Private Vows

by Sally C. Berneathy

  “I wish I had your strength,” she said. “I wish I could face my past and accept it.”

  “You will. You’re getting stronger every day.” His gaze returned to the present, to her, and she glimpsed approval in his eyes.

  Even as she drank in the warmth of that approval, she hated that she needed it so much, that she was still unable to stand on her own.

  She rose abruptly. “Are you ready to get started on those self-defense techniques you were going to teach me?”

  “Yeah, we need to do that.”

  He moved away from the fireplace and came so close to her, she could smell the clean fragrance of his soap and the masculine scent that belonged to him alone, could feel the electricity that passed from his body to hers.

  As he approached and took her arms, for a moment she thought he was going to pull her against him, kiss her, make love to her, satisfy that craving he started in her just by his nearness, that craving that intensified every day with every word he spoke to her, every small detail of himself he permitted her to see.

  Of course he wasn’t going to do any such thing. He was going to teach her how to defend herself against an attacker. He was simply continuing to take care of her the way he’d taken care of everyone in his birth family and his married family. She could be in danger, and he was trying to help her. That’s all. And that was all it should or could be.

  She found it hard to imagine wanting another man—the tall blond man from the restaurant and the concert?—but when she regained her memory, she might regain her feelings for the man who’d placed that hated ring on her finger. Unlikely as that felt right now, it was a possibility and should be a barrier to thoughts of kissing Cole.

  Should be.

  “It wasn’t Sam outside the window last night, was it?” she asked, redirecting her thoughts and giving voice to her suspicions concerning the danger she might be in.

  He hesitated only briefly before replying. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure he was already dead by then.”

  “I saw someone.” She paused, holding his gaze. “Do you believe me?”

  “The only thing that matters is that you believe it.”

  “I believe me,” she said.

  Mary’s quiet words had the unexpected ring of confidence, Cole thought. He’d told her the truth when he said she was getting stronger every day. He suspected she’d soon be strong enough to face whatever awaited her in the world she’d chosen to forget. And then she’d be gone from his world.

  In the meantime, he’d do what he could to ensure that she’d be able to protect herself just in case.

  He ran through some of the basic techniques of self-defense—raking the attacker’s eyes with her fingers, knee to groin, half fist to throat, palm heel to nose, kicks or pressure to knee or elbow—techniques that, coupled with the element of surprise, could gain her enough time to get away from an attacker.

  She was a quick and energetic learner. There was only one problem. All the demonstrations involved being close to her, holding her body against his, and it was tough to concentrate on anything but the feel of her.

  As he wound one arm around her neck and the other around her shoulders, then pulled her backward to him, he knew she must feel his hardness, must know that his ragged breathing didn’t come from physical exertion but from the way she affected him.

  “Lift one foot,” he instructed, “and put the heel against my knee. It only takes a few pounds of pressure to break a knee when you’re pushing from the front. At the very least, you can cause a lot of hurt and use this position to shove off and get away.”

  She obediently lifted her foot and pressed the heel gently against his knee, then lowered it. Her bottom pressed against his arousal, and he made no move to release her. Nor did she make any move to get away.

  He lowered his arms to wrap them around her abdomen, just under her breasts. Her heart pounded against his hand, strong and fast, matching his own heartbeat. Knowing that she was as aroused as he took away the last of his control.

  Burying his face in her hair, he breathed in the fragrance of white flowers, held her close and asked himself if he knew what the hell he was doing.

  He had no answer.

  He raised his head and lifted her hair, running his fingers through the silky strands. It did feel like moon-light—soft, sleek and gentle. She tilted her head, and he pressed his lips to the throbbing pulse, tasting the sweetness of her skin and hearing the sweetness of her low moan.

  “Mary,” he said softly against her neck, the single word a question and an entreaty.

  Her body tensed and she gasped. “Mary? Who’s Mary?”

  He released her and took a step backward, trying to clear the fog of desire from his head and figure out what had just happened.

  She blinked, lifted a shaky hand to her forehead and laughed nervously. “I can’t believe I said that. It just sounded so wrong. I thought you were calling me by another woman’s name.”

  “Okay,” he said cautiously, “if your name isn’t Mary, what is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s Mary. For now. I just…I don’t know.” She lifted her arms in a helpless gesture.

  Cole ran a hand through his hair. What the hell was the matter with him? He’d been on the verge of seducing a woman who couldn’t even remember who she was or who she was engaged to. Oh, he was taking care of her, all right. About like he’d taken care of his mother and Angela.

  A tap sounded at the picture window across the room, and her head jerked in that direction.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing. Something hitting the window.”

  “It’s the same sound I heard last night when that man was outside.”

  Cole went over and looked out into the dusk of the evening. “The wind must have blown an acorn or a pecan against the window.” He could see Mary fighting back the fear, and he hated the noise that had caused the return of that fear. But at the same time, it served as a cold shower, reinforcing the wrong of what he’d been about to do.

