01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin (3 page)

“You want me to take those?”

She just glared at him.

“That would be a ‘No thank you,
Tris, I’m good,’ I guess,” he said.

She glanced up, a little
abashed. But she didn’t slow down.

As they came to the last of the
corrals, many now empty, Tris realized that the open area ahead was
enclosed with wire mesh fencing. Over at the far end, small with
distance, a multicolored herd of horses milled and lipped the
ground. Maggie tossed all but one of the halters and leads to the
ground and opened the gate.

“Stay back and don’t move. Don’t
make a sound. Understand?”

“Loud and clear.” God but she
was sexy when she frowned like that. He felt that frown right down
to the button fly of his jeans.

She gave a little humph and
opened the gate. At the far end of the huge enclosure two of the
horses, a beige one and a brown one, squealed and squared off
against each other, teeth bared. She stepped inside like she didn’t
notice and carefully rechained the gate. The two horses reared,
hooves flailing, while the others circled nervously. She walked
forward, bringing her fingers to her lips to give a piercing
whistle. The two antagonists dropped their forelegs to the ground.
All heads turned to the girl at the gate. He glanced to Maggie and
saw her go, well, soft. That was the only way he could explain it.
The prickly attitude she’d been wearing like armor just vanished.
She exuded calm.

The herd, far away as they were,
stared at her, not moving now. Maggie lifted her hands, palms up,
and a small smile touched her lips. The beige horse who’d been
fighting a moment before broke from the herd and thundered toward
the gate. Maggie closed her eyes. The others followed, crashing
through the sparse sagebrush. They flowed across the huge enclosure
like a living stream. It was beautiful.

And then it wasn’t. Hooves
churned up the sandy dirt. Flaring nostrils showed red. Tris’s
pulse surged. Those hooves would be lethal. Closer. Would they
trample the tiny figure standing with her hands out to them? The
urge to rip open the gate and yank her to safety washed over him.
Protect her
….

He gritted his teeth to keep
from moving.
She does it twice a year.
The horses closed on
her.
She’ll tear you limb from limb if you screw this up for
her.

And you’ll never have a chance
with her.

Where the hell did that come
from?

The horses came on, full
throttle. Twenty feet.
Can’t just stand here.
He lunged for
the gate just as the herd broke to a trot and milled around her. He
caught himself and rooted his feet to the ground. Several horses
eyed him, blowing and snuffling. She hadn’t moved a muscle.

The head mustang had a scarred
beige/dun hide and black mane and tail. Did you call that buckskin?
Maybe. The horse reached a wary nose to her hand and blew in it. A
calm smile touched her lips. Without opening her eyes, she slowly
curved her hand around until she was rubbing the horse’s nose. Then
she scratched with her fingernails up toward his forehead. The
horse tossed his head, but only to help her scratch him. Several
others nudged and poked at her and her grin grew.

How did she
do
that? He
didn’t know. But one thing was clear. Here was a woman who knew who
she was and what she wanted. Envy made him grit his teeth. She put
her hand flat on the dun horse’s forehead. The horse went still.
The others stopped their poking.

She crooned some song that
sounded like a folk tune. The dun horse took a big breath and
sighed it out. His eyes drooped shut in slow blinks. At last she
lifted her hand from his forehead. They stood, face to face,
staring at each other until Maggie went round to his side and held
up the halter. He stuck his nose into it as though he’d been doing
it his whole life. She slung the halter strap up behind his ears
and fastened the buckle at this throat. Then she gave his neck a
pat and led him to the gate.

“Now you can make yourself
useful,” she called to Tris. “Hold Buck here for me, while I get
one of his friends.” She handed Tris the lead rope. She must have
seen the wary look in his eyes. “He won’t give you any
trouble.”

“That was some kind of horse
whispering.” He took the very end of the lead gingerly.

“Some kind,” she agreed, shrugging, and
walked back into the pen.

