The Heart's Victory

by Nora Roberts

  The one simple word knocked her off balance. The word was in his eyes as well. Defeated, Foxy nodded. When Lance released her, she stepped away, moving to the window. The early moon was white and full and promising. Its light fell in showers over the naked trees and glittered over scattered leaves. Foxy thought nothing had ever seemed so lonely.

  “I had no idea you were coming out to the track today.”

  Foxy gave a quick laugh, then rested her forehead against the glass. “Did you think what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me?”

  “Fox.” The tone of his voice persuaded her to turn and face him. “I didn’t think at all, that’s the point.” He made a quick, uncharacteristic gesture of frustration. “I test the cars from time to time, it’s a habit of mine. It didn’t occur to me until I turned and saw you standing there how it would affect you.”

  “Would it have made a difference?”

  “Damn it, Foxy!” His voice was hard and impatient.

  “Is that an unreasonable question?” she returned. She began to wander about the room as she found standing still was impossible. “It doesn’t seem like one to me. It seems perfectly justified. I’ve discovered something about myself in the past month. I can’t be second with you.” Foxy paused, taking a deep breath. “I have to be first, I can’t ride in the backseat with you the way I’ve always done with Kirk. It’s not at all the same thing. I want—need something solid, something permanent. I’ve been waiting for it my whole life. This house . . . ” She made a helpless gesture as her thoughts came almost too quickly for the words to keep pace. “I want what it stands for. It doesn’t matter if we leave it a dozen times a year to go to a dozen different places, as long as it’s here to come back to. I want stability, I want commitment, I want a home, children. Your children.” Her voice quivered with her feelings, but she turned, dry-eyed, to look up at him. “I want it all, everything.”

  Foxy turned away again and swallowed. She took two long breaths, hoping they would steady her. “When I saw you in that car this afternoon . . . ” Emotions swamped her, and she shook her head before she could continue. “I can’t explain what it does to me. Perhaps it’s unreasonable, but I can’t control it.” Pressing the heel of her hand between her eyes, Foxy tried to speak calmly. “I can’t live like that again. I love you, and sometimes I can’t quite believe that we’re together. I don’t want you to be anything but what you are. And I know the things I want might not be what’s important to you. But when I think about you going back to racing, I . . . ”

  “Why should I go back to racing?” The question was calm and curious.

  Foxy moved her shoulders hopelessly. “You said you might the day I found out about Kirk’s new car. I know it’s important to you.”

  “Do you think I would do that to you?” This time the tone of his voice brought Foxy’s eyes to his. “Have you been thinking that all this time?” He moved to her, then placed both hands on her shoulders. “I’m not interested in racing again. But if I were, I’d manage to do without it. I’m more interested in my wife, Fox.” He shook her, but the gesture was more caress than punishment. “How could I consider racing when I know what it does to you? Can’t you see you are first in my life?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but only managed to shake her head before he continued. “No, you probably don’t. I don’t suppose I’ve made things very clear. It’s time that I did.” He rubbed her shoulders lightly before he dropped his hands. “In the first place, I pressured you into marriage, taking advantage of Kirk’s accident. I’ve had some bad moments because of that. Let me finish,” he told her as she started to protest. “I wanted you, and that night you looked so lost. I snatched you into marriage and rushed you up to Boston without giving you any of the frills you were entitled to. The truth is, I was afraid you might get away, and I told myself I’d make it up to you after we were married.”

  “Lance,” Foxy interrupted and lifted a hand to his cheek. “I don’t need frills.”

  “Is this the woman who once compared a garage to Manderley?” he countered. He took her fingers to his lips, then let them go. “Maybe I need to give them to you, Foxy. Maybe that’s why I was devoured with jealousy at the thought of you spending the afternoon in the park with Jonathan. I should have been with you. I rushed you into being my wife and never bothered to discuss the finer points.” With his hands in his pockets, he turned away and roamed about the room. “It’s difficult to be patient when you’ve been in love for nearly ten years.”

  “What?” Foxy stared at him, then slowly lowered herself to the arm of the sofa. “What did you say about ten years?”

  Lance turned to her with his tilted smile. “Maybe if I had explained myself in the beginning, we could have avoided some of these problems. I don’t know when I started loving you. It’s hard to remember a time when I didn’t. You were an adolescent with fabulous eyes and a woman’s laugh. You nearly drove me out of my mind.”

  “Why . . . why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Fox, you were little more than a child. I was a grown man.” With a laugh, he ran his hand through his hair. “Kirk was my best friend. If I had touched you, he would have killed me with perfect justification. No, I couldn’t sleep that night at Le Mans because this sixteen-year-old girl was making me crazy. In the garage when I turned around and you all but fell into my arms, I wanted you so badly it hurt. Badly enough that I took my defense in cruelty. Driving you away from me was the only decent thing to do. God, you terrified me.”

