Magic

TWO

The scream could have pierced steel.

Bryan jolted awake, his body exploding out of its cramped position on the landing. His actions were purely instinctive. He had no idea who or what had issued the sound. All that registered was the buzzing of his alarm telling him that sensors indicated a presence in the downstairs hall. He was halfway down the stairs when the flash of his still camera went off, blinding him. Unable to see and unable to stop himself, he stepped out into thin air.

“Aargh!”

His cry of surprise was abruptly cut off with a grunt as he bounced the rest of the way down the steps, rolling like a human tumbleweed. Another otherworldly scream split the air as he hit the marble-tiled floor in a heap and sprawled out, groaning.

The sound had a definite ghostlike quality, he thought excitedly as he struggled to sit up. He was going to have bruises from here to Hyannis, but they would be well worth it if he had captured something on film or tape. He could already see his articles in the scientific journals. Funding for studies and documentaries would come out of the woodwork. Maybe he’d even get invited to the Tonight Show. At the very least he’d get a segment on Unsolved Mysteries.

Wincing, he hauled himself to his feet and fumbled for the light switch beside the front door. His breath hardened in his throat as the foyer was flooded with amber light from the old chandelier. He’d caught something all right, and she was beautiful.

Bryan straightened his glasses and stared, his heart beating a curious rhythm. The woman before him was quite real, vision though she seemed. The professional in him acknowledged an appropriate amount of disappointment at that, but the basic male in him could find no regret. It would have been physically impossible for a red-blooded man to have been anything but awestruck by the young woman gazing up at him.

She had the face of an angel-gently prominent cheekbones with slight hollows beneath, a chin that looked as if it were made to be cupped by the hand of a handsome lover; a slim, tip-tilted nose; and full pink lips that looked so soft and kissable, they almost made him groan aloud. Her skin was like rose-tinted cream, so tempting, he nearly reached out to touch her cheek. Instead, he pulled his hand back and splayed his fingers across his chest, as if he were having a heart attack.

The overhead light caught in the woman’s halo of pale golden hair, adding to her ethereal quality. She wore it up in a loose chignon, but soft tendrils escaped all around her head, framing her feminine features. She stared at him, her periwinkle blue eyes wide and brimming with terror.

Her obvious fear struck him like a slap in the face. He cleared his throat nervously, peeled his hand off his chest, and offered it to her, attempting a genial smile.

“Bryan Hennessy.”

Rachel flinched at the sound of his voice. The silence had held her spellbound, now she was jolted out of the trance. She stared first at the big hand hovering before her, then her gaze traveled up a considerable distance to take in the rest of the man.

He was fairly tall with shoulders so wide, they seemed to block out the stairwell behind him. His hair was disheveled. The strands falling across his broad forehead were a color somewhere between blond and brown. With panic overruling her other senses, the only thing she noticed about his face was the strong jaw and the five o’clock shadow that darkened it. His clothes-worn jeans with bits of paper sticking out of one front pocket, and a chambray shirt that was tucked in on only one side-were rumpled.

All things considered, she thought, he looked dangerous, maybe even unbalanced. He certainly didn’t look like anyone her mother would invite into her home. The woman she remembered wouldn’t have sat next to this guy on a bus. How, then, had he come to be the one to greet her at the door? The possible answers were not reassuring.

She choked down what fear she could and called on years of vocal training to project a confident tone when she spoke. “What have you done with my mother?”

“I don’t know,” Bryan said, bemused. He was too thrown off by her remarkable beauty and by his reaction to it to think straight. He pulled his hand back and combed his fingers through his hair. “Who is she?”

Rachel swallowed hard. She started to back away from him, wondering what her chances were of making it to her car and from there to the police station. Not good, she figured. He appeared to be in wonderful physical condition. That was probably essential when one was running from the law. As she took a step back, the man took a step forward. She held up a hand to ward him off.

“If you touch me, I’ll scream,” she promised.

“You’ve already done that,” Bryan pointed out ruefully. “Quite well, I might add. My ears are still ringing. Now I know the full meaning of the word shrill.”

“I know karate,” Rachel blurted out. She braced her feet, squared her shoulders, and raised her hand as if she were preparing to take on Bruce Lee. It was ludicrous, of course. Bryan Hennessy dwarfed her. He wasn’t the stocky, no-neck, musclebound type, but he was big and athletic-looking; and she was all of five feet seven, a hundred and twenty pounds. She decided she would have to make up the difference with her temper.

