EING alone was something Jordan did very well, under most circumstances. When he was working, thinking about working, thinking about not working, he liked to fold himself into the isolation of his SoHo loft:

Then, the life, the noise, the movement and color on the street outside his windows were a kind of film he could watch or ignore depending on his mood.

He liked seeing it all through the glass, more, very often more, than he liked being a part of it.

New York had saved him, in a very real way. It had forced him to survive, to become, to live like a man—not someone’s son, someone’s friend, another student, but a man who had only himself to rely on. It had pushed and prodded him with its impatient and sharp fingers, reminding him on a daily basis during that jittery first year that it didn’t really give a goddamn whether he sank or swam.

He’d learned to swim.

He’d learned to appreciate the noise, the action, the press of humanity.

He liked its selfishness and its generosity and its propensity for flipping the bird to the rest of the world.

And the more he’d learned, the more he’d observed and adjusted, the more he’d realized that at the core he was just a small-town boy.

He would forever be grateful to New York.

When work was upon him, he could drop into that world. Not the one outside his window, but the one inside his own head. Then it wasn’t like a film at all, but more like life than life itself for however many hours it gripped him.

He’d learned the difference between those worlds, had come to appreciate the subtleties and scopes of them in a way he knew he might never have done if he hadn’t stripped away the safety nets of the.old and thrown himself headlong into the new.

Writing had never become routine for him, but remained a constant surprise. He was always surprised at how much fun it was, once it all got moving. And never failed to be surprised at how bloody hard it was. It was tike having an intense, frustrating love affair with a capricious, gorgeous, and often mean-spirited woman.

He loved every moment of it.

Writing had carried him through the worst of his grief when he’d lost his mother. It had given him direction, purpose, and enough aggravation to pull himself out of the mire.

It had given him joy and bitterness, and great personal satisfaction. Beyond that, it had provided him with a kind of financial security he’d never known or really expected to know.

Anyone who said money didn’t matter had never had to count the coins that fell between the cushions of the couch.

He was alone now, with the afterburn of Dana’s words still singeing the air. He couldn’t enjoy the solitude, couldn’t fold himself into it or into his work.

A man was never so lonely, he thought, as when he was surrounded by the past.

There was no point in going out for a walk. Too many people who knew him would stop and speak, have questions, make comments. He couldn’t lose himself in the Valley as he could in New York.

Which was one of the reasons he’d bolted when and how he had. And one of the reasons he’d come back.

So, he would go for a drive, get away from, the echoes still bouncing off the walls.!!!I loved you.

Jesus! Jesus, how could he not have known? Had he been that clueless—or had she been that self-contained?

He walked out and climbed into his Thunderbird, gunned the engine. He felt like speed. A long, fast ride to no particular destination.

He punched in the CD player, cranked it up. He didn’t care what pumped out, as long as it was loud. Clapton’s blistering guitar rode with him out of town.

He had known he’d hurt Dana all those years ago. But he’d assumed the nip had been to her ego, exactly where he thought he’d aimed; He’d known he pissed her off—she made that crystal-clear—but he assumed that was pride.

If he had known she loved him, he’d have found a way to break things off more gently.

Wouldn’t he?

Christ, he hoped so. They’d been friends. Even when they had been consumed with and by each other, they’d been friends. He would never deliberately wound a friend. He’d been no good for her, that’s what it came down to. He’d been no good for anybody at that time in his life. She was better off that he had ended it.

He headed for the mountains and began the steep, twisty climb.

But she’d loved him. There was little to nothing he could do about that now. He wasn’t at all sure there was anything he could have done at the time. He wasn’t ready for the Big Love then. He wouldn’t have known how to define it, what to think about it.

Hell, he hadn’t been able to think at all when it came to Dana. After one look at her when he’d come home from college, every single thought of her had shot straight to his glands.

It had terrified him.

He could smile over that now. His initial shock at his own reaction to her, his overwhelming guilt that he was fantasizing about the sister of his closest friend.

He’d been horrified, and fascinated, and ultimately obsessed.

