Dangerous Illusion

by Melissa James

  She held her color, and her composure. “All single mothers need help occasionally. I thank you for that, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you my life story. I’ve made mistakes in my life, but I won’t take chances with my son’s well-being.”

  “You have made mistakes in the past, haven’t you?” he asked, dark and compelling. “But compared to Robbie’s father, I’m small potatoes.” He used the name of Falcone’s son with gentle care.

  “Do you have trouble hearing? My son’s name is Danny, and mine’s Beth. You don’t know anything about my life, or about Danny’s father.” She was pale now, but her defiance flamed still. “And nobody in their right mind would discount you, McCall, or think you’re small compared to anyone.” The whites of her knuckles showed, she was gripping her workbench so hard. “I keep telling you, whoever you think I am, you have the wrong person.”

  Thirty-five hours fifty-six minutes. This felt more like fencing in darkness, rapier-sharp and buttons off. Shadowboxing with the faceless enemy of suspicion between.

  “Have I?” Testing, he touched her cheek with a finger, and he saw the wave of warmth fill her face and throat. No matter what came from that ripe, luscious mouth of hers, her body betrayed her will, telling him this obsession was far from one-sided. She wanted him, maybe even almost as bad as he wanted her. “I don’t think so,” he murmured. “And your son—Robbie?”

  She jerked her face away, as if realizing her mistake too late. “Stop it. I told you his name is Danny. Don’t touch me.”

  He dropped his hand, yet stayed so close that her scent of drenched roses filled his head and curled itself around his libido like a purring kitten, begging to be stroked, caressed. “You tell me when you’re ready—to talk, or touch. Your call.”

  She shivered, her lashes dropping over eyes suddenly cold. “Keep your distance, McCall.”

  “My name’s Brendan,” he growled, his hands curled into impotent fists at his sides. If he could be one hundred percent honest with her, it would bring out her natural honesty in return. But with Nighthawk security at risk from the faceless assassin in the ranks, he couldn’t do a thing about it. One wrong word, one indiscretion and she’d have the ammo to hit the media rounds. If the Nighthawks were destroyed, more innocents would die in unsanctioned wars that couldn’t go into full swing without Falcone’s guns and mines and dirty bombs.

  He had to keep silent. His career might survive the indiscretion, but others would pay with their lives.

  As if she’d read his mind she put her hand out, with a bright smile as fake as her words. “Hello. My name’s Beth Silver.”

  She’d put up another roadblock between them—and it was big as a boulder. It half killed him to laugh as he took her hand, but he did it—and touching her in any form was no hardship, even just the small, work-hardened hand lying in his rough palm.

  Then, as he held her hand in his, a haunting sense of undone déjà vu came to him. Doubts. Shadows. Uncertainty. Something fundamental had changed from ten years before….

  “It can’t be,” he muttered beneath his breath. Not Ana. He’d never met the cousin Delia claimed to be almost her double, but…no. A strong similarity in looks could only do so much for a man. This woman, and this woman alone drove him to the edge of sanity’s cliff with slamming, scorching-hot waves below—and he wanted to drown in it, bathe in the liquid fire torching a searing path between them.

  She couldn’t be Ana. Obsession with a woman to the point of exclusion—being lost inside and consumed by Delia was his fact of life. Saving her was his mission, whether it was on the Nighthawks’ agenda or not. Wanting, needing to lose himself in her was his private hell, the torture he showed no one. If he could have her just once—

  “Things must be bad if you’ve started to talk to yourself.”

  Roused from the furnace burning his soul, he looked at her. She’d tilted her head, with a little, inquiring smile. A simple thing, sure, but a massive leap forward from the go-back-to-the-hellhole-you-crawled-out-of tone she’d kept with him since he’d tried to connect with her yesterday.

  A step up in getting her and the kid out of here?

  He laughed, going for common ground. “Lady, I’m from L.A.—the home base of actors, directors, plastic surgeons, walking, talking Barbie dolls and therapists. We’re all nuts, and believe me, talking to ourselves is the least of our problems.”

