Mistress of Magic Read online

  And her magic.

  And then she had opened her eyes.

  He couldn’t risk Reggie. No matter what. He wouldn’t leave her alone again.

  Not with this going on. Not for a minute.

  Her eyes, huge, luminescent, emerald, were on his. “What were you and Max talking about?” she asked him.

  “Stock!” he told her cheerfully.

  “How can you say that with a smile?” she asked. “Prices must be plummeting. And how can you lie to me like that?”

  “Prices are plummeting, but don’t worry, I’m buying up whatever I can. And I wasn’t lying to you. We were talking about stock,” he said. And stockholders, he added silently.

  “Mmm,” Reggie murmured doubtfully.

  “By the way,” he told her, determined to get her mind from recent events. “I had lunch today with an old friend who’s an attorney.”

  “Oh?” She frowned, and he knew she was wondering what his words could possibly have to do with anything.

  “He’s helped any number of couples adopt,” Wes said.

  Her eyes widened. A shield fell over them. “Illegal adoptions? Adoptions where you have to wait years—”

  “He’s dealt with adoptions from out of the country, yes, but legal ones,” Wes assured her. “But you don’t always have to go out of the country. Sometimes, you can opt for a slightly older child. And he told me about lots of possibilities.”

  Reggie tore her eyes away from his. “You think that I should adopt on my own?” she murmured.

  “No, I don’t. But I won’t just live with you forever, Reggie.”

  “You’ve scarcely been living with me a week!” she murmured.

  “And a week has been enough. I love you, Reggie. But I won’t be some kind of a part-time lover or a stand-in Mr. Delaney. I want marriage.”

  He saw her eyes glisten. “You’re a young man still, Wes—”

  “No, I’m an aging old widower, remember?”

  “You’re a young man!” she insisted softly. “And you may think you love me now, but sometime—”

  “Reggie, I’m not all that young, and I’m not stupid, and I happen to like kids. But they don’t have to be my own. You think you and Max had it rough. I didn’t even know my real father’s name until he died, and trust me, it didn’t matter then. I told you before—love is what matters. Between a man and a woman, between children and grown-ups. There are a lot of kids in this world who need good parents. Maybe we can salvage life for one of them. You don’t have to answer me now—you can think about it.”

  “I still don’t want you giving up your own natural children for me.”

  “I’m not giving up anything. And I want an answer. You do have a little time.”

  “How long?”

  “At least until tomorrow.”

  She smiled. He was glad. He had taken her mind off events at the park.

  He squeezed her fingers. “Things are going to be all right, Reggie.”

  She smiled. Her fingers squeezed his back. She closed her eyes.

  In a little while he knew that she was sleeping. He smoothed a strand of her beautiful black hair. She’d given him so much. So much magic.

  “I’d give up anything for you,” he whispered, “and never miss it.”

  He sat in the chair, leaned back and closed his eyes.

  If only he could get his hands on the truth and salvage her magical world …

  It was probably natural that she should dream that night when she slept. And she did.

  She was standing at the end of a long, long aisle. She could see a light, a peculiar, almost heavenly light.

  Then she saw that it was coming for her. It had no feet. It drifted. It was black, and it seemed to embody all evil.

  Long arms stretched out to her. Arms covered with black, with curious, black-clad fingers that seemed to drip and ooze as if the creature had arisen from some awful kind of muck.

  As if the creature had perhaps …

  Come out of the water.

  It kept coming and coming. And she knew that she wanted to accost the creature, but it was screaming at her. It was screaming that she was going to die.

  And she could hear the laughter again. The awful, hoarse, cackling laughter. The face was such a blank. Nothing there. Yet there must have been lips somewhere, because the awful thing could talk.

  It could threaten.

  It could warn her.

  It could tell her.…

  “Reggie, Reggie, Reggie, you’re going to die.…”

  Then the creature’s head began to whirl. To whirl and spin, as if it was no longer connected with the body. It couldn’t be happening, not in real life, she knew that.

  She was dreaming. She had to escape the dream. She had to wake up.

  But she couldn’t wake up. She could just stare in horror and watch the creature’s head spin and try to see more clearly.

  There was a mask on one side of the head.

  And then …

  As it turned …

  She saw Daphne. Daphne’s face. Daphne staring at her, Daphne laughing at her.

  Promising that she was going to die.

  Then the head began to spin faster and faster.…

  And the words tumbled out, one after another.

  “Reggie, Reggie, Reggie …”

  Spin.

  “You’re going to, you’re going to …”

  Another spin.

  “Die, die, die …”

  Chapter 12

  She woke up, trying to hold back a scream, a soft sob escaping her.

  She nearly jumped, amazed at how fast warm, strong arms came around her. She was shaking. Wes held her tight. The shaking began to subside. She leaned her head back. She had come to know the subtle, sexy male scent of him so well. She knew the feel of his arms so well.

  If he were to leave her now …

  And yet she believed with her whole heart that to hold on to him would be wrong.

  That was something she was going to have to think about later.

  “I was dreaming,” she said quickly. “I woke you, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not surprised you were dreaming,” he said. “And I really wasn’t sleeping all that great in that chair, anyway.”