Tall, curvy, sharp-tongued Dana Steele, with her big, full bodied laugh, her questing mind, her punch-first temper.

Everything about her had pulled at him.

Damn if it still didn’t.

When he’d seen her again on this trip back, when she yanked open the door of Flynn’s house and stood there snarling at him, the sheer want for her had blown straight through him.

Just as her sheer dislike for him had all but taken off his head.

If they could work their way around to being friends again, to finding that connection, that affection that had always been between them, maybe they could work their way forward to something more.

To what, he couldn’t say. But he wanted Dana back in his life.

And, there was no point in denying it, he wanted her back in his bed.

They’d made progress toward friendship during that shopping stint. They’d been easy with each other for a while, as if the years between hadn’t happened.

But, of course, they had. And as soon as he and Dana had remembered those years, the progress had taken an abrupt turn and stomped away in a huff.

So now he had a mission, Jordan decided. He had to find a way to win her back. Friend and lover—in whatever order suited them both best.

The search for the key had, among other things, given him an opening. He intended to use it.

When he realized that he’d driven to Warrior’s Peak, he stopped, pulled to the side of the road.

He remembered climbing that high stone wall as a teenager with Brad and Flynn. They had camped in the woods, with a hijacked six-pack that none of them was old enough to drink.

The Peak was untenanted then, a big, fanciful, spooky place. The perfect place to fascinate a trio of boys with a couple of beers in them.

A high, full moon, he recalled as he climbed out of the car. A black-glass sky and just enough wind, just a hint of wind, to stir the leaves and whisper.

He could see it all now, as clearly as he’d seen it then. Maybe more clearly, he thought, amused at himself. He was older, and stone-cold sober, and he had—admittedly— added a few flourishes to the memory.

He liked to think of the scene with a layer of fog drifting over the ground, and a moon so round and white it looked carved into the glass of the sky. Stars sharp as the points of darts. The low, haunting call of an owl, and the rustle of night prey in the high grass. In the distance, with an echo that rolled through the night, the baying of a dog.

He’d added those beats when he used that house and that night in his first major book.

But for PHANTOM WATCH there’d been one element of that night he hadn’t had to imagine. Because it had happened. Because he’d seen it.

Even now, as a man past thirty with none of the naïveté of the boy left in him, he believed it.

She’d walked along the parapet, under the hard, white moon, sliding in and out of shadows like a ghost, with her hair flying, her cape—surely it had been a cape—billowing.

She’d owned the night. He’d thought that then and he thought it now. She had been the night.

She’d looked at him, Jordan remembered as he wandered to the iron gates, as he stared through them at the great stone house on the rise. He hadn’t been able to see her face, but he’d known she looked down, straight into his eyes.

He’d felt the punch of it, the power, like a blow meant to awaken rather than to harm.

His mind had sizzled from it, and nothing—not the beer, not his youth, not even the shock—had been able to dull the thrill.

She’d looked at him, Jordan remembered again as he scanned the parapet. And she’d known him.

Flynn and Brad hadn’t seen her. By the time his mind had clicked back into gear and he shouted them over, she was gone.

It had spooked them, of course. Deliciously. The way sightings of ghosts and fanciful creatures are meant to.

Though years later, when he wrote of her, he made her a ghost, he’d known then—he knew now—that she was as alive as he.

“Whoever you were,” he murmured, “you helped me make my mark. So, thanks.”

He stood there, hands in his pockets, peering through the bars. The house was part of his past, and oddly, he’d considered making it part of his future. He’d been toying with calling to see if it was available just days before Flynn had contacted him about the portrait of the young Arthur of Britain. He’d bought that painting on impulse five years ago at the gallery where Malory used to work, though he hadn’t met her then. Not only had it been a major element of Malory’s quest, but they’d discovered the painting, along with THE DAUGHTERS OF GLASS and one Brad had bought separately had all been painted by Rowena, Jordan thought, centuries ago.

New York, his present, had served its purpose for him. He’d been ready for a change. Ready to come home. Then Flynn had made it so very easy.

