by Nora Roberts
“He isn’t hurt. He’s down in the workroom going through his books.”
“Oh.” Relief was so palpable Lily pressed a hand to her heart. She doubted a pigeon’s could beat much faster. “You scared me.”
“I’m scared,” Roxanne said quietly and caused Lily’s tentative smile to falter. “He’s ill, isn’t he?”
For a moment she said nothing. Then the pale blue eyes lost their helpless faraway look. They steadied. “I think we should talk.” Lily slipped an arm around Roxanne’s waist. “Let’s sit down.”
Taking charge, she steered Roxanne toward an iron bench beneath the still tender shade of a live oak. The waters of the little fountain tinkled gaily, like a brook over pebbles.
“Give me a minute, honey.” She sat, keeping one of Roxanne’s hands tight in hers while continuing to throw treats for the birds with her other. “I love this time of year,” she murmured. “Not that the heat’s ever bothered me like it does some, but spring, early spring is magic. The daffodils and hyacinths are blooming, the tulip stems are poking out. There’s a nest in this tree.” She glanced up, but her smile was wistful, a little lost. “It’s the same every year. They always come back. The birds, the flowers. I can come sit out here and watch, and know some things are forever.”
Pigeons cooed and clucked around their feet. From beyond the courtyard gates there was a steady whoosh of traffic. The sun was kind today, softened by a breeze that whispered through tender leaves. From somewhere close by in the Quarter, a flutist played an old Irish tune, “Danny Boy.” Roxanne recognized it and shivered, knowing it was a song of death and loss.
“I made him go to the doctor.” Lily kneaded Roxanne’s hand, soothing as she was soothed. “Max could never hold out against good old-fashioned nagging. They ran tests. Then I had to make him go back so they could run more tests. He wouldn’t check into the hospital so they could do everything at once. And I . . . well, I didn’t push for that. I didn’t want him to go in either.”
A pulse began to beat hard behind Roxanne’s eyes. Her voice sounded detached, and not at all her own. “What kind of tests?”
“All kinds. So many I lost track. They hooked him up to machines, and they studied graphs. They took samples of blood and made him pee in a cup. They took X rays.” She lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “Maybe it was wrong, Roxy, but I asked them to tell me when they found out. I didn’t want them telling Max if it was something bad. I know you’re his daughter, you’re his blood, but I—”
“You didn’t do wrong.” Roxanne rested her head on Lily’s shoulder. “You did exactly right.” It took a minute to bolster her courage. “It is something bad, isn’t it? You have to tell me, Lily.”
“He’s going to keep forgetting things,” Lily said, and her voice trembled. “Some days he might be just fine, and others, he won’t be able to keep his mind focused, even with the medication. It’s kind of like a train that jumps off the track. They said it might move real slow, but we should be prepared for times when he won’t remember us.” Tears slid silently down her cheek and plopped on their joined hands. “He might get angry, accuse us of trying to hurt him, or he might just do what he’s told without questioning. He could walk to the corner for a quart of milk and forget how to get home. He could forget who he is, and if they can’t stop it, one day he could just go away inside his mind where none of us could reach.”
It was worse, Roxanne realized. Much worse than death. “We’ll—we’ll find a specialist.”
“The doctor recommended one. I called him. We can take Max to Atlanta next month to see him.” Lily took out one of her useless lace hankies to wipe her eyes. “Meantime he’s going to study all Max’s tests. They called it Alzheimer’s, Roxy, and they don’t have a cure.”
“Then we’ll find one. We’re not going to let this happen to Max.” She sprang up and would have swayed to her knees if Lily hadn’t caught her.
“Honey, oh, honey, what is it? I shouldn’t have told you like this.”
“No, I just got up too fast.” But the dizziness still swam in her head. Nausea clenched in her stomach.
“You’re so pale. Let’s go in and get you some tea or something.”
“I’m all right,” she insisted as Lily pulled her toward the house. “It’s just some stupid virus.” The minute they hit the kitchen door, the scent of the hearty soup LeClerc had simmering on the stove turned her pale skin green. “Damn it,” she said through clenched teeth. “I don’t have time for this.”
