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

by Susan Squires

  “Asshole,” she protested. “Asshole?” Then her mouth went all rueful. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, pulling her toward the little gangplank. “You saved my life.”

  She had, too. Did he want to be saved? A wave of guilt washed over him. He’d earned that guilt. But just for today, he’d put away his rightful burden. He promised himself he’d feel doubly bad tomorrow. Not only for the traitor he was, no doubt, but because Drew would be gone.

  *****

  Drew let herself be dragged on board The Purgatory. She was glad to come along. Could Dowser really find this wreck? He seemed really confident. Maybe he just used secret maps, or the wreck was a plant so he already knew its location, and she’d been taken in by all that talk of being psychic. Maybe he wasn’t magic at all, but just a very talented, alcoholic con man.

  In her heart, she didn’t believe that. But could her heart be trusted? Remember Roger.

  The old man Dowser called Ernie was busy casting off various ropes and pulling up big rubber bumpers that kept the boat from scraping against the dock. The two divers had dumped their equipment all over the lower deck where it was open at the stern and were busy checking the pressure dials on their tanks. St. Claire and his arm candy sitting on couches that doubled as beds in what amounted to a living room through the big double doors of the lower deck.

  Dowser gestured Drew inside and introduced her. “Drew, this is Brandon St. Claire and his friend....”

  “Rhiannon,” the arm candy said. Figures she’d have a name like that—all faux witchy.

  “I’m on my mission,” Drew promised him. “Got any idea where to start?”

  “Forward cabin. In the headboard.”

  She eased past him. She couldn’t help but brush up against his butt in those delightfully worn jeans. The man filled out a pair of jeans pretty darned well.

  “Did you bring the information I need?” he was asking St. Claire.

  “Pictures of the ship before it was downed. Well, drawings, really. Honey?”

  Drew turned to see Rhiannon taking a sheaf of papers out of the biggest red patent Prada bag she’d ever seen. Rhiannon could apparently really pick a sugar daddy. That bag cost a couple thousand if it cost a dime.

  Drew went through the galley, strewn with half-eaten containers of Chinese food, past the head to the sleeping quarters. The bed was unmade and there were clothes strewn over what little floor space there was. Not exactly shipshape. In the cramped space she could hear the voices of the three behind her clearly.

  “Okay, I need something unique to this particular ship.”

  “How about the figurehead?” Rhiannon asked. “This rendering is colored based on the description of the shipbuilder.”

  Shuffling of paper. “Perfect,” Dowser muttered.

  Drew unlocked the headboard and hit the jackpot. Two full bottles of rum and one half-full. She wasn’t taking these back out through the galley where Dowser’s clients could see them, so she opened one of the small portholes and poured the booze out into the water. “Sorry, fish.”

  The big engine turned over and began to idle. She heard Dowser excuse himself as went to the upper deck to help Ernie.

  Drew opened a couple of the cupboards on each side of the bed until she found a hamper, dumped the bottles in there, and heaped dirty clothes on top of them. Now for the galley.

  *****

  Drew had finished dumping the worst of the galley mess into a big bag by the time they hit open water. She’d found some soft drinks to serve St. Claire and Rhiannon, clearly not what they wanted, and surreptitiously dumped some half-empty rum bottles into her garbage bag. The two passengers were strangely quiet. The looks they exchanged were intense. They must want this shipwreck to be found badly. It was probably worth a lot. The delicate line drawings spread out before them made it out to be ... maybe seventeenth century? It could have been carrying Spanish bullion or something.

  The growl of the engines cut out. St. Claire slid his bulk out and headed out on deck, Rhiannon tottering behind him on her high heels. Drew wiped her hands on a semi-clean dishtowel and followed, glad she’d worn her Mephisto’s sandals with their rubber soles and slight wedge heel. Out on the lower deck, she saw that Dowser had climbed around the edge of the cabin and was out by the prow, studying one of the drawings. St. Claire pushed his way forward until Ernie blocked the way.

  “Don’t you go bothering him right now, if you want what you’re after.”

