Moon Shadows by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online

know?”
    â€œYes, exactly. I bided my time. When I was eighteen, I left. There was insurance money that came to me then, and a small trust fund from the sale of our house in Saint Louis. I planned to go to college. I had no idea what I wanted to do or be, so I decided to take a year off first and do something my parents had always talked of doing. To tour Europe.”
    â€œAlone?”
    â€œYes, alone.” She sipped her wine now, leaning back on the counter. Had she ever told anyone even this much before? Since the night everything changed for her?
    No, no one. What would have been the point?
    â€œI was thrilled to be alone, to have no schedule, no one telling me what to do. It was both an adventure and a pilgrimage for me. I backpacked through Italy.”
    She lifted her glass in salute. “This is very good. Anyway, when I came home, I developed an interest in herbs. I studied them, experimented, and started a little Internet business, selling skin and hair care products, that sort of thing. I expanded it, eventually moved here and opened the store. And here I am.”
    â€œThere’s a big chunk of stuff between backpacking in Italy and here I am.”
    â€œA very big chunk,” she agreed, and took out fresh vegetables for a salad.
    â€œWhere else did you go besides Italy?”
    â€œCircumstances made it necessary for me to cut my trip short. But I did see a bit of Italy and France before I came back home.”
    â€œWhat circumstances?”
    â€œPersonal ones.”
    â€œOkay, speaking of personal circumstances, have you ever been in love?”
    â€œNo. Superficially involved a few times. Sexually involved a few times. But I’ve never been in love. Until maybe now.”
    She continued to slice mushrooms, very thin, until his hands came to her shoulders. “Me, either,” he murmured.
    â€œIt’s probably not love. It doesn’t really happen at first sight.”
    â€œWhat do you know?” He turned her to face him. “You’ve never been there before.”
    â€œI know it takes more than this.” This leap of the heart, this yearning. “It takes trust and respect and honesty. And time.”
    â€œLet’s take some time.” He lowered his head to rub his lips over hers. “And see if we get the rest.”
    â€œTime.” She pried a hand between them to ease him back. “That’s a problem for me.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œTo tell you that, I’d have to trust you, and be very honest.”She managed a smile. “And I haven’t had enough time to know you to do that.”
    â€œWe can start with tonight.”
    â€œThat’s what we’ll do.”
    He lifted her hand from between them, kissed it. “Then we’ll work on tomorrow.”
    â€œMaybe we will.”

Chapter 5
    I T was extraordinary to relax in her own home over dinner with a man who not only attracted her on so many levels, but who also made her feel as if it were something they’d done before, and could do again, whenever she liked.
    Someone who made her feel normal. Just a woman, eating pasta and drinking wine with a man.
    For a few hours, she could put the waxing moon out of her mind and imagine what it could be like if her life was ordinary again.
    â€œHow’d you find this house?” he asked her. “This spot in Maine?”
    â€œI like space, and it had what I was looking for.”
    â€œYou lived in Montana.” He watched her as he twirled spaghetti onto his fork. “They’ve got boatloads of space out there.”
    â€œMaybe too much.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I liked it there, and I enjoyed the . . . I guess you could say the texture of the land. But it was too easy to cut myself off, and I reached a point where I understood the difference between beingself-sufficient and private and isolation. Have you ever been out West?”
    â€œI spent a wild week in San Diego