Magic

FIVE

Rachel checked her watch and frowned. Ten of seven. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. On returning to Drake House from Anastasia she had taken Bryan’s advice and modified it slightly, trading his suggestion of a brandy for a hot bath. She had shut herself in the upstairs bathroom and soaked in the deep old claw-footed tub until the tension of the day had all washed out of her. It had taken a concerted effort on her part to push it from her mind, and the effort had left her feeling drained. When she returned to her room at last, wrapped in an old terry-cloth robe, she had curled up on the creaky old bed, intending to rest for Just a few minutes.

Two hours later she had awakened abruptly from a deep sleep with the distinct feeling that she was being watched. She had sat up, clutching her robe to her chest, and stared all around the bedroom she had moved into that morning. It was located in the turret on the south side of the house. The walls curved; there were no dark corners to hide in. The room had been quiet and empty, but someone had been there. It wasn’t just the lingering tension that had told her. Laid out across the foot of the bed had been a dress. A dress she had never seen before.

Rachel ran her hand down the front of it now in a gesture of uncertainty. It seemed strange to be wearing it when she didn’t know where it had come from or whom it belonged to, yet she hadn’t quite been able to resist the urge to put it on. If Bryan had been telling the truth about dressing for dinner, then she didn’t own anything suitable to wear-nothing that came close to this dress anyway. Most of her skirts and dresses were comfortable cotton fabrics in styles that leaned toward a Gypsy or prairie look. She had never had the occasion or the money to buy an evening gown during her life on the road with Terence.

The whole idea of dressing for dinner seemed absurd. It was a custom from a bygone age and a class of people she had only read about or seen on television. No doubt it was one of the little eccentricities Addie had developed since her illness. In light of all that had happened since she had arrived, Rachel thought it best to go along with the odd dictate. If it would make her mother happy, if it might somehow help Addie to open up to her, then it would be worth the effort.

She stared at her reflection in the freshly polished mirror above the vanity. The dress was burgundy silk decorated with black jet beads. The thin straps flowed into a V neckline in both the front and the back. The fully pleated skirt fell from a dropped waist to swirl about her calves. It was pure 1920s, an antique in its own right. It was the most beautiful thing she’d worn in ages. And Bryan Hennessy had brought it to her.

Her chest tightened at the thought. He must have slipped in and put it across the foot of the bed while she’d been sleeping. What if she had opened her eyes and turned to look up at him. Her robe might have fallen open, and his gaze would have lowered deliberately-

Rachel gasped in embarrassment. The woman who looked back at her from the mirror wore an expression of uncertainty. Her wide eyes were pansy-purple in the dim light of the room. Soft color rose on her cheekbones. There was a decidedly vulnerable look about her mouth. She didn’t have time to put up her hair again, so she left it to fall down her back in luxurious golden waves. She wondered if Bryan would like it down.

“Oh, Lord,” she said with a groan, squeezing her eyes shut and rubbing at her temples, “what am I going to do about Bryan?”

Somewhere a gong sounded.

“A dinner gong?” she questioned on a laugh. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. There isn’t anything ordinary about this house or anyone in it.”

Slipping into a pair of black high-heeled shoes, she gave her reflection one last glance in the mirror and left the room.

She caught sight of Bryan as she began to descend the grand staircase, and her heart vaulted into her throat. Her hand gripping the mahogany banister, she halted on the stairs and stared down at the scene below, where Bryan stood sipping a drink and chatting with a woman Rachel had never seen before.

She had thought him attractive in a rumpled, all-American way. Big and cute with his earnest blue eyes and his tawny hair falling every which way and notes sticking up out of all his pockets. But in a tuxedo he was devastating. Handsome with a capital H. The black jacket hugged his shoulders in a way that nothing off the rack could have. The wings of his shirt collar framed his strong, freshly shaved jaw. His hair looked as if he had actually taken a comb to it. The overall effect was one of intelligence, authority, and money.

He looked completely at ease in formal attire, and that threw Rachel off balance. Would she ever get a handle on who Bryan Hennessy really was? Was he charlatan or scientist? Buffoon or bon vivant? The only thing she knew for certain was that he believed in ghosts and magic, and she would be far better off steering clear of him.

As she resumed her descent of the stairs, she forced her gaze to the woman with the wild mane of dark auburn hair. The light from the chandelier brought out the red in her tresses, surrounding her pixie face with extraordinarily rich color. She had enormous black eyes and an infectious, mischievous smile that seemed vaguely familiar. She was quite lovely despite what she was wearing-a man’s white dress shirt and black necktie over a wildly flowered dirndl skirt and paddock boots.

