "There was music."

"For those who know how to hear it. For those who are meant to hear it."

It wasn't so hard to accept, after everything else. "What are you doing here? It looked like some kind of ceremony."

"Tonight's the spring equinox. A magic night. What happened here, with us, was magic, too."

Because he couldn't resist, he kissed her shoulder. "It sounds like a tired line, but it's never been like this for me before. With anyone."

"No." She smiled again. "Not with anyone." Her pulse leapt as she felt him harden inside her. "Again," she murmured when his lips lowered to hers.

The night moved toward morning before they dressed. As Nash pulled on his sweatshirt, he watched Morgana gathering up the crushed and broken flowers.

"I guess we did them in. I'll have to steal you some more."

Smiling, she cradled them in her arms. "These will do nicely," she said. Nash's eyes widened when he saw that the flowers she held were now as full and fresh as when he had first picked them.

He passed a hand through his hair. "I don't think I'm going to get used to that anytime soon."

She merely placed them in his hands. "Hold them for me. I have to remove the circle." She gestured, and the candle flames died. As she took them from the ground, she chanted quietly.

"The circle cast in the moon's light is lifted now by my right. The work is done, with harm to none. With love and thanks I set thee free. As I will, so mote it be."

She set the last candle in the basket, then lifted the cloth. When it was folded, she put it away.

"That's, ah… all there is to it?"

She picked up the basket and turned to him. "Things are usually more simple than we believe." Morgana offered a hand, pleased when he curled his fingers around hers. "And, in the spirit of that simplicity, will you share my bed for what's left of the night?"

He brought their joined hands to his lips and gave her a simple answer. "Yes."

She couldn't get enough of him, Nash thought dreamily. During the night, they had turned to each other again and again. Drifting off to sleep, drifting into love while the moonlight faded. And now, when the sun was a pale red glow behind his closed lids, she was nuzzling his ear.

He smiled, murmuring to her as he let himself float toward wakefulness. Her head was a warm, welcome weight on his chest. The way she was tickling and teasing his ear told him she would not object to some lazy morning loving. More than willing to oblige her, he lifted a hand to stroke her hair. His hand stopped in midair.

How could her head be on his chestand her mouth be at his ear? Anatomically speaking, it just didn't figure. But then again, he'd seen her do several things that didn't figure in terms of the simple laws of the real world. But this wastoo weird. Even half-awake, his lively imagination bounced.

Would he open his eyes to look and see something so fantastic, so out of his realm, that it would send him screaming out into the night?

Day, he reminded himself. It was day. But that was hardly the point.

Cautiously he let his hand lower until it touched her hair. Soft, thick, but… God, the shape of her head was wrong. She'd changed. She'd… she'd shifted into… When her head moved under his hand, Nash let out a muffled cry and, with his heart skating into his throat, opened his eyes.

The cat lay on his chest, staring at him with unblinking—and somehow smug—amber eyes. Nash jolted when something cold slid over his cheek. He found that Pan was standing with his forelegs on the bed, his big silver head tilted curiously to one side. Before Nash could speak, the dog licked him again.

"Oh, boy." While Nash waited for his mind to clear and his pulse to settle, Luna stood, stretched, then padded up his chest to peer into his face. Her muttered purr seemed distinctly like a chuckle. "Okay, sure, you got me." He reached out with each hand to rub a furry head.

Pan took that for a welcome and leapt onto the bed. He landed—light-footed, fortunately—on Nash's most vulnerable area. With a strangledoof , Nash sat bolt upright, dislodging the cat and making her rap up against Pan.

Things looked dicey for a moment, with the animals glaring and growling at each other. But Nash was too concerned with getting his wind back to worry about the prospect of fur flying.

"Ah, playing with the animals?"

Sucking in air, Nash looked up to see Morgana standing in the doorway. The moment she was spotted, Luna flicked her tail in Pan's face, strolled over to a pillow, circled, sat and began to wash her hindquarters. Tail thumping, Pan plopped down. Nash figured he had about seventy pounds of muscle pinning his legs to the mattress.

"My pets seem very fond of you."

"Yeah. We're one happy family."

With a steaming mug in one hand, she crossed to the bed. She was already dressed, in a little red number with beads and embroidery on the wide shoulders, and tiny snaps running down the front until they ran out at the hem, which stopped several inches above her very sexy knees.

Nash wondered if he should undo the snaps one at a time, or in one quick yank. Then he caught a scent that was nearly as exotic and every bit as seductive as her perfume.

"Is that coffee?"

Morgana sat on the edge of the bed and sniffed the contents of the cup. "Yes, I believe it is."

Grinning, he reached out to toy with the end of the hair she'd woven into an intricate braid. "That was awfully sweet of you."

Her eyes mirrored surprise. "What was? Oh, you think I brought this in for you." Watching him, she tapped a fingertip against the mug. "That I brewed a pot of coffee, poured a cup and decided to serve it to you, in bed, because you're so damn cute."

Properly chastened, he sent one last, longing look at the mug. "Well, I—"

"In this case," she said, interrupting him, "you happen to be exactly right."

He took the cup she offered, watching her over the rim as he drank. He wasn't a coffee snob—couldn't afford to be, with the mud he usually made for himself—but he was sure this was the best cup to be found west of the Mississippi. "Thanks. Morgana…" He reached up to set one of the complex arrangements of beads and stones at her ears jangling. "Just how damn cute am I?"

She laughed, pushing the mug aside so that she could kiss him. "You'll do, Nash." More than do, she thought as she kissed him again. With that tousled, sun-streaked hair tumbled around a sleepy face, that surprisingly well-muscled chest tempting her above the tangle of sheets, and that very warm, very skilled mouth rubbing against hers, he did magnificently.

She pulled back, not without regret. "I have to go to work."

"Today?" Lazily he cupped his hand around the back of her neck to urge her closer. "Don't you know it's a national holiday?"

"Today?"

"Sure." She smelled like night, he thought. Like flowers that bloom only in starlight. "It's National Love-In Day. A tribute to the sixties. You're supposed to celebrate it by—"

"I get the picture. And that's very inventive," she said, closing her teeth over his bottom lip. "But I have a shop to run."

"That's very unpatriotic of you, Morgana. I'm shocked."

"Drink your coffee." She stood to keep from letting him change her mind. "There's food in the kitchen if you feel like breakfast."

"You could have gotten me up." He snagged her hand before she could retreat.

"I thought you could use the sleep, and I didn't want to give you any more time to distract me."

His eyes slanted up to hers as he nibbled on her knuckles. "I'd like to spend several hours distracting you."

Her knees went weak. "I'll give you a chance later."

"We could have dinner."

"We could." Her blood was beginning to hum, but she couldn't make herself pull her hand free.

"Why don't I pick something up, bring it by?"

"Why don't you?"

He opened her hand to press a kiss on the palm. "Seven-thirty?"

"Fine. You'll let Pan out, won't you?"

"Sure." His teeth grazed her wrist and sent her pulse soaring. "Morgana, one more thing."

Her body yearned toward his. "Nash, I really can't—"

"Don't worry." But he could see that she was worried, and it delighted him. "I'm not going to muss you up. It's going to be too much fun thinking about doing just that for the next few hours. I left something for you on the front stoop last night. I was hoping you'd find time to read it."

"Your script? You've finished?"

"All but some fine-tuning, I think. I'd like your opinion."

"Then I'll try to have one." She leaned over to kiss him again. " 'Bye."

"See you tonight." He settled back with the cooling coffee, then swore.

Morgana turned at the doorway. "What?"

"My car's parked behind yours. Let me get some pants on."

She laughed. "Nash, really." With that, she strolled away. The cat jumped off the bed and followed.

"Yeah," Nash said to the now-snoozing Pan. "I guess she can take care of it."

Sitting back, he prepared to drink his coffee in solitary splendor. As he sipped, he studied the room. This was the first chance he'd taken to see what Morgana surrounded herself with in her most private place.

There was drama, of course. She walked with drama wherever she went. Here it was typified in the bold jewel colors she'd chosen. Turquoise for the walls. Emerald for the spread they had kicked aside during the night. Bleeding hues of both were in the curtains that fluttered at the windows. A daybed upholstered in sapphire stretched under one window. It was plumped with fat pillows of garnet, amethyst and amber. Arched over it was a slender brass lamp with a globe shaped like a lush purple morning glory. The bed itself was magnificent, a lake of tumbled sheets bordered by massive curved head and footboards.

Intrigued, Nash started to get up. Pan was still pinning his legs, but after a couple of friendly nudges, he rolled aside obligingly to snore in the center of the bed. Naked, mug in one hand, Nash began to wander the room.

A polished silver dragon stood on the nightstand, his head back, his tail flashing. The wick between his open jaws announced that he would breathe fire. She had one of those pretty mirrored vanities with a padded stool that Nash had always considered intensely feminine. He could imagine her sitting there, running the jewel-crusted silver-backed brush through her hair, or anointing her skin with the creams or lotions from one of the colorful glass pots that stood on it, winking in the sunlight.

Unable to resist, he picked one up, removing the long crystal top and sniffing. At that moment she was so much in the room with him, he could almost see her. That was the complexity and power of a woman's magic.

Reluctantly he recapped the bottle and set it aside. Damn it, he didn't want to wait through the day for her. He didn't want to wait an hour.

Easy, Kirkland, he lectured himself. She'd only been gone five minutes. He was acting like a man besotted. Or bewitched. That thought set off a niggling little doubt that he frowned over for a moment, then shoved aside. He wasn't under any kind of spell. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was in complete control of his actions. It was just that the room held so much of her, and being in it made him want.

Frowning, he ran his fingers through a pile of smooth colored stones she kept in a bowl. If he was obsessing about her, that, too, could be explained. She wasn't an ordinary woman. After what he'd seen, with what he knew, it was natural for him to think about her more often than he might about someone else. After all, the supernatural was his forte. Morgana was living proof that the extraordinary existed in an ordinary world.

She was an incredible lover. Generous, free, outrageously responsive. She had humor and wit and brains, as well as an agile body. That combination alone could make a man sit up and beg. When you added the fairy dust, she became downright irresistible.

Plus, she'd helped him with his story. The more Nash thought about it, the more he was certain the script was his best work to date.

But what if she hated it? The idea jumped into his mind like a warty toad and had him staring into space. Just because they had shared a bed, and something else too intangible for him to name, didn't mean she would understand or appreciate his work.

What the hell had he been thinking of, giving it to her to read before he'd polished it?

Terrific, he thought in disgust and bent to snatch up his jeans. Now he had that to worry about for the next several hours. As he strode off to shower, Nash wondered how he had gotten in so deep that a woman could drive him crazy in so many ways.

Chapter 8

It was more than four hours later before Morgana had a chance for a cup of tea and a moment alone. Customers, phone calls, arriving shipments, had kept her busy enough that she'd had time enough only to glance at the first page or two of Nash's script.

What she saw intrigued her enough to have her resenting each interruption. Now she heated water and nibbled on tart green grapes. Mindy was in the shop, waiting on two college students. Since both students were male, Morgana knew Mindy wouldn't need any help.

With a sigh, she brewed the tea, set it to steep, then settled down with Nash's script.

An hour later, she'd forgotten the tea that grew cold in the pot. Fascinated, she flipped back to page one and began all over again. It was brilliant, she thought, and felt a surge of pride that the man she loved could create something so rich, so clever, so absorbing.

Talented, yes. She'd known he was talented. His movies had always entertained and impressed her. But she'd never read a screenplay before. Somehow she'd thought it would be no more than an outline, the bare bones that a director, actors, technicians, would flesh out for an audience. But this was so rich in texture, so full of life and spirit, that it didn't seem like words on paper at all. She could already see, and hear, and feel.

She imagined that, when those extra layers were added by the actors, the camera, the director, Nash might very well have the film of the decade on his hands.

It stunned her that the man she thought of as charming, a bit cocky and often full of himself had something like this inside him. Then again, it had rocked her the night before to discover that he had such deep wells of tenderness.

Setting the script aside, she leaned back in her chair. And she had always considered herself so astute, she thought with a little smile. Just how many more surprises did Nash Kirkland have up his sleeve?

He was working on the next one as hard as he could. Inspiration had struck, and Nash had never been one to let a good idea slip away.

He'd had a moment's twinge at the notion of leaving Morgana's back door unlocked. But he'd figured that with her reputation, and with the wolf-dog roaming the grounds, nobody would dare break in.

For all he knew, she'd cast some sort of protective spell over the house in any case.

It was going to be perfect, he told himself as he struggled to arrange an armload of flowers—purchased this time—in a vase. They seemed to take on a life of their own, stems jamming, heads drooping. After several tries, the arrangement still looked as though the flowers had been shoved into the container by a careless ten-year-old. By the time he'd finished, he'd filled three vases and was happy to admit he'd never be a set director.

But they smelled good.

A glance at his watch warned him that time was running short. Crouching in front of the hearth, he built a fire. It took him longer, and he imagined it took considerably more effort, than it would have taken Morgana, but at last the flames were licking cheerfully at the wood. A fire was hardly necessary, but he liked the effect.

Satisfied, he rose to check the scene he'd so carefully set. The table for two was laid with a white cloth he'd found in the drawer of the sideboard in Morgana's dining room. Though that room had had possibilities, with its soaring ceiling and its huge fireplace, he thought the drawing room more intimate.

The china was hers, too, and looked old and lovely, with little rosebuds hugging the edges of gleaming white plates. He'd arranged the heavy silverware and the crystal champagne glasses. All hers, as well. And folded the deep rose damask napkins into neat triangles.

Perfect, he decided. Then swore.

Music. How could he have forgotten the music? And the candlelight. He made a dash to the stereo and fumbled through a wide selection of CDs. Chopin, he decided, though he was more in tune with the Rolling Stones than with classical music. He switched it on and slipped the disc in, then nodded his approval after the first few bars. Then he went on a treasure hunt for candles.

Ten minutes later, he had over a dozen ranged throughout the room, glowing and wafting out the fragrances of vanilla, jasmine, sandalwood.

He'd barely had time to pat himself on the back when he heard her car. He beat Pan to the door by inches.

Outside, Morgana lifted a brow when she spotted Nash's car. But the fact that he was nearly a half hour early didn't annoy her. Not in the least. She was smiling as she crossed to the door, his script under one arm, a bottle of champagne in the other.

He opened the door and scooped her up into a long, luxurious kiss. Wanting his own greeting, Pan did his best to crowbar between them.

"Hi," Nash said when he freed her mouth.

"Hello." She handed Nash both bottle and envelope so that she could ruffle Pan's fur before closing the door. "You're early."

"I know." He glanced at the label on the bottle. "Well, well… Are we celebrating?"

"I thought we should." As she straightened, her braid slid over her shoulder. "Actually, it's a little congratulatory gift for you. But I'd hoped you'd share."

"Be glad to. What am I being congratulated for?"

She nodded toward the envelope in his hand. "For that. Your story."

He felt the little knot that had remained tight in his stomach all day loosen. "You liked it."

"No. I loved it. And once I sit down and take my shoes off I'll tell you why."

"Let's go in here." After shifting the bottle and envelope to one arm, he tucked the other around her. "How was business?"

"Oh, it's ticking right along. In fact, I may see if Mindy can squeak out another hour or two a day for me. We've been…" Her words trailed off as she stepped into the drawing room.

The candleglow was as mystic and romantic as moonbeams. It glinted on silver, tossed rainbows from crystal. Everywhere was the perfume of flowers and candle wax, and the haunting strains of violins. The fire smoldered gently.

It wasn't often she was thrown off balance so completely. Now she felt the sting of tears in the back of her throat, tears that sprang from an emotion so pure and bright she could hardly bear it.

