Mistress of Magic

by Heather Graham

  But still …

  He wanted to hold on to the night. To hold on as passionately and fiercely as he could, for as long as he could.

  Nights might be frequent.

  Sometimes, even love was easy.

  But magic …

  Magic was always rare.

  Chapter 8

  “It makes no sense!” Max said. They were in the large meeting room above the entry cave. She hadn’t thought to say anything to Max about the intruder.

  Wes had.

  But he had forgotten to mention to her that he was going to tell Max, and when her brother had summoned her to the room and she had discovered Max and Wes sitting at the table and staring at her, she had felt as guilty as a two-year-old stealing candy. She’d even forgotten why Wes had stayed with her in the first place. Color had filled her face and she stood there staring at the two of them. Then Max had finally spoken. “Damn it, Reggie, you should have called me immediately.”

  The intruder. They were talking about the intruder. Wes had said he wouldn’t lie, but at least he hadn’t come running to Max to tell him that she had come to his bedroom the night before.

  What would Max’s reaction have been? Anger? Damn it, Wes, I call you for help, and you seduce my sister? Or amusement? Hell, I have been telling Reggie to get a life!

  But Wes had done nothing so drastic—he had told Max about the intruder, and she had managed to sit down with the two of them. She hadn’t talked much at first; she hadn’t needed to. Wes explained about coming back from dinner and hearing the back door close. He told about the shots, too, and she was grateful that he omitted the part about her throwing the door open in the midst of the shooting. “It makes no sense!” Max said then, shaking his head and staring at Reggie. “Why would someone break into your house? I can’t seem to make two and two equal four.”

  “Maybe two and two don’t equal four,” Reggie said. She looked at her brother. She couldn’t look at Wes without feeling the color rise to her cheeks again. She wasn’t trying to deny things. She just didn’t dare think about them.

  “Max, maybe there was just a sneak thief in my house. I told Wiler last night that it was possible someone just decided to rob the place.”

  “Right. And a casual robber shot at Wes, and then at you when Wes went after him.”

  “Sure. Shooting kept us from coming after him, right?”

  Max sighed and stared at her.

  Wes spoke up. “They just happened to decide to rob your house after all this time?”

  “Coincidences do happen,” Reggie said stubbornly, still looking at her brother. She sighed with exasperation. “Maybe some hood has been watching the place and realized that I live alone, and maybe even realized that I don’t have an alarm—”

  “That has to be fixed,” Max said.

  “Immediately,” Wes agreed. They were looking at each other and discussing her as if she was a child.

  Well, all right, maybe she did need to have an alarm installed.

  “Think it can be done today?” Max asked Wes.

  “I’m sure Wiler can see that it’s done.”

  “But will he?”

  “Hey, hey! Both of you, I’m still here, remember?”

  They stared at her patiently.

  “I can’t have an alarm put in today, Max. First off, I need to be a dinosaur again. And you’re still short a Patricia in the saloon show. Niles just told me that Mrs. O’Halloran from the main costume shop isn’t sure if she’ll return. Max, I’m the only one who can fill in for all these empty bodies. I can’t sit at my house and wait.”

  Max tapped his pencil on his desk. “Diana will go wait in your place. She won’t mind.”

  Diana was one of Max’s friends. She worked in the art department. They had been dating since a month or so after his divorce. Actually, she had been a friend of Reggie’s first, so it was hard for Reggie to come up with an excuse why Diana couldn’t wait in her place.

  “All right, Reggie?” Max asked.

  “Yes, it’s fine,” she agreed.

  But Max was frowning again. “Actually, I don’t think you should stay out there alone even with an alarm. Not the way things have been happening.”

  “Max, I don’t have the energy or the stamina to try to move out now!” she protested. “I’m putting in way too many hours—”

  “The hours won’t mean anything to anyone if something happens to you, Reggie.”

  “I can’t—”

  “I don’t want you alone!”

  For the moment, they had both forgotten Wes, having gotten into one of the squabbles they’d always managed to get into. But then Wes spoke up again. Softly. But his words quickly caught their attention.

  “I can stay at Reggie’s,” he said. He leaned across the polished table, his bronze hands with their neat, blunt-cut nails stretched out before him. “I stayed out there last night. I can stay until this thing is over.”

  “I—I—” Reggie began. She was coloring. Despite a magnificent effort not to blush, she was reddening. She was staring at his hands. She shouldn’t be doing that. Staring at his hands made her remember the way they had felt on her.

  The way they could feel again …

  She was strangling. “I wouldn’t d-dream of putting you out,” she managed to say. He stared at her. Flatly. Coldly. It did sound as if she was trying to deny things. Damn him! She was pleading with her eyes. She didn’t want to deny things. She just didn’t want to clunk her brother on the head with the truth.

  “Oh, I don’t think it would put me out too much,” he replied dryly.

  “Can you?” Max said. “I’d be grateful. I’d feel that Reggie was definitely safe with you.”

  “Hey.” He lifted his hands idly, staring at Reggie. “Regina’s house, the hotel suite. Doesn’t make much difference.”

