by Nora Roberts
There was no one to stand with her now, and keep watch over her son as the dawn came up.
26
Lily fluffed her hair, checked her makeup in the mirror of her rhinestone-studded compact, fixed a bright, friendly smile on her face. She rolled back her shoulders, making sure her tummy—which she hated to admit was becoming the teeniest bit of a problem—was sucked in. Only then was she satisfied enough with her appearance to knock on the door of Luke’s suite.
It wasn’t a matter of being disloyal to Roxanne, she told herself, fidgeting. All she was doing was saying hello—and maybe she’d give the boy a piece of her mind while she was at it. But it wasn’t being disloyal, even if her heart was nearly bursting with the sheer joy of seeing him again.
Besides, she’d waited until Roxanne had gone down to her press conference.
By the time she heard the bolt turn, she’d chewed off most of her lipstick. She held her breath, bumped her smile up a few degrees, then stared blankly at the short, dark-haired man who stood on the other side of the threshold. He stared back at her through silver-framed lenses as thick as her thumb. However much Luke might have changed, Lily thought, he couldn’t have lost six inches in height.
“I’m sorry. I must have the wrong room.”
“Lily Bates!” The voice screamed the Bronx and was as friendly as a pastrami on rye. Lily found her hand clasped and pumped enthusiastically. “I’d recognize you anywhere. Any-where! You’re even prettier than you are onstage.”
“Thank you.” Habit had her fluttering her mink eyelashes even as she levered her weight back to prevent him from pulling her into the room. Any woman with a killer body had best have killer instincts as well. “I’m afraid I got the door numbers mixed up.”
He kept her hand captured in his and used his other to push up the glasses that were sliding down his prominent hooked nose. “I’m Jake. Jake Finestein.”
“Nice to meet you.” They continued the little tug-of-war. Lily glanced uneasily over her shoulder, wondering if anyone would come to her aid if she shouted for help. “I’m sorry I bothered you, Mr. Finestein.”
“Jake. Jake.” He grinned and flashed an amazing set of large white teeth, so straight they might have been surveyed by the Corps of Engineers. “No need for formalities between us, Lily. Wonderful show last night.” His black bean eyes, magnified by the thick lenses, beamed up at her. “Won-der-ful.”
“Thank you.” She was bigger than he was, she told herself. And certainly outweighed him. His short-sleeved shirt showed puny, toothpick arms and bony wrists. Worst came to worst, she could take him. “I really can’t chat now. I’m running late.”
“Oh, but you’ve got time for a cup of coffee.” He swung his free hand back to indicate the table laden with pots and cups and covered plates. “And breakfast. I bet you haven’t eaten a thing yet this morning. I ordered up some nice bagels. You eat a little bit, have a nice cup of coffee, you relax. Me, I got to eat a little something in the mornings or my system suffers all day. How about some orange juice?” He tugged her in another inch. “They squeeze it fresh.”
“Really, I can’t. I was just—”
“Jake, will you quit talking to yourself. It makes me crazy.” Hair still dripping from the shower, Luke strode out from the bedroom buttoning his shirt. He stopped dead, the annoyance on his face shuddering into blank shock.
“Who needs to talk to himself when he’s got a beautiful woman?” Jake’s grin twisted into a wince as Lily’s fingers tightened on his. “And I mean bee-u-ti-ful. We’ve been having a nice chat. I was just telling Lily she should sit down, have some coffee, maybe a bagel.”
“I—I could use some coffee,” Lily managed.
“Good, good. I’m going to pour you some. You want cream? Sugar? Sweet’n Low?”
“Yes, fine.” She didn’t care if Jake poured heavy-weight motor oil out of the pot, she had eyes only for Luke. “You look wonderful.” She heard the tears in her voice and cleared her throat to disguise them. “I’m sorry. I’m interrupting your breakfast.”
“It’s all right. It’s good to see you.” It was so awful, so hideously polite. He just wanted to stand and stare and absorb everything about her. The pretty, ridiculously youthful face, the silly enameled parrots that swung at her ears, the scent of Chanel that was already filling the room.