She looked at him, and the flickering light tossed dozens of stars into her eyes. "Did you do this for me?"

A little off balance himself, he skimmed his knuckles over her cheek. "Must've been elves."

Her curving lips brushed his. "I'm very, very fond of elves."

He shifted until their bodies met. "How do you feel about screenwriters?"

Her arms slid comfortably around his waist. "I'm learning to like them."

"Good." As he settled into the kiss, Nash realized his arms were too encumbered to allow him to give it his best shot. "Why don't I get rid of this stuff, open the champagne?"

"That sounds like an excellent idea." With a long, contented sigh, she slipped out of her shoes while he walked over to pluck out a bottle already nestled in the ice bucket. He turned both hers and his around to show the identical labels.

"Telepathy?"

Moving toward him, she smiled. "Anything's possible."

He tossed the envelope aside, snuggled the second bottle in the ice, then opened the first with a cheerful pop and fizz. He poured, and then after handing her a glass, rang his against it. "To magic."

"Always," she murmured, and sipped. Taking his hand, she led him to the couch, where she could curl up close and watch the fire. "So, what did you do today besides call up some elves?"

"I wanted to show you my Cary Grant side."

With a chuckle, she brushed her lips over his cheek. "I like all of your sides."

Contented, he propped his feet on the coffee table. "Well, I spent a lot of time trying to get those flowers to look like they do in the movies."

She glanced over. "We'll concede that your talents don't run to floral arranging. I love them."

"I figured the effort was worth something." He entertained himself by toying with her earring. "I did a little fine-tuning on the script. Thought about you a lot. Took a call from my very excited agent. Thought about you some more."

She chuckled and laid her head on his shoulder. Home. She was home. Completely. "Sounds like a very productive day. What was your agent excited about?"

"Well, it seems he'd taken a call from a very interested producer."

Delight shimmered from her eyes as she sat up again. "Your screenplay."

"Right the first time." It felt a little odd… No, Nash thought, it felt wonderfully odd to have someone so obviously excited for him. "Actually, it's the treatment, but since my luck's been running pretty well we've got a deal in the works. I'm going to let the script cook a couple of days and take another look. Then I'll ship it off to him."

"It's not luck." She tapped her glass to his again. "You've got magic. Up there." She laid a finger on his temple. "And in here." And on his heart. "Or wherever imagination comes from."

For the first time in his adult life, he thought he might blush. So he kissed her instead. "Thanks. I couldn't have done it without you."

With a light laugh, she settled back. ''I'd hate to disagree with you. So I won't."

He ran an idle hand down the braid on her shoulder. It felt tremendously good, he realized, just to sit here like this at the end of the day with someone who was important to him. "Why don't you stroke my ego and tell me what you liked about it?"

She held out her glass so that he could top off her champagne. "I doubt your ego needs stroking, but I'll tell you anyway."

"Take your time. I wouldn't want you to leave anything out."

"All of your movies have texture. Even when there's blood splashing around or something awful scratching at the window, there's a quality that goes beyond being spooked or shocked. In this—though you're bound to set some hearts pumping with that graveyard scene, and that business in the attic—you go a step further." She shifted to face him. "It's not just a story of witchcraft and power or of conjuring forces, good and bad. It's about people, their basic humanity. Of believing in wonderful things and trusting your heart. It's a kind of funny celebration of being different, even when it's difficult. In the end, even though there's terror and pain and heartbreak, there is love. That's what we all want."

"You didn't mind that I had Cassandra casting spells with graveyard dirt or chanting over a cauldron?"

"Artistic license," Morgana said with a lifted brow. "I suppose I found it possible to overlook your creativity. Even when she was prepared to sell her soul to the devil to save Jonathan."

With a shrug, he drained his glass. "If Cassandra had the power of good, the story would hardly have enough punch if she didn't have at least one match with the power of evil. You see, there are some basic commandments of horror. Even though that's not exactly what this turned out to be, I think they still apply."

"Ultimate good against ultimate evil?" she suggested.

"That's one. The innocent must suffer," he added. "Then there's the rite of passage. That same innocent must spill blood."

"A manhood thing," Morgana said dryly.

"Or womanhood. I'm no sexist. And good must, through great sacrifice, triumph."

"Seems fair."

"There's one more. My personal favorite." He skimmed a fingertip up her neck. Chills chased it. "The audience should wonder, and keep wondering, if whatever evil that's been vanquished slinked free again after the final fade-out."

She pursed her lips. "We all know evil's always slinking free."

"Exactly." He grinned. "The same way we all wonder, from time to time, if there really is something drooling in the closet at night. After the lights go out. And we're alone." He nipped at her earlobe. "Or what's really rustling the bushes outside the cellar window or skulking in the shadows, ready, waiting, to ooze out and—"

When the doorbell rang, she jolted. Nash laughed. Morgana swore.

"Why don't I get it?" he suggested.

She made a stab at dignity and smoothed down her skirt. "Why don't you?"

When he walked out, she let go with a quick shudder. He was good, she admitted. So damn good that she, who knew better, had been sucked right in. She was still deciding whether to forgive him or not when Nash came back with a tall, gangly man hefting a huge tray. The man wore a white tux and a red bow tie. Stitched over his chest pocket was Chez Maurice.

"Set it right on the table, Maurice."

"It's George, sir," the man said in a sorrowful voice.

"Right." Nash winked at Morgana. "Just dish everything right on up."

"I'm afraid this will take me a moment or two."

"We've got time."

"The mocha mousse should remain chilled, sir," George pointed out. Nash realized that the poor man had a permanent apology stuck in his throat.

"I'll take it into the kitchen." Morgana rose to take the container. As she left them, she heard George murmuring sadly that the radicchio had been off today and they'd had to make do with endive.

"He lives for food," Nash explained when Morgana returned a few moments later. "It makes him weep to think how careless some of the new delivery boys are with the stuffed mushrooms. Bruising them heedlessly."

"Heathens."

"Exactly what I said. It seemed to put George in a better frame of mind. Or maybe it was the tip."

"So what has George brought us?" She wandered over to the table. "Endive salad."

"The radicchio—"

"Was off. I heard. Mmm. Lobster tails."

"A la Maurice."

"Naturally." She smiled over her shoulder as Nash pulled out her chair. "Is there a Maurice?"

"George was sorry to report that he's been dead for three years. But his spirit lives on."

She laughed and began to enjoy her food. "This is very inventive takeout."

"I'd considered a bucket of chicken, but I thought this would impress you more."

"It does." She dipped a bite of lobster in melted butter, watching him as she slipped it between her lips. "You set a very attractive stage." Her hand brushed lightly over his. "Thank you."

"Anytime." The fact was, he was hoping there'd be dozens of other times, dozens of other stages. With the two of them, just the two of them, as the only players.

He caught himself, annoyed that he was thinking such serious thoughts. Such permanent thoughts. To lighten the mood, he poured more champagne.

"Morgana?"

"Yes."

"There's something I've been wanting to ask you." He brought her hand to his lips, finding her skin much more alluring than the food. "Is Mrs. Littleton's niece going to the prom?"

She blinked first, then threw her head back with a rich laugh. "My God, Nash, you're a romantic."

"Just curious." Because he couldn't resist the way her eyes danced, he grinned. "Okay, okay. I like happily-ever-after as well as the next guy. Did she get her man?"

Morgana sampled another bite. "It seems Jessie worked up the courage to ask Matthew if he'd like to go to the prom with her."

"Good for her. And?"

"Well, I have this all secondhand from Mrs. Littleton, so it may not be precisely accurate."

Nash leaned forward to flick a finger down her nose. "Listen, babe, I'm the writer. You don't have to pause for dramatic effect. Spill it."

"My information is that he blushed, stuttered a bit, pushed up these cute horn-rim glasses he wears, and said he guessed so."

Solemnly Nash raised his glass. "To Jessie and Matthew."

Morgana lifted her own. "To first love. It's the sweetest."

He wasn't sure about that, since he'd been so successful in avoiding the experience. "What happened to your high school sweetheart?"

"What makes you think I had one?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

Morgana acknowledged that with a faint cock of her brow. "Actually, there was one boy. His name was Joe, and he played on the basketball team."

"A jock."

"I'm afraid Joe was second-string. But he was tall. Height was important to me in those days, as I loomed over half the boys in my class. We dated on and off through senior year." She sipped her wine. "And did a lot of necking in his '72 Pinto."

"Hatchback?" Nash asked between bites.

"I believe so."

"I like to get a clear visual." He grinned. "Don't stop now. I can see it. Exterior scene, night. The parked car on a dark, lonely road. The two sweethearts entwined, stealing desperate kisses as the radio sings out with the theme from A Summer Place ."

"I believe it was Hotel California ," she corrected.

"Okay. Then the last guitar riff fades…"

"I'm afraid that's about it. He went to Berkeley in the fall, and I went to Radcliffe. Height and a nice pair of lips just wasn't enough to keep my heart involved at a distance of three thousand miles."

Nash sighed for all men. " 'Frailty, thy name is woman."

"I believe Joe recovered admirably. He married an economics major and moved to St. Louis. At last count, they'd produced three-fifths of their own basketball team."

"Good old Joe."

This time Morgana refilled the glasses. "How about you?"

"I never played much ball."

"I was talking about high school sweethearts."

"Oh." He leaned back, enjoying the moment—the fire crackling at his back, the woman smiling at him through the candlelight, the good-natured fizz of champagne in his head. "She was Vicki—with ani . A cheerleader."

"What else?" Morgana agreed.

"I mooned over her for nearly two months before I worked up the courage to ask her out. I was shy."

Morgana smiled over the rim of her glass. "Tell me something I can believe."

"No, really. I'd transferred in the middle of junior year. By that time all the groups and cliques are so firmly established it took a crowbar to break them up. You're odd man out, so you spend a lot of time watching and imagining."

She felt a stirring of sympathy, but she wasn't sure he'd welcome it. "And you spent time watching Vicki with ani ."

"I spent a whole lot of time watching Vicki. Felt like decades. The first time I saw her do a C jump, I was in love." He paused to study Morgana. "Were you a cheerleader?"

"No. Sorry."

"Too bad. I still get palpitations watching C jumps. Anyway, I finally sweated up the nerve to ask her to the movies. It was Friday the 13th . The movie, not the date. While Jason was hacking away at the very unhappy campers, I made a fumbling pass. Vicki received. We were an item for the rest of the school year. Then she dumped me for this hood with a motorcycle and a tattoo."

"The hussy."

Shrugging philosophically, he polished off his lobster. "I heard she eloped with him and they went to live in a trailer park in El Paso. Which is no more than she deserved after breaking my heart."

Tilting her head, Morgana gave him a narrowed look. "I think you made it up."

"Only part of it." He didn't like to talk about his past, not with anyone. To distract her, he rose and changed the music.

Now it was slow, dreamy Gershwin. Coming back to the table, he took her hand to draw her to her feet. "I want to hold you," he said simply.

Morgana moved easily into his arms and let him lead. At first they merely swayed to the music, his arms around her waist, hers around his neck, their eyes on each other's. Then he guided her into a dance so that their bodies flowed together to the low throb of the music.

He wondered if he would always think of her in candlelight. It suited her so well. That creamy Irish skin glowed as fragilely as the rose-tipped china. Her hair, black as the night that deepened beyond the windows, was showered with little stars of light. There were more stars in her eyes, sprinkled like moondust over the deep midnight blue.

The first kiss was quiet, a soft meeting of lips that promised more. That promised anything that could be wished. He felt the champagne spin in his head as he lowered his mouth to hers again, as her lips parted beneath his like the petals of a rose.

Her fingers glided silkily along his neck, teasing nerves to the surface. A low moan sounded in her throat, a moan that had his blood humming in response. Her body moved against his as she deepened the kiss. Her eyes remained open, drawing him in.

He slid his hands up her back, aroused by her quick shudder of response. Watching her, wanting her, he tugged the band from the end of her braid, combing tensed fingers through to loosen the intricate coils. He could hear her breath catch, see her eyes darken, as he dragged her head back and plundered that wide, unpainted mouth.

She tasted danger and delight and desperation. The combination swirled inside her, a headier brew than any wine. His muscles were wire taut under her hands, and she shivered with a mixture of fear and pleasure at the thought of what would happen when they sprang free.

Desire took many forms. Tonight, she knew, it would not come as the patient, reverent exploration they had known before. Tonight, there were fires raging.

Something snapped. He could all but hear the chains on his control break. He pulled away, his hands still gripping her arms, his body a mass of aches and needs. She said nothing, only stood, her lips soft and swollen from his, her hair tumbled like restless night around her shoulders. Her eyes full of smoke and secret promises.

He dragged her back again. Even as his mouth was devouring hers, he lifted her off her feet.

She'd never believed she would allow herself to be swept away. She'd been wrong. As he strode from the room and up the stairs, both her mind and her body went willingly with him. Reckless and ready, she let her lips race over his face, down his throat and back up to meet his avid mouth.

He didn't pause at the bedroom door, not even when he saw that she'd brought the candles and music with them. The bed was centered in their glow, beckoning. He tumbled onto it with her.

Impatient hands, hungry mouths, desperate words. He couldn't get enough. There couldn't be enough to fill this gnawing need. He knew she was with him, flame for flame, demand for demand, but he wanted to push her further and faster, until there was nothing but blazing heat and wild wind.

She couldn't get her breath. The air was too heavy. And hot, so hot she wondered that her skin didn't burst into flames. She reached for him, thinking she would ask, beg, for a moment to stop and catch her sanity. Then his mouth crushed hers again and even the wish for reason was lost.

In a mindless haze of greed, he yanked his hand down the front of her dress. Snaps burst open like tiny explosions to reveal flushed skin and seductive black lace. With a breathless oath, he ripped the flimsy cloth aside so that her breasts spilled into his restless hands.

She cried out—not in fear or in pain, but in wonder—as his greedy mouth scorched her skin.

He was ruthless, relentless, reckless. Need sliced through him, hot knives of desire that cut all ties to the civilized. His hands moved over her, leaving aches and trembles in their wake.

Her response was not submission, not surrender, but rather a greed that swelled as ripely as his own. She took, she tormented, she tantalized.

They went tumbling over the bed, caught up in a war of passion, wild hands tugging and tearing at clothes, seeking the pleasure of flesh slicked from the heat. He did as he chose, releasing every dark fantasy that had spun in his mind. Touching, tasting, devouring.

She crested hard, clinging to him as the wave shot her up and left her wrecked. His name was a mindless chant through her trembling lips, a chant that ended on a sob when he sent her soaring again.

Dazed, she rose above him. He could see the candlelight shivering over her skin, and her eyes, dark and glazed with what he had given her. He knew he would die if he didn't have her tonight, tomorrow, a thousand tomorrows.

He pressed her back into the mattress, clamping his hands on hers. Breath heaving, he held on long enough for their eyes to meet. Was it challenge he saw in hers? Was it triumph?

Then he plunged deep. Her hands fisted beneath his, and her body rose up to meet him.

Speed. Power. Glory. They raced together, stroke for stroke, with a strength born of shattering needs. His mouth sought hers again in a bruising kiss. Her arms vised around him, those short, neat nails raking desperately down his back.

He felt her agile body convulse, heard her broken gasp of stunned pleasure. Then his mind went dim as he leapt off the razor's edge to follow her.

A long time later, he clawed his way back to reason. He'd rolled off her, wanting to let her breathe. Now she lay on her stomach, sprawled across the bed. Catching his own breath, he stared into the shadows, flipping back through his mind what had passed between them. He wasn't sure whether to be appalled or delighted.