*****

Kemble Tremaine heard his mother
gasp through the open window. He jerked to his feet so fast he
pushed his chair over and strode to the French doors out to the
flagstone patio. She was sitting at a table made of teak weathered
to silver-gray, staring out across the sloping lawn to cliffs over
the Pacific. Catalina Island floated like a blue dream on the
horizon. The scent of roses hung in the air. Her hair was still
black, wound in an elegant chignon. Her slender shoulders were
rigid under the light sweater she wore against the onshore
breeze.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. That’s
when he saw the tarot cards laid out in front of her. He sighed.
Her latest hobby. She’d been consumed by it for months, and showed
no signs of recovery. How could an otherwise brilliant and sensible
woman fall for that drivel?

“Yes. Just the tarot,” his
mother said in that throaty contralto that usually felt as though
it was just on the edge of laughter. There was no laughter in her
voice now.

He came to stand over her. The
card that had the Grim Reaper on it stared up at him.

“I was casting for
Tristram.”

Damn his brother. “Uh, the death
card—that’s new?”

She nodded, her brow furrowed.
“It isn’t necessarily death. He could be in danger.”

“Mother.…” he started to
protest, but she didn’t seem to hear him. Tris was always in
trouble. Had been since he was eight.

“Or there’s some
transformational change in his life. Maybe he’s found himself.”

“Well, that’s not so bad then.”
She meant Tris had fulfilled the destiny of the Tremaines. He’d be
the first of the kids, in that case. Not likely. Kemble believed
there
was
a Tremaine destiny. How could he not believe when
he came from parents like his? But Kemble was the oldest. He’d be
the first. Tris might not “find himself,” as his mother so quaintly
put it, at all. His brother not only didn’t believe in the destiny,
he wasn’t like the other kids. He might be right not to
believe.

His mother was probably thinking
that card also meant Tris would come in off the road. Kemble
despaired of his brother doing anything responsible like coming
back to share the load of running the family business. Though what
use Tris would be he didn’t know. Kemble had a vision of grease
smeared on his computer keyboard. Or worse, Tris would get the
family splashed all over the front pages. That photographer had
been in the hospital for weeks. If their father hadn’t bought the
guy off, Tris would probably be serving ten to twenty-five by
now.

His mother frowned. “You know
Tris. He might refuse his gift. You know what would happen
then.”

Kemble knew what his mother
believed
would happen. Burnt-out synapses, gibbering
senility, the end of her second son as she knew him. Tris was
headed that way anyway. Probably end in an overdose or alcoholic
seizures that left him with dementia.

Kemble couldn’t tell his mother
that, so he didn’t say anything.

His mother turned back to the
cards laid out on the silvery wood. “Paired with the five of
pentacles, it could mean … sickness?” She ran her fingertips
lightly over a card with two people sitting outside a church with
stained glass windows. She looked up at him. Her china-blue eyes
made her look fragile, an impression that was false. “You’ve been
tracking him, haven’t you?”

Kemble hated to admit that to
her. She’d be pestering him constantly. He saw the familiar,
stubborn look come into those eyes. He blew out a breath. “Trying,
sometimes.”

His mother rose from the table
and strode down the terrace to the French doors into his office.
“Well, then, let’s have a look. If he’s sick, he’s going to need
me.”

Kemble trailed after her
.
Damn.
She stood by his toppled desk chair, looking expectant.
He picked it up and sat down at his keyboard. Before he accessed
the window he used to track Tris, he paused, fingers hovering.

“He’s not coming home, Mother,”
he said without looking at her. “He’s … he’s on a hard road and it
doesn’t lead back here.”

“I know.” Her voice got softer.
“I just want to know he’s okay. He calls his shop once in a while.
I hear about it from Drew. But we haven’t heard a peep from him in
months.”

“He bought a cell phone for cash
and put it under another name. That’s how much he doesn’t want to
be found. The only reason he doesn’t use a disposable is that he
likes all the bells and whistles.”

“But you did find him.” His
mother smiled proudly.

