by Tami Hoag
Jayne’s eyes twinkled. “Faith has baked a cake for the occasion.”
“And what occasion is that?”
“Alaina thinks you’re falling in love.”
Bryan wouldn’t have been more stunned if she’d suddenly smacked him between the eyes with a hammer. He literally staggered back a step. “That’s absurd! I only just met her last night-”
“Ample time for you.”
“-and she’s done nothing but try to throw me out of the house ever since. That’s hardly romantic,” he argued, doing his best to tamp down the memory of holding her.
Jayne just shrugged. “Monica Tyler hit you in the face with a peace pie, and you fell in love with her.”
“You’re taking that pie thing completely out of context,” Bryan said, shaking a finger at her. “That was an entirely different situation. I’m not in love with Rachel. You may report that to the rest of the joint chiefs of staff. I’m not in love. I’m not going to fall in love.”
“Don’t say that, honey,” Jayne whispered, all teasing aside. She reached up a hand to touch his flushed cheek. “I know how it hurts to lose someone. I also know a very wise man once told me we can’t orchestrate our lives, that we have to take our happiness where we can get it.”
Bryan scowled as Jayne threw his own words up to him. “I’d forgotten how that photographic memory got you through art history.” He heaved a sigh and stared out at the unkempt lawn and the fog that draped it all in a dreary cloak of gray. “Yes, we have to enjoy our lives while we can. I want to help Rachel and Addie do that. But I’m not ready for anything more.” He gave a derisive half laugh. “Besides, I’m the last man Rachel wants to get involved with.”
Jayne watched him closely. “How do you know that?”
“Just a feeling,” he murmured absently, recalling very clearly the way he had heard Rachel’s own inner voice state that fact earlier that morning.
Jayne’s eyes widened slightly. She opened her mouth to comment, but thought better of it. Instead, she offered him a soft smile and rose up on her toes. “Kiss me good-bye.”
After Bryan had complied dutifully, Jayne adjusted the strap of her enormous canvas purse on her shoulder and trotted down the steps and across the yard to her little red antique MG, whistling softly to herself all the way. Her dear friend Bryan hadn’t had a “feeling” about anyone else since Serena had died… until now. Until Rachel Lindquist.
“In love,” Bryan muttered in disgust as he let himself back into the house. Of course he wasn’t in love. He was attracted to Rachel, yes. Any man with eyes in his head would be attracted to Rachel. He was sympathetic toward her, naturally. Any caring human being would have been. But in love with her? No. It would be a long time before he felt ready to make that kind of emotional commitment again.
He made for the dining room, intending to excuse himself for the rest of the evening. He had a lot of reading to do about the history of the area and about Drake House in particular. If Wimsey had lived here, the fact would likely be documented someplace. Wimsey was, after all, his main reason for being there-work, getting back his professional instincts, getting back on track. Falling in love was not on the agenda.
The dining room was deserted. He hadn’t been on the porch for more than ten minutes, yet the table had been cleared of china and linen. The room looked as undisturbed as if dinner had never been served. He was about to count himself lucky and escape to hit the books when a sound drew his attention toward the kitchen. It was soft, muffled, like a cough or a sniffle… or crying.
Quietly he stole across the room and cracked open the door to the kitchen. Rachel stood near the sink, which was full of suds and dirty dishes, her arms crossed in front of her and one fist pressed to her lips. Her bare shoulders lifted stiffly as she sucked in another shaky breath and valiantly fought the urge to cry.
Bryan’s heart dropped to his stomach. It took every ounce of strength he had to keep from rushing across the room and scooping her into his arms. Instead, he backed away from the door and began humming loudly. He gritted his teeth and forced his frown upward at the corners, then burst through the door into the kitchen.
“What ho! This looks like a job for the butler,” he said cheerfully.
