The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5)

by Susan Squires

  “Tammy didn’t see him.”

  “You did!” Kemble protested.

  Ahh. Even though Lan was Kemble’s little brother, Tris thought Kemble’s green monster was raising its head. Lan was a well-built guy. Well, they all were. Didn’t his insecure older brother know that he and Jane belonged only to each other? Tris concentrated on his glass. Nothing he could say here that wouldn’t make it worse.

  “Greta was in the window too, watching.” Jane sighed. “They were both in a lot of pain.”

  “I’ll show Lanyon what pain is,” Kemble muttered. “Traipsing around buck-naked where any female can see him and….”

  “Your reaction is precisely why Tris will go talk to him, before Lanyon can run off again and make himself and Greta both miserable.”

  Tris jerked his head up at his name. “Now, Jane, I’m no good at that stuff. You know that. Man of few words. Not the sensitive type.”

  “So you would like to have us think, Tristram Tremaine,” Jane scolded. But her smile said she was only teasing. “You are wonderful with Maggie and the kids. The guys at your shop would do anything for you. And…” She held up a finger to stop his protest. “Most importantly, you have felt what he’s going through. You and Maggie tried to split when it got frightening. You understand. And you know how well it can all work out.”

  Tris set his glass down on the bar too firmly. “What am I supposed to say to him?”

  Jane pursed her lips. “I refuse to put words in your mouth, Tris. They’d be the wrong words, anyway. You need to talk to him like one man talks to another.”

  “Oh, great.” Tris rolled his eyes. “Hey, how about those Kings, huh? Think they got a chance at the Stanley Cup again this year?”

  Jane actually chuckled and then sighed. “Come to bed, husband. The shrieking has died down. Which means sleeping is again possible. And in about an hour, Tris is going to intercept his brother trying to sneak out of the house and give him the benefit of his vast wisdom.”

  Kemble gave a sly grin and shrugged in a way that said, ‘What can you do?’ as his small wife dragged him toward the French doors.

  Tris gave a disgusted grunt. Peachy. And now he couldn’t just pack it in and go to bed himself. Jane had given him no choice in the matter. Damn uncomfortable. But it was family. Guess he could relate to Lan’s dilemma. Shit. He was going to do this.

  Or try.

  *

  The light chill in the September night air felt good on Lan’s bare torso as he slid around the side of the house with his tablature paper. The music still filled his mind. This was good stuff. He could feel it. Flute would come in right there, interrupting the strings. Violas and cellos would give it bottom. They’d sound like courage. Greta had courage. The way she’d demanded answers… answers he had no intention of giving her, of course.

  He threw himself down at the teak table. He didn’t even know the woman. How did he know this was her music? But it wouldn’t get out of his head. He spread the tablature paper out, took up his pencil and began to write furiously. Only the setting moon provided light. It was enough. As soon as he finished this, he’d go. But not until whatever was inside him had poured out onto the paper. How was he so sure of the notes? How did he know how it would all come together? But he did, and the feeling of sureness was the most wonderful thing he’d ever felt in his life, except maybe the sex he’d just had with Greta. Some part of his mind heard the French doors open behind him. But she was still down in his room, so he didn’t look up. He was scribbling so fast he just drew an X through the ball of the notes instead of coloring them in to make them solid. Chords seemed to rise unbidden from his pencil for the piano part. His hand darted over the page. At the bottom, he skipped to percussion, marking beats as fast as he could. Hearing it all at once like this was wonderful and overwhelming. How would he get it all down? He only had five hundred sheets in the ream. Horns! He hardly ever wrote for horns. But there they were.

  At last, he sat back. He had no idea how long he’d been there, but the sky had turned from black to a lighter indigo. It might be getting close to dawn. He shivered. The aroma of roses, in the background of his mind for the last hours, wafted over him. The fecund scent of the sea hung in the air from the waves dashing against the cliff below the house. The teak furniture on the terrace gave off a damp-wood smell.

  “How goes it?”

