Daddy Warlock (5 page)

He smiled with a trace of embarrassment. The expression
softened his face and hinted at another, more approachable side to him.

With a jolt, Tara realized what she'd been denying ever since she walked into this room. She was attracted to Mr. Chance Powers. It was more than mere attraction; all her senses had become heightened as if she were receiving signals from him at a subliminal level.

A few minutes ago, a door had seemed to shut between them, but gradually it had swung open again. She could feel his awareness sweep over and through her, touching the most private places. Without realizing it, she had become so aroused that if he were to sweep her into his arms at this moment, she would be ready for him.

Heat flooded Tara's face. How could this be happening again? Nearly seven years ago she'd made the same kind of mistake, and thrown her life in an unexpected direction.

She didn't need any more left turns into the unknown. She needed a job, and she wasn't going to ruin her opportunity by letting Chance know how he affected her.

“I suppose moving into my home would be unusual,” he said. “But, like a lot of people in my position, I maintain a home office that functions twenty-four hours a day.”

“I'm afraid I
don't
function twenty-four hours a day,” she retorted with more tartness than she'd intended.

He broke into a laugh. “I'm afraid I've given you the wrong idea. First of all, Ms. Blayne, the way my house is laid out, you and your son would have a private suite. Your own apartment, as it were. Your free time would be your own.”

She hated to admit how appealing that sounded The high cost of rent in Los Angeles was eating her budget
alive. Furthermore, she would love to transfer Harry to a different school, away from his fork-flinging nemesis.

Living in the same house with a sexy man could present problems. Yet since that moment when she'd felt a wave of desire, the vibrations between them had ebbed again. Surely she could keep her feelings under control, or perhaps they would disappear entirely with time.

“In addition,” the man went on, “I have a full-time housekeeper. He handles the routine cooking and cleaning, and he could watch your son when you're busy.”

The possibility of finding a live-in position had never occurred to Tara, since her skills lay in office work. But the advantages were obvious. With Harry in the same house, she could work evenings while he slept.

“What about travel?” she asked.

“I go to New York and Tokyo occasionally,” Chance said, “but not very often. And I might not need you to come with me. If I ever did, my housekeeper and his sister live on the premises, so between them, Ha—your son would be well looked after.”

Something was wrong here. Tara couldn't imagine why this man would make inquiries about her son, but apparently he had. “Did you start to say ‘Harry'?”

“Harry?” Chance blinked, a touch too quickly. “Who's—? Oh! Your son.”

“How did you know his name?” Tara pressed.

He studied her thoughtfully. She felt a tickle between her ears, as if the man were probing her mind and replaying her thoughts like a videotape. Searching for an explanation, some way to cover his blunder.

What blunder? Why am I so suspicious of him? What could he possibly be hiding?

Then he nodded with what she could have sworn was relief. “Sorry, but I realized that I
did
know his name
and I was trying to remember how. I called your former employer for a recommendation, and he must have mentioned the boy. Harry. Is he named after someone in your family?”

It was a reasonable explanation, and the man seemed on the verge of offering her the job. Tara hoped she wasn't turning into one of those foolish people who mistrust good fortune so much that they destroy it

“It's kind of silly,” she said. “You see, even though it was my first birth, Harry came out with almost no labor pains. If my waters hadn't broken first, I don't think I'd have had enough warning to make it to the hospital in time.”

It seemed like an inappropriate detail to reveal at a job interview, but Chance showed no reaction, so she went on. “My girlfriend, who was my labor coach, suggested I name him after Harry Houdini because he appeared as if by magic. So I did.”

Tara had intended to name the boy Andrew, after her father. But when she called him from the hospital and he spoke only words of condemnation, she had seized on Denise's suggestion.

“I've heard of that before,” Chance said. “That painless labor.”

“Even for a first-time mom?” The nurses at the hospital had been amazed. “Really?”

“It runs in certain families. Or so I've heard,” he said. “Well, when can you start?”

He was offering her the job! It was almost too good to be true, but Tara refused to yield to her doubts. The rent was due next week, so the sooner she moved out, the better. “How about Monday?”

“You can settle in over the weekend,” said her new boss, writing down directions to his house. “Will you
need any help? I could arrange to put your furniture into storage.”

“It's rented with the apartment,” Tara said. “I can manage the rest of the stuff myself. Thanks, Mr. Powers. I promise I'll do my best.”

“Do your best to call me Chance, will you?” he said.

“Certainly, Chance.” They shook hands and then, her head whirling, Tara marched toward the door.

