Spellbinder: A Love Story With Magical Interruptions

by Melanie Rawn

  “Yeah, I do,” she admitted. “For me, it was one man, once. Honest Injun, as they say—and since I’m part Cherokee, you can believe it!”

  Just once? But he understood. “Better to do without—except that sometimes I missed you so much I thought I’d go crazy—all the nights alone in bed, when I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about you and I’d—” He broke off, and felt his cheeks burn.

  A snicker, muffled in his shoulder. “You, too? Oh, Evan! Believe me, lover-man, you’re a whole lot more satisfying than a small personal appliance! And a girl can get damned tired of self-inflicted orgasms —”

  “McClure!”

  “Just promise me you didn’t like you doing it to you half as much as you like me doing it to you, and I may decide to let you live.” She snuggled in close again. “Know what? You’re nicer than you used to be. Not as tense. You’re not fighting the whole world anymore — or yourself.” Her fingers began to drift along his body, and suddenly she giggled. “Oh, good! It’s still there!”

  “Huh? Oh. Well, what’d you think, we’d wear it out and it’d fall off?”

  “Moron. I meant your belly. I missed it. And don’t you dare say you’ll get rid of it. Nothing should ever be perfect—not even you, a chuisle.”

  He’d waited so long to hear her call him that again. It went through him like wine and fire and heartbreak. “I love you, Holly,” he breathed into her hair. “I love you so much—just say you forgive me for everything I put you through —”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Everything, anything—always.”

  His eye was caught by the sparkle of diamonds on her wrist. The swirls of delicate gold were unmistakable. “That’s Susannah’s.”

  Holly nodded, then scrubbed her fingers back through her hair. “It was in her pocket when they found her. She left it to me in her will.”

  “Why?”

  “We had this stupid bet —”

  “No,” he interrupted, “why was it in her pocket? Shouldn’t she have been wearing it? I remember when she bought it, and she never took it off. There’s gotta be a reason —”

  “I thought so, too. I’ve been over it and over it, Evan, and I can’t think why she’d put it in her pocket.” All at once Holly rocketed out of his arms and grabbed frantically for clothes. “Oh, shit!”

  “What?” he demanded, wide-eyed.

  “There’s this thing I have to go to — Susannah’s charity—a cocktail party, starts at seven thirty—I’ll be back by nine, I promise —”

  “You don’t want me to go with you.”

  She stopped in midmotion, trousers halfway up her thighs. “I—I idn’t think you’d want —”

  “Not if you don’t want me there.”

  “Of course I want you there!”

  “Okay, then. Where is this thing, and how fancy?”

  “Palm Court at the Plaza. Tux.” When he groaned, she hurried on, “Evan, you don’t have to if you don’t want to —”

  “I told you I want to. I can rent a tux this afternoon. Will you relax? There’s plenty of time. What’s the occasion?”

  “Breast cancer.”

  His heart stopped and he went cold to his marrow.

  “Not me, Evan.” She came to sit beside him. “I’m fine, love, I promise. I had my annual mammogram in July. Absolutely clear.”

  He nodded, able to breathe again.

  “It runs in Susannah’s family. She lost an aunt and two older cousins to it. This thing tonight—I wasn’t going to go — I’ve been in London—”

  “But you changed your mind.”

  “Some friends were talking after the funeral on Wednesday, and since this was already planned, we decided to make it something special in her memory. Elias will be there, and a few other people from the office.” She leaned over and kissed him. “Come on, we have to check out of here and get you a tux.”

  “Right now?”

  Holly rose and tucked her sweater into her trousers. “Oh, that’s it, Lachlan—make big eyes at me and look all sex-starved!” Snagging her jacket from the floor, she made a face at him. “At least that hasn’t changed. Ever the sex maniac.”

  “With you in the room? Damn betcha, lady. What time do I pick you up?”

  “You’re really going to go with me?” She took a step, then another, as if wanting to come to him but fearing he’d suddenly vanish. “You won’t leave me again—it would kill me, Evan —”

  “Holly.” He held out his arms and she sought his embrace blindly. “Shh. It’s all right, lady love. Where would I go, if it wasn’t someplace I could be with you?”

