It Must Be Magic (8 page)

All Tanner could see was Fluffy’s nose sticking out from between the kitchen cabinet and the stove. Somehow, the cat had squeezed into a space that was half its body girth. Fluffy had been under Erika’s bed when Tanner had gotten home last night. This morning, when he’d tried to put it outside, the cat had left a scratch along his forearm, then wedged itself into the small cavity between stove and cupboard.

“Lili says she can’t help him if he won’t talk to her. She’s nice, but I don’t think she can talk to animals, anyway.” Erika’s attitude had soured as Fluffy’s condition deteriorated. Last night, she’d been willing to give Lili the benefit of the doubt. This morning, she no longer believed.

He felt a bottomless well of guilt inside, and the pancakes he’d eaten sat like rocks in the pit of his stomach. Christ, he wanted his little girl to grow up with a practical head on her shoulders, but the anguish on her pretty face tore his guts out.

“Honey, you’re not eating your pancakes.” Roscoe set his own plate down on the tablecloth and poured a dollop of syrup, then upended the bottle on Erika’s pancakes.

“I’m not hungry, Grandpa.”

“Well, wipe your tears, honey. We’ll take Fluffy back over to see Lili. I’m sure it’ll work this time.”

It wouldn’t work because Tanner had refused to let Lili talk to Fluffy. She might try every trick in the book to get around the promise while sticking to the letter of it, but she wouldn’t outright talk to the cat when he’d told her not to.

“Eat your breakfast, sweetheart,” he murmured.

Erika gave him a woeful look, but she ate. Slowly. Each mouthful a reluctant acquiescence to his command.

Tanner pondered the issues. If he shielded Erika too much, she’d never learn to make her own choices and decisions. In Lili’s case, was he forcing his own closed-mindedness on his daughter? As a parent, it was his responsibility to make decisions that were in her best interests, but it was also his duty to let her make some of those choices herself. It was a wise man who knew which decisions to turn over to her.

How wise are you, Tanner?

Not very. Hell, he knew where his closed-mindedness came from. His own bad memories. He’d loved Erika’s mother, but he hadn’t liked a lot of her wacky ideas. He closed his eyes. He hadn’t thought about that last fight between them in so long it had almost faded from his memory. Until Lili had brought it back last night. Karen had believed she had powerful latent psychic abilities, and she’d wanted to go on a retreat to unlock her powers. A six-week-long retreat in Sedona. It was the last in a long line of arguments. He’d refused. Erika had been only two; he couldn’t let Karen leave for six weeks. To him, it was tantamount to abandoning her child.

She’d gone anyway, while he’d been at work, leaving Erika with Wanetta next door. And a note for him saying she’d be back. She hadn’t come back. She’d died in a car accident on her way to Sedona, and he swore he’d never tell a living soul that she’d left Erika like that. He also swore he’d give his daughter the sort of practical mind her mother hadn’t had.

But had he gone too far? He’d never considered remarriage, never even considered what living with two men would be like for Erika. Since his own mother had passed long before Erika was born, if it hadn’t been for Wanetta living next door, Erika wouldn’t have had a single female inspiration in her life. Had he robbed his daughter of something precious?

“I’ll go with you,” he said as if several minutes hadn’t elapsed since Roscoe’s offer to take Fluffy next door. “But Lili’s at work right now, so it’ll have to be after lunch.”

Roscoe raised a brow that definitely asked, “How the hell do you know where Lili is?”

Tanner answered as if Roscoe had spoken aloud. “I saw her last night when I got home. She mentioned her visit.” He looked from his father to his daughter. “She told me what’s wrong with Fluffy.”

“But she said she didn’t know, Dad.” At least he was back to being
Dad.

“I asked her not to tell you.”

“Why?” The look his daughter leveled on him was a mixture of horror and disbelief, as if he’d somehow betrayed her.

The wound cut deep. In protecting her, he hadn’t trusted her judgment. It was as simple as that. He wanted to teach her practicality. Instead, he’d stolen the opportunity for her to make up her own mind about Lili’s abilities. There came a time where the explanation couldn’t be simply because he said so. “I deemed it inappropriate for someone your age. However, I’ve reconsidered my initial evaluation and revised my opinion.”

