Smoke and Mirrors (11 page)

A shout of surprised laughter tore loose from him. He'd never met a woman with her bravado, never found mere conversation so stimulating. He started to volley right back, but then noticed his nephew seated across the lobby. Ryan had quite an audience gathered to view his magic tricks.

"He's a cute kid," Cass commented, and her voice suddenly sounded softer, almost far-away.

Derek looked back toward her, surprised by how pale she'd become. "Yes, he is. I'd do anything for him."

If he didn't know better, he would have sworn she winced. "Kids have that effect," she said. "It's their innocence, I suppose."

Uneasiness speared through him. She'd gone from fiery to withdrawn in world record time.

He wanted to know why.

Even more, he wanted the fire back, the spark.

"Look," he said, reaching over her shoulder and taking her braid in his hands. Usually a touch brought her back to life. "Your shift's almost over. What do you say we take in a movie and pizza? I'm sure Ryan—"

"No." She said the word with absolute finality. "That's not possible."

"Sure it is," he pressed. "I haven't mentioned it to Ryan, but I'm sure he'll be up for it."

"No." She backed away from him, as though he held a weapon pointed at her heart. Her braid slipped through his fingers. "I-I'm not good with kids. I have plans."

"Plans can be changed," he pointed out. She was willing to go out with Brent, laugh with the bellman, but not have dinner with him? "I've seen the way you look at Ryan, so it can't be him you're scared of."

"The way I look at him?" Her eyes took on a glassy sheen. "And just how is that?"

Derek thought for a moment before answering. "Like you want to put your arms around him and never let go."

She went sheet white. "No," she said again. "I—I have to go."

She pivoted and started for the door, but he caught her after only three steps. He didn't know what kind of game she was playing, but he didn't like it.

Hot and cold hardly seemed her style, and his nephew was an innocent target.

"What's the matter, fearless? You barge in on a room of drunks, but an eight-year-old boy is too much for you? I thought all women had that maternal knack."

A raw cry tore from her throat, one of pain and anguish. "Damn you," she hissed, then yanked free of his grip and ran for the front door.

Derek started to charge after her, but stopped abruptly. This is what he'd been working toward, he reminded himself. His in-your-face demeanor had finally triumphed. At last he'd pushed her away.

Somewhere amidst the innuendo and stolen kisses, the game had shifted. Shadows shouldn't befall someone who was as bold as sunshine. Dark clouds shouldn't mute the mercurial light of the moon.

But with lethal accuracy, he'd achieved both.

He should be relieved, he told himself. He could focus now. He could conduct business,
then
get the hell out of town.

Instead he couldn't shake the feeling he'd just smeared black paint all over a rainbow.

* * *

Like every other afternoon, Grant Park bustled with life. Not even the bitter cold sent the hardy Chicagoans inside, nor did it wipe the smiles from the children's faces. They were there, toddlers to teenagers, smiling and laughing, having a good time. Everything seemed simple, innocent, hopeful.

But not for Cass.

Happiness was an illusion, she knew. A carrot dangled then withdrawn.

She swiped hard at the tears falling down her face. She hated the thoughts ripping through her, hated the bitterness she couldn't squash. She'd not always been so cynical. Once, she'd believed in rainbows and white picket fences.

Once, she'd believed in happily ever after.

That had all changed in a devastating heartbeat, five years before. Christmas. A time of hope and renewal, when a blanket of snow covered the land like innocence. Despite the chill outside, warmth had seeped through Cass as she meandered through her house, a four-month-old Barney bounding at her heels. A thousand dreams had drifted before her that night, been trampled by a sharp knock at her door.

Cass wrapped her arms around her shivering body, but the gesture did nothing to fend off the chill. Nothing could.
Not a coat, a furnace, not even
a sudden heat wave. The wound was too deep, festering with grief and guilt, pain and longing. Familiar with the routine, she hugged herself tighter and began to rock. But she couldn't hold it in this time. Not the pain, the rage. The grief. They overflowed in the form of hot tears and slid down her cheeks.

Around her, life seemed so vital. New mothers pushed baby buggies while veteran mothers proudly watched their kids play soccer and football. She closed her eyes against the scorching reminders, yet that only gave way to memories. Of smiles and laughter and scraped knees, wet sloppy kisses, shouted I-love-yous.

The vortex spiraled closer, deeper, more inescapable and more inviting than ever. She could lose herself there, she knew, as she had before. There was peace there, peace and comfort and blessed numbness. All she had to do was—

"Good God, you're freezing cold." The harsh voice blasted through her, simultaneous with heavy fabric descending around her shoulders.

Run,
came a warning from some far corner of her mind. The cop.

Let go,
came a shaky, dormant whisper from deep inside. The woman.

Numb, Cass drew a deep breath. The cold air stung her lungs, but she found comfort in that, comfort in feeling something other than grief. Other sensations slowly dawned, the warmth seeping through her, the reassuring hands running along her arms, the heat of the breath playing against the side of her face. The rock-solid body behind her.

Mansfield.

Instinctively she relaxed against him, knowing she could lose herself there in his arms, too.

The hands ceased caressing her arms and slid around her, pulling her tautly against a solid male body. He held her there, infusing her with his heat. Not until she began to thaw did she realize how the wind had been biting into her. She hadn't felt a thing. The grief had been too strong.

She felt it all now, the sharp wind, the sheltering embrace. She noticed other things, too, like the texture of the wool coat draped around her body, the lingering warmth, the way it dwarfed her body, the way it smelled soothingly of sandalwood and smoke.

She started trembling, harder than before. And that was all it took. The arms loosened enough for him to turn her toward him, tilt her face to his.

