Books by Nora Roberts

by Roberts, Nora

  He seemed to change before her eyes, growing distant and cool and aloof. "You gave me two weeks."

  "Damn you, I gave you more than that. I gave you everything." Her eyes were brilliant with emotion as hurt and anger battled for priority. But she flung up a hand before he could cross to her. "No, don't. You won't use my feelings this time."

  "All right." Though his own were straining for release. "It isn't a matter of feelings, but logic. You should appreciate that, Deborah. • This is my work. Your presence here is as unnecessary as mine would be in the courtroom with you."

  "Logic?" She spat out the word. "It's only logical if it suits your purposes. Do you think I'm a fool? Do you think I can't see what's happening here?" She gestured sharply toward one of the monitors. "And we'll keep it strictly professional. You have all the information I've been painfully digging up. All the names, all the numbers, and more, much more than I've been able to uncover. Yet you haven't told me. And wouldn't have."

  The cloak came around him again, impenetrable. "I work alone."

  "Yes, I'm aware of that." The bitterness seeped into her voice as she walked toward him. "No partners. Except in bed. I'm good enough to be your partner there."

  "One has nothing to do with the other."

  "Everything," she all but shouted. "One has everything to do with the other. If you can't trust me, in every way, respect me, in every way and be honest with me, in every way, then there's nothing between us."

  "Damn it, Deborah, you don't know everything." He gripped her arms. "You don't understand everything."

  "No, I don't. Because you won't let me."

  "Can't let you," he corrected, holding her still when she would have pulled away. "There's a difference between lying to you and holding back information. This isn't black-and-white."

  "Yes, it is."

  "These are vicious men. Without conscience, without morals. They've already tried to kill you, and you'd hardly broken the surface. I won't risk you. If you want black-and-white, there it is." He shook her, punctuating each word. "I will not risk you."

  "You can't prevent me from doing my job, or what I feel is right."

  "By God, if I have to lock you upstairs until I'm done with this to keep you safe, I will."

  "And then what? Will the same thing happen the next time, and the next?"

  "I'll do whatever it takes to protect you. That won't change."

  "Maybe you've got a nice little plastic bubble you could stick me in." She put her hands on his forearms, willing him to understand. "If you love me, then you have to love the whole person I am. I demand that, just as I demand to know and love the whole person you are." She saw something flicker in his eyes and pushed her point. "I can't become something different for you, someone who sits and waits to be taken care of."

  "I'm not asking you to."

  "Aren't you? If you can't accept me now, you never will. Gage, I want a life with you. Not just a few nights in bed, but a life. Children, a home, a history. But if you can't share with me what you know, and who you are, there can't be a future for us." She broke away from him. "And if that's the case, it would be better for both of us if I left now."

  "Don't." He reached out for her before she could turn away. However deep his own need for survival ran, it was nothing compared to the possibility of life without her. "I need your word." His fingers tightened on hers. "That you won't take any chances, and that you'll move in here with me at least until it's over. Whatever we find here has to stay here. You can't risk taking it to the D.A. Not yet."

  "Gage, I'm obligated to—"

  "No." He cut her off. "Whatever we do, whatever we find stays here until we're ready to move. I can't give you more than that, Deborah. I'm only asking for a compromise."

  And it was costing him. She could see that. "All right. I won't take anything to Mitchell until we're both sure. But I want it all, Gage. Everything." Her voice calmed, her hands gentled, "Don't you see I know you're holding something back from me, something basic that has nothing to do with secret rooms or data? I know, and it hurts me."

  He turned away. If he was to give her everything, he had no choice but to begin with himself. The silence stretched between them before he broke it. "There are things you don't know about me, Deborah. Things you may not like or be able to accept."

  The tone of his voice had her mouth growing dry and her pulse beating irregularly. "Do you have such little faith in me?"

  He was putting ail his faith in her, he thought. "I've had no right to let things go as far as they have between us without letting you know what I am." He reached out to touch her cheek, hoping it wouldn't be the last time. "I didn't want to frighten you."