It gave him the opportunity to come back, test the waters, and his feelings. He’d known, this time he’d known, as soon as he saw the majestic run of the Appalachians, that he wanted them back.

This time—surprise—he was back to stay:

He wanted those hills. The riot of them in fall, the lush green of them in summer. He wanted to stand and see them frozen in white, so still and regal, or hazed with the tender touch of spring.

He wanted the Valley, with its tidy streets and tourists. The familiarity of faces that had known him since his youth, the smell of backyard barbecues and the snippets of local gossip.

He wanted his friends, the comfort and the joy of them. Pizza out of the box, a beer on the porch, old jokes that no one laughed at the same way a childhood friend did.

And he still wanted that damn house, Jordan realized with a slow, dawning smile. He wanted it now every bit as much as he had when he was a sixteen-year-old dreamer with whole worlds yet to be explored.

So, he would bide his time there—he was cagier than he’d been at sixteen. And he would find out what Rowena and Pitte planned to do with the place when they moved on.

To wherever they moved on.

So, maybe the house was both his past and his future.

He ran bits of Rowena’s clue through his head. He was part of Dana’s past, and like it or not, he was part of her present. Very probably he would be part—one way or another—of her future.

So what did he, and the Peak, have to do with her quest for the key?

And wasn’t it incredibly self-serving to assume that he had anything to do with it.

“Maybe,” he said quietly to himself. “But right at the moment, I don’t see a damn thing wrong with that.”

With one last look at the house, he turned and walked back to his ear. He would go back to Flynn’s and spend some time thinking it through, working out the angles.

Then he would present them to Dana, whether she wanted to hear them or not.

BRADLEY Vane had some plans and plots of his own. Zoe was a puzzlement to him. Prickly and argumentative one minute, scrupulously polite the next. He would knock, and the door to her would crack open. He could detect glimmers of humor and sweetness, then the door would slam shut in his face with a blast of cold air.

He’d never had a woman take an aversion to him on sight. It was especially galling that the first one who did happened to be the one he was so outrageously attracted to.

He hadn’t been able to get her face out of his mind for three years, since he’d first seen AFTER THE SPELL, the painting he’d bought—the second one Rowena had painted of the DAUGHTERS OF GLASS.

Zoe’s face on the goddess who slept, three thousand years, in a coffin of glass.

However ridiculous it was, Brad had fallen in love at first sight with the woman in the portrait.

The woman in reality was a much tougher nut.

But Vanes were known for their tenacity. And their determination to win.

If she’d come into the store that afternoon, he could and would have rearranged his schedule and taken her through. It would’ve given him the opportunity to spend some time with her, while keeping it all practical and friendly.

Of course, you’d think that when her car broke down and he happened by and offered her a lift, that interlude would have been practical and friendly.

Instead she’d gotten her back up because he pointed out the flaws in her plan to try to fix the car while wearing a dinner dress, and he, understandably, had refused to mess with the engine himself.

He’d offered to call a mechanic for her, hadn’t he? Brad thought, getting riled up again at the memory. He’d stood there debating with her for ten minutes, thus ensuring that whatever she did they would both be late to the Peak.

And when she grudgingly accepted the ride finally, she spent every minute of it in an ice-cold funk.

He was absolutely crazy about her.

“Sick,” he muttered as he turned the corner to her street. “You’re a sick man, Vane.”

Her little house sat tidily back from the road on a neat stamp of lawn. She’d planted fall flowers along the sunny left side. The house itself was a cheerful yellow with bright white trim. A boy’s red bike lay on its side in the front yard, reminding him that she had a son he’d yet to catch sight of.

Brad pulled his new Mercedes behind her decade-old hatchback.

He walked back to the cargo area and hauled out the gift he hoped would turn the tide in his favor.

He carted it to the front door, then caught himself running a nervous hand through his hair.

Women never made him nervous.

Annoyed with himself, he knocked briskly.

