The Novels of Nora Roberts Volume 1

by Nora Roberts

  Roxanne smiled. She couldn’t help it. “We’re taking a cruise. North, up the Saint Lawrence Seaway. We’ll perform, of course. Max sees it as a working vacation.”

  “Prepare for changes.” Madame tapped the Wheel of Fortune. “The realization of a dream—if you’re wise. And the loss of it. Someone from out of the past. And sorrow. Time to heal.”

  “And the Death card?” It surprised Roxanne that her skin prickled when she looked at the grinning skeleton.

  “Death chases life from the first breath.” Madame stroked the card with a gentle finger. “You are too young to feel it whispering at your ear. But this is death that is not death. Go on your journey, pichouette, and learn.”

  Luke was more than ready to go. There was nothing he could think of he’d rather do than get out of town. The latest payment to Cobb sat on his coffee table, addressed and stamped.

  The demand for money had been as steady as mortgage payments over the years. Two thousand here, four there, to an average of fifty thousand annually.

  Luke didn’t mind the money. He had plenty of that. But he’d yet to control that greasy wave of nausea each time he found a plain postcard in his mailbox.

  2K, it might say. Or perhaps when Cobb’s luck was running thin, 5K, and the post office box. Nothing more.

  Luke had had four years to reconsider the extent of Cobb’s brainpower. The man was much smarter than Luke had ever given him credit for. A fool would have pushed for the big score and quickly dried the well. But Cobb, good old belt-wielding Al, knew the value of a steady trickle.

  So Luke was more than ready to get away—from the postcards, from the dissatisfied tickle at the back of his neck, from worry over Max’s overpowering obsession with a nonexistent magic rock.

  They’d be too busy on the ship to worry about such things with performances, ports of call and the tidy job they had planned for Manhattan.

  When they did have free time, Luke planned to plop himself down by the pool, clamp headphones on his ears, bury his nose in a book while some nubile strolling cocktail waitress kept the cold beer coming.

  All in all, life was good. He had a bit more than two million in his Swiss accounts, that much again floating in various stocks, bonds and money markets in the States, along with some modest real estate investments. In his closet hung suits from Savile Row and Armani, though he still preferred denim by Levi’s. Perhaps he was more at home in Nikes, but there were highly polished Gucci shoes in his rack, and a selection of John Lobb boots. He drove a vintage ’Vette and piloted his own Cessna. He indulged in imported cigars and French champagne and had a weakness for Italian women.

  All in all, he figured the half-starved pickpocket had turned himself into a discriminating, cosmopolitan man.

  What it cost him to maintain the image was a bit of blackmail—and the repression of one small, nagging, incessant need.

  Roxanne.

  But then, Max had taught him never to count the cost, unless it was pride.

  Luke took a mug of coffee onto his terrace to watch the action down in Jackson Square. There were girls in pretty summer dresses, babies in strollers, men with cameras slung around their necks. He spotted three black kids tap dancing. Their feet were moving like fury. Even with the distance, he could hear the cheerful click and clatter of their shoes on the concrete. They’d drawn a crowd, and that pleased him.

  The woman he’d heard on that first day in New Orleans no longer sang in the Quarter. He missed the sound of her, and though he’d never quite had the same emotional tug toward anyone else, it satisfied him to see the cardboard boxes of the street performers fill with silver.

  Without Max, he thought. Without Max and Lily he could have done much worse than dance for pennies.

  That brought a frown to his eyes. He knew why Max was handing over more and more of the sleight of hand and close-up work to him and Roxanne. He thought he even understood why Max was devoting so much of the time he’d once earmarked for preparing the act toward the damn philosophers’ stone. And understanding hurt.

  Max was getting old, right in front of Luke’s eyes.

  A knock on the door had him turning reluctantly away from the street scene. But when he opened it, there was only pleasure.

  “Lily.” Luke bent to kiss her, to breathe in the wonderfully familiar Chanel before taking the various bags and boxes she carried.

