by Lisa Childs
“I had no idea…” His deep voice trailed away.
Confusion compounded the headache throbbing behind her eyes. “That’s right, you have no idea. And I don’t have time to explain anything to you.”
His gaze swung around her to the boxes littering the living-room floor. “You’re running again? Or still?”
Had she run from this man? Was he someone else she needed to fear? Was that why her heart beat faster in his presence? Fear? She squeezed her eyes shut and lifted a trembling hand to her forehead. “I can’t talk to you. You have to leave. Or I’m calling the police.”
“And tell them what, Amanda?”
Tell them what? She had no clue who or what this man was to her and her son. If she called, would they remove him? Or her?
Tears of pain from the pounding headache and the burning frustration welled in her eyes. “Please, please, just leave…”
“You think I’m going to just walk away? That was your routine, not mine.” Anger blazed in his dark eyes.
“I’ll tell the police you’re harassing me. I’ll call…” The quaver of fear weakened her threat.
“Harassing you? You think this is harassment?”
He stepped so close that the world turned dark as she shivered in his long shadow. His disturbingly familiar scent, rich with wood and leather, teased her senses. But she knew no one who could afford such expensive cologne. And how could she know the cost of the tantalizing fragrance?
Her teeth clanked together. The cold. She’d been standing outside in only her sweats. Had to be the cold that had her trembling uncontrollably.
“Mommy?” called a small voice from within the house.
She jerked back, stumbling over the threshold. Strong, gloved fingers locked around her upper arm. Holding her upright or just holding her?
“Please…”
She stared up into his dark unrelenting eyes and implored. “Please, go.”
The fingers slid from her arm, scorching even through the jersey of her sweatshirt and the leather of his gloves. Branding her. Had she once been his?
No, not a man like this. Too big, too powerful, too much…
“It’s not over, Amanda.”
His warning hung in the air as she pressed the door closed and leaned against the hard wood, her knees shaking so much they barely supported her.
She closed her eyes against the pain raging inside her head. It was over.
If he returned he would find she’d done just what he accused her of. Ran. But now she ran from two fears, the fear of the animal that had stolen her memory and now the fear of whatever she’d lost with her memory.
EVAN STARED AT THE CLOSED DOOR for several moments, fighting the urge to knock it down and demand answers from this woman who barely resembled the one who had left him nearly six years ago. But that would scare her…and the child.
The child?
He drew in a couple of deep calming breaths. He wasn’t in control, not enough to talk to her. Or see the boy again.
He turned toward the street. His friend leaned against the dusty side of his silver Avalanche. In a few long strides Evan crossed the distance between them and grasped the lapels of Royce’s sheepskin-lined jean jacket.
Arms straining, he lifted his friend off his heels, gritted his teeth and fought for control of the emotions surging through him. “You knew.”
Royce shook his head. “Not that she was your wife. What was the sense in mentioning the kid? Come on, Evan, ease up!”
Evan loosened his hold, letting his friend wrench free. Royce fell back against the side of his vehicle.
“Jeez, man,” Royce said, catching his breath. “I knew you ran deeper…”
Still waters? Is that how his friends saw him? Evan fisted his hands at his sides and sought that elusive calmness.
“You going to hit me now?”
Evan caught Royce’s glance at his fists and chuckled. “I should, but I don’t have time for a street brawl. I need to find out what the hell kind of game my wife is playing. Since she won’t tell me, we need to run the plate on that—”
“City vehicle that left here?” Royce passed around the front of the SUV and pulled open the driver’s door.
Evan rattled off the license-plate number thanks to his near photographic memory. After the plate flashed through his mind, another image followed. The little boy catapulting down the steps of the school bus.
His son.
EVAN COULDN’T SHUT OUT the ticking of the clock above his head as he listened to Royce and the River City district attorney swap war stories. After the initial introductions, Evan had remained silent, but it ate at him, bitterness churning with the impatience in his gut.
He leaped to his feet, braced his hands on the D.A.’s messy desk and leaned toward the older man. “We’re not here to get acquainted. I need to know what your connection is to Amanda.”
“Amanda?”
“Amanda-whatever-she’s-calling-herself-now.”
“Smith,” Royce supplied.
“Amanda Smith?” Peter Sullivan’s face was a mask of feigned confusion.
Evan fisted his hands to resist the urge to sweep the paperwork from the D.A.’s desk. “You were at her house just over an hour ago. We saw you. How do you know her and what do you know about her?”
The D.A.’s chair creaked as he leaned back and steepled his fingers over his chest. “If you want any information about Amanda, Mr. Quade, I’m afraid we’re going to have to get acquainted first. I know Royce ‘The Tracker’ Graham. Everybody does. But I need to know you. Who the hell are you?”
“Hutchins’s Enterprises, CEO,” Royce said.
Evan knew the other man didn’t care about his Fortune 500 status. That wasn’t the information he sought. From the glint of recognition in Sullivan’s blue eyes, Evan knew what he wanted. “I’m her husband and evidently I’m a father, too.”