Bryan’s brows bobbed up and his face lit with genuine interest. “Karate? Really?”

Now was not the time to be overly honest, Rachel reflected as she frantically cast her gaze about for a handy sharp-edged instrument with which she might defend herself.

She thought of her mother and a terrible pang reverberated through her. All the years they’d wasted! And for what? Now she was finally returning, hoping she and Addie could patch up their relationship. What if she were too late? Dr. Moore had told her it wasn’t safe for Addie to live alone any longer, that her mother’s impairment made her forget things like turning off the stove and who to allow inside her home. Had her mother let this man into the house thinking he was a friend? It was entirely possible.

On the drive to California from Nebraska, Rachel had thought about what time she would have left with her mother-the mother she knew and loved-not some vacuous stranger existing in her mother’s body. And she had vowed to make the most of it. Time for them may have been snatched away. The thought filled her with a sense of almost overwhelming loss.

“Rachel,” he said abruptly.

Her eyes widened at the sound of her name. The stranger’s voice was husky and warm, but the fact that he knew her name sent chills down her back.

Bryan nodded decisively. “You’re Rachel Lindquist. You’re Addie’s daughter. I should have recognized you right off. You look a lot like your mother.”

He stared at her hard, his straight brows drawing down low and tight over his eyes. A slight frown of disapproval turned the corners of his mouth. It wasn’t triggered by Rachel Lindquist’s appearance or her identity, but by his own reaction to both. This was the daughter who had not bothered to visit her mother in five years, the girl Addie herself had labeled ungrateful. This was the young woman who had run off with a folk singer, the young woman he had thought of as selfish and uncaring. And he was damned attracted to her.

It came as a very unpleasant surprise, that warm, curling sensation deep in his gut. It was something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time, but he was too strongly, basically masculine not to recognize it for what it was-desire. The primitive male in him was responding to a pretty female, and he heartily resented it, resented her for stirring that dormant need inside him.

“So, you decided to come back after all,” he said coldly, trying to distance himself from her emotionally as well as physically.

Rachel willed herself to stand still while Bryan Hennessy’s gaze bore through her. He moved back and a little to her left, and the light from the old chandelier fell more fully across his face. He looked as if he’d just awakened from a sound sleep. Behind his glasses his eyes were bleary and bloodshot, but there was nothing truly dangerous in their stare. He looked annoyed more than anything. More than anything except male. He looked very male-big and brooding and sexy with his tousled hair and beard-shadowed cheeks.

The silence between them swelled with unspoken messages, messages Rachel didn’t want to hear or understand. Just the same, she felt a strange fluttering deep inside her, and she pressed a hand to her stomach as if she could push the sensation away. It was probably just hunger. Most of a day had passed since she’d eaten.

Tearing her gaze away from Bryan Hennessy, she gave herself a mental shake. She was experiencing hunger, all right, but it wasn’t the kind that she could appease with a sandwich. If she had learned anything over the course of the past five years, it was to be honest with herself. The kind of hunger coursing through her had little to do with prime rib and everything to do with primal attraction.

The realization shocked her. She had lived to the ripe old age of twenty-five and had never experienced such a strong physical reaction to a man, not even to Terence, whom she had once loved. She hadn’t expected ever to feel it. It simply wasn’t in her nature. She certainly hadn’t expected to feel it for a complete stranger, especially one who was suddenly regarding her with subtle disdain. She didn’t like it, didn’t want it, and she most definitely didn’t need it. The reason she had come to Anastasia loomed over her like a dark cloud. There would be no time in her life now for anything but Addie.

“Where is my mother?” she asked firmly, effectively breaking the strange spell between them.

“Upstairs. Asleep, if she’s lucky,” Bryan said, shouldering his way past her, “though I’d be surprised if there’s a dog in this county you didn’t wake up with that shrieking.”

“Shrieking!” Rachel said indignantly. She pressed her lips into a thin line and planted her hands on her slim hips as she watched him fiddling with the array of equipment clustered in the foyer. Anger surged through her as other feelings subsided. “Of course I was shrieking. I step into my mother’s house and am virtually attacked by mechanical contraptions.

“What is all this junk?” she asked impatiently, gesturing sharply at the stuff. “What’s it doing here? What are you doing here? Who do you think you are anyway?”