  A little grin peeped out from behind her barriers—a genuine, honest-to-God smile that reached her eyes. Her cheeks flushed a delicate rose, and he ached, seeing the transformation. The star-queen vanished, and another being sat at her potter’s wheel. A woman of gentle, big-eyed loveliness, and her sweet shyness socked him in the guts with masculine awareness. She’d become a normal woman he could smile at, talk to, and maybe, God help him, touch…not just feed her, but explore the combusting sensuality he knew wasn’t one-sided. To have her mouth, her lush body beneath his—

  “And which of the above are you?”

  Keep going, just keep chipping at her barriers. Thirty-five hours and forty minutes… “Not guilty,” he returned with a wink. “I never had designs on Hollywood after living near it half my life. I can’t manage the overinflated sense of self-importance.”

  Her head tilted a little more, her eyes twinkling. “You don’t want a hundred-foot trailer on set, imported water and French-milled soap to keep your manly beauty intact?”

  He backed off a step, folding his arms as if she’d called his masculinity into question. “Twenty feet’s ample, and water from the tap and good old Dial soap will do me just fine. Chlorine and fluoride can’t do me any more damage than living in that crazy city did.”

  She laughed. Oh, man, she laughed as if she meant it, as if she’d spent years needing to laugh again. The husky sweet music of it sucker-punched him, and sent a king hit right to his heart…because if it wasn’t quite Delia’s laugh, it was close enough. A woman’s version of the girl’s husky giggle that IDed her with ninety percent accuracy. The knowledge speared him with guilt, pity and the ruthlessness of duty.

  It all added up. The food, the coffee; her reaction to hearing Danny’s real name; the fear, the security system—her laugh. Her response to him, as white-hot as his was to her. This woman was Delia de Souza, ID virtually positive, unless by some crazy quirk of fate Ana de Souza also had the same laugh, the same tastes in food…and in men.

  McCall was no stranger to duty. He had only two choices now—to find solid evidence of her identity, or call Anson and tell him of his past with Delia, and his certainty that Beth Silver and Delia de Souza were one and the same.

  The latter would be enough for Anson to move the equipment in tonight. The full show—mikes, cameras—a full regalia of watchers, as much to protect her as to keep her from running. This woman was the only one who could give him the irrefutable proof the Nighthawks needed to give the World Court, the only ones left who might be able to extradite Falcone from Minca bel Sol, his luxurious little bolt-hole in the Pacific—

  And because Anson doesn’t know her, he’ll take me off point. And if she doesn’t trust me, how much chance have any of the other Nighthawks got, apart from forcibly abducting her and the kid? Then we’d never get the evidence—and we’ve got a snowball’s chance in a volcano of finding it. She’s too smart not to have stashed it where we’d never find it without her cooperation.

  God help him, he had to keep silent, both to Beth and to Anson. He had to find physical evidence of her identity by the end of this day, or they could all go down in a hail of bullets.

  The bell above the door gave a violent jangle as the door flew inward. McCall wheeled around, reaching for his weapon, training his eye on the target—but his gaze fell by two feet to find the culprit…a kid erupting into the room, a kid with a shock of thick dark hair, a thin build and intense, soulful eyes.

  Danny. Maybe—almost definitely—Robbie Falcone. The resemblance to his father was uncanny.

  The boy tore in, straight past McCall w
ithout noticing him, traipsing mud through the showroom, a football under his thin arm and his dark-eyed face alight with joy. “Mr. Branson says if I practice hard I might get off the reserves bench next week!”

  “Oh, sweetie, that’s wonderful.”

  Stuffing his Glock back in his jacket, McCall turned around to see Beth’s face, stricken pale—she’d seen the gun, all right—but she infused her voice with a happiness as strong as the boy’s, her eyes bright as the Pacific sky. “Do you want to practice again this afternoon? I can close the store early.”

  The boy’s eyes fell, his thick dark lashes covering them. “Mummy, you play like a girl. Mr. Richards said I can go over now and play with him and Ethan.”

