"Ah…"
Impatient now, she waved away his hesitation. "Look, if you have anything personal or embarrassing tucked away like skin magazines or adventurous sex toys, I'll give you a chance to get them out. Or promise to ignore them."
"The skin mags and adventurous sex toys are all locked in the vault. I'm afraid I can't give you the combination."
She moved into him, trailed her hands up his chest. "I know it's a lot to ask. I wouldn't like anyone poking through my place when I wasn't there."
"Not that much to poke through. But I don't want any grief about how I should spring for new underwear and use what I've got as dustrags."
"I'm not your mother. Will you let Jordan know I'm coming?"
"He's off somewhere today." Flynn pulled his keys out of his pocket, worked the house key off the chain. "You think you'll still be there when I get home?"
"Why don't I make sure I'm there when you get home?"
"Why don't you? Then I'll call Jordan, tell him to stay away. He can bunk with Brad tonight, and I can have you all to myself."
She took the key, bumped her lips lightly on his. "I'll look forward to being had."
The wicked gleam in her eye kept him grinning for an hour after she'd gone.
Malory jogged up the steps to Flynn's front door. She was going to be systematic, slow and thorough, she told herself.
She should have thought of this before. It was like connecting the dots.
The paintings reflected moments of change, of destiny. Certainly her life had changed when she'd fallen for Flynn. And this was Flynn's house, she thought as she stepped inside. Hadn't he said he'd bought it when he'd accepted his destiny?
Looking within and without, she remembered as she merely stood and tried to absorb the feel of the place. Inside the house, outside in the yard?
Or was it more metaphorical, in that she'd begun to see herself inside this space?
Light and shadows. The house was full of both.
She could only be grateful it wasn't full of things. Flynn's spartan style was going to make the search simpler.
She started in the living room, automatically wincing at the couch. She looked under the cushions, found eighty-nine cents in loose change, a Bic lighter, a paperback edition of a Robert Parker novel, and cookie crumbs.
Unable to stand it, she hunted up the vacuum cleaner and a dustrag and began to clean as she went.
This two-for-one process kept her in the kitchen for more than an hour. At the end of it she was sweaty and the kitchen sparkled, but she hadn't turned up anything resembling a key.
She switched gears and headed upstairs. She'd begun and ended her dream upstairs, she recalled. Maybe that was symbolic. And certainly there couldn't be anything up here in as deplorable shape as the kitchen.
One glance at the bathroom disabused her of that notion. Even love—of a man and of order— had its limits, she decided, and shut the door without going inside.
She stepped into his office and was immediately charmed. All the dark thoughts that had damned him for a pig vanished.
It wasn't neat. God knew, it needed a good dusting, and there was enough dog hair balled in the corners to knit an afghan. But the walls were sunny, the desk was a beauty, and the framed posters showed an eye for art and style that she hadn't given him credit for.
"You've got all these wonderful sides to you, don't you?" She trailed her fingers over the desk, impressed by the stack of files, amused by the action figures.
It was a good work space. A good thinking space, she imagined. He didn't give a damn about the state of his kitchen. His sofa was just a place to take a nap or stretch out and read a book. But he took care with his surroundings when it was important to him.
Beauty, knowledge, courage. She'd been told she would need all three. In the dream there had been beauty—love, home, art. Then the knowledge that it was illusion. And finally the courage to break that illusion.
Maybe that was a part of it.
And love would forge the key.
Well, she loved Flynn. She accepted that she loved Flynn. So where was the damn key?
She turned a circle, then wandered over to take a closer look at his art collection. Pinup girls. He was such a… guy, she decided. A very clever guy.
There was a sexual punch to the photographs, but an innocence underlying that. Betty Grable's legs, Rita Hay-worth's mane of hair, Monroe's unforgettable face.
Legends, as much for their beauty as their talent. Goddesses of the screen.
Goddesses.
Her fingers shook as she took the first print from the wall.
She had to be right. This had to be it.
But she examined every print, every frame, then every inch of the room, and found nothing.
Refusing to be discouraged, she sat at his desk. She was close. A step off, one way or the other, but close. The pieces were all there, she was certain of it now. She just needed to find the right pattern and make them fit.
She needed to get out in the air for a while, let it turn over in her mind.
She would do something ordinary while it brewed in there.
No, not something ordinary. Something inspired. Something artful.
* * *
Flynn decided it was time to reverse the roles back to where they had started, and so he stopped off on the way home to buy her flowers. There was a bite of fall in the air, and its nip had already teased color into the trees. The surrounding hills were hazed with reds and golds and umbers over the green.
Over those hills, a three-quarter moon would rise tonight.
Did she think of that, he wondered, and worry?
Of course she did. It would be impossible for a woman like Malory to do otherwise. Still, she'd been happy when she came to his office. He meant to keep her that way.
He would take her out to dinner. Maybe drive into Pittsburgh for a change of scene. A long drive, a fancy dinner—that would appeal to her, keep her mind off…
The minute he stepped in the front door, he knew something was off.
It smelled… good.
A little lemony, he thought as he approached the living room. A little spicy. With female undertones. Did women just sort of exude scent when they'd been in a place for a few hours?
"Mal?"
"Back here! In the kitchen!"
The dog beat him by a mile and was already being given a biscuit, a stroke, and a firm nudge out the back door. Flynn wasn't sure what made his mouth water, the scents pumping out of the stove or the woman wearing a white bib apron.
God, who knew an apron could be sexy?
"Hi. What're you doing?"
"Cooking." She shut the back door. "I know it's an eccentric use for a kitchen, but call me crazy. Flowers?" Her eyes went soft, almost dewy. "They're pretty."
"You are too. Cooking?" He tossed his embryonic plans for the evening aside without a qualm. "Would that involve anything resembling dinner?"
"It would." She took the flowers, kissed him over them. "I decided to dazzle you with my culinary talents, so I went to the grocery store. You didn't have anything in here that qualified as actual food."
"Cereal. I have a lot of cereal."
"I noticed." Because he didn't own a vase, she filled a plastic pitcher with water for the flowers. The fact that she didn't cringe while doing so made her very proud of herself. "You also didn't appear to own any of the usual implements used in preparing actual food. Not a single wooden spoon."
"I don't understand why they make spoons out of wood. Haven't we progressed beyond carving tools out of trees?" He picked one up off the counter, then frowned. "Something's different in here. Something changed."
"It's clean."
Shock registered on his face as he stared around the room. "It is clean. What did you do, hire a brigade of elves? What do they charge by the hour?"
"They work for flowers." She sniffed at them, and decided they looked very sweet in the plastic pitcher after all. "You're paid in full."