Eight Classic Nora Roberts Romantic Suspense Novels

by Nora Roberts

  Tucker took a chance and smiled at her. “Yeah.”

  She stopped, stared at him, then began to laugh. “Of course you would. And, of course I did. He was still the only man who’d ever made love to me. Maybe if I’d had a few flings myself, I wouldn’t have been so ready to fall back into the pattern. Maybe if I’d had the same confidence in myself as a woman that I had as a musician, I’d have shown him the door. But I agreed to put all the mistakes behind us, to start fresh. We even talked about marriage. Oh, in a very distant, diluted sort of way. When the time was right, he would say. When things fell into place. And because he asked me, I committed to another tour.”

  A little surprised, she looked down at her wine. “I’m getting drunk.”

  “That’s all right, I’ll drive. Tell me the rest.”

  She leaned back against the counter. “Luis would be the conductor, I the featured artist. It would be grueling, of course, but we’d be together. And wasn’t that the important thing? Dr. Palamo—I had just started to see him—advised against it. What I needed was rest and quiet. I had this nasty little ulcer, you see. And the headaches, insomnia, fatigue. It was all stress, and he made it quite clear that going right back on the road would only make matters worse. I didn’t listen.”

  “He should have tossed you into a hospital and chained you to a bed.”

  “He’d like you.” Amused, she sipped more wine.

  “My mother threw a party the night before we left. She was in her element and had a grand time, hinting that it was really an engagement party. Luis responded to that with a lot of winking and hearty laughter. And off we went. As I said, Luis is a brilliant conductor, demanding, moody, but absolutely brilliant. We started in Europe, triumphant. After the first week he moved into his own suite—my insomnia made it difficult for him to get much rest.”

  “Slimy bastard.”

  “Not slimy,” Caroline corrected him meticulously. “Slick. Very slick. The rest I’ll go along with. On a professional level he was a tremendous asset to me. He pushed me musically. He said I was the finest artist he’d ever worked with, but I could be better. He would mold me, sculpt me.”

  “Why didn’t he buy himself some Play-Doh?”

  She chuckled. “I wish I’d asked. To give him his due, he never once stinted on his dedication to improving my performance. He did start to slide when it came to treating me like a woman. I started to feel like an instrument, something he would tune and polish and restring. I was so tired, and sick, and unsure. It annoyed the hell out of him when I’d turn up for rehearsal looking exhausted and frail. It annoyed me, too. It annoyed me to see those pitying glances from the other musicians, the road crew.

  “I performed well, really well. Most of the tour is just a haze of theaters and hotel rooms, but I know I performed as well as I ever had, perhaps better than I ever will again. I picked up some sort of infection along the way and lived on antibiotics and fruit juice and music. We stopped sleeping together completely. He said I was simply not giving him my best. And he was right. Then he assured me that when the tour was over, we’d go away. So I lived on that. The end of the tour, the two of us lying on some warm beach together.

  “But I didn’t make it to the end of the tour. We were in Toronto, three-quarters done. I was awfully sick, and I was afraid I wouldn’t get through the night’s performance. I’d fainted in my dressing room. It scared me to wake up and find myself lying on the floor.”

  “Jesus Christ, Caroline.” He started to get up, but she shook her head.

  “It sounds worse than it was. I wasn’t an invalid, I was just so tired. And I had one of those vicious headaches that make you want to curl up in a ball and cry. I kept thinking it was only one performance, only one, and if I went to him, if I explained, he’d understand. So I went to him, but he was also lying on his dressing room floor. Only he was lying on top of the flutist. They never even saw me,” she said half to herself, then shrugged. “Just as well. I wasn’t strong enough to face a confrontation. Anyway, I went on that night. A stellar performance. Three encores, standing ovations, six curtain calls. There might have been more, but when the curtain came down the last time, so did I. The next thing I remember, I was waking up in the hospital.”

  “Someone should have put him in the hospital.”