  "You're frightening me now. Whatever you have to tell me, just tell me. We'll work it out."

  Without speaking, he walked away from her, toward the stone wall. He turned and, with his eyes on her, vanished.

  Deborah's mouth opened, but the only sound she could make was a strangled-gasp. With her eyes riveted to where Gage should be—had to be, her confused brain insisted—she stumbled back. Her unsteady hand gripped the arm of a chair as she let her numbed body slide into it.

  Even while her mind rejected what her eyes had seen, he returned—materializing ten feet from where he had disappeared. For an instant she could see through him, as if he were no more than the ghost of the man who stood in front of her.

  Deborah started to rise, decided against it, then cleared her throat. "It's an odd time for magic tricks."

  "It isn't a trick." Her eyes were still huge with shock as he walked toward her, wondering if she would stiffen or jerk away. "At least not the way you mean."

  "All these gadgets you've got down here," she said, clinging desperately to the lifeline of logic in a sea of confusion. "Whatever you're using, it produces quite an optical illusion." She swallowed. "I imagine the Pentagon would be very interested."

  "It's not an illusion." He touched her arm, and though she didn't pull away as he'd feared she would, her skin was cold and clammy. "You're afraid of me now."

  "That's absurd." But her voice was shaking. She forced herself to stand. "It was just a trick, an effective one, but—''

  She broke off when he placed his hand, palm down on the counter beside them. It vanished to the wrist. Dark and dazed, her eyes lifted to his.

  . "Oh, God. It's not possible." Terrified, she pulled his arm and was almost faint with relief when she saw his hand, whole and warm.

  "It's possible." He brought the hand gently to her face. "It's real."

  She lifted her trembling fingers to his. "Give me a minute." Moving carefully, she turned and walked a few steps away. Rejection sliced through him, a dull, angry blade.

  "I'm sorry." With great effort he controlled his voice, kept it even. "I didn't know of a better way, an easier way, to show you. If I had tried to explain, you wouldn't have believed me."

  "No, no, I wouldn't have." She had seen it. Yet her mind still wanted to argue that she could not have seen it. A game, a trick, nothing more. Though there was a comfort in the denial, she remembered how time and again, Nemesis had seemed to vanish before her eyes.

  She turned back and saw that he was watching her, his body tensed and ready. No game. When she accepted the truth her trembling only increased. Briskly, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms, hoping to warm and steady the muscles.

  "How do you do this?"

  "I'm not completely sure." He opened his hands, stared at them, then fisted them to push them impotently into his pockets. "Something happened to me when I was in the coma. Something changed me. A few weeks after I came back I discovered it, almost by accident. I had to learn to accept it, to use it, because I know it was given to me for a reason."

  "And so—Nemesis."

  "Yes, and so Nemesis." He seemed to steady himself. Deborah saw that his eyes were level and curiously blank when he looked at her. "I have no choice in this, Deborah. But you do."

  "I don't think I understand." She lift
ed a hand to her head and gave a quick, shaky laugh. "I know I don't understand."

  "I wasn't honest with you, about what I am. The man you fell in love with was normal."

  Baffled, she let her hand fall to her side again. "I'm not following you. I fell in love with you."

  "Damn it, I'm not normal." His eyes were suddenly furious. "I'll never be. I'll carry this thing with me until I die. I can't tell you how I know, I just do."

  "Gage—'' But when she reached out to him, he backed away.

  "I don't want your pity."

  "You don't have it," she snapped back. "Why should you? You're not ill. You're whole and you're healthy. If anything, I'm angry because you held this back from me, too. And I know why." She dragged both hands through her hair as she paced away from him. "You thought I'd walk, didn't you? You thought I was too weak, too stupid, or too fragile to handle it. You didn't trust me to love you." Her fury built so quickly, she was all but blind with it. "You didn't trust me to love you," she repeated. "Well, the hell with you. I do, and I always will."

  She turned, sprinting for the stairs. He caught her at the base of them, turning her back to him and pulling her close while she cursed at him and struggled.

