Dangerous Illusion. Melissa James
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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 intentions. 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.”
Folding his arms across his chest, he stood silent, waiting.
Was it a trick of the half light of the storm outside, or did her cheeks warm? “I thought that was what it was,” she said in a would-be casual voice. Shaking beneath.
He moved closer, all man now, the Nighthawk in him shot to hell at the gentle floral scent of her fresh-washed hair, the glowing golden skin, free of makeup, the aura of woman beneath the coolness she projected. “What?” he whispered. “What is it?”
She moved her face, as if in denial. Denying his question, or the raw male need straining from his every pore, screaming at him to take her, to find release from this unbearable need, this half-crazed tension inside her warm, golden loveliness?
Her answer, when it came, was unsteady. “I’m afraid you’ve crossed the world on a wild-goose chase, Mr. McCall. I’m not who you’re after. I’m Beth Silver.” She put down the baton and phone, and moved to her potter’s wheel, switching it on and reaching for her clay, kept wet in the double-thickness plastic bag. Finding steadiness inside familiarity? Was she so scared of him?
Not you, fool—you represent her losing her anonymity and freedom, he thought with a flash of insight. She doesn’t know if I’m working here alone, or if Falcone’s close