“How about a table up front so you can look through the window and see if anyone goes by that you recognize?”
She wavered for a moment but then shook her head. “They could see me, too. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“No problem. We’ll ask for a table in the back.”
He wasn’t surprised that her willpower was used up. A little disappointed, maybe, but not surprised.
The hostess seated them at a booth in the rear where the lighting was dim, as far as possible from the plate-glass window.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said again. “The thought of being so exposed was scary.”
“No problem,” he said again. “You’ve had a stressful morning.” And if he pushed her any harder, she would surely shatter just as that egg had shattered on the floor when he’d startled her earlier.
Cole ordered a beer and Mary asked for a glass of iced tea.
The waitress returned shortly with their drinks along with a basket of tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa, then took their orders.
Mary asked for extra jalapeños with her enchiladas, then proceeded to stir two packets of sugar into her tea. Cole leaned back against the padded plastic and chuckled. “A country music fan, a woman who bakes biscuits from scratch, drinks sweetened iced tea and eats jalapeños. At least we know for sure you’re a Texan.”
Mary’s tense features relaxed one muscle at a time, the result a soft smile. “It’s a big state. I’m not sure that narrows down the search very much.”
“But it does bring up a possibility. You said you grew up on a farm. Maybe you don’t live in Dallas but in one of the surrounding areas. That could be why nobody’s come forward to identify you. They may not have had access to the story on television or in the newspaper.”
“I’ve been gone four days and nobody’s missed me, nobody’s checked with the authorities? That doesn’t seem very likely.”
“Maybe not, but it could happen. You might have planned to take a few days to come into Dallas and shop for your wedding dress.”
Mary twirled her straw in the pale amber tea and smiled wryly. “When the alteration lady stuck me with a pin, I killed her?”
“You keep saying you killed somebody. There’s absolutely no evidence to support that theory. You could have been present at the scene of some sort of accident.”
“A really bad accident, judging from the blood.”
“Not necessarily. Someone could have fallen and hit his head. Head wounds bleed a lot.”
She considered that for a moment. “If I’d tried to help, that would explain the blood on my dress.”
“Right.”
She wrapped both hands around her cool glass of tea and looked at him with pleading in her eyes, begging him to convince her of that scenario. “But why would that be so horrible I wouldn’t want to remember it?”
For someone as fragile as Mary, he could well imagine that seeing such an accident would send her into a total state of shock and amnesia. But he wouldn’t tell her that. “Maybe the person died.” Maybe it was her fiancé.
“Then why wasn’t it reported?”
“Okay, he didn’t die.”
“He didn’t show up in a hospital, either. Officer Townley said they checked and found no accident victims with AB-positive blood who knew anything about me.”
“There are hundreds of neighborhood clinics around town, some more reputable than others, where he could have gone to be patched up.” If she wanted him to convince her, she needed to stop coming up with such valid arguments. He selected a chip and drew it through the salsa then ate it and took a big drink of his beer.
She followed his lead, and they munched on chips and salsa for a couple of minutes.
“What if it wasn’t an accident?” she asked. “What if I witnessed a murder? That would explain why the body hasn’t shown up. The murderer hid it.”
She spoke almost dispassionately, as if discussing a movie she’d seen or something that had happened to an acquaintance. The terror that usually permeated every word and every glance was still there but to a much lesser degree. Perhaps the known, no matter how awful, was less terrifying than the unknown, or perhaps she’d simply reached her mind’s limits of coping with fear.
“The murderer could be looking for me,” she continued in that same disconnected tone. “I could be the next victim.”
She was right. That was a possible scenario and would explain a lot. So maybe she had reason to be paranoid. Maybe he’d misjudged her.
“If that’s what happened, I promise you won’t be the next victim,” he assured her. If the threat was real, if it came in the form of a flesh-and-blood person, he could protect her. “I did learn a few things in my years on the police force.”
“Why did you leave the force?”
Her innocent question stole the brief surge of confidence.
Fortunately the waitress arrived at that moment with their food, and he had a chance to think about his answer, to hope she’d forget the question.
They ate in silence for a few moments, and he was pleased to notice that she was eating more. He’d begun to fear for her physical well-being as much as her mental.
She finished one enchilada and most of her beans, then pushed her plate away. “I didn’t mean to pry,” she said. “When I asked why you left the force, I mean. You don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business.”
“Burnout,” he said curtly.
“I see.”
He didn’t know if the amnesia had robbed her of her defenses or if her thoughts and feelings had always shown so clearly on her face and in her eyes. Whichever it was, he could tell now that she did, indeed, understand his answer all too well; that she knew he didn’t want to talk about it and that she would honor that need.
He felt ashamed, almost as if he had lied to her, certainly as if he owed her something more. Not the whole truth, but at least a part of it. She trusted him enough to stay in his house, to put her safety in his hands, and yet she knew absolutely nothing about him because he didn’t trust her with himself.
He shoved his half-eaten plate aside. Suddenly he no longer had an appetite.
