Liar's Moon (9 page)

Leif eased himself down to sit on the side of the bed— it was a massive thing, plenty of room. For a moment he smiled, entranced by the sight of the two of them. He looked at Tracy’s face, at her skin, so smooth and clear, at the elegant lines and planes of her features. Her lips, full and sweet and slightly parted as she breathed.

Then his jaw twisted and hardened as he began to think. He had to make her talk. One way or the other. He knew that she didn’t ever intend to tell him anything— but if he didn’t have just a little more to go on, he couldn’t pursue the accusations he intended to make. He believed with all his heart that she knew nothing about his suspicions.

And if he was right? What would she feel then about her mother, grandfather, and stepfather? If she realized what they had done to her, mightn’t she be willing to accept the fact that one of them had most probably conspired to murder her father.

He sighed softly, thinking that he could be wrong.

No—he wasn’t wrong. It had taken him years to realize the truth—but then, it took years for children to grow and change, and he hadn’t been in the temperament to suspect anything at first.

He closed his eyes tightly, fighting back the urge to reach over his son’s body, grasp her shoulders in fury, and shake her awake—to demand to know the truth.

Chills settled over him. Maybe she knew the truth. Maybe that was why it was so easy for her to be here now, asleep beside his son, so tenderly, so naturally.

She stirred slightly and he sensed that she was about to waken—and that she’d probably scream, finding a man in her bedroom. He placed his palm over her mouth just as her eyes opened and then widened in alarm.

“It’s just me!” he whispered.

She didn’t scream; she shook off the touch of his palm with annoyance. “ ‘Just you’ can get out of here!” she whispered vehemently.

“I came for Blake.”

“Why? He’s fast asleep—he’s fine.”

The light reflecting from the bathroom touched upon her eyes; they were so very blue, deep and stunning. She was wearing her hair a little shorter now; there was still an abundance of it, thick, rich, and dark against the pillow. He swallowed quickly, and he swallowed down pain. How bitterly he had resented her for what she had done. He’d felt such a miserable tangle of emotions; horror that he had fallen prey to a seventeen-year-old, and that girl the daughter of his best friend. Anger at the absolute fool he had been; fury—against her, for having used him.

And still
…
the caring.

Love was something that began in caring and grew. They had been passionately involved, totally committed to one another for that fantasy interlude.

Admittedly, he hadn’t been much of a bargain in his twenties. He’d lived in the fast lane and he’d learned its dangers and its fallacies. He’d been in bed with scores of women whom he would never recognize if he were ever
to see them again. But not only had that all been years before he had known Tracy, he had never known anything like the feelings he had experienced with her. The wonder of her innocence, something that made her seduction of him of all the more sweet. The touch of her, the feel of her, the scent of her—they were all things that had lived with him. Things that had plagued him—despite the massive guilt he had endured at first.

He had loved Celia. Tenderly, dearly. They’d lived together before she had left him; she had been soft-spoken, sensitive, gentle. He’d never in a thousand years have hurt her; losing her had been like taking away a part of his soul—the better part. But even loving Celia, he had often dreamt troubled dreams of Tracy.

“Will you go away, please,” she asked him with a yawn, casting her arm over her eyes to shield them from the light that exuded from the bathroom. “It’s almost morning. And you’ve done enough for one day! You’ve destroyed my life.”

“Oh, I did not, Tracy.”

“You did! My picture—”

“Shush! Whisper!”

Tracy bit her lip, remembering that Blake slept between them. She wasn’t done with Leif—but she was determined to keep her voice down.

“You had—”

In a like whisper, Leif interrupted her flatly. “It was necessary.”

“Necessary?”

“Go back to sleep, Tracy. I want to leave here by noon.”

She yawned again, and he was convinced she wasn’t really awake at all, only halfway so.

“Where’s Jamie?” she asked him, a sleepy slur to her voice.

“In bed.”

“With whom?”

“Himself.”

“Thank God. I’d hate to see him turn out like my father and you.”

