by Meg Tilly
Poor guy. No good deed . . . Luckily, his leather jacket had deflected a lot of the damage, and hopefully her teeth hadn’t broken skin. However, Sarah could see the angry tracks her nails had slashed across his throat and the red mark high on his cheekbone where her fist had made contact. She felt her face grow hotter at the visual evidence of her outburst. “I’m sorry.” Her voice tugged his gaze from the swinging kitchen door to focus on her. The intensity in his gaze made the anxious butterflies in her stomach stage a full revolt. But instead of running or backtracking or averting her eyes, she stayed put, straightened her spine, and continued on the path she’d laid before her. “I freaked out. Some kind of PTSD, got stuck in a flashback, but that’s no excuse for the way I behaved. I shouldn’t have struck you.”
“I meant what I said out there. No apology is necessary.” A rueful smile flickered across his face, as if he were the one who had dealt the blows. “I figured it was something like that.”
Sarah felt like he was constantly seeing beyond what she had told him. It was an odd feeling. “I imagine you have some questions.”
He regarded her steadily. “A few.”
She nodded. “As I mentioned on the street, my real name is Sarah. Sarah Audrey Rainsford. Ryan and Barbara Rainsford were my parents.” Her throat felt tight, constricted. This was harder than she’d thought it would be. Putting words to her situation.
“Were?” Of course he would pick up on that. She had to look away. The compassion in his eyes was making it hard to continue, and she had only just started. “They’ve passed away?”
“Yeah. Four years ago.” Lord, how she missed them.
“I’m sorry.” He sounded as if he truly was, for people he hadn’t even met. She shut her eyes, bit down hard on her back teeth. Determined not to start weeping again. “Do you have brothers or sisters?” she heard Mick say.
“No. It’s just me now.” She forced her hands to loosen their death grip in her lap. Blew out a breath long and slow, trying to get her breathing regulated. Then she inhaled, and on the next exhale, she looked up so that her gaze met his once more. “Actually, you’re the first person I’ve told my real name to in almost four years, so if you would please not share it with—”
“Of course not.” He cut in, his voice harsh, definitive, and she knew by the way he said it that she could trust him. The man wouldn’t be telling a soul.
“It’s weird how saying my name out loud makes me kind of emotional.”
He was focused intently on her face. Didn’t speak. His eyes seemed darker than usual. Maybe it was the lighting, but the amber color appeared almost black. “So,” he said, breaking the silence. “You’ve been on the run for four years?”
She nodded.
“And your parents died four years ago?” His voice was measured, almost emotionless.
She nodded again.
“Is there a connection?” he asked.
The question was innocuous enough, but it felt as if she’d just been bowled over by a wrecking ball. “No. God no. I had nothing to do with it. They were in a car crash, snuffed out by a goddamned cement truck. I loved my parents. Loved them deeply. They were the most important people in my life. We were looking forward to the future, to the baby, to the—”
* * *
* * *
Sarah froze, her hand flying up, clasping hard over her mouth. A low keening noise forced its way past her hand, her head bowing to her chest, but not before he saw the tears fill and overflow from her blue, blue eyes. By the time he’d rounded the table, her body had started rocking back and forth as if the grief was too big to contain. He gathered her in his arms for the second time that day, holding her. No words were sufficient, so he just held her close.
The waitress quietly placed their food on the table with her eyes averted, then silently slipped away. “And then what?” Mick said, because it was clear, no matter how difficult it was, Sarah needed to talk things out. “What happened?”
“Nothing. There were no arrests. The driver had probably been drunk or high on amphetamines. Didn’t even stop. Just mowed them down and kept going. They never found him. He went on living his merry life, but me . . .” Her voice broke. “One day”—her voice so soft now, weary—“my parents were there, and the next day they were gone. Didn’t get to say goodbye. Tell them how important they were to me. How much I loved them . . .”
“They knew.”
“You don’t know that.”
