by Jule McBride
He realized she was staring at him. “Tell me about your childhood, Lillian.” Night after night, he tried to coax out some sliver of information that might shed light on who exactly had killed his uncle.
She stared out, into the rain. When she looked at him again, her eyes were misty. “Like I told you, I grew up in a small white brick house, with ivy growing up the side…” She paused, rubbing a towel against Lone Star’s fur. “It had a picket fence…” Her drawl was hypnotic, drumming against his mind like the rain on the terrace tiles. “Truly, Shane,” she murmured. “We had a wonderful life. Blessed and rich. Simple.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes.”
She was a good liar. He’d give her that. Maybe the best he’d met. She kept her roots in the South and didn’t change inconsequential facts, which gave credence to the lies. But Shane knew she’d been raised on the old Fontenont plantation. That she changed that particular fact got to him. He could swear she was daydreaming about a life she wished she’d led. It was clean. Honest. Simple. The kind of life he wanted.
“Behind our house were rose bushes my daddy tended…”
The simplicity of her secret desires made Shane feel guilty. He fought the sudden impulse to gather her in his arms and tell her it was okay, that he already knew about her real life. He suddenly wished he could take her back down South, where they both belonged. Yeah, the big fish might eat the little fish. And Shane might be the big fish at the moment. But in New York City, both he and Lillian were fish out of water. Feeling edgy, he rose and headed for the terrace.
“Where are you going?”
“To look at the rain.”
Leaning against the doorjamb, he listened to the steady drumming and stared where the winds churned the river below. Ghostly lights of anchored boats glimmered back like winking eyes, and then were lost in the deluge. Rain splashed on the interior tiles near the doors, just enough to dampen Shane’s bare feet, but not enough to warrant closing the doors. In the darkened glass of the open door opposite, Shane could see Lillian’s reflection.
She was still riffling through the legal pad. “Okay. So, you went to Kilbert Elementary, Camp Creek Junior High, Lundston High…”
He tried to ignore her now. He couldn’t afford to forget that her interest in him was purely academic. No one had ever attended so diligently to the facts of Shane’s life, but she didn’t care about him. Knowing him was only important to her because it might help get her a son.
Brandon. Shane glanced uncomfortably down the hallway, toward the baby’s nursery, sandwiched between the guest room and bath. It was a wonderful room, bright and cheerful, with a rocker next to the crib. Shane had never known a kid who had a room so nice.
Lillian glanced up, squinting. “How do you remember everything about me so easily, Shane?”
I’ve been studying for seven years. Nevertheless, it was hard to keep things straight. Truths mingled with her fictions. He shrugged. “Good memory.”
“Oh, right. You said it runs in your family.”
He nodded, staring down where the thirsty ground drank up the rain. He felt a slight chill—either from a slight drop in air temperature, or from the memories of the rains that had claimed his parents’ lives years ago, back in Texas. Was this job with Lillian another he was about to screw up?
He thought of his Uncle Silas.
Aunt Dixie Lynn’s husband had been a Louisiana cop. When Shane’s rebellious spirit landed him in adolescent trouble, Uncle Silas had helped curb it, which was how Shane wound up joining the force. Seven years back, Uncle Silas had found out that a Western crime consortium headed by a man named Jack Ramsey was bringing crime into Louisiana—mostly drugs and money laundering—and that a large payoff was going to be made to Louisiana’s dirtiest cops. Except for a longtime partner, Trusty Joe Beaujolais, Uncle Silas trusted no one. So, Shane had taken a leave of absence in East Texas and gone to Louisiana to help Silas, until they had enough evidence to involve the FBI.
That was where Shane had first seen Delilah Fontenont.
He’d been tailing her car, but he didn’t get a good look at her until she stopped for a soda at a bait shack on the bayou. In a white sundress and sandals, she shone like a lamp on the dusty porch of the old store. Shane had watched her slake her thirst—drinking with none of the reserve she had now, throwing back her head, exposing her creamy neck and gulping. Her long hair was dark and wild, like her eyes, and her walk was sexier than any Shane had ever seen.
