The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes Read online

  The bastard was right after all. They were in love, bonded, and there was no breaking away. No safe life in the suburbs with a mini-van and two children. There’d be children all right, but the thought of what they might produce was enough to send chills through the heart of any prospective mother. A child with both their gifts would be something to reckon with, indeed.

  She turned her face to look at him. He looked so young, so beautiful. And most astonishing of all, he was hers.

  The door closed and locked again, and he opened his eyes to meet hers. ‘Has someone been snooping around?’ he murmured.

  ‘Probably my sisters. Are you ready to meet them officially?’

  ‘God, no,’ he said, sliding his hand up the smooth line of her back. ‘I can think of much better ways to spend our time. Even if we have more than our fair share I don’t want to waste a minute of it.’

  She slid back down in the bed, back on the purple sheets, and smiled at him. ‘Don’t you think the next fifty years will be enough?’

  He made a face. ‘I think it’ll be more than that,’ he said. ‘And even then it won’t be enough.’

  ‘Are you asking me to marry you?’

  ‘No. It’s a foregone conclusion.’ At least this morning he didn’t seem nearly as upset over the notion. In fact, he seemed quite smug. ‘The way I figure it, if an average life span is ninety years, then we’re both about one third of the way through it.’

  ‘So another sixty years, then.’

  He shook his head. ‘You forgot what I taught you about traditional alchemy. There are two main quests. One is to change base metals into gold. The other is to prolong life. You’ve already crossed that border, though I’m not sure when. I expect we’ll die within hours of each other, a very long time from now.’

  ‘What border?’

  He didn’t answer. ‘You don’t mind marrying an older man?’ he said instead.

  ‘For all I know you’re younger than I am,’ Lizzie said. ‘And I’d marry you no matter how old you are.’ She looked into his deep lavender eyes, wondering if hers had the same translucent glow. ‘Er… exactly how old are you?’

  He reached up and pulled her down to his mouth, kissing her. ‘Older,’ he said.

  ‘How old?’ she persisted.

  He put his mouth against her ear, hot and sweet and arousing. ‘Physically, I’m in my late twenties. Mentally, I’m about thirty-five. In actual years…’ He hesitated.

  ‘In actual years?’ she prompted.

  ‘Ninety-three,’ he whispered.

  And she let out a shriek of laughter that woke the entire house.

  Dee had long since lost hope of ever waking to the sight of a man in her room. But when she woke up, there he was. Lying on his side, head propped on his hand, just watching her.

  ‘You really will marry me,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t just dreaming.’

  Dee laid her hand against his heart. ‘And all my worldly goods endow. Unfortunately the sum of that is three business suits, a handful of bird feathers, and a closet of acrylic paint.’

  She’d thought he’d been beautiful last night. This morning he was glorious, a celebration of sensuality in her sterile bed. His beard shadowed the hard angles of his jaw, adding a rakish air to his smile. His eyes were sleepy and sated. He was naked to his hips where the crisp white sheet pooled just south of his navel to expose her favorite torso on earth. She’d traced every inch of it last night with her tongue. She’d followed the hair that decorated his chest straight down to where his cock rose to meet her and tasted that, too. Then when it had gotten too cold up on the mountain, they’d gathered their blankets and snuck inside the house, giggling like teenagers, and she’d explored all over again.

  Danny never looked away from her as he traced a lazy hand along her jaw to dip into the hollow of her throat. ‘And you really won’t mind that we’ll have to pinch pennies.’

  Dee savored the shivers his touch unleashed. ‘I live to hear Lincoln scream.’

  ‘You probably won’t be able to go on research trips with me.’

  She sighed. ‘So all that talk of Montmartre?’

  ‘To get you to have sex with me.’

  ‘It worked. I’ll save up my own money and go. But I am going… one of these days.’

  He just kept watching her. At first Dee felt cherished. Slowly, though, she began to suspect that his contemplation wasn’t all infatuation. He was just too quiet. Too still. After the night they’d had last night, he should be singing like Domingo. He should at least praise the luster of her eyes, or the fact that she was double-jointed.

  ‘Dee, I have a confession to make.’

  She fell back against her pillow and shut her eyes. ‘Oh, hell. I knew it was too good to be true. I looked like your mother after all.’

  ‘Like my who?’

  ‘If I did and you didn’t mind, then I’m afraid you’re just too gothic for me. You’ll have to leave. Just don’t sell my story to The Enquirer.’

  ‘Nothing short of the News of the World, I promise. What the hell are you talking about?’

  She cracked an eye open. ‘It’s my usual party trick. Why else did you think I was so frantic?’

  ‘You turn into… whoa, that is out there.’

  ‘The fact that you seem surprised is a good thing.’ She rose up on her own elbow to face him. ‘So if it wasn’t that -and I thank all the powers of the universe that it wasn’t -what is it?’

  Danny stopped making eye contact. Dee felt that loss right in her solar plexus where all her dread lived.

  ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Your wife needs you? Your gay lover needs you? Your bishop needs you? What?’

  ‘I’m, uh, not who you think I am.’

  That brought her all the way to a sitting position. ‘I really think this demands an explanation.’

  Danny reached for one of her hands. She slapped him away.

  ‘You said it yourself,’ he defended himself. ‘You can’t bear the notoriety. To have people think they have the right to you. That they know you. I, uh, I guess I’m here under an assumed name.’

  ‘You’re not Danny James.’

  ‘I am. Daniel James Mark-’

  He never got the rest out. The figurative light went on in a blinding flash, and Dee shoved him ass first off the bed. They should have heard the thud across town. Dee found she didn’t care. She leaned over the side to see him sprawled naked on her hardwood floor, his dignity in serious disarray. It would have been easier if he didn’t look as if he were posing for a portrait titled The Male Animal Recumbent.

  Dee swung her feet off the side of the bed, oblivious to her nudity. Danny wisely scooted beyond immediate range.

  ‘You are not going to tell me that you’re really billionaire, world-famous author Mark Delaney,’ she snarled.

  He tried to smile his crime away. ‘He’s not such a bad guy.’

  She climbed off the bed and stalked over to pick up her clothes. When Danny or Mark or whoever tried to rise and follow her, she planted her foot in his solar plexus to dissuade him. He went down with a faint ‘oof!’

  ‘I hope you know that this is one of my favorite fantasies.’

  Dee glared him into submission. She was not going to allow him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. ‘So, what was this?’ she demanded, struggling into her sweat suit. ‘A joke? A bet? Are things so boring in Chicago that you have to go all the way to Salem’s Fork for a little fraternity humor?’

  ‘Actually, not Chicago, either’

  ‘Shut up.’

  With a nervous glance to make sure she wasn’t in striking position, Danny climbed to his feet. ‘I was perfectly serious. I just mostly do my own research. And I call myself Danny James so I can avoid the hoopla. When I still did research as Mark Delaney, the only thing I could accomplish was finding new places on teenage girls where they wanted me to sign my name. I couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Oh, I imagine you could have. Any time during the four times last night you had my le