by Ryanne Corey
It was an act of love.
Eight
The sun was bleeding on the horizon when the Jeep finally turned into Tyler’s driveway. It had been a silent ride home, but not lonely. Tyler talked to Jenny with his eyes, paying equal attention to her and the road. He kept one hand on the steering wheel and one on her thigh, just touching her, as if he was afraid she would disappear. His blue eyes were heavy-lidded and slightly glazed. He was spent, still amazed at the animal burn that had taken him and Jenny over the edge into oblivion. He also discovered that true desire had no rest. Each time he looked at her Hershey-bar eyes and swollen lips, he felt the fierce need stirring again. And though she said nothing, a permanent smile lingered in her gaze. She looked soft and unfocused, like someone having a particularly sensual dream.
That dream went on, undisturbed, until Tyler realized he had company. Paradise had unwelcome visitors.
There was a Geo in his driveway, along with Rosie’s station wagon stuffed with car seats. A little Geo, for crying out loud. It wasn’t Grady; he owned a big, bad truck. In fact, all of Tyler’s manly friends owned big, manly cars. He didn’t know a soul in the world who owned a Geo.
“Friend of yours?” Jenny asked, trying not to sound disappointed. She had had hopes that Rosie would be gone and they would have the house to themselves. Very selfish, beautifully erotic hopes.
“I am a cowboy and a sheriff,” Tyler said darkly. “My friends do not drive tiny cars. Most of them couldn’t get inside a tiny car. Maybe Rosie has a friend over.”
“Maybe,” Jenny echoed, unable to disguise the disappointment in her voice.
Tyler simply couldn’t let her be disappointed. He got out of the Jeep, walked around to the passenger side and opened the door. Then, without a word, he gave Jenny a hard, soul-wrenching kiss that shook her to the core. They were both gasping when he broke from her lips with a soft sucking sound. “I could ask whoever is in that house to leave,” he said hoarsely, “or we could pretend they’re invisible and go straight upstairs to the bedroom.”
“Option two,” Jenny said. Then, because Tyler looked as if he was taking her seriously, “Not really. That would be rude. Behave yourself, okay?”
“I don’t want to behave myself.”
“Then behave yourself temporarily.”
He grinned, saluting her. “Yes, ma’am. Anything you say, ma’am. See how easy I am to handle when I’m treated properly?”
Jenny smiled lazily through a screen of lashes. “If you’d told me from the beginning how to handle you, we wouldn’t have had nearly as much trouble.”
“You can handle me,” Tyler said with feeling, “Anytime.”
The living room was empty, but it sounded like the circus had set up a tent in the kitchen. Tyler could hear Rosie talking, the twins arguing…and a soft-spoken male voice he had never heard before.
A jarring thought came to mind. That attorney, Dearbourne. The missing puzzle piece to Jenny’s identity. Surely the man hadn’t had time to get from California to Montana. Assisting his limping love, Tyler walked slowly into the kitchen. There was a new knot in the pit of his belly and it wasn’t desire related. As near as he could tell, it was fear related.
The twins had the pots and pans scattered over the floor, drumming on them with spoons. Rosie was seated at the kitchen table, opposite a fellow that Tyler had never seen before. He looked to be somewhere in the neighborhood of forty years old. He was rather slight, with neatly trimmed blond hair and a three-piece suit that screamed money. Additionally, he wore a bow tie. Tyler had thought bow ties were extinct.
The stranger looked at Jenny, his hazel eyes lighting up. He stood with gentle grace, pushing his chair away from the table. “Jenny. Oh, Jenny, I came as soon as I was contacted. Are you all right? Dear girl, you look awful. The bruises…”
Tyler didn’t like the guy calling Jenny “dear.” He turned to Jenny, a frown digging into his brow. She was pale, her dark eyes eating up her small face. No, not pale…she was pale white. Tyler had never seen that color on any person who actually breathed. Her hand was in his and he could feel it shaking badly. “Jenny?” he asked quietly. “Are you all right?”
“Eliot Dearbourne,” she whispered dully. “Eliot. Of course. I know now.”