  “I was shopping.” She giggled, patting her fluffy blond hair back into place. “I guess that’s obvious. I got the urge to stop by. Hope it’s okay.”

  “It’s always okay.” He dumped her purchases on an overstuffed chair beside a Belker table. “Ready to give Max his walking papers and move in with me?”

  She laughed again, that bubbly, champagne sound that he loved. Past forty now, she remained as lush and pretty as she’d been when Luke had first seen her strut across the stage. It took a bit more woman’s magic to maintain the illusion, but Lily had an endless store of it.

  “If I did, it would be to give those ladies of yours the once-over as they sashay in and out.”

  “I’d give them all up, for the right lady.”

  Lily didn’t laugh this time, but there was a different sort of amusement in her eyes. “Oh, I’m sure you would, honey. I’m getting old waiting for you to make the next move. But,” she continued before he could speak, “I didn’t come by to talk about your love life—fascinating though it may be.”

  He grinned. “You’re going to make me blush.”

  “Fat chance.” She was proud of him, so proud it almost burst her heart. He was tall and trim and gloriously handsome. And more, much more than that, there was a goodness inside of him that she knew she had nurtured herself. “I dropped by to see if you needed any help packing—or if you needed anything while I was shopping. Socks, underwear?”

  He couldn’t help it. Setting the mug down he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her again. “I love you, Lily.”

  Pleasure had her cheeks blooming. “I love you, too. I know how men hate to pack and shop for undies and stuff.”

  “I’ve got plenty.”

  “They’ve probably got holes in them, or the elastic’s gone.”

  Sober-eyed, he lifted a hand in an oath. “I swear to God, I didn’t pack a single pair of jocks that I’d be ashamed to wear if I were in an accident.”

  She sniffed, but her eyes were laughing. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “Yeah. How about some coffee?”

  “I’d rather something cold, if you have it.”

  “Lemonade?” He headed back toward the kitchen. “I must have had a premonition that you’d drop by when I squeezed those damn lemons this morning.”

  “You made it fresh? Yourself?” She was as proud of that as she would have been if he’d won the Nobel prize.

  He took out a squat pitcher of pale green glass and matching glasses. His kitchen was neat and small, with an old-fashioned two-burner gas range and a short, round-edged refrigerator. Lily thought the herbs potted on the windowsill were the sweetest things.

  “I know you’re competent.” It hurt only a little that he could do so easily without her. “You always could do anything you set your mind on.” She took the glass he offered and rattled the ice in it, wandered back into the living room. “You have such good taste.”

  He lifted a brow, noting the way she ran fingertips over the curve of his love seat, the surface of an antique commode. “I got it through osmosis.”

  “From Max, I know. Me, I have terrible taste. I just love tacky things.”

  “Whatever I got, I got from both of you.” Taking her hand, he drew her down with him on the love seat. “What’s this all about, Lily?”

  “About? I told you, I just stopped by.”

  “You’ve got worry in your eyes.”

  “What woman doesn’t?” But her eyes slid away from his.

  He brushed his knuckles over her cheek. It was soft as a baby’s still. “Let me help.”

  That was all it took
to crumble the fragile wall she’d managed to build before knocking on his door. Tears blurred her vision as he took her glass, set it aside, then drew her into his arms.

  “I’m being silly. I know I am, but I can’t help it.”

  “It’s all right.” He kissed her hair, her temple, and waited.

  “I don’t think Max loves me anymore.”

  “What?” He’d meant to be sympathetic, comforting, supportive. Instead he jerked back, laughing. “What a crock. Oh, shit,” he muttered as she dissolved into helpless sobs. “Don’t. Come on, Lily, don’t cry.” Women’s tears remained the one thing he had no defense against. “I’m sorry I laughed. What makes you say such a crazy thing?”

  “He—he—” It was the best she could do as she wailed against his shoulder.

  Change tactics, Luke thought, and stroked her back. “Okay, okay, baby, don’t you worry. I’m going to go right over and beat him up for you.”

