I'LL REMEMBER YOU

by Barbara Ankrum

The pictures flashed again.

  Standing up for Seth as his bride moved toward them through the crowded church. Seth! Oh, damn. Seth … in dress blues looking happy as hell. And her name. Her name was … Molly. Yes. Jack remembered now. Molly with the red hair and sprite's eyes. Molly, who'd been the one to finally talk Seth out of active, and steer him to Washington.

  Jack's mother, with her blond hair slicked back and her face scarecrow thin, smiling up at him from her hospital bed. "Take care of him," she'd whispered hoarsely. "You're all he's got now."

  Then, the house he grew up in. White and clapboard sided, with a climbing tree – a willow – in the yard. From there, high up, he could see the world. And below, the kid scrambled up to join him.

  Jack lurched to his feet and stumbled down the steps, leaving Tess alone.

  The Kid. Something blocked this memory. He couldn't slip past. The boy…

  "Joe," he said aloud, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

  Tess was beside him then. "That was the name you called out when you were sick. Is it your name?"

  He shook his head. "My brother's."

  "You have a brother?" Her eyes went wide. "Oh, Jack! This is wonderful! You have family!"

  Barricade, dead ahead. Piled high between him and what was on the other side.

  "It's not Jack," he said slowly, turning to her. "My name's McClaine." It came to him then, just like that. "It's Ian. Ian McClaine." He blinked hard. "And there it is. My goddamned name. Just turn around and there it is."

  "Ian," she repeated, testing it on her tongue. "Ian McClaine."

  His feelings of anger mixed with relief were tempered by the fleeting panic he read in her expression. Gone almost as quickly as it came was a look that said she'd opened a' present she didn't really want.

  "Jack, that's—" She caught herself. "I mean … Ian. Oh, how am I ever going to get used to calling you that?" She regarded him with glassy eyes and then shook it off. "Do you remember … everything?"

  He rubbed his temple. "No. Not everything." He cursed. "My past is rolling by me like a movie, but I'm only grabbing pieces of it. There are holes big enough to drive a tank through."

  "Your family? Parents?"

  Shaking his head, he moved away from her to stare out at the lake. "Gone. Dead, I think. It's just me and…"

  "Joe, your brother," she finished for him.

  He nodded, moving toward the water where it lapped against the shore. He hunkered down beside it and reached down to splash some against his face. Bracing his wrists against his thighs, he stared out at the sun glinting off the lake. What about Joe? The kid who'd followed him to the top of the willow, the one who'd shadowed his every move for most of his growing up years. Think. Think.

  Tess knelt beside him, reaching for a water-smoothed stone on the shore. "It'll come. Don't try to force it."

  He blew out a breath. "You speaking as a doctor?"

  "As a friend."

  The stone shifted back and forth between her slender hands. He wanted to grab them and hold them, drag Tess against him until his life came back to him. But he knew that as soon as it all did, he would have to let her go. Was he afraid to know for fear of losing her? Was she worried about the same thing?

  He did take her hand then and she allowed it. "I'm a soldier, Tess. A lieutenant colonel. I train SEAL recruits. And when they need me I do ops. My specialty is sniper – marksman. I'm a damned good shot."

  With a lift of her eyebrows, she glanced back at the wicker hamper. "You'd get no argument there from the snake."

  One side of his mouth quirked in a smile, but it faded almost as quickly. "Which is why what happened to me makes no sense. What was I doing here when my life is back in Virginia?"

  "Virginia?"

  He looked at her without reply. "And what does Ramon Saldovar, a second-class drug dealer, have to do with me?"

  "You don't remember getting shot?"

  "No. Nothing. Why would someone be trying to kill me? That part's still a blank."

  "What about…" She hesitated. He met her gaze evenly. "Is there a Mrs. McClaine?"

  Jack blinked, searching the sandy surface below the water for the answer.

