Dangerous Illusion

by Melissa James

  His eyebrows lifted. “You can tell I’m not a boy next door?”

  “I’m sure the mamas next door were warning their daughters to bolt rather than trusting them to your care,” she retorted.

  He burst out laughing, warm and musical and fascinating as the sea on a deep summer’s night. “I’m sure you’re right…as sure as I am about the fact that teddy bears aren’t really your thing. Some instinct tells me you’re a ‘bad boy’ kind of girl.”

  No. Not anymore. She’d been cured of that girlish fantasy forever, thanks to Ana. “My instinct says that your instincts don’t always work to your good.” She held out the bag containing his vase. “Have a nice stay in the Bay, Mr. McCall.”

  “What if I don’t give up?” he muttered, low and urgent, moving closer as she backed off, his eyes shifting from calm forest to stormy crystalline. “What if I come here every day until you change your mind?”

  He’ll keep coming anyway, if Danny’s father sent him here. And that was the only real option—it wasn’t as if Interpol would send a man who’d already betrayed his country for cash.

  The truth of it tore at her wistful wish that he could have come here for her, and ripped it into bloodied shreds. “I’d say, don’t annoy my customers.”

  He rocked back on his feet, the deep intensity lightening as he chuckled again. His smile lit his whole face, including the fascinating cleft chin and left dimple, with male strength and beauty. “Lady, you don’t give much away, do you?”

  Not when my son’s life depends on it. She smiled, hoping to look bland, uninterested, but her needs and fears were already submerged beneath the long-dormant woman, leaving her in hopeless, needing confusion. Within ten minutes of meeting McCall again, her emotions were so skewed she barely knew what she said or did. Her heart had been iced over so long she’d thought it in permafrost to anyone but Danny; now it was melting so fast she felt as if McCall had jet-streamed it to the equator by one of the Hornet planes he’d once loved so much. “What did you expect on ten minutes’ acquaintance?” Her voice sounded husky, deeper and huskier than her practiced, gentle New Zealand accent.

  She watched those amazing rain-forest eyes of his register the sound of her voice, and take the information in. Click. Lock. Another piece in place. Another bullet in the barrel of the gun of exposure—and she was facing it down in hopeless defiance.

  “Well, a guy can always hope.” He shrugged and picked up his bag. “I’ll be back.”

  He meant it. He’d be back. She closed her eyes for a moment; then she fixed her gaze on him. “Why? Why me?”

  His deep, compelling eyes on hers, he closed the gap between them. With infinite gentleness, he tipped up her chin with a finger. “Why do you think?” It was a whisper of heated sound, coffee-warm breath tiptoeing over her face, his touch tender. His masterful strength leashed…for now, at least. McCall would never hand control to anyone else for long.

  Yet, no matter how she fought it, the slow blush filled her cheeks at his touch—a wave of half-shy sensuality, a woman-to-man acknowledgment of his effect on her.

  No, no! Any act she put on now would be useless. She’d given it all away with a moment of involuntary feminine need. Her lashes fluttered down; she looked at her trembling fingers in disgust. Yet, how many long, cold years had it been since she’d known the sweet drowning, the yearning for a man’s touch?

  Not since Brendan.

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t need to ask,” she whispered back.

  “Does there have to be a why?” His finger moved over her skin in a slow, subtle caress. She felt the quiver touch her soul, the heat streak straight from her heart to her most feminine core.

  Without knowing it, she nodded.

  Still holding her chin with a finger, he flicked his other hand toward the large pewter mirror hanging over the counter, designed as much for warning against strangers as it was for beauty and security. “Look in that.” He walked to the door, opened it. Then he turned to look in her eyes—a moment’s truth flickered in their hidden depths, lush and hot with untold secrets. “Watch out for strangers, Elizabeth Silver.”

  As the door swung back to close after he’d gone, she felt his veiled warning touch her heart with icy, chilled fingers.

