01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin (24 page)

His father clapped his hands
once and got up from the table. “Right. So what we do is keep him
engaged in life. I’ll send him down to Argentina. There’s still
plenty of cleanup left after the earthquake. Jenkins will put him
to work. He’ll get over this girl in no time.”

“I wonder if she’ll get over
him....” his mother said softly.

They all turned toward her.

“She didn’t look at him once all
evening,” Devin said, puzzled. “Are you saying...?”

“Duh,” Kee said, rolling her
eyes. “Proof positive.”

“She sure did defend him when we
thought he was the one who hit her,” Devin mused.

“You thought Tris hit Maggie?”
His mother blinked at them, incredulous. “Fighting yes, but he’s
never been a bully. Quite the opposite. He always takes the side of
the underdog.”

“He’s been gone a long time,”
Kemble excused. Drew looked ashamed.

Their father chewed his lip,
then gathered himself. “Well, her next rodeo will take her mind off
him. You each have a destiny that goes beyond just popping the
question to the first member of the opposite sex who fancies you.
We’re born to gather the forces of magic and pass them on to future
generations.”

“And here I thought you and
Mother loved each other,” Drew said mournfully.

“Of course we love each other,”
his father barked. “That’s what engages the magic. You will each
find the right partner, too.” He stole a glance at his wife, and a
smile just touched the corners of his lips. “You’ll know
immediately. I did.”

Kemble watched his mother’s eyes
light with love. He wanted what they had. He truly did. But he was
thirty and he hadn’t found it. His mother had fixed him up with a
hundred girls, and he never “knew immediately” with any of them.
His father might be overestimating his progeny’s chances of finding
someone with that shred of genetic material that drew them together
and begat magic. The one least likely to succeed in this improbable
endeavor was Tris.
If
he was in love with his little
cowgirl, he’d just kissed off all chance of completing his
destiny.

Given how likely Tris was to
complete his destiny in the first place, maybe it wasn’t much loss.
A brother throwing his destiny away to marry a cowgirl was better
than whoring all over Hollywood and making the tabloids. It would
keep Tris quiet at least. They could live in Nevada, or wherever.
Tris had never wanted to be part of the family anyway, no matter
how much their father tried to mold him into a Tremaine.

His mother snapped out of her
reverie. “Well, one must do what one can,” she said. In spite of
raised eyebrows around the table, she only smiled, said, “Don’t
stay up too late,” and she was gone. Kee and Devin trailed after
her, whispering. Kemble looked to his father.

“I think the best outcome would
be if she left him,” his father said. “He’ll mourn for two days and
then move on. I’ll send him to Argentina, and ... and he’ll settle
down.”

Did his father really believe
that? Kemble couldn’t tell. But he knew what his father expected of
him. He wouldn’t have had the courage to do it on his own. He
wondered for the umpteenth time whether he was really cut out to
lead either Tremaine Enterprises or the Tremaine family. Of course
that was decades away. But he just didn’t seem to be cut out for
it.

“I’ll take care of it.” But he
couldn’t believe he was doing the right thing.

All right. There had to be a way
to get to the other Tremaine kids. Jason logged on to his computer
in his room in the Oklahoma City complex. It was just after
midnight. Jason wasn’t really a hacker, but Hardwick had set up
backdoor routes into the standard sites used to trace people. He
worked for an hour or so. Somebody was pretty good at hiding all
things Tremaine. Security out the yin-yang. It was like they put
extra booby traps on any sites that would have information.
American Express? Sure, he had Hardwick’s backdoor, but you
couldn’t get to Tremaine Amex records.

Of course that was only the
older ones. The young ones wouldn’t have Amex cards.

Hmmm.... What they might have
was.... Nah. Not with the security-crazy Tremaines.

Oh hell, he’d just check. He
clicked the link. Start with the youngest.

Shit, howdy. Tamsen Tremaine had
a Facebook page. Recent. Lots of pink. Only a few friends, also of
the fourteen-year-old variety, by the language in their posts.
Pictures of horses.

