The Mercenary And The Marriage Vow

by Doreen Roberts

  “I’m afraid it is, Valeri.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You apparently have a gap in your memory. Probably caused by the blow to your head. From what Mr. Thorne tells me, you hit the steering wheel pretty hard.”

  She stared at him, her lips numb with shock. “But I couldn’t possibly forget six years of my life.”

  “I’m sure it’s only temporary.” He folded the newspaper and then patted her shoulder. “Try to relax. Tell me what you do remember about yourself.”

  She had to remember. She had to prove him wrong. Her head throbbed as she struggled to grasp the elusive memories, painfully and slowly forcing the pieces into place. “My name is Valeri Richmond. I’m twenty-nine years old—”

  “When were you born?”

  She felt sick, knowing that she would have to accept what seemed to be fact, no matter how bizarre. “I guess I’m thirty-five,” she mumbled.

  “Anything else? You’re not wearing a wedding ring, so I assume you’re not married.”

  “Divorced. No children.” Which, considering her present circumstances, was fortunate, she added inwardly. At least she didn’t have to worry about someone waiting for her at home.

  “Where do you work?”

  “I’m a freelance public relations consultant and I live in an apartment in the suburbs of Sacramento, California. I just can’t understand what I’m doing in Nevada.”

  “Let’s not worry about that for now. Parents?”

  “My mother’s name was Sylvia Forrester. She passed away a little over a year ago...no, seven years ago.” She shook her head, still unable to believe so much of her life was a blank.

  “I’m sorry. Your father?”

  Her father was still very much alive. At least, he was the last she remembered. She was about to say his name when an odd thing happened. It was like seeing a momentary flash of a movie on a screen, there and gone in an instant. Yet in that moment she was quite certain that Alex did not want her to talk about him.

  Shaken by the strange notion, she looked into the doctor’s eyes. “I don’t see much of my father,” she said quietly.

  “I see.” Dr. Harrison glanced at his watch. “Well, I’m sure Mr. Thorne will be able to help you contact someone. I really don’t think there’s too much to worry about.”

  Valeri swallowed. “Will it come back?”

  “Your memory? Probably. Partial amnesia is tough to predict. Sometimes it comes back gradually, a piece at a time. Or sometimes another trauma, such as another blow to the head, might bring it all back at once. Though that’s not something I’d recommend.”

  She tried to smile at the weak joke. “What if the memory doesn’t come back? Will it affect anything else?”

  “Physically you have nothing at all to worry about. Very often people injured in an accident remember nothing about it, or the events leading up to it. In rare cases, such as yours, the time lapse can be even longer. You might have to get help filling in the missing details from the people you know.”

  “What about the people I don’t know?”

  Dr. Harrison smiled. “I can assure you, Valeri, if you’re talking about Nathan Thorne, he tells me he is a good friend of yours. He’s very concerned about you. He spent the night in the waiting room, and I’m quite sure he’ll be very happy to know you’re all right. Once you see him, everything could very well fall into place. I’ll have a word with him, and then I’ll send him in, all right? ”

  She didn’t want to see anyone, much less a man she’d never heard of. On the other hand, if he knew her well enough to fill in the missing pieces, it would certainly help calm her fears.

  She watched the doctor leave, then settled back to wait, wondering if she looked as messy as she felt. She put her hand up to her head, and received another shock. She’d lost about six inches of hair. It barely reached her jaw now. She must have had it cut. How could she not remember such a drastic move?

  She concentrated, trying desperately to remember what she was doing in Carson City, but her head ached with the effort. She closed her eyes and was already dozing when the door opened again.

  “Valeri!” a man’s deep voice exclaimed. “Thank God, you’re all right. I was worried sick about you.”

  She opened her eyes. He was tall, with big shoulders and an impressive build. His legs had been crammed into a pair of jeans, and he’d tucked a denim shirt into the waistband.

  He was not a handsome man, but he certainly commanded attention. His face was what her charitable mother would have described as full of character. His mouth tilted up at one end, one jet black eyebrow sat higher than the other, and his hooked nose was just a little off center.

  His eyes were his most striking feature. Trimmed with thick dark lashes, they were the color of burnished gold—and just as inflexible. She was quite certain she would never have forgotten eyes like those. As far as she was concerned, this man was a complete stranger.

  Considering the only thing that stood between her and total exposure was a thin hospital gown, she found it difficult to muster any dignity. Nevertheless, she gave it her best shot. Fixing the stranger with her coolest stare, she said distinctly, “I don’t think we’ve met.”

  The man moved around the bed and sat down on the side of it, a little too close for comfort. “You look a little pale. The doctor says you might have a headache for a few days, but he’s giving you some medication and—”

  She drew back, annoyed by his familiarity. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Nat, of course.” His eyes crinkled at the corners, intent on her face. “Nathan Thorne, your closest neighbor and, I hope, your very good friend. Don’t you remember? The doctor said you had trouble remembering things, but I’d hoped you wouldn’t forget me.”

