Harlequin Superromance November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Mary Brady

  A stirring of arousal had him trying to block that particular speculation.

  “How was your day?” she asked, then wrinkled her nose. “That sounds Stepford-wife, doesn’t it? Sorry.”

  “I like that you asked,” he said, tugging at the knot on his tie. “And my day was routine. Let me change clothes.”

  Once he was more comfortable in jeans and a sweatshirt, he followed the sound of running water to the kitchen.

  “Smells good.”

  “I’m best at Italian. I hope you like it.”

  “Love it. Is there anything I can do?”

  She shook her head, then changed her mind. “I haven’t looked for place mats yet, or whatever you use.”

  “I’ll set the table.” He didn’t tell her he couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a place mat from the drawer in the buffet. He ate at the breakfast bar, rarely lingering. He did cook for himself, unlike when he was younger and more likely to grab a bite on the way home, but he didn’t make a production out of the dining part. Why bother, when he was alone?

  Steam rose from the stockpot on the stove, and Nell measured out spaghetti and let it slide into the boiling water. Then she stirred the sauce bubbling beside it, tasted a small sample and said, “Yum.”

  His stomach grumbled.

  “I’m amazed at how much the town has grown,” Nell commented, clearly feeling the need to make conversation. “My memory is good enough to know it didn’t look like this when I left.”

  “No. I’ve been here while the growth happened, and still have moments of disbelief.”

  “Is it all because of the new Nordic Center?”

  “That was a catalyst, but the tourist industry in this entire region of central Oregon is booming. We’re getting a lot of retirees, too. Good medical care, clean air, plenty of recreational and cultural opportunities. Bend and Sun River have gotten so expensive, newcomers started looking to towns like La Pine and Angel Butte, up north to Redmond. The skiers still have reasonable access to Mount Bachelor, but they can live a little cheaper and with less crowding.”

  “If you say so.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll concede Angel Butte doesn’t look like Seattle or the suburbs yet, although there’s more resemblance than there used to be.” She turned off one burner. “Do you want to dish up at the stove, or should I use serving bowls?”

  “We can dish up here. Let’s save on the washing up.”

  She grinned impishly at him. “Is that because I’m the cook and therefore you’re the washer-upper?”

  Wow. An emotion he hardly understood slammed him, leaving him unable to give her a light answer. This was the first time he’d seen her face relaxed, her eyes alight with humor. Was this what she’d been like before, with a few words, he’d threatened the life she so carefully built?

  I know you.

  He had been so damn happy to find her, he hadn’t let her obvious fear and resistance stop him.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered, and he realized her smile had vanished and she was staring at him with wide-eyed alarm.

  “Nothing.” Self-recrimination came a little late, didn’t it? And he still didn’t know whether she was better off recovering her past. “I’m sorry. It was, uh, the way you were smiling. I haven’t seen you do a lot of that.”

  Her eyes searched his. “You haven’t seen me at my best.”

  He remembered the snippet captured by the television camera, when she’d spoken so softly with that pathetically young and very pregnant teenager, then hugged her so gently.

  “I wouldn’t say that.” He cleared his throat. “Just...not happy, I guess. That’s what hit me. Maybe you were before I blew your safe little world out of the water.”

  “The first day, that’s what I thought... Oh!” she exclaimed, turning to the stove. She mumbled to herself in obvious exasperation as she snatched the heavy pan off the burner.

  Once they’d dished up and sat down, he got her talking about her day. The nuances of her voice were familiar, but now he could watch the flickers of expression on her face, too. During their phone calls he’d craved the sight of her.

  She told him about the two teachers she’d managed to talk to, one of whom she didn’t remember at all and who she thought remembered her only because of the publicity surrounding her disappearance. Her face softened when she talked about the other teacher, though, a Mrs. Chisholm.

  “She was the best. Even I hadn’t managed to forget her,” she said with a little laugh. “We hugged, and she had tears in her eyes.”

  “Hey...” Fork halfway to his mouth, he paused. “I had a Mrs. Chisholm for freshman English. Big, strong woman?”

  “That’s her.”

  “Oh, God. Romeo and Juliet.”

  She giggled. Solemn Nell Smith giggled. “Did she make you read Romeo?”

  “Mercutio. Turns out he was a mumbler.”

  Her face was still bright with laughter. “That fulsome language scared you, did it?”

  “I felt like an idiot. Unfortunately, everyone else did, too. Had to be the worst Shakespeare read-aloud ever.”

  “I know what you mean. But when she read Shakespeare or anything else...”

  “Yeah, she had a voice, didn’t she?” His asshole father had met her during a rare showing at a parent-teacher conference, and on his way home he’d suggested she could have made big bucks working for a sex hotline. Colin remembered cringing. Mrs. Chisholm and sex, in the same sentence? Of course, after that he couldn’t get it out of his head and a couple of times had closed his eyes and tried to imagine while she read aloud. His conclusion was that he would never, no matter how desperate, call one of those numbers. The sexy voice on the other end could be from an eighty-year-old grandmother. Or—God—Mrs. Chisholm.

