He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin) (12 page)

She should never have taken it on herself to try to “fix” him. Her mother had warned her. It was hubris, plain and simple. And naïveté. This guy couldn’t be fixed. And why had she tried? Because
she
wanted him sober. She was grasping at straws to prove that her destiny had carried her to the one who could be her match down to the level of their DNA. The vision in the birdbath had been a hallucination, no more. She was worse than
naïve
. She was psychotic.

And he was suffering for it. She should just take him in to the ER down on Stock Island, whether he wanted a doctor or not. But how could she? She was scared to let him go free.

Bad as his rages were and the shaking and moaning, he wasn’t delirious. If he got that bad, she’d have to let him go and take her chances on landing in the hospital herself.

Then he quieted. He stopped struggling against the ropes. He stopped screaming obscenities. He just went slack. Drew breathed a sigh of relief. He looked almost peaceful. Maybe it was over. It was actually faster than she’d thought.

“Alice,” he whispered, with more longing in that one word than she’d ever heard before.

Drew stopped breathing. Just how
naïve
she was flashed before her. This guy wasn’t her destiny. He was not only drunk, and Italian, and not Merlin’s descendent, he was in love with somebody else. Because that was love in his voice if she’d ever heard love.

“I’m sorry I killed you,” he muttered.

Drew put her hand over her mouth. He had killed a girl? A girl he loved?

More muttering she couldn’t understand. Then he said, “Alice, don’t go,” very clearly. Tears rolled down his cheeks. His shoulders shook a little.

Then his eyes blinked open. He started to shake a little again.

Drew gasped and realized she’d been holding her breath. He turned to look at her, and his eyes held such sadness that her own eyes filled.

“You c-can untie me now. I won’t hurt you.
Scout’s honor.
I’ll d-do the detox.”

“How do I know that?” she managed. Where was the rage? What had changed?

“B-because Alice wants me to, and I’d d-do anything for her.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Drew got up and began pacing. That sounded insane. He’d been talking to a dead woman. And now Drew should believe that it was okay to untie him because the dead woman—a woman he’d just admitted killing—wanted him to play nice? She believed he was capable of killing. She’d never been exposed to rage like she’d just seen.
If he’d killed his lover, that explained the pain in his eyes and the drinking.
He deserved the pain.
So, no.
Not untying him.

“Can’t do that, Dowser.”

He managed to nod. “I get that.” His voice was hoarse, his cheeks still wet with tears. He lay there, breathing raggedly. Drew sank onto the sagging love seat, feeling helpless. Should she go to the police and tell them Dowser had confessed to murdering someone named Alice? He was a puzzle. Did murderers come to the rescue of damsels in distress? That’s what he’d done for Drew. Maybe he was just addicted to violence and didn’t care about the reason for the bar fight. She should definitely go to the police.

But she couldn’t seem to make herself move to go get her car keys.

For the next hour, he struggled with the demon torturing his body, pulling on the ropes only when the cramps hit him. No swearing, no rages. It was almost full daylight. And day wasn’t going to bring Drew any answers. This guy was either a hero for rescuing her from the Four Horsemen back at O’Toole’s, or so depraved he had murdered his wife. He couldn’t be both. And she didn’t know which he was.

“Can I maybe have some water?” he croaked, startling her.

“Oh, my gosh.” She hopped up. Even murderers didn’t deserve to die of thirst. She’d tied him up and then didn’t take care of him.

She grabbed a wet cloth from the kitchen and hurried back with water in a Barney the Dinosaur glass that had once held jelly. His lips were dry and chapped. She sat beside him and held up his head while he drank. Whatever he was, she was so attracted to him that holding his head like this was pure torture. She laid him back down and got some moisturizing lip cream from her purse. “This will help,” she said as she turned his head and applied the ointment. His lips were cracked and dry to the touch, still swollen where the split had scabbed over, but she could imagine them soft. Kissable.
Don’t think about that
. His nose was still crooked. But he was a handsome devil anyway.
In spite of his black eye.

“Thank you,” he said, as she headed back to the kitchen. She placed one plastic bag of ice on his eye and pulled up the blanket to put the other his knee. Then she took the damp dishtowel and wiped his forehead, his cheeks,
his
neck. He was sweating and trembling but he said only, “That feels good. Thanks.”

That made
her
feel
horrible. She should have been wiping down his body with cool cloths all night. She’d been intimidated by his invective. Drew Tremaine, who’d
always
thought she was equal to anything. He’d suffered for her cowardice. Okay. Then she owed him.
Whether he’d killed his wife or not.
She pulled down the thin blanket to just below his waist and, holding her breath, wiped his chest and belly too. She could ignore the throb between her legs.

“Sorry, but I’ve gotta piss.”

Oh, no. Could she go through that again? She’d not only want to stare, but she’d want to touch too. No doubt about it.

He must have seen her look of dismay. “Look,” he said, teeth chattering, “just untie one hand and get me the bedpan. I’ll take care of myself.”

But with one hand untied, he could unbuckle the other hand. Couldn’t do that. If he was a murderer, she’d end up dead just like Alice. But how would she ever be able to let him go, even when he was sober? That left the police as her only choice. She could abandon him and make an anonymous call from a pay phone to tell the police he was tied up here.

Hoping to God some way out of this whole dilemma would occur to her, she cleared her throat and started talking just to buy time. “Who was Alice?”

He looked as though she’d just slapped him. “My wife,” he croaked.

Oh, dear Lord. He might go berserk again. But she had to know. “So ... did you murder her?” Even now she couldn’t believe she’d asked that. He had no reason to tell her the truth, but she wanted to look him in the eyes as he answered. She’d at least know if he was lying.

