Mind Over Matter

say you were making a mistake. You were right, David, when you said I wasn’t your type. Go with your first impulse. It’s usually the best.”
    “In this case I think I need more data.”
    “Suit yourself,” she said as though it made no difference. “I have to get back. I want to call Clarissa and make sure she’s all right.”
    He took her arm one last time. “You won’t always be able to use her, Aurora.”
    She stopped and sent him the cool, intimate look so like her mother’s. “I don’t use her at all,” she murmured. “That’s the difference between us.” She turned and made her way back across the sand.

4
    T here was moonlight, shafts of it, glimmering. There was the scent of hyacinths—the faintest fragrance on the faintest of breezes. From somewhere came the sound of water, running, bubbling. On a wide-planked wood floor there were shadows, the shifting grace of an oak outside the window. A painting on the wall caught the eye and held it. It was no more than slashes of red and violet lines on a white, white canvas, but somehow it portrayed energy, movement, tensions with undercurrents of sex. There was a mirror, taller than most. A.J. saw herself reflected in it.
    She looked indistinct, ethereal, lost. With shadows all around it seemed to her she could just step forward into the glass and be gone. The chill that went through her came not from without but from within. There was something to fear here, something as nebulous as her own reflection. Instinct told her to go, and to go quickly, before she learned what it was. But as she turned something blocked her way.
    David stood between her and escape, his hands firm on her shoulders. When she looked at him she saw that his eyes were dark and impatient. Desire—his or hers—thickened the air until even breathing was an effort.
    I don’t want this. Did she say it? Did she simply think it? Though she couldn’t be sure, she heard his response clearly enough, clipped and annoyed.
    “You can’t keep running, Aurora. Not from me, not from yourself.”
    Then she was sliding down into a dark, dark tunnel with soft edges just beginning to flame.
    A.J. jerked up in bed, breathless and trembling. She didn’t see moonlight, but the first early shafts of sun coming through her own bedroom windows. Her bedroom, she repeated to herself as she pushed sleep-tousled hair from her eyes. There were no hyacinths here, no shadows, no disturbing painting.
    A dream, she repeated over and over. It had just been a dream. But why did it have to be so real? She could almost feel the slight pressure on her shoulders where his hands had pressed. The turbulent, churning sensation through her system hadn’t faded. And why had she dreamed of David Brady?
    There were several logical reasons she could comfort herself with. He’d been on her mind for the past couple of weeks. Clarissa and the documentary had been on her mind and they were all tangled together. She’d been working hard, maybe too hard, and the last true relaxation she’d had had been those few minutes with him on the beach.
    Still, it was best not to think of that, of what had happened or nearly happened, of what had been said or left unsaid. It would be better, much better, to think of schedules, of work and of obligations.
    There’d be no sleeping now. Though it was barely six, A.J. pushed the covers aside and rose. A couple of strong cups of black coffee and a cool shower would put her back in order. They had to. Her schedule was much too busy to allow her to waste time worrying over a dream.
    Her kitchen was spacious and very organized. She allowed no clutter, even in a room she spent little time in. Counters and appliances gleamed in stark white, as much from the diligence of her housekeeper as from disuse. A.J. went down the two steps that separated the kitchen from the living area and headed for the appliance she knew best. The coffeemaker.
    Turning off the automatic alarm, which would have begun the brewing at 7:05, A.J. switched it to Start. When she came out of the shower fifteen minutes later, the scent of coffee—of normalcy—was back. She drank the first cup black, for the caffeine rather than the taste. Though she was an hour ahead of schedule, A.J. stuck to routine. Nothing as foolish and insubstantial as a dream was going to throw her off. She downed a handful of vitamins, preferring them to hassling with breakfast, then took a second cup of coffee into the bedroom with her to