  Chapter 3

  “C ameras in place, Ghost,” he reported into the cell phone to his commander in Canberra. “Covering the entire perimeter every two yards, fences and in the garden. Two on each roof corner, with immediate heat-detector relay to me. Sentinel alarmed so they can’t be disabled. A three-second relay to home base, and to me within fifteen. She can’t get away.”

  “Good work, Flipper.” Anson used the code name McCall hated with all his usual curtness. It referred to McCall’s SEAL background but he always felt like he should make dolphin noises when Anson called him. “Don’t leave the subject—24/7 watch. Wildman’s stationed two miles south, Braveheart two miles north, Panther the other side of Russell. Heidi’s west of the Bay, in the market village. Each has a ten-minute deadline to reach you.”

  Perimeter covered as always, even in a one-man op—every contingency covered, including his death. The watch over his radial pulse sent satellite updates every ten minutes back to base. If he went down, the team moved in to protect the subject.

  “Roger that, boss. I’m good to go.”

  “Subject update?”

  “Sleeping.” The heat detectors in the roof cameras flashed two unmoving objects—three if you counted the puppy her kid had sneaked in after his mother went to bed.

  McCall grinned. Yeah, he could relate to that. He’d always done the same with the neighborhood stray after his old man fell into a drunken stupor or went out on the boat for night fishing, leaving him alone. Funny how that sour-tempered old mongrel’s presence had been so reassuring to his eight-year-old mind, after his mom and Meg disappeared. He’d even grown to love the unwashed stink of the dog. The smell of the docks was familiar, and the pungent odor was a reminder, even in sleep, that he wasn’t alone.

  So Beth’s son was a lonely kid, too, even though his mom had stuck around, and obviously loved him.

  Yeah, Beth Silver seemed the original earth mother. Through the silvery radiance of moonlight pouring through her windows, he could see a house filled with mellow redwood furniture, bare flooring and fireplaces, loads of scatter rugs and comfy sofas. Homemade touches like cross-stitch pictures and paintings, scattered pieces of pottery. Pictures of her with her son, the boy now named Danny. The boy who looked enough like Robert Falcone to be his missing son, Robbie.

  He sensed Beth Silver would be a tigress when it came to protecting her son. She’d lie, cheat, steal—maybe even kill—to stop anyone taking him from her. He’d probably get the kid only over her dead body.

  A good thing he wasn’t after the kid. What he did want was that lithe, lissome, feminine body warm and alive—and filled with him. Hearing her cry his name when she—

  Yeah, as if you’re gonna get that anytime soon, when she refuses to even recognize you. Face facts, McCall, she was slummin’ with you ten years ago, and she ain’t gonna contaminate herself or her precious son with any down boy again.

  The garden outside the house filled the place with the scent of blood roses and ferns, touches of jasmine and gardenia, earth and work and woman. This was a modest, lovely home, with a hint of an untamed heart in the rolling hills surrounding the property. Even the old, moss-covered craters of long-dead tiny volcanoes that dotted the whole northern island seemed to fit the deep-hidden, slumbering fire of the woman who lived here.

  The rustic beauty of her home suited the picture Delia had told him she wanted one long-ago night—“A pretty little cottage I can do up myself, with a rose garden. My own house I can take care of myself, away from all the people and servants and fuss.” Her eyes had glowed with a young girl’s simple dreams.

  For her wants to be so meager had seemed strange to the point of alien to the half-wild gang-kid from the docks of L.A. Her upbringing, her h
omes, everything about her was as lofty as a high-ranking Brazilian diplomat’s daughter could be—and she deserved every care and luxury. Things he could never have given her back then, and still couldn’t now. He could give a woman comfort, but never first class. He’d never be rich.

  But they were things she obviously still didn’t want. She’d made her simple dream come true.

  A blip alerted him before he saw it. A vision passed by the window a moment later, ethereal, ghostlike in her simple white sheath nightgown, barefoot. Silhouetted by the soft light of the glowing coals in the open fireplace, her nightgown became translucent satin, and her golden body and small, high breasts were in sweet shadow…and he ached like hell, watching her. Like a siren, she was there one moment, taking his breath with her otherworldly loveliness, and gone the next.

