He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin) (19 page)

“Don’t need more,” Dowser said. “You get together your salvage effort and I’ll charge another five thousand for the charts so they can set up shop and loot the thing.”

But the two almost seemed to have lost interest in talking about the salvage. St. Claire looked at Rhiannon and cleared his throat. “We might have another job for you. Last few days we’ve been getting together some ... some renderings, just in case you could do this thing.”

“And you can really do this thing,” Rhiannon breathed. It sounded like a come-on.

Dowser slumped on a bench. “I don’t want another job. These things take it out of me.”

“Of course, of course,” Rhiannon said, going to sit beside him. Drew didn’t like the way she put her hand on Dowser’s forearm and leaned in, brushing her breast against his biceps. “We might be able to wait a couple days.”

“I’ll take her in, boss,” Ernie said, looking worried. “You’re none too spry right now.”

“Let’s wait for the divers, okay, Ernie?” Dowser grinned wearily. “Can’t leave them out here to the sharks.”

Ernie muttered darkly, “It’ll be midnight by the time we get home at this rate.”

*****

The divers hauled up something they said was a bell, totally encrusted in barnacles except for a patch of discolored brass here and there. They knocked off some barnacles until they could see letters incised in the old brass. “
ta
Ang
,” it said. Everybody cheered.

Drew was as exhausted as Dowser. The way home seemed like forever. Watching Rhiannon throw herself at Dowser gave Drew a cramp in her jaw from clenching her teeth. Only the thought of what her mother would say prevented her from decking the slut.

That and the fact that Dowser seemed pretty oblivious.
When Rhiannon got too obvious, he climbed up and spelled Ernie at the wheel. He motioned Drew to join him. The wind had come up a little, and it was cooler, so she was glad to move behind the glass of the pilot’s station.

“So, you really can do this thing,” she said, mocking Rhiannon’s breathy tone.

“Apparently,” he said dryly. He looked down at her. “You still think I might be a hoax?”

Did she? “The thought crossed my mind. But Carl says the
Santa Angela
is a really famous lost wreck. So you couldn’t have salted it.”

He sighed. “Sometimes I don’t believe it myself. Maybe because I don’t know how I do it, it must be real.”

Yeah. It was real all right.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was seven when
The Purgatory
finally pulled in at the little dock on Stock Island and Ernie jumped off to tie her up. St. Claire wrote Dowser a check for $25,000. He and Rhiannon went to celebrate at the Key West Resort where they were staying. Drew couldn’t say she was sorry to see them go. But her excuses for staying with Dowser were officially wearing thin. She’d take Dowser to his car ... and that was it?

“Hey, Dowser, five hundred is too much,” Ernie protested. “Hundred is more like it.”

“You just got me paid a lot more than that,” Dowser corrected. “You should be asking for a cut of the action.”

Ernie chuckled. “You got the stuff, Dowser, I just help with the boat.”

Dowser nodded. “Yeah. Keep the five hundred.”

Ernie grinned. “You two gonna celebrate?”

Dowser looked over at Drew. “How about dinner?”

Drew wanted a lot more than dinner. She swallowed. “Restaurant might not be such a good idea. Not if they serve booze.”

Dowser looked around a little blankly, and said, “Huh, I don’t really feel the need right now.” He frowned. “That’s ... strange. But just to be safe, I know this little place on
Cudjoe
that serves the
best fried
conch in the keys. And homemade Key lime soda.”

Drew couldn’t help her smile. “Done.”

Ernie drifted back to his own boat, grinning. Dowser’s gaze held hers. Was that heat she saw there? He swallowed once. He looked like he was deciding something. Then he held up a finger. “Just a sec.”

He turned on his heel. “Ernie,” he called, catching up with the old man. Dowser said something in a low voice. Ernie grinned and touched two-fingers to his temple.

Dowser hurried back over. “Let’s take your car.”

*****

Dowser sat sipping Key lime soda, just looking at her. The little tin-roofed conch shack was on the west side of the island, so the setting sun cast a reddish light over the Formica tables and the torn linoleum. Laughter rang around them at the ten small tables as the locals got their conch fix under the wop-wop of the overhead fans. The light made her black hair glow with a reddish tint, like it was on fire. So many feelings were colliding around in him that he felt like a bumper car ride. He felt alive, for one thing.
More alive than he’d felt since Alice died.
For some reason it didn’t even bother him that some of the locals had brought in their own cold beers. Maybe it was that alive feeling causing the hum of desire that had settled like a permanent tenant in his groin. Or maybe it was the way Drew’s lips pursed around her straw. And then there was the fact that he liked Drew Tremaine. She had guts. She had pushed ahead even when she was scared of him, for instance. And she was smart. Not only had she beat him at poker, but she’d walloped that diver who thought he was a chess player today on the boat. The guilt was still there, of course, lurking inside him. But the future, which had once looked like the Gobi Desert for bleakness, wasn’t quite so bleak anymore. That should make him feel even guiltier. He’d let it take over again tomorrow, he promised. But right now he was okay with the fact that guilt had a little competition for his soul.

“So where’d you learn to play chess?”

She grinned. “Didn’t think you saw that. You were at the wheel.”

“Took that kid awhile to realize you were his match, or better.”

“Yeah, well there’s a lot of that going around.”

“Point taken.” He suppressed a smile. “So where’d you pick that up? College?”

“Oldest brother, Kemble. I was the only one besides Father who’d play with him.” She sipped her drink. “Not Tris’s style, and the rest of the Brood were too young.”

