RAZZLE DAZZLE

by Lisa Hendrix

  Raine’s jaw dropped. “You expect me to go over there and face her?”

  “You would if we really were under a spell.”

  “But—” What could she say to that argument?

  “I can safely promise you that my mother will not say one word to indicate she ever saw a thing.”

  “But I know she did. Geez, Mason, what do you want from me?”

  “The rest of our— The time we agreed on.” He paused and cleared his throat. “I did some research. It seems that the witchy ilk consider the waning moon to be the best time for reversing spells. There’s a new moon the first part of next week, so assuming Mother and Miranda are following the rules, they’ll try something within the next few days. And they’ll fail and have to come to me with a confession. Just a few more days, Raine. Please.”

  A few more days so he could trot back to Caroline with no worries. Raine suddenly realized there was a lump the size of a bowling ball sitting in the middle of her chest, right under her breastbone, and that it had been there for days.

  But she wasn’t about to tell Mason about it, and she wasn’t about to tell him she couldn’t continue with the charade, because if she did either one, she’d have to admit she’d fallen in love with him, and right now she couldn’t imagine doing that. It would just be too mortifying. She tried a diversion.

  “You don’t want your daughter exposed to all this.”

  “She already knows about you—that we’re dating, I mean.”

  “Knowing about it and seeing it are two different things. Kids don’t like to see their parents drag in new people all the time.”

  “Three women in the past four years hardly amounts to all the time, and, besides, she’s the one who asked if she’d get to meet you. Will you finish what we started?”

  She’d love to—but that wasn’t what he meant. This was so stupid. She’d just get hurt more.

  But only for a few more days, and it would be a few more days with Mason. She would have all the hot, lonely nights after that to get over him and to kick herself for doing this.

  “I guess so.”

  He nodded. “Good. Thank you, Raine. You won’t regret it.”

  “I already do. What do I wear this time?”

  “Sam and I often take a ride around the Highlands before dinner. We have a couple of extra bikes around. One should work for you.”

  “Shorts, then?”

  “Fine. And a dress or something for dinner, of course. Speaking of which, the clothes you left behind are in the car. I’ll walk over to where I left Paul and wait out of temptation’s way. I can bring them back in, say, twenty minutes.”

  “All right,” she said. And although the logical part of her brain was grateful for his restraint, there was one little piece of her that wished he’d strip down and shower with her. She was going to have to get that part under control.

  ‘Cause it just wasn’t going to happen.

  Not noway, not nohow.

  *

  Fifteen

  « ^ »

  “Didn’t we pass that tree ten minutes ago?” muttered Raine under her breath as she pedaled a mountain bike through what passed as Mason’s neighborhood—not that you could see any neighbors.

  The Highlands set was private in the extreme. Raine couldn’t spot so much as a chimney top from the road, and although most of the driveways had gates or pillars to mark them, some blended so well into the native woods that they barely made a gap between the cedars and rhododendrons. And God forbid anyone should post an actual address. Privacy she understood, but this was ridiculous.

  The guys on the landscape crew had told her that once, a few years back, a house in the Highlands had burned down because the fire fighters had gotten lost on the unmarked roads inside the gates. She could see how it could have happened. She’d had problems finding houses for landscape work. Even on a bicycle in the clear light of a summer evening, she had no idea where she was—on a rainy night, from a fire truck, it would be impossible.

  She finally spotted a familiar-looking native stone pillar. “Now I know I’ve seen that before.”

  Samantha cruised up beside her on her bike. “Maybe. There are a couple sort of like that. Most of these roads hook together. I think we’re going in a big circle.”

  “In other words, you don’t know where we are, either.”

  “Not really. I know some of the roads, but I’m never at Gran’s long enough to really figure them all out.”

  “Gran’s? Wasn’t—isn’t this your house, too?”

  “No. We had a condo by Lake Washington. Daddy moved back in here a while after he and Mom got divorced. I’m kind of glad. It’s more fun than the condo.”

