Magic

by Tami Hoag

  “Addie isn’t going to want to move,” Bryan said calmly.

  “It isn’t a question of whether or not Addie wants to move,” Rachel said, planting her fists on the desktop. “It’s the way it has to be. Will you face reality for once? I have a job waiting for me in San Francisco. I’m going to have to support my mother. Her medical bills alone will probably put me in debt for the rest of my life. Insurance would be a great help, but Addie doesn’t have any because she lined a bird cage with her premium notice and let the policy lapse. Are you comprehending any of this, Bryan?” She snatched up a pen and pad of paper and thrust them at him. “Maybe you should write yourself a note. I have to sell this house!”

  Bryan looked up at her and sighed. “I know it’s a cliché, but you’re beautiful when you’re angry.”

  Rachel clamped her hands to her head as if to keep the top of it from exploding off. She counted to ten and took deep breaths. Blessed, infuriating man! He could be every bit as impossible to deal with as her mother.

  “I don’t think you should be too hasty about selling, Rachel.”

  “Bryan, this house is as expensive to keep as a herd of elephants, and there’s no chance of me finding a job around here that would pay more than peanuts. You’re allegedly an intelligent man-you do the math. I have to sell this house. I haven’t got a choice.”

  “We always have at least two choices, angel. You’re just too stubborn to look for yours.”

  “I’m stubborn?” Rachel went red in the face as a hundred scathing retorts clogged her throat and cut off her air supply.

  Bryan had turned back to his book. “I’ve got a bad feeling about Messieurs Porkrind and Rasputin. I think they’re up to something.”

  Rachel didn’t like them either, but she was too angry to agree with him about anything. She regarded him with narrowed eyes. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me you’re a mind reader.”

  “Not precisely.” Bryan pressed his lips together to fight off the smile that threatened.

  He studiously avoided looking at Rachel, concentrating instead on his book. His eyes brightened suddenly, and he tapped a finger to the page before him. “Edmund Porchind, alias Pig Porchind, alleged bootlegger during the Prohibition era, resided in Anastasia until 1931.” He pushed his glasses up and stared across the room. “I wonder what one of the late Mr. Pig’s long-lost relatives wants with Drake House.”

  “I’m sure I don’t care,” Rachel said crossly. She turned to start for the door, but Bryan caught her wrist, and with one deft tug pulled her into his lap.

  “Bryan!” she squealed. Her fury was instantly overrun by surprise and a giddy kind of desire that kept her from trying too hard to get away. She squirmed just enough so Bryan had to wrap his arms around her.

  “Don’t you know when a woman is furious with you?” she asked, fighting to maintain her scowl.

  “Yes, but I also know when she’s having to work at it.” A wicked grin split his features. Rachel was angry with him, but she would recover. In the span of a few short minutes he had had a bounty of clues dropped in his lap. It was as intoxicating for him as was any liquor.

  “Look sharp, Watson!” he said merrily. “The game is afoot!”

  He covered her frown with an exuberant kiss. He had meant only to give her a quick smack on the lips, but as soon as he tasted her, his intentions melted away on a groan of pure male need. She tasted so sweet. Even angry she tasted sweeter than anything he’d had in his life for a long time. And beneath her initial resistance he could taste a dozen other emotions-longing, hesitancy. He could taste a woman who wanted to believe in his brand of magic but wasn’t going to allow herself to.

  He slanted his mouth across hers in warm invitation as his left hand slid up the supple lines of her back to tangle in her hair. Pins slipped their moorings and dropped to the floor as the mass of pale silk tumbled loose. Her lips softened beneath his, and she yielded to temptation with a moan.

  She shouldn’t have been giving in to him this way, Rachel thought dimly. But she didn’t seem to have the will to pull away. She felt safe in Bryan’s arms. She felt womanly in a way she hadn’t experienced in ages. She felt her troubles drift to the back of her mind. That alone was worth the lapse in behavior. What would it hurt to let go of reality for just a moment or two, she rationalized as desire surged through her veins in a hot stream. What would it hurt to take what Bryan was offering, so long as she realized it couldn’t be permanent?