  McCall smothered a grin; but any urge to smile faded when he saw the flash of panic that came and went in Beth’s eyes, so fast an untrained eye couldn’t have seen it. “Sweetie, you know I think Mr. Richards is very nice, but—”

  “But we don’t know him well enough. We don’t know what he might do,” Danny said with an adult-sounding weariness that told McCall he’d said this too many times before. Was the poor kid only six? He sounded forty; and suddenly, he wasn’t “the kid” anymore. As in smuggling the dog in at night, in this, Danny Silver was a brother in arms, a little kid whose life necessitated that innocence must be shattered for survival.

  Poor kid. Poor Danny.

  Beth gave a swift, unreadable glance at McCall then turned away. “Exactly. Good boy.”

  The boy’s face turned earnest, pleading. “But, Mummy, we know them. Mrs. Richards is your friend. And Mr. Richards, he’s not like the other guys’ dads…he goes to church.”

  “Danny, I’d rather play with you myself. You know, just you and me.” Beth’s face had a haunted, hunted look to it now.

  “No! I don’t wanna!” The boy stamped his foot, red-faced with fury, lapsing into childish speech. “I wanna play with Mr. Richards and Ethan! I want someone who can really play!”

  Beth gave another swift glance McCall’s way. “Danny, we have a customer here. Can we wait until he’s left the showroom to continue the conversation?” Please leave, her eyes begged.

  What was he doing here? He had no right to listen, not even for their protection. He turned to leave the showroom.

  “But, Mummy, they’re playing now, and you always talk and talk until it’s all over and I can’t go!” Danny’s face was blazing with indignation and pleading combined. “I don’t wanna talk ’bout it again—we talk all the time. I wanna go!”

  Beth closed her eyes, but not before McCall, looking over his shoulder, saw a warrior-size guilt spear through the indigo depths, acknowledgment of a six-year-old’s unwanted perception. “I said now, Daniel.” With a swift movement, Beth twitched the curtain to the washstand and drying room.

  “But I gotta go to the park right now or they’ll be gone—and Mr. Richards says he’s gonna show me and Ethan how to do a catch an’ a pass, and I could get into the team next week—”

  “I said now, Daniel Silver!”

  Oh, boy, Beth was pulling rank on Danny. A decision made in fear, if he knew anything at all—and though she didn’t know it, she’d regret this later, with bitter tears. McCall pulled open the door, but couldn’t resist another glance, and his heart twisted. Danny’s shoulders had slumped; his mouth trembled in silent mutiny, but he went ahead of his mother into the storage space. Obedient, maybe, but McCall would bet his eyes glittered with all the fire of resentment he felt. He knew; he’d been there.

  “Mr. McCall.”

  About to close the door behind him, McCall turned to her.

  Her words were innocuous, but somehow filled with meaning when combined with the blazing message in her eyes. “Thank you.”

  She’d thanked him for leaving? Refusing to show her how much she’d shocked him with that unexpected leap forward in her trust, he nodded. “Sure. But, Beth?”

  One eyebrow lifted, but her eyes were softer. Open. She was listening to him.

  He dragged in a quick breath, and said what he had to—for Danny’s sake. “I understand what you want—better than you know. But Danny will remember today, and whether he thanks you or hates you for it is up to you.” He gazed into her eyes and went on, knowing he risked shattering the trust he’d felt from her moments ago. “I was only eight when my mom left, and I still remember her last words to me, the look on her face as she said them.”

  “And?” she asked, her gaze intent on his face. “Besides the fact that I don’t need to keep making that teapot for her.”

  “No. You don’t.” He gave her a brief, self-mocking smile of acknowledgment. “What I’m saying is, Danny’s trying to find his way in life, and friends and sport are vital to a child’s self-esteem. Being called a mama’s boy is fatal. He’ll be bullied about it all his life, no matter where you go.”

  Her face closed off. “What do you know about it?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not much. I’m not a father. But I was a boy once, and most boys believe the same credo. If you keep overprotecting him he may make it to twenty-five, but if all he remembers is you stopping him from living the life he wants for himself, he won’t thank you, Beth—and you should know that better than anyone. Your parents turned you into a model, their pride all centered on your looks and fame, and you resented them for making you live the life they wanted for you.”

