Haven of Swans

by Colleen Coble

  She curled her hands into fists. “How did you find me if you didn’t know I was here?”

  “I heard about the body you found yesterday. It fits Gideon’s MO. I came to check it out.”

  She shivered. A headache began to gnaw at her left temple. She backed away from him.

  He glanced past her. “I want to see Keri. Let me protect you both.”

  “Just like you protected us last time?” She should have felt triumph when he flinched, but a hollowness settled in her bones. She was prodding him, and she didn’t even know why. She realized Kade and Bree had vanished, probably to give them some privacy.

  “That’s a low blow.” He straightened. “You still haven’t forgiven me, have you?”

  “I don’t remember!” She pressed her fingers to her temples, hoping to stave off the headache. “We’re married?”

  “Divorced. Just before you disappeared.”

  She nearly crumpled. “What went wrong between us?”

  “It’s a long story. Tonight’s not the best time to talk about it,” he said.

  “I need to know,” she whispered. “I don’t remember anything.”

  He sighed. “For one thing, you hated my job. You wanted me to quit.”

  “The work is dangerous?”

  “Not so much. I’m mostly stuck doing stuff after the crime. But I work long hours. I’d miss family dinners, have to peel out in the middle of something. You hated that.”

  Maybe he was right. She wasn’t ready to hear all this. Besides, this was his version. Surely he’d done worse than work hard.

  “Mommy?” Keri’s voice came from the steps.

  Nick whirled and stepped to the stairs. “Keri! Come see Daddy.”

  “Daddy?” Small feet thumped on the steps, and Keri stepped into the foyer. Her blonde hair hung in silken strands on her shoulders. “Daddy!” Her thumb went to her mouth between a smile.

  Eve noticed she didn’t run to meet him, probably because it had been so long.

  He stepped toward her, knelt, and smiled. “Did you miss Daddy?”

  She nodded, her eyes never leaving his face. Then she took a step toward him. “Daddy?”

  He scooped her up. She nestled into his arms and patted his face with her chubby hands. He buried his face in her hair. “Daddy missed you.”

  Eve’s eyes misted. Their marriage might have ended in divorce, but he’d been a good father. His love for the child radiated brightly.

  Moisture ringed his eyes when he lifted his head. His dark gaze swallowed Eve up again. “You don’t know how hard it was, how I felt when I thought you were both dead. It changed me, Eve. I can’t let you go, either of you. I want us to try again.”

  Eve heard the words, but she felt nothing other than a need to flee. “I don’t know you,” she whispered.

  Still carrying Keri, he took a step toward her. “You have to remember, Eve. You love me too. I know you do.”

  She sidled away toward the steps. “I’m sorry, Nick. I don’t feel anything.”

  The light in his eyes faded. “Maybe your memory will come back. What’s the doctor say?”

  “He says only time will tell.” She had to get out of here before this pain in her head crushed her. “Keri, it’s time for bed, sweetie.”

  Keri’s lip quivered. “Keri stay Daddy.”

  Nick passed the reluctant toddler to Eve. “You heard Mommy. It’s bedtime for little girls. Besides, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Eve started toward the steps with her daughter in her arms, then Bree appeared.

  “I’ll take her,” Bree said. She looked over Eve’s shoulder to Nick. “You can crash on the couch. Finish your talk.”

  “I’d rather not,” Eve said in a low voice to Bree.

  Bree just smiled and took the child up the stairs. Eve turned back to Nick and pressed her back against the wall. Her hands were locked in front of her. “What do you want from me? I can’t just go back to where we left off. I want to get away. Right now, before Gideon tries to hurt me or Keri again.”

  “Don’t you want to catch this guy, Evie? Make him pay for what he did to you? You can’t keep running forever. What happens if he finds you again? What happens to Keri if he comes and you’re not around? If that body you found yesterday means he’s tracked you down here, he could do it again.”

  She shuddered. How would she escape a monster like Gideon? Nick stepped closer, and his hands came down on her shoulders. The heat from his fingers swept down her arms, across her chest, and settled in her belly. She felt the power of his attraction.