She glanced up suddenly and grinned with pure delight. “You must be Rachel,” she said, her voice honey-rich with the sounds of the South.

Bryan jerked his head up and stared openly at the woman on the stairs. He felt awed, paralyzed, thrilled-as if he were witnessing some kind of vision. The studs on his shirtfront strained as he tried to take in a deep breath.

Rachel stood on the landing, staring uncertainly back at him, her eyes wide, her hair spread out behind her in a fall of softest gold. The old-fashioned dress she wore bared her angular shoulders and hugged her small breasts just enough to hint at their fullness. With its straight lines and long skirt it was hardly a revealing garment, yet it emphasized her femininity and her own innate sense of class.

Jayne gave him a quick, practiced elbow to the ribs, her smile never wavering. “Bryan Hennessy, I know your mama taught you better manners than this.”

“What?” he asked, looking confused, then he snapped out of it. “Oh, yes. Jayne, this is Addie’s daughter, Rachel Lindquist. Rachel, this is Jayne Jordan Reilly, a friend of mine from college, and a friend of Addie’s as well.”

“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.

Rachel sat directly across from him, between Addie, at the head of the table, and Jayne. A tiny smile of gratitude canted the corners of her lips.

Addie gave her daughter a hard, assessing look, “Yes, it’s very suitable. For once you don’t look like some cheap, wandering Gypsy.”

The smile faded away as Rachel closed her eyes and counted to ten.

“Rachel,” Jayne said brightly as she picked around the meat in her stew. “Tell us all about your career as a singer. My, how exciting that must be. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

“That’s not much to tell,” Rachel said, bracing her shoulders. She kept her head down, her eyes trained on her plate as she tried to extricate herself from the subject as quickly as she could without being rude. “We played a lot of clubs, managed to get on a couple of PBS folk music shows.”

“That’s wonderful.” Jayne smiled. “I just love folk music. It’s very spiritual. So visual and honest in its images. Don’t you agree, Addie?”

Addie’s lips pinched into a white line. “Drivel. Opera is the only pure form of vocal music.”

Jayne never missed a beat, turning back to Rachel. “You said ‘we.’ I take it you have a partner?”

“Had,” Rachel said shortly. Her fingers tightened on her fork in anticipation of the comment her mother would surely make.

“Feckless little ferret.”

“Mother, please…”

“Addie, I love your hair in that style. What do you call it?” Bryan asked.

Addie scowled at him. “A braid. Honestly, Hennessy, there are times I wonder if you aren’t mentally deficient.”

“Well, the color is marvelous,” he went on, grinning as he speared vegetables with his fork.

Addie’s attention shifted between Rachel and Bryan, between unpleasantness and inanity. Bryan’s wink won her over, and she turned toward him with a pleased look. “You think so?” she asked, stroking the frazzled braid that lay over her shoulder. “I’ve been thinking of dying it. I saw a color on television called Sable Seductress.”

“Oh, no. Blondes have more fun. Take it from me,” Bryan said, winking at her again.

Addie blushed and turned toward Jayne. “He’s such a flirt.”

“Always has been, Addie,” Jayne said. “His whole family is that way. Why, it would make you swoon to see all those men together. They look like something out of Gentleman’s Quarterly.”

“Where is that Australian tonight?” Addie demanded, her mind already drifting from the topic of Bryan.

“Reilly’s in Vancouver shooting a movie,” Jayne said, automatically glowing at the thought of her husband.

Bryan managed to steer the conversation in Jayne’s direction for the remainder of the meal. He coaxed her into speaking at length about her husband’s acting career and her own budding career as a director. As curious as he was to learn more about Rachel and her past, he wasn’t eager to have Jayne prize the information out of her there at the dinner table, where Addie could carve it all up for ridicule.

He’d been willing to do the carving himself less than twenty-four hours earlier, he reminded himself. But that had been before he’d had the chance to observe Rachel. That had been when his only knowledge of her had come from Addie’s cutting remarks and the obvious pain behind them. Now he had seen Rachel. He’d seen-and felt-the turbulent tangle of emotions she was struggling with. He’d watched her look for the slightest sign of forgiveness or approval from her mother, and he’d seen the hurt flash in her lavender eyes when her hopes had met with cold disappointment.

He had accepted his own decision to help Addie and Rachel as best he could. And with that acceptance had come a subtle shifting in his feelings toward Rachel. The beginnings of protectiveness were coming to life inside him. Every time Addie inflicted another small cut with the razor edge of her tongue, the faint urge to take Rachel in his arms washed through him. He ignored the feeling on a conscious level, on a level where he was still not ready to involve himself completely, but it was there just the same.