Whatever he saw there, it had him swearing under his breath and crushing her against his chest.

She lost it then. All restraint, control, all pride. Tears became sobs. Unable, unwilling to stop, Cass wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his chest, let the tide carry her away.

So long since she'd indulged in the grief, longer still since she'd let anyone see her crumble like shattered glass. Except Barney—he was always there, lapping at her tears, howling, desperate to ease her distress. But as much as he comforted, nothing compared with the security of Derek's embrace. In his arms she didn't feel so alone, so lost. She felt connected and right. She felt safe.

Which was the last thing she was.

An eternity later, when the tears ran dry, he pulled back and tilted her face toward his. "Tell me, fearless. Tell me what broke your heart."

The nickname helped her find some semblance of balance. No escaping the truth now, no walking away from it. What they'd just shared was too raw, too elemental. Too real. He would recognize a lie in a heartbeat.

Derek stood strong and steady, staring down at her with those devastating eyes of his. Yet they weren't telling her to go to hell, as they
did most
people, nor were they challenging her to an unspoken contest. They were simply focused on her, holding nothing but compassion and concern. Strength.

Cass squeezed her eyes shut and drew a deep breath, then released it and gazed up at him.

"I had a son," she rasped. The words scraped on their way out. "A beautiful little boy."

Surprise registered in Derek's eyes. Shock. Dread.

Whatever else he'd found out about her, he hadn't found out about Jake. "Had?"

"Had." For five years Cass had held the pain inside, refusing to talk about it with anyone, not her family, not Gray. They hovered, ready to dash in if she tripped up and lost it. Which she never had. Until now. Until Derek's nephew had bounded across the Stirling Manor lobby and thrown himself into his uncle's arms.

"He would've been nine this year," she managed, her voice soft and pained. She didn't try to hide it, would not insult Jake by doing so. "Just like Ryan."

Derek lifted a hand to her cheek. He began a slow stroking motion, one that burned as much as it soothed.

"That's why you always stare at Ryan like he's an apparition," he murmured in a low, gravely voice. "And that's why you steer clear of him."

The bleak insight surprised her. "Every time Ryan smiles or laughs or just looks at me, I see Jake all over again." She could see him now, blue eyes glowing, as he'd said goodbye to her for the very last time. She could have stopped him. Just a word, a smile, any indication she'd only been teasing.

But she hadn't said a word. She'd stood there and waved goodbye, grinning like a hyena and laughing at her two boys.

Cass swallowed, needing to spew the rest of the truth. "Every time I remember Jake, the image of my sweet little boy is superimposed by—"

The horror of the truth blocked the words.

Derek's hand stifled against her cheek. "By what?"

"The coffin." The wind whipped sharper, in rebellion to the truth. "He was just lying there, so peaceful, in his Sunday best. I kept thinking he'd wake up at any
minute, that
I'd … that I'd see the mischief spark into his eyes one more time." The tears overflowed again, slipping down her cheeks and onto his hands. "But I didn't."

Derek swore under his breath and pulled Cass back against his chest. Her pain stabbed through him, as cutting and destructive as though she'd jabbed a screwdriver into his gut. Instinct had brought him to the park, the same instinct that led him to take her into his arms when he'd discovered her standing there. Never had he seen anyone so desolate. It was worse than the first time he'd found her here, the time he'd found the strength to walk away.

No power on earth could make him walk away this time. Not now.

What remained of the sun quickly vanished behind a swell of clouds. Without its warmth, a chill permeated the park, rendering it too cold for habitation. Whereas minutes before children had raced across the crisp brown grass, now only a few stragglers remained.

Derek tightened his hold on Cass. No way in hell would he let her slip away, not when she felt so soft and right in his arms. Not when she needed him.

He eased back and tilted her face to his.

Tears still glistened in her amazing eyes, but he found something else this time, something that tightened around his heart like a straitjacket. Yearning. A yearning so pure, so intense, it almost felled him then and there.

He smiled, not the wolfish one he'd perfected years ago, but one of sincerity and compassion. It felt awkward and rusty, but undeniably right.

"You shouldn't be alone tonight, Cass. I'm taking you home."

* * *

It was the kind of neighborhood Norman Rockwell would have
loved,
all manicured lawns and cozy little houses. The grass was brown and the trees naked, but Derek could easily imagine the vitality they exuded during the spring and summer months.

Driveways snaked up between houses, some of them cluttered with bicycles and skateboards, a few dotted by stoic basketball hoops, most of them spouting family sedans, station wagons, and minivans. Smoke curled up from almost every chimney, filling the bitterly cold night with the enticing aroma of home. Derek recognized it immediately, and his heart constricted for the loss of something he'd never had.

Cass's house sat dark and lonely. No bicycles lay waiting in the driveway, no basketball hoop standing, no family sedan waiting in the driveway.

I had a son.

And this had been his home. Why Cass still lived there, by herself, in the midst of so many gut-wrenching memories, Derek couldn't imagine. He'd always found it smarter to pack up and walk away from pain, not leave himself smack in the middle of it. That's why he'd joined the merchant marines, why he'd spent the past six months in
Scotland
.

Obviously, Cass didn't share his philosophy. All at once he found himself dreading going inside, but Cass was already closing the passenger door and making her way to the back door. He followed, not wanting her to go inside alone.

"Cass, wait."

Her spine stiffened, but she continued toward the door, key in hand. So stoic. Most women he knew loved to wallow in their heartache, using it as a convenient tool for gaining sympathy. Not Cassandra LeBlanc.

He caught up with her just as she slid a key into the lock. As soon as it turned, he nudged his way in front of her.