01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin (2 page)

When Maggie slapped down fifteen dollars
and left the diner, he was still sitting there.

*****

That was one tiny, exasperating
woman. Who’d given him a painful erection within five minutes of
sitting down next to him. Tris couldn’t understand it. She was a
nothing kind of girl in dusty cowboy boots and jeans meant for
working. The women he bedded wore three-hundred-dollar jeans that
looked like they were painted on and boots with three-inch heels.
They hung out on Rodeo Drive, not at the rodeo. He’d lost interest
in all of them during his last year in LA. He didn’t even care
about the starlet he was with when the whole rotten brawl broke
out. Since he left he’d lost interest in everything. Including
women.

Not that this girl didn’t fill
the jeans out nicely. The faded red shirt with the pearl snaps on
the breast pockets, too. He could practically feel her nipples
scraping against the cloth of her bra.
Down boy. Don’t go
there.
She wasn’t special: light brown hair streaked by the sun
pulled back in a ponytail at her nape, gray-green eyes, and
freckles. She had a little bow mouth. He couldn’t imagine this girl
clinging to the rope around a ton of plunging, horned beast. Riding
rodeo wasn’t like taking a turn on the mechanical bull in some bar
on Friday night. Men got hurt, killed. And this tiny woman? If she
had a man, how could he let her put herself in danger like that?
The thought made him angry.

He swallowed. Angry wasn’t good
for him. He’d been trying to lose angry so hard he’d lost
everything.
Think of something else.

She sure didn’t give him the
time of day. Odd. Though he’d lost interest in women, they never
lost interest in him. Nuisance. This one the cook called Maggie had
no use for him at all.

He still didn’t dare stand up or
everyone in the place would see just how attracted to this girl he
was. The old waitress refilled his cup. He’d be stopping to piss
every twenty minutes at this rate. Maybe this girl attracted him
because underneath that tough outer shell, she was hiding something
vulnerable, even broken. Why else would she ride rodeo?

Get hold of yourself, jerk-off.
She thinks she knows who you are, and she doesn’t like what she
knows, just like everybody else. What a shock.

How had he been drawn into
asking the girl
questions
like that? Hell, he hadn’t said
more than four words to any one person in months. But he couldn’t
help himself. And he’d wanted to know the answers. What was she
running from? How did she avoid getting her face kicked in by wild
horses?
Like she’s going to tell you.

He took a slug of coffee. Time
to move on.

Move on to what? He knew the
answer to that one. To nothing. He was a ghost sliding along the
highway, mostly at night. He’d cut himself off from all ties.
Family. His shop. He was free. And lost. After trying to feel dead
inside for a year, he’d succeeded.
Great.

He was uncomfortable but not
laughably erect anymore. He pushed himself off the stool and
slapped a bill on the counter. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks,” Ethel said, scooping
up the twenty. “See ya around.”

“Not likely.” He slung his
jacket over his shoulder and trudged out to his bike. He’d seen a
motel next door that was just his style. Maybe get a day labor job
in Ely tomorrow if he couldn’t find a motor that needed fixing.
Anything that paid in cash.

That prospect was so bleak it
suddenly felt like a razor cutting its way out of his belly. Maybe
he was alive after all. Alive didn’t feel that great.

He was at a crossroads. Right
this second, he hated the nothingness inside him. Maybe because the
thrill of life he’d felt sitting next to that girl made him
remember what it felt like to want something.

Choice clear. Either fade away
entirely or embrace the razor and let the pain draw him back into
living. He slung his leg over the Harley and had to ease onto the
seat. Ribs weren’t quite healed from that bar fight in St. Louis.
Stupid jerk that he was, he’d thought that girl objected to being
pawed by those two huge guys. That was the last time he’d emerged
from his fog of indifference, and look where it got him.

The engine roared to life. The
thrum of the machine between his legs was the one constant of this
past year, along with the slowly spreading numbness he’d
craved.

He paused where the parking lot
gave onto the highway. A truck roared past. The smell of diesel and
exhaust hung in the high desert air. The rising sun peeked over the
mountains around the tiny town. He looked toward the run-down motel
next door. The sign said, “Shady Pines.” Sounded like a
cemetery.

