Kay Hooper - The Wizard Of Seattle

The front door was still latched, and Serena breathed a sigh of relief when she opened it to find the morning's newspaper lying on the porch. Rachel always entered the house through the kitchen door in the mornings, and so the newspaper was brought in by whoever happened to come downstairs first.

Pushing the door shut, she rifled quickly through the sections until she found the one that always held Kane's column.

"Looking for something, Serena?"

Swearing silently, she replied in a light tone, "The life-style section. You know I always read my horoscope in the morning."

"And you know it's meaningless," Merlin said as he joined her in the foyer.

"It amuses me." Serena shrugged, then handed the remainder of the newspaper to Merlin and followed him toward the kitchen, from which came the smell of frying bacon. She would have much preferred to steal away somewhere private to read Kane's column, but didn't want to do anything that appeared suspicious.

She sat down across from him at the table, casually greeted Rachel, and sipped her coffee before unfolding her part of the paper. She forced herself to turn the pages without haste, but had to struggle not to stiffen in silent fury when she saw the title of Kane's column.

"Uncle and Niece…?"

Thinly disguised as one of those Meet a Couple of Our Leading Citizen commentaries (which would fool no one; Kane's articles were eagerly read because he invariably trashed somebody), the piece was actually not as bad as Serena had feared, and certainly not as bad as it might have been. Obviously Kane knew better than to go over the line and risk libel. Other than with the title, he didn't even make implications about Serena and Merlin's true relationship, in fact-perhaps because her scornful charge that he would resort to "tabloid journalism" had touched him on the raw.

Nothing he said about Serena in the article bothered her in the slightest, especially since most of the details of her various relationships had already been made public. He didn't refer to her as the whore of Babylon, though the picture he painted wasn't far off the mark.

But what Kane had done with his malicious article was focus a spotlight on Merlin, as well as Serena, which was the kind of unwelcome publicity the wizard had always studiously avoided. And he must have battered his way through a few of those walls he'd mentioned, because he had unearthed several hitherto unpublished facts about Richard Merlin's background. Facts that surprised Serena and pointed out to her how very little she actually knew about Richard.

His father, for instance, was a judge in Chicago. Mother deceased for a number of years, her death caused by some accident. No siblings. Merlin had attended Harvard University, earning a degree in political science "at an unusually young age." Never married or engaged, he had lived briefly in Boston after college, then had moved to Seattle almost fifteen years ago. From all appearances-and no doubt to Kane's immense disgust-he seemed to have led a blameless, fairly unremarkable life.

Deliberately unremarkable, Serena thought shrewdly. After all, the best way to escape undue notice was to lead an outwardly bland existence with no unusual highs or lows.

"What is it?"

She looked up with a start to find Merlin watching her. "What's what?"

"Your horoscope. Isn't that what you're reading so intently? What fascinates you so much?"

Looking into those unreadable, impenetrable black eyes, Serena suddenly knew it was useless to try to keep him ignorant of the article. He was, after all, Merlin. Trying to keep something hidden from a Master wizard-especially this one-was rather like trying to hide a storm from radar.

With a sigh she said, "It's going to be a bad day."

"According to the stars?" He held her gaze steadily. "Serena, despite your newfound ability to contain your energies, I can certainly see and almost hear your distress. What's happened?"

She glanced around, realizing only then that they were alone; Rachel had apparently left the kitchen some time ago. Serena hadn't even touched her breakfast, which was rapidly growing cold. No wonder he had noticed her preoccupation; she never ignored meals.

Looking back at Merlin, she tried to think of some way of cushioning the blow, but finally blurted, "I didn't know your father was a judge."

He frowned. Instead of responding to her statement, he held out a hand for the section of the newspaper she'd been reading, and Serena gave it to him.

"It's not so bad," she offered as she watched him read the article. "Kane could have done a lot worse. I know you hate publicity of any kind, but he didn't say anything bad about you. And all that stuff about me is old news. I guess I could have tried to stop him, but he didn't seem to know anything for certain when he talked to me-"

"When he talked to you?" Merlin raised his eyes from the paper. "At the party?"

"No." She cleared her throat, unnerved by the mask-like hardness of his face. "It was later. He sort of cornered me leaving work, and-"

"Serena, why the hell didn't you tell me?"

Merlin swore rarely, and she'd never heard his voice sound so harsh. She didn't know what was so wrong about the article, but there was no doubt he was seriously upset. She knew then that she should have told him about Kane's interest while he could have done something to stop or at least deflect the man.

"I… I just forgot about it," she explained.

"Forgot?"

His disbelief touched a nerve, and Serena felt herself stiffen. A bit tautly she said, "It was on Tuesday. You may remember I had a lot on my mind Tuesday."

He leaned back in his chair slowly, still gazing at her with grim eyes, the newspaper lying on the table before him, his plate pushed to the side.

Serena's instincts told her to keep her mouth shut until he calmed down, but this hadn't been her best week, and she needed to let off a little steam. Being Serena, she opened every valve.

Recklessly, she said, "If you're so worried about the damned article, zap it out of the paper. Of course there'll be a rather large blank place, but you can probably fill it with a farm report or something."

"And am I supposed to zap it out of the mind of everyone who's already read it?"

"Why not? I may be no good at mind control, but I'll bet you're terrific at it. Aren't you? It certainly can't be beyond the powers of a Master wizard to create a little amnesia here and there."

"Kane's column," Merlin said evenly, "is syndicated in a hundred newspapers across the country."

"Including one in Chicago, I'll bet. That's it, isn't it? You don't want His Honor to know you're living with a woman he knows damned well isn't your niece."

Ignoring that, Merlin said, "I can hardly influence the minds of a few million people. I'm not all-powerful, Serena, and certainly not infallible."

"I know." She suddenly wanted to cry.

His anger drained away as quickly as hers had, and Merlin looked at her with instant awareness. They were both remembering a blond woman and an all-too-human act, and this time it was Serena who looked away first.

"Sorry I didn't warn you about Kane," she said. "It's obviously a little late to worry about closing the barn door, since the horse is on its way and there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it. Anyway, the article certainly could have been worse, so we're lucky there. And maybe whoever it is you don't want reading it won't."

Merlin didn't say anything for a moment, and when he did speak, his voice was still a bit rough. "Serena, don't judge me before you know all the facts."

Her gaze returned to his face, the green eyes guarded. "Sure. You just tell me when I have them, okay?"

He couldn't blame her for the frustration she clearly felt, nor could he make it easier on her by disclosing a few of those necessary facts. There was far too much he didn't understand himself, and his own emotions were making it more difficult for him to see the situation dearly.