Magic (7 page)

“I have to be the world’s biggest glutton for punishment,” Bryan mumbled to himself, shaking his head. He turned around, his sunniest smile firmly in place. “Did you say you’re going to town? I’ll ride along; I need to go to the library.”

“I didn’t invite you, Mr. Hennessy,” Rachel said. A perverse thrill raced through her at the thought that this man did not take no for an answer. He was like a human bulldozer. And that innocently pleasant face he presented the world was nothing more than a very distracting mask.

“No, you didn’t,” he said affably, taking his seat at the table. “What time do we leave?”

“Two,” she answered automatically, then halted her thinking process. Her eyes narrowed and her lush mouth thinned. She wasn’t going to be bullied. She wasn’t going to let Bryan Hennessy worm his
way
into her life. “Be sure to pack your toothbrush,” she said, rising and going to the stove to start a pot of coffee. “We’ll drop you off at the nearest hotel.”

“The truth is, it may already be too late, honey.” The memory of Dr. Moore’s gentle, fatherly voice played through Rachel’s mind as she sat behind the wheel of her decrepit Chevette.

“For all the research being done, we know very little about the disease. It progresses differently in different people, depending upon what areas of the brain are attacked. Some people lose the ability to read, while others can read but not comprehend what they’ve read. Some can understand a conversation in person but not over the phone. Some can remember everything that happened in their lives ten years ago, but they can’t remember what happened ten minutes ago.”

“She seems to remember everything that happened five years ago,” Rachel said ruefully.

Dr. Moore, who had the wisdom of decades in medicine and in dealing with people, had reached out to take her hand, knowing that small comfort might soften the blow. “But she may not be able to comprehend what happens today or tomorrow. I’m not saying it can’t happen, sweetheart. At this point in Addie’s illness, it’s anyone’s guess. I just want you to realize that you can’t pin your hopes on a reconciliation, because it might never come about.”

Rachel rested her forehead against the steering wheel and closed her eyes against a wave of despair. A reconciliation with Addie was the one thing she had wanted, needed, to pin her hopes on. What else was there? Certainly not a cure for Alzheimer’s; no one knew yet what caused the disease, let alone what would cure it.

“Are we going to sit here all day, or is there some other vile place you intend to force me to go to?” Addie asked imperiously.

“We need to stop at the drugstore,” Rachel said.

“I don’t want to go to the drugstore.” The drugstore was a confusing place, aisle upon aisle of items and millions of brands from which to choose. Addie never went there if she could help it. She gave Rachel a shrewd look. “I suppose you’re going to force me to go in there nevertheless.”

“You don’t have to go in. You can wait in the car if you like.”

Too distracted to notice her mother’s sigh of relief, Rachel started the engine and pulled out of the clinic parking lot and into the flow of tourist traffic. The fog that had blanketed the coastal village in the early morning had long since burned off. The day was bright with a blue sky. Anastasia’s quaint streets were clogged with people browsing and window-shopping and admiring the carefully restored Victorian architecture of the town. Through the open windows of the car came the sounds of the traffic, the calling of gulls, and the distant wash of the ocean against the shore.

It all seemed comforting, Rachel thought. So normal and sane. She could easily grow to love Anastasia. Unfortunately, she would never have the chance. She had a job waiting for her in San Francisco when the fall school term began. A call to a former vocal instructor who was now an administrator at the Phylliss Academy of Voice had landed her a position. As soon as she had sorted out Addie’s affairs, and they had sold Drake House, they would be moving south to the city. Anastasia would be a place to visit on weekends if they were lucky.

By some small miracle of fate there was a parking spot opening up in front of Berg’s Drugstore just as Rachel piloted her car across the intersection at Fourth and Kilmer. She pulled into it and cut the engine.

“I’ll only be a minute,” she said as she grabbed up her purse and slipped out of the car.

Addie smiled serenely, her eye on the keys dangling from the Chevette’s ignition.

“So, Addie has a daughter,” Alaina Montgomery-Harrison mused, seizing instantly upon the one significant thing Bryan had said since she’d walked outside her office with him to enjoy the sun. She leaned back against the sun-warmed side of the building that housed her law practice, her smart red Mark Eisen suit a startling contrast against the white stucco. Her cool blue eyes studied her friend intently. “What does she look like?”

