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KANE DISMOUNTED AND tossed the reins of his fine new horse over a low limb. This was it; the place where his life had changed. Here, on this very spot, he had been transformed from a lost soul who had no hope for the future, a man who had every intention of drinking himself to death, to a man determined to put the past behind him and to make something of himself. He had gone to sleep beneath this very linara tree, drunk and hurting and wishing for death, and had awakened to see his Angel in the water. Smiling, asking impossible questions, then walking out of the water more beautiful than any mere woman could ever be. She had loved him, healed him, and changed his life.

With Angel in his arms he'd slept without nightmares. He'd awakened alone.

He'd thought her a dream, for a while. But the next night when he'd stopped for a few hours' sleep he'd found the evidence that she had indeed been very real. A spot of her virgin's blood stained his bedroll. His Angel's blood. He'd dreamed of her every night since.

He had tried to return to this place when he'd realized that his Angel was real and not a whisky-induced dream, but somehow he'd gotten turned around. He'd taken a wrong turn, then another wrong turn. He'd gotten completely and totally lost before giving up the search.

Since leaving this mountain he'd been a different man, yes, and he'd also had the devil's own luck. Not two days after leaving the hills behind, he'd found a coin on the road. The gold piece, struck with the image of Emperor Sebestyen as a regal child, had been sitting there in the dirt catching the bright rays of the sun. He'd taken that coin and slipped it into his pocket, and when he reached the next town he walked into the nearest tavern, intent on drinking it down. But there had been a friendly card game in progress, and instead of drinking away his newfound treasure he'd decided to gamble it. He'd won. He'd won big.

He'd won everything.

For the past year, Kane Varden had gambled his way from one town to the next. It didn't matter what the game might be. Whether the pastime of choice were whist or faro or slam, he always won. He couldn't stay in one place for long. People tended to distrust a man who couldn't lose. A dozen men or more had tried to prove that he'd been cheating, but of course since he had not been cheating there was nothing to prove. Still, he'd found it was simply best to move on after a few days in any one place.

Women were drawn to a man with good fortune and a bundle of cash in his pocket, and in the beginning Kane had taken full advantage of his newfound luck with the ladies of a certain type. But lately—for the past six months or so—he had been living like one of the emperor's saintly priests. Or, more rightly, like a faithful married man. In his heart he knew it wasn't right to dream of Angel while another woman slept in his bed, and he had come to feel like he was cheating on her when he so much as looked at a pretty woman. He had come to feel like he was obligated to this Angel, and that wouldn't do.

The only way to end that fanciful supposition was to face her one more time. When he realized that the angel he'd conjured in his head was nothing like the real woman he'd shared a moment of happiness with, he'd be able to move on, once and for all. She was a woman like all others.

It had taken him almost a month to find this place. He'd gotten lost again, confused and turned about and downright dizzy. He had finally stumbled upon a narrow path that looked familiar. Luck, again. He'd followed it, riding by the light of the moon until he found the pond and the grove of linara trees that were once again in bloom. Their color and their fragrance called to him.

So here he was once again at dawn, watching the sun come up over this pond. The odds that he would find Angel were slim, he knew that, but this was the place to start.

She couldn't be as beautiful as he remembered; she couldn't be as passionate, as perfect. It simply wasn't possible. Sex was always good, but it was never that good. He'd confused memory with his dreams, that was the only explanation. He had manufactured Angel in his mind, and he had to get her out. When he got a good look at the girl, the real girl with all her faults, maybe he'd quit dreaming about her. Maybe he'd be able to get on with his life without feeling like he was haunted by a fair-haired, blue-eyed angel. He'd accepted that the woman herself was real, but the memory he carried couldn't be.

Kane had been a happy man for the past year, and why not? He had everything any man could possibly want. He had not been a happy man when Angel had come to him in the dawn of a year ago. In fact, he had been miserable. He didn't know why he had been so unhappy, and to be honest he didn't care. It might've had something to do with the war, he supposed, though he no longer remembered much about his life before finding Angel, and in the past year he had steered clear of any and all political situations. His life was easy, blessed. Whatever pain he'd been carrying with him, Angel had washed it away.

The swishing of tall grass on the opposite side of the bank drew his attention there, and immediately he saw a flash of blue among the green. He held his breath until the woman on the narrow path walked beyond the tall grass and into the clearing beside the pond.

He smiled. It was her. His Angel. His smile faded. She was every bit as beautiful as he remembered.

Apparently she'd come here to do her laundry. She carried a very small bundle of clothes in her arms, as if she'd rolled up a stained frock and planned to wash it in the pond. While he watched, entranced, she carefully lowered herself to the ground, sitting on a bed of soft grass with the bundle still in her grasp. Angel lifted her face to the sky and closed her eyes. Loosened hair, impossibly fair and touched with gold, fell around her shoulders and caught the rays of the sun as it tumbled to her waist.

Kane didn't move. He stood in the shadow of the linara tree and watched, his heart beating too hard. This was the woman he dreamed about. She was real.

If he showed himself to her now, would she run? Or would she take off her clothes, dive into the pond, and swim to him with that smile on her face? Would she swim to him, then walk out of the pond with water dripping from her hair and rolling down her body and ask him to lie with her again?

She shifted the bundle of clothes into one arm, and began to unbutton the bodice of her dress. She wore a very plain gown without frills or ribbons; a long, flowing garment of ordinary fabric without shimmer or adornment. The blue suited her, though it was not as remarkably blue as the eyes he remembered. She deserved better than such a simple frock, and he had become a man who could afford to give her gifts. He would buy her a fancy gown before he left this time, he decided. Something befitting a woman of such beauty. He would buy her other things, too. Jewels and ribbons and satin shoes—all the things pretty girls liked.

He would take her in a soft place this time, he decided. Not on the ground, but in a proper bed.

Copyright © 2004 by Linda Winstead Jones