Fuck it. Can’t do it.

He fumbled for his phone and
looked up the Indian River Ranch, memorized the directions. For
about a second he thought about calling home, telling Mr. Nakamura
(who’d answer the phone at the house) that he’d make it back for
his mother’s fiftieth. The whole family always gathered on her
birthday. Him not showing would worry her to death.

Then sanity returned. He glanced
at his hands. No matter how you washed, grease stained your
cuticles and the creases in your fingers. Did the whole party last
year with his hands in his pockets. A joke. They all knew the
grease was there. Then his father dropped the bombshell. That was
pretty much it, wasn’t it?

Cut the cord, Tris.
Not
showing up for his mother’s birthday would do the trick for good.
Why did he care? Little Tristram didn’t want to hurt his mother’s
feelings? Shit. He was born to hurt her. Damn them for who they
were. For who they thought he was. He threw the phone against a
telephone pole. It fell onto the broken asphalt of the parking
lot.

If he thought his itchy
dissatisfaction would disappear with this final decision, he was
dreaming. He’d scratched until he bled for years. He could numb it
a little with his old friend Jack D. He could make it fade by
existing only in shadows. But it was there. Even now.

He wasn’t crawling back to his
family just to make his mother happy. Still he wasn’t ready to fade
entirely away. There must be something else out there.

He gunned the bike onto the highway,
west toward Fallon. He could embrace the shadow later. There were
shabby motels in Fallon, too. But right now maybe he’d try out
being interested in something. Like a mustang sale. Like a
nothing-special little firebrand who rode bulls and made him want
her with an intensity he hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe
ever.

*****

“
What is it?” the hoarse
voice whispered through the phone.

Jason ran a handkerchief over
his neck. He’d located the Tremaine kids. But most of them lived at
The Breakers, the Tremaine estate. The oldest girl went to Brown,
but she was home for the summer. There was only one who was
vulnerable.

“
Good news,” he said, trying
to sound as confident as usual. “Second son has been wandering
around the country, totally unprotected. He’s living off the grid.
But he’s got a phone with a GPS he bought under another name. Got a
hacker kid to track him. He’s in Austin, Nevada. Middle of
nowhere.”

There was a short silence. He
could feel her suppressed excitement. More life in her than he’d
heard in a long time. Good, because that meant he was useful to
her. Bad, because at this rate she’d live forever. “Then you know
what to do.”

Actually, he didn’t. “You want
him brought in?”

“
They’re Trevellyans, even
though they call themselves Tremaines. They’ll never join
us.”

Oh. What she wasn’t saying was
that the Clan couldn’t afford a rival faction vying for power and
these Talisman things she was always on about.

“
Make it look accidental,”
she wheezed. “I don’t want to alert Tremaine to our
presence.”

“
My pleasure.” He was on his
way to the middle of nowhere.

CHAPTER TWO

Tris still had to stop and ask
directions to the Indian River Ranch because the GPS hadn’t
registered the final dirt road. According to its website, the ranch
was a holding facility for mustangs rounded up by the Bureau of
Land Management to keep the horse population at a sustainable
level. The horses were given veterinary care and put up for
adoption.

He felt strangely light, almost
outside himself and reckless. It was like coming up for air when
you’d almost drowned in the ocean at night. The pain wasn’t gone,
but maybe someday it would be. Anything seemed possible.

He was late to the sale. The
dirt lot in front of the big barn was filled with trucks and
trailers. One huge rig pulled by a big Peterbilt edged out into the
road. Scruffy-looking animals were being loaded into several
others. He looked around for her trailer. There it was, jammed in
between the barn and a corral. He dismounted and leaned his bike on
the kickstand.

The place was pretty desolate.
The ever-present sage and tumbleweed stretched away toward
mountains a bruised shade of purple in the distance. The high
desert wind hit him, warm today at least. A maze of corrals, some
with plywood windbreaks, spread out from the barn. The scent of hay
and manure mingled with the smell of diesel. A group, mostly men,
followed an auctioneer down the rows of corrals, listening to his
rhythmic patter. The horses were shaggy and smallish with long
manes and tight hooves. Some had gray, leathery scars on their
hides. It figured a girl like that would be attracted to these
horse delinquents.