It was hard to absorb that she was no longer unemployed. Then, realizing that he hadn't mentioned a salary, she paused. Would it be better to ask now or call later?

“The salary,” he said as if reading her thoughts, “is fifty dollars more per week than your old job.”

“That would be fine.” She would get a raise
and
a free place to live? At this rate, she should finally be able to put aside some savings!

Whatever doubts she might have about moving in with a stranger were pushed aside. In Los Angeles, lots of important people worked at home and employed staff there. Movie stars, for instance.

A financial adviser was hardly a movie star. But Tara had no intention of second-guessing her stroke of luck. She intended to spend the rest of spring vacation celebrating with her son.

T
HAT HAD BEEN
a close call. Chance couldn't believe his carelessness in revealing that he knew Harry's name.

The entire interview had been a test of his self-confrol. The moment Tara walked in, he'd felt himself drawn into her mind the way he had that night at his party. That had been a strange sensation, viewing his own office through someone else's eyes.

Not just his office but himself. Chance Powers, financial
hotshot, big and imperious, holding the reins of power.

He didn't want to control Tara or anyone else. If he were the sort of man who enjoyed manipulating others, he would have gone along with his father's scheme's.

Yet he
had
maneuvered her into moving in with him, and thank goodness for it. To have Harry living with him would mean plenty of opportunities to observe the child and influence him. And the boy would be much safer at Chance's house than living alone with an overworked single mom.

But there were other dangers created by the situation, Chance reflected, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. If he'd had this much difficulty holding himself apart from Tara during the interview, with at least one lapse, what would happen when they found themselves together night after night?

For him, the most difficult part of the interview had come when she described Harry's birth. He should have been there. She shouldn't have had to rely on a girlfriend, no matter how loyal. And Chance would give almost anything to have watched his son emerge into the light, and to hold the newborn infant in his arms.

Birth with little pain was a much-appreciated characteristic of the Powers family. The greater the magic talents, the easier the child's delivery into this world. Harry Houdini, indeed.

This son of his must be one unusual kid, Chance reflected. He couldn't wait to meet the little guy.

Tara was glad she had her new job to look forward to, because during these past few days it seemed as if everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.

The landlady refused to refund the security deposit and last month's rent because Tara was moving out on such short notice. Tara would have agreed except that she knew the woman had a grown son who wanted to occupy the unit as soon as possible. Finally, on threat of a suit in small-claims court, the landlady agreed to return the rent but not the deposit.

Then Harry fell off his bicycle, scraping his arm and chin and muttering that he didn't think he could chew. Alarmed that he might have broken his jaw, Tara rushed him to the emergency room. He turned out to be. only bruised, but the medical bill nearly fractured her bank account

Finally, when she came out to load the car on Friday afternoon, she discovered that some trickster had let the air out of her tires. The neighborhood abounded with undisciplined kids, and there was no telling which one had sneaked into the carport and done it.

As Tara stood staring at her sunken car and trying to figure out how to remedy the situation, an ice blue sports
car whipped into a space along the curb. The man behind the wheel, partially obscured by glare on the windshield, didn't move for a few minutes, and then she saw that he was talking to someone she couldn't see. Tara assumed he had a hands-free cell phone.

From the apartment building, Harry struggled out with his arms full of stuffed animals. As he passed the sports car, he stopped and peered inside.

“Hey, Mom!” he called. “This guy's talking to his car!”

“It's a mobile phone,” she said. “Come on, Harry, give the man a little space.” Hurrying toward her son, she got a better look at the driver and realized it was Chance Powers.

It was kind of him to help them move, since that was the only explanation she could think of for his presence. But how embarrassing to saddle him with the problem of how to revive her droopy tires!

“No, no,” said the boy. “He's really talking to the car!”

At that moment, Chance's door popped open without any apparent action on his part. Sunlight played across his thick dark hair, raising russet highlights. From this angle, his sculpted cheekbones and straight nose made him resemble a Greek sculpture.

She could smell the herbal fragrance of his shampoo, and feel the moisture on his skin as if he'd showered only moments before. She could see him stepping from the shower, beads of water gleaming on his tanned skin, mouth curving upward as he glanced into the mirror….

With a shock, she yanked her thoughts from the tantalizing image that presented itself. How dare she invade the man's privacy by imagining what he looked like naked.
Yet she had the weirdest sense that she
hadn't
been imagining it, but remembering.

“The boy's right,” he said, uncoiling from the tightfitting interior. “We were debating the best way to reinflate your tires.”

“Debating?” Tara knew that men enjoyed buying the latest gadgets, but to her knowledge even the most advanced cars restricted themselves to advising that the hatchback hadn't latched or the gas was low.

