“I—” She started to speak, closed her mouth, and then nodded. He signaled for the check, left it on the table with appropriate bills, and rose before the waiter’s return, reaching for her arm.
Silently she followed his escort.
He too was silent for the first few minutes he drove, and then he quietly began to speak.
“I don’t believe that your relationship can be a strong one, Serena. You say you’ve been seeing Marc a long time. Yet you don’t sleep with him, and within minutes of our meeting—”
“What makes you so damn sure about my … my …” Serena exploded her question and then stuttered in frustration.
“Your sex life?” he supplied with dry help. “You make me sure. If I hadn’t been so damned stunned and jealous when I saw you last night, I would have never behaved so badly.” He grimaced. “Sorry, that is one of those rather annoying male traits. Irrational jealousy, I mean. If seeing you with another man hadn’t hit me like a ton of bricks, I would have never accused you of musical beds. It’s obviously been a while since you’ve been involved with any man. You were trembling so at first, not experienced—”
“Son of a bitch!” Serena bit out furiously, pounding her palm against her forehead with a wave of humiliated rage that seemed to touch her every nerve. “First you harass me, then you change the entire thing and tell me that my performance wasn’t up to your standards! Stop the car, and I damned well mean it! I can get home from here just fine on my own speed—”
“Serena, stop it!” Justin exclaimed harshly. “You’re ridiculously sensitive, and perhaps I’m wording things badly—”
“I don’t care!” Serena grated, gripping the seat tensely so that she didn’t do something really ridiculous like attempt to smash him into the windshield. “I—don’t—care! I just want to get out of this car!”
He pulled off to the shoulder of the road, but as she whirled to reach for the door handle, he swore softly and wrenched her back around to face him, holding her wrists firmly with one hand.
She sat perfectly still, staring at him with hostility seeming to come from the sky depths of her eyes.
“Let me go,” she said with a deathly calm.
“I can’t let you go,” he said as quietly as she. “Until you listen and we reach some kind of an agreement. I want you to listen to me—”
She moaned her frustration aloud, aware that tears pricked beneath her eyelids. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to listen to you; I’ve heard enough of what—”
“No,” he persisted vehemently, leaning across the seat so that his face was within inches of hers, his heat seeming to permeate distance and touch her, magnifying the static tension. “Serena, you fool! I have never in my life known a woman like you; I have never felt that I held a creature more giving, more sensuous. There were no mechanics, Serena—no tricks of craft or trade or learning. That is all that I meant. Lord, woman, do you think I’d be sitting here like this if you didn’t have me enwebbed with your unique beauty? I don’t even understand this, I just know that it exists, and I won’t ignore it, nor will I allow you to ignore it.”
Serena stared at him, feeling her emotions pitch within her cruelly. She tried to speak and found that her lips were too dry; she tried to move her hands and realized that to ever fight him would be ludicrous—sane people didn’t scuffle with weight lifters.
She had to get out. She was forced to face him. And face everything that he was saying.
Again her blood seemed to be composed of nothing but hot liquid that raced through her system, leaving her weak and shivering. She finally managed to bring words to her parched lips.
“What exactly do you want?” she demanded thickly.
“You—that’s evident.”
“But I … I can’t,” Serena murmured weakly. She glanced at his fingers, still wound around her wrists, and a part of her retained the amazement that he could be so massively built, yet refined in tone and delineation. “This is crazy. You’re asking me for something … you don’t believe in magic. … I mean … if there isn’t magic … then it’s simply lust, what else? And a stupid thing to throw one’s life over for—”
“Listen, Serena.” His impatience caused him to jerk her hands so that she refaced him with a look of shock he ignored. “How do two people ever know what they have—unless they see one another, explore feelings, learn about one another. That’s all that I’m asking. I know you have a past. So do I. It would be absurd to assume either of us had been biding time in cloisters awaiting one another. But what starts any type of a relationship, Serena? Attraction—basic sexual attraction.”
