01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin (39 page)

In the light of the fires, they
limped around to the corrals. The horses were wheeling and pacing
in their corrals, neighing frantically. “They’re far enough away
from the fire. They’ll be all right,” he said. “They’re just
scared.”

“I can take care of that.”
Maggie managed a lopsided smile. “Better back away. I’m not too
good at aiming this thing. I might put you to sleep.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

She gave him a speculating look.
“Will you?” Then she turned to the horses, and ramped up the calm
until they were standing quietly.

“Now can we get outta here?” he
sighed.

“You need a doctor.” She began
to fret. “No ER in Austin. Maybe old doc Riley....”

“I just need some sleep.”

She started to protest but
thought better of it. “Let’s hope Shady Pines isn’t full up.”

Wait. What was he thinking? “We
got one more thing to do.” The people trying to kill them weren’t
the only enemies. “Police are going to find this at some point.” He
looked around. “That Elroy?” He pointed to the scattered bones and
ashes.

She nodded.

“Looks like a home invasion to
me. Fire was an accident. Killed Elroy, who ran out of the house.
Leapt to the cars and the tree.” That worked, maybe.

“What about the guy crushed by a
truck that doesn’t have a working engine?”

Good point. There was only one
answer to that. He glanced to the house. About to collapse. He
didn’t have much time. He started off at a lopsided trot to the
body, managed a fireman’s carry to get it over his shoulder. He
staggered back to the house.

“You can’t go in there!” Maggie
shouted.

“There’s still a way in through
the door. Just need a minute,” he gasped.

“Screw the sheriff,” she said,
angry, walking beside him. “If you kill yourself now I’ll never
forgive you, Tris Tremaine.”

“Noted.” He staggered up the
steps. He wasn’t going to have the police blaming Maggie for this.
The porch roof cracked above him and showered down pieces of
burning shingle. This would have to do. He heaved the body forward.
It flopped down on its back. He staggered down the steps as the
roof cracked again, louder. Maggie screamed. Tris leaped out.

Which was a good thing, because
the whole porch roof caved in, sending spirals of sparks into the
air. Then Maggie was by his side, pulling him up. He scrambled
forward and collapsed in time to see the whole shack cave in on
itself.

Burning legs stuck out from the
porch. “Like the Wicked Witch of the West,” Maggie said.

He couldn’t let Maggie watch
that. “Okay,” he said, managing to push himself up. Not many
reserves now. “It’ll look like the timbers crushed him. That’s your
story.”

“I can do that.” She pulled his
arm around her shoulders.

As they passed the rusted truck,
Tris patted its hood. “Job well done, Grandpa. Thanks.”

Maggie looked up at him and gave
him a smile. God, he loved her smiles. It was a little one, but it
was... tender. He couldn’t think straight right now. Tender might
actually be a bad thing. But it made him smile back. He couldn’t
help it. Together they limped toward the Ducati.

Which was still out of gas.
“Damn.” He heaved the bike upright and staggered. His remaining
strength seemed to be fading with his adrenalin rush.

“Is that a hole in the gas
tank?”

“Yeah. Met a guy on the road who
could cloak his car. Same one that drove the semi.”

She looked shocked. “That’s why
the semi disappeared in my rearview mirror! Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
the driver had one of those powers.”

He nodded dumbly. Was there any
way he had enough strength to syphon off energy from the earth one
more time and power the Ducati?

They didn’t say anything for a
minute. The flames flapped at the last of the shack. The only wall
standing collapsed inward, startling them both. Then Maggie asked,
in a small voice he could barely hear, “Where’d you run out of
gas?”

Shit.
But he wouldn’t lie
to her. “Forty, fifty miles out.”

Silence for another minute. They
might stand here staring at the Ducati all night at this rate. “You
came into your magic, didn’t you?”

“How... how did you know about
magic?”

“Your mother. I thought it was
bullshit, even though I finally realized she’d healed you. Maybe I
wanted to believe it was bullshit, because of what happened out at
the kids’ camp. But now....” She looked around at the blaze that
was once her home. “So answer my question.”

She deserved a straight answer.
“Looks like I can draw energy from the earth or something. I’m not
quite sure. I can power machines.”

