Express Male (30 page)

“For what it’s worth,” Lila said, “I wouldn’t change any of my past, even if I could. Yeah, it sucked growing up the way I did. And no, my mom and I never got along. I won’t lie to you, Marnie. I lived with a lot of bad stuff when I was a kid. It got worse when I was a teenager. But it made me who I am as an adult.

“And I like who I am as an adult,” she added. “I’m not perfect. But I do good work. I’m strong. I’m smart. I can take care of myself. And I don’t take shit from anybody. Maybe I’m a little lacking in social graces, and maybe I never let people get too close, but…” She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “There are a lot of people like that who grew up in homes just like yours. A happy childhood isn’t a guarantee of anything. But you know what? A lousy childhood isn’t a guarantee of anything, either.”

Marnie smiled, and something inside her that had been tilting a little off balance suddenly fell comfortably into place. Lila was okay, she realized. In spite of her past, in spite of her occupation, in spite of everything, she was a good person and reasonably well-adjusted. And that was saying a lot, no matter who you were.

“You’re pretty amazing, Lila,” she told her sister. “But I guess you already know that, don’t you?”

“I do, actually,” Lila agreed without an ounce of modesty. “I think it must run in the family.”

Marnie chuckled at that. She considered herself to be many things, several of them quite flattering.
Amazing,
however, wasn’t an adjective she would ever ascribe to herself.

“Just tell me,” Marnie said, “that you won’t be working alone on this assignment. I do believe I’m going to worry about you, in spite of your assurances that you can take care of yourself.”

And how nice it was to have someone in her life to worry about again. Because it meant she had someone in her life to care about again. Of course, she would be worrying—not to mention caring—about Noah, too. Oh, who was she kidding? She’d be in love with him. Forever, truth be told. But he wasn’t in her life anymore, was he?

“No, I had…have…a partner,” Lila said. “But he’s a little incapacitated right now, so I’ll be assigned to work with someone else until further notice.”

“I hope he wasn’t injured in the line of duty,” Marnie said.

Lila toddled her head back and forth. “Well, sorta. He got engaged in the line of duty.”

And she considered that an injury, Marnie thought. Obviously their mother wasn’t the only Moreau woman who had a dim view of marriage.

“I just have one more thing I need to do before I leave,” Lila said, glancing down at her watch. “So I probably ought to get going.” She looked at Marnie again. “Just know that no matter who I’m working with, I’ll find Sorcerer. Between what OPUS learned from Philosopher’s manuscript, and what I learned myself over the last few months, my job just got a whole lot easier. I won’t rest until Sorcerer is in a cage. I promise you that, Marnie.”

Marnie nodded. She believed her sister. She just hoped it was Adrian Padgett—and not Lila Moreau—who ended up in chains.

T
HE SUN HADN’T YET RISEN
when Noah, exiting the steamy master bathroom and shrugging into his shirt, heard the sound of his front door opening and closing at the foot of the hallway stairs. The sound didn’t alarm him, however. Anyone who wanted to do him harm wouldn’t be audible while they broke into his home. Besides, he’d kind of been expecting his visitor.

He reached for the navy-blue trousers folded neatly over a chair and pulled them on over his boxers, fastening them beneath the still-unbuttoned white shirt. Not that his visitor would be shocked or surprised to see him half-dressed, since she’d seen him
un
dressed. Nor was it necessary to stand on ceremony with her. He didn’t make an effort to greet her, though, knowing she would find him well enough. She’d only been in his house once, but even that was more than she needed to know the entire layout. Even in the dark.

He strode to the mahogany highboy that had belonged to his great-grandfather and opened the top drawer to retrieve a pair of socks. Then he moved to the matching mahogany dresser and ran a quick comb through his hair, still damp from the shower. He turned to survey the room, wondering what was taking her so long. But it looked the way it always did, save the unmade four-poster bed, which would normally be tidied: a collection of dark, heavy heirloom antiques; rich, jewel-colored Oriental rugs on gleaming hardwood floors; original Gainsborough landscapes, all of it backed by midnight-blue walls that ended in highly embellished white wainscoting.

The house had been in Noah’s family for a hundred and fifty years, always inherited by the eldest grandson of whoever happened to be living in it when he died. Noah had always wondered to whom he would leave the house himself. Probably the oldest of his brothers’ children, since there was little chance he’d have any of his own.

As if generated by the realization, a woman suddenly appeared in the doorway, her clothing—and expression—as dark and concealing as the hallway behind her. Her black leather jacket was half zipped over the black tank top she’d had on earlier, but she’d changed into black trousers now and added to the ensemble. Black leather gloves covered her hands, and she’d pulled a black knit cap over her hair, down to her eyebrows. She was obviously ready for the next leg of her assignment. Noah just hoped she’d be able to complete it this time.

“She-Wolf,” he greeted her.

She smiled at that. “Oh, so we’re not on a first-name basis anymore? When the hell did that happen?”

Actually, it would have been better if they’d never strayed from their code-name basis in the first place, he thought. He decided to ignore the question. “I’m not the one you’re supposed to be reporting to,” he reminded her. Of course, she already knew that.

“I needed to talk to you first.”

“All right.”

She completed a few cautious strides into his bedroom, stopping by the highboy, where she began to pick through the things lying upon it, inspecting them one by one. “I didn’t know you wore reading glasses,” she said as she lifted those and unfolded the earpieces, settling them onto her face.

“Newly acquired,” he said. “Happens to everyone who hits forty.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she replied. “I’m still a spring chick.” She removed them and reached for his car keys.

“Driving a BMW now. You like it better than the Merc?”

“They both have their recommendations.”