  "Call me anything you like." He grabbed her shoulders and shook once. "Slap me again if you want. But don't leave."

  "You expected me to, didn't you?" she demanded. She tossed her head back as she strained away from him. "You expected me to turn around and walk away."

  "Yes."

  She started to shout at him. Then she saw what was in his eyes, what he held back with such rigid control. It was fear. Accusations melted away. "You were wrong," she said quietly. With her eyes still on his, she lifted her hands to his face, rose on her toes and kissed him.

  A shudder. From him, from her. Twin waves of relief. He drew her closer, crushing, consuming. As huge as his fear had been, a need sprang up to replace it. It was not pity he tasted on her lips, but passion.

  Small, seductive sounds hummed in her throat as she struggled out of the robe. It was more than an offering of herself. It was a demand that he take her as she was, that he allow himself to be taken. With an oath that ended in a groan, he moved his hands over her. He was caught in the madness, a purifying madness.

  Impatient, she tugged at his shirt. "Make love with me." Her head fell back and her eyes were as challenging as her voice. "Make love with me now."

  She pulled at his clothes even as they lowered to the floor.

  Frenzied and frantic. Heated and hungry. They came together. Power leaped like wind-fed flames. It was always so between them, she thought as her body shuddered, shuddered, shuddered. Yet now there was more. Here was a unity. Here was compassion, trust, vulnerability to mix with hungers. She had never wanted him more.

  Her hands clenched in his dark hair as she rose above him. She needed to see his face, his eyes. "I love you." The breath tore in her throat. "Let me show you how I love you."

  Agile, quick, greedy, she moved over him, taking her mouth down his throat, over his chest, down to where his taut stomach muscles quivered under her moist, seeking lips. The blood pounded in his head, his heart, his loins.

  She was a miracle, the second he'd been given in a lifetime. When he reached for her, he reached for love and for salvation.

  They rolled, a tangle of limbs and needs, unmindful of the hard, unyielding floor, the clatter and hum of machines blindly working.

  Breath came fast, heartbeats galloped. Each taste, each touch seemed more potent, more pungent than ever before.

  His fingers dug into her hips when he lifted her. She sheathed him, surrounded him. The pleasure speared them both. Their hands slid toward each other's, palm against palm, then fingers locked tight.

  They held on, eyes open, bodies joined, until they took the final leap together.

  Boneless, she slid down to him. Her mouth brushed his once, then again, before she lay her head on his shoulder. Never had she felt more beautiful, more desirable, more complete, than in feeling his heart thunder wildly beneath hers.

  Her lips curved as she turned and pressed them to his throat. "That was my way of saying you're stuck with me."

  "I like the way you get your point across." Gently he ran a hand up and down her spine. She was his. He'd been a fool to ever doubt it, or her. "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"

  "Not necessarily." Bracing her hands on his shoulders, she pushed herself up. "I don't understand who you are. Maybe I never will. But understand this. I want all, or I want nothing. I saw what evasions, denials, refusals did to my parents' marriage. I won't live with that."

  He put a hand on hers, very lightly. "Is that a proposal?'' She didn't hesitate. "Yes."

  "Do you want an answer now?"

  Her eyes narrowed. "Yes. And don't think you can get out of it by disappearing. I'll just wait until you come back."

  He laughed, amazed that she could joke about something he'd been so sure would repel her. "Then I guess you'll have to make an honest man out of me."

  "I intend to." She kissed him briefly, then shifted away to bundle into the robe. "No long engagement."

  "Okay."

  "As soon as we put a cap on this thing and Cilia and Boyd can arrange to bring the kids out, we get married."

  "Agreed." Humor danced in his eyes. "Anything else?"

  "I want children right away."

  He hitched on his jeans. "Any particular number?''

  "One at a time."

  "Sounds reasonable."