“Know what?” Tyler asked, baffled. “Jenny, sit down. You look like you’re going to pass out.”
Still staring at Dearbourne, she seemed oblivious to Tyler’s voice. “How did you find me?” she asked. “How on earth—”
“I called him,” Tyler said.
Stress seemed to spin through the room. As if moving in slow motion, she turned her head and looked at him. The pain in her eyes said volumes. She didn’t seem grateful. “Did you? When?”
“This morning. After that headache hit, I felt so damn helpless—I needed to find out everything I could, Jenny. I called the numbers on the business card I found in your duffel bag. It was the only way I could figure out how to help you…”
“How are you?” Dearbourne asked her. “Rosie told me what you’ve been through. The accident, and then your memory—”
“My memory,” she replied without inflection, “is fine. Everything came back when I saw you, Eliot. Every piece of the puzzle. I’m…just…fine.”
But the way she said it, Tyler knew she was anything but fine. She looked as though she hated whatever it was she had remembered. She pulled her fingers from his, pushing both hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Tell me,” Tyler said. “Jenny, what’s happening in you?”
She looked at Tyler, but his image had softened to a glassy blur. Reality bites, she thought through a haze of emotion. “The doctor was right. I just needed some time to heal.”
Dearbourne’s gaze was compassionate, infinitely kind. “Jenny, why didn’t you call me before you left L.A.? You never even mentioned you were planning on going out of town. Honey, have you any idea how worried I’ve been? No phone calls, no messages—”
“She had a concussion.” Regardless of how pure his motives, Tyler didn’t like the bow tie calling her “honey,” either. “Among other things. It’s probably not the best time to put any more pressure on her.”
“Of course. You’re right.” The blond man came a bit closer, as if to get a better view of her concussion. “The important thing is that you’re all right. Are you all right?”
“Of course I am.” There wasn’t a shred of expression in her voice. No affection, no relief, no panic or pleasure. Her face was a blank canvas, her vivid copper curls a stark contrast to her lifeless skin. “I saw you, and…I know everything. It was all coming back to me, anyway.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Tyler asked. In the back of his mind there was a painful, digging thought: did she make love with him because she knew her time with him was running out?
Jenny shrugged, wrapping her arms tightly around her chest. It was a posture he had seen before the accident, Tyler thought. Closed. “There was nothing concrete to tell you,” she said. “I just knew it was imminent. Probably I would have remembered before now if—”
“If what?” Tyler prompted, touching her arm. Immediately he felt her muscles harden. This was the woman he had met at Enchilada Ernie’s, distant, defensive and troubled. He felt as if a huge weight had settled on him, a far cry from the happiness he had felt five minutes earlier. “Jenny, if what?”
She smiled faintly, but there was a loneliness so vast, so bewildered in her dark pansy eyes that he could barely comprehend it. “If I’d wanted to,” she said. Then, turning to her attorney, “I’m sorry you had to come all this way, Eliot. I was planning on calling you before…everything happened.”
Eliot Dearbourne exchanged a look with Jenny that left Tyler standing out in a winter chill. “You know I’m always here for you. When I got the message about the accident, I didn’t know whether to be relieved or panic. All I knew was that you cashed a check and disappeared. I have to tell you, my imagination has been working overtime. You sure you’re all right?
”
“Of course. That money you gave me last month…I bought a Harley.”
Dearbourne looked horrified, as if he might hyperventilate any moment. “A Harley? As in a motorcycle Harley?”
“Well, it wasn’t the bicycle Harley.” Her voice was strained, like a violin string pulled far too tight. “If you all don’t mind, I’ll go upstairs and change my clothes. I didn’t realize how grass stained my jeans were.”
“You also have grass in your hair,” Rosie pointed out. She stood up, looking with exasperation from Dearbourne to Tyler to Jenny. “Am I missing something here? Everybody seems to know all kinds of things that I don’t. Jenny, where did you and Tyler disappear to all afternoon? And why do you have an attorney flying around the country on your tracks? One who gives you lots of money, no less. And why do you have grass in your hair?”