  “It’s June. Too early for acorns and pecans to be falling.”

  She had a point, but he didn’t want to increase her fears. “There are always a few left on the trees from last year, but I’ll go check just to be sure.”

  He turned to go, but she caught his arm.

  “I’ll be okay,” he assured her.

  “I know.” She smiled softly and released his arm. “I just wanted to thank you for checking, for not telling me how silly I’m being.”

  “Fear is never silly no matter what causes it.” And after Sam’s death, Cole wasn’t going to dismiss any of Mary’s fears no matter how far-fetched they might seem.

  He took a heavy-duty flashlight from the hall closet and went out to check.

  There were no signs of an intruder, though the signs would have had to be pretty blatant to show up in the rustic setting. The insects and birds were quiet, but that could be from his appearance on the scene. Acorns, pecans, twigs and pebbles littered the ground beneath the window. The noise could have come from a natural source. Probably had.

  He lifted his gaze from the ground to see Mary standing in the living room, hugging herself and looking toward the window even though, with the light on, he knew she’d see only a dark reflection of the room.

  But he could see her quite clearly, and the situation felt strangely erotic.

  She bit her lip, drawing one corner into her mouth, and Cole found himself mimicking her action as if he could somehow touch her lips instead of his own.

  There were plenty of logical reasons why he shouldn’t make love to Mary, but his body didn’t know about logic. His body only knew how much he wanted her.

  MARY WENT UP to bed early that night, claiming exhaustion. It was the truth. The self-defense session had been physically tiring, but mostly her exhaustion came from that scorching scene with Cole, his breath in her hair, his lips on her neck, finding sensual spots she hadn’t known existed, the hard feel of his arousal that tol
d her he wanted fulfillment as much as she did, and then the frustration of stopping short of that fulfillment.

  After Cole came in from checking and finding nothing, they’d eaten a quick dinner. She’d forced down half a sandwich and sat through some television show, though she couldn’t say which one, before making her excuses to come up to bed. However, she didn’t anticipate sleeping much. Her body was still aroused, still wanting Cole, and she couldn’t stop her mind from replaying over and over every detail of their sensual encounter even though such repetitions only increased her frustration.

  She closed the bedroom door behind her and flipped on the light.

  Angela’s journal lay open on her bed.

  Cole must have taken it out of the drawer and left it like that. But why?

  And when? They’d been together all day, and she couldn’t recall his coming upstairs after they got home.

  For no good reason, she approached the bed cautiously, fearfully.

  The journal was open to the first page, except it was a different first page. Angela’s exuberant joy at being Cole’s wife had been ripped out of the book.

  Was this Cole’s way of telling her that he knew she’d peeked in the journal?

  No, Cole wasn’t sneaky. He would have simply confronted her.

  So who had put the journal on the bed? Who had torn out that page?

  Feeling ridiculous, she checked the closet to see if anyone was hiding there.

  Of course no one was. The house was secure. Cole had locked the door and set the alarm system when they left. It had still been set when they came home. No one could possibly have been in her room except Cole.

  But the question still remained, who—and when?

  Obviously Cole had even though she hadn’t noticed. He had all but refused to talk about Angela. Could this possibly be his way of letting her know about their life together? For whatever reason, apparently he’d torn out that page and left the journal open for her to see.

  Unless she’d done it herself, ripped the page from jealousy of another woman’s happiness, then blocked that action from her mind the way she’d blocked the rest of her life.

  Surely not. The part of herself she did remember would never have done anything like that.

  Feeling sick to her stomach, she sank onto the bed and with trembling hands picked up the journal. The exposed page showed a slightly different handwriting, still basically the same as that first spidery note, but shakier, less fluid.

  Feeling more than a little guilty, Mary turned a few of the pages and noted that the handwriting soon be came unrecognizable as Angela’s.

  Against her sense of decency, she focused on one of the paragraphs.

  Bill has found us! Cole says the alarm system will keep everybody out, but I know Bill too well. I’ve had to deal with him all these years. Cole hasn’t. He doesn’t understand!

  Bill? Billy’s father? Cole had never mentioned Angela’s ex-husband other than to say he was tall.

  Of course, Cole hadn’t told her very much about Angela.

  Fascinated and unable to stop herself from invading Angela’s privacy, Mary read on and soon deduced that Billy’s father was a psychopath. He had tried on several occasions in the past to harm Angela and Billy. Cole had bought the isolated house and put in the alarm system with the sole purpose of protecting his wife and stepson from a maniac.

  No wonder Cole didn’t want to talk about it!

  Had Bill finally murdered his ex-wife and child? Cole had said they’d died in an automobile accident, but maybe it hadn’t been an accident.

  Cole had still been a police officer then. Had he been unable to protect his family from a murderer? That would explain why he’d left the police force. It might also explain his tortured soul, his inability to go into their rooms, as if their memories would accuse him.

  The entries stopped halfway through the book. By that time, Angela’s terror was total, her handwriting unrecognizable and almost unreadable.

