A Marriage To Remember

by Cathryn Clare

  When he finally slowed within sight of one of the towns on the southern shore of the lake, she spoke before Ryder had a chance to.

  “I think we should get in touch with my law student friend and see what she dug up yesterday,” she said. “If we have something that definitely ties John Brady to the mob—”

  “I agree.” He spun the wheel, turning the boat toward a marina in the near distance. “Now that we know who the good guys are, we can finally get some official help. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a little hard evidence in hand first, since we’re so close to it.”

  He stayed with the boat while Jayne made a call from a pay phone at the far end of the pier. She could see him leaning over the troublesome motor again as she dialed her friend’s number.

  “I already faxed it to you last night.” The voice on the other end of the phone was sleepy, and Jayne realized it was still early, at least as far as the rest of the world was concerned.

  “I know, but I need you to read it to me now.” She didn’t explain, but the sound of her voice seemed to convince her friend that it was urgent.

  “We’ve got him,” she reported to Ryder when she returned to the boat ten minutes later. “My friend did some looking into Brady’s personal finances at around the period when his decisions started getting erratic. Guess what she found?”

  He didn’t look up from whatever he was doing to the motor. “I’m not in the mood to guess, Jaynie,” he said.

  His curt tone stung her. She felt hurt and loss starting to settle in her throat again, making a lump that she had to swallow past.

  You were going to stay angry, she reminded herself. You’re not going to let him do this to you again, remember?

  It was hard to remember when she was watching his big, agile hands working among the wires and screws of the motor. But she swallowed past those dangerous, lingering desires, too, and went on, “Brady was a partner in a real estate venture that went belly-up about eleven years ago. My friend had to do some digging—there were a couple of dummy companies that were obviously designed to screen this. But the construction firm that was supposed to do the building on Brady’s land just happened to be partly owned by—”

  He beat her to it. “Jimmy Trujillo.”

  “Right. And the funny thing is, although John Brady and his partners lost a bundle on the whole deal, Brady’s personal financial picture stayed very rosy. Now, if you were in a mood to guess—”

  “I’d guess he lost his shirt, and the mob stepped in and bailed him out. It’s a common way of getting somebody under their control.”

  “And once he was under their control, he. could influence decisions in favor of their people who’d been arrested. It’s not proof, of course—”

  “No,” Ryder said, “but it won’t take much delving into his financial records to come up with proof. I say we’ve got enough to go on. It’s time to finish this.”

  His words cut her unexpectedly.

  Would this be a finish—not only to the mystery that had been dogging them, but to their relationship, as well?

  A week ago, she’d been largely reconciled to the idea that Nick Ryder was no longer a part of her life.

  Now, after living through one heart-stopping danger after another with him, delving into his long-buried secrets, his half-admitted hopes, sharing his bed after a lonely year without him—

  She tried to push the thoughts away, but they refused to go. Surely, after all this, her heart kept telling her, surely he can’t just turn his back again.

  Even now, with all the tension between them, their minds worked so naturally together. They’d echoed each other’s thoughts a mere moment ago, each of them anticipating the other’s words with the old certainty she remembered so well.

  She reached desperately for the determination she’d had only a week ago. Then, she’d been heartsore but ready to move on with her life.

  Now all she could think about was how it had felt to be cradled in Ryder’s arms, how his loving had touched her very soul.

  She couldn’t let this go without trying once more to save everything they’d shared.

  “And then, Nick?” It was hard to get the question out. “What happens then?”

  He met her eyes, but she could see how reluctant he was to do it. “Let’s do one thing at a time, all right?” he said.

  She shook her head, feeling the wind tugging at her short hair. “Whenever you said that, we never got to the next thing,” she told him. “Or the next thing turns out to be another case, something else for you to disappear into. If we finish this and then you get caught up with getting your job back and clearing your name and catching some new criminal—”

  She stopped, hating the thought of it.

  For the first time, something seemed to be struggling in Ryder’s eyes. She could see the turmoil starting in the back of his blue gaze.

  And she could see him trying to clamp down on it, as he’d done so many times before.

  “This is the wrong time,” he said. “You know it is.”

  She spoke quickly, trying to reach whatever part of him might not already be buried under all those layers of toughness and silence.

  “It’s always the wrong time,” she said. “I’m not asking you to make plans, Nick—I know as well as you do how important it is to finish this business with the FBI.”

  “Well, at least we agree on that.” His quick, faint grin was barely an echo of the smile that had transformed his face so completely only last night. But it was a start. It was enough to rekindle the hope that Jayne was having such a hard time hanging on to.

  “But if that’s all we can agree on—if there’s nothing ahead of us—”

  It was almost too hard to say the words. Damn it, I love you, Nick. The phrase was hammering at her from inside. But it was too risky, too scary, to say it out loud.

  How many times could a heart break and still survive?

  How much could a woman risk over one single man?

  “Is there anything ahead of us, Nick?” Her voice turned husky over the words, as though all the unspoken love inside her was trying to force its way out.

  And at first she thought he was responding to it. His eyes widened, and for an instant she could see a flash of longing in those troubled blue depths.

