The Woman Who Wasn't There

by Marie Ferrarella

  Something impossibly sweet blossomed within her when he’d covered them both. She felt like she was struggling madly to stay afloat instead of going under for the third time. “What’s this called?”

  To him a date meant going out. Meant picking a woman up and enjoying her company while doing something with her. This was just “dropping over.”

  Troy pretended to give her question a moment’s thought. “To the best of my understanding, a command performance.” Lowering his head, he pressed a kiss first to her temple, then her cheek. Excitement, fueled by desire, built inside him. Damn, but he wanted her again. It was as if what had just happened was an appetizer and he was anticipating the main course. “The nice thing about command performances,” he told her, each word lingering on her skin as he continued kissing her softly, “is that you get to do curtain calls—and encores.”

  He was making coherent thought increasingly difficult for her. Her body was priming itself for him again. “Encores?”

  He tugged away a little of the sheet he’d just covered her with, exposing a breast. He caressed it even as he brought his mouth down over the tip. Feeling her move against him just created more excitement within him.

  “You know, a little bit of the performance.” He raised his head, a mischievous smile gracing his lips as he looked at her. “Or in some cases, a whole new number.”

  Her limbs felt leaden as desire poured itself through her veins. “You’re ready to do this again?” she asked incredulously.

  His look was impossibly sexy. “I am if you are.” His hand moved over her, not possessively, but like a tourist making a particularly pleasing pilgrimage. “It wouldn’t be half the fun if you weren’t there.”

  Her head spun once more. She struggled to make sense of his words. “So you’re asking me if I want to?”

  His answer was in her eyes. Desire as bold, as consuming as his. But he knew better than to assume anything. Despite her bravado, the lady needed kid-glove treatment.

  “Yes,” he breathed just before his mouth covered hers.

  Delene’s eyes fluttered shut as he kissed her. As he took all control out of her hands again.

  But this time she realized she wasn’t holding on to the reins so tightly. Wasn’t getting rope burns across her palms as she tried to keep them from slipping away.

  “Well, since you’re already here…” Her voice trailed off.

  He chuckled, his breath tickling her neck. “My sentiments exactly.”

  And then there was no room for words. No room for anything except the sensations that crescendoed through both of them.

  ***

  Troy made love to her twice more that night. When heaven and earth shifted positions the second time, she was far too exhausted to form a complete thought. Delene fell asleep in his arms, too tired to move, too tired even to contemplate resurrecting the barriers that had fallen beneath the onslaught of his lips.

  A moment before she sank into oblivion, entertaining thoughts that maybe, just maybe, she was entitled to some small shred of happiness after all, the door to her loft flew open. It banged against the opposite wall before it was closed again.

  Terror leaped into her throat.

  He’d found her.

  Russell was standing at the foot of her bed, a gun in his hand.

  Oh, God, why had she forgotten to put her weapon under the pillow the way she did each night? Why this one time when she needed it most?

  He was as tall, as dark, as handsome as she remembered. And as demonic. His dark blue eyes blazed holes into her. “You bitch! You worthless little whore! I always knew that when I’d find you, you’d be in bed with some bastard!”

  The gun. Where was her gun? Where had she left it? Delene frantically scanned the room, her mind a blank.

  “We’re divorced,” she cried, knowing it was useless to try to reason with him. Somehow she had to distract him. There were two of them; Troy would save her.

  But who would save Troy? She knew what Russell was capable of.

  “I don’t belong to you anymore!” She felt, more than saw, Troy sitting up in the bed. She should have never let him come here, never invited him. If anything happened to him because of her, she’d never forgive herself.

  The malevolence exuding from Russell seemed to grow like a force of nature, darkening the room. He sneered contemptuously at her. “You’ll always belong to me.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Troy called to him so calmly, Delene realized he didn’t understand just how serious the situation was. “I think you’d better leave.”

  The sneer on Russell’s face turned almost evil as he shifted his attention to Troy. “Do you, now? Well, I think I should stay. But you, you’re the one who’s leaving. Now.”

  Faster than a heartbeat, he aimed the gun he was holding point-blank at Troy.

  “No, Russell! No!” Delene cried.

  Russell fired before she could throw herself in front of Troy.

  Troy’s blood began to pool all around her on the bed, seeping into the sheets, into the mattress. Into her. Filled with horror, with a bottomless sense of dread and loss, Delene started screaming.

  Cursing her as he grabbed her by the arms, Russell pulled her from the bed and began to shake her.

  “You’re mine, do you hear me? Mine. I’ll see you six feet in the ground before I ever, ever let you go. Do you hear me?”

  Everything fell apart around her. There was blood everywhere, on the very walls. Delene couldn’t stop screaming. She clawed at Russell, trying to hurt him, wishing she could rip his heart out the way he’d just ripped out hers.

  “Delene, stop it! Delene, it’s all right,” Russell shouted over her screams. “You’re safe, do you understand? You’re safe. Stop screaming.” As he repeated the refrain over and over again, his voice began to change.

  She could have sworn he sounded just like Troy. But that was impossible. Troy was dead. Russell had just killed him.

  And he was going to kill her next; she just knew it.