  “Thanks!” She heard herself murmur. But Max was too worried to notice anything in her tone. “I’ll call Diana—Wes, give Wiler a call and ask him to call whoever he thinks does the best job in the area. Hyer’s Corporation takes care of the park, but I don’t know how they work with private residences, and Reggie’s house is pretty far out of the city.”

  Wes stood. He was in jeans that hugged his form very nicely, and his hair was still damp—he must have showered when he came into the office.

  He hadn’t showered at her house. They’d woken so late. But they hadn’t gone to sleep until late. She’d been sound asleep when he nudged her, a cup of coffee in his hand. “We’ve got to get moving. Park opens in an hour.” He’d already been dressed, and for a moment, she’d felt ridiculously shy again, naked, tousled, with him dressed, his hair combed, even his socks and shoes on.

  But she hadn’t had time to think about it. She’d leaped up, spilling the coffee, then pausing as he pulled her into the crook of his arm. “Woah! Take a second! Drink the coffee—it will help. Promise. I tried it already.”

  And so, in the crook of his arm, she’d swallowed the coffee and spoke shyly. “Thanks! It is good.” But then she had moved out of his arm and run down the hallway and into a quick shower that was, at best, a promise of things to come. Then she’d hopped into black jeans and a short-sleeved tailored white cotton shirt, whisked her lashes with a brush of mascara and come running down the stairs with her comb tearing through the wild disaster of her hair.

  Wes had been quiet while they drove to the park, so quiet that she felt walls building between them. But then his hand had fallen over hers when they reached the park, and he’d given her one of those smiles that could eclipse the heart.

  “See you later?”

  “Well, of course—”

  “No, I meant, see you later?” And those golden eyes had blazed into hers with such a startling fire that she had felt a rush of warmth stir her cheeks. And she had nodded emphatically, but when she wanted to get out of the car, he pulled her back.

  “Was it good to be with someone?”

  “Yes!” she had whispered.

  “With
me?”

  The fire had been spreading through her. Night-time had been so easy. Daylight was always hard.

  “I never ask for a lot. Just honesty,” he’d told her.

  “Yes! With you!”

  He’d released her arm, and she’d fled past him through the dinosaur caves, waving to the morning guard. They had managed to arrive nearly thirty minutes before opening time.

  In her office she had been barraged with phone calls.

  And then Max had summoned her.

  And now Wes was staring at her and she was having a hard time meeting his gaze. Honesty. That was all he wanted. But honesty was sometimes the hardest thing to give.

  Her lashes lowered over her eyes. She found herself nervously moistening her lips with her tongue.

  “I won’t be putting you out, will I, Reggie?” Wes asked politely. There was such an edge to the question.

  Surely Max would notice it. But he didn’t. “Oh, Reggie will be thrilled, I’m sure,” her brother answered cheerfully for her.

  Wes set his palms on the polished table and leaned down, looking into her eyes. “Well, Reggie?” His eyes could burn when he wanted them to. “Is that true? Will you be just thrilled?”

  “I—I’ll be happy to have you there, of course,” she murmured primly.

  He pushed away from the desk in disgust. She clenched her teeth, wishing she could make him understand and suddenly feeling desolate because she had exasperated him so badly.

  But he was already leaving the room, walking to the door with long strides. Before he left he turned and waved a finger at Reggie. “Don’t leave without me.”

  “But I—”

  “I’ve got to leave the park for awhile today. I’ll be back for you. Even with Diana and the alarm people at your house, don’t leave here without me. Got it?”

  His tone was sharp. Commanding. She wanted to tell him that she’d damn well do what she felt like doing, but she was suddenly certain that if she did, he’d come striding into the boardroom and wrench her from her feet and have it out then and there.

  And she wasn’t ready to have anything out.

  “After the show, I’ll be in the main costume shop trying to sort things out,” she said stiffly.

  “Good.”

  He left. She realized that Max was watching her intently. She turned on her brother.

  “I don’t know exactly what his position was in the military, but he sounds like a damned drill sergeant!” she said irritably.

  “He was an intelligence officer,” Max said briefly. “He decided to leave after the Iraqi war because he has such a length of plate in the one leg that he can foretell the weather with it. He knows what he’s doing. Thank God you’re being agreeable to having him at the house!”

  “Yes, well …” Reggie murmured, rising quickly herself.

  “Reggie!”

  “Yes?”

  “Why the hell didn’t you call me last night?”

  She shrugged. She didn’t want to admit that, with Wes there, she didn’t even think of it. “Max, I’m sorry. If I had called you, what good would it have done? You and Wes could have just run around outside together.”

  “Thank God he didn’t leave you! But then, Wes never would have left anyone in circumstances like that.”

  “How noble,” she said in a soft grating tone.

  Max shrugged. “Maybe he irritates you, Reggie, but his wife used to say that he was the last of the cavaliers. I think that maybe she was right, in a way.”

  “His—wife?”

  Max arched a brow. “Yes, wife. The woman that one marries.”

  “But you told me that he was a widower—”

  “He’s a widower now, but obviously he wasn’t always,” Max said, curiosity touching his eyes.

  Reggie suddenly found herself wanting to stay when she had been in such a big hurry only moments before. “What happened to his wife?”