He'd… well, he supposed plundered would be an apt word. He certainly hadn't been worried about the niceties. However much pleasure he'd found in making love with a woman before, he'd never slipped over the edge into madness. It had its points, he realized. But he wasn't sure how Morgana might feel about having had her clothes ripped off her.

Nash laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. She shuddered. Wincing, he took it away again. "Morgana… are you all right?"

She made some sound, something between a whimper and a moan. He felt a quick stab of fear at the thought that she might be crying. Good going, Kirkland, he thought furiously, then tried again. He stroked a hand down her hair.

"Babe. Morgana. I'm sorry if I…"

He let his words trail off, not certain what to say. Slowly she turned her head, managed to lift up a limp hand far enough to rake the tangled hair out of her eyes. She blinked at him.

"Did you say something?"

"I was just… Are you okay?"

She sighed. It was a long, catlike sound that made his treacherous body twang. "Okay?" She seemed to roll the word around, testing it with her tongue. "I don't think so. Ask me again when I find the energy to move." She slid her hand over the tangled sheets to take his. "Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Okay."

"I wasn't the one being plundered."

The word had a smile spreading lazily over her face. "No? I thought I did a pretty good job." She stretched and was pleased to see that her body was nearly in working order again. "Give me an hour and I'll try again."

Relief began to trickle through. "You're not upset?"

"Do I look upset?"

He thought it over. She looked like a cat who'd happily gorged on a gallon of cream. He didn't even realize he'd started to grin. "No, I guess not."

"Pleased with yourself, aren't you?"

"Maybe I am." He started to reach out to drag her closer and found his fingers tangled in what was left of her bra. "Are you?"

She wondered that the grin didn't split his face. He was watching her, all but whistling a tune as he spun the tattered lace on one finger. Morgana pushed up to her knees, noted his very satisfied eyes skimmed over her. "Do you know what, Nash?"

"No. What?"

"I'm going to have to wipe that grin off your face."

"Yeah? How?"

Tossing her hair back, she planted herself over him. Slowly, sinuously, she slid down. "Watch me."

Chapter 9

As far as Nash was concerned, life was a pretty good deal. He spent his days doing something he loved, and he was paid very well to do it. He had his health, a new home, and an interesting deal in the works. Best of all, he was enjoying an incredible affair with a fascinating woman. A woman who, he'd discovered in the past weeks, he was not only desperately attracted to, but considered a friend.

Nash had learned through trial and error that a lover you couldn't enjoy out of bed satisfied the body but left the spirit wanting. With Morgana, he'd found a woman he could laugh with, talk with, argue with and make love with, all with a sense of intimacy he'd never experienced before.

A sense of intimacy he hadn't realized he wanted before.

There were even times he forgot she was something more than a woman.

Now, as he finished the series of push-ups he forced himself to perform three times a week, he thought over their last few days together.

They'd taken a long, leisurely drive up to Big Sur to stand at an overlook, wind whipping their hair as they looked out over the staggering view of hills and water and cliffs. Like tourists, they'd taken snapshots with her camera, videos with his.

Though he'd felt a little foolish, he'd even scooped up a few pebbles—when she wasn't looking—to slip into his pocket as a souvenir of the day.

He'd tagged along while she'd poked around in the shops in Carmel—and had been good-naturedly resigned when she piled packages into his arms.

Lunch on the terrace of some pretty cafe", surrounded by flowers. Sunset picnics on the beach, sitting with his arm around her, her head on his shoulder, while the great red orb bled fire into the sky and then sank into the indigo sea.

Quiet kisses at dusk. Easy laughter. Intimate looks in crowded places.

It was almost as if he was courting her.

With a grunt, Nash let his arms relax. Courting? No, that wasn't what it was at all, he assured himself, rolling over on his back. They simply enjoyed each other's company, a great deal. But it wasn't courtship. Courtship had a sneaky habit of leading to marriage.

And marriage, Nash had decided long ago, was one experience he could do without.

A niggling doubt worked into his mind as he stood to flex the muscles he'd toned over the past half hour. Had he done anything to make her think that what they had together might lead to something… well, something legal and permanent? With DeeDee he had spelled out everything from the get-go, and still she'd been smugly certain she could change his mind.

But with Morgana he'd said nothing. He'd been too busy falling for her to be practical.

The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. She was too important, she meant too much. She was…

Slow down, Kirkland, he warned himself uneasily. Sure, she was important. He cared about her. But that didn't mean he was going to start thinking about love. Love also had a nasty habit of leading to marriage.

Frowning, he stood in the middle of the room he'd set up with benches and weights. Sweat trickled unnoticed down his face as he cautiously took a peek at what was in his heart. Okay, yes, he cared about her. Maybe more than he'd ever cared about anyone. But that was a long way from orange blossoms, station wagons and a cozy cottage for two.

Rubbing a hand over his heart, he geared himself up for a closer look. Why did he think about her so often? He couldn't remember another woman intruding on his daily routine the way Morgana did. There were times when he stopped whatever he was doing just to wonder what she was doing. It had gotten so that he didn't sleep well unless she was with him. If he awakened in the morning and she wasn't there, he started the day with a nagging sense of disappointment.

It was a bad sign, he thought as he grabbed a towel to wipe his face. A sign he should have picked up on long before this. How come there'd been no warning bells? he wondered. No quiet little voice whispering in his ear that it was time to take a long, casual step in retreat.

Instead, he'd been moving forward in a headlong rush.

But he hadn't gone over the edge. Not Nash Kirkland. He took a deep breath and tossed the towel aside. It was just the novelty, he decided. Soon the immediacy of the feelings she brought out in him would fade.

As he walked off to shower, he assured himself, like any addict, that he was still in control. He could back off anytime.

But like fingers reaching for an itch, his mind kept worrying the problem. Maybe he was fine, maybe he was in control, but what about Morgana? Was she getting in too deep? If she was as tied up as he was, she could be imagining—what? A life in the burbs, monogrammed towels? A riding lawn mower.

The cool spray of water blasted his face. Nash found himself grinning.

And he'd said he wasn't sexist. Here he was worrying that Morgana was harboring delusions of marriage and family. Just because she was a woman. Ridiculous. She was no more interested in taking that deadly leap then he.

But as he let the water sluice over his head, he began to imagine.

Interior scene, day. The room is a jumbled heap of toys, clothes overflowing out of plastic hampers, dirty dishes. In a playpen dumped in the center of the room, a toddler squalls. Our hero walks in, a bulging briefcase in his hand. He wears a dark suit and a strangling tie. Wing tips. There is a weary cast to his face. A man who has faced problems all day and has come home to more.

"Honey," he says with an attempt at cheer, "I'm home."

The baby howls and rattles his cage. Resigned, our hero sets his briefcase aside and goes to pick up the screaming baby. The child's wet diaper sags.

"You're late again." The wife shuffles in. Her hair is a tangled mess around a face set in stern, angry lines. She wears a ratty bathrobe and a pair of fuzzy slippers. As our hero bounces the wet, screaming baby, the wife slaps her hands on her hips and begins to rattle off a list of all of his shortcomings, punctuated by announcements that the washing machine has overflowed, the sink is clogged, and she's pregnant—again.

Just as the scene he was creating began to ease both Nash's conscience and mind, it faded out, to be replaced by a new one.

Coming home with the scent of flowers and the sea in the air. Smiling because you were almost where you wanted to be. Needed to be. Starting up the walk, carrying a bouquet of tulips. The door opens, and she stands there, her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, her lips curved in welcome. She cradles a pretty, dark-haired child on her hip, a child who giggles and holds out its pudgy arms. He cuddles the child, smelling talc and baby and his wife's subtle perfume.

"We missed you," she says, and lifts her face for a kiss.

Nash blinked. With a wrench of his wrist, he shut off the water, then shook his head.

He had it bad, he admitted. But, since he knew that second scene was more of a fantasy than anything he'd ever written, he was still in control.

When he stepped out of the shower, he wondered how soon she would be there.

Morgana punched down on the accelerator and leaned the car into a curve. If felt good… no, it felt fabulous, to be buzzing along the tree-lined road with the windows down and the sea breeze blowing through her hair. What made it fabulous was that she was going somewhere to be with someone who had made a difference in her life.

She'd been content without him. Perhaps she would have gone on being content if she had never met him. But she had, and nothing was ever going to be the same again.

She wondered if he knew how much it meant that he accepted her for what she was. She doubted it. She hadn't known how much it could mean until it had happened. And, as for Nash, he had a habit of looking at things at a skewed angle and seeing the humor in them. She imagined he saw her… talents as some kind of great joke on science. And perhaps they were, in a way.

But the important thing, to her, was that he knew, and accepted. He didn't look at her as if he expected her to grow a second head at any moment. He looked at her as a woman.

It was easy to be in love with him. Though she had never considered herself a romantic, she had come to appreciate all the books, the songs, the poetry, written to celebrate the caprices of the heart. It was true that when you were in love, the air smelled clearer, the flowers sweeter.

On a whim, she wished a rose into her hand, smiling as she sniffed the delicate closed bloom. Her world felt like that, she realized. Like a rose that was just about to open.

It made her feel foolish to think like that. Giddy, light-headed. But her thoughts were her own, she reminded herself. Until she made them someone else's. It occurred to her that, sooner or later, she would have to share them with Nash.

She couldn't be sure how long it would be before complications set in, but for now it was glorious simply to enjoy the soft spread of emotion glowing inside her.

As she pulled into his driveway, she was smiling. She had a few surprises for Nash, starting with her plan for this balmy Saturday night. She reached for the bag on the seat beside her, and Pan stuck his head over her shoulder.

"Just give me a minute," she told him, "and you can get out and see what's what. Luna will show you around."

From her perch on the floor of the passenger seat, Luna glanced up, eyes slitted.

"If you don't behave, I'll dump you both back home. You'll have only yourselves for company until Monday."

As she stepped from the car, she felt a flicker, like a curtain fluttering over her mind. She stood, one hand resting on the door, absorbing a wash of wind, a whisper of sound. The air thickened, grayed. There was no dizziness. It was as if she had stepped from sunshine into shadows, shadows where mysteries waited to be solved. She strained to see beyond that mist, but it lay heavy, teasing her with hints and glimpses only.

Then the sun was back, and there was only the sound of water rushing against rock.

Though she hadn't Sebastian's gift for precognition, or Anastasia's empathetic tendencies, she understood.

Things were about to change. And soon. Morgana also understood that those changes might not be something she would have wished for.

Shaking off the mood, she started up the walk. Tomorrow could always be changed, she reminded herself. Especially if one concentrated on now. Since now equaled Nash, she was willing to fight to keep it.

He opened the door before she reached it and stood, hands tucked in his pockets, smiling at her. "Hi, babe."

"Hi." Dangling the bag from one hand, she linked an arm around his neck and curved her body to his for a kiss. "Do you know how I feel?"

"Yeah." He skimmed his hands down her sides to her hips. "I know exactly how you feel. Fantastic."

She chuckled and pushed the last lingering doubts aside. "As it happens, you're right." Riding on pure emotion, she handed him the rose.

"For me?" He wasn't exactly sure what a man's response should be when a woman gave him a rosebud.

"Absolutely for you." She kissed him again while Luna strolled territorially into the house. "How would you like to spend an evening—" she moved her mouth seductively to his ear "—an entire evening… doing something—" voice breathy, she walked her fingers up his chest "—decadent?"

His blood leapt in his veins and roared in the ear she was tormenting. "When do we get started?"

"Well." She rubbed against him, tilting her head back just enough to look into his eyes. "Why waste time?"

"God, I love an aggressive woman."

"Good. Because I've got big plans for you…" She caught from now. Ten years. And still setting off that stirring in his blood.

My God. His hand slid bonelessly from the dog's head. He was in love with her. Really in love. Totally caught in the big, scary L word.

And what the hell was he going to do about it?

In control? he thought, dazed. Able to back off anytime? What a crock.

He rose on unsteady legs. The clutching in his stomach was plain fear. And it was for both of them. She glanced over, tipping the cap down so that the brim shaded her eyes.

"Something wrong?"

"No. No, I… I was going to go in and get us something cold."

He all but ran into the house, leaving Morgana staring after him.

Coward. Wimp. Idiot. All the way into the kitchen, he cursed himself. After filling a glass with water, he gulped it down. Maybe it was a touch of sun. A lack of sleep. An overactive libido.

Slowly he set the glass aside. Like hell. It was love.

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Step right up and see an average man transformed into a puddle of nerves and terror by the love of a good woman.

He bent over the sink and splashed water on his face. He didn't know how it had happened, but he was going to have to deal with it. As far as he could see, there was no place to run. He was a grown man, Nash reminded himself. So he would do the adult thing and face it.

Maybe he should just tell her. Straight out.

Morgana, I'm crazy about you.

Blowing out a breath, he dashed more water onto his face. Too weak. Too ambivalent.

Morgana, I've come to realize that what I feel for you is more than attraction. Even more than affection.

This time his breath hissed out. Too wordy. Too damn stupid.

Morgana, I love you.

Simple. To the point. And scary as hell.

He majored in scary, he reminded himself. He ought to be able to pull this off. Straightening his shoulders, bracing his system, he started out of the kitchen.

The wall phone shrilled and nearly had him jumping out of his shoes.

"Easy, boy," he muttered.

"Nash?" Morgana stood in the kitchen doorway, eyes full of curiosity and concern. "Are you all right?"

"Me? Yeah, yeah, I'm great." He dragged a nervous hand through his hair. "How about you?"

"Fine," she said slowly. "Are you going to answer the phone?"

"The phone?" While his mind scattered in a thousand directions, he glanced at the ringing phone. "Sure."

"Good. I'll fix us that cold drink while you do." Still frowning at him, she walked to the refrigerator.

Nash didn't notice that his palms were wet until he picked up the receiver. Forcing a grin, he wiped his free hand on his jeans.

"Hello." The excuse for a smile faded instantly. Stunned, Morgana paused with one hand on a soft-drink bottle and the other on the refrigerator door.

She'd never seen him look like this. Cold. His eyes had frosted over. Ice over velvet. Even as he leaned back against the counter, there was tension in every line of his body.

Morgana felt a shudder rush down her spine. She'd known he could be dangerous, and the man she was staring at now had stripped off all the easygoing charm and good-natured humor. Like one of the characters Nash might have conjured out of his imagination, this man was capable of quick and bloodless violence.

Whoever was on the other end of the telephone should have been grateful for the distance between them.

"Leeanne." He said the name in a flat, gelid tone. The voice rattling brightly in his ear set his teeth on edge. Old memories, old wounds, swam to the surface. He let her ramble for a moment, until he was sure he had himself under control. "Just cut to the chase, Leeanne. How much?"

He listened to the wheedling, the whining, the recriminations. His responsibilities, he was reminded. His obligations. His family.

"No, I don't give a damn. It's not my fault you got hung up with another loser." His lips curved in a humorless smile. "Yeah, right. Bad luck. How much?" he repeated, barely lifting a brow at the requested amount. Resigned, he pulled open a drawer and rummaged until he found a tattered scrap of paper and the stub of an old pencil. "Where do I send it?" He scribbled. "Yes, I've got it. Tomorrow." He tossed the paper onto the counter. "I said I would, didn't I? Just drop it. I've got things to do. Sure. You bet."

He hung up and started to let loose with a stream of oaths. Then he focused on Morgana. He'd forgotten she was there. When she started to speak, he shook his head.

"I'm going for a walk," he said abruptly, and slammed out of the screen door.

Carefully Morgana set the bottle she still held on the counter. Whoever had called had done more than anger him, she realized. She had seen more than anger in his eyes. She had seen grief, too. One had been as vicious as the other.

