Her Man To Remember

by Suzanne McMinn

  “Why did you come here?”

  She looked back at him now. “Some things just feel…right. You know what I mean? You don’t have to know why.”

  Roman’s heart wrenched. Why was all he wanted to know. He held her gaze for a long moment.

  There was still one trace of moisture on her cheek, and he lifted his hand, slowly, very slowly, and wiped it away.

  “Are you happy here, Leah?” He wondered if all the longing, desire, need in his heart showed in his eyes. All he knew was he couldn’t look away. She smelled deliciously sweet. Her skin was so soft beneath his touch. She felt impossibly wonderful.

  “Yes,” she said finally. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”

  He was dying. He had to be dying. His heart couldn’t hurt this much without killing him. Yep, he should have stopped while he was ahead, when she’d told him Thunder Key felt right.

  She remembered the foster father who’d brutalized her, but not Roman. I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

  He dropped his hand, leaned back into his own place on the truck’s bench seat. It took all his power to keep his emotions out of his voice.

  “I need to get you home,” he said. “I’ll pick up the prescriptions after I drop you off. Just tell me where the pharmacy is.”

  He started the engine and drove back to the bar.

  Leah’s hand was killing her, but she wanted to work. No way was she going to sit up in her apartment, leave Joey and the waitresses shorthanded and wait for another freaky phone call. She could still manage the taps, just a bit slower than usual. She had to explain what had happened to her hand about two million times before the night was over. Everyone asked.

  She answered their questions vaguely, and tried not to think about everything that was bothering her. A man sat at the end of the bar fiddling with a digital camera, and at one point, she could have sworn he took a picture of her. It wasn’t uncommon for tourists who stumbled onto the colorful, Keysy bar to take photos of it, but somehow she didn’t think he was a tourist. And she didn’t think he’d taken a picture of the bar. He’d taken a picture of her.

  Her imagination had been working overtime lately, though, and she worked to shake off the weird feeling he gave her.

  He wore a windbreaker. He took a cell phone out of it and spoke into it several times while watching her. Once, she thought she glimpsed something dark tucked into the waistband of his jeans, beneath the light jacket. It looked like a gun, and her blood froze. She mentioned it to Joey, and he asked the man if he was carrying a concealed weapon.

  The man left without answering Joey’s question. The uneasiness of his presence remained behind, filtering through Leah’s evening.

  Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe that wasn’t a gun she’d seen. Maybe he’d just been taking a touristy photo of the bar. Maybe she’d just offended a customer.

  But she was glad when he was gone.

  Roman had gone back out for her prescriptions, but she knew the pain medication might make her sleepy, so she’d decided to wait until closing time to take it. Roman insisted on staying to work the buffet, which kept him mostly out on the beer deck, to Leah’s relief.

  The day had been exhausting, strange, and she still didn’t know what to think about any of it. The phone calls, the strange man in the bar…and Roman Bradshaw. He was so gentle and haunted, and yet somehow terribly forbidding all at once. With every moment that passed, she knew she could very easily let herself fall for a man who could only ever be her friend.

  And that was bad. Very bad.

  But even so, the very sight of him made her heart beat faster. Worse, he somehow touched an emotional chord within her, had memories spilling to the surface.

  “I’m going up,” she said in general when the bar was empty. Shanna and Joey had things just about cleaned up. The other waitresses had already left.

  “I’ll lock up,” Joey said.

  “How’s your hand?” Roman asked.

  “Fine.” She picked up the pharmacy bag from the shelf below the bar. “Thanks again,” she told him.

  She locked the back door near the office and stairs to the apartment. Leaning against it, she let out a sigh. No more leaving the back door unlocked, period. She’d gotten lax, living in the friendly Keysy environment. Whether someone had been in her apartment or not, whether the strange man in the bar—who might or might not have been carrying a concealed weapon—was watching her or not, it wasn’t a good idea to leave a nonpublic door of the bar unlocked, ever, even when there were people inside. The door that led to her apartment was isolated, set off from the dining patio, hidden by large shrubbery.

