Tris stopped making silly noises at the baby. “Also mother of Jesse and Elizabeth here, and bull rider extraordinaire.”
“Hi,” Jesse said, holding up a robot of some kind in one hand and a dinosaur in the other. “My robot can beat Godzilla. Wanna see?”
Gretchen couldn’t help but grin. “I’d love to, but…” She looked around at the family. There was one member she didn’t see. And she couldn’t ask, both because that would be revealing way too much information about whether she cared and because she didn’t even know his first name. She couldn’t exactly call him ‘Ghost’ to his family. “I should really go. I’ll just call a cab—”
The room erupted. The commotion had a general protesting tone.
“No, no, no…”
“Absolutely not,” the Prince of Wales ordered.
“Already?” Tammy asked, slumping in defeat.
Tris grinned at her over his daughter’s cooing. “Not gettin’ outta here that easy.”
“First, you need some breakfast,” Jane said firmly. She held out a plate of eggs and bacon.
Greta felt her stomach turn. “I…uh…I’m not feeling that well. I’m not sure I could…”
The cacophony was cut off in mid-syllable. They all stared at her.
Drew finally cleared her throat. “Upset stomach?”
“I…I’m better now. It was worse about four this morning. But still I don’t think I can eat.” She saw Kee’s and Tammy’s eyes get big. What had she said? Were they worried she was contagious?
“Toast and tea, coming up,” Jane announced, pointing to Devin. “Eating will help.”
Devin dived for the toaster. Kee herded Greta to the table. “You can have my chair.”
“No, really,” Greta protested. “I’ll just call a cab.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Kemble said in a voice that Greta was pretty sure no one would disobey. “Have you seen the tabloids this morning?”
Greta’s stomach did an elevator-drop even though she had expected it. “Bad?” She sank into the chair.
Kemble whipped out a tablet, poked at it a couple of times and turned it toward her.
The front page of the Weekly Enquirer showed a revolting picture with her on the asphalt of the parking lot, her skirt up around her butt and a look of horror on her face. In the foreground, the Ghost leaned over his bike to give her a hand. All you could see of him was his shaggy hair and his broad back. The headline screamed, ‘Starlet Abducted!!!’
Everyone around the table craned to see.
“I didn’t think they’d go with abducted, she whispered.
“They didn’t. Not all of them anyway,” Kemble said. His calm voice made her want to scream. He poked the screen again and showed her one that went with ‘Ghost to the Rescue’. The picture showed her with her face screwed up in fear, throwing a leg over the motorcycle while nearly displaying everything she owned to the camera. “Others speculated that he spirited you off for a night of wild sex and this would ruin your chance to get a part in some big comic book movie.” This picture showed her clinging to the Ghost’s body like some kind of an abalone. It was also the only one that showed the Ghost’s face clearly.
“Why do they call Lanyon a ghost?” Mrs. Tremaine asked.
So, the Ghost’s name was Lanyon. Odd name, but then most of the Tremaines had unusual names. Lanyon. She rolled it over in her mind. Lanyon. She was so used to calling him the Ghost in her mind that it sounded wrong and yet right on some fundamental level.
Kemble cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable. “Uh, not a ghost, Mother. The Ghost. Lanyon’s been dropping in at clubs to play whatever instruments the band leaves on stage. Then he disappears without giving his name. So they call him the Ghost.”
“Poor boy,” his mother whispered.
Actually, Greta agreed. When you weren’t carried away by his music, the fact that he didn’t want anybody to know who he was, or get credit for the wonderful music inside him, was pretty sad. “He plays like an angel,” she said, as though that might give them comfort. At their incredulous looks, she added, “Or a devil, I guess.” It wasn’t like his family didn’t know him. “I saw him turn down a record contract from the head of Gresham Records last night.”
Kemble frowned. “Unfortunately, the fact that a mystery man rescued you will just fuel the tabloid speculation, at least for a while.”
Greta slumped in the chair. He was right. “They’ll be at my apartment.”
