by Debra Webb
He traced the outline of her soft cheek. His fingers clenched to restrain the urge to touch her lips. He had been so sure he’d lost her forever. But she was right here. He wanted to hold her close against his chest and never let her go, just to be sure no one ever took her from him again.
But she wasn’t his anymore.
Marcos had stolen her from him. Linc couldn’t get right with that reality. Sure, the old bastard had loved to gawk at Lori. He’d considered her his, but no more so than he had Linc or any of his other subordinates in the cartel. At least, not to Linc’s knowledge. Lori would have told him if Marcos had approached her in any way.
Her past—her entire identity—was lost. Her only history was as Mia Grant. She had formed bonds and made a life that didn’t include Linc and her twenty-three years prior to the explosion. If those memories never returned, was there any compelling reason for her to want to be Lori Reece? Or to have Linc in her life? The misery that welled inside him pressed against his heart—the organ he had long thought dead to emotion.
Beneath his touch, Lori stirred, her eyes opened. She blinked, then zeroed in on him. Fear or apprehension flared in those golden-brown depths. “I need to go home.” She scrambled up, forcing him aside.
Linc stayed back, let her regain her bearings.
She walked out onto the porch, surveyed the woods that crowded around them, then stared back at him. He shook out his shirt and pulled it back on. The damp spot was irrelevant. He wanted her comfortable. Having a half-naked man standing around wouldn’t help. That he was her husband didn’t count at the moment.
Lori came back inside, grabbed the bottle of water on the sofa and drank down half the contents. She screwed the top back on and tossed it aside. Drawing in a deep breath, she met his gaze. “Granted, my name and history were laid out for me by my aunt and uncle and—” she visibly braced “—I have no way of proving the validity of what they told me, but I also have no reason to doubt it.” Her confidence seemed to build as she spoke.
Linc wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say, if anything.
“You believe differently.” Her voice shook. “I’d like to know why.” Before he could speak, she added, “And don’t use those pictures you saw at my…uncle’s house as your reasons. Just because I look like someone else doesn’t mean I am that person.”
Fair enough. He gestured to the sofa. “Do you want to sit?”
She shook her head, threaded her fingers through her hair.
Then he started his story. “My wife’s body was never found. Neither were several others. More than a dozen people died that day, the remains of only five were recovered. Part of me held on to the idea that my wife wasn’t dead.”
That shaking he’d heard in her voice carried through to the rest of her. He saw it in her hands, in her slender shoulders. He hated doing this to her.
“Go on.” She infused a good deal of courage into those two words.
“I looked for you—for my wife—long after the recovery teams had stopped. Finally I gave up.” He shrugged, the movement as listless as he felt at the moment. “I packed all the photos, everything related to our life together, and stored it. The only other person who had access to the stuff was my former partner, Mort Fraley.” Linc watched for any sign of recognition in her eyes or posture. Nothing. “Then I moved on.” He sat down in the nearest chair, not trusting the steadiness of his legs. “Or tried to. Mostly I drifted from place to place, job to job.”
“Why did you come to Blossom now?” Her lips quivered.
He had to look away. “Last week Mort, my old friend and former partner, came to see me in Chicago.” Linc glanced at her. “That’s where I live now. He told me he’d seen you. That you were alive.” Linc shook his head. Even now it sounded crazy. “He pushed me to come see for myself. So I did.”
“Just because I look like her,” she countered again, “doesn’t mean anything.”
“Your nose is different.” He dared to study her face. “The brow. The slightest changes.”
She touched her face as he spoke.
“But your eyes. Lips.” He had to look away again. “Your voice. The way you move. All the same.”
She was the one looking away then.
“Still,” he continued, since she didn’t advise him otherwise, “I wasn’t convinced. I needed to know more before I took any action.”
“That’s why you bought the house and sought out my help with renovations you didn’t really care about.” The resentment in her tone fell short of appearing on her face. She looked scared and alone.
“Yes.”
“Is there anything else about me that reminds you of her?”
“Your work.”
She stilled, clearly surprised. “The plasterwork?”
He nodded. “Lori loves old houses. We finally bought one and she learned to do a lot of the cosmetic repairs herself.” A smile pulled at his lips. “She was a natural at it. California Living did a feature on her restorative work, using her maiden name, of course.” She had been so happy that day. Linc would do anything to make her that happy again.
Her movements stilted, she walked to the sofa and sat down. “How can my work prove anything? It’s coincidence.”
“The way you touch the plaster and move your trowel is exactly the same. I watched her just like I watched you. There’s a rhythm to what you do. It’s almost like a dance.”
“Wait. You were a cop,” she countered, her tone argumentative. “Why was she on the boat that day?”
“We were both detectives. We were under deep cover as a couple in Marcos’s family.”
“Marcos.” She frowned. “That’s who you think my uncle is.”
“Juan Marcos.” He let her know with his eyes that he wasn’t relenting on that one. “I know he is Juan Marcos. The feds have a file a mile thick on him. Proving who he is will be easy.” Linc wanted him to pay. The sooner the better.