No surprise flashed through the other man’s eyes. “You didn’t know?”
Evan straightened up and blew out a ragged breath, reliving the sucker punch he’d gotten when that little boy had scrambled out of the school bus. “No.”
“Must have been a helluva shock.”
“To say the least.”
“So she hadn’t told you she was pregnant before she disappeared?”
“No.”
“Hmm…”
“What?”
“Well, she was a few months along when she turned up here. And from the remarks she’d made, she’d known before the attack, so I wonder why she hadn’t told you yet. Rocky marriage?”
Evan gritted his teeth. “None of your damn business.”
“But you never looked for her before?”
“I never stopped.”
Sullivan nodded. “She wouldn’t have been easy to find, I imagine.”
And how much of a part had this man played in keeping her whereabouts unknown? Was his interest in Amanda personal or business? And why did the personal part cause a surge of jealousy to course through Evan’s veins?
“I’ve been working on it for six months,” Royce said from where he leaned against the wall.
And during that time the urgency in Evan’s stomach had tightened and nearly made him physically ill. Now the clock ticked away the time he had left to figure out what had happened to Amanda and why. She could have packed those boxes into her vehicle by now. She could be leaving River City. And how long would it take him to find her again?
“Did she recognize you?” the D.A. asked.
Evan rubbed a hand over his face, shoving the frustration back. “She pretended not to.”
“She didn’t pretend anything. Amanda has amnesia and it is very real.” He sighed and the lines in his face doubled with his weariness. “Guess the shrinks were wrong. They had suggested that seeing someone important from her past could bring back her lost memory. Unless you weren’t that important to her…”
Evan evaded the D.A.’s searching glance, lifting his gaze to the clock on the wall ins
tead. He couldn’t argue that he had been important, not in light of how easily she’d left him. To give him time to think… He’d thought all right, he’d thought he couldn’t live without her. But her absence had left him no choice.
Royce cleared his throat, probably a nonverbal cue for Evan to give the D.A. some kind of answer. And maybe satisfy Royce’s own curiosity.
But Evan had kept his own counsel for too long. “Why does she have amnesia? Was she in a car accident?”
“No.”
An uncomfortable moment of silence passed after the man’s succinct answer.
Evan thrust his fisted hands into the pockets of his overcoat. He sought his calm center, sought control with deep even breathing. “Are you going to tell me what happened to her?”
The D.A. sighed again. “I don’t know if I should. I wish she had recognized you.”
“If she had, I wouldn’t be here wondering what the hell is going on.”
The older man nodded. “That’s fair. Okay…a little over five and a half years ago, she was attacked.”
The breath trapped in Evan’s lungs choked him. “She was what? Was she raped? Oh, my God!” And she’d been pregnant at the time.
The boy’s voice echoed in his head. “I’m five.” He was fine it seemed. But his mother was not. She’d trembled with fear. Of him? Or every man?
Royce’s hand settled on his shoulder, squeezing with empty reassurance.
Sullivan shook his head. “No, thank God! She fought him off. Boy, did she fight him off.”
Royce squeezed again. “You gave her that, Evan. You gave her the skills to fight the bastard off.”
“What?” the D.A. asked.
“Evan’s a black belt in karate. You taught her some moves, right?”
Evan nodded. He’d shown her some moves, but he hadn’t taught Amanda how to fight. She’d been born a fighter. Two months early and with no maternal nurturing…she’d been destined to die. But she’d defied all odds then, too.
Evan cleared his throat and clenched his fists tighter. “I want to know everything. What happened?”
Sullivan studied him for a silent moment before he spoke again. “The man, Weering, grabbed her from some other city, we believe. We never found out where. Evidently he kept her in the trunk of his car for some time. Then he pulled over by what he assumed was a deserted section of riverfront.”
To rape, kill her and dump the body. To dump Evan’s wife and unborn child… Queasiness somersaulted through Evan’s stomach. And the name Weering…he didn’t recognize it.
“But when he opened that trunk he was unprepared for her assault. She screamed. She fought. She blinded the bastard in one eye.”
Royce grunted his satisfaction.
Evan could hardly find his voice over the horror she must have experienced. “But he hurt her, too?”
Sullivan nodded. “Broke her nose and jaw and cracked open her skull.”
Evan struggled against the need to slam his fist into a wall. Or into the face of her attacker.
“But she’d screamed so loud before he broke her jaw that help came. Thankfully before she bled to death. And he was caught red-handed.”
From Amanda’s blood.
Royce’s fingers dug into his shoulder again, but Evan could barely feel the pressure through the hatred vibrating in his body. “So he’s in prison.”
And a good thing, too, because murderous rage pulsed through Evan’s blood, begging for vengeance.
“For now,” the D.A. admitted.
“What do you mean?”
Red mottled the older man’s face. “He’s getting out in a few days.”
“What!”
“He did his time.”
“His sentence was less than six years?”
“We were lucky William Weering III got that much time with the high-powered attorney his rich family bought him.” Frustration quivered in the older man’s voice. “And then he bought his way into the early-release program. Bastard couldn’t even serve out the rest of his sentence.”