And pictures of Tris Tremaine
and Maggie O’Brian sitting at what looked like a breakfast bar in a
private house. He had a beer and she had a glass of wine. The
caption said, “My big brother and his new friend. He came back for
Mom’s birthday!!!!!!!”

They were grinning, for Christ’s
sake. Anger raced through him. Posted two hours ago.

Alive. In Tremaine Central.
Where he couldn’t get at them. He could feel the blood drain from
his face. His hand wasn’t quite steady as he wiped the back of it
across his mouth. What to do? He couldn’t make this right. Maybe
the old woman would be too busy looking for her Talismans to
notice....

“
You look like you’ve seen a
ghost.”

The whisper sent chills through
him. He could feel her behind him. He couldn’t say anything. She
shuffled over to stand at his shoulder, smelling of rubbing alcohol
and age. He didn’t look up. But he saw her emaciated hand, with its
papery skin and ropy blue veins, clench on the chair arm. The bones
stood out like they were bird’s feet.

“
Not dead after all,” she
rasped.

Jason kept his eyes glued to the
computer screen, but there, like the ghost she’d been talking
about, was her reflection, behind the pink Facebook page. He
couldn’t see details. But he remembered them. The sores, as if her
papery, mottled skin was breaking down from within, the rheumy eyes
that looked blind. They weren’t. “Prentice swore he got them,”
Jason almost whined.

The old woman ignored that.
“We’ll discuss fault later.” Jason knew what that meant. Suddenly
his bladder felt too full. “Right now, we need a way into their
lives in LA. A mole. Or two.” She pointed an index finger misshapen
with arthritis and discolored with the bruising that came from
thinning skin at Tristram Tremaine’s picture. The nail was thick
and yellowed. “Where is his business?”

“
Uh, East LA, ma’am.”

There was a low chuckle behind
him. He tried not to remember the lips drawn back from rotting gums
he’d seen that one time. “I know a councilman for that district.
And he’ll know someone who works there. Take us a day or two to get
it set up.”

Sure. Guy was bound to go back
to his business.

“
What do you think, Jason?
Will Tremaine stay with his parents?”

When he’d been wandering for a
year? “He’s following his dick right now. He’ll follow the girl.
She’ll head back to Nevada. She’s got an alcoholic father and some
horses there.”

“
Good boy. You’re not a total
loss after all. We’ll send Prentice out to her place.”

“
And one of our moles will
tell us when he heads out after her,” he managed. “What he’s
driving...”

“
That’s where you come in.”
Her claw patted his shoulder. “Get both of them, and I may forget
your failures.”

Could he still avoid the horror?
The hated face from his youth rose before his mind’s eye. She’d
chain Jason so it could get to him. He remembered the feel of
screaming your throat raw.

“
So.” Her withered lips were
right next to his ear. “You understand.” He could feel her smile.
He suppressed a shudder. He didn’t breathe until she stood. “Now,
what else can we learn from this child?”

He scanned the Facebook page
frantically. “Uh, she likes horses? One of her sisters paints. Her
mother reads the tarot....”

“
What?” the old woman
practically choked. Jason froze. “Damn them all to hell. If she
reads tarot, she might know about the Talismans. She’ll come across
the stories eventually if she hasn’t already.” The old woman’s
voice held more anxiety than he’d ever heard in it. He didn’t know
what to say. But she was already turning away. “Hardwick. He thinks
he has a line on the sword. I must have those Talismans before the
Tremaines can find them!” She shuffled away, her cane tapping. Out
of the corner of his eye, he saw that one foot was
dragging.

She didn’t have much time. If
these Talisman things weren’t a myth, they were the only things
that could give her enough power to stop her own death. At least
that’s what she believed. But she had to find all four. He didn’t
know whether he wanted her to find them or not.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The clock on the nightstand said
two in the morning. This was ridiculous. Maggie hadn’t slept a wink
since eleven and sleep was nowhere in sight now. She wanted to be
out in time to beat the traffic tomorrow morning, which meant
horses loaded and on the road by six. How would she do a ten-hour
drive tomorrow after delivering the horses and settling them in? At
this rate she’d have to spend time sleeping in the Ford at a truck
stop or something.

