Honest illusions(BookZZ.org) (38 page)

“I don’t see how, when I enjoyed it tremendously.” Her eyes were as cold as his, but with a shimmer of inner heat that threatened to erupt. “Now, please get out of my way.”

Anger veiled discretion so that he gripped her arms and pushed her back. “I’m not through with you.”

“I think—” She broke off, shoving Sam aside so that she could scramble between him and Luke.

“Don’t.” She curled fingers around Luke’s lapel and spoke between clenched teeth.

“Go inside, Roxanne.” He stared at Sam over her head. If eyes were weapons, Sam would already have died a painful death.

“No.” She recognized murder in his eye. If she stepped aside she thought it was more than likely Sam would end up overboard. However much the image appealed, she couldn’t allow Luke to be responsible. “We have a show in a few minutes. You won’t be able to do what you need to do if you break your hand punching in his face.” She tossed a furious look over her shoulder. “Get the hell out of here, or I swear, I’ll let go of his coat.”

“All right. It wouldn’t do to cause a scene here. There’ll be another time.” He nodded at Luke. “Another place.”

Roxanne continued to hold on until she saw Sam stroll inside. “Damn you,” she hissed.

“Damn me?” His fury still churned like the water in their wake, but he could only stare at her and repeat.

“Damn me?”

“Yes. Do you realize what a mess you almost caused?” All the fury and frustration she’d felt since slamming out of her father’s cabin shot out and smacked Luke with a bull’s-eye. “Just how were we going to explain to Jack, or the captain for that matter, why you beat up a passenger and dumped his unconscious body overboard?”

“He was touching you. Goddammit, when I walked out he had you trapped against the rail. Do you think I could stand by and watch someone treat you that way?”

“So, what are you, Sir Callahan? My white knight? Let me tell you something, pal.” She shoved a finger hard against his chest. “I can slay my own dragons. I’m not some weak, wimpy female who needs rescuing.” She poked him again, her nail almost piercing flesh. “I can handle myself. Got it?”

“Yeah. I got it.” Because he thought he did, he yanked her against him and kissed her hard until her muffled protest died and her arms came tight around him.

“I’m sorry.” Turning her head, she buried her face in his shoulder. “It has nothing to do with that idiot, nothing to do with you.”

“I know.” He kissed her hair. He’d felt the sting of Max’s whip as well, a burn infinitely more painful than any belt Cobb had lifted.

“He hurt me.” Because her voice had sounded too small, she pressed her lips together and tried to strengthen it. “He’s never hurt me like that before. It wasn’t the job, Luke. It wasn’t—”

“I know,” he said again. “I can’t explain it, Rox, except that maybe he’s got something else on his mind, maybe he isn’t feeling well, maybe a dozen things. He’s never come down on you like that before. Don’t hold one slip against him.”

“You’re right.” She sighed, drew back. “I’m overreacting.” Gently, she lifted a hand to his cheek. “And I took it out on you when you were being such a macho guy. Would you have beat him up for me, baby?”

He grinned, relieved she’d recovered enough to tease. “You bet, doll face. I’d’ve cremated him.”

She gave a quick shiver and lifted her mouth. “Oooh, I just love being kissed by a tough guy.”

“Then you’re going to get a real charge out of this.”

It was one of the most difficult paths Max had ever walked, that narrow carpeted passageway from his cabin to Luke’s. He knew his daughter was in there, along with the man he’d considered his son. He lifted his hand to knock, lowered it again. There was pain in his fingers tonight, bone-deep pain. He rapped them hard against the cabin door as if to punish himself.

Luke answered the door. He instantly felt that stiff-necked embarrassment that displayed itself in numbing politeness. “Max? Is there something you need?”

“I’d like to come in for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

Luke hesitated. At least he could be grateful both he and Roxanne were still fully dressed. “Sure. Would you like a drink?”

“No, nothing. Thank you.” He stood miserably just inside the door, his eyes on his daughter. “Roxanne.”

“Daddy.”

They stood another moment, frozen in a triangle. Three people who had shared so many intimacies. Max found all the speeches he’d prepared had vanished from his brain like smoke. “I’m sorry, Roxy,” was all he could think of to say. “I have no excuse.”

