by Nora Roberts
knapsack. “Okay?” he asked, setting his tape recorder on the table.
“Sure.”
He punched the record button, then dug again. “I spent the day slogging through books—the library, bookstores.” He offered her a slim soft-cover volume. “What do you think about this?”
One brow arched, Morgana studied the title. “Fame, Fortune and Romance: Candle Rituals for Every Need.” She dropped the book into his lap smartly enough to make him wince. “I hope you didn’t pay much for it.”
“Six-ninety-five, and it comes off my taxes. You don’t go in for this sort of thing, then?”
Patience, she told herself, slipping off her shoes and curling up her legs. The little red skirt she wore slid up to midthigh. “Lighting candles and reciting clever little chants. Do you really believe that any layman can perform magic by reading a book?”
“You gotta learn somewhere.”
Snarling, she snatched it up again, flipped it open. “To arouse jealousy,” she read, disgusted. “To win the love of a woman. To obtain money.” She slapped it down again. “Think about this, Nash, and be grateful it doesn’t work for everyone. You’re a little strapped for cash, bills are piling up. You’d really like to have that new car, but the credit’s exhausted. So, light a few candles, make a wish—maybe dance naked for effect. Abracadabra.” She spread her hands. “You find yourself getting a check for ten thousand. Only problem is, your beloved grandmother had to die to leave it to you.”
“Okay, so you’ve got to be careful how you phrase your charm.”
“Follow me here,” she said with a toss of her head. “Actions have consequences. You wish your husband were more romantic. Shazam, he’s suddenly a regular Don Juan—with every woman in town. But you’ll be noble, and cast a charm to stop a war. It works just fine, but as a result dozens of others spring up.” She let out a huff of breath. “Magic is not for the unprepared or the irresponsible. And it certainly can’t be learned out of some silly book.”
“Okay.” Impressed by her reasoning, he held up both hands. “I’m convinced. My point was that I could buy this in a bookstore for seven bucks. People are interested.”
“People have always been interested.” When she shifted, her hair slid down over her shoulder. “There have been times when their interest caused them to be hanged, burned, or drowned.” She sipped her tea. “We’re a bit more civilized today.”
“That’s the thing,” he agreed. “That’s why I want to write the story about now. Now, when we’ve got cell phones and microwave ovens, fax machines and voice mail. And people are still fascinated with magic. I can go a couple of ways. Use lunatics who sacrifice goats—”
“Not with my help.”
“Okay, I figured that. Anyway, that’s too easy . . . too, ah, ordinary. I’ve been thinking about leaning more toward the comic angle I used in Rest in Peace, maybe adding some romance. Not just sex.” Luna had crawled into his lap, and he was stroking her, running long fingers down her spine. “The idea is to focus on a woman, this gorgeous woman who happens to have a little extra. How does she deal with men, with a job, with . . . I don’t know, grocery shopping? She has to know other witches. What do they talk about? What do they do for laughs? When did you decide you were a witch?”
“Probably when I levitated out of my crib,” Morgana said mildly, and watched laughter form in his eyes.
“That’s just the kind of thing I want.” He settled back, and Luna draped herself over his legs like a lap rug. “Must’ve sent your mother into shock.”
“She was prepared for it.” When she shifted, her knees brushed his thigh. He didn’t figure there was anything magical about the quick flare of heat he felt. It was straight chemistry. “I told you I was a hereditary witch.”
“Right.” His tone had her taking a deep breath. “So, did it ever bother you? Thinking you were different?”
“Knowing I was different,” she corrected. “Of course. As a child, it was more difficult to control power. One often loses control through emotion—in the same way a woman might lose control of the intellect with certain men.”
He wanted to reach out and touch her hair, but he thought better of it. “Does it happen often? Losing control?”
She remembered the way it had felt the day before, with his mouth on hers. “Not as often as it did before I matured. I have a problem with temper, and I sometimes do things I regret, but there is something no responsible witch forgets. ‘An it harm none,’” she quoted. “Power must never be used to hurt.”
“So you’re a serious and responsible witch. And you cast love spells for your customers.”
Her chin shot out. “Certainly not.”
“You took those pictures—that woman’s niece, and the geometry heartthrob.”
He didn’t miss a trick, Morgana thought in disgust. “She didn’t give me much choice.” Because she was embarrassed, she set down her cup with a snap. “And just because I took the pictures doesn’t mean I’m about to sprinkle them both with moondust.”
“Is that how it works?”
“Yes, but—” She bit her tongue. “You’re making fun of me. Why do you ask questions when you’re not going to believe the answers?”