She dashed to the bathroom with Lily fluttering behind her.
After she’d finished being sick, she was weak enough not to protest when Lily led her up to bed and insisted she lie down.
“All this worry,” Lily diagnosed.
“It’s a bug.” Roxanne closed her eyes and prayed there was nothing left for her stomach to reject. “I thought it had run its course. Same thing happened yesterday afternoon. By last night I was fine. This morning, too.”
“Well.” Lily patted her hand. “If you told me you’d gotten sick two mornings in a row, I’d wonder if you were pregnant.”
“Pregnant!” Roxanne’s eyes popped open again. She wanted to laugh, but it didn’t seem particularly funny. “You don’t get afternoon sickness when you’re pregnant.”
“I guess not.” But Lily’s mind was working. “You haven’t missed a period, have you?”
“I haven’t missed one, exactly.” Roxanne felt the first skip of panic, and something else. Something that wasn’t fear of any kind but simple, subtle pleasure. “I’m a little late, that’s all.”
“How late?”
Roxanne plucked the bedspread with her fingers. “Couple of weeks. Maybe three.”
“Oh, honey!” Lily’s voice held pure delight. Visions of booties and baby powder danced in her head. “A baby.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Cautious, Roxanne pressed a hand to her stomach. If there was a baby in there, it was a mean one. That made her lips curve. She wouldn’t expect Luke’s baby to be sweet-natured, would she?
“They’ve got those home pregnancy tests now. You could find out right away. This’ll knock Luke right off his feet.”
“We never talked about it.” The fear crept back. “Lily, we never even talked about children. He might not want—”
“Don’t be silly, of course he wants. He loves you. Now you stay right here. I’m going down and get you some milk.”
“Tea,” Roxanne corrected. “I think my system might be able to hold down some tea—a couple of crackers.”
“No strawberries and pickle relish?” She giggled when Roxanne groaned. “Sorry, sweetie. I’m just so excited. Be right back.”
A baby, Roxanne thought. Why hadn’t she considered she might be pregnant? Or had she? She sighed and turned cautiously to her side. She wasn’t really surprised by the possibility. And though she thought she’d taken the pill faithfully, she wasn’t sorry either.
Luke’s baby and hers. What would he say? How would he feel?
The only way to know was to find him.
Reaching over, she pulled the phone onto the bed and dialed.
When Lily came back later with tea, dry toast and a pretty pink rosebud, Roxanne was lying on her back again, staring dully at the ceiling.
“He’s gone, Lily.”
“Hmmm? Who?”
“Luke’s gone.” She pushed herself up. Nausea had no chance against the emotions rioting inside her. “I called the airport. He took off from Tennessee at nine thirty-five this morning.”
“Nine-thirty?” Lily set the tray on the dresser. “Why, it’s after twelve now. It only takes an hour or so to fly back to New Orleans.”
“He wasn’t headed to New Orleans. I had to do a lot of wrangling to get his flight plan, but I managed it.”
“What do you mean he wasn’t headed for New Orleans? Of course he was.”
“Mexico,” Roxanne whispered. “He’s going to Mexico.”
By the next morning, Roxan
ne was certain of two things. She was pregnant, and it was possible for a man to vanish from the face of the earth. But what could vanish could be conjured again. She wasn’t a second-generation magician for nothing.
She was just zipping her traveling case when she heard the knock. Her first thought, like a flash of lightning, was Luke! She made it from the bedroom to the front door in a dash.
“Where have you—oh, Mouse.”
“Sorry, Roxy.” His big shoulders slumped.
“It’s all right.” She mustered up a smile. “Listen, I’m practically on my way out the door.”
“I know. Lily said how you were going to Mexico to look for Luke. I’m going with you.”
“That’s a nice thought, Mouse, but I’ve already made my plans.”