“What did Lili say?” Even Roscoe gave him the evil eye.

In his gut, Tanner didn’t want Erika involved, but
involved
was a relative term. He didn’t plan to take her along while searching for the body, but his daughter stood to learn two lessons. First, there were all kinds of people out there, some honest, some charlatans, some out of their minds. She’d have to learn to tell the difference. If Lili, by some weird cosmic chance, was right, Erika needed to learn that there was evil in the world, sometimes close to home. Only then would she know how to protect herself from it. The best thing he could do was provide her with adequate tools to make those determinations.

Tanner rose and carried his empty plate to the sink, then he turned, resting his hands on the counter behind him. “Lili believes Fluffy saw a murder. A real murder of a human being. She’d like my help in searching for the body.” He eyed Erika. “Do you think she could be right or that she’s definitely wrong?” Or something in between. “And what should we do about it?”

“I know what we should do.”

Tanner held up his hand. “I’m not asking you, Roscoe. I’m asking Erika.”

His daughter doodled her fork in the syrup swimming on her plate. “Well.” She sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “It’s like the missing link, Dad. Nobody’s seen it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t out there waiting to be found. Lots of really smart people believe in it.”

Damn. She amazed him yet again. He’d given up that dream of being a great anthropologist as childish folderol, yet she’d made a connection he hadn’t considered.

With the resilience of youth, she brightened right before his eyes. “It’ll be like a controlled experiment. If we find it, Lili’s psychic. If we don’t, then she’s not. It doesn’t make her a bad person.”

“I’ve never thought Lili is a bad person.”

“But do you believe her?”

He wanted Erika to have her own opinion, even if it differed with his. “I’m inclined to think she might be wrong about this. But you need to decide for yourself.”

She pressed her lips together in thought, then nodded. “You’ve always taught me to question things before making up my mind, so why not question that maybe Lily’s right instead of questioning that maybe she’s wrong?”

He’d taught her that? Hell, maybe he wasn’t doing as bad a job at raising her as he’d suddenly begun to suspect.

He pulled out the chair, facing it toward her, and sat. “But if there is a body, do you understand what that means?”

She gave him a look.
Well, duh, Dad.
“It means that there
is
a very bad person who did a terrible thing.”

“It also means it’s not a game. It’s very serious.”

“That’s why it’s our duty to help Lili. Just in case.”

She was so damn logical, the way he wanted her to be. But if there was a body, what the hell would he do then?

He leaned his elbows on his knees, laced his hands and pointed his index fingers at Erika. “There is no ‘we’ about it. You’re not going with us.”

“Aw, Dad, come on.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.” Sometimes that
was
all a parent needed to say.

R
OSCOE SMILED.
H
E COULDN’T
have finagled that one better if he’d done it himself. A whole afternoon, just the two of them. He’d packed a nice lunch and some cold drinks for them.

“I don’t see why I can’t go,” Erika said as Tanner waved one last time before disappearing into the woods with Lili.

“Your dad’s right, honey, this expedition isn’t any place for you.” Not that Roscoe expected them to find a body.

Lili, as magical and sweet as she was, had gotten her wires crossed on that one. Still, he had high hopes Lili could show Tanner a thing or two. She’d already gotten him to open up enough to allow the possibility that there were other ways of viewing the world besides only the practical one.

“Grandpa, do you think Fluffy saw a murder?”

He glanced at her as she shaded her eyes for a last longing look into the woods. “I hope not.”

“Me, too. I like Lili and everything, but I hope she fails the controlled experiment.” Then she looked up at him. “Grandpa, do you think Dad will ever want to get remarried?”

Heh. Great minds thought alike.

“Well, I don’t know, honey, not for sure.” He squeezed her hand. “But we can hope. We can surely hope.”

“H
OW FAR DO WE NEED TO GO?”
Tanner tossed over his shoulder.

