Her Secret Past

by Amanda Stevens

  The napkin on which she’d drawn the Face.

  The woman looked up, and her gaze met Amy’s once more. Slowly the woman smiled.

  * * *

  “IT WAS THE strangest encounter,” Amy told Reece that evening as she sat across from him at a beautifully set dinner table in his uptown apartment. The crystal and china gleamed in the flickering light from a dozen votive candles, but the effect was lost on Amy. Her fingers trembled as she smoothed the linen napkin over the skirt of her green silk sheath.

  “I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. I keep asking myself what I would do if I found out I’m not really Amy Calloway.” She hesitated. “What would you do?”

  Reece, pouring his favorite Chilean wine into two crystal goblets, glanced at her with amused indulgence over the dancing flames. “You mean if I suddenly found out I’m not Reece Kantner? That’s an interesting question. I don’t know what I’d do, but I’m sure my mother would be greatly relieved.”

  Amy frowned, in no mood for levity. “I’m serious about this.”

  His smile disappeared, and his expression grew sober. He sat back in his chair and sighed. “I know you are. And I’m sorry if I tried to make light of what happened. I know this has been bothering you all day, but I still think you’re making too much of it. Just because a woman in a restaurant thought you looked like someone she used to know doesn’t mean you have some deep, dark, mysterious past.” He cut a piece of tomato in his salad and speared it with his fork. “Besides, you know what they say—everyone has a double. I’m always being told I look like someone’s cousin or neighbor or college roommate. It happens all the time.”

  “Yes, but that’s not the same thing,” Amy said impatiently. “You don’t have a past you can’t remember.”

  Restless, she picked up her wineglass and turned to stare out into the darkness while Reece ate his salad. The view from his high-rise usually enthralled her, but tonight the string of lights along Post Oak Boulevard and the 610 Loop seemed as chaotic and aimless as her thoughts.

  The soft click as the central-air-conditioning unit came on caused her to jump, giving away her edginess, and she turned back to gaze at Reece across the candle glow. More than anything, she wanted to take comfort in his presence tonight, in the familiarity of their relationship, but for some reason, his good looks were even more intimidating than usual to her. Was it because their wedding day was only two weeks away?

  It was only natural to have reservations, Amy reminded herself. After all, she’d only met Reece a few months ago, under very trying circumstances. How well did she really know him? How well could she know him when she’d suddenly discovered she might not even know herself?

  “You haven’t touched your salad,” he commented.

  Amy shrugged. “I’m not hungry tonight.”

  Reece placed his knife and fork on his salad plate and shoved it aside. “Talk to me, Amy,” he urged softly. “Don’t shut me out.”

  “I’m not trying to shut you out. It’s just…” She waited a heartbeat, then said, “I can’t explain what’s happening to me. It’s like I’ve been blindsided. Everything has changed suddenly. The moment that woman mentioned Amber Tremain…” She trailed off again as a quiver of emotion shot through her.

  “But you said you’d heard your aunt mention the name before,” Reece pointed out. “Don’t you think that’s why you reacted to it?”

  “I think that only adds to my confusion. Just before she died, Aunt Nona mentioned someone named Amber Tremain, and then I’m told, months later, that I look exactly like her.”

  “I admit, it is a strange coincidence.”

  “But you told me once you didn’t believe in coincidences.”

  They’d first met five months ago at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where Amy’s aunt and Reece’s father were undergoing chemotherapy at the same time. Reece had told Amy from the first that their meeting in the face of tragedy wasn’t due to coincidence but fate.

  Amy had desperately wanted to believe him. With her aunt gone, Amy had had no one to turn to, no one to count on. Reece had been there for her in the days following Nona’s death when Amy had needed him the most, and she knew he would be again. So why wasn’t that enough?

  As if reading her thoughts, he leaned toward her. “Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that none of this is a coincidence. Why didn’t you have the same reaction when your aunt first mentioned Amber Tremain several months ago?”

  “I’ve thought about that,” Amy admitted. She bit her lip for a moment, contemplating. “I think I did have some of those same feelings I had today, but I was still in shock from learning about my aunt’s cancer. When she told me about Amber’s mother committing suicide, I felt an almost overwhelming sadness, but I thought it was because Aunt Nona had just told me she was dying.

  “But now that I look back, now that I remember her expression, the way she studied me that night…even her timing…it was as if she was leading up to something. Trying to tell me something, but just couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.”

  “Are you saying you think you are this woman?” Something that might have been excitement flashed in Reece’s eyes, but in the next instant, his brows drew together in a deep frown. “How could that be possible? The woman in the restaurant told you Amber Tremain is dead.”

  “She also said Amber’s body was never found.”

  A pall fell over the room. Somewhere in the background, Amy was aware of the steady hum of the air conditioner, the faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer, a myriad of tiny sounds but none so loud as her own heartbeat, drumming an unsteady rhythm in her ears. Did she really believe she was Amber Tremain?

  The scent of magnolia blossoms filled the air suddenly. It was as if the ghost of Amy’s past, wearing a sweet and haunting perfume, had drifted into the room. Amy knew the scent wasn’t real, and yet the fragrance was so overpowering, so provocative, she found it difficult to breathe.