It was her turn to nod
thoughtfully. “It had to be something like that, didn’t it?” She
sighed, looking over at the old truck, now frozen again, no more
looking like it could run than that it could fly. Hell, maybe he
could make it fly. Who knew?

“I can try to make the bike
run,” he said doubtfully.

“Save your strength. I got a gas can in
the tool shed, if you can plug that hole with a strip off this
shirt.”

*****

Maggie had her arms around Tris,
clinging to him like a starfish or something. He was warm and solid
and he’d gotten his power. She couldn’t think what that meant right
now.

“I’m gonna rev the engine. When
we start moving, you put your feet up around my waist onto the gas
tank between my legs.” Tris’s voice sounded bone weary.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Racing bike. Doesn’t have
passenger footrests.”

In for a penny, in for a pound.
That meant something more than just riding a cycle.

He revved the engine. She swung
her legs up and rested her heels on the gas tank. Her core was
pressed into his butt, her arms around his bare ribs and muscled
abdomen. The throb of the engine was... interesting. She gave a
little yip of surprise.

“You okay?” he said, looking
back with a worried frown.

“Yeah. I never rode a cycle
before.”

He chuckled. “Wait ’til you feel
a Harley. Women say it’s like sitting on a washing machine. In a
good way.”

She smiled. Yeah. Even though
she was beat up, orphaned, and almost raped, Tris Tremaine could
make her smile.

That was something you just
couldn’t throw away, could you?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Maggie couldn’t get the image of
Elroy, burning like a dried-out Christmas tree, out of her head.
And the feel of Prentice’s wet mouth on hers, his hands on her
body.... She clenched her eyes shut and blurted, “Don’t we need to
report that you were shot?”

Tris was eating steak with
single-minded purpose. Jake had been heading to his car when Maggie
and Tris pulled into the Shady Pines lot next door to the diner.
Jake hurried over in concern. She told him about Elroy and the
shack. Did a pretty good job of hewing to the story line, too.
Whether anybody would believe the home invasion story, she didn’t
know. The shack didn’t scream “valuables here for the taking.”
Ethel delivered two steak dinners and a bag of clothes half an hour
later. Maggie was drowning in the shirt and jeans but at least she
was decent.

She tossed the french fry she’d
been toying with onto the plate. The best distraction from the
events of tonight was Tris. He sat on one of the double beds in his
boxers, hair wet from his shower, his leg propped up and a towel
pad tied around it with a strip of sheet. He was leaving red
rosettes on the pillows from the cuts on his body. They’d owe Tom
some replacement linens. She hoped he could wait until tomorrow to
get to a doctor. She’d have to borrow a car if he couldn’t drive
the Ducati. She sure couldn’t drive it.

Tris couldn’t help that he
didn’t currently own a viable shirt and the one Jake brought was
about three sizes too small. The fact that the muscles moving under
his tattoo were driving her crazy was her fault, not his. His
single-minded zeal in attacking his dinner made Maggie wonder if it
was an effort to avoid talking about other things.

And why not? What was there to
say? Had anything changed?

Well, he’d dashed more than five
hundred miles on a motorcycle to get here and gotten shot along the
way. And he came into a power. If Mrs. Tremaine was right, that
meant true love. Unbelievable, but Maggie was the only current
candidate for causing that transformation.

Tris Tremaine might love
her.

That scared her shitless. She
loved him, of course. Loved him so much it hurt, deep inside her.
But if he loved her, would it make a difference in his wandering
ways? Did a leopard ever really change its spots?

“We’ll pretend I wasn’t
here...,” he said, answering a question she’d forgotten she
asked.

“Tom won’t blab. That’s how he
stays in business. But Ethel isn’t known for discretion.”

He sighed. His knife hovered
above his steak, uncertainly.

“Why... why did you come all the
way out here?” She should
not
be asking that question unless
she wanted to let herself in for a world of hurt.

His lips turned down even as his
brows drew together. “Because my father, who is way smarter than I
am, figured out you might be in danger.” He sounded defeated.

He’d come all this way just
because she was in trouble. “Guess I haven’t said thanks.”