  And still he repeated in Troy’s voice, “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  When he tried to hold her to him, she resisted with all her might. But he didn’t smell like Russell. Didn’t have on the high-end cologne that Russell liked to import.

  The clean and rugged scent slowly began to penetrate her brain.

  Troy.

  Those were his arms holding her fast. His lips against her hair. His voice telling her it was all right.

  Shaken, Delene realized she was still in her loft. Still in the bed. A second later her eyes flew open. It was Troy.

  He was alive!

  The words beat frantically in her breast. He was alive! She began to scramble from the bed. “We have to get you to the hospital. Quick!”

  “Hospital?” he echoed dumbfoundingly. “What are you talking about?”

  But she was staring at the sheets, her eyes wide with disbelief. Everything had been red a moment ago. “Blood.” She looked up at him, her fingers feathering gingerly along his chest. Where the bullet hole had been. Where it no longer was. “Where’s the blood?”

  So, he’d made his way into her subconscious. But not in a good way. “Safely in my veins. What kind of a dream did you just have?”

  It wasn’t real. None of it. She’d dreamed it all. Russell wasn’t here.

  Relieved, suddenly unspeakably exhausted, Delene slumped against Troy. “A dream,” she repeated. She drew in a long breath before saying, “A nightmare. Just a nightmare.”

  His ears were still ringing from her screams. She’d come close to giving him heart failure. One moment they were asleep, the next she was screaming in his ear, beating him with her fists. He wanted to know more. “It wasn’t ‘just’ a nightmare, not for you to have that kind of a reaction.”

  She drew away from him. And into herself. Sitting up, she hugged her knees to her.

  It was just a nightmare. Russell hasn’t found me. Hasn’t killed Troy.

  Getting her bearings, Delene drag
ged her hand through her hair. “I get them sometimes. Nightmares,” she repeated, then shrugged. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He wasn’t thinking about himself right now. Troy gazed at her intently. “Who’s Russell?” Whoever he was, the man figured heavily into her life and he wanted to know how.

  Her head jerked up and she stared at him. How did he know about Russell? “What?”

  “Russell,” Troy repeated, enunciating the name slowly. He prodded her memory. “You were pleading with him.”

  Delene stared straight ahead into the shadows within the loft as she shook her head. “Don’t remember. Just a name.”

  “I think you do remember. Talk it out, Delene.”

  Anger joined hands with defensiveness. She looked at him belligerently. “What are you, my shrink now?”

  “No,” he said evenly, although it bothered him that Delene would lie to him like this. “I’m just a willing pair of ears. You’re still shaking,” he pointed out.

  “Just the aftermath of lovemaking,” she retorted flippantly.

  The hell it was. Why was she keeping him out? “Look, you were screaming and crying, and from the look on your face, it obviously isn’t the first time. Now, who’s Russell?”

  The biggest mistake of my life. But she held her ground, shaking her head. “You don’t want to know.”

  Now she really had his curiosity piqued. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked.”

  No, she supposed he wouldn’t have. She wrapped her arms around herself, cold down to the bone. “Maybe I don’t want to tell you.”

  Now that he could believe. But in believing it, something hurt inside. “What just happened here isn’t about sex, Delene, it’s about intimacy. Intimacy can’t happen if you don’t trust someone.”

  She raised her chin. The dream had been an omen. An omen telling her that she was playing with fire, making love with another man. If Russell ever did find out, Troy’s life would be over. It was time to end this before it became any more involved.

  “Maybe I don’t want intimacy.”

  He didn’t believe that. Not the way she’d made love with him. There was a vulnerable woman beneath the trappings. “It’s not about what you want, it’s about what you need.”

  There he went again, presuming to know what went on inside of her head. “What I don’t need is someone playing psychiatrist on me.”

  She wasn’t going to talk to him. He’d seen stubbornness like this before. Up close and personal in his own family. The only way to proceed was to wait this out.

  Troy got out of bed, completely oblivious to the fact that he was stark naked. “Okay. Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind.”

  She tried not to stare. It wasn’t easy. But the nervous flutter in her veins helped redirect her attention to a degree. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting my things together.” He picked up his jeans and shirt as he looked around for his shoes.

  A panic rose from nowhere, skittering through her. She didn’t want to be alone. “You’re leaving?”

  He turned to face her, his arms full of his clothes. “Well, you made it pretty clear that you don’t want me to stay.”

  Delene didn’t answer. She sat in silence as he got dressed. Told herself that she didn’t need to talk, didn’t need to play out some so-called fantasy humming in his brain, making him out to be the kindly instrument of her salvation.

  And she had almost managed to convince herself.

  Until he had his hand on the doorknob.

  She shut her eyes. Just a few seconds more. If she could just hang on a few seconds longer, he’d be out the door.

  And she’d be alone.

  As alone as she’d been before she’d invited him over.

  Troy opened the door.

  “He’s my husband.”

  Very slowly Troy turned from the door. Finally. It took her long enough. If he’d walked any slower, he would have been moving backward. He looked at her.

  “Husband?” he repeated. There was no wedding ring on her finger. Men were divided as to whether or not they wore a symbol of their marriage, but most women he knew did so proudly.