“It was hardly a debate,” came a sulky female voice from inside the car. “How could anyone believe a bicycle pump would have sufficient pressure to inflate a car tire?”

“The nearest gas station can't be more than a few blocks away,” Chance pointed out. “They would only need enough air to—”

“Then there was his other idea!” scoffed the car. “He was going to take off all four tires and pile them inside
me.
Does it look like I'm that kind of car?”

Reaching to the dashboard, Chance pressed a button next to the computerized map. The voice stopped.

“Wow!” Harry gave an excited hop. “That's cool!”

“I'm thinking of reprogramming it to say ‘Yes, master,'” muttered Chance, and then brightened. “You must be Harry.”

Tara introduced her son to her new boss. Despite her frustration about the tires, she was glad for the amusing distraction. Obviously, life at the Powers residence was going to be full of surprises.

She hoped that being exposed to Chance's computer wizardry would make Harry forget his attempts at feigning magic. The boy was old enough to differentiate between fantasy and reality, and to put his mind to practical
use. Having access to the latest technology would be a blessing.

Although she took pride in handling her own life, Tara had to admit that it felt good to have someone to turn to. Especially someone as solid and reassuring as Chance.

“As you can see, we've been the victim of some juvenile delinquent”, she said as her boss surveyed the sagging sedan. “Any suggestions? Short of calling a tow truck, I mean?”

“I'll bet I can fix it!” Harry dumped his teddy bears into the back seat and planted himself in front of a tire. “If I concentrate, I can make the air go in. Watch!”

To Tara's horror, the tire began, ever so slowly, to inflate. Or, rather, it appeared to be filling, but the illusion must have been due to the power of suggestion.

“Whoa!” Chance clapped the boy on the back, which had the effect of breaking his concentration. The tire drooped. “You'll bust your gut, blowing so hard!”

“I wasn't blowing,” Harry pointed out.

“I'll tell you what, sport.” The older man crouched to the height of the little boy. Puzzled, Tara observed that they seemed to resemble each other, not only in the slant of their eyes but also in the shapes of their ears. Then, blinking to clear her vision, she took a closer look and decided the resemblance was superficial. “I'll show you how a real man handles a situation like this, okay?”

Straightening, he took Tara aside. The brush of his hand against her arm nearly overwhelmed her selfcontrol. When they were touching, she felt intimately connected to him in a way she couldn't explain.

Chance's gaze was hooded. “You've probably got a lot to do inside, rounding up the rest of your things. I'll take care of getting help. This will give me a chance to get to know your son. He seems like a bright little boy.”

“A little too bright.” She knew Chance was going to insist on paying for the repairs himself, but at the moment she couldn't afford to stand on her pride. “Thanks, Mr. Powers.”

He quirked an eyebrow.

“Chance,” she said. “Thanks, Chance.”

“Don't worry about it.” He stepped back, admitting Harry to their conversation. “We'll have it taken care of in no time.”

H
ARRY HOPED
Mr. Powers wasn't going to make fun of magic. It was getting harder and harder to restrain himself, especially when there were problems that could be fixed so easily and that made so much trouble for his mother.

“Just let me do it, will you?” he told the man.

Chance crouched down again. It was nice to be able to look a grown-up in the face, especially when that face had a friendly expression to it.

“It's not that simple.” The man spoke seriously. “Harry, you don't want to let the whole world know what you can do.”

“Why not?”

“First of all, they'll think you're tricking them.”

That was true, but Harry was tired of worrying about other people's stupidity. “Yeah, but so what? I mean, this is
our
car. Why can't I fix it?”

“You know about bad guys on TV, don't you?”

Mom didn't let him watch violent shows, but there were bad guys in cartoons. “Sure.”

“What do you think a bad guy would do if he found out that a little boy could work magic?”

Harry got excited. “He'd make the boy open bank
vaults! And get passwords to people's computers so he could steal their money!”

“But first,” Chance warned solemnly, “he'd have to kidnap the little boy, wouldn't he?”

Harry's enthusiasm faded. He didn't want some robber taking him away. “Yeah. So you mean—” He swallowed hard. “Mom's right. I shouldn't do magic stuff.”

“Did I say that?” Chance shook his head. “The key, young fellow, is to do your magic so that nobody suspects. The first step is to take a good look around and make sure nobody's watching you.”

Harry felt good again. He'd tried to hide his magic when he was just fooling around, but when Mom needed him, he'd blundered ahead in full view of everyone. What Mr. Powers said made him feel more in control of himself. On the other hand…

“It's not right to keep secrets from Mommy,” he said.