“So that’s why she’s so scared…”
Evan could taste her fear with the metallic flavor of blood from where he’d bitten the side of his tongue, trying to control his anger.
“You probably scared her, too. Christopher bears a strong resemblance to you.”
Evan nodded. “But her memory…”
“Gone. Blessedly gone in regards to the attack. She remembers nothing of it. She knows nothing from before the moment she woke up in the hospital days after the attack. For Amanda that’s when her life began.”
How could memories of their life together haunt his every waking moment and she remembered nothing of it? “I need to talk to her again.”
“She might be gone already.”
His glance skimmed over the face of the clock again. He should have never left her house until he got these answers from her. But would he have believed it from her? His mistrust may have cost him.
“Do you know where she’s going?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. She’s running scared.”
And Evan was scared of her running.
AMANDA AWOKE TO pounding. The raging headache that had plagued her since the stranger’s visit? And following his visit she’d had to deal with Christopher’s tantrum. He didn’t want to leave his house, his friends, his school… He’d eventually cried himself to sleep on his bedroom floor, where he’d thrown everything out of the boxes she’d packed.
So after forcing herself to finish altering the wedding dress, she’d dropped to the couch for a minute. Just a minute to rest her eyes and will away the pain, so she could resume her frantic packing.
But she opened her eyes to darkness. And her heart clenched with the usual encompassing fear of the dark.
And the pounding continued, interspersed with the sick sound of her half-broken doorbell. Another visitor?
“Who is it?” Her raspy whisper wouldn’t carry through the thick wood door, not like the pounding. She cleared her throat and stumbled closer. “Who is it?”
“Evan Quade.”
Her pulse skittered over the voice. The name meant nothing to her. “Who?”
“Evan Quade. I was here earlier. We need to talk, Amanda.”
She slid her fingers along the chain, making sure it was secure, then edged the door open a crack. Pitching her voice low to not awaken her son, she whispered, “I told you I don’t know you. I’ll call the police…”
“Call the D.A., Peter Sullivan. He’ll tell you to talk to me.”
Darkness enveloped him, but she made no move to turn on the porch light. Somehow darkness suited him. In the sliver of moonlight sneaking through the clouds, his dark hair gleamed and his dark eyes glittered.
“I don’t…”
A platinum phone flashed between his fingers, and he pressed buttons. Then he passed the phone through the crack of the door.
When their fingers brushed, she started, nearly dropping the cold metal. Despite the chill air, the warmth of his touch scalded her. “I—”
“Amanda?” The voice emanated from the phone, so she lifted it to her ear. “Amanda, talk to him.”
“Mr. Sullivan—Peter?” she asked, double-checking, always double-checking.
“Yes, Amanda. I think you should talk to him.”
“Can you guarantee my safety?”
“Physically, yes. Emotionally…”
Emotionally, how fragile was she? Except for her missing memory, she considered herself relatively sane. But Evan Quade looked like the kind of man who could make a woman crazy. She snapped the phone shut and passed it back to him.
“Will you let me in or are we going to talk through the door?”
His deep voice produced a greater shiver along her skin than the cold breeze slipping around him and through the cracked door.
“I don’t have time—”
“I’d thought you might already be gone. You were frantic to leave earlier.”
She nodded. “I still a
m, but…”
The dark. She wouldn’t be able to travel in the dark, not with frayed nerves, an aching head and the safety of her son her number one priority. She had a couple of days yet. A couple of days before the authorities released an animal.
“Why?”
“You talked to Mr. Sullivan…” She didn’t want to speak of the attack, she rarely ever did. But now…
“He told me about the attack and that your assailant is getting out early.”
She shivered again, this time from fear.
“Let me inside. You’re getting cold talking through an open door.”
Automatically she reached for the chain, as if she were used to obeying this man’s commands. Who was he? “I don’t think that I should.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
“He might have said that, too. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
A ragged breath slipped through the man’s lips. “Amanda…”
“No, I don’t think you understand. I don’t remember anything.” Frustration bounded back with the pounding against her skull. “You act like you know me. But I don’t know that’s true. I don’t know you. I don’t even know me.”
“Sullivan told me about the amnesia, but I don’t believe you’ve forgotten everything, Amanda.” His hand slipped through the crack in the door, his fingers brushing over hers on the chain. Then, exerting just the slightest pressure, he snapped the links and the door swung open. “I don’t believe you’ve forgotten that you’re my wife.”
She gasped, more from surprise than fear, and stumbled back. He caught her elbows, steadied her, then closed the door behind himself. The house, already small, shrank around his awesome height and lean muscular build. But more imposing than his stature was his aura. Dark, powerful…like his rich scent, teasing her senses and her memory. Her husband? No, she couldn’t accept that.
“Where’s the boy?” he asked.
“Sleeping.” Why did she answer? Why didn’t she scream? Run? Where was the fear his action should inspire?
“Good.”
She trembled then, her reaction delayed.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”