Nora Roberts - The Pagan Stone

“I wouldn’t have gotten through without you and Frannie.”

“I think you’re wrong about that. But we damn sure helped.” She laughed now, gave him a hard squeeze. “I have to go. Come and see me soon.”

“I will. I’ll walk you out.”

“Don’t be silly. I know the way.” She started out, turned. “I pray for you. Being me, I cover my bases. God, the Goddess, Buddha, Allah, and so on. I pretty much tap on them all. I just want you to know that a day doesn’t go by that I don’t have all of you in my prayers. I’m nagging the hell out of every higher power there is. You’re going to come through this, all of you. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

HE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN SHE’D BE EXACTLY ON time. Not late, not early, but on the button. Cybil had that preciseness about her. She wore a shirt the color of ripe, juicy peaches with bark brown pants that cropped off a couple inches above her ankles, and sandals with a couple of thin straps that showed off those intriguing narrow feet with their toes painted to match the shirt. She’d scooped that mass of curling hair back at the temples so he could see the trio of tiny hoops on her left ear, the duet of them on her right.

She carried a brown handbag the size of a bull terrier.

“I heard you had a visitor. I’ll need you to tell me about it so we’re sure nothing gets lost in translation.”

And right to business, he thought. “Fine.” He started back toward the kitchen. If he had to run through it again, he wanted his coffee.

“Mind if I get something cold?”

“Help yourself.”

She did. He watched as she pulled out the grapefruit juice and the diet ginger ale. “I’m a little put out she hasn’t talked to me yet,” Cybil said as she filled a glass with ice then proceeded to mix the two liquids in the glass. “But I’m trying to be big about it.” She glanced over, cocked an eyebrow as she lifted the glass. “Do you want some?”

“Absolutely not.”

“If I drank coffee all day the way you do, I’d be doing cartwheels off the ceiling.” She glanced at the cards spread out on the counter. “I interrupted your game.”

“Just passing the time.”

“Hmm.” She studied his card layout. “It’s often called Réussite -or Success-in France, where some historians believe it originated. In Britain, it’s Patience, which I suppose you have to have to play it. The most interesting theory I’ve come across is that in its early origins the outcome was a form of fortune-telling. Mind?” she asked, tapping the deck, and he shrugged his go-ahead.

She turned up the card, continued the play. “Computer play’s given the game a major boost in the last couple decades. Do you play online?”

“Rarely.”

“Online poker?”

“Never. I like to be in the same room as my opponents. Winning’s no fun if it’s anonymous.”

“I tried it once. I like to try most everything once.”

His mind took a sidetrip into the possibilities of “most everything.” “How’d you do?”

“Not bad. But, like you, I found it lacked the zip of the real thing. Well, where should we do this?” She set her drink down to pull a notebook from the massive area of her purse. “We can start with you giving me the details of this morning’s visitation, then-”

“I had a dream about you.”

Her head angled slightly. “Oh?”

“Given the X rating, you can have the option of sharing it with the others, if you think it applies, or keeping it to yourself.”

“I’d have to hear it first.” Her lips curved. “In minute detail.”

“You came to my bedroom upstairs. Naked.”

She flipped open the notebook, began to write. “That was brazen of me.”

“There was some moonlight; it gave the room a blue wash. Very sexy, very black-and-white movie. It didn’t feel like the first time; there was a sense of familiarity when I touched you. The kind that said, maybe the moves would be a bit different, maybe we’d change up the rhythm, but we’d danced before.”

“Did we speak?”

“Not then.” There was interest in her eyes, he noted, and amusement-both on the cool side. And no pretense of embarrassment. “I knew how you’d taste, knew the sounds you’d make when I put my hands on you. I knew where you like to be touched, and how. When I was inside you, when we were… locked, taking each other, the room began to bleed, and burn.” The interest sharpened; the amusement died. “It rolled over us, that fire, that blood. Then you spoke. Right as it took us, right as you came, you said bestia .”

“Sex and death. It sounds more like an erotic or stress dream than foresight.”

“Probably. But I thought I should pass it on.” He tapped a finger on her book. “For your notes.”

“It would be hard not to have sex and death on the brain, considering. But-”

“Do you have a tattoo?” He watched her eyes narrow in consideration, and knew. “About this big,” he continued, holding his thumb and forefinger a couple inches apart. “At the small of your back. It looks like a three with a small wavy line coming out of the bottom curve, then a separate symbol above-a curved line with a dot in the center.”

“That would be Sanskrit for the Hindu mantra of ohm . The four parts stand for the four stages of concentration, which are awake, asleep, dreaming, and the transcendental state.”

“And here I thought it was just sexy.”

“It is.” Turning, Cybil lifted the back of her shirt a few inches to reveal the symbols at the small of her back. “But it also has meaning. And since you obviously saw it, we’ll have to consider your dream had some meaning.”

She let her shirt drop, turned back. “We both know that what we see is potential, not absolute. And that often what we see is crowded with symbolism. So, going by your dream, we have the potential to become lovers.”

“Didn’t need to dream to get that one.”

“And as lovers we have the potential to pay a high price for the enjoyment.” She kept her gaze steady on his as she spoke. “We could further speculate that while you want me on a physical level, on the emotional and mental levels, you don’t. The idea of us pairing off strikes too close to following suit behind our friends, and you don’t care to fall in line. Can’t blame you, as I don’t either. It’s also irritating-an irritation I share-to consider this pairing up could be part of a larger plan put into place hundreds of years ago. How am I doing so far?”

“You’re hitting the highlights.”

“Then to finish up, I’d include the fact that your pessimistic nature-which I don’t share-would sway your subconscious, or your gift, over to the get in, get off, get dead arena.”

He let out a short laugh. “Okay.”

“For me, I don’t make decisions on lovers based on the possibility that orgasm might include being consumed by evil forces. It just takes all the romance out of it.”

“You looking for romance, Cybil?”

“Everyone is. It’s the personal definitions thereof that vary. Why don’t we take this outside, on the deck? I like spring, and it doesn’t last long. We might as well grab some of it while it’s around.”

“All right.” Taking his coffee, he opened the door to the back deck. “Are you afraid?” he asked as she moved by him.

“Every day since I’ve come here. Aren’t you?”

He left the door open behind them. “I used to be. I used to spend a lot of my life being afraid and pretending not to be. Then, along the way, I got to the fuck-it stage. Just fuck it. Now, mostly, the whole business just annoys me. It doesn’t annoy you.”

“Fascinates.” She took sunglasses out of her purse, slid them on. “I think it’s good all of us don’t have the same reaction. This way we cover more ground.” She sat at one of the tables on Cal ’s deck, facing his back gardens, and the green woods that stood along their edges. “Tell me about Ann Hawkins.”