She certainly had run on. Serena hadn’t been able to find a second in which to interrupt. “Martha,” she murmured, following the older woman back into the kitchen to be handed a large platter of bacon, “I’ve met Dr. O’Neill.”
“Oh!” Martha paused and scrutinized Serena sharply. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“What did you think?”
Serena lowered her eyes. I wasn’t actually thinking when we first met, she thought bitterly. She shrugged, turning with her bacon. “He seems all right,” she said nonchalantly.
“Did I hear you say something about a book?”
Marc entered the dining room and pulled out a chair for himself.
“Yes,” Martha said, her eyes narrowing upon her unwanted guest. “Dr. O’Neill writes textbooks that are used in colleges and universities all over the country.”
“Who told you that?” Marc inquired a bit sourly. “Dr. O’Neill?”
Martha gave him a thin-lipped smile. “No, Marc. When he called to reserve the room, he mentioned he was writing a book. I happened to mention him to Mrs. Baker. She told me that he was considered the best in his field!”
Serena hated to hear the sharp edge passing between two of her best friends. But there was no help for it. Martha and Marc simply didn’t get along, and although open warfare had never been declared, situations had been known to get tense. She took the seat beside Marc and lied valiantly with false cheer. “It should be an exciting summer—a clinical writer and an imaginative one—both haunting the Golden Hawk!”
Just as she finished speaking, the “clinical” writer made his appearance. Bathed and shaved, and both casual and overwhelmingly vigorous in jeans and a sport shirt, he offered a pleasant “Good morning” to Martha before taking the chair beside Serena.
“I hear you’re a writer,” Marc said to him. Serena heard the defensive quality to his tone and winced. You aren’t in competition, Marc, she thought sadly, except it was easy to understand his feelings. As she had noted herself, the doctor was a bit of an awesome shock. A power like nothing she had ever known. It was only natural that he had Marc off base. First he had discovered that he was venturing into his first big novel along parallel lines with an acclaimed veteran. To second that affront, the acclaimed veteran towered over his medium height, and besides being brilliant, Justin had also managed to become an astounding physical specimen.
And, oh God, Marc, Serena thought a little sickly, he’s also another one up on you.
She couldn’t seem to control the color from flooding her face with thought of her own capitulation to the good doctor. She lowered her head and pretended an engrossed concentration upon buttering a muffin.
Justin O’Neill shrugged in reply to Marc. “I’m a teacher,” he said, “who writes on the side. Nothing terribly exciting most of the time, I’m afraid. Especially to the grad students studying for their exams.”
Martha and Marc chuckled at the dry comment; Serena felt her muffin catch in her throat. A shiver caught hold of her, and she picked up her coffee cup, wincing as the hot liquid burned in her throat. Suddenly she could stand the absurdity of the situation no longer. She stood and murmured, “You’ll all have to excuse me. I want to get to work.”
Marc glanced at her strangely; Justin O’Neill rose. “I look forward to seeing you later, Mrs. Loren. Martha has informed me that you’re a wealth of information—and I’d very much like to hear the history of the inn … from you.”
There was the slightest pause between the words, but to Serena their implication was deep.
“I’d be willing to help you all I can,” Marc offered. “If you’re after intriguing history, that would be Eleanora Hawk—the woman in the portrait we showed you this morning.”
“I’ve heard the story,” O’Neill mused in reply to Marc, his eyes still on Serena. “The resemblance becomes all the more interesting though. Do you think there is an explanation, Mrs. Loren?”
Marc started to speak, but Serena, aware of the mystic meaning he would give, quickly interrupted.
“Certainly there’s a plausible, clinical explanation, Dr. O’Neill. I’m a widow, and therefore, a Loren. But my maiden name was Hawk. Long range genetics, but genetics nevertheless. Now, if you will please excuse me …”
She fled the room before anyone could say anything else. When she reached her car, she was shaking. She gripped the wheel tightly for a moment and took a deep breath. What a fool she was being. The man was making her a nervous wreck. And on top of it all, Marc was becoming convinced she was a reincarnation of a long-dead ancestor.
“And everything was going so well,” she murmured aloud to herself in bewilderment. Impatiently she twisted her key in the ignition and drove down the long sloping drive to the highway.
The Museum of Fact and Fantasy was located in the center of town. As a child she had dreamed of opening such a place, and when she had married Bill Loren, she had laughingly told him her dream. “Silly dream, I guess,” she had said. “Salem is already full of attractions.”
“The only silly dream,” her husband had replied, “is one that you don’t attempt to accomplish.”
Serena bit her lip with her thoughts. She had loved Bill Loren dearly, with all her heart. He had been twenty years her senior, but it hadn’t mattered to either of them.
She bit into her lip harder. It had been a long time since she had cried. He had been dead two years. She had spent the first year learning to live without him, nursing her memories with tears at night. And then, when she had realized she couldn’t mourn forever, she had been afraid. Her friends had dated, and frequently they had affairs with married men who were unfaithful, men who were either chauvinistic, or totally dependent. Two of her close friends were divorced after disastrous marriages: Karen’s husband hadn’t been able to make a decision between her and an old lover; Beth’s husband had left her when her income as an artist had surpassed his as an accountant.