Rachel swallowed down the last of her unshed tears and cleared her throat. She took the chance to speak but didn’t turn to face him, afraid her eyes might betray the overwhelming emotions she had been struggling to keep at bay. “We haven’t got a butler.”
“I suppose I could take that as an insult, but, being such a sweet-tempered soul, I won’t. At any rate, I suppose it’s a matter of opinion.”
“It’s a matter of money,” Rachel said firmly. “Which is something I haven’t got much of.”
“That’s all right,” Bryan said, taking a position beside her and eyeing the dirty dinner dishes. “I work cheap. Find me a ghost or two, and I’ll be as happy as a clam. Where’s Addie?”
Rachel gave a short, humorless laugh. “She chose to retire to her room rather than spend another minute in my tainted company.” The tears threatened again, but she lowered her head and fought them off with a tremendous burst of will.
“I see,” Bryan said quietly. Then, coming to a decision, he waved a hand at the sink in a gesture of dismissal. “These dishes can wait. Come along.”
Rachel started to protest as he took her by the hand and led her from the room, but the set of his jaw told her it would be pointless. For all his pleasant manner, the man had a stubborn streak a mile wide. She trailed along after him, marveling instead at how strong his hand was, and yet how gentle.
He towed her into a study, a masculine room with cherry paneling and a fireplace. After depositing her on a leather-covered camel-back love seat, he knelt on the hearth and put flame to the kindling already lying beneath the andirons. Warmth bloomed outward from the blaze as Bryan went around behind the desk, withdrew a cut glass bottle from a drawer, and poured amber liquid into two of the glasses that sat on a tarnished silver tray on one corner of the desk. He returned to her then and pressed a glass into her hand.
Rachel scooted back into one corner of the love seat as Bryan settled at the opposite end. She watched him, taken by surprise by his sudden air of authority. He was regarding her through his spectacles with serious eyes.
“Rachel,” he said with utmost gravity. “I think it’s only fair to warn you: I’m going to help you whether you like it or not.”
“Help me?” she questioned, eyeing him suspiciously. “Help me what?”
“Deal with Addie. I get the distinct impression you’re not good at accepting help.”
“Probably because I haven’t had much practice recently,” she murmured candidly as she stared down into the liquid in her glass.
“Are you going to explain that rather cryptic remark, or I do get to make use of those interrogation methods I’m not supposed to talk about?”
She glanced up at him sharply, completely unable to tell whether he was joking or not. He wore a pleasant expression-the mask again, she decided.
“I know this much: you and Addie had a falling out five years ago, you left with Clarence somebody-or-other and didn’t come back,” Bryan began, priming the pump for her in hopes that she would jump in with the rest of the story.
Rachel placed her drink on the low butler’s table and stood up. “I really don’t think there’s any need for you to know all the details of my life, Mr. Hennessy,” she said, her sense of self-preservation rushing to the fore. “The gist of the story is this: One time in my entire life I defied my mother’s authority, and she has never forgiven me.”
“You were in love with this Clarence?”
“Terence.”
Bryan noted with a certain satisfaction that she corrected him only on the name, not on the past tense he had used in regard to the relationship. “Where is he now?”
Rachel wandered away from the heat of the fire to the cool air near the French doors that led out onto a terrace shrouded in mi
st. “Chasing a rainbow,” she murmured softly. Terence Bretton seemed a lifetime away from her now, so far removed from her situation that even his memory seemed unreal.
“And what about you, Rachel?” Bryan whispered.
She jumped a bit at the sound of his voice. He had come up behind her without her realizing it, but her sudden awareness of him was acute. She could feel the heat of his body, hear the subtle sigh of fabric on fabric as he shifted position. He didn’t touch her, but she realized to her shame that she wanted him to. She hadn’t known the man two days, and she wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her. She wanted it so badly, she ached.
Her lashes fluttered down, and she was immediately overtaken by the imagined sensation of being held. His arms were hard and strong, but his touch was gentle… She felt herself leaning back, almost as if she were being pushed back, and she caught herself and fought the strange feeling off.
