Spellbinder: A Love Story With Magical Interruptions

by Melanie Rawn

  “Have I told Isabella lately that I love her?”

  “Y’all go right on ahead, boy—if you’re prepared to deal with her six-foot-five former linebacker husband and her six-foot-six right tackle son.”

  He winced. “Sounds like I’d better keep my mouth shut.”

  “You haven’t closed it except to chew for the last forty-five minutes.” She eyed him thoughtfully. “You really were a good boy, weren’t you?”

  He nodded, making his face and eyes the very portrait of virtue. “Like Pete said—nauseating.”

  “I have to say I’m surprised.”

  He polished off the last enchilada and set his fork down. “It kinda surprised me, too, if you want to know. But it’s not like I didn’t try.”

  “You what?” Her back became a ramrod and sparks shot from her eyes.

  “I told myself I had to. But I just couldn’t get interested. Pissed me off, too.”

  “I’ll just bet it did,” she said through her teeth. “Who was she?”

  “Just some bottle-blonde at Starbucks. But that was it. Honest, Holly,” he insisted as her eyes ignited to full fury. “I didn’t want to. She wasn’t you.”

  She chewed her lip for a moment, eyes narrowed, then gave an annoyed snort. “Oh, stop trying to look like a scolded puppy. I believe you. As if the way you reacted in the car wasn’t proof enough.”

  “I didn’t notice you lagging behind.” He grinned.

  “When do I ever, with you? Marshal, you’re too good.”

  “But not too good to be true,” he said as he poured more wine.

  “That was absolutely foul. People have been shot for less. What’s all this about your apartment?”

  “Like I said—goin’ co-op. I can’t afford it. So …” He shrugged.

  Taking a large swallow of wine, she set the glass down and regarded him with squared jaw and determined eyes. “You could afford to live here, you know. Half my rent is about what you pay per month on your place, right?” Suddenly she was looking anywhere but at him. “I’m a very reasonable landlady. You’ll be paying your full share of rent—don’t think you won’t!—but I won’t make you take out the trash or clean the catbox —”

  Evan sat back. “What’re you talking about?” he asked carefully.

  “What do you think I’m talking about?” she countered. “There’s a whole floor I don’t even use, and it’s ridiculous to have it sit there with nobody living in it. Half your clothes are here, anyway. You’d have your own bedroom and bath, and —”

  He felt his lips curve in a smile. “Hold on.” Rising, he took her shoulders and drew her up to stand before him. “Holly, are you asking me to live with you?”

  “In the same apartment, yes, but not in the way that you’re thinking—unless you want to,” she added, looking down. “Would it be that awful?”

  He would never understand how she could change from confident woman to insecure teenager in two seconds flat. But as dizzying as the change was, he was totally unprepared for what came next. She looked up at him, eyes bright with mischief, and slipped her arms around him, hands fitted to his ass.

  “I want this long, lean, luscious Irish carcass where I can get my hands on it whenever I like.”

  “I don’t know why you think I’d move in without letting you make an honest man of me. My good Catholic ancestors would do cartwheels in their graves.” He pulled out of her arms, went down on one knee, took her hand, and gazed up into her thunderstruck face. “Holly Elizabeth McClure, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

  She stared. Then she sat down. Hard.

  “I love you, Holly,” he said gently. “I want to be your husband, and I want you to be my wife.”

  Still she said nothing. Her face was so white that the freckles stood out like splotches of sepia ink.

  “I want to come home to you every evening, and sleep beside you every night, and wake up to you every morning, and —”

  “Evan — a chuisle, are you sure?”

  “Yes. I love you, Holly. Marry me.”

  Tears filled her eyes. She nodded wordlessly.

  “And for Christ’s sake, don’t cry,” he admonished, rising from his knee to pull her up into his arms again. “Whenever I make you cry, I go all to pieces and want to shoot myself or something.”

  “You never make me cry,” she sniffled. “Besides, a woman is supposed to cry when the man she adores asks her to marry him. My God, I’m such a cliché. How depressing.” She hesitated, then looked at him without a trace of a smile. “And the man’s supposed to say they’ll live off his salary. Are you going to say that, Evan?”