  She hid her face against his chest. “I hate clingy females,” she muttered.

  “You don’t have to be strong all the time, y’know. I finally figured that out.”

  She knuckled her eyes and smiled ruefully. “You did, huh?”

  “Yeah.” He took her face between his hands. “I’ll be there tonight. And every night from now on.”

  THEY PARTED IN THE HOTEL lobby. He went to the Ralph Lauren store in the old Rhinelander Mansion, ending up with a classic peak lapel tux, wingcollared pleated shirt, and black silk bow tie. What the hell, he thought, trying not to notice the numbers after the dollar sign. Marriage to Holly McClure would find him in need of a tuxedo. Or two.

  He picked up other stuff, as well: shoes, underwear, socks, jeans, a shirt for work. He winced at the further damage to his plastic, but he didn’t want to go back to his place in Jersey ever again—though he knew he had to. This way, because he had a suit and tie and needed only a clean shirt for work on Monday, he could put it off as long as possible.

  It was well after five when he got to Holly’s apartment. Mr. Hunnicutt smiled and let him in with a “Good to see you back, Marshal Lachlan.”

  “Good to be back,” he replied. He paused a minute. “How’s she been?”

  “Lonesome,” was the succinct answer, which told him all he needed to know.

  “One man, once.” He couldn’t help wondering who she would choose, after him. Still, he could shrug it off, and even pity the man, whoever he’d been. After all, Evan was here and the other guy wasn’t.

  It felt strange to ring the door chimes. He still had her key someplace in his desk. Isabella answered the door, smiling bright as a new penny.

  “Come in, come in! She said you were back! And about time, too!”

  “Lookin’ good, Isabella—I like your hair that way.”

  “Sweet-talker!” she chided. “You want something to eat while you get dressed? Sandwich?”

  “Do you still make the best iced coffee in the world?”

  “Better,” she announced, taking his shopping bags. “I’ll put all this out for you while you clean up. The right-hand bedroom’s all ready for you upstairs.” She paused, then added, “She wasn’t the same, with you gone. Don’t you ever leave again, okay?”

  “Not a chance. Thanks, Isabella.”

  He took a long, hot shower, and when he emerged with a towel slung around his hips he found that Isabella had left not only a tall glass of iced coffee but also a slice of hot-from-the-oven pound cake. He missed the sight of Mugger sniffing around the table, convinced there must be something for him to eat. Lachlan thought about the cat for a minute, then decided that whereas a Witch might require a feline familiar, for himself he wanted a dog. Something big and spirited for him to take for a walk while Holly gnashed her teeth over a book, but patient and gentle enough for the kids to roughhouse with … .

  Did she still want children? He experienced a fierce desire to find her and make love again and again until they knew she was pregnant. She wasn’t yet forty, but they didn’t have time to waste.

  I’m sorry, Holly. But it had to be this way. For me, anyhow. I’m just sorry I put you through it,too. If only she’d been just a little bit weaker, he could have stayed. But if she hadn’t been as strong as she was, she wouldn’t be Holly, and he wouldn’t have loved her in the first place. It would have been so easy to just lean on her—le
t her do all the work, take all the anger and hurting away—

  He couldn’t have done that to her. To himself. To them. And as deeply as he regretted the year they’d lost, the man he’d been had compelled him to do what he’d done—and it had been the only way to become the man he was now.

  After scraping his face smooth of whiskers and attending to all the other requirements of getting gussied up, he climbed into the tux, ran a comb through his hair, made a defiant face at the gray, and went downstairs.

  “Holly? You in yet?”

  No answer. In the living room nothing much had changed—different books on the tables, a new painting to admire. Thinking back over what she’d told him, he realized she hadn’t been here to change things—and abruptly recalled he’d never heard anything about her time in Kenya. A postcard he’d never read had been forwarded to his new address in Jersey a month after he’d moved. Her souvenirs of Africa were on a shelf behind the bar: three exquisite little beadwork baskets, a carved wooden bowl whose handles were giraffes bending down to drink. What had she seen there, what had she thought and felt and learned? He didn’t know.