“What about you, Rachel?” he asked. “Where does your rainbow end?”
“You mean this isn’t Oz?” she said ruefully, an acute sadness filling her, a sadness that came through in the soft, clear tone of her voice. “I was so sure it was. You’re the Wizard and Mother…”
Addie was the wicked witch telling her she could never go home, telling her she was destined to be trapped in a surrealistic nightmare, that somewhere over the rainbow was a place dreamers longed for but could never find.
In the silence Bryan could feel her disillusionment as sharply as if it had been his own, and he hurt for her. Whatever she had given up to return to Addie had been better than the future she faced here.
Seemingly of its own volition, his hand rose toward the shimmering fall of Rachel’s hair. It spilled down her back, a pale river of moonspun silk. He couldn’t quite bring himself to resist the urge to touch it. Like a man trying to touch a dream, his fingers reached out hesitantly to brush against the curling ends. There was something incredibly sensual in the act, something strongly erotic, though he had barely grazed her. He inhaled sharply as desire streaked through him, setting all his nerve endings ablaze.
“And who are the munchkins?” he asked, trying to offset his reaction with a bit of levity. He barely recognized his own voice, it was so hoarse and low.
The absurdity of the question struck Rachel in the tattered remains of her sense of humor, and she managed a soft laugh. There was something wonderful about a man who could make her laugh on a night when her whole life seemed like a bad dream.
She turned away from the window and looked up into his eyes, so warm and caring behind his glasses. He was much too near. She had told herself to keep him at least an arm’s length away at all times, but there he was, no more than a deep breath away, and, while her wary heart told her to flee, Rachel found herself rooted to the spot.
“I never thanked you for this afternoon.” She rolled her eyes and smiled wryly. “I never dreamed Mother would try to take off with my car. Thank God no one was hurt. You saved the day.”
Bryan shrugged it off, uncomfortable with genuine praise. “Any other magical being would have done the same. See how invaluable I’ll be to have around?”
It was the perfect opportunity to tell him he couldn’t stay, Rachel thought. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words or even to consider the consequences of allowing him to remain in Drake House and in her life. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.
She stood staring up at him as if transfixed by a spell. The light from the fire cast her face in an amber halo, glistened off the vulnerable curve of her lower lip. It caught on the black jet beads adorning the old dress she wore and set each one with a miniature starburst of light.
“Have I told you how beautiful you are in this dress?” Bryan asked softly, something vital trembling deep inside him, something that had lain dormant, like a seed beneath the snows of winter. He felt it struggling to come to life with each shallow breath.
“I think you did,” Rachel murmured.
“Oh.” His mouth quirked up on the right in sheepish self-deprecation. Again he raised his hand to touch her hair, this time letting his fingers sift through the strands of silk. “Then, have I told you how much I want to kiss you?”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He didn’t wait to question himself or his vow of nonromantic involvement. He bent his head to hers and brushed his mouth gently across the satin of her lips. She tasted of sweetness and wine and need, a need that called out to her own lonely soul. His fingers threaded deeper into her hair, his hand sliding to cup the back of her head, to tilt her face to a better angle as the first kiss faded and the second began.
Just a kiss, Rachel thought. What harm could there be in a kiss? The solace and warmth and tenderness she found as she let herself melt into Bryan’s arms-how could anything bad come of this? She felt so alone, and he was so sweet. She had forgotten what it was like to feel like a woman, and he was so masculine. She had been so filled with misery, and he was magic.
Her hands slid up to grip the solid strength of his arms, her fingers drinking in the feel of his tuxedo jacket as her mouth drank in the taste of him-warmth and whiskey and desire. It was a tender kiss, but not a tame one. There was a hunger in the way his lips rubbed against hers, a barely leashed demand for more. His tongue slid gently along the line of her mouth, asking for entrance, then taking it at the first hint of acquiescence.