  He sighed softly, reflectively. “She died of cancer. They both knew she had it for several years. They lived with it, doing the best they could. It’s all that any of us can do, isn’t it?”

  He stared at her hard then. Neither of them was thinking about Shelley Blake at the moment.

  We do the best we can … He had told her that once before. Yes, that was what they had done with Caleb.

  There had been nothing else to do.

  “So you knew—Shelley?” she asked.

  Max nodded. “Sure. Wes was military for a long time. He didn’t get all that much time off. Shelley was with him several of the times when we met in San Francisco.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Soft, blond. An angel,” Max murmured. “She had the most beautiful smile. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman more feminine. Ethereal. Her hair was almost silver, it was so light. She was gracious and charming. Even when she knew she was going to die.”

  “It sounds as if you were just a little bit in love yourself,” Reggie said, wondering why she should feel this sudden sense of resentment. She wasn’t a mean person. She should have been delighted that Wesley’s wife had been so wonderful.

  It was just that she was wondering how she compared.

  What did it matter? Poor Shelley was gone. Just like Caleb.

  But Wes had loved Shelley. What would he be like with a woman he loved?

  “No, I was just thinking …” Max said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I was thinking about all the differences between Shelley and Daphne. Want to hear something terrible? There were a lot of days when I wondered how somebody like Shelley could die—when someone like Daphne enjoyed such wonderful good health. It didn’t seem fair then. And now …”

  “Daphne might very well be just fine,” Reggie reminded her brother hastily.

  “Maybe. I hope so. I really do.”

  A soft silence fell between them. Then a phone rang somewhere down the hall, and Reggie cleared her throat. “I do have to go play dinosaur,” she told him.

  “Hey, don’t feel too bad. I have to be David Diplodocus for the four o’clock appearance,” he said glumly.

  “Hey! David’s your favorite!” she said.

  “I know,” Max agreed quietly. “And I used to love to go out—maybe once every couple of weeks—as David. When no one knew what I was doing, and when no one knew who I was. I loved it. It was fun. And I did it because it was part of the magic, it was really the whole reason for the park. But now … well, now I’m doing it because I have to. And there’s a funny difference.”

  Reggie hesitated a minute. “We are going to beat this thing.”

  “Or go down swinging,” he agreed.

  Reggie smiled slowly and turned, heading for the doorway.

  “Watch out for him, Reggie,” Max suddenly called after her.

  She stiffened, then swung around, feigning innocence. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. I’m talking about Wes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Play straight with him, that’s what I’m saying.”

  She set a hand on her hip. “Wait a minute. Excuse me. You’re my brother. Aren’t you supposed to be telling him to play straight with me?”

  “You have a habit of wanting things to fall into nice, neat little niches. You want men to behave as you want them to.”

  Reggie gasped. “What on earth are you talking about? I haven’t even seen any men since—”

  “Right,” Max agreed. “Because you didn’t want anyone close. Nowhere near close. You shut doors. I’m just warning you. You never pull a wolf by the tail, Reggie.”

  “There! You just said it. Go talk to your friend, the wolf!” Reggie returned.

  Max smiled. “Do I need to talk to my friend, the wolf?” he queried politely, jet dark brows at an angle.

  “You need to mind your own affairs, my dear sibling,” she warned him. Her chin was rising. She turned to leave the room.

  She heard his soft laughter followin
g in her wake.

  By noon she had hopped around as Dierdre Dinosaur—which was fun!—helped out in the bakery kitchen, joined a parade as a dino-riding toy soldier and started to put some things in order in the costume shop.

  Once upon a time, before the Daphne misery had begun, the costume shop would never have been in such bad shape. But before the Daphne misery had come up, there had always been at least one escort for every three people playing dinosaurs, and there had always been someone in the costume shop. Now the busy players were hastily shedding their costumes and hurrying on to some other position at the park, and the costumes were being thrust into general positions on the racks and hangers, but not being put away properly.

  If Daphne was all right, and if she was trying to destroy the park, she was doing a very fine job of it.

  Since she had nibbled on croissants while in the bakery that morning, Reggie decided that she could definitely forgo lunch. She spent the noon hour trying to begin to set the main costume shop straight.

  Each show—and there were several of them—had its own costume shop and dressing rooms for the actors. But this was the main shop, and it was where all costumes were repaired, where they were made to begin with and where the bulk of them were stored.

  The main theme of the park was dinosaurs, but the costume list was extensive. There were subthemes to the park, like the saloon show where the men were men and the women were women—they rode dinosaurs instead of horses, that was all.

  Then there was the hall of history—where history was altered just a bit so that dino-cars could take the park guests from the days of the tar pits right up to the space age. Part of the exhibit was done with robotronics, or mannequins programmed to speak and move realistically. But the exhibit closed with a live performance with dancers and singers, some of them dinosaurs, some of them just friends of dinosaurs. Then there was a segment of the park on peoples of the world, featuring a show with a multitude of tunes and dances from all over the globe. All these costumes were stored in the main shop, too, along with the occasional broken robotronic figure or one that was being redressed or rewigged to take on another identity.