“Most of the time I think I’m Bryan Hennessy,” Bryan said dryly. He righted a light meter that had tipped over and tapped it gently with a finger, relieved to see it was still functioning. “I got hit in the head with a shot put once, and for about three hours afterward I thought I was Prince Charles, but that was fifteen years ago. I’ve pretty much gotten over it, except for a strange yen to play polo every now and again. And I was once mistaken for Pat Reilly, the actor.” He shot her a Cheshire-cat smile that made Rachel’s heart flip. “Personally, I don’t think we look all that much alike, but the lady tearing my shirt off didn’t agree.”

Warmth bloomed under the surface of Rachel’s skin as her imagination conjured up an unusually vivid picture of this man with his shirt half off. Her image of his chest was smooth and solid with well-defined muscles, a sprinkling of tawny curls, and a tiny brown mole just above his left nipple. She could almost feel the heat of his skin against her palms, and her nostrils flared as she caught the faintest hint of his male scent. It was an altogether weird experience, one that had her fighting to get a good deep breath into her lungs.

Oblivious to Rachel’s predicament, Bryan had turned back to his machinery. He checked each item thoroughly. At the moment he couldn’t afford to have a piece needing repair. His finances weren’t in the healthiest of states. In fact, he was more or less broke.

“This ‘junk,’ ” he said, “is highly sensitive electronic surveillance equipment essential to my work. I’m a psychic investigator specializing in locating and defining paranormal phenomenon.”

It came as a complete surprise to Rachel that a man who looked as rumpled and ratty as Bryan did was capable of speaking in more than monosyllables. She tucked her chin back and frowned as she tried to translate his explanation into garden-variety English. “Is there a generic term for what you do?”

He flashed her a smile that revealed even white teeth worthy of a toothpaste commercial. This time his eyes twinkled with amusement, the corners crinkling attractively behind his spectacles. “I’m a ghostbuster.”

Rachel blinked at him, certain she had heard him wrong. “You’re a what?”

“You know, a ghostbuster. When people hear things that go bump in the night, I’m the guy they hire to find out what those things are. Is it Aunt Edna coming back to get them for all those jokes they made about her pot roast, or is it just bad plumbing?” His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Is that disgusting ooze in the basement crud from hell, or do they just need a new septic tank?”

“People actually pay you money to do that?” Rachel questioned in disbelief. The idea went completely against her innate sense of practicality. “You actually take money from people to do that?”

“A crime against humanity, isn’t it?” Bryan said sardonically. He was used to dealing with skeptics. When one made his living investigating things a great many people refused to acknowledge, one learned to handle criticism in a hurry. But he made no effort to argue his case to Rachel Lindquist.

Let her think what she liked, he told himself. He was going to be much better off simply leaving her alone. Between his involuntary attraction to her and his anger over the way she’d treated her mother, there was no telling what would happen if he let himself get involved. Not that he wanted to get involved, he amended hastily. Noninvolvement was his credo these days. He was just minding his own business, looking for ghosts.

“You play on the superstitions and fears of lonely old women,” Rachel said, her anger building. He was a con man. Thank God she had arrived when she had. There was no telling how much this handsome charlatan might have bilked Addie for. “You set up a lot of electronic gizmos, spout a bunch of scientific-sounding mumbo jumbo, and take money for it. I think that’s deplorable.”

Bryan’s shoulders stiffened, and his hands stilled on the light stand he had righted. He gave her a hard look, the expression in his warm blue eyes severe, “Yes, well, we all have our own ideas as to what amounts to deplorable behavior, don’t we, Ms. Lindquist?”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

“Oh, just nothing,” Bryan muttered, tearing his gaze away from her.

Dammit, how could he feel so drawn to her knowing what he did about her? Even as he stood there fuming with righteous anger, a part of him never once stopped assessing the gentle beauty, the exquisite femininity Rachel Lindquist possessed. This indiscriminating lust dawning inside him was a disconcerting new character flaw, to say the very least. With a considerable effort of will he attempted to block it from his consciousness.

Rachel could feel his disapproval of her like an icy rain, and it rankled. The man was little better than an out and out thief, and he was looking down his nose at her! What could he possibly know about her? Nothing. Unless… Addie had told him something. That idea irked her even more, that her mother would share family secrets with this stranger.

“I don’t know what my mother may have told you, Mr. Hennessy, but she is not a well woman. She has Alzheimer’s disease.”

“I’m aware of that, Ms. Lindquist,” Bryan said pointedly. “I’ve been dealing with Addie on a daily basis. I dare say, I know a hell of a lot more about her condition than you do.”