“Why, indeed?” Dearbourne echoed thoughtfully, catching and holding Tyler’s gaze.
“Oh, put a sock in it,” Tyler snapped, speaking to both Dearbourne and his sister. He was in no mood to be polite. The woman he had made love to that afternoon bore very little resemblance to the woman he had brought home. He felt as if he’d taken one step forward and twelve steps backward. “Rosie, entertain Eliot here while I help Jenny upstairs. I’ll be right back.”
Rosie’s cornflower-blue eyes spoke volumes to her brother. “I have been entertaining Eliot for three hours. He didn’t come here to see me.”
“Don’t argue. Entertain him for three hours and five minutes.” Tyler swung Jenny up in his arms to the sounds of her protests. “I know you can walk,” he muttered. “I just feel like carrying someone, okay?”
When Tyler returned, the bow tie was sitting on a kitchen chair while Rosie was shining his shoes under the table. At least, that’s what it looked like to Tyler. “What the hell is going on here?” he snapped.
Rosie looked up through a wispy screen of pale-blond hair. “You put a sock in it,” she said. “One of the boys crawled under the table with a pink marking pen and colored Eliot’s loafers. Unfortunately, I think it’s sort of…permanent.” She stood up, her cheeks hotly flushed. “I’m so sorry, Eliot. This kind of thing…you’re probably not used to it. Unless you have children…?”
“I’ve never been married,” he said. “And please don’t worry about the shoes.”
“They look really expensive,” Rosie pointed out sadly.
Graciously, Dearbourne let that one pass, turning his attention to Tyler. “Is Jenny all right? I really need to speak to her.”
“She’s tired,” Tyler said shortly. “She said she wants a few minutes alone. Rosie, for Pete’s sake get out from under the table. Where are the boys?”
“Well, they’re right—” Rosie stood up, looking around the kitchen. “Oh, wonderful. They snuck out. Excuse me please, Eliot. I have a code red.”
Eliot Dearbourne’s keen green eyes followed Rosie’s flight from the kitchen. “Must be quite a job,” he commented. “Looking after those two. She probably looks forward to her husband coming home every night to help out. Do they all live here with you? Your sister and her husband and…everyone?”
Tyler plopped himself down at the table, knuckling his weary eyes with his fists. He was suddenly, strangely exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept for days. “Are you asking me if Rosie is married?”
A faint smile curled the attorney’s lips. Tyler had the impression this was the closest the man got to outright belly-shaking laughter. “Actually…I believe I am. I have a great many other questions for you, as well, but that’s one of them.”
Tyler stared at him, unable to believe his ears. “You want to know if Rosie is married?”
Dearbourne nodded. “Yes.”
Round and round the world goes, Tyler thought in amazement, and where it stops nobody knows. “No. Rosie has never been married. She has a house of her own, where she keeps the angelic children who colored on your leather loafers. Can we talk about Jenny now?”
“Certainly,” Dearbourne replied. He took a moment to brush a bit of lint off his lapel. “That’s why I’m here, after all.”
“She didn’t seem too happy to see you.” Tyler swallowed hard. “Are you two involved?”
“As in romantically? No.”
“So you’re her attorney?”
“Yes. Among other things.”
Tyler was losing patience. “Well, what other things?”
Dearbourne looked him straight in the eye. “That’s privileged information between myself and my client.”
“Are you kidding me?” Tyler said through his teeth. “You know, if you knew me better, you wouldn’t want to tick me off. A few days ago, your client came roaring into town trying to control a monster Harley-Davidson. Alone. Then she…misplaced…her wallet and ate a meal in a restaurant she couldn’t pay for. I ended up arresting her just to keep her in one piece. That was just her first couple of hours in town. Not long after that she managed to get hit by a Pontiac trying to cross main street. I watched the whole damn thing happen and I couldn’t do a thing to prevent it. And to make matters worse, the concussion she had affected her memory. I’m the one who has been taking care of her, Dearbourne. She couldn’t tell me a thing about her life, but you sure as hell can.”
“Why didn’t you ask her upstairs?” Dearbourne said quietly. “Obviously she remembers…everything she forgot.”
