She walked across the room to her suitcase and dragged it into the bedroom. She received a start when she set the suitcase on the bed and the bed suddenly started to dip and weave. She frowned and then laughed. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to discover that Justin had a waterbed.
She lay down, wondering if she were going to be able to sleep on the constantly mobile bed. Her slightest twitch brought new waves of motion, but it was nice, relaxing.
Serena stretched out her arms and her hands slid beneath the pillows. She frowned again as her fingers clutched an object. Pulling it out, she discovered an object of clothing that definitely didn’t belong.
A very elegant, lacy black bra.
She tossed it across the room as if it were contaminated, felt a wave of searing jealousy strike her, and drove her fist into the pillow with a furious “Damn him!”
She was still lying on the bed—not a thing done—when he returned twenty minutes later.
She heard him calling from the doorway but made no move to rise and assist him. She heard him cursing softly as he struggled to set his bags down on the counter, but she didn’t really care. She felt strangely empty, as if the entire affair had been absurd. He had brought nothing but trouble’ into her life (hadn’t Miles Grant died swearing he would find revenge?), and now he had dragged her here to flaunt his past affairs before her. Denise was very probably right—she was the one who would fit into his life. Hell!, she had already been fitting into his life, and she was so little daunted by Serena that she didn’t even give a damn that Justin slept with her.
“Serena?” He was standing in the doorway, and he was very definitely aggravated. The green had almost disappeared from his eyes; they appeared almost as dark as mahogany.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “Didn’t you hear me calling you? I almost dropped the bag with the damn eggs.”
“I’m not doing anything,” she muttered tiredly, “except thinking that we’re both insane.” He stared at her hard, and she inclined her head toward the corner of the room where the bra had fallen. “It seems,” she added sweetly, “that someone else is still living in our room.”
“Dammit, Serena!” He was across the room before she could even struggle to a sitting position, straddling across her and catching her wrists when she attempted to elude him.
“I have been dead honest with you, Serena, so don’t try flinging things in my face.”
She met his relentless eyes and knew she was behaving like an adolescent but couldn’t control herself. She was so confused; there were just too many things.
She lowered her lashes over her eyes. “Leave me alone, Justin.”
She was startled when he released her hands, then realized he did so only to shift his weight slightly to reach for the hem of her dress and slide it up her thighs.
“Justin, stop it!” she protested, finding herself capable of sheer, catty jealousy.
“Why?” he demanded, not stopping in the least as he pulled the summer linen higher, apparently unaware of the pressure of her arms against him as he reached behind her for the zipper.
Serena kept struggling, which was difficult because her arms became bound by the material as he drew it over her head.
“Because,” she garbled, her words furious but distorted against the cloth, “you are not making love to me now … here … on these sheets—”
“Oh, Serena!” His exclamation was harsh and heated as the dress came over her head and he faced her blazing eyes. “I have a woman who comes in twice a week, and she changes linen.”
“Then what is Denise’s lingerie doing in the bed?”
“I don’t know,” Justin mumbled, reaching once more behind her back to undo her bra strap. “I assume Denise came in and planted it, hoping to get just such an immature reaction out of you.”
“Immature!” Serena tried to clutch her own bra against her chest, but it was whisked away from her clenching fingers. And then she was pressed against him, feeling the heat and friction of his chest despite the shirt he still wore. She wound her fingers into his shoulders by the neck, trying to push away.
“Immature,” he repeated calmly, refusing to budge a hair as he sent his hands playing down her spine.
It has to be magic, Serena thought, because I’m really ready to strangle him, and his touch is still …
“God dammit, Justin,” she charged, “how would Miss Marshall manage to do such a thing?”
He laughed against her ear, and the sound was throaty, stimulating despite all her efforts.
“I guess she still has the key.”
“Oh, Justin, I don’t believe this! Let me go this instant or—”
“Or?” he queried.
“I mean it, Justin.”
He released her, and she fell back to the pillow. The bed began to rock crazily, and between that and his weight still straddled over her, she couldn’t move.
And then she realized he was no longer angry, but laughing. Tears of indignation filled her eyes, and she fought hard, to keep them from spilling over. “Don’t you dare laugh at me!” she hissed. “I can just imagine your reaction if my room had been filled with jockey shorts!”
He still laughed, so hard that she could see his stomach muscles tense and ripple. In a second of seething rage she struck out at him, only to find her wrist caught surely in his quick hand and her body pressed against the floating bed as he laid his weight completely on top of her, only his chest raised slightly so that he could see her face. “Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured, to her frigid defiance, “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing because we finally have a normal problem!” With a quick roll he was sitting beside her, wrenching his shirt over his head.
Serena quickly noted her freedom and attempted to rise. “I’m glad you find normal problems amusing—”
She had made it to a sitting position, but that was it. As his shirt went flying, he caught her around the midriff, and she fell back, unable to obtain balance quickly as the bed started to wave like an ocean.
