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around the horse’s neck. With the same joy, she thought, that a boy might embrace a beloved dog. He spoke to the horse in low tones, crooning ones, in what she now recognized as Gaelic.
    Still grinning, Flynn eased back. He lifted a hand,flicked the wrist, and the palm that had been empty now held a glossy red apple. “No, I would never forget. There’s for my beauty,” he said, and the horse dipped his head and nipped the apple neatly out of Flynn’s palm.
    â€œHis name is Dilis. It means faithful, and he is.” With economical and athletic grace, Flynn vaulted into the saddle, held down a hand for Kayleen.
    â€œThank you all the same, and he’s very beautiful, but I don’t know how to ride. I’ll just—” The words slid back down her throat as Flynn leaned down, gripped her arm, and pulled her up in front of him as though she weighed less than a baby.
    â€œI know how to ride,” he assured her and tapped Dilis lightly with his heels.
    The horse reared, and Kayleen’s scream mixed with Flynn’s laughter as the fabulous beast pawed the air. Then they were leaping forward and flying into the forest.
    There was nothing to do but hold on. She banded her arms around Flynn, buried her face in his chest. It was insane, absolutely insane. She was an ordinary woman who led an ordinary life. How could she be galloping through some Irish forest on a great white horse, plastered against a man who claimed to be a fifteenth-century magician?
    It had to stop, and it had to stop now.
    She lifted her head, intending to tell him firmly to rein his horse in, to let her off and let her go. And all she did was stare. The sun was slipping in fingers through the arching branches of the trees. The air glowed like polished pearls.
    Beneath her the horse ran fast and smooth at a breathless, surely a reckless, pace. And the man who rode him was the most magnificent man she’d ever seen.
    His dark hair flew, his eyes glittered. And that sadness he carried, which was somehow its own strange appeal, had lifted. What she saw on his face was joy, excitement, delight, challenge. A dozen things, and all of them strong.
    And seeing them, her heart beat as fast as the horse’s hooves. “Oh, my God!”
    It wasn’t possible to fall in love with a stranger. It didn’t happen in the real world.
    Weakly, she let her head fall back to his chest. But maybe it was time to admit, or at least consider, that she’d left the real world the evening before when she’d taken that wrong turn into the forest.
    Dilis slowed to a canter, stopped. Once again, Kayleen lifted her head. This time her eyes met Flynn’s. This time he read what was in them. As the pleasure of it rose in him, he leaned toward her.
    â€œNo. Don’t.” She lifted her hand, pressed it to his lips. “Please.”
    His nod was curt. “As you wish.” He leapt off the horse, plucked her down. “It appears your mode of transportation is less reliable than mine,” he said, and turned her around.
    The car had smashed nearly headlong into an oak. The oak, quite naturally, had won the bout. The hood was buckled back like an accordion, the safety glass a surrealistic pattern of cracks. The air bag had deployed, undoubtedly saving her from serious injury. She’d been driving too fast for the conditions, she remembered. Entirely too fast.
    But how had she been driving at all?
    That was the question that struck her now. There was no road. The car sat broken on what was no more than a footpath through the forest. Trees crowded in everywhere, along with brambles and wild vines that bloomed with unearthly flowers. And when she slowly turned in a circle, she saw no route she could have maneuvered through them in the rain, in the dark.
    She saw no tracks from her tires in the damp ground. There was no trace of her journey; there was only the end of it.
    Cold, she hugged her arms. Her sweater, she