This Magic Moment

by Nora Roberts

  beautiful assistant.

  Hold on, Ryan, she warned herself. No business of yours. Quietly, she walked down and took a seat in the center of the audience. Pierce never glanced in her direction. Hardly aware of what she did, Ryan began to think of camera angles and sets.

  Five cameras, she thought, and nothing too showy in the background. Nothing glittery to pull attention away from him. Something dark, she decided. Something to enhance the image of wizard or warlock rather than showman.

  It came as a complete surprise to her when Pierce’s assistant drifted slowly backward until she was lying horizontally in thin air. Ryan stopped planning and watched. He used no patter now but only gestures—wide, sweeping gestures that brought black capes and candlelight to mind. The woman began revolving, slowly at first and then with greater speed.

  Ryan had seen the illusion on tape, but seeing it in the flesh was a totally different experience. There were no props to distract from the two at stage center, no costumes, music or flashing lights to enhance the mood. Ryan discovered she was holding her breath and forced herself to let it out. The woman’s cap of red curls fluttered as she spun. Her eyes were closed, her face utterly peaceful while her hands were folded neatly at her waist. Ryan watched closely, looking for wires, for gimmicks. Frustrated, she leaned forward.

  She couldn’t prevent a small gasp of appreciation as the woman began to roll over and over as she continued to spin. The calm expression on her face remained unchanged, as if she slept rather than whirled and circled three feet above the stage floor. With a gesture, Pierce stopped the motion, bringing her vertical again, slowly, until her feet touched the stage. When he passed his hand in front of her face, she opened her eyes and grinned.

  “How was it?”

  Ryan almost jolted at the commonplace words that bounced cheerfully off the theater walls.

  “Good,” Pierce said simply. “It’ll be better with the music. I want red lights, something hot. Start soft and then build with the speed.” He gave these orders to the lighting director before turning back to his assistant. “We’ll work on the transportation.”

  For an hour Ryan watched, fascinated, frustrated and undeniably entertained. What seemed to her flawless, Pierce repeated again and again. With each illusion, he had his own ideas of the technical effects he wanted. Ryan could see that his creativity didn’t stop at magic. He knew how to use lighting and sound to enhance, accent, underline.

  A perfectionist, Ryan noted. He worked quietly, without the dynamics he exuded in a performance. Nor was there the careless ease about him she had seen when he had entertained the children. He was working. It was a plain and simple fact. A wizard, perhaps, she mused with a smile, but one who pays his dues with long hours and repetition. The longer she watched, the more respect she felt.

  Ryan had wondered what it would be like to work with him. Now she saw. He was relentless, tireless and as fanatical about details as she was herself. They were going to argue, she predicted and began to look forward to it. It was going to be one hell of a show.

  “Ryan, would you come up, please?”

  She was startled when he called her. Ryan would have sworn he hadn’t known she was in the theater. Fatalistically, she rose. It was beginning to appear that there was nothing he didn’t know. As Ryan came forward, Pierce said something to his assistant. She gave a quick, lusty laugh and kissed him on the cheek.

  “At least I get to stay all in one piece on this run,” she told him, then turned to grin at Ryan as she mounted the stage.

  “Ryan Swan,” Pierce said, “Bess Frye.”

  On closer study Ryan saw the woman wasn’t a beauty. Her features were too large for classic beauty. Her hair was brilliantly red and cropped into curls around a large-boned face. Her eyes were almost round and shades darker than Ryan’s green. Her make-up was as exotic as her clothes were casual, and she was nearly as tall as Pierce.

  “Hi!” There was a burst of friendliness in the one word. Bess extended her hand to give Ryan’s an enthusiastic shake. It was hard to believe that the woman, as solid as a redwood, had been spinning three feet above the stage. “Pierce has told me all about you.”

  “Oh?” Ryan glanced over at him.

  “Oh, yeah.” She rested an elbow on his shoulder as she spoke to Ryan. “Pierce thinks you’re real smart. He likes the brainy type, but he didn’t say you were so pretty. How come you didn’t tell me she was so pretty, sweetie?” It didn’t take Ryan long to discover that Bess habitually spoke in long, explosive bursts.

  “And have you accuse me of seeing a woman only as a stage prop?” He dipped his hands into his pockets.

  Bess gave another burst of lusty laughter. “He’s smart, too,” she confided to Ryan, giving Pierce a squeeze. “You’re going to be the producer on this special?”

  “Yes.” A little dazed by the overflowing friendliness, Ryan smiled. “Yes, I am.”

  “Good. About time we had a woman running things. I’m surrounded by men in this job, sweetie. Only one woman in the road crew. We’ll have a drink sometime soon and get acquainted.”

  Buy you a drink, sweetie? Ryan remembered. Her smile became a grin. “I’d like that.”

  “Well, I’m going to see what Link’s up to before the boss decides to put me back to work. See you later.” Bess strode off stage—six feet of towering enthusiasm. Ryan watched her all the way.

  “She’s wonderful,” Ryan murmured.

  “I’ve always thought so.”

  “She seems so cool and reserved on stage.” Ryan smiled up at Pierce. “Has she been with you long?”

  “Yes.”

  The warmth Bess had brought was rapidly fading. Clearing her throat, Ryan began again. “The rehearsal went very well. We’ll have to discuss which illusions you plan to incorporate into the special and whatever new ones you intend to develop.”

  “All right.”

  “There’ll have to be some adjustments, naturally, for television,” she continued, trying to overlook his monosyllabic responses. “But basically I imagine you want a condensed version of your club act.”

  “That’s right.”

  In the short time Ryan had known Pierce, she had come to learn he possessed a natural friendliness and humor. Now he was looking at her with his eyes guarded, obviously impatient for her to leave. The apology she had planned couldn’t be made to this man.

  “I’m sure you’re busy,” she said stiffly and turned away. It hurt, she discovered, to be shut out. He had no right to hurt her. Ryan left the stage without looking back.

  Pierce watched her until the doors at the back of the theatre swung shut behind her. With his eyes still on the door, he crushed the ball he held in his hand until it was flat. He had very strong fingers, strong enough to have snapped the bones of her wrist instead of merely bruising it.

  He hadn’t liked seeing those bruises. He didn’t like remembering how she had accused him of trying to take her by deceit. He had never had to take any woman by deceit. Ryan Swan would be no different.

  He could have had her that first night with the storm raging outside and her body pressed close to his.

  And why didn’t I? he demanded of himself and tossed the mangled ball aside. Why hadn’t he taken her to bed and done all the things he had so desperately wanted to do? Because she had looked up at him with her eyes full of panic and acceptance. She had been vulnerable. He had realized, with something like fear, that he had been vulnerable, too. And still she haunted his mind.

  When she had walked into the suite that morning, Pierce had forgotten the careful notes he had been making on a new illusion. He had seen her, walking in wearing one of those damn tailored suits, and he had forgotten everything. Her hair had been windblown from the drive, like the first time he had seen her. And all he had wanted to do was hold her—to feel the small, soft body yield against his.

  Perhaps his anger had started to grow even then, to fire up with her words and accusing eyes.

  He shouldn’t have hur
t her. Pierce stared down at his empty hands and swore. He had no right to mark her skin—the ugliest thing a man could do to a woman. She was weaker than he, and he had used that—used his temper and his strength, two things he had promised himself long, long ago he would never use on a woman. In his mind no provocation could justify it. He could blame no one but himself for the lapse.

  He couldn’t dwell on it or on Ryan any longer and continue to work. He needed his concentration. The only thing to do was to put their relationship back where Ryan had wanted it from the beginning. They would work together successfully, and that would be all. He had learned to control his body through his mind. He could control his needs, his emotions, the same way.

  With a final oath Pierce walked back to talk with his road crew about props.

  Chapter 7

  Las Vegas was difficult to resist. Inside the casinos it was neither day nor night. Without clocks and with the continual clinking of slots, there was a perpetual timelessness, an intriguing disorientation. Ryan saw people in evening dress continuing a night’s gambling into late morning. She watched thousands of dollars change hands at the blackjack and baccarat tables. More than once she held her breath while the roulette wheel spun with a small fortune resting on the caprices of the silver ball.

  She learned that the fever came in many forms—cool, dispassionate, desperate, intense. There was the woman feeding the nickel slot machine and the dedicated player tossing the dice. Smoke hung in the air over the sounds of winning and of losing. The faces would change, but the mood remained. Just one more roll of the dice, one more pull of the lever.

  The years in the prim Swiss school had cooled the gambling blood Ryan had inherited from her father. Now, for the first time, Ryan felt the excitement of the urge to test Lady Luck. She refused it, telling herself she was content to watch. There was little else for her to do.

  She saw Pierce onstage at rehearsals and hardly at all otherwise. It was amazing to her that two people could share a suite and so rarely come into contact with each other. No matter how early she rose, he was already gone. Once or twice after she was long in bed, Ryan heard the quick click of the lock on the front door. When they spoke, it was only to discuss ideas on how to alter his club act for television. Their conversations were calm and technical.

  He’s trying to avoid me, she thought the night of his opening performance, and doing a damn good job of it. If he had wanted to prove that sharing a suite meant nothing personal, he had succeeded beautifully. That, of course, was what she wanted, but she missed the easy camaraderie. She missed seeing him smile at her.

  Ryan decided to watch the show from the wings. There she would have a perfect view and be in a position to note Pierce’s timing and style while getting a backstage perspective. Rehearsals had given her an insight into his work habits, and now she would watch him perform from as close to his point of view as she could manage. She wanted to see more than the audience or a camera would see.

  Careful to stay out of the way of the stagehands and grips, Ryan settled herself into a corner and watched. From the first wave of applause as he was introduced, Pierce had his audience in the palm of his hand. My God, he’s beautiful! she thought as she studied his style and flare. Dynamic, dramatic, his personality alone would have held the audience. The charisma he possessed was no illusion but as integral a part of him as the color of his hair. He dressed in black, as was his habit, needing no brilliant colors to keep eyes glued to him.

  He spoke as he performed. Patter, he would have called it, but it was much more. He tuned the mood with words and cadence. He could string them along, then dazzle them completely—a shot of flame from his naked palm, a glittering silver pendulum that swung, unsupported, in thin air. He was no longer pragmatic, as he had been in rehearsals, but dark and mysterious.

  Ryan watched as he was padlocked into a duffel bag, slipped into a chest and chained inside. Standing on it, Bess pulled up a curtain and counted to twenty. When the curtain dropped, Pierce himself stood on the chest in a complete costume change. And, of course, when he unlocked the chest and bag, Bess was inside. He called it transportation. Ryan called it incredible.

  His escapes made her uneasy. Watching volunteers from the audience nail him into a sturdy packing crate she herself had examined had her palms dampening. She could imagine him in the dark, airless box and feel her own breath clogging in her lungs. But his freedom was accomplished in less than two minutes.

  For the finale, he locked Bess in a cage, curtaining it and levitating it to the ceiling. When he brought it down moments later, there was a sleek young panther in her place. Watching him, seeing the intensity of his eyes, the mysterious hollows and shadows on his face, Ryan almost believed he had transcended the laws of nature. For that moment before the curtain came down, the panther was Bess and he was more enchanter than showman.

  Ryan wanted to ask him, convince him to explain just this one illusion in terms she could understand. When he came offstage and their eyes held, she swallowed the words.

  His face was damp from the lights and his own concentration. She wanted to touch him, finding, to her own astonishment, that watching him perform had aroused her. The drive was more basic and more powerful than anything she had ever experienced. She could imagine him taking her with his strong, clever hands. Then his mouth, his impossibly sensual mouth, would be on hers, taking her to that strange, weightless world he knew. If she went to him now—offered, demanded—would she find him as hungry as herself? Would he say nothing, only lead her away to show her his magic?

  Pierce stopped in front of her, and Ryan stepped back, shaken by her own thoughts. Her blood was heated, churning under her skin, demanding that she make the move toward him. Aware, aroused but unwilling, she kept her distance.

  “You were marvelous,” she said but heard the stiffness in the compliment.

  “Thank you.” Pierce said nothing more as he moved past her.

  Ryan felt pain in her palms and discovered she was digging her nails into her flesh. This has got to stop, she told herself and turned to go after him.

  “Hey, Ryan!” She stopped as Bess poked her head out of her dressing room. “What did you think of the show?”

  “It was wonderful.” She glanced down the corridor; Pierce was already out of reach. Perhaps it was for the best. “I don’t suppose you’d let me in on the secret of the finale?” she asked.

  Bess laughed. “Not if I value my life, sweetie. Come on in; talk to me while I change.”

  Ryan obliged, closing the door behind her. The air tingled with the scents of greasepaint and powder. “It must be quite an experience, being turned into a panther.”

  “Oh, Lord, Pierce has turned me into everything imaginable that walks, crawls or flies; he’s sawed me to pieces and balanced me on swords. In one gag he had me sleeping on a bed of nails ten feet above the stage.” As she spoke, she stripped out of her costume with no more modesty than a five-year-old.

  “You must trust him,” Ryan commented as she looked around for an empty chair. Bess had a habit of strewing her things over all available space.

  “Just toss something out of your way,” she suggested as she plucked a peacock blue robe from the arm of a chair. “Trust Pierce?” she continued as she belted the robe. “He’s the best.” Sitting at the vanity, she began to cream off her stage make-up. “You saw how he is at rehearsals.”

  “Yes.” Ryan folded a crumpled blouse and set it aside. “Exacting.”

  “That’s not the half of it. He works out his illusions on paper, then goes over them again and again in that dungeon of his before he even thinks about showing anything to me or Link.” She looked at Ryan with one eye heavily mascaraed and the other naked. “Most people don’t know how hard he works because he makes it look so easy. That’s the way he wants it.”

  “His escapes,” Ryan began as she straightened Bess’s clothes. “Are they dangerous?”

  “I don’t like some of them.” Bess tissued off the last of the
cream. Her exotic face was unexpectedly young and fresh. “Getting out of manacles and a straightjacket is one thing.” She shrugged as she rose. “But I’ve never liked it when he does his version of Houdini’s Water Torture or his own A Thousand Locks.”

  “Why does he do it, Bess?” Ryan set a pair of jeans aside but continued to roam the room restlessly. “His illusions would be enough.”

  “Not for Pierce.” Bess dropped the robe, then snapped on a bra. “The escapes and the danger are important to him. They always have been.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he wants to test himself all the time. He’s never satisfied with what he did yesterday.”

  “Test himself,” Ryan murmured. She had sensed this herself but was a long way from understanding it. “Bess, how long have you been with him?”

  “Since the beginning,” Bess told her as she tugged on jeans. “Right from the beginning.”

  “Who is he?” Ryan demanded before she could stop herself. “Who is he really?”

  With a shirt hanging from her fingertips, Bess gave Ryan a sudden, penetrating glance. “Why do you want to know?”

  “He . . .” Ryan stopped, not knowing what to say. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you care about him?”

  Ryan didn’t answer at once. She wanted to say no and shrug it off. She had no reason to care. “Yes, I do,” she heard herself say. “I care about him.”

  “Let’s go have a drink,” Bess suggested and pulled on her shirt. “We’ll talk.”

  ***