She moistened her lips. “You can’t be certain of what you say about me. I couldn’t have been a cop. I don’t even know how to hold a weapon. I couldn’t shoot one if my life depended on it.”
He was certain. He just couldn’t prove it. “You walked before,” he countered, “but after the accident you had to relearn. There’s no reason for you to know about guns now since you didn’t relearn that skill.”
“That doesn’t prove anything except that you were listening to what I told you about my recovery.”
“The photos of you as a child,” he explained, “are photos of my wife. They were stolen from my storage unit back in L.A.”
She shot up from the sofa. “That’s impossible.” She started to pace the room. “Those are me. I grew up in Boulder. Went to school there until the accident. Those photos were with me every day of rehabilitation.”
As much as he wanted to move, Linc kept his seat. He didn’t want to appear threatening. “Where are the photos of you with your family?”
She whirled to glare at him. “My uncle has them. He keeps them put away so I don’t focus on the past.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“Of course.”
“Were there any of you and your parents all together?”
The rhythm of her pacing changed, as if she’d lost focus.
“I have photos of you with your real parents, Nadine and Ellis Counts.”
Her pattern of pacing altered once more. “Where are these people? What do they have to say about this?”
“They died in a car accident when you were in college.” He paused to let that news sink in. “You have no other living relatives, at least none that you ever mentioned. Both your parents were only children, just like you. Sound familiar?”
“Lots of people are only children. Lots die in car accidents.” Her hands landed on her hips. “You can’t seriously believe that a handful of common qualities proves your theory.”
He stood, couldn’t sit still any longer. “I have hundreds of photos of you—the you in the photos we saw on that mante
l last night—with Nadine and Ellis Counts, from the day you were brought home from Los Angeles General to the day you moved into your first apartment while a sophomore at UCLA. Your wedding day with me. Our first place together. I could go on and on.”
She backed up a step as if she could escape his words. “Why didn’t you bring them?”
“They’re in L.A.” The hollowness in her eyes and voice cut him like a knife. “There was no reason to bring any. I wasn’t sure about you until I came and saw you on that ladder repairing plaster.”
“Where did you meet your wife?” She was trembling again.
“On the job. I had just made detective.”
She looked away. “Where did you get married?”
He smiled. “You insisted we get married on the beach in Malibu. You love the sun and the sand, the sound of the water lapping the shore. You—”
“How long were you married?” she interrupted.
“Next month will be eight years.” He was not going to discount the last seven years. She was his wife. She was alive and, until she chose otherwise, they were still married. That possibility twisted the knife already thrust deep in his chest.
“What about fingerprints or DNA?” She stiffened her shoulders. “You must have something more conclusive than the photos and your personal conclusions.”
“You have no family so there’s no comparison for a DNA test. Your prints were lost in a gas leak explosion at the hall of records just one year after the accident.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Yes, it is. Very convenient for the man who brought you to Tennessee and gave you a whole new identity.” Damn that bastard.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Nothing you’ve said sounds familiar to me.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “You aren’t familiar to me. I’ve never even been to the West Coast.”
“I’m not trying to force you to accept anything.” He took a moment, reached for calm. “This is something you have to come to terms with on your own or with professional help. All I’m asking is that you be open to whatever can be done to determine the truth.” He had no idea what that would be, other than working with the right specialists and looking at the photos of her life. Assuming Mort hadn’t done away with all of them. A mixture of frustration and fury churned inside Linc. How could the man have done this?
“I need to think.”
She walked past him and out the door. He let her go and didn’t follow. This was a lot to absorb. He wasn’t sure if giving her this information was the right thing to do, but he’d had no other choice.
Now all he could do was wait.
The next move was hers.
MIA WALKED to THE TREE LINE. Her head throbbed, her chest felt ready to explode. How could any of this be true? Vince had treated her like a daughter. And Gloria… Dear God, she would be beside herself with Mia missing. She could prove what Mia said. She had been there every step of the way during Mia’s recovery.
She forced herself to think. How could the last seven years have been some movie-of-the-week plot? Vince had never been anything but kind and loving toward her. Why would he have done something so heinous? If not her parents, who were the people in the photographs? If, as Reece said, his old partner had provided actual photos of this Lori person, why not provide pictures of her with her parents?
Lori’s parents had been killed in a car crash just like Mia’s. Could be coincidence. The love of historic homes and the unexpected ability to repair plaster…so what? Three coincidences did not a conspiracy make.
Mia sat down on the ground. She didn’t care that sticks and gravel and leaves jabbed at her bottom. She needed to feel something real. She closed her eyes and inhaled the sweet country air. The hint of a breeze whispered across her face. Life would be so easy if she could just remember. But that wasn’t going to happen. The experts, and she had seen plenty, had all agreed that the damage to her brain had been far too significant for any stored memories to return.
For seven years that had been the case. Not a single true memory. Oh, she had the occasional moment of déjà vu. Who didn’t? Those moments she experienced when exposed to certain scents and touches were so rare that she felt certain they didn’t actually count.