He’d wanted her. So badly his heart missed a beat, and he’d simply stared through the windshield, his hands unusually still on the steering wheel.
But he knew he could never have her. She was engaged to Jack Ramsey’s son, Sam. Even worse, she’d signed over her family home, the old plantation, to be used as the basis of consortium operations. She was obviously in deep with the Mob.
She was used to the high life, too. The Ramseys had fixed up the plantation—landscaping and painting. Bungalows and an airstrip were built and the waterways cleared near a boathouse and pier. Ostensibly, the place was a refurbished as a resort and spa, but the consortium was using it for business. Jack Ramsey was using it to this day, even after what happened on Sam and Delilah’s wedding night, when things blew sky-high.
That night, Shane was in a car, watching the main exit to the property, when he heard gunfire. After that, everything happened fast and trickled down later in bits and pieces. Delilah had sped away with the payoff money, which was meant to make every dirty cop in Louisiana turn a blind eye to consortium operations. When gunfire hit the boathouse, where the gang stored ammo, the building and the pier both exploded. Sam Ramsey, who’d been injured somehow in the melee, stumbled too close and was presumed dead in the explosion. And Trusty Joe said Uncle Silas got caught in the crossfire. Shane reached his uncle’s side just before he died.
I loved you like a son, boy. Like my own flesh and blood.
Those were Silas’s last words.
Now, staring into the rain, Shane felt her—Delilah, Lillian, whatever she wanted to call herself—come up behind him.
“My, my, you do look serious. What are you thinking?”
Shane turned. Gazing deeply into her eyes, he was still seeing her speed down a one-lane private road in the dark, glancing into the back seat at a bag stuffed with three million dollars in Mob money. It was unmarked. Untraceable. Blood money his Uncle Silas had died for.
But the longer Shane stared, the less he was thinking about Silas, and the more he was wondering about the truth. Badly as he wanted to know who’d pulled the trigger and killed his uncle, Shane trusted his gut the way Lone Star trusted her nose. And his gut told him that a woman like Lillian would never knowingly marry a bastard like Sam Ramsey. Or is her beauty blinding you? That was still the sixty-four-dollar question.
She looked concerned. “Talk to me.”
He shrugged, the gesture more casual than his mood. “My dark, brooding side starting to get on your nerves?” Even he could admit that his moods sometimes got darker than this night.
Not that Lillian seemed bothered. “Most lone wolves have a dark side.”
That again. “I’m not a lone wolf, Lillian. I’m a man.”
She merely nodded as if she had him all figured out. “Are you thinking of the flood…” That killed your parents.
“Yeah,” he lied. At least he thought he was lying, but maybe not. Dark, rainy nights usually did lead him to his own demons. He wasn’t sure why, but he found himself telling her more. “My folks were sandbagging against the rising river that night. I thought I should stay and help sandbag, instead of my mother, but I got sent to the schoolhouse with everybody they evacuated. Mama told me to look out for my little brother, Doc. And that was the last thing she ever said to me.”
Fingers curled around his biceps like satin, and at the touch, Shane felt a shiver—not a cold shiver, but a shiver of heat. Lillian was so close right now, in body and spirit. For days, they’d been getting closer, physically dancing
around each other while sharing bits of their lives. He thought back to the first night, when he’d spilled that wine and nearly kissed her.
“Shane?” she said simply.
His eyes penetrated hers, seeking answers. Why was it so important that he let this woman know more about him than the simple facts? More than his favorite color, which was gray. Or that he liked classical music and had once kissed a little girl named Ruthie. Wanting a woman the way he wanted Lillian was so foreign to Shane. And because of who she was, he didn’t want to rely on her for his needs. Not sexual. And definitely not emotional.
He had a sudden, powerful urge to push her away. His voice was rough. “Still looking for those intimate details that’ll help you get Brandon?” he bit out. “That’s why you want to know about my folks, right?”
She looked as if she’d been slapped. She whirled away, but Shane instinctively grabbed her arm and when he pulled her back, her face—her eyes, her lips—were far too close. Her gaze was steely. “Think what you want, Shane.”