  He bit his lip. This was something he’d thought about more than once. His pride had gotten in the way before — he still cringed whenever he thought about the weekend he’d found out who she was, and what she did for a living, and how tidily that living added up in her bank accounts. Time to put up or shut up. He could be prideful and stupid, or stomp on his machismo and be happy. And make her happy.

  That was what decided him—after all, as her husband, her happiness would be his responsibility every hour of every day. Might as well start here and now.

  “I’m not gonna punish you for makin’more than I do. I’m still not nuts about it, but I’m not stupid, either.”

  The delight that shone in her eyes embarrassed him; he hadn’t known she’d be so worried, which told him she’d expected him to be an asshole about it.

  “Don’t get any big ideas,” he warned. “No expensive presents or vacations —”

  “Not even the honeymoon?”

  “Well …” Thoughts of nude sunbathing on a private Jamaican beach danced in his head. Lolling in a hot tub at a mountain resort somewhere, just him and Holly and a gazillion stars. Watching the Arno flow by from the hills above Florence —

  “I promised you before, Evan—I won’t throw the money around. Just don’t yell at me too often for breaking my promise, okay? Like now. I brought you something from Dublin.”

  Before he could say another word, she vanished from the kitchen. He sat down, a little breathless now that he’d asked and she’d said Yes.

  He glanced around the room, wondering why it looked different. Well, of course: it wasn’t just her kitchen anymore, it was going to be their kitchen. All the things his sister Maggie had told him he could have—an Army wife traveled light — would find places here. Grandma Coyle’s copper pots; the Staffordshire bowls sent from England by Grandpa in 1944, just before he was killed in the invasion of Normandy; Granna Maureen’s handmade lace tablecloths; greatgrandmother Lachlan’s sterling flatware with the ornate L engraved on every piece. The rest of his clothes; his basketball and softball trophies; CDs, DVDs, books—oh, Christ, all his added to all hers? — and the big leather armchair he’d splurged on with his first paycheck as a U.S. Marshal — his stuff would join her stuff in what he was morally certain would be total chaos.

  Married.

  In retrospect, he could have done a little better by her than to propose in the kitchen over the wreckage of dinner. Not exactly romantic—and he didn’t even have Granna Maureen’s ring to give her. Well, hell — how was he to know Holly would come home early because she missed him? At least he’d remembered to go down on one knee. He’d do the rest of it up right when he got the chance.

  On the other hand, there was something homey and comforting about this. Maybe not the ambiance of daydreams, but it was real.

  Suddenly she stood before him, blushing and apprehensive, holding a small green velvet box. Inside was a ring. The only one he’d ever worn was his Marshal’s Academy ring — on his left hand, and he realized suddenly he’d have to change that when she put a wedding ring on his finger. This was a gold claddagh: hands clasping a crowned heart. Masculine but not massive, beautifully wrought, with something written inside. As he peered at it, she finally spoke.

  “It’s Irish Gaelic.”

  And so it was. Éimhín Liam Lochlainn.

  “It’s perfect
,” he murmured. Then he looked up at her. “It’s my wedding ring, isn’t it.” Not a question.

  “I didn’t buy it to be, but—” She looked down at her hands. “I was just hoping you’d wear it sometimes … .”

  “I will. I’ll wear it always. But we’ll save it,” he said, putting the ring carefully back in its nest. And to his surprise, for the first time in his memory—for the first time in all the years he’d been alive — the whole world was truly right.

  To his greater surprise, every candle in every holder in the kitchen sprang into flame. Holly gave a start, eyes wide.

  “Now, stop that,” Evan scolded gently, and kissed her.

  THE NEXT MORNING HOLLY WAS in the tub when Evan stumbled into the bathroom, groggy and unfocused, hair sticking up in twelve different directions, one side of his face red where he’d scrunched into the pillow for too many hours.

