“Your wife?” Troy echoed. He looked incredulously at Delene. Was this her ex? All she’d ever said about him was that he was charming. This guy wasn’t charming, he was a jerk.
“Tell him, honey,” Russell urged. He deliberately nuzzled her, never taking his eyes off the man by the door. Wanting to see his reaction. Wanting to goad him. “Tell him about how you decided to skip out on me when things didn’t go your way. Tell him how worried I’ve been about you. How I spent over a hundred thousand dollars trying to find you.” His expression mocked Troy. “Tell him how you’re going back with me.”
Why was she just standing there, taking this? Did he have a weapon he was holding trained on her? Troy looked, but there was no indication that she was being held against her will.
“Delene?”
She bit her lip. For his sake, she had to lie, she told herself. She didn’t want him following her. Didn’t want him getting hurt or, God forbid, killed on her account.
Her expression was stoic, distant, as she said, “He’s telling you the truth, Troy. I’ve decided to go back with Russell.”
He didn’t believe her. She wasn’t doing this of her own free will. Not after what she’d told him about the man she’d been married to. He looked into her eyes, searching for a sign. They were lifeless.
There was only a shell of a person standing before him now.
Troy took a step toward her. “You’re not going anywhere with him.”
“Don’t start something you have no hope of finishing, Detective,” Russell warned him malevolently.
Troy’s eyes met his. “I’m not,” he answered evenly. “I have every intention of finishing this.” He played for time, hoping to get the man off guard. “For all I know, you’re not even her husband.”
“I’m her husband,” Russell told him. The edge that came into his voice would have sent those who knew him running for cover.
She wanted Troy out of harm’s way. “Troy, please—”
But his attention was on the man with Delene. “I’m going to need some ID.”
Russell sneered. “Okay, have it your way, pretty boy. It’s in my pocket.”
But instead of the wallet Troy thought he was going to take out, Russell pulled out a gun.
Delene’s heart leaped into her throat. She knew what Russell was like. He would give the selection of his socks in the morning more thought than he would allocate to whether or not he should shoot Troy where he stood.
The second she saw the gun, she screamed, “No!” and grabbed his arm with both hands. Delene screamed a second time when the gun discharged. A bullet tore through her flesh.
“You bitch!” Russell shouted.
White rage exploded in Troy’s veins. He hardly remembered what happened next. Flying at Russell, he knocked the other man down on the floor. The gun flew out of Russell’s hand and landed just out of reach as they fought one another.
For a split second, they seemed almost evenly matched. Russell was taller, heavier, but Troy was younger, trained and right now completely incensed with a fury that gave him extraordinary strength while cutting away his pain factor to almost nothing. Each landed blows while struggling to reach the gun on the floor. When Russell finally managed to grab it, Troy tackled him and they both went down.
The weapon discharged for a second time. And for a second time, it hit flesh. As Delene watched in horror, Russell scrambled to his feet.
He’d killed Troy was all she could think. And now she was going to kill him.
But then, his eyes wide with disbelief, Russell clutched the front of his chest and looked down. Blood oozed between his fingers. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t make it go back.
Sinking to his knees as he cursed the wild shot, Russell fell face forward.
His eyes trained on the other man’s prone figure, Troy rushed over to Delene. Weak, stunned and shaken, she was attempting to struggle to her feet. She was pressing her palm against her left shoulder.
Releasing it, she touched Troy, looking for signs of a hole. There were none. Tears filled her eyes. “Are you all right?” she cried, her voice cracking.
He pointed out the absurdity of the question. “I’m the only one in the room who hasn’t been shot.” Quickly examining her, he saw that the wound was not as serious as he’d first thought. She was, however, losing a lot of blood. Her face was paler than he’d ever seen it. “The bullet went clean through.”
She didn’t hear him. Her eyes were on the man lying close by. He wasn’t moving. Was that just to catch them off guard? Or was it all finally over?