“They knew.” Mick didn’t know why he was so sure, but he was. It was a bone-deep certainty, and she must have felt it, too, because her body softened, as if the agitation was physically draining out of her. She turned her face into him. He could feel her hand clutching his T-shirt, her warm breath fanning across his chest.
“Thank you,” she whispered. They were silent for a while. Just breathing in and out. When she spoke again, her voice was muted. “After we buried them, there was the reading of the will. Kevin was angry. They had tied everything in a trust and—”
“Kevin?” Mick managed to say, calm and steady, as if his heart hadn’t started thundering like a stampede of wild horses, as if there weren’t a sudden rushing in his ears. “Who’s Kevin?”
“My husband,” she replied.
26
She’s married. Mick had an ironclad rule regarding inappropriate behavior with employees and anyone who fell below the legal drinking age. Recently he’d made the executive decision to expand his hands-off policy to include married women. No way he was ever going to invite that kind of mess into his life again. Shit. Shit. Shittity shit. And to make matters worse, his body cared dick-all for his rules, and even now, while comforting a distraught woman, his nether regions were revving up like a frat house on a Friday night.
“He had thought they were going to leave the money to me outright,” she was saying. “But they hadn’t trusted Kevin, you see.” Now that her story was spilling out, that iron core of strength she had was starting to reassert itself. She straightened. Although a few rogue tears still clung to her eyelashes, she wiped her face and no longer seemed to need the comfort of his arms. He lowered his hands to rest on his thighs, palms down. “So they put everything in a trust that Kevin couldn’t access. Which really pissed him off.” She reached for her coffee. Mick used the momentum of her movement to stand and round the table. He slid back into the booth opposite her, even though every cell in his body was insisting he return and gather her into his arms once more.
The pleather felt cold under his butt, against his back. Mick reached for his mug of coffee. Instead of picking the mug up by its handle, he wrapped his hands around it, needing the warmth. Took a slug of the bitter brew, swallowed, scalding his throat. Took another gulp.
“Kevin thought I’d put them up to it. Accused me of colluding, but I didn’t.” Her face was pale. She was putting up a brave front, but he could see the slight tremors running through her body. You aren’t going to be her lover, but there is nothing stopping you from being this woman’s friend. The thought dropped into his consciousness, and he felt a loosening of the knot in his belly. You will be a friend to her, because clearly she needs one. “I knew Kevin was upset. I could feel his anger building while we were in my parents’ lawyer’s office reading the will. He would get that way sometimes.” Another tremor coursed through her. “Like a bear with a sore head.” She said it lightly, almost like it was a joke, with a faint smile lifting the corners of her mouth, but her eyes looked tormented and dead serious. “I was hoping once we left the office his foul mood would dissipate, but it didn’t. If anything, the waves of anger swelled into a tsunami of animosity toward Phillip, my parents . . . and me, too.”
“And Phillip is?” A friend? A lover?
“My parents’ lawyer.” She shut her eyes briefly, then opened them again. “Phillip Clarke handled their legal affairs and mine. Actually, he met his wife at my parents’ wedding. S
he was my mom’s maid of honor. He was a bit older than her, but it didn’t matter because it was love at first sight. I’ve known the two of them my whole life. They were always coming over for dinner with their two boys. They were present for any big celebration, or party. A constant. But—” She broke off. Glanced down at her hands. “Guess you never really know someone, do you?” Then Sarah shrugged, as if throwing off whatever thought was weighing her down, picked up a tortilla chip and poked it in the salsa. “But I should talk, right?” Sarah looked at him and smiled wryly. “Pretty much everything I told you up until now was a lie.”
“What?” Mick said, raising his eyebrows and clutching a hand to his heart. “You mean you can’t type a hundred words a minute? You bitch!”