“I am.”
For no reason he could discern, her brown eyes suddenly softened, looking like liquid. “I want to know you, Shane.”
He managed a soft derisive grunt. “Right.” He abruptly released her.
“Like I said, believe what you want.”
He shrugged. Maybe he wanted to believe her. But how could he, when she was such a practiced liar?
“Please,” she ventured. “Keep talking to me. Don’t push me away.”
His eyes drifted over a mouth he wanted to utterly possess. And then something inside him gave. “Doc,” he found himself saying, “my little brother…he was only three years old and scared to death. I held him all night. He slept while I stared into the rain.” Years later, still staring into the rain, Shane could feel the fear come back, the power of the swelling river that took everything in its path. He finally said, “Only in the morning, when they came and told me our folks were dead, did I realize I’d slept. I kept thinking, if only I hadn’t fallen asleep….”
“You were only eight years old, and you did everything you could,” Lillian said gently. “You’ve always watched out for Doc, too. He’s grown up, in love now.”
At that, a slight smile touched Shane’s lips. His little brother was head over heels in love with a New York woman who’d given birth to his child. Frankie’s family had taken a shine to Shane, and of course, Shane had met the baby. Not that he’d held her. Babies were just too small. Too weak. And Shane had failed too many times to protect those he loved.
“Doc’s done all right,” he said. “I figure he’ll marry Frankie. And he does love their baby girl.” Shane shook his head. “I remember when medical school was nothing more than a dream for him. I worked two, sometimes three jobs to help him through, so he wouldn’t have to carry the debt. I figured one of us might as well have a life…”
Lillian reached and touched his weathered cheek, making his heart hammer. He’d never felt so vulnerable with a woman, never told one so much. Dammit, Shane, she’s just getting to know you because she wants the baby.
“You deserve a life, too, Shane.”
Uncomfortably, he edged away from her touch, re-situating himself against the door. “I have a life.”
“You could have more.”
It was clear she meant a woman. He thought of her, back on the dusty porch of that bait shack in Louisiana, the skirt of her pretty white dress fluttering against her kneecaps in the breeze. His voice was almost hoarse.
“Well, Lillian, I wouldn’t worry overmuch about my needs. After all, I don’t see you keeping many men around here.” Only me.
She colored. “That’s different. And I’m getting the baby.” Her voice caught with excitement. “I just know this is going to work. Brandon and I are going to be a family.”
There it was again. That statement of the simple life she wanted that nearly brought Shane to his knees. He could no longer believe this woman had fled a crime scene with dirty money, or been party to the gunfire that had killed his uncle. Something else must have happened that night.
His realized his eyes were raking over her lips again. Against his will, he edged closer, drawn by that delicate mouth, those changeable eyes that could be sad and yet still sparkle. Over her shoulder, he caught the reflection of her long bare legs in the glass door. Wise up. The lady’s all reflections. And you’re lost in the funhouse.
“It really is different for me,” she repeated huskily.
“Is it, Lillian?” She’d taken a new name, started over from scratch. These past seven years had consumed her, just as they had him, and it was just one more of the many bonds they shared. He heard her breath catch, but she said nothing.
His next words came before he thought them through. “C’mon, Lillian, sometimes you must need a man.”
“Need a man?” Her forced chuckle fell flat when she tried to make light of it, and her voice sounded strangely dry, given the wet, hard-driving rain just inches away.
“What on earth for?”
“Dammit, Lillian—” His own frustrated warning curse should have stopped Shane, but his hand—both strong and yet so powerless—reached out. Rough fingertips that vibrated with need slid slowly down a satin cheek. “You need a man, Lillian,” he whispered hoarsely. “For this.”
He knew what he was about to do was wrong. But he leaned unhurried, his searing gaze burning on the mouth he was about to claim. He looked long and hard because he was used to looking. Because for seven years of torment, only his eyes had touched the slender neck she was now tilting back with tremulous uncertainty. She was going to let him kiss her, so he watched her eyes drift shut—knowing he was watching for the last time, knowing he was finally about to taste.
