01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin

by Susan Squires

  “O’Brian,” Drew mused. “That could be Celtic.”

  “For God’s sake, Drew,” his father said. “Devin says she rides bulls for a living.” His father sighed then continued with more purpose. “But she’s leaving tomorrow. That will put a stop to any inappropriate liaison. That boy needs meaningful work here instead of riding around the country doing nothing.”

  “I don’t think any of our businesses can use a mechanic,” Kemble said dryly.

  “Well, he never will find a girl with the right genes if he’s fighting and getting into accidents because he’s driving drunk.” His father thought he’d had the final word on the subject.

  “I like her.” All eyes turned toward his mother.

  “I like her too,” his father said. “That isn’t the point.”

  Drew crossed her arms. Bad sign. When Drew made up her mind there was no changing it. “Well, I think it will be too bad if she’s the reason Tris is back from wherever he was mentally and then he lets her go.” She looked around the table. “He’ll be drifting again the next day.”

  Kemble couldn’t disagree. The horrible part about Drew was that she was often right.

  “Or worse,” his mother said quietly.

  His father clapped his hands once and got up from the table. “Right. So what we do is keep him engaged in life. I’ll send him down to Argentina. There’s still plenty of cleanup left after the earthquake. Jenkins will put him to work. He’ll get over this girl in no time.”

  “I wonder if she’ll get over him....” his mother said softly.

  They all turned toward her.

  “She didn’t look at him once all evening,” Devin said, puzzled. “Are you saying...?”

  “Duh,” Kee said, rolling her eyes. “Proof positive.”

  “She sure did defend him when we thought he was the one who hit her,” Devin mused.

  “You thought Tris hit Maggie?” His mother blinked at them, incredulous. “Fighting yes, but he’s never been a bully. Quite the opposite. He always takes the side of the underdog.”

  “He’s been gone a long time,” Kemble excused. Drew looked ashamed.

  Their father chewed his lip, then gathered himself. “Well, her next rodeo will take her mind off him. You each have a destiny that goes beyond just popping the question to the first member of the opposite sex who fancies you. We’re born to gather the forces of magic and pass them on to future generations.”

  “And here I thought you and Mother loved each other,” Drew said mournfully.

  “Of course we love each other,” his father barked. “That’s what engages the magic. You will each find the right partner, too.” He stole a glance at his wife, and a smile just touched the corners of his lips. “You’ll know immediately. I did.”

  Kemble watched his mother’s eyes light with love. He wanted what they had. He truly did. But he was thirty and he hadn’t found it. His mother had fixed him up with a hundred girls, and he never “knew immediately” with any of them. His father might be overestimating his progeny’s chances of finding someone with that shred of genetic material that drew them together and begat magic. The one least likely to succeed in this improbable endeavor was Tris. If he was in love with his little cowgirl, he’d just kissed off all chance of completing his destiny.

  Given how likely Tris was to complete his destiny in the first place, maybe it wasn’t much loss. A brother throwing his destiny away to marry a cowgirl was better than whoring all over Hollywood and making the tabloids. It would keep Tris quiet at least. They could live in Nevada, or wherever. Tris had never wanted to be part of the family anyway, no matter how much their father tried to mold him into a Tremaine.

  His mother snapped out of her reverie. “Well, one must do what one can,” she said. In spite of raised eyebrows around the table, she only smiled, said, “Don’t stay up too late,” and she was gone. Kee and Devin trailed after her, whispering. Kemble looked to his father.

  “I think the best outcome would be if she left him,” his father said. “He’ll mourn for two days and then move on. I’ll send him to Argentina, and ... and he’ll settle down.”

  Did his father really believe that? Kemble couldn’t tell. But he knew what his father expected of him. He wouldn’t have had the courage to do it on his own. He wondered for the umpteenth time whether he was really cut out to lead either Tremaine Enterprises or the Tremaine family. Of course that was decades away. But he just didn’t seem to be cut out for it.

