Read Online Moon Shadows by Nora Roberts - Free Book Online

much of a date.” She shifted to tap the bottle of champagne he’d set on the counter. “And what about this?”
    â€œWe’ll put it in the fridge and we can open it when you’re feeling better. And if that’s not by tomorrow morning, I’m taking you to the doctor.”
    â€œWe need to talk.”
    â€œYou can talk when you’re horizontal. Got any chicken noodle soup around here?”
    He turned away to open cupboard doors in a search. There was rain in his hair, little beads that gleamed against the black. She could smell it on him, smell the freshness of him while he poked through her kitchen to find something to give her comfort.
    He’d brought her champagne and flowers and wanted to make her soup.
    She stood, pierced by something sweeter than pain. And threw her arms around him, pressed her cheek into his back.
    â€œYou’re one in a million. Oh God, I hope you’re my one in a million.”
    â€œI want you flat on your back, and not so I can have my way with you. I’m going to ply you with condensed soup instead of French champagne, then tuck you safely into bed, while I keep watch on the couch.”
    He turned around, touched his lips to her forehead in a way she knew meant he was checking for fever.
    â€œIf that’s not love, Simone, I don’t have a name for it.”
    â€œForget the soup for now, but thank you. Come in and sit down. There are things I have to tell you, and there isn’t a lot of time.”
    Now his face was nearly as pale as hers. “Are you seriously ill? Is something wrong with you?”
    â€œI have . . . we’ll call it a condition. It’s nothing you can imagine, and it’s not life-threatening. To me. Come sit down, you’ll want to sit down, and I’ll explain.”
    â€œYou’re starting to scare me.”
    â€œI know.” She kept her hand in his as she led him to the living room. Everything looked so cozy, so simple, she thought. But it wasn’t, couldn’t be.
    It was the biggest risk she would ever take, but there he was, the most important prize she could ever hope to win, sitting on her sofa looking edgy and worried.
    He would look worse than that when she finished. And when she finished, he would either be hers, or he’d be making tracks.
    â€œIt happened in Italy,” she began. “I was eighteen. Just. So happy to be on my own for the first time. Everything was ahead of me. You know how it is?”
    â€œYeah.” He reached for the throw over the arm of the sofa, and tucked it over her lap. “You think you own the world, and all you have to do is start collecting.”
    â€œYes. I was . . . stifled is the way to put it, I guess, with my aunt and uncle. I behaved as they wanted me to behave, was very careful to do what was expected. Otherwise, I didn’t know what would happen to me. So I was quiet, studious, obedient. And I marked the days on my mental calendar until I could turn the key on that lock and run. There was money coming to me when I turned eighteen. Insurance money, a little trust. Not tons of money, but enough to see me through, to give me some freedom, to finance that trip to Europe I wanted so desperately. And I’d worked summers since I was sixteen, squirreling away as much money as I could. I was going to go to college, but I deferred for a year. At eighteen, it seemed I had all the time in the world, and the possibilities were endless.”
    Her fingers were plucking at the edge of the throw. He took her hand in his, soothed it. “You said you went alone.”
    â€œI wanted to be alone, more than anything.” How viciously ironic, she thought, that she’d gotten that wish. “To meet people, yes. To sit in cafes and have brilliant conversations with fascinating people. And I did, the way you do at that age—or think you do. I wanted to see Rome and Paris and London, and all the little