Page 83 of An Unexpected Pleasure

She set the box on the dresser and lifted the lid, reaching in to take out the chunk of glass that she had kept as a lucky charm for so many years. Ten years, she thought now, remembering how she had found it lying underneath her bed one day when she was cleaning.

It seemed strange, thinking about it now, that she had never questioned how it had come to be there. She had simply pocketed it, keeping it, she thought, because it was intriguing.

Megan held the thing up to the light. Though the candle cast only a dim glow, it lit the silver lines inside the glass. Not glass, she told herself. She realized that now. It was a crystal. She gazed into its depths, scarcely believing the thoughts that were whizzing around in her head—incoherent, unbelievable ideas that she could not dismiss.

Her fingers closed around the crystal, and, picking up the candlestick, she turned and left her room. She hurried down the hallway, hand held up to shield the flickering flame of the candle, heedless of the fact that her feet were bare upon the runner of carpet or that she had not even thrown on a dressing gown over her night robe.

She did not pause at Theo’s door, but turned the knob and rushed in, calling out his name in a low, urgent voice.

He sat up, coming awake with a start. “Megan!”

Theo shoved aside the covers and leaped out of bed, realizing a moment too late that he was wearing nothing beneath the sheets. Megan gasped, blushing red to the roots of her hair, at the sight of his lean, muscled body. Yet she could not look away, could not close her eyes, fascinated by the smooth musculature of his hardened body, the dark hair that sprinkled his chest and tapered down to the flat plane of his stomach and abdomen…and lower…. Heat curled through her own abdomen and pulsed along her veins.

Muttering an oath, Theo grabbed the sheet and yanked it from the bed, quickly wrapping it around his waist and tucking the ends in to secure it. Thus covered, he came forward.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” he asked, reaching out to her.

He laid his hand on her arm, and his touch was like a kiss of fire to Megan’s already heated skin.

“I…um…” Megan gathered her scattered wits together. “I dreamed tonight.”

Theo looked puzzled. “A nightmare?”

“No. A dream I had a long time ago. One I had forgotten. I—I think I put it out of my mind because it was so unbelievable. But tonight it came to me again. A man in a cave, lying there flushed and ill with fever. A woman standing over him, chanting. She was wearing a feathered headdress, and she gave him something to drink.”

Theo’s eyes widened, intent on her face, but he said nothing.

“I was there, although I did not know either one of them. I walked over to him, and I—I took his hand. There was this flash of indescribable heat between us. Something…happened to me. I cannot explain it.”

“It is difficult to,” Theo agreed.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Megan asked. “How can that be?”

Theo shook his head. “I don’t know. But I recognized you the moment I saw you in the garden with Mother.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What was I to say? You are the woman I saw in my delirium ten years ago? You came to me and touched me, and I didn’t die? You told me I could not go because you were waiting for me? You would have thought me mad.”

“Perhaps we are both mad.” Megan held out her hand to him, the crystal nestled in her upturned palm. “I found this in my room not long after that dream, and I kept it, even though the dream had left my mind. It has been my lucky charm throughout the years. Whenever I felt hurt or tired or lonely, I would take it out and hold it. Somehow, it seemed to help.”

Theo’s gaze flicked down to the crystal in her hand, then back up to her face, astonishment beginning to dawn across his features.

“This is the crystal that was in your hand, isn’t it?” Megan asked. “The one that you gave to me.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then, saying nothing, he turned and crossed the room. Opening a wooden box that sat upon his dresser, he took something out of it and came back to her, his fist clenched tightly.

He opened up his hand. A silver medal on a thin silver chain lay in his palm, small and delicate in his large, roughened hand. On the front of the medal was a raised figure of the Virgin Mary.

With trembling fingers, Megan reached out and picked up the familiar religious medal. She knew it, had worn it for years.

It was hers, the one her mother had given her and she had believed she lost. But she had not lost it; she had given it away.

Her stomach flip-flopped, and her knees went weak, her eyes blurring.

“Megan!” Theo’s arm lashed out, catching her around the waist and holding her up.

She leaned against him, and quickly he bent, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her over to set her down on the side of the bed. He sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders, propping her up. Megan leaned her head on his shoulder, letting the buzzing in her mind and the lights dancing behind her eyes fade away.