To Talia, it didn’t seem worth it. Especially when she met Aaron’s family. The scowling woman wasn’t his mother. She was his disapproving aunt. His mother was more reserved, offering a proper hello. By no means was she rude. But she didn’t make Talia feel welcome, either.

Her name was Roberta, and she looked about sixty, with mildly graying hair, strong features and pale lipstick. At thirty-nine, Aaron was an only child. He’d given Roberta a grandson she adored, but he hadn’t been a good husband to the boy’s mother. Talia could tell that Roberta wasn’t pleased about that. She’d wanted Aaron and Jeannie to stay together forever.

A short while later, Roberta and her sister engaged in a conversation in their Native tongue, and Talia assumed this was commonplace. That most of the people at the party spoke some sort of Indian language.

Aaron sat closer to Talia than he should have. His shoulder kept bumping hers, and she wanted to push him away. He was bandying around Native words, too. Something she’d never heard him do before.

By the time all of the entrées were served by Jeannie and the women in her family, the kids had been rounded up to eat. Aaron led the group in a blessing of thanks, and Talia remained still. Why hadn’t he ever prayed in front of her before? Why hadn’t he ever blessed the food just the two of them had shared?

Talia picked up her fork. The meal was a combination of Mexican and Native dishes. She ate tamales and enchiladas, with beans and rice on the side. She was curious to try the Native food, but she decided not to indulge, not with Aaron sitting so deliberately close, the heat from his body radiating next to hers.

Finally, Thunder and Carrie arrived. He held his pregnant fiancée’s hand and apologized for being late. Then he greeted everyone individually, hugging his relatives and scooping the birthday boy into his arms.

Danny laughed, and Thunder winked at Carrie. They looked incredible together, Talia thought. It didn’t matter that she was Anglo. Thunder had always dated non-Native women. But his side of the family was open to mixed relationships. His parents, who lived in Arizona, loved Carrie as if she were their own. Of course, Carrie had a miniscule amount of Cherokee blood. But she wasn’t registered with the tribe, so to most Indians, that made her white.

Thunder and Carrie sat at the same table as Aaron and Talia, for which Talia was grateful. Carrie was her ally, a newfound friend. They’d gotten close while the other woman had been struggling to reunite with Thunder.

“It’s good to see you,” Carrie said, her highlighted hair blowing softly around her face.

“You, too.” Talia tried not to let down her guard, to make everyone aware of how much Carrie’s presence meant to her. But she sensed that Carrie knew. They’d confided in each other about the men they loved.

Or used to love, Talia corrected in regard to herself. She wouldn’t dare feel that way about Aaron again.

After the meal, the gathering turned traditional. Talia was right; the blanketed object was a drum. Aaron uncovered it, and he and a group of men sat in a circle around it and burned a fragrant herb.

A burning bundle of the same herb was passed among the guests, too. “It’s sage,” Carrie whispered to her. “You can purify yourself with it. Or you can choose not to. No one will be offended.”

“Because I’m not one of them?” she whispered back.

Carrie gave her a sympathetic look, and when the sage came Talia’s way, she didn’t fan the smoke over herself the way everyone else did. She was too uncomfortable to try to fit in, so she passed the small, yarn-wrapped bundle to the person beside her without participating. Aaron chose that moment to glance up at her. Talia held his gaze for as long as she could. And then he blinked and looked away, as though he shouldn’t have been watching her from his sacred spot at the drum.

Soon the men were singing. They started with “Happy Birthday,” honoring Aaron’s young son with a thumping beat. He grinned like the sweet child he was.

Talia’s heart reacted with a maternal ache. She used to imagine having children with Aaron. Danny, with his silky dark hair and warm brown eyes, should have been their little boy.

The songs that followed sounded like chants. Most of the partygoers danced, moving in a rhythmic circle. Thunder and Carrie offered to teach Talia the steps, but she declined, concerned about drawing attention to herself.

When the singers took a break, the cake was served and Danny opened his gifts, with friends and family gathered around him. He thanked everyone, going from guest to guest, doling out hugs. When he embraced Talia, she wanted to cry. But she forced a smile instead, keeping her ache deep inside.

