Angus's Lost Lady

by Marie Ferrarella

The tempo increased.

  Rebecca moved her hips faster, driving him further along the upwardly spiraling road. Hoarsely, Angus murmured endearments until, unable to hold himself back any longer, he pulled her down to him.

  His mouth found hers as they took the last leg of the journey together. And became eternally one.

  Chapter 13

  The jarring sound sliced through his sleep like the whirling blades of an incoming helicopter. Before it woke him, it ruthlessly broke apart the dream he was having. Angus resisted opening his eyes, resisted giving up the last tiny remnants of the contentment that swaddled him.

  When he felt her stirring beside him, the realization that it hadn’t been a dream came to him, preserving the euphoric feeling.

  It was real.

  Last night had been real. It had just felt like a dream.

  Like a blanket slowly being tugged away from her, sleep drifted away from Rebecca. Turning, curving her body into his warmth, Rebecca reached for Angus before she even opened her eyes. There was something infinitely comforting about lying there, her arm extended over his chest, her face nestled against his shoulder. She could have stayed like this forever.

  The telephone rang a third time.

  Rebecca sighed, opening her eyes. “Are you going to let that go on ringing?”

  Angus smiled at her. With her hair tousled and falling into her eyes, the scent of last night’s lovemaking still fresh on her body, she was even more beautiful than she’d been when he’d taken her down to the casino. Because then he’d only dreamed about having her. Now, she was his.

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  He crooked his finger beneath her chin, tilting her head and bringing her lips to his. The kiss was whisper-soft and carried with it the promise of the day. He felt his body yearning.

  Incredible. First thing in the morning and all he could think of was having her again. He toyed with abandoning the agenda they’d planned and just making love with her until check-out time, or until both were dead from exhaustion—whatever came first.

  Curiosity got the better of Rebecca before the magic of Angus’s hands drove the ability to think completely away. “It might be important,” she pressed.

  “Like what?” He couldn’t think of a single thing worth the effort of making contact with the outside world. It was probably the resort, calling to see if everything was satisfactory. He nibbled on her shoulder, feeling her move against him. He could definitely say, without any reservations, that everything was more than satisfactory.

  Rebecca’s mind was already clouding, the phone notwithstanding. It took effort to stay focused. “Like Vikki.”

  He paused, his mouth inches away from the soft white column of her throat. “If it was Vikki, my cell phone would be ringing.” He’d given his daughter the number so she could reach him any place, any time. So far, she’d never used it.

  But because the telephone went on ringing, determined to shatter the blissful euphoria that surrounded them, Angus gave in. With a muttered oath, he reached for the receiver. It was the exact moment Rebecca chose to burrow under the covers to investigate just how sleepy he still was.

  “Hello?” The greeting was almost choked out as he sucked his breath in sharply.

  Cradling the receiver against his neck and shoulder, he reached for Rebecca, dragging her back against him. There was no way he could listen to whoever was calling while she was doing that. Her eyes were laughing at him. He promised himself to pay her back as soon as he got rid of the caller.

  “About time you answered.” Biordi’s voice filled the receiver. “I was beginning to think they connected me to the wrong room. Where the hell were you?”

  “Bed.” Angus ground the word out. Biordi had picked a hell of a time for a call. He was tempted to let the receiver drop back into the cradle. Trapped against his side, Rebecca was now doing wicked things to him with her mouth. His very flesh was quickening. The last thing he wanted to be doing was talking into the phone.

  “Bed?” Biordi’s voice was incredulous. “Do you know what time it is?”

  As if that mattered. Angus was in a place where time had no meaning. “Haven’t got the foggiest.” He caught Rebecca by the wrist as she began to cup him. Man oh man, but she was an endless source of surprises. Who would ever have thought—looking at that classic, heart-shaped face—that a tigress existed just inches below the surface? “Look, Al, can this wait until I get back?”

  “No, it can’t.”

  There was something in his friend’s tone that warned Angus to take notice. He shook his head at Rebecca, silently telling her to wait.

  “I’ve got news, Angus. I tracked you down because I know you’ve been waiting for this.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “Someone filed a missing person report on your mystery lady. Turns out her name’s Rebecca Conway.”

  Angus stiffened, instinctively bracing himself. There was no reason to fear what Biordi was about to tell him. This was what he’d wanted all along—to help Rebecca discover her identity and, with any luck, her memory.

  So why did he feel like the hull of the Titanic a moment before the iceberg ripped through it?

  As he sat up, he felt Rebecca staring at him, but all his attention was centered on the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Someone,” he repeated slowly, as if merely saying the word left a bitter taste in his mouth. “A male someone?”

  “As a matter fact, yes.” Angus felt his stomach sinking as Biordi continued. “Her fiancé. He said Rebecca was supposed to be in Japan on business. When she didn’t call him, he didn’t think anything of it at first. Seems he has a ‘full schedule.’” Biordi’s tone sounded mocking. “According to him, she has a tendency to get caught up in her work and forget about everything else. When he finally tried to get in touch with her, there was some kind of mix-up with her hotel reservations. He had a hard time finding someone who could give him a straight answer. Nobody seemed to know where she was.”

