Honest Illusions

  He wanted to savor. He needed to devour. Gasping for air, he fought the snap of his jeans while her hands tortured him and her mouth seared like lightning over his shoulders and chest.

  He plunged. At the first urgent stroke she came in a geyser of dark, nameless delights. Her body arched, vibrated like a harp string. Air tore from her lungs in a cry that was both pain and triumph.

  Then she locked around him, her legs soft as silk, strong as steel. Half mad, he drove himself into her, again and again, until he found his own release, and perhaps his salvation.

  He stayed where he was, spread over her, intimately joined. He knew she’d been silent for too long. If things had been as they once were, she would have lifted a hand to lazily stroke his back. She would have sighed and nuzzled or whispered something to make him laugh.

  But there was nothing but that long empty silence. It frightened him enough to kindle temper.

  “You’re not sorry this happened.” He curled a hand possessively in her hair to keep her still when he leaned back to look at her. “You might be able to convince yourself of that, but not me.”

  “I didn’t say I was sorry.” How difficult it was to be calm when your life had just shifted on its foundations. “I knew it would happen. The minute I walked into my dressing room and saw you again, I knew.” She managed what passed for a shrug. “I often make mistakes without being sorry for them.”

  His eyes glinted before he rolled away from her. “You know just where to hit, don’t you? You always did.”

  “It’s not a matter of striking back.” She was going to be practical about this. If it killed her. “I enjoyed making love with you again. We were always good in bed.”

  He snatched her arm before she could reach her knotted sweatshirt. “We were good everywhere.”

  “Were,” she agreed, carefully. “I’ll be honest, Callahan. I haven’t made much time for this sort of thing in my life since you left.”

  He couldn’t stop it. His ego inflated as helplessly as a balloon swells with helium. “Oh, yeah?”

  She couldn’t understand how one man could infuriate, arouse and amuse a woman simultaneously. “Don’t look so smug. It was my choice. I was busy.”

  “Admit it.” He traced a lazy finger down her breast. “I spoiled you for anybody else.”

  “My point is.” She slapped his hand away before the touch dissolved what was left of pride. “You happened to catch me at a . . .” Vulnerable wasn’t quite the word she wanted. “An incendiary time. I imagine anyone who held the match in the right spot would have set me off.”

  “If that’s the case, you should be pretty well burned out now.”

  He’d always been quick. She shouldn’t have been surprised to find herself on her back again with his hands proving that fires could be kindled out of embers.

  “It’s just sex,” she managed to gasp.

  “Sure it is.” He laved the damp flesh between her breasts. “And a redwood’s just a tree.” He used his teeth to torment her nipples until her nails dug crescents into his back. “A diamond’s just a rock.”

  She wanted to laugh. She needed to scream. “Shut up, Callahan.”

  “Glad to.” He lifted her hips and slid gloriously into her.

  She didn’t think she was burned out. Hollowed out was closer. There didn’t seem to be a nerve left in her body. When she managed to open her eyes again, the light had gone rose with twilight. To give her mind a chance to settle, she took note of the room for the first time.

  There was nothing in it but the bed where they sprawled and a single enormous chest of drawers in gleaming cherry. Unless you counted the clothes that were tossed over the rugless floor, draped over the doorknob or piled in corners.

  How like him, she thought. Just as it was like him to have shifted his body so that hers could curl naturally against it.

  How many times had they lain just like this, night after night? There had been a time when she would have drifted right off to sleep, safe, secure, satisfied.

  But they were different people now.

  She started to sit up. His arm merely tightened around her.

  “Luke, this doesn’t change anything.”

  He opened one eye. “Babe, if you want me to prove my point again, I’d be more than happy. You’ll just have to give me a couple of minutes.”

  “The only point we’ve proved is that we still know how to scratch one another’s itch.” Most of her anger had died, leaving a gulf of sorrow that was only more potent. “There’s no need to—What the hell is this?” She twisted to get a better look at the back of his shoulder.

  “It’s a tattoo. Haven’t you ever seen a damn tattoo?”

  “A few in my time.” She pursed her lips, studying it in the dimming light. Just above where the scars of his youth began their crisscross on his back was the painted image of a snarling wolf. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and opted for the former. “Jesus, Callahan, did you go crazy or what?”

  It embarrassed the hell out of him. “Tattoos are in.”

  “Oh, right, and you’re Mr. Trendy. Why the hell did you let somebody scar you—” She broke off, appalled. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He shrugged and dragged the hair out of his eyes as he sat up. “I was feeling mean one night, a little drunk, a lot dangerous. I decided to get a tattoo instead of looking for a convenient head to bash in. Besides, it reminded me of where I’d come from.”

  She studied him, the arrogant tilt of the head, the hard gleam of his eyes that warred with the encroaching gloom. “You know, I can almost believe in Lily’s amnesia theory.”

