Moon Dance (32 page)

Once in the southern SF
branch, when he’d come to her apartment to apologize for his part
in killing her mother in the Brockway massacre. He’d told her
everything that had happened to him growing up on Hunter’s Moon
Farm, all of the horrible things that Jimmy had done to him. She
hadn’t meant to care about him then. Hadn’t meant to do anything
with him ever again. She was angry with him, hated him for hurting
her. But after seeing him like that, well… something in her
couldn’t hate him anymore. Not the way she wanted to.

The second time was only the
day before, when they were making love in the rain, when he’d been
trembling, unable to hold off his orgasm, burying his head in her
breasts and promising to die for her.

And the third time was just
then, when he’d told her that he didn’t feel like a monster with
her, when he’d confessed that he was glad to have a
daughter.

Dana was frightened.

She’d been afraid of Cole
before, afraid of what he would do to her, what he would convince
her to do.

This fear was different.

She was afraid now because
she was slipping. She was being sucked down, down, down by an
undercurrent of emotions towards Cole. They were tender, and they
were sweet, and they were…

No. She was
not
falling for Cole
Randall. She couldn’t allow herself to do that.

She couldn’t trust him, for
one thing. He would hurt her, and he wouldn’t even care. Or would
he? Would he really? Maybe she was blind. Truly, she did trust him.
She trusted him with her life, and she’d put her life in his hands
more times than she could count.

But she couldn’t fall for
him. She had to fight that, because Cole was
wrong
somehow. Somehow, deep down, he
was broken and twisted and to declare herself for a man like
that…

Of course, she wasn’t right
either.

And sometimes, underneath
all his wrongness, Cole seemed so sad and lost, just like a little
boy who wanted to be loved.

No.

She shook her head
fiercely.
I will not love this man. I
cannot love this man.

“
You okay?” Cole
asked.

“
I’m fine,” she
said.

Cole had said he loved her.
In his sleep, in his raving delirium, he’d said it.

It didn’t count,
though.

No, this wasn’t love. This
wasn’t that kind of story.

They’d get Piper back, and
then…

Then what?

Then she’d go on the run
forever, trying to keep her daughter away from the SF trackers who
were looking for her?

Then she and Cole and Piper
could—?

No.

No, that could never happen.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

As they made their way down
the interstate, Dana started to recognize things.
“Where are we going?” she asked Cole.

“
I told you, we’re lying
low.”

“
We’re back in
Pennsylvania,” she said. “It seems to me like you’re going back to
the SF headquarters.”
Home
, she thought. Except it wasn’t
home, not anymore. It had been destroyed.

“
No,” he said. “Not there.
But we’ll be close, I guess.”

“
Are you sure this is a good
idea?” she said.

“
Best idea I
have.”

She guessed she was going to
have to trust him. It wasn’t as if she had any ideas at all—good or
bad. Eventually, he exited the interstate, and he drove through
tree-lined streets and old, Victorian style houses. Then he turned
the car, pulling into the entrance of a college campus.

“
What are we doing?” said
Dana.

“
Lying low, like I said,” he
said.

“
At college?” She peered out
the window at tall, brick buildings and well-kept sidewalks. Leafy
trees looked down over students hurrying to and fro.

“
I know someone that’ll help
us.” He seemed to know his way around the campus, navigating his
car through several parking lots that seemed like mazes to
Dana.

“
How do you know this
person?” she said.

“
I used to work here,” said
Cole.

“
Here?” Dana looked
around. She remembered once having a thought that Cole looked like
a college professor with his glasses. His glasses! That settled it,
he did
not
need
those things. He’d been driving without them, after all. Why the
hell he’d ever worn those things was a myster—

“
Yeah, here.” He smiled at
her.

“
Doing what?”

He pulled the car into a
parking space marked ‘Visitors Only.’ He put the car in park and
removed the keys. “Oh, I worked for the A/V department.”

“
The what?”

“
Audio/Visual? I, uh, set up
projectors and televisions and things for various classes. Teachers
are really stupid about that kind of stuff. They could never figure
out how to plug in the DVD players.”

She was stunned. “I never
pictured you doing that kind of work. I mean, you’re so… ‘yay,
nature’ and everything, I didn’t think you’d be keen on
audio/visual equipment.”

He laughed. It was probably
the freest, easiest laugh she’d ever heard come out of him. He
sounded genuinely happy. He caught her by the chin, and he kissed
her.

The kiss stunned her too. It was breezy
and soft, not a Cole kiss at all. There was no brooding, dark
desire in it. No shame or wicked intensity. Just his lips and
tongue on hers. Gentle. Good.

She sighed, keeping her eyes
closed as he pulled away from her.

He stroked her cheek. “You
think I’m ‘Yay, nature.’”

She raised her shoulders.
“Well, I seem to remember being subjected to a very long diatribe
about how nature restored balance and something about pine cones
and forest fires. Mind you, the whole time, my arms were chained
over my head, and I was kind of freaked out, so I might not have
listened as closely as I could have.”

Cole drew back, rubbing his
forehead.

She’d meant it to be funny,
but she realized now it wasn’t.

“
Fuck,” he muttered. “I’m
sorry I did that to you.” He climbed out of the car.

She got out too, coming around to
him.

He was leaning against the car. He was
still rubbing his forehead.