After the singers, including Aaron, returned to the drum, Talia decided it was time for her to leave. She said goodbye to Thunder, Carrie and Danny, then she thanked Jeannie and Jim for their hospitality. They were gracious, and their kindness made the ache inside her grow even deeper.

When she walked away, she wondered if Aaron was watching her again. She wasn’t about to turn around and find out.

Talia left without looking back, even though the sound of his voice and the tribal song he was singing stayed with her.

Long after she went to bed that night.

Aaron didn’t bother to knock. On Monday morning, he walked straight into Talia’s office, knowing he would tick her off.

With the phone pressed to her ear, she looked up and glared at him. He ignored her polarized expression and sat in a chair that faced her desk. Her office wasn’t as upscale as his, but she’d added feminine touches. Pretty dust collectors, he supposed. He’d always been aroused by the ladylike things she kept around. The gun she carried, a pearl-handled pistol, turned him on but good. Not that it should. The snub-nosed .38 was a weapon she would probably like to use on him.

Aaron cringed at the thought, imagining her aiming it at his fly.

She finished her call, and he slid a paper plate covered in aluminum foil toward her.

“What’s that?”

“Open it and find out.”

“Fine.” She lifted a corner of the foil. “Indian food?”

“Fry bread left over from the party.”

“If I didn’t eat it there, why would I want it now?”

He tore off a chunk and tried to feed it to her. The powdered sugar had caramelized. “Because it’s greasy and good.”

She waved him away. “Knock it off.”

“And you wonder why I didn’t marry you. My aunt thought you were a bitch.”

“Really?” That got her goat. “Well, I thought she was a bitch, too.”

Sometimes she was, but he kept that thought to himself. He ate the piece of fry bread Talia had refused, and she shifted in her chair.

“What did your mother think of me?” she asked.

“She didn’t trust you. You’re too La Femme Nikita for her tastes.”

She flipped her hair. “I try.”

“Don’t I know.” He wanted to make breathless love to her. Today she was wearing a blouse that rivaled the cobalt color of her eyes, and her skirt exposed just the right amount of thigh.

“Why did you invite me, Aaron?”

“To the party?” He caught a glimpse of lacy camisole beneath her blouse. “Because you complained about not meeting my family.”

“And now I have.”

“Yes, you have.” He covered the fry bread. “And it didn’t make a difference, did it?”

“Which means what? That you’re off the hook for hurting me? Nice try, but life doesn’t work that way.”

He smiled, keeping it thin and sharp. “You’re not over me, Tai.”

Her skin almost paled. “You wish.”

He argued his point. “If you didn’t care about me, you wouldn’t be holding a grudge.” He picked up a glass figurine from her desk. It was shaped like a butterfly. He traced each fragile wing, memories assaulting his mind. Talia had a tattoo of a butterfly on her bikini line. He’d been with her when she’d gotten it.

“Put that down,” she told him.

“Why?”

“So you don’t break it.”

“I’m being careful.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

Part of him wanted to shatter the butterfly. Talia hadn’t made the slightest effort at the party. She hadn’t even tried to make a favorable impression.

He set down the figurine. If he didn’t, he would break it, snap its delicate wings in half. “Where’s the Gamblers Anonymous list?”

She opened a file on her computer. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Do what? Change the subject without warning you? Would you rather talk about how not-over-me you are?”

“Go to hell.”

As if he hadn’t been there already. After Talia walked out on him, he’d saddled up with Satan too many times to count.

She activated her printer and handed him a copy of the Nevada GA list she’d compiled. “Happy?”

“Are you?” he shot back.

“Ecstatic,” she droned. “I can’t wait to become your phony wife.”

“We’re going to sleep in the same room.”

“Over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged.”

“How? Are you going to contract Julia and Miriam’s hit man to do me in?”

“If only I could. We don’t even know who he is.” Suddenly he thought about the person who’d asked them to help the FBI find Julia and Miriam. Thunder’s brother, Dylan, was the concerned party. Dylan had inadvertently rescued Julia from a kidnapping just days before she and her mother had disappeared, and now he was tangled up in their lives. Dylan even felt guilty about the assassin, but that was a long story.