“I did ask her upstairs,” Tyler told him grimly. He wondered if he would have to arrest himself if he hit this closemouthed attorney in the nose. “She said she didn’t want to talk right now. That leaves me and you.”
A lengthy pause. “You seem awfully concerned for a simple Good Samaritan.”
Tyler looked as though it was difficult to remain calm enough to speak. “I am not ‘good,’ I am not ‘simple,’ but I’m definitely concerned. Why the hell was she out in the middle of nowhere on a stupid motorcycle that was trying to kill her?”
Eliot reached into his breast pocket for a stick of gum. Chewing gum always helped him navigate tricky situations. He chewed a great deal of gum in court. He unwrapped it, popped it into his mouth and chewed for thirty seconds before speaking. “Jenny likes to travel,” he said finally. “All the time. Anywhere. Usually she’ll tell me in advance where she’s going, but not this time.”
“And she goes alone?”
Something new came into the attorney’s eyes, something anxious and wistful. “Oh, yes. Always alone.”
“So what’s your role in all this? You loaned her the money for the motorcycle?”
Dearbourne stood up, wandering over to the kitchen window. He took his time before phrasing his answer. “No. Jenny has no need of loans. She’s extremely well-off. I simply dispersed some funds from one of her accounts at her request. I had no idea what she was going to do with it. We’re friends, but I also work for her, handling her finances, investments, taxes and so on. She prefers not to do that sort of thing herself.”
“What about her family?” Tyler asked. “Why aren’t they involved?”
Silence. Then, “Jenny will tell you about her family when and if she wants to, which obviously she doesn’t right now. It’s not my place.” He turned, staring long and hard at Tyler. “Now let me ask you something, if you don’t mind. Actually, even if you do mind. If you’re not a Good Samaritan, what exactly are you to her?”
A long pause followed. For whatever reason, Tyler was in no mood to be anything but blunt. “I don’t know what I am to her. I only know what she is to me.”
Dearbourne lifted his brows. “And that is…?”
“She’s everything,” Tyler said. “Everything.”
“I see.” Dearbourne mused silently on this, long enough for Tyler to clench his fists. He wanted answers and he wanted them quick, but the irritating attorney seemed to be on his own timetable, staring hard at Tyler and snapping his gum repeatedly. It was a strange habit for an immaculately dressed fellow who looked and acted as if he was going to a luncheon at Buckingham Palace.
“Before Jenny realized I was here,” Dearbourne said finally, “I had a good look at her. Minus the bandages and bruises, I’ve never seen her look happier—and I’ve known her for a long time. Something tells me I owe that happiness to you.”
“Then what happened?” Tyler asked, shoving his chair back and starting to pace the room. He couldn’t sit still while he had the sensation that his world was about to crumble. “What happened when she saw you? She was happy before you showed up, relaxed. Why did she suddenly turn into that guarded, bewildered little soul I met a few days ago? I want nothing more than her happiness, but I can’t fight a nameless ghost. Somehow I have to know what’s going on. Do you understand? I need some help here, all right? If you care about Jenny, give me something. Anything.”
Dearbourne’s poise never faltered, nor did his gaze waver from Tyler’s. Snap, snap. “You’re asking me to violate a client’s trust.”
“No, I’m asking you to tell me about your friend who I happen to care about a great deal.” Tyler let out a frustrated breath. “Look, I’ll make this easier on you. You don’t have to offer anything. I’ll just assume out loud for a minute. Jenny lives alone.”
“Warm.”
“And has little contact with her family.”
“Cold.”
“Jenny has no contact with her family?”
“Warm. Sort of.”
“Okay, that’s it.” Tyler took two steps, planting his face four inches from Dearbourne’s. “I’m flat out of patience. If you care about her, tell me enough to be able to help her. I don’t give a damn about attorney-client privilege. In fact, if it will make you feel better, you can call this an official police investigation. But you will tell me…one way or another.”
Surprisingly, Dearbourne grinned. Tyler wasn’t used to people who smiled when he threatened an official investigation. “You seem to be serious about this.”