Honest Illusions

by Nora Roberts

  His eyes glittered. “I want to do it myself.”

  “Tough. I want to have straight blond hair but you don’t see me whining about it, do you?”

  “I like your hair,” he said, hoping to distract her. “It looks like a bunch of corkscrews that caught on fire.”

  “That’s poetic.”

  “I especially like it when you’re naked. Want to get naked, Rox?”

  “Put a sock in your hormones, Callahan. You’re not shaking me loose. I’m going.”

  “Suit yourself.” It didn’t matter if she went along or not. But arguing with her about it had taken her mind off Max. “But I run the show.”

  “In your dreams.” She planted her hands on either side of his legs at the foot of the bed. “Full partners all the way.”

  “I’ve had more experience.”

  “That’s what you said about sex, but I caught on, didn’t I?”

  “Now that you mention it.” He reared up and made a grab for her. She danced easily out of reach.

  “Come here,” he demanded.

  She tilted her head, sending him a long, seductive smile over her shoulder. “You look strong enough to get up and walk, Callahan. Why don’t you come get me?”

  He knew how to play the game. After a negligent movement of his shoulders, he gazed at the ceiling. “No thanks. Not that interested.”

  “Okay. You want to go eat early, avoid the Mardi Gras rush?”

  “Sure.” Without moving an inch he shifted his eyes down, watched her slowly peel off her shirt. Beneath she wore a thin white cotton athletic bra that should have been as alluring as cold gumbo. The blood drained out of his head and into his loins.

  “I feel like something hot.” She folded the shirt neatly, laid it on top of the dresser. With deliberate movements she unsnapped her jeans. He heard the quiet rasp of the zipper and concentrated on not swallowing his tongue. “And spicy.”

  She pulled the denim down, revealing practical cotton briefs in the same snowy white as the bra. Her skin was winter pale and flawless. The jeans went through the same meticulous routine as the shirt.

  Idly she picked up her brush, tapping it against her palm. “What are you in the mood for, Callahan?” She strolled just close enough to the bed that when his hand shot out it could grip her arm. She was laughing as she hit the mattress.

  “I won,” he claimed, rolling on top of her.

  “Uh-uh. Tie score.” She lifted her head to meet his descending lips with hers. “We’re partners. Don’t you forget it.”

  23

  Fat Tuesday started off with pancakes. For all LeClerc’s talk about luck and fate, he believed in hedging his bets. He’d served pancakes on the last day before Lent as long as she could remember, and Roxanne was practical enough not to thumb her nose at superstition. Her only alteration was to buy a mix rather than slog through LeClerc’s complicated recipe.

  Her pancakes might have been thin and singed around the edges, but they fulfilled the basic requirements. She managed to chew her way through one of the rubbery disks, but as Luke plowed contentedly through half a dozen, she assumed their luck for the year was set.

  And perhaps it was.

  The streets and sidewalks of the Quarter were packed with celebrants on this last day of Mardi Gras. The sounds of music and laughter swung up to her balcony as they had for the week of constant partying. Tonight, she knew the volume and the frenzy would increase. Parades, costumes, dancing—that last hurrah before the forty days of sobriety to usher in Easter. But there would also be stumbling drunks, muggers, vicious fighting and a few murders. Behind its beautiful and seductive mask, Mardi Gras could wear a surly face.

  Had the evening been free for her, she and Luke might have gone over to the house on Chartres and watched the goings-on from the balcony. As it was, they would be spending most of the night of revelry in Tennessee relieving Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Wyatt of approximately a half of a million in jewels.

  Fair trade, Roxanne thought with a smile. The Wyatts would collect on their obscene insurance premiums, balancing that with the sting of having possessions snapped up from under their noses. The Nouvelles would keep the links in an old food chain secure. It wasn’t only the Nouvelles who profited, after all.

  Roxanne pressed a hand to her queasy stomach. The pancake, she thought, hadn’t settled well. She hoped Luke’s cast-iron stomach was holding up. The last thing he needed was nausea while he hung upside down above Lake Pontchartrain.

  She needed to start over there herself. The escape was due to begin in just over an hour, and Luke would want her close by. The Burning Rope made her uneasy, but she’d grown accustomed to being nervy and tense before one of his escapes.

  She picked up her purse, then dropped it again with a moan.

  Damn those pancakes! she thought and made a dash for the bathroom.

  “She should be here.” Torn between concern and annoyance, Luke tried to prepare his mind for the job to come. His body was ready. “Why didn’t she just come with me?”

  “Because she’d have nothing to do during the setup except worry!” Lily kept an eagle eye on Max, who was granting an interview to one of the television reporters. She had worries of her own. “You concentrate on you,” she ordered Luke. “Roxanne’ll be along.”