She touched his shoulder.
“Um, listen, I didn’t mean…”

He looked up at the sky.
“Why do you still let me near you, Dana?”

She rubbed his shoulder. “I…
I don’t know.”

He looked down at her. “I
don’t deserve—”

“
No,” she said. “You don’t.”
She moved her hand away from his shoulder.

He scuffed his foot against the
pavement.

She crossed her arms over her
chest.

He swallowed. He looked up at her. He
took a deep breath. He looked back at the ground. He let out the
breath.

She chewed on her bottom
lip.

Then his hand was on her cheek again,
fingers feather soft.

She raised her gaze to
his.

“
I’ll never do anything like
that to you again. You know that, right? I was… confused, and I…”
His expression was fierce. “I am so sorry.”

“
I know.” She swallowed.
“Not all of it was bad anyway. And… if you hadn’t… If it hadn’t
happened, I don’t know who I’d be.” He had taught her things about
herself, about her wolf. Without Cole in her life, she would have
remained closed-off and repressed.

He seemed to accept this. He
bobbed his head, and then he took a deep breath. “Okay, well, come
with me.”

“
Let’s take the tranq guns,”
said Dana. They’d stripped them from the SF trackers and taken the
guns along with them. “Just in case something happens. I’d feel
better if we were prepared.”

* * *

Dana and Cole slid into the
back of a large lecture hall, the seating tiered like an
auditorium. It was about half full of students, but they were
scattered throughout the hall. At the bottom of the room, a woman
stood at a podium. She had frizzy brown hair that went out from her
head in all directions, and she wore a corduroy blazer over jeans.
She probably would have looked mousy under other circumstances, but
her face was alight with excitement as she spoke to her students,
and her animation made her seem strong and in charge.

“
So, we’ve just
finished up the discussion on the roots of the romance novel in
Jane Austen’s works, and we’re going to move on today to the second
part of the discussion, which
will
deal with
The Flame and
the Flower
extensively, just like I said
last class meeting,” said the professor.

Dana liked her just by
looking at her, and she wasn’t sure exactly why that was. The woman
seemed to have a magnetism to her.

The professor continued.
“Anyway, everyone should be caught up on that, right? Was that
easier reading than the Austen?”

Cole pulled the both of them
down into seats at the back.

There was a low mumble of affirmatives
from the gathered students.

One guy in the front row raised his
hand.

“
Yes?” said the
professor.

“
I didn’t think any of it
was easy reading,” the guy said.

The professor grinned at
him. “Well, thank you for trying, Dave. I appreciate
it.”

The guy grinned back.

Dana raised an eyebrow. That
guy was sitting up front to flirt with the professor. She was at
least ten years older than him, but the guy didn’t seem to care.
She nudged Cole. “What is this class?”

He leaned close. “I don’t
know, but I think it’s the romance novel one. It’s a Women’s
Fiction/English Literature class. It’s Larissa’s most popular
class.”

“
Larissa?” said Dana. “Is
that the person we’re here to see?”

“
Yeah, we’ll talk to her
after class,” said Cole.

The professor was talking
again. “All right, so as we’ve seen, the Austen books are comedies
of manners, and they’re rooted in comedy drama from Shakespeare on
out. And so, they’re light, they’re sweet, and they’re like
romantic comedy movies today. And that’s an important component of
romance. But today we’re going to start talking about a darker
trend in romance novels, and we’re going to tie that back into
ancient literature, and we’re really going into the seedy
underbelly of the romance novel.”

The class tittered.

Larissa smiled. “I know that
you guys are thinking romance doesn’t have a seedy underbelly. In
fact, when I was trying to get this course off the ground, one of
the reasons that it was so tough was that I faced a lot of
opposition from people—both men and women—who really didn’t feel
there was any literary merit to romance novels in general, and they
couldn’t see why I wanted to teach a class on it. Um, this is the
argument that I made to convince them they were wrong, and this is
the reason that you and every student for the past six years has
the option of this elective.” She surveyed the class. “So, let’s
talk a little bit at first about the kinds of criticisms that
people make against romance novels. Who can tell me something that
you’ve heard people say to criticize or denigrate romance
novels?”

No one moved.

Larissa raised her eyebrows.
“Dave? Haven’t you got anything to say about this?”

“
Uh…” The student laughed a
little. “Well, people say they’re smutty, I guess.”

“
Absolutely,” said Larissa.
“They’re all about sex, right? And they all use purple prose and
awkward euphemisms, like ‘his turgid sword of passion.’”

Everyone in the class
laughed.

“
Anything else?” Larissa
asked.

“
They’re formulaic,” called
out another student.

“
Definitely, people say
that,” said Larissa. “Formulaic. Other stuff?”

“
That they’re fluff,” said
someone.

“
Right,” said Larissa,
“but now that we’ve dissected both Jane Austen and
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,
we know there’s a lot more than fluff going on.” She looked
over the class. “Anyone got anything else?”

“
Unrealistic,” called out a
student.

“
Oh, definitely,” said
Larissa. “Of course, all fiction is unrealistic, and all of it is
criticized for that, but romance novels are often called
unrealistic.” She paused. “There’s one other big thing that I want
to bring out before we move into the lecture. This is a big thing
amongst feminist critics when they discuss romance novels.
Anyone?”