“I’m going with you.” He might have been slow, he might have been sweet, but he could also be stubborn. “You’re not going all that way alone in your . . . in your condition,” he finished on a burst. His face burned beet red.
“Lily’s knitting booties already?” But she softened the sarcasm by patting his arm. “Mouse, there’s nothing to worry about. I know what I’m doing, and I don’t think carrying something the size of a pinprick’s going to slow me down.”
“I’m going to take care of you. Luke would want me to.”
“If Luke was so damn concerned, he wouldn’t be in Mexico,” she snapped, and was immediately sorry as Mouse’s face crumpled and fell. “Sorry. I guess being pregnant messes up your hormones and makes you cranky. I’ve already got my flight reservations, Mouse.”
He wasn’t going to budge. “You can cancel them. I’ll fly you.”
She started to protest, then shrugged. Maybe the company would do her good.
She made it to the ladies’ room at the Cancún airport. It occurred to her as she retched that she could almost clock her nausea with a stopwatch. Perhaps the baby had inherited her sense of timing.
When she felt she could stand again, she rejoined a worried Mouse in the tiny, sunwashed terminal. “It’s okay,” she told him. “Just one of the benefits of expectant motherhood.”
“You going to have to do that for nine whole months?”
“Thanks, Mouse,” she said weakly. “I needed that.”
They spent nearly an hour trying to get information on Luke’s plane from the flight tower. Yes, he had been scheduled to land at that airport. No, he had never arrived. He had never come into radio contact or requested permission to divert. He had simply veered off somewhere over the Gulf.
Or, as the cheerful flight dispatcher suggested, into the Gulf.
“He didn’t crash, damn it.” Roxanne stormed back to the plane. “No way did he crash.”
“He’s a good pilot.” Mouse hustled behind her, patting her shoulder, her head. “And I checked out the plane myself before he left.”
“He didn’t crash,” she repeated. Unrolling one of Mouse’s charts, she began to study the lay of the land on the Mexican side of the Gulf. “Where would he go, Mouse? If he’d decided to avoid Cancún.”
“I’d make a better guess if I knew why.”
“We don’t know why.” She rubbed the cold bottle of Coke Mouse had bought her against her sweaty brow. “We can speculate—maybe he wanted to cover a trail. We can’t call Sam and ask him if his wife’s sapphires are missing. There’s been no announcement on the news of a burglary, but they often keep the wraps on for a while. If he ran into trouble in Tennessee, he might have decided, for his own idiotic reasons, to head west, let John Carroll Brakeman disappear.”
“But why didn’t he check in?”
“I don’t know.” She wanted to scream it, but kept her tone level. “These islands here. Some of them have to have airstrips. Official ones, and not-so-official ones. For smuggling.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Okay.” She handed the chart to Mouse. “Let’s check it out.”
They spent three days searching the Yucatan Peninsula. They spread Luke’s description up and down the coast, slipping money into eager hands and following false leads.
Roxanne’s bouts of nausea left Mouse wringing his hands and wishing for Lily. If he tried to fuss or pamper, Roxanne snapped like a terrier. Conversely, her flashes of temper reassured him. He was well aware that given the chance, she would tramp off into the jungle alone, armed with no more than a canteen and a driving need. Until they located Luke, Mouse considered Roxanne his responsibility. When she looked too pale or too flushed, he forced her to stop and rest, bearing her tantrums like an oak bears the tapping of a woodpecker—with silence and grave dignity.
The routine became so set, both of them began to feel they would spend the rest of their lives at it.
Then they found the plane.
It cost Roxanne a thousand American dollars for a ten-minute conversation with a one-eyed Mexican entrepreneur who ran his business out of a sod hut in the Mayan jungle near Mérida.
He pared his nails with a pocketknife while a wary-eyed woman with dusty feet fried tortillas.
“He says he wants to sell, do I want to buy.” Juarez tipped tequila into a tin cup, then generously offered Roxanne the bottle.
“No, thanks. When did you buy the plane?”
