Illusions

by Janet Dailey

  “It’s trite but true, Jared,” he declared. “There is nothing like the love of a good woman to make life complete.”

  “Ah, but what is a good woman? That’s the question,” Delaney inserted.

  “That’s easy,” Jared replied. “One who’s honest and doesn’t cheat.”

  “There’s no such thing. Any woman will lie.” She tore a bite of warm bread from the thick slice and put it in her mouth.

  “Some women may lie,” her father said in offended protest. “But—”

  She chewed quickly to break in, the soft bread practically dissolving in her mouth. “Any woman,” she repeated. “It’s simply a matter of what’s important to her.”

  “I don’t accept that.”

  “You don’t want to accept that. There’s a difference.” She was conscious of her father’s frown, but she was suddenly more conscious of the weight of Jared’s gaze on her. She glanced sideways at him, his look sharp with question and doubt. She knew she’d put her foot in it. Still, it was what she believed.

  “Any woman will lie, cheat, or steal to get the thing she wants most. Only she won’t call it lying or cheating. She’ll say she had no other choice. To her, a lie isn’t wrong if it gets her something she’ll have for the rest of her life.” Delaney could tell neither of them followed her logic, and tried again. “A woman doesn’t look at things the same way a man does. If something’s important to a man, he’ll always believe it’s important no matter what he has to give up for it. But a woman will discard something she thought was important as soon as something else comes along that’s more important.”

  “You’re talking about something else now,” Jared said. “A man doesn’t always stay with what’s important to him. He’ll stray from it, too.”

  “But he’ll always remember it and it will bother him that he strayed,” Delaney insisted. “It’s all part of a man’s exaggerated sense of honor. Men are always fighting that. Women don’t. Once something isn’t important to a woman anymore, she stops worrying about it. It’s in the past and she never gives it a second thought. A man would.”

  Jared’s frown made it obvious he didn’t like what he was hearing, but he appeared to be listening closely. Her father, on the other hand, was plainly shutting her out.

  “Let me give you a for-instance, Dad. Right now, my career—my business—is the most important thing in my life. But if something or someone came along that I thought was more important, that would change immediately. That doesn’t mean my career would totally cease to be important, only that something else has become more important and I’ll adjust my life accordingly. I wouldn’t feel any regret or guilt. A man couldn’t do that; it would always bother him that he wasn’t devoting as much time to his work or giving it the same priority as he had before.”

  “That’s all immaterial.” Her father waved a hand, dismissing everything she’d said. “Nothing you can say will ever convince me that your mother was the kind who would lie or cheat.”

  “Dad, she lied to you—she lied to get you,” Delaney declared with humor. “Or have you forgotten the first time she met you? She lied and said she’d seen you in a half-dozen films. You were so taken with her, you asked her out to dinner, and the next day she went racing around town to all the theaters that happened to be showing a film you’d been in.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call that a lie—”

  “She didn’t either. In fact, I think she used the phrase, ‘I fibbed a little to your father.’ She was never sorry she lied, and she would have done it again if that’s what had been necessary to get you to notice her.”

  “It was a harmless deceit,” he protested.

  “But a deceit just the same, Dad. And that’s my point—there isn’t a woman in the world who wouldn’t do the same.”

  “You’ll have to admit, Gordon, your daughter is honest about a woman’s basic dishonesty.” A smile accompanied Jared’s statement, but it didn’t come anywhere close to his eyes. Instead they seemed to mirror a kind of angry bleakness. Delaney immediately sensed that this talk about lying and cheating had turned his thoughts to his sister, Kelly, and the things she must have done to conceal her drug use from him.

  An awkward silence fell, the atmosphere strained and heavy. Without the words to break it herself, Delaney glanced at her father. His stern look softened a little. “The next time I play chess with you, I’m going to be watching very closely to make sure you don’t cheat.”

  Jared picked up on it. “You think she might cheat?”

  “Five minutes ago I would have said no. Now…I’m not so sure.”

  They ganged up on her and Delaney let them, making no attempt to defend herself as the conversation took a much-needed lighter note. By the end of the meal, everything was comfortable and relaxed again.

  Delaney filled Jared’s coffee cup a second time. When she started to do the same for her father, he covered it with his hand.

  “No more for me,” he said. “It’s getting late and I thought I’d swing by the Country House and visit with Fred while I was out this way.” Then he added in explanation to Jared, “The Country House is a retirement home for actors. Fred Silvidge, the guy who helped me get my start in this business, lives there now. He has emphysema and isn’t doing too well.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Jared said and started to rise when her father stood up.

  “Stay there.” Her father waved him back in his chair and came over to Delaney. “Dinner was delicious as usual, precious, but you always were a better cook than your mother.” He bent down to brush a kiss on her cheek, whispering, “He’s all yours.” Despite the sudden heat that warmed her cheeks, Delaney found herself smiling at her incorrigibly romantic father.

  “Try to behave yourself, Dad,” she murmured affectionately.

  “Don’t ask the impossible.” He tapped a finger on the end of her nose, then extended a hand in farewell to Jared. “I hope to see more of you before you leave.”

  “We’ll see,” was Jared’s reply.