  After a minute, he asked Nell how lunch with her mother had gone and saw her expression shut down.

  “It was...fine.” She scowled. “No, weird is a better word. I’ve had friendlier get-togethers with parents who were mad we’d taken their kid into SafeHold. She was so distant. And I kept thinking she must know other people having lunch at the inn. I was braced for her to introduce me around and what the reaction would be. But we sat by a window, out of the way, and she didn’t say anything to anybody. I got to wondering whether she’d requested the table in advance so she didn’t have to introduce me.”

  She was trying to hide the hurt, but not completely succeeding. As if fear and pain stripped her of some layers, she always looked younger at moments like this. More like the Maddie whose picture had been on his bulletin board for so many years, he couldn’t help thinking. Maddie meant nothing good to Nell Smith. The understanding made him feel guiltier than ever.

  Colin didn’t blame her for hurting at her mother’s coolness, either. His father was abusive, his mother walked out on him, but at least there’d been emotion in his house. Good, hideous, everything in between. Then, he’d thought anything would be better. Now, he wasn’t so sure, not when he saw Nell’s face so pale that the freckles stood out in sharp relief.

  To think how much sympathy he’d wasted on the Dubeaus, terrified for their daughter, mourning her—or so he’d thought.

  “Back then,” he said slowly, “I noticed your mother always hung back at public appearances. I thought she was in shock and trying hard not to break down where she could be seen. I respected her dignity.”

  “And now you wonder if she was feeling anything at all.”

  “I guess that is what I’m wondering.”

  Nell twirled spaghetti with great concentration but didn’t lift it to her mouth. “I had this really vivid memory today,” she said haltingly. “Nothing important, but I knew in it that I was a disappointment to my parents, and especially my mother. Not pretty enough, not athletic or graceful. I was relieved that I was going to the resort to hang out
all day partly because it got me away from Mom.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said gently.

  She bent her head. “I am, too.”

  He made sure the conversation was more general until they finished eating, but when she stood and said she would put the coffee on, he shook his head.

  “There’s something we need to talk about first.”

  She sank back into her chair, her eyes locked on his. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll like it,” he admitted. “It occurred to me today that rumors are going to start spreading like wildfire. You’ll run into people you’ve completely forgotten but who recognize you. Let’s head off the necessity of you having to explain yourself over and over by holding a press conference.”

  She gaped.

  “We’ll bring your parents in on it. We have a daily newspaper, Bend does, of course, and La Pine has a weekly. A stringer for the Oregonian will show up. Local TV news. Let’s get it over with in a controlled venue.” Seeing her horror, he wished he could shield her from all of this. And by God he wished her parents had fallen on her with tears and joy. “You can’t stay incognito anymore, Nell,” he said, regret sounding in his voice.

  “No, I know. It’s just—” The huff of breath might have been meant to be a laugh. “The day the KING-5 news team was filming at SafeHold, I was trying to avoid the camera. On the way home, I was thinking about it. I’ve always worried about encountering someone who knew me.” She grimaced. “You know that. Because I haven’t changed all that much. But I also know that I wouldn’t have wanted to appear on camera, no matter what. Public recognition wouldn’t have been my thing. Then what did I do? I made myself famous.”

  “You didn’t make yourself famous,” he said through gritted teeth. “None of it was your doing.”

  She shrugged in acknowledgment. He knew what she was thinking. Yes, it was still possible that some action of hers had led to the assault and abduction. He couldn’t imagine what action that could have been. She’d been a good girl, not a troublemaker. Even if she had been...she was fifteen years old. A kid.

  “Word will get out no matter what,” he repeated. “If we don’t do it this way, you’re going to have reporters waylaying you everywhere you go. That might be worse.”

  “I don’t know.” Expression closing down, she jumped to her feet and began clearing the table.

  Colin didn’t push it. He helped her clear, then loaded the dishwasher while she put leftovers in the refrigerator.

  Finally, as she was pouring the coffee, her back to him, Nell said abruptly, “Okay. You’re right. How bad can it be?”

  He hadn’t forgotten the hysteria back then, but refrained from saying, It won’t be good.

  Once again, Maddie Dubeau would be a nine-day wonder.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  NELL WOKE THE next morning to find the world outside cloaked in white. Colin had said something about expecting a trace of snow, but this was more than that. For a moment she felt a child’s sense of wonder at the quiet beauty. An occasional tiny flake still floated down, adding to the powder snow that made Mount Bachelor a world-renowned destination ski resort. Standing at the window looking out, she could tell from the set of tracks cutting through the smooth sheet of snow that Colin had already departed for work.

  That was all it took, the sight of those tracks, to make her think about him. The better she got to know him, the more of a puzzle he became for her. Part of it was him, the man with the hard face and intense eyes who could still be so gentle that all of her certainties were shaken. The coward in her wanted to believe that gentleness was a lie. She could hold more of herself back if she was sure he was intent on manipulating her.