“So, sit, sit.” Jake made grand gestures toward the table. “You’ll talk, you’ll eat.”
Luke cut his eyes toward the table. “Take off, Jake.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” Jake fussed with cups and saucers. “You think I’m hanging around to spoil the big reunion? Mrs. Finestein didn’t raise any fools. I’m going to get my camera and go take pictures like I was a tourist. Madam Lily.” He grasped her hand again, squeezed. “A pleasure, a sincere pleasure.”
“Thank you.”
Jake sent Luke a last telling look, then walked to the second bedroom and shut the door discreetly behind him. If he pressed his ear to the crack for a few minutes, what harm did it do?
“He’s—ah—a very nice man.”
“He’s a pain in the ass.” Luke worked up what nearly passed as a grin. “But I’m used to him.” Nervous as a boy on his first date, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “So sit. We’ll talk, we’ll eat.”
Luke’s killingly accurate mimicking of Jake had Lily’s lips trembling up. “I don’t want to take up your time.”
He would have preferred being stabbed in the heart. “Lily, please.”
“Maybe just some coffee.” She made herself sit, keeping the smile planted. But the cup rattled in the saucer when she lifted it. “I don’t know what to say to you. I guess I want to know if you’re okay.”
“I’m all in one piece.” He sat as well, but for once his appetite had deserted him. He made do with black coffee. “How about you? Roxanne—well, she wasn’t much in the mood to fill me in on everyone last night.”
“I’m older,” Lily said in a weak attempt at gaiety.
“You don’t look it.” He searched her face, fighting against emotions that threatened to swamp him. “Not a day.”
“You always knew just what to say to a woman. Must be the Irish.” She took an unsteady breath and began to pick apart a bagel. “LeClerc’s fine. Crankier than he used to be. He doesn’t come on the road often now. Mouse is married. Did you know?”
“Mouse? Married?” Luke gave a quick spontaneous laugh that had tears swimming in Lily’s eyes. “No shit? How did that happen?”
“Alice came to—to work for us,” Lily said carefully. It wouldn’t do to say that Roxanne had hired her as Nathaniel’s nanny. “She’s bright and sweet, and she fell head over heels for Mouse. It took her two years to wear him down. I don’t know how many hours she spent helping him tinker with engines.”
“I’m going to have to meet her.” Silence fell, taunting him. “Can you tell me about Max?”
“He won’t get better.” Lily lifted her coffee again. “He’s gone someplace none of us can reach him. We didn’t—we couldn’t put him in a hospital so we’ve arranged for home care. He can’t do anything for himself. That’s the worst, to see him so helpless. It’s hard on Roxanne.”
“What about you?”
Lily pressed her lips together. When she spoke, her voice was strong and steady. “Max is gone. I can look into his eyes, and there’s no Max there. Oh, I still sit with his body, and feed it or clean it, but everything he was has already died. His body’s just waiting to catch up. So it’s easier for me. I’ve done my grieving.”
“I need to see him, Lily.” He wanted to reach out. His fingers were inches from touching hers before he curled them away. “I know Roxanne might object, but I need to see him.”
“He asked for you, dozens of times.” There was accusation mixed with the hurt. She couldn’t prevent either. “He’d forget that you weren’t there, and he’d ask for you.”
“I’m sorry.” It seemed a pitiful response.
“How could you d
o it, Luke? How could you leave without a word and break so many hearts?” When he only shook his head, she looked away. “Now I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “I don’t have any right to question you. You were always free to come and go as you pleased.”
“Direct hit,” he murmured. “Much more accurate than anything Rox threw at me last night.”
“You devastated her.” Lily hadn’t known the hot anger was trapped inside until it burst free. “She loved you, since she was a little girl. She trusted you. We all did. We thought something terrible had happened to you. Until Roxanne came back from Mexico we were sure of it.”
“Wait.” He gripped her hand, holding tight. “She went to Mexico?”