  “As far as I know, I’ve never seen you before in my life.” She was utterly convinced of that. Nathan Thorne was the kind of man a woman didn’t forget easily. The kind of man she’d always avoided. The earthy, primitive, sensual kind of man who screamed danger.

  She hoped fervently that her tone had conveyed her opinion that she wouldn’t be caught dead in his company. Admittedly, according to the doctor, the stranger had missed a night’s sleep. That hardly excused the thick growth of dark stubble on his jaw, or the shaggy haircut. No man like this would ever be considered her friend. Not in a million years.

  Nathan Thorne sighed. “The doctor warned me this could happen.”

  He reached for her hand, but she snatched it away. The nurse should be back any minute with her medication, she assured herself. She had nothing to worry about.

  “I’m sorry. I know all this must be a bad shock for you.”

  He actually did look concerned. She tried to make herself relax. “You were with me when I wrecked the car?”

  “Thank God I was. I dragged you out of there before the whole thing went up in a ball of flame.”

  She shuddered. In all her confusion, she’d lost sight of the fact that this man had saved her life. “Thank you,” she said awkwardly, still not wholly convinced. “I guess I owe you a lot.”

  His smile looked almost cynical. For a second she felt an involuntary stirring of response, and immediately stifled it. She couldn’t have feelings for this man. She just couldn’t. No matter what had happened to her in the past six years, she was reasonably sure of that.

  “Forget it,” Nat said easily. “I’m just glad I came along for the ride. If you’d been alone...” He paused, letting his silence fill in the rest.

  “Where did this happen?”

  “About thirty miles outside of town. We were on our way home when you missed a turn and overturned the car. Must have hit a patch of oil, or something.”

  “Home?” Surely not with him. She couldn’t possibly live with this man.

  “To Windridge. Your house in the mountains.”

  “What mountains?” Aware of sounding stupid, her voice was brittle.

  “Valeri, try to remember. You live on a fairly large acreage
in the Sierra mountains, not too far from a small town called Sylvan Springs.”

  She started. The name did mean something to her. She’d heard it somewhere before. She repeated it over and over in her mind, but couldn’t put a picture to the words.

  “I live a couple of miles to the north of you,” Nat went on. “You were coming into the city to do some shopping. I had some business to do here and you offered me a ride.”

  Relief washed over her. So he really was just a neighbor, and she was not personally involved with him. She should have known. He certainly wasn’t her type, and in any case, men like him didn’t look at women like her. She could just imagine the kind of women Nathan Thorne would go for.

  But how in the world did she have the money to buy a house and acreage? Her business must be doing phenomenally well. She felt a spasm of uneasiness. Whatever she’d achieved in the last six years could be lost if she didn’t get back her memory. Unless she had taken on some competent staff.

  She was about to ask Nat what he knew about her business when he startled her by saying, “Sabhad will be so relieved to know you’re all right. He’s been really worried about you. If it hadn’t been for the twins, he’d have come down here to the hospital, but he didn’t want to leave them while they were so upset.”

  Valeri shook her head, trying to deal with this new bombshell. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  Nat looked worried. “Oh, that’s right. The doctor said you can’t remember the last six years. Well, this might be another shock for you, but Ahmed Sabhad is your husband, and the father of your four-year-old twins.”

  She was having a nightmare. That had to be it. There was no way this was really happening to her. Only if this was all a dream, why did her head hurt so much? And where was that damn nurse with the medication?

  “I’m sorry,” Nat said quietly. “There just wasn’t any other way to say it.”

  “It isn’t true. You’re mistaking me for someone else.” She wriggled further up the bed, clutching the blanket to her chest. “I just got divorced. There’s no way I’d ever marry again. And I’d know if I had children. Darn it, I’d know.”

  “You got divorced more than six years ago. You’ve been married to Sabhad for five.”

  “Then how come everyone is calling me Ms. Richmond?”

  “You kept your former name when you remarried. Lots of women do.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She waved her left hand in his face. “If I’m married, where’s my ring?”

  His expression didn’t alter. “That I don’t know. Maybe you took it off for some reason when you left. But I can promise you, you are married to Ahmed Sabhad.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  A cold, clammy feeling crept over her as she watched him reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a wallet. “Look, I have pictures of you and your family.”

  Her hand shook as she took the photos from him, almost afraid to look. She stared at the picture of the woman holding the hands of two identical little girls, both of whom had the same dark hair and eyes as her own. Her hair was shorter, and she looked thinner, but she couldn’t deny that was her face smiling into the camera.

  She studied the other photo. The swarthy, heavyset man standing next to her had his arm about her, and there was no mistaking his proprietary attitude. Good grief, was she actually married to this man? How could she not recognize him?

  “That’s Ahmed Sabhad,” Nat said, pointing at the photo. “He’s from Saudi Arabia. He still has business ties there, I believe. He’s a very wealthy industrialist from what I understand.”

  That settled it. She just couldn’t picture herself falling in love with a wealthy sheik and bearing his children. That sort of thing happened to other women. Bold, adventurous women. Not conservative, sensible women like Valeri Richmond. Period.