The stiffness went out of her shoulders. “It’s okay.” For him, she could set even pride aside. She did so now as she held out her hands and crossed to him. “I guess I was nagging.”

“No.” Humbled by her easy forgiveness, he brought both her hands to his lips. “You were stating your case, as I’ve always expected you to do. I wasn’t fair or kind.” His smile wobbled a bit as he looked up

at her. “If it’s any consolation, it’s the first time in nearly twenty years that Lily’s shouted at me and reverted to name calling.”

“Oh? Which ones did she use?”

“Jerk was one, I believe.”

Roxanne shook her head. “I’ll have to teach her some better ones.” She kissed him and smiled again.

“You’ll make it up with her?”

“I think I’ll have a better shot if I’ve made it up with you, first.”

“Well, you have.”

“Both of you,” Max murmured and looked toward Luke.

“I see.” Though she wasn’t sure she did, Roxanne understood what was needed. “All right then, why don’t I go clear your path with Lily?” She touched Luke’s arm as she passed, then left them alone.

“There are things I need to say.” Max lifted his hands in a rare helpless gesture. “I believe I’ll take that drink after all.”

“Sure.” Luke slid the bottom drawer of the dresser open and pulled out a small bottle of brandy. “No snifters, I’m afraid.”

“I can rough it if you can.”

Nodding, Luke poured three fingers of brandy into water glasses. “You have some things to say about me and Roxanne,” Luke began. “I’ve wondered why you haven’t brought it up before.”

“It’s hard to admit, but I didn’t know how. What I said this afternoon—”

“You were out of line with Rox,” Luke interrupted. “Not with me.”

“Luke.” Max laid a hand on Luke’s arm. His eyes were filled with appeal and regret. “Don’t close the door on me. I was angry, but anger, contrary to the popular belief, does not always carve out the truth. I sliced to hurt, because I was hurting. I’m ashamed of that.”

“Forget it.” Uneasy, Luke set the brandy aside and rose. “It was a moment of temper, that’s all.”

“And do you believe what I said in temper above what I’ve said and shown you all these years?”

Luke looked back, and his eyes were those of that wild, reckless boy again. “You’ve given me all I’ve ever had. You don’t owe me anything else.”

“A pity people don’t realize what power words wield. They’d have more respect for the use of them.

It’s easier for Roxanne to forgive because she’s never doubted my love. I’d hoped that you wouldn’t have cause to doubt it either.” Max set his brandy, untouched, beside Luke’s. “You’re the son Lily and I could never make together. Can you understand that there have been entire blocks of time that I’ve forgotten you hadn’t been born to me? And that if I thought of it, it didn’t matter.”

For a moment Luke said nothing, could say nothing. Then he sat on the edge of the bed. “Yes. Because there were times I nearly forgot myself.”

“And perhaps because the lines were blurred in my heart, I found it hard, very hard, to accept what’s between you and my daughter.”

Luke gave a half laugh. “It gave me some bad moments, so much so that I nearly sent her away.” He lifted his head. “I couldn’t send her away, Max, not even for you.”

“She wouldn’t have gone.” He understood both of his children. He laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder, squeezing though his fingers wept with pain. “Free lesson,” he murmured and watched Luke smile. “Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take unrelenting and unabating practice.”

“I’ll remember.”

“See that you do.” Max started toward the door, but stopped when a thought ran through his head. “I would like grandchildren,” he said, and Luke’s mouth dropped open. “I would like them very much.”

21

Sam was quite satisfied with the progress of his plans. He was a highly respected member of the community, a recognizable force in Washington. As the senator’s right-hand man, he had his own office, a modestly decorated bastion of masculinity with leather chairs and neutral colors. He had his own secretary, a sharp-minded political veteran who knew exactly what number to call to ferret out information.

Though he would have preferred a zippy foreign make, Sam was forward-thinking and drove a Chrysler.

The grass-roots grumbling about buying American was growing. He had plans to be America’s favorite son.

According to his timetable, he would slip seamlessly into the senator’s position within six years. All the groundwork was there. The years of dedicated public service, the contacts in Washington, in the corporate world and on the streets.