  “Christ knows how she’d get through now.” He scanned the bridge. Behind the barricades people swarmed and jockeyed for a better view. The local authorities had cooperated by closing the bridge to vehicular traffic for the hour Luke required from setup to completion. But that hadn’t stopped the crowds. They’d streamed onto the bridge from both sides to press up against the barricades.

  Luke wondered idly how many pockets would be picked over the lake that afternoon. He was always willing to lend a hand to an associate.

  Where the hell was Roxanne?

  He shaded his eyes against the brilliant glare of sun and gave the New Orleans side of the bridge one last look.

  Lily was right, he told himself. He had to concentrate on the job at hand. Roxanne would get there when she got there.

  At this height over the water, the wind was stiff. He’d factored that in, but he accepted that nature could often play capricious tricks with calculations. That wind was going to batter the living hell out of him.

  “Let’s do it.”

  He stepped to his mark. Instantly the crowd began to clap and call out encouragements. The cameras focused. After some delicate diplomacy, it had been decided that Lily would hype the escape rather than Max. She took her mike and, looking splashy in a red jumpsuit, held up a hand for silence.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Today, you’re privileged to witness one of the most daring escapes ever attempted. The Burning Rope.”

  She continued, explaining exactly what would happen and introducing the two police officers, one from New Orleans, one from Lafayette, who examined the shackles and straitjacket Luke would use.

  Once Luke’s arms were in position, Lafayette cuffed one wrist, looped the chain through and secured the other. The key was held by Miss Louisiana, who’d come to the event decked out in full evening gear and tiara. New Orleans fit the restraint in place.

  The rope was tied around Luke’s ankles by the current calf-roping champion of the National Rodeo. There was a drumroll, courtesy of the Drum and Bugle Corps of a local high school.

  Luke was lowered face first toward the waters of Lake Pontchartrain. Someone in the crowd screamed. Luke blessed them for their timing. There was nothing like a touch of hysteria or a couple of good faints to add to the drama.

  A sharp gust of wind slapped his face hard enough to make his eyes water. His body twisted and swayed. He was already working on the cuffs.

  He felt the tug when the rope played out. He had five seconds before a volunteer torched the end of the rope and sent the fire crawling toward him. He had to fight a surprising flood of vertigo when the wind cupped him in a playful hand and sent him spinning.

  Fucking physics, he tho
ught. A body in motion remains in motion, and he was trapped in a wide pendulum swing that thrilled and delighted the crowd, but made his job that much more difficult.

  His satisfaction on freeing his hands was short-lived. He could smell the smoke. Slippery as a snake, he wormed his body inside the straitjacket, felt a bright flash of pain in his abused joints. His fingers went busily to work.

  His mind was cold with control. Only one thought intruded, punching through the mechanics of the work like a relentless fist.

  He would not stay trapped.

  He heard the roar from above when the straitjacket plunged toward the water, empty. The rescue boat bobbing on the lake gave a congratulatory blast of its horn. Though he appreciated the sentiment, Luke was aware it was too early to open the champagne.

  On a grunt of effort, he folded at the waist, stomach muscles straining as he levered himself up to fight the cowboy’s knots from his legs. He didn’t look at the fire, but he could smell it. It was inches away and sneaking closer.

  He didn’t think he’d die from singed feet, but he figured it would be damn uncomfortable. The clock in his mind warned him that he had minutes only before the fire ate through the rope and sent him diving headlong into the lake.

  The cowboy had some tricky moves, Luke discovered. He wished he’d taken LeClerc’s advice to slip a knife into his boot. But it was too late for regrets now. He’d manage the knots, or he’d take a swim to cool his hot foot.

  He felt the rope give. This final stage took intricate timing. If he released himself too quickly, he’d take a dive. If he waited too long to set up, he’d end his escape with a trip to the burn ward. Neither appealed.

  He hooked his hand around the second rope. Misdirection, and the fact that it was thin as wire, had kept the crowd from seeing it. Luke felt the heat from the burning rope smoke his knuckles as he secured his handhold.

  He kicked his feet free and began to monkey his way up. From atop the bridge it appeared as though he was climbing on a thin column of fire. Indeed he would require some generous use of LeClerc’s salve for singes and burns.

  The crowd held its breath, let it out on a gasp each time the wind caught him. When he reached the top, he felt Mouse’s good, solid grip on his arms. LeClerc bent down, ostensibly to offer a word of congratulations.

  “Got him?” he muttered to Mouse.

  “Yep.”

  “Bien.” LeClerc flicked a knife from his sleeve and severed both ropes.

  There were shrieks and shudders when the rope of fire fell into the lake.

  “Want to pull me the rest of the way up?” Luke nearly had his breath back. He knew the moment the rush of adrenaline faded, he was going to hurt like a mother. With Mouse’s assistance he gained his feet. The cameras were already closing in, but Luke was scanning the crowd.

  “Roxanne?”

