Fairytale by MAGGIE SHAYNE Read Free Book Online Page B

off,
for as long as she could remember. Always the same dream. It never
changed, only grew longer, more intense. Her feelings about it had
changed, though. They’d matured into something completely
different. She used to look through the mists and see a troubled
man, and she’d want to comfort him. But with the years, she’d seen
so much more. Her dreams of him revealed a tortured man. One in
more pain than any human should have to bear. And more. A virile
man, with enough passion in his eyes to burn her alive. A man in
need...of her. In every way a man could need a woman.
    All of that had been there, visible in his
eyes, in those dreams Brigit had always had. Dreams where the
fictional Maire had whispered that he was her fate.
    God, what did it all mean?
    Those same things had been in his eyes again,
just now, when they’d met hers up there in that classroom.
    He needed her. And he didn’t even know
it.
    Worse yet, she hadn’t come to him to help
him. She’d come to hurt him even more than he’d already been
hurt.
    God, what was happening? Had that lifelong
dream of hers been some kind of premonition? Was there any such
thing?
    The very idea terrified her, so she put it
from her mind and tried to focus on simple things. Immediate
things. Crouching down to recover the keys. The dirt and gravel she
scraped up along with them. Getting the door open. Adjusting the
visor against the brilliant, late summer sunlight and slipping on
her dark glasses. Starting the motor.
    She drove down the steep inclines of the
university area’s streets, then turned and headed for the Commons.
By the time she’d parked and left the car, she was telling herself
that there had to be a way out of this mess. There had to be. She
and Raze hadn’t come this far to have it all ruined for them
now.
    This was maddening! She wanted to stand in
the middle of the sidewalk and scream at the top of her lungs! She
wanted to tug at her hair and spin in rapid circles until she fell
to the ground from dizziness! She wanted to smash something!
    What was she going to do?
    She couldn’t go through with it. Not now that
she’d seen the man. Adam. His name was Adam Reid. His eyes were the
deep, glittering blue of a midnight sea under a harvest moon, the
dark, bottomless blue of sapphires, and when she’d looked into them
she’d seen his very soul.
    No. She wouldn’t do it to him. She told
herself that again and again as she stifled her maddening
frustration and walked the last couple of blocks to the Commons.
Then she paused, and stood still for a moment, eyes closed, head
tilted slightly back. She listened, and she sniffed the air,
waiting for the magic of this small strip to get to her, to calm
her.
    A hundred feet away, a jazz band played, and
the saxophone solo wafted straight to heaven. When summer sighed,
its warm breath brought the scents of fresh-baked doughnuts,
because she was standing near the bakery, and more subtly, the
scents of flowers. Violets and hyacinth.
    That was better. Brigit opened her eyes, a
little calmer now, a little less likely to smash the first
breakable object she got her hands on out of sheer frustration. It
wouldn’t do. She had a reputation in this small college town. Among
the merchants, she was liked and respected for her innovative ideas
and determination to succeed.
    Among the students, she was admired and
sought after for long heart-to-hearts and advice. The town’s
residents saw her as a success story. A young single woman caring
for her aging father, running a successful business, and doing both
with ease. They called her a good example. An inspiration.
    She’d fooled them all, hadn’t she? No one who
looked at her would see an orphan, much less a wild thing of the
streets. No one would see an accomplished criminal, a master art
forger who’d sold her soul to get where she was today. No one would
see the wanton that lived inside. The feelings that burned in her
sometimes late at night. The ones she doused and