Her Secret Past

by Amanda Stevens

  “I think you do know why.” He let his gaze linger on her features—those damnable eyes, that perfect nose, the wide, generous lips that had once been as familiar to him as his own. He’d wanted her for so long back then, had loved her so much, and she’d put him through an unspeakable hell. And now she claimed she didn’t even remember him. The irony of that was enough to send Con straight to the nearest liquor store.

  Instead, he tried to shrug it all away. “All right, so maybe I’ll give you the benefit of a doubt—for now. Let’s say you do have amnesia. It doesn’t change anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think I mean?”

  Nervously, she wiped her hands down the sides of her dress. The cotton fabric, probably once as cool and crisp as a snow cone, was now rumpled and stained with rust from the bridge railing. Her hair was tangled and windblown, her makeup long since melted away. She looked like hell, but it didn’t seem to matter to Con. She was still Amber Tremain.

  As if reading his thoughts, she turned away from him slightly, so that her gaze could trace the contours of the bridge towering over them. Con thought he saw her shudder before she turned back to face him. “I couldn’t have been more than eighteen.”

  “And I was nineteen,” he said dryly. “But it was all legal and binding. I have a marriage license to prove it.”

  Her face looked pale as she stared up at him. “That was nine years ago. Are we still—?”

  She couldn’t even bring herself to say the word. Con gave her a long, hard look. “I never divorced you, if that’s what you mean, though I’m damned if I know why.”

  For a moment, she looked as if she might pass out again, but then she rallied, straightening her shoulders and pushing the damp strands of hair from her forehead. “Tell me about that night,” she said urgently. “Tell me what happened.”

  When he didn’t answer right away, she reached out to touch his arm, but then hesitated. She let her hand drop to her side as she gazed up at him. “Look, I know you still don’t believe I have amnesia, but please, just humor me. What can it hurt?”

  Con wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Was she lying to him? God help him, he couldn’t tell. But when she looked up at him like that…when he saw with his own eyes how much she appeared to have changed…it was hard not to believe that something very significant had happened to her. “There’s not much to tell,” he said finally. “We eloped.”

  “Eloped?” An emotion he couldn’t define flashed in her eyes. “Why?”

  “That’s the way you wanted it. You didn’t want anyone to know until afterward. So we drove up to Memphis where we could get a license without a waiting period, and then we saw a justice of the peace. A couple of his fishing buddies were our witnesses.”

  “What happened then?” Her voice sounded breathless and shaky.

  It was all Con could do to keep his own tone even. “We came back here, and you went home to tell your old man what we’d done. You wanted to talk to him alone, so we agreed to meet later right here on the bridge. But you never came back.” After that, Con’s life had become a living nightmare, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her the rest. Not yet. Not until he was certain she couldn’t remember on her own.

  “What was the date?” she asked suddenly.

  He answered without having to think. “July 8. We’d saved some fireworks from the Fourth of July….” He trailed off, shrugging. It sounded like kid stuff now, but the roman candle he’d lit that night on the bridge had seemed symbolic of their passion—fiery, explosive and potentially very dangerous.

  Her frown deepened as she gazed at the river. He wondered if she was thinking, as he was, that the Fourth of July was only a few days away—and so was their anniversary.

  “My first memory is waking up in a Houston hospital,” she said, her tone pensive. “It was the day after that, I think. July 9.”

  “What the hell were you doing in Houston?”

  “I have no idea. But when I came to, I couldn’t remember anything. Later, I was told that my name was Amy Calloway, and that my parents had both died in a fire that destroyed our home in Iowa. I was told…I had no one else.”

  Con stared at her in disbelief. “Who told you that?”

  “A woman I believed was my aunt.”

  “You mean Corliss?”

  “Corliss?” Amy shook her head. “I don’t know anyone named Corliss. This woman’s name was Nona. Nona Jessop. Have you ever heard of her?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t say as I have. Was she from around here?”

