He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin) (20 page)

But he wasn’t going to do anything more than just be with her. He wouldn’t betray himself, or Alice, by taking advantage of Drew. What his body wanted to do
would
be taking advantage of her. He’d seen the heat in her eyes at dinner but that was probably just the psychic groupie factor. Something about him using his psychic abilities made girls hot. He didn’t want Drew waking up in the morning hating herself for a one-night stand with a drunk.

Who says it has to be a one-night stand?

Where had
that
come from? Dowser ran around the front of Drew’s car, almost shaking. More than a one-night stand would mean that he had moved on from Alice, and he might as well jerk his soul out through his dick as
do that
.

So. He wanted to be with Drew, just for a while, until he was really on his feet from detoxing. (Why didn’t he feel worse? He wouldn’t think about that right now.) Because she made him feel, well, not better, precisely.
Chaotic, alive, strong, needy, guilty, a thousand things besides better.
But he wanted her around. That was all. He was not going to give in to his needs and make love to her. He was not going to leave her feeling used, like that professor asshole made her feel.

He jerked open the passenger side door and slid in with a gush of dripping wetness. The wipers slapped against the windshield.

“What do we do now?”

“Tomorrow I’ll get a battery. Can you put off getting back to Miami for one more day?”

Was that relief in her eyes? “I guess so.”

“Hate to make you play taxi more than I already have.” Actually, he wanted to play any game she wanted, and some a proper girl like her would never mention. God, he was a prick. But he wouldn’t give in to it.
Then why did you sabotage your car?
Nope. Not thinking about that.

“I don’t mind.” She put the car into gear and pulled out onto the road.

The lights at O’Toole’s
sputtered and went out, along with the lone street light. The night darkened further as lights went out all over Key West. The drumming of the rain sounded even louder on the car, an attack on the senses. Was the electricity out on Sugarloaf too?

He might be going home to a dark house with Drew. He’d never been afraid of the dark.

Until now.

*****

“Can you get along without us?” Brian Tremaine asked his wife as he stuffed some underwear into
a leather
duffel with a gold monogram. “Could be a few days.”

“They’ll have Tris,” Kemble said. He set his own duffel, a carbon copy of his father’s, down on a chair in his parents’ bedroom. Done in
golds
and blues, their sanctuary overlooked Catalina. The setting sun cast a reddish light over the room.

“Tristram is coming with us.” What? Kemble and his father could rescue Drew. They didn’t need anyone else.

At that moment, Tris himself showed up with a battered backpack, stuffed full. Tris went to their mother and she presented her cheek for his kiss. “So can you hold the fort?”

“Mm-hmm,” she said. “Your father has arranged for more security than I’ll be able to stand while you’re gone.” She let her second son go and moved over to pick up a stack of shirts just back from the laundry.

“I think Tris should stay,” Kemble said tightly. “Just to be sure.”

“I wish I could let him stay,” his father said, taking the shirts. “But we may need his talents.”

Tris gave Kemble the roguish grin that fit so well with the scars and the tattoo peeking out of his tee shirt sleeve. “Never know when you’re going to need power.”

“The plane has fuel. And the rental car will run on gas.” What was wrong with him? Jealous that Tris had gotten a power and he hadn’t? Probably. And Tris was coming, no matter what Kemble said. He was just making himself look foolish. “Never mind,” he said, disgusted, more with himself than with Tris. He’d probably be of more use than Kemble could be.

“You were just concerned for our safety,” his mother soothed.

“As he should be,” their father said, his brow creased. “I don’t like this. Not one bit.”

“Can’t we take the company plane?” Tris growled. “She’s been gone almost a week. We need to get there fast.”

“I thought of that,” his father said. “It’s in Argentina.”

Of course his father had thought of that. He thought of everything. Kemble had streamed the TV show immediately off the Internet. It had taken a while to track down this guy Drew had gone after and longer to figure out where he actually moored his boat—
not at the fancy marina shown on TV, but in a run-down boatyard off Stock Key.
He should have worked faster.

“We’re booked on the eleven o’clock,” Kemble said, trying to cover up his shame, as always. “That gets us in first thing in the morning.”

It was Tris’s turn to look disgusted.

“It’s the best we can do,”
his father said, slinging his duffel off the bed.

Or the best his oldest son could do, anyway.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Was the battery really to blame for Dowser’s car problems? Drew wasn’t sure. Dowser surely had no reason to want her to stay after what she’d done to him, but he did seem to be warming to her.
Especially over dinner.
And now it was just possible he’d paid her back with her own trick: a missing distributor cap. Could it be he didn’t want her to leave after all?

She was sure glad for an excuse to stay, no matter how much heartbreak that meant.

The night was dark as hell without power anywhere. What fools there were out in this mess made traffic back up at every light, since they had all become four-way stops. The bigger resorts glowed again as their generators kicked in, but other than that, car headlights were the only illumination. Channels of crisscrossing light revealed the rain coming down in curtains. Dowser was silent, letting her focus on driving, until he pointed out the narrow track through the foliage to the shack. She’d almost missed it again.

She pulled up to the graveled parking area, and they made a run for it onto the porch. Now they were both soaked to the skin. That always made her laugh.

“
Whoo
!” she said, shaking her head. “That is some tropical rain storm. Sure it isn’t a hurricane?” She had to raise her voice over the clatter of drops on the tin roof.