  Lan jerked around. There, in a chair under the pergola was a dark shape and the end of a…a cigar, probably, gleaming red. Tris. “I thought you gave those up,” Lan said, his voice hoarse as though he hadn’t spoken for a year.

  “I have. Except for special occasions.”

  Lan tried to drag himself back from the brink of music so overwhelming it terrified him and calmed him at the same time. He stared at the pages and pages of tablature scattered around him. He’d just written a symphony if he wasn’t mistaken. “W-what’s the occasion?”

  “You found your Destiny.”

  That brought Lan back to earth. They knew? “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The shrieking and yelling sex, maybe. The fact that you brought her home. Or maybe the fact that you ran from her and she got sick. Kinda adds up.”

  “I didn’t run from her.” God, now he sounded like a pouty child.

  “Yes, you did. You’re about to run again.”

  That stopped him cold.

  “I thought so,” Tris said. The tip of the cigar glowed brighter as he drew on it. The curling smoke was just visible in the dark.

  “You’re going to tell me I can’t run from Destiny or something. Not that I’d call it running. But don’t I have a right to choose the direction of my life?”

  “Sure you do. And you’ve made some dandy choices so far. Alcohol, women you could care less about, seedy motels…I guess you can rot your soul in Timbuktu as well as you can in West Hollywood. A few really bad days with the sickness, but you get over that with enough distance. I know. Then all you’ve got is nothin’. Sounds perfect.”

  “Maybe that’s what I want.” Lan tried to keep his voice even.

  “Wonder if that’s what she wants?” His damn brother had the balls to make it sound nonchalant. “Cause that’s what she’s gonna get, too.”

  Damn. Lan felt his stomach clench. That was just the problem, wasn’t it? Now he’d involved Greta. He ran his fingers through his hair. What was he supposed to do? Give up on having a life of his own and settle down to be a good little Tremaine with a woman he didn’t even know?

  Tris picked up a glass from the table beside him. Lan could hear the ice tinkling in it, smell the Scotch. His brother seemed to change the subject. “What you got there?” He gestured to the scattered papers.

  “Nothing.”

  Tris grunted. “You were always the worst at lying. Well, Kemble was worst, but you were a strong runner-up. So, what is it?”

  Lan stared at the tablature sheets. “I think it’s a symphony.”

  “You wrote it just now?” Tris sounded incredulous.

  Lan didn’t bother to lie. Tris was right. He was bad at it. And he had a feeling Tris had been sitting there for a while. “Yeah.”

  “Good feeling, isn’t it? That rush of power.”

  Lan’s brows drew together. “That was it?” It was wonderful. He’d never felt so…right. It was as if he’d been blind all his life and he’s just learned to see. Scratch that—hear.

  “Yeah,” Tris said. “That was it.”

  “Is it like that every time?”

  “Pretty much. Sex is that good, too. Though you do learn to, uh, moderate. You know. Sometimes tender, not so much screaming.”

  Oh. They had been loud. Neither of them even thought about the fact that the whole house had probably heard them. He felt himself flushing. What was that about? He was a guy. Guys weren’t embarrassed about having mind-blowing sex.

  “Even better than the sex is the…” Tris paused as though he wasn’t quite sure how to put it into words. He shook his head s
lowly and chuffed a half-laugh. “I guess it’s the deepness of the feeling you’ll have for her, the sense that you’re totally open to each other. That part comes after the mind-blasting sex,” he added.

  “What are you trying to do here, Tris?” Lan felt like a noose was tightening around him.

  Lan saw his brother’s shrug. “Thought I’d let you know it isn’t all bad, that’s all.”

  Lan pushed back his chair and stood. “I don’t want a life partner I didn’t even pick. I don’t want to be engaged in some battle for world domination. You’ve seen how that turns out. Look at Senior.”

  “You think you’re not engaged?” Tris snorted. “You tempt fate every time you leave the compound. And don’t think I don’t know why. You’re an amateur in the rebellious department. You want it to be your choice if they get you. If you don’t care, then it doesn’t matter so much. Well, think again, buddy. Because now you’ve got her right in there with you.”