  She had never returned to her son’s room to reclaim the journal.

  Once again Mary wondered why she’d found it necessary to hide the book in Billy’s room, away from Cole. But apparently Cole had known about it.

  Unless she herself had been the one to rip out the page and leave it on the bed.

  That’s crazy.

  The sentence screamed at her from the black void of her life, filling her with a dark sense of dread.

  Had someone said that to her? Even if they had, it was the kind of thing that might be said in a fit of anger. It didn’t necessarily mean that she was mentally unbalanced.

  Did it?

  She tucked the journal under Billy’s sweaters again, getting it out of her sight in the hope that she could get the disturbing thoughts it had brought with it out of her head.

  As she unbuttoned her blouse to get ready for bed, she suddenly felt exposed.

  The bedroom window, like the other windows in Cole’s secluded house, had drapes that were never closed. Tonight, she closed them.

  She’d been right about sleep not coming easily. Between thoughts of Cole, of needing him beside her, fears about her own mental stability and questions about Angela’s journal, Mary found herself wide awake as the digital clock flashed away the hours.

  “You hurt me and even though I forgive you, you must pay.”

  Mary sat bolt upright at the sound of the whispered words, her heart pounding so hard it threatened to burst out of her rib cage. Someone was in her room!

  Her fingers trembled so badly she almost knocked over the bedside lamp as she fumbled with the switch. The light finally flashed on, blinding her momentarily.

  It revealed an empty room.

  “I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

  She gasped as the voice came again. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It seemed to be all around her.

  She was hearing voices.

  The mystery of the journal with its missing page hit her again, along with the memory of someone telling her she was crazy.

  “You betrayed me, and you’ll have to be punished.”

  She burrowed under the covers, pulling the pillow over her head, trying desperately to get away from this latest horror. With her heart pounding so loudly, surely she wouldn’t be able to hear it again.

  Stupid! she berated herself. If the voices were all in her head, hiding under the covers wouldn’t help, nor would her heartbeat drown them out.

  She threw back the covers and sat up.

  Damn it, she hadn’t imagined the voice! It was real.

  For the second night in a row, she forced herself to get out of bed and confront her fears. As her feet hit the floor, she fully expected some monster to reach from under the bed and grab her ankles.

  “Eventually you’ll learn.”

  The voice came from everywhere.

  She grabbed Billy’s bat and moved cautiously to the closet. She’d checked it before. It had held nothing but Billy’s clothes.

  Nevertheless, cold fear gripped her as she swung the door open.

  Nothing.

  “Those who truly love will always forgive no matter how grave the sin.”

  That sounded somehow familiar, but the terror that gripped her refused to let her think, to remember where she’d heard it before.

  She had to open the curtains and look out the window.

  This time was harder than the first. She turned off the light with trembling fingers then walked on wooden legs over to the window and stood for a long moment, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.

  Do it! she ordered herself. But her hands remained at her sides. If she opened those curtains, would she see the monster from the night before just outside her window, hovering in midair, whispering from a mouth he didn’t have?

  “Soon we’ll be together.”

  She jumped as the voice came again.

  Cole would open those curtains without a second thought. He’d jerk them back and confront whatever might be out there no matter
what the horror he had to face.

  She needed to be as strong as he was, to face her terrors.

  Her hands seemed to weigh a ton each as she lifted them and clutched the fabric in fingers that were stiff and no longer wanted to obey her commands.

  Mustering every ounce of courage she had, she pulled the curtains aside, and for a moment she saw and felt nothing, retreating again to the safe darkness of her mind. It was so enticing to return there, to get away from all the bad things, all the frightening things, forget the mysterious voice tonight, the bloody man beckoning to her last night, her parents’ deaths…but not Cole. She didn’t want to forget Cole.

  Her focus shifted and once again she saw a peaceful, tranquil scene stretching before her, moonlight illuminating everything.

  There was no one outside her window.

  No one in the closet.

  No one but her in the room.

  What had she heard?

  Nothing.

  You’re crazy!

  She ran her tongue over her dry lips. Was she mentally unbalanced…enough to hurt someone? Did that explain the blood on her wedding gown?

  She didn’t want to remember yet suddenly she knew that she had to. She could no longer live like this, terrified of the unknown, hearing voices—had she really heard the whispers or were they merely echoes of her past trying to reach her? Though she listened intently, she heard nothing else.

  Mary turned away from the window. She had to get the dress and the ring, look at them, hold them in her hands, accept them into her life and make them give up their memories to her.

  Since she wasn’t likely to sleep anymore tonight in this room, she might as well go downstairs and get it over with now.

  Chapter Ten

  Cole awoke with a start. Whether as a result of good hearing or a sixth sense developed from living with Angela, he knew with certainty that Mary was downstairs again.

  Damn! Had she seen someone else from her window? Would he again find her wielding a knife and chasing a murderer or a phantom? He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

  She’d made so much progress, he tended to forget—wanted to forget?—how fragile she still was.