Brooke opened her mouth to speak, but Cody rushed ahead. “You were an abused child, honey. And a victim of guilt—your own. You tried so hard to win your mother’s love that it nearly destroyed you. And when you finally broke away from her domination, you punished yourself for your hatred of her by locking yourself away—mentally in your own mind, and physically way out here in the back of beyond.”
“I had to have privacy,” Brooke managed to object, hearing the quiver in her voice.
“That wasn’t the only reason, Brooke.”
“It was.”
“No. You hate your mother. Admit it. Dammit, Brooke, face that dragon and then put it behind you. You’re hurting yourself, punishing yourself needlessly; face the fact that she deserved your hate and then, dammit, forget it.”
Instinctively, silently, Brooke tried to deny the truth of his words, but his clear, concise perception defeated her. Memories she’d kept locked away flooded her mind with cruel images. Her mother pushing her out onto the stage that first time, exposing her to the countless thoughts of strangers. Her mother coldly commenting to the promoter that her daughter’s only talent should be put to good use. Shrill cruelty in a voice thick with alcohol. The calculation in her mother’s eyes as her thin, childish body had begun to bloom into womanhood. The hateful words. Always the hateful words…
“Brooke…”
His voice. Lancing through the blackened curtain of memories as if it were truly a magic sword. Filled with regret and pain and an understanding such as she had never known. Deep and soft and rough, like the gold nugget Josh had once shown her. It drew her like a magnet, filled her with a sort of feverish wonder. Gold fever, she thought hazily. And there was no cure for gold fever.
Tears spilled from her eyes at last, tears that washed the bitterness clean and cooled the hate. She felt the warmth of his arms holding her close, heard the soothing murmur of his wonderful voice. And she cried, finally, for the mother she had blindly loved…and just as blindly hated.
Years of bitterness and confused pain couldn’t be erased in moments, but Brooke made a start then. And if there was fear in her rough, jerky sobs, Cody didn’t realize it. But Brooke did. Somewhere in the deepest part of her consciousness, she realized that she was facing up to more than the dragons of her past. She was facing the dragons of her future as well. And that frightened her.
He didn’t breathe fire. He didn’t lift a primeval head high above the waves in an omen of doom. He didn’t threaten destruction or terror. Instead, he made her laugh and cry and reach for a part of herself she was afraid to touch. He drew her to him with golden eyes and a golden voice, and made her feel that she was a normal woman. And he was the very dragon he’d described himself: an area of unexplored, possibly terrifying darkness. The uncharted seas that Brooke was afraid to set sail for.
Cody held her and let her cry, unaware that from the ashes of an old conflict a new one had risen. He knew only that the largest dragon standing between them was now merely a shadow without substance. It was a beginning, and it was all he had asked for.
When the sobs finally tapered off to muffled hiccups, Cody reached for a handkerchief and gently raised her chin. He wiped her eyes, then held the scrap of cloth for her and ordered softly, “Blow.”
Meekly Brooke obeyed the order, long wet lashes hiding her eyes from his too perceptive gaze. She wasn’t a shy woman; she’d faced too many crowds—hostile and otherwise—to be shy. But at that moment she hardly knew where to look or what to say. She only knew that the confusion within her was even greater than it had been before the tears.
“You should hang out a shingle,” she murmured at last. “You make a pretty fair armchair psychologist.”
Following her lead and his own instincts, Cody kept it light. “That’s me—Doctor Nash. You’ll please note that my couch is comfortable.”
“Oh, very.”
Solemnly Cody said, “But we’ve got to stop meeting like this; people will begin to talk.”
Brooke finally met the warm golden eyes, discovering that they were still warm and now contained a light of mischief. To her surprise she found that she could respond easily to his humor, and wondered vaguely if the man was a warlock. “What people?” she asked reasonably. “There’s only us.”
“People always know,” Cody told her darkly.
“Ah.” Not at all surprised, Brooke watched her hand reach up to smooth back the lock of thick golden hair that had fallen over his forehead. And still not surprised, she realized that she’d wanted to do that for days now. His face was so expressionless, she thought dimly. So still and expressionless.