  That brought a gurgle of laughter to mix with tears. She wasn’t ashamed of the laughter, or the tears. She’d learned never to be ashamed of what felt good. “I just love him so much, you know? He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. You don’t even know what it was like before.”

  “No.” He sobered, resting his cheek on her hair. “I don’t.”

  “We were so poor. But that was okay, because my mama was wonderful. Even after Daddy died, she held everything together. She’d always see to it there was a little extra, for a movie, or an ice cream. I didn’t know, not till later, that she took money from time to time from men. But she wasn’t a whore.” Lily lifted her tear-streaked face. “It was just a way to take care of her kids.”

  “Then you can be proud of her.”

  No mother, she mused, had ever had a wiser son. “I got married before. Max knows about it, but nobody else.”

  “Then nobody else’ll know now, if that’s what you want.”

  “It was a mistake, such an awful mistake. I was just seventeen, and he was so good-looking.” She smiled a little again, knowing how silly it sounded. “I got pregnant, so we got married. He didn’t like being poor, or having a wife who got sick in the mornings. He knocked me around some.”

  She felt Luke tense, felt a little curl of shame, and hurried on. “When he kept it up, I told him I was leaving. My mama’d raised me better than to be a punching bag. He told me my mama was a whore and so was I. He beat me good that time, and I lost the baby.” She shuddered once, from old memory. “It messed me up inside so they said I wouldn’t be able to have another.”

  “I’m sorry.” And helpless, he thought. Completely helpless.

  “I’m telling you so that you can understand where I came from. About that time my mother died. I think knowing how hard she’d worked so that I could have good things helped me get strong. So even when he came by and said how he was sorry and he’d never hit me again, I did leave him, and I got work at a carnival. Told fortunes, worked some of the booths. Small cons. That’s how I met Max.

  “He was magic even back then. Him and little Roxanne. I guess I loved them both so much right off I nearly burst with it. He’d lost his wife, and maybe a little bit of himself, too. And I wanted him, so I did what any smart woman would do and seduced him.”

  Luke held her closer. “I bet he put up a hell of a fight, didn’t he?”

  That made her laugh, and sigh. “He could have taken what I gave him and left it at that. But he didn’t. He took me in. Treated me like a lady. He showed me the way it’s supposed to be between a man and a woman. He made me family. Most of all he loved me—just for me, you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I do. But I don’t think it was all one-sided, Lily. I figure you gave as good as you got.”

  “I always tried. Luke, I’ve loved him for almost twenty years now. I just don’t think I could stand to lose him.”

  “What makes you think you could? He’s nuts about you. That’s one of the things that always made me feel the best, the way the two of you are with each other.”

  “He’s pulling away.” She took a couple of steadying breaths to strengthen her voice. “Oh, he’s still sweet to me, when he remembers I’m around. Max would never hurt me, or anybody on purpose. But he spends hours and hours alone, going through books and notes and journals. That damn stone.” She sniffled, digging into her pocket for a lace hankie. “At first I thought it was kind of interesting.” She blew her nose. “I mean, suppose there really was such a thing? But he’s gotten so caught up in it there’s hardly room for anything else. And he’s forgetting things.” She worried her bottom lip and wrung her hands. “Just little things. Like appointments and meals. We were nearly late for a performance last week because he forgot all about it. I know he’s worried because he can’t do some of the sleight of hand anymore, and it’s affecting his . . .” She trailed off, wondering how it could be put delicately. “What I mean to say is that Max has always been, well, robust, sexually. But lately we hardly ever . . . you know.”

  He did, but devoutly wished he didn’t. “Well, I, ah.”

  “But I don’t just mean the performance, so to speak. The romance of it. He doesn’t turn to me in the night anymore, or take my hand, or look at me that way.” Another tear bloomed over and slid down her cheek.

  “He’s distracted, Lily. That’s all. All that pressure to do another special, to write another book, to go back and tour Europe. Then the jobs. Max has always taken too much on himself in the planning and execution.” He wasn’t going to mention that on their last job, he found Max standing in front of an open safe as if in a trance. Or that it had taken Max nearly five minutes to come back to himself and remember where he was and what he was doing.