“Damn you, Justin—”
She tried to sit again, but he caught the hem of her slip, and as he pulled it from her with a laughing jerk, she sprawled backwards again. He pinned her with weight, kicking off his shoes with his feet, then sliding a hand down her bare midriff to wedge beneath the elastic of her pantyhose and roll it down her hip.
“Justin—”
He smiled but didn’t cease, aware as she that her breaths were growing shorter with the manipulation of his fingers. He slid a knee between her thighs to graze the nylon from one leg, then swiftly shifted to repeat the gesture on the other, ignoring her panted threats and pleas all the while. She was trembling like a leaf when she lay naked beneath him.
“Justin—this isn’t fair—”
“We wouldn’t be anywhere if I believed in fair,” he murmured, firmly grazing a rough, heat-eliciting palm up along her thigh, hip, and midriff to cup a breast and bring the nipple erect with an expert manipulation by a finger.
“Justin!”
He held her there, leg wedged between her naked thighs, his own desire potent and burning through the fabric of his jeans, his hand firmly and intimately planted upon her breast, his eyes locked with hers. And then he spoke.
“You have every right to be mad, hurt, and jealous, Serena, but I can’t erase my own past. You’re trying to conclude that we’re both crazy, and so I have to prove to you that we’re not, unless simply being madly and deeply—and physically as well as mentally—in love is crazy. I know we’re both sane, just like I know we’re going to have problems. And I also know that we can solve those problems. Problem number one: we’ll have the locks changed tomorrow morning. And we’ll buy all new sheets and a damned new bed if you want. Now have you got anything else to bitch about?”
Serena stared into the face above hers, the eyes that were demanding fire, the jawline that was rugged, relentless—and absurdly noble. Beneath her fingers she felt the heated mass of muscle that was beguil
ing and seductively secure.
“Yes,” she snapped, “I certainly do have something to say!”
“What?” he growled.
Her violet eyes softened and half closed provocatively. She raked her fingernails lightly over his back, loving the quivering response, until she slipped her fingers beneath his waistband.
“Could you take your jeans off please?”
She marveled later, curled beside him with her legs still entwined with his, that making love with him was always both so shattering and delicious. He could be unerringly gentle, his light touch driving her wild, then so insatiably demanding that the entire world disappeared into a storm of clouds.
He reached for her, running a finger down her nose, then touching her lips to circle them lazily. She smiled, her eyes still soft and clouded with delicious contentment. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, catching his finger with her teeth lightly as she thought of all the arguments she had purposely provoked.
He grinned with his lips in a half curve. “We’re going to have to spend a lot of time in bed,” he warned her huskily. “You really become a … witch … when left alone too long!”
Serena flushed and brought her face against the arch of his neck. “Justin, we do have problems to solve.”
“We always will.”
“Can we really change the locks?”
“First thing in the morning.”
“She came to see me, you know.”
He wound his fingers into the loose swirls of hair and pulled her head up so that she faced him again.
“Denise?” he asked incredulously.
“Umm,” Serena murmured. “She wanted to warn me that she was—not at all worried that you were in lust. She said you’d never marry me, that a ‘witch’ wouldn’t make a good faculty wife.”
“And you listened to her?”
Serena heard the thunder of anger creeping into his voice. She chuckled softly. “No, not really. Maybe just a little. Not too much, I guess, because I had forgotten all about it until now. What with everything happening.”
Justin frowned, not wanting her to think about the staircase and the damned diary Marc had decided to unearth after all those years.
“I am going to marry you this coming Saturday. And I really couldn’t give a damn whether or not you make a ‘good faculty wife.’ I’m not even sure how I feel about the university anymore. Whether I stay or leave will be a decision we eventually make together, okay?”
Serena nodded and leaned back against him, fears temporarily erased, happiness filling her. She was so drowsy and beautifully content that she started in astonishment when the palm of his hand lit sharply upon her derriere.
“What the—”
“‘What the’ eggs are going to rot and the milk sour!” Justin laughed in reply. “The groceries, my love. They’re still on the counter.”
Serena laughed and rose. Justin sprang up behind her and ducked into a closet to produce a robe for himself and a short-sleeved shirt for Serena that covered her to the knees. He started out the door and then paused.
“Go ahead,” he told her. “I want to call Jenny and tell her we decided on Saturday and make sure she got a flight.”
Serena nodded, then hesitated herself. She walked over to the corner of the room as Justin sat on the bed and pulled an extension phone from a crevice in the headboard.
“What are you doing?” he queried.
Serena picked up the black bra with the tip of her forefinger and thumb and held it away from her body. She smiled sweetly in reply. “I’m disposing of Miss Marshall’s property where it belongs,” she purred. “In the garbage.”
Justin laughed, and Serena proceeded to do just that before digging into the groceries.
They stayed in New York until Wednesday morning. The two days were a very special time of discovery. Serena’s fears faded into the background of her mind as she found out more about Justin, and she loved him more with each new discovery. In his way he was a lot like Bill Loren, a man secure enough with himself to grant her both respect and trust. He was fair, assigning a number of household tasks to himself. But he also never pretended that he expected nothing from her, and she knew that theirs would be a near equal marriage. Although he would very often give of himself in deference to her, he wanted a wife. She could almost see the years ahead: he would take out the garbage, but for the most part, she would cook. And he would always make sure their cars were in working order, while she would be chief bed-maker. He liked a neat, orderly home.