“You don’t have to say
anything,” he said gruffly. He cleared his throat. Would he...?
Then he looked away.

That was it. Maggie’s heart
clenched. He might love her but he wasn’t going to do anything
about it. Bring a cowgirl into the Tremaine family? Not hardly. Get
tied down to her, have kids, make a family...? It almost made her
laugh. If she stayed with him because she loved him more than
living itself, which was about how much it felt like right now,
being as it was about to kill her, then she’d end up watching him
screw everything in sight. And what about her? She was probably
genetically wired to leave him if the going got tough. Just like
her mother.

So it was time to move on. He
was all the heartache she knew he’d be and more. She just hadn’t
been smart enough not to get caught. She set aside her plate and
got up briskly without any idea where she wanted to go. She paced
to the door and then... paced back. “Well, we’ll just say you
happened by to visit and the guy shot you, of course. Elroy got
blasted by the explosion. Nothing simpler.” Back to the door.

“Bullet in me won’t match the
Firestarter’s gun.”

“Oh.” Back to the bed. “Well,
maybe they’ll never check. They’ll just assume.”

“Maybe.” He was watching her.
There was something in his eyes. She looked away. Back toward the
door. Just keep pacing.

Until what? Until she could
crawl in bed alone and drive herself crazy thinking about him?
Until she could leave tomorrow? Where would she go? Her steps
slowed. Pain struck her head, her joints.

“You gonna be okay?”

She sat abruptly in the chair
with the faded upholstery. No, she was not going to be okay. But
she couldn’t tell him why. “Place still has a mortgage.”

“Insurance?”

She shook her head.

Then it hit her. She was wrong. Her
mother hadn’t left her. She’d stayed, in spite of being unhappy
with Elroy. Had she ever even had an affair with the propane
delivery guy? Or was that in Elroy’s imagination too? It didn’t
matter. Maggie wasn’t what Elroy had always told her she was. Tris
wasn’t what his family assumed either. She wasn’t doomed to leave
him, and maybe he wasn’t doomed to leave her either. They’d both
spent their lives thinking they were disappointments, not worth
loving and caring for. In fact, her genes predisposed her to be
something pretty damned special. So did his. She didn’t relish
taking a chance that he’d leave her. But she was stronger than
she’d ever given herself credit for. Look how hard she’d worked to
have no connection to anyone. What if she worked that hard at
loving Tris? And anyway, leaving without even fighting for what she
wanted was letting Elroy win in some strange way.

*****

The look on Maggie’s face was
meant to be strong, but it must be covering up forlorn. She didn’t
have enough money to rebuild. The urge to protect her was so strong
it made Tris’s stomach tighten. He had money enough to rebuild
whatever she wanted. But how would he ever get proud Maggie O’Brian
to accept it from him? Selfish bastard. He really only wanted her
for himself. He never wanted to let her go. He wanted to take care
of her, better than he had tonight, and make love to her and see
her face transformed from forlorn acceptance into passionate
release because he’d made everything right. He wanted to wipe that
fuck Phil from her memory.

Phil. Yeah, he’d left her. But
he was the one who’d raised her magic. The one she loved.

Tris was not for her. He’d
failed her tonight. Some surprise. Now he wanted her. Like he
deserved her. Regardless of what she wanted, which was home,
babies, and a strong, steady guy.

Which he wasn’t. Or at least he
never had been. Being strong and steady for Maggie sounded pretty
damned good about now, though. Babies? He’d never thought about
them. But if Maggie wanted them, he’d change diapers with the best
of them. Maybe he
could
be a better father than he’d
gotten.

As if his father was the
problem. His father did his best. That had become obvious today.
Why couldn’t Tris just accept it?
He
was the problem. His
father provided for his family, protected them, loved them. Which
was more than Tris had been able to do for Maggie. Tris was a
loser, all the way around, as surely as his father was a
winner.

“At least Elroy won’t be
drinking up all my rodeo winnings,” she said. She looked up and set
her lips. He knew that look. And in spite of the fact that it
spelled danger, he loved it. She got that determined look in her
eyes too. The one he’d seen in the truck just before the California
line. Then she looked down, so he couldn’t see her face.