This Magic Moment

by Susan Squires

  “This is very good,” Thomas said, as he swallowed. “You say this is cow?”

  Mr. Marrec grunted an affirmative. “Never had beef?”

  “We only had goats at the monastery and they were for milk. We didn’t eat meat. We had cheese though. I churned enough milk and pressed enough cheese to last a lifetime.”

  “I knew you didn’t get those shoulders from a gym,” Mr. Marrec muttered around a mouthful of steak.

  “How did you know that?” Thomas was now attacking his potato.

  Mr. Marrec laughed. “Muscles from gyms look pretty, but they can’t work. Or fight.”

  “Fight?” Thomas asked. “Is that what you do?” He gestured toward the knife with his own, much less fierce implement.

  “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “You must have a strong purpose.” Thomas nodded in approval.

  Mr. Marrec looked taken aback. “Purpose?”

  Thomas looked up from his plate, his eyes wide, as though he didn’t comprehend Marrec’s ignorance. “The goal which drives your life,” he explained.

  Mr. Marrec’s expression shut down like a steel door. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  Thomas grew wary. “I did not mean to chide you. I am very lucky to have a purpose.”

  “Yeah, right. You.” Marrec cut savagely at his meat. “What purpose does a kid have who’s been in a monastery all his life? You going to do God’s work and be a monk? Me, I think Miss Priss here won’t like that much.”

  Tammy felt herself flush. “He can be whatever he wants.”

  “But you are both wrong,” Thomas said, his brows drawing together. “I do not believe in God. And I have only one true purpose, so I cannot be whatever I want.”

  “You lived in a monastery and yet don’t believe in God…” Mr. Marrec stopped his knife and went still. “I’ll bet I know who gave you your ‘purpose.’”

  Thomas nodded eagerly. “My mentor.”

  Mr. Marrec turned only his head to stare at Thomas. Tammy held her breath. Just maybe this boy knew everything.

  “So, what is this purpose?” Marrec asked.

  Thomas’s expression collapsed. “I do not know. I know only the time is not yet come to fulfill it.”

  Marrec snorted in derision and turned to his meal. “This purpose cannot be trés fort if you don’t even know what it is.”

  Tammy sighed. Yeah. That would have been too easy.

  Thomas smiled. That smile was so beatific he looked like one of those paintings of saints. “But to know you have one—that is surely a blessing, even if it is not from God.”

  Actually, he might not have religion, but he certainly had faith. In some ways, Tammy envied him. She hadn’t had faith since her father was hurt. Her life since then had been less naïve, no matter what Mr. Marrec said. Not a bad thing. But also less joyful, less willing to face the future. Unlike Thomas.

  So Thomas didn’t know how he figured in Morgan’s plans. That was a dead-end. Bu he might know where Morgan was hiding, or something about the Clan or the Pentacle event. Anyway, she had to pry Thomas away from Morgan’s influence if her Destiny was going to be a happy one. Tall order for three days.

  She put her head down and concentrated on her food, though she had zero appetite. He was so different, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to pair up with Thomas, marry him.

  She put her plate on the bed and got up, feeling overwhelmed. She’d gotten herself into this mess and she was going through with it. But right now she needed to be alone. “I’m going to bed,” she whispered. “It’s been quite a day.”

  She could practically feel two pairs of male eyes drilling into her back as she headed for the door.

  “Lock your room door,” Mr. Marrec grunted as she left.

  *

  Michael tried to stay out of the traffic lanes in the house as long as he could. That way no one could ask him any questions he didn’t want to answer. But as dinner approached, he knew Jane and Brina, at the least, would start wondering where Tammy was. God knew if they took a look at Lance, flat and morose in the corner, they’d know Tammy wasn’t here.

  Damn it. He sighed. Time to lie. At least he could put off the inevitable and give Tammy some time. He sure hoped he’d done the right thing. But with Drew’s vision as his guide, how could he have done anything else? Tammy was going to Catalina and he couldn’t change that.

