Stephen, her best friend.
Stephen, her lover?
She bit her lips to suppress a moan of dismay. She’d acted like a fool, weeping like a child, all but throwing herself into his arms. Embarrassment wiped away the flush of sated contentment she’d experienced at awakening in his arms. With her recklessness and lack of control, she had effectively destroyed the best friendship she’d ever had.
Moving quietly not to awaken him, she tugged on her clothes, but she hadn’t been able to resist one last kiss before she slipped out the door. At the fleeting touch of her lips, he had smiled and reached for her in his sleep.
For the rest of the weekend she had refused to answer her telephone. He probably wanted to apologize for letting the champagne go to his head, just as she had. But she couldn’t face him. He must have thought she’d lost her mind. Each time she weakened and reached for the ringing phone, she recalled the intensity of their lovemaking, the fool she’d made of herself, and didn’t answer. She spent hours driving aimlessly in case he showed up at her door.
On Monday, Jason Bender told her Stephen had stopped by the office before leaving for Atlanta, but Rachel was out interviewing a manager whose bank had been robbed. By the following Monday, she’d managed to avoid all Stephen’s calls to the office, and her home phone had finally stopped its incessant ringing.
By that time, Rachel had admitted to herself the real reason for her avoidance of Stephen. She was afraid she was falling in love with him, and the prospect terrified her. She wouldn’t endure again the heartache and humiliation Brad had put her through when he’d ended their engagement. Better to remain unattached with her lonely heart in one piece than risk such pain again.
But missing Stephen brought its special kind of pain.
The passing weeks, however, justified her reservations. Through the office grapevine, three months after his move, she learned Stephen had formed a serious relationship with an Atlanta advertising executive, Anne Michelle Logan, a former Miss University of Georgia.
Along with that news came rumors of an impending marriage.
This information arrived the same day her doctor confirmed what those little drugstore test kits had been telling her for weeks, but she’d refused to believe until now.
She was pregnant with Stephen’s child.
Determined that Stephen not know, she had resigned from the Bureau and taken the forensics job with the sheriffs department in North Carolina, far enough from Atlanta not to run into Stephen by accident, and far enough from Savannah that her former colleagues wouldn’t guess what had happened or pass the news to Stephen.
She hadn’t wanted to upset the plans for his upcoming marriage. He was so damned honorable, had he learned of her pregnancy, he would have insisted on marrying her. Marriage to Stephen was the last thing she wanted. His falling in love so quickly after reaching Atlanta proved her point that they had been friends only. Since he’d found a woman he loved, Rachel refused to saddle him with her and her child for the rest of his life.
After cutting herself off from former friends, she had been horribly lonely.
Until Jessica was born.
Her beautiful daughter, with dark hair and eyes like her father’s had filled her life with laughter and love. Soon Rachel had made new friends at her new job. Everything had seemed to be working out all right.
Then came Stephen’s call, warning her of danger.
He had warned her not to stop for anything on her way to the mountains, but Rachel had stopped at the day care center to pick up Jessica, then stopped again at a grocery in Sylva to buy formula and disposable diapers. Jessica slept now in the next room.
With Stephen sleeping soundly on the sofa, she set aside her empty coffee mug, shoved to her feet and tiptoed to the smaller bedroom to check on her daughter, snuggled happily between bolsters of pillows that kept her from rolling off the wide double bed.
By the dim glow of a nightlight, Rachel could see Jessica clearly, a tiny smile dimpling her plump cheeks as she slept. She was such a good baby and so adaptable, the long ride and arrival at a strange place hadn’t fazed her in the least. She had eaten her supper with her usual relish and gone straight to sleep.
Rachel’s heart wrenched at the dilemma before her. Would Stephen recognize himself in his daughter? Could Rachel manage to shave a few months off Jessica’s age without rousing his suspicions?
Her long months of solitude and sacrifice would come to nothing if Stephen were to learn Jessica was his daughter. He had probably married his Georgia beauty queen by now. Rachel didn’t want herself or her daughter to become the object of his embarrassment or his pity. She would lie if she had to. For all their sakes.
She had leaned over the pillows to kiss her daughter, to revel in her sweet baby scent, when an explosion of noise in the living room jerked her upright. Jessica stirred and whimpered at the sound, but continued sleeping. Afraid the person who had shot Stephen had caught up with them, Rachel switched off the night-light and drew her gun. Covered by darkness, she shifted silently to the open door and gazed into the living room.
Illuminated only by the flickering light of the dying fire, the room danced with shadows. The front door remained closed, the deadbolt locked, but the sofa where Stephen had slept was empty.
Determined to protect her daughter at all costs, Rachel stepped into the living room and drew the bedroom door closed behind her.
When she spotted Stephen, sprawled across the oval braided rug in front of the fireplace with his head resting on the raised stone hearth, she stifled a cry of dismay.
But she couldn’t go to him. Not yet.
A quick search of the house convinced her there had been no intruder, and she returned to the living room. Stephen must have attempted to stand and passed out. Holstering her gun, she grabbed him beneath his arms and dragged him back to the sofa.