She had first fallen asleep
earlier tonight marveling at the Tremaine family. She could see how
Tris felt alienated, but really they were wonderful people. Even
his father, though he could be intimidating. The way Mr. Tremaine
had said so gruffly that Kemble didn’t have time to find Tammy a
dressage teacher, so he would, was pretty cute. He obviously cared
for Tammy. And Tammy called him Daddy. That almost made her laugh.
And Mrs. Tremaine—what a warm and generous person. There was
something about her though, depths maybe, that not everyone would
see. Maggie bet she could be truly conniving when it came to her
children. They adored her. And who wouldn’t? Maggie would have
killed to have a mama like that. Her own had been distant, even
before she left Elroy and didn’t take Maggie along. And the
children ... beautiful Drew and rambunctious Lanyon, the artist Kee
and the surfer Devin....

Well, there wasn’t much Maggie
wouldn’t give for a family like that. In fact, the only thing she
didn’t like about his family was that they didn’t value Tris
enough.

But it wasn’t Tris’s family
keeping her awake now. It was Tris himself, damn him. She couldn’t
stop thinking about him—how vital and alive he seemed. When had he
gotten that magnetic? She could practically feel him in the house
somewhere.

Had he been that way in the
diner? Attractive, yes, but not like
this.
Of course, now
she knew him better. That must be it. She liked him. There were no
two ways about that.

And she wanted him. She wanted
him so badly her body physically ached for him. Could a woman want
a man like that?

Okay. She hadn’t had any sex
lately. That’s what it was. She knew how to take care of that. She
pulled up her short night shift and began thinking of Tris’s bare
chest (minus the sling) with the knotted tattoo where he’d tried to
engrave his family into his skin to make himself belong. And how
the other tat came down over his shoulder and onto his biceps. She
thought about those abs and the oblique abdominals that disappeared
over his hips into his jeans. Her hand trailed down between her
thighs as if it had a mind of its own. She was dripping wet.

It took her about a minute to
come to a wrenching orgasm.

That was better. Decks now
cleared for sleep. She should have done this a long time ago.
Except within five minutes she was in the same state.

Okay. She was not going bring
herself off all night. She couldn’t lie here and suffer, either.
She pushed herself out of bed, angry. “Let’s just see if that
library has any books a regular person might want to read.”
Probably filled with books on high finance, or Martha Stewart
treatises on making your own centerpieces. She pulled on her short
robe. Actually that last wasn’t fair. Mrs. Tremaine might be a
little too perfect, but her home felt normal and lived in. The
family cooked for themselves. And the centerpiece tonight had been
a few fat candles and some flowers from the garden, which even
Maggie could have managed. If she had a garden.

She crept out of her room and
down the hall to the library.

Tris
heard
her. He didn’t
know how he heard her. No one could hear a hundred-pound girl
tiptoeing down the hall on the story above him. But he did. It was
Maggie. He was sure of it.

He shouldn’t go up there. That
was asking for trouble. How much restraint could one man manage
when his body was raging and needing, and ... and making demands?
Two cold showers in the last hour and one session with his hand had
done jack to relieve his longing to have Maggie’s body cradled
against his own. Okay, that was the sanitized version. He wanted to
be plunging into her until they both went off like rockets. He
finished toweling his hair dry and slung the cloth around his
neck.

You’re two adults. What
harm?

“She wants a family,” he
repeated under his breath. “You’d just leave her. For her that’d be
devastating. You’re the worst choice in the world.”

Why not give her the choice?

“Because if she wants me, it’s
because she’s lying to herself about whether I’ll stay. She’ll
think it’s love when it’s not.”

So?

“So you don’t lie to a woman
just to get in her jeans.”

Don’t lie. Don’t say anything.
Just see what happens.

“I know what’ll happen. I’ll be
an asshole.”

Maybe she wants you as much as
you want her. Maybe more than she wants a family.

“Maybe I’m lying to myself about
what she wants.”