  Upstairs, she peeled off her clothes, stepped into the pajamas she wore at night. The apartment was quiet, and she felt exhausted and restless all at once.

  She knew what was wrong. She was afraid to go to sleep, afraid of what more she might remember or dream. Too often, she had nightmares.

  Sitting in the middle of the pulled-out Murphy bed, she let her fingers trace again the faint marks on her arm. She knew they were cigarette burns. From that foster father or another one? How many foster homes had she lived in—and why? Was that what her mind was blocking? A terrible childhood?

  Or something else?

  I know who you are. I know what you’ve done.

  What had she done? Who was she?

  Don’t think you can ruin my life.

  Whose life had she been in the position of ruining?

  She knew, somewhere deep and hidden, that it had to be more than that she’d had a foster parent who abused her. She had done something.

  Could remembering it be any worse than what she was dealing with now? She turned off the light, shut her eyes. She hadn’t taken the pain pill. She’d started to take it, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to put it in her mouth. It was one of those instinctive things, like cats and peas. She didn’t like pain pills.

  Sleep didn’t come easily. Instead, she kept thinking—what if remembering was worse?

  She drifted, half-awake for a long time, thinking back over the day. Walking on the pier with Roman. Lunch with Roman. The beach, and hiking up into the lighthouse. The trip to the turtle hospital.

  Sleep finally folded her in, dark and heavy.

  She was in the lighthouse, trapped. Hurricane winds and tides rushed against the walls. Creaking of mortar and stone, and then water—pouring in. Choking. She was choking.

  Then she was in a car, underwater. She flailed against the wheel, pounded at the closed window. Panicking, her hand gripped the door handle, pushing, pushing.

  The door wouldn’t move. She was stuck. Drowning. Then the door burst open—only it wasn’t a car door, it was the door to a house now.

  A man lay on the floor, dead, blood pooling around his flaccid body. She felt something cold, heavy in her hand, and she looked down and saw a gun.

  Leah sat bolt upright. It took harrowing beats for her to realize the darkness surrounding her was only her own night-draped apartment.

  She sank back against the cold sheet. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  Roman woke early. The orange-rimmed horizon filtered in through the patio sheers. He made coffee in the small automatic coffeemaker in the bungalow, downed one cup and laced up his running shoes.

  She was on the bar’s back stoop when he showed up. She was locking up with a key hooked to an elastic wristband. He was glad to see her being careful.

  God help him, he was just glad to see her. Every day, he opened his eyes and was grateful that Leah was alive and on Thunder Key. Even if she didn’t want him in the end, he could learn to live with it. Just knowing that she was alive was enough—almost.

  Constant in the back of his mind was the chance that she wouldn’t want him once she knew the truth of who he was.

  Not that he was ready to give up yet. Not by a long shot. And he was planning to make damn sure nothing else happened to her.

  He was worried about those phone calls. He needed more time. It was too
soon to tell her the truth. But the more he thought about those phone calls, the more he thought about the bizarre circumstances of her disappearance eighteen months ago…

  What if it was all connected? Once the thought had occurred to him, he couldn’t shake it.

  “Morning.”

  She looked startled. “Oh, Roman. Hi.” She took in his running gear. “I was just about to go for a run.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  She looked as if she did mind. But she also looked exhausted. Her eyes were rimmed with shadows, her face too pale.

  “How’s the hand?” he asked as they took off. He knew she had a regular routine down the beach, into town. She’d stop off for a café con leche at the Cuban coffeehouse, then walk back to the Shark and Fin.

  “Great. Much better.”

  “No more weird phone calls? No more accidents?”

