Thoroughly Kissed (21 page)

Soon their table was covered with too much food to eat—and all of it good. Michael was acting like a kid in a candy store, trying everything, unable to decide which he liked best. The pastries were dreamy—light and fluffy and perfect. Emma had never had such a good meal in her life.

They didn't finish most of the meats. She cut up some of it—including the albacore tuna that was in one of the omelets, mixed it with a remaining kipper and a bit of steak—and took a to-go box for Darnell. He'd complain about being left alone, but he wouldn't mind after he saw the food.

Finally, Michael leaned back in his chair and groaned. “I've gained fifteen pounds,” he said. “And it was worth it.”

She smiled. “You don't look like a man who enjoys food.”

“What a delicate way of saying ‘the way you eat, you should weigh three hundred pounds.'” He closed his eyes. “I exercise.”

“I haven't seen it.”

“How do you think I knew about the restaurant?”

She frowned. She hadn't even thought about it. She had just assumed he was looking through the hotel guide. “What were you doing?”

“Running,” he said. “After last night, I thought I'd log a few miles before we left. Now I'm really glad I did.”

“I've never seen you jogging in the neighborhood.”

“At home, I usually walk. The campus is big enough. And I run, not jog.”

“What's the difference?”

He opened his eyes and grinned. “Jogging's for wimps.”

“Oh,” she said, not understanding at all.

The waiter left the bill, which was more than both of the hotel rooms combined. Emma stared at it for a moment. She could afford it, of course—the book had settled any money problems she might have had, and Nora had taught her how to invest the money—but she had never paid this much for food in her entire life.

“You'd think,” Michael said with a lazy grin, “that you'd dream up a restaurant where the spectacular food is free.”

She peered at him over the bill. “Some things are simply impossible to believe in.”

He laughed. Then he looked around, and the good humor left his face. “It's a shame for this place to disappear.”

“It's a shame for it to stay. All these wonderful chefs have their own home restaurants. I wonder what's going on there?”

“All I know is that the Sioux Falls of your dreams is about three sizes bigger than the Sioux Falls we drove into last night. This place has had a significant impact on the city's economy.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Probably to accommodate all the people who want to eat here. Or maybe it put Sioux Falls on the map.”

“I thought it already was on the map,” she said. “I remember seeing a sign that
Money
Magazine
chose it as the best place to live in America.”

“Over a decade ago,” he said. “Madison's been chosen since then.”

One simple, poorly done spell had had worldwide consequences. She had worried that Michael didn't understand the implications of her wayward powers. Maybe she didn't either.

“I have to change it back. As nice as this is, it's not right.”

“I know,” he said.

“Michael, if I can do this with one errant dream, maybe I should drive straight through to Oregon.”

He considered for a moment. “Maybe. But you'll have to sleep even as we drive. And you'll sleep lighter, which means you'll dream more, not less. It's a couple of days from here.”

She ran a hand over her face. How many disasters lay ahead? Why did the Fates have this rule? As punishment for failing to get training?

Probably. It showed her just how important training was. When she got to Oregon, she'd be ready to listen to Aethelstan, no matter how angry he made her.

“I'm going to try the reverse spell again,” she said quietly.

He nodded. “Should I stand up?”

“Why?”

“I mean, if everything disappears, won't I get hurt?”

She smiled. “It's not that far to the ground, Professor.”

He smiled back, then braced himself. She spread her hands, touching her middle finger to her thumb as she had been taught, and repeated the words to the stronger of the two reverse spells she'd been taught.

Nothing happened. Conversation continued around her. A maître d' clone went by, leading a couple and two Schnauzers on leashes. Emma turned. She'd created a dog area too?

“Concentrate,” Michael said.

“How many times did you try the spell?” Emma asked.

“Oh, maybe five. But I've never done it successfully.”

She let out a big breath of air. “This one's too large. A reverse isn't going to work.”

“I thought you weren't going to let the place stand.” He glanced around, as if he were searching for an idea. “Will it hurt anything if it stays for a few days?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Some of these things filter into the common memory.”

