01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin

by Susan Squires

  “You don’t want to do this, sweetie. I’ve got someone waiting for you that you’re going to want to see.” The woman was almost pleading as she grabbed for Tris.

  That was it. Maggie shoved the woman’s alligator-skin chest. “Don’t mess with him. He made his choice.”

  The woman came raring back for more. Bet this one never had to land a right cross to her father’s jaw. “Come and get it, slag,” Maggie hissed. Hope it isn’t really his mother’s friend.

  A security guard strode over from the hospital parking lot. “There a problem here?”

  “No, officer,” Maggie said, turning on a smile. “Mr. Tremaine is trying to get into my truck so I can take him home and this … lady is impeding his progress.”

  The guard loved being called “officer.” His chest expanded visibly. He turned to Tris. “That true?”

  “Near enough.”

  “Well, then, you just let him get into the truck.” He herded the woman back toward the sliding hospital doors. “Nice problem to have,” he murmured to Tris on his way by. “Two women fightin’ over you.” He glanced to Maggie and handed Tris the crutch the woman had been holding. “You made the right choice.”

  *****

  Had he? Tris hobbled over to the open truck door. His leg throbbed and screamed at him, making it difficult to think. Vertical wasn’t good. His ribs ached, his head ached. His shoulder felt huge. But when he saw Maggie, he knew that her Ford was exactly where he belonged. Maggie threw his things in the bed of the truck, but not before examining the medicine bottles in his discharge kit. She pocketed one vial and went round to the driver’s door. That was one good thing about her. She didn’t hover.

  One? There were so many good things about her that he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind since she’d visited Tuesday night. That was bad. He heaved both crutches into the truck bed and pushed himself up onto the bench seat. She levered the seat back as far as it would go. He had to physically pull his bad leg into the truck. There was just enough room to straighten his leg if he pushed back against the seat and braced his foot against the front floorboard. An inch taller and he wouldn’t have made it, but bending his knee to let his broken leg go vertical would be excruciating. Gravity was a pain in the neck. Or leg, as the case might be. He pulled the door shut and leaned back, trying to breathe, eyes closed for a minute to gather himself against the pain. He felt the truck pull away.

  When he opened his eyes, he rolled his head to look for Maggie. The bench seat was too far back for her. She sat on the edge to reach the pedals. And she couldn’t wear a seatbelt. That was dangerous. Well, it wasn’t far. “There’s a Motel Six on Wells Avenue. I called. They got a room.”

  “I am absolutely not taking you to a motel,” she said between clenched teeth.

  Thinking was an effort with his leg throbbing. “I don’t have any place else to go.”

  She gave him and “I knew it,” look.

  “Really, Motel Six is fine.” Maybe it was where he belonged. Maybe that’s all there was ever going to be in his life.

  “So … what exactly?” she asked, the words seeming torn from her. “You going to take pain pills and order take-out for two months while you mope around and watch TV until your cast can come off? Thought TV was driving you bats.”

  He looked out at the parade of strip malls. He had no idea how to answer her.

  She turned left. Was she taking him to the motel? He had no idea where he was, and as it turned out, no idea where he was going. “Okay. You got a big family,” she said at last. “And you don’t like them much or they don’t like you. So what? You telling me not a single one of them would take you in for a while, or at least look in on you if you had a place nearby?”

  That wasn’t the problem. But showing up at the family compound all busted up and needing help was too humiliating for words. What’s the opposite of “prodigal son”? Listening to his father rant about what he should be doing with his life, seeing in Kemble’s eyes all those smug assumptions about him, confronted daily by his mother’s bullshit tarot readings, their belief that they were all special. His mother’s belief that he was special. Which he wasn’t. He was a grease monkey who liked to build machines. End of story. Somewhere out there was the real Tremaine baby who’d been changed in the hospital for the son of a hairdresser and a mechanic. Sometimes he wished he could trade places with that real Tremaine baby again. But it was too late for that.

  “I’m not going back in this shape,” he muttered.

