Magic (9 page)

“I know this much: you and Addie had a falling out five years ago, you left with Clarence somebody-or-other and didn’t come back,” Bryan began, priming the pump for her in hopes that she would jump in with the rest of the story.

Rachel placed her drink on the low butler’s table and stood up. “I really don’t think there’s any need for you to know all the details of my life, Mr. Hennessy,” she said, her sense of self-preservation rushing to the fore. “The gist of the story is this: One time in my entire life I defied my mother’s authority, and she has never forgiven me.”

“You were in love with this Clarence?”

“Terence.”

Bryan noted with a certain satisfaction that she corrected him only on the name, not on the past tense he had used in regard to the relationship. “Where is he now?”

Rachel wandered away from the heat of the fire to the cool air near the French doors that led out onto a terrace shrouded in mist. “Chasing a rainbow,” she murmured softly. Terence Bretton seemed a lifetime away from her now, so far removed from her situation that even his memory seemed unreal.

“And what about you, Rachel?” Bryan whispered.

She jumped a bit at the sound of his voice. He had come up behind her without her realizing it, but her sudden awareness of him was acute. She could feel the heat of his body, hear the subtle sigh of fabric on fabric as he shifted position. He didn’t touch her, but she realized to her shame that she wanted him to. She hadn’t known the man two days, and she wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her. She wanted it so badly, she ached.

Her lashes fluttered down, and she was immediately overtaken by the imagined sensation of being held. His arms were hard and strong, but his touch was gentle.… She felt herself leaning back, almost as if she were being pushed back, and she caught herself and fought the strange feeling off.

“What about you, Rachel?” he asked. “Where does your rainbow end?”

“You mean this isn’t Oz?” she said ruefully, an acute sadness filling her, a sadness that came through in the soft, clear tone of her voice. “I was so sure it was. You’re the Wizard and Mother …”

Addie was the wicked witch telling her she could never go home, telling her she was destined to be trapped in a surrealistic nightmare, that somewhere over the rainbow was a place dreamers longed for but could never find.

In the silence Bryan could feel her disillusionment as sharply as if it had been his own, and he hurt for her. Whatever she had given up to return to Addie had been better than the future she faced here.

Seemingly of its own volition, his hand rose toward the shimmering fall of Rachel’s hair. It spilled down her back, a pale river of moonspun silk. He couldn’t quite bring himself to resist the urge to touch it. Like a man trying to touch a dream, his fingers reached out hesitantly to brush against the curling ends. There was something incredibly sensual in the act, something strongly erotic, though he had barely grazed her. He inhaled sharply as desire streaked through him, setting all his nerve endings ablaze.

“And who are the munchkins?” he asked, trying to offset his reaction with a bit of levity. He barely recognized his own voice, it was so hoarse and low.

The absurdity of the question struck Rachel in the tattered remains of her sense of humor, and she managed a soft laugh. There was something wonderful about a man who could make her laugh on a night when her whole life seemed like a bad dream.

She turned away from the window and looked up into his eyes, so warm and caring behind his glasses. He was much too near. She had told herself to keep him at least an arm’s length away at all times, but there he was, no more than a deep breath away, and, while her wary heart told her to flee, Rachel found herself rooted to the spot.

“I never thanked you for this afternoon.” She rolled her eyes and smiled wryly. “I never dreamed Mother would try to take off with my car. Thank God no one was hurt. You saved the day.”

Bryan shrugged it off, uncomfortable with genuine praise. “Any other magical being would have done the same. See how invaluable I’ll be to have around?”

It was the perfect opportunity to tell him he couldn’t stay, Rachel thought. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words or even to consider the consequences of allowing him to remain in Drake House and in her life. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.

She stood staring up at him as if transfixed by a spell. The light from the fire cast her face in an amber halo, glistened off the vulnerable curve of her lower lip. It caught on the black jet beads adorning the old dress she wore and set each one with a miniature starburst of light.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are in this dress?” Bryan asked softly, something vital trembling deep inside him, something that had lain dormant, like a seed beneath the snows of winter. He felt it struggling to come to life with each shallow breath.

“I think you did,” Rachel murmured.