  “It wasn’t him. He was just one more symptom. It was me. Me and my pitiful need to do what was expected of me. Luis hadn’t made me sick. I had done it. Diagnosis—exhaustion.” With a restless movement of her shoulders she walked back to the table to pour more wine, carefully shaking out the last drops. “I found that humiliating. Somehow it wouldn’t have been as bad if I’d had a tumor or some rare exotic disease. They ran scads of tests, poked and prodded and scanned, but it all came down to plain old exhaustion complicated by stress. Dr. Palamo flew up to treat me himself. No ‘I-told-you-so’s’ from him. Just competent, compassionate care. He actually booted Luis out of the room once.”

  Tucker lifted his glass. “Here’s to Dr. Palamo.”

  “He was good to me, good for me. If I needed to cry, he just let me cry. And when I needed to talk, he listened. He isn’t a psychiatrist, and though he recommended one, I felt so comfortable talking just to him. When he felt the time was right, he had me transferred to a hospital in Philadelphia. It was really more like what they used to call a rest home. My mother told everyone I was recuperating at a villa on the Riviera. So much more sophisticated.”

  “Caroline, I have to tell you, I don’t think I like your mother.”

  “That’s all right, she wouldn’t like you either. She did her duty, though. She came to see me three times a week. My father would call every night, even if he’d been to visit. The tour went on without me, and the press played up the collapse, and the fact that Luis was now snuggled up tight with the flutist. He did send flowers, along with romantic little notes. He didn’t have any idea I’d seen him with her.

  “It took about three months before I was well enough to go home. I guess I was still a little wobbly, but I felt stronger than I ever had in my life. I began to understand that I’d allowed myself to be treated like a victim. That I’d permitted the exploitation of what should have been cherished as a gift. My talent was mine, my life was mine. My feelings were mine. God, I can’t tell you what an epiphany that was. When the lawyers contacted me about my grandmother, I knew what I wanted to do. What I was going to do.

  “When I told my mother, she was livid. I didn’t just stand up to her, Tucker, which was really all I’d hoped for. I stood in that damn, prissy sitting room of hers and I shouted, I raged, I demanded. Naturally, I apologized. Old habits die hard, but I stuck with what I needed for myself. And I headed south.”

  “To Innocence.”

  “By way of Baltimore. I knew Luis was there, doing some guest-conducting. I called ahead, so he’d be expecting me. Oh, he was thrilled, delighted. When I got to his suite, he had an intimate dinner set up. I threw a glass of champagne at him, then I really cut loose. It felt wonderful. He was incensed enough to follow me out into the hall when I left. The man in the room across the hall—I never did get his name—came out and saw Luis trying to drag me back into the room. He decked him.” With her eyes half closed, she pantomimed a right jab. “One shot to that perfectly chiseled jaw, and Luis was down for the count.”

  “Buy that man a drink.”

  “That would have been proper, I suppose, but I was still revving on instinct. I did something else I’d never done in my life. I grabbed him—a complete stranger—and kissed him full on the lips. Then I walked away.”

  “And how did you feel?”

  “Free.” With a sigh she sat again. There was no trace of the headache, she realized. Her stomach wasn’t knotted, her muscles weren’t tense. “I still have moments, like with that phone call, when I lose that feeling. You don’t dump all your baggage at once. But I know I’m never going back to the way I was.”

  “Good.” He lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles. “I like th
e way you are now.”

  “So do I, mostly.” Her glass had sweated a ring on the table. Caroline traced patterns in the moisture. “I may never heal the rift with my mother, and that’s hard. But I’ve found something here.”

  “Peace and quiet?” he said, and made her smile.

  “Right. There’s nothing like a few murders to calm things down. Roots,” she said, glancing up. “I know that sounds silly since I spent only a few days here as a child. But shallow roots are better than none.”

  “They aren’t shallow. Things grow fast and deep in the delta. Even when people leave, they can’t pull those roots out.”

  “My mother did.”

  “No, she only sprouted them in you. Caroline.” He said her name softly and reached out to frame her face in his hands. “I hate what you went through. No, look at me,” he insisted when she dropped her gaze. “Part of you still wants to be ashamed of it. And you don’t want me or anybody feeling sorry for you. But I’ve never made a habit of repressing my feelings, so you’ll have to take them as they come. I don’t like thinking about you being hurt or sick or unhappy, but if all those things brought you here—right here where we’re sitting—I can’t be too sorry.”

