Free Honest illusions(BookZZ.org) by Nora [Roberts Nora] Roberts Page B

been set with bowls and plates and brightly checked linen
    napkins. Still carrying Roxanne, LeClerc reached inside a cupboard for another place setting.
    “Gumbo.” Lily sighed as she slipped an arm around Luke’s shoulders. She wanted badly to welcome him home. “No one cooks like Jean, honey. Just wait until you taste. If I don’t watch myself, I’ll be popping right out of my costume within a week.”
    “Tonight you don’t worry, you just eat.” LeClerc set Roxanne down in a chair, then picking up two thick cloths, hefted the pot from the stove.
    Luke watched, fascinated, as the tattoo which wound from bony wrist to bony shoulder rippled and danced. They were snakes, Luke realized. A nest of vipers in faded blue and red that twisted and twined over the leathered skin.
    They all but hissed.
    “You like?” LeClerc’s eyes were merry as he studied Luke. “Snakes, they are quick, and cunning.
    Good luck for me.” He made a sibilant sound as he darted his arm toward Luke. “Snakes won’t do for you, boy.” He chuckled to himself as he dished up the thick, spicy gumbo. “You bring me a young wolf, Max. He’ll bite first.”
    “A wolf needs a pack.” Casually, Max lifted a basket from the table and uncovered a golden loaf of bread. He offered the basket to Lily.
    “What am I, LeClerc?” Wide awake now, Roxanne was spooning up her gumbo.
    “You.” The leathery, lined face softened as he passed his wide, gnarled hand over her hair. “My little kitten.”
    “Just a kitten?”
    “Ah, but kittens are clever and brave and wise, and some grow to be tigers.”
    That brightened her look. She slanted her eyes toward Luke. “Tigers can eat wolves.”

    When the moon had begun to set, and even the echoes of music from Bourbon Street had faded, LeClerc sat on a marble bench in the courtyard, surrounded by the flowers he loved.
    It was Max who owned the house, but it was Jean LeClerc who had made it a home. He’d taken long-ago memories of a cabin in the bayou, and flowers that had run wild, blossoms his mother had tamed in plastic pots, the smells of potpourri and spice, of colored cloths and polished woods, and had mixed them together with Max’s need for elegance.
    LeClerc would have been happy back in the swamp, but he wouldn’t have been happy without Max, and the family Max had given him.
    He smoked his pipe and listened to the night. The faintest breeze rustled the magnolia leaves, stirring the heat and promising rain much as a teasing woman might promise a kiss. The dampness that was gradually wearing away the brick and stone of the French Quarter hung like a mist in the air.
    He didn’t see Max approach, nor did he hear him, though his hearing was keen. He felt him.
    “So.” He puffed on his pipe and studied the stars. “What will you do with the boy?”
    “Give him a chance,” Max said. “The same as you gave me a lifetime ago.”
    “His eyes want to swallow everything he sees. Such appetites can be difficult.”
    “So I’ll feed him.” There was a hint of impatience in Max’s voice as he joined LeClerc on the bench.
    “Would you have me send him away?”
    “It’s too late to be practical now that your heart’s involved.”
    “Lily’s attached,” Max began and was cut off by LeClerc’s rumbling laugh.
    “Only Lily, mon ami?”
    Max took time to light a cigar, draw in smoke. “I’m fond of the boy.”
    “You love the boy,” LeClerc corrected. “And how could it be otherwise, when you look and see yourself? He makes you remember.”
    It was difficult to admit it. Max knew when you loved you could also hurt and be hurt. “He makes me remember not to forget. If you forget all the pain, the loneliness, the despair, you forget to be grateful for the lack of it. You taught me that, Jean.”
    “So good, my student is now the master. This contents me.” LeClerc turned his head and his dark eyes gleamed through the shadows. “Will it content you when he outreaches what you