Finally, Jayne scraped her chair back from the table and gave everyone an apologetic look. “I hate to say it, but I’ve got an important meeting tonight. I really have to be running along. Thanks so much for inviting me, Addie.”

“You invited yourself,” Bryan said, a grin teasing the corners of his mouth as he rose from his chair.

Jayne made a face at him. “Don’t get snippy. I brought the biscuits, didn’t I?”

“So you did,” he conceded graciously. “And they were delicious.”

Jayne bent, kissed the parchmentlike skin of Addie’s pale cheek and bid all good night.

“Where’s that Australian?” Addie asked.

“He’s working,” Jayne replied patiently. She leaned down and impulsively gave Rachel a hug around her shoulders. “It’s been such fun, Rachel. You’ll have to come over to the farm one day soon for a visit.”

Rachel managed a genuine smile for her new friend. It was impossible not to like Jayne immediately. “I will. It was nice meeting you, Jayne.”

“Same here,” Jayne said sincerely. “By the way, what’s your sign?”

“Um… Aquarius, I think,” Rachel mumbled uncertainly, knocked off balance again by Jayne’s sudden change of subject.

Jayne’s dark eyes took on a considering gleam as she looked from Rachel to Bryan, a secretive smile on her lips. “Bryan, honey, walk me out, will you?”

Leaving the Lindquists in the dining room, Bryan took Jayne’s arm and strolled down the hall with her. Neither spoke until they were on the wide porch.

“She’s very pretty.”

Bryan put on his blank, amicable smile and stuck his hands into his trouser pockets. “Who?”

Jayne frowned prettily. “Don’t play that role with me, Bryan Hennessy. I know you too well to be fooled by it. Really,” she said in a huffy tone, toying with the dainty gold bracelet that circled her left wrist. “I ought to be offended.”

“But you’re too busy recapping the dinner conversation and condensing it for analysis to bother.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said, pouting.

Bryan grinned openly at that. He reached up and tugged playfully at the end of her necktie. “Tell me, does this miraculous turn of events warrant a conference call or an all-hands-on-deck type meeting?”

Jayne’s eyes twinkled. “Faith has baked a cake for the occasion.”

“And what occasion is that?”

“Alaina thinks you’re falling in love.”

Bryan wouldn’t have been more stunned if she’d suddenly smacked him between the eyes with a hammer. He literally staggered back a step. “That’s absurd! I only just met her last night-”

“Ample time for you.”

“-and she’s done nothing but try to throw me out of the house ever since. That’s hardly romantic,” he argued, doing his best to tamp down the memory of holding her.

Jayne just shrugged. “Monica Tyler hit you in the face with a peace pie, and you fell in love with her.”

“You’re taking that pie thing completely out of context,” Bryan said, shaking a finger at her. “That was an entirely different situation. I’m not in love with Rachel. You may report that to the rest of the joint chiefs of staff. I’m not in love. I’m not going to fall in love.”

“Don’t say that, honey,” Jayne whispered, all teasing aside. She reached up a hand to touch his flushed cheek. “I know how it hurts to lose someone. I also know a very wise man once told me we can’t orchestrate our lives, that we have to take our happiness where we can get it.”

Bryan scowled as Jayne threw his own words up to him. “I’d forgotten how that photographic memory got you through art history.” He heaved a sigh and stared out at the unkempt lawn and the fog that draped it all in a dreary cloak of gray. “Yes, we have to enjoy our lives while we can. I want to help Rachel and Addie do that. But I’m not ready for anything more.” He gave a derisive half laugh. “Besides, I’m the last man Rachel wants to get involved with.”

Jayne watched him closely. “How do you know that?”

“Just a feeling,” he murmured absently, recalling very clearly the way he had heard Rachel’s own inner voice state that fact earlier that morning.

Jayne’s eyes widened slightly. She opened her mouth to comment, but thought better of it. Instead, she offered him a soft smile and rose up on her toes. “Kiss me good-bye.”

After Bryan had complied dutifully, Jayne adjusted the strap of her enormous canvas purse on her shoulder and trotted down the steps and across the yard to her little red antique MG, whistling softly to herself all the way. Her dear friend Bryan hadn’t had a “feeling” about anyone else since Serena had died… until now. Until Rachel Lindquist.

“In love,” Bryan muttered in disgust as he let himself back into the house. Of course he wasn’t in love. He was attracted to Rachel, yes. Any man with eyes in his head would be attracted to Rachel. He was sympathetic toward her, naturally. Any caring human being would have been. But in love with her? No. It would be a long time before he felt ready to make that kind of emotional commitment again.

