It Must Be Magic (6 page)

“You didn’t make those taquito things again, did you? They gave me the runs last time.”

Roscoe threw his hands wide. “Linwood, there are ladies present. We don’t talk about the runs in front of ladies.”

Lili plopped down on the couch beside Erika and whispered, “Are they always like this?”

“Pretty much. Dad always seems to have a date on the Friday nights they come over.”

Lili could see why. The four old gentlemen would drive Tanner batty, but their bickering back and forth brought a smile to her lips. If they could bicker, they were alive and well.

“Now, let’s see to Fluffy.”

At the long, low, incessant growl, she peeked over the back of the couch. Fluffy crouched at one end, the fur along his back sticking straight up. At the other end, Einstein licked her chops, probably getting the last of the Vienna sausage off her cat mustache. Between them sat a herd of dust bunnies and a book that must have fallen off the back of the sofa.

Lili flashed a question mark. Einstein sent it back. Which meant the two cats weren’t having the meaningful conversation Lili wanted. Then Einstein peeled back her lips and sneezed, stampeding the herd of dust bunnies straight at Fluffy.

Fluffy growled louder.

“What’s his aura look like?” Erika asked.

“Muddy again,” Lili said. “He’s had a relapse. Did you keep him in last night?”

“Dad said I could. He seemed all right when I let him out this morning, and he was even okay when I got home. But Grandpa set up for the card party, and Fluffy got freaky again.” Erika chewed her bottom lip and rubbed one hand up and down her thigh.

Roscoe entered with a tray of tasty-scented goodies. “Don’t eat the taquitos, Linwood. Then you’ll be fine.”

“But they’re calling to me,” Linwood whined.

“Use willpower.” And the card game began in earnest.

Erika turned to Lili.

“Can you talk to Fluffy again?”

Lili didn’t want to lie, nor did she want to break her promise to Tanner. “Let’s give Einstein and Fluffy time for some feline interaction. It might garner more information.” When Erika looked doubtful, Lili added, “Einstein’s good at this.” She puckered her brow. “We should have called her Freud.”

The corner of Erika’s mouth lifted, but it wasn’t enough for Lili. The child needed distraction while Einstein worked her feline magic. Leaning over the back of the couch, Lili grabbed the book that had fallen there, probably years ago. Lili had come across treasures she thought lost forever when she’d cleaned out her little apartment to move into Wanetta’s house.

“Molly’s New Mom,”
she read the title.

Erika snatched the book out of her hand and sat on it. “That’s not mine. A friend of mine was over, and she must have put it on the back of the sofa, and it fell off. She’ll be so glad to get it back.”

Lili noted that Erika didn’t give her friend a name. Usually, if you were talking about someone you knew well, you said their name, even if the person you were talking to didn’t know them. There was also the sudden dilation of Erika’s pupils, and the way she looked not at Lili, but at her shoulder. Clues.

Erika didn’t want Lili knowing it was
her
book.

Molly’s New Mom.
Very interesting. Erika was looking for a woman’s influence in her young life. That was natural when she was on the brink of womanhood. Still, she was keeping her wish a secret. Maybe the book hadn’t found its way behind the couch accidentally at all, but rather it was a hiding place.

Behind them, the card game erupted as Linwood Daniels threw down his cards. “Dammit, Chester, you play cards like old people screw — not very well. We’re gonna lose.”

Lili glanced over as Roscoe narrowed his eyes to a beady stare just for Linwood.

“’Scuse me.” Then Linwood raised his voice. “Sorry, Erika, that was very ungentlemanly of me with you present.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Daniels. I didn’t even hear you.”

Little fibber. Lili was sure she heard everything that went on. But it was sweet not to make the elderly man feel any worse.

Erika poked Lili’s knee. “Are the cats talking yet?”

Lili glanced at Fluffy’s high-rise fur coat. “No. I don’t understand it.” She understood perfectly: wounded male pride.

Einstein gagged as if she’d swallowed a hair ball.

“So maybe
you
should talk to Fluffy now.”

What choice did she have with those beseeching blue eyes looking at her with such hope? While the child watched Fluffy for any signs, Lili closed her eyes.

Stop, you idiot human!
A flashing red stoplight with a dunce cap on top of it. Einstein, giving her the evil green eye, understood the meaning of a promise. It shouldn’t be broken, even if it was a human making it under duress.

