What Dreams May Come Read Online Free PDF Page B

me?"
    "You said you owed me an ending. Fine. Give me that ending, Kelly."
    "How?" she whispered.
    "Let me find out for myself if the girl I loved is really gone. Is that too much to ask? A few weeks out of your life, a little time spent with me. Time without prejudice."
    The guarded, wary part of Kelly resisted that, but she had already accepted the existence of a debt that had to be paid. "How could it be without prejudice?" she objected.
    "Maybe it can't. But we can try. If it's over, I have to believe that. I have to feel it."
    And then I'll have to say good-bye to you again. She didn't know if she could bear it. But she knew she had to. She couldn't be the one to walk away a second time.
    With a faint shrug, trying to pretend this didn't matter to her, she said, "I have a career, and a job to do here. Your company's in Baltimore."
    "I haven't officially taken over yet," he said. "After ten years, what's a few more weeks?"
    A few more weeks. If the past pattern held true, she'd be safe here for at least that long. She'd managed months in Tucson before feeling any need to move on. But, someone had sent her that clipping, someone who knew she and Mitch were connected in some way. And now here she was in the Mitchell family's old vacation house. A house that was hers now—so it was a target. She hadn't been able to prove the damage done to her apartment in San Francisco had been anything other than vandals, but she knew.
    For the first time in years, she wished that she had someone to turn to, someone to confide in. Not Mitch, though. He had borne enough pain without having to bear hers as well. She didn't want him to know about it, didn't want him to see her shame and fear. And if she hadn't beenfairly certain she was safe here for a while, that there was no reason for him to know, she wouldn't have even considered his request.
    "Dammit, Kelly—"
    Realizing that she had been silent for too long, she managed another faint shrug before saying, "I agreed that I owe you."
    Some of Mitch's tension seemed to ease. His tone was carefully neutral when he said, "I talked to your employer before I came here. Went to his office outside Portland. An . . . interesting man. He says you're going to work here in the house rather than at his company."
    Kelly knew somehow that he hadn't changed the subject, but the tangent puzzled her. Making a mental note to ask Cyrus Fortune not to discuss her with anyone outside the office, she said, "That's right. He's sending all the equipment I need. The company's so new they're still getting organized, and I'll work much more efficiently if I'm out of all the confusion."
    "So you'll be here all the time?"
    "Probably."
    He glanced away from her, looking briefly around the room in a considering way, then returned his gaze to her face. "Then it'll be much simpler if I just move into the house. This is a big place, plenty of room for two."
    Kelly's first realization was that the statement was no spur-of-the-moment thought; he'd had this in mind long before he'd rung her doorbell. She wondered if he believed it would be so easy. Her impulse—and a very strong one— was to refuse to allow him to stay in the house. But she had learned to weigh her impulses carefully.
    This impulse, she knew, was purely selfish. Tooguilty to push Mitch away and too afraid to cross the years between them, she'd been hoping for some painless solution—or absolution, some way of paying her debt without risking her emotions. But that wasn't right, it wasn't fair. Mitch wasn't at fault for what had happened to them, and he deserved peace just as much as she did.
    "If that's what you want," she agreed finally. She saw the flash of satisfaction in his dark eye, and went on in the same mild but firm tone. "But there are ground rules, Mitch."
    "Which are?" His voice was slightly wary.
    "I'll be working long hours, and my job is important to me." It was the only thing she had made for herself, all she would have left when he was