  “Nope. I’m sorry about everything yesterday. I’m sure I gave you the wrong impression, breaking everything in sight, having a panic attack, crying.” She looked embarrassed and angry with herself. “You just decided to look into buying the bar on my worst day ever. But—it’s a new day.” She increased her pace. “Don’t feel like you have to keep up with me.”

  Damn her, she was trying to lose him. And she was completely closed up. Whatever she was thinking, feeling, no way was she letting him in.

  And she looked exhausted.

  “I’m in shape.” He increased his pace to match hers.

  She gave him a quick sideways glance. Her cheeks were still pale, but her eyes were hot. Then she looked straight ahead again. Kept running.

  “You know, that whole phone thing was probably just messed-up lines,” she said. “Happens sometimes out here in the Keys.”

  “Maybe,” he said. Who was she trying to convince—him or herself?

  “I don’t need any self-appointed bodyguards.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, keeping pace with her, measuring his long strides against her smaller ones.

  She stopped so abruptly Roman skidded in the sand turning back. Arms on her hips, she glared at him. He closed the distance between them with a quick stride.

  “Then why are you here?” she demanded. “I run alone. That’s how I like it.”

  “I don’t think it’s safe.”

  “Okay, the truth comes out.”

  “You had some strange phone calls. You don’t know it was phone problems.”

  She looked away, shielding her eyes. She gazed out at the water, avoiding him.

  “This isn’t New York City,” she said tensely. “It’s sleepy little Thunder Key.”

  “Can you think of any reason that someone would be harassing you?” He waited, but she didn’t answer. “If there’s something going on, something frightening you—anything—you have to tell me.”

  A bird swooped over the water, plucked a fish from the blue depths. The breeze fingered Leah’s hair.

  “I don’t have to do anything,” she said stubbornly.

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Leah. No matter what I have to do. I’m not going to let you be hurt.”

  Her eyes darkened with something akin to confusion as she swung on him now.

  “Why?” she demanded suddenly. “Why do you care so much?”

  “I can’t stand to think that you might be in danger. I don’t want anything else to happen to you. Not now, not ever.”

  “Anything else?”

  He was scaring her, he knew it. And he felt so lost, as lost as she looked in that moment.

  “Do I know you?” she demanded, not for the first time. “I look at you…” Her voice trailed away, almost broke. He barely heard the rest of her words. “I feel as if I know you. And it just makes me want to—”

  “What?” He grabbed her arms. “What does it make you feel?”

  “Let me go!” She tried to twist out of his arms.

  And that was when he noticed the man in the trees. He was standing just inside the hammock of mangroves lining the beach. The sun caught the lens of a camera pointed directly at them.

  Then Roman saw the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

  Leah noticed his cold stare over her shoulders, stopped struggling, turned her head. She saw the man, too.

  The man in the trees sank back, disappeared. Roman wanted to chase after him, question him, but he knew he’d never catch him. The man had been maybe twenty yards or more from them, and the woods were thick.

  He didn’t want to let go of Leah.

  “That’s the man from the bar,” Leah said. She looked back at Roman. “He was taking photos yesterday. He was taking photos of— God, I thought he was taking photos of me.”

  “Why?” Roman asked, cold dread snaking through his gut. He held on to her tight. “Why, Leah?”

  “I don’t know.” She shivered in the warm morning breeze. She looked exhausted enough to collapse any minute. “He was at the bar last night. I felt as if he was watching me. I thought he had a gun in his jacket. Joey went to speak to him, and he left. And I thought someone was in my apartment yesterday when we were on the beach. I thought my apartment had been searched.”

  “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me about any of this. Only the phone calls.”

  “I wasn’t sure,” she whispered in an aching voice. “I thought I might be paranoid, or imagining it.”

  It killed him to see her confused and scared, and no matter what happened next, he couldn’t let her be in danger. Not when he could help her.

  Even if it ruined any chance he’d ever have of winning her love.

  But he couldn’t think about that now. Leah’s life could be in danger. Someone was stalking her—calling her, watching her, photographing her. Someone who had a gun.