  The scene from that restaurant flashed through his brain again, of the woman with her designer suit and a smile that could chill an iceberg. "Why did I imagine this would be anything more?" she'd asked, as if he'd disappointed her once again in a long string of disappointments. "I should've known. You've known about this dinner party with my parents' friends for months. And you knew how important it was to me. Well, I'm Lick of hearing what the Navy needs from you! More than that, I'm sick that I've wasted all this time on you. On us. Because the 'other woman' in this relationship was never female, Ian. It was your job." As she pushed away from the table, shoving a packet of papers toward him, she sent him a scathing smile. "Don't bother to call me a cab. I can find my own. I've been doing it for years."

  Exit Marcy Tolliver-Eastwick McClaine.

  His wife.

  * * *

  Tess stared at her reflection in the mirror as she applied the second color of lipstick over the first. With a frown, she pursed her lips and berated herself for the hundredth time for agreeing to go out with Dan tonight. The timing couldn't have been worse. An hour ago, she'd called Dan's office to call off the date, but he was out and they wouldn't divulge his home number. Which left her exactly where she'd started.

  She pressed her lips together, fluffed her hair and jerked away from the mirror in frustration. So she would go out and keep it short. Dinner and home. She'd plead a headache or something equally lame and he would bring her back. Two hours, tops. And he would see right through her ploy and wonder what he'd done to offend her. And she would hurt his feelings.

  Tess sighed heavily as she moved toward the kitchen. It couldn't be helped, she told herself. And Jack – Ian – needed her, now that his memory was returning…

  She glanced at her phone, lying on the countertop. She'd tried to cal Gil earlier, but after a series of clicks, she'd been somehow disconnected. The odd sound had troubled her and she'd decided not to try again until later.

  She glanced out the window as she passed through the living room, to see Jack sitting on the back porch swing. Her throat tightened as she watched him stare off at the water, lost in thought. Was he planning his departure, she wondered? He still didn't remember what had happened to him. Pray God he would wait to go until he did remember.

  He'd never answered her about a family – a wife, children. She'd braced herself for it, but if he knew, he'd kept it to himself: Did that mean that he had one and he simply didn't want her to know? Or could it mean that he just didn't remember? How could he not remember a wife, she wondered, when the rest of his life was coming back? And his brother … another mystery. That one seemed more troubling than the first to him. Had they had some sort of falling out? Was Jack all alone in the world?

  Tess walked out onto the porch, surprised to find Tandy, the golden retriever from next door, with her massive head tucked under Jack's obliging palm, a look of pure pleasure on her face. Jack's expression flattened at the sight of Tess, and he got to his feet.

  "Wow," he said, scanning her from head to foot. She'd traded her jeans for one of Cara's knee-length, clingy black skirts and a classic camel-colored, V-neck cashmere sweater that complemented her coloring. "You look beautiful, Tess."

  "Thanks. I see you've found a friend."

  Jack's mouth quirked with a smile as he scratched the dog's head. "Yeah. She came over and introduced herself. I guess she decided I wasn't so bad, after all."

  "Good instincts," Tess said, smiling at him, appreciating the full perfection of his profile as he glanced at the dog.

  "Yeah, well…" His voice drifted off. With a shrug he stared out over the water at the gathering pool of color the setting sun had painted on the lake. He picked up a stick and threw it down the beach for Tandy. The dog romped gleefully after it, stopping to sniff the shoreline.
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br />   She let her gaze fall to the rough planks of the decking. "I wish I didn't have to go."

  "That makes two of us."

  "I tried to cancel, but it was too late. He'd already left."

  "Where's he taking you, this Deputy Dan?"

  "A new place. Dilly's, I think he said. They're all kind of alike up here. Homey saloons full of good ol' boys and girls." She laughed nervously. "It's – it's only for a couple of hours. I'll be back home before you miss me." Home, she'd said, as if they were an old couple and she was just stepping out for a game of bingo.

  The look in his eyes frightened her, and she suddenly thought that he might not be here when she got back.

  "You asked about a wife," he said abruptly, making her forget what she'd been about to say. She regarded him silently, holding her breath.

  "I was married," he stated, and her heart did a free fall. "Her name was Marcy. She divorced me two years ago. No children. No attachments."

  Tess's lips parted with relief. That meant—

  "Don't you want to know why she divorced me?" The way he asked it, she wasn't sure she did. But he didn't wait for her to decide.