Talk with Drew for any length of time, and her family always came up. Dowser wondered what it would be like to have a family like that. “How old were you?”

“Hmm.” She touched a red nail to her lip. God, but he wished she wouldn’t do that. He could feel it right in his balls. “Maybe ten. Kemble would have been seventeen.”

He tried to imagine a seventeen-year-old boy teaching his ten-year-old sister how to play chess. Must have been desperate.

“He
was
desperate.” Had she read his mind? “Father was in Bangladesh or something. Kemble was spending long hours designing a system for tracking the supply lines there. He needed some downtime.”

“And chess was his downtime.”

Her smile and downcast eyes were devastating. She shrugged. “That’s Kemble.”

The tubby waitress brought over the food. Drew had ordered a salad with fried conch on it, and Dowser had gotten his straight with lots of homemade tartar sauce and some shake-on chili sauce from Belize. Salad or no, Drew dug in with an appetite.

“Ooh. This is good,” she mumbled, spearing another conch piece.

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Sorry. I thought it might be ... I don’t know, tough or something. And I don’t usually eat fried foods.” She chewed and swallowed. That drew his attention to that slender throat. It made his breath catch. “But this is great.”

“You know they call these islands the Conch Nation.”

“I thought that was a drug reference or something because everyone here is really, uh, relaxed.”

He made a deprecating grimace. “Well, a little bit. But it’s based on fact. Nobody does conch better than the Keys. And Lillian’s is the best.”

She waved a fork in agreement, since her mouth was full. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted
anything
this good,” she said after a minute.

Funny. He hadn’t either. His taste buds were bursting with the flavor assault. And the limeade was cool and refreshing. Even the smell of the clean hot grease they were using in the back for frying smelled better than he could remember anything ever having smelled. Except maybe Drew, as she had hung over him that morning, wiping down his naked body and apologizing for not making him more comfortable, the fresh, clean smell of her after her shower, the damp scent of wet hair, not quite covered by the scent of coconut
shampoo.…

Uh-oh. Better not think about that. He was already in trouble, and now it was just going to be embarrassing if he had to get up anytime soon. He watched her eat for a minute. But that wasn’t any better. Under his gaze, she flushed and looked down at her plate. Damn, she knew he was looking at her. The heat from his loins must have made it up to his eyes.

But she wasn’t a coward. She lifted her head and he saw that same heat reflected back at him. He couldn’t believe his good luck.
And his forethought.
Tonight might just be one very good night.

What was he thinking? How could he even contemplate a one-night stand when he’d known the love he had with Alice?

*****

Oh, God. She’d done it now. She’d let him see how bad off she was. She was certain it had showed in her eyes. Not her fault. Any woman in her right mind would want him and just have to hope she could remain in her right mind. Drew didn’t want to go back to Miami tonight. She wanted to go home with Dowser. And maybe tie him up again. Only this time she wanted him moaning only her name, not in anger but in ecstasy as she....

How could she have thoughts like that? She’d never thought about Roger that way. With Roger, she’d always thought about them having children, and continuing the genetic line of the magic. But she hadn’t wanted to lick his body all over until he moaned her name.

It was all this tropical heat, and the scent of the huge hydrangea outside the little shack, almost like cake batter, and the mouthwatering conch on her salad, which was crisper and greener and more tasting of the earth the vegetables were grown in than any other salad she’d ever had. This whole evening was a sensory all-you-can-eat buffet.

Dowser had gone a dusky red under his tan. Her blatant need for him had embarrassed him. Great. She focused on her meal.

Dowser cleared his throat. “So, what was the job you had in mind for
The Purgatory
?”

“What?”

“You know. The reason you came down here in the first place.” He was only toying with the last of his conch now.

Dreadful. She couldn’t tell him the real reason she had come. But she had no specifics to back up her general lie that she wanted to hire the vessel. “Uh ... just ... just treasure hunting in general. I heard you were good. I thought you might know of a wreck we could go looking for....” Lame.
Very, very lame.

“Oh.” When his black brows came together over that strong, crooked nose it did something to her already throbbing groin. “Uh, just adventure-seeking?”

She nodded a little too eagerly. “I needed some time away from the family.”

Again with the frown.
“Uh. Okay.”

Now neither of them was eating. Dowser tore his gaze away from her face and looked out over the darkening beach to the clouds piling up from the south. “Looks like it might rain again.” When he looked back, his eyes had a heat in them. Could he be feeling the same desire that was drenching her?

“Want to get out of here?” he asked, voice husky.

“Yeah.” She tried to make it sound matter-of-fact. In spite of what that husky voice was doing to her. She had to go home sometime. That felt so wrong it almost made her physically ill. “Yeah, I should get going before the deluge.”

“Can you drop me by the dock? I’ll pick up my car.” He looked away as though he didn’t want her to see his expression. Was it satisfaction, or guilt? She couldn’t quite tell.

“Sure.” But she wasn’t sure of anything at all.

*****

Dowser leaned over the engine in his old Camaro. He was soaked to the skin. Warm rain splatted in huge drops against his back and water dripped from his forelock over the engine. He straightened, dropped the hood, and shook his head. “Battery must be dead.” He had to almost shout to Drew, dry in her car next to him, over the clatter of the deluge on the car hood.

Ernie had performed his assignment well. Two could play the game of the missing distributor cap. He had spent an intense and confusing dinner, his senses heightened, his need almost painful. And that was just the finale to a day where he had been incredibly conscious of her, even when he’d been focused on finding the wreck. He couldn’t let her disappear from his life forever just yet.