  “Let me know when you want the truth. You’ll get every bit of it.”

  She looked away. It was easy, much too easy for him to pull her in. “It wouldn’t make any difference. There’s nothing you can say that can wipe away five years.”

  “Not unless you’re willing to let me.” He caught her face in his hands, brushing her hair back so that only his fingers framed her. The gentleness he’d forgotten, that she had been certain had burned out of him, was back. Such things were harder to resist than passion. “I need to talk to you, Rox. There’s so much I need to say.”

  “Things aren’t what they were, Luke. I can’t begin to tell you how much they’ve changed.” And if she stayed, she would say more than was wise before she thought it through. “We can’t go back, and I need to consider where we might go from here.”

  “We can go anyplace. We always could.”

  “I’ve gotten used to going on my own.” She took a deep breath before shifting away to dress. “It’s getting late. I have to go home.”

  “Stay here.” He touched his fingertips to her hair, and tempted her beyond measure.

  “I can’t.”

  His fingers curled, tightened. “Won’t.”

  “Won’t then.” She smoothed down her shirt, rose. It was easier to be strong when she was standing on her feet again. “I run my life now. You can stay or you can go, and I’ll deal with the consequences of either. If I owe you anything, it’s gratitude for making me tough enough to handle whatever comes.” She tilted her head, wishing her heart felt as courageous as the words. “So thanks, Callahan.”

  Her easy dismissal sliced him open and left him bleeding. “Don’t mention it.”

  “See you tomorrow.” She walked from the room, but was running by the time she hit the landing.

  30

  The house was in an uproar when Roxanne returned. She’d no more than stepped across the threshold when she was caught up in the chaos. While everyone talked at once, she swung Nathaniel up in her arms and kissed him firmly on his pursed and waiting lips, partly in greeting and partly in apology for not being the one to give him his bath and help him into his favored Ninja Turtles pj’s.

  “Hold on.” She settled Nate on her hip, holding up a hand in a futile hope to stem the tide.

  Delighted with the confusion, Nate bounced and began to sing a sea chantey about drunken sa
ilors at the top of his voice.

  She caught snatches about the telephone, caviar, Clark Gable, San Francisco and Aces High. Her mind, already muddled from her afternoon with Luke, struggled to decipher the code.

  “What? Clark Gable called from San Francisco and came over to eat caviar and do card tricks?”

  Because Alice laughed, Nate decided it must be a grand joke. Giggling, he tugged on his mother’s hair. “Who’s Clark Gable, Mama? Who is he?”

  “He’s a dead man, baby, like certain other people around here are going to be if they don’t shut up!” Her voice had risen admirably on the last two words. There was a gratifying stunned silence. Before anyone could draw in the breath to start again, she pointed at Alice. Roxanne knew if she couldn’t count on Alice for a calm, reasonable explanation, all was lost.

  “It really started because of San Francisco,” Alice began. “The movie—you know, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy. You know how the evening nurse likes to watch old movies on the television in your father’s room?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Well, she had it on while Lily was helping your father eat dinner—”

  Lily interrupted by putting her hands over her face and sobbing. Roxanne clicked into panic mode.

  “Daddy?” Still gripping Nate, she turned and would have bolted up the stairs if Alice hadn’t stopped her.

  “No, Roxanne, he’s fine. Just fine.” For a small, fragile-looking woman, she had a strong grip. She clamped her fingers over Roxanne’s arm and held on. “Let me tell you the rest before you go up.”

  “He started talking,” Lily said behind her hands. “About—about San Francisco. Oh, Roxy, he remembered me. He remembered everything.”

  Nate was so touched by her tears he reached out. Lily gathered him close, rocking and sniffling while Nate patted her cheek. “He kissed my hand—just like he used to. And he talked about a week we’d spent in San Francisco and how we had champagne and caviar on the terrace of our hotel room and watched the fog roll in on the bay. And how—how he tried to teach me card tricks.”

  “Oh.” Roxanne pressed a hand to her lips. She knew he could have moments of clarity but she couldn’t quite tamp out that stubborn spark of hope that this one would last. “I should have been here.”

  “You couldn’t know.” LeClerc took her hand. He could only think of how it hurt and healed to have sat for a moment with his old friend. “Alice had just gotten off the phone to Luke when you walked in.”

  “I’ll go up.” She leaned over to where Nate had tucked his head on Lily’s shoulder to comfort. “I’ll be in to kiss you good night, knucklehead.”

  “Can I have a story?”

  “Yes.”

  “A really long one, with monsters in it.”

  “An epic one, with horrible monsters in it.” She kissed him and watched his smile bloom.

  “Grandpa said I grew a foot. But I only have two.”

  Tears swam in her eyes as she lowered her brow to her son’s. “The third’s invisible.”

  “How come he could see it then?”

