Sanctuary

you letting her go?” Jo asked quietly.
    “Maybe I need to see if I can. Might be for the best.”
    Jo thought of what Nathan had said just before the world had gone mad again. “Maybe we all should start thinking about what makes us happy instead of what might be best. I know I’m going to try, because you start running out of chances after a while. I’ve got something to say to you that I’ve passed up plenty of chances to say before.”
    He shrugged his shoulders, tucked his hands in his pockets in what Jo thought of as his gloomy Hathaway stance. “Spill it, then.”
    “I love you, Brian.” The warmth of saying it was nearly eclipsed by the sheer delight of watching the astonishment on his face.
    He decided it was a trick, a feint to distract the eye before she delivered the jab. “And?”
    “And I wish I’d said it sooner and more often.” She rose on her toes to press a brief, firm kiss on his suspicious mouth. “Of course, if I had I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing you goggle like a trout on the line right now. I’m going up and make Kate go to bed so she can pretend not to know Nathan’s going to sleep in my room tonight.”
    “Jo Ellen.” Brian found his voice by the time she reached the door, then lost it again when she looked back at him.
    “Go ahead.” She smiled broadly. “Just say it. It’s so much easier than you think.”
    “I love you too.”
    “I know. You’ve got the best heart of all of us, Bri. That’s what worries you.” She closed the door quietly, then went upstairs to the rest of her family.
     
     
    SHE dreamed of walking through the gardens of Sanctuary. The high summer smells, the high summer air. Overhead the moon was as full and clear as a child’s cutout. White on black. Stars were a streaming sea of light.
    Monkshood and Canterbury bells nodded gently in the breeze, their blossoms glowing white. Oh, how she loved the pure-white blooms, the way they shone in the dark. Fairy flowers, she thought, that danced while mortals slept.
    She felt immortal herself—so strong, so vivid. Raising her arms high, she wondered she didn’t simply lift off the ground and soar. The night was her time as well. Her alone time. She could drift along the garden paths like a ghost, and the ring of the wind chimes was music to dance by.
    Then a shadow stepped out of the trees. And the shadow became a man. Immortal, only curious, she walked toward him.
    Now running, running through the forest in the blinding dark, with rain lashing viciously at her face. The night was different now, she was different now. Afraid, pursued. Hunted. The wind was a thousand howling wolves with fangs bared and bloody, the raindrops tiny bright-edged spears aimed to tear the flesh. Limbs whipped at her mercilessly. Trees sprang up to block her path.
    She was pathetically mortal now, terrifyingly mortal. Her breath caught on a little sob as she heard her hunter call her name. But the name was Annabelle.
    Jo ripped away the sheets that tangled around her legs and bolted upright. Even as the vision cleared away, Nathan laid a hand on her shoulder. He wasn’t lying beside her, but standing, and his face was masked in the dark.
    “You’re all right. Just a dream. A bad one.”
    Not trusting her voice, she nodded. The hand on her shoulder rubbed it once, absently, then dropped away. The gesture was a distant comfort.
    “Do you want something?”
    “No.” The fear was already fading. “It’s nothing. I’m used to it.”
    “It’d be a wonder if you didn’t have nightmares after today.” He moved away from her, walked to the window, turned his back.
    She could see he’d pulled on his jeans, and when she ran her head over the sheets beside her, she found they were cool. He hadn’t been sleeping beside her. Hadn’t wanted to, Jo realized. He’d only stayed over at Sanctuary because Kate had made it impossible to refuse. And he was only sharing the bed here because it would have been awkward otherwise.
    But he hadn’t touched her, hadn’t turned to her.
    “You haven’t slept, have you?”
    “No.” He wasn’t sure he would ever close his eyes peacefully again.
    Jo glanced at the clock. 3:05. She’d experienced her share of restless three A.M.s. “Maybe you should take a sleeping pill.”
    “No.”
    “I know this was hell for you, Nathan. There’s nothing anyone can say or do to make it better.”
    “Nothing’s ever going to make it better for Tom Peters.”
    “He might have