Cody kept a finger-and-toehold on his willpower. His gentlemanly instincts told him that this was hardly the moment to unleash the fierce desire he felt for her—but the instincts were very nearly overridden. He kissed her lightly on the nose, and it was like a starving man being chained down in front of a banquet.
Only a scent of promise.
An instinct of her own told Brooke that she was teetering right on the edge of a dark pit, and she shied away. Feeling a nudge from the wolf, she used that as an excuse to gently disentangle herself and rise to her feet. “I think Phantom wants out,” she murmured.
“Don’t get lost,” Cody ordered lightly. But when Brooke and the wolf had gone, he rose from the couch and began wandering around the room. The crutches had been abandoned; his walk was even and firm. He moved restlessly, not quite aimlessly, as though looking for something he couldn’t find.
They never got back to the Monopoly game.
It was perhaps nature’s apology for her psychic abilities, but Brooke never remembered her dreams. She’d always slept in peace and silence, what dreams she dreamed never disturbing her. Until that night….
The little boat was sailing merrily across a glass-smooth sea, its sails billowing and snapping in the brisk wind. Brooke turned her face to the salt spray, feeling alive and wonderful. Then she let herself doze in the sun. When she awoke, it was to find the sky a leaden gray and the wind wailing in sails shredded by its force.
Panicked, Brooke could see land nowhere in sight, and her boat was plowing through waves growing higher by the moment. She couldn’t control the boat; it was being tossed by an angry sea toward an unexplored horizon. She clung to the mast, watching in horrified fascination as the little boat was drawn into the outer circle of a tremendous whirlpool. The boat circled lazily at first, seemingly barely moving. But then it increased its speed until it was spinning sickeningly. Brooke felt herself scream, but no sound could be heard above the awful roaring of the monster whirlpool….
Everything went black and still. The boat had stopped, its keel hung on something. As light gradually penetrated, Brooke could see that the boat was hanging on the edge of a pit, and the pit was the blackest black she’d ever seen or imagined. Terrified to move, knowing that only a step could send the boat out of balance and push it over the edge, she held on to the mast.
And then, out of the pit came a curious sound: whistling. Cheerful, lively, the sound was so incongruous as to be fascinating. And as she watched, a dragon reared its head from the pit.
It was a multicolored dragon, feathered rather than scaled. The feathers were mostly gold. It had golden eyes and a face that was oddly undragonlike; it reminded her of something, but she didn’t know what. It had long claws on its dragon feet, which it proceeded absently to buff against its chest-feathers as it hovered there in midair and looked at her.
“Hello.”
Brooke told herself that this was a dream. Definitely a dream, and she couldn’t seem to wake herself up. There was really no boat, no pit, and definitely no dragon. But the mast beneath her clutching fingers felt like real wood….
“Hello,” she said, deciding to make the most of this.
“You’re late,” the dragon accused sternly.
She blinked at it. “Am I?”
“Certainly. I expected you days ago.” The dragon inspected its neatly buffed claws
and then lifted a feathered eyebrow at her.
Brooke rather cautiously let go of the mast and moved toward the bow of the boat. “It won’t go over, will it?” she asked fearfully.
“Of course not,” the dragon scoffed. “You’ll have to jump.”
She halted a couple of feet back from the pointed bow. “I will not,” she told the dragon decidedly. “Then I’d be in the pit. And dragons eat people.”
An absurdly hurt expression twisted the dragon’s face. “I wouldn’t do that. Besides, I need you.”
“For an appetizer?”
“Oh, no. Certainly not.” The dragon floated a bit nearer, its big golden eyes peering at her serenely. In a confidential tone it said, “You see, I’m actually a prince.”
Brooke crossed her arms over her breasts. “Of course, you are,” she agreed politely.
“Really,” the dragon insisted, clearly sensing doubt.
She stared at him. “Look, this is my dream. Now, I’d be willing to accept a frog-prince in my dream, but not a dragon-prince. It just isn’t done.”
