Stars of Fortune(3)

She believed in true love—for others. She’d never sought it for herself, as love demanded so much, brought such chaos into a life. So much feeling.

She wanted, had always wanted, the quiet and settled, and believed she’d found it in her little house in the mountains of North Carolina.

There she had the solitude she’d sought. There she could spend her days painting, or in her garden without interference or interruption. Her needs were few; her work provided enough income to meet them.

Now her dreams were haunted by five people who called her by name. Why couldn’t she find theirs?

She sketched her dreams—the faces, the seas and hills and ruins. Caves and gardens, storms and sunsets. Over the long winter she filled her workboard with the sketches, and began to pin them to her walls.

She painted the man with lightning in his hands, spending days perfecting every detail, the exact shade and shape of his eyes—deep and dark and hooded—the thin white scar, like a lightning bolt, scoring his left eyebrow.

He stood on a cliff, high above a boiling sea. Wind streamed through his dark hair. She could all but feel it, like hot breath. And he was fearless in the face of the storm as death flew toward him.

Somehow she stood with him, just as fearless.

She couldn’t sleep until she’d finished it, wept when she did. She feared she’d lost her mind, and visions were all she had left. For days she left the painting on the easel while he watched her work or clean or sleep.

Or dream.

She told herself she’d pack it for shipping, send it to her agent for sale. And dipping her brush, she signed it at last.

Sasha Riggs—her name on the verge of the storm-wrecked sea.

But she didn’t pack it for shipping. She packed others instead, the work of the long winter, arranged for transport.

Exhausted, she gave in, curled on the couch in the attic she’d converted to her studio, and let the dreams take her.

The storm raged. Wind whipping, the sea crashing, jagged spears of lightning hurled from the sky like flaming bolts from a bow. The rain swept in from the sea toward the cliff in a thick curtain.

But he stood, watching it. And held out his hand for hers.

“I’m waiting for you.”

“I don’t understand this, any of this.”

“Of course you do, you more than most.” When he brought her hand to his lips, she felt love simply saturate her. “Who hides from themselves, Sasha, as you do?”

“I only want peace. I want the quiet. I don’t want storms, and battles. I don’t want you.”

“Lies.” His lips curved as he brought her hand to them again. “You know you’re lying to me, to yourself. How much longer will you refuse to live as you were meant to? To love as you were born to?”

He cupped her face in his hands, and the ground shook under her.

“I’m afraid.”

“Face it.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“See it. We can’t begin without you. We can’t end it until we begin. Find me, Sasha. Come find me.”

He pulled her in, took her lips with his. As he did, the storm broke over them with mad fury.

This time, she embraced it.

She woke, tired still, pushed herself up, pressed her fingers to her shadowed eyes.

“Find me,” she muttered. “Where? I wouldn’t know where to start looking if I wanted to.” Her fingers trailed down to her lips, and she swore she still felt the pressure of his.

“Enough. It’s all enough now.”

She rose quickly, began to pull the sketches from the walls, the board, letting them fall to the floor. She’d take them out, throw them out. Burn them. Get them out of her house, out of her head.

She’d get out herself, take a trip somewhere, anywhere. It had been years since she’d gone anywhere. Somewhere warm, she told herself as she frantically yanked down her dreams. A beach somewhere.

She could hear her own breath heaving, see her own fingers trembling. Near to breaking, she lowered to the floor amid the sketches, a woman too thin with the weight the dreams had stolen, her long blond hair bundled up into its habitual messy bun. Shadows plagued her eyes of a clear and crystal blue.

She looked down at her hands. There was talent there. She always had been, always would be, grateful for that gift. But she carried other gifts, not so gratefully.

In the dream, he’d asked her to see. Nearly all her life she’d done all she could to block the sight she’d been born with.

Yes, to hide from herself, just as he’d said.

If she opened to it, accepted it, there would be pain and sorrow. And the knowledge of what might be.

She closed her eyes.

She’d clean up—give herself time. She’d pick up all the sketches and file them away. She wouldn’t burn them, of course she wouldn’t burn them. That had been fear talking.