AKA

by Jule McBride

  Shane’s gut tightened when he finally stepped across the threshold. He couldn’t believe he was really inside. There was no going back now. He edged down the hallway, but then had to stop to give the agents maneuvering space. Lillian bounced against his back, and he felt her softness against him, the instinctive touch of a hand she used to steady herself against his waist. Glancing at her over his shoulder, he could swear her cool composure faltered again, as if the shock of contact wasn’t lost on her, either. But it was hard to tell.

  She was staring at him warily. “So…you’ve completely moved out of your place? And you brought all your belongings?”

  Hadn’t he explained that? What had she been expecting? He frowned, glancing around. There were only a few boxes. “Yeah. But don’t worry. This is really about it. I…I guess I travel—”

  Light. Before he could finish, her eyes darted from his. “Wait a minute!” she exclaimed. Lowering her voice so only Shane could hear, she urgently whispered, “That’s my bedroom.”

  It sure was. Fin and the boys had ignored the unoccupied guest bedroom across the hallway and were stacking Shane’s boxes next to Lillian’s closet door.

  So this was her lair. Shane sidled closer, his pale hawk-like gaze piercing the interior. The door had been shut earlier today, but now he could see private quarters that were as Southern in decor as the rest of the place. He ignored his faint discomfort. Yeah, the woman’s trim suits and professional composure couldn’t conceal a nature that was decidedly more wild. She was so innocent-looking that an unguarded man could easily forget, but beneath prim blond Lillian still lay the much darker devilish Delilah….

  She was the woman Shane needed to lure out.

  And this was where she slept.

  Shane’s watchful gaze scanned the red-fringed shade of a bedside lamp before taking in the four-poster bed, with its thick mattresses and pillows piled high against the headboard. A patterned wool rug hid much of the hardwood floor and a small table was crowded with candles, incense burners and bottles of aromatic massage oils. Lillian was obviously big on scents and the room, which was filled with hers, hampered his concentration. New York’s usual traffic sounds were absent; air rustled softly, swirling down from a ceiling fan.

  Realizing he’d been holding his breath, Shane slowly exhaled as he stared into a mirrored bathroom beyond. The blueprint of the apartment he’d studied hadn’t exactly shown the sumptuous details. There was a nondescript shower stall, but it was the huge round black sunken tub that commanded his attention. It had to be at least three feet deep. Steps led into it, past crystal fixtures and whirlpool jets, and thick white towels hung along the walls, over crystal-knobbed racks. The whole room was obscenely well-appointed. Shane could hardly believe Lillian wanted a baby so much she’d let both him and Lone Star move in.

  Tamping down his vague discomfort at the blatant opulence, he wondered if Jefferson Lawrence had really paid for these furnishings, as she claimed, or if Lillian had…with the money she’d taken when she’d fled from the Mob in Louisiana. Shane couldn’t wait to research all her personal financial records and find out.

  Feeling silken fingers close around his biceps, he turned and before he knew it, his own rebellious hand wound up grazing Lillian’s waist. She felt hot—like a thousand summers combined—and since current weather predictions were calling for a storm to break the city’s heat wave, Shane found himself wondering if anything could ever appease the ceaseless unwanted heat he felt for this woman. He’d do anything to get rid of it.

  “Shane—” Her insistent hushed whisper was still low, so the movers wouldn’t hear, and the soft panic-tinged drawl tampered with the regularity of Shane’s heartbeat. Wincing, he controlled his reaction.

  “What?”

  “You…uh, can’t stay in here, you know. I mean, we’ve got to tell these guys to move your things into the other bedroom. The guest bedroom.”

  “Sorry,” he whispered back. “But we’ve got to make sure people think we share this room.” Even though he’d arrest Lillian long before they were married, or before a caseworker actually came to interview them about adopting a baby, Shane had his own agenda. If his things were in her bedroom, he’d have the perfect excuse to search it at will.

  “What about the rest of the stuff?” growled Fin from the hallway.

  Shane glanced at the box on Fin’s shoulder which contained a collection of classical music CDs. “The living room. Near the stereo.”

