by Nora Roberts
but she wouldn’t cringe away, or yearn forward. Instead she stood straight and smiled coolly.
“There was a time I could read everything on your face,” he murmured. “But you’ve pulled a switch. You look the same, you smell the same, sound the same. I imagine if I could take you into bed, you’d feel the same, but you’ve clicked that one little switch.” With his eyes on hers he passed a hand over her face. “Now there’s another woman superimposed over the one I remember. Which one are you, Roxy?”
“I’m exactly who I want to be.” She twisted the knob and pushed the door open. “I’m who I made myself.” She hit the lights and flooded the big workroom with its colored trunks, long tables and clusters of magic. “So, you saw the show. You should have a good idea how I work now. The basic style is elegance, touches of flash, but always with grace and fluidity.”
“Yeah, real pretty.” Luke bit into the beignet, scattering powdered sugar. “Maybe a little strong on the feminine side.”
“Really?” Her brow arched. She picked up a silver dagger with a jeweled hilt she used as a prop. “I suppose you’d prefer strutting across the stage beating your chest and flexing your muscles.”
“I think we can come to a happy medium.”
Leaning a hip against the table, Roxanne tapped the blade against her palm. “I think we have a miscommunication here, Callahan. I’m the show. I’m perfectly willing to let you stage your comeback as part of the diversion, but I am and will remain in charge of the staging.”
“My comeback.” He ran his tongue across his teeth. “You’re right about one thing, babe. There is a miscommunication. Has-beens have comebacks. I’ve been bugging their eyes out in Europe.”
“Isn’t it sweet how so many of those tiny villages still flock to sideshows?”
His eyes narrowed, glinted. “You want to put down that knife and say that?”
She only smiled, running a fingertip along the tip. “Now as I see it, we’re doing a one-night-only. The prepublicity should give us enough for a sellout. ‘One Night of Magic with Roxanne Nouvelle.’ ” She tossed her head so that her hair swung out and back. “With a special appearance by Callahan.”
“At least your ego hasn’t changed. Partners, Roxanne.” He stepped closer. “You want top billing, I’ll be a gentleman about it. But the sign reads ‘Nouvelle and Callahan.’ ”
She moved a shoulder. “We’ll negotiate.”
“Look, I’m not wasting time with your petty bullshit.”
“Petty? You want to talk petty?” She swung toward him and drove the knife into his heart. The look of stupefaction on his face had her falling back against the table, doubled over with laughter.
“God, what a sucker.”
“Cute.” He rubbed his chest where the trick knife had thudded. The heart beneath it had stopped dead. “Real cute. Now do you want to get down to business, or do you want to play?”
“Sure, we’ll get down to business.” She set the knife aside then propped herself up on the table. “It’s my show, and it runs an hour forty-five. I’m willing to give you fifteen of it.”
“I’ll have fifty—including ten minutes for the finale, which we do together.”
“You’re taking Oscar’s place?” When he gave her a blank look, she smiled. “The cat, Callahan. I do a finale with the cat.”
“We’ll shift that to the last act before intermission.”
“Who the hell put you in charge?”
“It’s my gig, Roxanne.” Leaving it at that, he walked over to one of the brightly painted trunks. It was as tall as he and sectioned into three equal parts. “I want to work in an escape, a multiplication bit I’ve been working on, one large-scale illusion and a transportation.”
To give her hands something to do, she picked up three balls to juggle. “Is that all?”
“No, the finale’s separate.” He turned back, picked up another ball. Gauging her rhythm, he tossed it in among the three. She picked up the fourth ball without blinking an eye. “I want to do a variation on the broomstick illusion we did on the cruise. I’ve got most of the kinks worked out already. I’d like to start rehearsing as soon as possible.”
“You’d like a lot of things.”
“Yeah.” He stepped forward and, quick as a snake, slipped his hands under hers to take the balls. “The trick’s figuring out when to move and when to wait.” He grinned at her through the circling balls. “We can rehearse here, or we can use the house I just bought.”
“Oh?” She hated the fact that she was interested. “I figured you’d bunk at a hotel.”
“I like my own space. It’s a good-sized house in the Garden District. Since I haven’t bothered much with furniture yet, we’d have plenty of room.”
“Yet?”
“I’m back, Rox.” He sailed the balls toward her, but she batted them aside. “Get used to it.”
“I don’t give a damn where you live. This is business, and a one-shot deal at that. Don’t get it into your head that you’re coming back on the team.”
“I’m already on it,” he said. “That’s what pisses you off.” He held up a hand for peace. “Why don’t we see how we manage this? Mouse and Jake already have their heads together over the security angle, and—”
“Hold it.” Fired up, she shoved off the table. “What do you mean they have their heads together?”