  Mason, who had been straining at the leash almost since they left the house, hit his brakes and let himself fall back beside them. “Are you two lazy or just out of shape?”

  “Oh, my. He’s taunting us,” said Raine to Sam, without otherwise acknowledging Mason’s presence. “Whatever shall we do?”

  “Cream him!” Sam shouted. She hunkered down into racing position. “Ready-set-go!”

  Mason shot off, and Sam straightened up and started laughing hysterically. Mason circled around to rejoin them. “That was the worst cheating I’ve ever seen. Don’t you know you’re supposed to win if you cheat?”

  “Oh, great,” said Raine. “You’re telling your daughter to cheat.”

  “No. But if she’s going to bother, she ought to do it right.” He grinned at Sam, who stuck her tongue out at him. “Come on, squirt. I’ll give you a five-second lead.”

  “I don’t want to race, Daddy. Raine and I are talking.”

  “Uh-oh. I think I’ve just been told to take a hike.” He grinned. “Tell you what, I want to work up a sweat, so while you two chat, I’m going to do some wind sprints. I’ll ride ahead a little, then come back. Stay on this road so I don’t lose you, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Raine. Wherever “this road” was.

  He raced off up the road, pumping hard. Raine couldn’t keep her eyes off his buns. She knew firsthand that they didn’t just look rock hard.

  “Where do you live?” asked Samantha, interrupting her thoughts at a fortunate moment.

  “The world’s smallest house.” Raine described her place, then found herself answering more questions, about her work, her family, her education, even her art, which Mason had apparently mentioned to Sam. It was Miranda the Inquisitioner all over again, which wasn’t surprising considering how much they looked alike, with their slim, straight lines and bony elbows. But at least Sam didn’t leave the impression she was searching for an exploitable weakness. That made answering her much more pleasant than facing off with Miranda.

  As they talked, Mason sprinted ahead and back several times, staying just close enough to make certain they didn’t get lost. Then they got onto a long sweep of road and he took off and disappeared around a curve.

  “I think I know where we are,” said Sam. “See. There’s the McMullens’ drive. Our house is over there on the other road.” She pointed off toward the right.

  Raine dropped the pitch of her voice and put on a bad movie-gangster accent. “Sose, if we blow off your old man, can you get us back to duh joint?”

  Samantha giggled and tried to do the same accent, but it just wasn’t in the blood. “I think so.”

  “Den lets us looze duh dude.”

  They whipped around the next hairpin right while Mason was still out of sight. As they barreled down the slight hill, Rains started to recognize the territory. They were on Olympic Drive, and the house was just ahead on the left. Pedaling hard and laughing harder, they zipped through the gate and down the drive.

  They braked to a stop in front of the lions that guarded the entry and leaned their bikes against the beasts’ front claws.

  “I’m dying of thirst,” said Sam. “Let’s go around to the terrace.”

  “I think maybe we’d better wait for your father, in case we need to go on a rescue mission. He may
wander around forever looking for us, like the Flying Dutchman.”

  “The who?”

  “The Flying Dutchman. It’s a ghost ship that wanders the seas looking for its crew.”

  “Wow. Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “I believe in the possibility,” Raine said carefully. This was Mason’s daughter, after all. “I’ve never seen one myself, though.”

  “Daddy says there are no such things as ghosts and witches and stuff. That’s why he gets so upset at Gran and Aunt Randi sometimes. Oops.” Her eyes widened and she smacked her hand over her mouth. “He doesn’t like me to talk about it. It’s kind of a family secret.”

  “It’s okay. I already know they’re witches, although I’m still not clear why your dad thinks that’s so terrible.”

  “Me, either,” said Sam, starting toward the door. “I’ll go get us something to drink from the cook.”

  From the cook, thought Raine. That pretty well summarized the difference between Sam’s childhood and her own.