She laughed, which was what he’d been hoping for. “No, that, actually, I can do, but everything else? Total bullshit.” He laughed along with her even though his mouth had a slightly metallic taste that made him reach for his mug of coffee and take another slug. This was what he wanted. To keep her loose and talking so he could unravel the mystery, discover what was hiding in the very deep waters of her psyche. Once he knew the whole story, perhaps it would help dissipate this infatuation he had with her. “And my car’s not in the shop. I had to ditch it at the supermarket.” The words were tumbling out of her now. “A cop had spotted my car and staked it out. That’s when I realized a BOLO must have been issued.” She gestured toward her face. “That’s why I changed my hair again, took off my glasses—which are fake, by the way—there’s nothing wrong with my eyes.” The fingers of her right hand drummed lightly on the table. Mick was reeling from this newest nugget of information. So what does she really look like? And cops? What the fuck? And on top of those thoughts, he also found himself wondering once again if she’d taken piano lessons as a girl, which was really messed up because that thought had absolutely no bearing on the seriousness of the situation. “I figure,” she continued, blithely unaware of the chaos her revelations were wreaking. “If the police have my car license plates, they’ve got to have my physical description as well. That’s why I hit the floor of your car earlier.”
“And a BOLO is?” Mick kept his face expressionless, not letting on that his stomach was in knots. He carefully dunked a chip in the salsa.
Sarah made a face. “A police term. Be on the Lookout.”
Mick’s stomach clenched even tighter. Being infatuated with someone inappropriate was one thing. Being obsessed with someone who the police were hunting down took foolhardy recklessness to a whole new level. “So . . .” He removed another corn chip from the red plastic basket on the table before him. He was acting casual, but his mind was leaping from one hair-raising explanation to another. It’s not something innocuous like a missing person, because she’s in hiding. What other reasons could there be? Bank robbery? Extortion? Murder? The very idea seemed ludicrous. However . . . Mick exhaled. Looked at the chip he was holding and realized there was no way he could manage to chew his way through another. “Why”—he gently laid the chip on his plate, wishing it were as easy to place his worries down—“are the police on the lookout for you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Try me.” Mick could feel tension in his jaw.
Sarah heaved a sigh. “I didn’t do anything wrong, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Fine.” Mick crossed his arms and leaned back. “Then it should be easy to explain why you’re on the run. Why you changed your appearance. Why you left your only means of transportation in a grocery store parking lot.” Sarah dumped a dollop of sour cream on her cheese enchilada, stalling for time. He waited.
She poked her food with her fork, then placed the utensil down and met his gaze dead-on. “Kevin works in law enforcement.”
“Your husband is a police officer?”
She screwed up her face as if tasting something bitter and nodded. “A lieutenant. Look, I know I said ‘my husband,’ but he’s not. Not really.”
“You’re divorced?” He leaned down hard on the hope that had flared up. He needed to deal with the facts. Specifics.
“No.”
Damn. “Separated, then?” After all, divorces could take a while if things were acrimonious.
“Not legally, no. I tried to, but as I said before, things are complicated . . .” She trailed off.
Mick shook his head, trying to clear it. “I’m a little confused here. You say you were married, but you’re neither divorced nor separated. I don’t understand what that means. You told me your husband is a lieutenant, but that doesn’t explain why the police are looking for you. I can’t . . .” He felt like he was being asked to run full tilt through a maze blindfolded. “This isn’t . . .” Mick forced himself to pause. The woman was obviously traumatized and feeling vulnerable. He knew from a decade of dealing with emotional actors that getting frustrated with her would only exacerbate the situation. He took another sip of coffee to buy the necessary time needed to tamp down the disappointment. She was attempting to gaslight him once again. “Sarah. It’s best if we deal in facts, not shadowy half-truths.”
By the way Sarah’s eyes flashed fire, Mick realized he hadn’t been as successful in tamping down his frustration as he’d thought. “You want facts?” she growled, practically baring her teeth at him. “Okay. Here’s a fact for you. I don’t give a damn what a piece of paper says. What matters is how I feel in here.” She slammed her clenched fist against her heart. “And in here, I am divorced.” She thumped her fist against her heart again, fierce and strong. “In here, he has no right to me, no right to my body or my life. And for the record, I’m not some frikkin’ criminal. I didn’t do a damned thing wrong other than have the misfortune to marry an abusive dickhead who is using every resource he has to stalk me. That is the only reason I’m on the run.”