Fake it.
The accompanying image almost made her laugh: a woman on a bed, well, faking it for her lover. Where did Einstein come up with this stuff?

Lili cracked one eye open. Erika was watching with an intense blue gaze that seemed almost as soul-penetrating as Lady Dreadlock’s. Lili couldn’t feed her a pack of face-saving lies. “It’s not working.”

“But you said you can talk to animals.” With a good, old-fashioned pout, Erika looked like the child she was.

“Sometimes they don’t want to talk to me.”

Erika tugged on a pigtail. “It’s okay. I wasn’t sure you could do it, anyway. Dad said —”

“I know what he said. Don’t confuse efforts with results.”

“I was expecting too much. You should never get your expectations out of whack with reality or you get crushed.”

Good Lord, Tanner had taught the poor child that? “If you expect good things to happen, they usually do. But if you expect bad things to happen, well, then they do.” Tanner was going to kill her for putting that thought into Erika’s head.

“So then you’re saying because I didn’t really believe you could talk to Fluffy, that’s why you can’t?”

“Noo. That’s not what I mean.” God, she was making a muddle of this. “It wasn’t meant to be right now. Sometimes that’s the way things are. But that doesn’t mean it won’t work later.” She couldn’t stand letting Erika down this way.

“I like you anyway, Lili,” Erika said as if she sensed Lili’s distress. The child was extremely intuitive for her age.

Or maybe Lili had her misery written across her forehead. “Thank you, Erika. I like you, too.” She patted the girl’s knee. “Let’s talk about something fun. What do you think of your dad’s girlfriend?” Was she the woman Erika needed in her young life?

“He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

“But you said he had a date.” Lili didn’t mention that she already knew about the date.

“She’s not his girlfriend. It’s just a date.”

“But she could become something more.” Lili was glad she’d made Tanner take the flowers. If she could get him to be more spontaneous on all levels, give him a little joie de vivre, there could be a wedding by June. Erika would have a kind-hearted mother who knew that effort was much more important than results.

Erika flapped her hand in typical childhood dismissal. “She can’t be his girlfriend because he’s never introduced me.”

Lili felt her mouth drop open, but she couldn’t seem to shut it again. Tanner hadn’t brought his girlfriend home to meet his daughter? Then again, had he even said the woman was his girlfriend? Maybe they hadn’t progressed that far.

“He doesn’t want to introduce her to me.”

Lili found her tongue. “Why ever not?”

“Well, some ladies aren’t interested in being stepmoms. He probably hasn’t even told her about me.”

Where had the girl gotten an idea like that? Most likely from her friends at school. “You’re his pride and joy. I don’t believe he’d be able to stop talking about you.”

Erika shrugged. “I can be kind of a know-it-all. He might be afraid I’d scare her away.”

Tanner would dump a woman who didn’t want to meet his daughter. Wouldn’t he? Lili realized she didn’t know Tanner all that well. “You’re not a know-it-all.”

“The kids at school think I am because I always raise my hand and I always get the answer right.”

“That means you’re smart, not a know-it-all.” Oh, this poor child. “Your dad’s terribly proud of you. I’m sure if he hasn’t introduced you to this lady he’s dating, he’s got a good reason.” Lili couldn’t think of one right now.

Oh, my Lord, the poor child needed a mother badly. She needed someone to whom she could pour out her girlish troubles, someone to tell her she was sweet, smart and not a know-it-all. She’d probably never told Tanner what the other kids at school said. Worse, he might have pooh-poohed it without realizing its effect on Erika. But a woman would have understood. There was something about girl-to-girl talk. Lili loved her Dad, but when she was growing up, it was her mom she’d told her troubles to.

A loud yelp and a high-pitched screech cut off all conversation. Dust bunnies flew behind the couch. Einstein was a streak of silver across the rag rug and out the door. At the pinochle table, Hiram Battle jerked out of his chair, knocked it over, and Fluffy, a marmalade flash in hot pursuit, barreled into his legs. The cat rolled and lay stunned for a long moment. Then he opened his yellow eyes, and shivers coursed his back.

“He’s cracked his head on Hiram’s shins,” Chester said.

“More like the damn thing cracked
my
shins.” Hiram bent down to rub both legs.