  Shaking his head, he lifted Foxy’s neglected drink. “I knew I had to give you time to grow up, time to form your own life. The six years I didn’t see you were incredibly long. It was during that time that I started building cars and moved into this house.” He turned and looked at her again. “I always pictured you here. It seemed right somehow. You belonged here with me, I felt it. I’ve never made love to another woman in this house.” He set down the glass, and his eyes grew dark and intense. “There’s never been anyone but you. Shadows, substitutes at best. I’ve wanted other women, but I’ve never loved anyone else. I’ve never needed anyone else.”

  Foxy swallowed, not certain she could trust her voice. “Lance, do you need me?”

  “Only for day-to-day living.” He moved to her, then ran a hand down her hair. “I’ve learned a few things in the past weeks. You can hurt me.” He traced a finger down the side of her throat as his eyes met hers. “I’d never considered that possibility. What you think of me matters. I’ve never given a damn what anyone thought of me before. You become more important to me in dozens of ways every day. And my need for you doesn’t soften.” He smiled slowly. “And you still terrify me.”

  Foxy returned his smile, feeling the blanketing warmth of contentment. “I suppose this sort of marriage will never be completely smooth and settled.”

  “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “I suppose it’ll always be somewhat tempestuous and demanding.”

  “And interesting,” Lance added.

  “I suppose when two people have been in love for as long as we have, they can be quite stubborn about it.” She lifted her arms. “I’ve always loved you, you know, even through all the years I tried not to. Coming back to you was coming home. I want you to kiss me until I can’t breathe.”

  Even as she spoke, Lance’s mouth claimed hers. “Foxy,” he murmured at length and rested his cheek against hers.

  “No, no, I’m still breathing.” Thirsty, her mouth sought his until he abandoned his gentle caress. Wild, turbulent, electric, their lips met over and over as the room grew soft with dusk. “Oh, Lance.” Foxy held him tightly a moment, then lifted his face and combed her fingers through his hair. “How could we both be such idiots and not tell each other what we were feeling?”

  “We’re both new at marriage, Fox.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “We just have to practice more.”

  “I feel like a wife.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close. “I feel very much
like a wife. I like it.”

  “I think a wife should have a honeymoon,” Lance murmured as he began to enjoy the privileges of a husband. “I should have told you that I’ve been spending a great deal of extra time at the office so that I could manage a couple of weeks away. Starting now. Where would you like to go?”

  “Anywhere?” she asked, floating under the drugging power of his hands.

  “Anywhere.”

  “Nowhere,” she decided as she slipped her hands under his sweater. His back was taut and warm under her palms. “I’ve heard the service is great here.” She smiled up at him when he lifted his face. “And I love the view.” Reaching up and behind, Foxy found the phone and tugged it over her head. “Here, call Mrs. Trilby and tell her we’ve gone to . . . Fiji for two weeks. Give her a vacation. We’ll lock the door and take the phone off the hook and disappear.”

  “I married a very smart woman,” Lance concluded. He took the phone, dropping it on the floor with the receiver off. “I’ll call her later . . . much later.” Lowering his mouth, he rubbed it gently over Foxy’s. “You did say something about children, didn’t you?”

  The eyes that were beginning to close opened again. “Yes, I did.”

  “How many did you have in mind?” he asked as he kissed the lids closed again.

  “I hadn’t thought of a number,” Foxy murmured.

  “Why don’t we start with one and work from there?” Lance suggested. “An important project like this should be started immediately, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely,” Foxy agreed. Dusk became night as their mouths met again.

  Keep reading for a special excerpt from the newest novel by J.D. Robb

  CALCULATED IN DEATH

  Available February 2013 in hardcover from G.P. Putnam’s Sons

  A killer wind hurled bitter November air, toothy little knives to gnaw at the bones. She’d forgotten her gloves, but that was just as well as she’d have ruined yet another overpriced pair once she’d sealed up.

  For now, Lieutenant Eve Dallas stuck her frozen hands in the warm pockets of her coat and looked down at death.

  The woman lay at the bottom of the short stairway leading down to what appeared to be a lower-level apartment. From the angle of the head, Eve didn’t need the medical examiner to tell her the neck was broken.

  Eve judged her as middle forties. Not wearing a coat, Eve mused, though the vicious wind wouldn’t trouble her now. Dressed for business—suit jacket, turtleneck, pants, good boots with low heels. Probably fashionable, but Eve would leave that call to her partner when Detective Peabody arrived on scene.

  No jewelry, at least not visible. Not even a wrist unit.

  No handbag, no briefcase or file bag.

  No litter, no graffiti in the stairwell. Nothing but the body, slumped against the wall.

  At length she turned to the uniformed officer who’d responded to the 911. “What’s the story?”

  “The call came in at two-twelve. My partner and I were only two blocks away, hitting a twenty-four/seven. We arrived at two-fourteen. The owner of the unit, Bradley Whitestone, and an Alva Moonie were on the sidewalk. Whitestone stated they hadn’t entered the unit, which is being rehabbed—and is unoccupied. They found the body when he brought Moonie to see the apartment.”