Bryan shrugged uncomfortably. He stuck his nose into one of the library books he’d borrowed on the history of the area and mumbled, “Like a woman.”

Alaina gave him a look. “Oh, that narrows it right down. So she falls somewhere between Christie Brinkley and Roseanne Barr?”

“Hmmm …” Glancing up with bright eyes and a brighter smile, Bryan attempted to derail her from her line of questioning. “How’s my beautiful goddaughter?”

“She’s perfect, of course,” Alaina said, idly checking her neatly manicured nails. “What a lame attempt to throw me off the scent, Bryan, really. Why so secretive?”

“I’m not being secretive,” he protested. “There’s simply not that much to tell. She’s Addie’s daughter. She’s young, she’s pretty, they don’t get along.”
She cried on my shoulder, and I haven’t wanted to kiss a woman so badly in ages
, he added silently, turning the pages of his book without seeing them.

“That’s putting it in a nutshell. You should get a job with
Reader’s Digest.
Think of the money they could save on paper if they had you to condense books for them,” Alaina said. She reached out and gently closed the book Bryan was using as a prop to evade her questions. Her gaze searched his face with undisguised concern. “Where do you fit in at Drake House?”

Bryan held his expression carefully blank. “I’m there to find a ghost.”

“And?”

“Sometimes I really despise your keen insight,” he complained. Alaina was characteristically unmoved by the remark. He heaved a sigh. “All right. It’s a tough situation. If I can in some small way help Rachel and Addie—”

At that instant a car horn blared and a rusted orange Chevette squealed around the corner. People on the sidewalk leapt back, shrieking as a wheel jumped over the curb and a trash can went sailing. Bryan’s eyes rounded in horror as he caught sight of the driver.

“Addie!” he shouted, dropping his books and taking off after the car.

The Chevette veered across the street, eliciting a chorus of horn-honking from cars in the oncoming lane, and jumped the curb into Kilmer Park. People and pigeons scattered. Addie stuck her head out the window of the car, waving and shouting for people to get out of her
way
.

Bryan caught up with her as she cranked the steering wheel and began driving in circles around the statue that immortalized the late William Kilmer, an obscure botanist who had grown up in Anastasia and gone on to relative anonymity. He jogged alongside the car until he managed to get the passenger door open, then he executed a neat gymnastic movement and swung himself into the moving vehicle. All he had to do then was reach over and switch the ignition off. The Chevette rolled to a halt.

Bryan heaved a huge sigh of relief. The park was full of tourists now gathering around to satisfy their morbid curiosity. Addie might have ended the earthly outing for any one of them and sent them on to a more permanent sort of trip.

“There’s something wrong with the brakes,” Addie grumbled, scowling, completely unwilling to admit she had forgotten how to work them.

Rachel ran up beside the car, her face as pale as milk. Bryan climbed out, rounded the hood, and took her by the arm. He dangled the keys from his forefinger, then closed his fist gently over them as he guided Rachel a short distance away.

“Addie isn’t allowed to drive,” he said softly, managing a half smile at the look on her face.

Rachel was too petrified to speak. She merely stared up at him, horrified at what had happened and what might have happened.

“It’s all right,” Bryan said, easily reading her feelings. “No one was hurt.”

Without thinking, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. Golden sparks of electricity burst through him, stunning him.

“I’ll drive us home,” he said breathlessly, not quite certain how he had managed to speak at all. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

Dazed, Rachel lifted a hand to her lips. He’d kissed her. He’d kissed her and immediately the icy terror that had filled her had melted away. She knew she was supposed to tell him he wasn’t coming home with them, but she couldn’t begin to form the words in her head. For one of the few times in her life she was rendered completely speechless. It was amazing.

“We’ll go home. You can have a nice brandy and lie down for a while,” Bryan went on as he led her back to the car. “Dinner is at seven.” He opened the door to the backseat and helped her in, then leaned down into the open window. “By the way, we dress for dinner at Drake House.”

“Dress?” Rachel questioned dumbly.

“Hmmm. Black tie or the closest you can come.”

“You’re serious?” she said, trying to read his expression, “You’re not joking?”