  “Uncomfortable?” she whispered.

  “No, it’s your outfit. It’s that hospital nightgown with the squat little blue people all over it.”

  She smiled.

  “No, really, it is the nightgown. It’s the way the slit keeps falling open in the back. I keep telling myself about all the things I could be doing to your back—and your front—if we were home.”

  Home. He had said home.

  She smiled. “You insisted that I say here.”

  His fingers threaded through her hair. It was damp. The dream had been a seriously scary one. He knew it.

  “What happened?”

  “The creature was coming after me again.”

  “And?”

  “And then it turned into Daphne. It was like one of those change-o things they used to give away at the fast-food restaurants. One side of the head was the masked and wigged robotronic. The other side of the head was Daphne. And she was laughing and cackling and promising that I was going to die. Sounds pretty ridiculous, huh?”

  He didn’t answer her right away. His arms tightened around her.

  “Not with your imagination,” he assured her.

  “Hey. If you’re making fun of me—”

  “I’m not!” He laughed hastily. His arms were around her. His chin rested on her head. She suddenly had the idea that he wasn’t telling her something, but what it could be, she didn’t know. And she could wait. She felt a rush of warmth from his touch, and she, too, was wishing that they were home. She turned in his arms. His hand brushed over her naked breast, beneath the soft cotton of the funny hospital gown. He groaned and withdrew the intimate touch quickly.

  “Behave, you wicked temptress! Trying to seduce me in a hospital bed, eh?”


  “No!” The dream was fading quickly. And still, there was something speculative about his golden gaze, even as he made her laugh.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your imagination,” he told her softly, and kissing her forehead, he eased her back on the bed. “You’re the mistress of magic, and your imagination has made a haven for all sorts of wounded souls!” he assured her.

  Not to mention his own!

  “Try to get some more sleep. I’ll be here.”

  She smiled, closed her eyes and slept.

  She did so knowing that he would keep his word, always.

  He would be at her side.

  In the morning, he barely pecked her cheek before leaving. He had to get to the park—after all, he had promised to play a dinosaur.

  Reggie waited impatiently until almost ten o’clock when the doctor came and decided to release her with a sheet of symptoms that she must watch out for and with a severe warning.

  Meekly, eyes downcast, she promised the doctor that she would be good.

  He said she could go right after lunch.

  At twelve-thirty Diana came to pick her up and the two women tried to understand what they could about everything that had happened.

  “Maybe Daphne is alive,” Diana said. “You said your figure might be the right size and height.”

  “But she’s not in this alone,” Reggie said.

  “No.”

  “So what’s the point to the whole thing?”

  “It seems like the destruction of the park—through Max,” Diana said.

  “Maybe,” Reggie agreed.

  “So what do we do?” Diana murmured.

  “We just keep fighting it,” Reggie said. “The best that we can.”

  “You,” Diana warned her, “had best quit fighting it! Who knows what will happen next time?”

  A shiver danced up and down Reggie’s spine. “Well, I’ve been given very strict orders not to be alone. I’ll be careful.”

  “I thought you were being careful before.”

  “I’ll be more careful.”

  She didn’t need to worry too much that afternoon. In the middle of the show, she realized that Wes was in the audience.

  She came down the aisle and sat on his lap and mussed his hair, and did her very, very best tormenting him.

  But Wes wouldn’t be so easily had.

  He caught her by the middle, flipped her over his arm and stole a long, passionate kiss. Breathless, Reggie told Bob that he had best find someone else to marry.

  The audience loved it. Bob sighed and told her that she had to marry him, it was in the script.

  But when the show was over, Wes was waiting, and she went home with him. And the moment they were in the doorway he was asking her if she really didn’t have a headache that night.

  She assured him that she didn’t.

  He had aches, he told her.

  “Terrible aches?” she asked him.

  “The worst. But you can fix them.”

  “All?”

  “Every one of them.”

  She did so, kissing his lips, his cheeks, his forehead. On the stairway she undid the little pearl snaps on his shirt and pressed her lips against the platinum furred expanse of his chest. Then she found herself in his arms, and very soon after, in her bedroom. He held her close and kissed her, and she slipped her fingers into the waistband of his snug jeans, running her touch along the small of his back.

  She heard the scratch of a zipper being quickly ripped open, and his jeans were on the floor. His hands were on her hips and she was flying backward to the bed. Smiling, she moved her hands through his hair.

  “The socks are a wonderful touch!” she told him.

  “Hey! I still can’t get that hospital gown out of my mind!” he retorted.

  She laughed. She caught his cheeks in her hands, and she kissed him, tasting his lips, nibbling, experimenting.

  But then she felt the hardness of his arousal against her naked flesh, and in seconds he was filling her, and she lost all thought of teasing and of play. The need overrode all else, and a rising fire ignited deep inside her. It burst upon her brilliantly. While she was still savoring the sensations, her phone began to ring.

  “Leave it,” Wes told her.

  “I can grab it. It’s right here,” she murmured, rolling over to catch the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Is Wes Blake there, please?” a voice asked.