  Here, right here, she thought, and smiled. “Neither can I.”

  She looked so fragile. Those fine bones, that pale skin. Fragile, until you saw what was in her eyes. There were depths there, he realized, strengths she hadn’t even begun to tap. And he very much wanted to be around while she continued her self-discovery.

  “There are some things I want to tell you. I’m not sure how.”

  She brought her hands to his wrists. “Maybe, when I’m feeling more settled, I’d like to hear them. Right now I think it might be better to let things stay as they are.”

  He’d always been patient, he reminded himself. But it was hard to be patient when you felt as though you were standing on a narrow ledge with the ground crumbling from under your feet. “All right.” He leaned forward to touch his lips to hers. “Let me stay with you tonight.”

  Her lips curved under his. “I thought you’d never ask.” She rose, taking his hands in hers. “Didn’t you mention that if I didn’t like it your way, we’d try again?”

  “You didn’t like it?”

  “Well … I’m not quite sure. Maybe if you showed me again, I’d be able to form a more definite opinion.”

  “Seems fair.” He eyed the kitchen table and grinned. “Why don’t we start right here?” He unknotted the belt of her robe. “And we can work our way—shit.”

  The phone rang, and Caroline dropped her head on his shoulder. “I’d say don’t answer it, but she’ll just keep calling.”

  “I’ll answer it.”

  “No, I—”

  He caught her hands before she could tie her robe again. “Let me answer it. If I can’t charm her into cutting loose for the night, you can take over.”

  She hesitated, then decided there was some sense in the idea. “Why not?”

  He gave her a brief kiss. “Clear the table,” he called over his shoulder, and made her laugh.

  “Grandma,” Caroline murmured as she picked up the rooster trivet, “I hope you won’t be shocked.” She took the empty glasses and bottle to the sink and decided her grandmother might have liked the idea of love in her kitchen.

  “That was quick,” she said when she heard Tucker come back in. “I’ve never known her to give up so easily. What did you …” The words died as she turned and saw his face. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “It wasn’t your mother, it was Burke.” He walked to her, putting his arms around her as much to brace himself as Caroline. “Darleen Talbot’s missing.” He stared at their reflections again, in the shadowed window. Through a glass darkly, he thought, and shut his eyes. “We’ll start the search at first light.”

  chapter 23

  “I wish you’d try to get some more sleep.” Tucker stood by, frustrated, while Caroline used a woman’s tools to disguise the results of a long, restless night.

  “I couldn’t.” She dabbed more concealer under her eyes and blended. “I’d just sit around and wait for the phone to ring.”

  “Go down to Sweetwater.” He stood behind her, watching her in the tiny bathroom mirror. Despite the circumstances, he felt an odd and powerful sense of intimacy at sharing this private space, being a witness to this ageless female ritual. “Take a nap in my hammock.”

  “Tucker, don’t worry about me. It’s Darleen we all should be concerned about. And the Fullers—Junior. That little baby. God.” Struggling to hold on, she stabbed the mascara brush in and out of the tube. “How could this happen?”

  “We’re not sure anything happened yet. She might have just run off somewhere. Billy T. said he hadn’t seen her, but after Junior walloped him, he’d be apt to lie if he had.”

  “Then why did she leave her car on the side of the road?”

  They’d been over this again and again. “Maybe she was going to meet somebody. That stretch is pretty lonely. She could have left her car and gone off with somebody else just to give Junior a bad night or two.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She dragged a comb through her hair, then turned. “I hope to God you’re right, because if you’re not, it might be like the others. And if it is, that would mean that—”

  “Don’t take it any further until it has to go there.” Gently, he curled his fingers around her forearms. “Day to day, remember?”

  “I’m trying.” She leaned against him a moment. The tiny room was still steamy from their shower. Outside the single high window, first light was blooming. “If my mother’s right, the press should be here before the day’s over. I can deal with that.” On a long breath she pulled back. “I can. But I feel I have to go to the Fullers to offer Happy some sort of support. I’m not sure I can deal with that.”