  “No!” She wrenched away. “Don’t touch me, Nick.” The safety of her bedroom was just a few steps away.

  Through her pain she heard the phone began to ring. She turned to snatch it up before Bree could get it, an excuse to escape this conversation “Hello.”

  The electronically altered voice sounded like Daffy Duck. “Hello, Eve. You didn’t think I’d find you, did you? It was easy, so easy.”

  “How did you find me?” she whispered.

  “A picture in the paper. Hobnobbing with the wrong kind of people.”

  The picture taken several weeks ago in town. Eve had worried about it at the time and then forgotten. She closed her eyes. “Leave us alone,” she said. “I don’t know why you want to hurt me. I’ve done nothing to you.”

  “You’re a sinner of the worst kind. Think, Eve, and you’ll remember. I hear you have amnesia, but you and I know that’s just a smoke screen.”

  Her headache ratcheted up a notch. “I don’t remember your face or even what you did to me. I’m no threat to you.”

  “Don’t try to fool me, Eve. You’re really very clever, very resourceful. But not smart enough. I feel sorry for your daughter.”

  “Don’t hurt Keri.”

  “I don’t want to hurt her. You’re the guilty one. You have to pay for your sin.”

  “I don’t know what I did.” She straightened and began to walk back and forth across the living room. His smug voice made her want to hit something. If he’d hoped to scare her, he’d accomplished the opposite.

  Nick tried to grab the phone. “Let me talk to him.”

  She hung on and shook her head. He frowned and dropped his hands back to his sides.

  “You’re still claiming amnesia—to me?” The cartoon laugh sounded eerie. “Oh, this should be fun.” The voice hardened. “Don’t run away again, Eve. This is between you and me. If you leave town, something might happen to Keri this time. I don’t want to do that to an innocent, but I will if you force me.”

  “Leave her alone! She hasn’t done anything.”

  Gideon chuckled. “Maybe not, but you have. And you’re going to pay.”

  Eve started to cry. “What did I do?”

  “You know, but you don’t want to admit it.”

  “I don’t remember anything,” she screamed into the phone.

  “The pain will cleanse you,” he said. A click sounded in Eve’s ear, returning Gideon to anonymity.

  She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it.

  Nick took the phone out of her hand and put it down on the table. “What did he say?”

  She sagged against his chest. “He threatened to hurt Keri if I leave.” Something swelled in her soul, a hard core she hadn’t known existed. “I’m going to stop him. What do you need me to do?”

  13

  The spare room of the lighthouse looked out over Lake Superior. With the window open, Eve could hear the foghorn from the automated light buoy offshore that blinked out every few seconds. The rhythmic blare of the horn added a touch of normalcy to the surreal way her life was going right now. On the other side of the bed, Keri slept with her mouth open.

  Nick was here, just downstairs on the sofa. She buried her hot face in the pillow as a wave of longing swept through her so intense she thought she’d meld with the sheets. While her mind didn’t remember him, her body did.

  They were divorced. She needed to remember it. That fact
was more important than the way her pulse jumped to life when he looked at her. More relevant than the way Keri’s face lit up when she saw him. And he couldn’t keep them safe. That was up to Eve. Knowing that something had destroyed their trust in each other, however, didn’t eliminate the way she wanted to dump her problems on him and let him handle them.

  He exuded strength and reliability, traits she desperately needed right now.

  Gideon wasn’t going to destroy her life. She wouldn’t let him. She rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Something scratched at her door, and she bolted upright with the sheet clutched in her hands.

  “Eve.” The hoarse whisper came from the other side of the door. Nick’s voice.

  She slipped her feet into slippers and tiptoed to the door. Her hand touched the door, then withdrew. He was dangerous to her in ways she couldn’t fathom yet. Did she dare go out and talk to him?

  The scratch came again. “Eve?”

  He’d wake Keri. Grabbing up the robe hanging on the back of the door, she cinched it around her. Her hand went to the door again, and she opened it to see Nick standing in the hallway.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “It’s one in the morning.” Even as she protested, her slippered feet moved her through the doorway and closer to the danger Nick represented.