When she had settled him against the pillows, checked his wound and covered him against the cold, she discovered the large knot on his temple. He had cracked his head against the stone hearth when he fainted.
She went into the kitchen, returned with a basin of cool water and began to bathe his face. She had to bring him back to consciousness and force him to name the person who threatened them. Without knowing who he was, she couldn’t arrange for Jessica’s safety, and it was too dangerous to keep her daughter with her when a killer was apparently on her trail.
Stephen moaned beneath her care but didn’t open his eyes. Frustrated, she gave up on reviving him with cold water and threw more logs on the fire.
Outside, the wind picked up, shaking the trees, scraping branches across the roof and swirling leaves against the windows. The gravity of her position weighed on her. An unconscious man and a helpless infant, both relying on her to keep them safe.
But safe from whom? Only Stephen knew, and he wasn’t talking, at least not anytime soon.
She eyed the telephone longingly across the room. One quick call to her parents in Raleigh, and they could be here in a few hours to take Jessica to safety. But, depending on the determination and capabilities of the person who sought them, one call could also alert her enemy to her exact location.
She went into the kitchen, refilled her mug with coffee and returned to the living room to pace the braided rug before the fireplace. Stephen had said only that the threats involved a case they had worked together in Savannah. But over a span of four years they had worked hundreds of cases, too long ago to remember every detail but too soon for any of the criminals they had put away to have been released from jail.
Could someone they’d arrested and successfully prosecuted have escaped, set on vengeance? Or maybe been released after winning an appeal? Her self-imposed exile had cut her off not only from her friends in the Bureau but from all knowledge related to her former cases, as well.
“Wake up, Stephen,” she muttered. “Please wake up.”
As if responding to her plea, he stirred on the sofa and groaned.
Rachel sl
ammed her cup onto the mantel and rushed to his side. “Stephen, can you hear me?”
His thick lashes fluttered. He lifted a hand to the knot on his forehead and winced when he touched it.
“What happened?” he asked.
“You tried to get up and fell and hit your head.”
He opened his eyes and stared at her. A look of confusion took over his features. “Who are you?”
“I’m Rachel.”
“Where am I?”
She clasped his hands in hers. His temporary disorientation was understandable after all he’d been through—a gunshot wound, loss of blood, a blow to the head—but he had to order his thoughts so he could tell her who was after them.
“You’re at the safe house in the mountains.”
“Safe house?” His broad forehead wrinkled, as if struggling to recall.
“You remember, don’t you, Stephen?”
“Stephen?” His dark eyes widened and stared into hers. “Is that my name?”
The implication of his question drove the air from her lungs. “You’re Stephen Chandler.”
He squinted at her with dazed eyes. “If you say so.”
“Don’t you remember?”
He gaped at her as if she were crazy. “Sorry, but I don’t seem to remember anything.”
Chapter Four
He felt as if he’d been hit by a speeding truck. His left arm ached, his head pounded and his efforts at concentration accelerated the pain. Lying back against the pillows, he closed his eyes.
“Don’t!” Her cry startled him, just as he was about to doze off.
Rachel. That’s what she’d said her name was.
She settled on the sofa beside him, and he was inundated by the familiar perfume of roses and an unnamed longing. From a distance she looked like a beautiful dream; up close she was even prettier. He could see smooth, flawless skin with an apricot glow along high cheekbones, lustrous blond hair that tumbled over her shoulders and shining eyes the color of spring leaves. Concern wrinkled the perfection of her forehead, and he resisted the impulse to smooth the worried crease with his fingers. With reluctance he dropped his scrutiny and returned his attention to her peculiar warning.
“‘Don’t,’ you said. Don’t what?”
“Don’t go to sleep. You’ve fallen and banged your head, and you could have a concussion. If you sleep, you could lapse into a coma.”
She switched on the lamp on the end table, and he blinked in its glare. With gentle fingers, she pried open his lids and peered purposefully into his eyes.
“You a doctor?” he asked.
“I’m familiar enough with head trauma to know you’d better stay awake for a while.”
Since he’d come to a few moments ago, two predominant emotions had warred within him. One, an overwhelming sense of urgency and impending danger, and the other, an irresistible affinity for the woman who’d filled his vision when he first opened his eyes.
“Are you my wife?”
Her pained expression answered before her words. “No, I’m not your wife.”
“But I know you?”
“I’m Rachel Goforth. We were partners for four years.”
He shook his head, which did nothing to clear his confusion and only increased the throbbing at his temples. “What kind of partners?”
She smoothed his pillow and tucked an afghan over his chest. “Would you like some coffee? It’ll help you stay awake.”
“I want answers.”
“No reason you can’t have both.” Her smile was warm but he could read the worry in her eyes. “I’ll be right back.”
He watched her cross the room and enter the kitchen, separated from the living area only by a peninsula. Petite and slender, she wore camel-colored slacks and a matching pullover that emphasized her slim hips and the swell of her small breasts as she reached into an overhead cupboard for a mug.