“I mean, Jake came over with me. He and Mouse went off to talk electronics.”
“I’m not having this.” She shoved him aside so that she had a clear field to pace. “All right? I’m not having it. No way you’re waltzing back here and taking over. I’ve been running things for over three years. Ever since Max—ever since he couldn’t anymore. Mouse is mine.”
“I didn’t realize he’d become property since I’d left.”
Furious, she swung back. “You know very well what I mean. He’s my family. He’s my team. You gave that up.”
He nodded. “I gave a lot up. You want to make it personal. Fine. I spent five years doing without everything that mattered to me. Because it mattered to me. Now I’m taking it back, Roxy. All of it.” The hell with caution, with courtship, with control, he thought as he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Every last bit of it. Nothing’s going to stop me.”
She could have pulled away. She could have scratched and bit and fought her way free. But she didn’t. Something in his eyes, something wild and desperately unhappy kept her rooted to the spot even when he crushed his mouth to hers.
She tasted the fury and the frustration and something more, a longing too deep for words, too wide for tears. Those old, carefully buried needs fought their way up so that she answered greed with greed.
Oh, how she wanted him still. How she wanted to blank out time and space and simply be again. It was so much as it had been, his taste, the way his mouth slanted over hers, that whip-quick, pulsing excitement that left her body straining urgently toward fulfillment.
But it was not the same. Even as her arms clamped around him she could feel that he was leaner. As if he’d taken a blade and ruthlessly hacked himself down to muscle and bone. Beneath the physical she could sense other changes. This Luke wouldn’t laugh as quickly, rest as easily or love as sweetly.
But, oh, how she wanted him still.
He could take her there, on the table where magic had been conjured for a generation. On the floor where enchanter’s dust lay scattered. Here and now. And if he did, if he took back what had been lost to him, he might find his salvation. He might find his peace. But even if it brought him hell and chaos, he’d thank God for it. He let his mind wallow in the thought while his hands molded the body that melted so perfectly against his.
She was the only one. The always one. There was nothing and no one to stop him from claiming her again.
Except himself.
“It’s the same.” He tore his mouth from hers to bury it against her throat. “Damn it, Roxanne, it’s the same between us. You know it.”
“No, it’s
not.” Yet she clung to him still, wishing.
“Tell me you don’t feel it.” Furious and frantic, he dragged her back to study her face. He saw what he needed to see there—the heavy eyes, the pale skin, the swollen mouth. “Tell me you don’t feel what we do to each other.”
“It doesn’t matter what I feel.” Her voice rose, as if by shouting she could convince herself. “What matters is what is. I’ll trust you onstage. I’ll even trust you on the job. But nowhere else, Luke. With nothing else ever again.”
“Then I’ll do without trust.” He dipped his fingers in her hair, combing them through. “I’ll take what’s left.”
“You’re waiting for me to say I want you.” She pulled away, giving herself time for two steadying breaths. “All right, I want you, and maybe I’ll decide to act on it. No strings, no promises, no baggage.”
He felt like someone was kneading the muscles in his gut as if they were bread dough. “Decide now.”
She nearly laughed. There was so much of the old Luke in the command. “Sex is something I’m cautious about.” She sent him a level look. “And that’s all it would be.”
“You’re cautious,” he murmured, stepping to her again, “because you’re afraid it would be a whole lot more.” He tilted his head down to kiss her again, but this time she slapped a hand on his chest.
“Is this your answer for everything?”
Because whether she knew it or not they’d made progress, he smiled. “Depends on the question.”
“The question is, can we pull off a complicated series of jobs while our hormones are humming?” She smiled back, daring him. “I can if you can.”
“Deal.” He took her hand. “But I’m going to get you into bed along the way. So, why don’t you come to my place. We can . . . rehearse.”
“I take rehearsals seriously, Callahan.”
“Me too.”
With a laugh, she rocked back on her heels, and dipped her hands in her pockets. Her fingers brushed the little car, and she remembered. Too much. The smile died out of her eyes.
“We’ll make it tomorrow.”
“What is it?” Frustrated that the shutter had dropped between them again, he took her chin in his hand. “Where did you go?”
“I just don’t have time to work it in today.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I have a right to my privacy, Luke. Give me the address, and I’ll be there tomorrow morning. To rehearse.”
“Fine.” He dropped his hand. “We’ll play it your way. For now. There’s one more thing before I go.”
“What?”
“Let me see Max.” His temper tripped when she hesitated. “Goddammit, scrape and claw at me all you want. But don’t punish me that way.”
“You don’t know me at all, do you?” she said wearily. She turned away, walked to the door. “I’ll take you up to him.”
He’d known it would be bad. Luke had gathered all the snippets from the press on Max’s condition, had read everything he could find on Alzheimer’s. He’d been sure he’d been prepared for the physical changes, and the emotional ones.
