by Nikki Soarde
“Well, I didn’t want to drip through the whole house.” He held out the clothes again, and finally she became aware of the request and took them from him. “Okay, why don’t you follow me upstairs to your new room. I bought just a couple of things so you’d have at least one change of clothes until we could go shopping.”
He followed her up the stairs, and despite his distance from her she could swear she could feel his body heat radiating against her back. It sent little crinkles of excitement up the back of her neck and down her arms. The fact that she knew her behavior was ridiculous and juvenile did little to reverse the effects. Of course, it didn’t help that she was enjoying it immensely.
They reached the second floor and she stopped in front of the door to his room. “Okay, it’s not much but I did the best I could considering I don’t know your tastes.”
“That’s okay. We’re even since I don’t know them either.”
True enough. With a flourish she opened the door and ushered him inside. He barely glanced at the furnishings before crossing to the bed. He flopped back, splaying his arms and closing his eyes in apparent rapture.
“Comfy?”
“Mm.” He took a deep breath and opened his eyes as he sat up. “Much better than that hospital mattress. I plan to sleep like a baby tonight.”
She had already pulled out the polo shirt and jeans. “I hope you’re not too warm in these. We can go out later today and get other stuff if you—”
He looked up, apparently startled that she had interrupted herself so abruptly. “Something wrong?”
Without really considering what she was doing she sat beside him on the bed and touched his shoulder. Luke had all kinds of surprises hidden away in interesting places. “You have a tattoo.”
“I do?”
She traced the lines of the figure on his deltoid. She had never been a fan of tattoos, but this one was unique in the subtlety of color and design.
He followed her fingers with his eyes. “Oh, that. Of course. I didn’t realize that’s what you call it.” She continued to marvel at the oddities of his particular amnesiac state. He remembered babies and toothpaste but had forgotten hot chocolate and tattoos. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the pattern. Or perhaps there was and they had yet to discern it. Whatever the reason, he kept her on her toes.
“It’s very interesting. It’s a dove, I think.” A dove with an olive branch in its beak. She knew the symbol well—a universal symbol of harmony. “It stands for peace.”
“Really? What about this one?” He pointed to his other shoulder. “What does it mean?”
She switched sides to get a better look. This one was more like the tattoos she had seen and had come to despise. It depicted a cobra, poised and ready to strike, the colors vibrant and the image three-dimensional in its perspective. She was almost afraid to touch it, it looked so real and so menacing. “It’s a snake.”
“I know, but what does it symbolize?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t start lying to me now, Marnie. You’re not very good at it, anyway.”
The smile had fallen from his face, and his jaw was set. She had a feeling he wouldn’t let it rest. But what did it matter? Symbols aside, they were only tattoos and likely meant nothing. “I believe it’s a symbol of evil.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t put too much stock in it, Luke. You probably just picked them because you thought they would impress the women.”
“Yeah. Probably.” But his voice was too heavy and his eyes wouldn’t meet hers. She silently cursed her lack of prowess at deception. There were times when the truth just hurt a little too much.
She decided it best not to dwell on it. She handed him the shirt that was the same dusty blue color as his eyes. “Come on. Get dressed and then I’ll give you the grand tour.”
But he still seemed distracted. His hand came up and fingered his left ear lobe. “I have one ear that’s pierced too.”
“Really?” She touched his ear, tracing the curve gently before finally resting on the lobe. “Actually, you’ve got two holes in that ear.” She almost laughed out loud at the sudden image of her mother when she found out that Marnie was sharing her roof with a man with tattoos and a double-pierced ear. Not exactly the man her mother dreamed of for her, but deep down Marnie had to acknowledge that the image that went along with those affectations was intriguing. “I never got my ears pierced, but people always assume they are. So I think I have some studs somewhere that I got for gifts years ago.” She drew her hand away. “So if you’d like—” His hand snapped up and latched around her wrist with an urgency and a ferocity that alarmed her. “What’s wrong?”
He relaxed his grip marginally but didn’t let go. “Please don’t stop.” His voice was hushed, with a silvery edge of desperation.
“Stop what?”
“That felt so wonderful. It seems like I haven’t been touched like that in…” He sighed and released her hand regretfully. “Forget it.”
He reached for the shirt, but Marnie had a feeling this was important, and now it was her turn to not let go of the issue at hand.
She interrupted the movement with a hand on his forearm. “No. I won’t forget it. Finish what you were going to say.”
“It’s very hard to explain.”
“Try.”
He eased himself back on the bed and closed his eyes. He lay back, still half-naked and gloriously uninhibited by it. Thunder rumbled in the distance and a fresh torrent attacked the pane of the bedroom window, making it rattle against its moorings as if it were struggling to escape and flee the tempest.
When he spoke, he did so quietly and without opening his eyes. “In the hospital the nurses changed my dressings and washed me and tended to me, but it was always just…clinical. Even when you touched me there it felt sterile, as if you weren’t touching me, only parts of me. Holding my hand was different, but it wasn’t enough.” He opened his eyes and lightning flickered through the storm, highlighting his scars in an eerie electrical glow. “Just now, it felt different. I realized I had missed that. I-I can’t remember being touched like that. It feels like forever.”