“Oh.” His mouth quirked up on the right in sheepish self-deprecation. Again he raised his hand to touch her hair, this time letting his fingers sift through the strands of silk. “Then, have I told you how much I want to kiss you?”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He didn’t wait to question himself or his vow of nonromantic involvement. He bent his head to hers and brushed his mouth gently across the satin of her lips. She tasted of sweetness and wine and need, a need that called out to her own lonely soul. His fingers threaded deeper into her hair, his hand sliding to cup the back of her head, to tilt her face to a better angle as the first kiss faded and the second began.

Just a kiss, Rachel thought. What harm could there be in a kiss? The solace and warmth and tenderness she found as she let herself melt into Bryan’s arms—how could anything bad come of this? She felt so alone, and he was so sweet. She had forgotten what it was like to feel like a woman, and he was so masculine. She had been so filled with misery, and he was magic.

Her hands slid up to grip the solid strength of his arms, her fingers drinking in the feel of his tuxedo jacket as her mouth drank in the taste of him—warmth and whiskey and desire. It was a tender kiss, but not a tame one. There was a hunger in the way his lips rubbed against hers, a barely leashed demand for more. His tongue slid gently along the line of her mouth, asking for entrance, then taking it at the first hint of acquiescence.

Rachel sighed as she allowed him the intimacy. Her heart raced as her breasts molded against the planes of his chest. She lost all sense of time and place, of who and where they were. She forgot all about duty and practicality. She gave herself over to a kind of sweet, gentle bliss that could have carried her into the night … until a crash and a scream shattered the still air.

Bryan bolted for the door with Rachel right behind him. He took the grand staircase two steps at a time and ran straight for Addie’s room. Addie shrieked again as he burst into the room.

“Blast you, Hennessy!” she blustered, shaking a gnarled fist at him. “I ought to pop you one! You startled the life out of me!”

Bryan brushed the reprimand aside. “Addie, what happened? We heard a crash. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, no thanks to you.” She clutched a fistful of nightgown to her chest. Her knuckles were white. “There was a ghost outside my window, trying to get in! Go out there and catch it,” she ordered, thrusting a finger at the portal. “You’re supposed to be good at that, aren’t you?”

For all her effort to appear calm, she was still terribly rattled. She’d been lying in bed, trying to sleep as memories tumbled through her mind all out of order, like the colors in a kaleidoscope, when the apparition had appeared. The shock had thrown her into a mental tailspin. Now fragments of the past mingled with the present so that she couldn’t distinguish one from the other. Her heart beat frantically as she tried to sort it all out.

“Mother!” Rachel gasped as she burst into the room belatedly, her shoes having hindered her progress on the stairs. “Are you all right?”

Rachel. Addie stared at her, confused. Love ached inside her. She lifted a wrinkled hand to brush her daughter’s hair back from her flushed face. “Rachel,” she said firmly but with far more gentleness than she’d used in years. “You ought to be in bed. You’re going to ruin your voice, staying up all hours. What will Mrs. Ackerman say?”

Rachel blinked at her. She hadn’t had a voice lesson with Mrs. Ackerman in ten years, but she couldn’t bring herself to say that to Addie. She didn’t want to do anything to ruin this single fragile moment of peace between them. Still, something had happened in this room, and they had to find out what it was.

“Mother, why did you scream?” she asked carefully.

Addie looked at her blankly.

“The ghost,” Bryan prompted. “Was it Wimsey?”

Rachel scowled at him. Why did he persist in this ghost business? How would Addie be able to cling to any part of her sanity with Bryan encouraging her hallucinations?

“Of course it wasn’t,” Addie muttered crossly as she backed up and sat down on her rumpled bed. She couldn’t think for the life of her who Wimsey was. It seemed best to lay the blame elsewhere. “It was a ghoul. It was the ugliest thing I’ve seen since Rowena Mortonson bought that horrid little Chinese dog. Perfectly hideous little thing. You couldn’t tell if it was coming or going.”

“Who’s Rowena Mortonson?” Bryan asked Rachel.

“She was our next-door neighbor in Berkeley.”

“Don’t speak as if she’s dead, Rachel. She’s only gone to Los Angeles to visit that effeminate son of hers,” Addie muttered, playing with the fraying end of her braid. “There’s a boy who needs a can of starch in his shorts.”

“What did it look like?” Bryan questioned.

“Oh, he favored Rowena, poor homely boy—pug nose, receding chin, limp brown hair. That pretty well describes the dog too.”

“No, Addie. The ghost that was at your window. What did it look like?” Bryan asked, earning himself another glare from Rachel.