He made for the dining room, intending to excuse himself for the rest of the evening. He had a lot of reading to do about the history of the area and about Drake House in particular. If Wimsey had lived here, the fact would likely be documented someplace. Wimsey was, after all, his main reason for being there-work, getting back his professional instincts, getting back on track. Falling in love was not on the agenda.

The dining room was deserted. He hadn’t been on the porch for more than ten minutes, yet the table had been cleared of china and linen. The room looked as undisturbed as if dinner had never been served. He was about to count himself lucky and escape to hit the books when a sound drew his attention toward the kitchen. It was soft, muffled, like a cough or a sniffle… or crying.

Quietly he stole across the room and cracked open the door to the kitchen. Rachel stood near the sink, which was full of suds and dirty dishes, her arms crossed in front of her and one fist pressed to her lips. Her bare shoulders lifted stiffly as she sucked in another shaky breath and valiantly fought the urge to cry.

Bryan’s heart dropped to his stomach. It took every ounce of strength he had to keep from rushing across the room and scooping her into his arms. Instead, he backed away from the door and began humming loudly. He gritted his teeth and forced his frown upward at the corners, then burst through the door into the kitchen.

“What ho! This looks like a job for the butler,” he said cheerfully.

Rachel swallowed down the last of her unshed tears and cleared her throat. She took the chance to speak but didn’t turn to face him, afraid her eyes might betray the overwhelming emotions she had been struggling to keep at bay. “We haven’t got a butler.”

“I suppose I could take that as an insult, but, being such a sweet-tempered soul, I won’t. At any rate, I suppose it’s a matter of opinion.”

“It’s a matter of money,” Rachel said firmly. “Which is something I haven’t got much of.”

“That’s all right,” Bryan said, taking a position beside her and eyeing the dirty dinner dishes. “I work cheap. Find me a ghost or two, and I’ll be as happy as a clam. Where’s Addie?”

Rachel gave a short, humorless laugh. “She chose to retire to her room rather than spend another minute in my tainted company.” The tears threatened again, but she lowered her head and fought them off with a tremendous burst of will.

“I see,” Bryan said quietly. Then, coming to a decision, he waved a hand at the sink in a gesture of dismissal. “These dishes can wait. Come along.”

Rachel started to protest as he took her by the hand and led her from the room, but the set of his jaw told her it would be pointless. For all his pleasant manner, the man had a stubborn streak a mile wide. She trailed along after him, marveling instead at how strong his hand was, and yet how gentle.

He towed her into a study, a masculine room with cherry paneling and a fireplace. After depositing her on a leather-covered camel-back love seat, he knelt on the hearth and put flame to the kindling already lying beneath the andirons. Warmth bloomed outward from the blaze as Bryan went around behind the desk, withdrew a cut glass bottle from a drawer, and poured amber liquid into two of the glasses that sat on a tarnished silver tray on one corner of the desk. He returned to her then and pressed a glass into her hand.

Rachel scooted back into one corner of the love seat as Bryan settled at the opposite end. She watched him, taken by surprise by his sudden air of authority. He was regarding her through his spectacles with serious eyes.

“Rachel,” he said with utmost gravity. “I think it’s only fair to warn you: I’m going to help you whether you like it or not.”

“Help me?” she questioned, eyeing him suspiciously. “Help me what?”

“Deal with Addie. I get the distinct impression you’re not good at accepting help.”

“Probably because I haven’t had much practice recently,” she murmured candidly as she stared down into the liquid in her glass.

“Are you going to explain that rather cryptic remark, or I do get to make use of those interrogation methods I’m not supposed to talk about?”

She glanced up at him sharply, completely unable to tell whether he was joking or not. He wore a pleasant expression-the mask again, she decided.

“I know this much: you and Addie had a falling out five years ago, you left with Clarence somebody-or-other and didn’t come back,” Bryan began, priming the pump for her in hopes that she would jump in with the rest of the story.

Rachel placed her drink on the low butler’s table and stood up. “I really don’t think there’s any need for you to know all the details of my life, Mr. Hennessy,” she said, her sense of self-preservation rushing to the fore. “The gist of the story is this: One time in my entire life I defied my mother’s authority, and she has never forgiven me.”

“You were in love with this Clarence?”

“Terence.”

Bryan noted with a certain satisfaction that she corrected him only on the name, not on the past tense he had used in regard to the relationship. “Where is he now?”

Rachel wandered away from the heat of the fire to the cool air near the French doors that led out onto a terrace shrouded in mist. “Chasing a rainbow,” she murmured softly. Terence Bretton seemed a lifetime away from her now, so far removed from her situation that even his memory seemed unreal.

“And what about you, Rachel?” Bryan whispered.