  He headed around the outside of the house in the dark and came in through the French doors to the kitchen and the informal dining area. Sure enough, Jane was on top of things.

  “Kee, do you know where Tammy is?” she asked, turning from where she was layering noodles, cheese, and meat in a big oblong pan. Yum. Lasagna. One of Michael’s favorites.

  Kee was taking a load of plates into the more formal dining room that could hold the whole family. “Haven’t seen her.”

  “Hmmm,” Jane muttered. “She’s been pretty invisible lately.”

  Michael knew that tone. Jane had very subtly taken on the female leadership of the family since Brina had been so preoccupied with Senior’s recovery. And now she was thinking about what to do about Tammy. That was bad.

  “I just came from the barn,” Michael interjected, trying to sound casual. “She’s down walking Guinevere around. She thinks the mare has a touch of colic.”

  “Oh, dear. Should we call the vet?” Jane asked. “That will throw Mr. Edwards into a security tizzy.” Drew was washing vegetables in the sink. Dev had gotten out several bottles of wine and a decanter. They both turned to Michael. Did everyone have to stare at him? Christ. He was comfortable lying to anyone else but family.

  He cleared his throat. “Tammy said no. But she might be there a while. I’ll take her dinner.” He tried to appear to consider. “She’ll probably want to sleep down in the stable. You know how she is. I’ll be sure she has some bedding too.”

  “If you’re sure…” Jane said slowly.

  “Yeah. Sure.” He noticed Drew watching him through narrowed eyes. Uh-oh.

  But just then Brina and Brian came in, and there was much fussing to get them seated at the breakfast table with glasses of wine. They were followed by Lan and Greta, looking lazily post-coital, and Maggie came in from the terrace with Jesse in tow.

  “It’s dark out, honey. Time to come in,” Maggie explained to the five-year-old.

  “My fort isn’t finished,” he whined. “What if it rains and it gets all wet?”

  “It isn’t going to rain until December,” Kemble said, entering the room. “This is Southern California.” Leave it to Kemble to quote facts to a five-year-old.

  But all of this distracted his wife. Thank God for a big family. Drew handed him a glass of Scotch, neat, as they started cocktail hour. He took it without meeting her eyes.

  He’d take a plate down to the barn. And bedding. While he was there, he’d better feed the animals since Tammy wasn’t around to do it. That might let him avoid Drew’s prying eyes.

  *

  Thomas felt better. Earlier he had vomited up most of his dinner. He wasn’t used to eating cow. Now couldn’t sleep. The bed was way too soft of course and he didn’t like to sleep on the floor in front of Mr. Marrec. It would make him seem too different. But the bed wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t sleep. He could feel Tammy in the room next door and it was driving him crazy. His mind darted from thought to thought. His penis was fully erect. His clothes were drenched in sweat. In short, he was unraveling. One moment he was trying to think how to convince Tammy that she should help Morgan and the next minute he was imagining touching her, and what a religious experience that might be. He’d never had a religious experience, even though he lived in a monastery. But he was pretty sure that touching Tammy would qualify.

  He jerked up out of bed and stood, trembling, in the middle of the floor. He had to see her. More than that, he had to touch her. But Tammy had warned him against that. What should he do? What would he say to her? What was happening to him? He didn’t understand the
urges shuddering through his body. They were almost painful in their intensity.

  The voice startled him. “Do it.” Marrec’s rumble filled the room, though his voice was soft. Thomas had been sure he was asleep.

  “Do…do what?” Thomas tried to keep the tremor out of his voice. He was mostly successful. Did Marrec know the wild thoughts careening around in his head?

  “Go see her.” Marrec locked his hands behind his neck. He lay on top of the bed, fully clothed. His tee shirt bulged over the biceps in his upper arms. “Maybe we can avoid traipsing off to Catalina.”

  “I feel…odd. She might know why. Do you think so?”

  “Me, I would guess she feels ‘odd’ too,” Marrec said, his tone sardonic.

