Tami Hoag - Magic

Rachel smiled up at him, unaware of his torment. It was wonderful the way he made her feel relaxed and playful in spite of all that had happened. He had a rare way with people, Bryan did. And he was a heck of a kisser.

As if he had read her mind, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. The kiss caught fire as quickly as dry kindling, burning hotter and hotter as Bryan’s mouth slanted across Rachel’s. He pinned her between the doorjamb and his own body, seeking as much contact as he could get. Rachel’s arms wound around his neck, and she arched into him, swept away by a flood of physical desire that had leapt out of control before she had even had a chance to consider damming it up.

Need built inside them and around them in waves of heat. Rachel gasped at the feel of Bryan’s hand skimming down her side, tracing the outer swell of her breast, following the inward curve of her waist and the flare of her hip. His fingers stroked downward to cup her bottom and lift her against him. She gasped again at the feel of his arousal, pressing hard and urgent against her belly, and succeeded in drawing his tongue deeper into her mouth.

Somewhere in the dimming regions of her mind she knew she should have been putting an end to this instead of encouraging it, but her sense of logic seemed to have little control over the situation. Her body wanted Bryan Hennessy. She’d never been one to throw herself at a man, but it felt as if her body was ready to change that trait right now.

It didn’t make sense, she thought, struggling against the wanton need rampaging inside her. Why would she lose control this way with a man like Bryan, a man who believed in ghosts and magic, a man who, in the end, would only bring her more disappointment. She couldn’t fall for him. It just wasn’t smart.

“Good night, angel,” he whispered softly, pushing himself away from her. His chest rose and fell quickly with shallow breaths. There was a sadness in his steady gaze that made Rachel want to apologize, though she wasn’t certain for what.

He slipped the tiny white flower into her hair behind her ear and backed into the hall, tucking his hands into his trouser pockets in a vain attempt to disguise his state of arousal. “Put the flower under your pillow and you’ll have sweet dreams.”

Her confusion plain on her face, Rachel Waved to him as she disappeared into her room. And Bryan turned and wandered down the hall, thinking it was going to be another endless night.

In the long, sometimes illustrious life of Drake House, not once had the estate been owned by anyone named Wimsey. Nor had any of the owners had any children with the first name Wimsey. These facts Bryan had managed to discover easily enough, checking old records and browsing through the library books he had found. That left a number of possibilities. Wimsey might have been someone’s nickname, or he might have been a servant of one of the families or a friend or an enemy.

Or he might have been, as Rachel had interpreted the name, a whimsy, a figment of Addie’s deteriorating mind.

“No,” Bryan muttered, paging through yet another book. “I don’t believe that.”

Addie was too matter-of-fact about Wimsey. She didn’t bring his name up to garner attention or to divert attention from herself. Wimsey was real to her, and Bryan wanted badly to prove her right, if for no other reason than to show Rachel that ghosts existed as surely as dreams and rainbows and magic did.

Rachel. So responsible and practical and levelheaded. Rachel, who had been avoiding him like the plague for two days-ever since they’d shared that searing kiss at the door of her room. She believed she couldn’t have magic in her life when it was what she needed most. He meant to give it to her.

He’d made his decision. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t stop wanting her. It seemed he had no real choice in the matter. He was going to pursue a relationship with Rachel Lindquist whether either of them thought it prudent or not.

A thread of guilt drifted through him, and he sat back in the desk chair with a sigh. Elbows on the arms of the comfortable old chair, he steepled his fingers and his gaze came to rest on the small etched-gold ring he wore on his left pinky. Even in the subdued morning light of the study the ring glittered on his finger, bright and merry and pretty, just like Serena had been.

She would have wanted him to get on with his life. She wouldn’t have wanted him to shut himself off from people the way he had been doing. His self-imposed isolation had closed him off from his gift and his magic. And since he had begun to open up again, he had begun to feel again.

He could feel himself standing unsteadily on a threshold with the cocoon of his grief behind him and the rest of his life before him. Already he could feel himself leaning through the portal toward whatever the future held for him. A part of him was eager and a part of him was sad because of it.

He bent his head and pressed a gentle kiss to the ring Serena had given him, the ring that encircled his finger in warmth, and tears rose up in his eyes as he said his final good-bye.

“Bryan?”

Rachel’s voice preceded her into the study, giving him enough warning so he could clear his throat and squeeze his eyes shut.

“Bryan, are you-oh, here you are,” Rachel said. She stopped uncertainly as she stepped into the study. Her brows pulled together in concern. “Are you all right?” she asked hesitantly.

“I’m… fine.”

He didn’t look fine, Rachel thought. He looked like a man laboring under the strain of some terrible emotion. The idea caught at her heart and squeezed it tight. Bryan was always smiling-except when he was scolding her for not believing in magic. In the short time she had known him, she had seldom seen him be entirely serious. She had never seen him in pain. Until now.

“I was resting my eyes,” Bryan lied. He plucked his glasses off and rubbed at the bleary blue orbs. “Too much reading.”

He settled his spectacles back on his nose and stared up at Rachel. She was worried about him. He could sense her concern. Warmth stirred inside him, and a soft smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

“What are you searching for?” she asked, approaching the desk slowly, trying not to appear too curious.

She had been forcing herself to steer clear of him, but discovered she was so drawn to him that she kept dredging up excuses to seek him out. Her emotional tug-of-war was wearing her out.

“Proof of Wimsey,” he said.

“You haven’t found any, have you?” It was more a statement than a question. She felt the pendulum inside her swing away from him.

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t any,” Bryan said with forced cheerfulness, “only that I’m not looking in the right places.”

Rachel sighed, her shoulders drooping with resignation. “Do you really think this whimsy is what Mother keeps seeing at night?”

There had been two more incidents involving Addie’s elusive intruder. Both times she had been the only one to see anything. Rachel was no more convinced now than she had been that the apparition was real. Bryan, on the other hand, seemed as sure as ever that it was.

“She says not. She seems to think it’s some other entity. Odd that she’s never spoken of other ghosts before, only Wimsey,” he reflected, clearing a fat book aside so he could stare at his charts. “And there’s been almost no activity recorded in the parts of the house where these last three sightings have been.”

“So?”

“So,” he drawled, beckoning Rachel nearer still. He swept a hand across his blueprint of the house on which he had drawn a numbered grid and jotted down smaller numbers that were circled. “Sightings are almost always concentrated in specific areas. This very room, for instance, and the foyer.” He tapped his pencil to two separate grid blocks, each of which was crowded with a cluster of little numbers.