  “I’ll take care of it.” But he couldn’t believe he was doing the right thing.

  All right. There had to be a way to get to the other Tremaine kids. Jason logged on to his computer in his room in the Oklahoma City complex. It was just after midnight. Jason wasn’t really a hacker, but Hardwick had set up backdoor routes into the standard sites used to trace people. He worked for an hour or so. Somebody was pretty good at hiding all things Tremaine. Security out the yin-yang. It was like they put extra booby traps on any sites that would have information. American Express? Sure, he had Hardwick’s backdoor, but you couldn’t get to Tremaine Amex records.

  Of course that was only the older ones. The young ones wouldn’t have Amex cards.

  Hmmm.... What they might have was.... Nah. Not with the security-crazy Tremaines.

  Oh hell, he’d just check. He clicked the link. Start with the youngest.

  Shit, howdy. Tamsen Tremaine had a Facebook page. Recent. Lots of pink. Only a few friends, also of the fourteen-year-old variety, by the language in their posts. Pictures of horses.

  And pictures of Tris Tremaine and Maggie O’Brian sitting at what looked like a breakfast bar in a private house. He had a beer and she had a glass of wine. The caption said, “My big brother and his new friend. He came back for Mom’s birthday!!!!!!!”

  They were grinning, for Christ’s sake. Anger raced through him. Posted two hours ago.

  Alive. In Tremaine Central. Where he couldn’t get at them. He could feel the blood drain from his face. His hand wasn’t quite steady as he wiped the back of it across his mouth. What to do? He couldn’t make this right. Maybe the old woman would be too busy looking for her Talismans to notice....

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  The whisper sent chills through him. He could feel her behind him. He couldn’t say anything. She shuffled over to stand at his shoulder, smelling of rubbing alcohol and age. He didn’t look up. But he saw her emaciated hand, with its papery skin and ropy blue veins, clench on the chair arm. The bones stood out like they were bird’s feet.

  “Not dead after all,” she rasped.

  Jason kept his eyes glued to the computer screen, but there, like the ghost she’d been talking about, was her reflection, behind the pink Facebook page. He couldn’t see details. But he remembered them. The sores, as if her papery, mottled skin was breaking down from within, the rheumy eyes that looked blind. They weren’t. “Prentice swore he got them,” Jason almost whined.

  The old woman ignored that. “We’ll discuss fault later.” Jason knew what that meant. Suddenly his bladder felt too full. “Right now, we need a way into their lives in LA. A mole. Or two.” She pointed an index finger misshapen with arthritis and discolored with the bruising that came from thinning skin at Tristram Tremaine’s picture. The nail was thick and yellowed. “Where is his business?”

  “Uh, East LA, ma’am.”

  There was a low chuckle behind him. He tried not to remember the lips drawn back from rotting gums he’d seen that one time. “I know a councilman for that district. And he’ll know someone who works there. Take us a day or two to get it set up.”

  Sure. Guy was bound to go back to his business.

  “What do you think, Jason? Will Tremaine stay with his parents?”

  When he’d been wandering for a year? “He’s following his dick right now. He’ll follow the girl. She’ll head back to Nevada. She’s got an alcoholic father and some horses there.”

  “Good boy. You’re not a total loss a
fter all. We’ll send Prentice out to her place.”

  “And one of our moles will tell us when he heads out after her,” he managed. “What he’s driving...”

  “That’s where you come in.” Her claw patted his shoulder. “Get both of them, and I may forget your failures.”

  Could he still avoid the horror? The hated face from his youth rose before his mind’s eye. She’d chain Jason so it could get to him. He remembered the feel of screaming your throat raw.

  “So.” Her withered lips were right next to his ear. “You understand.” He could feel her smile. He suppressed a shudder. He didn’t breathe until she stood. “Now, what else can we learn from this child?”

  He scanned the Facebook page frantically. “Uh, she likes horses? One of her sisters paints. Her mother reads the tarot....”