“They are.” Kemble took back the tablet for a moment, stared intently at it and handed it back. It flashed a series of pictures, one every ten seconds or so, of a pressing crowd at the front of what she recognized as her building.
“How did you get those pictures?”
“Traffic cam at the corner.”
She looked from the changing pictures to his face. How did you tap into pictures from a city traffic camera? Without even pressing any buttons on the tablet?
Kemble looked uncomfortable. Devin set a plate of buttered English muffins and a cup of tea in front of her. “You can’t go home to that,” Kemble said gruffly.
“Certainly not.” Greta was surprised to hear Brina Tremaine chime in. She hadn’t said much. “You are welcome here for as long as you like, my dear.”
“Yesh. W-welcome,” Mr. Tremaine echoed. He had a very pronounced lisp that didn’t go with his strong features. Or maybe it did. He looked commanding only until you saw his eyes. They were uncertain, glancing around to his family, as if for confirmation.
“That’s very kind, but…”
“But, nothing,” Jane said, softening her words with a smile. “Stay here, just until the furor dies down. If you have any pressing engagements, I’m sure our security staff can escort you.”
What kind of family employed a security staff? They must be loaded. “Not necessary.”
“Oh, you employ your own security?” Kemble asked.
“I just meant I don’t have anything pressing.” Not until Bernie arranged a meeting with Kevin Anderson. Maybe this was her excuse to get out of it. Cheerful thought.
“So, no security?” Kemble frowned.
She gave him a rueful smile. “My agent always badgered me to hire bodyguards. I just never wanted to be one of those people with an entourage, you know? But he was right. When he gets back from New York he can help me arrange something. Just until this dies down.”
Tris jumped in. “Then stay here until he gets back and can help you out,” he said.
“A week? I…I couldn’t impose.”
“Miss Falk, I have been having my children’s friends to stay at the house for more than thirty years,” Mrs. Tremaine said firmly. “Believe me, a week won’t break us. I’ve always wanted a home where they felt free to come and go.”
“You…you don’t even know me,” Greta couldn’t help saying. She’d arrived on their doorstep at an ungodly hour like something the cat dragged in.
“Lanyon brought you here,” Mrs. Tremaine said simply. “That’s all we need to know.”
Greta stared down at her English muffin. She so didn’t want to face that crowd around her apartment door. Coward. But Lanyon’s mother thought there was something between her and Lanyon. That’s why she was so willing to have Greta stay. She couldn’t let these people labor under a misconception. She mustered her courage. “He…Lanyon, I mean…” She swallowed. That was all wrong. “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I mean, I don’t even really know him. I just saw him playing at the club a couple of times. I didn’t say two words to him. He was just nice enough to help me out last night…” She wound down, feeling miserable.
“No, no,” several of them said at once. “Not to worry.” “We didn’t think anything.” “No wrong ideas.”
He wasn’t even around to help her explain. “Uh, is he still here?”
Kemble cleared his throat. “He, uh, left earlier this morning.” He looked apologetic.
“You might have noticed that broth
er dear is a little shy,” Tris said.
Shy? She wouldn’t have described him that way, but what did she know? What did she know about any of these people? She shouldn’t be here…
Jane came and sat beside her in the only remaining chair at the table. She put her hands over Greta’s fully clasped ones. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “We love having guests. You can just stay as long as it’s convenient for you, Gretchen.”
The woman was so sweet, her gray eyes so…steady. She was very hard to resist.
“Call me Greta,” she said, almost whispering. “Thank you.” She looked around and saw satisfied looks that said they knew they’d won. “Thank you all.” Now why did she think she might just have made a really big mistake?
CHAPTER SEVEN
‡
He should just head out cross-country like Tris had when he was trying to avoid the whole Destiny thing, Lan thought. It was ten a.m. and he’d already been drinking for an hour. The bar was a dark and seedy joint called ‘Pat’s Place’ down the street from his flop. There were two other denizens on the same mission as Lan.