  “I want to touch her,” Thomas confessed in a whisper.

  Marrec rolled up to a stand in one smooth motion. “Of course you do.”

  “She said I shouldn’t. I don’t want to anger her.”

  Marrec rolled his eyes in disgust. He turned Thomas around by the shoulders. “If she really doesn’t want you to touch her, don’t. But she may change her mind.”

  “How will I know?”

  Marrec was pushing him firmly toward the door. “Ask her. Nicely. You’re a nice man, aren’t you?” Marrec reached around and opened the door. He shoved Thomas out into the hall.

  “I think so,” Thomas said, feeling naked even though he, like Marrec was fully clothed.

  “Then go. You’ll know what to do.” Marrec shut the door firmly and Thomas heard the lock snick back into place.

  He took a deep breath. Marrec was obviously very experienced with women. Thomas squared his shoulders. He was not one to shy away from work, or study, or punishment, and he wouldn’t shy away from talking to a girl either. No matter how much he wanted to touch her. He had control. He only hoped she had answers.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‡

  Tammy sat in bed, hugging her knees in the dark, staring out the window of the hotel at the black water and garish lights of the harbor, trying not to think about the man in the room next door and failing. And she didn’t mean her half-brother Luc. No, her thoughts were all for a Welsh stunner with really, really blue eyes, and brown hair and very fair skin that stretched over his biceps where the sleeve of his tee shirt ended.

  What was she going to do? There was no question he was the One. But what was his relationship to the Clan? And what was this mysterious purpose that even he didn’t understand? It was obvious she was waist-deep in muddy water rising fast. She didn’t have any choice but to want the man/boy in the next room so badly it hurt. She didn’t have any choices at all.

  That was pretty much what her whole life had been like. Being born into the Tremaine family meant having a Destiny. All her life her family had inculcated into her that she had a responsibility to the world that came from being wealthy and from having magic in her DNA. But being a Tremaine also meant being hunted by the Clan, and having all the work the family did being undone by those who would destroy them.

  But what about what little Tammy wanted? She was just along for the ride. What she wanted didn’t matter. How could it? She was the least important member of the family, the only one besides Lance and Bagheera who didn’t have magic. Oh, and Luc, if you counted a bastard brother you didn’t even know as family.

  Only now she had magic: a stupid power that let her look through the eyes of animals. And she hadn’t had any choice about that either.

  She didn’t want her destiny. None of it.

  Oh, God, he’s moving.

  He was in the hall. Now he was standing outside her door.

  No, no, no. This is dangerous.

  “Go away,” she called softly, not wanting to wake the other hotel guests, most particularly Luc Marrec.

  “I need to talk to you,” he whispered back. She heard him clearly, as though they weren’t separated by a locked door.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” she whispered. True. She wanted to do far more than talk to Thomas Llewellyn. It involved naked skin.

  “Just for a little bit,” he said.

  “No. Go away.” Her body protested. It definitely had its own agenda.

  There was a long pause, but he was still standing there. She knew. She would always know where he was unless he put enough distance between them. Or she did. The very thought of leaving him made her stomach clench. Oh, this was bad. Her siblings had described being parted from their mates just like this, but only after they’d bonded with sex. She was even more sensitive, apparently. And even more screwed.

  “Please, Tammy. I must understand what’s happening to me.”

  The pain and need in those simple words tore at her. So he didn’t know about the DNA, and the consequences of their heritage. How could he? Morgan hadn’t told him. He had a right to know about this whole magic-wanting-to-get-stronger thing that was drawing them together. Even though he might not believe her. She had an obligation to tell him. She drew in a deep breath for strength and climbed off the bed.

  “Okay,” she whispered as she pulled the lock back.

  He stood there on the lime green and turquoise patterned carpet, silhouetted in the garish light of the hallway. Furrows of anxiety sat between his brows. He had clasped his hands in front of his bulging jeans so hard his knuckles were white. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  She stood aside in the darkness to let him come in, but realized she couldn’t be that close as her body flushed and all her blood seemed to pool in her loins. She darted back toward the bed to prevent fainting. This was just awful. She plopped down and stared at the closet door so she wouldn’t look at him. He shut the door. Now what?