  “What?” the old woman practically choked. Jason froze. “Damn them all to hell. If she reads tarot, she might know about the Talismans. She’ll come across the stories eventually if she hasn’t already.” The old woman’s voice held more anxiety than he’d ever heard in it. He didn’t know what to say. But she was already turning away. “Hardwick. He thinks he has a line on the sword. I must have those Talismans before the Tremaines can find them!” She shuffled away, her cane tapping. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that one foot was dragging.

  She didn’t have much time. If these Talisman things weren’t a myth, they were the only things that could give her enough power to stop her own death. At least that’s what she believed. But she had to find all four. He didn’t know whether he wanted her to find them or not.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The clock on the nightstand said two in the morning. This was ridiculous. Maggie hadn’t slept a wink since eleven and sleep was nowhere in sight now. She wanted to be out in time to beat the traffic tomorrow morning, which meant horses loaded and on the road by six. How would she do a ten-hour drive tomorrow after delivering the horses and settling them in? At this rate she’d have to spend time sleeping in the Ford at a truck stop or something.

  She had first fallen asleep earlier tonight marveling at the Tremaine family. She could see how Tris felt alienated, but really they were wonderful people. Even his father, though he could be intimidating. The way Mr. Tremaine had said so gruffly that Kemble didn’t have time to find Tammy a dressage teacher, so he would, was pretty cute. He obviously cared for Tammy. And Tammy called him Daddy. That almost made her laugh. And Mrs. Tremaine—what a warm and generous person. There was something about her though, depths maybe, that not everyone would see. Maggie bet she could be truly conniving when it came to her children. They adored her. And who wouldn’t? Maggie would have killed to have a mama like that. Her own had been distant, even before she left Elroy and didn’t take Maggie along. And the children ... beautiful Drew and rambunctious Lanyon, the artist Kee and the surfer Devin....

  Well, there wasn’t much Maggie wouldn’t give for a family like that. In fact, the only thing she didn’t like about his family was that they didn’t value Tris enough.

  But it wasn’t Tris’s family keeping her awake now. It was Tris himself, damn him. She couldn’t stop thinking about him—how vital and alive he seemed. When had he gotten that magnetic? She could practically feel him in the house somewhere.

  Had he been that way in the diner? Attractive, yes, but not like this. Of course, now she knew him better. That must be it. She liked him. There were no two ways about that.

  And she wanted him. She wanted him so badly her body physically ached for him. Could a woman want a man like that?

  Okay. She hadn’t had any sex lately. That’s what it was. She knew how to take care of that. She pulled up her short night shift and began thinking of Tris’s bare chest (minus the sling) with the knotted tattoo where he’d tried to engrave his family into his skin to make himself belong. And how the other tat came down over his shoulder and onto his biceps. She thought about those abs and the oblique abdominals that disappeared over his hips into his jeans. Her hand trailed down between her thighs as if it had a mind of its own. She was dripping wet.

  It took her about a minute to come to a wrenching orgasm.

  That was better. Decks now cleared for sleep. She should have done this a long time ago. Except within five minutes she was in the same state.

  Okay. She was not going bring herself off all night. She couldn’t lie here and suffer, either. She pushed herself out of bed, angry. “Let’s just see if that library has any books a regular person might want to read.” Probably filled with books on high finance, or Martha Stewart treatises on making your own centerpieces. She pulled on her short robe. Actually that last wasn’t fair. Mrs. Tremaine might be a little too perfect, but her home felt normal and lived in. The family cooked for themselves. And the centerpiece tonight had been a few fat candles and some flowers from the garden, which even Maggie could have managed. If she had a garden.

  She crept out of her room and down the hall to the library.

  Tris heard her. He didn’t know how he heard her. No one could hear a hundred-pound girl tiptoeing down the hall on the story above him. But he did. It was Maggie. He was sure of it.

  He shouldn’t go up there. That was asking for trouble. How much restraint could one man manage when his body was raging and needing, and ... and making demands? Two cold showers in the last hour and one session with his hand had done jack to relieve his longing to have Maggie’s body cradled against his own. Okay, that was the sanitized version. He wanted to be plunging into her until they both went off like rockets. He finished toweling his hair dry and slung the cloth around his neck.