“She tracked you there. Mouse went with her. You have no idea what shape she was in.” Frightened, pregnant, heartsick. Lily shook her hand free and rose. Her temper, always so even, was all the more effective when it spiked. “She looked for you, afraid you were dead or sick or God knows. Then she found your plane and the man you’d sold it to. And she knew you didn’t want her to find you. Damn you, I didn’t think she’d ever get over it.” She shoved the chair against the table hard enough to make china rattle. “Tell me you had amnesia. Tell me you got hit on the head and forgot us, forgot everything. Can you tell me that?”
“No.”
She was crying now, big silent tears coursing down her face while he looked on miserably.
“I can’t tell you that, and I can’t ask you to forgive me. I can only tell you that I did what I thought was best for everyone. I didn’t see a choice,”
“You didn’t see a choice? You couldn’t see your way clear to letting us know you were alive?”
“No.” He picked up a napkin and stood to dab at her tears. “I thought about you every day. In the first year I’d wake up at night thinking I was home, then it would hit me. I’d reach for a bottle instead of Roxanne. I might as well have been dead. I wish I could have forgotten, that I could have stopped needing my family.” He balled the napkin in his fist as his voice thickened. “I was twelve before I found my mother. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life without her. Tell me what I need to do to convince you to give me another chance.”
For Lily love was a fluid thing. No matter how strong the dam, it would always flow free. She did the only thing she could do. She opened her arms and took him into them, rocking and stroking when he buried his face in her hair.
“You’re home now,” she murmured. “That’s what matters.”
And it was all there, just where he had left it. The softness, the sweetness, the strength. Emotions rose up in him like a river at flood point. He could only cling. “I missed you. God, I missed you.”
“I know.” She lowered into a chair and let him lay his head in her lap. “I didn’t mean to yell at you, sweetie.”
“I didn’t think you’d want to see me.” He straightened so that he could touch a hand to her cheek, feel that creamy skin. “I never deserved you.”
“That’s silly. Most people would say we deserved each other.” She gave a watery chuckle and hugged him hard. “You’ll tell me about it sometime soon, won’t you?”
“Whenever you want.”
“Later. I just want to spend some time looking at you.” Sniffling, she held him at arm’s length, studying his face with a mother’s eagle eye. “Well, you don’t look any the worse for wear.” She smoothed the faint lines at the corner of his eyes with her fingertips. “You look a little thinner maybe, a little tougher.” With a sigh, she pressed a kiss to his cheek, then fussed the imprint of her lipstick away with her thumb. “You were the most beautiful little boy I’d ever seen.” When he winced, she laughed. “Do you still have magic?”
“It kept me alive.” He took both of her hands and pressed them to his lips. Shame and simple gratitude ran riot through him. He’d tried to prepare for her anger, for the chill of her resentment, even her disinterest. But he had no defense against the constancy of her love. “You were beautiful last night. Watching you and Rox onstage, it was like the years between never happened.”
“But they did.”
“Yes, they did.” He stood then, but kept her hand in his. “I don’t have an incantation to make them disappear. But there are things I can do that might set it right.”
“You still love her.”
When he only shrugged, she smiled, rose and cupped his face in her hands. “You still love her,” she repeated. “But you’ll have to have more than a pocketful of tricks to win her back. She’s not a pushover like me.”
His mouth grimmed. “I can push hard.”
With a sigh, Lily shook her head. “Then she’ll just push back. Max would say you catch more flies with honey than with a rolled up newspaper. Take it from me, a woman—even a stubborn one—likes to be wooed.” He only snorted, but Lily pressed on. “I don’t just mean flowers and music, honey. It’s a kind of attitude. Roxy needs to be challenged, but she also needs to be courted.”
“If I got down on one knee, she’d plant a foot in my face.”
Absolutely, Lily thought, but thought it politic not to agree. “I didn’t say it would be easy. Don’t give up on her, Luke. She needs you more than you could possibly understand.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just don’t give up.”
Thoughtfully, he drew Lily back into his arms. “That’s not the kind of mistake I’d make twice. I’ll do what needs to be done, Lily.” His eyes darkened as he stared at something hateful only he could see. “There are scores to settle.”