The blow was on target. Rachel flinched at his words and at the burning guilt that immediately flooded through her. Still, she pulled herself together and lifted her chin. “Dr. Moore wasn’t able to contact me until just last week.”

“Oh. Pardon me for thinking you might give your mother a call every once in a while,” Bryan said dryly. “You know, once a year or so.”

Tears stung the backs of Rachel’s eyes. She had called Addie over the years. She had tried to bridge the chasm that had divided them. Addie had hung up on her every single time. Every letter she’d sent had gone unanswered. Every overture of peace had been met with bitter, stony silence. But none of that was Bryan Hennessy’s business, and, despite all she had been through, Rachel had too much pride to enlighten him.

She pulled her shoulders back and gave him her haughtiest look. “You will pack your things and leave this house, Mr. Hennessy.”

“No, I won’t,” Bryan said evenly.

“I won’t have you taking advantage of my mother.”

Won’t have me taking advantage of her inheritance is more like it, Bryan thought. He gave her a black look that only darkened as he leaned over her and caught a whiff of her perfume, an elusive scent so delicate, he almost thought he’d imagined it, and yet it lured him closer.

Tempting fate, he bent his head so he was almost nose to nose with her-well within kissing distance. Her full, soft lips beckoned like a siren’s call. It was as if their bodies were communicating on a level of their own, impervious to opinions on character. His heart thumped hard, then slowed against his breastbone, and his lungs fought every shallow breath he tried to take. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced.

“Addie and I have a deal,” he said softly, straining to concentrate on the subject at hand. “More to the point, we have a contract. And most important to me, I gave her my word I’d find out what’s going on around here. That may not mean much to you, but I stand by my promises.”

Rachel barely heard his words. They were absorbed into her brain on one level while her conscious awareness dwelled on the man. She felt overwhelmed, enveloped by his masculinity, and she felt her body responding to it. A satiny warmth unfolded through her, down her arms and legs and into her breasts, making them feel heavy and full. Her gaze fastened on his mouth. In a way she couldn’t begin to explain or understand, she could almost taste his lips, could almost feel them on her own. The sensations were so vivid, they frightened her, and she took a step back from him in obvious retreat.

Bryan turned away and speared both hands back through his hair as he dragged in a deep, cleansing breath. Dammit, he swore inwardly, more shaken than angry at the moment. He’d never felt anything quite like the power that had held him in its grasp as he’d stared down at Rachel Lindquist’s petal-pink lips. He shook his head to clear it.

It must have had something to do with a combination of exhaustion and celibacy. Once he might have called it magic, but he couldn’t call it that now. Magic was what he had shared with Serena. All his magic had died with her. What he was feeling now-well, it was something he wanted no part of, certainly. He was there to do a job, that was all. That was all he could handle right now. That was all he wanted to handle.

“Hennessy?” an imperious voice sounded from the top of the stairs. “What in God’s name is going on down there?”

“I wish I knew,” Bryan mumbled to himself, shaking off the last of the sensation that had stunned him so. He planted his hands at his waist and looked up as Addie Lindquist descended the grand staircase.

Addie moved like a queen. She kept her thin shoulders square and her back straight. Age had shrunken her some, but she did not see that as an excuse for bad posture. Her hand skimmed the mahogany banister lightly. She held her head high. Her frazzled braid of silvery blond hair was draped over her shoulder. She looked like she should have been wearing a velvet cloak instead of a flannel nightgown.

“Who’s down there with you?” she demanded, squinting. “Is it Wimsey? The rascal. I haven’t seen him all day. I can’t imagine where he’s taken himself off to.”

“No, it isn’t Wimsey, Addie,” Bryan said, heartily wishing it were the elusive ghost of Drake House. He stepped to the left so Addie would have an unobstructed view of her visitor.

“Well, who is it, then? You’d better not be cavorting with the kitchen help again.”

“She sort of thinks I’m her butler,” Bryan whispered, tilting his head down so Rachel could hear him.

But Rachel wasn’t listening. She was seeing her mother for the first time in five years. When had Addie gotten so old? The beautiful, vital woman Rachel remembered had faded like a photograph left in the sun. Her hair was paler. The vibrant glow that had always radiated from Addie had dimmed. She seemed smaller, and, while she still had a beautiful complexion-something she had always taken great pride in-her face was deeply lined. In the time they had been apart Addie had slipped from middle age to old age. Suddenly the five years that had passed seemed even more of a waste.

