Magic (17 page)

With her tongs she fished out a stack of half-burned mail. She flipped through the ruined envelopes, her heart sinking. Bills. Bills that had never been opened. Bills that had certainly never been paid. She bent over again and tugged out another long envelope, this one only slightly charred, and her heart dropped from low to the pit of her stomach, where it lay like a rock.

“Ooooh, noooo …”

“What is it?” Bryan asked, returning to the kitchen without his dancing partner.

In a daze, Rachel handed him the envelope. “Yon know how you keep saying something will turn up? Something just did.”

Bryan took the letter out, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and began to read to himself. He paled a bit beneath his tan and handed the piece of stationery back to Rachel, muttering, “Oh, no …”

Feeling as if all her bones were dissolving, Rachel sank down on a chair at the kitchen table and stared across the room in a trance. It wasn’t the first time she had seen a letter like this one. It was, however, the first time she had felt dizzy because of it.

The IRS was going to audit Lindquist Antiques.

Visions of Leavenworth danced in her head.

She looked up at Bryan and forced the corners of her mouth into a parody of a smile. “Got anything in your magic hat for this one, Mr. Hennessy?”

“I am not moving from this house.” Addie pressed her lips into a thin line and crossed her arms over her meager bosom. She leaned back into the worn red velvet of an enormous thronelike Victorian chair, settling in for the battle.

Rachel and Bryan had spent the day working their way through the huge maze of rooms that made up Drake House, tagging the antiques that would be offered at the sale. It had been a long day of building tension. Addie had trailed after them, pulling the tags off the furniture and complaining incessantly about the way Rachel was treating her. Twice she had called the police to tell them she was being robbed. Twice Rachel had had to call them back and tell them it was another false alarm. Meals had been stilted affairs seasoned with sharp remarks. Addie’s mood had darkened with every hour, and Rachel’s control on her temper had worn down to the last frayed threads.

Bryan watched both women with a terrible sense of foreboding. He could feel Rachel’s tension, the hurt and anger that had been simmering just under her lovely surface for days. Her jaw was set at a mutinous angle and trembled with the emotion she was struggling to keep in check. And Addie, who had been on a rampage all day, showed no signs of backing down.

He pulled his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes. He was exhausted from intercepting Rachel’s feelings all day and from running interference between the two Lindquist women, but it was clear there would be no rest for the weary this evening.

“Addie, you look like a queen in that chair,” he said, flashing one of his inane smiles. “Did I ever tell you about the time I met the queen of Sweden?”

“Could she sing?” Addie asked. “Rachel used to sing, you know. She had a voice like an angel, but she wasted it, and now we’re destitute.”

“Addie, that’s not fair—”

“No, she’s right, Bryan,” Rachel said with a frightening smile. She threw her hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender. “I screwed up the whole flipping world because I didn’t become an opera singer. I’m sure they would have found a cure for cancer by now if only I had gone on to perform
Aida
. And anyone with a brain in her head knows, there would have been an end to world hunger long ago if I had toured with the Metropolitan Opera. Certainly, Mother and I would be wealthy beyond our wildest imagining, living in a state of bliss if only I had played Carmen.”

“Rachel, don’t be flip,” Addie snapped. “Carmen was never a role for you.”

“I’m sorry, Mother,” she said without a hint of remorse. “How could I have been so foolish?”

“You take after your aunt Marilyn. She never had any sense of responsibility either.”

Rachel staggered back as if she’d been struck a savage blow. No sense of responsibility? She had always been responsible! She had given up much of her childhood and adolescence to her responsibilities for her singing talent. She had given up her dreams to take on the responsibility of managing Terence’s career. Now she was giving up all hope of a happy future, taking on responsibility for the very person who sat in judgment of her.

“Rachel,” Bryan said softly, reaching out for her.

She could see him out of the corner of her eye, could easily read the concern in his expression. She could have gone to him for comfort, but she didn’t. The pain she was feeling was too personal. It went too deep for comfort, too deep for tears. She stepped away from Bryan and nearer her mother, isolating the two of them in the aura of her pain. She stared into Addie’s pale eyes and spoke softly in a voice that trembled with the strength of the emotions underlying it.