Her movement also called attention to the weapon she carried in a shoulder holster, an incongruous accessory for a beautiful woman. Considering his injuries, he wondered if he was her prisoner, but the idea didn’t sit right. Instinct assured him this woman wasn’t a threat. There had to be another explanation.
He’d think of it if his head stopped pounding.
She filled a mug with coffee and added two sugars before returning to the living room and handing it to him, along with two white caplets.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Acetaminophen, for pain.”
He ached, as much from confusion as the bump on his head. He’d suffered a blow to his temple and some kind of injury to his arm. Someone was obviously out to harm him, but for the life of him, he felt no menace from the woman who sank into the large chair beside the sofa and studied him with anxious eyes. He swallowed the pills with a sip of coffee, but his stomach rebelled at the hot acidic liquid, and he set the mug aside.
“What kind of partners were we?” he repeated.
“FBI We worked four years in the Savannah office.”
He glanced past her to a jacket, hung over the back of a straight chair. The patch on the sleeve read, “Cleveland County, N.C., Sheriffs Office.”
“That yours?”
She nodded. “I left the Bureau over a year ago.”
“Why?”
Her eyelids fluttered, as if she were thinking fast. “I wanted to settle down, have a family. Tough to do, the way the Bureau relocates its agents regularly.”
“And this place?” He waved his uninjured arm, indicating the rustic cabin’s interior. “Is it yours?”
She shook her head. “You called me yesterday and asked me to meet you here...”
She filled him in on the details. Apparently he had learned of a threat to their lives from someone connected to a case he and Rachel had worked together in Savannah. He had warned her and told her to meet him in the mountains where they would both be safe while he brought her up to speed on what was happening.
Evidently the threat was real, as evidenced by the bullet hole in his left arm. Unfortunately, with his memory gone, they had no clue as to who was after them or why.
If she was telling the truth.
“How do I know you didn’t shoot me?” Instinct continued to insist she was no threat, but it also prompted him to ask, to gauge her reaction.
“You don’t.” She pulled her semiautomatic from its holster, removed the clip and showed him the ammunition loaded there. “But if I’d hit you with one of these bullets, there wouldn’t be much left of your upper arm. From the small, clean hole, I’d say you were shot with a small caliber, probably a .22.”
“The close-range hit man’s weapon of choice.”
“You remember.” Her amazing green eyes lit with hope.
“Sorry.” He shook his head until the pain stopped him short, “Don’t know how I remember that. But I still don’t recall anything about myself.”
She peered at him with a worried frown. “I should take you to the emergency room and have your head and arm checked out.”
“Too risky, since we don’t know who’s after us or how close they may be.”
“We can’t just sit here, waiting for whoever it is to find us.”
He wanted to close his eyes and sleep for a week, forget that a nameless, faceless killer was on his trail. The only thing that made consciousness bearable was the presence of the woman who shared his exile. Maybe he couldn’t remember her, but the tenderness she evoked made him believe she’d been more than simply a former partner. An overpowering protectiveness flooded him, accompanied by an equal dose of frustration at his lack of memory.
“Rachel...”
“Yes?”
“Were we...close?”
An appealing blush appeared at her hairline and flooded to her neck at the crisp white collar that peeked above her sweater. With slender fingers she combed a strand of hair off her forehead and avoided his gaze by staring at the fire.
“We were...good friends,” she finally said. “Like...brother and sister
. But we...lost touch after you moved to Atlanta.”
The crack on his head hadn’t damaged his instincts. For the first time, he had the distinct impression she wasn’t telling the truth. But why would she lie about the past? According to her account, they had been traveling separate paths for a long time now.
Trying to unravel the contradictions between her words and his instincts exhausted him. “You’re not going to let me sleep?” he asked.
She shook her head, and again he caught the familiar scent of roses. “Too dangerous, particularly since you refuse to see a doctor.”
He struggled upright onto his elbows. “Then we might as well put this time to good use. Bring me up to speed on the major cases we worked together.”
“Are you sure you’re up to listening?”
“Concentrating will keep me awake, and maybe we can figure out who’s after us.”
“Where should I start?”
“What was the last case we worked together?”
“The Maitland kidnapping.”
Gritting his teeth against the ache in his arm and the pounding in his head and struggling to stay awake, Stephen listened as Rachel filled in the details of the rescue of Margaret Maitland and the subsequent deaths of her kidnappers. Although he had been a major participant in the events, as he heard them described, they seemed as if they’d happened to someone else.
That Stephen Chandler was a total stranger.
“Margaret Maitland’s fine now,” Rachel concluded. “I saw her picture in the Charlotte Observer a few weeks ago, taken when she and her husband attended a charity event there. They’re expecting their first child soon.”
“With the kidnappers dead and Margaret safe, doesn’t look like there’s anyone left to hold a grudge against us.”
Rachel shrugged. “Margaret’s father never trusted her husband. Claimed he married her for her wealth. If her husband set up the kidnapping to get Margaret’s money, he could be furious that we foiled his plans to claim the ransom and his wife’s inheritance.”
“If Maitland’s driving motivation is greed, I can’t see him paying a hit man’s going rate, just for revenge on us. Too expensive.”
Undercover Dad Page 5