  I do, Angus thought, his gut wrenching. She’s right here. But she was slipping farther away from him with every word Biordi said.

  The playfulness drained from Rebecca. There was something in Angus’s eyes that made her uneasy. A nameless fear began working itself up from her toes, laying a shroud over her entire body.

  Biordi’s voice continued buzzing in his ear as Angus struggled to make sense of the words and fit them into his life.

  “When the guy finally got frustrated and called the airline, they told him she was never on the flight. That’s when he came to the police. Better late than never, I guess, right?”

  No, never would have been better, Angus thought. He felt cheated, robbed and explosively angry, with no target to lash out at.

  “Angus, did you hear me?” Biordi asked. “Are you there?”

  Angus looked at Rebecca. Everything inside him was crashing. “Yeah, I’m here. Look, we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  “Good, I’ll fill you in on the rest of it then. You know where to find me.” Biordi hung up.

  The dial tone was buzzing in his ear. Feeling like a man trapped in a nightmare, Angus let the receiver drop back into the cradle. He felt like hurling the telephone across the room. It took his last ounce of strength to pull himself together.

  Rebecca was sitting up. She’d drawn her half of the sheet tightly around her, but it didn’t ward off the chill she felt. For a moment, while he had listened to someone on the other end of the line, Angus’s face had been an impassive, unreadable mask. She didn’t even recognize him.

  But it was his eyes that made her afraid. The light had gone out of them.

  She lay her hand on his arm. Whatever it was, she could help him face it. There wasn’t anything that they couldn’t face together.

  “What’s the matter, Angus?” she asked softly. “Who was that?”

  The touch of her hand underscored the helplessness he felt. Unable to deal with it, he lifted her hand from his arm and placed it on the bed.
>
  When he looked at her, his eyes seemed to bore into hers, as if he were searching for something. “Does the name Conway mean anything to you?”

  She tried to shut the hurt out, telling herself he meant nothing by it. She tried instead to concentrate on the name he said. Rebecca thought a moment, then shook her head. “No, nothing. Why?”

  He wanted to reach for her, to hold her and make love with her again. But it wasn’t right. Not anymore, not when he knew that there was someone else waiting for her. “It should,” he told her quietly. “It’s yours. That was Biordi on the phone.”

  Biordi. The police detective. What else had he found out? Why was Angus looking at her like that?

  Very carefully, she said the name out loud, “Rebecca Conway,” and waited for the sound of it to become familiar, like a photograph slowly developing in a darkroom.

  It didn’t happen. The last name meant nothing to her. She shrugged. “It doesn’t feel like it’s mine.”

  That was just the amnesia talking, Angus thought. He had no foundation to build his hopes on. “According to the man who filed the report, it’s yours.”

  She froze. “What man?”

  “Your fiancé.” Angus tried hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice. It remained an invisible marauder, hacking away at him.

  The ground suddenly opened up beneath Rebecca’s feet, sending her plummeting. There was no bottom to the ravine. “I have a fiancé?” she whispered.

  The planes of his face had hardened, locking him away from her. It mirrored what was going on inside. He couldn’t have dealt any other way with the pain that threatened to consume him. “That’s what the man told Al.”

  She wanted to deny it, to shout at the top of her lungs that it was a lie. But the truth was, she didn’t know. She didn’t know if Conway was her real name or if Rebecca Conway did or didn’t have a fiancé. What she did know was that she didn’t want there to be a fiancé. She didn’t want any other man in her life besides Angus.

  Anguish turned to anger. Rebecca rebelled against what he was telling her. There had to be some mistake. Someone, for reasons she didn’t understand, was lying about her.

  “Where was this so-called ‘fiancé’ all this time?” she demanded. “Why didn’t he come forward as soon as I—as soon as this Rebecca Conway—was missing?”

  Angus was torn between doing what he wanted to do, and what he knew was right. What was right was making this easier for her. He didn’t want to make it easier. He didn’t want to make it happen at all.

  He repeated what Biordi had told him. “He said you were supposed to be in Japan. He’s been trying to track you down.”

  “Japan?” she echoed. None of it made any sense to her. None of it struck even a remote chord in her mind. It had to be a lie. “What was I doing in Japan?”

  “I don’t know! Some kind of business!” The sharp flash of temper took him by surprise. Blowing out a breath, he fought off the urge to drag her toward him, to lose himself in her, to deny that the phone had ever rung and shattered his world. Under control again, he apologized. “I’m sorry. Al said he’d fill us in on the details when we got to the station.”

  And he was just going along with this? Didn’t last night mean anything to him? Rebecca felt beside herself, as if freshly constructed walls were collapsing in on her. “I don’t want to be filled in. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

  He hated seeing her like this. It was his fault. He was the one who should have maintained the boundaries of their relationship instead of succumbing to the desires that had clawed at him.

  He reached to touch her shoulder. “You don’t mean that.”

  She shrugged him off. “Don’t tell me what I mean. You have no idea what I mean, what I feel.” She was being redefined again, in terms she didn’t know, didn’t understand.

  “Yes.” His voice was so quiet, she had to strain to hear. “I do.”

  The fire went out of her. Hot tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.