“Is he…?”
Troy left her side. Cautiously he stooped over the lawyer’s body and felt the side of Russell’s neck. There was nothing. Troy looked up at Delene. “He’s not going to be bothering you anymore.”
Finally. She was finally free.
It was only then that she became aware of the moisture on her cheeks.
She was crying.
***
“Hell of a night, Troy,” Brian commented to his son, placing a hand on his shoulder in silent support.
They were standing right outside the hospital lounge where friends and family of patients waited to receive official word about the outcome of a surgery.
There was a small chapel located to one side, but it was filled. Troy preferred to do his praying silently, away from any outward religious trappings.
Andrew pretended to laugh shortly. “I’ll say this, you sure know how to cap off a party.”
Both men had come, along with several of his cousins, both of his brothers as well as Janelle and a few assorted in-laws, as soon as they had heard about the incident. Word had reached them the second he had called Dispatch to get an ambulance and one of the medical examiners to the scene.
By the time they’d reached the hospital, Delene had lost consciousness. She was taken into surgery almost immediately. He’d stopped breathing around the same time
Coming over to join them, Dax gave his younger brother an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry, bro. She’s going to be all right.”
“Yeah,” Jared chimed in, approaching from the other direction. “If she can put up with you, she can handle anything.”
His nerves were at the edge of endurance. Delene had been shot trying to save him. Why hadn’t he gone in with her in the first place? Why had he just let her walk off like that? He gave Jared an impatient look. “Is this your idea of being supportive?”
“Pretty much,” Janelle told him, coming out of the chapel to join the others. “You know they were all raised in a cave.” She flashed a smile at him, a smile that told him everything would turn out all right. “Except for me, of course.”
“You?” Dax hooted. “You’re the worst of us all. Why—”
The teasing abruptly halted as a heavyset surgeon dressed in green scrubs came through the double doors that separated Operating Room One from the rest of the hospital. He looked tired, but pleased.
Troy was the first to reach him.
Out of respect for their nerves and because he was tired, the surgeon gave them the short version. “She’s going to be fine.” He looked at the only man with blood on his shirt and made the correct assessment. “You’re Troy, right?” Troy nodded, not quite trusting his own voice yet. “She’s asking for you. Only a few minutes,” he cautioned. “She needs her rest.” He pointed to a set of doors beside the operating room. “Recovery’s right through there.”
“Give her our love, boy,” Andrew said, patting him on the back to send him on his way.
“Remember, you can’t give her your own until she’s well enough,” Clay called after him.
Troy only heard voices, not words. His attention was fixed on getting to Delene’s side. Everything else was secondary.
***
She looked frail and small in the hospital bed, he thought when he finally approached Delene.
His heart tightened in his chest.
If that bullet had been just a few inches to the right
, then she would have been…
He shut the thought from his mind, unable to even complete it.
She turned her head toward him just before he reached her. “Hi,” she said weakly.
He took her right hand in his, needing to touch her, to feel that she was warm and alive instead of cold.
“Hi,” he echoed. He struggled for breath, feeling like a man who had been on the marathon run of his life. “The doctor says you’re going to be all right.”
“I am.” She smiled weakly. “Now that you’re here.” Her eyes felt very heavy, but there were things she had to know. Things she had to hear now, in order to find peace. “Did I imagine it? Is he really dead?”
Still holding her hand, Troy smiled. “Coroner seems to think so. They took him away in a body bag. You’re free now, Delene.” Emotion choked him. It could have so easily gone otherwise. “Free to live your life any way you want to.” He pressed a kiss to her hand. “I’m hoping that you want to live it with me.”
She looked at him, having only enough strength to raise one corner of her mouth in a smile. “Not when all you want to kiss is my hand.” She took a deep breath, then another, before continuing. “What made you come back?”
Luck. And a surge of stubbornness, he thought now. “I wanted to propose.”