“No,” Serena protested. “Friendship can lead to attraction—”
His laughter, as tense as his hold and his eyes, cut her off. “If you believe that you’re going to find this wonderful attraction for your friend when it’s been missing all along, I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”
He was right, her mind screamed. She had hidden behind her widowhood with Marc as nothing more than an excuse. She had enjoyed Marc’s companionship; she had enjoyed the warmth he offered; she had even enjoyed his kisses. She was human and she needed that warmth.
No, what am I thinking? Marc cares for me; he is there and he will always be there. And this ridiculously overwhelming sexual thing cannot last. If it wasn’t magic, it was the trees, the pond, the earth. It will end, and I would have thrown away something so good.
He released her hands suddenly. “You’re a coward, Serena,” he said, his tone venting his disappointment.
She automatically rubbed her wrists. “I’m a coward because I should drop everything—and run off with you tonight? We could just elope, right? I mean we’re both so sure of this thing—”
Something, a chilling shield, blanked the emotion from his eyes as he stared straight into the darkness. “I’m not a big believer in marriage, Serena. I—”
“Oh, great!” she spat out incredulously, “Now I do have it! Turn my life around so that I can be your summer mistress! What a deal, Dr. O’Neill. Wonderful!”
He turned on her again, and this time his fingers threaded her hair, their touch so pleasing it was painful. “I’m asking you to take a chance, Serena. The same chance I’m taking. I can’t give you guarantees—anymore than you can give them to me! At least act honestly. I went into Boston that night to end things, Serena. I didn’t know if I would ever see you again, but being with you was enough for me to know that I couldn’t continue with a relationship that offered less than what we had—as strangers!” His grip on her hair tensed, then relaxed slightly as he groaned. One hand remained tangled in her hair, the other slid down her back, pressing her to him. His face burrowed against her neck, and she almost cried out with the fire that swept her flesh just with the touch of his breath. Then his lips caressed the bare skin, a brand that seared all memory, all argument from her mind. A soft moan escaped her, and she brought her arms around him, feeling the clean cut of the soft hair at the nape of his neck. Dizziness eclipsed everything as she clung to him. Fever and weakness overcame her as his teeth grazed her throat and the lobe of her ear, sending wave after wave of jolting fire down her spine. She loved the play of her fingers over his shoulders, his back. He was so rigid, so tense, yet so hot and alive beneath the touch of her fingertips.
“Justin,” she breathed, and it was a lost cry; she was aware only that it felt wonderful and right to say his name.
It was incredible that he could hold her completely in the confines of the sports car, but she felt melded to him.
I will promise anything, she thought deliriously.
His mouth found hers, softly. He drew a moist whisper of a pattern with the tip of his tongue about her lips. He kissed her eyelids, and then his lips returned to hers hungrily, parting them, devouring them, only to draw away again to taste the flesh near them, making her reach in return to seek his mouth with the tip of her tongue … and again be consumed.
“I need you,” he murmured, his mouth still a
gainst hers, and it was as if the world itself had been obscured. At that moment she had no idea of where she was, nor did she care. With him it didn’t matter. There was a plane above all else. It burned like a raging fire, but it was a place of clouds, where all was filled with blazing light, where tempest still meant security. It was where she had always been meant to be; almost as if she had been there before … as if she knew …
It was all in his arms, and she held to him in that plane, arching as he touched her, loving his demanding hands upon her back, massaging her breast, cradling her throat with tenderness so his lips could more fully find her. And as she drifted in that plane, she thought vaguely that no matter how absurd a thought it might be, she loved him.
In one aspect he had been wrong. All her life she had been waiting for him. Even the gentle love she had shared in marriage had been but a step to this point. She loved him. … It was instant recognition.
A soft whimpered sigh escaped her as his fingers ran down her spine. And then she suddenly found herself untouched; he released her and shifted his body fully back into the driver’s seat.
