by Alice Sharpe
Mac said, “I know you’re anxious to keep going, Grace, but there’s a limit and I’ve just about reached mine. We’re in Florida now, only a few hours away from Miami. I look like hell and you don’t look much better. We need to get some sleep and then find ourselves some clothes that aren’t wrinkled or torn. You need to do something about getting your hair back to its natural color and I need to shave. There’s no use walking into a fancy store looking like derelicts.”
“You’re right,” she said. The dark circles beneath his blue-green eyes were so pronounced it paled the bruise from the shiner. She felt terrible for putting him through the physical dangers of the past few days. She hoped she was wealthy enough to compensate him for the risks he had taken on her behalf, though the more troubling thought was that there was no way to make up for the emotional hazards to which she’d subjected him.
“I figure the man who tried to abduct you is dead, dying, or otherwise out of commission,” Mac continued. “Otherwise, I don’t think Elvis would have run away like he did, nor do I think we would have made it out of that parking lot alive. And since Elvis seems to know exactly who you are and where you live, I don’t think we have to worry about him sneaking up on us.”
“I agree,” she said, willing to agree to almost anything if Mac could just shut his eyes for a while and not look so hurt. She could fidget. She’d do as he asked and sit tight.
Damn! She missed her cards already.
Once in their room, he closed the drapes and hooked the Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob.
And once again, they both stared at the bed as if it were the symbol of everything they desired and couldn’t have. As, indeed, it was. The silence was awkward as neither of them made a move to turn back a cover.
Chapter Eight
“This is ridiculous,” Mac finally said as he stripped off his belt and put that and his gun in its holster on a bedside table. “Okay, so we have…feelings…for each other. So we’d both like to make wild, passionate love. It isn’t going to happen. We both know it. That’s the bed and we need to just buck up and get into it without worrying about…things.”
His little speech brought a smile to Grace’s lips. She watched as he pulled off his T-shirt. The muscles in his upper body rippled when he moved, the fine dusting of hair on his chest looked soft and comforting.
“It would help if you stopped staring at me as I undress,” he said softly, eyes smoldering.
“Sorry,” she said, and then aiming for the same matter-of-fact tone he’d used, added, “You’re an awfully good-looking guy. I’ve always been a sucker for hairy chests.”
They both realized the import of her words at the same time. Another memory, this time about her taste in men. She tried to extrapolate the revelation into a full-blown husband, but it wouldn’t happen. With an apologetic smile, she went to the bathroom and attended to toiletries. Wearing nothing but his jeans, Mac took his turn next.
He looked great bare-chested, wedge-shaped and strong and powerful. He would look perfect in the ocean, she thought. Graceful. She bet he was a great swimmer.
Grace slipped off her torn, oil-smudged dress and got between the covers. Her plan was to lay very still until Mac fell asleep, then sneak out of bed and sit in the chair by the window. Memories could float to the surface when she was awake and could control them—she had no intention of allowing them free rein in her subconscious.
Mac came out of the bathroom. He stripped off his jeans and climbed into the bed wearing boxer shorts.
“I figured you for a briefs man,” she said.
“Nope. Boxers. Why the sudden interest in my underwear?”
She turned on her side to face him and found him lying on his side facing her. The light in the room was extremely dim, thanks to the curtains, but she could see the gleam of his eyes and the flash of his teeth. “Turnabout is fair play,” she said. “You’ve been ogling my undies for days now.”
“Strictly professional interest,” he said, reaching over to run a finger along the bra strap that had slipped down her arm.
She hoped he didn’t feel her shiver. She said, “Is that so?”
“Absolutely,” he whispered.
“Mac, do you like to swim in the ocean?”
“I’ve never done it,” he said.
“Never?”
“Billington isn’t well-known for its oceanfront property.”
“But you were in the army. I saw your picture at your aunt’s house. You’ve traveled.”
He shrugged. His shoulders were bare above the sheets, and his skin looked dark and tantalizing against the white linen. “A little. Mostly the desert. There wasn’t a lot of time for frolicking on the beach.”
“You served in the Gulf War, didn’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
“Your aunt told me.”
“It’s not something I’m fond of remembering,” he said, his tone suggesting this line of questioning was over.
But she wasn’t done. “That crash you mentioned, the one that killed your friend. You were on that helicopter with him.”
He was silent for so long she was sure he wasn’t going to comment. Not that she needed him to. She’d heard enough conversation at Mac’s aunt’s house to know that he’d been aboard. He finally sighed deeply and said, “I couldn’t save Rob,” he said. “I tried…but I failed.”
“That’s not the way I heard it,” she whispered.
She could feel his laserlike glare on her face as heat suffused her cheeks. She added, “I heard that because of your quick thinking and training, Rob stayed alive long enough to be rescued.”
“For all the good it did him,” Mac said.
“At least he died in a hospital and not in the middle of a desert,” she said. “That must have been a comfort to the people who loved him.”