  When Fin and the agents left again, Lillian stared at the boxes. “I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with all this.”

  Since the thought of him in her bedroom caused so much obvious distress, Shane figured Lillian had picked up more of his male scent than she was letting on. “I’m not entirely comfortable, either,” he assured, even as he leaned lithely, ripped open a cardboard box and started lifting out his clothes by the handfuls.

  “Well, maybe we’d better talk some more…”

  “At least set a few ground rules,” he agreed, ignoring how her eyes bored into his back as he headed for the chest of drawers. He began tugging the heavy carved handles.

  Her voice was strangely flat. “That’s my underwear drawer.”

  Ignoring the sudden quickening of his pulse, he gingerly pushed aside multicolored silk bras and panties. As he shoved a wadded handful of boxer shorts next to the delicate garments, she released an uncharacteristic giggle.

  He shot her a quick glance, feeling suddenly, unaccountably testy. “What?”

  “They’re pink.”

  “Pink?”

  “Your underwear.”

  Shane swore he felt heat in his cheeks, and he damned her for both that and the fact that his voice came out sounding faintly edgy, almost terse. “I washed my shorts with a red union suit. The color in the suit ran. That okay with you?”

  “Fine,” she said lightly.

  But now the woman was beaming at him. Damn. If there was one thing Shane found truly loathsome, it was when women were charmed by his innate inability to deal with clothes. He stained them. Lost buttons. Bought the wrong sizes. Mismatched them. You name it. So much for the image of the world-weary ex-detective. Those guys were always pin-neat, austere as hell, and slept on beds you could bounce quarters on. Not Shane. He’d ironed something once—he couldn’t remember what—and burned a hole in it. The button-down shirt he’d worn here earlier had been brand new.

  “Here,” she said. “Take them out. I’ll bleach them.”

  He very calmly shut the drawer. Stay out of my shorts, lady. “No, thanks,” he said mildly. “I like them pink.” Finding his robe and toiletries, he headed for the bathroom.

  The click of her footsteps followed, and he knew if he looked into the mirrored wall above the sink, he’d meet the dark brown eyes against which he had such little resistance. Reminding himself he was undercover, on a government sting, he kept his gaze trained on a zippered black toiletry bag and started unloading the items.

  “My, you certainly are businesslike,” she said.

  He ignored her. He unloaded a cologne that was so cheap she wouldn’t approve of it. A manicure kit he’d never used. A straight razor. He suddenly glanced up.

  She was scrutinizing his belongings. “What’s that?”

  He stared down. “Handcuffs.”

  This seemed to amuse her. “You carry them in your toiletries?”

  “Apparently,” he said, having no idea how they’d gotten mixed in, and still feeling thoroughly distracted by her presence behind him.

  “One more thing,” she said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Please…do me a favor and keep your gun out of sight. I want it unloaded, and put away somewhere safe.”

  “Fine.” After another long moment, he turned and pierced her with a sudden aggravated stare.

  She blinked. “What?”

  He bit back a sigh. She looked so incredibly poised—her regal back straight. Her slender arms were long milky lengths of bone and satin skin,
and as his eyes trailed over where they crossed at the waistline of her navy skirt, he was plagued by that bothersome tightening of his chest again. “No offense, but the way you’re just standing there, watching me, reminds me of my Aunt Dixie Lynn.”

  “Your Aunt Dixie Lynn?”

  “Yeah. Don’t misunderstand, I love her. But when I visit, she always follows me around the house. Watches me pack and unpack.” Grills me about my love life, which she says is nonexistent. “Except for Lone Star,” he admitted, “I guess I’m not used to having people in my personal space.”

  “This is my personal space,” she reminded, smiling. “My, my, you really are a lone wolf. How long’s it been since you lived with anyone?”

  “Years.” He’d been seventeen. He hadn’t liked it then anymore than he was going to like it now. His frown deepened as he realized what a strain this was going to be on him.

  She tilted her head. “Don’t you ever get lonely?”

  “No.” He caught her amused glance in the mirror. “Mind telling me what’s so funny about that?”

  “Oh nothing, you’re just so…so…” She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “Lone-wolfish.”