  You’re two adults. What harm?

  “She wants a family,” he repeated under his breath. “You’d just leave her. For her that’d be devastating. You’re the worst choice in the world.”

  Why not give her the choice?

  “Because if she wants me, it’s because she’s lying to herself about whether I’ll stay. She’ll think it’s love when it’s not.”

  So?

  “So you don’t lie to a woman just to get in her jeans.”

  Don’t lie. Don’t say anything. Just see what happens.

  “I know what’ll happen. I’ll be an asshole.”

  Maybe she wants you as much as you want her. Maybe more than she wants a family.

  “Maybe I’m lying to myself about what she wants.”

  But he got out of bed. He strapped on the cast and pulled on some sweats Kemble had lent him. He tied and buckled the sling then slid into it and adjusted it over his arm.

  “Damn you,” he whispered fiercely to himself. “You’re the worst.”

  She might think you’re the best.

  “For about an hour.”

  Maggie had turned the same page in the romance novel three times when she heard a clunking step somewhere downstairs. It was just at the edge of hearing.

  She knew who it was. And he knew she was here in the library, just like she could feel him. How, she didn’t know. But that’s what was happening. She didn’t even have to wonder how or why. She waited, a thousand thoughts swirling through her head.

  What does he want?

  You know what he wants.

  He won’t do it with someone like you.

  Then why is he coming up to find you at two a.m.?

  He’ll leave you.

  I don’t care anymore. I’ll have an hour of heaven. Or at least avoid an hour of hell.

  The door opened. Tris stood in the doorway. Maggie could hardly breathe. His black hair was wet and disheveled. He was stripped to the waist, with only a towel around his neck and his sling holding his arm. Even in the shadows outside the cone of light from the small reading lamp she could still tell he looked haggard. Didn’t matter. He also looked good enough to eat.

  The visual on that thought made her blush.

  He didn’t say anything. He just limped over to where she was sitting in an overstuffed blue-green armchair and lifted her hand.

  She rose with
out really meaning to. He was so close she could smell the man-scent of him. He’d just had a shower. His personal scent was there, just under that of the soap he’d used. It made her feel faint.

  “You know this is a bad idea.” His voice was a throaty growl.

  “Yeah,” she managed. Her hand ran up his good forearm to his biceps. The one with the tattoo. It felt alive under her fingers. That made her loins actually hurt. “You’re still injured.”

  “I’m fine.” He stared into her eyes. “That’s not why it’s a bad idea.”

  “I know.” Her mind started to run through all the reasons for the millionth time. But a voice sounded inside her head, clear as day. Shut up. You should be so lucky he wants to do it with you. So do it. How many times is he going to offer?

  And maybe the voice was right. Just once. Get it out of her system. It wasn’t like she was betraying a husband or anything. Or actually anybody who loved her. She had no illusions about him. It was a night of fun. Fun? Wrong description. But doing it with Tris would be right. As right as anything she’d ever done. Half of her was sure of that. Maybe more than half.

  “You want me to tell you why it’s a bad idea?” The words seemed hard for him to muster.

  “No. I don’t want to think about anything but right now.” She turned off the light.

  Relief flooded his expression in the dim moonlight. He leaned in and took the nape of her neck in his strong hand and drew her into his bare upper body, tilting her head up. His heat enveloped her. His body was hard with muscle. She expected aggression—a searing kiss that left her breathless.

  Instead he brushed his lips gently against her forehead. That sent a shiver down her spine and raised goose bumps on her arms. His lips were soft. Such a contrast to the rest of him. She lifted her head. Her body yearned for that kiss so intensely she thought she might burst.

  But he took his time. He kissed down the bridge of her nose and over to her unbruised cheek. The moist heat of his breath sent more goose bumps cascading over her. “I’ve wanted this since the diner.”