Bryan smiled. “Quite and no. At any rate,” he said, his eyes crinkling attractively at the corners, “I’m hardly ever more serious than when I’m joking.”

He straightened then and took the ticket Deputy Skreawupp handed him without saying a word. His look warned the deputy to follow suit. Opening the driver’s door, he slid into the Chevette beside Addie, saying, “Scoot over, beautiful, and let a man handle this machine.”

Addie giggled and punched his arm. “You big Irish rascal, you.”

He piloted the car slowly out of the park, leaning out the window, waving and smiling to the crowd as if he were driving in a parade. Addie joined in his enthusiasm and leaned out her window, throwing out old Life Savers she had found in her handbag.

And in the backseat, Rachel sat staring blankly into space, marveling over the power of a simple little kiss.

Rachel checked her watch and frowned. Ten of seven. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. On returning to Drake House from Anastasia she had taken Bryan’s advice and modified it slightly, trading his suggestion of a brandy for a hot bath. She had shut herself in the upstairs bathroom and soaked in the deep old claw-footed tub until the tension of the day had all washed out of her. It had taken a concerted effort on her part to push it from her mind, and the effort had left her feeling drained. When she returned to her room at last, wrapped in an old terry-cloth robe, she had curled up on the creaky old bed, intending to rest for Just a few minutes.

Two hours later she had awakened abruptly from a deep sleep with the distinct feeling that she was being watched. She had sat up, clutching her robe to her chest, and stared all around the bedroom she had moved into that morning. It was located in the turret on the south side of the house. The walls curved; there were no dark corners to hide in. The room had been quiet and empty, but someone had been there. It wasn’t just the lingering tension that had told her. Laid out across the foot of the bed had been a dress. A dress she had never seen before.

Rachel ran her hand down the front of it now in a gesture of uncertainty. It seemed strange to be wearing it when she didn’t know where it had come from or whom it belonged to, yet she hadn’t quite been able to resist the urge to put it on. If Bryan had been telling the truth about dressing for dinner, then she didn’t own anything suitable to wear—nothing that came close to this dress anyway. Most of her skirts and dresses were comfortable cotton fabrics in styles that leaned toward a Gypsy or prairie look. She had never had the occasion or the money to buy an evening gown during her life on the road with Terence.

The whole idea of dressing for dinner seemed absurd. It was a custom from a bygone age and a class of people she had only read about or seen on television. No doubt it was one of the little eccentricities Addie had developed since her illness. In light of all that had happened since she had arrived, Rachel thought it best to go along with the odd dictate. If it would make her mother happy, if it might somehow help Addie to open up to her, then it would be worth the effort.

She stared at her reflection in the freshly polished mirror above the vanity. The dress was burgundy silk decorated with black jet beads. The thin straps flowed into a V neckline in both the front and the back. The fully pleated skirt fell from a dropped waist to swirl about her calves. It was pure 1920s, an antique in its own right. It was the most beautiful thing she’d worn in ages. And Bryan Hennessy had brought it to her.

Her chest tightened at the thought. He must have slipped in and put it across the foot of the bed while she’d been sleeping. What if she had opened her eyes and turned to look up at him. Her robe might have fallen open, and his gaze would have lowered deliberately—

Rachel gasped in embarrassment. The woman who looked back at her from the mirror wore an expression of uncertainty. Her wide eyes were pansy-purple in the dim light of the room. Soft color rose on her cheekbones. There was a decidedly vulnerable look about her mouth. She didn’t have time to put up her hair again, so she left it to fall down her back in luxurious golden waves. She wondered if Bryan would like it down.

“Oh, Lord,” she said with a groan, squeezing her eyes shut and rubbing at her temples, “what am I going to do about Bryan?”

Somewhere a gong sounded.

“A dinner gong?” she questioned on a laugh. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. There isn’t anything ordinary about this house or anyone in it.”

Slipping into a pair of black high-heeled shoes, she gave her reflection one last glance in the mirror and left the room.

She caught sight of Bryan as she began to descend the grand staircase, and her heart vaulted into her throat. Her hand gripping the mahogany banister, she halted on the stairs and stared down at the scene below, where Bryan stood sipping a drink and chatting with a woman Rachel had never seen before.

