Key Of Knowledge

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Book: Read Key Of Knowledge for Free Online
Authors: Nora Roberts
sold their little house, all the furniture, just about every damn thing. And he cut me loose and moved to New York to get rich and famous.”
    â€œIt wasn’t as cut and dried as that,” Malory commented.
    â€œMaybe not. But it felt like it. He said he had to go. That he needed something, and it wasn’t here. If he was going to write—and he had to write—he had to do it his way. He had to get out of the Valley. So that’s what he did, like the two years we were together was just a little interlude in his life.”
    She downed the rest of the wine in her glass. “So fuck him, and the bestsellers he rode in on.”
    â€œYou may not want to hear this, at least not now. But part of the solution might be to resolve this with him.”
    â€œResolve what?”
    â€œDana.” Malory laid both of her hands on Dana’s. “You’re still in love with him.”
    Her hands jerked. “I am not. I made a life for myself. I’ve had lovers. I have a career—which, okay, is in the toilet right now, but I’ve got a phoenix about to rise from the ashes in the bookstore.”
    She stopped, hearing the way her words tumbled out. “No more wine for me if I mix metaphors that pitifully. Jordan Hawke’s old news,” she said more calmly. “Just because he was the first man I loved doesn’t mean he has to be the last. I’d rather poke my eye with a burning stick than give him the satisfaction.”
    â€œI know.” Malory laughed a little, gave Dana’s hands a squeeze before she released them. “That’s how I know you’re still in love with him. That, and what I just saw on your face, heard in your voice when you took me through what you had together.”
    It was appalling. How had she looked? How had shesounded? “So the wine made me sentimental. It doesn’t mean—”
    â€œIt means whatever it means,” Malory said briskly. “It’s something you’re going to have to think about, Dana, something you’re going to have to weigh carefully if you really mean to do this thing. Because one way or the other, he’s part of your life, and he’s part of this.”
    â€œI don’t want him to be,” Dana managed. “But if he is, I’ll deal with it. There’s too much at stake for me to wimp out before I even get started.”
    â€œThat’s the spirit. I’ve got to get home.”
    She rose, then ran a comforting hand over Dana’s hair. “Whatever you’re feeling or thinking, you can tell me. And Zoe. And if there’s something you need to say, if you just need someone to be here when you have nothing to say, all you have to do is call.”
    Dana nodded, waited until Malory was at the door. “Mal? It was like having a hole punched in my heart when he left. One hole ought to be enough for anybody’s lifetime.”
    â€œYou’d think. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Chapter Three
    T HE odds of finding a magic key tucked in one of the thousands of books at the Pleasant Valley Library were long and daunting. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t look.
    In any case, she liked being in the stacks, surrounded by books. She could, if she let her mind open to it, hear the words murmuring from them. All those voices from people who lived in worlds both fantastic and ordinary. She could, simply by slipping a book off the shelf, slide right into one of those worlds and become anyone who lived inside it.
    Magic keys and soul-sucking sorcerers, Dana thought. Incredible as they might be, they paled for her against the power of words on a page.
    But she wasn’t here to play, she reminded herself as she began dutifully tidying the stacks while keeping an eye on the resource desk a few feet away. This was an experiment. Maybe she would put her fingers on a book and feel something—a tingle, a hint of heat.
    Who knew?
    But she worked her way

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