The dragon scratched what might have been an ear with one long claw. He seemed perturbed. Doubtfully he said, “Well, I know it’s your dream—but—but I am here. Couldn’t you just accept me?”
“No.”
The dragon sighed. He floated higher in the air above the pit, crossing his hind legs and resting back on thin air and his long tail. A man-size dragon. “You think I like living in this pit?” he demanded mournfully.
“I really hadn’t thought about it.”
“You’re a cruel princess.”
“I’m not a princess at all.”
“Yes, you are. And you have to kiss me so I’ll turn into your prince.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
A glare was born in the golden eyes. “You’re not taking me seriously!”
“Forgive me,” she murmured. “It’s hard to be serious when conversing with a dragon in a dream.”
“It’s only partly a dream,” he assured her.
“What? What’s the other part?”
“Reality.” The dragon shrugged. “You see, if I’d appeared as your prince, you wouldn’t have accepted me. You’re a fighter, you know. Always have been. So I had to come as a dragon.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course, it does. I’m the dragon you can’t slay. I won’t disappear if you fight me. The only way to get rid of me is to kiss me. Then I’ll be a prince and not a dragon.”
“It seems to me,” Brooke said thoughtfully, “that if I turn you into a prince, I’ll really be stuck with you.”
The dragon looked hurt again. “A very cruel princess,” he noted sadly.
“I’d like to wake up now,” Brooke announced.
“Sorry. Beyond my power. You have to jump.”
Brooke stamped a foot. “It’s my dream and I want to wake up!”
A feathered eyebrow lifted again. He drifted closer, big golden eyes blinking like the mysterious eyes of a cat. “Then kiss me,” he said, his voice dropping to a note that was warm and compelling.
Brooke stared at him for a moment, then looked down at the tennis shoes on her slender feet. Speculatively she murmured, “I wonder what would happen if I clicked my heels together three times?”
“You’re not in Oz,” the dragon scoffed.
She sighed. “I know. I’m in the middle of a really crazy dream talking to a ridiculous dragon who thinks he’s the dragon version of a frog-prince.”
“Stop talking about frogs,” the dragon begged. “It’s bad enough being a dragon. C’mon now—don’t you want to wake up? Give us a kiss.”
Giggling suddenly Brooke held up a disdainful hand. “Keep your distance, sir,” she commanded, trying to appear regal in jeans and a knit top. “I don’t kiss dragons.”
The dragon crossed his hind legs the other way and folded the forelegs across his feathered chest. “This is not the way the story was written,” he complained. “You’re supposed to kiss me.”
Before Brooke could respond, he abruptly disappeared down into the pit. She stepped to the bow of the boat, holding on tightly and bending cautiously to look. Blackness.
“Dragon?” she called, hearing her voice echo endlessly. “Dragon, are you there?” It was ridiculous: she felt disappointed. Then her field of vision was filled with golden eyes and golden feathers, and the feathers were brushing her face. Something warm and undragonlike touched her lips.
Chuckling delightedly, the dragon floated back a couple of feet, his clawed forepaws clapping together. “I stole one!” he crowed triumphantly.
“Thief!” Brooke accused, leaning even farther to swipe at him with one hand. The dragon seemed to be shimmering before her eyes, changing somehow. She felt feathers come away in her hand and suddenly she knew that face, recognized it. Then her balance went haywire and she was plunging headfirst over the bow of the boat and into blackness.
“Help!” She heard her own panicked yell and then the dragon’s “What the hell?” and he seemed to be calling her name but she was still falling and she couldn’t fly with only a handful of feathers and no wings at all….
“Brooke.”
She shot bolt upright in bed, dimly aware of hugging her pillow to her breasts. After the first breathless feeling of returning to reality from a dream, she also became aware that her bedroom light was on and that Cody was sitting on the edge of her bed and staring at her anxiously. On the floor at the other side of her bed was Phantom, braced up on his three good legs and gazing at her as his tail waved rather doubtfully.
Brooke reached up to push tumbled hair off her forehead and produced a glare, which she aimed at Cody. “That wasn’t fair!”