She jumped a bit at the sound of his voice. He had come up behind her without her realizing it, but her sudden awareness of him was acute. She could feel the heat of his body, hear the subtle sigh of fabric on fabric as he shifted position. He didn’t touch her, but she realized to her shame that she wanted him to. She hadn’t known the man two days, and she wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her. She wanted it so badly, she ached.

Her lashes fluttered down, and she was immediately overtaken by the imagined sensation of being held. His arms were hard and strong, but his touch was gentle… She felt herself leaning back, almost as if she were being pushed back, and she caught herself and fought the strange feeling off.

“What about you, Rachel?” he asked. “Where does your rainbow end?”

“You mean this isn’t Oz?” she said ruefully, an acute sadness filling her, a sadness that came through in the soft, clear tone of her voice. “I was so sure it was. You’re the Wizard and Mother…”

Addie was the wicked witch telling her she could never go home, telling her she was destined to be trapped in a surrealistic nightmare, that somewhere over the rainbow was a place dreamers longed for but could never find.

In the silence Bryan could feel her disillusionment as sharply as if it had been his own, and he hurt for her. Whatever she had given up to return to Addie had been better than the future she faced here.

Seemingly of its own volition, his hand rose toward the shimmering fall of Rachel’s hair. It spilled down her back, a pale river of moonspun silk. He couldn’t quite bring himself to resist the urge to touch it. Like a man trying to touch a dream, his fingers reached out hesitantly to brush against the curling ends. There was something incredibly sensual in the act, something strongly erotic, though he had barely grazed her. He inhaled sharply as desire streaked through him, setting all his nerve endings ablaze.

“And who are the munchkins?” he asked, trying to offset his reaction with a bit of levity. He barely recognized his own voice, it was so hoarse and low.

The absurdity of the question struck Rachel in the tattered remains of her sense of humor, and she managed a soft laugh. There was something wonderful about a man who could make her laugh on a night when her whole life seemed like a bad dream.

She turned away from the window and looked up into his eyes, so warm and caring behind his glasses. He was much too near. She had told herself to keep him at least an arm’s length away at all times, but there he was, no more than a deep breath away, and, while her wary heart told her to flee, Rachel found herself rooted to the spot.

“I never thanked you for this afternoon.” She rolled her eyes and smiled wryly. “I never dreamed Mother would try to take off with my car. Thank God no one was hurt. You saved the day.”

Bryan shrugged it off, uncomfortable with genuine praise. “Any other magical being would have done the same. See how invaluable I’ll be to have around?”

It was the perfect opportunity to tell him he couldn’t stay, Rachel thought. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words or even to consider the consequences of allowing him to remain in Drake House and in her life. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.

She stood staring up at him as if transfixed by a spell. The light from the fire cast her face in an amber halo, glistened off the vulnerable curve of her lower lip. It caught on the black jet beads adorning the old dress she wore and set each one with a miniature starburst of light.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are in this dress?” Bryan asked softly, something vital trembling deep inside him, something that had lain dormant, like a seed beneath the snows of winter. He felt it struggling to come to life with each shallow breath.

“I think you did,” Rachel murmured.

“Oh.” His mouth quirked up on the right in sheepish self-deprecation. Again he raised his hand to touch her hair, this time letting his fingers sift through the strands of silk. “Then, have I told you how much I want to kiss you?”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He didn’t wait to question himself or his vow of nonromantic involvement. He bent his head to hers and brushed his mouth gently across the satin of her lips. She tasted of sweetness and wine and need, a need that called out to her own lonely soul. His fingers threaded deeper into her hair, his hand sliding to cup the back of her head, to tilt her face to a better angle as the first kiss faded and the second began.

Just a kiss, Rachel thought. What harm could there be in a kiss? The solace and warmth and tenderness she found as she let herself melt into Bryan’s arms-how could anything bad come of this? She felt so alone, and he was so sweet. She had forgotten what it was like to feel like a woman, and he was so masculine. She had been so filled with misery, and he was magic.

Her hands slid up to grip the solid strength of his arms, her fingers drinking in the feel of his tuxedo jacket as her mouth drank in the taste of him-warmth and whiskey and desire. It was a tender kiss, but not a tame one. There was a hunger in the way his lips rubbed against hers, a barely leashed demand for more. His tongue slid gently along the line of her mouth, asking for entrance, then taking it at the first hint of acquiescence.

Rachel sighed as she allowed him the intimacy. Her heart raced as her breasts molded against the planes of his chest. She lost all sense of time and place, of who and where they were. She forgot all about duty and practicality. She gave herself over to a kind of sweet, gentle bliss that could have carried her into the night… until a crash and a scream shattered the still air.