She was watching him—mesmerized by him. She couldn’t deny the significance of human touch. When it was missing from life the world became cold and harsh and distant. She had learned in college about the research that had deprived chimpanzees of physical contact and comfort, and the psychotic and disturbed animals that had been the product of that cruelty. Touch was as essential to humanity as food and oxygen.
How would it feel to not remember the strokes and caresses of your mother and father? How would it feel to not remember the cuddle of a kitten or puppy, the hugs of your friends or the first heated kiss of youth?
The scope of his loss was staggering.
“Marnie?” He had propped himself up on his elbows and she saw herself mirrored in his eyes. “Can you understand that?”
“Yes. Yes. It’s so obvious. So important. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.”
He sat up and reached for the jeans, pulling them quickly over his ankles and knees. “Why don’t we do that shopping and then you can make that hot chocolate you promised.”
He stood to pull the jeans up over his hips and fasten the fly. They fit snug, hugging his form like a calfskin glove. He reached for the shirt but she snatched it away from him. “You didn’t give me a chance to answer.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It was a stupid thing to say. Let’s just forget it.”
“It wasn’t stupid and it’s not that I don’t want to.”
“Then what is it?”
She pulled him down to sit beside her again. “I’m afraid if I start I won’t be able to stop.”
A half-smile twitched at his lips. “Really?”
She nodded. “Luke…” She took a deep breath, as if she were about to dive head-first into a churning, boiling sea. “Luke, do you remember anything about bei
ng…intimate?”
He frowned and considered. He cocked his head and answered. “You mean sex?”
Relief washed through her. At least he remembered what it was called. “Yes. Do you?”
“Yes. I remember what that means, and…” He fingered the edge of the blanket and shrugged, unable to meet her eyes. “And—you know—the basics.”
Fighting a smile she was sure would embarrass him even further, she continued, “What about the rest? Do you remember any encounters? You were married. You’ve obviously experienced it, but do you remember?”
The half-smile melted away. “No, not—not really.” He drew a shaky breath. “But I remember that it was good—you know, that I liked it.”
Considering basic male drives that hardly came as a shock.
“But I don’t remember anyone specific.”
“So, in a way, you’re a virgin.”
“Maybe. In a way.” He looked at Marnie, and then he glanced at the shirt in her hand. “Are you holding my clothing hostage?”
She glanced at the garment in her hand, momentarily at war with herself over the wisdom of following through on the idea that had begun to form in her mind. Visions of fulfilling his request, caressing him from head to toe with careful, gentle strokes from loving fingers, filled her mind and made her hands tingle with anticipation.
Too quickly she thrust the clothes at him. “Here.” She stood and crossed to the door. “I’ll go down and make that hot chocolate.” She fled the room and bounded down the stairs as if he had threatened her with a hatchet rather than merely asked her for a hug or caress.
When she reached the kitchen she was close to tears but determinedly set about her task, heedless of the guilt and rage at herself for running from someone who had merely tried to reach out—who had merely asked for a little taste of humanity.
She wrapped her hand around the refrigerator handle but found her forehead resting against the cool metal instead. She had done the right thing. He was so vulnerable. They both were. And she was deathly afraid that if she began touching him that way, no matter how pure and noble her intentions, the end result would be anything but pure.
She couldn’t compromise him that way. Couldn’t compromise herself. Besides the glaring evidence of that golden wedding band around his finger, she had to remember that she had taken him in as a friend. Until they knew more about his past—and his future—it would be lunacy to allow herself to feel any differently or to encourage him to do so.
But she couldn’t dispel the image in her mind of those pleading eyes, and the noble figure that she had no doubt left feeling abandoned and alone up in that little room with the big oak bed.
* * * * *
Dressed and dry, his hair combed and the bed straightened, Luke remained in his room. Hands shoved in his pockets, he stood at the window staring at the storm that continued to rage and tear at the fragile barrier between him and its fury.
For the first time since their relationship had begun he had lied to Marnie. Perhaps she had sensed it and that was why she had run out so abruptly, leaving him feeling empty and hollow.
But there was no way he could share that memory with her. Not only was it uncertain, disjointed and hazy, it was troubling and painful. How did he even know it if was a true memory at all? Perhaps it was a concoction of a brain that was trying desperately to sort through new images and discern old ones. That was his hope. That was what he told himself.
Those images that had come into his mind as she had traced the snake and spoken of evil were ones that seemed out of touch with reality, and with the person he perceived himself to be. He couldn’t face it, so he didn’t. He set it aside and focused on the dove, and the rain, and the woman downstairs. He focused on the good, because he was afraid if he didn’t, the evil would threaten to consume him.
Chapter Nine
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pete leaned back in his chair and stretched enormous arms that felt leaden with fatigue. He straightened up when he heard a soft thunk from the desk across from him.
He chuckled quietly at the sight of his young partner with his forehead resting squarely in the middle of the enormous case file they had been working on. “Tired?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Kyle mumbled into the papers and photos and reports.