  “I don’t know what I believe,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t know who I am anymore. If I am Amber Tremain, why did Aunt Nona feel compelled to lie to me? Why did she tell me I was from Iowa, that my family died there, when all along she knew it wasn’t true?”

  Reece took another sip of his wine. His attitude was almost casual. “Even if Nona did lie to you about certain aspects of your past, it was probably because she was trying to protect you. From everything you’ve told me about her, and from what little I saw of her before she died, she loved you very much. You were like a daughter to her. If there was something in your past she thought might cause you pain, she would have wanted to shield you from it.”

  “Like what?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Didn’t the woman say that some people thought Amber had run away? Maybe there was some kind of turmoil in her life.”

  Amy put her hands to her face for a moment. Her fingers trembled against her skin. “None of this makes any sense. Aunt Nona told me so much about my past, how wonderful my parents were. She even told me the reason I had a Southern drawl was because my mother had grown up in the Deep South, and I’d picked up her accent. She had an answer for everything, and it all made sense. My past sounded so idyllic—” She broke off, her gaze darting to Reece’s. “So…perfect. A past too good to be true.”

  Reece reached across the table and took her hand. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. We’ll figure this thing out together.”

  But Amy barely heard him. She stared off into space, her thoughts chaotic and troubled. “I keep asking myself all the questions I should have asked before. Why did I never meet Aunt Nona’s brother? I never knew about him until she was dying, and even then she wouldn’t tell me his name. I didn’t know how to get in touch with him when she died.”

  “You said Nona’s lawyer took care of all the details, including disbursing her estate. Maybe her attorney notified the brother, and for whatever reason, he couldn’t be here for the funeral.”

  “Maybe. But it all
seems so secretive now.” Amy let out a shaky breath. “There are a lot of other things that bother me, too. I don’t understand why I didn’t go back to Iowa when I got out of the hospital. I was desperately trying to get my memory back. Why didn’t Aunt Nona encourage me to go back? Surely that would have been the logical treatment for an amnesiac, and yet I can’t remember that I ever seriously considered the possibility. It was as if I knew, on some level, that the memories Aunt Nona gave me, the home and family she created for me, weren’t real. But to question them, to not have accepted them, would have meant facing something I didn’t want to face.” Rather than confronting a fear greater than anything she could imagine, an unknown terror she couldn’t begin to explain, Amy had believed in those memories Nona had given to her. She’d accepted the past her aunt had created for her. And she’d tried, for nine long years, to be a woman who may never have existed.

  Pushing herself from the table, Amy got up and walked to the windows, staring out. A mist had descended over the city, obscuring the tops of the downtown skyscrapers, making the buildings seem shimmery and nebulous in the distance, as if they were floating in clouds.

  Like my past, Amy thought, staring at her reflection in the glass, studying her features and seeing, as if for the first time, the thick blond hair pulled back from an oval face with cheekbones a little too prominent, a mouth a little too generous and a nose a little too straight. But her most dominant feature had always been her eyes. Light golden brown, almost tawny, they tilted slightly at the corners, giving an exotic touch to what otherwise would have been a mildly attractive face.

  So who are you? she wondered uneasily. Amy Calloway? Or the ghost of Amber Tremain?

  The image in the window wavered, then reformed as if someone else’s features had been superimposed over hers. The dark eyes, the seductive mouth, the angry expression seemed to taunt her. Only he knew the secrets of her past.

  So come and find me, his image whispered to her. Come and find me…if you dare.

  Amy shivered as those same intense emotions rolled over her again—dread, fear and an almost excruciating excitement that tingled like an electrical shock through every nerve ending in her body.

  Was it possible? Did she have a family out there somewhere? People who loved her, missed her, wondered what had happened to her?

  The loneliness of the past nine years filled her with an unbearable sadness, a yearning deep inside her that Amy could no more explain than she could wish away. It had been a part of her, of who she was, for far too long.

  When Reece came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, she tensed, unable to relax in his embrace. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face him. “I have to pursue this. I have to learn the truth about my past. If Aunt Nona did lie to me, then I have to find out why.”

  “I know you do.”

  Surprised that he’d given her no argument, Amy turned back to the window. She could see his reflection in the glass, could see that he was smiling, and a tiny shiver of unease raced up her spine.

  He bent and nuzzled the back of her neck. “I’m here for you, Amy, just like I was when Nona died. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.” His voice was soft and warm, gently coercive, but Amy found herself recoiling this time from his seductive persuasion.

  “I’m…not sure how I want to go about this.”

  “Then let me handle it for you.” He massaged the tense muscles in her shoulders. “I’ll get one of the investigators we use at the firm to do some checking for you. By the time we get back from our honeymoon—”

  “No!” The word almost exploded from Amy, shocking them both. She shook her head. “I don’t want some stranger poking around in my past.” Why? Because she was afraid of what he might find?

  After a moment, Reece said, “Okay. We’ll do it ourselves, then. They say you can find out almost anything on the Internet these days.” His tone was ironic as he smiled at her reflection.

