She’d grown to love this nondescript little valley, this camouflaged altar. She didn’t want to leave. Danny James had left her no choice.
‘I’d like to hear your side of the story,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I’ll get your aunt’s.’
Dee turned to face him and realized he was too close. So she stepped away from his touch, where she could have enough space to better appraise him. He looked so open. So true. Was he that clever, or was he so honorable he hadn’t been able to see what Xan was? Those were the men she specialized in, after all.
‘What’s in it for you?’ she asked.
He watched her for a minute. ‘It’s my job.’
‘No it’s not. At least not only that. I can hear it in your voice. Why are you and Mr Delaney making such a bizarre left-handed turn into non-fiction?’
‘Because too many people have suffered from a belief in what isn’t true.’
Dee didn’t bother facing him. ‘Many people say the same about religion.’
‘There are truths in religion. Not in this.’
Dee shook her head. ‘This is personal, isn’t it?’
He spent a moment looking out over the valley. The wind ruffled his hair, and the tree whispered above them. ‘I’ve seen the damage quacks can do,’ he finally said.
It was as if a light had flicked off in him. Dee saw the shadows settle and wondered.
‘Can you tell me?’
He looked up, his eyes glowing oddly in the dusk. ‘Oh, I knew someone once. Lost her husband and son in a plane crash.’
Dee sighed. ‘Fell prey to people telling her they could contact her loved ones?’
He didn’t even nod. ‘It wasn’t even the money she lost that was the worst. It was the waste of her life.’
‘Yeah,’ Dee said. ‘There are con artists out there. No question about it.’
‘But were your parents?’
For a long moment, Dee just looked at him. Weighed the ramifications of her words. Of the book that Mark Delaney was going to do, with or without her help. Did she reinforce Danny James’s prejudice or discount it? It shouldn’t matter. She’d be gone soon.
‘Is there really a book?’
He looked affronted. ‘Of course there’s a book.’ She nodded. ‘They truly believed that they helped people.’
‘Did they? Help?’
‘A lot of people said so.’ People who sent in money for readings. Money that had gone into houses and cars, and all that gaudy jewelry that had kept the Fortune sisters afloat for these twelve years.
Until those terrible final days when everything had fallen apart. Dee could still see her parents standing there like stunned cattle waiting for the worst, the television cameras that had loved them for so long turning on them, Xan already safely away. She saw them again on that awful morning when she’d stumbled over them, empty husks sprawled on the floor.
‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Did they ever help you?’
She almost laughed. It was a question no one else had ever thought to ask. ‘You can’t think I’d discuss that with you, knowing you’re going to be talking to my aunt.’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘That was out of line. I’m sorry.’
She could hear him approaching. She didn’t move. She had a feeling she knew what he intended. Hell, she hoped she knew. Her heart had picked up speed again. She ached, knowing this man was the last person from whom she should seek comfort. Why not? she thought, bracing herself for his first touch. Why not enjoy him, just for this little while? God knew he felt good enough. That curious lightning was sparking between them again, skittering all the way down to Dee’s toes and causing them to curl. There were parts of her body that should have glowed in the dark. Surely she could accept this one gift before leaving?
Turning her in his arms, he smiled down at her. ‘I’m glad I met you, though.’
Dee thought his hand might have been shaking a bit as he brushed a loose curl from her forehead. His body radiated warmth, strength. Security. Dee couldn’t think of a thing she craved more.
She rested her hands on his chest. ‘Me, too.’
She could do this. She could enjoy this man. She wanted to. She wanted to seduce him. She wanted him to seduce her.
But always Xan lived in her head. You don’t have the control, Deirdre. You never will. Without me, you’re a failure. Without my guidance, there will be disaster.
Danny bent his head to her. Dee fought down the instinctive panic and lifted her face to meet him. She could control herself. She did it every morning when she shifted for her painting. She kept from doing it at the bank when she became so frustrated she could chew glass. She could do it now.
He held her face in his calloused hands. Her knees had grown wobbly, until he was all but holding her up, and he hadn’t even kissed her yet.
He did. Oh, he did. For a blissful eternity, Dee basked in the unfettered delight of it. He nibbled, he courted, he seduced. He unleashed the kind of fire that shattered cells. He urged her mouth open and slipped inside.
There went her knees again. She was glowing, her breasts pebbled and aching. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted him to lay her down in her stone circle and not let her up until someone else was crowned Oldest Virgin in North America.
She was doing so well. Open-eyed and participating, pulling his shirt free so she could search out those taut muscles with her fingers. So she could explore the delicious terrain she’d seen from the top of a chifforobe. The feel of him was mesmerizing, the smell of him delectable. She could almost hear the racing thoughts in his head as he fumbled with the buttons Mare had tried to loosen no more than an hour earlier.
Yes, Dee thought, arching toward him, never breaking the kiss. Please. Just this once.
Her body felt incandescent. Chills chased down her spine and sapped her strength. Her heart battered at her rib cage, and she was pressing against him as if she could climb inside. She felt explosions of light in her very cells.
There will be disaster.
Danny slid his hand inside her blouse and cupped her breast. Dee gasped, lurching against him, struck by a bolt of pure lust from just the brush of his fingers. Dear God, what would happen when the rest of him was involved?
She might have made it. Might truly have thrown caution to the wind and consecrated her hill with a bout of lovemaking that would have gone down in the annals of lost virginity. But just as Danny bent to lay a kiss on her throat, suddenly in her mind Dee saw the face of a woman. Gray-haired and sad, with Danny James’s eyes.
Dee shoved so hard Danny almost fell down the cliff.
‘What the hell…’
‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped, desperately fumbling with her buttons before her body could betray her. I… oh, I’m just sorry.’
Xan had been right. She was about to fail all over again. And she found that no matter what she’d thought, she just couldn’t bear what she would see on Danny’s face when it happened. So she ran. She ran all the way down the mountain and into the house where men weren’t allowed, and she hid beneath the black duvet in her room.
‘The cat has to go,’ Elric said, and Lizzie opened the door to shoo Py out, only to come face-to-face with Mare, home from work. She could feel the color drain from her face, but Mare didn’t even blink.
‘Hello,’ Mare said to Elric. ‘I was looking for Py.’