  Rhiannon and St. Claire protested, but Drew found a seat on a built-in bench at the stern and just watched. Dowser rolled up the drawing and put it under a coil of rope to hold it. The boat rocked in the swell that followed the storm last night. Broken clouds chased each other across sky a shade of blue she’d never seen before. The wind was warm. It felt good. Dowser held on to the railing ropes on each side and went still. She imagined his eyes must be closed. After a long minute, he raised his head, breathed deeply once, and climbed back around to the rear deck.

  “Do you know where it is?” St. Claire frowned. Rhiannon just looked avaricious. It seemed to come naturally to her.

  Dowser just nodded. He went in to the little dining table.

  “You ain’t goin’ after him. He’s plotting the course,” Ernie said in a preemptive strike.

  It was maybe fifteen minutes until Dowser came out again. He looked a little shaky. Was he having a recurrence of his withdrawal symptoms?

  “How long?” St. Claire asked.

  “Three and a half hours, maybe four,” Dowser muttered. “Go in. I’ll call you.” He climbed the ladder to the upper deck and took the wheel without another word.

  Drew didn’t follow St. Claire and Rhiannon. She had no desire for that company. But she didn’t want to bother Dowser. Ernie would probably take her head off.

  “Drew,” Dowser called down. “Can you bring me a soda?”

  “On it,” she yelled. He pulled back the throttle and The Purgatory surged to life again. She climbed the ladder with the soda in one hand. She noticed he was gripping the wheel for support. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.” He turned southwest, into open water.

  *****

  Kemble found Jane sitting in the deep shade of a bougainvillea arched over a pergola poolside at the Ritz. She was reading a book. She looked up as he approached. He expected her to look shocked, or ashamed, but she seemed only resigned.

  “Hello, Kemble,” she said in her quiet way. “I’m glad it’s you and not your father.”

  Kemble had to smile. Jane was always so practical. “Mother talked him out of coming,” he admitted.

  “Thank goodness for that.”

  “Where is she?”

  “You won’t like the answer,” Jane said ruefully.

  “I don’t like that I have to ask the question.”

  “No.” Jane sighed. “Well, I told her I wouldn’t lie to you all for her.” She took a breath for courage. “She went to the Florida Keys.”

  “What?”

  Jane winced at his raised voice. Several denizens of the pool looked up. Jane patted the seat beside her. “Sit down and lower your voice, Kemble.”

  The last thing he wanted to do was sit down. He was the one who was going to have to tell his parents that their oldest daughter had so betrayed their trust that she was a continent away from their protection. But under Jane’s steady, expectant gaze he bit back any retort he might have made and sat in the chair next to hers, behind the little glass-topped table holding Jane’s lemonade. She always drank lemonade.

  “Why in hell did she go to the Keys?” he whispered fiercely.

  “Brace yourself. Because she saw some guy on last week’s episode of Treasure Hunters, and that night she thought she had a vision of the future. She thinks that guy raised her powers.”

  “Oh, dear Lord. As if Roger wasn’t bad enough.”

  “I thought you didn’t know about that,” Jane exclaimed, surprised.

  “Like anyone could miss
it with her whole conversation sprinkled with ‘Roger says,’ or ‘Roger thinks....’ And then when he dumped her, she goes into a funk and locks herself in the library all day. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out she thought he was the One. She’s not exactly a genius when it comes to men. You remember that French guy.”

  “That’s a fine thing to say about your sister, Kemble Tremaine.”

  “So now she’s off on some goose chase—make that man chase—also doomed.” He shook his head, disgusted. “She’s acting like she’s Tammy’s age instead of twenty-four.” Then he had a second thought. “What kind of vision?”

  “She saw a scene in the birdbath. You know the one in the garden? She saw herself getting off a plane in the Miami airport.” Jane shrugged apologetically when she saw Kemble rolling his eyes. “She was wearing her pale yellow linen suit.”

  Kemble shook his head in disbelief. Okay, he was safe from the humiliation of being behind even Drew in getting his magic. “So she wears a yellow suit with which she’s very familiar on a plane to Miami, and makes sure her ‘vision’ comes true. Really, Jane, couldn’t you have made her see how ludicrous that is?”