Irritated, Leif found himself looking at Blake again. His son slept soundly, curled to Tracy. Curled so trustingly that it caused Leif another pang. His son, and Tracy. Tracy looking so soft and feminine and lovely and very vulnerable in her tousled state
…

He cleared his throat and remembered her words. “I resent that. I was a very faithful husband.”

Tracy struggled to open her eyes again; his tone had a bitter and chilling quality to it that dragged her back to awareness. But in the poor light, she could read nothing at all in the dark, dark mystery of his eyes or the shadowed line of his mouth.

“And your father wasn’t that bad. He didn’t marry your mother because your grandfather wouldn’t allow it. But he stayed with Jamie’s mother for ten years—”

“During which he cheated,” Tracy interrupted wearily.

“How do you know?”

She hesitated, but then she was so tired that it didn’t seem to matter. “I don’t know. But I think that my mother saw him during that time. Oh, God! Would you just go away, please?”

“How could you have known that? You only saw him once during those years, and that was when Jamie was a toddler.”

Tracy rolled around, presenting him with her back.

“There were times when he was supposed to see me. When he was supposedly coming. He never showed up— but my mother disappeared. Now—will you please leave me alone?”

Leif didn’t say anything else. But he didn’t leave, either. He’d suspected himself that Jesse had seen Audrey now and then over the years—it would explain why the two of them had been close enough to come after Tracy together when they had realized that their little runaway was with him.

He opened his eyes again, about to speak. He didn’t; he closed his mouth instead, aware that Tracy had let out a shuddering little sigh and that her breathing had become a deep and easy pattern. He started to rise, when Blake’s little eyes suddenly opened.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’m here, son.”

Blake closed his eyes again, but his hand slipped into Leif’s and held tightly. Leif tried to extricate himself; the little fingers closed more tightly around him.

Leif shrugged and leaned back, one hand in his son’s, the other cast behind his head for support. He lay there next to them both, awake, for a long time. Thinking over the past. All the sins, all the travesties—all the lies.

It all felt as if a storm were brewing, with high winds to sweep away the shadows and the webs. He had coiled a tension in him, so that he was very glad of it all.

He wanted the truth, naked, cold, and brutal. It was the only way that any of them could ever go on.

He had meant to slip away from his son’s hold eventually, but he didn’t. Dawn was breaking over the city, and he slept.

* * *

“
S
ome hot and heavy affair!” Jamie complained, laughter in his throat. “Will you look at that! Ma and Pa Kettle is more like it!”

Tracy fought her way out of a fog of sleep to blink and see her brother standing at the foot of the bed, grinning down at her. She struggled up to her elbows with a frown furrowed into her features, then saw that Leif—fully clothed except for his shoes—was curled up on the other side of Blake. He was already awake and staring at Jamie with his features harsh in a mask of weary irritation.

“Jamie—didn’t anyone ever tell you about knocking?”

“Now that from a pair of people who crawl from balcony to balcony! Rude, I do say.”

“Jamie-—is Leif in there?”
Liz, a little more refined than Jamie about her entrances, appeared tentatively at the door. She chuckled softly then. “They do look like Ma and
Pa Kettle, Ja
mie.
”

Tracy stared at the lot, then slammed her pillow against Leif’s head; he caught it, and gave her a more deadly glare than he had offered Jamie.

“For God’s sake—”

“Hey, Ma and Pa, thought you all just might like a glance at the morning paper!” Jamie announced.

The paper landed on the bed; they both reached for it —Tracy grabbed it.

The headlines were worse than she had expected. “Jesse’s Girl Makes Shocking Appearance In Leif’s Arms!”

She emitted some kind of oath and continued to scan the paper, feeling her temper soar ever higher. Speculation went on and on, the consensus being that she and Leif had been very heavily involved for some time.

She threw the paper at him. “You son of a—”

“Watch it, Tracy—my six-year-old is between us!” Leif snapped back heatedly.

“That’s right—what kind of a father are you?”

“Well, there’s the hot—where’s the heavy?” Jamie queried.

“I must confess,” Liz said. “I’m completely confused.”