  “Great day in the mornin’,” she marveled, “it walks just as if it’s awake.” When he yawned wide enough to crack his jaw, she scowled at him. “Lachlan? Are you going to pull a ’God, was I drunk last night’ on me?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Hmm?” He scrubbed both hands through his hair, creating an even worse disorder, and blinked owlishly.

  “You do remember last night?”

  “Uh … yeah, sure.”

  Most unconvincing. “What you said? What you asked me? What I said?”

  “Yes, yes, and yes.” He stood beside the tub, grinning down at her, adding, “Mrs. Lachlan.” Then he began to sing “That’s Just Love Sneakin’ up on You.”

  He had a scrumptious speaking voice, deep and caressing and seductive. His singing voice was also baritone—and that was all that could be said for it.

  He sounded, in brief, remarkably like a constipated rhino.

  Holly pressed her hands over her ears. “Mercy! I’ll do anything—just stop!”

  “Anything?” he leered.

  “Oh, shut up and get in the bath.” When he had settled in behind her, she leaned back comfortably and asked, “So did you finally get Ramirez?”

  “Not yet, dammit—but I collared Phippen.” He filled her in on recent events — although she knew the recital was truncated. He didn’t like describing the sordid parts of his work: protecting her, and the place they had together, as if the first week she’d known him she hadn’t seen pretty much the worst of his world’s viciousness.

  The corpse of the not-so-Protected Witness was two days old. Whatever blood had been in the body had drained hours ago from countless stab wounds. Holly wasn’t sick and she didn’t faint — but she did sway a little as she watched Evan prowl the site. A few minutes later an NYPD officer found the second corpse. And the third. Each had been carved up as bideously as the first.

  “Officer Stradling, take Ms. McClure home.”

  “I’m all right, Evan, I — ”

  “Take her home.”

  Direct order. No arguments allowed. He hadn’t even spoken to her — merely commanded a subordinate from the NYPD. She felt her temper begin to ignite, then saw the expression in his hazel eyes. His was a powerful personality, he was as arrogant as the day was long, and he could dominate just about anyone he chose to—but his command to the officer had nothing to do with that. He wanted to keep her out of this. She was unconnected to his work, untouched by all the blood and greed and rage and evil. And that was how he wanted it. Suddenly she understood something very important about him. He was a man in search of a haven from the tense darkness that sometimes haunted this work.

  “Ms. McClure?” A tentative voice, but one that obeyed. She couldn’t imagine anyone disobeying Evan when his eyes mere dark and hard and cold like this. Not even she would dare. “Ms. MeClure.” More insistently; he had to follow orders. By extension, so did she. Well, they’d see about that — but not here, not now.

  “It’s all right, Officer. Please don’t trouble yourself. I can take a cab.” She waited another moment, but Evan didn’t look at her: She spoke his name, and he half-turned, and she said, “Call me tonight when you get home.”A command of her own, and he knew it. The heavy brows descended, and his lips compressed for an instant — a look that snapped, Shut up and do as you’re told, woman. But then he studied her; speculating, evaluating. As he ran his fingers back through his hair she realized exactly what it was she was offering him.

  Anything he wanted. Anything he needed. Anything.

  Her own helplessness scared her. It was as sudden as lightning, the change he wrought in her—sudden, natural, a force of nature. And she felt herself falling for him, right then and there at the grisly scene of a triple homicide.

  “Okay,”be said at last, nodding slowly, a tiny smile touching the corners of his mouth. All I’ll-get-you-into-bed-yet-lady smile, but with something more in his eyes. Gratitude, perhaps curiosity; hope. She wasn’t the only one falling. He just didn’t know it yet.

  It had been her first experience of his work, though not her last. He still tended to shelter her from it, but his instincts required a sounding board, just as his emotions demanded a release and his heart and mind needed a refuge. She was never any real help — her genres were biography and historical novel, and she couldn’t have written a mystery or police procedural to save her own life—but he never expected any suggestions. The most she ever contributed were questions that sometimes clarified things for him.

  So she lazed in the tub with him, hot scented water moving gently in time with their breathing, and listened while he talked about the cases on his desk — pissed off about some, pleased with the progress of others.