  A feminine voice. A soft, hushed voice.

  But very definitely a woman’s.

  She frowned. The voice sounded familiar. No, not really. She didn’t know it. Not the way it sounded, so soft. Muffled.

  Something about it bothered her, though.

  “Is he there?” Impatient. Worried.

  “Yes, just a moment, please.”

  She handed the phone to Wes. He arched a brow at her. She shrugged, scooting over to one side of the bed while he spoke.

  Actually, he spoke very little. He said, “Hello,” then a few minutes later he said, “All right.” And then, “Yeah, yeah, all right, you know me.”

  She couldn’t gauge his reaction to the caller because his back was to her while he spoke.

  “What was it?” Reggie asked.

  He shrugged, his back still to her. “Just one of the clerks from the police station. She’s gotten a few more pages of information for me on stockholders I couldn’t get much on.” He rolled across the bed, returning the receiver to her. She hung up the receiver, wondering why she didn’t believe his answer.

  “Really?” she asked.

  Was there just a beat before he answered her?

  “Really,” he said. “Hungry?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Good. Let’s get something to eat.” He kissed her. The kiss lengthened. And lengthened. She felt his muscles tightening.

  Then she felt the hardening against her thigh once again. She smiled and touched him. Fingers stroking, then curving around him. He groaned softly, his face darkening, tightening. She began innocently enough. “Wes, I thought that you wanted—”

  “I did.”

  “But if you want—”

  “I do want, you little sorceress!”

  “I’m referring to a meal!” she said, wide-eyed.

  “Mmm. And I plan to feast.”

  “Then—”

  “This first,” he assured her firmly, golden eyes gleaming.

  “You said you were really hungry.”

  “You betcha.”

  “Then—”

  “Certain tastes just blind out all others,” he murmured.

  “Oh …”

  Two could play the same game. His hands were on her. Stroking. Intimate. Caressing.

  “There are just so many ways to be hungry!” he whispered against her flesh.

  Yes, oh, yes …

  She rolled to her stomach. He kissed her nape. Moving. Sliding down the length of her back. Teasing the small of her back. His hands were smoothing her buttocks. She was rolling again. Feeling the sweet wet heat of his caress.

  “Oh, so hungry!” she whispered.

  His lips claimed hers.

  His body did the same.

  She forgot all about the phone call.

  Four days later she was sitting in her office when she was buzzed from within the park. She picked up the receiver to find Rick Player was on the phone.

  “What the hell is going on now?” he demanded angrily.

  Reggie looked at the phone. “I don’t know, Rick. What the hell is going on?”

  “You’d better find out, and find out fast, or I’ll demand another emergency meeting of the board. This is all getting out of hand.”

  “What is getting out of hand?”

  “Read your copy of the Tell-All News. There’s one in your In box—I dropped it off this morning. I’ll be back with you in a few minutes.”

  She didn’t have a few minutes, she wanted to tell him, but he had already hung up. She reached into her box and found
the paper he had left. She gasped as she saw the front page.

  “Ghost Of Ex-Delaney Bride Terrorizes Dinosaur Theme Park!”

  She set down the paper, furious. Who had known about her experiences? Just her, Max, Wes, Diana—and Wiler. Well, if Wiler knew, everyone at the police station might know. And some people just couldn’t resist a juicy story—whether it was true or not.

  She read quickly through the article. “Sources” close to the park and the events taking place had reported that Daphne’s “ghost” had appeared to a number of people, including Regina Delaney.

  And of course, there was a wonderful, poetic justice to it all. No matter how big Max Delaney thought he was, his poor ex-wife was managing to get her revenge.

  “Oh, she’s getting it all right!” Reggie murmured. She set the paper down, drumming her fingers on the desk. Then she realized that the article went on. She flipped the page.

  She gasped again. Covering an entire page was a photo of Daphne with a man.

  The man wasn’t Max.

  It was Wesley Blake.

  Cold seemed to steal over her, like pellets of ice water dripping over her from melting snow above a frozen stream.

  Daphne was with Wes. His arm was around her. She was dressed in sequins; he was in a magnificent tux. The caption beneath the photo said that Daphne was attending a fund-raiser with heart-stopping tycoon Wesley Blake in San Francisco.

  The article went on to talk about Daphne’s fun-loving life-style and bubbling personality until she had settled down with Max. And then it quoted Daphne as saying that Max Delaney, creator, genius, was really none other than one of his creations himself—an absolute monster.

  It was damning press. Damning.

  And she was furious. Really furious. And she was worried about Max.

  The cold left her. Fury, hot, irrational, swept through her.

  Wes.

  Why hadn’t he told her? They had talked about everyone in Daphne’s past and present. Wes had listened to her. He had spent endless days at the police station, endless days prowling through the park.

  Max was a suspect; Reggie herself had been a suspect.

  And he had never even mentioned that he and Daphne had been on such friendly terms.

  Her door flew open. Rick Player stood there, angry, smug. He walked across the room and sat on the corner of the desk and leaned toward her. He tapped the photo with his finger. “Nice shot of Blake, eh?”