For seconds she felt bewildered—totally bereft and confused. She stared at him blankly in the darkness, stunned by the burning anger in his hazel scrutiny.
“I’ll give you a week,” he said curtly.
Serena felt the delicious heat drain from her instantly to be replaced by a cold fury. His every action had been calculated; the psychologist had played upon her body and mind as a parent might manipulate a child. She realized that she was sitting in the bucket seat of a sports car and that her clothing was a ruffled disaster. Her hair was the wild evidence that she had been doing exactly what she had been doing. Petting like a high school senior in a car. And if he had continued with his expert administrations, she wouldn’t have even thought of where she was. She would have given in to any demand.
She trembled with a furious rage as she adjusted her clothing, forgetting in her anger that she had admitted the raw emotion that dug like a claw within her. “Take me back to my car,” she demanded with a vehement quiet. “Now, please!”
Justin obligingly started the car. He drove in silence for a moment and then said just as quietly, “Did you hear me, Serena? I said I’d give you one week.”
“I heard you,” she said grimly, and stared stonily out the windshield. With great effort she controlled the screaming turmoil of her mind and half turned to him coolly. “You’ll give me a week. So just what happens at the end of that week?”
He glanced at her, that challenging half smile on his lips, and that blazing and deadly serious intensity in his eyes.
“I come for you,” he said simply.
What does that mean? she shrieked silently to herself. But the words wouldn’t form on her lips. She just sat as they drove, eyes ahead, hands clenched tightly in her lap. The crescents of her nails dug little half-moons into her palms, but she didn’t feel them.
Her own car sat before the darkened museum in the silent street. As Justin parked beside it, she instantly jerked the door handle and bolted. “I’ll follow you to the inn,” he called, making no attempt to stop her.
“There’s no need,” she called back.
Her tires screeched, her car jerked insanely. She wanted to leave him behind in the dust.
But she realized she was behaving absurdly like an adolescent, and she forced herself to slow down and drive responsibly. When she reached the inn, she exited her car and ran for the doorway without bothering to lock it, praying that the entryway would be empty and that she wouldn’t be compelled to chatter politely with her guests or Martha.
The old inn was silent. Serena stepped down the hall to the main stairway, then felt a prickling at the nape of her neck.
With her hand on the bannister, she turned, seeing the rear wall of the parlor from her vantage point of height.
The portrait, Marc’s painting of Eleanora, had been hung above the fireplace.
Beautiful blue eyes seemed to stare back at her sadly.
“Oh, hell!” Serena muttered aloud. She heard Justin reaching the door and twisting the knob as she spun from the too familiar eyes of Eleanora to race the rest of the way up the stairs.
In her room she closed the door behind her and leaned against it as if she had been pursued. “What the hell is happening?” she whispered aloud.
With trembling fingers she stripped off her clothing, allowing it to fall unheeded to the floor, and walked into the bathroom, sitting in the tub as the water filled it. She liberally laced the water with the rose softening beads she loved, thinking stupidly that she could once more erase the scent of him from her body.
But her efforts were useless. Dressed in a gown and curled into her bed with the covers clutched to her chest, she found herself staring at the back wall, and at the panel that hid the rear stairwell.
Eleanora’s stairwell.
She didn’t want to think about the tragedy of a long dead ancestor that night, but it would be preferable to fill her mind with thoughts of the lady than of Justin O’Neill.
But even staring at the panel, absurdly, made her think of Justin. “I hate him,” she moaned aloud with soft vehemence. “He has made a mess of my life; he has made a mess of me!”
But when she finally slept, a smile curved her lips. Her dreams were of Justin, and in her dreams they met by the pond.
And the air was cool and fresh and fragrant and the benign branches of the sheltering trees were their harbor as they lay naked together … laughing and loving.
Because she did love him. She had loved him forever and forever.
CHAPTER FIVE
“SERENA. SERENA. SERENA!”