  His tongue gently traced the line of her lips, and she invited him inside before her brain could summon an objection. She framed his face with her hands as she took his tongue into her mouth, and reveled in the textures her heightened senses experienced-the softness of his lean, clean-shaven cheeks against her palms, the velvet rasp of his tongue against her own. She could feel his arousal press against her thigh, and an answering heat pulsed between her legs. She twisted in his embrace to press closer, flattening her breasts against the solid wall of his chest.

  She slid her hands up the sides of his face, hooking her thumbs under his glasses and sliding them up out of the way, so she could kiss him even harder. At the same time, Bryan traced a line around her rib cage, down to the point of her hip. His fingers snuck under the bottom of her T-shirt and slid up to cup a small, full breast. Rachel’s breath caught in her throat at the feel of his thumb rubbing back and forth across her hardened nipple.

  Bryan drew back a little, planting tiny kisses along the line of Rachel’s jaw, then drew back a little farther so he could look at her face. Fresh air rushed in and out of his lungs, bringing with it a measure of sanity. It seemed an eternity had passed since he’d wanted a woman this badly. His hormones were screaming for him to press his advantage and take Rachel right there and then, but as he looked into her violet eyes he saw not only desire, but vulnerability and uncertainty.

  She might want him, but she wasn’t clear on the reasons why, and for him it had to be something more than an act to obliterate the present and push away the specter of a lonely future. He’d been down that road himself. He wasn’t willing to go down it again, even with Rachel. When they made love, it would be just that-love.

  He smoothed down the hem of her soft pink shirt and gave her a gentle smile as he dropped his glasses back into place. “For someone who doesn’t believe in magic, you do a pretty good job of weaving a spell,” he said.

  Rachel stared at him as if he had just materialized before her, taking in his tousled tawny hair, the gleam of residual desire in his blue eyes, the slight puffiness of his sexy lower lip. She could still feel him, rigid and ready against her thigh, and a bolt of heat shot through her.

  Magic, he’d said. Illusion. That was all this was, she told herself, her heart sinking. She could lose herself to the illusion she found in Bryan’s arms, but the reality of her life would still be there waiting for her when the smoke cleared.

  She tried to bolt off his lap, but he held her there, his hands firm but unyielding.

  “Love isn’t the trick, Rachel,” he said softly, his earnest gaze holding hers, “believing is.”

  Awareness shivered through her. Almost immediately panic closed her throat. She couldn’t be in love with Bryan Hennessy. She just couldn’t be. Fate couldn’t be that cruel to her again, to make her fall in love with a man who believed in magic. Love would make her weak when she most needed her strength. It would hand her disappointment when she already had a wagonload of it.

  This time when she tried to extricate herself from Bryan’s hold, he let her go. She straightened her clothes and pressed a hand to her mouth as she looked away from him. Her lips were hot and sensitive and still tasted of him, of apples and man. Longing ribboned through her again, and she squelched it, wincing as she ground out the fragile emotion.

  Bryan watched her, hurting for her as he sensed her inner struggle, hurting for himself as she denied them both. But despite the mild setback, optimism brimmed to life inside him, and he smiled. Things were looking up. There was a
mystery to unravel, and Rachel Lindquist had just kissed him silly. What more could a man ask for?

  “We’d better get back to work,” she said, her voice remote. “Faith will be wondering what happened to us.”

  “You might be wondering that yourself,” Bryan murmured as Rachel walked away. He took one last look at the history book open on the desk, then focused his gaze on Rachel’s delectable derriere as he pushed himself out of his chair and followed her into the hall.

  “Faith, thanks for all your help,” Rachel said. She stood on the porch with her arms wrapped around herself as the fog bank rolled in for the evening, obliterating what was left of the sunlight. “Are you sure you won’t take anything for your time?”