  It was Jane’s turn to roll her eyes. “How long have you lived with Drew? Say, since you were seven?”

  Kemble rubbed his chin. “Yeah. She is kind of a force of nature.”

  “Irrepressible,” Jane agreed. “A lot like her mother.”

  Kemble stood, and pulled out his phone. “We can be on a plane tonight. I’ll pull up the Treasure Hunter episode and rerun it. We’ll find her.” His frown deepened. “Hope we get there before anyone else knows she’s out there, alone.” His anger overcame him again. How could Drew do this? “Damn her. I hope all she gets with this stunt is a broken heart.”

  *****

  Drew had been playing chess all afternoon with one of the divers, Carl, who had a portable magnetic board. He thought of himself as a real player and in truth, he was pretty good. Not as good as Kemble, but pretty good. They’d split the games almost evenly. It was funny to watch him figure out she was as good as he was. Almost as funny as playing poker with Dowser.

  Carl wouldn’t have won as many games as he did, except Drew was distracted. Did she want Dowser to find the wreck or not? In her heart, she knew he would. He wouldn’t bother coming out all this way if he weren’t sure. But was it a power, or some kind of scam? What she really wasn’t sure of was whether it might not actually be a relief if he didn’t have a power, and if she didn’t either, under the circumstances. She couldn’t ever make Dowser love her. And she couldn’t ever really love a man like Dowser either, could she?

  Dowser cut the engines. Carl packed away his board as Drew rose hastily. St. Claire and Rhiannon came up from below.

  “Here?” St. Claire asked.

  Dowser nodded. “You boys want to go down and check while I mark it on the charts?”

  Carl and his friend Tucker were already climbing into their wetsuits. Rhiannon seemed so excited she might pee her thong. St. Claire had gotten even redder.

  Dowser went below. Ernie came up with a sandwich he’d made. The divers did their little back summersaults over the side and there was nothing to do but wait. The tension on board was getting unbearable.

  It was about half an hour before Carl burst up through the swell and put up his mask.

  “Well?” St. Claire shouted.

  “It’s down there all right. We’re right over it,” Carl yelled back as Tucker burst up beside him and Rhiannon squealed. “You want a souvenir? I think we can haul up the bell.”

  Ernie tossed a line with a grappling hook on the end over the side, and the two divers reeled it in and disappeared under the swells. Drew didn’t know what to think.

  Dowser climbed up on deck.

  “You did it, man,” St. Claire enthused, sticking out his beefy hand.

  Dowser took it. “That means you owe me twenty-five thousand.”

  Rhiannon was staring at Dowser with a strange intensity. “Everybody and his brother have been looking for the Santa Angela for years. You could ask a lot more for that talent.”

  “Don’t need more,” Dowser said. “You get together your salvage effort and I’ll charge another five thousand for the charts so they can set up shop and loot the thing.”

  But the two almost seemed to have lost interest in talking about the salvage. St. Claire looked at Rhiannon and cleared his throat. “We might have another job for you. Last few days we’ve been getting together some ... some renderings, just in case you could do this thing.”

  “And you can really do this thing,” Rhiannon breathed. It sounded like a come-on.

  Dowser slumped on a bench. “I don’t want another job. These things take it out of me.”

  “Of course, of course,” Rhiannon said, going to sit beside him. Drew didn’t like the way she put her hand on Dowser’s forearm and leaned in, brushing her breast against his biceps. “We might be able to wait a couple days.”

  “I’ll take her in, boss,” Ernie said, looking worried. “You’re none too spry right now.”

  “Let’s wait for the divers, okay, Ernie?” Dowser grinned wearily. “Can’t leave them out here to the sharks.”

  Ernie muttered darkly, “It’ll be midnight by the time we get home at this rate.”

  *****

  The divers hauled up something they said was a bell, totally encrusted in barnacles except for a patch of discolored brass here and there. They knocked off some barnacles until they could see letters incised in the old brass. “ta Ang,” it said. Everybody cheered.