  She took his evasion for an admission that at least one member of his family would be there for him. “Like you have a choice. I’ll take you back to the hospital before I take you to a motel. Your family’s in LA, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’ve got a load of mustangs to take to a camp down in Anaheim Hills. You can hitch a ride with me.”

  Ten hours in a truck with Maggie. Torture. Heaven?

  “What day is it?” he asked suddenly, dread and hope warring in his chest.

  “Thursday the sixth.”

  Damn. He could still be in time for his mother’s birthday. The gears of the universe seemed to mesh, chunk into place and start grinding toward some purpose that had nothing to do with what he wanted. Couldn’t have it both ways. Couldn’t have ten more hours with Maggie unless he headed back into purgatory with his family. He let his head sink forward on his chest. All roads led one place, no matter how hard he’d been running in the opposite direction. Why resist? He was now officially going to be one broken-down, pathetic, prodigal son.

  “You okay?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Yeah. Probably. Maybe.” He took a deep breath. Maybe after he’d seen them again, he could get them out of his system and his life once and for all. He slid a glance to Maggie. Some little flutter of rightness batted at the nothingness in his heart. Ten hours. “So, yeah, I’ll hitch a ride,” he muttered. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  Maggie looked resigned to taking him. Not exactly encouraging. “Okay,” she said. “So we’ve got to go back and pick up the horses. That’s three hours. Plus, you need some lunch. We’ll stop in Fallon. That means it’s too late to start today. I’m not doing an all-nighter just to get to LA in time for morning traffic.” She sighed. “You better spend the night at Elroy’s.”

  Well, she sure wasn’t excited about that. “I’ll get a motel in Austin. Just for one night.”

  She looked up at him with relief and nodded. As if to change the subject, she said, “So who was the woman at the hospital? Easy conquest?”

  Boy, she sure wasn’t a member of the Tris Tremaine fan club. It didn’t actually have any members, even Tris Tremaine. “I have no idea,” he snapped. “She said my mother sent her.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  Tris harrumphed. “Not my mother’s type. Probably the fucking Prince of Wales.”

  Maggie blinked. “Who?”

  “My oldest brother. Kemble,” he said, disgusted.

  “She said there was someone waiting for you. Maybe that’s Kemble?”

  “Nah. He sent her so he didn’t have to come.” That didn’t hurt. He wouldn’t want Kemble to see him like this. So who was waiting for him? He had no idea.

  “Weird.” Maggie pulled onto Highway 80. “I mean I can see a woman coming on to you. But.…” She coughed and pretended to look in her side mirror.

  “But not in my current condition? Maybe she wanted to play Nancy Nurse.” He wanted to see Maggie’s reaction. Suddenly the possibility of Maggie playing Nancy Nurse with him was.… Uh-oh. Even on enough Vicodin to float a ship? If he wasn’t careful, he was going to have a raging hard-on all the way to LA.

  She blushed crimson. Oh, that was very, very cute. He imagined that blush on her chest, her breasts. He’d have to make her blush a lot more. When have you ever liked them cute? Hard as nails, yes. Those starlets were harpies. He suspected Maggie thought she was hard as nails. Her blush said she wasn’t.

  �
��I’m sure you have women hanging all over you,” she said tightly, disapproving.

  He hadn’t had a woman in eight months and before he met a feisty, bull-riding girl in a diner, he’d had no desire for one. But her assumption made him angry. His family assumed they knew how bad he was too. He was what they all assumed. Couldn’t deny that. He’d fought, drunk, done cocaine with those starlets, and fucked anything that moved. But maybe they pushed him into it by assuming, because after all, what difference did anything make if they all thought the worst of him no matter what he did? In the end his father assumed he’d half killed a man who took a picture of him. Didn’t even give Tris a chance to admit it, let alone tell him it wasn’t true. Probably just assumed Tris would lie. He tried to swallow his anger.

  “Yup,” he nodded, leaning back in the seat again and closing his eyes against her. “They’re usually just crawling all over me. Easy pickin’s.”