  “Absolutely not.” Faith shook her head, her curls bouncing. “I was just lending a hand. That’s what friends do. If you’re a friend of Bryan’s, you’re a friend of mine. Remember that.” She skipped down the sagging steps and turned around at the bottom with a sunny smile. “Ill expect to see you at the inn one day soon for tea.”

  “All right.”

  Rachel couldn’t help but smile in return. It would have been nice to nurture a friendship with Faith Callan. For a moment she let herself think of what it would be like to settle there and have the kind of friends she could call simply to chat with or meet for tea. Another thing she wanted but could never have, she told herself as she watched Bryan walk his friend to her station wagon.

  “Dear Miss Lindquist,” Bryan said as he ambled along with his hands in his pockets, “you are cordially invited to an interrogation at Keepsake Inn, Anastasia-by-the-Sea. Thumbscrews optional.”

  Faith frowned at him in disappointment. “I like her, Bryan. She probably deserves better than a man who questions the motives of his dearest friends. Besides,” she added, “Alaina and Jayne and I are only looking out for you the same way you look out for us.”

  “Yes,” Bryan agreed, “and I love you for it. But I’m a big boy, now; I can take care of myself-more or less”

  Faith didn’t look the least bit convinced as she opened the door and slid behind the wheel of her car. “You need a haircut, big boy.”

  A wry grin twisted Bryan’s mouth as he ran a hand back through his hair. He was going to have to write himself another note. He bent and kissed Faith’s cheek through the open window, then handed her a little blue flower he had produced from thin air. Faith tucked it into a buttonhole on her white oxford shirt and looked at him with an expression as earnest as any he could have mustered.

  “Please be careful with your heart, Bryan. You give it so easily. I’m not saying Rachel isn’t worthy of it. I’m just afraid that maybe you’re falling in love with her because she needs someone to take care of her and you’ve run out of people to look after.”

  “That’s not it,” he said evenly, though he suspected he was fibbing a bit. He did want to look after Rachel, but caring was a part of love. Besides, kissing her this morning had had little to do with her plight and everything to do with the way she felt in his arms.

  Faith sighed and told him good-bye. He stood in the yard, watching as she drove down the long driveway, a pensive mood settling over him. He had a lot to think about tonight-Rachel, Porchind and Rasmussen, the possibility that Wimsey had showered those two with disapproval over their opinion of ghosts.

  A mournful wail drifted to him on the cooling breeze. He snapped himself out of his musings and listened, holding his breath. The sound came again, faint but real, and he turned and jogged off across the lawn toward it, not at all sure of what he might find.

  Addie wandered through the maze with no idea of where she was. All around her were high wild bushes, their branches tangled into an angry mass with leaves that rattled at her in the wind. They towered over her, casting a sinister shadow across the narrow, weed-choked path.

  She had left the house because she was angry and frightened and she had thought the fresh air might clear her head, but she had promptly become lost. She had no idea how long she had been gone. It seemed like hours had passed. She had no idea of how far she had wandered. All she knew for sure was that she was cold and that Rachel was going to sell her home and make her move to a place where nothing would be familiar.

  She had overheard her daughter’s conversation with those strange little men and her argument with Hennessy afterward. She had thought about confronting Rachel, but fear of the future had overwhelmed her, and she had run away instead. Her forgetfulness wasn’t such a terrible thing here in Anastasia, where people knew her, and in Drake House, where things were usually familiar. But to go to a place where everything would be strange, where there would be no memories at all to draw on, where she would have to learn new faces and new ways of doing things…

  Tears welled up in her eyes and in her throat, choking her as she stumbled along the path, her garden boots catching on the rough ground. How could Rachel betray her this way? How could the daughter she had sacrificed so much for treat her so badly?

  Addie stopped and looked around her, her eyes wide with fright. No matter which way she turned, everything looked the same. She pressed her bony hands to her cheeks and sobbed aloud as she sank down on a cracked stone bench.