  And it could all be connected to the past. The past she didn’t remember. Her strange disappearance.

  There was no more time for taking things slow. There was no more time for anything…but the truth. The wonderful, awful truth.

  He looked into her soulful eyes and prayed that she wouldn’t hate him when this day was over.

  “I want you to come back to the hotel with me. And then there’s something I have to tell you.”

  His words were ominous, as was the look on his face. Leah had to know what he had to say.

  The sensation of surrealness overtook her, and all she wanted to do was run, despite how tired she was. He took her back the way they’d come, then up the deserted road from the bar. They flew over the little bridge, then turned down the mangrove path through the trees to the other side of the island.

  They came out of the trees, into the balmy brightness. She’d seen the White Seas from a distance, but she’d never been up close to it. The hotel itself was classic Bahamian style, but Roman led her around the back, away from the multistoried hotel, toward the individual guest bungalows.

  The guest bungalows were restored little cigar maker’s cottages. Traditional tin roofs, blue shutters and porches. They slowed to a walk, and Roman took her hand as he led her down the bricked paths lined with sculptures. Latan palms and Barbados cherry trees and Spanish limes scented the air.

  Dizzy shock spun through her.

  Do you smell that? It’s Spanish lime. Isn’t it delicious?

  You’re delicious.

  He nipped at her lips, teasing her mouth open—

  Oh, God. She stopped so abruptly, Roman, his hand still tightly holding hers, pulled her forward before he realized she wasn’t following and she almost fell.

  “Leah.” His dark eyes pierced her soul.

  “I’ve been here before,” she whispered thickly. Fear, icy and heavy, washed down her veins.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Do I know you?” she asked him again. Her pulse jumped erratically. It felt like forever and a split instant for him to answer. “Do you know me?”

  “Yes,” he said again. “Yes.”

  She ripped her hand from his. She wasn’t thinking, only feel
ing, reacting. She ran from him, past the bungalows, off the path, onto the beach.

  The panic attack doubled her over, heaving her to the sand. Sick. She was going to be sick. She stumbled to her feet, kept running.

  “No, Leah, stop!”

  He was chasing her. And no way in hell was she going to be able to outrun him, not when she was about to throw up any second.

  But she couldn’t stop trying.

  “Leah,” he called again, and this time he caught her.

  They stumbled to the sand together. He did his best to protect her, twisting so that she ended up falling on top of him. His arms held her tightly, safely.

  No, not safe. He wasn’t safe. He was a liar. She’d asked him before if she knew him, and he’d said no. And now—

  “Let me go.”

  “No, Leah.” He held on even as she struggled. “I can’t let you go.”

  “Why? Who are you?”

  He twisted again, pinning her on the sand. He wasn’t hurting her, but he wasn’t letting her go. She felt sand against her back and the pounding of his heart against hers.

  He stared into her eyes, and his looked as wild as she knew hers must in this moment. Cold fear and a strange hope tangled inside her chest, wrapping her in something so unreal it was like another dream. Another nightmare.

  “I’m your husband.”

  Chapter 8

  “That’s insane.” Her eyes were huge, shocky.

  “No.” Roman was afraid to let go of her, terrified she’d disappear, evaporate before his very eyes. Like in his dreams. “You’re Leah. Leah Bradshaw. My wife.”

  “Your wife is dead.”

  He held her tortured gaze for a long beat. Steady. He had to be steady. He had to convince her that he was real, that she was real, that he was telling the truth. He couldn’t come on like a crazy man. But he was the furthest thing from calm. He was scared to death.

  “I thought my wife was dead. But you’re alive, Leah. You’re alive. And I’ve found you.”

  “No,” she whispered hoarsely. She contorted her body, struggling to free herself from his hold. “No!”

  “Leah, stop. Listen to me.” He gripped her. She turned her head away. “I’m telling you the truth.”