  Damn him! Lan began to pace.

  “You leave, you rip her life apart. But you also brought her to the attention of the Clan. What do you think they’re going to think after you rescue her and she stays here for a week? You cut her loose and you might as well sign a death warrant for her. They’ll take her out just in case she is what she is.”

  Lan turned, stunned to silence. Okay. Regroup. “She stays here. The family protects her.”

  “Oh, great. She gets all the fun of being cooped up here, giving up her career, everything she’s ever wanted in life, without any of the perks. Hell, giving up any chance at having love is just the cherry on top. Boy, you’re a selfish son-of-a-bitch.”

  Oh, God. The hell of it was Tris was right. Greta was in this now. He’d let her in, no, dragged her in, and sealed her fate by having sex with her. This whole thing was his fault. His shoulders sagged. Trapped. Because he couldn’t abandon Greta at The Breakers anymore than he could have abandoned her in the parking lot of Diamondback. He stopped his pacing and hung his head.

  Tris didn’t give him an inch. “The life you thought you wanted is already fucked six ways from Sunday,” he said. “Hers too. Now you can make it a hundred times worse by leaving, or you can man up and find some redeeming aspects of the situation.”

  “She thinks we’ve been poisoned or something,” Lan said finally, his voice dull.

  Tris heaved a sigh. “Then you owe her an explanation. Get to know her, asshole,” he said as though to a child. “You know, talk to her. Find out what she likes in her coffee, what her favorite color is, that sort of thing.”

  “Okay. An explanation.” He could start with that. And what choice did he have? Hell, he’d get to know her, too. Hurting Greta, condemning her to live a half-life without the possibility of love? How could he go through with that? I am so fucked.

  “Good, then.” The sky had lightened. Lan could see Tris look like the cat that had swallowed the canary.

  Good? This so wasn’t good. Everything he’d tried so hard to escape was now officially inescapable. And what power had he gotten? He could write music. Satisfying—he couldn’t deny that. But useful? Not hardly. He was still the joker of the family. Only now he was the one with the joke of a power. He gazed out over the ocean. It had always made him feel small.

  Lan found himself wondering what power that incredible sex had raised in Greta.

  “I’ve got to go…” He trailed off as he turned into the house.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‡

  Greta stood, naked, in front of the window that looked out across the side lawns of the big house to the stables and the riding rings lower down. The last starlight flickered through the remaining leaves of the tree outside. A stiff breeze coming in off the ocean stirred the leaves and brushed against her face.

  She didn’t worry about Lanyon coming up behind her because she could feel him pacing some distance away. Probably the terrace. Which gave her something else to worry about. She knew where he was. No doubt about it. She could also smell the scent of sex hanging heavy in the room, and the wax on the wood floor. She could smell the dry paper scattered over his desk, the leather of the boots he’d left at the foot of the bed. She stood very still, as if that would contain her panic.

  Something had happened to her.

  Exhibit number one: she never had sex with a guy she hardly knew. Not her style. Not that she was the traditional good girl, but she at least knew her partners well before she took a chance like having sex. That made you vulnerable to others in ways that no other action could match. And the sex tonight had been almost violent in its intensity. No way around that. The orgasms were not even in the same league with the ones in her previous experience—no doubt why she’d passed out for a few hours.

  So. What the hell was going on? Witchcraft? Voodoo? Right. The guy was a loon as well as a serious alcoholic. But something was going on.

  She steadied her breathing and stared at the stars. They had always been able to calm her. Light, coming from millions and millions of miles away—that’s what stars were. You had to take the suns and planets behind them on faith unless you had a telescope. The only evidence they gave of their existence to the naked eye was light. And that light told so much about them. The spectrographs analysis that broke the light into pieces said what chemicals the stars were made of. The light told you how big they were and how hot they burned. And that light crossed time and space to twinkle in the heavens, bathing her with serenity and…how could she describe it? Sureness about the world and her place in it.

