by Nora Roberts
“Oh, Max.” That French business always made Lily’s toes curl.
“Get some sleep,” he murmured.
“Okay.” But her eyes told him, quite clearly, that she would wait. “Nice meeting you, Luke.”
“Ma’am,” he managed again as she swayed back through the red curtain.
“A wonderful woman,” Max commented as he offered Luke the glass of Pepsi. “Roxanne and I would be quite lost without her. Wouldn’t we, ma petite?”
“Daddy.” On a little huff of breath, Roxanne crawled under the curtain then popped to her feet. “I was so quiet, even Lily didn’t see me.”
“Ah, but I sensed you.” Smiling at her, he tapped a finger to his nose. “Your shampoo. Your soap. The crayons you’ve been drawing with.”
Roxanne made a face and shuffled forward in her bare feet. “You always know.”
“And I always will know when my little girl is close.” He lifted her up and settled her on his hip.
Luke recognized the kid from the act, though she was dressed for bed now in a long ruffled nightgown. Bright, fiery red hair curled halfway down her back. While Luke sipped his drink, she twined an arm around her father’s neck and studied their guest with wide, sea-green eyes.
“He looks mean,” Roxanne decided, and her father chuckled and kissed her temple.
“I’m sure you’re mistaken.”
Roxanne debated, then temporized. “He looks like he could be mean.”
“Much more accurate.” He set her down and ran a hand over her hair. “Now say a polite hello.”
She tilted her head, then inclined it like a little queen granting audience. “Hello.”
“Yeah. Hi.” Snotty little brat, Luke thought, then flushed again as his stomach growled.
“I guess you have to feed him,” Roxanne said, very much as though Luke were a stray dog found rooting through the garbage. “But I don’t know if you should keep him.”
Torn between exasperation and amusement, Max gave her bottom a light swat. “Go to bed, old woman.”
“One more hour, please, Daddy.”
He shook his head and bent to kiss her. “Bon nuit, bambine.”
Her brows drew together, forming a faint verticle crease between them. “When I grow up, I’ll stay up all night when I want.”
“I’m sure you will, more than once. Until then . . .” He pointed toward the curtain.
Roxanne’s bottom lip poked out, but she obeyed. She parted the silk, then shot a look back over her shoulder. “I love you anyway.”
“And I you.” Max felt that old, always deep warmth flutter into him. His child. The one thing he had made without tricks or illusions. “She’s growing up,” Max said to himself.
“Shit.” Luke snorted into his Pepsi. “She’s just a kid.”
“So it seems, I’m sure, to one of your vast years and experience.” The sarcasm was so pleasant, Luke missed it.
“Kids’re a pain in the butt.”
“In the heart, quite often,” Max corrected, sitting again. “But I’ve never found one that gave me any discomfort in another part of the anatomy.”
“They cost money, don’t they?” A trickle of old anger worked its way into the words. “And they get in the way all the time. People have them mostly because they get too hot to think about the consequences when they screw around.”
Max stroked a finger over his moustache as he picked up his brandy. “An interesting philosophy. One we’ll have to discuss in depth sometime. But for tonight . . . Ah, your meal.”
Confused, Luke looked at the door. It was still closed. He heard nothing. Only seconds later there was the scrape of feet and the single quick rap. Mouse entered carrying a brown bag already spotted with grease. The smell had saliva pooling in Luke’s mouth.
“Thank you, Mouse.” Out of the corner of his eye, Max noted Luke restraining himself from snatching the bag.
“You want me to hang around?” Mouse asked and set the food on the small round table that fronted the sofa.
“Not necessary. I’m sure you’re tired.”
“ ’Kay. Good night then.”
“Good night. Please,” Max continued as Mouse closed the door behind him. “Help yourself.”
Luke shot a hand into the bag and pulled out a burger. Striving for nonchalance, he took the first bite slowly, then, before he could stop himself, he bolted the rest. Max settled back, swirling brandy, his eyes half closed.