Because of it, she blocked her first inclination, to go after him. She would give him a few minutes alone first.

His long strides ate up the ground quickly. He stalked over the grass that had given him so much pleasure when he had mowed it only an hour before, passed without noticing the flowers that were already lapping up the sun now that they were free of choking weeds. Automatically he headed for the tumble of rocks at the edge of his property that separated his land from the bay.

This was another reason he'd been drawn to this place. The combination of wildness and serenity.

It suited him, he supposed as he dug his hands deep in his pockets. On the surface he was a relaxed, contented man. Those qualities usually extended deeper. But often, maybe too often, there was a recklessness swarming inside him.

Now he dropped down on a rock and stared out over the water. He would watch the gulls, the waves, the boats. And he would wait until he felt that contentment again.

He drew a deep breath, cleansing. Thank God was all he could think. Thank God he hadn't spoken of his feelings to Morgana.

All it had taken was one phone call from the past to remind him that there was no place for love in his life.

He would have told her, he realized. He would have gone with the impulse of the moment, and told her he loved her. Maybe—probably—he would have started to make plans.

Then he would have messed it up. No doubt he would have messed it up. Sabotaging relationships was in his blood.

His hands curled and uncurled as he struggled to level again. Leeanne, he thought with a short, bitter bark of laughter. Well, he would send her the money, and she would fade out of his life. Again. Until the money ran out.

And that pattern would repeat itself over and over again. For the rest of his life.

"It's beautiful here," Morgana said quietly from behind him.

He didn't jolt. He just sighed. Nash supposed he should have expected her to follow him. And he supposed she would expect some sort of explanation.

He wondered how creative he might be. Should he tell her Leeanne was an old lover, someone he'd pushed aside who wouldn't stay aside? Or maybe he'd weave some amusing tale about being blackmailed by the wife of a Mafia don, with whom he'd had a brief, torrid affair. That had a nice ring.

Or he could work on her sympathies and tell her Leeanne was a destitute widow—his best friend's widow—who tapped him for cash now and again.

Hell, he could tell her it had been a call for the policemen's fund. Anything. Anything but the bitter truth.

Her hand brushed his shoulder as she settled on the rock beside him. And demanded nothing. Said nothing. She only looked out over the bay, as he did. Waiting. Smelling of night. Of smoke and roses.

He had a terrible urge to simply turn and bury his face at her breast. Just to hold her and be held until all this helpless anger faded away.

And he knew that, no matter how clever he was, how glib, she would believe nothing but the truth.

"I like it here," he said, as if several long, silent minutes hadn't passed between her observation and his response. "In L.A. I looked out of my condo and saw another condo. I guess I didn't realize I was feeling hemmed in until I moved here."

"Everyone feels hemmed in from time to time, no matter where they live." She laid a hand on his thigh. "When I'm feeling that way, I go to Ireland. Walk along an empty beach. When I do, I think of all the people who have walked there before, and will walk there again. Then it occurs to me that nothing is forever. No matter how bad, or how good, everything passes and moves on to another level."

"'All things change; nothing perishes,' " he mumbled.

She smiled. "Yes, I'd say that sums it up perfectly." Reaching over, she cupped his face in her hands. Her eyes were soft and clear, and her voice was full of comfort ready to be offered. "Talk to me, Nash. I may not be able to help, but I can listen."

"There's nothing to say."

Something else flicked into her eyes. Nash cursed himself when he recognized it as hurt. "So, I'm welcome in your bed, but not into your mind."

"Damn it, one has nothing to do with the other." He wouldn't be pushed, wouldn't be prodded or maneuvered into revealing parts of himself he chose to keep hidden.

"I see." Her hands dropped away from his face. For a moment she was tempted to help him, to spin a simple charm that would give him peace of mind. But it wasn't right; it wouldn't be real. And she knew using magic to change his feelings would only hurt them both. "All right, then. I'm going to go finish the marigolds."

She rose. No recriminations, no heated words. He would have preferred them to this cool acceptance. As she took a step away, he grabbed her hand. She saw the war on his face, but offered nothing but silence.

"Leeanne's my mother."

Chapter 10

His mother.

It was the anguish in his eyes that had Morgana masking her shock. She remembered how cold his voice had been when he spoke to Leeanne, how his face had fallen into hard, rigid lines. Yet the woman on the other end of the telephone line had been his mother.

What could make a man feel such distaste and dislike for the woman he owed his life to?

But the man was Nash. Because of that, she worked past her own deeply ingrained loyalty to family as she studied him.

Hurt, she realized. There had been as much hurt as anger in his voice, in his face, then. And now. She could see it plainly now that all the layers of arrogance, confidence and ease had been stripped away. Her heart ached for him, but she knew mat wouldn't lessen his hurt. She wished she had Anastasia's talent and could take on some of his pain.

Instead, she kept his hand in hers and sat beside him again. No, she was not an empath, but she could offer support, and love.

"Tell me."

Where did he begin? Nash wondered. How could he explain to her what he had never been able to explain to himself?

He looked down at their joined hands, at the way her strong fingers entwined with his. She was offering support, understanding, when he hadn't thought he needed any.

The feelings he'd always been reluctant to voice, refused to share, flowed out.

"I guess you'd have to know my grandmother. She was—" he searched for a polite way of putting it "—a straight arrow. And she expected everyone to fly that same narrow course. If I had to choose one adjective, I'd go with intolerant. She'd been widowed when Leeanne was about ten. My grandfather'd had this insurance business, so she'd been left pretty well off. But she liked to scrape pennies. She was one of those people who didn't have it in her to enjoy life."

He fell silent, watching the gulls sweep over the water. When his hand moved restlessly in hers, Morgana said nothing, and waited.

"Anyway, it might sound kind of sad and poignant. The widow with two young girls to raise alone. Until you understand that she liked being in charge. Being the widow Kirkland and having no one to answer to but herself. I have to figure she was pretty rough on her daughters, holding holiness and sex over their heads like lightning bolts. It didn't work very well with Leeanne. At seventeen she was pregnant and didn't have a clue who the father might have been."

He said it with a shrug in his voice, but Morgana saw beneath it. "You blame her for that?"

"For that?" He looked at her, his eyes dark. "No. Not for that. The old lady must have made her life hell for the best part of nine months. Depending on who you get it from, Leeanne was a poor, lonely girl punished ruthlessly for one little slip. Or my grandmother was this long-suffering saint who took her sinful daughter in. My own personal opinion is that we had two selfish women who didn't give a damn about anyone but themselves."

"She was only seventeen, Nash," Morgana said quietly.

Anger carved his face into hard, unyielding lines. "That's supposed to make it okay? She was only seventeen, so it's okay that she bounced around so many guys she didn't know who got her pregnant. She was only seventeen, so it's okay that two days after she had me she took off, left me with that bitter old woman without a word, without a call or even a thought, for twenty-six years."

The raw emotion in his voice squeezed her heart. She wanted to gather him close, hold him until the worst of it passed. But when she reached out, he jerked away, then stood.

"I need to walk."

She made her decision quickly. She could either leave him to work off his pain alone, or she could share it with him. Before he could take three strides, she was beside him, taking his hand again.

"I'm sorry, Nash."

He shook his head violently. The air he gulped in was as sweet as spring, and yet it burned like bile in his throat. "I'm sorry. No reason to take it out on you."

She touched his cheek. "I can handle it."

But he wasn't sure he could. He'd never talked the whole business through before, not with anyone. Saying it all out loud left an ugly taste in his mouth, one he was afraid he'd never be rid of. He took another careful breath and started again.

"I stayed with my grandmother until I was five. My aunt, Carolyn, had married. He was in the army, a lifer. For the next few years I moved around with them, from base to base. He was a hard-nosed bastard—only tolerated me because Carolyn would cry and carry on when he got drunk and threatened to send me back."

Morgana could imagine it all too clearly. The little boy in the empty middle, controlled by everyone, belonging to no one. "You hated it."

"Yeah, I guess that hits the center. I didn't know why, exactly, but I hated it. Looking back, I realize that Carolyn was as unstable as Leeanne, in her own way. One minute she'd fawn all over me, the next she'd ignore me. She wasn't having any luck getting pregnant herself. Then, when I was about eight or nine, she found out she was going to have a kid of her own. So I got shipped back to my grandmother. Carolyn didn't need a substitute anymore."

Morgana felt her eyes fill with angry tears at the image of the child, helpless, innocent, being shuffled back and forth between people who knew nothing of love.

"She never looked at me like a person, you know? I was a mistake. That was the worst of it," he said, as if to himself. "The way she drummed that point home. That every breath I took, every beat of my heart was only possible because some careless, rebellious girl had made a mistake."

"No," Morgana said, appalled. "She was wrong."

"Yeah, maybe. But things like that stick with you. I heard a lot about the sins of the father, the evils of the flesh. I was lazy, intractable and wicked—one of her favorite words." He sent Morgana a grim little smile. "But that was no more than she expected, seeing as how I'd been conceived."

"She was a horrible woman," Morgana bit out. "She didn't deserve you."

"Well, she'd have agreed with you on the second part. And she made me understand just how grateful I should be that she put food in my belly and a roof over my head. But I wasn't feeling very grateful, and I ran away a lot. By the time I was twelve, I got slipped into the system. Foster homes."

His shoulders moved restlessly, in a small outward showing of the turmoil within. He was pacing back and forth over the grounds, his stride lengthening as the memories worked on him.

"Some of them were okay. The ones that really wanted you. Others just wanted the check you brought in every month, but sometimes you got lucky and ended up in a real home. I spent one Christmas with this family, the Hendersons." His voice changed, took on a hint of wonder. "They were great—treated me just like they treated their own kids. You could always smell cookies baking. They had the tree, the presents under it. All that colored paper and ribbon. Stockings hanging from the mantel. It really blew me away to see one with my name on it.

"They gave me a bike," he said quietly. "Mr. Henderson bought it secondhand and took it down to the basement to fix it up. He painted it red. Bug-eyed, fire-engine red, and he'd polished all the chrome. He put a lot of time into making that bike something special. He showed me how to hook baseball cards on the spokes."

He sent her a sheepish look that had Morgana tilting her head. "What?"

"Well, it was a really great bike, but I didn't know how to ride. I'd never had a bike. Here I was, nearly twelve years old, and that bike might as well have been a Harley hog for all I knew."

Morgana came staunchly to his defense. "That's nothing to be ashamed of."

Nash sent her an arch look. "Obviously you've never been an eleven-year-old boy. It's pretty tough to handle the passage into manhood when you can't handle a two-wheeler. So, I mooned over it, made excuses not to ride it. I had homework, I'd twisted my ankle, it looked like rain. Thought I was pretty clever, but she—Mrs. Henderson—saw right through me. One day she got me up early, before anyone else was awake, and took me out. She taught me. Held the back of the seat, ran along beside me. Made me laugh when I took a spill. And when I managed to wobble down the sidewalk on my own, she cried. Nobody'd ever…" He let his words trail off, embarrassed by the scope of emotion that memory evoked.

Tears burned the back of her throat. "They must have been wonderful people."

"Yeah, they were. I had six months with them. Probably the best six months of my life." He shook off the memory and went on. "Anyway, whenever I'd get too comfortable, my grandmother would yank the chain and pull me back. So I started counting the days until I was eighteen, when nobody could tell me where to live, or how. When I got free, I was damn well going to stay that way."

"What did you do?"

"I wanted to eat, so I tried a couple of regular jobs." He glanced at her, this time with a hint of humor in his eyes. "I sold insurance for a while."

For the first time since he'd begun, she smiled. "I can't picture it."

"Neither could I. It didn't last. I guess when it comes right down to it, I've got the old lady to thank for trying writing as a career. She used to whack me good whenever she caught me scribbling."

"Excuse me." Morgana was certain she must have misunderstood. "She hit you for writing?"

"She didn't exactly understand the moral scope of vampire hunters," he said dryly. "So, figuring it was the last thing she'd want me to do, I kept right on doing it. I moved to L.A., managed to finesse a low-level job with the special-effects guys. Then I worked as a script doctor, met the right people. Finally managed to sell Shape Shifter . My grandmother died while that was in production. I didn't go to the funeral."

"If you expect me to criticize you for that, I'll have to disappoint you."

"I don't know what I expect," he muttered. Stopping beneath a cypress, he turned to her. "I was twenty-six when the movie hit. It was… well, we'll risk a bad pun and call it a howling success. Suddenly I was riding the wave. My next script was picked up. I got myself nominated for a Golden Globe. Then I started getting calls. My aunt. She just needed a few bills to tide her over. Her husband had never risen above sergeant, and she had three kids she wanted to send to college. Then Leeanne."

He scrubbed his hands over his face, wishing he could scrub away the layers of resentment, of hurt, of memory.

"She called you," Morgana prompted.

"Nope. She popped up on my doorstep one day. It would have been ludicrous if it hadn't been so pathetic. This stranger, painted up like a Kewpie doll, standing at my front door telling me she was my mother. The worst part was that I could see me in her. The whole time she was standing there, pouring out the sad story of her life, I wanted to shut that door in her face. Bolt it. I could hear her telling me that I owed her, how having me had screwed up her life. How she was divorced for the second time and running on empty. So I wrote her out a check."

Tired, he slid down the tree and sat on the soft ground beneath. The sun was hanging low, the shadows stretching long. Morgana knelt beside him.

"Why did you give her money, Nash?"

"It was what she wanted. I didn't have anything else for her, anyway. The first payment lasted her almost a year. In between, I'd get calls from my aunt, or one of my cousins." He tapped a fisted hand on his thigh. "Months will go by, and you'll think you've got your life pretty well set. But they don't let you forget what you've come from. If the price for that's a few thousand now and again, it's not a bad bargain."

Morgana's eyes heated. "They have no right, no right to take pieces of you."

"I've got plenty of money."

"I'm not talking about dollars. I'm talking about you."

His gaze locked on hers. "They remind me who—what—I am."

"They don't even know you," she said furiously.

"No, and I don't know them. But that doesn't mean a hell of a lot. You know about legacies, Morgana. About what comes down in the blood. Your inheritance is magic. Mine's self-interest."

She shook her head. "Whatever we inherit, we have the choice of using it, or discarding it. You're nothing like the people you came from."

He took her by the shoulders then, his fingers tense. "More than you think. I've made my choices. Maybe I stopped running away because it never got me anywhere. But I know who I am. That's someone who does best alone. There's no Henderson family in my future, Morgana. Because I don't want it. Now and again, I write out a check. Then I can close that all off so it's just me again. That's the way I want it. No ties, no obligations, no commitments."

She wouldn't argue with him, not when the pain was so close to the surface. Another time she could show him how wrong he was. The man holding her now was capable of tenderness, of generosity, of sweetness—none of which had been given to him. All of which he'd found for himself.

But she could give him something. If only for a short time.

"You don't have to tell me who you are, Nash." Gently she brushed his hair from his face. "I know. There's nothing you can't give that I'll ask for. Nothing you don't want to give that I'll take." She lifted her amulet, closed his hand over it, and hers over his. Her eyes deepened as they stared into his. "That's an oath."

He felt the metal grow warm in his hand. Baffled, he looked down to see it pulsing with light. "I don't—"

"An oath," she repeated. "One I can't break. There's something I want you to take, that I can give. Will you trust me?"

Something was stealing over him. Like a shadow cast by a cloud, it was cool and soft and weightless. His tensed muscles relaxed; his eyes grew pleasantly heavy. As from a great distance, he heard himself speak her name. Then he glided into sleep.

When he awakened, the sun was warm and bright. He could hear birdsong, and the babbling music of water running over rock. Disoriented, he sat up.