Dammit, but the kid was growing on him. Kyle was a decent cop who worked hard and was pretty good at making his old, callous partner laugh now and then. And he didn’t even have to resort to racial slurs or dirty jokes to do it.
Kyle turned his head slightly to one side and peered at his mentor through one half-lidded hazel eye. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
Pete yawned and rubbed at a knot in the back of his neck. “All the time. I’ve just learned to do it with my eyes open. It’s a great trick. Makes the cons skittish as hell. Don’t worry. You’ll learn eventually.”
“Uh-huh. And right after that you can teach me how pigs fly and chickens whistle.”
Chuckling, Pete cocked a finger at him. “Yep, and how cops have class.”
Kyle sat up and raked a hand through his auburn mop. “What are we gonna do about Mr. Melville’s bookie service, boss?”
Pete stood and grabbed his jacket. “I choose to think about that tomorrow, underling.” He watched Kyle snap the file shut and stuff it under the mountain of work. A tremor passed through him. It was still too strange to look at that desk and see a different body, a different pair of hands, a different grin. Dammit, where the hell was Sam Riven?
“Got another hot date tonight?” Kyle asked as he checked his Smith and Wesson and shoved it back in its holster.
“Oh, yeah, you know me. Gotta beat ‘em off with a stick.” Pete hadn’t had a date in six months.
Kyle shook his head ruefully. “A cross we both must bear.”
Pete’s resolve was weakening, and he was about to cave in and ask the rookie out for a beer when a commotion in the hallway caught their attention.
Shouts and scuffling noises were quickly followed by a crash and the sound of a body slamming to the floor. Pete and Kyle drew their guns and were sprinting toward the entrance when the door crashed in with enough force to shatter the pebbled-glass window.
A burly figure that dwarfed even Pete strode through, trailing an unfortunately small uniformed officer who had wrapped his arms around the intruder’s neck. Feet dangling a good six inches off the floor, he was having about as much success stopping the barrel-chested mountain of a man as he might have had wrestling a rampaging forklift.
They came through the door, and the giant trained murderous blue eyes on Pete. He pointed a stubby finger. “You! They told me you were off-duty, but I knew I’d find your slimy ass cowering in here.”
“Hello, Mr. Barton.” Pete crossed his arms over his chest and addressed himself to the officer. “You can take off, Eddy. I’ll look after this.”
Jeremiah shrugged off the officer’s arms as he might twitch off a gnat. The harsh fluorescent lights glinted off his cranium. The fringe of silver hair and the thick mustache had always struck Pete as out of place on the monolithic man, like trying to dress up a towering Douglas fir with silver balls and tinsel.
Eddy left, looking back warily, muttering curses all the way out into the hall.
“Now.” Pete leaned against his desk. “Before we get on with this let me assure you, Mr. Barton, that I do not cower anywhere, even from lowlife senior citizens like yourself.”
Barton snarled but Pete held up a hand and continued, “That said, however, what can we do for you today?”
“Why the hell can’t you incompetents find my son?”
Pete struck the side of his head with the palm of his hand. “Were we looking for him?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I know Tate and that idiot partner of yours got some fool feud going, but we’re tax-paying citizens just like everybody else. You’ve never proved nothing about Tate’s bars.” He pounded a meaty fist on the desk. “You can’t discrimin
ate ‘cuz you think there’s something fishy going on. I expect action.”
“Are you saying that Tate is missing?” asked Kyle innocently.
Jeremiah riveted his steely gaze on Kyle, roving over him from head to toe before resting his eyes finally back on Kyle’s face. “Who the hell are you?”
Pete threw Kyle a glance that blatantly told him to stay out of this. “He’s my new partner.”
“Huh? Well then, where’s Riven? Maybe he knows where Tate’s at.”
Pete had no intention of sharing Sam’s uncertain fate with Jeremiah Barton. And he had no intention of letting Jeremiah know they had been monitoring the Barton residence and were very well aware that Tate had been absent for an extended period. “Jeremiah, you seem to be under the impression that we’re looking for your son. I’ll admit I’ve been curious that he hasn’t been around down at The Palace or The Pit, but officially there is no investigation. At this point no one has filed a missing persons report on him.”
Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed. “You shittin’ me?”
“Are you saying you have no idea where he is?” Tate’s relationship with his father was as rocky and enigmatic as they came. Pete wasn’t surprised to find out the older man was concerned about his son, but he also wouldn’t be surprised if the old man had killed him himself and this was just a show for their benefit.
Jeremiah pulled up a chair and settled into it wearily. The fire in his eyes had cooled from inferno down to smoldering embers. “No. I don’t have a clue.” His enormous neck muscles went rigid. “But that bitch of a wife of his said her and his slimy partner talked to you guys. She said you were lookin’.”
“It appears that she lied.”
Jeremiah launched to his feet, the fire in his eyes as bright as fireworks on the Fourth of July. “It’s that Calvin! He’s had his eye on the business from day one. I never knew why Tate put up with his crap. All he was good for was getting cheap booze and keeping the girls in line.”