  He glanced at his watch and sank into an armchair. It was 6:30 and he knew she’d be late. But worth it. They’d gone out classy a dozen or more times—but nothing she had ever appeared in prepared him for what glided into the living room now. Thin indigo velvet flowed from half-bared shoulders all the way to the floor. No bra confined her breasts, and inside he laughed, for as their eyes met her nipples hardened. The dress fit like skin to the hips, where she wore a belt of linked silver plaques with Celtic knotwork designs on them, with matching earrings, Susannah’s bracelet—and Granna Maureen’s diamond ring. Her hair was tucked back on one side behind her ear. The whole effect was elegant, romantic, medieval.

  He unfolded himself from the chair and drawled in bad imitation of her Virginia Southern, “Y‘all shore do clean up nice, ma’am.”

  “Many thanks, my lord.” She gave him a curtsy and looked him down and up. Her admiration was gratifying, even though he hated like hell being done up in a tux. “And thank you for choosing a big bow tie—a man with a nose the size of yours couldn’t possibly wear a skinny one.”

  “I’ll choose to believe you’re complimenting my taste instead of insulting my nose.” Ambling closer, hands in his trouser pockets, he continued thoughtfully, “Y’know, there’s only one way that dress could look any better.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. If it was on the floor of the bedroom.”

  “Voracious,” she accused, eyes dancing. “Ravenous. Absolutely a glutton.”

  “There you go again, with all them big fancy words,” he complained. “You know a big dumb Mick like me ain’t got the smarts to—”

  “Big dumb Mick, my ass. I’ve seen your college transcripts. Shall we go?”

  “You have to make a speech, right?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know what I’ll say.”

  “You can rehearse in the car.” He grinned. “While I drive.”

  “You missed that goddamned BMW more than you missed me,” she growled.

  “Yep,” he said—and got out of her way, fast.

  ON PRINCIPLE, AND OWING TO experience, Lachlan never used valet parking if he could avoid it. More often than not a car returned to its owner at least one dent the worse, and sometimes minus a few gallons of gas. Tonight he parked the Beemer himself. Others were of similar mind; there was a steady flow of gowns and tuxedoes heading for the elevators. Holly hadn’t mentioned what the ante was per head, but he was inclined to be impressed by the money tonight would raise.

  “Upmarket crowd,” he murmured to Holly. “Y‘know, I’m actually glad I’m wearin’ a tux.”

  “You are absolutely, totally, shatteringly gorgeous, Lachlan.”

  He was surprised by how proud her proud smile made him. To cover it, he said, “Two-drink maximum. You want to make sense when you make this speech you don’t know what you’re going to say in.”

  “I adore your sentence structure. Actually, I adore all your structures.”

  “Good evening, Holly, Marshal Lachlan,” said a familiar voice as Elias Bradshaw, lean and elegant and edgy, joined them at the elevator.

  “Evening, Your Honor,” Lachlan said, unable to think of a single thing to say about Susannah that wouldn’t sound trite or foolish, or end up hurting people who were already hurting. Still, he gave it a try. “I didn’t get the chance the other day to tell you how sorry—”

  “Yeah, I know.” The brusque interruption was marginally gentled with a brief smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Thanks.”

  Holly slid an arm around Bradshaw, and as he hugged her lightly about the shoulders she asked, “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  He shrugged. “Some.”

  “For a lawyer, you are one lousy liar.”

  Their easy physical intimacy astonished Evan for a moment, but then he reasoned that the loss of Susannah had doubtlessly brought a truce.

  The elevator ride to the Palm Court was a crush of rustling dresses and a skirmish of contradictory perfumes. Evan handed Holly out into an only slightly less crowded foyer. She caught sight of her publisher, glanced an apology up at Lachlan, picked up her skirts, and began sidling her way through the throng. This left Evan alone—relatively speaking—with the man he could never decide whether he truly loathed or just didn’t like.

  “I see you took my advice,” Bradshaw murmured. “Not that I did it for you.”

  “For Holly,” Lachlan replied.