  She breathed in, staring at the lighted heavens as if they could answer all her questions and reveal the composition of the world in enough detail to make it comprehensible. Because she was having a hard time comprehending anything about now.

  No wonder people believed in astrology. The secrets of composition and position and movement of those hidden celestial bodies explained where everything had started, and where it was going. The stars must have some bearing on who we are and why we’re here, and what we should do, mustn’t they? The light was their secret message.

  She stared at the twinkling light through the dwindling leaves until her breathing steadied. Her lungs and her heart slowed. The stars glowed brighter and brighter as she stared. She never wanted to look away. Let the light give her answers. Let it heal her. It always had, hadn’t it? She’d begun watching stars when she was only five or so. Knew the constellations. Starlight had been her guidepost during the awful struggles with her mother. Now she was unbalanced again. The stars somehow held the answer. Surely their light healed.

  Her arms rose slowly from her sides. Palms forward, she stood, receiving the beneficence of light. It seemed to blossom inside her. The stars blended together into one bright burst that showered her with a feeling of certainty and strength. She didn’t need to breathe. Her heart didn’t even need to beat. She got her strength directly from the light and she shone, glowing from within. She could feel it. She was the light. No trembling, no fear. No breathing, no struggle. Peace and power. She had both, and she could do….anything.

  The door opened behind her, breaking the spell. Greta gasped and her legs gave out. Everything moved in slow motion as the floor rose to meet her.

  She felt strong arms surround her. She tumbled with another body to the floor, bare skin on bare skin. He smelled like man and sex and, ever so faintly, the shampoo he had used and the soap. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to hold on to consciousness. His handsome face floated above her, displaying a worried frown.

  “What’s happening to me?” she whispered.

  *

  Lan tried to untangle himself from Greta. He’d barely been in time to break her fall. What was going on here? She was ice cold. He scooped her up and carried her to the bed. Laying her on it, he pulled the covers up. She’d begun to shiver uncontrollably.

  Damn it. He pulled the covers back, kicked off his boots and climbed in next to her, pulling the coverlet back up over them both. He’d just hold her until she warmed up
some. He really hoped he could just keep it to that. Already his body was responding to her proximity. Thank God he’d kept his jeans on.

  She seemed almost insensible. Had she had some kind of seizure? Was she sick? He stroked her back as she curled into his bare chest, teeth chattering. He stilled for a moment as he realized she might have had some manifestation of a power. He hoped hers was more useful than just being able to write music.

  He’d written a symphony. In a matter of a few hours. He wouldn’t think about that. Tris was right. He’d get joy out of being filled with music, but the experience had been draining, too. He was exhausted with the whole sad mess of his life.

  It took about twenty minutes for Greta’s shivering to subside. He felt her drift off to sleep. He couldn’t think at all. But right now, it felt so good to hold her in his arms, protect her and rock her into slumber. He’d just stay with her a little while.

  *

  Lanyon woke, feeling as groggy as if he’d been on a three-day drunk. Which he had been. But that was a couple of days ago, right? Energy still buzzed in his core, his abdomen. Belly? Just under his heart? He wasn’t quite sure.

  He sucked in a breath as he remembered last night. He sat bolt upright in his bed. Greta was gone. No, no. She was just in the shower. He could feel her in the bathroom. Plus he heard the water running in case he didn’t trust the new-found senses that came with Destiny. Steam billowed out from the bathroom door. He relaxed. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was already afternoon.

  He ran his hands through his hair and over the rough stubble on his chin. What a mess of a situation.

  Okay. Okay. He couldn’t think about the whole mess at once. He’d start by telling her what was going on. He owed her that. And while it would be really convenient to leave that to Jane, it was about time he started cleaning up the screw-ups of his life on his own. Wasn’t that what he wanted? Control of his life? Well, he might be struggling like a fly in the web of Destiny, but he could man-up and at least break the bad news to his fellow fly.