He was in a wide, rolling meadow of wildflowers and dancing butterflies. A few feet away, a gentle-eyed deer stopped her peaceful walk to study him. There was the lazy drone of bees and the whisper of wind through the high, green grass.

With a half laugh, he rubbed a hand over his chin, half expecting to find a beard like Rip Van Winkle's. But there was no beard, and he didn't feel like an old man. He felt incredible. Standing, he looked out over the acres of flowers and waving grass. Above, the sky was a rich blue bowl, the deep blue of high spring.

Something stirred in him, as gently as the wind stirred the grass. After a moment, he recognized it. Serenity. He was utterly at peace with himself.

He heard the music. The heartbreaking beauty of harp song. The smile was already curving his lips as he followed it, wading through the meadow grass and flowers, startling butterflies.

He found her on the banks of the brook. Sun flashed off the water as it tumbled over smooth, jewel-colored rocks. The full white skirts of her dress pooled over the grass. Her face was shaded by a wide-brimmed hat, tipped flirtatiously over one eye. In her lap was a small golden harp. Her fingers caressed the strings, coaxing out music that floated over the air.

She turned her head, smiled at him, continued to play.

"What are you doing?" he asked her.

"Waiting for you. Did you rest well?"

He crouched beside her, then lifted a hesitant hand to her shoulder. She was real. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the silk. "Morgana?"

Her eyes laughed up at his. "Nash?"

"Where are we?"

She stroked the harp again. Music soared, spreading like the wings of a bird. "In dreams," she told him. "Yours and mine."

After setting the harp aside, she took his hands. "If you want to be here, we can stay awhile. If you want to be somewhere else, we can go there."

She made it sound so easy, so natural. "Why?"

"Because you need it." She brought his hand to her lips. "Because I love you."

He didn't feel the scrabble of panic. Her words slid easily into his heart, making him smile. "Is it real?"

She rubbed her cheek over his hand, then kissed it again. "It can be. If you want it." Her teeth grazed lightly over his skin, sparking desire. "If you want me."

He drew the hat from her head, tossing it aside as her hair rained down over her shoulders and back. "Am I spellbound, Morgana?"

"No more than I." She cupped his face in her hands to bring his lips to hers. "I want you," she murmured against his mouth. "Love me here, Nash, as though it were the first time, the last time, the only time."

How could he resist? If it was a dream, so be it. All that mattered was that her arms welcomed him, her mouth tempted him.

She was everything a man could want, all silk and honey, melting against him. Her body seemed boneless as he laid her back on the soft green grass.

There was no time here, and he found himself pleased to linger over little things. The velvet flow of her hair under his hands, the teasing flavors at the corners of her mouth, the scent of her skin along her jaw. She yielded to him, a malleable fantasy of silks and scents and seduction. Her quiet sigh sweetened the air.

He couldn't know how easy it had been, Morgana thought as his mouth drank from hers. As different as they were, their dreams were the same. For this hour, or two, they could share each other, and the peace she had wrapped them in.

When he lifted his head, she smiled at him. His eyes darkened as he traced the shape of her face with a fingertip. "I want it to be real," he said.

"It can be. Whatever you take from here, whatever you want for us, can be."

Testing, he brought his lips to hers again. It was real, as was the feeling that flooded him when those lips parted for his. He sank deep into that long, luxurious melding of lips and tongues. Beneath his, her heart beat fast and true. When his hand covered it, he felt its rhythm leap.

Slowly, wanting to spin out the moment, he unfastened the tiny pearls that ranged down her bodice. Beneath, she was all warm, soft skin. In fascination, he explored the textures as her breath quickened.

Satin and silk. The color of rich cream.

His eyes flicked back to hers as his fingertips skimmed. Through the fringe of dark lashes, her irises had deepened, hazed. Lightly he brushed his lips over the soft slopes of her breasts.

Honey and rose petals.

With a murmur of approval, he teased her flesh with lazy, openmouthed kisses, circling in until he could roll his tongue over the aching peaks. He nipped, knowing by her gasp that he was holding her at that dazzling point between pleasure and pain.

He drew her in, driving them both quietly mad with teeth and tongue. Her hands were in his hair, gripping hard. And he felt her body arch, go taut, then shudder into pliancy. When he lifted his head to look at her, her eyes were glazed with shock and delight.

"How—?" She shivered again, throbbing with the aftermath of that fast, unexpected crest.

"Magic," he said, pressing his lips to her heated flesh again. "Let me show you."

He took her places she'd never seen. As she gloried in each dizzying journey, her hands and lips moved freely over him. When she trembled, so did he.

A mixing of sighs, a melding of bodies. A murmured request, a breathless answer. Fired by need, she pulled his shirt away to taste the hot, damp flesh of his heaving chest.

Where there was fire, there was joy—in feeling his blood leap for her, his pulse quicken.

Within the small slice of paradise she had conjured, they made their own. Each time his mouth came to hers, the spell grew stronger. Possessive, persuasive, her hands streaked over him, and she rejoiced in the way his muscles bunched and quivered at her touch.

He wanted—needed—her to be as desperate as he. With his heart pounding in his ears, he began a torturous journey down her torso, streaking toward the center of her heat. His teeth scraped the sensitive skin of her thigh, dragging a broken moan from her.

Her hands fisted in the grass as his tongue pleasured and plundered. Blind with need, she cried out as he drove her from peak to shattering peak. As her body writhed and arched, he steeped himself in her.

Damp flesh slid over damp flesh as he began the return journey. When his mouth crushed down on hers, he sheathed himself in her. And his vision dimmed as he felt her open for him, surround him, welcome him.

Fighting back the grinding need, he moved slowly, savoring, watching the flickers of pleasure on her face, feeling her pulse throb as she rose to meet him.

The breath sighed out between her lips. Her eyes fluttered open. They stayed on his while her hands slid down his arms. With their fingers locked, they tumbled past reason together.

When she felt his body shatter, when his muscles went to water, he rested his head between her breasts. Lulled by the beat of her heart, he let his eyes close. He began to sense the world beyond Morgana. The warm sun on his back, the call of birds, the scent of flowers growing wild on the banks of the rushing brook.

Beneath him, she sighed and lifted a hand to stroke his hair. She had given him peace, and she had found pleasure. And she had broken one of her firmest rules by manipulating his emotions.

Perhaps it had been a mistake, but she wouldn't regret it.

"Morgana."

She smiled at the husky murmur. "Sleep now," she told him.

In the dark, he reached for her. And found the bed empty. Groggy, he forced his heavy eyes open. He was in bed, his own bed, and the house held the heavy hush of predawn.

"Morgana?" He didn't know why he said her name when he knew she wasn't there.

Dreaming? Fumbling with the sheets, he pushed himself out of bed. Had he been dreaming? If it had been only a dream, nothing in the waking world had ever seemed more real, more vivid, more important.

To clear his head, he walked to the window and breathed deeply of the cool air.

They'd made love—incredible love—in a meadow beside a stream.

No, that was impossible. Leaning on the sill, he gulped in air like water. The last thing he remembered clearly, they had been sitting under the tree in the side yard, talking about—

He jolted back. He'd told her everything. The whole ugly business about his family had come pouring out of him. Why the hell had he done that? Dragging a hand through his hair, he paced the room.

That damned phone call, he thought. But then he recalled abruptly that the phone call had stopped him from making an even bigger mistake.

It would have been worse if he'd told Morgana he loved her—a lot worse than telling her about his parentage and upbringing. At least now she wouldn't get any ideas about where their relationship was headed.

In any case, it was done, and it couldn't be taken back. He'd just have to live with the fact that it embarrassed the hell out of him.

But after that, after they had been sitting in the yard. Had he fallen asleep?

The dream. Or had it been a dream? It was so clear in his mind. He could almost smell the flowers. And he could certainly remember the way her body had flowed like water under his hands. More, much more, he could remember feeling as though everything he had done up to that point in his life had been leading to that moment. To the moment when he could lie on the grass with the woman he loved, and feel the peace of belonging.

Illusions. Just illusions, he assured himself as panic began to set in. He'd just fallen asleep under the tree. That was all.

But what the hell was he doing back in his room, in the middle of the night—alone?

She'd done it. Giving in to unsteady legs, he lowered to the bed. All of it. Then she'd left him.

She wasn't getting away with it. He started to rise, then dropped down again.

He could remember the peace, the utter serenity, of waking with the sun on his face. Of walking through the grass and seeing her playing the harp and smiling at him.

And when he'd asked her why, she'd said…

She'd said she loved him.

Because his head was reeling, Nash clamped it between his hands. Maybe he'd imagined it. All of it. Morgana included. Maybe he was back in his condo in L.A., and he'd just awakened from the granddaddy of all dreams.

After all, he didn't really believe in witches and spells. Gingerly he lowered one hand and closed it around the stone that hung from a chain around his neck.

The hell he didn't.

Morgana was real, and she loved him. The worst part was, he loved her right back.

He didn't want to. It was crazy. But he was in love with her, so wildly in love that he couldn't get through an hour without thinking about her. Without wishing for her. Without imagining that maybe, just maybe, it could work.

And that was the most irrational thought in the whole irrational business.

He needed to think it all through, step by step. Giving in to fatigue, he lay back to stare at the dark.

Infatuated. That was what he was. Infatuation was a long way from love. A long, safe way. She was, after all, a captivating woman. A man could live a long, happy life being infatuated by a captivating woman. He'd wake up every morning with a smile on his face, knowing she belonged to him.

Nash began to weave a pretty fantasy. And brought himself up short.

What the hell was he thinking of?

Her, he thought grimly. He was always thinking of her.

Maybe the best thing to do would be to take a little vacation, a quick trip to anywhere to shake her out of his system.

If he could.

The niggling doubt lay in his gut like a stone.

How did he know, even before he began, that he wouldn't be able to shake her out?

Because it wasn't infatuation, he admitted slowly. It wasn't even close to infatuation. It was the big four-letter word. He wasn't in lust. He'd taken the big leap. He was in love.

She'd made him fall in love with her.

That thought had him sitting straight up. She'd made him. She was a witch. Why hadn't it ever occurred to him that she could cast her spells, snap her fingers and have him groveling at her feet?

Part of him rejected the notion as absurd. But another part, the part that had grown out of fear and self-doubt, plucked at the idea. The longer he considered it, the darker his thoughts became.

In the morning, he told himself, he was going to face off with a witch. When he was done, he'd clear the decks, and Nash Kirkland would be exactly where he wanted to be.

In control.

Chapter 11

It felt odd not going in to open the shop Monday morning. It also felt necessary, not just for her weary body, but also for her mind. A call to Mindy eased Morgana's conscience. Mindy would pick up the slack and open the shop at noon.

It didn't bother her too much to take a day off. But she would have preferred to steal a day when she felt better. Now she walked downstairs wrapped in her robe, feeling light-headed and queasy, with the restless night weighing heavily on her.

The die had been cast. Matters had been taken out of her hands. With a weary sigh, Morgana wandered into the kitchen to brew some tea. It had never really been in her hands. The awkward thing about power, she mused, was that you could never let yourself become so used to wielding it that you forgot there were bigger, more vital powers than your own.

Pressing a gentle hand to her stomach, she walked to the window while the kettle heated. She wondered if she sensed a storm in the air, or if it was merely her own unsettled thoughts. Luna curled in and out of her legs for a moment, then sensed her mistress's mood and padded off.

She hadn't chosen to be in love. She certainly hadn't chosen to have this avalanche of emotion barrel down on her and sweep her away. To have her life changed. It was nothing less than that now.

There was always a choice, of course. And she had made hers.

It wouldn't be easy. The most important things rarely were.

Heavy-limbed, she turned to the stove to make the tea. It had barely had tune to cool in her cup before she heard the front door open.

"Morgana!"

Resigned, Morgana poured two more cups just as her cousins came into the kitchen. "There." Anastasia shot Sebastian a look as she hurried to Morgana. "I told you she wasn't feeling well."

Morgana kissed her cheek. "I'm fine."

"I said you were fine," Sebastian put in, digging a cookie out of the jar on the counter. "Just grumpy. You were sending out signals loud enough and cranky enough to drag me out of bed."

"Sorry." She offered him a cup. "I guess I didn't want to be alone."

"You're not well," Ana insisted. Before she could probe deeper, Morgana stepped away.

"I had a restless night, and I'm paying for it this morning."

Sebastian sipped his tea. He'd already taken in the pale cheeks and shadowed eyes. And he was getting a flicker of something else, something Morgana was working hard to block. Patient, and always willing to match his will against hers, he settled back.

"Trouble in paradise," he said, just dryly enough to make her eyes flash.

"I can handle my own problems, thanks."

"Don't tease her, Sebastian." Anastasia set a warning hand on his shoulder. "Have you argued with Nash, Morgana?"

"No." She sat. She was too tired not to. "No," she said again. "But it is Nash who worries me. I learned a few things about him yesterday. About his family."

Because she trusted them as much as she loved them, Morgana told them everything, from the call from Leeanne to the moment beneath the cypress. What had happened after that, because it belonged only to her and to Nash, she kept to herself.

"Poor little boy," Anastasia murmured. "How awful to feel unwanted and unloved."

"And unable to love," Morgana added. "Who could blame him for being afraid to trust his feelings?"

"You do."

Her gaze shot up to meet Sebastian's. It was no use cursing him for being so perceptive. Or so right. "Not really blame. It hurts, and it saddens, but I don't blame him for it. I'm just not sure how to love someone who can't, or won't, love me back."

"He needs time," Ana told her.

"I know. I'm trying to figure out how much time I can give him. I made a vow. Not to take more than he wanted to give." Her voice thickened, and she swallowed to clear it. "I won't break it."

Her defenses slipped. Quick as a whip, Sebastian snatched her hand. He looked deep, and then his fingers went lax on hers. "My God, Morgana. You're pregnant."

Furious at the intrusion, and at her own wavering emotions for permitting it, she sprang to her feet. But even as she started to spew at him, she saw the concern and the worry in his eyes.

"Damn it, Sebastian. That's an announcement a woman particularly likes to make for herself."

"Sit down," he ordered, and he would have carried her to a chair himself if Anastasia hadn't waved him off.

"How long?" Ana demanded.

Morgana only sighed. "Since the spring equinox. I've only been sure for a few days."

"Are you well?" Before Morgana could answer, Ana spread a hand over Morgana's belly. "Let me." With her eyes on Morgana's, Anastasia searched. She felt the warm flesh beneath the robe, the throb of pulse, the flow of blood. And the life, not yet formed, sleeping. Her lips curved. "You're fine," she said. "Both of you."

"Just a little sluggish this morning." Morgana laid a hand over hers. "I don't want you to worry."

"I still say she should sit down, or lie down, until her color's back." Sebastian scowled at both of them. The idea of his cousin, his favorite sparring partner, being fragile and with child made him uneasy. With a light laugh, Morgana bent over to kiss him.

"Are you going to fuss over me, cousin?" Pleased, she kissed him again, then sat. "I hope so."

"With the rest of the family in Ireland, it's up to Ana and me to take care of you."

Morgana murmured an absent thank-you as Ana refilled her cup. "And what makes you think I need to be taken care of?"

Sebastian shrugged the question away. "I'm the eldest here," he reminded her. "And, as such, I want to know what Kirkland's intentions are."

Ana grinned over her cup. "Lord, Sebastian, how medieval. Do you intend to run him through for trifling with your cousin?"

"I don't find this whole situation quite the hoot you do." His eyes darkened when his cousins rolled theirs. "Let's clear it up, shall we? Morgana, do you want to be pregnant?"

"I am pregnant."

He pressed a hand on hers until she looked at him again. "You know very well what I mean."