The man sighed. “I'm glad your mother's raising you to be honest, and I don't want to change that. But until you get more skilled at doing magic, she isn't going to believe you.”

Was it possible that Mr. Powers meant what Harry thought he did? “You mean you could help me get better? And then we could show Mom, and she'd stop giving me such a hard time?”

“I hope that's how it will work.”

Harry decided he could trust this new friend, and not just because Mom liked him. There was something about Mr. Powers that seemed familiar, as if Harry knew him already. And he understood about the magic, which nobody else did.

“Okay,” Harry said. “What do we do?”

Chance surveyed the carport area and the adjacent street. “Can anybody see us?”

A delivery truck poked out of a driveway across the street. “He might notice something.”

“Then let's wait.”

It took several minutes, while a group of kids walked by on the sidewalk and then a lady came outside to empty her trash, before the coast was clear. Harry was afraid Mom would return before they got the job done, but finally Chance gave him the go-ahead.

“Now, here's something to consider,” the man said. “If you inflate one tire all the way, what will happen?”

Harry squinted at the car. “It'll be tipped funny.”

“And something might get damaged.”

“I should take turns, so they all get filled up a little at a time, right?” Harry was proud of himself for figuring it out

“Right.” Mr. Powers reached over and ruffled his hair. It was the kind of fond gesture that John Abernathy's father—the weekend dad who brought him to school on Monday mornings—sometimes used when he said goodbye. It gave Harry a warm, squishy feeling. “Want to try it?”

“Sure.” Harry squinted at the tires. This was harder than anything he'd done before, because he had to keep working at it. The car perked up a little but after a few minutes he couldn't push it anymore.

“I guess I'm not good enough,” he said.

An eyebrow lifted. “Not good enough? Do you know any other little boys who can put air into tires just by thinking about it?”

That made Harry feel better. “No.”

“You need to learn how to focus.” A half smile touched the man's face, as if he were remembering something. “I had to work things out for myself. I didn't dare
let my father know what I could do because he might make me do too much of it.”

“That doesn't make sense,” Harry said.

“It will when you're older.” The man returned his attention to the car. “What you have to do is to visualize the air going into the tire and puffing it out, one centimeter at a time. You were probably trying to do it all at once, picturing the tire completely back to normal, right?”

“Sort of.” Harry wasn't sure what he'd been doing. He'd always relied on instinct.

“Patience is required to do anything of substance.” Chance's face took on an expression as if he were staring at something no one else could see.

Harry got an eerie feeling. He'd never watched anyone else work magic, and he'd never thought about how it would look. Even before anything happened, he could feel power surging through the man.
He's really special.

Then he forgot everything but the car. Slowly, smoothly, the body began to rise as the tires regained their shape. There was no jerkiness as Mr. Powers transferred his attention from one wheel to another. It was almost as if he could control all four at once, which meant he
really
had this down pat

“About thirty pounds per square inch ought to do it,” said Chance, his expression returning to normal.

Before them, the car stood with quiet dignity on its restored tires. Harry went over and patted the bumper. “Wow,” he said. “Will you teach me how to do that?”

“Yes, under two conditions,” the man said.

Harry gulped. He hoped they weren't anything Mom would disapprove of, because he wanted to learn this stuff more than he'd ever wanted anything, except a father. “Like what?”

“Number one, nobody outside our household ever sees you do it,” Chance said. “No tricks at school. No impressing your friends.”

“Okay.” That wouldn't be easy, but Harry could handle it.

“And second, you never do anything to hurt or cheat anyone.” Mr. Powers wasn't smiling now. “No messing with people's minds or poking into other people's business. You can play games to amuse yourself, or you can help others if it won't attract attention, but that's all.”

What a relief. Harry had been worried that maybe this new friend would want him to do something bad, but obviously he didn't. “I swear.”

“And in return,” Chance said, “I promise to help you become an adept. That's a person who's highly skilled at using his abilities. I also promise that we'll tell your mother as soon as she seems ready. Okay?”

“Okay, Mr. Powers,” said Harry.

“You can stop calling me that. My name is Chance.”

“Sure, Chance.” That felt funny, for some reason. Mr. Powers didn't exactly fit, but neither did Chance. Harry wished he could call the man Daddy, but he didn't think either grown-up would approve. A man was either your father or he wasn't, and wishing wouldn't make it so.

A minute later, his mother came out carrying two suitcases. It was hard not to giggle when she saw the car and her mouth dropped open. “How on earth—?”