“I don’t have to believe them to be interested.” And he was—very. He found himself sliding a few inches closer. “So you didn’t do anything about the prom?”
“I didn’t say that.” She sulked a little while he gave in and toyed with her hair. “I simply removed a small barrier. Anything else would have been interference.”
“What barrier?” He didn’t have a clue as to what moondust might smell like, but he thought it would carry the same perfume as her hair.
“The girl’s desperately shy. I only gave her confidence a tiny boost. The rest is up to her.”
She had a beautiful neck, slim and graceful. He imagined what it would be like to nibble on it. For an hour or two. Business, he reminded himself. Stick to business.
“Is that how you work? Giving boosts?”
She turned her head and looked directly into his eyes. “It depends on the situation.”
“I’ve been reading a lot. Witches used to be considered the wise women of the villages. Making potions, charming, foretelling events, healing the sick.”
“My speciality isn’t healing, or seeing.”
“What is your speciality?”
“Magic.” Whether it was a matter of pride or annoyance, she wasn’t sure, but she sent thunder walking across the sky.
Nash glanced toward the window. “Sounds like a storm coming.”
“Could be. Why don’t I answer some of your questions, so you can beat it home?”
Damn it, she wanted him gone. She knew what she’d seen in the scrying ball, and that with care, with skill, such things could sometimes be changed. But whatever was to be, she didn’t want things moving so fast.
And the way he was touching her, just those long fingertips to her hair, had little flicks of fear lighting in her gut.
That made her angry.
“No hurry,” he said easily, wondering whether, if he took a chance and kissed her again, he’d experience that same otherworldly sensation. “I don’t mind a little rain.”
“It’s going to pour,” she muttered to herself. She’d damn well see to it. “Some of your books might be helpful,” she began. “Giving you history and recorded facts, a general outline of rituals.” She poked a finger at the first one he’d given her. “Not this one. There are certain . . . trappings that are used in the Craft.”
“Graveyard dirt?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”
“Come on, Morgana, it’s a great visual.” He shifted, slipping a hand over hers, wanting her to see as he saw. “Exterior scene, night. Our beautiful heroine wading through the fog, crossing over the shadows of headstones. An owl screams. In the distance echoes the long, ululant howl of a dog. Close-up of that pale, perfect face, framed by a dark hood. She stops by a fresh grave and, c
hanting, sifts a handful of newly turned earth into her magic pouch. Thunder claps. Fade out.”
She tried, really tried, not to be offended. Imagine anyone thinking she skulked around graveyards. “Nash, I’m trying to remember that what you do is entertainment, and you’re certainly entitled to a great deal of artistic license.”
He had to kiss her fingers. Really had to. “So you don’t spend much time in cemeteries.”
She snagged her temper, and a bolt of desire. “I’ll accept the fact that you don’t believe what I am. But I will not, I absolutely will not, tolerate being laughed at.”
“Don’t be so intense.” He brushed the hair off her shoulder and gave the back of her neck a quick massage. “I admit, I usually do a better job at this. Hell, I did twelve hours of interviews with this whacked-out Romanian who swore he was a vampire. Didn’t have a mirror in the house. He made me wear a cross the whole time. Not to mention the garlic,” Nash remembered with a grimace. “Anyway, I didn’t have a problem humoring him, and he was a treasure chest of information. But you . . .”
“But me,” she prompted, doing her best to ignore the fact that he was trailing a finger up her arm with the same skill and sensuousness he had used to stroke Luna.
“I just can’t buy it, Morgana. You’re a strong, intelligent woman. You’ve got style, taste—not to mention the fact that you smell terrific. I just can’t pretend to believe that you believe all this.”
Her blood was starting to boil. She would not, simply could not, tolerate the fact that he could infuriate her and seduce her at the same time. “Is that what you do to get what you want? Pretend?”
“When some ninety-year-old woman tells me her lover was shot as a werewolf in 1922, I’m not going to call her a liar. I figure either she’s a hell of a storyteller or she believes it. Either way it’s fine with me.”
“As long as you get the angle for your movie.”
“That’s my living. Illusion. And it doesn’t hurt anyone.”
“Oh, I’m sure it doesn’t, not when you walk away, then have a few drinks with the boys and laugh about the lunatic you interviewed.” Her eyes were flaming. “Try it with me, Nash, and you’ll get warts on your tongue.”
Because he could see that she was really angry, he swallowed his grin. “All I’m saying is, I know you’ve got a lot of data, a lot of facts and fantasy, which is exactly what I’m looking for. I figure building a reputation as a witch probably adds fifty percent to your sales annually. It’s a great hook. You just don’t have to play the game with me.”