Bill had been the perfect mate. Strong and secure, he could both love and trust her. He cheered on each of her triumphs, held her hand and promised the sun would rise during disasters.
Martha, strangely enough, had been the one to finally talk her into dating Marc. He had come to Salem from Boston to work for the local newspaper, and he had apparently become determined to date Serena from the first day he saw her at the museum. She had eventually given in to his persistence. And she had slowly learned that going out could be fun.
Serena wondered suddenly if she had discovered that life could not only be fun, but comfortable. Being with Marc was easy. She knew his insecurities, and if she sometimes found them annoying, she would shrug and remind herself that no one was perfect.
What is the matter with me, she wondered? I’m suddenly finding fault with Marc because … because of that stinking Dr. O’Neill, she thought irritably. All because of a case of temporary insanity!
She groaned aloud with the thought that her temporary insanity had turned her existence into madness. How was she going to deal with the man in her house all summer?
“Worry about it later!” she muttered aloud as she unlocked the doors to the museum and flicked on the light switch. A large, horned devil glared at her from the wall of the entryway, and she glared back. “I feel worse than you look!” she told the stained-glass caricature.
“And you do look like hell!”
Serena turned with a dry grimace for her assistant, Susan Aspach. “Thanks. I love to begin the day with flattery.”
Nonplussed, Susan laughed and plopped her huge macramé bag over the ticket counter. She was a pretty, pixyish blonde with deep brown eyes and a happy-go-lucky manner that never failed.
She was also a practicing “white witch.”
“What’s the matter?” she inquired, raising a brow to Serena. “Things go wrong with Marc’s publisher? Marc looked in high enough spirits himself.”
Serena frowned. “You saw Marc?”
“Yeah.” Susan leaned over the counter to check
for a roll of tickets, then brushed past Serena to open the secondary doors and illuminate the displays in appropriate mist-blue fluorescences. “I stopped by the inn,” she called over her shoulder, heels clicking across the stone floor of the main room as she headed for the rear of the building which housed the small book and gift shop and tiny office.
Following in the wake of her hyper friend, Serena demanded, “Why?”
“What?” Susan was already pouring water through the Mr. Coffee machine. “Oh—I don’t know. I had just thought we might ride in together, but I missed you.”
“Oh,” Serena murmured.
“Well?”
“What?”
Susan shook her head and laughed. “Gee, maybe we’d better start all over this morning! My ‘well?’ meant what’s wrong? Did the dinner go badly?”
Serena shook her head. “No, the dinner didn’t go badly. It went well. Marc is going to get his advance. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Susan lifted a brow but queried her no further. She had her own answer. “It’s the painting,” she said, nodding sagely.
“You saw the painting?”
“Umm—Marc showed it to me. It gave me shivers, Serena.”
“Oh, stop!” Serena wailed.
“You’re going to try and tell me there isn’t a resemblance?”
Serena sighed, counting slowly to ten. “Yes, there’s a resemblance—but it isn’t that shocking.”
Susan shrugged. “Coffee?”
“Yes, I could use the whole pot.”
She accepted a cup of coffee from Susan and idly ran her fingers over the invoices she had left on the desk the night before. Susan sipped her coffee with a long sigh.
“What did you think of Dr. O’Neill?” Serena asked, trying to keep the question casual.
“Who?”
“My summer guest,” Serena explained.
“Oh, I didn’t meet him. What’s he like?”
When directly asked the question, Serena wasn’t sure what to say. She answered slowly. “I don’t know … strange for a professor. He’s much younger than I expected. And he jogs and looks like he should be surfing or weight lifting. Muscle-bound type.”
“Bad vibes.”
“What?” Serena said, feeling ridiculous. She was accustomed to having strange conversations with Susan, but this morning she felt as if they were in different dimensions.
“You have bad vibes about him—or maybe it’s the picture,” Susan said solemnly.
“I don’t have bad vibes about anything!” Serena groaned with exasperation. “I just had a bad night!”
Susan shrugged with a knowing look, and Serena wanted to shake her. Sometimes having a practicing witch for a friend and employee was extremely trying. She turned for the office door with her coffee cup. “I’m going out front—I think it’s opening time.”
“Hey!” Susan protested. “I’m tickets today. It’s your turn to be the guide into the occult!”
Serena grimaced. It was her turn.
“Don’t you want to switch?” she asked hopefully.
“Nope,” Susan said, shaking her head firmly.
Serena shrugged. The museum was hers, and she was the boss, but she and Susan had always worked as equals—which was the only way Serena could see it, since she wouldn’t have been able to manage the place without Susan.
Serena made a face but reached for the black cloak and pointed hat that hung on the rack beside the door.
“This really doesn’t seem fair,” she grumbled good-naturedly, “since you’re the one who is a witch!”
Susan raised her coffee cup. “We’ll welcome you into the coven anytime!” She laughed.