He could just leave for parts unknown and get past all this crap once and for all.
So why didn’t he do it? Leave the family for good? Wasn’t that what he’d been doing a piece at a time for nearly eighteen months? He slugged back his shot of Jack D and slapped the glass down on the scarred wood bar, startling the aging bartender polishing glasses at the far end. The whiskey was doing a great job of keeping the music in his head quiet at least.
Yet, he’d never entirely cut the cord. He told himself he was tempting Morgan. Let her or one of the Clan just end it all for him. Coward’s way out, of course. He told himself it was because she’d get him in the end anyway and this way he was the one in charge, forcing her hand. But maybe he was a coward all the way around. Wouldn’t take his own life. Wouldn’t leave the family—at least not to go more than thirty-six point eight miles away.
What a loser.
He poured himself another shot. The bottle was almost half gone.
Or maybe he’d never left entirely because he knew down deep he’d never escape what might be in his genes. During the blithe days before the attack on The Breakers and his father’s near death—which, if the gods had been merciful, would have been a real death—Lan had thought things would work themselves out. He hadn’t realized how much this whole Destiny thing could actually take from you. Besides, it had always been possible the gene was recessive in him. They’d all thought it had passed Kemble by at that point. Recessive would have been fine with Lan. He didn’t want the damn thing anyway.
Then Kemble found out he loved Jane, who had loved him all along and had the Merlin gene, too. Poof. Kemble and Jane both got powers. And Lan was less sure he could avoid the Destiny that now seemed to stalk the family like a dark fate.
The magic power each member of his family got when they met their match echoed their nature. Kee got the ability to repaint reality to match her artistic ability. Devin, the surfer, got power over water. Jane, who always felt most comfortable in her photography dark room, could make the whole world go black. Tris, whose business was rebuilding classic cars and cycles, could take power from the earth to run machines, or heat them white hot. And his wife Maggie, horse-whisperer extraordinaire, could calm anybody into a limp puddle. What was Lan likely to get? His love was music. What kind of a stupid power was that? He’d be no help to the family.
He didn’t want it, anyway. Didn’t want the whole damned package. No true love. No magic power. No idiotic chase after Talismans of the Tarot to increase the family’s powers so they could accomplish good in the world. Whatever the hell ‘good’ was. Morgan and the Clan always got the damn things in the end anyway. There’d be no need to fix disasters and try to make the whole fucking world a better place when it was plain it was going to hell in a hand basket as fast as it could go. That was a fool’s errand. No danger of turning out like Senior, either. Half the man he had been, if that, after the attack, and all for a cause that was pointless. If Senior, who had always been able to do anything, couldn’t win, the family and their stupid Destiny were doomed.
Even if Lan had the gene, he’d thought he could at least avoid activating it by never meeting the One who would lock him into the whole ‘save the world’ thing forever. He’d holed up in his dump of a motel and just came out at night to play at the clubs when he couldn’t stand the pressure of the music inside him. He talked to no one. He didn’t let anyone touch him. He got dead drunk and then went back to his flophouse motel. He made no effort to avoid Morgan and friends. If he hadn’t left the family totally, coward that he was, at least he’d drifted out on a tether into the dark space at the edge of nothingness.
He’d thought nothing could get him back.
And then he saw her. Fuck. One look? That wasn’t fair. The girl was trying to force his hand, drag him back to his Destiny, to the fucking trap it was to be a Tremaine these days.
He downed another shot.
Okay, he just needed some space. He wasn’t trapped yet. Take the whole thing one step at a time. He was far enough away from her that he wasn’t actually puking his guts out when he tried to leave her. If he kept dead drunk, that might be good enough. If not, then he’d head out on the Harley and really put some distance between them. The bike had taken Tris away once, at least for a little while. In the end Tris had succumbed to his Destiny, too, though. Maybe he’d have to leave the continent.
What a fucking mess. Well, likely one of Morgan’s guys would show up and finish him off before he could crawl back to the womb of The Breakers and beg some girl he didn’t know to spend forever in hell with him.
