hand and gripped Gretchen’s wrist. A ruby glinted, blood-red, on one finger. ‘‘Think about that poor baby.’’
‘‘Huh.’’ Gretchen wasn’t so lost in fantasies that she bought that. ‘‘As if you care about the baby.’’
‘‘You care, though. Don’t tell me you don’t. And you know what Jessie has been saying. We’ve talked about all this, Gretchen. She wants to raise her baby all by herself out on the ranch. The poor little thing will never know his father, never know the life he should have had. She’s so selfish, Gretchen!’’
‘‘They all are,’’ Gretchen muttered. ‘‘They think they’re getting some pretty doll to dress up, then when the pain hits they start yelling. ‘Get me a doctor,’ they say. Like I’m not good enough—but the only reason they want a doctor is to give them drugs. They don’t care if it’s good for the baby or not. All they think of is themselves.’’
‘‘They don’t care like you do.’’ Ursula’s voice was almost a croon. ‘‘Jessie sure doesn’t. She wants to use the baby, that’s what it is. Keep him a secret to pay his father back for dumping her. Is that right? Is that what’s best for the baby? Letting the poor little thing grow up in a dreary house in the middle of nowhere when he could be living in a palace? He’s a prince, Gretchen. But he’ll never know it—unless you help him.’’
Gretchen’s stomach clenched and her eyes went soft. Yearning ripped through her system like a triple-hit of nicotine. This was how Ursula had gotten her hooked on this scheme in the first place. Oh, she thought about that baby. She thought about all the babies she delivered. All those babies she had to put into other women’s arms, all those blithely fertile women who didn’t deserve the precious gifts they were given, the innocence, the love….
She cleared her throat and tried to make her voice hard. ‘‘He won’t be a prince. He’ll be a bastard.’’
‘‘A royal bastard. The only male child in direct line for the throne.’’ Ursula tossed her hair back impatiently. ‘‘Trust me, sweetie, I know how these people think. They’ll be so delighted this baby exists they’ll pamper him, pet him, give him everything a bitty baby could want…and they’ll give us what we want, too.’’ She leaned forward again, her voice low, her eyes shining. ‘‘I’ll be the baby’s aunt, so of course I’ll live there with him. In the palace. But you know me, sweetie. I don’t know beans about babies. I’ll need you to take care of him. What do you say, Gretchen? Would you like to be a royal nanny?’’
Gretchen’s heart began to pound. All those months ago, when she and Ursula had first started scheming, she’d been distracted by the thought of wealth and famous connections. Now an even greater reason to go along with Ursula struck her. She wouldn’t have to hand this baby over to some other woman. The idea made her dizzy, almost sick with yearning. ‘‘You never told me how you’re going to convince the king and queen of Montebello to even talk with you, much less persuade them we’ve got their grandchild.’’
Ursula smirked. ‘‘I’ve got connections.’’
Some man, no doubt. Gretchen reached for her lighter.
‘‘Oh, please don’t. Smoking causes wrinkles.’’
‘‘Causes worse things than wrinkles.’’ Not that there was much worse than wrinkles in Ursula’s world. Maybe cellulite. She flicked the lighter and held the flame to the tip of her cigarette, inhaling deeply. ‘‘All right. I’ll do it.’’
‘‘Oh, I knew I could count on you!’’ Ursula was all but quivering with excitement. ‘‘I’ll get Jessie out to the ranch, but then I’ll have to leave. I’ll have to go to Montebello to set things up.’’
‘‘Fine. I’ll need some money up front.’’
‘‘You don’t trust me?’’
Not for a minute. ‘‘I won’t be able to work for a while, will I? I’ll have to lie low with the baby until you call me.’’ With the baby. That sounded good.
It sounded wonderful.
Ursula leaned back in her chair. ‘‘You know how strapped for cash I am right now. I wouldn’t be in this stupid town if I weren’t so broke.’’
‘‘Broke. Huh! You don’t know the meaning of the word. Sell some of the jewelry your back-stabbing ex-manager gave you. If there’s as much money in this deal as you say, you can buy more and better.’’
‘‘I already sold the diamonds Derek gave me.’’ Her mouth drooped. ‘‘I hated that, but the ticket to Montebello will be expensive.’’
‘‘Those diamonds were worth a lot more than the price of a plane ticket. And if you need more…’’ She grabbed Ursula’s hand and held it up. ‘‘This ring you’ve been flashing around has to be worth—Hey, isn’t this your sister’s ring? The one you’re always bitching about because your grandma left it to her, instead of you?’’
‘‘Oh, you noticed.’’ Ursula’s giggle was light and girlish. She wiggled her fingers. The ring was unusual, possibly unique, with a ruby and a pearl nestled together in an ornate golden bed. ‘‘I don’t think my dear sister Jessie will miss it, do you? Not where she’s going.’’
Chapter 1
Flames. Orange-hot, sucking the air from her chest, shouting smoke at the sky. Flames, drawing her skin hot and tight over the rapture within, the coiled secret at the bottom of her soul. Flames, calling her.
She fought. Wordlessly she fought, for she was deeply asleep, dwelling in a part of herself sundered from language and reason. But even here she knew the danger. And the draw. Unwilling, afraid, she resisted—yet when fire called, she answered, pulled from safety and darkness into a scene from hell.
Fire crackled merrily over the bones of its prey, a tumbled wreck she saw as dark angles and masses. There were people, too—she saw them as movement, their outlines blurred by possibilities. And there were bodies. They were dark and still and horribly clear.
She shuddered. Along with horror came the stirring of thought, still wordless but gathering focus. What she saw hadn’t happened yet. When fire skipped her willy-nilly across time’s boundaries, the living always appeared only as blurred, mobiles shapes, each person a small tornado of decisions awhirl with possible fates.
The dead carried no such freight. They lay quiet and dark, their final shapes fixed.
So there was time still. Not much, not when the vision was this clear, the pull of the fire this strong. But it hadn’t happened yet, so there was a chance that it wouldn’t. She had to think, had to remember what was needed in that other world, the waking world where reality was an orderly march of place and time, cause and effect.
Place and time…where was she? What was the fire eating?
She struggled, fighting the draw of the fire, the great, terrible beauty that called her to dance—fighting the part of her that quivered and yearned and wept with need for the flames. The need to call the fire to her. This time she won the battle, pulling more of reason and the other world into the vision.
She was standing in a smoke-black oven. Air stank in her nostrils and burned her lungs, a poison bath brewed of burning plastic and other man-made materials.