“You think I pretend to be a witch to increase sales.” She was getting slowly to her feet, afraid that if she stayed too close she might do him bodily harm.
“I don’t— Hey!” He jumped when Luna dug her claws into his thighs.
Morgana and her cat exchanged looks of approval. “You sit in my home and call me a charlatan, a liar and a thief.”
“No.” He unhooked himself from the cat and stood. “That’s not what I meant at all. I just meant that you can be straight with me.”
“Straight with you.” She began to pace the room, trying and failing to regain control. On one hand he was seducing her without her willing it, and on the other he was sneering at her. He thought she was a fraud. Why, the insolent jackass was lucky she didn’t have him braying and twitching twelve-inch ears. Smiling wickedly, she turned. “You want me to be straight with you?”
The smile relieved him, a little. He’d been afraid she’d start throwing things. “I just want you to know you can relax. You give me the facts, and I’ll take care of the fiction.”
“Relax,” she said with a nod. “That’s a good idea. We should both relax.” Her eyes glowed as she stepped toward him. “Why don’t we have a fire? Nothing like a cozy fire to help you relax.”
“Good idea.” And definitely a sexy one. “I’ll light it.”
“Oh, no.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Allow me.”
She whirled away, flung out both arms toward the hearth. She felt the cool, clear knowledge whip through her blood. It was an ancient skill, one of the first mastered, one of the last to be lost with age. Her eyes, then her mind, focused on the dry wood. In the next moment, flames erupted with a roar, logs snapped, smoke billowed.
Pleased, she banked it so that the hearth glowed with the cheerful blaze.
Lowering her arms, she turned back. It delighted her to see not only that Nash was white as a sheet, but also that his mouth had yet to close.
“Better?” she asked sweetly.
He sat on the cat. Luna howled her disapproval and stalked off, despite his muttered apology. “I think—”
“You look like you could use a drink.” On a roll now, Morgana held out a hand. A decanter hopped off a table five feet away and landed on her palm. “Brandy?”
“No.” He let out a deep breath. “Thanks.”
“I believe I will.” She snapped her fingers. A snifter drifted over and hung suspended in midair while she poured. It was showing off, she knew, but it was immensely satisfying. “Sure you don’t want some?”
“Yeah.”
With a shrug, she sent the decanter back. Glass clinked lightly against wood as it landed. “Now,” she said, curling on the couch beside him. “Where were we?”
Hallucination, he thought. Hypnosis. He opened his mouth, but all he could manage was a stutter. Morgana was still smiling that sleek cat smile at him. Special effects. It was suddenly so clear, he laughed at his own stupidity.
“Gotta be a wire,” he said, and rose to look for himself. “Hell of a trick, babe. Absolutely first-rate. You had me for a minute.”
“Did I really?” she murmured.
“I hired some of the F/X guys to help me with this party last year. You should have seen some of the stuff we pulled off.”
He picked up the decanter, looking for trips and levers. All he found was old Irish crystal and smooth wood. With a shrug, he walked over to crouch in front of the fire. He suspected she’d had a small charge set under the wood, something she could set off with a small device in the palm of her hand. Inspired, he sprang up.
“How about this? We bring this guy into town. He’s a scientist, and he falls for her, then drives himself crazy trying to explain everything she does. Make it logical.” His mind was leaping ahead. “Maybe he sneaks into one of her ceremonies. You ever been to one?”
She’d exorcised the temper, and she found only humor in its place. “Naturally.”
“Great. You can give me inside stuff. We could have him see her do something off-the-wall. Levitate. Or this fire bit was good. We could have this bonfire, and she lights it without a match. But he doesn’t know for sure if it’s a trick or real. Neither does the audience.”
She let the brandy slide warm into her system. Temper tantrums were so exhausting. “What’s the point of the story?”
“Besides some chills and thrills, I think it’s a matter of, can this guy, this regular guy, deal with the fact that he’s in love with a witch.”
Suddenly sad, she stared into her glass. “You might ask yourself if a witch could deal with the fact that she’s in love with an ordinary man.”
“That’s just what I need you for.” He sauntered over to drop down beside her. “Not only the witch’s angle, but the woman’s, too.” Comfortable again, he patted her knee. “Now, let’s talk about casting spells.”
With a shake of her head, she set the drink aside and laughed. “All right, Nash. Let’s talk magic.”
Chapter 4
He hadn’t been lonely. How could he have been, when he’d spent hours that day poring over books, enlivening his mind and his world with facts and fantasies? Since childhood, Nash had been content with his own company. What had once been a necessity to survive had become a way of life.