As Addie stared down at her, Rachel suddenly felt as she had at sixteen when she’d been caught coming home after curfew. A hundred fears and anxieties tumbled inside her. How would Addie react to her coming here? It was Dr. Moore who had contacted her, not Addie. Addie wouldn’t even accept her phone calls. How would her mother receive her now that she was there in the flesh?

If you leave with that cheap musician, don’t think you can ever come back here, Rachel Lindquist If you leave here now, if you defy me, I will cease to have a daughter.

The ultimatum rang in her ears as if her mother had delivered it only yesterday.

Addie’s gaze settled on the pretty young woman standing beside Hennessy in the hall below her. At first there was no spark of recognition in her mind whatsoever, but, as she moved down one step and then another, she felt her mind shift gears. A quiver of fright ran through her as she realized this was someone she should know but couldn’t place. The feeling lasted only a second or two, but its intensity sapped the strength from her, and she had to pause on the landing before descending the last few steps. Then the fog of confusion cleared abruptly and recognition startled her so, she nearly gasped.

“Rachel,” she said, her pale eyes round with wonder. She didn’t smile or rush forward, but held still. If she moved toward this vision, there was every chance it would vanish. If she was still, she could soak it up greedily and pray that her memory would hold it.

Rachel. Lord, when had she become a woman? She was beautiful. She was dressed like a cheap Gypsy in faded jeans and a purple sweater that hung to the middle of her slender thighs, but it made no difference; she was beautiful.

Her daughter, the child she had thought lost, was there before her, a woman. Emotions ran riot inside her, joy and regret and anger swirling and tumbling around in her brain and overwhelming her. She could only stand on the landing of the grand staircase and stare and say her daughter’s name. “Rachel.”

Rachel shivered, rooted to the spot. She wanted to rush forward and embrace her mother, but that was not the way of the Lindquists. They had never been the type for hugs and kisses and “vulgar” public displays of emotion. Instead, she tried to swallow down her fears and simply said, “Mother.”

It was a simple word full of complex feelings. There was so much between them, such a complicated history, so many memories, so much pain. Rachel pressed a hand to her pounding heart. Since she had received Dr. Moore’s call, she had thought of little besides her mother and how they would handle the situation. But now she realized that never once in all that time had she allowed herself to recognize the hope she’d harbored for this moment.

Bryan watched the exchange between mother and daughter with interest. What kind of family was this? His mother would have had him in a bear hug the instant he’d come through the door. Addie and Rachel stared at each other as if there were an invisible wall between them.

Perhaps there was.

The look in Addie’s eyes was guarded, almost defensive. Rachel appeared to be more frightened than joyful. Had she caught that second of blankness in her mother’s gaze when Addie had almost certainly failed to recognize her? Bryan tried to tell himself it served her right. She was the one who had left and not come back for five years. She deserved to be frightened. But he couldn’t stop the rush of sympathy that welled inside him. The expression in Rachel’s eyes was a little girl’s, hopeful and repentant. If she had looked at him that way, he knew he would have forgiven her anything.

“Rachel,” Addie said again, stepping down from the landing. She held herself perfectly erect.

This was the daughter she had devoted her life to. This was the daughter who had chosen to throw away all their dreams to chase after a two-bit drifter who had an adequate voice and a beat-up guitar. This was the daughter who had left her. Her deteriorating mind had no trouble recalling these facts while it ignored the attempts at peacemaking. All the old hurt and bitterness boiled inside her anew, obscuring the joy and the guilt. Her mind wasn’t capable of dealing with many emotions at once, and so it seized upon the strongest. Stubborn pride tilted her chin up as she stared into the face that so resembled the ghost of her own past. “What are you doing here?”

Rachel felt disappointment crush her. She didn’t try to stop the tears from springing into her eyes, but she did manage to keep the sorrow out of her voice. “I came to help you. Dr. Moore called me and told me about your illness.” Why didn’t you? Why couldn’t you put that damned pride aside long enough to tell me you needed me?

“Broderick Moore is a Nazi and a fool. There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t need your help,” Addie said coldly. She turned toward Bryan. “I have Hennessy to help me.”

Bryan took an involuntary step backward. He already felt like a voyeur, watching the interchange between mother and daughter; now he felt like an interloper as well. Rachel glared at him, her violet-blue eyes luminous with tears, and he held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. He shot a look at Addie. “Addie, you know I’m here only to look for Wimsey.”

