“If you two are done arguing the fine points of family history,” Cynthia said with an indulgent smile, “Jack’s waiting. I suggest we head on down to the house.”
“Second that motion.” Teague shot Shea a sharp glance.
The path continued downhill through the trees, then emerged into a small meadow ablaze with wildflowers—purple delphiniums, yellow daisies, giant red paintbrushes, and the delicate white lace of wild parsley. A black and yellow helicopter perched on a cement pad in the center of the clearing like a giant mutated bumblebee. Beyond the meadow another band of trees—ponder-osas, lodgepole pines, hemlock, and alders—sheltered the house and grounds.
The house shouldn’t have surprised her. She knew the Raineys were rich, but Teague had thrown her off by referring to the place as “the family’s summer cabin.” To her, cabin meant small and rustic, not an enormous two-story complex big enough to be mistaken for a hotel. A multilevel deck connected the main living spaces and surrounded the Olympic-size pool on three sides. The only way in which it coincided with Shea’s concept of a cabin was the fact that it was constructed of logs.
Shea and Teague were left alone on the deck while Cynthia went to find out if Jack was ready to see Kirsten and Kevin checked on lunch. Presumably, Mikey was still off sulking.
Teague turned Shea to face him. “So tell me, Kirsten, how did you know about David Rainey and the evil land baron?”
She narrowed her eyes. “The name’s Shea.”
“Is it? Then explain where you heard about the massacre.”
“I read the story in a brochure I picked up in the lobby of the Liberty Lodge.” Was he really having doubts about her identity at this late date? Or was it just wishful thinking on his part?
He studied her unsmilingly. “How did you know Kirsten’s nickname for Kevin?”
She blinked. How had she known? “You must have told me.”
“Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “First I heard of it was today.”
“Then maybe I got it from the diaries you had me read.” Kirsten’s diaries. She wondered for the first time how they’d come into his possession.
“Maybe, though I don’t recall ever reading the name Skeeter.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe I skimmed over that part.”
He hadn’t. The nickname wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the diaries she’d all but memorized. So how had she known? Shea had no clue. Tiny hairs raised along her arms. She couldn’t meet Teague’s gaze.
“You threw me for a minute,” he said.
She nodded. “Like Kevin almost threw me. I’ve been lucky so far, but I’m never going to be able to pull this off. Sooner or later I’m going to make a major blunder.”
He encircled her wrist in a gesture meant to be reassuring. Instead, it set her skin on fire, her nerves so sensitive to his touch that she could almost feel the individual ridges on the pads of his fingers, pressing against her pulse point.
“You’ll do fine,” he said. “If you make a mistake, just fall back on your cover story. The kidnappers got a little too rough and you ended up with a concussion. Panicky, scared you were going to die, they abandoned you in a hospital emergency room halfway across the country.”
She frowned, trying to ignore the sudden heat his touch ignited. Her breasts felt tight and heavy, her legs shaky. Concentrate on the cover story, she told herself, but it was hopeless. The gentle pressure of his fingers on her wrist distracted her, and she couldn’t help wondering how it would feel to have that same gentle pressure caressing other, more intimate portions of her anatomy.
“And when you finally regained consciousness …” he prompted, releasing her wrist.
She loosed her pent-up breath in a long sigh. One by one her fried brain cells came back on line. “I had amnesia,” she said. “For years, I’ve been having little flickers of memory, one of which brought me to Liberty in search of a clue to my past. When I ran into you, whole chunks of my previous life came into focus.”
“Though you still have a few gaps.” He leaned forward and kissed her lightly.
An incredible rush of emotion flooded her, so intense she nearly fainted. The kiss, a mere brush of his lips, lasted only a second, but when he stepped back, Shea was completely disoriented, a tangled skein of nerve endings, all of which were throbbing.
“Ready?” he asked.
Oh, my, yes. She’d never been more ready in her life. “Here comes Cynthia,” he whispered. “What?”
“To take you inside to see Jack.”
“Right. Jack.”