No one admonished him for the
damn.

Fluffy leaped to his paws in a move only a dexterous feline could make, gave a shriek that shook the front window, then streaked out the door, his fur on end like an enraged porcupine, and disappeared up the stairs.

Linwood stared after him. “That cat’s lost its marbles.”

Hiram rubbed his shins once more for good measure. “It’s a menace. What’s wrong with it?”

Lili didn’t know. Fluffy wasn’t getting better. And her promise to Tanner was ripping her up.

S
IPPING ON HER CAN OF
cherry soda, Lili sat on her front porch, one leg dangling as she kept the swing chair in motion with her toes on the wood planks. The card game was still in full tilt next door, lights blazing in the ground-floor windows.

Lili contemplated the possibilities. Rita would be perfect for Chester Pawson, a movie star living right in his house. He’d adore Rita as much as he adored Deanna Durbin, except when the cat yowled. And Linwood Daniels would be perfect for Cy, short for Cyclops. Cy and Linwood had so much in common. The poor cat was a coyote war veteran. She’d lost an eye and half an ear to the battle, and her tail was bent at an odd angle, but she was tough. As for Hiram, Serenity? Hmm, maybe not. They’d probably kill each other. Lili had more thinking to do on that one.

Contemplating cat homes and that Erika needed a feminine influence was only part of the reason she was swinging on her front porch. She wanted to catch Tanner when he got home. First, there was no way someone in the house next door wouldn’t mention her visit, so she had to head the argument off at the pass. Second, Einstein’s presence had only infuriated Fluffy. And third, that body needed to be found. No two ways about it; Lili couldn’t let Tanner play wait and see anymore.

He needed a push in the right direction.

Maybe Tanner hadn’t introduced his daughter to the current woman in his life because it was only a physical thing. Just sex. If he was having
just
sex with his date, he’d be gone a good, long while. Unless he was a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type.

Eww.
Really, she didn’t want to think about Tanner having sex at all. It was one thing to send him off with flowers, quite another to imagine anything behind the bedroom door, at least if she wasn’t the woman behind it with him.

You’re hooked.
Like a fish with the bait in its mouth.

Einstein was flumped between the tires of Lili’s bike where it was padlocked to a porch rail, the only sign of life being the slight rise and fall of the cat’s belly as she breathed. Her thoughts telegraphed right into Lili’s brain.

“I am not hooked,” Lili said aloud.

Then again, why did her heart suddenly start racing when a car pulled into
her
drive and Tanner got out?

His blue polo shirt hugged the contours of his chest and his blond hair picked up beams of moonlight falling through the trees as he traversed the stones to her front stoop, stepping from light to shadow and back again.

She waited until he’d climbed the two porch stairs. “How was your date?” She tried for enthusiasm and excitement.

He stuck his hands in the pockets of his Dockers. “Fine.”

Fine? Gee, what woman would want to hear that? Lili pushed off with her toes and set the swing once again into motion. “Did she like the flowers?”

“She thought they were fine.”

“Fine?” This time she said the word aloud. The flowers were gorgeous. Even if she did say so herself.

He looked up, down, around, everywhere but at her.

And her stomach sank. “She hated them.”

“No.” He did the look-around thing again. “She thought they were extravagant, that I’d spent too much money on them.”

“Oh.” What kind of woman worried about a man being
too
extravagant? Erika needed a woman’s influence in her life, but that didn’t mean
this
one was the right woman.

Tanner rushed on to explain. “She’s an accountant, you know, frugal by nature.”

She made a little humphing noise. “I should have sent you down for carnations.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. She isn’t…like you.”

Hmm. That was nice to hear. At least, she thought it was. Wasn’t it? “Did
you
like them?” She held up a hand. “And don’t use the word
fine.
”

He smiled. Tanner had a nice smile that reached inside a girl and made her feel all tingly. “They were unique.”

She dipped her head and looked at him through her lashes.

He rushed on to explain again. “Exotic? Perfect? Uniquely, perfectly, exotically you?”

It was a nice start. She wondered if the accountant’s kisses were
fine.
Tanner needed more than that if he was going to find his joie de vivre. A new mother wouldn’t do Erika any good if there wasn’t a loving example to follow.

“Are you seeing her again?”

“You’re a nosy little thing.”