Of course she did. She let out another sigh. "I've only had a day or two to think of it, but I have thought of it, carefully. I realize that I can undo what's been done. Without shame. I know the idea upsets you, Ana."

Ana shook her head. "The choice has to be yours."

"Yes, it does. I took precautions against conception. And fate chose to ignore them. I've searched my heart, and I believe I was meant to have the child. This child,'' she said with a faint curve of the lips. "At this time, and with this man. However unsettled I feel, however afraid I am, I can't shake that belief. So, yes, I want to be pregnant."

Satisfied, Sebastian nodded. "And Nash? How does he feel about it?" He didn't wait for her to speak. It only took a heartbeat for him to know. His voice thundered to the roof. "What in the name of Finn do you mean, you haven't told him?"

Her glare was sharp enough to cut ten men off at the knees. "Keep out of my head, or I swear I'll turn you into a slug."

He merely lifted a brow. "Just answer the question."

"I've only just come to be certain myself." Tossing back her hair, she rose. "And, after yesterday, I couldn't simply drop the news on him."

"He has a right to know," Ana said quietly.

"All right." Her temper bubbled until she clenched her hands into fists. "I'm going to tell him. When I'm ready to tell him. Do you think I want to bind him this way?" It shocked her to feel a tear slip down her cheek. She brushed it away impatiently.

"That's a choice he has to make for himself." Sebastian had already decided that, if Nash chose incorrectly, he would take great pleasure in breaking several vital bones—the conventional way.

"Sebastian's right, Morgana." Concerned but firm, Ana rose again to wrap her arms around her cousin. "It's his choice to make, as it was yours. He can't make it if he doesn't know the choice exists."

"I know." To comfort herself, Morgana laid her head on Ana's shoulder. "I'll go this morning and tell him."

Sebastian rose to stroke a hand down Morgana's hair. "We'll be close."

She was able to smile with a trace of her usual verve. "Not too close."

Nash rolled over in bed and muttered into his pillow. Dreams. He was having so many dreams. They were flitting in and out of his head like movie scenes.

Morgana. Always Morgana, smiling at him, beckoning to him, promising him the incredible, and the wonderful. Making him feel whole and strong and hopeful.

His grandmother, her eyes bright with anger, whacking him with her ubiquitous wooden spoon, telling him over and over again that he was worthless.

Riding a bright red bike down a suburban sidewalk, the wind in his hair and the sound of flipping, flapping baseball cards thrumming in the spokes.

Leeanne, standing close, too close, with her hand out, reminding him that they were blood. That he owed her, owed her, owed her.

Morgana, laughing that wild, wicked laugh, her hair billowing back like a cloud while she streaked over the dark waters of the bay on her broomstick.

Himself, plunged into a steaming cauldron with his grandmother stirring the stew with that damned spoon. And Morgana's voice—his mother's voice?—cackling like one of the Weird Sisters from Shakespeare.

"Double, double, toil and trouble."

He sat up with a jolt, breathing fast and blinking against the streaming sunlight. He lifted shaking hands to his face and rubbed hard.

Great. Just dandy. In addition to everything else, he was losing his mind.

Had she done that to him, as well? he wondered. Had she insinuated herself into his mind to make him think what she wanted him to think? Well, she wasn't going to get away with it.

Nash stumbled out of bed and tripped over his own shoes. Swearing, he kicked them aside and headed blindly for the shower. As soon as he'd pulled himself together, he and the Gorgeous Witch of the West were going to have a little chat.

While Nash was holding his head under the shower, Morgana pulled up in his driveway. She'd come alone. When she'd refused to let Luna accompany her, the cat had stalked off, tail twitching in indignation. Sighing, Morgana promised herself she'd make it up to her. Maybe she'd run by Fisherman's Wharf and pick up a seafood feast to soften the cat's heart.

In the meantime, she had her own heart to worry about.

Tilting down the rearview mirror, she took a careful study of her face. With a sound of disgust, she leaned back. What had made her think she could cover the signs of strain and worry with simple cosmetics?

She pressed her lips together and looked toward his house. She wasn't going to let him see her like this. She wasn't going to go to him with this kind of news when she appeared vulnerable and needy.

He had enough people pulling his strings.

She remembered that she'd once thought he was a completely carefree man. Perhaps, for long periods of time, he was. He'd certainly made himself believe so. If Nash was entitled to his front, then so was she.

After taking a long, soothing breath, Morgana crooned a quiet chant. The shadows vanished from under her eyes, the color crept back into her cheeks. As she stepped out of the car, all signs of a restless night had been erased. If her heart was beating too quickly, she would deal with it. But she would not let him see that she was miserably in love and terrified.

There was an easy smile on her face as she rapped on his door. A slick, sweaty fist was lodged in her gut.

Cursing, Nash jammed one leg then the other into jeans. "Just a damn minute," he mumbled as he yanked them up. He stalked down the steps barefoot and bare chested, all but growling at the thought of a visitor before coffee. "What?" he demanded as he flung open the door. Then he stopped dead, staring.

She looked as fresh and beautiful as the morning. As sultry and sexy as midnight. Nash wondered how it was that the damp still clinging to his skin didn't turn to steam.

"Hi." She leaned in to brush his lips with hers. "Did I get you out of the shower?"

"Just about." Off balance, he slicked his fingers through his dripping hair. "Why aren't you at the shop?"

"I'm taking the day off." She sauntered in, willing herself to keep her voice natural and her muscles relaxed. "Did you sleep well?"

"You should know." At the mild surprise in her eyes, his temper strained. "What did you do to me, Morgana?"

"Do to you? I did nothing to you." She made the effort to smile again. "If I'm not mistaken, you're in dire need of coffee. Why don't I fix some?"

He grabbed her arm before she could turn toward the kitchen. "I'll fix it myself."

She measured the anger in his eyes and nodded slowly. "All right. Would you rather I came back later?"

"No. We'll settle this now." When he strode down the hallway, Morgana squeezed her eyes tight.

Settle it, she thought with a vivid premonition of disaster. Why did that phrase sound so much like "end it"? Bracing, she started to follow him into the kitchen, but found her courage fading. Instead, she turned into the living room and sat on the edge of a chair.

He needed his coffee, she told herself. And she needed a moment to regroup.

She hadn't expected to find him so angry, so cold. The way he'd looked when he'd spoken to Leeanne the day before. Nor had she had any idea how much it would hurt to have him look at her with that ice-edged and somehow aloof fury.

She rose to wander the room, one hand placed protectively over the life beginning in her womb. Shewould protect that life, she promised herself. At all costs.

When he came back, a steaming cup in his hand, she was standing by the window. Her eyes looked wistful. If he hadn't known better, he would have said she looked hurt, even vulnerable.

But he did know better. Surely being a witch was the next thing to being invulnerable.

"Your flowers need water," she said to him. "It isn't enough just to plant them." Again her hand lay quietly over her stomach. "They need care."

He gulped down coffee and scalded his tongue. The pain helped block the sudden need to go to her and take her into his arms, to whisk away the sadness he heard in her voice. "I'm not much in the mood to talk about flowers."

"No." She turned, and the traces of vulnerability were gone. "I can see that. What are you in the mood to talk about, Nash?"

"I want the truth. All of it."

She gave him a small, amused smile, turning her palms up questioningly. "Where would you like me to begin?"

"Don't play games with me, Morgana. I'm tired of it." He began to pace the room, his muscles taut enough to snap. His head came up. If she had been fainter of heart, the look in his eyes would have had her stumbling back in defense. "This whole business has been one long lark for you, hasn't it? Right from the beginning, from the minute I walked into your shop, you decided I was a likely candidate." God, it hurt, he realized. It hurt to think of everything he'd felt, everything he'd begun to wish for. "My attitude toward your… talents irritated you, so you just had to strut your stuff."

Her heart quivered in her breast, but her voice was strong. "Why don't you tell me what you mean? If you're saying I showed you what I am, I can't deny it. I can't be ashamed of it."

He slapped the mug down so that coffee sloshed over the sides and onto the table. The sense of betrayal was so huge, it overwhelmed everything. Damn it, he loved her. She'd made him love her. Now that he was calling her on it, she just stood there, looking calm and lovely.

"I want to know what you did to me," he said again. "Then I want you to undo it."

"I told you, I didn't—"

"I want you to look me in the eye." On a wave of panic and fury, he grabbed her arms. "Look me in the eye, Morgana, and tell me you didn't wave your wand or chant your charm and make me feel this way."

"What way?"

"Damn you, I'm in love with you. I can't get through an hour without wanting you. I can't think about a year from now, ten years from now, without seeing you with me."

Her heart melted. "Nash—"

He jerked back from the hand she lifted to his cheek. Stunned, Morgana let it fall back to her side. "How did you do it?" he demanded. "How did you get inside me like this, to make me start thinking of marriage and family? What was the point? To play around with the mortal until you got tired of him?"

"I'm as mortal as you," she said steadily. "I eat and sleep, I bleed when I'm cut. I grow old. I feel."

"You're not like me." He bit off the words. Morgana felt her charm slipping, the color washing out of her cheeks.

"No. You're right. I'm different, and there's nothing I can do to change it. Nothing I would do. If you're finding that too difficult to accept, then let me go."

"You're not going to walk out of here and leave me like this. Fix it." He gave her a brisk shake. "Undo the spell."

The illusion fell away so that she stared at him with shadowed eyes. "What spell?"

"Whatever one you used. You got me to tell you things I've never told anyone. You stripped me bare, Morgana. Didn't you think I'd figure out that I'd never have told you about my family, my background, if I'd been in my right mind? That was mine." He released her, and turned away to keep from doing something drastic. "You tricked it out of me, just like you tricked all the rest. You used my feelings."

"I never used your feelings," she began furiously, then stopped, paling even more.

When he noted the look, his lips thinned. "Really?"

"All right, I used them yesterday. After your mother called, after you'd told me all those things, I wanted to give you some peace of mind."

"So it was a spell."

Though her chin came up, he wavered. She looked so damn fragile just then. Like glass that would shatter at his touch. "I let my emotions rule my judgment. If I was wrong, as it's obvious now I was, I apologize."

"Oh, fine. Sorry I took you for a ride, Nash." He jammed his hands into his pockets. "What about the rest?"

She lifted a shaky hand to her hair. "The rest of what?"

"Are you going to stand there and tell me you didn't cause all of this, manipulate my feelings? Make me think I was in love with you, that I wanted to start a life with you? God, have children with you?" Because he still wanted it, still, his anger grew. "I know damn well it wasn't my idea. No way in hell."

The hurt sliced deep. But, as it cut, it freed something. His anger, his sense of betrayal and confusion, was nothing compared to what bubbled inside her. She reined it in with a light hand as she studied him.

"Are you saying that I bound you to me with magic? That I used my gifts for my own gain, charmed you into loving me?''

"That's just what I'm saying."

Morgana released the reins. Color flooded back into her face, had her eyes gleaming like suns. Power, and the strength it brought, filled her. "You brainless ass."

Indignant, he started to snap back. His words came out like the bray of a donkey. Eyes wide, he tried again while she swooped around the room.

"So you think you're under a spell," she muttered, her fury making books fly through the room like literary missiles. Nash ducked and scrambled, but he didn't managed to avoid all of them. As one rapped the bridge of his nose, he swore. He felt a moment's dizzy relief when he realized he had his own voice back.

"Look, babe—"

"No, you look. Babe ." On a roll now, she had a gust of wind tossing his furniture into a heap. "Do you think I'd waste my gifts captivating someone like you? You conceited, arrogant jerk. Give me one reason I shouldn't turn you into the snake you are."

Eyes narrowed, he started toward her. "I'm not going to play along with this."

"Then watch." With a flick of her hand she had him shooting back across the room, two feet above the floor, to land hard in a chair. He thought about getting up, but decided it was wiser to get his breath back first.

To satisfy herself, she sent the dishes soaring in the kitchen. Nash listened to the crashing with a resigned sigh.

"You should know better than to anger a witch," she told him. The logs in his fireplace began to spit and crackle with flame. "Don't you know what someone like me, someone without integrity, without scruples, might do?"

"All right, Morgana." He started to rise. She slapped him back in the chair so hard his teeth rattled.

"Don't come near me, not now, not ever again." Her breath was heaving, though she was struggling to even it. "I swear, if you do, I'll turn you into something that runs on four legs and howls at the moon."

He let out an uneasy breath. He didn't think she'd do it. Not really. And it was better to take a stand than to whimper. His living room was a shambles. Hell, his life was a shambles. They were going to have to deal with it.

"Cut it out, Morgana." His voice was admirably calm and firm. "This isn't proving anything."

The fury drained out of her, leaving her empty and aching and miserable. "You're quite right. It isn't. My temper, like my feelings, sometimes clouds my judgment. No." She waved a hand before he could rise. "Stay where you are. I can't trust myself yet."

As she turned away, the fire guttered out. The wind died. Quietly Nash breathed a sigh of relief. The storm, it appeared, was over.

He was very wrong.

"So you don't want to be in love with me."

Something in her voice had his brows drawing together. He wanted her to turn around so that he could see her face, but she stood with her back to him, looking out the window.

"I don't want to be in love with anyone," he said carefully, willing himself to believe it. "Nothing personal."

"Nothing personal," she repeated.

"Look, Morgana, I'm a bad bet. I like my life the way it was."

"The way it was before you met me."

When she said it like that, he felt like something slimy that slithered through the grass. He checked his hands to make certain he wasn't. "It's not you, it's me. And I… Damn it, I'm not going to sit here and apologize because I don't like being spellbound." He got to his feet gingerly. "You're a beautiful woman, and—"

"Oh, please. Don't strain yourself with a clever brush-off." The words choked out of her as she turned.

Nash felt as though she'd stuck a lance in his heart. She was crying. Tears were streaming out of her brimming eyes and flowing down her pale cheeks. There was nothing, nothing, he wanted more at that moment than to take her in his arms and kiss them away.

"Morgana, don't. I never meant to—" His words were cut off as he rapped into a wall. He couldn't see it, but she'd thrown it up between them, and it was as solid as bricks and mortar. "Stop it." His voice rose on a combination of panic and self-disgust as he rammed a hand against the shield that separated them. "This isn't the answer."

Her heart was bleeding. She could feel it. "It'll do until I find the right one." She wanted to hate him, desperately wanted to hate him for making her humiliate herself. As the tears continued to fall, she laid both hands on her stomach. She had more than herself to protect.

He spread his own impotent hands against the wall. Odd, he thought, he felt as though it was he who had been closed off, not her. "I can't stand to see you cry."

"You'll have to for a moment. Don't worry, a witch's tears are like any woman's. Weak and useless." She steadied herself, blinking them away until she could see clearly. "You want your freedom, Nash?"

If he could have, he'd have clawed and kicked his way through to her. "Damn it, can't you see I don't know what I want?"

"Whatever it is, it isn't me. Or what we've made together. I promised I wouldn't take more than you wanted to give me. And I never go back on my word."

He felt a new kind of fear, a rippling panic at the thought that what he did want was about to slip through his fingers. "Let me touch you."

"If you thought of me as a woman first, I would." For herself, she laid a hand on the wall opposite his. "Do you think, because of what I am, that I don't need to be loved as any man loves any woman?"

He shoved and strained against the wall. "Take this damn thing down."

It was all she had—a poor defense. "We crossed purposes somewhere along the line, Nash. No one's fault, I suppose, that I came to love you so much."

"Morgana, please."

She shook her head, studying him, drawing his image inside her head, her heart, where she could keep it. "Maybe, because I did, I somehow drew you in. I've never been in love before, so I can't be sure. But I swear to you, it wasn't intentional, it wasn't done to harm."