It was the boy who opened it, and for the second time in his life, Brad found himself dazzled by a face. He looked like his mother—dark hair, tawny eyes, pretty, pointed features. The dark hair was mussed, the eyes cool with suspicion, but neither detracted a whit from the exotic good looks.

Brad had enough young cousins, assorted nieces and nephews, to be able to peg the kid at around eight or nine. Give him another ten years, Brad thought, and this one would have to beat the coeds off with a stick.

“Simon, right?” Brad offered an I’m-harmless-you-can-trust-me grin. “I’m Brad Vane, a friend of your mom’s.” Sort of. “She around?”

“Yeah, she’s around.” Though the boy gave Brad a very quick up-and-down glance, Brad had the certain sensation he’d been studied carefully and thoroughly, and the jury was still out. “You gotta wait out there, ’cause I’m not allowed to let anybody in if I don’t know who they are.”

“No problem.”

The door shut in his face. Like mother, like son, Brad thought, then heard the boy shout.

“Mom! There’s this guy at the door. He looks like a lawyer or something.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Brad mumbled and cast his eyes to heaven.

Moments later the door opened again. Zoe’s expression changed from puzzlement to surprise to mild irritation in three distinct stages.

“Oh. It’s you. Um… is there something I can do for you?”

You could let me nibble my way up your neck to the back of your ear for a start, Brad thought, but kept his easy smile in place. “Dana was in the store this afternoon, picking up some supplies.”

“Yes. I know.” She tucked a dishcloth in the waistband of her jeans, let the tail hang down her hip. “Did she forget something?”

“Not exactly. I just thought you might be able to use this.” He lifted the gift he’d leaned against the side of the house, then had the pleasure of seeing her blink in surprise an instant before she laughed.

Really laughed. He loved the sound of it, the way it danced over her face, into her eyes.

“You brought me a stepladder?”

“An essential tool for any home or business improvement project.”

“Yes, it is. I have one.” Obviously realizing how ungracious that sounded, she flushed and hurried on. “But it’s… old. And we can certainly use another. It was really thoughtful of you.”

“We of HomeMakers appreciate your business. Where would you like me to put this?”

“Oh, well.” She glanced behind her, then seemed to sigh. “Why don’t you just bring it in here? I’ll figure that out later.” She stepped back, bumped into the boy who was hovering at her back.

“Simon, this is Mr. Vane. He’s an old friend of Flynn’s.”

“He said he was a friend of yours.”

“Working on that.” Brad carried the stepladder into the house. “Hi, Simon. How’s it going?”

“It’s going okay. How come you’re wearing a suit if you’re carrying ladders around?”

“Simon.”

“Good question.” Brad ignored Zoe and concentrated on the boy. “I had a couple of meetings earlier today. Suits are more intimidating.”

“Wearing them sucks. Mom made me wear one to Aunt Joleen’s wedding last year. With a tie. Bogus.”

“Thanks for that fashion report.” Zoe hooked an arm around Simon’s throat and made him grin.

Then they both grinned, at each other, and Brad’s eyes were dazzled.

“Homework?”

“Done. Video game time.”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Forty-five.”

“Thirty.”

“Sweet!” He wriggled free, then bolted across the room to the TV.

Now that her hands were no longer full of boy, Zoe didn’t know what to do with them. She laid one on the ladder. “It’s a really nice stepladder. The fiberglass ones are so light and easy to work with.”

“Quality with value—HomeMakers’ bywords.”

The sounds of a ballpark abruptly filled the tiny living room behind her. “It’s his favorite,” Zoe managed. “He’d rather play baseball—virtual or in real life—than breathe.” She cleared her throat, wondered what the hell she was supposed to do next. “Ah… can I get you something to drink?”

“Sure, Whatever’s handy.”

“Okay.” Damn it. “Just, um, have a seat. I’ll be back in a minute.”

What to do with Bradley Vane? she asked herself as she hurried back to the kitchen. In her house. Plunked down in his expensive shoes in her living room. An hour before dinner.

