Tami Hoag - Magic

“I’m so pleased to meet you,” Jayne said, extending her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“But I arrived only last night,” said Rachel, a little taken aback by the stranger’s warm welcome.

Jayne shrugged, winding an arm through Rachel’s and leading her away from the stairs. “It’s a small town. News travels around here at the speed of light. What a lovely dress. Wherever did you find it?”

“Laid out on my bed,” Rachel said pointedly, her gaze meeting Bryan’s head on. He had the gall to look innocent. “Things have a funny way of turning up in my room.”

“Oh, honey, I’m not at all surprised.” Jayne waved a dainty hand, her purple fingernails flashing in the light from the chandelier. She leaned close to Rachel, her expression intensely serious, as if she were about to confide an enormous secret. “This house is haunted, you know.”

“So I’m told,” Rachel said, managing a polite smile. Her gaze darted to Bryan, flashing her disapproval his way.

“You haven’t been lucky enough to see Wimsey, have you?”

“No, I haven’t had the pleasure.”

Jayne frowned her disappointment. “Too bad. Addie’s the only one who’s actually seen him. My theory is their consciousness coexist on a single plane of understanding, while ours is on a dual plane, which is why we never see him. What do you think?”

Rachel stared at her for a moment, not quite sure how to respond. Jayne, while undeniably sweet, was apparently just as batty as everyone else in Drake House.

“Rachel doesn’t believe in ghosts,” Bryan said, handing her a glass of white wine. His eyes sparkled like sapphires. “Rachel is practical.” He said the word as if it were the name of a strict religious order.

Jayne’s dark eyes widened. She looked from Bryan to Rachel and back. “Oh, my.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come down earlier,” Rachel said, changing the subject. “I’m afraid I dozed off. I meant to help Mother with the meal.”

“Oh, Addie doesn’t cook,” said Bryan.

Her brows pulled together as she looked at him. “What do you mean? Mother used to work nights at a very nice restaurant when we lived in Berkeley. She’s a wonderful cook.”

“Not since the infamous incident of the fish-head soup and chocolate-laxative cake,” Bryan said.

Jayne rolled her eyes in dismay at the memory. “Reverend Macllroy was indisposed for a week.”

Bryan sighed. “Thankfully, the soup filled me up, and I passed on the cake.”

“You ate fish-head soup?” Rachel asked, both incredulous and nauseated at the thought.

“I prefer to think of it as a variation on bouillabaisse. It was hardly the strangest thing ever to cross my palate. A particular dinner in China comes to mind. They do things there with snakes-”

“That shouldn’t be discussed before dinner,” Jayne said firmly, giving him a look of disgust. She took Rachel by the arm again and steered her toward the dining room, interrogating and commenting all the way, her conversation flowing from one topic to the next without pause. “I think it’s just wonderful that you’ve come back to take care of Addie. We all try to check in on her from time to time, but it’s not the same. I hear you’re a singer. Will you look for work here in Anastasia?”

“I have a job lined up at the Phylliss Academy of Voice in San Francisco,” Rachel said, seeing no reason to hide the fact from them. At any rate, she needed to practice saying it. She was going to have to tell Addie soon, so they could make plans to sell Drake House and move.

“San Francisco?” Jayne said it as if it were a place totally foreign to her.

Bryan merely stood silent, his expression carefully blank.

“Yes. As soon as I get my mother’s affairs in order, we’ll be selling the house and moving to the city.”

“Does Addie know about this?” Bryan asked, taking great care to sound more neutral than he felt.

Rachel nibbled at her lower lip. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Not yet.”

At that moment Addie made her grand entrance into the dining room. Her style of dress was even more incongruous than Jayne’s. Over her flowered housedress she wore a filmy pink robe trimmed in pink ostrich feathers. On her feet, her ever-present green rubber boots. She took in the group with one regal, sweeping glance.

“Hennessy, my G and T, please.”

Rachel grabbed at Bryan’s coat sleeve. He turned toward her and her concern momentarily fled. He was so close. His mouth was no more than inches from hers as he leaned down toward her. She moistened her lips nervously as the memory of his kiss came flooding back. Beneath her fingertips and the fine wool of his jacket his arm was a rock of muscle.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered, easily reading her mind. “There’s almost no G in Addie’s G and T. I just splash some on the ice so I’m not really fibbing when I give it to her.”

He turned toward the sideboard to mix the drink. Rachel sighed, helpless to stop the sweet warmth flooding her chest. It would be so very easy to let herself fall for him. He was handsome and charming in a rather bizarre sort of way. He was so kind and solicitous toward Addie. She watched him hand her mother the weak drink. He winked at Addie and pretended to pull a quarter out of her ear.

“You’re an idiot, Hennessy. I don’t know why I keep you on,” Addie blustered, shooing him away, but there was a rare twinkle in her eye and a bloom in her cheeks that hadn’t been there when they’d returned home after the incident in the park.

How Rachel envied him that easy rapport with her mother. He didn’t have the burden of a past full of pain and mistakes weighing down his every word. He didn’t have the burden of a future full of heartache and sacrifice holding him back. He could walk away anytime he liked, and no one could ever fault him. He didn’t have to deal with issues like selling Drake House. All Bryan had to worry about was pulling quarters out of people’s ears.

They sat down to a meal of thick, aromatic beef stew and hot biscuits. It wasn’t exactly a five-course dinner to go along with the china and silver on the polished walnut table, but it was hearty, healthy fare and required only one utensil to eat it-an important consideration for Addie, who was slowly losing her ability to deal with a full complement of flatware.

“Hennessy is quite an adequate cook,” Addie said, dipping her biscuit into the gravy on her plate and nibbling at it delicately. “He’s an impudent rascal, insisting on eating at the table with the rest of us, but I tolerate him.”

Rachel frowned. Bryan wasn’t the butler, and she didn’t see any reason for him to be treated like one. But when she opened her mouth to set her mother straight, Bryan caught her eye and shook his head ever so slightly.

“That’s very big of you, Addie,” he said. “Not everyone is as generous and forgiving as you are.”

Addie gave him a shrewd look. “Remember that, young man.” She tossed back the last of her gin and tonic and thrust the glass at him for a refill. Lifting her nose slightly, she glanced askance at Rachel. “Some people don’t appreciate generosity and sacrifice, and look what happens to them.”

Rachel ground her retort between her teeth and choked it down with a piece of potato.

“Did I mention how stunning you look tonight, Addie?” Bryan said affably, handing her glass back to her filled with tonic water and a slice of lime. “I can’t think of another woman who could wear that outfit quite the way you do… unless it might be Jayne,” he added, grinning across the table at his friend, who stuck her tongue out at him.

Addie beamed and fluffed her ostrich feathers.

“And didn’t Rachel find a beautiful dress?” Bryan said, not realizing the way his voice dropped and softened. Nor did he realize the longing that shone in his eyes.