A Will and a Way by Nora Roberts Page A

challenge, life would be terribly flat. Since it was Michael who was adding that certain spark to the days, it was only natural to want him around. Wasn’t it?
    With a sigh, Pandora shut the book and decided an early night would be more productive than idle speculation. Just as she reached over to shut out the lamp, it went out on its own. She was left with the glow of the fire.
    Odd, she thought and reached for the switch. After turning it back and forth, she rose, blaming a defective bulb. But when she walked into the hall she found it in darkness. The light she’d left burning was out, along with the one always left on at thetop of the stairs. Again Pandora reached for a switch and again she found it useless.
    Power failure, she decided but found herself hesitating in the dark. There was no storm. Electricity at the Folley went out regularly during snow and thunderstorms, but the back-up generator took over with in minutes. Pandor awaited, but the house remained dark. It occurred to her ass he stood there hoping for the best, that she’d never really considered how dark dark could be. She was already making her way back into the parlor for a candle when the rest occurred to her. The house was heated with electricity, as well. If she didn’t see about the power soon, the house was going to be very cold as well as very dark before too long. With two people in their seventies in the house, she couldn’t let it go.
    Annoyed, she found three candles in a silver holder and lit them. It wasn’t any use disturbing Charles’s sleep and dragging him down to the basement. It was probably only a faulty fuse or two. Holding the candles ahead of her, Pandora wound her way through the curving halls to the cellar door.
    She wasn’t bothered about going down into the cellar in the dark. So she told herself as she stood with her hand on the knob. It was, after all, just another room. And one, if memory served, which was full of the remains of several of Uncle Jolley’s rejected hobbies. The fuse box was down there. She’d seen it when she’d helped her uncle cart down several boxes of photographic equipment after he’d decided to give up the idea of becoming a portrait photographer. She’d go down, check for faulty fuses and replace them. After the lights and heat were taken care of, she’d have a hot bath and go to bed.
    But she drew in a deep breath before she opened the door.
    The stairs creaked. It was to be expected. And they were steep and narrow as stairs were in any self-respecting cellar. The light from her candles set the shadows dancing over the crates and boxes her uncle had stored there. She’d have to see if she could talk Michael into helping her sort through them. On some bright afternoon. She was humming nervously to herself before she reached the bottom stair.
    Pandora held the candles high and scanned the floor as far as the light circled. She knew mice had an affection for dark, dank cellars and she had no affection for them. When nothing rushed across the floor, she skirted around two six-foot crates and headed for the fuse box. There was the motorized exercise bike that Uncle Jolley had decided took the fun out of staying fit. There was a floor-to-ceiling shelf of old bottles. He’d once been fascinated by a ten-dollar bottle cutter. And there, she saw with a sigh of relief, was the fuse box. Setting the candles on a stack of boxes, she opened the big metal door and stared inside. There wasn’t a single fuse in place.
    “What the hell’s this?” she muttered. Then as she shifted to look closer, her foot sent something rattling over the concrete floor. Jolting, she stifled a scream and the urge to run. Holding her breath, she waited in the silence. When she thought she could manage it, she picked up the candles again and crouched. Scattered at her feet were a dozen fuses. She picked one up and let it lay in her palm. The cellar might have its quota of mice, but they weren’t handy enough to empty a