She put down the keys and picked up his wallet, which she shamelessly opened to investigate the contents. “A hundred and sixty-six bucks in cash, health-insurance card, Cleveland Athletic Club ID, Triple-A membership, platinum AmEx.” She looked at him again. “The wallet of a security freak. Some things never change, I guess.”

Growing impatient, Noah demanded, “What do you want, Lila?”

She dropped the wallet back onto his dresser and hooked her hands on her hips. “I want to know what your intentions are toward my sister.”

It wasn’t a question he’d expected to hear from her. Not just because he wasn’t used to Lila having a family, but also because he wasn’t used to her caring. About anyone. It didn’t surprise him, though, that she suspected something had gone on between him and Marnie. Put Lila in a room with someone for more than a minute, and she could read that person like a book. What Noah found most interesting, however, was that Lila seemed to understand better than he did what he felt for her sister.

In spite of that, he said, “I think that’s between me and Marnie.”

Lila shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “From what I see, there isn’t anything between you and Marnie.”

“Then why are you asking me about my intentions toward her?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Because I think you want there to be something between you and Marnie. And I think she does, too.”

Just what had the two of them talked about last night? he wondered. He’d assumed they’d fill the time comparing their histories and experiences and pondering the puzzle of their separation.
Had
they talked about him? And if so, what had Marnie said? Or was Lila just bluffing? And if so, why? Surely she didn’t assign any more importance to the night the two of them had spent together than he did. Did she? She couldn’t be thinking there was anything more to what had happened than that it was a physical response to an extreme situation. Could she?

And what if she did? he asked himself further. Would that change his feelings for her? His feelings for Marnie? Just what were his feelings for Lila and Marnie anyway?

Cautiously, he asked, “How would you feel about it if there
was
something between me and Marnie?”

“Like what kind of something?” she said.

“Like a serious kind of something,” he evaded.

“Like love?” she asked frankly.

Well, he’d kind of been hoping to avoid that word because…Well, just because, that was why. And it was a damned good reason. “Like something serious,” he reiterated.

She seemed to give the question some thought. Though Noah was sure she’d already given the idea all the thought she needed to give it. Lila never went off half-cocked. She didn’t do anything without thinking it through to the end first. “I dunno,” she finally said. “It would be a little weird, you know?”

“Why?” he asked. He decided to just cut to the chase.

“Because of that one night you and I spent together? Do you wonder if there was something more to that than just the physical? If maybe there’s something that connects the two of us on an emotional level, too?”

Her expression revealed nothing of what she was thinking—not that there was any surprise in that. What did surprise Noah was how quickly and affirmatively he could answer those questions himself. All this time, he’d been telling himself the reason he couldn’t make a commitment to Marnie was because his feelings for Lila were too confusing. Now he realized that wasn’t the problem at all. The reason he hadn’t been able to make a commitment to Marnie was because his feelings for
Marnie
were too confusing.

Or, at least, they had been before now. Because his feelings for Marnie had been tangled up with whatever he’d thought he felt for Lila. But seeing Lila again after knowing Marnie, Noah realized that whatever he might have thought he felt for Lila had been just that—thoughts. Not feelings. He hadn’t had feelings for Lila since…ever. Not the kind of feelings he’d thought he might have. He knew that now, because what he had for Marnie was exactly that sort of feeling. In fact, he had lots of feelings for Marnie. Lots of, well, serious feelings. Like…love. Suddenly it was all so clear.

After a long moment of silence, Lila tilted her head to one side and said, “I don’t know if there’s something emotional there, Noah. But what if there is?”

It was the question he had asked himself so many times so long ago. Back then, he hadn’t known how to answer it. Right now, he knew exactly how.

What he felt for Lila was affection. The same sort of affection he had for many of the people he worked with. But love? No way. And now he was wondering how he could have ever confused the two.

Probably, he told himself, because he’d never been in love before, so he’d had no idea what it was like. Now he knew. Because he was in love with Marnie. Deeply. Passionately. Irrevocably. And, strangely, it wasn’t nearly as terrifying to realize that as he’d thought it would be. In fact, it was damned nice. Or would be. Once he told Marnie how he felt. And once he knew for sure she felt the same way about him.

He chose his words carefully in forming his reply to Lila. Not because he was afraid he might say too much. But because he was afraid he might leave something important unsaid. “Look, Lila, I’ll admit there was a time when I wasn’t sure what I felt for you,” he began. “For a long time after that night we spent together, I thought maybe there
could
be something between us that was more than physical. I don’t know what,” he added readily. “Neither of us is the champagne-and-roses type. But I always thought we were two of a kind in a lot of ways.”

“We have hardly anything in common, Noah,” she said flatly.

“We have more than you think, Lila.” Not the least of which was an obvious love for and need to protect Marnie Lundy. But he wasn’t ready to go there with Lila just yet. He was still getting used to the feeling himself. “And for a long time,” he continued, “I wondered if maybe you and I should have explored that more.”

She hesitated a moment before saying, “You’re talking like you don’t wonder that anymore.”

“I don’t,” he said quickly, honestly. “And I realize now that I haven’t wondered that for a while.”

“Since when?”

This time he was the one to lift a shoulder and let it drop.

“I guess I first started to realize it when I met your sister.”

She fixed her gaze on his and asked point-blank, “Are you in love with Marnie?”

There was no way he was going to say the words to Lila before he said them to Marnie. “I don’t think I need to tell you that,” he sidestepped.

She ignored him. “Are you in love with Marnie?” she asked more insistently.

“Lila, I really don’t want—”

“Are you in love with Marnie?”
she demanded a third time.