“Well, I don’t know why you can’t find him,” she grumbled as her mind tuned out. “He’s all over the place.” She turned and started to shuffle down the hall, her green rubber garden boots scuffing against the marble floor. “I’m going to feed Lester. I’m sure you forgot to do it. No doubt practicing your smooth lines in front of a mirror again. Big Irish rascal.”

Bryan rubbed a hand along his jaw, realizing dimly that he had forgotten to shave. He didn’t know quite what to say to Rachel, who stood in the foyer looking like a piece of crystal on the verge of bursting into a million shards. It suddenly didn’t matter what kind of daughter she’d been, it was obvious Addie’s cold reception had hurt her, and almost certainly the decline of her mother’s mental state had shocked her. He couldn’t feel anything now but sympathy for her and the desire to take her in his arms and hold her.

“Dangerous thinking, Hennessy,” he mumbled to himself. “Don’t get involved. Make a note of that-don’t get involved.” He patted his shirt pocket, looking for his pencil, but it was gone again. “And don’t forget to shave tomorrow.”

“What was that?” Rachel asked. If she could not function in any other way, she could at least be polite, she thought ruefully. Wasn’t that one of the Lindquist rules of deportment? A hysterical little laugh threatened but never emerged from her throat.

Bryan blushed a bit. “Nothing.”

Rachel hugged herself, trying to ward off a chill that came from within. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything better than that,” she murmured to no one in particular. Her gaze followed her mother down the hall into the nether reaches of the big house. “She never wanted me here before. Why should she want me here now?”

“You tried?” Bryan blurted out. Shame crawled around in his stomach. It hadn’t occurred to him that Addie’s side of the story might have been biased.

Rachel gave him a cool look, her pride returning to rally around her. “There are lots of things you don’t know, Mr. Hennessy.”

Bryan pushed his glasses up on his nose and nodded. “Oh, yes. I readily admit there are lots of things I don’t know.” He tossed her his most inane grin in an effort to lighten her mood and said, “ ‘A man doesn’t know what he knows until he knows what he doesn’t know.’ Thomas Carlyle. I’ve adopted that as my motto.”

“I see,” Rachel murmured, though she clearly didn’t.

Bryan was unconcerned. The point was, Rachel’s eyes had lost their tragic quality. She was no longer staring after Addie with an expression of shattered hope. She would have to deal with those feelings later, he knew, but at least the intensity of the impact had been defused.

He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and gazed up at the chandelier, his blue eyes drowsy with thought. “Of course, John Wooden once said, ‘It’s what you learn after you think you know it all that counts the most.’ For instance, did you know that an alligator’s length in feet is the distance between his eyes in inches?”

Rachel opened her mouth to comment, then closed it and simply stared at him. How had he gotten on this topic? Who in his right mind would try to measure the distance between an alligator’s eyes? The man was a lunatic. A rumpled, handsome lunatic.

She shook her head, deciding she had to be a little off the beam herself to be going on this way about how sexy this strange man was. Finally she decided to ask a question that seemed more pertinent. “Who’s Lester?”

Bryan sobered and sighed. “There is no Lester. Um… your mother thinks she owns a parakeet.” He shrugged apologetically. “If she does, I haven’t been able to find it.”

“Oh.”

“I keep meaning to buy her one, but I forget things. I’m sure I’ve written myself a note about it,” he said, pulling a fistful of paper scraps from his pants pocket. He sorted through them, frowning.

“That’s all right,” Rachel said.

Addie thought she owned a parakeet. This man, who was a virtual stranger, intended to buy her one to placate her. How sweet. What a sweet, sexy, rumpled con man he was. Her heart warmed, then she caught herself and shuddered, cursing her wildly swinging emotions. She felt as if she were trying to keep her balance on the deck of a ship pitching violently in a stormy sea.

Stuffing his notes back in his pocket, Bryan watched her from under his lashes. She looked so lost. In a way it made him think of Addie at the instant her mind snapped from normal to non-functioning. But then Addie would retreat into her fantasies. Rachel didn’t have that option.

Without thinking, he took a step toward her. Odd, but he felt almost as if he’d been pushed toward her. When he caught himself he had already begun to reach out to her. Stopping in his tracks, he slapped his hands together and tried to look decisive. “You must have a suitcase or something out in your car. I’ll go get it.”

He turned and let himself out, taking big gulps of the cool night air as he crossed the porch and jogged down the steps.