  As he dropped a new toothbrush next to hers, he tried to tell himself she’d settle down. She’d been more reserved this afternoon. No doubt, she was just overly excited about the changes taking place in her apartment. Unrolling copies of various news magazines, he arranged them near her makeup bag. Then he stood back and surveyed the artful effect. “Think it looks like a man lives here?”

  Lillian’s tone was dry. “It’s certainly messy enough now.”

  “Men are supposed to be messy.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “Seriously, Shane. I think we should discuss those ground rules…”

  Shane knew if he conceded to a cleaning schedule, he was doomed. Fin had warned him of that. Shane was as undomesticated as Lone Star, and they would remain that way during their stay, which, Shane reminded himself again, would be blessedly brief. His eyes drifted to the bracelets on Lillian’s slender wrists. Imagining they were handcuffs improved his mood. At least that’s what he told himself. “I’m really sorry, Lillian,” he apologized. “I don’t have any intention of intruding in your home. But if you’re going to adopt Brandon, we need to make sure our cohabitation looks authentic. It’ll be uncomfortable—” Realizing his eyes were fixed on her lips, Shane glanced abruptly away. “But we’ve got to convince people we share the bathroom. The messier it is, the more obvious it will be that I live here.”

  “Why, Shane,” she chided. “Are you sure your motive isn’t just laziness? Or a general lack of hygiene?” When he didn’t rise to the bait, she said, “Nevertheless, I suppose you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right.”

  “Why? Because men usually are?”

  Her backdoor way of challenging him was brought on, he decided, by her nervousness at having him move in. He started to say something to soothe her, but when his eyes settled on skin that was as creamy and silky as her blouse and stockings, he changed his mind because he felt the same need to challenge. The desire to exert his power over her came swiftly, and he imagined plundering her delicate mouth until she was so bewildered she couldn’t even stand up anymore. He’d like to give her that kind of abandon, that relief from her own control. He softly said, “You really don’t like men much, do you?”

  “No.” The quick, insincere smile she flashed said he’d hit a raw nerve. “And since our marriage isn’t real, I don’t have to.”

  “Prickly, aren’t you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  So was he. He gave her an accepting nod, but he was thinking about her dead husband. Sam Ramsey had been a rotten bastard. What had he done to her? Years ago, when Shane first saw her, she’d looked so shamelessly carefree….

  He sighed as he hung his terry robe on the back of the door. Since he’d washed it with the shorts and union suit, it was pink, too, and it looked ridiculous next to hers, which was of white silk. Eyeing the robes, he decided if a caseworker was really coming, they wouldn’t stand a chance of convincing her they were married. A woman like Lillian wouldn’t be caught dead in bed with him, much less marry him. Next to his roughness, she was all silk and fragrance. Besides, she was too young for him, anyway. “I guess we’ll have to tell everybody it’s a love-hate thing,” he suddenly muttered.

  She was staring at the robes, too. “You mean where we’re opposites, but very passionate?”

  As if she didn’t know a damn thing about men and women. He thought of Sam Ramsey, the criminal who’d been her lover and husband. “Yeah, people have to think we’re passionate lovers, Lillian,” he murmured distractedly, heading for her walk-in closet, feeling her behind him. His eyes pierced the interior, looking for…something. Maybe a safe or a strongbox. Somewhere she could hide anything that was left of the three million bucks with which she’d fled Louisiana….

  “They’ve got to think I’m—” When Shane’s eyes met hers, his heart tripped in a way he was loath to recognize, and he was suddenly unable to speak at all because the words were really his secret—and, he once again assured himself, unwanted—fantasies about her.

  “That you’re?” she prompted.

  He forced out the words trapped in his chest. “Sleeping in that bed with you every night. Dressing in clothes from this shared closet. Wearing those robes while we make breakfast together. That I’m bathing with you in that tub…”

  Faint color stained her cheeks and she clasped her pearls in her slender fingers. “Well, it’s an unfortunate necessity,” she said vaguely. “But I’m sure we’ll manage.”