“I’m not sure,” Lili admitted. “Cats
can
go for miles and miles. Or they can stick pretty close to home. Depends.”

Tanner had donned hiking boots, jeans and a long-sleeved rugby shirt that did very nice things for his chest. The teal and green stripes set off his eye color nicely, bringing out a slightly turquoise hue. The sun on his hair was glaringly bright as he stepped between the shadows and light falling through the trees. But walking behind him was proving to be the biggest distraction of all. Lili had a hard time focusing on anything but his rear in the tight jeans.

She supposed she should do a lot less checking out of Tanner’s butt and be a lot more worried about looking for the body. But somehow “the body” seemed more like a concept than a real human being. Or maybe thinking of it that way made everything easier for her. Sometimes delusion was a good thing.

“What exactly does it depend on?” Tanner asked.

The pack filled with Roscoe’s sandwiches and sodas bobbed on his back. He had a strong stride, but Lili was long-legged and in the five or so minutes they’d been walking, keeping up hadn’t proven to be a problem. Especially since she liked the view. Another five and they’d reach the meadow.

“Depends on how close they want to stay to the available food supply.” She zipped her jacket. The sun’s heat hadn’t reached the shade. Spring in the mountains, while gorgeous, could be several degrees cooler than over in Silicon Valley.

“Then I’m surprised Fluffy wandered off at all.” Talking didn’t make Tanner lose his stride one bit.

“That’s what Einstein said.” Einstein had scampered ahead on the trail, darting in and out of the trees’ shadows and sticking her paw down a few gopher holes without much success.

Lili couldn’t quite believe Tanner had told Erika and Roscoe what the cat had seen. See, that was how the world worked. She’d made a decision to act, and everything suddenly went her way, as if
deciding
to do something made it happen. She knew that didn’t mean Tanner believed in her ability, but it was one step closer to…well, not total acceptance, but closer to the possibility that the impossible
might
be possible.

She’d wanted to have a talk with Fluffy before they left, but the cat was having none of that. He’d been squished between a cabinet and the stove all morning, and he wasn’t coming out for anything. So they were walking blind. All Lili had was the image of the oak tree and the forest surrounding the meadow. But which out of all these trees was the right tree?

“When did you first start talking to animals?”

She figured that question came because she’d nonchalantly mentioned Einstein. “I was seven. At least, that was the first time I realized not everyone talked to animals.”

“Tell me about it.”

She was sure Tanner didn’t really want to know, but she’d lull him with a story or two, then launch into Erika’s problem. It was a great plan. Kate would be proud of her. “My gerbil ate her babies. They were there in the morning, then three were missing in the afternoon. When I said that was a terrible thing to do, she told me to mind my own business.”

He stopped so quickly she almost ran into his back. Or rather the pack on his back. He stood stock still for two seconds, then turned. Even in her hiking boots, she had to look up to meet his eyes.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I would never kid about my gerbil eating her babies. It was potentially traumatizing at my tender age. But I got over it when I realized it was in the natural order of things.”

“Like Bigfoot having you for dinner?”

“Yeah.” Tanner was like Kate. He didn’t forget even a minor thing she’d said two days ago. “Gerbils eat their babies all the time. So do hamsters.”

“So how’d you handle your little cannibal?”

“Once I figured out her natural tendencies, I put her babies in a separate cage.”

He shook his head. “All I can say is I’m glad I never got Erika a gerbil.” Then he started off again along the path, lobbing the next question over his shoulder. “What did your parents think of all this?”

“At first they thought I had a great imagination and went off on a tangent about how I’d be some great Nobel Prize-winning author someday. So they were very disappointed when I decided I didn’t want to go to college.” She looked sternly at his back. “Do you think everyone
has
to go to college?”

He’d gone several strides before he finally said, “Not necessarily. But it does help a person get ahead in life.”

She figured he’d taken so long to answer because he didn’t want to offend her. “But if a person doesn’t ‘get ahead,’does that necessarily mean one is actually behind?”

He sighed deeply. “I’ve never thought about it. Don’t you have plans for your future?”