“For this,” he said again softly.
And then his mouth—as searing as the summer heat that sent perspiration rolling between her breasts—brushed and stirred the air above her lips.
She gasped.
And that one sound told Shane what he’d always known in his heart. That from the second she’d laid eyes on him, she wanted him every bit as badly as he wanted her.
He savored it—both the near kiss and the need. His palm curled around her neck, and his lips grazed the air above her mouth again, starting their physical relationship the way all life began—with nothing more than a breath. And then a dry, blistering barely-a-kiss kind of kiss came, a hot, tongueless, open-mouthed nuzzling that was infinitely erotic, and that made her fingers tighten and tremble on his arms and made his whole body hot, his groin hard.
They were still barely touching.
Again and again, Shane’s mouth passed. Even when her thirsty lips begged, he still wouldn’t give his tongue. Way back in sixth grade, a little girl named Ruthie Miles had taught him this trick. He withheld his tongue even when Lillian’s legs whispered apart, just a sweet breath opening against his thigh.
When she moaned from sheer want, her whole body trembling, Shane thought he’d burst. He licked her mouth then, streaking her lips with his tongue’s thirsty damp fire. Suddenly, he dived, the tantalizing tongue going deep, thrusting possessively as he dragged her to him, her breasts cushioning against his bare chest. When that wasn’t enough, Shane staggered two paces, dragging her into the rain, where the storm’s raging thirst matched his own. He wanted her wet to the bone. Inside out. With his passion unleashed in the elements, he thrust his hand up through her hair, tearing at the band that held it.
He could no longer see her. His eyes were shut. No longer the secret watcher, he knew her only by touch. And taste. She tasted of wine and rain, which he suckled as the deep kiss touched bottom. Her wet silken hair was rushing through his fingers like the rain, and as his mouth drank from hers, he wished her hair was still dark, its natural color. He wanted her so badly. But he wanted her. The real her. Delilah Fontenont.
Sliding his hands down her rain-drenched back and over a T-shirt that clung to her like a second skin, he pressed her closer, tilting his hips
in his soaked jeans, urging her to feel how painfully, how powerfully, she’d aroused him. She rose to meet the thrust of his hips, straining with a moan.
“Yes,” he whispered to his wild, dark, devilish Delilah.
“Shane,” she gasped, wrenching away. “Oh, Shane!”
SHE’D ENDED THE KISS.
Whatever was left of Lillian’s old self—her wild carefree self, which meant her true soul—hadn’t wanted to end it. But she’d had to! She deserved a nice clean upstanding life. No complications. No complexities. She just wanted a baby. And she couldn’t forget that was Shane Holiday’s sole purpose in her life—to help her adopt Brandon. But Shane, with that wicked kiss of possession, was more threatening than a whole pack of wolves. More threatening than any man…
Including Lillian’s husband.
Her dead husband.
Thinking of Sam Ramsey made Lillian clutch the phone receiver in a death grip. She clamped her palm over the mouthpiece, then glanced nervously around her office. Through the glass wall to her left her boss, Jefferson, who was also on the phone, adjusted a carnation in the lapel of his gray suit and ran a hand distractedly through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. To Lillian’s right everyone in the brokerage cubicles was working. Good. No one was paying attention.
She tried to concentrate on the conversation. It was risky, since her boss had no idea she was eavesdropping. Oh, he knew a woman was on the line, he didn’t know it was Lillian.
Though the glass wall, she watched her boss’s lips form the words that came through the receiver in his deep baritone. “Tilford,” Jefferson was saying. “You scared me.”
“That’s why I’m making this conference call,” said the judge. “I would have phoned sooner, but I had no idea…”
“No idea!” Someone exploded.
Lillian, c’mon. Quit thinking about Shane and Brandon. You’ve got to pay attention to what they’re saying. The call concerned the Big Apple Babies adoption agency, and with Brandon still being kept at the agency, as well as other matters pending, anything that concerned Big Apple Babies concerned Lillian.