The boy ate like a young wolf, Max thought as Luke plowed his way through the second burger and a pile of fries. Starved, Max imagined, for a great many things. He knew perfectly well what it was to starve—for a great many things. Because he trusted his instincts, and what he believed he saw behind the sly defiance in the boy’s eyes, he would offer a chance for a feast.
“I occasionally do a mentalist act,” Max said quietly. “You may not be aware of that.”
Because his mouth was full, Luke only managed to grunt.
“I thought not. A demonstration then, if you will. You’ve left home and have been traveling for some time now.”
Luke swallowed, belched. “Got that one wrong. My folks have a farm a couple miles from here. I just came for the rides.”
Max opened his eyes. There was power in them and something that made the power more acute. Simple kindness. “Don’t lie to me. To others if you must, but not to me. You’ve run away.” He moved so quickly, Luke had no chance to avoid the hand that clamped like steel over his wrist. “Tell me this, have you left behind a mother, a father, an aged grandparent with a broken heart?”
“I told you . . .” The clever lies, the ones that he’d learned to tell so easily, withered on his tongue. It was the eyes, he thought on a flutter of panic. Just like the eyes in the poster, which seemed to look into him and see everything. “I don’t know who my father is.” He spat it out as his body began to vibrate with shame and fury. “I don’t figure she knows either. She sure as hell don’t care. Maybe she’s sorry I’m gone ’cause there’s no one around to fetch her a bottle, or steal one for her if she ain’t got the money. And maybe that bastard she’s living with is sorry because he doesn’t have anybody to knock around anymore.” Tears he wasn’t even aware of burned in his eyes. But he was aware of the panic that had leaped like a dragon to claw at his throat. “I won’t go back. I swear to God I’ll kill you before you make me go back to that.”
Max gentled his hand on Luke’s wrist. He felt that pain, so much like his own at that age. “The man beat you.”
“When he could catch me.” There was defiance even in that. The tears shimmered briefly, then dried up.
“The authorities.”
Luke curled his lip. “Shit.”
“Yes.” Max indulged in a sigh. “You have no one?”
The chin with its faint cleft firmed. “I got myself.”
An excellent answer, Max reflected. “And your plans?”
“I’m heading south, Miami.”
“Mmmm.” Max took Luke’s other wrist and turned his hands up. When he felt the boy tense, he showed his first sign of impatience. “I’m not interested in men sexually,” he snapped. “And if I were, I wouldn’t lower myself to pawing a boy.” Luke lifted his eyes, and Max saw something there, something no twelve-year-old should know existed. “Did this man abuse you in other ways?”
Luke shook his head quickly, too humiliated to speak.
But someone had, Max concluded. Or someone had tried. That would wait, until there was trust. “You have good hands, quick agile fingers. Your timing is also quite keen for one so young. I could make use of those qualities, perhaps help you refine them, if you choose to work for me.”
“Work?” Luke didn’t quite recognize the emotion working through him. A child’s memory is often short, and it had already been a long time since he’d known hope. “What kind of work?”
“This and that.” Max sat back again, smiled. “You might like to learn a few tricks, young Luke. It happens we’ll be heading south i
n another few weeks. You can work off your room and board, and earn a small salary if you deserve it. I’d have to ask that you refrain from lifting wallets for a time, of course. But I doubt if anything else I’d ask would cramp your style.”
His chest hurt. It wasn’t until he’d let out a breath that he realized he’d been holding it until his lungs burned. “I’d, like, be in the magic show?”
Max smiled again. “You would not. You would, however, assist in the setting up and breaking down. And you would learn, if you have any affinity for such things. Eventually, you may learn enough.”
There had to be a catch. There was always a catch. Luke circled around the offer as a man might circle a sleeping snake. “I guess I could think about it.”
“That’s always wise.” Max rose, setting his empty snifter aside. “Why don’t you sleep here? We’ll see where we stand in the morning. I’ll get you some linens,” Max offered, and walked out without waiting for a response.
