Mistress of Magic (24 page)

He burst into the courtyard where the big, human-sized dinosaurs were busy playing with the children.

Jeez. It was hard to tell one big stuffed pseudo-dino from another!

Ah … there was Dierdre, fluffing a little girl’s hair, tickling a crying toddler and getting the little fellow to laugh.

It had to be Reggie. Only Reggie had that much patience.

He started toward her, then paused. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see another dinosaur appearing. Dolly Duckbill. He started quickly toward the creature, a smile suddenly curling his lip.

“Dolly!” He hoped it was someone he knew. “I’m Wes Blake. Do you know me?”

He heard soft laughter. “I most certainly do! And is your wife anxious to see you! She waited and waited in the costume shop, until just about two minutes ago.”

It was Diana.

“Diana. I’ve just had great news. And I’d like a chance to tell Reggie in a special way. Can I have the costume?”

“This one won’t fit you, but come on in and I’ll get you a larger one. Quickly—before she sees us.”

Diana took the duckbill mask and headpiece off as they entered the costume cave. She glanced at Wes, her eyes curiously alight. “You’ve got a surprise, huh?”

“A big one.”

“About Joseph?”

He nodded. “The paperwork is through. He’s ours. Free, clear, legally. His name is now Blake, and no one can ever take him away from us.”

“That’s wonderful!” Diana told him. She took a giant dinosaur head and the body to go with it from the rack in the shop and handed it to him. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. Her eyes were sparkling. “And how very interesting that it should be today …”

“What? Why’s that?” Wes asked, grappling with the costume.

Diana shook her head. Wes realized that her eyes were sparkling. If he hadn’t been quite so excited about Joe, he might have noticed earlier that she seemed to be amused and bemused, and that her eyes had been sparkling all along, as if she was a woman with some surprises of her own.

“Reggie will tell you, I’m sure,” Diana said lightly. She patted his dinosaur head. “Enjoy! Oh, wait one minute!” She hurried across the shop and found a stuffed baby duckbill. The button eyes were huge, the lashes a mile long. “Think this might help?”

“I think it’s great. But what—”

“Ciao! If you’re here, I’ve got to run!”

Before he could question her again, Diana was gone.

Wes hurried into the Dino-Guys room and changed into the costume. With his stuffed toy held gingerly in his felt fingers, he lumbered out of the cave.

Children began descending on him. He patted heads, he awkwardly signed autographs.

He edged his way bit by bit closer to Reggie.

Bump!

He knocked her about a foot or so. Dierdre Dinosaur took a spin and stared at him. A little boy tugged on his arm. Wes turned and signed an autograph.

Bump!

Dierdre had given him a smack back. He spun, landing on his floppy green feet.

The children started to laugh delightedly.

He thought of Reggie behind that green mask, thought of the beautiful, giving woman. He thought of the love that she had given him, and he thought of how very much she had to share with children, and how she had ached for her own.

He lifted his hand, offering her the stuffed baby.

Slowly, slowly she reached out for it.

Dierdre wasn’t supposed to talk.

Today, she did.

“Wes?”

He nodded. “Reggie, it’s legal, it’s all done. He’s ours. Joe is ours. His name is Joseph Michael Blake, and he’s—he’s ours!”

“Wow! I never, never heard them talk out here before!” a little girl murmured.

Reggie was doing more than talking. She pulled off her Dierdre head, staring at him and then at the crowd. “Oh, Wes!” she exclaimed. Then she talked to the grown-ups and the children surrounding them. “Oh, I’m so sorry, excuse us, please! This is my husband, and we’ve just found out that we’ve legally adopted our little boy!”

A spatter of applause greeted her words. The crowd was in a good mood.

“It’s Reggie Delaney!” someone said excitedly.

“Reggie Blake,” Wes corrected. He winced, but Reggie hadn’t minded. She was just giving him a crooked smile. Her eyes were alive and sparkling.

“Oh, Wes!”

He thought she was going to throw her arms around him, but she paused. “Oh, Wes!” Then, to his amazement, she reached behind her back.

She, too, was holding one of the baby duckbills.

“You knew?” he said, trying to understand why she had been carrying around a stuffed toy identical to his.

She shook her head. “No, no, I …” She hesitated. “I couldn’t think of a good way to tell you. Wes, we’re having our own, too. I didn’t think that it was possible, but it is. I didn’t want to say anything until I was really, truly sure, and the doctor had a cancellation this morning and I was able to see him. And you didn’t act as if you wanted me to go to the attorneys with you—”

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed if things weren’t finalized and legal. Oh, Reggie, one of our own, too. Too, I mean two!” It was Wes’s turn to look at the crowd. “I’m having two!” he announced with amazement.

Wes’s announcement was greeted with another round of wild applause.

He pulled off his dinosaur head. He reached for her. He paused and spoke to the crowd. “Excuse me. I’ve just got to do this!”

Their costumes caused them to bump apart. He managed to pull her close anyway. He took her into his arms and soundly kissed her lips.

“Woah!” the little girl cried. “I’ve never, never seen them do this before!”

“It’s all right,” the girl’s mother assured her. “They’re just very excited. They’re going to have babies.”

“He’s going to have a baby?” the girl inquired incredulously.

“No, no dear! Oh, never mind. I do think that the show is over.”

“Heck, no!” a man called out. “Looks to me like the show’s just beginning!”

“Harold!” his wife said sharply.

“Are they really going to have little dinosaurs?”

“No,” the girl’s mother said softly. “They’ll have children—who maybe will grow up to create special dinosaurs and other characters.”

Reggie broke from Wes, smiling at the woman’s words. “Is that what we’re going to have?”

“Who knows? But we’ll definitely have a family. And I can guarantee that there’s one thing we’ll all create.”

Her eyes were enchanting. Just a little moist. “Lots and lots of love!” she said.

He nodded. Once again he took her into his arms, to a clap of approval from the crowd. He held her chin with felt fingers and just brushed her lips with his kiss again.

“And magic,” he told her. “Lots and lots—of magic!”

A Biography of Heather Graham

Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country’s most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.

Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.

After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel,
When Next We Love
(1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.

In 1989 Graham published
Sweet Savage Eden
, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in
Runaway
(1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.

In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
(1999),
Long, Lean, and Lethal
(2000), and
Dying to Have Her
(2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003’s
Haunted
she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.

Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.

Graham (left) with her sister.

Graham with her family in New Orleans. Pictured left to right: Dennis Pozzessere; Zhenia Yeretskaya Pozzessere; Derek, Shayne, and Chynna Pozzessere; Heather Graham; Jason and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere; and Jeremy Gonzalez.

Graham at a photo shoot in Key West for the promotion of the Flynn Brothers trilogy.

Graham at the haunted Myrtles plantation, Francisville, Louisiana.

Graham and the Slushpile Band playing the Memnoch the Devil Ball at the Undead Con in New Orleans, 2010.