He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin)

by Susan Squires

“She sounds like a ... a really good person.”

  “You always hear people talking about how good someone is. ‘He’s a saint,’ or ‘she’s an angel’—stuff like that. But she really was. A good person.” His eyes filled and he looked away. “Sorry to go on about the dead wife. Didn’t mean to be that kind of guy.”

  “No. No, that’s all right. She was important to you.” She was his life. And she was dead. He’d done the unthinkable to save her a painful, lingering death. Drew could never compete with a saint. Her regret was almost like physical pain.

  You already knew about Alice. And remember? It’s okay that he’s not for you. He might be a stepping-stone. Maybe he knows the man who’s really destined for you.

  So, on to finding out how much he knew about his gift, and therefore how much she could admit about her family and who she was. “You know how you do it? I mean find things?”

  Wariness crept into his expression.

  “True and complete,” she reminded him.

  He pressed his lips together. Then he shrugged. “I’m psychic.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I know it sounds crazy, but that’s the only possible explanation. I usually don’t have to explain. Whoever wants me to find something is so glad to get what they’re looking for, they don’t care how I did it.”

  She sighed. He didn’t know about the magic in his DNA. And that meant she could never tell him about hers, and destiny, and true love, without sounding like a certified loon. But maybe she could use his definitions to talk about it. “So, you ever meet anyone else who’s psychic? I mean besides Alice.” She tried to make it sound casual.

  It must have worked, because he shook his head. “Nah. Everyone I knew who claimed to be psychic was a fraud: a good observer who picked up on cues from the mark, or who faked talking to animals or something.”

  “Maybe Alice had a brother?”

  He shook his head. “Only child, like me. It was one of the things we had in common—being our parents’ only hope.”

  Drew took the deck and set it to the side, feeling her heart hardening into some kind of rocky lump in her chest. It could never be him. And he didn’t know anyone else it could be.

  Except, if her destined mate hadn’t met her yet, he wouldn’t have gotten his power. He wouldn’t seem magic. So how could she find him? But her powers had been raised when she hadn’t yet met this person. They’d been raised by Dowser. If she had a power. Maybe she was imagining it. Confused thoughts raced around her brain. How did this damned stuff work?

  “You want another hand?” he asked. “I just gave you about five questions, so you owe me a chance to get even.” He examined her and his eyes narrowed. “You might be a better player than you let on.”

  “I told you. Brothers.” She managed a smile. Brothers who wanted to believe she’d be stupid enough to let her reaction to her cards show. “They started out letting me play because I had an allowance to lose.” She gave him a wry grin. “Then they wanted to get even.” Eventually they’d realized she was lying with her expression, so she’d let what she really saw in her hand show clearly on her face. They had still made wrong assumptions. Then they hadn’t known what to believe. Made them crazy. Cards tossed in the air. Threats. Very satisfying.

  “I know the feeling.”

  She shook her head. “You have a big day tomorrow and I have to get back to Miami.”

  “Oh.” His face went still. “Yeah.”

  And that would be it. Drew had gone from total certainty to complete uncertainty in the last four days. Nothing would ever be the same.

  But how was it different? She believed Dowser had a power. Had he really raised a power in her or had she just been hallucinating at the birdbath? She hadn’t even tried to have another vision.

  As Dowser made up the couch, she hurried over to her suitcase and got out her nightgown and robe, gathered up her makeup case, and made for the bathroom. Water. She’d had her first vision in water.

  She shut the door, starting almost to shake. What if she couldn’t do it again? And why hadn’t she tried before now? Because she’d been involved with Dowser and his suffering? Or because she didn’t want to know it was all her imagination? Well, there was no avoiding it now. She had to know something for sure.

  She ran water in the sink with shaking hands. When it was nearly full she closed the tap and stood there, staring down into it. The stopper was rusted. The water shimmered, but there really wasn’t a reflection. She heard Dowser, or Michelangelo, or whatever his name was, moving around out in the other room.

