Mistress of Magic (10 page)

“
Just who
, Miss Delaney?” Wiler persisted.

“No one. I’m so tired, I really can’t think,” she said wearily.

“Maybe someone did know that you would be out.”

Reggie pressed her temples between her thumb and forefinger. “Maybe. I don’t know. But gentlemen, it has been a very long day, and I’m going to have another long day tomorrow. If you don’t mind …?” She let the implication trail as politely as she could.

Wiler stood. “Well, we can keep a patrol going around the area for the night, I suppose. We’ll see what we can find out with these prints, too. Let’s hope that he—or she—doesn’t come back!”

Reggie stiffened, some of her exhaustion dropping away as little tingles of fear seized her again.

Someone had been here.

Someone with a gun. And the police were just going to keep a car circling around the neighborhood.

Wes was staring at her again. Hard. With the same look of aggravated disbelief he had given her when she had thrown open the door in the hope that he was still alive despite the gunfire.

“There’s no alarm on this house, is there?” Wes asked, frowning.

“This is not a crime-ridden city—” Reggie began.

“This is the twentieth century!” he responded irritably. He looked at Wiler. “It’s all right. I’ll stay.”

Wiler nodded. “I’m sure you know your business, Colonel.”

“Wait!” Reggie began, but Wiler was already rising; his men, with all their paraphernalia, were following him as he quickly strode to the door, talking all the while to Wes.

“I don’t have the manpower for this sort of thing myself. Have you got a piece?”

“In my car.”

“A permit? You are a civilian now, I take it.”

“Yes, and yes, I have a permit,” Wes told him.

“Wait!” Reggie tried again.

They might have all gone deaf. No one paid her the least heed. “Good night, Miss Delaney.” Wiler suddenly stopped short in the doorway to wag a finger at her. “You take care, Miss Delaney. And when you think of something, you let me know!”

“Sergeant—”

“Somebody knows something here, and somebody had best start talking soon! Keep in touch,” he warned over his shoulder.

Wes had followed him halfway down to his car, his hands on his hips, watching as Wiler’s car—then the other three—churned into action and started down the drive. Then Wes went to his car, opened the passenger door and reached into the glove compartment.

Reggie didn’t know anything about guns. Nothing. She’d never had to know anything about them—she had never wanted to know anything about them. She didn’t know what it was that Wes carried, except that it was silver and sleek and compact. She felt cold just staring at it.

He walked up the steps, the long nose of the gun pointed downward. He held the weapon comfortably, like a man familiar with it.

He looked at her, his head cocked. “I know. You don’t want me staying here.”

She shook her head slowly. “I never said that.”

“Well, I’m staying.”

He was so stubborn. She smiled suddenly, wryly. “For your information, smarty-pants, I’m glad that you’re staying. I was shot at this evening. I guess—”

“You guess what?”

“I guess that I might have been frightened if I knew I had to stay here alone tonight.”

“That’s sensible.”

“And you weren’t expecting it. People who dream up dinosaur characters can’t be sensible, is that it?”

He stared at her, a slow smile curving his lips. “No, that isn’t it at all.”

“Oh!”

“Women who throw open doors when they hear shots exploding can’t be expected to be very sensible,” he told her.

“Next time I think you might be injured, I’ll just let you bleed to death,” she informed him in a lofty tone.

“Let’s go inside.”

Reggie turned and walked into her house. “Yes, come in, Mr. Blake. And please—you’re always such a reticent man! Do make yourself at home.”

She felt him behind her. Felt the warmth of his breath whispering over her nape. “I intend to, Miss Delaney. Trust me. I intend to.”

Reggie didn’t really mean to be rude; she was glad he was staying—glad that
someone
was with her, someone who didn’t seem to be afraid in the least of violence.

If she was rude at that point, it was simply because she felt so awkward.