  “Do you mean—a family? Children?”

  “You know that’s what I mean.” He hesitated, and the spurt of hope in her chest rose a little higher. “I’m not asking for answers, Nick. Just some sign that we’ve still got something to talk about.”

  For a long while his eyes stayed locked on hers. She could see him battling his inner demons, grappling with everything that had made him so strong on the outside, so unsure of himself deep down.

  For a moment she thought the man she loved—the tender, vulnerable man—was winning.

  And then his face changed.

  She felt something closing down inside her as she watched his eyes turn hard and unresponsive again.

  “I’m sorry, Jaynie.” His voice was rough, apologetic. But it wasn’t enough to make up for the blank look in his eyes. “I can’t do this now. There’s too much riding on keeping you safe—on keeping both of us safe.”

  For what? she almost asked. There was no “us”—not anymore. Even after all they’d been through together, Ryder still refused to let himself imagine a future with her.

  Well, she’d asked for a sign. And he’d just given her one. Now she had to find a way to carry on from here.

  It felt like a long time before she trusted herself enough to speak. And when she finally did, her voice wasn’t as brisk as she’d been hoping for.

  “All right,” she said. “Do you want to call the FBI, or should I?”

  He looked at the half-dismantled motor, and at the wires he still held in his right hand. “You do it,” he said. “I’ll finish this. You can get the main number for the Miami office from Information. Once you reach them, don’t talk to anybody except Agent Joe Disenza, all right?”

&n
bsp; She could hear the relief in his voice—relief that they’d gotten back to merely life-threatening questions, sidestepping the really dangerous issue of their feelings for each other. She nodded, clamping down on the ache of loss that went through her as she realized what his tone meant.

  “There are obviously leaks in the FBI operation—that’s how I was traced when I left the prison.” He was already turning back toward the motor. “Disenza’s the head of the operation I was a part of. I don’t want this getting to anybody but him.”

  The problem was that Agent Joe Disenza couldn’t be reached—not without Jayne giving a lot more information than she wanted to release to the receptionist.

  “I know you can reach him if you want to,” she kept insisting.

  “I need a name before I can do that,” the woman repeated.

  Jayne could see her point. But she wasn’t about to do anything that would get Ryder’s name back into the official record, not unless it was going through someone who could be trusted, someone with some clout, someone like—

  Greg Iverson. The thought came to her as she was hanging up the phone in frustration.

  Greg hadn’t been able to help them before because there’d been no way to be certain which side of law Ryder was really on. But now that Ryder’s memory had come back—

  She looked out at the pier, where Ryder’s head was bowed over the recalcitrant motor. The wind had tangled his dark gold hair, but the blond streaks that had started to return to it a few days ago were still clear against the deep blue water behind him.

  Her body quivered as she remembered how it had felt to run her fingers through those thick strands. She thought about the hoarse passion in his voice as he’d called her name last night, and another shiver ran through her. It settled low in her belly, stubborn, erotic, impossible to ignore.

  The cold wind, the danger on their trail, the indifference in his eyes—none of it had been enough to kill the way she responded to Nick Ryder.

  Perhaps nothing could kill it. Maybe she would go to her grave loving this man.

  And he didn’t want her love.

  He’d been able to cut her out of his mind without a second thought. The change in him had been sudden and unmistakable. The instant his memory had returned, it was as though the past few days had never happened.

  And that meant the single smartest thing Jayne could do was to bring this whole adventure to an end as soon as possible.

  Pulling her gaze from Ryder’s sun-bleached hair, she turned back toward the phone and dialed Greg Iverson’s number.

  Chapter 14

  Right from the beginning he didn’t like the setup.

  For one thing, he’d had no chance to check out the meeting place ahead of time. He’d intended to. It was one of the rules that had kept him alive in a dangerous profession: never walk into a situation where you didn’t know the lay of the land.

  But the damn motor had been nothing but trouble all the way from the lake. By the time they’d chugged and sputtered their way to the rendezvous spot it was nearly eleven, and Ryder had no chance to do anything more than just glance over the neatly landscaped picnic area next to the canal.

  He didn’t like the fact that Jayne had called Iverson. He saw the logic in it—as she’d said, “We need someone with some influence. The FBI isn’t going to page this Agent Disenza for me, but they’ll do it for Greg. I’ll call him back in half an hour to find out what he’s set up.”

  What Iverson had set up was a meeting at eleven o’clock at a place halfway between Miami and Lake Okeechobee. And Ryder had spent the whole trip down there—when he wasn’t cursing the ailing motor—wondering which was bothering him more: that Jayne hadn’t actually spoken to Joe Disenza in person, or that she’d turned so instinctively to Greg Iverson for help.

  He didn’t like Iverson coming in as Jayne’s white knight. That was supposed to be Ryder’s role, damn it. And he was going to prove it to her, as soon as he got this business with the FBI straightened out.

  When he thought about the visions that had rippled through him while he’d held her in his arms last night—about the possibilities for the kind of happiness and fulfillment he’d never really let himself consider before—

  He shook his head, trying to clear those thoughts away. It was mind-numbingly dangerous to let himself think about these things now. He clamped down on it, as he’d been doing all morning.