Teague shot her a worried look. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she lied. Jeez, what was wrong with her? She’d always been such a cool, controlled person. When had her sex drive suddenly started this wild race down the fast lane? Concentrate. You’re about to meet a man who may prove to be your father.
Cynthia approached, a smile on her face. “Your father’s waiting, Kirsten. He wants to see you too, Teague.”
“Teague?” Shea echoed in surprise. She tensed. Had Jack Rainey seen through their pretense already? Was the world about to fall down around their ears?
Teague slid an arm around her waist. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll be all right.” Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one who’d end up in prison for impersonating an heiress.
He steered her toward a set of sliding glass doors. Shea’s legs felt like overcooked asparagus.
Inside the house, she regained her equilibrium along with her bearings. Second door on the right, she remembered, in what used to be the library until Jack got too frail to climb the stairs. The faint lemony scent of furniture polish seemed familiar. She wondered if her Nancy Drew collection still occupied the bottom shelf.
Cynthia had left the door ajar. Teague knocked. “Jack?”
“Teague? Is Kirsten with you?” His voice was more powerful than she’d expected.
But as they stepped across the threshold, she realized Jack Rainey’s strong baritone was misleading. Teague hadn’t been exaggerating when he said the man wouldn’t be able to wait forever. He looked like a man on borrowed time.
Kirsten’s father was skeletally thin, the pale, sallow skin of his face hanging from the bony framework of his skull. Only his eyes seemed alive. The exact same aquamarine shade as Shea’s, they burned with a passion for life. Cancer wasn’t taking Jack Rainey without a fight.
Stepping around the IV bag dripping glucose and morphine into his veins, Shea moved closer to the bed. “Daddy?”
One of the waxen claws on the coverlet twitched in a silent request. Shea edged closer and cradled the claw between her hands. His skin was hot and dry, as if he were burning up from the inside out. “Oh, Daddy,” she said.
“I thought I’d never see you again. Thank God Teague found you.” His voice shook with emotion. The claw moved feebly in her hands. “Don’t cry, baby.”
Shea realized with a shock that tears were sliding down her cheeks. “Sorry. I can’t help it.”
Teague gave her shoulder a squeeze. “How are you today?” he asked Jack.
Jack’s smile was ironic. “I’ve been better. Though it’s a load off my mind to see the two of you together again. All these years I’ve blamed myself.”
“Oh, Daddy, no,” she protested. “Why blame yourself? You did everything humanly possible. Teague told me you followed the kidnapper’s instructions down to the last detail. You kept the police out of it and paid the ransom. What more could you have done?”
He fell silent for a moment, then turned a gaunt, hollow-eyed look on Teague. “She doesn’t remember, does she?”
Shea felt a stirring of uneasiness. “Remember what?”
Teague shook his head. “I didn’t mention it. I figured she had enough to assimilate as it was.”
Jack Rainey’s papery eyelids fell shut, concealing his fierce, glowing eyes. He looked like a corpse. A deep sigh rattled his chest. “You should have told her.”
She turned to Teague. “Told me what?”
Shrugging, he refused to meet her gaze.
She swung around to face Jack again. His eyes were open now, dispelling the illusion of death. “What, Daddy? Tell me.”
“You remember how fiercely I opposed your engagement?”
She shook her head. “Only what Teague told me. That part’s still a blur. Teague said I had to threaten to elope before you’d agree to let me marry him. You thought he was a fortune hunter.”
Jack shut his eyes again for a moment. “I was wrong about that. I was wrong about a lot of things.” Slowly he lifted his lids to reveal eyes that blazed with intensity. “But you didn’t just threaten to elope, Kirsten. You did elope. You and Teague are married, have been for the last seven years.”
Shea’s cheeks burned. “But Teague said I disappeared two days before the wedding.”
“Before the big, fancy public wedding I pressed for. The after-the-fact cover-up my pride demanded. By God, I insisted, nobody was going to look down his nose at a Rainey. I was able to keep the elopement secret from everyone but the immediate family.” A faint smile touched his lips. “Even from Ruth.”
She frowned. “That doesn’t explain why you fault yourself. Just because you insisted on a formal ceremony?”