  “I feel very odd around you.” He stood awkwardly in the doorway in the darkness.

  She sighed and relaxed a little bit. He was as screwed as she was. Somehow that made their situation easier to bear. “Yeah. Same here.” She reached over and turned on the little bedside light.

  “You feel it too?” he asked eagerly.

  “Oh, yeah.” She gave a nervous chuckle. “We’ve got a bad case, apparently.”

  “A bad case of what?” He looked so puzzled and anxious, her heart went out to him. Yeah. She was going to have to do this.

  How to start? This was a guy who had never seen a modern ship. “Do you know what DNA is?”

  He shook his head convulsively.

  “Well…” She cast about for analogies. “It’s the stuff we’re made of—the, uh, proteins in different combinations that construct our bodies and make us who we are. Like building blocks.” She took his nod as permission to go on. She cleared her throat. Even thinking with him in the room was difficult. “The, uh, patterns of the protein building blocks are passed down through generations and that’s what causes traits to be passed from father to son and mother to daughter. You understand genetics? I guess Gregor Mendel was after the time you were allowed to study.”

  “The monks bred goats. I understand passing traits in a practical sense.”

  That was good. “Well, the DNA pattern is what is passed down.” She hesitated. How did you tell someone about magic, anyway? She chickened out. “We have DNA that we inherited from, uh, people a long time ago that makes us attracted to each other.” There. That was pretty simple, if technically the least important part of the story.

  “Oh.” His eyes darted around the room. “Why us?”

  Wasn’t that just the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question? “I don’t know. My parents think it’s our destiny. If…if you believe in that sort of thing.” What did he believe in if he’d lived in a monastery but was never taught religion? The members of Tammy’s family were secular humanists, if Drew could be believed. Their faith was in the dynamic force of the universe that might manifest itself in many gods, but wasn’t limited to a particular one. And a force of the universe was causing magic to coalesce just now. Guess you could call that destiny.

  “Oh, I believe in destiny,” Thomas said in that deep voice that seemed to belie
his innocence. It certainly threatened Tammy’s innocence. “How else can you have a purpose?” His forehead creased again in thought. “This makes me more certain than ever that you and I belong together and that you will be important to helping Morgan achieve her own destiny.”

  Tammy’s temper flared. “I’m never going to help that bitch get anything she wants. She’s evil, Thomas, and you are too, if you follow her.”

  Thomas seemed shocked. He actually took a step back. “I have known her for many years. She is not evil.”

  Tammy got hold of herself as she realized she’d have to tread carefully here. “So, she came to visit you at the monastery. How often?”

  “Nearly once a year in recent times,” he said, a note of defensiveness in his voice. “How long have you known her?”

  That was a little tough to answer. But she decided to push ahead. “We knew of her since she had her Cloaker try to kill my brother Tris and his wife Maggie. That’s been ten years now.”

  “Your brother must have done something bad.” But Thomas didn’t sound sure of himself.

  Tammy turned toward the window and looked out over the lights of the harbor. The only way she could piece together sentences was if she wasn’t looking at him. Her loins ached and her skin tingled. “Daddy and Mom wouldn’t serve Morgan back when they were just getting together, because they knew she was evil even then. They had to go to Thailand to escape her vengeance. Guess she doesn’t like to be refused. Or maybe she was afraid Daddy would be more powerful than her. Anyway, it was enough for Morgan that Tris was a Tremaine. Morgan wanted to take her revenge out on The Parents by killing their son.”

  The touch on her arm made her jump. It also sent electricity to her most female parts. She whirled around to see a look of shock, almost of horror, on Thomas’s face as he jumped back. That was the first time she’d touched him and the sensation was like nothing she’d ever experienced, pain and pleasure all in one. Shock registered in his eyes. His expression probably mirrored hers.