“Oooooh …” Addie shuddered. “Pasty white with black eye sockets, and it made the most horrible strangled wretching sound.”

“You say this ghost was trying to break in?” Bryan asked.

“The window
is
broken,” Rachel said, slightly unnerved but unwilling to admit it. She sat down on the bed beside her mother and took advantage of Addie’s confused state, wrapping an arm around her frail shoulders. She wanted the physical contact, to comfort and be comforted, whether Addie was coherent or not.

“The glass was broken from the inside,” Bryan said, examining the gaping hole in the window. Shards littered the footwide ledge outside. Carefully, he raised the window and stepped out with one foot. He looked up at the gable peak and around the ledge itself, which was ornamented by a rusting wrought iron railing that had come loose on one end. There was no evidence of Addie’s “ghoul,” just a mournful howling as the wind swept around the various turrets and gables of the old house. In the distance the ocean roared.

“I threw a rock at the ugly thing,” Addie said truculently. Her eyes narrowed with anger and suspicion. “Coming in to steal my bird cages.”

Rachel closed her eyes and sighed. She was sure there hadn’t been anything at the window except a figment of Addie’s imagination. She had read that paranoia was one of the more common effects of Alzheimer’s. The person wasn’t able to remember where she’d put something and wasn’t able to reason that no one else would want it, so she was sure people were stealing from her. Seeing and hearing things that weren’t there were also common nighttime occurrences for someone with Addie’s affliction. Knowing that, it seemed painfully obvious to Rachel what had happened.

“Well, he’s gone now,” Bryan said, climbing back inside. He had pulled a screw from the loose base of the railing and stood rubbing the clinging bits of rotted wood from the threads, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I’ll take care of this window first thing in the morning. For tonight—”

“You can sleep in my room tonight, Mother,” Rachel offered, not only eager to make her mother comfortable, but eager to score some brownie points with her as well.

Addie looked around the room with a slightly frantic widening of her eyes. This was her room. She knew where everything was—most of the time. She usually remembered how to get from this room to any other part of the house. But if she spent the night in Rachel’s bed, she would be lost, and everyone would see it.

“This is my room,” she said, her chin lifting. “I shall sleep in it if I so choose.”

“Mother,” Rachel said wearily, “please don’t be stubborn.”

“Never mind.” Bryan smiled suddenly, bending to take off his shoe. Using the heel for a hammer, he drove the tip of the rusty screw into the thick meeting rail of the window. Then he took a large, gloomy oil painting of a foundering ship off the wall and hung it so that it covered the entire lower portion of the window, blocking out the damp cool air that had flowed in through the broken glass.

“Good as new and more interesting to look at,” he said as he dug a crumpled scrap of paper out of his trouser pocket and scribbled something down.

Relieved, Addie’s shoulders relaxed as she let out a breath. She slipped out of Rachel’s loose embrace and went forward to pat Bryan’s cheek. “Good boy,” she said as if he were a dutiful spaniel.

“I know how fond you are of your room, Addie,” he said. He took her hand in his, but his gaze went meaningfully to Rachel. “We don’t want to uproot you if we don’t have to.”

“Hennessy, you’re a treasure,” Addie said.

Rachel sat on the bed, running a finger absently across her lower lip, reflecting on Bryan’s actions—both there and in the study below. She could still feel his arms around her, could still taste him. He kissed wonderfully. Whether or not she should have allowed him to kiss her, she felt stronger and less alone now than she had before.

Her mother looked relaxed and was happily fussing with the painting at the window, straightening it to her satisfaction, the incident of the ghost apparently forgotten already. Rachel’s thoughtful gaze slowly swept around the room with its garish red moiré silk wallpaper. A place for everything and everything in its place. Everything in the room was arranged just so. Not all the items seemed to belong there—like the weird assortment of smooth stones on the white linen dresser runner—but Addie apparently found comfort in having them there, just as she found comfort in being in the room itself.

“Good night, Addie,” Bryan said. His gaze was on Rachel as he crossed to the bed and took her by the hand. He smiled gently. “Come along, Rachel. We don’t want you to ruin your voice staying up late; what would Mrs. Ackerman say?”

She’d say you were a treasure, Hennessy, Rachel thought, a small ember of warmth glowing inside her, but she kept the words to herself as Bryan escorted her out of the room and down the hall.

“I’ll have a look around outside, and I’ll keep an eye on her room,” Bryan said. “But I doubt anything more will happen tonight.”