  He’d frozen in midcount, dragging in a breath. Incandescent loveliness in the tender moonlight pouring through the window. The quiet, unsmiling waif returned to her milieu. Delia.

  Get a grip, McCall! He willed his hormones to subside, but he found himself watching, waiting for her to pass the window once more. Then, his body aching and pounding inside those fire-scorched chains of the wanting he couldn’t conquer after a decade, he left the perimeter. Blowing out a mist-heated breath of frustrated need, he headed to the doubtful comfort of his bedroll, damp from the rain leaking into his motorbike’s pack. The closest to a cold shower he’d get, but standing naked in a glacier wouldn’t do a thing to douse the fire burning him alive.

  From behind that triple-locked door, behind the peephole, the woman who still felt like a ghost inside her own life after years of hiding sagged against the wall, and breathed again. Beth passed an unsteady hand across her forehead. Why, why had she looked? Why, when she knew she’d only lose herself in the sight of him?

  Twice now, he’d done the impossible to her. Last time, she’d loved him in minutes; now, within a day, despite all she knew about him, McCall had gone from her deepest terror to her dark sentinel, fascinating her with all a child’s fear of the night—a night he walked in with ease and grace, as if he belonged to it, or the night belonged to him. Even a prosaic task, such as opening his bedroll, took on a life of its own.

  For some reason a line of poetry danced through her mind, slightly corrupted: He walks in beauty like the night.

  Fool. She sighed and returned to her bed. When it came to McCall, a fool was all she’d ever been.

  And though the thicker wool of her cushioned bed enfolded her more closely than the thin pallet McCall had rolled himself into, she found no comfort, no rest or release from heated midnight dreams, lush as black silk and just as terrifying.

  Her peaceful life here in New Zealand with her son was over. Out of the shadows and into the fire—a fire that would burn her baby alive. All her plots and strategies, all her sacrifices were worth nothing if Falcone got to Danny. And if he got to her—

  She shuddered. McCall might suspect, or think he knew, but he couldn’t prove a thing. She held the only proofs, just as she held Falcone’s life in her hands. A dual-edged sword meaning death, and so Falcone had kept his search low-key, discreet. But if he got her, she knew exactly what Falcone would do—what he’d wanted to do for the past twelve years, since she’d reached the age of consent at sixteen. And he’d take back his son.

  It wasn’t happening to Danny. Her little boy would live and grow and play in peace, become a man like his grandfather, and his honorary grandfathers, and if she had to sacrifice her life for that to occur, so be it.

  Her sleepless eyes watched dawn break over the tiny harbor across the road, knowing that McCall was doing the same, laying aside his wildness like a folded cloak and slipping into the persona of humanity he shed with the fall of night.

  She rubbed her eyes. She definitely needed more sleep if she was indulging in dawn fancies, turning McCall into a creature of the twilight. He wasn’t after her blood to keep himself alive. He was just a man, about to betray her and her little boy the same way he’d betrayed his country, and for the same reason.

  Money. It was as cold and as crude as that.

  McCall pushed open the door of her studio and walked in. He didn’t question it, didn’t wonder if he should keep watching from across the road, as he had all morning. It had nothing to do with the afternoon rain drenching him. The coolness soaking him through was refreshing after hours of his body aching from superheated dreams, waking and sleeping: dreams of slipping that wraithlike sheath from her pearlescent skin, and burning alive with her in the inferno their loving would create.

  No, the ache had grown unbearable, and he accepted the simple fact. He needed to see her, talk to her to ease it. As simple and as damn complicated as that.

  “Good afternoon, Elizabeth Silver.” He had to keep playing the game until she gave him a sign, let him into her world, and hand over the evidence he knew in his gut was here somewhere.

  But she barely nodded at him. No politeness today, no sword-thrust to his verbal parries—and he could now see what watching her from across the road didn’t show. Her mouth drooped as she worked; her hands were barely steady enough to mold the clay. The defenses she’d erected against him yesterday had come crashing down—for now. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  Or had she stayed behind that window, as caught by him as he was by her? The young Delia hadn’t been able to keep her eyes…or hands…from him for long, and whispered between drugging kisses that thoughts of him kept her awake at night.