  “At two in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir. They stated they’d been out this evening, dinner, then a bar. They’d had a few, Lieutenant.”

  “Okay.”

  “My partner has them in the car.”

  “I’ll talk to them later.”

  “We determined the victim was deceased. No ID on her. No bag, no jewelry, no coat. Pretty clear her neck’s broken. Visually, there’s some other marks on her—bruised cheek, split lip. Looks like a mugging gone south. But . . .” The uniform flushed slightly. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

  Interested, Eve gave a go-ahead nod. “Because?”

  “It sure wasn’t a snatch and run, figuring the coat. That takes a little time. And if she fell or got pushed down the stairs, why is she over against the side there instead of at the bottom of the steps? Out of sight from the sidewalk. It feels more like a dump. Sir.”

  “Are you angling for a slot in Homicide, Officer Turney?”

  “No disrespect intended, Lieutenant.”

  “None taken. She could’ve taken a bad fall down the steps, landed wrong, broke her neck. Mugger goes down after her, hauls her over out of sight, takes the coat, and the rest.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it. But we need more than how it feels. Stand by, Officer. Detective Peabody’s on route.” As she spoke, Eve opened her field kit, took out her Seal-It.

  She coated her hands, her boots as she surveyed the area.

  This sector of New York’s East Side held quiet—at least at this hour. Most apartment windows and storefronts were dark, businesses closed, even the bars. There would be some after-hours establishments still rolling, but not close enough for witnesses.

  They’d do a canvass, but odds were slim someone would pop out who’d seen what happened here. Add in the bitter cold, as 2060 seemed determined to go out clinging with its icy fingers, and most people would be tucked up inside, in the warm.

  Just as she’d been, curled up against Roarke, before the call.

  That’s what you get for being a cop, she thought, or in Roarke’s case, for marrying one.

  Sealed, she went down the stairs, studied the door to the unit first, then moved in to crouch beside the body.

  Yeah, middle forties, light brown hair clipped back from her face. A little bruising on the right cheekbone, some dried blood on the split lip. Both ears pierced, so if she’d been wearing earrings, the killer had taken the time to remove them rather than rip them off.

  Lifting the hand, Eve noted abraded flesh on the heel. Like a rug burn, she mused before she pressed the right thumb to her ID pad.

  Dickenson, Marta, she read. Mixed-race female, age forty-six. Married Dickenson, Denzel, two offspring, and an Upper East Side address. Employed: Brewer, Kyle and Martini, an accounting firm with an office eight blocks away.

  As she took out her gauges, her short brown hair fluttered in the wind. She hadn’t thought to yank on a hat. Her eyes, nearly the same gilded brown as her hair, remained cool and flat. She didn’t think about the husband, the kids, the friends, the family—not yet. She thought of the body, the position, the area, the time of death—twenty-two-fifty.

  What were you doing, Marta, blocks from work, from home on a frigid November night?

  She shined her light over the pants, noted traces of blue fiber on the black cloth. Carefully, she tweezed off two, bagged them, marked the pants for the sweepers.

  She heard Peabody’s voice over her head, and the uniform’s answer. Eve straightened. Her leather coat billowed at the hem around her long, lean frame as she turned to watch Peabody—or what she could see of her partner—clomp down the steps.

  Peabody had thought of a hat, had remembered her gloves. The pink—Jesus, pink—ski hat with its sassy little pom-pom covered her dark hair and the top of her face right down to the eyes. A multicolored scarf wound around and around just above the plum-colored puffy coat. The hat matched the pink cowboy boots Eve had begun to suspect Peabody wore even in bed.

  “How can you walk with all that on?”

  “I hiked to the subway, then from the subway, but I stayed warm. Jeez.” One quick gleam of sympathy flicked across Peabody’s face. “She doesn’t even have a coat.”

  “She’s not complaining. Marta Dickenson,” Eve began, and gave Peabody the salients.

  “It’s a ways from her office and her place. Maybe she was walking from one to the other, but why wouldn’t she take the subway, especially on a night like this?”

  “That’s a question. This unit’s being rehabbed. It’s empty. That’s handy, isn’t it? The way she’s in the corner there? She shouldn’t have been spotted until morning.”

  �
�Why would a mugger care when?”

  “That’s another question. Following that would be, if he did, how’d he know this unit’s unoccupied?”

  “Lives in the area? Is part of the rehab crew?”

  “Maybe. I want a look inside, but we’ll talk to the nine-one-one callers first. Go ahead and notify the ME.”

  “The sweepers?”

  “Not yet.”

  Eve climbed the stairs, walked to the black-and-white. Even as she signaled to the cop inside, a man pushed out of the back.

  “Are you in charge?” Words tumbled over each other in a rush of nerves.

  “Lieutenant Dallas. Mr. Whitestone?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “You notified the police.”

  “Yes. Yes, as soon as we found the—her. She was . . . we were—”

  “You own this unit?”

  “Yes.” A sharply attractive man in his early thirties, he took