He looked bewildered. “What wasn’t fair?” he demanded a bit unsteadily. “I mean, besides your waking me up in the dead of night screaming something that sounded like ‘Thief.’ You scared the hell out of me! And then, when I turned the light on, there you were, wrestling with the covers and yelling for help. What in God’s name were you dreaming?”
Brooke started to tell him—at length and in great detail—but she started giggling before intelligible words could work their way out. The giggles turned into laughter, fed by the increasing confusion on Cody’s face. She hid her own face in the pillow, the entire dream flashing through her mind with the clarity of a movie.
She felt lightheaded, dizzy, and yet strangely free. It was as if her subconscious mind had struggled to resolve some conflict, shrouding it in symbolism and flinging it at her in a dream. And Brooke didn’t know why it was so funny, but it was somehow, and even funnier to remember how many emotions she’d been feeling in the past twenty-four hours. A watchful part of her mind wondered idly if she was hysterical, and when she finally lifted her face from the pillow, she saw a suspicion of the same thought on Cody’s face.
Before he could administer the traditional remedy, Brooke choked off the laughter and lifted a hand in a wait-a-minute gesture. “I—I’m fine,” she managed a bit shakily.
“Are you sure?” he asked, unconvinced. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen someone wake up from a nightmare and then burst into laughter.”
“It—it wasn’t really a nightmare.”
“No?” Cody reached over to pry her hand loose from the pillow. He held the hand between them for a moment, looking at it, then gazed quizzically back at her. “Then why’d you shred your pillow?”
Brooke looked at the mangled corner of her pillow, then uncurled her fingers and saw that she’d acquired a deathgrip on a handful of feathers. She started to giggle again.
“Hey, don’t do that again,” Cody begged quickly. “You’re making me nervous.”
She swallowed the giggles and carefully cleared her throat. “I’m fine, Cody—really. It wasn’t a nightmare, just—just a somewhat involved dream. Nothing to worry about.”
Cody didn’t release her hand. “Are you sure? I thought somebody was killing you. Although who’d co
me way up here on a night like this…?” He lifted his head as the wail of the wind suddenly penetrated into the room. “It’s storming again.”
Brooke hastily averted her eyes from his bare and unexpectedly furry chest, trying to ignore the little voice in her head reminding her brightly that she’d never seen his naked chest before. Looking steadfastly at her pillow, she murmured, “I’m sure. And I’ll probably sleep just fine now; I always do in a storm.”
Cody, having a problem with his own eyes since Brooke was wearing some kind of filmy nylon thing with a plunging V-neckline, rather hastily accepted her assurances. He released her hand and rose to his feet. “Okay, then. But if you have another—involved dream…”
“Uh-huh,” Brooke murmured quickly, her side-long glance showing her that Cody wore pajama bottoms. She wondered if he’d been about to offer to keep her company, but she wasn’t about to ask. “Good night, Cody.”
He crossed the room to the open door, pausing there with one hand on the doorknob and one on the light switch, his glance going to where Phantom had curled himself up on the rug beside Brooke’s bed.
Brooke followed his glance. “He won’t hurt me, Cody.”
“I know.” Cody smiled just a little. “After all, he’s spent every night in here, hasn’t he?” When Brooke only blinked at him, he added softly, “Good night, honey. Sweet dreams.” He went out, turning off the light and closing the door.
Brooke sat there for a moment while her eyes adjusted to the darkness, then looked down at the feathers she was still holding. Thoughtfully she leaned over and deposited them on her nightstand. Then she put the wounded pillow at the foot of her bed, drew the covers up, and energetically pounded the other pillow. Before putting her head on it, she peered over the side of the bed and at the wolf quietly lying on the rug.
“Phantom, did you ever hear of the Cinderella Complex?” she asked musingly. The wolf thumped his tail once in polite if sleepy attention. Sighing, Brooke lay back on her pillow and stared at the shadowy ceiling.
“Someday my prince will come,” she murmured, and then giggled. “Trust me not to have the traditional human or frog-prince. My prince has to be a talkative feathered dragon!”