She jumped up from the swing and stepped up to him, rising to her full barefoot five feet eight inches. “Little?”

He smiled again.

Lili made up her mind. The frugal accountant wasn’t right for Tanner. She wouldn’t be right for Erika. “It’s not my business, and I am nosy, but tell me anyway.”

He gave her a long look she couldn’t quite interpret, then his aura suddenly seemed to swirl with indigo, which she
could
interpret. She got a few of those tingles she’d felt when he’d pulled the stickers out of her hair.

“It’s safe to say no,” he murmured, “we’re not compatible.”

She was unprepared for how solidly the wave of relief swept through her and practically knocked her off her feet. “That’s too bad. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine with the outcome.”

There was that minimalist word again. She really, really wanted to know if his kisses would be more than fine. Purely from an experimental point of view. If Tanner was capable of more than fine, well, there was hope for him.

She stepped back, wrapping a hand around the porch post so she couldn’t inadvertently wrap it around his very muscular arm or rest her fingers against his chest.

An image of that fish hook popped into her mind. Einstein, the beast, wore a snarky cat grin on her face. Cats did grin. You just had to know them well to figure out when they did it.

“I hope Erika won’t be disappointed.” Then she stopped. She didn’t know how to bring up Erika’s need for a female influence without making it a slam against Tanner’s parenting skills. That would only put him on the defensive; then he wouldn’t listen to a single thing she had to say.

He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Erika will be fine, too.”

He didn’t say that was because Erika had never met the woman in question, which would give Lili a lead-in to talking about Erika’s world view on know-it-alls and the ladies Tanner dated.

Give it up.
She might as well raise her hands in the air in surrender, like the image Einstein sent her.

The cat was right. Lili didn’t know if she should open her big mouth and let it all out. She wasn’t a parent, after all. She didn’t even have nieces or nephews. She was much better at talking to animals. At least most of the time, though she was definitely a miserable failure with Fluffy. Come to think of it, she was a miserable failure with the whole Rutland family.

Lili hugged the wood pillar of her porch. “I’m glad she’ll be
fine,
” she said. “She seems like a resilient girl.”

“She is.”

“And I can see how proud of her you are.”

Tanner smiled. “It shows that much?”

Lili beamed at him in return. “It shows.”

Erika came first before everything, which was one of the reasons he didn’t introduce her to the women he dated. Tanner didn’t want Erika to become attached to someone who would only be in their lives for a short period of time. He didn’t have any intention of remarrying, and it wouldn’t be fair to have a woman enter Erika’s life only to leave a short time later.

Tanner’s date with Anna hadn’t been disastrous. They’d enjoyed a nice dinner at a wharf restaurant, then she’d simply given him the Dear John speech at her front door. Perhaps his male pride should have been wounded. Instead he’d only felt relief, primarily due to the fact that Lili had preoccupied his thoughts all evening.

Lili hugged the column tighter, as if she were dying to say something else, but couldn’t get the words out. Tanner wouldn’t have believed it if he wasn’t witnessing it. Even she claimed she spoke before she thought.

“Spit it out, Lili.”

She sighed. “Has Erika ever talked about having a new mom?”

He took a step backward and almost lost his footing down the first stair. “No.”

“Oh. Well. Okay.”

That definitely wasn’t all Lili wanted to say on the subject. He just as definitely didn’t want to hear it. Yet he felt compelled to go on. “We’re fine the way we are.”

“I’m sure you are.” Oh, no, she wasn’t sure, because she whispered, “It’s that
word.
”

“What word?”

“
Fine.
It’s…” She let go of the porch column to swirl her hand in the air. “So average. Like when someone you’ve met once and haven’t seen in a year politely asks how you’ve been and you say, ‘Fine, thanks.’ It’s totally meaningless.”

“It’s a perfectly fine word.”

She cocked her head at his sharp tone. “I’m not trying to offend you.”

“I’m not offended.” Actually, Lili made him feel a pang of guilt.
He
was fine, but had he ever stopped to ask Erika? Not that he’d marry to provide her with a new mother, but he had assumed she was as fine with their family situation as he was. “I’ve never thought about it before.” Hell if that didn’t make him feel like a bad father.