She stopped herself, pressed her hands to her eyes. It was okay, it was perfectly all right. He’d done something very considerate, and she would reciprocate by bringing him something to drink, having a few minutes of conversation.

She never knew what she was supposed to say to him. She didn’t understand men like him. The kind of man who came from serious money. Who’d done things and had things and gone places to get more.

And he made her so stupidly nervous and defensive.

Should she take him a glass of wine? No, no, he was driving, and she didn’t have any really good wine anyway. Coffee? Tea?

Christ.

At her wits’ end, she opened the refrigerator. She had juice, she had milk.!!!Here, Bradley Charles Vane IV, of the really rich and important Pennsylvania Vanes, have a nice glass of cow juice, then be on your way.

She blew out a breath, then dug a bottle of ginger ale out of a cupboard. She took out her nicest glass, checked for water spots, then filled it with ice. She added the ginger ale, careful to keep it a safe half inch below the rim.

She tugged at the hem of the sweatshirt she’d tossed on over jeans, looked down resignedly at the thick gray socks she wore in lieu of shoes, and hoped she didn’t smell of the brass cleaner she’d been using to attack the tarnish on an umbrella stand she’d picked up at the flea market.

Suit or no suit, she thought as she squared her shoulders, she wouldn’t be intimidated in her own home. She would take him his drink, speak politely, hopefully briefly, then show him out.

No doubt he had more exciting things to do than sit in her living room drinking ginger ale and watching a nine-year-old play video baseball.

She carried the glass down the hall, then stopped and stared.

Bradley Charles Vane IV wasn’t watching Simon play. He was, to her amazement, sitting on the floor in his gorgeous suit, playing with her son.

“Two strikes, baby. You are doomed.” With a cackle, Simon wiggled his butt and prepared for the next pitch.

“Dream on, kid. See my man on third? He’s about to score.”

She stepped farther into the room, but neither of them noticed her as the ball whistled toward the plate and the bat cracked against virtual cowhide.

“He’s got it, he’s got it, he’s got it,” Simon said in a kind of whispered chant. “Yeah, yeah, shagged that sucker.”

“And the runner tags,” Brad said. “Watch him fly, heading for home. Here comes the throw… and he slides, and…”

Safe! the home base ump decreed.

“Oh, yeah.” Brad gave Simon a quick elbow nudge. “One to zip, pal.”

“Not bad. For an old guy.” Simon chuckled. “Now prepare to be humiliated.”

“Excuse me. I brought you some ginger ale.”

“Time out.“ Brad twisted around to smile up at her. ”Thanks. Do you mind if we play out the inning?“

“No. Of course not.” She set the glass on the coffee table, and wondered what she should do now. “I’ll just be back in the kitchen. I need to start dinner.”

When his eyes stayed so direct and easy on hers, she heard-—with some horror—the words tumbling out of her mouth. “You’re welcome to stay. It’s just chicken.”

“That’d be great.”

He swiveled back around to resume the game.

Mental note, Brad thought: Forget the roses and champagne. Home improvement supplies are the key to this particular lady’s lock.

WHILE Zoe was standing in her kitchen wondering how the hell she was going to turn her humble chicken into something worthy of a more sophisticated palate, Dana was soothing her ego with takeout pizza.

She hadn’t meant to tell him. Ever. Why give him one more thing to smirk at her about?

But he hadn’t smirked, she admitted, washing down the pizza with cold beer. In fact, he’d looked as though she’d put a bullet dead center of his forehead.

Neither could she claim he’d looked pleased or puffed up about the knowledge that she’d been in love with him.

The fact of it was, he’d looked shocked, then sorry.

Oh, God, maybe that was worse.

She sulked over the pizza. Though she had her evening book open on the table beside her, she hadn’t read a single word. She was just going to have to deal with this, she told herself.

She couldn’t afford to obsess about Jordan. Not only because she had other things that should occupy her time and her thoughts, but it just wasn’t healthy.

Since it was clear he was going to hang around for several weeks, and there was no avoiding him unless she avoided Flynn and Brad, they would be seeing each other regularly.