“I doubt anything happened at all,” Rachel muttered. “I wish you wouldn’t persist in encouraging these fantasies of hers.”

“What makes you think this was a fantasy?”

Rachel gave him a look. “An ill woman looks out her second-story window and sees a ghost she knows is trying to break in to steal her bird cages. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this out.”

“Well,” Bryan conceded grudgingly. “I’ll admit the bird cage thing is a little farfetched.”

They stopped outside the door of Rachel’s room, and Bryan leaned a shoulder against the frame. Rachel looked up at him pleadingly. “Don’t you see it, Bryan? She imagined there was something there, panicked, and threw a rock through the window.”

Bryan frowned, the corners of his handsome mouth cutting into the lean planes of his cheeks. He looked disappointed. “You didn’t see it, therefore it doesn’t exist? There are lots of things in this world that can’t quite be explained, Rachel. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, but are felt in the heart.’ Helen Keller wrote that. She was blind and deaf. Just because she couldn’t see or hear the rest of the world, do you think she gave up thinking it existed?” he asked quietly.

Rachel took a breath, preparing to argue, but it occurred to her suddenly that he had changed the subject, had subtly altered the slant of the conversation so that ghosts were only a small part of it. The man was much more clever than that innocent smile of his let on.

Holding her gaze with his, he reached up into the darkness of the hall, and when he brought his hand back down, he held a tiny white flower between his thumb and forefinger. He tickled her nose with it and gave her a sweet, lopsided smile.

“Explain that, Miss Lindquist.”

Rachel laughed and batted his hand away. “You had that up your sleeve, you charlatan.”

“You’ll never know for sure, unless you get me to take my shirt off,” he said, teasing. “And I’m not that kind of boy,” he added, squaring his big shoulders and lifting his nose in the air.

“Don’t let Mother hear you say that,” Rachel said, eyes twinkling. “She’ll think you need starch in your shorts.”

“Hardly,” Bryan muttered dryly, gritting his teeth on the surge of desire that came automatically from just looking at her. He couldn’t seem to keep his gaze from wandering to the low V of her neckline. With every subtle movement she made, the silk of the old dress slid sensuously over her creamy flesh. Lord, how he envied that dress! Just the thought of touching her made his lungs hurt from lack of oxygen.

Rachel smiled up at him, unaware of his torment. It was wonderful the way he made her feel relaxed and playful in spite of all that had happened. He had a rare way with people, Bryan did. And he was a heck of a kisser.

As if he had read her mind, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. The kiss caught fire as quickly as dry kindling, burning hotter and hotter as Bryan’s mouth slanted across Rachel’s. He pinned her between the doorjamb and his own body, seeking as much contact as he could get. Rachel’s arms wound around his neck, and she arched into him, swept away by a flood of physical desire that had leapt out of control before she had even had a chance to consider damming it up.

Need built inside them and around them in waves of heat. Rachel gasped at the feel of Bryan’s hand skimming down her side, tracing the outer swell of her breast, following the inward curve of her waist and the flare of her hip. His fingers stroked downward to cup her bottom and lift her against him. She gasped again at the feel of his arousal, pressing hard and urgent against her belly, and succeeded in drawing his tongue deeper into her mouth.

Somewhere in the dimming regions of her mind she knew she should have been putting an end to this instead of encouraging it, but her sense of logic seemed to have little control over the situation. Her body wanted Bryan Hennessy. She’d never been one to throw herself at a man, but it felt as if her body was ready to change that trait right now.

It didn’t make sense, she thought, struggling against the wanton need rampaging inside her. Why would she lose control this way with a man like Bryan, a man who believed in ghosts and magic, a man who, in the end, would only bring her more disappointment. She couldn’t fall for him. It just wasn’t smart.

“Good night, angel,” he whispered softly, pushing himself away from her. His chest rose and fell quickly with shallow breaths. There was a sadness in his steady gaze that made Rachel want to apologize, though she wasn’t certain for what.

He slipped the tiny white flower into her hair behind her ear and backed into the hall, tucking his hands into his trouser pockets in a vain attempt to disguise his state of arousal. “Put the flower under your pillow and you’ll have sweet dreams.”

Her confusion plain on her face, Rachel Waved to him as she disappeared into her room. And Bryan turned and wandered down the hall, thinking it was going to be another endless night.