“I don’t need to hire someone to take you out,” Talia said. “I could do it myself.”

“Go ahead and try,” he retorted. “Better yet, you can do it while we’re sharing a room.”

“I’m serious about that, Aaron.”

“So am I. It’s part of our cover.”

“Bull.”

“If we’re going to pull this off, if we’re going to become a married couple, then we have to behave accordingly, to get into character, to make our cover believable.” He glanced at the fragile butterfly, itching to touch it again, to threaten to break it. “We’re not going to blow this, Talia. We’re not going to put our lives on the line.”

She gave him a cynical look. “No matter how much we want to waste each other?”

Touché, Aaron thought, recalling her pearl-handled gun. “We’re going to pose as a couple on vacation in Nevada. I’ve been working on the details.” He paused, explained further. “I’ve got a makeup man on the payroll who will teach us how to change the way we look, just to be sure that the assassin doesn’t recognize us. We don’t know who he is, but he might know who we are.”

“I don’t mind changing my appearance.”

He took an unabashed gander at her. “I’m still deciding on the color of your hair.”

“Red,” she told him.

“We’ll see.” He wanted to tug her head back, to use her hair to rein her in. “SPEC will provide us with new identities, but I’ll make sure the feds approve them.”

“How long will we be gone?”

“Two weeks. Three if we need more time. I’ll make the travel arrangements.”

“I’ll be there with wedding bells on.” She fluttered her lashes, then mocked him with a breathy seduction. “I can’t wait to shack up with my husband.”

He didn’t appreciate her rotten-tempered wit. He stood and left her office, wanting to choke himself with his tie, right before he strangled her with it.

There was nothing funny about how badly he wanted to check into a hotel with her.

Nothing at all.

Three

Less than a week later, Talia sat next to Aaron on a flight that took them to Reno. Silent, she sipped apple juice and picked at the snack the flight attendant had distributed.

As specified, Aaron had created their cover, right down to her auburn wig. The chin-length hairstyle he’d chosen for her was straight and sleek. The designer clothes he’d suggested were from last season’s collection. He’d told her that she was going to play an elegant thirtysomething wife who stood by the man she’d married. Or that was the impression she gave. In truth, she was struggling to hold her emotions together, to remain loyal to a gambler who maxed out their credit cards, drove a car that was beyond his means and insisted on the finest foods and best hotels.

A pretentious Californian, she thought.

The trip to Nevada was the husband’s idea. He wanted to hit Reno, Carson City, Las Vegas and Laughlin, sightseeing in between. But his wife had other ideas. Once their vacation was under way, she was going to threaten him with divorce if he didn’t get some help.

According to Aaron, they loved each other. Deeply, desperately. So her threat was going to work. But not without a struggle. He didn’t want to lose his wife, but he didn’t want to admit that he was a compulsive gambler. That he was ill. That his actions were destroying their lives.

Talia glanced at Aaron. He’d changed his appearance, too. He’d added threads of gray to his hair, making him seem a bit older than he was. He’d changed the color of his eyes with greenish-gold contacts and dusted his skin with an amber-hued bronzer, softening the deep, dark tone. Like Talia, his features had been altered with carefully applied prosthetics. Although he still carried an ethnic flair, his heritage wasn’t easy to define. To her, he looked like a suntanned American with European roots.

He toasted her with his cocktail, and Talia wished that his non-Native genetics were real. If his culture hadn’t been an issue, he would have married her all those years ago. Their relationship would have worked.

After their plane touched down in Reno, Aaron rented a luxury car, which they would use on the remainder of their trip.

His new name was Andy Torres, and hers was Tina. They lived in Los Angeles, and he was a real estate agent who gambled away most of his commissions, chasing his dream to win big and maintain the lifestyle he craved. She ran a successful Internet business, but his losses were cutting into her hard-earned endeavors and putting them deeper in debt.

Once they arrived at the Reno hotel, Talia’s nerves kicked in. She was going to spend the next two to three weeks posing as Aaron’s wife, sharing rooms with him at night, waking up each morning with the shower running, watching him emerge with a towel wrapped around his waist.