That was what Kate wanted to know. “I think planning for the future gets in the way of living the present. And I’m not sure it makes a person happier or less stressed out.”

He didn’t say anything, and she realized
she
might have offended
him.
Obviously he was a planner, and he might infer that she was saying he was unhappy and stressed out. Or that he’d made Erika that way. “Not everyone has to think the way I do. You have to plan because you’ve got a child to consider. It’s about taking care of Erika.”

Now that was a jolly good lead-in to what she’d wanted to discuss anyway. “Okay, here’s the thing.”

This time he stopped and turned all in one movement. “Do you realize you always preface something you think I’m not going to like with that phrase?”

“Is that a bad thing?”

He cocked his head, then a smile grew on his handsome face. “Probably not. At least I’m warned.”

Lili smiled back. “So do you want to hear it or not?”

Tanner tipped his head back and looked at the sky through the trees for a long moment. The sky was the bright blue of a jaybird’s wings, and clouds drifted lazily toward the sun.

Then he dropped his gaze to hers. She’d been waiting expectantly, an odd tension riding her shoulders as if she thought he’d shoot her down. The smallest of breezes picked up several strands of her dark hair and blew them across her lips, then seemed to spiral down and flirt with the hem of her skirt.

She didn’t believe in planning her future, but she had faced down a cannibalistic gerbil when she was seven years old. He was sure, if he analyzed the tale, there’d be a moral message, something beyond that mothers shouldn’t eat their children. Lili had a way of making him think about things in a different light. A fresh, unique perspective, even if it was totally alien to him.

“Yes, I’d like to hear what you’re burning to tell me.”

She squared her shoulders then wiggled her arms like a prizefighter getting ready for a bout. “Remember yesterday when we were talking about you no longer seeing the woman you’d been dating, and I asked if Erika was okay with that and you said she was fine and she never thought about having a new mom?”

That one took a bit of mulling over to get the whole gist. “Yeah, I do.” That had been about the time he’d kissed her. Which explained why he didn’t remember it all that clearly.

“I asked about that for a very specific reason.”

He resisted telling her to get to the point. She’d get there when she was ready and not a moment before.

“Erika thinks you don’t introduce her to your girlfriends because a) they aren’t interested in being stepmoms, b) you’re afraid to tell them about her, and/or c) they’re going to think she’s a know-it-all and dump you.” She let out a big breath when she was done, deflating like the air out of a balloon.

He jiggled his head to make sure it was attached. “My daughter said all that?”

She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Those were the things I boiled it down to.”

He didn’t know what to tackle first. “I don’t have a girlfriend. I have never had a girlfriend. I just…go on dates sometimes. There isn’t any point in introducing her.”

What was he supposed to say to Erika about that? “They’re not my girlfriends, sweetheart, I just have casual sex with them when I get horny because that’s what men do.” Holy hell, no.

Lili looked at him. If he’d been wearing a tie, or a dress shirt with a collar, he’d be running his finger around his neck trying to loosen it. She didn’t ask, but he knew she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“
If
I ever meet a woman I’m serious about —”

“And so far, they’ve only been
fine.
”

He clenched his teeth. “I will introduce Erika. I’m not ashamed of her.”

He wasn’t embarrassed about having needs, nor of taking care of those needs in an uncomplicated fashion. He was, however, ashamed he hadn’t paid attention to what Erika needed. He didn’t know how the hell to provide whatever “it” was, but he should have seen there was a problem.

“What’s this know-it-all business? I’ve never told her that. She’s everything I want my little girl to be.”

“The kids at school call her that.”

“I’ll talk to her teachers.”

“Do you know she has a book called
Molly’s New Mom?
I think that’s what she wants.”

He’d never thought of himself as a bad father, but within two days, Lili had somehow managed to make him doubt everything he’d done with his daughter. He shoved his hands through his hair. “I can’t get married because it’s what Erika wants.”

Lili pressed her lips together. “I suppose not.” She tipped her head and blinked her lush lashes.