  She whitened, her eyes dark and shattered. “Thank you for your honesty.” She wheeled about, heading for the curtain where heavy tapping sounds indicated Danny’s obedience was wearing thin. “I’ll be right back,” she said, her voice filled with quiet bitterness. “You seem to think you know all about me.”

  Yeah, that precious moment of trust between them had been just that—a moment; but what choice did he have but to do it? He couldn’t gain her confidence at the cost of Danny’s happiness. He might be a lowlife, but he hadn’t gone that far down yet.

  McCall let the door fall to behind him, trying not to listen in as the woman on the run fought with the loving mom, faced with a vivid, passionate boy who just wanted to play—a child’s birthright that had become a rare privilege to him.

  “It’s just practice, Mummy. I need to practice so’s I can make the team! An’ you know Mr. Richards is nice!”

  Beth said something to Danny, low and pleading. McCall squelched the temptation to use his earpiece to hear better.

  “Why can’t you be like the other mums?”

  Silence for a few moments, then Beth asked something. Even muffled by the curtain, McCall could hear the bewildered hurt in her voice, and he ached for her.

  “The kids all make fun of me ’cause of you. I just wanna play football, Mummy. I just wanna play with my friends!”

  The throb and lilt of anguished passion came so clearly through in Danny’s voice, McCall ached for him, too. He’d never realized how hard life must be for them both….

  Beth’s next words were again muffled and indistinct; but Danny’s were not. “Why?” he cried, kicking something, and it thudded with the impact. “I never go anywhere without you but at school. All the other kids get to play, and their mums don’t watch them all the time. It’s not fair. It’s not fair!”

  Beth’s voice, discernible now, throbbed with anguish. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she muttered in a thick tone, obviously fighting tears. “But that’s the way it is.”

  The halting words touched McCall’s soul. Why hadn’t he ever realized what she’d been through, what she’d sacrificed to have this strange half life of fear? What price had she paid for her son to live untainted by Falcone’s corruption?

  “I’m almost seven, Mummy! I’m big. I wanna play football! An’ I’m goin’ to play with Ethan an’ Mr. Richards!” Danny pulled the curtains open, storming out.

  Reacting on instinct, he reached out, snaking an arm around the boy’s waist, lifting him off his feet and whirling him around in a playful motion. “Hey, there, big guy. Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  Taken off guar
d, Danny giggled and squirmed.

  “Let him go. Put my son down!”

  Chapter 6

  M cCall turned around in time to see the terror and despair touching those lovely eyes. So he was the bad guy again. He set Danny back on his feet, his eyes never leaving hers.

  She flinched at the open challenge. Within seconds she masked her emotions with her curtain of calmness, looking at Danny. What lay behind it hovered between them like a mute aura, haunting him with its utter aloneness, its wistful, never-can-happen effect.

  He jumped in with words he didn’t know were on his lips until he spoke them. “Hey, buddy, my name’s Brendan, and I play a fair game of football myself. I played on my varsity team. We can play right outside the house, so your mom can see us and know you’re safe.”

  Beth’s head snapped up at the impulsive offer, her dewy eyes searching his—distant again. Star-being’s eyes, filled with suspicion and doubt. Shadows inside her soul, and not giving him an inch of trust.

  But Danny’s thin, intense face grew eager and alive with a naked longing that overcame his natural timidity. A boy wanting a man who would teach him how to be a man—an instinctive need all boys sought. A mirror for the look he’d felt on his own face too many times to count, until he’d given up believing his dad cared, or would ever play anything with him. “What’s varr-city?” he asked with an odd lilt, trying to imitate his accent.

  McCall grinned. “Varsity. It’s my college team. UCLA.”

  “What’s You-see-ell-ay?”

  He mentally adjusted to a six-year-old’s level. “UCLA is a really big school in America, in my hometown. It’s the University of California, Los Angeles campus. See? UCLA.”

  The little dark face lit even brighter, grabbing on to the only point vital to him. “He can play football! Mummy? Can I go play? Please? Pleeeease? He says you can watch…”

  Her glance said it all. Hunted. An animal in a net, trapped between the demons of doubt, wishing to give in to the natural longing of her son, and fearing the resentment of the child she’d sacrificed everything for. “Danny—”