  Hearing his noncommittal response, Delaney realized that in some respects it was typical of him; he rarely signaled his intentions in advance. Even though there were times when he’d looked at her with a man’s interest, he had never flirted with her, never indulged in the usual verbal foreplay. Even when he kissed her, he hadn’t gazed long and deep into her eyes beforehand; he’d simply kissed her. She liked the directness of him, yet it left her feeling off-balance, without a pattern to follow, unable to anticipate the next move—not what it would be or when it would come or how she could trigger it. It was as if she had no control, and that was a new feeling. The practical, the realistic side of her wasn’t sure she liked that.

  The front door closed behind her father and she was alone with Jared. For the first time since she’d met him, she felt tense and uncertain in his company.

  “Fred’s been like a brother to Dad. There’s only a year’s difference in their ages.” She picked up her china cup, holding it with both hands and forcing herself to relax. “Emphysema is such a debilitating disease, it hasn’t been easy for Dad to watch Fred deteriorate.”

  “Nobody likes to be reminded of their own mortality.”

  “I suppose not.” She took a drink of her coffee. “I know I’ve tried a dozen times since Mom died to convince Dad to move in here with me, but he always refuses.”

  At that point, the men she’d dated in the past would have made some remark like, “I’m glad he didn’t,”—implying a desire for an intimate evening alone with her. But not Jared.

  “He probably wants to hold on to his independence as long as he can.”

  “I’m sure he does. It’s funny how the roles reverse, though, isn’t it? For years it’s the parent worrying about the child, then the day comes when it’s the child worrying about the parent.”

  “If you’re lucky, that’s the way it happens,” he replied, his remark reminding her that he’d lost his parents long before that day had come.

 
; Sensing that he hadn’t said it to elicit sympathy, Delaney offered none. “True.”

  Idly she rubbed a finger along the gold rim of her cup, aware that it was too cool outside to suggest finishing their coffee on the patio—and not cool enough for a fire in the fireplace. Suppressing a sigh of regret, Delaney drank down the last of her coffee and noticed that Jared’s cup was empty, too. “More coffee?”

  “No thanks.”

  “In that case, I think I’ll clear away the rest of the dishes.”

  “I’ll help.” Somehow, before she was fully erect, Jared was behind her, pulling her chair away from the table.

  “I’m not used to that,” she confessed as she gathered up her father’s cup and saucer as well as her own.

  “Not used to what?” Jared reached for the water goblets.

  “The gentlemanly things you do for me—like pulling out my chair and opening doors.”

  “I’ve been told it’s old-fashioned in these liberated times. Does it offend you?” He aimed a raised eyebrow at her.

  “No.” In fact, she was a little surprised to discover she liked it. Leading the way into the kitchen, she said over her shoulder, “In my line of work, it’s something I can’t allow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At the moment, I have only men working for me. Which means when I’m part of a detail protecting a client, my sex can’t be a factor to them. Their—our—primary concern has to be the safety of the client. They can’t be looking out for me.” She opened the dishwasher and began arranging the cups and saucers in the proper slots. “In some ways that goes against a man’s instincts. Therefore, I’ve made a point of never letting them do anything for me, whether it’s opening doors or carrying my luggage. If anything, I’ll carry theirs. It’s a way of setting the tone, creating work habits, reinforcing the fact that I’m more than capable of taking care of myself, that I don’t need them to look out for me.”

  “In other words, it’s back to being strong all the time.”

  She had an instant’s pause, wondering how many people recognized—as Jared did—that strength could be a trial as well as an asset. “I guess it is, but it goes with being the boss.”

  “Right.” His eyes were warm with understanding—and a glimmer of something else.

  Before Delaney could identify it, the German shepherd pushed against her leg and whined anxiously. “Wait a couple minutes until I finish up here, Ollie.”

  “What does he want?” Jared asked.

  “To go outside.”

  “I’ll take him,” he said and slapped the side of his leg. “Come on, Ollie. We’ll go outside.”

  “Outside” was all the dog needed to hear. He left Delaney like a shot and raced from the kitchen straight to the patio doors. Smiling, Jared trailed after him.

  In two trips, Delaney had the table cleared and wiped, and the silk flower arrangement once again adorning the center of it. Back in the kitchen, she loaded the last of the dishes in the dishwasher, added the soap, and started the cycle. She heard the click of claws on the kitchen’s tiled floor as the German shepherd trotted back into the room.

  “Back, are you? That was good timing.” She glanced at the empty doorway. “You didn’t lose Jared, did you?”

  She found him in the living room, standing by the patio doors, staring beyond their night-darkened panes. There was a faraway quality in his expression, something yearning and lonely in it.

  “You’re thinking about Kelly, aren’t you?” Delaney guessed.

  He twisted around to look at her, then turned fully. “No,” he said quietly. “I was thinking about you…about taking you to bed…loving you.”

  She caught back a breath, his words seeming to come out of nowhere. The shock of them was exquisite. With a choice between laughing and crying, Delaney laughed, striving for some lightness, “I have some say about that, don’t I?”

  The muscles along his jaw ridged up tight. “You have everything to say about it.” The roughness in his voice jolted her.