Serena replied with a dry look and walked back into the main sector of the building. The displays, which were composed of beautifully crafted wax figures, were in three segments: Magic Through the Ages, Witchcraft in Salem in 1692, and the Different Faces of Witchcraft. Each tabloid had a stereo recording, but visitors entered in groups on the half hour and were first greeted by either herself or Susan. They were given a brief explanation of the difference between “white” and “black” magic and of several tools of the craft which had remained constant through the centuries. Then the “witch” guide would retire to the gift shop.
Susan swept on by Serena with a smile. “Which witch is which?” she purred sweetly.
“Droll, Susan, very droll,” Serena called after her. She adjusted the sweeping black cloak and her pointed hat. As she waited for the tour to begin, she slipped behind the distance fence to check the wax figures. She chewed upon her lip as she studied the panorama of Satan in his goat form surrounded by three witches and their familiars.
The goat Satan was beginning to lose some of his hair. She sighed. Several of her figures needed face-lifts.
A tap on the door warned her that the first group of the day was ready. Serena swung open the double doors and smiled, and then went into her introduction of the pentagon and the circle of power.
The day seemed endless to her. She and Susan were only able to slip away for a half hour lunch break, and when they returned, people awaited them in a line on the sidewalk.
“Summer,” Susan muttered.
“Umm,” Serena agreed. She should be glad of the business; the overhead for keeping the museum afloat was high, and as she had noted earlier, some of the figures needed repair. And she wanted to add some new exhibits. Her enthusiasm was usually high—the museum was, after all, her creation.
But besides being tired, she was a nervous wreck. Her mind kept hopping from the incredible incident at the pond to the disastrous dinner, to the miserable fact that Marc and the overwhelming Dr. O’Neill would both be hovering about her home all summer.
“I wish I knew a spell to make people drop through sidewalks,” Susan murmured as they were forced to excuse their way through the waiting crowd to open the door.
“Susan!” Serena chuckled. “Such a malicious thought shouldn’t come to a nice white witch! But if you do figure out how to manage such a thing, be sure to teach me!”
With the last tour group of the day browsing through the gift shop, Serena excused herself from a group of college students and hurried back into the museum to switch out the fluorescent lights. She was long accustomed to her wax figures, but for some reason she felt goose bumps rise on her arms as she passed by the display case with the stereotype witch—an old hag with a warty nose stirring a potion in her cauldron. Serena shook herself lightly and reached for the switch—
And felt a hand descend over her cloak-clad shoulder.
She stifled back a scream and spun around wide-eyed. When she met the sardonic and querying gaze of Justin O’Neill, she began to wish that a demon had arisen from hell to accost her.
There probably wouldn’t be much difference. His eyes definitely held the burning light of the devil.
“Lovely cape,” he murmured. “But I do hope you’re wearing something beneath it today.”
Serena wrenched her shoulder from his touch furiously. “What are you doing here?” she hissed.
His brows lifted in polite inquiry. “The establishment is open to the public, isn’t it?”
Serena stared into his eyes for a second, then flicked out the lights and brushed past him, calling over her shoulder, “The establishment is closing for the evening.”
“That’s exactly why I’m here now.”
The strong but low-keyed timbre of his voice brought her to a halt with her back to him.
“Don’t you think it might be a nice idea to talk—alone? Or would you prefer to spend your days hopping about like a nervous bird every time I walk into a room?”
Serena turned slowly. In the darkness she could see but a silhouette of him, towering as he stood with arms crossed.
“We, ah, we really don’t have anything to talk about,” Serena murmured nervously. “A quirk of fate left us both in rather uncomfortable positions—”
His quick, throaty laughter broke off her
words. “A quirk of fate? My, my, Mrs. Loren, what happened to all the romance and passion in your soul?”
Serena bit her lip and blushed furiously, thankful then that they stood without light.
“Dr. O’Neill—”
“My name is Justin. Pardon the familiarity, but I really do feel ridiculous being addressed formally by you.”
Serena caught a breath and held it, counting. “All right, Justin, I’ll admit you make me as nervous as a cat. So we’ll talk—quickly. Whatever happened—happened. But it obviously has nothing to do with our day-to-day lives—”
“Oh, on the contrary …” he interrupted, beginning a stealthy walk toward her that made Serena edge backwards. “Considering our daily lives at the present, our encounter certainly affects them!”
He had paused just before her. He didn’t touch her, but she could feel him, and it was the same drugging sensation she had felt before. When he was near, she felt compelled to touch him. The scent of him … the aura … whatever … was a lure she had never experienced before. She didn’t know him at all, but she felt as if she had known him for ages. Right then and there, she could have dropped all thoughts of anything around them, time, place, people, and move into his arms, and it would have been right.
Serena closed her eyes and struggled with the absurdity of her thoughts. He might be a professor and not the brainless mass of muscles she had assumed him, but he was still some kind of a jock with a startling and overwhelming masculinity who could seduce a woman in the woods and then leave her to rush to a dinner date with another woman.
She opened her mouth to speak, not caring that he saw her back away from him warily again. “Listen, Dr. O’Neill—Justin, I think that there just really isn’t a point—”
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