“And become fairy tales?” he asked.

She didn't answer that. Fairy tales and myths and legends were a corruption of her own people's histories. “Urban myths. You know the one about the hook? It was a black magic spell. For days, this mage terrorized Kansas City and—”

“I don't want to know any more,” he said. “The hook always scared me as a kid.”

She looked at him in surprise. “I was beginning to think nothing scares you, Michael.”

He grinned. “Nothing scares me now that I'm an adult. But back then…”

She half believed him. He'd survived all of her spells and strangeness so far. He was a good choice to be with her on this trip.

The Fates told her she needed someone in case a spell got out of hand. This one was out of hand. Maybe they weren't just talking about life and death issues. Maybe they were telling her, in their oblique way, that most spells needed two people to fix them.

But how would he help her fix this one?

And then she knew.

“Have you come up with something?” he asked.

She nodded. “Wake me up.”

“What?”

“This restaurant comes from a dream. How do you make a dream go away?”

His eyes sparkled. “You wake up the dreamer. But you are awake. Aren't you?”

“I don't know,” she said. “That's an existential question that I don't really think we have time for.”

“But how do I wake up someone who looks awake to me?”

“Let's try this.” She pushed the plates away, creating a space on the table before her. Then she folded her arms on the table and put her forehead on them. It felt good to close her eyes. She was very tired. Eating that much food always made her sleepy. If she didn't concentrate on it, she could fall asleep…

After a moment, she felt Michael's hand on her shoulder. “Not yet,” she mumbled. “Let me sleep first.”

“Emma,” he said.

“Please.” She rolled over. “A few more minutes.”

She
rolled
over?
She sat up, wide awake—only to find herself in her hotel room, in the bed. Michael was staring at her—or rather, staring at her breasts as if he'd never seen breasts before.

She grabbed the covers and pulled them up to her shoulders. Another blush started and traveled all the way down her neck.

“I guess it worked.” She tried for a matter-of-fact tone, as if men were always waking her up and staring at her nakedness. With a look of desire so intense that she wanted to let the covers fall again.

She clung to them as if they were a lifeline.

“I—I guess it did.” He was still looking at her, his gaze somewhere around her shoulders and her neck. Finally his eyes met hers and he seemed to realize where he was. This time, he flushed and she almost smiled.

It was nice to see the tables turn.

“I'll check,” he said somewhat hastily and hurried to the dresser, pulling the top drawer open so hard that it came all the way out of its slot.

She scooted against her pillows and pulled the covers all the way to her chin. Darnell, who had been sleeping toward the foot of the bed, rolled off and landed with a squawk that almost sounded like an offended “hey!”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “It worked.”

“No more
Esquire
reviews?”

“No,” he said. “A substitute page apologizing for the renovations.”

Her stomach growled and she clapped a hand over it. She was hungry again. Which made sense, she supposed. Even the food, lovely as it was, was as substantial as a dream.

“So,” she said, “did you fall?”

“Fall?” He was clutching the hotel guide like a lifeline.

“Out of your chair?”

“No.” He sounded surprised. “It was strange. For a moment, I was two places—in the chair, and in my room, getting ready for the run.”

She glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes before the last time she woke up. Strange. Her powers shouldn't affect time this way. Or had something gone haywire inside her when she'd been in that magical coma?

She'd have to ask Aethelstan. Maybe this was a normal stage.

“Does this mean I'll have to run again?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “But you didn't get the benefit from the run.”

“I remember it.”

“If the mind could burn calories from memory, don't you think we'd be doing that instead of exercise?”

“And I'm hungry,” he said. “This isn't fair. I have to start all over.”

“Well,” she said, “we're certainly not going to get a meal like that again.”

He smiled. “Wow. Puts a whole new twist on bingeing and purging. You could bottle this.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “If I could control it.”

He bent down, picked up Darnell—who had apparently been cleaning off the indignity of his fall—and put him back on the bed. “I'll let you get ready. I saw a bakery on my last run. I trust it'll still be there on this one.”