  "And—"

  "Shut up a minute." He took her hands. "Deborah, I want to be married to you, to spend the rest of my life knowing when I reach out, I'll find you there. And I want a family, our family." He pressed his lips to the fingers that curled over his. "I want forever with you." He watched her blink back tears and kissed her gently. "Right now I want something else."

  "What?"

  "Breakfast."

  With a strangled laugh, she threw her arms around him. "Me, too."

  They ate in the kitchen, laughing and cozy, as if they always shared the first meal of the day together. The sun was bright, the coffee strong. Deborah had dozens of questions to ask him, but she held them back. For this one hour, she wanted them to be two ordinary people in love.

  Ordinary, she thought. Strange, but she felt they were and could be ordinary, even with the very extraordinary aspects of their lives. All they needed were moments like this, where they could sit in the sunshine and talk of inconsequential things.

  When Frank walked in, he paused at the kitchen doorway and gave Deborah a polite nod. "Is there anything you need this morning, Mr.

  Guthrie?"

  "She knows, Frank." Gage laid a hand over Deborah's. "She knows everything."

  A grin split Frank's wide, sober face. "Well, it's about time." All pretense of formality dropped as he lumbered across the room to pluck up a piece of toast. He took a seat at the semicircular breakfast nook, bit into the toast and gestured with the half that was left. "I told him you wouldn't head for the hills when you found out about his little vanishing act. You're too tough for that."

  "Thank you. I think." Deborah chuckled and the rest of the toast disappeared in one healthy bite.

  "I know people,'' Frank said, taking the tray of bacon Gage passed him. "In my profession—my former profession—you had to be able to make somebody quick. And I was good, real good, right, Gage?"

  "That's right, Frank."

  "I could spot a patsy two blocks away." He wagged a piece of bacon at Deborah. "You ain't no patsy."

  And she'd thought of him as the strong, silent type, Deborah mused. She was fascinated by the way he made up for lost time, rattling quickly as he steam-shoveled food away. "You've been with Gage a long time."

  "Eight years—not counting the couple of times he sent me up."

  "Kind of like Kato to his Green Hornet."

  He grinned again, then let out a series of guffaws. "Hey, I like her, Gage. She's okay. I told you she was o
kay."

  "Yes, you did. Deborah's going to be staying, Frank. How would you like to be best man?"

  "No kidding?" Deborah didn't think Frank's grin could stretch any wider. Then she saw the gleam of tears in his eyes. At that moment, her heart was lost to him.

  "No kidding." She shifted, took his big face in her hands and kissed him firmly on the mouth. "There, you're first to kiss the bride-to-be."

  "How about that." Deborah had to bite back a chuckle as a beet-red blush stained Frank's face. "How about that."

  "I'd like Deborah to move in a few things today," Gage put in.

  She glanced down at the robe. Besides the borrowed garment, she had an evening dress, a pair of stockings and an evening bag. "I could use a few things." But she was thinking of the big room downstairs, the computers, the information Gage had at his fingertips.

  Gage had little trouble following the direction of her thoughts. "Do you have someone who could put what you need together? Frank could go by your apartment and pick them up."

  "Yes." She thought of Mrs. Greenbaum. "I'll just make a call."

  Within a half an hour, she was back in Gage's secret room, wearing a pair of his jeans hitched up with the belt of his robe and a crisply pressed linen shirt skimming her thighs. Hands on her hips, she studied the map as Gage explained.

  "These are drop points, major drug deals. I've been able to run makes on a handful of the messengers."

  "Why haven't you fed this information to the police?"

  He glanced at her briefly. On this point they might never agree. "It wouldn't help them get any closer to the top men. Right now, I'm working on the pattern." He moved to one of the computers and, after a moment, signaled to her. "None of the drops are less than twenty blocks apart." He motioned to the reproduction on the monitor. "The time span between them is fairly steady." He punched a few buttons. A list of dates rolled onto the screen. "Two weeks, sometimes three."

  Frowning in concentration, she studied the screen. "Can I have a printout of this?'' "Why?"

  "I'd like to run it through my computer at the office. See if I can find any correlation."