“Holy Mike, that was a close call, you moron,” he grumbled to himself. His sneakers crunched on the gravel drive as he headed for a beat-up little Chevette that was parked beside Addie’s old Volvo wagon.

The farther he got from the house, the steadier he felt. The sea air was refreshing. Moisture from the fog that had rolled in at sunset dampened his skin. He leaned against the roof of the little car and let the sound of crashing waves wash the tension from him.

Drake House stood on a cliff overlooking the bay on the very northern edge of Anastasia. Because of the lay of the land and the size of the estate, its nearest neighbor was a quarter mile away. The house on its lonely precipice was a giant sentinel, a gaudy reminder of a bygone age.

It might have looked like a happy, magical place once with its turrets and gingerbread and gables. Now, run-down and in dire need of a coat of paint, it looked like something out of a horror movie. The land that stretched out before it had at one time been a beautifully manicured lawn. There had been gardens and even a maze. He’d seen pictures of it in Anastasia’s Architecture: A Pictorial Essay. The gardens had long since gone to weed and the maze had become a tall, tangled mass of wild brambles.

The few people who came to visit Drake House called during daylight hours, bowing to superstitions they would never voice. Most of them came to browse through the antiques Addie had collected to sell. The kids of the town sometimes came to the end of the driveway at night. Bryan had seen them-groups of four or five kids who weren’t brave enough to come any closer. They stood down at the gate, shoving each other through the portal but never farther. They were thoroughly convinced the place was haunted. They were also scared to death of Addie.

Addie. Bryan glanced up at the house and caught a glimpse of her silhouette as she passed a window. He knew she was going to all the bird cages she had collected, filling the little dishes with seed. In the morning he would clean the trays out before she got up, or she would be upset thinking there was something wrong with Lester. It never seemed to bother her that Lester wasn’t in any of the cages. Unless, of course, she was seeing birds that weren’t actually there. Ghost birds.

He found his pencil and a crumpled bit of paper and made a note of that, then shook his head as he tucked the scrap of paper into his hip pocket and forgot about it. Addie could be fairly lucid. At times she was sharp as a tack. Then in the blink of an eye she would be talking to people who weren’t there, feeding birds she didn’t own.

It was a sad situation, but it wasn’t any of his business, he reminded himself. He’d dealt with his own sad situation; he didn’t need to get wrapped up in another.

Rachel watched her mother go from bird cage to bird cage, panic tightening her throat. Addie couldn’t be this bad already. The possibility that she was terrified Rachel. The further her mother retreated from reality, the less chance there would be for them to reconcile.

In her own mind, because she had only just learned of the problem, Rachel felt as if her mother had just developed this illness. She wanted to forget that Addie’s decline had doubtless begun several years earlier, and her mother had either ignored or hidden it for a long while.

Addie had moved to Anastasia upon her retirement from teaching music in Berkeley, not long after Rachel had gone on the road with Terance. According to Dr. Moore, the people of Anastasia had labeled her erratic behavior “eccentric,” and, by the good doctor’s own admission, the town had more than its share of oddballs, so Addie hadn’t really stuck out. It was only after she had backed her Volvo clear across Main Street and into the front of the movie theater that anyone had thought to alert Dr. Moore.

“Mother, it’s very late,” Rachel said wearily. She leaned against the door frame of the parlor, letting it support her weight for a moment. Now was not the time to try to deal with any of this mess-the illness, the emotional baggage, Bryan Hennessy. “You should be in bed.”

Addie set her birdseed down and turned toward her daughter, arching a brow. Resentment burned through her. She resented Rachel for leaving her, for abandoning their dreams, for trying to tell her what to do now. She resented the fact that it had taken a call from that idiot Moore to bring her daughter home. The pressure of her feelings built inside her like steam, which she vented on Rachel.

“I won’t have you telling me what to do, missy,” she snapped, eyes flashing. “I’m not some incontinent old woman who needs to be taken care of like a child.”

Rachel reined in her own ready temper, forced a sigh, and hung her head. She was so tired. She’d driven clear from North Platte, stopping to sleep only once for just a few brief hours. Before the marathon drive had been the marathon fight and subsequent end of her relationship with Terence. And before that had been the devastating news of her mother’s illness. All of it weighed down on her now like the weight of the world on her shoulders. At the moment she would have given anything for someone to lean on, just for a minute or two.

The image of Bryan Hennessy drifted through her mind. For an instant she could have sworn she felt a man’s arms around her. How absurd, she thought, shaking free of the strange sensation.