  “Ex-husband,” she clarified, “thanks to a Mexican decree.” She knew all the words Russell would have used once the papers had arrived. He would have wanted to kill the mail carrier. “He doesn’t recognize it,” she added. “As a lawyer, I figure he’s probably looked into ways to get around it.”

  Troy didn’t care about the man’s profession, he cared about the way she looked when she’d thought the man was here. Terrified. “Did he beat you?”

  She stiffened. Only pathetic weaklings let themselves be beaten. Is that what Troy thought of her? “What makes you ask that?”

  There was no judgment in his voice. “I’ve been a cop for a while, Delene.” He sat down on her bed. “You get to know the signs.”

  She shrugged, distancing herself from the memories. Or trying to.

  “Yes, he beat me. But not before he sucked out my soul.” She sighed. She’d started this. Maybe Cavanaugh had a right to know. So he’d see why he couldn’t continue any kind of a personal relationship with her. My God, she was thinking relationships. She really was shaken up. “He’s a successful lawyer for the Palladino family in Colorado and he doesn’t believe in taking no for an answer.”

  Glancing at Troy, she could see he wanted more. She gave it to him. “I met Russell when I was nineteen. He was everything I thought I wanted. Tall, dark, handsome, rich—and he was charming.” She rolled her eyes, remembering. God, she’d been so dumb then. “Oh so charming. And he wanted me. Every woman at every gathering we ever went to looked at me with envy, wishing they were in my place.”

  She sighed. “After a while, I wished one of them had been. So I could get free.” But she was free now, she reminded herself. And she’d die before she gave that up. “He swept me off my feet, asked me to marry him after we’d been together two months. Said I made him happy.”

  She turned to face him. “My father, as you figured out the other day, deserted my mother and me when I was very young. My mother, as you also guessed, kind of disintegrated little by little, and I was pretty much on my own by the time I graduated from high school. When this man—who could have anyone—wanted me, I was beside myself with joy at how lucky I had finally become.”

  Her mouth quirked. Stupid, stupid. “I guess that comes under the heading of be careful what you wish for.”

  He didn’t want her putting blame on herself. “What made him finally let you go?”

  She laughed. That was funny. Russell never released anything he owned. “He didn’t. He beat me within an inch of my life for trying to get away. I landed in the hospital on life support, so badly beaten, the plastic surgeon who worked on my face told me he’d used up his lifetime supply of miracles putting me back together again.”

  She saw a flash of anger in Troy’s eyes. Her first instinct was that it was directed against her, against her stupidity for being with a man like Russell. But then she realized that Troy was angry at Russell.

  The thought left her in awe. “I knew that if I went home with Russell, the next time he thought I had committed some minor infringement, he’d kill me. So the second I had any strength at all, I bribed an orderly. He helped smuggle me out of the hospital in the middle of the night.” Her mouth curved. Her story sounded so melodramatic, but every word was true. “I cut and dyed my hair, changed my name and I’ve never looked back since.”

  She’d left out one detail. “What about your mother?”

  Delene shook her head. There was nothing there to draw her back. “My mother was on his side. She was the one who told him that I was getting ready to leave him again—”

  “Again?”

  She nodded. “I’d tried once before, unsuccessfully. He’d beat me then, too, but not as badly as he did this time.” The smile on her lips had no trace of humor in it. “My mother thought Russell was a great catch for me.”
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br />   He looked at her for a long moment, absorbing what she’d told him, trying desperately to keep the anger raging through his veins from spilling out. She’d said she’d changed her name. That would explain why there was no trace of Delene D’Angelo older than five years. “What’s your real name?”

  Delene pressed her lips together. “The person I was is dead. I’m Delene D’Angelo. That’s all you need to know.”

  He nodded. “All right.”

  His response stunned her. “You’re not going to press me?” she asked in disbelief. “You’re all right with not knowing?”

  When she was ready, she’d tell him. He didn’t want her thinking of him as being in the same category as her ex. “I know you as Delene. That’s all that I need. I was just curious.” Because she looked so vulnerable, so fragile, he couldn’t help himself. He took her into his arms.

  Delene saw the long, angry scratch on his arm. “I did that?”

  “Yeah.”

  She twisted from his arms, wanting to get to the medicine cabinet. “Let me put something on it before it becomes infected.”

  Troy pulled her to him. She was being maternal, but he didn’t need a mother right now. “Later. Right now I just need to hold you.”

  She saw through his words. “You mean you think I need to be held.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “You, me, what difference does it make? This isn’t a debate, Delene. It’s just a hug. For both of us,” he amended in order to please her.

  She settled back in his arms, telling herself it was a mistake to feel so comfortable.

  She stayed where she was, anyway.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  The ringing sound penetrated her brain in layers, but failed to identify its source. Eyes still shut, convinced she’d been asleep only five minutes, six at the utmost, Delene felt around on the nightstand for her alarm clock. Hitting it once did nothing to still the ringing.

  Neither did groping for the telephone beside it.

  Trying desperately to get her mind to surface, still in the throes of a deep sleep, she held the receiver against her ear.