  “There’ll be plenty of others there for her. You don’t have to go.”

  “I do. I can be an outsider, or I can belong. It comes down to how you treat others, doesn’t it?”

  Hadn’t he said something very similar to Cy just the day before? It was hard to argue with yourself. “I’ll come by when I can. If I can.”

  She nodded, glancing out the doorway when she heard the toot of a horn. “That’s probably Burke. It’s nearly dawn.”

  “I’d better go, then.”

  “Tucker.” She took his shirt-sleeve when he turned away, then kissed him. Soft, quiet, comforting. “That’s all.”

  He rested his cheek on hers for one last moment. “That’s enough.”

  Though it was still shy of eight A.M. when Caroline arrived at the Fullers’, Happy wasn’t alone. Friends and family had closed ranks. There was coffee brewing to replace the pots already consumed. Though no one thought of food, women gathered in the kitchen, that time-honored space of comfort.

  Caroline hesitated in the doorway, beyond the murmur of conversation, the circle of support and worry and reassurances. She recognized the faces: Susie jiggling Scooter on her hip, Josie standing, restless, by the back door, Toby’s wife, Winnie, rinsing out cups in the sink, Birdie Shays stationed staunchly beside Happy, Marvella quietly ripping apart a paper napkin.

  The sense of intrusion was so great, Caroline nearly turned around and walked out again. It was Josie who saw her, who offered her a tired smile of understanding.

  “Caroline. You look like a whipped dog. Come on in and we’ll pump you full of coffee.”

  “I just …” She looked helplessly from one woman to the other. “I wanted to stop by and see if there was anything I could do.”

  “Nothing but wait.” Happy held out a hand. Reaching for it, Caroline stepped into the circle.

  So they waited, in a melding of perfumes and soft voices, with talk about children and men and a baby’s restless crying. Della joined them mid-morning, with jangling jewelry and a basket of sandwiches. She bullied Happy into eating half of one, scolded Josie for making the coffee too strong, and quieted S
cooter by giving him one of her bright plastic bracelets to chew on.

  “That child’s got muddy diapers,” she declared. “I can scent ’em a mile off.”

  “I’ll change him.” Susie picked him up off the floor, where he was busy banging Della’s bracelet on the tile. “He’s tired, too. Aren’t you tired, little man? I’ll just put him down in the daybed, Happy.”

  “He likes that little yellow teddy bear,” Happy told her, pressing her trembling lips together. “Darleen left it for him yesterday.”

  “Why don’t you find it for her, Happy?” Della shot Birdie a warning look before the woman could protest. “She needs something to do,” Della said quietly when Happy went out. “Worrying’ll eat her up. We all need something. Birdie, see if you can find the makings for one of your Jell-O parfaits. That’ll go down cool by afternoon. Marvella, you stop wringing your hands and use ’em to squeeze some lemons. We’ll have lemonade instead of this goddamn coffee. Winnie, I think you should mix up one of your potions for Happy. Get her to sleep awhile.”

  “I thought about it, Miss Della. I didn’t believe she’d drink it.”

  Della smiled grimly. “She will if I tell her to. That woman’s been going head to head with me for years, but I’ve been holding back. Josie, you and Caroline clean up these dishes.”

  “A woman as bossy as you ought to have a platoon of marines to order around.” Even as she complained, Josie stacked dishes.

  Now there was purpose in the room as well as a sense of unity. Caroline found herself smiling at Della. “How can I get to be you when I grow up?”

  Highly pleased, Della fussed with the big gold buttons of her blouse. “Why, child, you just learn how to use your mean. We all got it, but not everybody knows how to use it constructive like.”

  “Happy’s other girls ought to be here,” Birdie said, slamming cupboard doors. “They ought to.”

  “You know they’ll come if there’s need. Marvella, is that how your mama taught you to squeeze a lemon? Bear down, girl.” Satisfied, Della began to rewrap uneaten sandwiches. “Those girls got families, Birdie. Jobs and homes of their own. Wouldn’t it be foolish of them to travel all this way if Darleen’s just kicking up her heels?”