“Two days ago. I give him good price.” He’d all but stolen it, and the satisfaction of that made Juarez expansive to the pretty señorita. “He needs money, I give him money.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t ask questions.”
She wanted to swear, but noting the skittishness of the woman by the stove, opted for tact. Her smile was laced with admiration. “But you’d know if he was still in the area. A man like you, with your contacts, you’d know.”
“Si.” He appreciated the fact she showed respect. “He’s gone. He camps one night in the jungle, then poof.” Juarez snapped his fingers. “Gone. He moves softly, and fast. If he knows such a beautiful lady wants him, maybe he moves slower.”
Roxanne pushed away from the table. Luke knew she wanted him, she thought wearily. And still, he was running. “Would you mind if I looked at the plane?”
“Look.” Juarez gestured, and something in her eyes stopped him from demanding a separate payment for the privilege. “But you won’t find him.”
She found nothing of him, not even ashes from one of his cigars. There was no sign that Luke had ever sat in the cockpit or held the wheel or studied the stars through the glass.
“We can try north,” Mouse said as Roxanne sat in the pilot’s seat and stared out at nothing. “Or inland.” He was groping, uneasy with the blank, dazed look on her face. “Could be he went farther inland.”
“No.” She only shook her head. Despite the heat hammering down on the roof of the plane, she was too cold for tears. “He left his message right here.”
Confused, Mouse glanced around the cockpit. “But, Roxy, there’s nothing here.”
“I know.” She closed her eyes, let the grief tear through her so hope could drain free. When she opened them again, they were clear, and they were hard. “There’s nothing here, Mouse. He doesn’t want to be found. Let’s go home.”
PART THREE
This rough magic I here abjure.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
25
Now he was back. His five-year vanishing act was over, and like the veteran performer he was, Luke had posed his return engagement with a sense of drama and panache. His audience of one was captivated.
For a moment.
The man pressed against her cleverly assaulting her mouth, her mind, wasn’t an illusion. He was flesh and blood. It was all so achingly familiar, the good solid weight of him, the taste of his skin, the trip-hammer of her own pulse as those strong, clever fingers crept up to cup her cheek.
He was real.
He was home.
He was the lowest form of life that had ever slunk through the mud.
Her hands tightened in his hair, then yanked with enough strength to make him yelp.
�
��Jesus, Roxanne—”
But that was all the misdirection she needed. She twisted, shoving her elbow hard into his ribs, popping her knee up between his legs. He managed to block the crippling knee, but she used that same stiffened elbow to catch him hard on the chin.
He saw stars. The next thing he knew, he was on his back with Roxanne straddling him and snarling as her carefully manicured nails shot toward his face.
He gripped her wrists, clamping down before those curled fingers could peel back his skin. They remained in that position, one that brought each uncomfortably sensual memories, breathing hard and eyeing each other with mutual dislike.
“Let me go, Callahan.”
“I want to keep my face in the same condition it was when I walked in.”
She tried to twist free, but the five years he’d spent doing God knew what hadn’t weakened him. He was still strong as a bull. Biting would have been satisfying, but undignified. She settled on disdain.
“Keep your face. It doesn’t interest me.”
Though he loosened his hold, he remained braced until she stood, with as much grace and arrogance as a goddess rising out of a pool.
He got up quickly, with that eerie speed and economy of movement she remembered too well, and stood on the balls of his feet. Saying nothing, she turned her back on him and poured a glass of champagne. Even as the bubbles exploded on her tongue, they tasted flat and dry. But it gave her a moment, a much needed moment, to lock the last latch on her heart.
“Still here?” she asked as she turned back.
“We have a lot to talk about.”
“Do we?” She sipped again. “Odd, I can’t think of a thing.”
“Then I’ll do the talking.” He stepped over pooling water and crushed roses to top off his own glass of wine. “You can try something new, like listening.” His hand whipped out to snag her wrist before she could toss her wine into his face. “Want to fight some more, Rox?” His voice was low and dangerous and, Lord help her, sent a thrill racing up her spine. “You’ll lose. Figure the odds.”