  "The reason she divorced me was because I neglected her. The SEALS came first. Not her. We were just another statistic. Divorce rate among SEALS is almost twice the national average—"

  "Jack—"

  "It's Ian, Tess," he said, walking toward her. "Lieutenant colonel. Career military." He held out his arms, palms up, as he approached. "I've sacrificed everything for it. It's who I am."

  Like some dark archangel, wings spread and swooping down on her, he closed in. The perfection of him stole her breath even as it had that first night. The sheer power of him made her step back, not out of fear, but with a staggering sense of loss. Not some mythical warrior, but a man. A good and noble man she would never really know. Because he was leaving her.

  He stopped inches from her, so close she could feel the heat radiating from him in the cool evening air. No part of them touched. And yet she felt the caress of his eyes as surely as if he were touching her.

  "Career military? Is that all you can throw at me? Because, frankly, if you're trying to scare me off, it's a little late for that."

  Regarding her with the slow heat of a man in no hurry to leave, he let his eyes roam over her face, while his mouth lifted in a half smile. "That's what I like about you, Tess. Your strength. You'll get through this."

  It was a mistake that he touched her then. She could see it almost as soon as he brushed a strand of hair from her eyes in a gesture so bittersweet, her eyes began to sting.

  "By 'this,'" she said haltingly, "you mean … your leaving?"

  A low sound vibrated at the back of his throat. "You're incredibly stubborn, you know."

  "Character defect," she managed to say in her own defense.

  His gaze fell to her mouth. "It's sexy as hell."

  "Blah, blah, blah…"

  The challenge in her voice proved his undoing and he hauled her hard against him, dropping his mouth down against hers. Shock gave way to relief, which, with the quick thrust of his tongue, deteriorated into need. Past caring about how, or why, or if, she welcomed his kiss and wrapped her arms around the strong hard breadth of his back.

  He lifted her against him then, backing her against the railing until there was nowhere else to go, trailing moist kisses down her throat. Her body turned liquid and melted into his. His teeth skimmed her skin with exquisite restraint, as if his real goal, left unchecked, was to devour her.

  She dragged his mouth back to hers, hungry for the taste of him again and for the delicious friction of her breasts against the hard plane of his chest. He ground his hips against hers as his hand slid down her buttocks and up her bare thigh, lifting her skirt until he reached the high-cut leg of her panties.

  Then – oh! – back down.

  Tess gasped as his fingers brushed against her with an intimate caress.

  "Ah, Doc, you make me crazy. I can't keep my hands off you."

  "Oh, please," she breathed back, teasing the soft edge of his earlobe with her teeth and tugging his shirttail from the waistband of his jeans. "Don't try."

  He smiled against her cheek and his fingers obligingly slipped past the silken barrier of her underwear. Tess's whole body jerked as he dipped into the dampness at the apex of her legs. With a gasp, she dropped her head back. He took full advantage, torturing the sensitive spot beneath her ear with the swirl of his tongue.

  She took his face in her hands and pulled him back to her, searing his lips with a kiss. She needed him. Oh, she wanted him! But not for just tonight. She wasn't sure if she was strong enough for only that.

  Dimly, they both heard the sound of the car's tires crunching gravel as it approached the cabin, and the clip-clip sound of Tandy's nails as she trotted to the far side of the deck to see who was coming. It took a moment to orient themselves, but with a jolt, she realized it was Dan driving up.

  Tess clapped four fingers over her mouth. "Oh, no!" How could she have forgotten?

  Jack glanced toward the sound of the car with hooded eyes, still breathing hard. Dragging one hand through the hair that had fallen in his eyes, he said, "You'd better go."

  How could she go now, with Jack's kisses still on her swollen mouth and looking as if she'd just been ravished? Her pulse was still wild and the ache he'd tendered inside her, down low, still throbbed with wanting.

  Tess dragged her hands through her hair in a vain attempt to smooth it out, then she cleared her throat. "I look—"

  "Beautiful." He reached up and pressed a brief, tethered kiss against her lips and swallowed hard. "Go fix your lipstick, sweetheart, and answer the door."