  Keeping them both alive was his first priority at the moment. Once this was all over, once they’d had a chance to really talk, surely she would understand that.

  For now—

  “I don’t see our boy,” he said as he steered the boat alongside the dock that lined the canal.

  “He said they’d be at the parking lot.” She was already tying the lines tight, securing the boat to the dock.

  He didn’t like that, either. The motorboat was hardly the escape vehicle he’d have chosen at this point, but at least it was something. He didn’t like walking away from it as he and Jayne crossed the broad green lawn.

  Again, he could see the logic in Iverson’s choice. Jayne and Ryder’s boat hadn’t been the only one docked at the picnic area. Despite the chilling wind, there were other travelers using the picnic tables, the rest rooms, the pay phones. The parking area was more secluded, and it was in everyone’s interests to keep this meeting low-key.

  Unless—

  He shook his head again. Damn it, he wished he could sort out his own thinking. He couldn’t tell what was professional and what was personal anymore. Was he being instinctively cautious, or just jealous because Jayne had asked Greg Iverson to help them sort things out?

  He wanted to reach for her hand as they walked, to feel her warmth and strength and to reassure both of them that what they’d shared over the past few days hadn’t simply disappeared.

  What he’d told her back at the marina was the simple truth. This was the wrong time for them to be talking about the future. But the thought of that future kept shimmering just behind Ryder’s vision, dazzling him, arousing and terrifying him at the same time. He wanted to clasp her hand in his, to hold her close to him, just to know that everything he’d glimpsed last night was still there, still possible.

  But he didn’t let himself do it. He knew that touching Jayne now could altogether chase away what was left of his common sense.

  And she wasn’t giving him the chance to reach for her, anyway. She was striding ahead, seeming eager to get this over with. Or perhaps she was just eager to see Greg Iverson again. Scowling, Ryder followed her up the little slope that led to the parking lot.

  He could see the attorney’s sleek black head emerging from a low-slung red sports car. It hadn’t taken Iverson long to replace the vehicle that had been blown up, he thought. But then, as he remembered now, Iverson had always had a taste for the fast life.

  Jayne had been the one exception to that. He felt his gut tighten as he watched Iverson step away from the car and open his arms wide, inviting Ryder’s wife into them.

  And she was going. He heard her low murmur of concern—” You are all right, then”—as she moved toward Iverson.

  He wanted to call to her, to say, Jaynie, Iverson doesn’t love you the way I do—nobody can love you the way I do.

  But he knew he still didn’t deserve anything as dazzling as Jayne’s love. He hadn’t kept even the most basic promises he’d made to himself.

  He hadn’t cleared his name—he hadn’t laid to rest the mystery that had been dogging him for so long—he hadn’t dispelled the danger that still clung to him like the stale prison air he’d breathed during that terrifyingly lonely year without her.

  He still had nothing to offer her. And until he’d guaranteed the most basic thing of all—her safety—he knew he had no right to mention the word love.

  He could feel the familiar solitude stabbing at him from inside as he watched Jayne’s tousled dark head leaning toward Greg Iverson’s sleek one. Their voices were low, and he couldn’t hear what the
y were saying.

  And suddenly jealousy wasn’t the only thing nudging at him.

  He’d been so busy watching the scene ahead of him that he hadn’t heard them coming. They’d been hidden by a minivan parked next to where Ryder was standing, and they moved so silently and efficiently that there was one on either side of him before he’d had a chance to turn and get a good look at them.

  “You’re already dead, Ryder.” He could feel the hard steel at his ribs, pushing at him, underscoring the point. “And if you so much as hint that things aren’t what they seem, she’s dead, too. You got that?”

  “Where is Joe Disenza, then?” Jayne frowned at her old friend. “I told you, Ryder doesn’t want to talk to—”

  Greg Iverson shook his jet-black head. “He’s in no position to make demands, Jayne,” he told her. “These guys are on Disenza’s team—I made sure of that. Disenza himself is up in Glades County looking for the two of you. He’s choppering back now. And he wants Ryder brought to Miami, where he’ll be safe.”

  Jayne turned and looked to where Ryder stood at the edge of the parking lot, deep in conversation with the two business-suited men.

  The strangers were both tall, nearly as tall as Ryder’s six foot two. She’d seen them flashing their badges shortly after they’d appeared, and now the three men seemed to be conferring. Ryder’s sun-streaked head was leaning toward to the agent closest to him.

  It was finally ending, she thought.

  Greg’s words fit with what she already knew. Ryder had heard a helicopter circling his family property early this morning, followed by the baying of the tracking dogs. It was the FBI who’d finally traced them to the cabin, although Jayne and Ryder had had no way of knowing that.

  But now the hunt was over. Ryder would go back to Miami with the two special agents Greg had contacted. And his newly returned memory—along with the information they’d pieced together about Justice John Brady’s part in the corruption ring—would ensure that Ryder’s name was cleared and his riskiest case closed at last.