“After Angela and Billy were killed, I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said. “If I wasn’t able to keep my own family safe, what the hell was I doing on the streets trying to keep other people safe?”
“Were you with your family when they…when the accident happened?”
He sighed and leaned back, draping his arm along the back of the seat and looking across the room. Through the plate-glass window he could see the world outside where people passed, normal people who still had their souls intact, unlike Mary and him. She’d lost hers somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind, and his had shriveled and died three years ago.
“I wasn’t with them,” he replied, still not looking at her, not meeting her gaze. “I was at work, on a stakeout. Angela was…upset that night. She called me several times, but I couldn’t leave to go home. So she and Billy got in the car and left the house. She ran a red light and plowed into a semi truck. They were both killed instantly. Fortunately, nobody else was hurt.”
He dared to look at her then, into those trusting, guileless eyes, to see if she noticed the gaps in that story, gaps huge enough to drive that semi through. What he saw was sympathy, an echo of his pain, and for a moment a current flowed between the two of them.
He blinked and looked away. He didn’t want or deserve her sympathy, and he could do nothing to assuage her pain. Or his.
“That must have been awful,” she said softly.
“Yeah, it was.” He picked up the ticket and rose. “Ready to go check out the rest of the city?”
“All right.”
Before they’d entered the restaurant, the temperatures had risen to a point where riding in the convertible was no longer comfortable. Now the sun beat down mercilessly, and Cole raised the top on his car.
As they drove around Dallas, Mary, while still clenching her hands in her lap, neverthe
less seemed to sit straighter, to hold her head higher. He wouldn’t call her relaxed, but she was less tense. Part of it could stem from her fears of being seen. Now that he’d put up the top, she was somewhat hidden from the world.
But he sensed it was more than that. With his partial admission of the torment in his own soul, they’d turned a corner of some sort. It was almost as if she now knew that she couldn’t depend on him and would have to rely on her own strength and, consequently, was finding more of that strength.
“The Galleria!” she exclaimed as they drove along LBJ Freeway past the large shopping mall. “I remember the Galleria!” She turned to him with a wide, expectant smile.
“Galleria, here we come!” He steered for the nearest exit, circled around and pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center. When they parked, she merely continued to stare and made no move to get out of the car.
“Do you want to go in?” he asked.
She nodded. “Of course. It’s just that—”
“You’re scared.”
“Yes, but that’s not it. There’s something about the mall that’s not quite right.”
“Maybe you’re not used to parking on this side. Let’s go in. You’ll probably recognize some of the shops. This could be where your ring and gown came from.”
The mention of those two items caused the usual return of tension, but she opened her door and got out wordlessly anyway.
The parking lot was crowded with people hurrying in every direction, pushing past, rushing to get home or just out of the heat. For the most part, their gazes were turned inward, focused on their own lives, though some stared openly at Mary. She was, after all, a beautiful woman. Her eyes darted back and forth as if she was searching every face that came into range.
He took her arm to guide her, to make her feel safe and because he wanted to touch her. He could feel her flinch every time someone brushed past or looked directly at her. He could also feel the stilted movement of her stride, as if she had weights attached to her feet. But she never once hesitated, pushing on past her fears until they reached the entrance.
The mall was more crowded than the parking lot, and they made slow progress as Mary scanned each face and each storefront. She hesitated in front of Saks Fifth Avenue but then moved on. Cole spotted a bridal boutique and, with one hand at her waist to support her just in case, urged her toward it. “Think you might have bought your dress there?”
To his surprise, she didn’t freak, but merely stood there shaking her head. “I don’t know. We can go in and check.”
The clerk at the shop showed them pictures of recently sold gowns, but none was similar to Mary’s. Cole wasn’t surprised. He suspected she would have reacted in some way if it had been the right shop.
Finally as they paused to watch ice skaters whirling on the indoor rink, she turned to him and shook her head. “We might as well leave. This isn’t accomplishing anything.”
She was silent on the way home, and he didn’t intrude on her thoughts. Her gaze stayed focused out the window as if she was searching for something. Her past, he supposed.
When they reached his front door, he unlocked the dead bolt and disabled the burglar alarm.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob and reflected that she used that expression frequently. “What are you sorry for?”
She shrugged. “Everything. Not being able to recognize the buildings, being afraid to sit up front in the restaurant, not recognizing the mall.” She frowned and bit her lip. “The Galleria was so familiar and yet not familiar at the same time. The place nags at the edges of my memory, like when you hear a few words from a song, and you know the song, but you can’t quite catch the melody or remember any more of the lyrics.”
“You may think you haven’t accomplished anything today, but you have. Think about it. Over the course of twelve hours, you’ve recovered memories of your parents and you got up the courage to go out in public, to start searching for your past. You’ve come a long way since you dropped that egg when I walked in this morning.”