Rachel sighed as she allowed him the intimacy. Her heart raced as her breasts molded against the planes of his chest. She lost all sense of time and place, of who and where they were. She forgot all about duty and practicality. She gave herself over to a kind of sweet, gentle bliss that could have carried her into the night… until a crash and a scream shattered the still air.
SIX
Bryan bolted for the door with Rachel right behind him. He took the grand staircase two steps at a time and ran straight for Addie’s room. Addie shrieked again as he burst into the room.
“Blast you, Hennessy!” she blustered, shaking a gnarled fist at him. “I ought to pop you one! You startled the life out of me!”
Bryan brushed the reprimand aside. “Addie, what happened? We heard a crash. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, no thanks to you.” She clutched a fistful of nightgown to her chest. Her knuckles were white. “There was a ghost outside my window, trying to get in! Go out there and catch it,” she ordered, thrusting a finger at the portal. “You’re supposed to be good at that, aren’t you?”
For all her effort to appear calm, she was still terribly rattled. She’d been lying in bed, trying to sleep as memories tumbled through her mind all out of order, like the colors in a kaleidoscope, when the apparition had appeared. The shock had thrown her into a mental tailspin. Now fragments of the past mingled with the present so that she couldn’t distinguish one from the other. Her heart beat frantically as she tried to sort it all out.
“Mother!” Rachel gasped as she burst into the room belatedly, her shoes having hindered her progress on the stairs. “Are you all right?”
Rachel. Addie stared at her, confused. Love ached inside her. She lifted a wrinkled hand to brush her daughter’s hair back from her flushed face. “Rachel,” she said firmly but with far more gentleness than she’d used in years. “You ought to be in bed. You’re going to ruin your voice, staying up all hours. What will Mrs. Ackerman say?”
Rachel blinked at her. She hadn’t had a voice lesson with Mrs. Ackerman in ten years, but she couldn’t bring herself to say that to Addie. She didn’t want to do anything to ruin this single fragile moment of peace between them. Still, something had happened in this room, and they had to find out what it was.
“Mother, why did you scream?” she asked carefully.
Addie looked at her blankly.
“The ghost,” Bryan prompted. “Was it Wimsey?”
Rachel scowled at him. Why did he persist in this ghost business? How would Addie be able to cling to any part of her sanity with Bryan encouraging her hallucinations?
“Who’s Rowena Mortonson?” Bryan asked Rachel.
“She was our next-door neighbor in Berkeley.”
“Don’t speak as if she’s dead, Rachel. She’s only gone to Los Angeles to visit that effeminate son of hers,” Addie muttered, playing with the fraying end of her braid. “There’s a boy who needs a can of starch in his shorts.”
“What did it look like?” Bryan questioned.
“Oh, he favored Rowena, poor homely boy-pug nose, receding chin, limp brown hair. That pretty well describes the dog too.”
“No, Addie. The ghost that was at your window. What did it look like?” Bryan asked, earning himself another glare from Rachel.
“Oooooh…” Addie shuddered. “Pasty white with black eye sockets, and it made the most horrible strangled wretching sound.”
“You say this ghost was trying to break in?” Bryan asked.
“The window is broken,” Rachel said, slightly unnerved but unwilling to admit it. She sat down on the bed beside her mother and took advantage of Addie’s confused state, wrapping an arm around her frail shoulders. She wanted the physical contact, to comfort and be comforted, whether Addie was coherent or not.
“The glass was broken from the inside,” Bryan said, examining the gaping hole in the window. Shards littered the footwide ledge outside. Carefully, he raised the window and stepped out with one foot. He looked up at the gable peak and around the ledge itself, which was ornamented by a rusting wrought iron railing that had come loose on one end. There was no evidence of Addie’s “ghoul,” just a mournful howling as the wind swept around the various turrets and gables of the old house. In the distance the ocean roared.