  Amy said slowly, “I’m not sure that’s what I want, either.”

  His hands stilled on her shoulders. “What do you want?”

  She hesitated. “This is something I have to do alone, Reece.”

  “Alone?” He sounded incredulous. “But why? Why won’t you let me help you?”

  Amy couldn’t explain it, but exploring her past and discovering her true identity was a journey she had to make by herself. She couldn’t allow anyone, not even Reece, to uncover her memories and secrets until she had a chance to sort through them on her own.

  Because there was a chance, she thought with a shudder of fear, that she might need to rebury them.

  Avoiding his question, she said, “In some strange way, I think I’ve always known that I’m not Amy Calloway. I’m not the nice, sweet, uncomplicated girl from Iowa Aunt Nona tried to create. Which means I’m not the woman you want to marry.”

  “You’re wrong about that.” Reece turned her again in his arms. His eyes glinted with a sudden emotion Amy was hard-pressed to name. “I know everything I need to know about you, and I still want to marry you. More than ever. You have to believe that.”

  Amy wished she could believe it, but unfortunately, along with all of Reece’s good qualities came an ambition to succeed that almost bordered on obsession. She supposed it resulted from never measuring up to his parents’ expectations. Reece’s older brother had been the golden child, and had, upon their father’s death, inherited the bulk of the family fortune.

  Reece had been devastated, and his ambition had only grown keener since then. He had his eye on a full partnership in his law firm, an almost unheard-of accomplishment for someone his age. What would happen if something from Amy’s past—some forgotten scandal—surfaced to threaten his position, his future?

  An image of the Face suddenly burned in her mind, and Amy shuddered. Who was he, and why was his angry expression the only thing from her past she could remember?

  Had he been someone special to her?

  Or someone dangerous to her?

  Amy closed her eyes briefly, willing her strength. “I can’t marry you, Reece—”

  Putting a fingertip to her lips, he cut her off before she could finish. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think it. You’re just upset. Confused. You didn’t mean it.”

  “But I did mean it. I can’t plan a future with you when all of this is hanging over my head. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  He gripped her shoulders, his eyes flaring with sudden anger. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of what’s right or wrong for me? For God’s sake, you’re overreacting. Think about it. The wedding is only a couple of weeks away. It’s only natural you’d have jitters. Second thoughts, even. You’re just using all this other stuff as an excuse.”

  “Reece—”

  “You need me. You need me now more than ever. Haven’t I always been there for you?”

  His grasp tightened on her, and Amy winced at the pain. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go. A tiny bubble of panic rose inside her.

  “Please don’t make this harder than it already is,” she whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you. That’s the last thing I want. But I’ve been having doubts for weeks, and if you’d be honest, I think you’d have to admit that you have, too. You know as well as I do this wedding would be a mistake.”

  He stared down at her, his gaze dark and turbulent. “Damn you, I’ve come too far to let you pull the rug out from under me now. I won’t let you stop this wedding.”

  Amy stared at him in shock. He’d always been so gentle with her, so accommodating, but the man she saw before her now was almost a stranger. “What do you mean, you’ve come too far?”

  He paused, drawing in a long breath as if to quell his growing temper. Turning away from her, he rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I only meant that I’ve let my feelings for you go too far. I care about you too much to let you walk away from everything we could have together.”
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  “I’m sorry, too,” Amy said, staring at his profile. “But this is something I have to do. And after you’ve had time to think about it—”

  “I’ll what? Come to agree with you?” He gave her a quelling glance. “Don’t count on it. And don’t expect me to make this easy for you. I’ll fight for you, if that’s what you want. I’ll do whatever I have to, but this isn’t over. I won’t let it be.”

  He turned his back on her then, and Amy watched him for a moment longer, wondering how she could have let things get this far. Loneliness was a powerful motivator, but even that was no excuse for making bad decisions. Reece was not the man for her. A part of her had known that all along, even as another part, the lonely part, had wanted to believe that marriage and a family could fill the dark void inside her heart.

  But now Amy knew the truth. There was only one way to fill that emptiness. She couldn’t go forward with her life until she’d gone back to search for her past.

  The scent of magnolia blossoms rose around her as she slipped the engagement ring from her finger and placed it on the table.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Magnolia Bend, two weeks later

  AMY STARED DOWN at the river, the calm surface discordant with the turmoil raging inside her. She wiped her clammy palms on the sides of her white sundress, unmindful of the rusty streaks she left behind as she forced herself to study her surroundings, trying to conjure a memory.

  What was she doing here anyway? What force had compelled her to leave the main road, which would have led her, according to her map, to a new bridge a few miles farther downstream? Once across the river, she could have either turned left off the highway onto a two-lane blacktop road that would take her into town, or she could turn right and go directly to Amberly, the plantation home where Amber Tremain had been born and raised.

  But some strange impulse had caused her to turn off the highway and follow a narrow, dusty road that snaked along the river’s edge. Then, rounding a corner, she’d spotted the rusted iron girders of the bridge rising over the water, and at that very moment, Amy had been overcome with fear. Heart pounding, mind-numbing terror had washed over her like sheets of cold, hard rain.