She had thought him attractive in a rumpled, all-American way. Big and cute with his earnest blue eyes and his tawny hair falling every which way and notes sticking up out of all his pockets. But in a tuxedo he was devastating. Handsome with a capital H. The black jacket hugged his shoulders in a way that nothing off the rack could have. The wings of his shirt collar framed his strong, freshly shaved jaw. His hair looked as if he had actually taken a comb to it. The overall effect was one of intelligence, authority, and money.

He looked completely at ease in formal attire, and that threw Rachel off balance. Would she ever get a handle on who Bryan Hennessy really was? Was he charlatan or scientist? Buffoon or bon vivant? The only thing she knew for certain was that he believed in ghosts and magic, and she would be far better off steering clear of him.

As she resumed her descent of the stairs, she forced her gaze to the woman with the wild mane of dark auburn hair. The light from the chandelier brought out the red in her tresses, surrounding her pixie face with extraordinarily rich color. She had enormous black eyes and an infectious, mischievous smile that seemed vaguely familiar. She was quite lovely despite what she was wearing—a man’s white dress shirt and black necktie over a wildly flowered dirndl skirt and paddock boots.

She glanced up suddenly and grinned with pure delight. “You must be Rachel,” she said, her voice honey-rich with the sounds of the South.

Bryan jerked his head up and stared openly at the woman on the stairs. He felt awed, paralyzed, thrilled—as if he were witnessing some kind of vision. The studs on his shirtfront strained as he tried to take in a deep breath.

Rachel stood on the landing, staring uncertainly back at him, her eyes wide, her hair spread out behind her in a fall of softest gold. The old-fashioned dress she wore bared her angular shoulders and hugged her small breasts just enough to hint at their fullness. With its straight lines and long skirt it was hardly a revealing garment, yet it emphasized her femininity and her own innate sense of class.

Jayne gave him a quick, practiced elbow to the ribs, her smile never wavering. “Bryan Hennessy, I know your mama taught you better manners than this.”

“What?” he asked, looking confused, then he snapped out of it. “Oh, yes. Jayne, this is Addie’s daughter, Rachel Lindquist. Rachel, this is Jayne Jordan Reilly, a friend of mine from college, and a friend of Addie’s as well.”

“I’m so pleased to meet you,” Jayne said, extending her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“But I arrived only last night,” said Rachel, a little taken aback by the stranger’s warm welcome.

Jayne shrugged, winding an arm through Rachel’s and leading her away from the stairs. “It’s a small town. News travels around here at the speed of light. What a lovely dress. Wherever did you find it?”

“Laid out on my bed,” Rachel said pointedly, her gaze meeting Bryan’s head on. He had the gall to look innocent. “Things have a funny way of turning up in my room.”

“Oh, honey, I’m not at all surprised.” Jayne waved a dainty hand, her purple fingernails flashing in the light from the chandelier. She leaned close to Rachel, her expression intensely serious, as if she were about to confide an enormous secret. “This house is haunted, you know.”

“So I’m told,” Rachel said, managing a polite smile. Her gaze darted to Bryan, flashing her disapproval his way.

“You haven’t been lucky enough to see Wimsey, have you?”

“No, I haven’t had the pleasure.”

Jayne frowned her disappointment. “Too bad. Addie’s the only one who’s actually seen him. My theory is their consciousness coexist on a single plane of understanding, while ours is on a dual plane, which is why we never see him. What do you think?”

Rachel stared at her for a moment, not quite sure how to respond. Jayne, while undeniably sweet, was apparently just as batty as everyone else in Drake House.

“Rachel doesn’t believe in ghosts,” Bryan said, handing her a glass of white wine. His eyes sparkled like sapphires. “Rachel is practical.” He said the word as if it were the name of a strict religious order.

Jayne’s dark eyes widened. She looked from Bryan to Rachel and back. “Oh, my.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come down earlier,” Rachel said, changing the subject. “I’m afraid I dozed off. I meant to help Mother with the meal.”

“Oh, Addie doesn’t cook,” said Bryan.

Her brows pulled together as she looked at him. “What do you mean? Mother used to work nights at a very nice restaurant when we lived in Berkeley. She’s a wonderful cook.”

