Once upon a Dream by Nora Roberts

word. She slid off the horse, slowly circled the car. Not a scratch, she noted. Considerate of him. She wouldn’t have to face the hassle that a wrecked car would have caused with the rental company.
    Yes, he’d cleared that path as well. But why had he bothered with such a mundane practicality?
    Curious, she opened the car door and sliding behind the wheel, turned the key. The engine sprang to life, purred.
    Runs better than it did when I picked it up, she thought. And look at that, to top things off, we have a full tank.
    â€œDid you want me out of your life so badly, Flynn, that you covered all contingencies? Why were you so cruel at the end? Why did you work so hard to make me hate you?”
    He’d given her no reason to stay, and every rational reason to go.
    With a sigh, she got out of the car to say good-bye to Dilis. She indulged herself, running her hands over his smooth hide, nuzzling at his throat. Then she patted his flank. “Go back to him now,” she murmured, and turned away to spare her heart as the horse pranced off.
    Because she wanted some tangible reminder of hertime there, she picked a small nosegay of wildflowers, twined the stems together, and regardless of the foolishness of the gesture, tucked them into her hair.
    She got into the car again and began to drive.
    The sun slanted in thin beams through the trees, angled over the little lane. As she glanced in her mirror, she saw the path shimmer, then vanish behind her in a tumble of moss and stones and brambles. Soon there would be nothing but the silent wood, and no trace that she had ever walked there with a lover.
    But she would remember, always, the way he’d looked at her, the way he would press his lips to the heart of her hand. The way he’d bring her flowers and scatter them over her hair.
    The way his eyes would warm with laughter, or heat with passion when…His eyes. What color were his eyes? Slightly dizzy, she stopped the car, pressed her fingers to her temples.
    She couldn’t bring his face into her mind, not clearly. How could she not know the color of his eyes? Why couldn’t she quite remember the sound of his voice?
    She shoved out of the car, stumbled a few steps. What was happening to her? She’d been driving from Dublin on the way to her bed-and-breakfast. A wrong turn. A storm. But what…
    Without thinking, she took another step back down the now overgrown path. And her mind snapped clear as crystal.
    Her breath was coming short. She turned, stared at the car, the clear path in front of it, the impassable ground behind.
    â€œFlynn’s eyes are green,” she said. His face came clearly into her mind now. And when she took a cautious step forward, her memory of him went hazy.
    This time she stepped back quickly, well back. “You wanted me to forget you. Why? Why if none of it mattered did you care if I remembered you or not? Why would it matter if I broke my heart over you?”
    A little shaky, she sat down on the ground. And she began to do what she’d always done best. Be logical.
    Â 
    Flynn sat as he had on the night it had begun. In the chair in front of the fire in the tower. He’d watched in the flames until Kayleen had gotten into her car. After that, he hadn’t been able to bear it, so he had hazed the vision with smoke.
    He’d lost track of the time that he’d sat there now, chained by his own grief. He knew the day was passing. The slant of sunlight through the window had shortened and was dimming.
    She would be beyond now, and would have forgotten him. That was for the best. There would be some confusion, of course. A loss of time never fully explained. But she would put that behind her as well.
    In a year or two, or twenty, he might look into the fire again, and see how she was. But he would never open his mind to her in dreams, for that would be more torment than he could ever possibly bear.
    She would be changed a little by what had passed