“Grace,” he interrupted, his voice firm but not unkind. “I know your curiosity about my life stems from your frustrated curiosity about your own life, but please, can we give this topic a rest?”
“I don’t understand why you blame yourself,” she said.
He just stared at her.
“Like you blame yourself for your wife’s infidelity. I even think you blame yourself for not saving the wino last year or that poor man in the alley.”
The stare turned into a glower.
“Mac?”
“Question-and-answer time is over,” he said firmly.
This time, there was no doubt in Grace’s mind that he meant it. He closed his eyes. She figured the gesture was as much to punctuate his intent to stop their conversation as it was to fall asleep. After a couple of minutes, she said, “Let’s buy bathing suits and go swimming tomorrow.”
His eyes opened, pinning her with their intensity. “This isn’t a vacation.”
“I know, but maybe the water will be therapeutic. Maybe it will hasten more recollections.”
He smothered a yawn in his fist. “That sounds reasonable.”
“Does everything always have to sound reasonable to you?” she teased.
He closed his eyes again, and this time, an aura of abandonment followed. His face, in repose, looked lean and vulnerable. He said, “Hmm.”
The way he relaxed reminded her of the way a child abandons their concerns at night. Had her own baby looked like this when he or she went to sleep? Was that why the memory seemed so poignant to her?
Did her baby miss her? If she never remembered who she was, would her baby even remember her? She couldn’t help asking one final question. She whispered, “Mac?”
Without opening his eyes, he murmured, “Hmm?”
“You must have some fond memories of your mother,” she said.
He was silent.
“I know you were young when she left, but there must be something that stands out, something of her that…remains.”
His eyes half opened as his lips gently curved into a wistful smile. “Every morning,” he said softly, “she would ask me about my dreams of the
night before. I’d tell her as much as I could remember, then she’d tell me what the dream meant. I remember her voice, kind of far away and whimsical, and the soft look of her eyes.”
“You must have been very young,” Grace said.
“Yes. But I learned quick. If I couldn’t remember a dream for her to interpret, I’d make something up.”
“To prolong your time with her,” Grace said.
“To keep from disappointing her,” he said, yawning into his fist.
Grace felt for the stretch marks she could barely discern by touch. As her fingers grazed her skin, she knew, she absolutely knew she had a child somewhere.
Anxiety all but choked her. She closed her eyes and bit on her fist, determined to stay strong, trying to conjure an image, unable to form anything more tangible than a feeling. But this feeling was real.
She had a child, and the child was alive.
She knew it.
ACCORDING TO the digital alarm clock provided by the motel, it was five o’clock when Grace jerked awake. Mac’s pillow was bare.
Had he abandoned her?
She switched on the light and looked around the empty room, heart pounding in her ears. A note beside the lamp caught her attention.
I’ve gone out to get a few supplies. Stay in the room. Please. I’ll be back soon.
She took a deep breath and got out of bed. Nine hours of sleep should have refreshed her, but she felt sluggish instead. At least her sleep hadn’t been fraught with monstrous shadow people. Or knives…
She decided to take a quick shower and had just put back on her once pretty coppery dress when she heard a noise at the door. She opened it with a welcoming smile.
Mac stood there, card-key in hand, arms juggling plastic sacks and newspapers. “You didn’t even ask who it was before opening it,” he said with a frown as he walked past her. “Lock the door, use the chain,” he added.
She did as he asked. “Who else would it be but you?” she said. “Yum. What smells so good?”
“It could have been Elvis or the guy from the parking lot,” Mac said. “It could have been someone else, someone who hasn’t introduced himself yet.” He dropped a bag on the small table flanked by two chairs that took up the corner of the room. With a sigh, he added, “Breakfast is served.”
“You mean dinner,” she said, opening a foam cup of coffee and taking a sip.
“I mean breakfast. We slept all of yesterday and through most of the night.”
She pulled the cup from her lips. “But it’s dark outside—”
“The sun hasn’t come up yet. I found one of those twenty-four hour stores a few blocks from here and picked up a few things. I gassed up the car and bought us a couple of breakfast burritos. Do you like breakfast burritos?”
She shrugged. She was hungry enough to try almost anything, but she couldn’t get over the hours they had wasted sleeping. The tension in her stomach came back with a vengeance.
Mac separated what appeared to be four different newspapers into sections as Grace unwrapped their food. She handed him his share and he handed her half of the newspapers. “Look for any mention of a shooting or a knifing taking place night before last night outside of Macon,” he said. He took a bite of the burrito and grinned. “Not bad.”
She couldn’t believe the change in him. Gone were the hollows beneath his eyes. Even the shiner had all but faded away. Gone also was the weariness. He seemed revitalized, ready to tackle the world. It took all her willpower not to pull him out of his seat and force him into the car.
They were so close….
Instead, she focused on the wee tendrils of optimism she felt sprouting in her own heart. Mac’s enthusiasm and his clear, bright eyes gave her hope that this ordeal would be concluded before another night fell. Trying out a positive outlook, she said, “Today’s the day.”