Maybe it was a scam, Luke thought, gnawing on his knuckles. But he couldn’t see the trap, not yet. And it would be good, so good, to sleep inside for once, with a full stomach. He stretched out, telling himself he was just testing his ground. But his eyelids drooped. The candlelight played hypnotically over them.
Because his back still troubled him, he shifted to his side. Before he let his eyes close again, he judged the distance to the door in case he had to get out quickly.
He could always take off in the morning, he told himself. No one could make him stay. No one could make him do anything anymore.
That was his last thought as he tumbled into sleep. He didn’t hear Max come back with a clean sheet and the pillow. He didn’t feel the slight tug as his shoes were removed, and placed beside the sofa. He didn’t even murmur or shift as his head was lifted and laid, quite gently, on the linen-cased pillow that smelled faintly of lilacs.
“I know where you’ve been,” Max murmured. “I wonder where you’ll go.”
For another moment he studied the sleeping boy, noting the strong facial bones, the hand that was clutched in a defensive fist, the deep rise and fall of the frail chest that spoke of utter exhaustion.
He left Luke to sleep and went to Lily’s soft, waiting arms.
2
Luke awoke in stages. He heard the birds chattering outside first, then felt the sun warm on his face. In his mind he imagined it to be gold and liquid with a taste like sweet honey. He caught the scent of coffee next and wondered where he was.
Then he opened his eyes, saw the girl and remembered.
She was standing between the round table and the sofa where he was sprawled, her lips pursed, her head tilted as she stared at him. Her eyes were bright and curious—a not entirely friendly curiosity.
He noted there was a faint dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose that he hadn’t seen when she’d been onstage or in the candleglow.
As wary as she, Luke stared back, slowly running his tongue over his teeth. His toothbrush was in the denim knapsack he’d stolen from a K Mart and hidden in some bushes nearby. He was fastidious about brushing his teeth, a habit which grew directly out of his paralyzing fear of the dentist. Particularly the one his mother had dragged him to nearly three years before. The one with breath fouled by gin and knuckles covered with coarse black hair.
He wanted to brush his teeth, to gulp down some of that hot coffee and to be alone.
“What the hell are you looking at?”
“You.” She’d been thinking about poking him and was a little disappointed that he’d awakened before she’d had the chance. “You’re skinny. Lily said you have a beautiful face, but it just looks mean to me.”
He felt a wave of disgust, and of confusion at being called beautiful by the curvy Lily. Luke had no such twisted feelings about Roxanne. She was what his stepfather called a class A bitch. Of course, Luke couldn’t remember any woman Al Cobb hadn’t considered one kind of bitch or another.
“You’re skinny and ugly. Now, beat it.”
“I live here,” she pointed out grandly. “And if I don’t like you I can make my daddy send you away.”
“Big freaking deal.”
“That’s bad language.” She gave a prim, ladylike sniff. At least she thought it was.
“No.” Maybe if he shocked her angelic ears, she’d take off. “Big fucking deal is bad language.”
“It is?” Interested now, she leaned closer. “What does fucking mean?”
“Christ.” He rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes as he sat up. “Get out of my face, will you?”
“I know how to be polite.” And if she was, Roxanne thought she might get him to tell her what the new word meant. “Because I’m the hostess, I’ll get you a cup of coffee. I already made it.”
“You?” It bothered him that he hadn’t heard her rattling around.
“It’s my job.” She strutted importantly to the stove. “Because Daddy and Lily sleep late in the mornings, and I don’t like to. I hardly ever need any sleep. I didn’t even when I was a baby. It’s metabolism,” she told him, pleased with the word her father had taught her.
“Yeah. Right.” He watched her pour the coffee into a china cup. Probably tasted like mud, Luke thought, and looked forward to telling her so.
“Cream and sugar?” She chanted the words, like a peppy flight attendant.
“Lots of both.”