“Oh—they’re pretending to have an affair again.”

“Again?” Liz demanded, shocked.

“Jamie—you have a mouth like a bullhorn!” Tracy railed, really furious with him.

“Hey—” Jamie protested,

“Tracy—” Leif began.

“Get out of here! All of you!” Tracy demanded.

No one moved; Leif reached for her and she wasn’t about to let him touch her, so she flew out of bed—and slammed herself into the bathroom.

She didn’t know how long she just sat in there on the commode, fuming, swearing to herself—occasionally slamming a fist against the tile wall. Then she decided to take a cold shower, praying the water would cool her off enough so that she could behave rationally.

She stayed in the water a long time; she still felt flushed and hot when she came out. She wrapped herself in one of the hotel’s huge white towels, brushed her teeth and her hair—-and then realized that she hadn’t brought anything into the bathroom with her to dress. It wouldn’t matter—she was certain that her unwelcome visitors would have departed by then. Leif wouldn’t remain in her room—he would have taken Blake out of there by then.

She slammed out of the door—only to instantly discover that she was wrong. Blake was gone, but Leif wasn’t.

Tracy took a deep, deep breath, clutching the towel tightly behind her back. “Leif, get the hell out of here,” she said as calmly and disgustedly as she could manage.

He was leaning against the foot of her bed, resting comfortably on an elbow. His hair was tousled and he looked completely comfortable and unaffected by her demand.

“Tracy, first off,” he warned her, and she realized that there was a very real and slow-simmering fury held in leash by the control of his tone, “don’t you ever hit on me where Blake is concerned.”

“Hit on you! I don’t want anything to do with either—”

“Secondly, little girl, you were the one to loop Jamie in on this. What happened to that impassioned speech about what was done to your father? That you have to know?”

“I don’t see where you are doing me any good in the least, Leif. I may not have a plan, but yours sucks egg yolks. And I really don’t want to discuss it here and now.”

He inclined his head sl
ightly, then moved with a slow-
and-easy, controlled motion to unwind himself from the bed and onto his feet. He walked over to her, no smile on his face just speculation in his eyes. Shivers instantly began to cascade all over her; she felt more than naked, more than vulnerable.

He stopped before her, placing his hands upon her still damp shoulders. She started to shake away his touch, but grit her teeth instead. Because at her movement, the towel began to drop.

“Tracy,” he told her very softly, “come hell or high water, we are going to go through with this!”

“With this?” she cried out passionately. “With what? We’re not getting anywhere! All you’re doing is planning
a big party! What do you think is going to happen? All of a sudden someone is going to leap to their feet and yell, ‘Hey! It was me! I paid to have Jesse Kuger murdered because—’? All you’ve done, Leif, is made a mess of my life—”

“I didn’t do that for you, Tracy. You did it all by yourself.”

“Oh, you are a hopeless case! I still don’t know that you didn’t kill him. You claim you were best friends. I saw the fight that you two had; it was vicious and it could have been lethal and—”

“And it was all over the fact that you sashayed stark naked into my bedroom and my bed like a little slut just—”

His words broke off because she slapped him. He touched his cheek, eyes narrowing, then his grip came to her shoulders once again, lifting her to her toes, knocking her against him—minus the towel, alas, because she lost her hold and it fell to the floor.

Tracy gasped in a great breath of horror.

Leif broke off completely, and for several seconds they just stood there, frozen.

Frozen—and burning, Leif thought, swallowing quickly, locking his jaw. Oh, God. This wasn’t fair. Tracy. Tracy, in all her glory. So beautiful. The same. Matured. Slim and yet curved.

Naked.

And he could remember, oh, he could remember. So clearly that he could retrace each pattern his fingers had ever traversed over her. The silk of her hair, the satin of her skin, the full curve of her breasts, t
he tautness of her nipples…

The love in her eyes. The laughter. The beauty that had been—before the fall. He’d loved her.

He was still in love with her. Fascinated, enchanted. It was her beauty; it was herself. But a man, he told himself for at least the thousandth time, couldn’t stay in love for seven long years.