“I’m sorry, Mother. How many times do I have to say it? I’m sorry for the disappointment I caused you. I’m sorry I wanted something more in my life than training and practice and performance. And most of all, I’m sorry I wanted you to love me regardless of what I did, because obviously you weren’t capable of it.”

It was Addie’s turn to look stricken. Her thin, lined face turned ashen, and she pressed a hand to her chest, as if to see if her heart was still beating.

“How dare you?” she said, her voice as soft as Rachel’s had been, as full of pain. “How dare you say I didn’t love you! I did everything for you.”

“You turned me away. You exiled me. That’s an awfully funny way of showing love.”

Addie said nothing. She struggled to sort through her feelings. They seemed to assail her from all sides and from within—anger, guilt, resentment, regret, disappointment. The present faded, and she suddenly found herself in the past, wishing back the words that had forced Rachel to leave, wishing Rachel hadn’t pushed her into saying them. They were in the little house in Berkeley, and Rachel was backing away from her, moving toward the door with a terrible look of hurt in her wide eyes. It was too late. Her daughter was leaving her. She had pushed too hard, expected too much, laid down one law too many. Her sweet Rachel was leaving her.

“This is all your fault,” Addie said bitterly, turning on Bryan. “You good-for-nothing, god-awful folk singer!”

She pulled a man’s shoe out of the patch pocket of her housedress and flung it at him. Bryan caught it and stared at it, frowning, not quite sure what to say. A cherry tomato sailed through the air and caught him unaware, bouncing off his forehead.

“Mother, stop it!” Rachel ordered. “That’s not Terence, it’s Bryan.”

“Bryan—” The word caught on the end of Addie’s tongue, and she bit it back, but her confusion was already apparent and she knew it. Panic left her only one option—escape.

She pushed herself up out of her throne chair and backed toward the hall. She pulled half of a cheese sandwich from her sweater pocket and held it out in front of her as if it were a gun.

“Stay back or I’ll shoot!” she demanded. “I’m going to call the police!”

“Mother!” Rachel started after her, but Bryan caught her by the arm and pulled her back.

“Let her go, honey. I unplugged the phones after the last call.”

Rachel shook her head and sighed, what little strength she had left draining out of her. This time when Bryan tried to gather her close, she let him. Bryan squeezed his eyes shut and pressed a kiss to her temple. He could think of nothing to say that would ease her pain. Words from him were not going to mend her past with Addie. All he could give her was his support and his love, and he gave them both without reserve, wrapping her in his strength and pressing her head to his heart.

They stood there for a moment in silence, letting the tension settle into the dust around them. Finally, Rachel stood back a little and scrubbed at the few tears that had managed to escape the barrier of her lashes to slide down her cheeks. She took a deep, cleansing breath, gathering herself together, dredging up a little more determination from the deep well inside her.

“I shouldn’t have lost my temper,” she said evenly. “I know it doesn’t do any good. It only upsets Mother.”

“You can’t always keep it all in.” Bryan reached out a hand to toy with the whisper-soft tendrils of hair that framed Rachel’s face. “Look on the bright side: In ten minutes Addie is liable to have forgotten you had this conversation.”

Rachel managed a wry smile. “That’s true. Too bad she can’t forget the phone number for the police department.”

Bryan’s heart welled with pride and love. She was some kind of lady, his little Rachel. Life wasn’t exactly being kind to her, but she took it on the chin and came back smiling. That she managed to keep a sense of humor through all of this was a real indication of the depth of character she possessed.

He stared down at her in the gloom of the poorly lit room. All around them stood dark, dusty, neglected furniture. The striped paper on the walls was stained and buckling, the draperies, heavy with mildew and age, drooped from their hooks. It was a grim setting, and yet Rachel shone like a gem, so bright, so pretty, her amethyst eyes smiling up at him, echoing the glow of the old brooch he had given her.

“I love you,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her.

She melted against him, all warmth and willingness. She slid back into his arms, fitting there as if she were a part of him. Rachel gave herself over to the kiss, trying to communicate the words that were locked in her heart. She couldn’t bring herself to say them. Somehow she thought that if she said them aloud, it would only hurt worse when the parting came.

“I want you,” Bryan whispered, trailing his lips down the ivory column of her throat as he bent her back over his arm.