  “Anyway, the doctor says you should be able to leave by tomorrow,” Nat said, tucking the pictures back in his wallet. “I’ve rented a car, and I’ll pick you up in the morning and take you home.”

  “You’re not taking me anywhere.” She heard the panic in her voice and made herself breathe deeply. “I’m not going anywhere until I have my memory back and I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “That could take days...months...maybe never. What about your babies? They’re waiting for their mother to come home to them. Surely you’re not going to let them go on suffering?”

  Guilt hit her like an iron fist. What if he were telling the truth? What if those two adorable little girls were really pining for her?

  She looked wildly around the room. “I need my purse. It’s probably in that cupboard over there. If I’ve got children, I’ll have pictures of them in there...my ID... something that will tell me who I am.”

  His face was expressionless as he studied her, and she would have given a great deal to know what he was thinking. Finally, he said in a low voice, “Everything you had with you in the car burned up with it. I didn’t have time to grab anything. I was too busy trying to get you out. I’m sorry.”

  She wasn’t going to cry, she told herself fiercely. She was not going to cry.

  “Your daughters need you,” Nat said softly.

  She wavered, trying to decide what to do. The door opened just then, and the nurse hurried in, holding a tiny paper cup. “Here’s your medication, Ms. Richmond. This should make you feel better.”

  There wasn’t a pill on earth that was going to make her feel better, Valeri thought. She took the tablets gratefully and swallowed them down with the help of a large gulp of water.

  “You look a little pale,” the nurse commented, after a sly glance at Nat. “Perhaps you should get some rest.”

  Valeri heartily agreed. She was relieved when Nat took the hint and stood up.

  He waited until the nurse had left the room, then looked down at Valeri. “I’ll leave so you can get some rest. I’ll be back for you tomorrow.”

  She watched him go, wondering if it was her imagination, or if she really heard a veiled threat behind his words.

  The room seemed strangely quiet after he’d left. She felt dazed, as if she were groping through a thick maze with nothing but dead ends. Nothing she had heard made sense.

  The last thing she remembered before waking up in the hospital was leaving her office on a dark, dreary winter’s afternoon. In Sacramento. Six years ago.

  Her divorce had been barely six months old. She’d been heading for her apartment, which she shared with a rather bad-tempered cat named Claws and the occasional spider. She felt bad, wondering what had happened to the cat.

  If Nathan Thorne was telling the truth, she had woken up to a completely different life. As a wife to a rich sheik and the mother of twins.

  She gave her head a mental shake. Impossible. Nothing would convince her that she had children. That was something she would know. The physical and psychological changes to a woman who had given birth could never be buried by a blow on the head. Of that she was certain.

  But if that were so, who was Ahmed—or whatever his name was? And, even more to the point, who was Nathan Thome and why would he lie about all this? In spite of her convictions, she couldn’t quite discount the odd feeling of having heard of Sylvan Springs somewhere before—though she couldn’t remember why.

  The pills were making her drowsy. She couldn’t go to sleep, she decided, until she knew some answers. There was one person whom she could trust—who would tell her the truth. Her father.

  Alex Forrester had walked out on his wife and five-year-old daughter one warm summer evening, and for the next twenty-four years his name was never spoken again between Valeri and her mother. It wasn’t until Sylvia Forrester passed away that Valeri met her father again.

  He came to the memorial service, and after Valeri had recovered from the shock, she’d agreed to have dinner with him—more out of curiosity than out of any real desire to renew their relationship. After all, she’
d never forgiven him for abandoning her when she was a child.

  Until he told her why he’d left.

  Sylvia Forrester had been frigid. She’d made it plain from the start of their marriage that she found the physical side of marriage distasteful, and after Valeri was born she’d moved into the spare bedroom and refused to sleep with Alex again.

  Alex had hung in there for five long years, hoping to change his wife’s mind. When it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, the fighting became intolerable. He decided they would all be better off living apart. Sylvia had let him go without a word of protest. She’d simply told Valeri that her father had gone away and wasn’t coming back.

  Although he’d given up custody, figuring that it would make things easier for Valeri if her parents weren’t fighting over her, Alex had sent letters and gifts for several years, until he finally gave up hearing from her. He was outraged later to learn that Valeri never received his offerings.

  From the day she’d learned the true circumstances, Valeri had tried to make up for the lost years. Alex had turned out to be quite different from the man she had imagined, and had been a tremendous support while she was going through her own divorce.

  She never told her father the reason for the breakup of her own marriage. Things had not gone well between her and Dan from the start. She just couldn’t relax with him in bed, and began making excuses to stay away from him. Finally he’d found comfort elsewhere, and understanding why, Valeri had divorced him.

  Now she needed Alex again. As she reached for the phone, she prayed that she’d hung on to the developing relationship throughout the six years that had passed. If not, she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  Chapter 2

  With a shaky hand, Valeri punched out Alex’s number on the phone, relieved that the number came back to her easily. It seemed odd to be dialing long distance for a residence that, in her memory, had always been just across town. She wondered if he’d married again. It didn’t seem likely.