And if she accepted all that had happened in the last month, all she’d learned, she was going to have to accept that Jordan had been meant to come back. He was a part of it all.

And damn it, he could be useful.

He had a good brain, one that picked up on and filed away details.

It was one of the skills that made him such a strong writer. Oh, she hated to admit that one. She hoped her tongue would fall out before she spoke those words to him.

But he had such talent.

He’d chosen that talent over her, and that still hurt. But if he could help her find the key, she would have to put that hurt away. At least temporarily.

She could always kick his ass later.

Mollified, she ate some more pizza. Tomorrow she would get a fresh start. She had the whole day, the whole week, the whole month to do whatever she felt needed to be done. There’d be no need to set the alarm, dress for work.

She could spend the whole day in her pajamas if she wanted to, digging into her research, outlining a plan, surfing the Net for more data.

She would contact Zoe and Malory and set up another summit meeting. They worked well together.

Maybe they’d start to work on the building. Physical labor could spark mental acuity.

The first key had been hidden, in a manner of speaking, in the building they were buying. Of course, Malory had had to paint the key into existence before she could retrieve it from the painting.

Maybe the second, or at least the link to the second, was in the house as well.

In any case, it was a plan. Something solid to get her teeth into.

She shoved the pizza aside and rose to phone Malory first. With plans to meet for a full day’s painting set, she phoned Zoe.

“Hey. It’s Dana. Just got off the phone with Mal. We’re going to start the great transformation at the house tomorrow. Nine o’clock. Malory voted for eight, but there’s no way in hell I’m getting up that early when I’m not drawing an actual paycheck.”

“Nine’s fine. Dana.” Her voice dropped to a hissing whisper. “Bradley’s here.”

“Oh. Okay, I’ll let you go, then. See—”

“No, no. What am I supposed to do with him?”

“Gee, Zoe, I don’t know. What do you want to do with him?”

“Nothing.” Her voice went up a notch before lowering again. “I don’t know how this happened. He’s out in the living room playing video baseball with Simon, in a suit.”

“Simon’s wearing a suit?” Dana tucked her tongue in her cheek. “Boy, things’re pretty formal at your house.”

“Stop it.” But she laughed a little. “He’s wearing a suit. Bradley. He came to the door with a stepladder, and before I knew—”

“With a what? What for? To clean out your gutters? That was not a euphemism, by the way. But, come to think of it, it’d be a pretty good one.”

“He gave it—the stepladder—to me—to us—” she corrected quickly. “For the painting and stuff. He thought we could use it.”

“That was nice of him. He’s a nice guy.”

“That’s not the point! What am I supposed to do with this chicken?”

“Brad brought you a chicken?”

“No.” There was helpless, hooting laughter over the line. “Why would anyone bring me a chicken?”

“I was just wondering the same thing.”

“I have chicken breasts defrosted, for dinner. What am I going to do with them now?”

“I’d try cooking them. Jeez, Zoe, relax. It’s just Brad. Throw the chicken in a pan, rustle up some rice or potatoes, whatever, add something green and toss it on a plate. He’s not fussy.”

“Don’t tell me he’s not fussy.” She went back to the hissing whisper. “We don’t do cordon bleu in this house. I don’t even know for sure what cordon bleu means. He’s wearing an Audemars Piguet. Do you think I don’t know what an Audemars Piguet is?”

It was fascinating, really, Dana decided, to realize her old friend Brad turned a sensible woman like Zoe into a raving lunatic. “Okay, I’ll bite. What is an Audemars Piguet and is it really sexy?”

“It’s a watch. A watch that costs more than my house. Or damn near. Never mind.” There was a long, long sigh. “I’m making myself crazy, and it’s just stupid.”

“I can’t argue with you about that.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Shaking her head, Dana hung up. Now she had one more thing to look forward to in the morning. And that was hearing all about how Zoe and Brad handled a chicken dinner.

But for now, she was switching gears. She was going to try out her tub book and a long, hot, soaking bath.