  She nodded silently, begging him with her eyes not to do anything foolish before she returned. Then, she turned and left him there on the porch with wind ruffling his hair, looking more handsome than she'd ever imagined.

  * * *

  With his hands gripping the back porch railing, Jack listened as the car left the driveway and headed for town, and tried to remember ever hearing a lonelier sound.

  He stalked to the water's edge, picked up a stone and heaved it into the twilight over the black water. The lake swallowed it up, leaving behind a score of concentric ripples that flowed back toward him and did nothing to dispel the violence that roiled under his skin.

  Unleashing a string of expletives, he stood glaring at the water, feeling ready to explode. And then he did the only logical thing a man in his situation could do. He stripped off his clothes and followed the rock in.

  The cold mountain water hit him with the desired effect and he plunged under the surface and swam until he needed air. Invigorated, he surfaced with a gasp, the cold sluice of water clenching his overheated libido. His shoulder protested but Jack ignored it, pushing past the ache with a steady, unyielding stroke. Swimming came as naturally to him as breathing, and he supposed almost half of his adult years had been spent exploring his own limits in water.

  When he'd gone far enough, exhausting both the need and the anger inside him, he floated on his back and stared up at the stars overhead, thinking of Tess. He could still feel her mouth on his lips and the sweet give of her body against his. He wanted her with a fierceness that had blind-sided him. And he knew it was more than lust. She challenged him, made him feel alive. He needed her.

  But all that was beside the point. He knew better than anyone that he couldn't have her. Not the way he wanted her. A woman like her was meant for the Dan Kelsos of the world. Safe, honorable, dependable men who came home at night for dinner and coached their kids in Little League. But the idea of Dan putting his hands on her tonight, kissing her maybe, was a bitter pill he couldn't quite stomach.

  Rolling over, he swam toward shore slowly. Enough of his memory had returned to know that the feeling churning his gut right now was one he'd never known before. It bore little resemblance to his mockery of a marriage to a woman who, once gone, he could hardly recall missing. Marcy w
as as opposite to Tess as day was to night, and he wondered now what he'd ever seen in her.

  It had been the idea of being married to a SEAL that had appealed to her, he'd discovered, not only because it flew in the face of her wealthy parents' expectations for her, but – and this realization came only after two long years together – she enjoyed being seen on his arm. For a time, it thrilled her to be with a man whose life turned on a dime between the normalcy of their life together and the brutality of what he did for a living. It was, he supposed, fodder for her circle of friends to chew on when he was gone. It made her feel important somehow. He'd actually believed he could make her happy – even make up for the obvious disparity between them. He'd hauled himself up from the mining towns of West Virginia, where his family had spent generations sucking coal dust. He'd educated himself, and driven himself hard to get where he'd gotten. But he'd overstepped his bounds with Marcy Tolliver-Eastwick of the Philadelphia Toller-Eastwicks.

  When all was said and done, the arrangement they'd settled for wasn't enough. Not for her. Not for him. The hollow feeling inside him had begun to chip away at him even at work. And while failure went utterly against his nature, he'd known before she did that he'd failed at marriage.

  And now here was Tess, seeding hope inside him again. Hope for what? he mused with a note of self-disgust. No, whatever was generating the heat between them now, he told himself, it wasn't love. It was mutual need. When this whole thing was over, she would go back to her life and he to his.

  He got back to shore to find the golden retriever sniffing his clothes. Tandy let out a whining yawn as he emerged from the water, and Jack reached out a dripping hand to give her a sympathetic pat. "I'm with you there, girl," he said, tugging on his jeans over his damp legs. "We're a couple of outsiders, you and me, huh? Outside, looking in. Maybe I should take you back with me instead. A water dog like you? You'd fit right into the Navy."

  Tandy panted and raised her doggy eyebrows in expressive reply. Jack let out a soft huff of laughter, tangling his fingers in her coat. Even as he did, in his mind's eye he saw another dog in another time. Smaller than Tandy and wiry-gray, she leaped straight up for a Frisbee his brother had thrown: