Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic

by Patricia Rice

  The woman had painted his damned door red and scarpered.

  If she was truly dangerous, he’d assume his house was about to blow up, except his nose for trouble was already twitching, and that never meant he was in trouble. He always fell into mischief without warning. Something else was wrong.

  He hit Dorrie’s number on his iPhone and got voice mail. He left a message about dinner and began to pace. He should have put a tracking device on her damned car. How long had she been gone? Hadn’t he told her to stay close?

  He’d paced from one end of the room to the other before he realized—he could walk a straight line in his jam-packed basement!

  Finally looking around and taking note of the spaciousness of his surroundings, he’d have to guess she’d spent the entire afternoon moving things out. Where in hell was his stuff?

  Why was his wetsuit on the floor? The burbling fountain had to be hers although he wasn’t certain what was holding it up under the flowing white sheet. His equipment was all neatly lined up on the shelves on the far wall, next to a mysterious pile of fat gym bags.

  His book boxes? With suspicion, he eyed a sheet-draped table with pretty bowls and candles on it. She’d turned his packing boxes into a table? The space almost felt like a real family room.

  His boards! He hurried back to the garage and breathed with relief. They were all out here, arranged in some order known only to his dotty guest. His bikes had been moved to a different corner to allow for the boards on the wall. He probably needed bike hooks.

  Where the hell was she?

  ***

  Dorrie was shoving a shopping bag of underwear onto the stack of other clothes piled in her front seat on top of her purse. She really needed to find an apartment. Conan’s place didn’t have drawers, and living out of bags would grow old fast. If she had anywhere to haul her father’s furniture, she could hire movers —except she feared for a moving van’s safety. Geologists may have cleared the road for opening, but she knew this ground was unstable. She probably shouldn’t even be out here but she couldn’t bear letting the last of her mother’s possessions fall into the ocean.

  Forcing her car door closed before anything spilled out, wiping her foolish, sentimental tears, she leaned against the Prius and gazed over the orange barricades blocking what remained of the garden. The views from the house had once been spectacular, but she didn’t think her father would ever enjoy them again. She’d already called the president of his realty company to ask about shoring up the yard. Tomorrow, she’d have to ask her father about selling. The house had done nothing but cause heartbreak. He ought to be glad for an excuse to be rid of it.

  Except with nowhere else to go, Ryan Franklin might never leave the retirement home. Bo’s death had sapped him of his usual willpower.

  She sagged against the car, overwhelmed by the all the burdens she bore. But life went on. She had Bo’s kids to think of. She shoved off the car to make one final inspection.

  Inside the house, she attached Toto’s leash to a chair leg so she could rescue a photo of her mother in a shell frame from the top of the bookshelves. She’d made the frame for her father when she was twelve, just after her mother died. It hurt to look at it, but it would hurt more to lose it. She set the photo on the front table, starting a stack for the next trip up here.

  Fighting tears, Dorrie steadied herself in the sunroom while she looked over the remains of the back yard and checked for valuables she might have missed. The energy was very bad in the glass room. She could feel the earth’s pain and anger and knew it was time to run. Taking one last glance around, she noted the French doors had shifted so badly, they no longer closed.

  A familiar yip jerked her head up. She’d left Toto in the front room, hadn’t she?

  Just beyond the glass panels of the sun room—on the slippery edge of the cliff where a metal bird bath sculpture leaned precariously—Toto’s leash was caught on one of the sculpture’s feet. He was turned expectantly toward the sunroom, yipping to her for release.

  “Toto!” she screamed, then covered her mouth to prevent more shrieks. What if her shouts crumbled what remained of the earth?

  Oh, gods above, please, not Toto! She could not bear to lose one more piece of her tattered life. Toto trusted her for everything. He was looking to her now, believing she could save him, when she was scarcely capable of saving herself.

  Weeping, murmuring prayers, testing the muddy, chaotic chi, Dorrie swung the French door open. It stuck on a growing crack in the pavers of the patio, but there was room enough for her to squeeze out. The atmosphere was deadly out here, the earth energy shifting and groaning beneath her as she sought a safe path to her dog.

  The lawn looked safe, but she knew it wasn’t.

  The ocean crashed on the rocks at the bottom of the fragile cliff.

  Toto stopped his yipping and wagged his tail once he saw her. Her fault. She should have secured him better, should have noticed the door had opened, shouldn’t have brought him here in the first place…

  Maybe, if she hurried… She dashed across the small patch of lawn, feeling superstitious because she knew every footstep worsened the pattern of bad energy, even if there was no evidence beyond the vibrations she felt. As the sprinkling system came on—she should have turned the damned thing off—she kneeled down beside the statue. Toto licked her face. How the hell had he managed to catch his leash under the leg of a hundred pound statue? She could barely lift the base…

  The heavy metal tilted and fell away, smashing into the turf as Dorrie wrapped Toto’s leash around her wrist. Not just the earth energy quaked—the whole ground shuddered.

  And the ground slid from beneath her knees.

  ***

  Conan cursed himself for being an idiot, for driving up to the bluffs when he had work to do, and his stomach said it was past time to be fed, all because some fool woman couldn’t stay where he’d put her. Women never stayed put. He knew that. They weren’t objects he could find where he left them, when he was ready to look for them. Which was why he didn’t have them in his life. He just didn’t have time to go looking for one every time she strayed.

  And still he was following his twitching nose into the hills. At least it wasn’t raining today, but it was almost dark. His headlights cut across minor rock and mud slides left from the previous day’s downpour.

  He would kick himself three ways from Sunday if he drove all the way up here and she wasn’t here—but he’d come to know the fool woman a little too well. She might pretend to be her father’s daughter in the office, but she was a house person. Now that she’d unloaded her car into his basement, she was picking up more junk. At least his junk was useful. She was probably gathering more dusty glass and noisy wind chimes.

  Sure enough, she’d left her car inside the hedge at the street end of the drive rather than risk her Prius near the crumbling house. If she took care of herself as well as she did the car, she’d damned well not be out here at all, stupid, idiot woman. It was okay for her to risk herself but not the car?

  Adrenaline pumping, Conan parked behind her and slammed out, striding toward the front until he heard shouts. His pulse rate kicked up two notches as he located the shouts and loped down a pathway leading to the side of the house—where his heart almost stopped altogether.

  Dog under her arm, Dorrie was clinging to the trunk of a spindly tree with one hand while the chunk of earth she kneeled on cracked away from the roots.

  Far below, the surf pounded noisily against rocks.

  Chapter 11

  “Dorrie!” Conan shouted in sheer terror. The wind had picked up, and he didn’t know if she could hear him. She was so focused on clinging to the tree and the dog that she didn’t even glance up. Shock etched her normally serene face.

  Fear threatened to wrench his heart straight out his throat. “Dorrie!” he shouted. She still didn’t hear him.

  He needed rope. He glanced at the sprawling mansion and knew it could take him an hour to search the place,
and he still might come up empty-handed. “Rope?” he shouted into the wind as he jogged closer. How could he find rope if she couldn’t hear him?

  As if sensing his approach, she finally glanced his way, then shook her head. At sight of him. her expression turned to relief and determination. She let the dog loose on its tether. “Take Toto!”

  The ground she kneeled on was at the very edge of the cliff. Even as he watched, clods of dirt tumbled from the crack forming between her and the tree she clung to—just as it had the day the rain had washed out the skull. The tree was slender enough for her to wrap an arm around now that she’d set down the dog, but the tree was barely hanging on to the edge.

  “Are you out of your friggin’ mind?” he thought he shouted back, but the earth groaned and tilted, tumbling him to his knees on the wet grass. The damned sprinklers were running.

  Terrified that if he looked away for even one second, she would vanish into the waves below, Conan concentrated on reaching her, even if he had to crawl. Her bright red and gold skirt flapped in the wind like a flag, and for the first time in memory, he prayed.

  He could swear she was holding the crumbling cliff together with the force of her will.

  “Let the dog go!” he yelled past the lump in his throat. The entire yard tilted toward the ocean, and he was suddenly sliding down the slick grass toward her. “Hang on to the damned tree!”

  As if she knew he would come for her but not the dog, she shook her head again. Conan thought he’d have a heart attack when the dog slurped his face with his scratchy tongue. He still couldn’t reach the woman clinging for her life. She was an arm and a leash length’s away, with a widening chasm of dirt and tree roots between them. He didn’t think grabbing tree roots would hold the dirt in place.

  He could smell mud and flowers, and he swore he could smell her terror. For a moment, he contemplated using the leash as a rope, but it was a flimsy piece of plastic meant for a small dog and not reliable.

  He jerked on the damned leash to show he had the animal, and she finally released it so she could wrap both hands around the tree trunk. Conan slid the leash grip around his wrist and stretched out both arms to Dorrie. He belly-crawled as close to the chasm as he dared. Toto scrambled over his back.

  Before he was even within arm’s length, the piece of earth she kneeled on broke off, and he nearly swallowed his tongue on his cry of anguish. His lungs froze as she clung to the tilted tree trunk, momentarily suspended over thin air, her long skirt billowing like a flag as the cliff fell out from under her.

  He blinked in amazement as, holding the tree with both hands, Dorrie swung her legs back to solid ground in an artistic ballet leap. He came to his knees in hopes of catching her. It was just like watching one of those Chinese sword-fighting movies where the characters flew into the air, sashes and clothes flying like flags. He swore she floated before she swung back to the safety of his arms, and the world was real again.

  Beyond them, the tree followed the landslide of mud.

  Conan hauled her slender, shaking form closer and hastily yanked both of them to their feet on the treacherous grass. With the dog’s leash on one arm and Dorrie on his other, he dashed up the sloping lawn, back to the safety of the highway. The crashes of earth, trees, and statuary resounded above the roar of ocean and wind, but he wasn’t turning back to watch for fear he’d turn into a pillar of salt.

  Not until they collapsed against his car, and Conan drew her tighter in his arms, could he admit they’d both almost ended up as bloody carcasses on the rocks. She was so damned soft and fragile! And shivering so hard, he had to hold her up.

  They’d almost died. He could have done nothing if Dorrie had disappeared off the cliff and shattered on the rocks below—except go over with her.

  Left wide open and more vulnerable than he ever wanted to be again, Conan tried to slow his pounding heart by focusing on the magical woman in his arms, on her soft sweater and unfettered curves and rapid breathing.

  She wept, and he kissed her hair, reassuring himself as well as her that they were safe. She was trembling so hard, he wasn’t certain she even noticed his kisses—until she turned her face up to him, and it was the most natural, life-affirming action he could take to continue kissing her.

  She smelled of earth and rain and a subtle flowery scent all her own that grew stronger with the heat they were generating. All he wanted in this moment was to know they were alive and breathing and the blood still raced through their veins. She was light in his arms as he lifted her closer, and her mouth was eager and inviting despite the shivers.

  She kissed with a ferocity and thirst for life that matched his own, and lust hit him with the force of hurricane winds, shaking him straight to his core. He wanted her so badly he could have taken her on the car hood.

  Then headlights swept along the road and the dog barked.

  She ducked away, burying her face in his shoulder. Still shaking, she didn’t push out of his arms, though. Or maybe he was the one shaking. He’d never experienced a kiss like that in his life. She’d jarred him straight out of his head and into the moment.

  But now that he was back in reality land— “What the devil were you doing out there!” he shouted, wrapping his arms around her so tightly that she didn’t have room to shudder.

  “Oh, God, I don’t know. How did you get here just when I needed you? Thank you. Thank you. I don’t think I can stand up anymore.”

  And she fell like a dead weight against him.

  Cursing, Conan opened his passenger door and lifted her inside. The dog scrambled up of its own accord, prancing his muddy paws over Dorrie’s skirt and licking her face. She slumped over, unconscious.

  Terrified that she’d gone into some kind of shock, Conan tested her pulse—the extent of his first aid knowledge other than resuscitation for drowning victims. She was still alive. He belted her in so she wouldn’t slide to the floor. Her thick curls slumped down the loose knit of her sweater, dragging the neckline with them to reveal the curve of her breasts. Conan didn’t even halt to admire the sight.

  Rushing around the car to his door, he remembered to stop and verify that her Prius with all the crap for which she’d risked her life was locked. He grabbed her purse from under the jumble, set the lock with her key, then slid behind the wheel of his car and scratched off down the road.

  He’d never ever seen anyone pirouette out of thin air. Or been kissed as if he were a superhero when he’d done utterly nothing to deserve it. But he damned well wasn’t losing this woman until he solved a few mysteries.

  His own pulse racing as if he were on fire, he took the hill turns at excess speed, nearly losing control of the Mercedes on the fallen gravel but jerking back to the pavement. Beside him, Dorrie moaned, and he slowed down so she wouldn’t fall over.

  His phone rang as he hit the on ramp to the freeway. He punched the Bluetooth button when he recognized the ring and yelled before the other party could speak. “Oz? Is your batty mother-in-law around? I need her, now.”

  Waiting for a reply, Conan finally noticed the damp grass stains seeping through the knees and seat of his pricey jeans. The chill soaked into his bones. He listened while his brother told someone to find Gloria Jean. Reality was sinking in.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you since you emailed last night.” Oz shouted through the speaker. “Why haven’t you got back to me? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

  “Long story. Need to know how to revive a woman in a faint. I’m heading for the emergency room, but they’re likely to laugh me out of existence if it’s just a faint.” Dorrie did have a flare for drama, but Conan didn’t think this was intentional. He just wasn’t certain that an impersonal hospital was the right place to treat a miracle woman.

  A woman he damned well better keep from his family until he figured out what in hell she was.

  “Shit, you let some female in that cave of yours, and she ran screaming into the street, right?” his older brother asked facetiously.


  “Screw you, big brother,” Conan replied without hostility. “She just pirouetted off a falling cliff. We’ve got some bad mojo happening.”

  Oz whistled, and then a feminine voice intervened. “Conan? I have Mom on my cell. She says you can stop at a store and pick up some ammonia, but it would be faster to head for the hospital. They’ll have what you need there.”

  “Stop using your ‘poor, baby’ voice on me, Pippa. It doesn’t work on me any more than on Oz, and I have a right to panic. She’s out cold. Even her dog can’t wake her. Have you ever been in a hospital emergency room? I’ll take my chances on a drugstore first.”

  He swerved off the first exit and peeled down the road to a shopping center.

  “It was worth a try,” his sister-in-law replied sweetly. Pippa was anything but sweet, so he knew she was still trying to pacify him with her magic voice. “But if you crash your car, you won’t help any. Slow down. I’m not too stupid to recognize the sound of squealing rubber.”

  “I can head into town if you need me,” Oz said, apparently taking the phone from his wife. “I like long stories.”

  “Yeah, don’t we all. You’re not getting this one. Not yet. Not until I know it’s safe. Remember the Librarian’s warnings.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I called. She just sent me a message. Said Call home. I thought of ET and called you. So the old lady is not apeshit crazy yet?”

  Conan would have laughed at his producer brother relating him to a movie about a lost space alien, but he was cruising for a parking space. “The Librarian’s still crazy, but not apeshit yet. I’m here. Go get ready for Donal’s dinner party. Talk later.”

  He hung up, backed the car into a handicapped space, and glancing at Dorrie’s closed eyes, dashed for the store.