  Let her think what she wanted.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Let me get this.” Tris reached for the check the waitress dropped on the table before Maggie could get it. He looked really tired. He had his leg propped up on a chair. His crutch leaned against the seat of the booth beside him. His shaving job was a little erratic around the scabs. But he was still the most beautiful man Maggie had ever seen. And knew it. And took advantage of it shamelessly by his own account. “Easy pickin’s,” my ass. He had tomcat written all over him. He fished inside the pocket of his jeans for his wallet. It made him thrust his hips up. That little maneuver made her clench in places…. Down, girl. She swallowed.

  “Least I can do is take care of meals and split the gas with you,” he continued.

  Maggie’s attention was drawn back to watch him drop bills on the table. He seemed pretty flush for a wandering tomcat biker. Oh, he probably got scrap money for his cycle. “I’d be making the trip anyway. An extra two hundred twenty-five pounds is a drop in the bucket when I’m hauling three thousand pounds plus of horseflesh. You can split meals if you want.”

  “Nothing doing. Half gas and all meals. I’m gonna be a pain in the ass, stove up like this. You should get paid for your trouble.”

  She suppressed a grin. “You? Pain in the ass? At least with a broken leg you can’t loom.”

  His smile was almost too small to see. “You got the wrong impression.”

  “Wrong impression? I thought you were some kind of a stalker.” She sobered. “Why did you come out to the sale?”

  He shrugged his good shoulder. “Nothin’ better to do.”

  Humph. So she was a way to waste time. What else had she expected? “I’d have thought you’d have been too busy, what with women falling all over you to see to your every need.” Might as well throw it in his face. Bring it up every chance, just to protect herself from any urge she might have to follow their lead. As if he’d ever look at a woman like her as anything but a desperation lay. And she was not going there, no matter how her body urged her.

  He grabbed his crutch and pushed himself up. “Nobody falling over me right at that moment, so I had time.”

  Infuriating! She’d just have to make sure he never realized the reaction he caused in her. In those places that shouldn’t be having reactions at all. The fact that he was infuriating would help remind her why he was a disaster waiting to happen. She got up and stretched, trying to ease her back. Sitting forward like that without any support was killing her, even in the hour out from Reno. But she couldn’t scrunch up his bad leg when he was so obviously in pain.

  They got into the truck for the long haul to Austin. Before she could get over to Highway 50, he suddenly pointed to the side of the road. “Pull over,” he commanded.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Just pull in here.” He pointed to a used car dealership.

  “What the…?” She pulled into the driveway and watched the predatory salesman rubbing his hands in anticipation.

  “What are you doing?” Maggie hissed.

  “Buying bucket seats, darlin’.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t drive all the way to LA sitting on the edge of the seat so you can reach the pedals, wearing no seatbelt. And I need a way to stretch out my leg.”

  “You are not buying a car. I’m fine.” Wait ’til the salesman saw Tris was hurt. Like blood in the water for a shark. He’d take Tris for all he was worth. Tris opened the door and eased his leg out. She could see little lines of pain around his eyes.

  “Well, hello there, big fella. You look like you been rode hard and put away wet. What can I get you into today in the way of a fine used vehicle?” The salesman had tight eyes. He wore a denim jacket with a cowboy-style yoke outlined with silver piping.

  “You aren’t up to this,” she insisted. “We don’t have time.…” There were a thousand other reasons she couldn’t let him do this, if he’d just listen.

  “I need a truck.” His mouth was tight and stubborn. “My bike’s totaled.”

  “Hel-looooo. You can’t drive.” Was he insane?

  “You’re going to drive it.”

  “What about my truck?”

  “We’ll pay this guy to store it ’til you get back.” Tris reached in back for a crutch.

  “You got an answer for everything?” This man was taking control of her trip to LA. And how would she get back here? Drive his truck? And do what with it? This was crazy.

  “I got an answer to our immediate problem. We’ll figure the rest out later.”

  “No.”

  “What, no?” He raised his brows at her.

  “I … I won’t let you buy a truck just for the trip to LA.” He couldn’t afford this either.

  He actually smiled at her. She caught her breath. That was one attractive smile. “Nothing you can do to stop me, darlin’. I’m way past twenty-one.”

  “Fine,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Just make it quick.”