  “She told me that she and my mother grew up together in a small town in Mississippi. That’s actually how I was able to trace…Amber Tremain to Magnolia Bend. But the newspaper accounts I read about the disappearance never mentioned anyone named Nona Jessop. She told me she had a brother who still lives here, but I haven’t been able to find out anything about him, either.”

  “As far as I know, there aren’t any Jessops around here.” Con still wasn’t sure whether or not he believed a word she was telling him. It was the strangest story he’d ever heard, but he wasn’t certain even Amber could make up anything this bizarre.

  She made a helpless gesture with her hand. “Anyway, when I awakened in the hospital, Nona was at my side. She didn’t tell me much at first, not for several weeks, only that she would take care of me. She kept asking if I remembered what had happened to me, and then she took me to see a therapist. But when my memory didn’t come back, she eventually started telling me things about my past, about my parents and the fire. She said she was my mother’s best friend, my godmother, and that she would take care of me since I had no one else.” Amy paused. “I believed her. I had no reason not to.”

  Con dragged a hand through his short hair. “Do you really expect me to believe all that? You’ve told some whoppers in your time, but this has got to take the cake. What I can’t figure out is why. What are you up to, Amber? Is it Amberly you’re after? Have you come back here to claim your half of the inheritance?”

  Amy’s eyes flashed with sudden fire, reminding Con of the way she’d looked once before, when he’d accused her then of lying to him. “I’m telling you the truth! I don’t know what happened here nine years ago, or how I ended up in Houston with Nona. That’s what I’ve come back to find out. That’s the only reason I’m here. She died a few months ago without ever telling my why she lied to me about my past. She left no records, no papers, nothing. I don’t even know what her brother’s name is, or if he even exists. I don’t have any idea what—or who—she was trying to protect me from, unless—” Her voice broke suddenly as her eyes widened in revelation. Con could almost see the fear churning inside her.

  “Unless what?” he demanded. When she didn’t say anything, he took her arm. She tried to flinch away, but his grasp tightened. “Unless what, damn it?”

  She stared at his hand on her arm for a moment, then slowly lifted her gaze to meet his. And he knew instantly what she was thinking. He could read it in her eyes—Nona Jessop, whoever she’d been, had taken Amber miles away from Mississippi to protect her from him.

  Whatever satisfaction her fear might have given him earlier vanished. Staring down into her face, Con realized, with an insight that was almost devastating, everything she’d told him was true. She didn’t remember him. She didn’t feel anything for him except terror.

  Something sharp and bitter stabbed through him, and as abruptly as he’d grabbed her, he released her. He took a step back from her, distancing himself from the temptation—and the threat—she posed to him. “Maybe you’d better get on home, Amber. I’m sure everyone there is waiting with bated breath for your return.”

  She cringed at the sarcasm in his voice, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned and walked away, exactly as she’d done nine years ago. And watching her go, Con had an odd sinking feeling in his stomach that the girl who’d disappeared that night was never coming back.

  * * *

 
AMY SAT IN HER CAR, hardly aware of the stifling heat as she watched Conner Sullivan walk along the riverbank to a path that led through a thicket of brambles and cypress trees. Emotions tumbled through her. It couldn’t be true. She couldn’t be married to him, and yet…

  Was that why she’d never been able to forget him? Was that why his dark, angry features had always haunted her?

  Was that why she hadn’t been able to marry Reece?

  God, she thought, scrubbing her face with her hands. Until two weeks ago, she’d been engaged, and now to learn that she’d been secretly married to another man for nine years. Nine years!

  Her gaze traveled along the river’s edge, to where Con had left the bank to follow the path back into the copse. The rugged terrain made his gait appear unstable, but his pace didn’t slow. It was as if he couldn’t wait to put as much distance between them as possible.

  He was still shirtless, and his back and shoulders looked deceptively thin. But up close, the definition of muscle beneath his bronze skin had told Amy that at one time—and probably not all that long ago—Conner Sullivan had been in peak physical condition.