“Oh, Bryan,” she said, all the longing she felt dragging the words out on a moan of need.

His hand slid up between their bodies to cup her breast, his gentle fingers kneading her swelling flesh, his thumb brushing across her nipple, teasing it to hardness. Desire surged through her like an electric current, converging in the most feminine parts of her body and intensifying there into pools of heat. She didn’t try to stop the sensations from overwhelming her. There were too many things in her life now that needed rigid control and discipline and self-sacrifice. In these few stolen moments with Bryan she was going to be selfish. She was going to take his passion, as much as he wanted to give her. She was going to revel in the strength of this desire. It was so unlike anything she had ever known, and she knew nothing would ever compare to it.

They sank down onto an old fainting couch, coughing at the cloud of dust that enveloped them but not letting it interfere in the proceedings. Rachel purred her contentment as Bryan settled himself on top of her, his manhood prodding at her from behind the snug barrier of his jeans. She loved the weight of his trim, hard body bearing down on her, loved the masculine sounds of frustration that rumbled in his throat as he tried to get closer to her. Wantonly, she arched up against him, her legs parting so he could press against her more intimately.

“Oh, Rachel.” Bryan groaned. “Oh, Rachel.”

A scream rattled the chandeliers above them.

“Oh, hell.” He uttered the words through gritted teeth, feeling as if he might start sobbing at the agony of thwarted passion. “Oh, hell.”

He levered himself up off Rachel and staggered to his feet, gritting his teeth at the throbbing in his groin. “If there isn’t a ghost upstairs, there will be when I’m finished.”

“If you get violent, can I help?” Rachel asked dryly as she forced herself off the couch.

“Absolutely.”

The second scream kicked them into action. They ran down the hall and bolted up the grand staircase, turning in at Addie’s room only to find it empty. They found Addie at the back of the house, standing in the hall in her nightgown, her face as white as paste.

“Mother, what happened?” Rachel asked, going to her mother’s side but hesitating to put an arm around her.

“It was that terrible ghoul again!” Addie said, panting. Her hair was in a wild tangle around her head. She looked as if she had stuck her finger in a light socket “It was standing down there at the end of the hall with this weird white mist all around.”

All three peered down the corridor, but nothing was there.

“What happened to it?” Bryan asked.

“Poof!” Addie said, flapping her arms at her sides. “He just disappeared.”

Rachel ground her teeth as she followed Bryan to the end of the dark hall. “People don’t just disappear.”

“Ghosts do.”

“There’re no such things as ghosts.”

“ ‘Asserting a statement an infinity of times does not in itself make it true,’ ” Bryan quoted. “Abel J. Jones.”

Rachel scowled at him. “ ‘No matter how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.’ Alfred Smith.”

Bryan met her look with a determined one of his own. “ ‘There is nothing so powerful as the truth— and often nothing so strange.’ Daniel Webster.”

He stopped at the spot Addie had pointed to, letting his gaze roam over the area, letting his sixth sense listen for any kind of sign. It was one of his ordinary senses, however, that picked up a clue. He held himself very still and sniffed the air like a bird dog.

“Ammonia,” he mumbled, his eyes taking on a faraway look.

“Ammonia?” Rachel questioned, making a face as the scent burned her nostrils. “What does ammonia have to do with anything?”

“Magic,” Bryan said flatly, almost angrily.

“A ghost that does housecleaning,” Rachel mused, leaning back against the paneled wall and crossing her arms over her chest. “I love it. Do you think we could get him to do windows? There are about ninety of them in this dump that all need a good scrubbing!”

She squealed the last of the word as the wall shifted behind her. Startled, she bounded into the middle of the hall, and then did her best to not look embarrassed, straightening her lavender blouse and smoothing her hands over her skirt as if yelping and leaping were not the least bit out of the ordinary.

Bryan was too absorbed in his inspection to notice the instinctive flame of fear that had burst to life in Rachel’s eyes. Following his nose, he moved toward the wall, where he stopped and stood staring down at a smudge of dirt on the wooden floor. His heart sank a little, but he stemmed the rush of disappointment. Ghost or no ghost, there was a mystery to be solved, and solving mysteries was his forte.