“Propose?” Her head was swimming. He couldn’t mean what she thought he did. “Propose what?”
“Marriage.”
She blinked. Was she dreaming? No, her body ached too much for this to be a dream. “To me?”
He laughed. “Well, it wouldn’t have been to your ex.”
He was going to propose. To her. The words replayed themselves in her head several times, bringing a little more joy with them each time.
She had to know. “What were you going to say?”
Troy took a breath, as if preparing, then said, “I was going to say, ‘Will you marry me?’”
She blinked, waiting. “And that’s all?”
“Why?” He grinned at her. Only Delene would argue about the length of a proposal. “Isn’t that enough?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Seeing as how it’s you, yes, it’s enough.”
It was his turn to wait. In vain. Maybe this was going too fast for her, he thought. He didn’t want her to think he was crowding her. “You can have all the time you want to think about it.”
A little of her old spirit was making a comeback. “I don’t need any time to think about it. I already know what my answer is going to be.” She smiled, both sides of her mouth now curving. “Yes. My answer’s yes. Provided that you kiss something other than my hand to seal the bargain.”
Kneeling beside her bed, Troy bent over and very lightly kissed her lips.
“Better,” she murmured. “Much better.” Her eyes crinkled as she looked at him. “Do it again.”
And he did.
SILHOUETTE BOOKS
ISBN 1-55254-462-1
THE WOMAN WHO WASN’T THERE
Copyright © 2006 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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Table of Contents
To Tiffany Khauo and Eddie S. Wu. I wish you love, now and forever.
Chapter 1 The feeling of danger threaded itself through the atmosphere, permeating every inch around her. Pulsating. Feeding the kernel of fear within her until it threatened to take over. The fear stole the very air away from her. She began to choke. The panic was tangible. This isn’t real. It’s not real. The words throbbed within her head, a mantra she clung to even as she felt herself cascading down the rapids of mounting terror. And then she heard his voice. She heard it inside her head before it even reached her ears. “Don’t even think about it. Don’t even think about running away. Don’t you know you can’t?” The voice mocked her without an iota of mirth. “There isn’t a corner of this earth where you can run to hide from me. Not for long. Because I’ll find you. And when I do, you’ll learn what it means to cross me.” “I could shred the very skin off your bones and no one’ll lift a finger to help you. No one’ll lift a finger against me.” “Do you understand?” The words, disembodied, b
SILHOUETTE BOOKS ISBN 1-55254-462-1 THE WOMAN WHO WASN’T THERE Copyright © 2006 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A. All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registe
Coming Next Month If you enjoyed the e-book you just read, then you’ll love what we have for you next month! ON SALE IN JUNE 2006 THE BODYGUARD’S PROMISE by Carla Cassidy, Silhouette Intimate Moments AVAILABLE NOW RAW TALENT by Debra Webb, Harlequin Intrigue THE WOMAN WHO WASN’T THERE by Marie Ferrarella, Silhouette Intimate Moments AT CLOSE RANGE by Jessica Andersen, Harlequin Intrigue INVESTIGATING 101 by Debra Webb, Harlequin Intrigue A HUSBAND’S WATCH by Karen Templeton, Silhouette Intimate Moments MAN OF HER DREAMS by Debra Webb, Harlequin Intrigue LOVING THE LONE WOLF by Ingrid Weaver, Silhouette Intimate Moments GHOST HORSE by Patricia Rosemoor, Harlequin Intrigue SUSPICIOUS by Heather Graham, Silhouette In
timate Moments RIDER ON FIRE by Sharon Sala, Silhouette Intimate Moments SECURITY MEASURES by Joanna Wayne, Harlequin Intrigue EPIPHANY by Rita Heron, Mallery Kane, Debra Webb, Harlequin Intrigue FEELS LIKE HOME by Maggie Shayne, Silhouette Intimate Moments RICOCHET by Jes
10
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Unnamed
The Woman Who Wasn't There Page 18