  Drew was as exhausted as Dowser. The way home seemed like forever. Watching Rhiannon throw herself at Dowser gave Drew a cramp in her jaw from clenching her teeth. Only the thought of what her mother would say prevented her from decking the slut.

  That and the fact that Dowser seemed pretty oblivious. When Rhiannon got too obvious, he climbed up and spelled Ernie at the wheel. He motioned Drew to join him. The wind had come up a little, and it was cooler, so she was glad to move behind the glass of the pilot’s station.

  “So, you really can do this thing,” she said, mocking Rhiannon’s breathy tone.

  “Apparently,” he said dryly. He looked down at her. “You still think I might be a hoax?”

  Did she? “The thought crossed my mind. But Carl says the Santa Angela is a really famous lost wreck. So you couldn’t have salted it.”

  He sighed. “Sometimes I don’t believe it myself. Maybe because I don’t know how I do it, it must be real.”

  Yeah. It was real all right.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was seven when The Purgatory finally pulled in at the little dock on Stock Island and Ernie jumped off to tie her up. St. Claire wrote Dowser a check for $25,000. He and Rhiannon went to celebrate at the Key West Resort where they were staying. Drew couldn’t say she was sorry to see them go. But her excuses for staying with Dowser were officially wearing thin. She’d take Dowser to his car ... and that was it?

  “Hey, Dowser, five hundred is too much,” Ernie protested. “Hundred is more like it.”

  “You just got me paid a lot more than that,” Dowser corrected. “You should be asking for a cut of the action.”

  Ernie chuckled. “You got the stuff, Dowser, I just help with the boat.”

  Dowser nodded. “Yeah. Keep the five hundred.”

  Ernie grinned. “You two gonna celebrate?”

  Dowser looked over at Drew. “How about dinner?”

  Drew wanted a lot more than dinner. She swallowed. “Restaurant might not be such a good idea. Not if they serve booze.”

  Dowser looked around a little blankly, and said, “Huh, I don’t really feel the need right now.” He frowned. “That’s ... strange. But just to be safe, I know this little place on Cudjoe that serves the best fried conch in the keys. And homemade Key lime soda.”

  Drew couldn’t help her smile. “Done.”

  Ernie drifted back to his own boat, grinning. Dowser’s gaze held hers
. Was that heat she saw there? He swallowed once. He looked like he was deciding something. Then he held up a finger. “Just a sec.”

  He turned on his heel. “Ernie,” he called, catching up with the old man. Dowser said something in a low voice. Ernie grinned and touched two-fingers to his temple.

  Dowser hurried back over. “Let’s take your car.”

  *****

  Dowser sat sipping Key lime soda, just looking at her. The little tin-roofed conch shack was on the west side of the island, so the setting sun cast a reddish light over the Formica tables and the torn linoleum. Laughter rang around them at the ten small tables as the locals got their conch fix under the wop-wop of the overhead fans. The light made her black hair glow with a reddish tint, like it was on fire. So many feelings were colliding around in him that he felt like a bumper car ride. He felt alive, for one thing. More alive than he’d felt since Alice died. For some reason it didn’t even bother him that some of the locals had brought in their own cold beers. Maybe it was that alive feeling causing the hum of desire that had settled like a permanent tenant in his groin. Or maybe it was the way Drew’s lips pursed around her straw. And then there was the fact that he liked Drew Tremaine. She had guts. She had pushed ahead even when she was scared of him, for instance. And she was smart. Not only had she beat him at poker, but she’d walloped that diver who thought he was a chess player today on the boat. The guilt was still there, of course, lurking inside him. But the future, which had once looked like the Gobi Desert for bleakness, wasn’t quite so bleak anymore. That should make him feel even guiltier. He’d let it take over again tomorrow, he promised. But right now he was okay with the fact that guilt had a little competition for his soul.

  “So where’d you learn to play chess?”

  She grinned. “Didn’t think you saw that. You were at the wheel.”

  “Took that kid awhile to realize you were his match, or better.”