“What room should I take?” she asked. “I’m going to bed.”

“Not in my house.”

Rachel’s head snapped up as her heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“I don’t want you here,” Addie said bluntly. “Go away.”

Rachel stared at her mother. She couldn’t have moved if her life had depended on it. Maybe she couldn’t have expected to be welcomed with open arms, but she hadn’t expected a total rejection either.

Addie raised her fists suddenly and jigged around like an old-time prizefighter, her braid bouncing, a truculent light in her eyes. “Go away! Get out of my house!”

“Mother, don’t!” Rachel ordered, wincing as Addie popped her one on the arm.

“You’re a traitor! I don’t want you here!”

“Mother, stop it!” Rachel shouted, dodging away from another blow.

She couldn’t believe this was actually happening. She had been bracing herself for a fight, but not one like this. As she backed into the hall and toward the front door, she kept thinking that any second she would wake up and discover it had all been a dream, a strange black dream. But how far back would the nightmare go, she wondered dimly. A week? A year? Five years?

“Get out! Get out!” Addie chanted. She couldn’t seem to stop herself from saying the words over and over, but she couldn’t bear to look at Rachel’s face as she said them, so she turned her back to her daughter and went on shouting. It was as if the floodgates on her emotions had been suddenly thrown wide. Anger and hurt spewed out unchecked.

Rachel pressed her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. Abruptly it all become too much. She turned and bolted for the front door, knocking over half of Bryan Hennessy’s equipment as she went. She flung the heavy door open and ran out onto the porch, where she stopped and leaned against a post, feeling dizzy and sick.

“What happened?” Bryan asked, setting her two suitcases down on the ground at the bottom of the steps.

“She threw me out,” Rachel whispered, stunned. “She doesn’t want me here. She meant it. She told me to leave and never come back, and she meant it.”

She sounded so small and lost. Bryan’s heart twisted in his chest.

Rachel hugged the wooden column as if it were the only solid thing in a world suddenly turned to illusion. “I have to help her,” she murmured to Bryan beseechingly. “She’s my mother. I have to help her. She’s my responsibility now. But she doesn’t want me here.”

“Look,” Bryan said, climbing the steps to the porch, “it’s late. Addie gets really irrational when she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep.” He wanted to tell her that everything would seem better in the morning, but the bald truth was Addie could be irrational at any time. There was no guarantee of her behaving any differently tomorrow.

Rachel faced him, leaning her back against the post. She wrapped her arms across her middle, fighting to hold herself together. In a matter of days her whole world had torn loose from its moorings. All the dreams she had believed in had died. The rainbow she had followed away from home hadn’t ended in a pot of gold. And the home she had returned to was full of strangers. The nightmare wasn’t going to end when she opened her eyes in the morning. The bad dream had just begun.

“My mother is losing her mind.” She uttered the words as if she had only just realized what they meant and what the ramifications for her own life would be.

She looked up at Bryan through a shimmering window of tears. It suddenly didn’t matter that he was a stranger or that she had questioned his motives. He was someone’s son. He had a family somewhere, a home he would return to one day. Maybe he would understand a little of what she was feeling, and she needed so badly to share it with someone, just for a minute or two.

As the first fat tears teetered over the barrier of her thick lashes, she said, “What am I going to do?”

Bryan instantly forgot his vow of non-involvement. What man could stand there and watch this lovely creature crumple like a wilting rose? He could offer her his strength if nothing else. He took her gently into his arms, as if her body were as fragile as her spirit, and pressed her cheek to his chest. Sobs tore through her, terrible, wrenching sobs. She didn’t seem strong enough to cry so hard, he thought. He could feel her sobs echoing through his chest, and he had to fight down the knot in his throat.

She was hurting-not physically, but with the kind of pain that comes from confusion and broken dreams and mourning a lost future. He could understand that all too well. He could understand her need to be held. He couldn’t understand his own overwhelming need to hold her, but even as his brain tried to decipher it, his arms tightened around her and his lips brushed against her temple.

“Shhh… you’re too tired to think straight. Let’s get you settled in. Well talk about it in the morning,” he murmured, not even aware that he had included himself in her dilemma.

Even though he whispered something about going inside, he made no move to leave the porch. He simply rocked her gently back and forth as the mist swirled around them and the sea crashed in the distance. He knew a strange contentment in holding her, but he didn’t question it. For the first time in a long time something was soothing the ache in his heart. He didn’t dare wonder why.