  Tris turned to the guy. “I need something that’ll pull a four-horse trailer over the Sierras without breaking a sweat.”

  “Well, have we got something for you! An almost new Toyota Tacoma X-Runner, right over here.” He started to the front row of cars facing the street. “Only eighteen grand. Fully loaded. It’s a steal.” He didn’t seem to notice Tris hobbling off in the other direction.

  “Sir?” he said, hurrying to catch up to Tris as he realized his mistake.

  Tris stopped in front of an old truck with a new green paint job. It looked a little sad somehow, sitting in the corner. “How about this F350? The lady is partial to classic Fords.”

  “But the Toyota….”

  Tris opened the truck door and looked satisfied, then bent to examine the tires. They looked pretty new to Maggie. He straightened. “Wanna lift the hood for me?”

  The salesman scrambled to oblige. Tris peered into the mishmash of engine parts, pulled on a few cables, wiggled some connections.

  “This here truck is a steal at five thousand. We can finance you, on approved credit, of course.”

  Tris didn’t seem to be listening to the salesman blather. He let the brace fall. The hood slammed shut. Then he got his wallet from his jeans pocket while balancing on his crutch. He held the wallet in his sling hand and peeled out a credit card with his good one. Was that an American Express card? “It’s worth twenty-five hundred, only because the last owner took real good care of it. I’ll spot you a hundred to store her truck for a week. Twenty-six even—take it or leave it.”

  The salesman started to sputter a protest, but Tris just raised his brows.

  The guy finally sighed. “Sold. I’ll run the card.”

  “Do that.” Only when the salesman’s back was turned did Tris sag.

  Maggie slipped out her door. Tris looked gray. She shook her head. Alpha males. Couldn’t admit weakness. “You look like hell. Someone’s paying the price for his stubbornness.”

  Tris swallowed and gave a little rueful move with his mouth. “Maybe.”

  Maggie’s eyes strayed t
o the truck. “Nice shade of green. A 350 will pull a lot of trailer.” She’d been wrong about Tris Tremaine, in pain and hurt or not. He didn’t budge an inch for the smarmy sales guy. And he not only had health insurance but an Amex card. Maybe she was wrong about him on a lot of counts. “How do you know so much about old trucks?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “Well, excuse me for asking.” Maggie stepped back, affronted.

  Tris’s eyes opened in surprise. “No, no. I mean old trucks are my business. Well, sort of.”

  “You sell trucks?” Boy, she hadn’t pictured him as a salesman.

  “Nah, I restore cars and cycles, sometimes trucks. I did anyway.” His eyes held a lot of hurt. Had he lost his business? Bankruptcy? Or maybe he just left it behind. That cycle of his said “wanderlust” with a capital W. Actually, ex-cycle. He didn’t even have that anymore. Tris Tremaine looked at that moment like a man without an anchor in his life at all.

  *****

  Jason turned on the pathetic excuse for a woman strapped to the chair. “You keep telling me he was going to the Motel Six on Wells. But he isn’t here, is he?”

  Her cheap mascara left spider streaks down her cheeks from her tears. She could hardly talk, hardly even see at this point. He rubbed his knuckles, undecided about hitting her again. Much as he enjoyed this, it was getting him nowhere. And he was going to have to admit to the old woman that Tremaine wasn’t dead. He was surprised she hadn’t called already. Must be busy looking for those Talisman things. His heart began to pound in time with the pain in his head.

  “How could you not have gotten the plates on the truck, you bimbo?”

  “Mud,” she slurred. “I told you.” Blood dripped into her cleavage.

  “Sure. The license plate was covered with mud.” He decided on hitting her again. Maybe that would make his headache go away. Her head snapped to the side. Shit. Damn. Piss. That hurt his hand. She moaned. “Whatever he paid you, it isn’t worth this.”

  “It was red. Old,” she managed, coughing.

  Red and old. Shit. Could that be the truck pulling the trailer he’d been passing when he hit Tremaine? He knew it in his gut. That girl had stopped. She must have gotten him to the hospital somehow. And now she’d picked up the man whose life she’d saved and taken him.…