  “There’s one other thing,” he said at last—slowly, reluctantly. “I have to go talk to my old man today. Yeah, I know, rotten timing. But I have to go.”

  “Want me to come with?”

  “No. I mean, yes, but—”

  “But no. It’s okay. I still have to unpack, and get poor old Mugger out of hock at my neighbor’s.”

  “It’s just—I have to tell him about some stuff.”

  She heard something in his voice now that made her sit up and turn around, wanting to see his face. There was something haunted and hollow about his eyes that she hadn’t expected.

  “Not us,” he went on, trying to smile. “I want you there with me when I tell him and Maggie. I’m not goin’ through that by myself!”

  What had he gone through by himself that had put this look into his eyes? “Evan, what happened?”

  His reluctance was almost palpable. “There was this trial. Did I tell you anything about that priest, Father Matthew?”

  Before she’d left for Europe he’d canceled on her signing weekend in D.C. to concentrate on a current trial. “Kidnapping and rape, wasn’t it? A young girl?”

  “Bradshaw granted a plea bargain yesterday.” A brief, bitter laugh. “‘Bargain’ is right. I guess I better start at the beginning. I wasn’t quite thirteen when Father Matthew came to the parish. Wednesday afternoons the altar boys did cleanup around the church—washing the floor, gardening, sorting robes for the laundry. That sort of stuff. I remember that day I was polishing this silver crosier — really beautiful, about six foot high—I was wondering when I’d be as tall as it was. Everybody else had left, but I wanted to finish even though it was getting late. I finally lugged it back to the sacristy—the thing weighed a ton.

  “And there was Father Matthew over in the corner, goin’ at it with some woman. She’s bent over the linen chest and he’s doin’ her from behind. He was one of those priests who liked the attention he got wearin’ a cassock, like he was always just off the plane from Rome or somethin’, and it’s hiked up over his ass just like the woman’s skirt was hiked up over hers. It was a white dress, with purple flowers—

  “I dropped the crosier—I just sort of went numb all over. They didn’t even hear it. But Father Matthew must’ve found it later, and figured out somebody’d seen. At Sunday Mass he kept lookin’ at all of us altar boys. I gave it away, of course. So that next Wednesday he c
alls me into his office. There was a lot of crap about a counseling session gettin’ out of hand, even priests are human, he’d confess and repent and be forgiven, that was the beauty of our faith. And if I ever said a word, who would people believe—a kid or a priest of the Holy Roman Catholic Church?

  “I never told anybody,” Evan went on. “He was right — who’d believe it? But it was drivin’ me crazy—the signs were all over the place, now that I knew what to look for. Afternoons out on parish business—yeah, right, takin’ care of business with women whose husbands weren’t home. The next year he transferred to another parish, someplace upstate, I think. I guess he’d run through all the local women and wanted fresh meat. And that was the last I heard of him until this year.

  “He finally picked somebody who wouldn’t lie down—a fifteen-year-old girl. Plenty of women fall in love with their priests for one reason or another, and he was clever at playing on that. But he’s a lot older now. What used to be easy for him—wen, the girl told him to leave her alone or she’d take it all the way to the Pope, but he was obsessed, and he snapped—at least that’s what his lawyers said.”

  “What happened to the girl?” Holly asked quietly.

  “He took her across the border to Canada, to some cabin a hundred miles from nowhere. In the middle of fuckin’ February. She got away after a couple of weeks, and damned near died of exposure before a trucker saw her by the side of the road.

  “Anyway, Bradshaw drew the case. I usually don’t pay much attention to the particulars, as long as the research shows me there’s nobody involved who’s likely to take a shot at him, but when I saw the name I almost threw up.” He was silent for a few moments. Then: “If I’d said something twenty-five years ago, that girl wouldn’t’ve gotten raped for twelve days.”

  “Evan—”

  “Let me finish. I told Bradshaw what I knew. But there wasn’t any way to work around the plea bargain. He lawyered up pretty expensive. And the girl’s parents don’t want her put through any more. So they pled him out.