  Mason finally showed up about fifteen minutes later. By then, Sam had liberated three bottles of mineral water from the kitchen, and she and Raine were putting on a show of extravagant boredom on the front steps.

  “Some people are so slow,” said Sam to the sky.

  “That’s twice you’ve jerked me around in one ride,” said Mason. He leaned his bike against the side of one of the lions, then came to sit by Raine. Sam passed him a bottle of water.

  “I rode all the way around the loop looking for you two before I figured out I’d been jettisoned.” He took a long draw at the bottle, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “I think one of you is a bad influence on the other, but I can’t figure out which one is which.”

  “That’s because neither one of us is as bad as you, Daddy, so it’s hard for you to compare good to good.”

  He reached across Raine to aim a playful swat at Samantha.

  He had worked up the sweat he’d wanted, and as he leaned over Raine, his natural aroma was pleasantly sharp and male. One whiff carried her right back to the last place she had been so close to him: in his room, in his bed.

  Abruptly, her body went into full recall. Every inch of her was suddenly flushed and ready for sex.

  The banter between Mason and his daughter was lost as Raine struggled to rid herself of the sensations, a task that would have been easier if he weren’t right there. It wasn’t until he stood up and suggested they change for dinner that she was able to shake them off and bring herself fully back to the present. Even so, her skin felt hot and sensitive.

  Her second shower in slightly over an hour fixed that. She tweaked the water spigot to cooler and cooler until she was on the verge of hypothermia, then hurriedly dried off and pulled on the aquamarine linen suit that was the sharpest of the outfits she’d picked out on Mason’s tab. She figured she might as well give the man his money’s worth.

  That was good. Thinking about the money gave her the right perspective. Between that and the cold shower, she regained a bit of self-control. She did a quick job of her makeup, added some lipstick, and headed downstairs.

  Mason was waiting in the foyer, and when she appeared, he nodded in approval.

  “You look very cool and fresh.” He reached for her hand, frowning when he touched her fingers. “And it’s not just a fashion statement. You’re freezing. Are you all right?”

  “I was warm from the ride,” she said. “I just took a cool shower.”

  He curled his fingers more tightly around hers. “I’ve been doing that a lot recently, too. Smile. We’re on.”

  *

  This was not good.

  Tish sipped at her glass of white wine and watched her son pull out a chair for his girlfriend. It was the first time she’d permitted herself to think of Raine Hobart by that term, but something in her had finally admitted it was accurate, at least for the time being.

  The fight, or whatever it had been, apparently hadn’t lasted. They were back on speaking terms. For that matter, they were back on courting terms. And in front of Samantha, too.

  Not that they weren’t being more circumspect than usual, but really, they did not need one more witness to potentially carry the story back to Caroline, especially not a witness as naively talkative as Samantha.

  However, short of sending the child to bed without her supper, there wasn’t much to be done to remove her from the scene. Tish concluded she’d have to have a talk with Sam later and explain things.

  Samantha was chattering a mile a minute, and as she talked, she poked at something that Raine had laid out on the table.

  “Gran,” called Samantha. “Can you do this?”

  Tish strolled over to the table, where there lay twelve paper matches arranged in a grid of four equal squares.

  Tish exclaimed in delight. “A brain teaser. I used to love this sort of thing as a child. What are we supposed to do?”

  Raine looked up. “Turn these four squares into three squares. But you can only move three matches to do it.”

  “That doesn’t look too difficult.”

  Tish stared at the pattern, mentally shifting matchsticks. It took her a few moments, but then she saw it.

  “Here. One, two, three.” She made the three squares.

  “Ooh,” said Raine. “How about this one?”

  She tore another four matches out of the pack, for sixteen, then arranged them in five squares in a sort of jagged vertical line, so that two squares were next to each other.

  “Now, move just two matches to get four squares of equal size.”

  Staring didn’t work this time; Tish started pushing them around on the table.

  “By the Powers, I don’t see a solution at all. Miranda, Mason come help us.”