But if he hadn’t, this moment he had fallen all over again. She was his. He’d entered her, she’d entered him. And he had never, never escaped, and right now, it would seem the most natural thing in the world to reach out and hold her, let his trembling fingers curve over the fullness of her breasts, play upon the rose crests until they tautened at his touch and she sighed that soft whisper of hers that was like an
enticement all in itself…

She’d probably jump out of the window before she let him touch her again, he reminded himself bitterly.

And he was forgetting his whole damn point of being here, and if he didn’t move, if he didn’t speak quickly, he’d make a complete fool out of himself.

He jerked a little convulsively, digging his fingers into her shoulders, forcing his eyes to meet and remain with hers, as if nothing, nothing had ever happened.

What an idiot! If she
felt the pulse of his body…

He started up again, halfway shouting.

“Tracy! That is the truths and you know it as well as I do! God alone knows what else you’re trying to hide! I didn’t kill your father—and so help me, you know that! Tracy, damn you, don’t fight me on this—help me!”

She gasped for breath; s
he knew that she was a lobster-
ish shade of red, and she could feel all the power and heat of his body against her nudity like a torch. She discovered that she could only gasp his name, pressing nearly hysterically against his chest so that he might set her down upon her own feet once again.

“Leif—”

It was then that her door went flying open once again. And it wasn’t that she was really exposed to anyone else —Leif’s body shielded her slim form. It was just the way they looked—his body shielding her totally naked one.

“Whoops—sorry!”

She never saw him—she only knew that it had been Tiger’s voice. The door slammed again, and he was gone.

“Let me go!” Tracy strangled out.

He released her, watching her with sudden amusement easing his fury away, and he very unhurriedly went to the floor for the towel and bluntly surveyed the length of her while he too slowly handed it back.

“You do the most convenient things,” he told her pleasantly.

“Convenient!” she started to shrill, fumbling to cover herself with the towel.

“Completely,” he said agreeably. He turned around, apparently ready at last to vacate her room.

“Leif!”

He turned again, arching a brow. “Is that an invitation to stay?”

“No! But I’m telling you now—you’re trying to hang my family, and I will not let you! Maybe I don’t believe that you would have killed my father—but neither did they.”

“Your grandfather is a totally unscrupulous man, Tracy,” he said softly. “And I just might prove that to you. Are you so afraid that I’m right?”

“No. I’m afraid that you’re after something else, Leif. Oh, yes, maybe you do hope to discover who wanted my father killed. But there’s more here, too, Leif—”

“Maybe there is, Tracy.”

“What?” she shrieked.

He shook his head. “The only way you get to know is
by playing along, Tracy. And maybe, just maybe, you know already. And maybe that’s why you’re running scared.”

“Scared of what?”

He shook his head again. “I don’t trust you yet either, Tracy. Not completely. Don’t forget—I did know you as a lying little con artist.”

“Damn you—”

“Tracy, get dressed, will you? This is beginning to remind me very uncomfortably of another place and time in history. You were a con artist, but a very beautiful one. Passionate and seductive, and entirely convincing.”

“Leif! Damn you, I won’t—”

The door slammed on her words; she was alone at last.

“I won’t play your game!” she breathed furiously in his wake. “I won’t, Leif, I won’t!”

She walked over to her door and locked it, thinking that she would never be around any of them without a locked door again.

“Rude! Didn’t any of them ever learn any manners!” she muttered out loud.

She went to the closet then, quickly deciding on a sweater dress. She staunchly decided that she was going to get dressed—and take the first flight out of Kennedy, no matter where it was going.

But even as she slipped her shoes on, she knew that no determination could take her away now. Leif was after something, and she had to know what.

She sighed softly.

She also had the strangest feeling that if she tried to run, Leif would come after her—and find her this time, no matter where she went. She was part of something that she didn’t understand. She was bait for him, too.

Why? What were they trying to lure out into the open? Would she survive the promised explosion? Worse still, she thought, shivering, would she survive another bout with Leif?