  His face was in shadow, but his voice vibrated with longing. “It won’t take long. Come downstairs.”

  “Just for a minute.” She brushed past him. He tried to take her hand, but she pulled out of his grip. Padding through the dark house, she felt her way down the creaking steps. She bit back a groan when she barked her shin up against a wooden rocker. This was all his fault.

  “You okay?” he asked from the bottom of the steps.

  “Fine,” she said shortly. Her head shrieked a warning for her to go back to her room, but her feet carried to where Nick stood with his hands in his pockets near the fireplace.

  “You had a long drive today and should be in bed,” she said.

  A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Ever the mother. I’m fine.”

  “Am I the motherly type?”

  “The worst kind,” he said, a grin lifting his lips. “A mama bear. You mother everyone you meet, not just Keri.”

  “Lately I’m more like the child,” she said. She tightened her robe around her. “What’s so important it couldn’t wait until morning?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I still can’t believe you’re here.” He took his hands out of his pockets and put them on her shoulders, where they seemed to burn right through the fabric. “These past months have been pure hell on earth. I prayed every prayer I could think of, made every promise to God under the sun, if he’d just let me find you alive.”

  She spread her hands, palms up. “What do you want me to say, Nick? I can’t answer any of this. I don’t know you. I don’t remember our life together. There is nothing inside that recognizes what you’re talking about.”

  She was a liar. Something inside her heart moved toward him like the tide to the moon.

  “Your memory will come back.” His hope sounded like desperation.

  “It’s been three months, Nick. Even the memories I thought I had turned out to be false. I don’t even remember the day Keri was born.”

  He lifted his hands as though to touch her face, then dropped them awkwardly at his sides. “I want you to come home when this is all over,” he said. “Give me another chance. Things will be different. Even if your memory never comes back, there is still this attraction between us. You can feel it too—I know you can.”

  It would help if she could tell him he was wrong. “Chemistry wasn’t enough to save our marriage, and it’s nothing to build a future on either. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you like to eat or drink. What your favorite football team is. Where you went to school, if your parents are living, if you have any siblings. The list goes on and on. I don’t know you.”

  He fell back onto the sofa as though his legs wouldn’t hold him. “Nothing? I can’t quite believe it.”

  “It’s true. I can’t remember what my house looks like. I didn’t even know what I looked like until I looked in the mirror. You say you love me. If you do, then give me some space. Take your freedom and make a new life.”

  “Freedom? A piece of paper changes nothing. I still love you.”

  She curled her fingers into her palms. “Please don’t say that. Let’s concentrate on finding this guy.”

  “I thought you wanted to run away—that you don’t think I can protect you.”

  “Right now you’re the best I’ve got. You’ve seen Deputy Dawg.”

  He grinned. “I kept looking around for Ty Coon. Deputy Montgomery is more on the ball than you give him credit for, but I’ll ask for more help. Gideon’s not going to get to you or Keri.”

  If only he were right. Deep down, Eve knew Gideon would take her. “Nick, will you make sure Keri is happy?”

  He got to his feet again and faced her. His warm fingers touched her chin and tilted her face up. “You’ll make sure Keri is happy.”

  Her chin tingled. She breathed deeply of his masculine scent, so clean and compelling. Eternity by Calvin Klein mixed with the musky aroma of his skin. It was so strange how she could recognize the scent but sense nothing about the man. Nothing other than that her soul longed for him. Surely they’d had good times once for her to feel this security in his strength.

  Her lips parted as she stared up into his face. The warmth in her stomach spread. She ached to press her lips against his, to burrow against his chest and hide there forever. But she couldn’t betray how she felt. Summoning a reserve of strength she didn’t know she had, she put her hands on his chest and pushed him away. She turned on legs that threatened to let her down and walked away.

  “This isn’t over,” he called after her.

  It was, but he just didn’t know it.