Mac looked up from scanning the front page of a newspaper. “Today is what day?”
“Today is the day we get an answer,” she said, discovering that giving voice to a good thought was like pumping gas into an empty tank.
He folded the paper down and almost scowled at her. “The underwear store is a long shot,” he said softly.
“I know,” she said. “A million-to-one chance. I guess I’m feeling lucky.”
He turned his attention back to the newspapers and she felt a little of her unwarranted optimism fade. She buried her head in the newspaper and scanned every headline.
After several minutes of silence, disrupted only by the rattle of paper, Mac said, “There’s nothing in here. Did you find anything?”
She glanced down at the Atlanta edition in her lap. “A hit-and-run in downtown Covington and a man who shot his best friend over a bagel. Nothing about a dead man in a parking lot outside of Macon.”
“Nothing here, either. Of course, it might be yesterday’s news by now.”
They rustled through the rest of the papers but found nothing pertinent. “Why don’t you call the place where we stayed and ask the desk clerk?” Grace asked at last.
“I imagine they have caller ID,” Mac said. “If there was a murder, the police will be on the lookout for calls like that. Too risky.” He shuffled around at his feet until he pulled from one of the shopping bags a pair of red plastic flip-flops. “For you,” he said.
She took the shoes and put them on her feet. “Nice,” she told him, wiggling her toes.
“Better than nothing,” he said.
“Did you get me a box of hair color?” she asked him.
He glanced at her hair. “I really think you ought to go to a salon for that.”
“But the time that would take—”
“Is time well spent, Grace. If we’re going to saunter into an uppity place like L’Hippocampe, we’d both better look more the part.”
“But Mac—”
He leaned forward and patted her knee. “Grace, your dress is torn and smeared with grease and those flip-flops aren’t going to win any fashion points. A couple of hours getting ourselves prepared will pay off in the end. It’s not even 6 a.m. Trust me.”
Like she had a choice! He held the car keys, he was in charge. She bit her lip and nodded, glancing at the nightstand clock.
“Check out the bag from the store,” he told her. “I bought you a present.”
She dug into the abandoned sack and felt her fingers close around a small, rectangular box.
“You shouldn’t have,” she said, smiling as she withdrew a new deck of playing cards.
“Just don’t ask me to play poker again,” he grumbled.
AFTER THEY each chose a change of clothes, Mac used the time Grace spent having her hair colored to use a remote Internet connection located in the middle of the shopping mall. From his vantage point, he could see the front of the salon and the main entrance of the mall. He found nothing in any online newspaper about a murder in the right spot at the right time.
Did that mean Elvis had only wounded the man and that the man had subsequently escaped? Or did it mean Elvis took the body with him?
He could still see the Elvis impersonator jogging back toward the motel. Empty-handed. Well, except for the gun.
The abductor must still be out there, waiting for another chance to nab Grace.
He couldn’t even begin to fathom what Elvis’s role in all this was.
He was so deep in thought that it took him a second to realize the striking blonde leaving the salon was actually Grace. Her hair was still short, but now it was shaped and framed her delicate face. The color and cut made her blue eyes sparkle, her lightly tanned skin glow.
She’d chosen a form-fitting deep blue blouse and a slinky white skirt, which rode on her slender hips. White sandals wrapped her toes and ankles. He’d been with her when she bought these clothes and he’d marveled at how she’d just pulled them off the rack. How she ended up with such a sexy ensemble without hours of plotting and planning was a mystery to him.
He was mesmerized by the way she walked, too, witho
ut affectation but with the grace he’d always noticed in her, as though she owned whatever pavement on which she placed her feet. And his weren’t the only male eyes glued to her swaying hips. While Grace had made a very pretty brunette, she made a truly dazzling blonde.
“You look…stunning,” he said, walking up to meet her. She’d applied makeup sometime during the past couple of hours, and she’d applied it with real skill.
She smiled as she took his arm. The two of them kept walking toward the exit. Even her smile looked different.
“It’s going to take some time getting used to you this way,” he added.
She touched her hair. “I kind of hoped I’d look into a mirror and my name would pop to mind,” she admitted.
“No such luck?”
“’Fraid not.”
“Well, I assume this is what you usually look like, which is the whole point. Maybe someone else will look at you and your name will pop into their mind.”
“But you don’t really believe that will happen, do you?”
“No. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“I’m nervous, Mac.”
He nodded. He could feel the quiver in her arm as it rested against his side.
As she strode out of the mall beside him, he felt a stab of regret for not making love to Grace when he’d had the chance. The Grace of a day or so ago had needed him. The Grace of today looked well on her way to discovering herself and he had the distinct feeling she wouldn’t need him or maybe anyone else once she had.
He metaphorically shook his head to clear such thoughts. His job was to keep Grace safe. His objective was to help her rediscover her identity.
After that, he needed to go home and help track down the man who had stabbed poor old Jake to death.
Not Jake. Michael Wardman.
Unless the killer was hurt and wounded somewhere behind them.