  “Because he’s a magician.” She kissed the tip of his nose, then turned to go to her father.

  He was wearing a silk robe of royal purple. His hair, a glinting steel gray, was freshly combed. He sat at his desk, much as he had day after day when she visited him. But this time he was writing, using the long, flourishing strokes she remembered.

  Roxanne glanced at the nurse who was standing at the foot of the bed filling out the chart. They exchanged nods before the nurse carried the chart out of the room and left them alone.

  There were so many things racing through Max’s mind. They crashed and boomed together like music. He had to rush to keep up with the notes, to write them down before they faded and were lost to him.

  He knew they would fade, and that was his hell. The effort it cost him to fight off the fog, to hold the pen in fingers that cramped with the movement would have exhausted a younger man. But there was a burning in him, bright and hot, that seared beyond the physical. If it hulled out his body, so be it. His mind was his own again. If it lasted for an hour or a day, he wouldn’t waste a moment.

  Roxanne stepped closer. She was afraid to speak. Afraid that he would look up and that his eyes would pass over her as if she were a stranger. Or worse, as if she were a shade, some transparent illusion that meant nothing more to him than a trick of the eye.

  When he did look up, alarm came first. He looked exhausted, so pale and drawn, so horribly thin. His eyes were bright, perhaps overbright, but in them she saw something beyond beauty. She saw recognition.

  “Daddy.” She tumbled the last few feet to him to fall on her knees with her head pressed to the thin wall of his chest. She hadn’t known, hadn’t allowed herself to know how much she’d needed to feel his arms around her again. How much she’d missed the feel of his hands stroking through her hair.

  Her chest heaved once in an attempt to throw off the pressure building there with a sob. But she wouldn’t greet him with tears. “Talk to me, please. Talk to me. Tell me how you feel?”

  “Sorry.” He bent his head to brush a cheek against her hair. His little girl. It was hard, much too hard to try to remember all the years that had passed between his child and the woman who held him now. They were a mist, a maze, and so he contented himself with accepting her as his little girl.

  “So sorry, Roxy.”

  “No. No.” Her eyes were fierce as she sat back on her heels. Her hands squeezed his until they ached, but the pain was sweet. “I don’t want you to feel sorry.”

  She was so unbelievably lovely, he thought. His child, his daughter, her face flushed with determination, tears trembling in her eyes. The strength of her love, the sheer demand of it nearly felled him.

  “Grateful, too.” His moustache twitched as his lips curved up. “For you. For all of you. Now.” He kissed her hands, sighed. He couldn’t talk. There was really so little he could talk about. But he could listen. “Tell me what new magic you’ve conjured.”

  She curled up at his feet, keeping her fingers linked with his. “I’m doing a variation on the Indian Rope Trick. Very moody and dramatic. It plays well. We set up a videotape so I could review it myself.” She laughed up at him. “I amaze myself.”

  “I’d like to see it.” He shifted, tucking a hand under her chin so he could watch her eyes. “Lily tells me you’re working on a broomstick illusion.”

  It took all her will to hold her gaze steady. “You know he’s back then.”

  “I dreamed he was—” And the dream and reality swirled together so that he couldn’t be sure. Simply couldn’t be sure. “Right here, sitting beside me.”

  “He comes to see you, almost every day.” She wanted to get up, to pace, but couldn’t bear to separate her hand from her father’s. “We’re working together again, temporarily. It was too intriguing a job to pass on. There’s to be an auction in D.C.—”

  “Roxanne,” he interrupted. “What does it mean to you—Luke’s coming back?”

  “I don’t know. I want it to mean nothing.”

  “Nothing’s a poor thing to wish for,” he murmured, smiled again. “Has he told you why he left?”

  “No. I haven’t let him.” Restless, she did rise, but couldn’t bring herself to move away. “What difference could it make? He left me. He left all of us. Once this job is done, he’ll leave again. It won’t matter this time, because I won’t let it.”

  “There isn’t a magic trick in the book that can shield a heart, Roxy. You have a child between you this time. My grandchild.” It pained Max more than he could say that he only had dim memories of the boy.

  “I haven’t told him.” At her father’s silence, she whirled around, surprised how ready she was to battle. “You disapprove?”

  He only sighed. “You’ve always made your own decisions. Right or wrong, it’s your choice. But nothing you can do will alter the fact that Luke is Nathaniel’s father.” He lifted a hand to her. “There’s no
thing you’d want to do to change that.”

  The muscles in her stomach loosened. The sharp fingers squeezing the base of her neck vanished. Magic, she thought, letting out a long clear breath. Say the magic words. “No, there’s nothing I would do to change that.” Oh, I’ve missed you, Daddy. She didn’t say it, afraid it would hurt him. “It’s so hard to be in charge, Max. So bloody hard.”

  “Easy’s boring, Roxy. Who wants to spend their life with easy?”