  With the two of them joining the group, the Alexander competitive streak kicked in. Pretty soon, the whole family was poking at the matchsticks as though solving the silly puzzle would reveal the mysteries of the universe. And of course, they squabbled good-naturedly over the rights to try, too, just as they had when Miranda and Mason were young and would come home with these sorts of challenges for each other. Tish loved it.

  She even enjoyed the way Raine watched the whole thing with a look of bemusement for a good fifteen minutes before she said, “Gee, you people are stubborn, aren’t you?”

  “Mason is,” said Miranda. “I just act that way in self-defense.”

  “Okay, we give up,” announced Sam. She waved off her father and aunt, who were still fussing, and set the matches back in their original form. “I don’t think you can do it, either, Raine.”

  “I’m entertaining wagers,” said Raine.

  “I’ll bet you—”

  Mason clamped his hand down on his daughter’s shoulder. When she looked up, he shook his head. “Sucker bet, squirt. She knows she can solve it or she wouldn’t have started this in the first place.”

  “Geez. How’s a girl supposed to earn her pocket change with you around enlightening the marks?” Grinning, Raine held her hand over the figure. “Okay. Watch. One, two.”

  Where there had been five squares, there were now four.

  “Wow. Show me again,” said Sam. Raine put everything back and did it again.

  “Very clever, Miss Hobart,” said Tish. “Did you come up with that yourself?”

  “No, but thanks for the faith in my intelligence. Mason was on the right track when he warned Samantha. This is an old bar bet. A lot of this stuff went around Claremont while I was there.”

  “Do some more,” said Samantha.

  “I only have a few,” Raine said. “Swim team limited the amount of time I could spend, ahem, broadening my education However, if your dad has ten pennies in those pockets of his, I can do one.”

  He didn’t, Tish knew. Mason seldom carried very much cash and never let change accumulate. However, at Miranda’s suggestion, Raine substituted candies out of the bowl that had been set out for Samantha’s benefit. She soon had them involved in another p
uzzle—planting ten trees in five rows of four each.

  Tish remembered this one from her own school days, so she stood back and let the others have the fun, taking advantage of the break to cross to the service cart to refill her glass.

  Miranda noticed and came to join her, and together they watched.

  “Raine really is quite good with Sam,” Miranda observed quietly. “Much more at ease than Caro was at Easter.”

  “She would make an excellent nanny, I’m sure.”

  “Probably. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Mason’s thinking more along the lines of stepmother.”

  Tish turned to frown at her daughter. “Are you trying to upset me, darling?”

  “No. But look at him.”

  Mason was leaning over the table, working on the puzzle. Tish raised an eyebrow. “So?”

  “Put your glasses on,” said Miranda.

  Tish retrieved the glasses from where they hung on a chain around her neck and slipped them on. It didn’t take long to spot it once she saw Mason’s face clearly: he was watching Raine and Samantha with a look of utter, absorbed fascination, the way men often look at the mothers of their children.

  Or the potential mothers.

  “Oh, my,” said Tish. “This is not good. This is not good at all.”

  It got even worse as the evening progressed.

  First, there was dinner. Not only did both Samantha and Mason fawn over Miss Hobart all throughout, but afterward, when the topic of the next evening’s activities came up, Mason agreed he and Sam would join her at some sort of neighborhood baseball game.

  Inappropriate, thought Tish. Totally inappropriate.

  And then there was the discussion that occurred while tucking Samantha into bed. She was too old to be tucked in, according to her, but it was one of the perquisites of having her in the house, and both Mason and Tish had agreed they would take turns until she raised such a fuss they had to give it up.

  However, she almost wished she’d skipped tonight when Sam started raving about Miss Hobart.

  She was pretty. She was fun. She rode bikes really well. She knew all those funny puzzles. She made Daddy laugh and could play pretty good tricks on him, too.

  And the crowning blow: “Do you think Daddy’s going to marry her?”