“Nah.” Dowser ran a hand through his dripping hair to get it off his face. “Just summer in the Conch Nation.” His white shirt was translucent against his skin in the darkness. She thought she could make out the darker circles of his nipples through it. That made her shudder.

“You cold?”

She shook her head again. The rain was as warm as the heavy air. That wasn’t what was making her tremble.

“Let’s get in and get some dry clothes on.”

The thought of him stripping and toweling off had her dripping from more than the rain. She turned into the house and practically ran to the bathroom. She shut the door as though it was a drawbridge. God help her, he wouldn’t even have to lay siege and she’d be tempted to lower her defenses and surrender the castle. Her body seemed to be humming with some kind of urgency she’d never felt before. She put both hands out to brace herself on the sink, and just leaned there in the pitch black, waiting for her heart to stop pounding.

The knock on the door made her jump. “Got a candle here for you.” The door cracked open and his hand pushed through with a fat tallow candle stuck in an old brass candlestick.

“Thanks.” Was her voice really that shaky? She tried not to touch him as she took it. No luck with that. His skin gave her a warm electric shock, and it went right to her groin. She practically dropped the candle. “Out in a minute.”

Her robe was still hanging on the hook on the back of the door. It occurred to her that she’d never even packed this morning before they’d left to meet St. Claire. Had she really intended to go, or had she been secretly hoping that last night wasn’t the end?

She stripped off her wet clothes and draped them over the half circle rod that held the shower curtain around the tub, dried herself with one of the ancient towels she’d washed at the local Laundromat, and squeezed out her long hair, driving a rivulet of water into the sink. Pulling on the robe, she ran some water to wash her face and get ready for bed. The images that word brought on were not good.
Or very good.
No, not good. She soaped her face briskly. Just a moment here to get her balance and she’d be ready to go out and face him. Just go right to bed and she’d be okay. She looked down into the sink, ready to splash her face and was transfixed.

The candlelight was flickering and warm, but the vision in the water was clear and cold, independent of the room and the candle. A room was bathed in blue light from above. She was dressed strangely. Men she didn’t know were running toward the corner. More men were scattered around the big room. They had guns. “Wait,” one of them called. “Looks like they’re going to try a charge.” An elevator dinged. Fear of whatever or whoever was coming through that door drenched her.

The vision disappeared, leaving only flickering candlelight and a sink of water.

She staggered back and sank down on the edge of the tub. She’d had a vision.

Of what she had no idea. She didn’t know any room with blue light. It had been a big room. There’d been a big table maybe, with a box of flowers on it.
Some shadowy furniture.
Couches? She couldn’t be sure. She had no idea who those men were. She realized she was making little sounds as she gasped, and tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“You okay?” His gruff voice sounded right outside the door.

“Yeah,” she said, and it came out all tentative and quivery. “I ... I just slipped.”

The door pushed open and he filled the bathroom, dressed only in sweatpants. “Are you all right? Let me see.” He knelt in front of her and reached for her chin, turning it to look at her temples. That wasn’t helping her at all. His touch did things to her. Things that weren’t normal. Just like having visions wasn’t normal. “Did you hit your head?”

All she could do was shake the aforementioned head, because she was crying harder now. She was all off kilter. Had been all night. And she
did
have a power. And she wasn’t just making something up so she could make it come true this time, because she didn’t even know what that place was or who those people were or
when
it was either. Psychotic was still a possibility. But she didn’t feel psychotic. Did psychotics know that’s what they were?

Dowser was examining her wrists and hands methodically.

What she felt was incredibly alive and incredibly attracted to this man. And she had a power. And that meant, without a doubt, that he was her destined lover, even if she wasn’t meant for him. She was so screwed.
Because she liked him.
More than liked him. He was strong and good and smart, and he’d had a purpose in life before the unthinkable happened and Alice had gotten cancer. He’d sacrificed his happiness to do what Alice had asked of him. He loved her that much. And he could never belong to Drew. He belonged to Alice.

He slowly stopped his examination. But he kept his hands on her elbows. “Tell me where it hurts,” he said and his voice was gentle but rough at the same time.

She could do nothing but shake her head. He slid up to sit beside her on the edge of the tub and put his arm around her shoulders. She turned into that bare shoulder and the scent of damp man penetrated her senses. Oh dear Lord, if she didn’t get out of here she would start running her hands over the nipples that were quite clear now in the light of the candle. Or over those abs, perhaps squeezing his biceps. She managed to push away. “I’m fine.” She touched her cheek to wipe away her tears and realized she still had soap all over her face. “Oh, dear.”

He stood up and wetted a washcloth in the pool that had held her vision just a moment before. “I can take care of that.”

He was blocking the door to the tiny bathroom. Was that bad? The air seemed to pop and sizzle around her. Little fireflies of light swirled at the edge of her vision. She felt like she was living at the edge of ecstasy or oblivion. She really ought to know which it was, but she didn’t.

He squeezed out the washcloth and crouched in front of her to wipe her face gently. Her whole field of vision was filled with his rugged features, his broad, scarred chest and the biceps bulging in his arm as he wiped her face, soap and tears mingling.

“You want to tell me what happened?”

She swallowed and shook her head. She did not want to tell him she’d had a vision of what she was pretty sure was the future.

“You feel it too, don’t you?”

She blinked in surprise.

“The electricity between us.”

Yeah.
That, too.
She nodded. At least he felt it too. His love for Alice couldn’t take that part away. “Like I’m more alive than I’ve been in a while.”