Teague spoke up. “He blames himself because the wedding’s what you and I fought over, why you moved back home.”
“Where you fell right into the kidnapper’s trap. I did everything but bait it for him.” Jack sounded tired. Dead tired.
Teague took a step toward the bed. “That’s enough. You need some rest.”
Jack moved fretfully against the pillows. “But she doesn’t remember.”
Shea took his hands in hers. “It’s okay, Daddy. All that was a long time ago. Water under the bridge. Get some rest now. We’ll talk again later.”
He heaved a sigh. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Good. There are things that need to be said,” he muttered, and fell into an uneasy doze.
Lunch was finished, but Shea, Teague, Kevin, and Cynthia lingered at the umbrella-shaded table on the deck, sipping iced tea and talking in a desultory fashion while Glory and Hallelujah, the housekeeper’s twins, cleared away the remains of the meal.
“Have you seen your room yet?” Cynthia asked Shea. “No? It’s just as you left it. Your father always insisted that you’d find your way back home someday.”
“I’ll take her up,” Kevin offered. “Who has the key?”
“The key?” Shea asked.
“Your room is kept locked,” Cynthia explained. “Another of your father’s quirks.”
“Mama has the key,” Glory said, studying her sturdy brown oxfords as if their scuff marks were hieroglyphics that, once deciphered, might unlock the secrets of the universe. It was the first time she’d spoken all day, and Shea couldn’t have been any more surprised if the log wall behind her had suddenly started spouting poetry. “Soon as I finish clearing the table, I’ll get it.”
“Hal can finish up here,” Kevin said. “Run and get the key now.”
Glory flicked a sideways glance at Kevin, flushed bright pink, and scuttled off.
So it’s that way, is it? Shea thought. Well, no wonder. Kevin was the walking embodiment of Prince Charming. Unfortunately, with her mousy hair, baby fat, and over-bite, Glory was no Sleeping Beauty.
“Kevin, for heaven’s sake,” Cynthia objected, “the twins are not your personal slaves.”
“Glory doesn’t mind, and Hal doesn’t, either. Do you, Hal?”
The boy shook his head and continued piling dirty dishes on a tray. Rail thin with lank hair, dandruff, and acne, he was an even less prepossessing specimen than his sister.
“Mind if I tag along?” Teague asked. “I’ve never seen your room. Maybe it’ll give me fresh insights into your personality.”
“Or Cynthia’s,” Shea said. “She did the decorating.” She felt a prickling of unease. And how did she know that? Had someone mentioned it earlier?
Glory came bustling back out with the key just then, ready to lead them upstairs, so Shea gave the matter no more thought.
Kirsten’s room was like a page out of Country Living, picture perfect from the framed Wooster Scott primitives clustered on the wall between the dormer windows to the antique spool bed with its red and white patchwork quilt.
“Whoa. Time warp.” Laughing, Teague grabbed his picture from the bedside table and passed it to Shea. “My long hair period, one of many reasons your father hated my guts.”
Seven years ago, he’d have been what? Twenty-five to Kirsten’s nineteen? The man in the picture looked even younger. More than Teague’s haircut had changed.
“Where did this come from?” Kevin held up a crystal cluster. It caught the light in a dazzling blue-green flash.
Fascinated, Shea moved closer to run a finger along one smooth facet. The stone felt warm, and if she hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn it vibrated beneath her fingertip.
She gazed into the heart of the stone, blinded by a sudden dazzle. A low, throbbing hum filled her ears and something powerful stirred just below the level of conscious thought. Images zigzagged through her brain at lightning speed, too fast to comprehend, too vivid to ignore, in a rushing montage that was there and then gone so fast she might have imagined it. She blinked and jerked her hand away.
Frowning, Kevin put the crystal back on the night-stand, where he’d found it. “I know I would have noticed if the crystal had been here before.”
“It’s one of Beelzebub’s treasures. He dragged it in the house a couple months back. I probably should have tossed it out, but the color reminded me of your eyes, Miss Kirsten.” Glory seemed nervous, staring everywhere but at the crystal. Perhaps she was worried that she’d broken one of her mother’s rules or maybe she was just embarrassed at her own temerity in speaking up.