  What had happened to him? she wondered, as she watched him disappear into the trees. What had his life been like for the past nine years?

  And why, if she was so terrified of him, did she wish suddenly that he would turn and come back? That he would tell her more about that night—their wedding night—and somehow make her remember?

  But he didn’t turn, not even once to glance back at her, and Amy knew she should probably be relieved even as a faint measure of disappointment trickled through her.

  * * *

  CON LIMPED UP THE PATH toward his trailer, fighting the urge to turn and look back at her, to reassure himself that he’d really seen her, had really talked to her. Christ, he’d even held her in his arms. It hadn’t been a dream this time, or a nightmare from which he would awaken in a cold sweat, reliving the details of a night that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  Amber Tremain had really come back.

  She’d even worn white, damn her, but that shouldn’t have surprised him. Amber had always worn white on significant occasions. Like on her birthday. On Christmas and Easter and the Fourth of July. And on the night she died, he remembered.

  So why wouldn’t she wear white on the day of her resurrection?

  Bending, he picked up a rock, rubbing the smooth surface as the unwanted memories crowded through him. His whole past had been such a damn cliché. A drunken, abusive father, a browbeaten mother and a girl from the other side of the tracks. Or in this case, river.

  No matter how far he’d traveled or how many years had gone by, Amber’s ghost had always been there, lurking somewhere in the deepest, darkest hideaways of his mind. He’d tried to convince himself a long time ago that she really was dead, because to believe otherwise…

  Shoving away the thought, he threw the rock toward a rusted beer can, missing his target by more than an inch. He’d lost his touch, Con reckoned, along with a few other things over the past nine years. Innocence? He gave a biting, inward laugh. You couldn’t lose what you’d never had.

  No, he’d lost things a lot more valuable than innocence. His mother, last year. His career, just before that. His right kneecap, in a covert war in South America no one back home in Mississippi had ever even heard of. On good days, he could walk without a noticeable limp. On bad days, like today, it was all he could do to drag himself out of bed.

  That’s what you get for running out on PT, a little voice taunted him. The knee might have gotten better in time. But after a half-dozen surgeries in less than a year, he hadn’t had the patience, or the pain threshold, to endure endless months of physical therapy. He’d opted out of the service—where was there to go anyway, except a desk job maybe, or a training assignment?—to come home and lick his wounds. And after some of the places he’d been in the past several years, even Mississippi had seemed a little like paradise. At least at first.

  But then he’d learned that his mother was dying. Her heart, the doctors had told Con, had simply been overworked for far too long. There was nothing they could do for her.

  Naomi Sullivan had worked like a dog all her life, waiting tables, taking in laundry, accepting whatever menial job she could find so that her son, her boy, could have a better life. So he wouldn’t turn out like the mean, drunken son of a bitch who had fathered him.

  And the irony of it was, the goddamn, stinking irony of it all was that if she’d lived a little longer, she would never have had to worry about money again.

  But she was gone now, and so was the judge. Emmett Tremain would never look across the river and view the vacation homes and golf course that would one day populate what used to be the worthless old Sullivan place. He would never know the bitterness of defeat or the irony of fate.

  But maybe that was just as well. If Con had learned anything in the past nine years, it was that old wounds—anger, hurt, betrayal—meant very little in the face of survival. He’d come to terms with the past a long time ago.

  He would never have come back here if he’d thought otherwise. He sure as hell wouldn’t have stayed on after his mother died. He would have sold the property, made his killing and gotten the hell out if he’d thought there was even a remote chance that his marriage to Amber would ever come to light.

  He glanced back at the river, but the trees hid Amber from his view. Which was probably a good thing. He didn’t trust himself with her right now. There was too much unfinished business between them. Too many things left unsaid.

  Too many emotions Con had never dealt with.