When he didn’t see her in the
clot of buyers around the auctioneer, he strode over to the metal
barn. The wide doorway opened on a dim aisle. Two figures were
outlined against the bright square of the open door on the far
side. Tris recognized her silhouette. She wore a battered cowboy
hat. A tangled bunch of halters and lead ropes hung over her
shoulder. The other figure was a rangy guy past middle age with an
honest-to-God handlebar mustache.

“You gonna make me wait around
until you can’t sell ’em, Dillon?” He’d recognize that voice
anywhere. His little brother would know right away what her singing
voice was like. Maybe alto? Like there was a warm purr in there
someplace she didn’t want to let out.

“You know the BLM has rules,
Maggie. Everybody gets a chance to look at the stock.”

“And who’s gonna bid on the ones
in the back lot except scum like Ferris? He drugs ‘em stupid to get
‘em in the trailer. He doesn’t care if they fall. Then they go for
meat.”

“He ain’t allowed to buy here no
more.”

“He should be in jail.” She
sounded disgusted. “But that means I’ve got no competition.” She
heaved the halters higher on her shoulder. “Face it. It’s me or you
put ’em down. I got a long day ahead, so I’d like to get
started.”

Tris could hear the guy sigh.
“Go on then. I got maybe fifteen out there right now.”

Now that his eyes had grown
accustomed to the dim light he saw her frown. “I can only take
eight.”

“Then that’s half I don’t have
to have put down. Take your pick.”

She nodded. “Fifty bucks over
meat price each.” She headed out the back door.

Dillon shook his head. When he
turned, he saw Tris. “What can I do you for?”

Tris didn’t know the answer to
that question. “So how’s she get ’em in the trailer?”

“Damned if I know and I seen her
do it twice a year for three years running.”

“Horse whisperer?”

Dillon rubbed his chin. “She
don’t work nothin’ like Monty Roberts. Those horses are the meanest
sons of bitches in the Calico Complex. Complex is 540,000 acres.
That’s a lotta mean.”

“Might be worth watching.” Tris
started after Maggie.

“Let me know if you see
anything,” Dillon grumbled behind him.

If Tris were smart, he’d hang
back. She might not be glad he’d followed her out to the sale. And
he didn’t want to risk another reaction to her like he’d had in the
diner. It wasn’t like he could help. He knew jack about horses. If
Dillon was wrong and she got hurt.... A nervous irritation or
something lodged at the base of his spine. He found himself
clenching his jaw.

His stride extended all by
itself to catch up with her. Never had been the smart Tremaine
brother. That was Kemble’s territory.

She glanced over her shoulder at
his approach, and the way her expression streaked through disbelief
and outrage to wariness was almost funny. It kinda did something to
him. More than just the shot of sensation to his groin.

She turned and strode down the
aisle of corrals. “What are you doing here? Stalking?”

Tris slouched into step beside
her. She had several red ribbons in her back jeans pocket.
Accentuated her bottom in a way he didn’t need right now. He shoved
his hands in his pockets to keep them from doing anything that
would embarrass him. “I’m interested in horses,” he lied.

She actually snorted. “You
wouldn’t know a mustang from a Hanoverian.”

She had him there. But he wasn’t
a quitter. Hanoverian must be the kind of horse rich people bought.
Probably the kind his kid sister Tammy had. “Mustangs are
scruffier.”

His effort was rewarded not with
a grin but a glare. She rolled her eyes. “You do realize I don’t
want you here.”

Like that was going to stop him
when he was finally interested in something. “Yep.”

“I can wait you out.”

“I’m good for a lot of waiting.
Days, even.” He sure as hell had nothing else going.

She puffed out an angry little
breath, gray-green eyes snapping. It made him want to grin, but he
didn’t. “Fine. Just keep quiet and try, uh, try not to loom.”

Loom? Well, at six-four, maybe
he did loom. “Deal.”

She turned and strode out past
the corrals. The eight faded red and blue halters and the lead
ropes that might once have been a natural cotton color looked
heavy.