White Lies Read online

  Silently and at length, he cursed the Man and Frank for everything he could think of, ranging back over several generations of their ancestors. Not Frank so much, because he could see the Man’s fine hand in this. Nobody had a mind as intricate as Kell Sabin’s; that was how he’d gotten to be the Man. They had probably—no, almost certainly—saved his life, assuming there was a mole passing information to Piggot, but they weren’t the ones who had to tell Jay he wasn’t her ex-husband. They didn’t have to tell her that the man she loved was dead and she’d been sleeping with a stranger.

  What would she say? More important, what would she do?

  He couldn’t lose her. He could stand anything except that. He expected, and could handle, shock, anger, even fear, but he couldn’t stand it if she looked at him with hate in those deep blue eyes. He couldn’t let her walk away from him.

  Immediately he began examining the situation from all angles, looking for a solution, but even as he looked, he knew there wasn’t one. He couldn’t marry her using Crossfield’s name, because such a marriage wouldn’t be legal, and besides, he’d be damned if he’d let her carry another man’s name. He would have to tell her.

  His family probably thought he was dead, and there was no way he could let them know he wasn’t without jeopardizing them. If his cover was blown, his family would be at risk if Piggot ever found out he hadn’t died as planned. The way things stood now, he’d have a hard time convincing his family of his identity anyway; he neither looked nor sounded the same. His hands were tied until Piggot was caught; then he supposed Sabin would arrange for his family to be notified that a “mistake” had been made in identification, and due to extenuating and unusual circumstances, et cetera, the error had only now been corrected. The Man probably already had the telegram composed in his mind, letter-perfect.

  His family would be taken care of; they would be glad to get him back despite the way he looked, or the fact that his voice was ruined.

  Jay was the victim. They’d used her as the ultimate cover. How in hell could she ever forgive that?

  JAY DOZED, FINALLY awakening as they turned onto the track to the meadow. “We’re home,” she murmured, pushing her hair back. She turned her head to smile at him. “At last.”

  He was tense again, surveying every detail of the track. There was new snow on the ground, filling the tire tracks they had made the day before and also obliterating any other trail that could have been made after they’d left. All his training was coming into play, and Lucas Stone didn’t take chances. Unnecessary chances, that was. There had been more times than one when he’d laid his life on the line, but only because he’d had no other choice. Taking chances with Jay’s life, however, was something else.

  As usual, Jay picked up on his tension and fell silent, a worried frown puckering her brow.

  The snow surrounding the cabin was pristine, but when Lucas parked the Jeep he put a detaining hand on Jay’s arm. “Stay here until I check the cabin,” he said tersely, drawing a pistol from beneath his jacket and getting out without looking at her. His eyes were never still, darting from window to window, examining every inch of ground, looking for the betraying flutter of a curtain.

  Jay was frozen in place. This man, moving like a cat toward the back door, was the man she loved, and he was a predator, a hunter. He was innately cautious, as graceful as the wind as he flattened his back against the wall and eased his left hand toward the doorknob, while the pistol was held ready in his right. Soundlessly he opened the door and disappeared within. Two minutes later he stood in the back door again, relaxed. “Come on in,” he said, and walked back to the Jeep to get their bags.

  It irritated her that he’d frightened her for nothing; it reminded her of the morning when he’d tracked her in the snow. “Don’t do that to me,” she snapped as she threw open the door and slid out. The snow crunched under her boots.

  “Do what?”

  “Scare me like that.”

  “Scaring you is a hell of a lot better than walking into an ambush,” he replied evenly.

  “How could anyone know we’re up here, and why should anyone care?”

  “Frank thinks someone would care, or they wouldn’t have taken the trouble to hide us.”

  She climbed the steps and knocked the snow off her boots before entering the cabin. It was cold but not icy, because they had left the backup heat system on. She took the bags from him and carried them into the bedroom to begin unpacking while he built a fire.

  Lucas watched the yellow flames lick at the logs he’d placed on the grate, slowly catching and engulfing the wood. He couldn’t tell her, not yet. This might be the only time he’d ever have with her, an indefinite period of grace while Sabin’s men hunted Piggot. He’d use that time to bind her to him so tightly that he could hold her even after she found out his real name, and that Steve Crossfield was dead. She had told him she loved him, but it was Steve Crossfield she’d been saying the words to, and, oddly, it had been Steve Crossfield hearing them. He was Lucas Stone, and he wanted her for himself.

  His need was fast and urgent, like a fire low in his belly. He walked into the bedroom and watched her for a moment as she bent over to remove her boots and socks. She was as slim as a reed, her skin silky soft. He caught her around the waist and tumbled her on the bed, immediately following her down to pin her to the mattress with his weight.

  She laughed, her blue eyes no longer filled with irritation. “The caveman approach must be fashionable this year,” she teased.

  He couldn’t smile in return. He wanted her too badly, needed to hear her say the words to him, not to a ghost. The yellow glitter was in his eyes as he stripped her and surveyed her nakedness. Her nipples were puckered from the chilly air, her breasts standing up round and firm. He circled them with his hands and lifted the tight nipples to his mouth, sucking at each of them in turn. She gasped, and her back arched. Her responsiveness did it to him every time, shattered his control and made him as hot and eager for her as a teenager. He could barely tolerate taking his hands off her long enough to hastily tear at his own clothing and throw it to the side.

  “Tell me you love me,” he said as he adjusted her slim legs around his hips and began entering her.

  Jay squirmed voluptuously, rubbing her breasts against the hairy planes of his chest. “I love you.” Her hands dug into his back as she felt the muscles ripple. “I love you.” Slowly he pushed and slowly she accepted him, her pleasure already rising to an urgent pitch. Her body was so attuned to him that when he began the rhythmic thrust and withdrawal of lovemaking her sensual tension swiftly reached a crescendo. He held her until her shudders stilled, then found the rhythm anew.

  “Again,” he whispered.

  She wanted to cry out his name, but couldn’t. She couldn’t call him Steve now, and she didn’t dare call him Lucas. She had to bite her lips to keep his name unsaid, and a moan rose in her throat. He controlled her, his slow, deep thrusts taking her only so high and refusing to let her go any higher. She was on fire, her nerve endings exploding with pleasure.

  “Tell me you love me.” His voice was gravelly, the strain apparent on his face as he kept his movements agonizingly slow.

  “I love you.”

  “Again.”

  “I love you.”

  He wanted to hear his name, but that was denied him. Sometime in the future, when this was all over, he promised himself that he would have her as he was having her now, and she would scream his name. He had to be content with knowing it himself, and with the way her eyes locked with his as she whispered the words over and over again, until his control broke and sweet madness claimed them both.

  He couldn’t get enough of her, ever, and knowing that he might lose her was intolerable. Physical bonds were the most basic, and instinctively he used them to strengthen the link between them. He would make himself a part of her until his name no longer mattered.

  TWO NIGHTS LATER, Frank had just gotten into bed when the telephone rang. With a