Factoring in his advantages, Sam had nearly tossed his hat into the ring for the most recent election. But patience had won out. He knew his youth would be an initial strike against him, and a good number of bleeding hearts would have interpreted the move as disloyalty to the old fart Bushfield.

So, he bided his time and took his next steps with a cool-eyed look at the nineties. He courted and married Justine Spring, a wealthy department-store heiress with polished looks and impeccable lineage.

She championed the correct charities, could plan a dinner party for fifty without turning a hair and had the extra advantage of photographing like a dream.

When Sam had slipped the ring on her finger, he’d known he’d taken another important step. The American people preferred their leaders to be married. With the proper timing, he would campaign for the Senate seat as the devoted father of one, and Justine would be rosily pregnant with their second, and last, child.

He fancied himself a latter-day Kennedy—not the politics, naturally. These were the Reagan years. But

the youth, the good looks, the pretty wife and the young, charming family.

It would work because he knew how to play the game. He was climbing the ladder toward the Oval Office with slow, calculated steps, and was already halfway up the rungs.

There was only one niggling sense of failure in Sam’s world. The Nouvelles. They were loose ends untied, dangling questions unanswered. He wanted revenge on them for personal reasons, but he needed it for what he considered sharp professional motives. It was important that they be weakened, crushed, so that any vicious truths they might shout about his character would be laughed aside.

He’d had ample time to observe them up close on his honeymoon cruise. Now, cozied into the sumptuous Helmsley Palace in New York, awaiting the parties and celebrations for the Statue of Liberty’s one hundredth birthday, he had time to shuffle through his impressions.

The old man looked tired. Sam remembered the lightning-quick movements of those hands a decade before and judged that Max was slowing down. It was interesting as well that the aging magician was spending so much time looking for some mystical rock.

Sam wrote
the philosophers’ stone
on Leona’s elegant hotel stationery and idly circled it. Maybe he’d have some of his men do some digging into the rock.

There was Lily, as tacky and top-heavy as ever. And as naive, Sam thought, with a smile that curled his lips back from his teeth. He’d made a point of joining her on deck one day, and by the time he’d strolled away, she’d been patting his hand and telling him how glad she was he’d made something good out of his life.

And Roxanne. Ah, Roxanne. If magic existed at all, it existed there. What spell had conjured the skinny, wild-haired girl into a stunning woman? A pity he hadn’t had the opportunity to make a few moves in that direction before Justine. He’d have enjoyed seducing her, using her in a way that would shock and disgust his pretty, lukewarm wife.

But no matter how alluring the prospect, he’d had to move carefully there. The incident on ship had very nearly created a scene a public figure—a married public figure—could ill afford.

Which brought him to Luke. Always to Luke. There was the key to the Nouvelles. Sam could dismiss Mouse and LeClerc as callously as he would dismiss servants. They were nothing. But Luke was the linchpin. Destroying him would put a crack in the wall of the Nouvelles that might never be shored up. It would also be such a sweet, personal triumph.

The business with Cobb wasn’t progressing as Sam had hoped. It had taken him years after leaving New Orleans to reach the position where he could afford to hire detectives to investigate Luke’s background.

It had cost, and cost dearly, but Sam considered it an investment in the future, and payment for the past.

Locating the junkie whore who’d been Luke’s mother had been a stroke of luck. But Cobb, Cobb had been icing on the cake.

Sam closed his eyes and drifted out of the elegant suite in the Helmsley, transporting himself to a dank, waterfront bar.

The air smelled of fish and urine, and the cheap whiskey and tobacco consumed by the patrons. Pool

balls smacked angrily together across the room, and the men who played cast surly glances at the table as they chalked cues.

A single whore sat at the end of the bar with mean eyes and a preference for Four Roses while she waited to ply her trade. Her eyes skimmed over Sam as he sat in the corner, lingering a moment in consideration, then passed on.

He’d chosen the shadows. A hat was pulled low on his head, and a bulky coat disguised his frame. It was chill enough in the bar with a late-winter wind battering sleet against the windows. But the light sweat of anticipation greased Sam’s skin.

He watched Cobb walk in. Saw him hitch up his heavily buckled belt before scanning the room. Once he spotted the figure in the corner, he nodded, strolled with what Sam assumed was meant to be nonchalance to the bar. He brought a glass of whiskey to the table.