She took him at his word, then, with her tongue caught between her teeth, brought the brimming cup to the table. “You can have orange juice, too, with breakfast.” Though she didn’t particularly like him, Roxanne enjoyed the idea of playing the gracious hostess, and imagined herself wearing one of Lily’s long silk gowns and teetering on high heels. “I’ll make my special one.”
“Great.” Luke braced to wince at the taste of the coffee and was surprised when it went down smoothly. It was a bit sweet, even for his taste, but he’d never had better. “It’s pretty good,” he muttered, and Roxanne granted him a quick smile that was innately female.
“I have a magic touch with coffee. Everyone says so.” Enthusiastic now, she popped slices of bread into the toaster, then opened the fridge. “How come you don’t live with your mother and father?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“But you have to,” she pointed out. “Even if you don’t want to.”
“The hell I do. Besides I don’t have a father.”
“Oh.” She pressed her lips together. Though she was only eight, she knew such things happened. She herself had lost a mother, one she had no memory of. Since Lily had slid so seamlessly into the gap, it wasn’t a loss that jarred her. But the idea of being without a father always made her sad—and scared. “Did he get sick, or have a terrible accident?”
“I don’t know or give a good damn. Drop it.”
Under any other circumstances, the sharp tone would have loosened her temper. Instead, it sparked her sympathies. “What part of the show did you like best?”
“I don’t know. The card tricks were pretty cool.”
“I know one. I can show you.” Carefully, she poured juice into crystal glasses. “After breakfast I will. You can use the bathroom back there to wash your hands ’cause it’s almost ready.”
He was a lot more interested in emptying his straining bladder and, following the direction of her hand, found the closet-sized bathroom behind the red curtain. It smelled of woman—not the heavy, cloying scent that often trailed around his mother, but sweet, luxurious femininity.
There were stockings draped over the rung of the narrow shower stall, and a floral box of dusting powder and a big pink puff sat on a crocheted doily on the back of the toilet. In the corner was a small wedge of counter space that was crowded from edge to edge with bottles and pots and tubes.
Whore’s tools, Cobb would have called them, but Luke thought they looked kind of nice and pretty jumbled there, like a garden he’d seen on his travels, where flowers and weeds had run wild together.
Despite the clutter, the room was scrupulously clean. A far cry, he realized as he scrubbed hot water over his face, from the filthy bathroom in the filthy apartment he’d escaped from.
Unable to resist, he peeked into the medicine cabinet. There were men things in there. A razor, shaving cream, after-shave. There was also a spare toothbrush still in its box. The terror of cavities overpowered any sense of guilt he might have had as he made use of it.
It wasn’t until he was back in the hall, wondering if he could take a chance and poke around a bit that he remembered his shoes.
He was back in the living area like a shot, diving under the table and checking his stash.
As calm as a queen on her throne, Roxanne sat on a satin pillow and sipped her juice. “How come you keep your money in your shoe when you’ve got pockets?”
“Because it’s safer there.” And it had been, he noted with relief. Every last dollar. He slid up into his seat and looked at his plate. There was a piece of toast in the center of it. It had been mounded with chunky peanut butter, drizzled with what looked like honey, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, then cut into two neat triangles.
“It’s very good,” Roxanne assured him, taking dainty bites of her own.
Luke bit a triangle in two, and was forced to agree. She smiled again when he’d finished the last crumb.
“I’ll make more.”
An hour later, when Max pushed through the curtain, he saw them sitting hip to hip on the sofa. His little girl had a short pile of bills at her elbow and was expertly shifting three cards over the table.
“Okay, where’s the queen?”
Luke blew the hair out of his eyes, hesitated, then tapped the center card. “I know it’s there this time, damn it.”
Smug, Roxanne flipped over the card, then giggled when he swore again.
“Roxy,” Max said as he crossed to them. “It’s quite rude to fleece a guest.”
“I told him Three Card Monte was a sucker’s game, Daddy.” All innocence, she beamed up at her father. “He didn’t listen.”
He chuckled and clucked her on the chin. “My little swindler. How did you sleep, Luke?”