  But Nell didn’t believe it. He’d been too honest with her. By asking her to stay here, opening his home to her, he’d also opened his life. She’d seen the yearning on his face when he talked about his sister. Nell was still stunned that he had held her hand at her parents’. He hadn’t bothered to worry about the way her parents would interpret it. Resting her forehead against the cold glass, she closed her eyes and remembered how that hand had felt, engulfing hers. She shivered at another memory, of him standing close to her, his fingers delving into her hair and stroking so gently over that old scar. She’d been sorry when he stepped away.

  In fact, she’d felt something so unfamiliar, it wasn’t until later, lying in bed, that she had identified it as sexual attraction.

  A few times she had wondered if he were feeling something similar, but she wasn’t sure. Maybe it would be better if she never found out. She had always known that, if she ever came to trust a man enough to want the kind of relationship she saw other people having, she would have to tell him more about her past. The part that would repulse most decent men.

  But he had hinted that he knew and understood.

  He thinks of me as Maddie. He’s been obsessed with Maddie.

  No matter what, that wasn’t who she was anymore.

  It would be better not to think of Colin that way, even if he were the only man who had ever made her feel safe. Safe enough to feel...well, other things, too.

  I’ll wait and see, she decided practically, and turned from the window to get herself breakfast.

  Nell had eaten and was sipping the tea she preferred to coffee when she thought to check her phone. He’d left her a message.

  “I made some calls, including a talk with your father. We’re set for two o’clock at the police station. It’s no longer next to the old courthouse.” He gave the address. “Why don’t you aim to get here at least half an hour early? We can talk about the kind of questions you’ll be asked, how you want to answer.” There was a long enough pause for her to think he might be done, but then he added, his voice subtly different, “If you go out, be careful, Nell.”

  Sitting locked in this apartment was not an option, certainly not this morning. All she would do was freak out about the upcoming press conference or think about Colin, the man. She needed a distraction.

  Last night she’d searched Facebook for Emily Henson and Hailey Allen. She now knew the name of Emily’s husband—Jason Barr—and had even seen a picture of him, albeit one taken with her when they’d apparently been mountain biking and were tousled, sweaty and laughing. He looked nice: thin, with sandy-blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Emily’s face produced nothing as concrete as a memory, but it looked familiar and Nell felt a funny stir of emotion. She had lingered a long time on Emily’s Facebook page.

  She’d also found Hailey Allen and learned that, unlike Emily, who had gone away for college, Hailey had never left the area. After finishing a two-year program in culinary arts at Central Oregon Community College, she’d gone to work in a restaurant in Bend. A year or two ago she had opened her own restaurant in Angel Butte. Nell must have gone right by it yesterday.

  Hailey might not have much time to chat, but Nell intended to drop by this morning and at least say hello.

  She’d peered for some time at the pictures of Hailey, too, trying to reconcile them with any of the faces swimming through her damaged memory, but failed. It might only be that she looked different than she had at fifteen years old. Her hair was currently short, spiky and dyed shocking pink, plus she seemed to be clowning around in all the pictures on her page. Nell hoped seeing her in person would trigger something. It would be awkward to have to say, I’m told we were friends, but I don’t remember you at all.

  Of course, if she stayed in town long, she was going to have to get used to admitting that to a lot of people. In fact, last night Colin had said he’d be happiest if she made her amnesia sound even deeper than it really was.

  She’d snapped, “Thanks, way to make me feel safe,” and told him good-night, marching through the cold to the apartment in what she told herself was a temper, but knew was closer to a new and improved anxie
ty attack.

  What he didn’t realize was how completely vulnerable she already felt. The idea of other people knowing her on a level she didn’t even know herself, while she had no memory at all of them, made her want to curl up into a little ball like a hedgehog with all her quills bristling. Except she didn’t have anything as useful as quills to protect her.

  I have Colin.

  He had definitely appointed himself her guardian, although she wasn’t entirely sure why. That was part of what worried her, of course. Perhaps he’d realized right away that he would never be able to lure her back to Angel Butte unless he could convince her that he could keep her safe. Nell didn’t like to think he’d wanted to produce her like a rabbit from a hat only so he’d look like a wizard on the job. Was he hoping for some kind of promotion?

  But she didn’t believe that his satisfaction and amazement at finding her were that self-centered. She thought he’d believed there were people here who had grieved and needed to know she had survived. The fact that he seemed to be one of those people still puzzled her, even as it made her feel soft inside. She might not understand, but she was clinging to the knowledge that, for whatever reason, she really mattered to him.

  And she was depending almost entirely on him. Nell Smith, who never let herself really depend on anyone. Until him, she had never told a single person that she didn’t remember who she was or where she came from.

  It wasn’t smart to need anyone so much. Which was one of the reasons she had to continue exploring her history on her own. The more she learned, the less vulnerable she’d be.

  * * *

  A YOUNG WAITRESS with half a dozen studs climbing each ear plus a nose ring wanted to seat Nell the minute she walked into the Kingfisher Café.