“And there was a big dog in the park. A gold one. He peed on all the trees.”
Roxanne cuddled Nate in her lap, laughing as he recounted his adventures of the morning. “All of them?”
“Maybe a hundred.” He looked soulfully into his mother’s face with his father’s eyes. “Can I have a dog? I’d teach him to sit and shake hands and play dead.”
“And pee on trees?”
“Uh-huh.” He grinned, turning in her lap to wrap his arms around her neck. Oh, he knew how to charm, she thought. He’d been his father’s child since his first toothless grin. “I want a big one. A big boy one. His name’s gonna be Mike.”
“Since he’s already got a name, I suppose we’ll have to look into it.” She twirled one of Nate’s glossy curls around her finger. Much like, she thought wryly, her son twirled her heart around his. “How much ice cream did you eat?”
His eyes widened. “How come you know I had ice cream?”
There was a telltale smear of chocolate on his shirt and a suspicious stickiness on his fingers. But Roxanne knew better than to use such pedestrian clues. “Because mothers know all and see all, especially when they’re magicians too.”
His lip poked out as he considered. “How come I can never see the eyes in back of your head?”
“Nate, Nate, Nate,” she sighed lustily. “Haven’t I told you they’re invisible eyes?”
Abruptly she dragged him up into her arms, holding him tight with her eyes squeezed shut against tears. She couldn’t say why she felt like weeping, didn’t want to consider the reasons. All that mattered was that she had her child safe in her arms.
“Better go wash your hands, Nate the Great.” Her voice was shaky, but muffled against his neck. “I’ve got to get to my appointment.”
“You said we were going to the zoo.”
“And we will.” She kissed him, set him on his short, sturdy legs. “I’ll be back in an hour, then we’ll go see how many monkeys look just like you.”
He raced off, laughing. Roxanne stooped to gather the miniature cars, plastic men and picture books that were scattered over the rug. “Alice? I’m heading out. Be back in an hour.”
“Take your time,” Alice sang back and made Roxanne smile.
Soft-voiced, reliable, unshakable Alice, she thought. Lord knew she would never have been able to continue her work without the steady support of the ethereal Alice.
And to think she’d nearly turned Alice
aside because of her frail appearance and whispery voice. Yet out of the legion of prospective nannies she’d interviewed, it had been Alice who had convinced Roxanne that Nathaniel would be safe and happy in her care.
There had been something about her eyes, Roxanne thought now as she walked into the hallway. That pale, almost translucent gray and the quiet kindness in them. Her practical nature had nearly swayed her toward the more prim and experienced applicants, but Nate had smiled at Alice from his crib, and that had been that.
Roxanne still wondered who had done the hiring. Now Alice was family. That single smile from a six-month-old infant had added one more link to the Nouvelle chain.
Roxanne chose the stairs and walked one flight down to face another link. The missing link, she thought nastily and had her shoulders braced when she rapped on Luke’s door.
“Prompt as always,” Luke commented when he opened the door.
“I only have an hour, so let’s get down to business.” She sailed past him, leaving a faint trace of wildflowers to torment his system.
“Hot date?”
She thought of her son and smiled. “Yes, and I don’t like to keep him waiting.” She chose a chair, sat and crossed her legs. “Let’s hear the setup, Callahan.”
“Whatever you say, Nouvelle.” He saw her lips twitch, but she conquered the smile quickly. “Want some wine before lunch?”
“No wine, no lunch.” She gestured, a regal flick of the wrist. “Talk.”
“Tell me how you played the press conference.”
“Where you’re concerned?” Arching a brow, she sat back. “I told them I was bringing someone into the act who would dazzle them. A sorcerer who’d been traveling the world learning the secrets of the Mayans, the mysteries of the Aztecs and the magic of the Druids.” She smiled faintly. “I hope you’re up to the hype.”
“I can handle it.” He picked up a pair of steel handcuffs from the coffee table and toyed with them as he spoke. “You weren’t all that far off. I learned a number of things.”
“Such as?” she asked when he handed her the cuffs for inspection.