They spent the majority of their time in the apartment, and both nights she had to hold back a laugh as she watched him while she finished up in the kitchen. He was such a contrast! A massive hulk of sinew sitting in front of the glass doors as the twilight fell over Manhattan, his reading glasses falling down his nose as he frowned in study of a book. He taught her some of the basics of weight lifting, but when he tried to point out certain muscles, they both started laughing and the weights were forgotten. They went jogging in Central Park, except Serena could only make the first half mile, and he wound up carrying her back, to the laughter and applause of many a bystander in the park.
Serena learned that he loved his daughter and was even on good terms with his ex-wife. “Jill was the reason I didn’t think I’d ever marry again,” he told her. “She cheated like crazy. Except I see now that I didn’t give her much of a life. I was dead serious about getting through school. We never went anywhere, and then there was Jenny.”
As Justin had promised, the locks were changed.
They spent long hours in the whirlpool, and Serena also talked about herself, telling him about escapades she had gotten into with her brother, and about growing up in a historic city where it was assumed everyone knew that witches had and did practice their craft.
“But you never became a witch?” Justin murmured.
“I never believed in the practices,” Serena said.”
And Justin became very serious. “The whole secret is in the words you just said, Serena. I have seen people actually die under voodoo spells. Not because any curse existed, but because the poor victim believed that it did. The mind can be a very powerful weapon. Probably the most powerful on earth. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Serena whispered. But did she? In the Manhattan apartment, when all was secure in his arms she could tell herself that she did. There were only a few shaky moments when she stood alone that she thought that things were just too beautiful.
Shades of the past. An instant, inexplicable love.
Their first stop when they reached Salem was the courthouse, where they applied for their wedding license.
And although Serena had felt her skin begin to prickle on the return drive to the Golden Hawk, their actual arrival was wonderful. It was just dusk, and Serena discovered that Tom had stayed and that he and Martha had thrown together an engagement party. Susan and a number of her coven were in attendance, as well as a number of the distinguished gentlemen and ladies who made up the chamber of commerce.
The secret staircase wells were secret no more. Tom had had all of the lever-door paneling removed and her bedroom door repaired.
And most conspicuous of all, the portrait of Eleanora was forever gone. Even Marc made an appearance to tell her he and Tom had donated both the picture and the diary to the historical society.
Serena would have kissed Marc, except that she still felt terribly awkward. He and Justin had greeted one another cordially enough, and Serena discovered with an inner amusement that Marc had asked Justin how he felt about his old room being taken over by a ghost-writer.
Justin had agreed, telling Marc, to Serena’s surprise, that they wouldn’t be around for another two weeks of the summer anyway. They’d be heading somewhere for a honeymoon.
Mildred Donnesy pleaded to keep her new job for the remainder of the summer. Sue told Serena that the museum had been running just fine; her senior citizen assistants had done so well that she had even taken two afternoons off.<
br />
“Mildred makes a wonderful witch,” Mr. Donnesy claimed glibly, drawing a sharp glance from his wife only to smile guilelessly in return.
In her room when the party had ended, Serena had to admit that it seemed everything was going to be fine. Even the blank portion of her wall—the stairwell was cut off only by a semiattractive wood-carved safety fence—seemed to offer nothing malicious.
Justin came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. “How are we doing, witch-lady?” he murmured.
She circled around into his arms and smiled. “Fine, Dr. O’Neill,” she said, “just fine.”
And she was fine. That night.
Serena went in to work on Thursday morning and enjoyed watching the Donnesys and Bakers so much that she wondered why she had never offered them a chance to work before.
Mildred did make a marvelous witch.
“It’s a pity they can’t stay on,” Sue commented as both she and Serena sat out most of the day in the office, talking.
Serena shrugged. “Both Giles and Pierce have chronic bronchitis. They both have to head south after the summer. The New England winters would literally kill them.” She frowned worriedly. “We’ll find someone suitable to be your assistant, I’m sure.”
Sue laughed. “Honey, finding someone isn’t going to be difficult. Half the people I know want the job. The problem at the moment is to decide upon whom I want to bestow the honor! And then the real problem is that—well, I’m sure as hell going to miss you.”
Serena smiled. “I’ll miss you, too, Sue. But we’ll be less than five hours away, probably here every other weekend.” She took a sip of coffee and then asked quietly, “Sue, do you think this is insane? I mean getting married so quickly?”
“Not when you’re that sure about love,” Sue replied. “You need time when you don’t know, honey, not when you do. And besides, I went out and spent a fortune on a new dress to stand up for you! Back out on me now, and I’ll have to get married Saturday night.”
Serena laughed. “Well, if I promise I won’t back out, will you help me with another problem?”
“What’s that?”
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