Nora Roberts - Dance Upon the Air

He studied her face. She had some color back now, but she looked exhausted. "I bet you do. Not much point in it." He took his plate to the sink, rinsed it off. "I might brood some later. I've got a real knack for that, according to my sister."

"I used to be a champion sulker." Satisfied that they were back on an even keel, she picked up her plate. "I might see if I can get back into that. You were right about the traditional Todd meal. It did the trick."

"Never misses. Still, grape jelly's better for it."

"I'll stock some, just in case."

"Good. I'm going to let you get back to work. In a minute."

He yanked her against him, jerked her up to her toes, covered her mouth with his in a hot, possessive kiss. The blood seemed to rush to her head, then poured out of it again, leaving her dizzy, weak and achy.

One strangled moan escaped before she was back on the flat of her feet and gripping the edge of the counter for balance.

"Nothing sensible about that," Zack said, "but it's real. You're going to have to shuffle it into your list of priorities. Don't work too late."

He strolled out, letting the screened door slap comfortably shut behind him.

In her dream that night there was a circle. A thin line upon the earth as silver as starlight. Within that sphere there were three women, robed in white. Their voices flowed like music, though the words were strange to her. As they sang, spears of light sprang up from the circle, shimmering bars of silver against the black curtain of night.

She saw a cup, a knife with a carved handle, and sprigs of herbs as green as summer.

From the cup they drank, one by one. And she tasted wine, sweet and light, on her tongue. The dark-haired one drew symbols on the ground with the blade of the knife.

And she smelled earth, fresh and dark.

As they circled, chanted, a pure gold flame spurted in the center. The heat of it warmed her skin.

Then they rose up, above the gold of the fire, above the cool silver of the spears of light, as if they danced on the air.

And she knew the freedom and the joy as the wind kissed her cheeks.

Closed in Mia's office, Nell sweated over facts, figures, reality, and possibilities.

She liked the possibilities best, as they included a secondhand computer with all the capabilities she required, an attractive sales kit, professional business cards, a cozy yet functional home office, and a commercial-grade food processor.

The fact was, she needed all of these things, and several more, in order to create a viable, reasonably profitable business.

Her figures proved she could make this her reality if she settled for a reality without any frills-which included food, drink, and clothing-for approximately twelve months.

As she saw it, her choices were to live like a mole for about a year, or to do without the professional tools that would help her build her business.

Living like a mole wasn't so bad, she mused. She'd done essentially that for months before she'd come to the island. If she hadn't weakened and frittered away money on wind chimes and sandals and earrings, she wouldn't have remembered how much fun it was to fritter away money in the first place.

Now it had to stop.

By her calculations she could, provided Marge at Island Realty was patient enough, scrape up the money for the computer within three weeks. She would need several hundred more, of course, for the printer, the phone line, the business license, the office supplies. Once she was set up, she could design and generate the sales kits and menus right on the desktop.

With a sigh, she sat back, combed her hands through her hair. She'd left out the uniform. She could hardly cater the Macey affair in jeans and a T-shirt, or a sexy little halter. She needed good black slacks, a crisp white shirt, sensible but classy black shoes.

She looked up when Mia walked in.

"Hi. I'll get out of your way."

"No need." Mia waved her back. "I just need to check something in the September catalog." She plucked it off a shelf, flipped through while watching Nell over the pages. "Financial worries?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Vibes."

"They're not worries so much as obstacles of varying heights. I hate admitting I'm taking on too much too fast."

"And why is that? Not hating it, but why do you say you're taking on too much?" Mia asked as she sat, stretched out like a cat on a hearth rug.

"A few side jobs, some boxed lunches, one major party, and here I am designing logos and business cards, trying to squeeze out money for a computer when I can easily keep things organized in a spiral notebook. I need to rein myself in."

"There's little that's more boring than reining in," Mia stated. "When I started this place, most people didn't think I could make it fly. A small community, a seasonal tourist trade. Bookstores and fancy coffee were for cities and snazzy suburbs. They were wrong. I knew what I wanted, and what I was capable of achieving. So do you."

"In another six months or a year," Nell agreed. "But I'm getting ahead of myself."

"Why wait? You need capital, but you can't risk going to the bank for a business loan. So many pesky questions about credit history, employment history, and so on."

Mia inclined her head when Nell sighed. She enjoyed hitting the center of the target with the first arrow. "As careful as you've been, you may have left a hole," Mia continued, "and you're too smart to take chances there."

"I thought about it," Nell admitted. "If I opened myself up that way, I'd never relax. Nell Channing doesn't have a credit history, and it'll take me time to establish one."

"Which is one of the obstacles to that capital. There are spells, of course. But I dislike doing spells for financial gain. It seems so… crass."

"It doesn't seem so crass when I'm trying to stretch my budget to buy basic office equipment."

Pursing her lips, Mia tapped the tips of her fingers together. "I had an acquaintance who was in a bit of a financial squeeze. She worked a spell asking that her current money worries be cleared. And won fifty thousand in the lottery the next week."

"Really?"

"Really. She was able to pay her debts and treat herself to a week at the Doral Spa in Miami. Fabulous place, by the way. When she returned, her car broke down, her roof sprang a leak, her basement flooded, and she received an audit notice from the IRS. In the end, she'd done nothing more than trade one set of worries for another, though she did get that week at the spa, which can't be discounted."

Nell acknowledged the humor in Mia's words with a small grin. "I hear you. Magic isn't a crutch to be used for convenience."

"You're a quick study, little sister. So, let's talk business." Mia toed off her pretty heels, curled up her legs. "I'm in the market for an investment."

"Mia, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that, but-"

"You want to do it yourself, and blah, blah, blah." With a flick of the wrist, Mia swatted Nell's protest aside. "Please, let's behave like grown-ups."

"Are you trying to irritate or intimidate me into accepting a loan?"

"I don't generally try to irritate or intimidate, though I've been told I'm good at both. And I didn't say anything about a loan. We're discussing an investment."

She uncurled lazily and got a bottle of water for each of them out of her mini-fridge. "I would consider a loan, I suppose, for your start-up costs. Say, ten thousand, payable over a period of sixty months at twelve percent interest."

"I don't need ten thousand," Nell said, giving the bottle cap an annoyed twist. "And twelve percent is ridiculous."

"A bank would charge less, but I'm not a bank and I wouldn't ask those pesky questions."