  Bradshaw shook his head. “Susannah. Because she fought for you—and I didn’t fight hard enough. And if you tell Holly any of this, I’ll deny it to my last breath. There are things happening that require somebody who knows—well, somebody who knows. We can talk about it later,” he finished gracelessly.

  “Let’s talk about it now,” Lachlan invited. He nudged His Honor toward a comparatively unpopulated corner.

  “No. Not tonight.”

  “Still paranoid, huh?”

  “With damned good reason,” Bradshaw retorted. “I need your particular expertise. There’s a lot going on that makes tonight the last breather any of us will have for a while. You’ll know what you need to know when you need to know it.”

  Lachlan supposed he really had changed—because a year ago this choice bit of arrogance would have set his temper off like a brick of C4 explosive. Now, he merely regarded Bradshaw with frank admiration for the man’s ability to arrange the world to suit himself. “So you’re making me an auxiliary member of the Circle? You are the most unpredictable son of a bitch I ever met.”

  “Holly needs you. And so, in fact, do I.”

  Evan had no time to reply, even if he could have thought of a swift comeback for this startling admission, for Holly had reclaimed his arm. “What a zoo!”

  Bradshaw pasted a smile on his face. “Holly, you long tall drink of Irish whiskey, since you roped me into this I’d better make good use of my entry fee and go schmooze. See you later.”

  Lachlan watched him go, still stunned.

  “Hey.” Holly jostled his elbow. “What happened?”

  “Huh?” He looked at her, then shook his head to clear it. “Nothin’.”

  “Bull me no shit, Lachlan. What did Elias say that’s got you looking like you’ve been hit in the gut with a two-by-four?”

  “More like a steel rebar,” he answered. “Tell you later.”

  She favored him with a look that vowed he would indeed be telling her, and in abundant detail, then started for the coat-check.

  Someone in the main room was playing the piano, and very well, too. He couldn’t quite recall where he’d heard the particular riff before, but as a bluesy voice began to sing, he remembered all too clearly.

  They’d chosen to hold the annual alumni party at a karaoke bar, of all places. Mercifully, most of tbe singers were pretty good, and getting better as liquor kept flowing. Lachlan was actually enjoying himself, and decided double
-dating with Susannah and Bradshaw wasn’t so bad after all.

  Then some Wall Street type with his dedigner tie askew brought the cordless microphone to their table. The two women held a whispering, giggling consultation, then asked for a second mike. Lachlan and Bradsbaw traded glances, and for the first time in their acquaintance their reactions were in perfect agreement: horrified amusement and equally horrified apprehension.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Bradshaw demanded as the women rose, smoothed their dresses demurely, and grinned pure wickedness.

  Lachlan asked, “Do you really want to find out?”

  “Men’s room’s over there, Marshal.”

  “Lead the way, Your Honor.”

  Both got to their feet, only to be shoved back down onto their chairs by their Significant Otherd, who ordered them to keep their sorry asses put. The song came up: driving drumbeat, thundering bass line. Holly, in her glittery green dress, and Susannah, in creamy white silk that bared shoulders and back, with Holly’s sapphires gleaming at wruits and ears and throat, turned into honky-tonk singers right before their eyes. The voice Holly had likened to an angel’s was clear and pure and strong, but Lachlan would have bet Holly’s farm that Susannah had never belted out a number like this in college choir—every raunchily suggestive word of it directed at Elias Bradshaw.

  By the last chorus(“We be gnawin’ on it, baby—yeah, gnawin’on it”), they were laughing so hard, they could scarcely get the words out. Raucous applause was swiftly followed by wboopd and hollers of approval as Lachlan took his revenge by hauling Holly down onto his lap and kissing the wits out of her. From the other side of the table he heard Susannah—so demure and circumspect at the office—demand of Elias, “So where the hell’s my reward?”

  “Evan?”

  He looked at Holly. And thought about Susannah. And realized for the first time what her death meant to Bradshaw. If I lost you as completely as he lost her—

  “Evan!” Frowning worriedly, she placed a hand on his chest. Her eyes widened; he knew she felt the sick thudding of his heart. “What’s wrong?”