  EVE HAD ANSWERED SO MANY QUESTIONS FOR THE past forty-eight hours that her head felt like a watermelon. Not that she’d been able to answer any of them. No matter how hard she tried to batter down the barrier that separated her from her memories, the door remained stubbornly locked.

  The media swarmed Rock Harbor, and everywhere she turned, she found a mic thrust in her face. Eve was beginning to see how celebrities lost their tempers and took a swing at the paparazzi.

  Nick’s presence was constant. Watching every person who approached, he shadowed her movements. Keri hardly let him out of her sight, and it was a joy to see them together. That made up, at least in part, for the way every one of her senses seemed to spring to life when he turned his dark eyes her way.

  Eve sat at Keri’s bedside on Wednesday night and listened to Nick’s deep voice read The Cat in the Hat until the little girl’s eyes began to droop. The book had been in his SUV, and the way he read it, she could tell it was a story he’d read a zillion times.

  He pressed a kiss on Keri’s hair, then tiptoed to the door. Eve kissed the little girl as well and followed him out into the hallway. “I need to talk to you about Keri,” he said.

  She should have known this was coming. What father would leave a little girl with a mother who didn’t even remember her? She would fight with every ounce in her to keep her daughter though. Her mind might not remember the particulars, but her heart burst with love. She marshalled every argument as she led the way to the living room.

  Bree and Kade were with Davy, putting him down to bed as well. They would have a few moments of privacy. A cinnamon candle on the fireplace sent its spicy aroma out to greet them as they stepped into the living room. Wasn’t aromatherapy supposed to calm the nerves? The fragrance did nothing to soothe her agitation.

  “Sit down.” Nick’s voice was grave.

  “You can’t have custody of her,” she blurted, sinking onto the sofa. She clasped her cold hands together.

  He raised his eyebrow. “I wouldn’t take her from you, Eve. You should know—” He shook his head and
broke off.

  She should know better—that’s what he had been about to say. But she didn’t know. That was the whole problem. Had Keri even had her immunizations? Did she have any medical problems? There were so many things a mother should know that Eve didn’t. She was beginning to think she would never recover those lost memories.

  “So what about Keri? Is something wrong with her?” Her daughter seemed perfect.

  “No, no, she’s fine. It’s . . .” He sat on the edge of the chair. “It’s about your memory, something you don’t remember about Keri.”

  Bree and Kade came into the living room. “I didn’t think he was ever going to go to sleep,” Bree said of Davy. “He’s excited about softball practice.” Bree’s gaze darted from Kade to Eve. “Are we interrupting something? We can go to the kitchen.”

  “No, no, it can wait.” Relief put a lilt in Nick’s voice. “It’s not that important.”

  Eve wanted to hit him. Was he hiding some secret about their baby? “Nick, I’d like the phone numbers of my family,” she said. “My parents, any siblings.”

  He nodded and grabbed his phone. “Get me a paper and pen, and I’ll give them to you.”

  “I’ll get it.” Bree opened the drawer in an end table and drew out a pad of paper and a pen.

  Nick took them and began to write down the numbers. “Your parents live in the same place where you grew up, a small town over near Grand Rapids. Your two brothers live in Grand Rapids. Adam is a bartender, and Seth manages a bowling alley. They’re not married. Your sister—” He stopped and looked up. “No one knows where Patti is.”

  “Oh? Since when?”

  “She ran off two years ago.”

  Nick wasn’t meeting her gaze, and Eve frowned. Did he used to date Patti? There was something about her sister he didn’t want to tell her.

  THE SKY HUNG HEAVY WITH STORM CLOUDS chasing one another in swirls that mirrored the eddies of the harbor. The sky and lake matched Nick’s mood. He should have told Eve the truth last night.

  It was time for breakfast, but Nick hadn’t been able to resist the aroma wafting from the pasty shop. Beef pasties could easily become an addiction. He took another bite and wiped the juice from his chin before entering the Suomi Café. He’d gotten up late, and Kade told him he’d taken the day off to take the kids to the new wildlife exhibition at the ranger station while Eve and Bree were eating breakfast here.