But he hadn’t known how badly it would hurt to see the man, that larger-than-life figure from his boyhood, so shrunken, so old and so lost.
He stayed for an hour, in the sunny room with Mozart playing. He talked endlessly, even when there was no response, and he searched Max’s face for signs of recognition.
He left only when Lily came in and gently told him that it was time for Max’s exercise.
“I’ll come back.” Luke put his hand over Max’s and felt the thready pulse in the narrow wrist. “I’ve got a couple of new bits you might like to see.”
“Have to practice,” Max said, staring down at Luke’s strong, lean hand. “Good hands. Have to practice.” He grinned suddenly. “You have potential.”
“I’ll be back,” Luke said again and walked blindly toward the door. He found Roxanne down in the front parlor, watching the street through the window.
“I’m sorry, Roxy.” When he stepped behind her, wrapping his arm around her waist, she didn’t object, but gave for a moment, leaning into him.
“There’s no one to blame. I tried that route at first. Doctors, fate, God. Even you, just because you weren’t here.” When he pressed a kiss to the top of her head she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. But they were dry when she opened them. “He’s gone somewhere he has to be. That’s how I deal with it. He isn’t in pain, though sometimes I’m so afraid there’s a deeper kind of pain I can’t see. But I know how lucky we are to be able to keep him home, and close until he’s ready to go away completely.”
“I don’t want to lose him.”
“I know.” Understanding was too deep for her to prevent a reaching out. She lifted a hand to the one on her shoulder and linked fingers. Where Max was concerned, she could give without limitation. “Luke, I need to set the rules, and it’s not to punish you. I’d like you to see Max as much as possible. I know it’s difficult, and it’s painful, but I have to believe it’s good for him. You were—are—a big part of his life.”
“I don’t have to tell you how I feel about him, what I’d do for him if I could.”
“No. No, you don’t.” She let out a long breath. “I’ll need you to let me know when you’d like to come. Dropping in unannounced disrupts his routine.”
“For chrissake, Roxanne.”
“There are reasons.” She turned, standing firm. “I’m not going to explain myself, I’m just going to set the boundaries. You’re welcome here. Max would want that. But on my terms.”
“So I make appointments?”
“That’s right. Mornings are usually best, like today. Sometime between nine and eleven.” When Nathaniel was safely in preschool. “That way we can set rehearsals for the afternoon.”
“Fine.” He strode toward the door. “Draw me up a goddamn schedule.”
Roxanne heard the front door slam. The familiar echo of it nearly made her smile.
29
For the first time in her life, Roxanne suffered from the disapproval of her family. They didn’t say she was wrong. There were no lectures, no unsolicited advice, no withholding of smiles or conversation.
She might have preferred that to the murmurs she heard before she walked into a room, the long sorrowful stares she felt behind her back. They didn’t understand. She could tell herself that and forgive them—or nearly. None of them had ever found themselves pregnant and deserted and alone. Well, perhaps not really alone, she amended as she propped her chin on her hand and watched Nathaniel play cars in the courtyard. She’d had family, a home and unquestioning support.
But none of it made up for what Luke had done. She’d be damned if she’d reward him by sharing her perfectly beautiful child and risking the steady balance of Nate’s happiness.
Why couldn’t they see that?
She glanced up when the kitchen door opened, and smiled at Alice as the woman crossed the courtyard. An ally, Roxanne thought, smug. Alice didn’t know Luke, had no emotional investment in him. She of all people would agree that a mother had the right to protect her child. And herself.
“There was an awful wreck,” Nathaniel told Alice.
Interested, she bent down, her wispy blond hair swung out, her full-skirted cotton dress nearly brushing the bricks. “Looks grim,” she agreed in her quiet voice. “Better call nine-one-one.”
“Nine-one-one!” Nathaniel agreed, delighted, and began to make siren noises.
“That’s the third wreck in fifteen minutes.” Roxanne scooted over on the iron bench so Alice could sit. “The fatalities are mounting.”
“Those roads are treacherous.” Alice smiled her pretty, ethereal smile. “I’ve tried to educate him on the advantages of car pools, but he prefers traffic jams.”
“He prefers traffic accidents. I hope it’s not warping his mind.”
“Oh, I think we’re safe there.” Alice took a deep breath to bring in the scent of
roses and sweet peas and freshly watered mulch. The courtyard was her favorite spot, a shady summery place designed for sitting and thinking. So typically Southern. As a transplanted Yankee, she embraced all that was South with the same fervor a converted Catholic embraces the Church. “I thought I’d take Nate to Jackson Square after preschool. Let him run around a little.”
“I wish I could go with you. I never feel as though I’m