Kemble sighed, keyed in the
access code. “He needs a phony ID to work when he can’t find a job
that takes bartered services or pays cash under the table. I know
where you get those. And he hooked that alias to the phone.” He
flipped to credit card charges but knew he wouldn’t find anything.
He checked the phone records. No calls. GPS said he’d been in
Nevada somewhere. He accessed a website about horses, of all
things. Early today. Odd. Then immediately the GPS registered
inactive. Account cancelled? Unless something happened to the phone
along with Tris. He wasn’t going to tell his mother that, either.
“He was in Nevada when he cut off the phone.” He said it without
looking at her. He didn’t want to see her expression. “That was my
only way to track him.”

“Can’t you find him some other
way?”

“He’s beyond me now. Beyond you
too,” he said quietly.

She turned back out to the
patio, but not before he saw the tears glistening in her eyes. Back
to her damned cards.

Maybe it was better if Tris
was
dead. Maybe then his mother could move on.

*****

“Okay, Dillon,” Maggie called.
Dillon and another man in front of the barn turned toward her. She
led two mustangs. The guy who’d called himself Tris led the other
two behind her. At least he was good for something besides making
her wet. The guy knew zilch about horses. “Here’s for the lot.” She
pulled the check out of her shirt pocket. “I’ll be back for the
four in the corrals marked with the red ribbons tonight.”

He’d almost screwed the whole
thing by lunging at the herd as it thundered down on her.

Probably trying to rescue her or
something stupid like that.

Nobody’d ever tried to rescue
her. In a lot of ways. It made her feel as unsettled as her very
pronounced reaction to having him anywhere near her. Thank God he
didn’t know how she reacted to him. Or maybe guys like him always
knew.

Dillon raised his hand in
salute. “I’ll tell the boys you’ll be here late.”

She made her voice gruff. “I did
the whole bunch. You’ll be able to sell the others.”

“Thanks.” Dillon sounded
surprised. He would think he knew something about her now. But he
would be wrong. Tough girl Maggie O’Brian did
not
have a
soft heart.

She strode over to her trailer.
Glancing back to the motorcycle guy, she said, “You good to hold
them while I load?”

“Guess I can handle that.”

God, but that baritone made her
crazy. Men like that used their looks against you. But not against
her. He could just go hang for whatever he wanted.

What exactly did he want? She
was
so
not his type. She wasn’t anybody’s type, not even her
mama’s. She tied one mustang to the metal eye at the front of the
trailer and took the other one to the back. The doors were already
open and clipped back to the sides, the ramps in place.

“Okay, big boy, you ready?” she
whispered to the buckskin stallion. She stroked his neck. “You’re
going where there’s hay in your stall every day and lots of little
girls to bring you carrots.” She pulled the rope already tied to
one side of the trailer around his butt. “No coyotes, no
helicopters. It’s warm all year and there’s always plenty of water.
All
you
do is carry them around a few hours a day. Piece of
cake.” She tugged on the lead with one hand and the rope around his
butt with the other as she walked up the metal ramp, careful to
exude confidence. If the first one fought, the others would catch
the fear.

Buck stepped up on the ramp. The
hollow metal clanging under his hooves didn’t faze his calm. He
walked into the trailer, sweet as you please. She tied him to the
metal ring with a breakaway knot. He poked his nose into the net of
hay. “Down payment on your future, big guy.”

She stalked down the ramp and
held her hand out. Tris’s expression was guarded as he handed her a
lead rope. “Neat trick. You’ll have to tell me how you do it.”

“Don’t
have
to do
anything.” She loaded the bay.

“Maybe … maybe I could buy you
lunch in Fallon.”

Not on a bet.
She glanced
up to his face as she grabbed the next lead rope and saw a look
that was almost … reluctant there. Yeah. He was hitting on her as a
last resort. “Gotta get this stock to my place so I can come back
for the rest.” She led the black up the ramp.

“So you could use some
lunch.”

Why was this guy insisting?
There were horse groupies out there. But they knew horses. And they
didn’t look like movie stars. Was he making fun of her? She
narrowed her eyes. “I packed a lunch.” That was a lie. But no way
was she going to be the butt of some kind of joke. And she wasn’t
going to be a quick lay because he couldn’t find anything better
out here in the sticks. She loaded the last horse, swung the
trailer doors closed, jammed the latch home.