  A no-sleep op was okay for him. Even if he hadn’t been SEAL trained, he could get by on two or three fifteen-minute snatches of shut-eye through the night, as he’d done for most of his life. But the stress on her pale face was delicately obvious. Her tiredness made her lovelier than ever, as wraithlike as that slip of silk she’d worn in the night and as haunting, even in her prosaic jeans and woolen jumper outfit.

  “Did you sleep?” Her soft, cool voice was gravel in her sleepless state, hitting him hard and low and fast with a jolt of hot need. “A sleeping bag on the grass can’t be comfortable.” Her eyebrow lifted, the challenge seeming stronger for its quiet femininity. “You do realize that stalking me by day and watching me at night, sleeping outside my house, does nothing to reassure me that you’re a member of the teddy bear’s picnic?”

  She had a point. He made himself shrug, thinking fast. “I’ve run out of money?”

  Her chin lifted. Her barriers were coming up, and clicking into place. “I don’t think so.”

  Aiming to charm her, his mouth quirked up. “Um, I really want that teapot for my mom?”

  “If she exists.” She sighed. “Can we stop this, please? If I see you outside my house at night again, I’ll call the police.”

  “And say what?” he growled. “A man’s asleep on public ground across the road? That’s not a felony in New Zealand.”

  “I saw you in my yard last night. Touching my house. Trespass with intent, I think that particular felony is called, isn’t it? And since you’re so well versed in New Zealand law, Mr. Tourist-just-here-for-two-weeks, maybe you can tell me what bylaw it’s part of, so I can tell the police when they get here.”

  McCall swore beneath his breath. He’d well and truly blown his tourist cover by his knowledge of international law, and she was no longer a delicate, hollow-eyed china doll, she was tense and tight-stanced, ready to fight. “Are the police coming now?” he asked in a dark growl. Not that it mattered. With a call from Ghost or a high-ranking police commander, they’d back down fast. But Falcone had paid off people in authority before, and his men were already in the South Pacific. He didn’t want to tangle with more authorities than he had to because it put her at risk.

  “Not yet.” A hand came up from behind the counter: wiped clean of the wet clay, it held a cell phone. “I’ve punched in the number. You have ten seconds to convince me not to complete the call.”

  Damn, didn’t she know better than that? “You shouldn’t give intruders warning of your int
entions. Ever. They could disarm you in seconds.” It would take him four, tops.

  “I wouldn’t try it. Your fertility would be in question in seconds.” Her other hand lifted, holding a heavy baton. “I also know two different types of martial arts.”

  He didn’t doubt her. It explained her tight, controlled stance, her legs splayed and arms tense, ready to attack. She wasn’t a fool, then, just too angry to care—or maybe, beneath her projected fear and mistrust, part of her knew he was here to protect her, so she was giving him a chance to explain himself.

  “And if I don’t punch a security code into my alarm system every half hour, the police will be here within two minutes, and the security cameras installed into the ceiling have already relayed your image to the firm,” she went on, her eyes hard.

  “Why would you be telling me all this if you thought I was going to attack you?” he asked softly. “You wouldn’t. Not unless you believe in your gut that I’m not here to hurt you. So this whole farce is unnecessary.”

  She glanced at her watch. “Nine. Eight. Seven.”

  Damn it! His mission was top secret—

  “Six. Five.”

  He couldn’t tell her everything, but he could play one ace. “You already know why I’m here,” he murmured, low with masculine tension. “You’ve known since the moment you saw me, no matter how well you hid it. Even though I had to let you go with them that night, you knew I’d come back for you one day.”

  A moment’s silence. “It’s time for your medication, McCall. Unless you were brought up in Dunedin, or have been here in the past couple of years, I don’t know you.” When he didn’t answer, she shrugged. “Perhaps you should just tell me what it is you really want from me.”

  “You know what I want, Delia.” He used the name deliberately. “Just like you knew my name before you saw it on my credit card.”