“You don't have to run, you know,” she said. “I mean, if you're trying to burn calories, think of all the ones you lost when the restaurant disappeared.”

The desire had returned to his face. “No,” he said softly. “I need some exercise.”

And then he left through the connecting door, closing it gently behind him.

Emma let the covers drop, still feeling his desire as if he were in the room. Or was that warmth she felt hers?

This was going from bad to worse.

She got out of bed and headed toward her second shower of the day—and this one was going to be cold.

Michael remembered now why he used to take the northern route when he drove West. I-90 through South Dakota was one of the dullest stretches of highway in the Lower Forty-eight. It wasn't as bad as taking I-80 through Nebraska—that was miles and miles of grass and ditch—but it was close. The road was so straight here, and Emma's car was so sophisticated that he bet he could point the wheel, put on the cruise control, and fall asleep without leaving his lane.

He wasn't going to try it though.

Emma was reading the
New
York
Times
in the passenger seat beside him. She studied it with the concentration of a student who was going to be quizzed later on its contents. Michael bet that someone had once made her study the news to help her learn about the culture, and the custom had stuck. Whoever had taught her had done well, but Emma had done even better.

Until he found out about her past, he had thought she was a normal woman (well, not
normal
) who had been born thirty years before, and grown up, perhaps not in America, but in this ever shrinking worldwide culture.

He had been stunned to learn of her past.

He was still stunned. He'd been thinking of it all morning—or trying to. What he kept thinking about was the way her perfect skin trailed down her neck to her breasts and under the covers. He knew that she would be beautiful all over.

The thought made him even more uncomfortable than he had been before. He shifted in the driver's seat.

“You want me to drive?” Emma didn't even look at him over the paper. She had asked that same question every half hour.

“No,” he said. “I need something to do and I can't read while we drive.”

“Okay.” The paper rattled as she turned the page. In the backseat, Darnell sighed.

Michael resisted the urge to sigh too. Emma had been reluctant to talk with him this morning. Of course, he wanted to talk about the big event of the day—the magical mystery restaurant—but she seemed embarrassed by that. Or maybe she was embarrassed by the way it ended.

He was so attracted to her. The way she had felt against him that morning at the front desk, when that silly hotel employee had been ogling her. Men always looked at her that way? No wonder she was skittish. But she had to know Michael was different. He hadn't done anything, even when provoked.

And God knew, he had been more provoked than usual when he had ended up in her bedroom, at her invitation this morning.

She had been so beautiful lying there, her black hair sprawled around her, her red lips parted, her dark lashes spread on her cream colored skin. Like the wonderful fantastical drawings he'd seen of Snow White—the amazing contrast between the darkness of her hair and the whiteness of her skin. Who was the fairest of the all? Emma, of course.

Only Snow White wouldn't be her legacy, would it? She was more like Sleeping Beauty—lost for years, waiting for her handsome prince to wake her with a kiss.

He glanced at her, keeping one eye on the road. Her glossy black hair shone in the sunlight pouring in the car. He could see the nape of her neck and just a bit of skin disappearing under the color of her blue shirt.

“What are you looking at?” Emma asked, putting down the paper.

“Nothing,” he said, turning his attention back to the road.

“You were staring at me. Why?”

“Trying to read the headline on the back page,” he lied.

“Well, you can read if you want. I'll drive.”

“No,” he said. “Go on.”

She raised the paper. He pushed the “seek” button on the radio, trying to find something other than oldies to listen to. Emma didn't seem to care, if there was no baseball available. She loved the sport with a passion he didn't quite understand.

Otherwise she listened to news or classical music. Which, he supposed, had been as new to her ten years ago as everything else.

He shook his head, still trying to comprehend it all. It would almost be like being a newborn, only with the ability to speak and understand, and with a memory of a previous life.

The radio control went through every number on the dial. Twice. “I'm going insane,” he said. “You'll have to talk to me.”

“I'm not here for your entertainment,” Emma said.

“Too bad,” he said. “You're succeeding.”