“Who’s Beelzebub?” Shea asked. If Teague had mentioned that name, she’d have remembered.
“Mikey’s black Lab,” Kevin explained. “The canine pack rat.”
Teague picked up the crystal cluster to examine it more closely.
Shea stared at the stone, afraid to touch it a second time but unable to look away. The carnival Gypsy’s words seemed to echo in her ears. The secret’s in the stone.
What secret? she wondered. Something to do with the way the crystal’s many facets reflected her face over and over again? If she were a fanciful woman, she might almost think there was another Shea trapped inside the crystal, looking out.
“Kirsten?” Teague touched her shoulder.
“What?” She tore her gaze away from the myriad reflections of her own frightened expression to focus on his face.
Worry wrinkled his brow. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine.” She forced a smile. “A little tired,” she said, though “a little scared” was closer to the truth. She didn’t like the way memories kept surfacing. It wasn’t natural. How could she remember things she’d never known in the first place?
THREE
Shea looked depressed, despite the fact that her visit with the Raineys had gone like clockwork. “Problem?” Teague asked as they pulled away from the island.
She frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me you and Kirsten had eloped?”
“I was afraid you’d start seeing ulterior motives in everything I said or did, and besides, it’s not something I’m especially proud of.”
“Why? You didn’t marry her for her money, did you?”
“No.” He was silent for a moment. “It’s a long story, Shea. Sure you want to hear it?”
“Under the circumstances, I think it would be best,” she said dryly.
Best for whom? Teague wondered. Not him. It was a subject he tried not to dwell on, though right after Kirsten’s disappearance, he hadn’t been able to think of anything else. For a while his only refuge from the pain of those memories had been at the bottom of a beer bottle. He hadn’t gotten his life back on track for almost a year. And without
Jack Rainey’s help, he might never have made it at all. He owed Jack. And if baring his soul to Shea would help pay that debt, then so be it.
“Kirsten’s mother died when she was a baby. And until she was eleven—that’s when Jack married Cynthia—she had her father to herself. He adored her and pretty much gave her whatever she wanted. Don’t get me wrong. Kirsten adored her father too, but she wasn’t above using his love for her to get her own way.”
“Spoiled and headstrong,” Shea translated.
Teague nodded. “But also charming and lovable. I think when her father refused to sanction her marriage to me, it must have been the first time he’d ever told her no.”
“But she didn’t take no for an answer?”
He shook his head. “She never took no for an answer. Kirsten knew her father’s pride was his greatest weakness, and she used it against him. She knew if she eloped, he would agree to the big wedding she wanted as a face-saving measure.”
“And you went along with the plan to manipulate her father?”
“I didn’t realize what she was planning. All I knew was that I wanted to marry Kirsten, and eloping seemed to be the only option.”
Shea looked puzzled. “But if her father was that opposed to the match, then why did he give in? So you eloped. Big deal. Why not arrange an annulment or a quiet divorce?”
Teague stared back at the green hump of Massacre Island. “His pride wouldn’t allow that, not once she told him she was pregnant.”
“Pregnant?” She choked on the word. “Is that what Jack wanted to talk to me about?”
“Probably.” He clenched his hand on the rudder. “That baby was Kirsten’s ace in the hole. In the end, it’s what forced him to cave in to her demand for a big wedding. She knew her father so well, knew that from Jack’s perspective a bastard grandchild was a thousand times worse than a fortune-hunting son-in-law.”
“You weren’t really a fortune hunter, though.”
“No, I was crazy in love with her.” He laughed sourly. “Or maybe just crazy. I’d never met anyone like Kirsten before. She was intelligent, wealthy, and beautiful. Most women like that are so impressed with their own perfection, they set themselves apart from lesser mortals. Kirsten was different. She loved life, loved people. She’d run errands for housebound senior citizens, tutor kids with reading disabilities, volunteer to baby-sit a colicky baby, or sit with an AIDS patient. And anyone who was special to her earned a pet nickname.”
Aquamarine Page 4