Furious that the tears were threatening again, she backed away. For a moment she stood—straight, proud, powerful.

"I'll give you this, and you can trust what I say. Whatever hold I have on you is broken, as of this instant. Whatever feelings I've caused in you through my art, I cast away. You're free of me, and of all we made."

She closed her eyes, lifted her hands. "Love conjured is love false. I will not take, nor will I make. Such cast away is nothing lost. Your heart and mind be free of me. As I will, so mote it be."

Her eyes opened, glittered with fresh tears. "You are more than you think," she said quietly. "Less than you could be."

His heart was thudding in his throat. "Morgana, don't go like this."

She smiled. "Oh, I think I'm entitled to at least a dramatic exit, don't you?" Though she was several feet away, he would have sworn he felt her lips touch him. "Blessed be, Nash," she said. And then she was gone.

Chapter 12

He had no doubt he was going out of his mind. Day after day he prowled the house and the grounds. Night after night he tossed restlessly in bed.

She'd said he was free of her, hadn't she? Then why wasn't he?

Why hadn't he stopped thinking about her, wishing for her? Why could he still see the way she had looked at him that last time, with hurt in her eyes and tears on her cheeks?

He tried to tell himself she'd left him charmed. But he knew it was a lie.

After a week, he gave up and drove by her house. It was empty. He went to the shop and was told by a very cool and unfriendly Mindy that Morgana was away. But she wouldn't tell him where, or when she would be back.

He should have felt relief. That was what he told himself. Doggedly he pushed thoughts of her aside and picked up the life he'd led before her.

But when he walked the beach, he imagined what it would be like to stroll there with her, a toddler scampering between them.

That image sent him driving down to L.A. for a few days.

He wanted to think he felt better there, with the rush and the crowds and the noise. He took a lunch with his agent at the Polo Lounge and discussed the casting for his screenplay. He went alone to clubs and fed himself on music and laughter. And he wondered if he'd made a mistake in moving north. Maybe he belonged in the heart of the city, surrounded by strangers and distractions.

But, after three days, his heart yearned for home, for the rustle of wind and the whoosh of water. And for her.

He went back to the shop, interrogating Mindy ruthlessly enough to have customers backing off and murmuring. She wouldn't budge.

At his wits' end, he took to parking in her driveway and brooding at her house. It had been nearly a month, and he comforted himself with the thought that she had to come back sometime. Her home was here, her business.

Damn it, he was here, waiting for her.

As the sun set, he braced his elbows on the steering wheel and rested his head in his hands. That was just what he was doing, he admitted. Waiting for her. And he wasn't waiting to have a rational conversation, as he'd tried to convince himself he was over the past weeks.

He was waiting to beg, to promise, to fight, to do whatever it took to put things right again. To put Morgana back in his life again.

He closed his hand over the stones he still wore around his neck and wondered if he could will her back. It was worth a shot. A better idea than putting an ad in the personals, he thought grimly. Shutting his eyes, he focused all his concentration on her.

"Damn it, I know you can hear me if you want to. You're not going to shut me out this way. You're not. Just because I was an idiot is no reason to…"

He felt a presence, actually felt it. He opened his eyes cautiously, turned his head and looked up into Sebastian's amused face.

"What is this?" Sebastian mused. "Amateur night?"

Before he could think, Nash was shoving the car door open. "Where is she?" he demanded, taking Sebastian's shirt in his fists. "You know, and one way or the other you're going to tell me."

Sebastian's eyes darkened dangerously. "Careful, friend. I've been wanting to go one-on-one with you for weeks."

The notion of a good, nasty fight appealed to Nash enormously. "Then we'll just—"

"Behave," Anastasia commanded. "Both of you." With delicate hands, she pushed the men apart. "I'm sure you'd enjoy giving each other bloody noses and black eyes, but I'm not going to tolerate it."

Nash fisted his frustrated hands at his sides. "I want to know where she is."

With a shrug, Sebastian leaned on the hood of the car. "Your wants don't carry much weight around here." He crossed his feet at the ankles when Anastasia stepped between them again. "You're looking a little ragged around the edges, Nash, old boy." And it pleased him no end. "Conscience stabbing at you?"

"Sebastian." Ana's quiet voice held both censure and compassion. "Don't snipe. Can't you see he's unhappy?"

"My heart bleeds."

Ana laid a hand on Nash's arm. "And that he's in love with her?"

Sebastian's response was a short laugh. "Don't let the hangdog look twist your feelings, Ana."

She shot Sebastian an impatient glare. "For heaven's sake, you only have to look."

Reluctantly, he did. As his eyes darkened, he clamped a hand on Nash's shoulder. Before Nash could shrug it angrily away, Sebastian laughed again. "By all that's holy, he is." He shook his head at Nash. "Why the devil did you make such a mess of it?"

"I don't have to explain myself to you," Nash muttered. Absently he rubbed a hand over his shoulder. It felt as though it had been sunburned. "What I have to say, I'll say to Morgana."

Sebastian was softening, but he didn't see any reason to make it easy. "I believe she's under the impression that you've already had your say. I don't know that she's in any condition to listen to your outrageous accusations again."

"Condition?" Nash's heart froze. "Is she sick?" He grabbed Sebastian by the shirtfront again, but the strength had left his hands. "What's wrong with her?"

A look passed between the cousins, so brief, so subtle, that it went unnoticed. "She's not ill," Ana said, and tried not to be furious with Morgana for not telling Nash about the child. "In fact, she's quite well. Sebastian meant that she was upset by what happened between you the last time."

Nash's fingers loosened. When he had his breath back, he nodded. "All right, you want me to beg. I'll beg. I have to see her. If after I've finished crawling she boots me out of her life, I'll live with it."

"She's in Ireland," Ana told him. "With our family." Her smile curved beautifully. "Do you have a passport?"

Morgana was glad she'd come. The air in Ireland was soothing, whether it was the balmy breeze that rolled down from the hills or the wild wind that whipped across the channel.

Though she knew it would soon be time to go back and pick up her life again, she was grateful for the weeks she'd had to heal.

And for her family.

Stretched out on the window seat in her mother's sitting room, she was as much at home, and at peace, as she could be anywhere in the world. She felt the sun on her face, that luminous sun that seemed to belong only to Ireland. If she looked through the diamond panes of glass, she could see the cliffs that hacked their way down to the rugged beach. And the beach, narrow and rough, stretching out to the waves. By changing the angle, she could see the terraced lawn, the green, green grass scattered with a profusion of flowers that stirred in the wind.

Across the room, her mother sat sketching. It was a cozy moment, one that reminded Morgana sweetly of childhood. And her mother had changed so little in the years between.

Her hair was as dark and thick as her daughter's, though she wore it short and sleek around her face. Her skin was smooth, with the beautiful luster of her Irish heritage. The cobalt eyes were often dreamier than Morgana's, but they saw as clearly.

When Morgana looked at her, she was washed by an intense flood of love. "You're so beautiful, Mother."

Bryna glanced up, smiled. "I won't argue, since it feels so good to hear that from a grown daughter.'' Her voice carried the charming lilt of her homeland. "Do you know how wonderful it is to have you here, darling, for all of us?"

Morgana raised a knee and linked her hands around it. "I know how good it's been for me. And how grateful I am you haven't asked me all the questions I know you want to."

"And so you should be. I've all but had to strike your father mute to keep him from badgering you." Her eyes softened. "He adores you so."

"I know." Morgana felt weak tears fill her eyes again, and she tried to blink them away. "I'm sorry. My moods." With a shake of her head, she rose. "I don't seem to be able to control them."

"Darling." Bryna held out both hands, waiting until Morgana had crossed the room to link hers with them. "You know you can tell me anything, anything at all. When you're ready."

"Mother." Seeking comfort, Morgana knelt down to rest her head in Bryna's lap. She gave a watery smile as her hair was stroked. "I've come to realize recently how very lucky I am to have had you, all of you. To love me, to want me, to care about what happens to me. I haven't told you before how grateful I am for you."

Puzzled, Bryna cradled her daughter. "Families are meant to love and want and care."

"But all families don't." Morgana lifted her head, her eyes dry now and intense. "Do they?"

"The loss is theirs. What's hurting you, Morgana?"

She gripped her mother's hands again. "I've thought about how it must feel not to be wanted or loved. To be taught from childhood that you were a mistake, a burden, something only to be tolerated through duty. Can anything be colder than that?"

"No. Nothing's colder than living without love." Her tone gentled. "Are you in love?"

She didn't have to answer. "He's been hurt so, you see. He never had what you, what all of you, gave me, what I took for granted. And, despite it all, he's made himself into a wonderful man. Oh, you'd like him." She rested her cheek on her mother's palm. "He's funny and sweet. His mind is so, well, fluid. So ready to test new ideas. But there's a part of him that's closed off. He didn't do it, it was done to him. And, no matter what my powers, I can't break that lock." She sat back on her heels. "He doesn't want to love me, and I can't—won't—take what he doesn't want to give."

"No." Bryna's heart broke a little as she looked at her daughter. "You're too strong, too proud, and too wise for that. But people change, Morgana. In time…"

"There isn't time. I'll have his child by Christmas."

All the soothing words Bryna had prepared slipped away down her throat. All she could think was that her baby was carrying a baby. "Are you well?" she managed.

Morgana smiled, pleased that this should be the first question. "Yes."

"And certain?"

"Very certain."

"Oh, love." Bryna rose to her feet to rock Morgana against her. "My little girl."

"I won't be little much longer."

They laughed together as they broke apart. "I'm happy for you. And sad."

"I know. I want the child. Believe me, no child has ever been wanted so much. Not only because it's all I might ever have of the father, but for itself."

"And you feel?"

"Odd," Morgana said. "Strong one moment, terrifyingly fragile the next. Not ill, but sometimes light-headed."

Understanding, Bryna nodded. "And you say the father is a good man."

"Yes, he's a good man."

"Then, when you told him, he was just surprised, unprepared…" She noted the way Morgana glanced away. "Morgana, even when you were a child you would stare past my shoulder when you were preparing to evade."

Wincing at the tone, Morgana met her mother's eyes again. "I didn't tell him. Don't," she pleaded before Bryna could launch into a lecture. "I had intended to, but it all fell apart. I know it was wrong not to tell him, but it was just as wrong to hold him to me by the telling. I made a choice."

"The wrong choice."

Morgana's chin angled as her mother's had. "My choice, right or wrong. I won't ask you to approve, but I will ask you to respect. And I'll also ask you not to tell anyone else just yet. Including Father."

"Including Father what?" Matthew demanded as he strode into the room, the wolf that was Pan's sire close at his heels.

"Girl talk," Morgana said smoothly and moved over to kiss his cheeks. "Hello, handsome."

He tweaked her nose. "I know when my women are keeping secrets."

"No peeking," Morgana said, knowing Matthew was nearly as skilled at reading thoughts as Sebastian. "Now, where's everyone else?"

He wasn't satisfied, but he was patient. If she didn't tell him soon, he would look for himself. He was, after all, her father.

"Douglas and Maureen are in the kitchen, arguing over who's fixing what for lunch. Camilla's rousting Padrick at gin." Matthew grinned, wickedly. "And he's not taking it well. Accused her of charming the cards."

Bryna managed a smile of her own. "And did she?"

"Of course." Matthew stroked the wolfs silver fur. "Your sister's a born cheat."

Bryna sent him a mild look. "Your brother's a poor loser."

Morgana laughed and linked arms with them both. "And how the six of you managed to live in this place together and not be struck by lightning is a mystery to me. Let's go down and make some more trouble."

There was nothing like a group meal with the Donovans to lift her mood. And a mood lift was precisely what Morgana needed. Watching with affection the squabbling, the interplay between siblings and spouses, was better than front-row seats at a three-ring circus.

She was well aware that they didn't always get along. Just as she was aware that, whatever the friction, they would merge together like sun and light in the face of a family crisis.

She didn't intend to be a crisis. She only wanted to spend some time being with them.

They might have been two sets of triplets, but there was little physical resemblance between the siblings. Her father was tall and lean, with a shock of steel-gray hair and a dignified bearing. Padrick, Anastasia's father, stood no higher than Morgana, with the husky build of a boxer and the heart of a prankster. Douglas was nearly six-four, with a receding hairline that swept back dramatically into a widow's peak. Eccentricity was his hobby. At the moment, he was sporting a magnifying glass around his neck that he peered through when the whim took him.

He'd only removed his deerstalker hat and cape because his wife, Camilla, had refused to eat with him otherwise.

Camilla, often thought of as the baby of the brood, was pretty and plump as a pigeon, and she had a will of iron. She matched her husband's eccentricities with her own. This morning, she was trying out a new hairstyle of blazing orange curls that corkscrewed around her head. A long eagle feather dangled from one ear.

Maureen, as skilled a medium as Morgana had ever known, was tall and stately and had an infectious, bawdy laugh that could rattle the rafters.

Together with Morgana's serene mother and dignified father, they made a motley crew. Witches all. As she listened to them bicker around her, Morgana was nearly swamped with love.

"Your cat's been climbing the curtains in my room again," Camilla told Maureen with a wave of her fork.

"Pooh." Maureen shrugged her sturdy shoulders. "Just hunting mice, that's all."

Camilla's massive curls jiggled. "You know very well there's not a mouse in this house. Douglas cast them out."

"And did a half-baked job," Matthew muttered.

"Half-baked." Camilla huffed in her husband's defense. "The only thing half-baked is this pie."

"Aye, and Doug made that, as well," Padrick interjected and grinned. "But I like my apples crunchy."

"It's a new recipe." Douglas peered owlishly through his magnifying glass. "Healthy."

"The cat," Camilla insisted, knowing very well she'd lose control of the conversation.

"Cat's healthy as a horse," Padrick said cheerfully. "Isn't that right, lamb chop?" He sent his wife a lusty wink. Maureen responded with an equally lusty giggle.

"I don't give a tinker's damn about the cat's health," Camilla began.

"Oh, now, now…" Douglas patted her chubby hand. "We don't want a sick cat around, do we? Reenie will brew him up a nice remedy."

"The cat's not sick," Camilla said in a strangled voice. "Douglas, for heaven's sake, keep up."

"Keep up with what?" he demanded, indignant. "If the cat's not sick, what in Finn's name is the problem? Morgana, lass, you're not eating your pie."

She was too busy grinning. "It's wonderful, Douglas. I'm saving it." She sprang up, dancing around the table to smack kisses on every cheek. "I love you, all of you."

"Morgana," Bryna called as her daughter spun out of the room. "Where are you going?"

"For a walk on the beach. For a long, long walk on the beach."

Douglas scowled through his glass. "Girl's acting odd," he pronounced. Since the meal was nearly over, he plucked up his hat and dropped it on his head. "Don't you think?"

Nash was feeling odd. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he hadn't slept in two days. Traveling steadily for approximately twenty hours in planes, trains, cabs and shuttle buses might have contributed to the dazed, dreamlike state he was currently enjoying. Still, he'd managed to get from the West Coast to the East, to catch another plane in New York and snatch a little twilight sleep crossing the Atlantic. Then there'd been the train south from Dublin and a frantic search for a car he could buy, rent or steal to carry him the last jarring miles from Waterford to Castle Donovan.

He knew it was important to stay on the right side of the road. Or rather the wrong side. He wondered why the devil it should matter, when the rutted, ditch-lined dirt track he was currently bouncing along couldn't remotely be considered a road of any kind.

And the car, which he'd managed to procure for the equivalent of twelve hundred American dollars—nobody could say the Irish weren't shrewd bargainers—was threatening to break apart on him at every bump. He'd already lost the poor excuse for a muffler, and was making enough noise to wake the sleeping dead.