  In some ways, it would have been easier if she’d just stayed dead.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Amy backtracked along the dusty river road and found her way onto the main highway. Another twenty minutes or so had her crossing a different bridge, this one a modern affair with gleaming steel girders and four lanes of traffic.

  Once across the river, a truck bearing down on her rear bumper gave her only a split second to decide which course to follow: Left and head into town, or right and go to Amberly.

  Taking a deep breath, Amy cut the wheel to the right and whipped her rental car onto a smooth blacktop road that angled away from the river and cut like a straightedge through acres and acres of flat bottom land.

  The crops rippled in a stray breeze, like yards and yards of undulating green satin. Almost mesmerized by the rolling movement, Amy lost all sense of time and direction until a sharp bend in the road headed her back toward the river, away from the sun.

  The farmland gradually gave way to meadows and pastures lined with white wooden fences, and around another curve in the road, she saw the turnoff to Amberly, just as it had been described to her. The wrought-iron arch over the gravel lane was partially hidden by a dense stand of oak and pecan trees that, like towering sentinels, had guarded the narrow entrance for over 150 years.

  Driving through the gateway, Amy eased her car along fence rows overgrown with blackberry, honeysuckle and morning-glory vines. She rolled down her window, and the cloying scent drifted through the car like a soft summer dream.

  A mile down the gravel lane, the woods thinned and the hedgerows gave way to a wide, sloping lawn. A peacock, tail feathers spread wide, strutted onto the road a few yards in front of her car, and Amy slowed, giving him time to cross while she caught glimpses of a white plantation house through an alley of tall, shadowy magnolias.

  The river was nowhere in sight, but Amy could smell it. The damp, musty scent was unmistakable as it seeped through the open car windows and mingled with the honeysuckle.

  The only visible water was a man-made lily pond ringed with deep purple irises and black-eyed Susans. Swans and ducks glided effortlessly on the smooth surface, their grace and cool beauty almost dreamlike in the stifling heat.

  But more surreal than anything was the house itself. Amberly.

  Amy pulled through the rows of magnolias
, stopped her car on the gravel drive and got out, her heart pounding in excitement. Or was it fear?

  No one waited on the porch for her with bated breath, as Con had suggested, but she knew she was expected. She’d written the family days ago, when she’d first learned of Amber Tremain’s origins, explaining her uncanny resemblance to Amber and the fact that she had no memory of her life prior to nine years ago. She’d also sent a recent photograph of herself and detailed briefly the life she now led.

  She’d gotten a prompt, though somewhat wary, reply from the family’s attorney, Darnell Henry, requesting more details and a face-to-face interview. After a series of phone calls, he’d flown to Houston, the two of them had met for several hours and the very next day, she’d received a call from Lottie Tremain, Emmett Tremain’s widow, who had issued a cordial invitation to Amy to come for an extended visit with the family at Amberly.

  Evidently, Mr. Henry had been convinced that she was Amber Tremain, because Lottie had assured Amy that everyone in the family was very excited to see her. The sooner she could come the better. As they’d talked, the woman’s tone had warmed, but Amy had still sensed an undercurrent in Lottie’s voice that was more than a little troubling.

  Even so, Amy had made her travel plans immediately. She’d already had vacation time scheduled for her canceled honeymoon, two whole weeks that she could use to discover who she really was. Who Amber Tremain had been.

  Shivering, she stared up at the house, letting her gaze slide over the gleaming white facade, the steep angles of the gabled roof and the eight columns that dignified a wide porch with granite steps.

  As she stood there, the history of the place seemed to wrap around her, like the arms of some forgotten ancestor summoning her home.

  But her initial awe paled as she slowly climbed the steps. The granite was chipped in places, and the porch roof, supported by the stately columns, sagged precariously at one end. The faded splendor of the house depressed Amy, though she couldn’t say why. She had no memory of Amberly. In fact, she still couldn’t quite believe she had once lived here, been born and raised here, and that something must have happened to drive her away.