She slammed the paper down and glared at him. He laughed. “You're too easy, Emma. I'm beginning to learn which buttons to push.”

“You angered me deliberately?”

“I told you. I need entertaining.”

“What do you want me to do? Give you a row of dancing girls on the dashboard?”

As she said the words, a tiny puff of white smoke flared from her fingers toward the dashboard. A hundred tiny Rockettes kicked their marvelous miniature legs right in front of him.

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

He could barely hear the music they were dancing to. And someone was controlling stage lights. The women didn't seem to notice that they were dancing in front of a giant who happened to be driving a car. Maybe they weren't Rockettes. Maybe they were the Ziegfeld Girls brought back from the dead.

“Michael!” Emma screamed and launched herself at the steering wheel. Michael pushed her away with one hand and swerved with the other.

A truck zoomed by, horn blaring.

He had been driving into the oncoming lane and he hadn't even seen it. He'd been watching the damn dancers.

“Um,” he said as calmly as he could, “this was not what I meant by entertainment.”

She was already muttering the reverse spell. The dancers disappeared as if they never were.

His heart was pounding. Darnell had climbed the back of the seat in his terror and was peering over it like a feline imitation of Kilroy. The idea of someone sketching a picture of Darnell, his face visible only from his nose upward, his two front paws framing his cheekbones like fists, with the sign
Darnell
Was
Here
beneath it was more than Michael could mentally take.

He snorted.

Emma whirled toward him, her expression panicked.

Then he chuckled.

Her eyes widened. So did Darnell's. Only his claws were digging into the expensive leather seat back. He whimpered and slipped, landing behind Michael with a thud.

Michael laughed. He couldn't hold it back. The laugh had a bit of hysteria in it, but not that much, considering all he'd been through that day.

He pulled the car to the shoulder, then bent over the wheel, laughing so hard he could hardly breathe.

Emma put her hand on his back. “Are you all right?”

Finally he sat up, rubbed the tears from his eyes, and tried to catch his breath. “I'm sorry. It's just that they looked like some kind of children's toy, those legs rising up like a wave, and then sinking again. And then Darnell—”

Michael heard claws scraping up the back of the seat again, and thought the better of what he was going to say.

“Darnell?” Emma prompted.

“Looked as startled as you did,” Michael said.

“I thought you were going to kill us.”

“I thought you couldn't die,” he said.

She shook her head. “If you'd hit that truck, we'd both be dead now. If I had had control of my magical abilities, I could have gotten us out of the way, but I didn't, so we would have died.”

The laughter died in his throat. He turned to her, startled. Somehow he had gotten the impression, after last night, that only magic could kill her. “Well,” he said, “never grab the wheel away from the driver. He'll fight you instead of the road.”

“You didn't,” she said.

“That's because it's happened to me before.” The words left his mouth before he thought about them. He winced and turned away.

“Was everyone all right?”

“No one died,” he said and got out of the car. He stretched and stared at the horizon. The sun was beginning to move toward the west.

He heard Emma's door open. She walked around the car to join him. “Are you all right?”

“That was a bit close, wasn't it?” he said. “I guess I hadn't realized.”

“It was my fault.” Her voice was soft.

“No,” he said. “I came along to protect you. I should have been prepared for anything.”

“Oh, really?” She leaned toward him. “They cover miniature dancing girls in the driver's training manuals?”

“No, but they do cover distractions.”

“Michael, you can't blame yourself—”

“Actually, I can. You're supposed to be in complete control when you drive a car. I almost plowed us into a truck. Then I blamed you for grabbing at the wheel.”

“I was the least of your problems.” She leaned against the car and kicked some loose gravel.

A Datsun went by, much too fast. Another truck, going the opposite direction, and then a Subaru, with two women in the front seat.

“What memory did I invoke?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“When I asked about grabbing at the wheel?”

He felt his breath catch. “Nothing important.”

She bent her head, then kicked a little more gravel. “All right. When you're ready, we can go again.”

To his surprise, she walked to the passenger side and got in. He would have thought, after that little incident, that she would have insisted on driving.