“And spilled my coffee.” She smiled up at him, standing so close to him on the porch that her elusive scent of white flowers mingled with the fresh green fragrance of the surrounding canopy of trees. A robin trilled overhead and from somewhere in the depths of the woods, a blue jay squawked.
The waning afternoon sunlight dappled her quicksilver hair as it hung softly about her shoulders and draped her face. Despite her smile, in her eyes he could see the sadness and regret of what she seemed to consider her failure, and more than anything, he wanted to make that sadness and regret disappear.
He lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “Ease up on yourself. You’ve come a long way in the last three days. Just take it one step at a time.”
Her unguarded eyes, the clear color of the sky overhead, filled with gratitude, and he realized that he’d just lied to himself. What he really wanted to do more than anything was to kiss her. Twice before he’d been this close and pulled away, but he couldn’t do it a third time. No matter how much he knew he should, no matter how concerned he was about her vulnerability or the unknown fiancé that waited for her. All those concerns were shoved to the back of his mind by his need for her.
He wasn’t sure if he pulled her into his arms or if she flowed there, but suddenly her body was clinging to his, her head lifted to offer him her mouth, the blue of her half-closed eyes smoky and inviting. Her lips on his were soft and firm and warm and moist, and though her body felt fragile in his arms, she pressed against him and returned his kiss with an intensity of passion that surprised and aroused him and made him hungry for more, so much more.
The world around them vanished, leaving nothing but the two of them, her lips on his, her body slim and supple in his arms, her breasts against his chest, her heart beating wildly in time with his, the rhythm strong and steady. He wanted her, all of her, wanted to carry her inside the house, up to his room, lay her across his bed and make love to her all night, become a part of her, the only reality she knew and the only reality that mattered right now.
And then it was over.
Gently she eased away from him, her hands on his shoulders, her lips red and swollen from their kiss, her breath coming in ragged pants. “We probably ought to go inside,” she said, her voice husky.
If she hadn’t been strong enough to pull away, they’d be going inside, all right. Straight to his bedroom. In this instance at least, she was stronger than he.
He opened the door and she preceded him inside.
She had come a long way in one day. He’d given in completely to his hormones, his need for her overriding his concern for her needs. He’d almost taken advantage of her vulnerability. If this was his idea of caring for her, being responsible, he needed to rearrange his thinking.
Now all he had to do was get through the rest of the evening with her and all the night, knowing she was sleeping only a few feet away.
Oh, yeah! He was doing really great on the responsibility issue. Not one damn bit better than last time.
Worse, in fact. He’d never been so out of control with Angela. She’d had nothing to fear from him, only from what he couldn’t do.
But Mary was another matter entirely. He’d caused or at least contributed to her problem, and he’d do the best he could for her…reassure her, keep the house locked and hope her fiancé rescued her soon. That was all he could do. He could lock the monsters outside, but at the same time, he’d be locking in the ones that lived in her mind…and he’d be locking her in with his desire for her.
The best he could hope for was that she would wake in the morning with perfect recall. Then she could return to her home and her fiancé, someone who could care for her and keep her safe.
Except her mysterious fiancé hadn’t done a very good job of it so far.
The alternative was that she could wake in the morning and remember witnessing a murder. Then she’d become the responsibility of the
police department. All she’d need to do would be to tell the police, and when they caught the murderer, she could return to her normal, safe life. If it was possible for someone with her soul-deep terrors to return to a normal, safe life after witnessing something as horrible as a murder.
For a moment he couldn’t decide if he wanted her to remember or not, if he wished her back in the life that had produced such fear.
But that brought him full circle to the final alternative…that she never regained her memory, that she was dependent on him to keep her from harm, to pull her back from the abyss. He’d known he wasn’t capable of that job before he’d kissed her. Now he wasn’t even sure he could save himself.
She had to regain her memory.
HE AWAKENED the next morning to the sound of a woman screaming.
Chapter Six
Mary slammed the front door closed and leaned on the solid wood, her heart pounding erratically, the darkness beating against the windows of her mind in its effort to get in, to suck her down into the bottomless, painless, safe void.
“Mary!” He grabbed her, and she screamed again, trying to push him away, but his grip on her wrists was like a steel band.
“What’s the matter? What happened?”
She shook her head, not wanting to think about any of it, only wanting to get away from him, seek the solace of the beckoning blackness. But he held her close against his chest, and the clean scent of soap mingled with a familiar masculine essence that suffused her nostrils and pulled her back.
Cole.
It was Cole who held her.
She’d done it again, completely lost control, gone off into her nightmare realm. She couldn’t lift her head, couldn’t look into his face and see again the pity. He stroked her back soothingly, the way a father would do for a frightened child, not the way a man did for a desirable woman…not the way he’d touched her last night when he’d held her and kissed her and she’d felt like a real person.
“What’s the matter, Mary? What happened?”
She forced herself to look up, to meet his gaze as if she hadn’t just made a total fool of herself. “I thought I heard something outside, so I opened the door.” She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. “There’s blood on the porch. An animal. It’s…dead.”
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