  She was getting nothing. Was it because she was distracted? She tried to concentrate harder. She stared, unblinking, until she thought her eyes would drop out.

  “Not happening,” she whispered to herself, and stood up. Nada. Her stomach sank. Had she imagined all of this? Was she that delusional, or did she just want what Tris and Maggie and her parents had so badly that she had invented all of this?

  But she hadn’t. Dowser had a power.

  Or maybe he was just a good guesser. He could have seen her put the distributor cap under the old skiff. And a lost lipstick being under the passenger’s seat sounded logical. He could have just fed her a line about his “psychic” powers and Alice’s. She might be making up the whole damned thing.

  Oh, hell. She put on her nightgown, clutched her robe around her, and headed for the bed. She was out of here tomorrow. Before she made herself any more of a fool.

  *****

  Dowser lay as still as he could on the couch, his eyes almost closed so she’d think he was already asleep. The shack was dark, the rain still chattering on the tin roof. The light went out under the bathroom door and she came out quietly, a darker shadow slipping among shadows.

  His body responded even to her shadow. She slipped into bed and all he could think about was slipping in beside her. How could he be such a jerk with Alice so clearly on his mind? Why had he volunteered so much about something he hadn’t talked about in two years?

  It was her damn gray eyes. So expressive. He hadn’t known gray eyes could be warm. But hers were sympathetic, just egging you on to bare your soul because she’d understand.

  He rolled his head away from the lump of her figure under the sheet on the bed. Like a preppie college girl would understand. But he knew that just like her poker playing, Drew Tremaine was deeper than she seemed. She’d been so wistful as she asked about their psychic powers. And she hadn’t laughed, hadn’t made derisive comments.

  She was going back to Miami tomorrow. And that was a good thing, with how his body reacted to being around her.

  So why didn’t it feel good? It had to feel good, because he wasn’t about to betray Alice with a kid who couldn’t be more than twenty-two or twenty-three.

  But he didn’t want Drew to leave. He was a flaming shitheel.

  Forgive me, Alice.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tossing and turning and thinking about Dowser, or Mike, or Michelangelo, or whoever the hell he was, hadn’t improved Drew’s mood. When she finally fell asleep, she kept having those dreams where you know you’re supposed to be somewhere specific, like a class, or work, or your mother’s birthday party, but you keep getting sidetracked by nonsensical happenings.

  She finally wakened, groggy, when she heard Dowser moving around and smelled coffee. She raised her head and cast a bleary eye around the room.

  “Good morning,” he said from the little kitchen.

  “You made coffee,” she croaked.

  He smiled enough to show his white, even teeth. God, but that man was good looking. She decided his broken and badly fixed nose only made him more intriguing. He’d already showered. His black hair was wet. He had on a clean tee shirt that said “Jake’s Fish Shack” on it. His bruises were fading. He looked good enough to eat.

  Unlike her. She ran a hand through her tangled hair.

  “You want to use the bathroom?”

  She nodded. But her mouth said, “Coffee first.”

 
He grinned. “Anything in it?”

  “Black,” she grunted.

  He poured a mug and brought it over. “This should help. You must not have slept well.”

  The first sip was hot and bitter and heavenly. “Why do you say that?” Did that come out a little accusatory?

  “You were kind of restless.”

  “Yeah,” she said, taking another slip. Okay, she might live. “Hope I didn’t keep you awake.” He looked away. Guess she had kept him up. “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault.” But he kind of looked like he did think it was her fault.

  She looked around. It must be early. The light was a pure glow, like after an intense rain. She maneuvered out of bed, clutching her robe to her breast in one hand and the coffee cup in the other. Suddenly she felt rather naked around him. And she didn’t like what that feeling was doing to her between her legs. “Don’t want to make you late,” she mumbled on her way to the bathroom, where she shut the door a little too hard.

  The shower made her feel better in general. She could practically feel the synapses begin to fire. They were all telling her she really didn’t want to go back to Miami today. Her week wasn’t up until Sunday. What harm was there in using a couple of those days?