He ran a hand through his hair. The breeze was cool even though the sun was out, reminding him that it was still spring. The air had an unfamiliar scent here, something a little spicier than he smelled in Wisconsin. Probably some plant he didn't recognize.

Another truck went by and then another. The interstate system, which kept America fed.

He sighed. He wasn't being fair. Emma had told him all her secrets, and he hadn't told her much at all about him. And only because he was embarrassed.

He slid back into the driver's side. Time to tell someone the story he'd buried long ago.

“Okay,” he said. “I was sixteen. I had just gotten my license and I thought I knew everything.”

She looked at him with surprise. Darnell sat up in the backseat as if he felt he should take feline notice. “You don't have to tell me. I mean, if it's personal—”

“No,” he said. “You've been honest with me. It's the least I can do. And I mean it. It's the very least. It's not a life or death secret.”

She turned toward him, folded the newspaper, and tucked it on the mat beside her feet.

“I was cruising with my friends in the car I'd bought and rebuilt from parts. I grew up in Northern Wisconsin and a mechanic's skills were prized. Most guys don't do that anymore, but then, those of us who could were like gods.”

She smiled as if he'd told her a private joke.

“My girlfriend was in the front seat, my best friend in the back with his girlfriend, and they were having waaay too good a time. I was—shall we say, inexperienced?—but my friend wasn't and neither was his girlfriend. And I was sixteen. Did I say that?”

“Twice,” Emma said.

“It was night. It was winter. We were driving along the main drag just inside town. That's what we did when we'd seen all the movies showing at the mall.”

“Sounds like fun,” Emma said.

Michael stopped and looked at her. She meant that. “No, Emma. It wasn't fun.”

“Then why'd you do it?”

“It was a way to fill time.”

She frowned. “You could have watched television. Or worked on your computer. Or played games. There's a lot to amuse people now.”

“First off,” he said, “we couldn't afford computers. That was in the days when only rich kids had them. There was no Internet, and staying home with the folks watching television Just Wasn't Done.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks colored a little. He liked the way she blushed. It made her face seem rosy.

“Anyway, I was doing okay with all the sounds coming out of the back.”

“Sounds?” she asked.

“Moaning, kissing—actually, I think now, as an adult, I'd call it slobbering—”

“Ick!”

“But then, you know.”

But she probably didn't. This was as far from her teenage years as, well, Sweyn Forkbeard's six-month rule over England was from Queen Elizabeth the Second's.

“Anyway,” Michael said to cover his discomfort, “I was getting a little too intrigued, if you know what I mean. And my girlfriend was hiding her embarrassment at the whole thing by huddling up against the door and staring at the road ahead of us.

“I really wanted to turn around and see exactly what they were doing—I used to tell myself that I want to tell them to knock it off—but I was a sixteen-year-old boy. I wanted to look.”

She grinned. “Some things never change.”

“And probably never will,” Michael said. “We got to a bend in the road, and about that point, a bra came sailing over the backseat and wrapped itself around the rearview mirror.”

Emma put a hand over her mouth.

“I—I—I—” He laughed suddenly. “I still get embarrassed thinking about this.”

“Well you can't stop now,” Emma said.

“Which is exactly what my friend's girlfriend said.”

“You're kidding. I thought modern American girls were supposed to say no at that point.”

“They were,” Michael said. “She didn't.”

“Oh.”

“I was sixteen.”

“We established that.”

“So I turned around. I mean, it was more than I could take. I knew there were naked breasts back there, and I'd never seen any, not in person—” He felt a blush building. He had seen some just that morning. Emma's gaze met his and he willed himself not to show the sudden embarrassment he was feeling. “—and I wasn't thinking or maybe I was using the wrong part of my anatomy.

“The next thing I know, my girlfriend is screaming, the car is sliding on ice, and I whip my head back toward the front of the car. We're going sideways down the road. My girlfriend is grabbing for the wheel and I'm trying to push her away, and we slide in circles all the way off the road and into a deep ditch.”