  “Hold me,” she implored. “Just hold me.” Everything would be all right if he just held her.

  He wanted to, heaven help him. He wanted to hold her—and hold the rest of the world at bay. But it wasn’t right. He had no right.

  “Rebecca, I really don’t think that’s such a good idea.” Every word felt like a shard of glass in his mouth. “This changes everything.”

  Panic scampered through her on tiny, nimble feet with sharp claws. He was pulling away from her, deserting her. “It doesn’t have to. We’re still the same people we were last night, the same two people who made love. If you never picked up the telephone...if it never rang...we wouldn’t know about the report.”

  It was ripping him apart, but for her sake he had to be strong. She’d made a commitment to someone before him. To someone she loved. It wasn’t fair to take that away from her, to take advantage just because she couldn’t remember.

  “But it did ring,” he told her firmly. “And I did answer it. And we do know.”

  He reached for the pants that had been discarded last night in the heat of passion, tugged them on, then rose from the bed.

  He couldn’t remember ever feeling this tired, this defeated. “I’ll shower first, give you a chance to pull yourself together.”

  She watched him leave the room. She didn’t think pulling herself together was possible.

  “Will you go with me?”

  At first, he thought he’d imagined it. Imagined her asking him for a favor. She hadn’t said a word to him since he’d gotten out of the shower. Not then, not when they checked out of the resort. Not even during the last two hundred miles as they drove back. He’d thought it was because she’d had a chance to think things over and now, because she was finally being reunited with her life, she was embarrassed about last night.

  As for him, all he could think of was that it was happening again. He had allowed himself to feel something for someone, allowed himself to begin to dream just a little, and the door had been abruptly slammed in his face.

  It wasn’t fair.

  His lips twisted in a cynical smile. Since when was life supposed to be fair?

  He looked at her now. “Did you say something?” She wanted to scream at him, to beat at him with doubled-up fists and demand to know what he thought he was doing, driving her to another man. Driving her away from him. But at the same time, she could feel herself being drained. The fight was going out of her and a numbness was setting in.

  “I said, will you go with me?” she repeated flatly.

  “Where?”

  Rebecca pressed her lips together. She wasn’t going to cry. He had already pushed her away and she wasn’t going to let him see that she hurt. Wasn’t going to beg. “To the police station.”

  How could she ask? “Do you think I’d let you go alone?”

  “I don’t know.” She struggled to keep the anger from taking hold again. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  He had been so cold to her since the telephone call, as if he’d just as soon forget what had happened the night before. Who knew—maybe he was even relieved to be rid of her. He certainly didn’t behave as if he wanted her to stay. Would he be taking her so quickly, so calmly to the arms of a stranger if he cared?

  She hated the answer that was staring her in the face.

  “I’ll come with you,” he said quietly.

  He didn’t want her to go. Suddenly, with every fiber of his being, he wanted to turn the car around and just head for parts unknown. Some place where this fiancé who had crawled out of the woodwork would never find them.

  “Rebecca?”

  Her eyes were shining with angry, unshed tears. “What?”

  He opened his mouth to tell her—to say that they were going away—but he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t give in to impulse. There was Vikki to think of. And a life waiting for Rebecca that had no place for him. “Never mind.”

  Very slowly, she let out a ragged breath. Shifting, she continued staring straight a
head of her as the miles and the scenery all melded together.

  The words on the missing person report swam in front of her:

  Rebecca Conway, twenty-nine. Female, white Caucasian. Blonde, five foot four, 115 pounds, violet eyes, senior computer programmer, DATA International.

  Details, just sterile details that neatly summed up a life. A life she didn’t remember having.

  The emptiness, far worse than what she had experienced when she first walked into Angus’s office, refused to go away.

  “None of this sounds familiar.” She handed the report back to Biordi.

  A sergeant walked by with a rectangular box that, according to the outside log, had once held size ten loafers. He was taking up a collection for the captain’s wife, who had just had twins. “Anything you think you can spare.” The policeman thrust the box toward Biordi.

  Biordi dropped the report on his desk and dug out his wallet, parting with a five-dollar bill.

  His face was kind as he looked at Rebecca. “I don’t know much about amnesia, Ms. Conway, but maybe once you’re back home, things will start coming back to you.”

  “Rebecca, please,” she corrected. That was who she was. Rebecca, just Rebecca. Not even Becky anymore. “Maybe,” she murmured.

  But what if she didn’t want things to come back? What if she didn’t want any of the things written down on that piece of paper to come back to her? What if she wanted her new life instead, the one she had just begun forming?

  It didn’t matter, she thought dully. Her new life didn’t want her. Angus didn’t want her. If he did, he wouldn’t have suddenly grown so distant. He would have at least said something, hinted that he wanted her to stay.

  But he hadn’t, and his silence gave her the answer. An answer she didn’t want, but had to learn to live with.

  “What about her getting shot at?” Angus wanted to know. That aspect of the case seemed to have gotten lost in the shuffle. What if there was still someone out there after her?

  Biordi’s thin shoulders rose and fell. “We investigated, but nothing turned up. As far as the police are concerned, it was just another random, senseless mugging.”