Tami Hoag - Magic

She had been working as hard as he, slaving over the state of Addie’s finances and struggling with Addie herself, fighting a futile battle to repair her relationship with her mother before it was too late.

Standing by the French doors, Bryan heaved a sigh. Outside, the morning had turned blue and beautiful. He flung open the doors and drank in the scents. The air was fresh with the tang of the sea and the sweetness of sun-warmed grass and wildflowers.

It was the kind of day meant for playing hooky. It was the kind of day meant for picnics and handin-hand walks, for taking leisurely drives along the shore and making love under the afternoon sun. It was the kind of day too many people let pass by, sure that another would come along at a more convenient time in their lives. Bryan knew for a fact that wasn’t always true. You had to enjoy life moment to moment because tomorrow was a promise that wasn’t always kept. Too many people waited until it was too late, then looked back on their lives with bitterness and regret.

He couldn’t let Rachel be one of them.

Determination giving him a fresh burst of strength, he strode to the desk and picked up the telephone.

“My word, that’s a lovely color on you, Abbey,” Aunt Roberta commented. “Just lovely. And the feathers are really you. Don’t you think so, Rebecca? I think they’re really her.”

Rachel sighed wearily and raised her head, looking past the sea of bank statements, bills, and canceled checks spread out across the dining room table to where her mother sat in a pool of yellow light near the window, glowering at her.

Addie wore another of her nondescript loose housedresses and had an emerald-green feather boa draped around her neck. In her hands she clutched a pottery ashtray the size of a Frisbee, and every so often she thrust it beneath Roberta’s cigarette to catch the fallout. Roberta sat in a rocker beside her, pumping the thing as if she were out to set some kind of record. Smoke billowed from her nostrils, giving the impression that her boundless nervous energy came from a combustion engine.

“For goodness’ sake, Rowena, you look exhausted!”

“I’ve had a lot of work to do.”

“Stealing my money,” Addie muttered.

“There isn’t any money to steal, Mother,” Rachel shot back. Gritting her teeth, she tamped down her temper. “I’m trying to help you. I came back here to help you.”

Addie narrowed her eyes. Her lips thinned to a white line of disapproval. It made her so angry to see Rachel going through her business papers. It made her angry to know she couldn’t have gone through them herself because they made no sense to her anymore. She certainly didn’t want Rachel sifting through them looking for yet another way to humiliate her and snatch away a little more of her independence.

“She’s not my daughter, you know,” she said to Roberta.

Rachel rolled her eyes.

Roberta’s black brows arched up. “She’s not? I thought she was. Bryan said she was. He told me Ramona was your daughter.”

“Ramona who?”

“Your daughter.”

“I don’t have a daughter. Pay attention here, Roberta,” Addie said crossly, smacking the woman on the arm. “After all the sacrifices I made for my daughter so she could go on to greatness as a soprano, she ran off with a nightclub singer.”

“Oh, my gosh, Althea,” Roberta whispered in shock, crossing herself with her cigarette. “My gosh.”

Rachel tuned out. She really didn’t have the energy to deal with her mother today. She had been on the telephone half the morning with a woman from the California Health and Welfare Agency, discussing financial aid for people with Alzheimer’s. The bureaucracy was incredible, the benefits negligible in relation to the expenses a chronically ill person faced. She had to consider Addie’s loss of income, housing costs, medical costs, cost for in-home help or respite care, the normal costs of living, taxes, miscellaneous expenses. And somewhere down the road she would have to deal with the expense of putting Addie in a nursing home.

As badly as she wanted to care for her mother herself, Rachel realized that would eventually become impossible. Addie’s condition would inevitably decline to the point where she would need constant care and supervision, and Rachel would not be able to provide that and keep a job as well.

She planted her elbows on the tabletop and rubbed her hands over her face. Already the strain was getting to her. What was she going to feel like after months, even years of this? Despair welled inside her at the prospect of a bleak, joyless future.

Bryan .

His name drifted through her mind as if someone had whispered it low and soft in her ear. Warmth cascaded through her, enticing, like forbidden fruit. It was strange, but just thinking about him relaxed her.

“Come along, angel,” Bryan said briskly.

Rachel’s head snapped up. Cautiously, she turned to look at him as if she didn’t quite believe he would be there. But there he stood, looking rumpled and sexy in his snug jeans and faded Notre Dame sweatshirt.

“Come along,” he said again, taking her by the hand and tugging her out of her chair.

“Where…?”

He flashed her a brilliant smile, “To play hooky.”

Rachel dug her heels in. “Bryan, I don’t have time to play hooky.”

“I’m not giving you a choice.”

There was definitely something steely and predatory about his smile, reminding Rachel that there was a great deal more to this man than what so pleasingly met the eye. A shiver danced through her at the glint of determination in his deep blue gaze.

“Bryan, I would like nothing more than to take a day off, but I have responsibilities.”

“They’ll still be here when we get back.”

“Bryan, honey, what are you doing with Rhonda?” Roberta asked.

“I’m abducting her, Aunt Roberta.” He let go of Rachel’s hand, quickly bent and put a shoulder to her stomach, and heaved her up, wrapping his arm around her wildly flailing legs. She squealed in surprise.

“Oh, well, fine, dear.” Roberta smiled and waved her cigarette at them. “Have a nice time!”

Addie stuck her tongue out at them.

Bryan frowned at her and turned back toward his aunt, balancing Rachel on his shoulder as if she were a sack of potatoes. He gave Roberta a meaningful look. “You and Addie keep each other out of trouble, okay?”

“Trouble! My stars, honey!” She cackled and coughed. “What trouble could we get into?”

“I shudder to think,” Rachel grumbled. She wriggled on Bryan’s shoulder as he carried her out of the room and down the hall. “Bryan, neither one of them should be left alone.”

“Don’t be silly. Aunt Roberta is a little unique, but she’s perfectly capable of being left on her own.”

“Personally, I think it’s a toss-up as to which of them is loonier, but the point is: I shouldn’t be leaving Mother.”

“Rachel, you can’t spend every hour of every day with her. It isn’t good for either one of you,” he said, toting her down the porch steps and across the lawn. “Think about it. You’re going to be taking care of Addie for a long time. Do you want to end up hating her because you shackled her to you like a ball and chain and threw away the key?”

She was silent as he deposited her in the passenger seat of her car and went around to the other side. Any retort she might have made was silenced by the knowledge that she already had feelings of resentment toward her mother. Hadn’t she wondered herself how bitter she would be in the end?

“Don’t worry about Aunt Roberta.” The Chevette started with a squeal of protest that settled into a pathetic whine. “I explained to her all about Addie’s illness.”