But Wesley Blake didn’t make a bad houseguest. She told him that he didn’t need to curl up on the sofa or anything, that there were three guest rooms on the second floor, the most comfortable being the upper corner room with the kind-size bed. But even saying the word
bed
to him brought a surprising rush of color to her cheeks and she turned away as she spoke.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” she murmured. “I have to change now. There’s coffee or tea in the kitchen, beer in the fridge, and there’s a bar in the family room. There’s cheese in the drawer, crackers in the cabinets—”

“I’m all right,” he told her. Then he smiled slightly. Her discomfort must have been obvious. “I’ll be down here in the library. I saw rows of books and a television. I’m sure I can entertain myself.”

She left him and hurried upstairs to her room and the private bath to the side of it.

At long last she stripped off the black net hose and the dance hall dress, making a mental note to drop it off at the front of the park for cleaning and return it to the show first thing in the morning. Naked, she stepped beneath the spray of the water.

As the warm, steaming water streamed over her, she felt each drop, each touch. And she was thinking about the man who was in her library, just yards away.

She had tousled his hair with dino-fingers.

She wondered what it would feel like to
really
touch him. Short and sandy, his hair would be crisp and rich beneath her fingertips. And the texture of his face. A face so handsome and masculine, the rugged face of a western hero, perhaps.

Where the water touched her, she imagined his hands. Rivulets poured over her shoulders and dripped between her breasts. And water fell softly and in cascades against her navel and trickled in a hot burst slowly between her legs.

She gasped in dismay at her thoughts and closed her eyes tightly.

Was he really the first decent man who had walked into her life in so long? Had she forgotten love so quickly?

No to both questions, she defended herself. She knew a number of fine men, they’d just never …

Never touched this longing, this need, inside her.

And she had never forgotten love. Neither the love she had felt for Caleb, nor the pain of his loss.

But he had been dead for nearly three years. And like it or not, Wesley Blake had awakened things in her that had not been set at rest when she had buried Caleb.

Maybe he had even awakened new things; she had been so much younger when she had fallen in love with Caleb, and the emotions, the sensations, had taken time to develop and grow.

Yet with this man …

“My Lord, I must be horrible!” she whispered. The water thundered in her ears in reply.
He is no one in my life!
she wanted to cry.

He had just come for Max. He would stay until the trouble had been cleared up. And then he would go back to his own life.

Did it matter? Wasn’t that for the best?

She set her face beneath the spray of water and tried dully to remind herself that Wes was in her house because someone had come in here today. Someone had violated her privacy.

Someone had shot at her, had just missed her head by inches.

And that someone might have taken aim against her again if Wes hadn’t flattened her to the ground—angrily. Despite that sexy smile, he also had a way of speaking in an unequivocal tone, as if he was explaining things to a toddler.

He gave orders. He expected them to be followed.

She turned off the water with a jerk and stepped from the shower. She quickly wrapped herself in the soft pink well-worn terry robe that hung from the hook on the bathroom door.

What a thing to wear downstairs! she chastised herself. First he was out with a red-draped hussy. Now he’d find himself staying with a hausfrau!

She was tempted, tempted beyond belief, to dig through her closet and find something more attractive, something … alluring.

She clamped down hard on her teeth and assured herself that even if her thoughts were running to the base side, she was civilized and grown-up, capable of controlling such insane urges.

He had his annoying ways about him. And he had his appeal. Yet even while insisting that he stay, he had been above board about it all. The man had no intention of seducing her.

Would he even want to?

She drew a hard knot in the belt of her robe, pushed back the damp wings of her hair and looked at her reflection in the mirror.

Squeaky clean. That was the best that could be said for her. She didn’t dare think any longer. She hurried down the stairs.

She could hear the news playing on the television from the library. She ducked her head in quickly.

He had heard her, it seemed. She had padded down the stairway in barefoot silence, but he had heard her. He was looking up, waiting for her to appear. He was comfortably seated on the big leather chesterfield sofa, a Robert Ludlum paperback in his hands, a mug of something hot on the coffee table before him—and the gun in the center of the table.

“Hello,” he said, after having waited for her to speak.

She nodded, stepping into the room. It was her house, she reminded herself.