Inside, a quiet consumed her, then like flashes of a camera, memories invaded her mind. Shaking Reece’s hand that first time…touching his fingers when she’d applied the bandages…his scent when she was really close to him…feeling overwhelmed… No one had ever evoked those emotions of familiarity and safety the way he did. In fact, no one had caused a single one of those reactions. The scents and touches that had, in the past, were not related to a person. They had always occurred when she’d touched a certain fabric or item, or smelled some cooking spice or a scented candle.
She wrung her hands. Even she had to admit that aspect of this insanity was significant.
Mia glanced at the cabin. Reece hadn’t followed her outside, which she appreciated. She needed space and time to digest all that he’d told her. To come up with rationales that negated his accusations.
For years she had fought for a normal life, learning to walk, read, write, how to fit in to the world again. She couldn’t let that be stripped away. This life, these memories were all she had.
Mia climbed to her feet and dusted off her jeans. This was the only life she had. She wasn’t giving it up without undeniable proof. Starting over was hard. She couldn’t climb that mountain again unless she was sure the journey was the only right one.
Reece had waited inside but he’d been watching her from the window. The expectant expression on his face made her sad. She had never met a man as sad and lost as Lincoln Reece. Part of her—not the Mia Grant part but the wholly woman part—wanted to reach out to him. To help him find his way. How could she, when she wasn’t even certain of her own?
She had to know for sure. “What about dental records?” She’d had some restorative work done after the accident, but mostly just cosmetic stuff. “Surely those weren’t lost, too.”
“I have those.”
He brought dental records but no photos? Her face must have telegraphed her surprise.
“I had them digitally downloaded to my phone after I saw you for the first time.”
“Then we need a dentist.” She smoothed her hair and straightened her T-shirt. “Let’s go.”
A frown trenched across his brow. “Come again?”
“We’ll walk back to that little town. They probably have a dentist.” The more she thought about it, the more determined she got. She wanted this part over. Whatever her uncle had or had not done, she would deal with later. Reece stared at her as if she’d announced some unthinkable news. “It’s not that far,” she said. “If we’re lucky someone will come along and give us a ride.”
“Keeping you safe is my main objective right now.”
His hesitation frustrated her. “I’m not afraid of my uncle. What I am afraid of is you.” The last was truer than she wanted him to know. Strangely, it had nothing to do with fear for her safety.
He reached for the handgun on the table and tucked it into his waistband at the small of his back, then pulled his shirt down to cover it. The stretch of the fabric drew her gaze to his broad chest and she shivered. Stop, Mia. She had to remain objective. This was too important to get distracted.
“Let’s go.”
She didn’t wait for him. She just walked out the door. As determined as she was to know the truth, she was even more terrified.
10:50 a.m.
THE ROUTE FROM HUNTLAND to the cabin had taken ten minutes to drive. Walking took close to two hours. Not a single vehicle had passed. Linc worried about Lori walking the seven or eight miles but it was he favoring his bum leg by the time they reached their destination. Not to mention, every step had been made in silence. He had considered a dozen ways to start up a conversation but he’d dismissed the idea each time.
She didn’t want to talk. Not to him, anyway.
The small
town not only had a dentist’s office, but there was a café, a school, a medical clinic, a post office, supermarket and at least two convenience stores. They had walked by each and every one.
Linc opened the door to the modest dental office and waited for Lori to enter. Before going in, she met his gaze for the first time since they’d left the cabin. That brief look confirmed just how terrified she was. He felt helpless and sick to his stomach that there wasn’t an easier way to do this.
The receptionist smiled. “May I help you?”
Lori looked to him to handle the question. “We don’t have an appointment,” he confessed, “but we need to see the dentist.”
The receptionist frowned. “Have you been seen here before?”
“No.” He glanced at Lori. “We’re from out of town. And we have a problem.” His explanation sounded lame even to him. For the last couple of hours his mind had been on Lori’s well-being and how he’d failed to do this right, rather than on how to accomplish the next step.
“I’m sorry but we don’t have any openings this morning.” The receptionist scanned her appointment book. “We might be able to work you in late this afternoon.” She looked from Linc to Lori and back. “What’s the nature of the problem?”
That would be the sticky part.
Lori moaned. “I have a missing cap and it’s killing me.” She held her jaw. “We’re on vacation and I don’t think I can stand this another minute, much less another day.” She groaned even louder.
Astonished, Linc stared at her. This was the Lori he knew. Falling into character in any situation was like breathing for her. He’d always had to work at it.
The receptionist hesitated, then surrendered. She handed a clipboard to Linc. “Have a seat and fill these out. I’ll have Dr. Wall’s assistant take you back for X-rays as soon as she can.”
“Thank you.” Linc was stunned. He’d expected to have to use his weapon.
“What’s the name?” the receptionist asked.
“Lori Counts,” he said quickly. Though he doubted Marcos would find them here, he wasn’t taking any chances.
As they took seats he gave Lori a nod of approval for her performance, then he concentrated on filling out the forms with bogus personal info.