“Not since the infamous incident of the fish-head soup and chocolate-laxative cake,” Bryan said.

Jayne rolled her eyes in dismay at the memory. “Reverend Macllroy was indisposed for a week.”

Bryan sighed. “Thankfully, the soup filled me up, and I passed on the cake.”

“You ate fish-head soup?” Rachel asked, both incredulous and nauseated at the thought.

“I prefer to think of it as a variation on bouillabaisse. It was hardly the strangest thing ever to cross my palate. A particular dinner in China comes to mind. They do things there with snakes—”

“That shouldn’t be discussed before dinner,” Jayne said firmly, giving him a look of disgust. She took Rachel by the arm again and steered her toward the dining room, interrogating and commenting all the way, her conversation flowing from one topic to the next without pause. “I think it’s just wonderful that you’ve come back to take care of Addie. We all try to check in on her from time to time, but it’s not the same. I hear you’re a singer. Will you look for work here in Anastasia?”

“I have a job lined up at the Phylliss Academy of Voice in San Francisco,” Rachel said, seeing no reason to hide the fact from them. At any rate, she needed to practice saying it. She was going to have to tell Addie soon, so they could make plans to sell Drake House and move.

“San Francisco?” Jayne said it as if it were a place totally foreign to her.

Bryan merely stood silent, his expression carefully blank.

“Yes. As soon as I get my mother’s affairs in order, we’ll be selling the house and moving to the city.”

“Does Addie know about this?” Bryan asked, taking great care to sound more neutral than he felt.

Rachel nibbled at her lower lip. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Not yet.”

At that moment Addie made her grand entrance into the dining room. Her style of dress was even more incongruous than Jayne’s. Over her flowered housedress she wore a filmy pink robe trimmed in pink ostrich feathers. On her feet, her ever-present green rubber boots. She took in the group with one regal, sweeping glance.

“Hennessy, my G and T, please.”

Rachel grabbed at Bryan’s coat sleeve. He turned toward her and her concern momentarily fled. He was so close. His mouth was no more than inches from hers as he leaned down toward her. She moistened her lips nervously as the memory of his kiss came flooding back. Beneath her fingertips and the fine wool of his jacket his arm was a rock of muscle.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered, easily reading her mind. “There’s almost no G in Addie’s G and T. I just splash some on the ice so I’m not really fibbing when I give it to her.”

He turned toward the sideboard to mix the drink. Rachel sighed, helpless to stop the sweet warmth flooding her chest. It would be so very easy to let herself fall for him. He was handsome and charming in a rather bizarre sort of way. He was so kind and solicitous toward Addie. She watched him hand her mother the weak drink. He winked at Addie and pretended to pull a quarter out of her ear.

“You’re an idiot, Hennessy. I don’t know why I keep you on,” Addie blustered, shooing him away, but there was a rare twinkle in her eye and a bloom in her cheeks that hadn’t been there when they’d returned home after the incident in the park.

How Rachel envied him that easy rapport with her mother. He didn’t have the burden of a past full of pain and mistakes weighing down his every word. He didn’t have the burden of a future full of heartache and sacrifice holding him back. He could walk away anytime he liked, and no one could ever fault him. He didn’t have to deal with issues like selling Drake House. All Bryan had to worry about was pulling quarters out of people’s ears.

They sat down to a meal of thick, aromatic beef stew and hot biscuits. It wasn’t exactly a five-course dinner to go along with the china and silver on the polished walnut table, but it was hearty, healthy fare and required only one utensil to eat it—an important consideration for Addie, who was slowly losing her ability to deal with a full complement of flatware.

“Hennessy is quite an adequate cook,” Addie said, dipping her biscuit into the gravy on her plate and nibbling at it delicately. “He’s an impudent rascal, insisting on eating at the table with the rest of us, but I tolerate him.”

Rachel frowned. Bryan wasn’t the butler, and she didn’t see any reason for him to be treated like one. But when she opened her mouth to set her mother straight, Bryan caught her eye and shook his head ever so slightly.

“That’s very big of you, Addie,” he said. “Not everyone is as generous and forgiving as you are.”