  “You know what I think,” he said, taking the useless swatch of lace and drying Lily’s eyes himself. “I think you’re as stressed out as Max is—what with Rox’s graduation, getting ready for this summer gig. And I—wait!” He grabbed her hand, turning it palm up. “I see a long sea voyage,” he continued as Lily gave a watery chuckle. “Moonlit nights, salty breezes. Romance.” He winked at her. “And great sex.”

  “You don’t read palms.”

  “You taught me, didn’t you?” He pressed his lips to her palm, then curled her fingers in his. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, and Max loves you—nearly as much as I do. Hey, don’t start dripping again, please.”

  “Okay.” She blinked furiously at tears. “Okay.”

  “I want you to trust me when I say it’s all going to be fine. We’re going to get away for a little while, relax and drink champagne cocktails on the poop deck.”

  “Maybe he does just need to rest.” Her shoulders shifted in one last sigh. “I wasn’t going to dump on you, Luke, really I wasn’t. But I’m awful glad you were here.”

  “Me too. You dump anytime you like.”

  “I’m done.” Brushing tears from her lashes, she sat up. “Sure you don’t want me to pack for you?”

  “Already done. I’m as anxious to leave in the morning as you.”

  “I’m anxious all right.” Recovered, she reached for her lemonade and sipped to ease her raw throat. “But I haven’t packed a thing. Roxanne’s got everything all neat and tidy, and in only two cases. I don’t know how she does it.”

  “The brat’s been an organization maniac since she was eight.”

  “Hmm.” She sipped again, watching Luke. “She’s not eight anymore. Wait till you see the cocktail dress she bought for the captain’s party.”

  Luke merely shrugged and sat back. “How about you? Any sexy numbers in those bags?”

  “A few.”

  Knowing just how much Lily enjoyed displaying her purchases, Luke played along. “Going to show me?”

  “Maybe.” She fluttered still damp lashes and turned to set her glass down again. Her glance passed over the letter he’d left on the table, then cut back to it and froze. “Cobb.” Nerves fluttered in her throat. “Why are you writing to him?”

  “I’m not.” Wit
h a vicious inner curse, Luke scooped up the letter and jammed it in his pocket. “It’s nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Her voice was suddenly brittle as glass. “Don’t ever lie to me.”

  “I’m not. I said I wasn’t writing to him.”

  “Then what’s in the envelope?”

  His face went blank and still. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

  She said nothing for a moment, but a dozen varied emotions played across her tear-streaked face. “You’re everything to do with me,” she said quietly as she rose. “Or so I thought. I’d better go.”

  “Don’t.” He swore again, violently, and put a hand on her arm. “Damn it, Lily, don’t look at me like that. I’m handling this the only way I know how. Leave it to me.”

  “Of course.” She had a way, as certain women did, of being perfectly agreeable, and cutting a man off at the knees. “You’ll be at the house by eight, won’t you? We don’t want to miss the flight.”

  “Damn it all to hell. I’m paying him, all right? I send him some money now and again and he leaves me alone.” His eyes were fierce and deadly. “He leaves all of us alone.”

  With a nod, Lily sat again. “He’s blackmailing you?”

  “That’s a polite term. A bloodless term.” Furious with himself, Luke stalked to the window. “I can afford to be polite.”

  “Why?”

  He only shook his head. Not to her, not to anyone would he speak of it. Not of what had been, nor of the nightmares that plagued him a day or two after he found that plain white postcard in his mailbox.

  “As long as you pay him, he’ll never go away.” Lily spoke quietly from just behind him. Gently, she laid a hand on his back. “He’ll never leave you in peace.”

  “Maybe not. But he knows something I’m ashamed enough of that I’m willing to pay him to keep to himself.” The tap dancers had gone off to other pastures, Luke thought. Pigeons fluttered in the park. “And he can insinuate a great deal more, twist lies with truth in such a way that I couldn’t live with it. So it costs me a few thousand a pop for this kind of illusionary peace. It’s worth it to me.”