This was too close for comfort, she thought. A job she should have refused. But she wanted to find Julia and her mother. She wanted to help them survive, to turn them over to the FBI for safekeeping.

Julia and Miriam didn’t know a hit man had been contracted to kill them. Originally Julia had been kidnapped as a threat, as a means to force Miriam into paying her interest-bearing debt. Only Miriam hadn’t complied. After Julia was rescued, she and her daughter had run away.

Then came the hired assassin.

Aaron handed Talia a key card. “We’re on the fourth floor. Poolside.”

She merely nodded. The hotel was big and brightly lit, with a maze of slot machines and gaming tables at its disposal.

Her husband, as she was forcing herself to think of him for the sake of their cover, had an anxious gleam in his eye. He looked like the gambler he was supposed to be.

But he wasn’t, of course. He was the former lover who’d yanked out her heart, who was reaching for her hand while the busy bellhop tagged their luggage.

She wanted to tell him to leave her alone, but Tina, the wife she was portraying, wouldn’t cause a scene in public. So she let him hold her hand.

In the crowded elevator, he lifted it to his lips, brushing it with a barely there kiss.

Gallant, sexy.

Her entire body went warm.

When he smiled, she leaned into his ear and called him a jerk. He kept smiling, as though she’d just whispered something soft and sweet.

Once they were alone in the room, she ripped her hand from his.

“Don’t get testy,” he said, looking tall and tanned and much too smug.

“Then don’t get so affectionate.” She fought the sensual chill he’d given her. “Andy doesn’t need to be all over his wife.”

“Did I tell you that Tina and Andy have a great sex life?” He sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the bellhop. “After they fight, they make love.”

“Like we used to?” The solitary bed was a problem, she thought. A major obstacle. “I’ll be giving you a pillow and a blanket, and you’ll be sleeping on the floor, Romeo.”

“No way, Juliet. I’m going to—”

A knock sounded at the door, and Aaron quit talking and answered the summons, allowing the bellhop to enter. He tipped the young man generously, playing his Andy Torres part with ease. Andy wouldn’t let anyone at the hotel call him cheap. He wanted the employees to think he was rich.

After the bellhop left, he turned to Talia. “Change into a pretty dress, and we’ll haunt the casino. And after I win some money, I’ll take you out for a candlelit dinner.”

“We’re not here to play.”

“Andy is.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Andy is going to lose his shirt.”

“Not tonight. Tonight he feels lucky. Besides, Aaron is a hell of a craps player.”

“I’m not interested in a candlelit dinner.”

“Yeah, but Tina is. She needs to be close to Andy. She needs to pretend their lives are normal before she threatens to divorce him.”

“I’m looking forward to that part. I can’t wait to burst Andy’s bubble.”

“We can fake a fight tomorrow.” Aaron unzipped Talia’s suitcase and removed a black dress that was stitched in silver, then tossed it to her. “Now be a good girl and get dolled up for your husband. He’s going to put on some nice duds, too.”

Before he stripped in front of her, she headed for the bathroom to get away from him and slip on her dress, knowing that Andy was going to romance his wife this evening.

And Talia was going to suffer for it.

Aaron was a hell of a craps player. Either that or Talia was his lucky charm. Every time it was his turn to roll the dice, he asked her to blow on them. It was cheesy, she thought. But it was working.

They’d been in the casino for hours, and he was racking up a stack of chips. She didn’t understand the game, not completely. But it was thrilling to watch him win.

“I told you,” he said, dropping a hundred-dollar chip down the front of her dress, where a scooped neckline revealed a hint of cleavage.

Stunned, she felt the cool metal object fall between her breasts and settle in her bra. “A husband shouldn’t do that to his wife.”

“Even if he’s married to Lady Luck?” He pulled her tight against him. Then he kissed her, deep and slow and hot.

She nearly stumbled, even in the medium-heeled pumps she wore. There they were, standing at the craps table, his tongue coaching hers. Suddenly she couldn’t think straight. She had no idea what Tina was supposed to do. So she let her husband make a sexual spectacle of her, with other male players cheering him on.