He shot her a look of such pain it was difficult to watch. His mouth wouldn’t behave as he tried to suppress emotion. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.” The self-loathing was unmistakable.

“Why?” she asked, wrinkling her brow. He obviously loved the woman. Had to be infidelity. She swallowed.
Too late to go back now.
“You caught her cheating on you?”

He gave her an incredulous look that turned angry.
Here we go.
She stepped back. But he seemed to master himself. “Alice didn’t cheat. And anyway, if she had found someone she wanted more, I’d have been hurt as hell but I would have let her go.”

What man would do that? Drew crossed her arms. “Then why?”

“Cancer. Ovaries.” He swallowed and his eyes went kind of dead. “She asked me to help her out. I had some contacts, so I got the drugs and gave her way too many. Doctor knew, but he let it slide. I didn’t even pay the price.”

Yes, he had
.
“I ... I’m sorry.”
So
inadequate.
Her eyes filled. Doing that for Alice had ruined Dowser’s life. He must have known it would. And he had done it for her anyway. He was a good man, or had been once. That kind of love didn’t come along every day.

It was the kind of love she’d thought was her destiny. Though she’d never thought about the possibility that true love could go so horribly wrong. But she didn’t have that kind of love. And she’d never have it with this man, DNA or not, destiny or not. He was still in just that kind of love with his dead wife. It occurred to her that what had drawn her to this man across a continent might be the fact that he was capable of that kind of love.

She felt her eyes spill over and brushed at them hastily. Then she reached down and unbuckled the leather cuff around his wrist. To her shame, she saw that it had left raw red marks where he’d pulled on it so hard. Without saying a word, she moved around to the others, unfastening them. Then she helped him sit up.

“You won’t regret this,” he muttered as she pulled him to his feet. He was naked and that lovely muscled body with impressive genitals nested in their dark patch of hair did just what she thought it would do to her. But that wasn’t important now. She steadied him as he crept to the bathroom. His knee was less swollen today too. He was limping, but making it.

She left the bathroom door open, so she could hear him if he fell or something, while she went to the dresser and got out some sweatpants. He was leaning against the doorway when she returned. “Put these on,” she said gruffly, looking at the floor. It didn’t help. Her mind was filled with images of what she was avoiding, and her mind was telling the other parts of her body what to think about that. So her breasts felt tender and her crotch swollen.

He made it back to the bed and sat down to pull on the sweatpants. He crawled in and pushed himself back against the wall with difficulty. He was shaking again. She was ready with some anti-nausea medication. He obediently swallowed the two spoons’ full.

“You ... you think you could manage some food?”

He shook his head.

“Maybe a little toast. You haven’t eaten at least since yesterday morning, and I suspect it’s been longer than that. You have to keep your strength up.”

He looked about to protest, thought better of it. “Yeah. I guess.”

She toasted bread over the gas burner on the stove, and made him some tea she’d bought for herself. When she brought them out, he hunched over them, and managed to eat about a slice and a half before he gave up.

“Look,” he said, his brown eyes meeting hers for the first time since she’d brought the food. “I’m s-sorry about last night. The names I called you and all.”

“I did tie you up. That wasn’t exactly fair.” She gave him a rueful half smile.

“No,” he agreed as he scooted down into the bed. “But I wouldn’t have tried to q-quit any other way. And it still wasn’t okay to y-yell obscenities at you.”

“You weren’t yourself.” As close to saying she forgave him as she thought he’d allow. Even his good eye had a muddy half circle under it. He looked incredibly tired. “I really hope you don’t get scary again, though.”

A ghost of a smile fluttered around his lips. “I’ll try to keep the monsters to a minimum.” His eyes blinked shut.

“Rest now.” He rolled onto his side away from her. She pulled the blanket up over him then ran her hand over his back, to soothe the shakes. The ridges of scars were startling. It was some time before he quieted and she felt him finally fall asleep.

*****

Kemble
Tremaine chewed his lip as his hands hovered over the keyboard. He’d promised his mother he wouldn’t track what Drew was doing, but damn it, neither he nor his father liked the idea of her being away for a week. Jane was sensible enough to keep her from running away with some jerk, but these days someone was hunting Tremaines. You couldn’t just let your sister go off without checking up on her.

He heard steps behind him.

“It isn’t like she’s in Tibet, you know.”

His mother had the nasty habit of seeming to read minds. Kemble swiveled in his desk chair, trying hard not to look like he was five and she’d caught him with his hands in the cookie jar. “Somebody could get to her there. Just because it’s only half an hour away....”

She half chuckled. “You’re a day late and a dollar short. Your father has already contacted the head of hotel security and warned them to be extra vigilant. I only got him to call off his plan to put his own men in the hotel by threatening to take Lanyon and Tammy skiing at Whistler if he didn’t let Drew have a week without direct surveillance.”

“You’re ruthless,” Kemble said, half-envious, half-depressed. Where his father was concerned he was always a day late and a dollar short. How would he ever take the reins of Tremaine Enterprises? That is, if his father ever retired. But that was what was expected of him. Had been since he was five. He sighed.

“Oh, all right,” his
mother
said, sympathy in her aqua-blue eyes. “If you want to feel better, take a look at her credit card activity. But you’d better not tell anyone you did it.”

“Like I’d tell the Brood. They are the absolute worst keepers of secrets in the world.” And he’d never admit to his father that he needed reassurance about Drew, even after his father had made “arrangements” for her safety. Come to think of it, he bet his father had his own security there anyway, no matter what he told his wife. Kemble spun the chair around to his computer and clicked through a few windows. “Okay, massages, dinner at the restaurant. Poolside service.
Four hundred dollars at some boutique.
Drew is exercising restraint.”