The time he’d spent with his grandmother or his aunt, or his sporadic stays in foster homes, had taught him that he was much better off devising his own entertainment than looking to the adults in his lif
e to devise some for him. More often than not, that entertainment had equaled chores, a lecture, solitary confinement, or—in his grandmother’s case—a swift backhand.
Since he’d never been permitted an abundance of playthings or playmates, he’d turned his mind into a particularly fine toy.
He’d often thought it had given him an advantage over better-endowed children. After all, the imagination was portable, unbreakable, and amazingly malleable. It couldn’t be taken away from you by an irritated adult when you had committed some infraction. It didn’t have to be left behind when you were packed off to some other place.
Now that he could afford to buy himself whatever he liked—and Nash would have been among the first to admit that adult toys were a terrific source of entertainment—he was still content with the fluidity of imagination.
He could happily close himself off from the real world and real people for hours at a stretch. It didn’t mean he was alone, not with all the characters and events racing around in his head. His imagination had always been company enough. If he occasionally indulged in binges of parties and people, it was as much to gather grist for the mill as it was to balance out those solitary times.
But lonely? No, that was absurd.
He had friends now, he had control over his own destiny. It was his choice, his alone, whether to stay or to go. It delighted him that he had his big house to himself. He could eat when he was hungry, sleep when he was tired, and toss his clothes wherever it suited him. Most of his friends and associates were unhappily married or bitterly divorced and wasted a great deal of time and effort complaining about their partners.
Not Nash Kirkland.
He was a single man. A carefree bachelor. A lone wolf who was happy as a clam.
And what, he wondered, made a clam so damn happy, anyway?
Nash knew what made him happy. Being able to set his laptop out on the patio table and work in the sunlight and fresh air, with the drumming of water in the background. Being able to toy with the treatment for a new screenplay without sweating about time clocks or office politics or a woman who was waiting for him to snap back and pay attention to her.
Did that sound like the lament of a lonely man?
Nash knew he’d never been meant for a conventional job, or a conventional relationship. God knows his grandmother had told him often enough he’d never amount to anything remotely respectable. And she’d mentioned, more than once, that no decent woman with a grain of sense would have him.
Nash didn’t figure that that stiff-necked woman would have considered penning occult tales remotely respectable. If she were still alive, she’d sniff and nod her head smugly at the fact that he’d reached the age of thirty-three without taking a wife.
Still, he’d tried the other way. His brief and terrible stint as a desk jockey with an insurance company in Kansas City had proven that he would never be a nine-to-fiver. Certainly his last attempt at a serious relationship had proven that he wasn’t suited to the demands of permanence with a woman.
As that former lover, DeeDee Driscol, had sniped during their final battle, he was . . . How had she put it again? “You’re nothing but a selfish little boy, emotionally arrested. You think since you’re good in bed you can behave irresponsibly out of it. You’d rather play with your monsters than have a serious adult relationship with a woman.”
She’d said a lot more, Nash remembered, but that had been the gist of it. He couldn’t really blame her for throwing his irresponsibility at him. Or the marble ashtray, if it came to that. He’d let her down. He wasn’t, as she’d hoped, husband material. And, no matter how much she’d altered and stitched during their six-month run, he just hadn’t measured up.
So DeeDee was marrying her oral surgeon. Nash didn’t think it was overly snide to chuckle at the idea that an impacted wisdom tooth had led to orange blossoms.
Better you than me, he told the nameless dentist. DeeDee was a bright, friendly woman with a cuddly body and a great smile. And she had the arm of a major-league outfielder when you ticked her off.
It certainly didn’t make him lonely to think of DeeDee taking that long, slippery walk down the matrimonial aisle.
He was a free agent, a man-about-town, unattached, unencumbered, and pleased as punch. Whatever the hell that meant.
So why was he rattling around this big house like the last living cell in a dying body?
And, much more important, why had he started to pick up the phone a dozen times to call Morgana?
It wasn’t their night to work. She’d been very firm about giving him only two evenings a week. And he had to admit, once they’d gotten past those initial rough spots, they’d cruised along together smoothly enough. As long as he watched the sarcasm.
She had a nice sense of humor, and a nice sense of drama—which was great, since he wanted both for the story. It wasn’t exactly a sacrifice to spend a few hours a week in her company. True, she was adamant about insisting she was a witch, but that only made the whole business more interesting. He was almost disappointed that she hadn’t set up any more special effects.
He’d exercised admirable control in keeping his hands off her. Mostly. Nash didn’t figure touching her fingers or playing with her hair really counted. Not when he’d resisted that soft, sulky mouth, that long white throat, those high, lovely breasts. . . .