“Are you all set? There are towels in the closet in the bath. I was just thinking, there are three rooms up there, but the bed is only put together in that last one. My housekeeper doesn’t like to keep sheets on beds when they’re not in use and she does such a wonderful job that I let her really have the run of the place. It is the most comfortable room—”

“I’ll be fine.”

She nodded again. She winced then, looking at the gun. “Does that have to be there?”

“It has to be in reach.”

“Guns are just so—deadly.”

He shook his head. “A gun itself is a tool.
People
are deadly—not guns.”

“Well,” she murmured awkwardly. “It’s late. I guess I’m going up.”

“I’m really sorry,” he told her softly. There was such a curious light in those gold eyes. They touched her. They saw something in her.

Oh, God, please don’t let him know the way I’m feeling! she thought in panic. He wouldn’t understand. No one would understand. I don’t even understand!

But it wasn’t that.

When she had stood him up, he had been angry. When he wanted his way for his own purpose, he was going to get it.

But she was uncomfortable now, and he knew it, and he was truly sorry for it.

“If you think I don’t want you here, that I wish you’d go home, you’re wrong. I appreciate the fact that you’re staying. I like living.”

“Do you?”

“Of course.”

His smile deepened, his lashes lowered slightly. “That’s good to hear. Go on. Get some sleep. You will have lots of long days to come.”

“You’re sure you’re all right? You’ll find everything?”

“I’m fine. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Reggie ran up the stairs to her room, closed the door and catapulted onto her bed. She lay on her back, her fingers closing around the spread, her heart seeming to beat thousands of beats in a matter of seconds.

Think! Think of something else! Think of someone else. Think of a new puppet, a new song, a new character, think of Max …

Think of Caleb.

But neither ghosts nor any creatures of the imagination would come to her now. She lay there wretchedly in the darkness and thought of the man downstairs.

Why couldn’t he have been an ancient old widower?

He was a widower, she remembered. That was one of the reasons she had assumed he would be old.

So who lay in his past? What ghost did he conjure in moments like this?

What woman had touched his sandy hair in truth, stretched her fingers over the broad expanse of his chest, lain beside that rugged bronze flesh.…

She groaned softly and turned, burying her face in her pillow. Come, sleep! Please. But sleep eluded her for a long time.

Long past the moments when she heard the quiet sound of his footsteps on the stairs. Long past the time when she heard him enter the far guest room.

Long, long past the time when she heard the water running in the shower, heard it stop.

Heard the creak of the bed.

Heard … silence.

Then, thankfully, somewhere along the line, she slept.

Until she woke to the startling sound of an explosion in the street.

Chapter 7

T
he sound brought her leaping instantly to her feet. She switched on the overhead lamp, desperate for light, and raced into the hallway. “Wesley!”

He was up, too. Standing just outside his doorway. He had slipped his pants on. His chest was naked, taut, rippling with bronze muscle in the glare of the light.

His hair was tousled, his expression irritated.

But Reggie took those things in slowly. She ran the length of the hallway, leaping right into his arms. He held her while her teeth chattered and she gasped out, “Gunfire, downstairs! Didn’t you hear it?”

He sighed. With exasperation. “It was a car, Reggie.”

“What?”

“It was a car.” He caught her arm and drew her into the guest room, to the window. From the second floor, she could see the length of the street. Far down the scarcely inhabited street, her neighbors’ teenage son was out with friends, laughing—so it appeared—at the antics of a prized ’57 Chevy.

Reggie exhaled a slow, wavering sigh. She’d been on her toes. She sank to her feet.

She became very aware of Wes, standing silently beside her. His arm just touching the fabric of her robe. Heat seeming to emanate from his body.

The hair on his chest was almost white. The bronze color of sleek flesh rippled beneath it.

“I—” she murmured.

“You!” He was suddenly wagging a finger at her. “Let’s say that had been a gunshot. Reggie, you don’t turn on a light!”

“But it was dark—”

“That’s right, Reggie. No one can see you in the dark, or aim at you in the dark! Got it?”