He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin) (44 page)

“A penny for your thoughts,” she whispered.

“I was thinking about Alice,” he said.

Drew sucked in a breath
,
let it out
. Peace evaporated. What else had she expected?

“She always said it would get easier. It has.”

Face it head on.
“She used to come to you in dreams, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.” He gave her a little grin. “My visions were crazier than yours.”

“Hey, they helped you give up drinking.”

“You did that as much as Alice.” He moved his arm and settled her more firmly against his body. “She won’t come again.”

His voice had a whisper of tristesse in it. How did he know she wouldn’t?

He answered the questions she couldn’t ask. “She only came because I couldn’t move on. And now I have.” He looked down at her tenderly. Her own eyes filled. Then she saw an anxious look sit in his expression and she began to worry again. “Do … do you think you can forgive me for leaving you and losing the sword to Morgan?” he asked.

“Rhiannon promised you something you wanted more than anything.”

“Did I though?” He frowned. “I knew somewhere inside it wasn’t right. Maybe even then I’d started to get over Alice’s death. I said I wanted her back just because I’d always wanted her back.” He looked down at Drew. “But you can’t do that. Go back, I mean.”

“If Morgan really can bring people back to
life.…”
Drew sighed. Was she a masochist?

“They’d be changed, somehow. Or you would have changed in the meantime. Life goes on. You can’t control that.” He cleared his throat. “So … uh … can you?”

“Can I what?”

“Forgive me.” Now he looked really anxious. That was so poignant that Drew’s eyes just spilled over of their own accord.

“Already have,” she managed around a full throat.

“Because I love you. Have for a while. Don’t know exactly when it happened. I mean I know I’m no prize. But something your father said…that I raised your magic… what does that mean?”

She cleared her throat. The admission that he loved her startled her. All she could do was answer his question with the information that made her most vulnerable to him. “The one who raises your magic is your destined lover. Like Alice raised yours. You love them all your life.”

He nodded, digesting that. She saw him swallow. “Rhiannon told me I was lucky enough to have it happen twice. So I guess that means… I mean, I wonder…”

“Don’t wonder,” she said. She found herself nodding, over and over again, convulsively. “I love you so damned much it hurts.”

“Let’s don’t let it hurt.” He crushed her in an embrace that should have crushed ribs, but she had never felt so right. After all her fighting for control over her life, when she let things happen, what she wanted most had just come to fruition. She couldn’t change the fact that he loved Alice. But he could love her too.
Not that she couldn’t push for what she wanted.
She did. She seemed to be in balance for the first time. You pushed, you guided, but you had to just go with the flow. Like Devin, riding a wave. Their powers, the flow of time, the swell of life, all felt like a wave.

After a long moment, he held her away from him. He got that wicked grin. “Let’s relieve your father’s mind, what do you say?”

Laughter bubbled out of her throat. “Some proposal. But I say yes.”

The room went
wavery
at the edges. A vision flashed into place. It was Michael again, on the beach, happy, with the silhouetted girl. This time the vision played a moment longer. The girl turned, laughing, and the girl was Drew.

She smiled. The beach faded. But it would be back as her vision came true. She knew it.

“You okay?”
Michael asked, worried.

“Yeah.” She couldn’t help the smile. “I’m okay.”

“Me too,” he said, and held her close again. “For the first time in a long time.”

“Are you going to ask my father for my hand?”

“You think I need to?” Now
that
was a nervous man. “He was hell-bent on tying us up. Maybe I don’t need to actually ask him.”

She pursed her lips and raised her brows apologetically. “He’s pretty traditional.”

Michael took a big breath. “Oh well, sure. Let’s let them get some sleep and I’ll do the deed when everybody’s up and awake.”

Drew started to laugh. “We were pretty noisy. Want to bet they’re all down in the kitchen waiting right now?”

He looked appalled.

“Welcome to the family.” And she kissed him.

#####

About Susan Squires

Susan Squires is
a
New York Times
bestselling author known for breaking the rules of romance wr
iting. She has published five novels with Dorchester Publishing and nine with St. Martin’s Press, along with three novellas in anthologies. Whatever her time period
or subject, some element of the paranormal always creeps in. She has won multiple contests for published novels and reviewer’s choice awards.
Publisher’s Weekly
named
Body Electric
o
ne of the most influential
mass
market
books of 2003 and
One with the Shadows,
the fifth in her va
mpire Companion Series, a Best B
ook of 2007.
Time for Eternity,
the first in her
DaVinci time travel series, received a starred review from
Publisher’s Weekly.

Susan has a Masters in English literature from UCLA and once toiled as an executive for a Fortune 500 company. Now she lives at the beach in Southern California with her husband, Harry, a writer of supernatural thrillers, and three very active Belgian Sheepdogs, who like to help her write by putting their chins on the
keyboarddddddddddddddddddddddd
.

Visit Susan on Facebook, follow her on Twitter, or check out her website at
http://www.susansquires.com.

Watch for the next
Children of Merlin
novel,
NIGHT MAGIC
,
coming soon.