It wasn't that the land didn't have style and grace, with its towering cliffs and its lush green fields. It was that he was afraid he'd end up staggering up the final hill with nothing but a steering wheel in his hands.

Those were the Knock mealdown Mountains to the west. He knew because the same slippery horse trader who'd sold him the car had been expansive enough to offer directions. The mountains to the west, St. George's Channel to the east, and you'll trip right over the Donovans before teatime.

Nash was beginning to believe he'd find himself buried in a peat bog before teatime.

"If I live," Nash mumbled. "If I find her and I live, I'm going to kill her. Slowly," he said with relish, "so she knows I mean it." .

Then he was going to carry her off to some dark, quiet place and make love with her for a week. Then he was going to sleep for a week, wake up and start all over again.

If, he reminded himself, he lived.

The car sputtered and bucked and jolted his bones. He wondered how many of his internal organs had been shifted. Gritting his teeth, Nash cursed and cajoled and threatened the stuttering car up a rise. When his mouth fell open, he slammed on the brakes. The act managed to slow his descent. As he slid down the hill, he didn't notice the smell of rubber burning, or see the smoke beginning to pour out of the hood.

His eyes were all for the castle.

He hadn't really expected a castle, despite the name. But this was the real McCoy, perched high on the cliffs, facing the arrogant sea. Gray stone glittered in the sun, with flashing chips of quartz and mica. Towers lanced into the pearly sky. From the topmost, a white flag flew. Nash saw with awe and amazement that it was a pentagram.

He blinked his eyes, but the structure remained, as fanciful as something from one of his movies. If a mounted knight had burst across the drawbridge—by God, there was a drawbridge—Nash wouldn't have turned a hair.

He started to laugh, as delighted as he had been stunned. Recklessly, he punched the gas, and when the steering locked, drove straight into a ditch.

Calling up every oath he knew, Nash climbed out of what was left of the car. Then he kicked it and watched the rusted fender clatter off.

He squinted against the sun and judged that he was about to add a good three-mile hike to his travel arrangements. Resigned, he snagged his duffel bag out of the rear seat and started to walk.

When he saw the white horse gallop across the bridge, he set himself to the task of deciding whether he was hallucinating or whether it was real. Though the horseman wasn't wearing armor, he was striking—lean and masculine with a waving silver mane. And Nash was not surprised to note the hawk clamped to the leather glove of his left arm.

Matthew took one look at the man staggering up the road and shook his head. "Pitiful. Aye, Ulysses, pitiful. Wouldn't even make you a decent meal." The hawk merely blinked in agreement.

At first glimpse, Matthew saw a disheveled, unshaven, bleary-eyed man with a knot forming on his forehead and a line of blood trickling down his temple.

Since he'd seen the fool drive into the ditch, he felt honor-bound to set him right again. He pulled up his mount and stared haughtily down at Nash.

"Lost, are you, lad?"

"No. I know just where I'm going. There." He lifted a hand and gestured.

Matthew lifted a brow. "Castle Donovan? Don't you know the place is lousy with witches?"

"Yeah. That's just why I'm going."

Matthew shifted in the saddle to reassess the man. He might be disheveled, but he wasn't a vagrant. His eyes might be bleary with fatigue, but there was a steely glint of determination behind them.

"If you'll pardon my saying so," Matthew continued, "you don't look to be in any shape to battle witches at the moment."

"Just one," Nash said between his teeth. "Just one particular witch."

"Hmm. Did you know you're bleeding?"

"Where?'' Nash lifted a hand gingerly, looked at his smeared fingers in disgust. "Figures. She probably cursed the car."

"And who might you be speaking of?"

"Morgana. Morgana Donovan." Nash wiped his fingers on his grimy jeans. "I've come a long way to get my hands on her."

"Mind your step," Matthew said mildly. "It's my daughter you're speaking of."

Tired, aching, and at the end of his tether, Nash stared back into the slate-gray eyes. Maybe he'd find himself turned into a squashed beetle, but he was taking his stand.

"My name's Kirkland, Mr. Donovan. I've come for your daughter. And that's that."

"Is it?" Amused, Matthew tilted his head. "Well, then, climb up and we'll go see about that." He sent the hawk soaring, then offered his gloved hand. "It's pleased I am to meet you, Kirk-land."

"Yeah." Nash winced as he hauled himself onto the horse. "Likewise."

The journey took less time on horseback than it would have on foot—particularly since Matthew shot off at a gallop. The moment they were across the drawbridge and into the courtyard, a tall, dark-haired woman rushed out of a doorway.

Grinding his teeth, Nash jumped down and started toward her. "You've got a lot to answer for, babe. You cut your hair. What the hell do you—" He skidded to a halt as the woman stood her ground, watching him with bemused eyes. "I thought you were… I'm sorry."

"I'm flattered," Bryna countered. With a laugh, she looked toward her husband. "Matthew, what have you brought me?"

"A young man who drove into a ditch and seems to want Morgana."

Bryna's eyes sharpened as she took another step toward Nash. "And do you? Want my daughter?"

"I… Yes, ma'am."

A smile flirted around her lips. "And did she make you unhappy?"

"Yes—No." He let out a heavy sigh. "I did that all by myself. Please, is she here?"

"Come inside." Bryna gently took his arm. "I'll fix your head, then send you to her."

"If you could just—" He broke off when he saw a huge eye peering at him from the doorway. Douglas dropped his magnifying glass and stepped out of the shadows.

"Who the devil is this?"

"A friend of Morgana's," Bryna told him, nudging Nash inside.

"Ah. The girl's acting odd," Douglas said, giving Nash a hearty clap on the back. "Let me tell you."

Morgana let the brisk, chill wind slap her face and sneak through the heavy knit of her sweater. It was so cleansing, so healing. In a few more days, she would be ready to go back and face reality again.

With a small, helpless sound, she sat on a rock. Here, alone, she could admit it. Had to admit it. She would never be healed. She would never be whole. She would go on and make a good life for herself and the child, because she was strong, because she was proud. But something would always be missing.

But she was through with tears, through with self-pity. Ireland had done that for her. She'd needed to come here, to walk this beach and remember that nothing, no matter how painful, lasts forever.

Except love.

Rising, she started back, watching the water spray on rocks. She would brew some tea, perhaps read Camilla's tarot cards or listen to one of Padrick's long, involved stories. Then she would tell them, as she should have told them all along, about the baby.

And, being her family, they would stand behind her.

How sorry she was that Nash would never experience that kind of union.

She sensed him before she saw him. But she thought her mind was playing tricks on her, teasing her because she was pretending to be so fearless. Very slowly, her pulse hammering in a hundred places, she turned.

He was coming down the beach, in long, hurried strides. The spray had showered his hair, and droplets of water were gleaming on it. His face was shadowed with a two-day beard, and there was a neat white bandage at his temple. And a look in his eyes that had her heart screaming into her throat.

In defense, she took a step back. The action stopped him cold.

She looked… The way she looked at him. Oh, her eyes were dry. There were no tears to tear up his gut. But there was a glint in them. As if—as if she was afraid of him. How much easier it would have been if she'd leapt at him, clawing and scratching and cursing.

"Morgana."

Giddy, she pressed a hand over the secret she held inside. "What happened to you? You're hurt?"

"It's…" He touched his fingers to the bandage. "Nothing. Really. I had a car fall apart on me. Your mother put something on it. On my head, I mean."

"My mother?" Her gaze flickered over his shoulder, toward the towers of the castle. "You've seen my mother?"

"And the rest of them." He managed a quick smile. "They're… something. Actually, I ditched the car a couple of miles from the castle. Literally. That's how I met your father." He knew he was babbling, but he couldn't stop. "Then they were taking me in the kitchen and pouring tea into me and… Hell, Morgana, I didn't know where you were. I should have. You told me you came to Ireland to walk the beach. I should have known. I should have known a lot of things."

She braced a hand on the rock for balance. She was deathly afraid she was about to have a new experience and faint at his feet. "You've come a long way," she said dully.

"I would have been here sooner, but—Hey." He jumped forward as she swayed. The shock came first, that she felt so frighteningly fragile in his arms.

But her arms were strong enough as she pushed at him. "Don't."

Ignoring her, Nash pulled her close and buried his face in her hair. He drew in her scent like breath. "God, Morgana, just give me a minute. Let me hold you."

She shook her head, but her arms, her treacherous arms, were already wrapping hard around him. Her moan was not of protest, but of need, when his mouth rushed to hers and took. He sank into her like a parched man into a clear, cool lake.

"Don't say anything," he murmured as he rained kisses over her face. "Don't say anything until I've told you what I have to tell you."

Remembering what he had told her before, she struggled against him. "I can't go through this again, Nash. I won't."

"No." He caught her hands by the wrists, his eyes burning into hers. "No walls this time, Morgana. On either side. Your word."

She opened her mouth to refuse, but there was something in his eyes she was powerless against. "You have it," she said briefly. "I want to sit down."

"Okay." He let her go, thinking it might be best if he wasn't touching her while he was struggling to fight his way clear of the morass he'd made of things. When she sat on the rock, folded her hands in her lap and lifted her chin, he remembered he'd given serious thought to murdering her.

"No matter how bad things were, you shouldn't have run away."

Her eyes widened and gleamed. "I?"

"Yes, you," he shot back. "Maybe I was an idiot, but that's no reason for making me suffer the way you did when you weren't there when I came to my senses."

"So, it's my fault."

"That I've been going out of my mind for the last month? Yeah, it is." He blew out a breath between his teeth. "Everything else, all the rest of it's on my head." He took a chance and touched a hand to her cheek. "I'm sorry."

She had to look away or weep. "I can't accept your apology until I know what it's for."

"I knew you'd make me crawl," he said in disgust. "Fine, then, I'm sorry for all the stupid things I said."

Her lips curved a little. "All of them?"

Out of patience now, he hauled her back to her feet. "Look at me, damn it, I want you to look at me when I tell you I love you. That I know it has nothing to do with charms or spells, that it never did. That all it has to do with is you, and me."

When she closed her eyes, he felt panic skitter up his spine. "Don't shut me out, Morgana. I know that's what I did to you. I know it was stupid. I was scared. Hell, I was terrified. Please." He cupped her face in his hands. "Open your eyes and look at me." When she did, he let out a shudder of relief. He could see it wasn't too late. "This is a first for me," he said carefully. "First I have to ask you to forgive me for the things I said. I can tell you that I didn't mean them, that I was just using them to push you way, but that's not the point. I did say them."

"I understand being afraid." She touched her hand to his wrist. "If it's forgiveness you want, you have it. There's no need to hold it back from you."

"Just like that?" He pressed his lips to her brow, her cheeks. "You don't want to maybe turn me into a flounder for three or four years?"

"Not for a first offense." She drew back, praying they could find some light and friendly plane to walk on for a little while. "You've had a long trip, and you're tired. Why don't we go back in? The wind's picking up, and it's nearly teatime."

"Morgana." He held her still. "I said I loved you. I've never said that to anyone before. Not to anyone in my life before you. It was hard the first time, but I think it might get easier as we go." She looked away again. Her mother would have recognized it as evasion. Nash saw it as dismissal. "You said you loved me."

His voice tightened, and so did his grip.

"Yes, I did." She met his eyes again. "And I do."

He gathered her close again to rest his brow on hers. "It feels good," he said in a wondering voice. "I didn't know how damn good it would feel to love someone, to have her love me back. We can go from here, Morgana. I know I'm not a prize, and I'll probably mess up. I'm not used to having someone there for me. Or for being there for someone else. But I'll give it all I've got. That's a promise."

She went very still. "What are you saying?"

He stepped back, nervous all over again, and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I'm asking you to marry me. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

He swore. "Look, I want you to marry me. I'm not doing a good job of asking. If you want to wait until I've set the stage, gotten down on one knee with a ring in my pocket, okay. It's just… I love you so much, and I didn't know I could feel this way, be this way. I want a chance to show you."

"I don't need a stage, Nash. And I wish it could be simple."

His fingers clenched. "You don't want to marry me."

"I want a life with you. Oh, yes, I want that very much. But it isn't only myself you'd be taking."

For a moment, he was baffled. Then his face cleared with a smile. "You mean your family, and the, ah, Donovan legacy. Babe, you're everything I want, and more. The fact that the woman I love is a witch just adds some interest to the situation."

Touched, she lifted a hand to his cheek. "Nash, you're perfect. Absolutely perfect for me. But it's not only that you'd be taking on." Her eyes stayed level on his. "I'm carrying your child."

His face went utterly blank. "What?"

She didn't need to repeat it. She watched as he staggered back and dropped onto the rock where she had sat earlier.

He gulped in air before he managed to speak again. "A baby? You're pregnant? You're having a child?"

Outwardly calm, she nodded. "That about sums it up." She gave him a moment to speak. When he didn't, she forced herself to go on. "You were very clear about not wanting a family, so I realize this changes things, and…"

"You knew." He had to swallow to make his voice rise above the sound of wind and sea. "That day, the last day, you knew. You'd come to tell me."

"Yes, I knew. I'd come to tell you."

On unsteady legs, he got up to walk to the verge of the water. He remembered the way she'd looked, the things he'd said. He'd remember for a long time. Was it any wonder she'd left him that way, keeping the secret inside her?

"You think I don't want the baby?"

Morgana moistened her lips. "I understand you'd have doubts. This wasn't planned by either of us." She stopped, appalled. "I didn't plan it."

Eyes fierce, he whipped back to her. "I don't often make the same mistake twice, and certainly not with you. When?"

She folded her hands over her belly. "Before Christmas. The child was conceived that first night, on the spring equinox."

"Christmas,'' he repeated. And thought of a red bike, of cookies baking, of laughter and a family that had nearly been his. A family that could be his. She was offering something he'd never had, something he'd wished for only in secret.

"You said I was free," he said carefully. "Free of you, and everything we'd made together. You meant the baby."

Her eyes darkened, and her voice was strong and beautiful. "This child is loved, is wanted. This child is not a mistake, but a gift. I would rather it be mine alone than to risk that for one instant of its life it would not feel cherished."

He wasn't sure he could speak at all, but when he did, the words came straight from the heart. "I want the baby, and you, and everything we made together."

Through a mist of tears she studied him. "Then you have only to ask."

He walked back to her, laid his hand over where hers rested. "Give me a chance" was all he said.

Her lips curved when his moved to meet them. "We've been waiting for you a long time."

"I'm going to be a father." He said it slowly, testingly, then let out a whoop and scooped her off her feet. "We made a baby."

She threw her arms around his neck and laughed. "Yes."

"We're a family."

"Yes."

He kissed her long and hard before he began to walk. "If we do a good job with the first, we can have more, right?"

"Absolutely. Where are we going?"

"I'm taking you back and putting you to bed. With me."

"Sounds like a delightful idea, but you don't have to carry me."

"Every bloody step. You're having a baby. My baby. I can see it. Interior scene, day. A sunny room with pale blue walls."

"Yellow."

"Okay. With bright yellow walls. Under the window stands a gleaming antique crib, with one of those funny mobiles hanging over it. There's a sound of gurgling, and a tiny, pudgy hand lifts up to grab at one of the circling…" He stopped, his face whipping around to Morgana's. "Oh, boy."

"What? What is it?"

"It just hit me. What are the chances? I mean how likely is it that the baby will, you know, inherit your talent?"

Smiling, she curled a lock of his hair around her finger. "You mean, what are the chances of the baby being a witch? Very high. The Donovan genes are very strong." Chuckling, she nuzzled his neck. "But I bet she has your eyes."

"Yeah." He took another step and found himself grinning. "I bet she does."