He had to stop thinking about her eyelashes. “I don’t think I understood the impact losing Wanetta had on her.”

Lili smiled, a fond, faraway smile. “Wanetta adored her.”

“I’ll have to find her another Wanetta. She’s around me and old men too much.”

“I’m not trying to say you’re a bad father, Tanner. In fact, you’re the best father I’ve ever known.”

“And how many have you known?”

She looked over his left shoulder, then his right. “Not a lot.” She shook her finger at him. “But I can still see how great you are and how much you love Erika and she loves you.”

“But you think she needs something more.”

“More? I don’t know. Maybe for you to tell her why you haven’t introduced her to your girlfriends.”

“I told you they aren’t my girlfriends,” he said and immediately wished the words back. He did not want to say that sometimes he was a randy thirty-seven-year-old male who wanted to come inside a woman instead of in his own hand.

The truth was, he’d lain awake most of last night thinking about coming inside Lili. Over and over. He’d fantasized about kissing her, about taking her with his mouth.

“You’re looking at me funny.”

“I’m not looking at you funny.” He was looking at her as if he wanted to do all of those things right now.
As if.
There was no
as if
about it.

“We’d better get going,” she said. “We’ve got a body to find. And thank you for telling Erika and Roscoe the truth.”

He wasn’t going to tell her his decision had more to do with Erika than his own thoughts on the subject. But she was right; they’d better get going before he didn’t let her go at all.

“I’
M THIRSTY.
” L
ILI WAS FEELING
defeated. Her spirits had begun high, but they’d circled the meadow twice in an hour and hadn’t found a thing. Out in the sun, away from the trees, it was hot. The tips of the long grasses swayed gently, but she could barely feel the breeze on her face and the sun baked the top of her head. A crow took flight from the top of a huge oak — not the oak she was looking for; they’d already checked — and the distant chatter of agitated squirrels echoed through the field.

“You want a sandwich?” Tanner stripped off the backpack.

The sight made her tipsy, his chest rippling as he used both hands to peel off the straps.

Their earlier conversation wasn’t over. She’d gotten him to
think
about what Erika needed, but she wanted to provide a solution. That would take more thinking.

Tanner handed her one of the tuna sandwiches and a can of soda. She popped the top and drained it in three big slugs. It was unladylike, but she was parched. Einstein bounded over as soon as she’d flopped down in the long meadow grass and opened the plastic sandwich Baggie. Lili pulled out a chunk of tuna salad and fed it to her. Einstein didn’t thank her. That was one thing TV hadn’t taught her.

“Why can’t the cat follow its nose and find what we’re looking for?” Knee up, one leg crossed over the other ankle, Tanner made quick work of the sandwich.

Probably because she was too busy chasing gophers. It was the challenge of catching them that fascinated Einstein. They could pop back into their holes so quickly.

“I don’t know.” She put her face down low to Einstein’s. “If she were a
good
cat, she’d have found it days ago.”

If you weren’t an idiot human, you wouldn’t be asking a cat to do a human’s job.
Talk about a convoluted set of images; Einstein took the cake, but Lili got the insult.

Tanner finished his soda. For some reason, watching him in the simple act of drinking made Lili warm all over. He’d looked at her funny earlier, with an odd, burning intensity that made her feel as if he’d stripped her clothes off and licked right between her breasts. Now she was positively overheated.

“You know, I wouldn’t mind a little help with Erika.”

“Huh?” She’d been so busy thinking about him licking her that she missed the essence of what he was saying.

“Maybe she’ll open up to you. Female to female. I’m out of my depth on this one. I would appreciate your advice.”

Wow! “I’d be glad to do anything I can.”

He looked at the ground, almost as if he were uncomfortable. “She’s growing up fast. I think there are…some things I’m not fully prepared to deal with.”

“Like what?”

He chuckled, then shook his head. “Female things.” Dragging his hand down his face, he covered his mouth with splayed fingers and simply looked at her.

“Oh.”

“We’ve done
the
talk, and I thought I’d crumble to dust. I’m not sure I can handle it when…she becomes a woman.”