  She knew what harm. But she decided to ignore that voice that told her she was just going to let herself in for heartache. She got out of the shower and made short work of her makeup and hair. It almost covered the bruise on her cheek. As she looked in the mirror, a strange face looked out, sadder maybe, less perfectly groomed. It wasn’t just that she was going native. It might be that she was growing up.

  *****

  Kemble was idly looking at the hotel billing system for Drew’s charges at the Ritz-Carlton that wouldn’t yet be posted to her credit cards. The system had very poor security. Okay, so he wasn’t strictly obeying his mother’s stricture not to spy on Drew. So sue me. It was dangerous to have let her out of their sight.

  Hmm. Drew was really holding back. Last night at dinner, room service had been....

  Twenty-eight dollars.

  Kemble’s stomach started to roll. Two girls didn’t eat for twenty-eight dollars. Drew liked oysters by the dozen and Veuve Clicquot champagne and lots of desserts. Maybe Drew wasn’t paying for Jane? Didn’t make sense. Jane wasn’t rich, and this whole thing was Drew’s idea. Drew would be paying. And anyway, even Drew by herself didn’t eat for twenty-eight dollars, especially with room service surcharges.

  Maybe they’d just had appetizers and gone out somewhere else for dinner even though they’d promised to stick at the Ritz. He clicked over to the credit card online site and looked for that date. Nothing. Okay, okay, it wasn’t certain yet. There could be several explanations. He clicked back to the hotel billing system. He found a scanned receipt from some boutique inside the hotel. That was good. Peering at the screen to decipher the receipt, he saw that the charge was for slacks. The color was listed as “sand.” His worry ramped up. Okay, keep looking. A sweater. Color: “oatmeal.”

  “Damn,” he muttered. “Damn, damn. Damn her and damn Jane.”

  Drew wasn’t making the charges on the card. It was Jane.

  He pushed up from his office chair, sending it spinning across the hardwood floor on its wheels. “Father,” he called. He almost ran into his father as he dashed out his office door and into the small conference room they kept for business guests. His father had risen from the plans for the solar equipment plant he was reviewing.

  “What is it?” Brian Tremaine asked. His brows were knit in worry. Kemble didn’t have panic in his voice often.

  “She isn’t there.” He shook his head, still dumbfounded. He wasn’t making sense. He tried again. “Drew isn’t at the Ritz with Jane.”

  “What do you mean?” His father clutched Kemble’s shoulder.

  “The hotel charges. They’re clearly Jane’s, not Drew’s. She fooled me for almost a week,” he groaned. “How could I not have realized?”

  “No trace of Drew?”

  “None. No phone calls, no other charges. Jane must have her cell because the GPS says Ritz-Carlton.”

  His father looked as panicked as Kemble felt. “My God, she’s unprotected.” Then the old “Master of his Destiny” expression returned. “Jane knows where she is.”

  Kemble nodded. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “I’ll call.”

  “No, we’ll see her in person.” His father was already grabbing the sport coat slung over a chair. Sport coat without a tie was his father’s definition of casual. They both realized their danger at the same moment. “Don’t tell your mother....” Then his mouth curled down ruefully.

  “Don’t tell me what?”

  Kemble’s heart sank. He turned to see his mother lifting her brows in question at the door. She had an armful of roses. She must have come in from the terrace. Kemble wasn’t going to throw himself in front of the bus. Let his father talk his way out of this one.

  Kemble was surprised when his father didn’t even try. “Drew isn’t with Jane. Probably hasn’t been at the Ritz-Carlton all week.”

  His mother’s eyes got big with shock. Then her expression filled with guilt.

  “We’re on our way now,” his father said. He stepped in front of Kemble and held his wife’s shoulders and gave her a kiss on her forehead. “You couldn’t know what she’d planned.”

  “But I should have,” Kemble’s mother whispered. “The cards have been coming up fives and the Fool all week. I should have guessed....”

  “We’ll find her.”

  “I’m coming with you,” his mother said resolutely.

  His father shook his head. “Somebody has to stay here and protect the children.”

