Free Key Of Knowledge by Nora Roberts Page A

to do with it.
    â€œMaybe,” 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 car. 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 spendsome 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.
    â€œSick,” 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 coolwith 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.
    â€œSimon, 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?”
    â€œYeah, she’s around.” Though the boy gave Brad a very quick up-and-down glance, Brad had the certain sensation he’d been studied