  Suddenly a man burst through the shrubbery. She looked up at him, terrified, and sobbed again.

  “Addie,” he said, stopping in his tracks. He was out of breath and his hair was disheveled. “Are you all right?”

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “It’s me, Addie. Bryan Hennessy.”

  “I don’t know you,” she said vehemently, swatting at him as he came nearer and knelt down at her feet. “I don’t know you. Go away! Go away or I’ll scream!”

  “It’s all right, Addie,” Bryan said in a soft voice. He never broke eye contact with her as he reached out and captured one of her frail hands in his. “It’s all right. It’s me, Hennessy.”

  “I don’t know you!” she shouted, panic rolling through her like a tidal wave as she stared at him. She fought the horrible fog that clouded her mind, searching for a memory of this man’s face. A part of her thought she should know him, which only made her more desperate to find something there that she couldn’t quite grasp. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she slumped on the bench in abject misery, mumbling, “I don’t know you. I don’t know you.”

  Bryan settled himself on the bench beside Addie and pulled her thin, trembling body into his arms. Cradling her against him, he stroked a big hand over her hair, and, rocking her gently back and forth, he began singing to her. It was a soft, sweet song he’d learned in Scotland about a girl named Annie Laurie, who was fair and lovely with a voice like a summer wind’s sigh. His voice rose and fell with the melody, and trembled a bit as he ached with Addie’s pain and confusion. But he sang on, the gentle notes coming from his heart, just as they had when he’d held Serena and sung to her.

  Rachel stood at the edge of the clearing in the maze, her body shaking. She had gone into the house, intending to speak with Addie about selling the place, but her mother had been nowhere around. She’d run out into the yard to get Bryan to help her look for Addie, and the sound of crying had drawn her to the overgrown maze.

  She stood there now, unable to move or breathe. She stared at the scene before her: Bryan, his eyes closed, but a lone pair of tears escaping the outer corners, holding her mother and singing to her; and Addie rocking back and forth within the embrace of his strong arms, crying.

  “It’s all right, Addie,” Bryan murmured, kissing the old woman’s temple. “It’s all right if you don’t know me. I’ll still help you.”

  It struck Rachel then. As she stood there with her defenses stripped away by raw emotion, with her heart laid bare and the truth confronting her with nowhere for her to hide. She was in love with Bryan Hennessy. And it wasn’t a question of whether or not he was the kind of man she needed, it was a question of whether or not she deserved to have the kind of man he was.

  EIGHT

  “Is Addie asleep?”
Bryan asked, looking up from the papers he had spread out on the desk. A small brass lamp illuminated his work area. The only other light in the room came from the fireplace. Shadows jumped on the dark paneled walls.

  “Finally,” Rachel said on a sigh. She leaned a hip against the desk and allowed her shoulders to sag beneath the weight of her worries. “She wouldn’t let me in her room, but I managed to peek inside once it got quiet. She wore her garden boots to bed. I could see them sticking up under the coverlet. I wanted to go in and take them off for her, but I’m sure she would have hit me in the head with a rock and called the police.”

  Bryan frowned. “Back to square one, eh?”

  “I’d do handsprings if we were that far along,” Rachel said dryly. “I tried to explain to her that selling the house is the only practical thing, but she didn’t want to hear it.” She held up a hand as Bryan opened his mouth to speak. “Please refrain from saying you told me so. In fact, a change of subject would be warmly welcomed.”

  “You’re an absolute vision in that dress.” He gave her a wicked smile and forced all thoughts of the mundane from his mind.

  Rachel beamed as if his words had injected new energy into her. She was wearing the beaded burgundy gown, the same gown that had so mysteriously appeared on her bed that first night she’d had dinner at Drake House. Addie claimed it was Wimsey who insisted they dress for the evening meal, but Rachel didn’t see the difference. It was Addie who became upset if she showed up under-dressed, so it was Addie she dressed for-most nights.