  “Oh, Brian, you’ll scare Jane to death if you barge in there demanding to know where Drew is. You know she’s promised Drew she wouldn’t tell.”

  Poor Jane would probably just collapse in fear. “I’ll go,” Kemble said. “Jane and I get along, and I’m far less intimidating than you are, Father.”

  “He’s right,” his mother said. “Jane isn’t exactly comfortable around Kemble, but she trusts him, I can tell.”

  Kemble saw his father’s doubt. He set his lips. “There might actually be something I’m better at than you would be.”

  His father took two breaths, looked to his wife, and nodded once, sharply. “Get going.”

  *****

  St. Claire and the girlfriend were waiting for Dowser and Drew when they drove up to The Purgatory. Dowser saw Ernie out front, holding them off. St. Claire was blustering. Two guys carrying diving equipment looked ready to back him up.

  “Hey, leave Ernie alone,” he called, getting out of Drew’s Toyota.

  St. Claire and his knockout bimbo both turned. “Well, it’s about time,” St. Claire said.

  “Where are all the cameras?” Dowser asked. He could feel Drew getting out of the car as much as see her from the corner of his eye. Odd, that.

  “Scheduling conflict,” the bimbo offered, putting her arm through St. Claire’s. Did the guy have to wear those phony yachtsman sports jackets? Nobody actually sailed in those. Not to mention the tight red spandex skirt and high heels on the bimbo.

  “Yes,” St. Claire sputtered. “When you didn’t show on Sunday, we … ah … lost the shoot. They can’t make it back until Saturday now.”

  “Why don’t you wait for them? Is there some kind of rush?” This from Drew. He turned to see a sweet smile and an innocent look on her face. He pressed his lips together to keep from grinning. That right there was what made her a good poker player. These two might actually think she meant to be sweet. It crossed his mind to offer to do whatever she had in mind when she wanted to hire The Purgatory. He’d never asked what she wanted to find. Maybe, after a few days’ rest from today’s job, he could muster the strength for another one. She’d have to stay then.

  St. Claire sputtered for a minute. “We ... we can recreate it for the show,” he finally said after glancing to the bimbo. “Bu
t I want to go out today to locate the wreck.”

  “It’s your dime,” Dowser said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “You’re paid only if we find it,” St. Claire said, his jaw tight.

  “Honey, don’t be so blunt,” the bimbo simpered. “He knows the terms of our agreement.”

  “Yep. I do.” He always made that deal with customers. Made them feel like they had the upper hand. And it wasn’t like he ever failed to find it. “Ernie, want to crew for me today?”

  “Sure,” the old man said. “I can always use a few bucks.”

  “Don’t you have a regular crew?” St. Claire asked, appalled.

  “Don’t need one,” Dowser said. “I don’t take her out that often.”

  “I don’t know that this ... this person would be suitable as crew.”

  Dowser interrupted St. Claire. “Why don’t you two go on board? Make yourselves comfortable on the lower deck. Your guys will want to get their equipment on board.” He nodded to the two incredibly tanned guys wearing baggy surfer shorts and not much else.

  Dowser turned to Drew pointedly. The sputtering behind him receded. He smiled at her. Somehow, her hair fell in that perfect, shiny black curtain onto her breasts. She was wearing less makeup than he’d seen on her before. That just let her natural beauty shine through more clearly. He couldn’t help his smile. “Want to come along?”

  She looked relieved. She wanted to say yes, but uncertainty crept into her expression.

  “You can help keep me on the straight and narrow. You know, look for bottles of booze on board. I feel a relapse coming on.” The miracle was that he didn’t feel a relapse coming on. He felt more alive than he had since ... well, in a long time.

  She laughed. Maybe she forgot to make it a sophisticated laugh. It was throaty and genuine. “So now you actually want me to pour out your liquor? I thought you were going to strangle me the first time.”

  “I couldn’t have strangled you.” He took her arm. Lord, but just the feel of her under the yellow blouse she wore did things to him. “Some asshole tied me up.” He chuckled.