  “Must’ve gotten tied up,” Mouse said and thumped Luke hard enough on the back to make him stagger. “Your shirt was smoking,” he said mildly and grinned. “That was a neat one, Luke. Maybe we could go to San Francisco and do it on the Golden Gate? Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “Sure.” He passed a hand casually through his hair, just to make sure it wasn’t on fire. “Why not?”

  Maybe it was stupid, and overly possessive. Maybe it was a lot of unattractive things, but Luke knew only one pertinent fact when he walked into the bedroom, smelling of smoke and triumph, and found Roxanne stretched out on the bed. He was pissed.

  “Well, that’s really nice.” He tossed his keys onto the dresser with a clatter that had Roxanne moaning and opening her eyes. “I figured you had to have been in some sort of a life-threatening accident, and here you are, taking a nap.”

  She took what she thought was a dreadful risk and opened her mouth to speak. “Luke—”

  “I guess it wasn’t any big deal to you, the fact that I’ve been working on this bit for months, that it was probably the biggest thing I’ve ever done or that you promised you’d be there when I got back up.” He stalked to the foot of the bed, scowled briefly, then stalked away. “Just because I needed to concentrate, expected a little support from my woman—”

  “Your woman?” That was enough to have her rearing up. “Don’t you toss that phrase at me as though I was tucked somewhere between your silk suit and your record collection.”

  “You’re a little higher than my record collection, but obviously my place is a few notches lower.”

  “Don’t be such a jerk.”

  “Damn it, Rox, you knew this was important to me.”

  “I was going to come, but I—” She broke off as her stomach roiled. “Oh, shit.” She scrambled up and dove into the bathroom.

  By the time she’d finished retching, Luke was there with a cool, damp cloth and a repentant attitude. “Come on, baby, back to bed.” It seemed her weakened body poured out of his arms and onto the sheets. “I’m sorry, Rox.” Gently he bathed her clammy face. “I came in swinging and didn’t even take a good look at you.”

  “How bad do I look?”

  “Don’t ask.” He kissed her forehead. “What happened?”

  “I thought it was the pancakes.” She kept her eyes closed and her head very still and only opened her mouth wide enough to let the words whisper out. “I was hoping you’d come home green so I’d know it was food poisoning.”

  “Sorry.” He smiled and brushed his lips across her brow again. She was clammy, but he didn’t think there was a fever. “I’d say you have one of those twenty-four-hour things.”

  If she hadn’t been so weak, she’d have been insulted. “I never get those.”

  “You never get anything,” he pointed out. “But when something snags you, it snags big time.” He remembered her chicken pox, the only childhood illness she’d ever succumbed to. That and the bout of seasickness aboard the Yankee Princess were the only times he remembered seeing her down. Until now.

  “I just need to rest a little while more. I’ll be fine.”

  “Roxanne.” Luke set the cloth aside to take her face in his hands. “You’re not going.”

  Her eyes shot open. She tried to sit up, but he held her in place with only the slightest pressure. “Of course I’m going. This whole gig was my idea in the first place. I’m not missing out on the payoff because I ate a bad pancake.”

  “It wasn’t the pancakes,” he corrected. “But it doesn’t matter what caused it, you’re sick as a dog.”

  “I’m not. I’m a little queasy.”

  “You’re in no shape to pull a job.”

  “I’m in perfect shape.”

  “Fine, we make a deal.” He sat back, eyeing her. “You get up now, walk to the living room and back without falling on your face, and we move forward as planned. You don’t make it, I go alone.”

  Because it was a dare, it was irresistible. “All right. Move.”

  When he rose, she gritted her teeth and swung her legs out of bed. Her head spun, and fresh, nasty sweat popped out on the back of her neck, but she gained her feet.

  “No holding on,” Luke added when she braced a hand against the wall.

  That stiffened her spine. She straightened, walked briskly into the living room. And sank into a chair. “I just need a minute.”

  “No deal.” He crouched in front of her. “Rox, you know you can’t do it.”

  “We could postpone—” She broke off, shaking her head. “No, that would be stupid. I’m being stupid.” Weak, frustrated, she let her head fall back. “I hate missing this one, Callahan.”

  “I know.” He picked her up to carry her back to bed. “I guess sometimes things don’t work out exactly the way you want.” He didn’t think it was the time to mention his plans had taken a beating as well. Turning their flush of shared triumph into an evening of romance by asking her to marry him had seemed inspired. Now it would have to wait.

  “You don’t know the security system as well as I do.”

  “We’ve gone over it a dozen times,” he reminded her, insu
lted. “It won’t be my first night on the job.”

  “It’ll take you longer.”

  “Sam and Justine are in Washington. I’ll have the time.”

  “Take Mouse.” Sudden panic had her grabbing for his hand. “Don’t go alone.”

  “Rox, relax. I could do this in my sleep. You know that.”