“I’m sorry. I won’t say another word about it.” Lili zipped her lip. “It’s none of my business, anyway. It’s not like I have kids or know the least little thing about how to raise them. Feel free to tell me to stop babbling. I told you I do that when I get nervous.”

Actually, she did it most of the time, but that wasn’t what had his gaze riveted to her pretty face. “I’m making you nervous right now?” He took back that step he’d put between them.

“Yes.”

A one-word answer wasn’t like the Lili he’d come to know…and semiappreciate. “Why?”

She had wide, beautiful eyes even in the dim porch lighting.

“Because…” She bit her lip, something that at this moment he found extremely enticing.

He took one more step, closer, very close. “Spit it out, Lili,” he whispered. “I won’t bite.” Well, only under certain circumstances. And he’d make sure she liked it.

“Okay, here’s the thing.”

He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. Having known her all of twenty-four hours, he’d already learned she prefaced an unpalatable notion with that statement.

“I know you told me I couldn’t tell Erika or Roscoe about Fluffy seeing the murder —” she held up her palm as if she had her other hand on a Bible “— and I swear I didn’t. But I did go over to visit.” She took a deep breath, then rushed on. “To see how Fluffy was doing, but I didn’t talk to him. I was hoping he’d be better, but he wasn’t.”

Did she think he was such an ogre that he’d get angry because she’d gone to his house for a visit? Tanner mentally shrugged. Hell, he had issued a lot of edicts, so no wonder she thought he was the ogre.

“It’s fine, Lili —” Then he stopped himself. She didn’t like that word. “It doesn’t bother me that you went over to my house, and I appreciate your concern for Fluffy, and thank you for not saying anything about a murder.”

“I asked Einstein to talk to him. You didn’t specifically say Einstein couldn’t talk to him, only that I couldn’t.”

He almost put his face in his hands to stifle the laughter, but Lili seemed so concerned. As if she thought she’d committed some cardinal sin. “What did Fluffy and Einstein talk about?”

She huffed out a great puff of air and turned to look at the lump lying by the bike tires. Tanner had thought it was a pillow, but now he noticed the green stare trained right on him.

“Not a thing. Einstein doesn’t make friends well.”

“Then how does Einstein get along with Wanetta’s cats?”

“They let her be the leader.”

A womanly attribute. Tanner had the sense not to say that.

Lili peeled herself away from the porch pillar, leaned close enough for him to smell something sweet and heady, something all woman, something he wanted, and put her hand on his upper arm.

“I need to help Fluffy.” She looked up at him with an earnest gaze, her lips parted, her eyes deep in the shadow.

On someone else, it might have been beguiling, manipulative even, but with Lili, it was simply sincere.

“You want me to help you find that body,” he said for her.

“Yes.” She punctuated with a nod, her dark hair falling like a curtain over one shoulder.

What did she get out of claiming Fluffy saw a murder? What emotional need did it fill for her? Despite his speech about not being one hundred percent sure she couldn’t talk to animals, he hung on to that ninety-nine percent certainty. That meant she had to get some emotional charge out of the assertion.

What the hell did it matter? If he gave in and went with her, they wouldn’t find a body, but she would have to give up this nonsense. “I’ll take you.”

She simply stared at him. Her breath puffed in the open collar of his shirt and right down beneath his belt buckle.

Lili could never remain speechless for long. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, you’ll pack up and move away during the night, or you’ll call the men in white with the straitjacket.”

“I won’t move away, and I don’t think they use straitjackets anymore. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it.”

She smiled. It almost stopped his heart. Then she threw her arms around his neck, stepping on his shoe as she went up on her tiptoes to hug him. Her hair caressed his face. Her small, firm breasts pressed to his chest. She was plastered against him yet he wanted her closer. Slipping his arms around her waist, he made sure she couldn’t let go.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She kissed his ear, his cheek, warm, moist kisses that weakened his knees.

His brain short-circuited, and his body went into overdrive. He pulled back, grabbed her face in his hands and took her lips openmouthed. She responded with a low sound, a moan not much louder than a hitch of breath, but it was enough to make him want to push her to the wooden porch. She let him take her with hungry kisses, her tongue in his mouth, his in hers, a tender nip of her lip, then a soul-deep mating. Over and over until she was once again plastered to him, and the hard ridge of his erection burned against her belly. She tasted of cherry soda and sizzled like champagne. She melted into him and turned him inside out.