Andy Torres knew exactly what he was doing. Or was it Aaron Trueno? The lines were blurring between real life and the roles they were playing.

He tasted like the whiskey sour he’d drunk, like the intoxication that spilled through her blood.

When he let her go, she knew she was in trouble. That he would con his way into her bed.

But not into her pants, she decided, struggling to come to her senses. “You promised me dinner.”

“Now? While I’m winning?”

“Yes.” Anything to get him away from the table, from the seduction that was ringing in her ears.

“Women.” He laughed, playing his part to perfection. Then he leaned toward her and whispered, “That was some blow job. On the dice,” he added, much too softly.

She wanted to punish him, to put him in his place, but she couldn’t think of a sharp-tongued reply.

He waited for her to respond, and when she didn’t, he touched her cheek. “I love you, Tina.”

Talia, she thought, her brain horribly befuddled. My name is Talia.

He led her through the casino and into a seafood restaurant on the lobby floor, where he gave the hostess their name and they waited to be seated.

“You’re not playing fair,” she said.

“Because I’m good at what I do?”

“Yes.” The pain of pretending to be his wife hit her like a fist. She even clenched her stomach to sustain the impact. “I shouldn’t have taken this trip with you.”

“It’s too late now.” He rubbed his thumb over the showy diamond she wore, a wedding ring that didn’t really belong to her.

She hated that he was staying in character, not missing a beat. Yet he’d managed to speak between the lines, too. To say what he meant.

Everything except the I love you part.

The hostess called their phony last name, and they were escorted to a dimly lit corner. Aaron sat beside her in the cozy booth, and she looked into the greenish-gold color of his eyes, the contact lenses that helped change his appearance.

He studied the changes in her, as well, touching the ends of her hair, treating her wig as though it were real.

“I used to date a blonde who looked a lot like you,” he said.

“Then maybe you should have married her.”

“She wasn’t lucky for me.”

“Neither am I.”

He reached down the front of her dress and removed the hundred-dollar chip. “Sure you are.”

“It was a fluke.” Her pulse picked up speed. “I’m not going to blow on the dice again.”

He smiled, grazing her with the metal token. “Then what are you going to blow?”

“My temper,” she told him, wishing he wasn’t so appealing. The candlelight he’d promised was flickering across his skin.

He continued to smile, taking the position of power. “Redheads are supposed to be fiery.”

“And blondes are dumb?”

“Not the blonde I knew. She was as sharp as a machete.”

“Did she cut you?” she asked, hoping he would say yes.

His smile fell. “Yeah, she sliced me open. Right here.” He indicated his heart. “Where it hurts.”

Good for her, she thought. For me.

Their waitress arrived to take their orders, but they’d forgotten to look at their menus.

“Will you give us a minute?” Aaron asked. His hand was still covering his heart. “We got a little lost. In each other,” he added, making Talia’s pulse pick up speed again.

Now she knew why Tina was supposed to love him.

Their server left, and by the time she returned, Aaron was ready for another whiskey sour. Talia decided to have one, too. To relive the flavor of his kiss. For Tina.

For the woman who would be threatening to divorce him.

They ordered the same meal, choosing the special, a seafood combination that included poached salmon and baked oysters. When their platters arrived, she adjusted the linen napkin on her lap.

He caught her gaze, looking at her over the rim of his glass. “Do you think they’re really an aphrodisiac?”

She knew he meant the oysters. “No.” And now she wished she’d ordered something else. She didn’t want to talk about foods that made people sexual.

“Too bad.” He finished his drink. “Of course you could be wrong.”

“I’m not.”

“You won’t know until after you eat them.”

“I’ve eaten them before.”

“Not while you’ve been sitting so close to me.”

He brushed her arm, then reached for his fork, leaving her staring at the oysters on her plate. She wasn’t about to put them in her mouth.

“Afraid?” he asked.

Terrified, she thought.

And it only got worse when dinner ended and they went upstairs to their room, where he locked the door.

And waited for her to get ready for bed.