“Are you telling me there is nobody who would help you? Give you a place to stay while you sorted things out?”
“Ha! You are so naive. You have no idea the kind of power and sway my ex has within the NYPD, do you? It’s terrifying. I couldn’t risk endangering anyone I cared about. I had to disappear completely. Because, believe me, my ex would ferret me out and destroy their lives. And here’s another fact to chew on. I happen to be worth a hell of a lot of money. Kevin will stop at nothing until he has me back under his foot. Literally.” Mick could hear truth in her voice, could see it shining out of her eyes, a cleansing, powerful truth. And it had helped to loosen the knot in his gut.
Mick nodded. “Okay.”
Sarah jabbed a forkful of food off her plate and stuck it in her mouth, chewing harder than the soft food required. Mick picked up his fork even though his appetite had flown. As a director, it was clear to him that the food had become a prop, a way to give her a little emotional distance from what she had shared with him. “Kevin is a duplicitous, pathological liar.” Sarah speared another forkful of food. “He can put on a real good show. So convincing. The loving husband whose unhinged wife needs to be located for ‘her own safety.’ That’s why the cops are looking for me.” She lifted another forkful of food, and then, instead of completing its journey to her mouth, she angrily slammed the fork down. “I feel so ashamed I was ever involved with him. What the hell was I thinking?” Mick knew there was no right way to answer that question. “When I look back over the things I went through. The way he treated me. How rude he was to my parents. How he mocked and alienated all my friends. How he—” Sarah broke off. Her mouth compressed into a flat line, as if forcing herself to hold back additional words. She snatched a chip and bit into it, as if she wished the chip were Kevin’s head. “And you want to hear something real pathetic? We got married, all right, but I don’t remember a damn thing about it. Nothing. Not the preparation or making the decision to elope rather than follow through with the big wedding that was in the works—which, by the way, I was having serious reservations about. Literally. I was this close”—Sarah held her index
finger and thumb a millimeter apart—“to canceling the whole damn thing. I was working up my courage to break the news to him. You see, since the engagement, I had witnessed a different side to the charming, charismatic man who had proposed to me, and it scared the hell out of me.” She shivered, looked lost for a moment, then picked up her mug of coffee, her hands wrapped around it tight. Took a sip. Kept the cup in her hands. “Yeah. Don’t remember getting married. Don’t remember going to the church, saying my vows, my wedding night. Nothing.” Sarah looked up from her mug. Her gaze met his, her eyes bleak. “That’s why I don’t drink alcohol anymore. I never want to be in a position where I’m that vulnerable, where I make such a life-changing colossal mistake like that again.”
“Were you a heavy drinker before?”
“No. Would have helped if I had been. Would have built up a tolerance. Nope. He flew us to Vegas for a surprise getaway, and the next day we’re flying back to New York, I’m sicker than a dog, and married.”
“If you were drunk enough to black out your memory, I’m surprised city hall issued you a license.”
“I didn’t go to city hall.”
“You must have. Can’t get married in Vegas without a license.”
“We must have gotten one at the chapel.”
Mick shook his head. Hadn’t lived in Nevada all those years and learned nothing. “Nope. The wedding venues aren’t certified for that. For a marriage to be legal, you’d have had to obtain a marriage license from city hall.”
Sarah slowly placed her mug down on the table. She did it cautiously, almost as if the mug were in danger of detonating.
“You okay?”
She looked up at him, eyes wide and slightly wild. “I’m pretty sure . . . I didn’t go to city hall. I mean . . . unless in Vegas the city hall stays open late?” She reached across the table and clutched his arm. “Can we check on your phone?” Her face was intent. He could see hope and caution duking it out.