Lan looked up from his now-empty glass as a guy walked into the bar. “Brandy,” the guy growled. He made his way to sit in a far corner. He had some kind of an accent. The scar on his face was vaguely familiar. “Just bring me the bottle,” the scarred guy called to the bartender.
“Your funeral,” the bartender said and turned to the cabinets under the mirror.
Only if I’m lucky, Lan thought.
*
Greta looked around the big kitchen, wondering what she would do with herself all day. The family had mostly drifted away. Well, that was an exaggeration. The Prince of Wales strode off to work, apparently somewhere in the house, explaining that there was a tsunami headed for the Philippines, though what that had to do with what he was working on, she had no idea. Mr. Tremaine got suddenly angry-looking, and his wife hurriedly helped him up from the table and out of the room, muttering something about a Dr. Tanet and physical therapy. Greta was shocked to see that Mr. Tremaine used a walker. He must have been in some kind of accident or something. No wonder his wife seemed so sad, and he looked kind of lost. Tris went out to arrange for one of the security staff to go over and pick up some things from her apartment. She’d made a list that included her laptop, the astronomy treatise she’d been reading and some clothes. Tris’s wife Maggie took the kids out to play in the backyard. The young couple who looked like newlyweds quietly exited, exchanging sly glances, the blond boy leading the girl by the hand. She knew what that meant.
An echo of the desire she’d felt last night while she’d watched the Ghost—correction, Lanyon—relieve himself under the stars shot through her.
What was up with that? Her orgasm had been the most powerful she’d ever felt. Maybe it was being out under the stars. They always seemed to energize her. Maybe it was watching a mysterious man with a body like a Greek god succumb to his own need.
Tammy cleared the dishes from the table and wouldn’t let Greta help. Now the girl was whispering with Jane at the sink. Greta had never felt so useless, so…unmoored in her life.
And why the hell had Lanyon left at four o’clock in the morning?
He’d seen her last night in the window. That’s why. He hadn’t seemed embarrassed about what he’d done in the moonlight, so that meant he was disgusted with her. Who wouldn’t be when they’d
seen you secretly watch them jerk off? She should have left, too.
Except now his family had talked her into staying. She shoved herself up from the table. “I, uh, need to use the facilities…?”
“Oh, sorry!” Jane turned and pointed. “Right down the back hall.”
“Thanks.” Greta practically slunk away, though it was hard to slink when your knees were as bruised as hers were. The raw places were scraping against the inside of the slacks Drew had loaned her. With Greta’s luck, she’d bleed all over them.
As she came out of the tastefully—of course—appointed guest bath, she ran into Mrs. Tremaine, almost literally. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed.
“No, no, child. You’re just who I was looking for.” Mrs. Tremaine glanced down the hall anxiously looking toward the kitchen. She took Greta’s hand and led her into a small office. It had a desk and a computer on it, pictures of Tremaine children—the kind you got from school, and some childish paperweights, spoon holders, key trays, and all the other things kids made for their mothers. “My office,” Mrs. Tremaine said apologetically. “I used to do the household things here, just recipes and ordering and accounts, before Jane took over.” She brought herself out of an apparently wistful mood. “Won’t you sit down?”
Greta sat, gingerly. She had no idea what to say.
“I…I noticed that you were walking a little stiffly. Are you all right?”
What a kind woman. Greta relaxed. “It’s nothing. I just fell last night in all the shoving. Skinned my knees and got a few bruises. Nothing big.”
“Good.” The woman’s satisfied look turned to contrition. “I mean, good it isn’t serious.”
There was a pause and Greta wondered whether she was being dismissed. “Well, uh…”
Mrs. Tremaine interrupted. “You know, I might be able to do something for you.” She bustled over behind the desk and opened the drawer. “I’ve got some new cream right here somewhere. Just miraculous.”
“Oh, the scabs will be gone in a few days…”
The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5) Page 10