The calling of her name finally penetrated her mind so thoroughly that she jumped and sent a dozen invoices flying and floating to the floor around her.
Susan sighed with exasperation and bent to retrieve the papers.
“Do you know, Serena, if you’re not interested in becoming a witch and joining a coven, you should take up yoga. Or something. Anything! Your nerves are strung like a kite!”
“I’m not really nervous,” Serena protested, bending to retrieve the papers with Susan. She met Susan’s skeptical eyes as they both crawled about on the floor. “All right, I am nervous. But I’m always nervous. Some people are just nervous people!”
Susan laughed. “Want to tell me the problem? Maybe I could mix up a potion that would help!”
With the last of the papers retrieved, Serena sat back down behind the desk with a sigh. “I don’t think so, Susan. I wouldn’t want to ruin your standing as a good witch!”
“It’s that hulk of a psychologist, isn’t it?”
Serena glanced at Susan sharply. It had been five days since Justin had appeared at the museum—and neither she nor Susan had mentioned him since.
“Why do you say that?” Serena queried her friend warily.
Susan chuckled wickedly. “Because there are vibes about that man, honey. It doesn’t take a witch to tune in on him! What I can’t figure out is how you’re having a problem! If he winked at me—”
“Susan,” Serena murmured, “you’re forgetting about Marc.”
“Ah—hah!” Susan pounced. “So then you admit that the doctor has made advances!”
Serena blushed and tapped her pencil against the desk. Advances! If Susan only knew. …
If Susan knew, she would drive her crazy. She would see all kinds of things in the situation. She would chatter all day about the beauty of destiny and the wonders of the magic of the earth.
“Yes,” Serena muttered dryly, “I guess you could say he’s made a few advances.”
“Then, sweetie,” Susan murmured, her lovely brown eyes huge and wide, “why are you a wreck? The man is … one of a kind! Polite and cordial and civil and suave, and yet a walking mass of sexuality! You don’t get to see bodies like that in the magazines most of the time!”
“Susan,” Serena said primly, “what about Marc? He may not be Hercules, but
he’s a hell of a nice guy, and we’ve been together for a year now. He wants marriage and children and the lot, and we both love Salem, and we respect one another! We almost never argue—”
“Sounds like you’re trying to write him a résumé for a good job,” Susan observed.
“Oh, Susan, I don’t know!” Serena laughed. “Marc’s driving me just as nuts as our illustrious Dr. O’Neill. They’re both driving me nuts! Marc is running around the house with tape recorders tapping the walls and trying to convince me my house is haunted! On Monday he came in with that old painting of Eleanora, and I think he’s trying to convince me I’m some kind of a reincarnation of her! This morning he arrived before I was awake and started prowling around the attic—tapping walls again. Then he goes tearing out of the house screaming something about his ‘proof.’”
Susan laughed so hard she clutched her middle. “Well, Serena, maybe the old inn is haunted! If spirits do come back, that would be the place!”
“Susan! I’ve lived in the Golden Hawk all my life! I never even heard the boards creak.”
Susan shrugged. “You’re funny, Serena. You’re all logic, but you don’t mind having a witch for a best friend!”
Serena shrugged in return. “To me, Sue, your witchcraft is like a religion. You’re a sweet lady trying to do nice things, and although I’m not a ‘witch,’ you have to admit I know more about the practices through the ages than most of your coven!”
Susan was staring at her. “You want to know something funny, Serena? That’s what your Dr. O’Neill said to me—almost word for word.”
Serena stiffened. In the past days she had avoided Justin like the plague, and she had done a fair job of staying out of his way. Only now and then had they run into one another, and she had immediately torn her eyes from his each time, trying to still the violent trembling that assailed her with his piercing, knowledgeable stare. He hadn’t come near the museum; when had he spoken to Susan?
“He showed up right after you left last night,” Susan said, answering the unspoken question. “He knew last night was one of our high holidays, and he asked if he might come and quietly observe the ritual.”
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