  In the next second, he was striding across the room—toward the front door.

  “Where are you going?” Delaney demanded in thorough confusion.

  “There’s a gas station about a mile down the road.” He snatched his hat from the halltree and shoved it on his head, then reached for his jacket. “I’ll call a cab from there and have him take me back to the hotel.”

  In the split second it took her to realize he was serious—he fully intended to walk a mile to the service station convenience store and catch a cab to his hotel—Delaney was in motion, crossing the room and planting herself between him and the front door. When he faced her, his jaw rigid, his muscles tense, she saw the stark need in his eyes and felt a warmth spread all through her.

  “Jared,” she said softly, “take off that damned hat.”

  His hands came up and flattened themselves against the door on either side of her head, as if it was the only way he could keep from touching her. “Dammit, Delaney, you have to understand. In two weeks, I’ll go back to Colorado. I’ll go home—”

  “I know.” She stepped closer, sliding her hands inside his jacket and onto his slim waist. He shut his eyes, steeling himself against her touch. “I want you, Delaney, but you deserve more than I can give you.”

  “Let me be the judge of that,” she whispered and brought a hand down, smoothing it over the long, hard bulge in his trousers, feeling him and feeling the convulsant jerk her touch produced.

  A gusty sigh broke from him as his weight pressed her back against the door with a suddenness that had her grabbing at his waist for balance. His mouth drove onto hers, without control, without patience, his hands, his forearms hard against the door by her head, his hips trapping hers against it.

  Delaney responded with equal force, straining to give all. She had stopped questioning the wisdom of it minutes ago; she stopped thinking of all the reasons she shouldn’t become involved with him. There was a time for thinking and another for feeling, a time for caution and another for giving freely, a time to be practical and a time to love. She had convinced herself of all that and now she sought to show him the truth of it.

  He drew back an inch, his heated breath fanning her lips, his body heavy against hers. His hands tunneled into her hair, caging her head. “I want you, but not here—not like this. I want you in bed, your hair spread over a white pillow making a dark frame for your face.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  As tall as she was, no man had ever attempted to carry her. But Jared did, effortlessly scooping her up. When she wrapped her arms around his neck, she bumped her head against his Stetson. He still had it on. She reached up and sent it sailing to some corner of the room, then ran her fingers through his coarse hair while she explored his ear, chewing at its lobe.

  He carried her into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him. Briefly she heard the German shepherd whine and scratch at the door, then Jared was lowering her legs to the floor, letting her slide down his muscled thigh, her loose-fitting sweater bunching up under her arms, his work-roughened hands gliding onto her bare skin.

  His mouth came back to claim hers. There was an urgency in his kiss and his touch that she echoed. When he stripped off her sweater, she pushed at his jacket, forcing it off his wide shoulders. He shrugged out of it, then impatiently came back to run his hands over her skin. She went to work on his shirt buttons, needing to touch him as freely as he was touching her.

  In minutes they were twined together on the bed, their clothes on the floor.

  When he slipped inside her, there was a low murmur. From him? From her? She didn’t know. All that mattered was this joining, this heat. The race began—one without winners or losers.

  ELEVEN

  THAT NIGHT MARKED THE START of the most idyllic ten days of her life—ten days of sharing morning coffee and kisses, of making the daily commute into the city together, of stealing occasional lunches, of talking on the phone in between, of renting horses to r
ide along the beach on weekend afternoons, of strolling hand in hand through the hills around her home, of tossing a Frisbee for the dog to catch, of fixing late-night meals and making love. Ten days in which Delaney discovered that until she met Jared, emotionally she had been a virgin, unaware she could love so fully or care so deeply about another person.

  Ten days of dreaming, of believing a love this strong had to last. Ten days before one phone call shattered it all.

  Delaney was at the chess table waiting for Jared to make the next move when the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” she said quietly, not wanting to break his concentration.

  Rising to her feet, she picked up the glass of cognac and crossed to the extension in the living room. Lifting the receiver before the phone rang a second time, she carried it to her ear, turning her body so she could observe which chessman Jared moved.

  “Wescott’s.”

  There was an instant of silence, then a woman’s voice came over the line. “I was told I could reach Jared McCallister at this number. Is he there?”

  “Yes, he is,” Delaney replied without hesitation, aware he’d given her number out. As Jared glanced up in silent question, she asked, “May I tell him who’s calling?”

  “His wife.”

  Gripped by a rigid numbness, Delaney woodenly lowered the phone. “It’s for you.” She laid the receiver on the chair arm and moved away from it without looking at Jared.

  She crossed to the patio doors, closed against the evening’s cool air. She stared at nothing, her fingers curled around the cognac glass in an ever-tightening circle that became a stranglehold. Everything was focused inward on the echo of those devastating words—his wife. She felt cold, unbelievably cold, and sick.

  The sound of his voice registered, but not his words, not until she heard him say goodbye. She turned to confront him, wrapping both hands around the cognac glass to conceal their violent trembling.

  “She said she was your wife.”

  His head lifted at the accusation in her voice, a slight frown pulling his eyebrows together. “Yes.” The matter-of-factness in his voice cut.