  Shane wondered why he was torturing himself by having this conversation. To escape the pull of her eyes, he glanced away—only to have his eyes land on the massive bed. It increased his discomfort, reminding him it had been too long since he’d shared himself with a woman physically. Which was the only way Shane ever shared himself with women. Fortunately, his voice stayed steadier than his heartbeat. “Well, if we’re going to fool a caseworker, our supposed relationship can’t embarrass us. We’ve got to seem…” He turned abruptly, hanging a battle-scarred black leather jacket next to her conservative red wool coat. “Completely accustomed to each other physically.”

  She chuckled. “I’m not the one who was embarrassed over my pink underwear.”

  He was beginning to suspect she was intentionally goading him. “I was not embarrassed.”

  Her lips twitched. “Of course not.”

  He wished he could remind her that he was the cop and she was the robber here. Instead, he said, “I don’t get embarrassed, Lillian.”

  “Yes, well, anyway…” She blew out a quavering breath, opening her arms slightly in tremulous invitation. “Mi casa, su casa.”

  Despite her fleeting smile, she looked as if sharing the apartment was akin to a death sentence. “So, you really think you can act like we’re lovers?” he said, dumping an extra pair of cowboy boots next to her prissy spectator pumps and stiletto heels and marrying his plaid flannel shirts in with her silk blouses.

  “I can pretend, I think.”

  This, he thought, from a woman who may have witnessed my uncle’s murder and who’s stolen three million in cash from the Mob. “Will it be that difficult for you?”

  “No—no, of course not,” she quickly said in apology.

  “You’re an attractive man.” Realizing what she’d said, she swallowed hard. “I—I mean objectively…”

  He tried not to notice that her admission smoothed his ruffled feathers. “Objectively?”

  “I mean I’m not personally attracted.”

  “Thank you for clarifying that.” Suddenly afraid he was pushing his luck, that she would change her mind and back out altogether, thus ruining his—and the FBI’s—chance of bringing her down, he persuasively continued, “I know the situation’s inconvenient, but we have to think of Brandon.”

  “Believe me, I am.”

  No doubt. Eve
ry time he mentioned Brandon her eyes grew misty. Shane tried not to project about the moment when she realized this was all a hoax and her dreams of mothering that baby boy were crushed forever. No, Delilah Fontenont, a.k.a. Lillian Smith, probably didn’t have much of a heart, but when she didn’t get that kid, whatever heart she had was going to break.

  And Shane was going to be the man who kicked away the pieces like so much rotten debris.

  Lillian cleared her throat again. “Well…just how far do you think we need to carry this charade?”

  All the way to bed, Lillian. Staring at her, he’d never felt more torn between duty and attraction. “I’ll just arrange my clothes and personal items in your bedroom for show, then take the guest room. There’s another bathroom off the hallway, next to the nursery, right?”

  “Yes. Well, I guess we understand each other.”

  “I promise. We’ve got a hands-off policy. Consider it signed in blood.” My uncle’s blood.

  “My, my—” In the confining space of the closet, her drawl rustled as softly as the silk of her blouses. “Blood signatures? Sounds very serious, Mr. Holiday.”

  In a second, her tone had shifted. The veneer had dropped, and Shane glimpsed the woman she’d left behind seven years ago when she’d fled. The cop in him responded. So did the man. And there was no holding back his need to lean toward her, drawing in another deep whiff of the scent he found so maddening. “It’s been a long time since a Southern lady called me Mr. Holiday.”

  “Then maybe you’ve been up North too long.”

  Guess the declaration of your honorable intentions made her feel safe enough to flirt. He glanced around.

  “Well, I guess this is home for now.” Until I’ve gotten the information I want.

  Her voice was strangely unsteady. “Yes, I guess it is.”

  Their eyes locked, and Shane remembered the nights he’d lain awake reading files from work. How his bed back in East Texas had looked with her pictures strewn across the sheets. Had he really been on an FBI boat only this morning, watching her stride into the living room with this same blouse open to her waist? Right now, as much as he despised his own weak-willed lack of professionalism, Shane admitted he’d desperately been wishing for more. Just once, he’d prayed for a slice of real life to take into his dreams. Just once, he’d longed to see Lillian walk into his line of vision wearing nothing at all.