Alex looked at the dark storm in Dylan’s eyes and hated that she was the one to put it there. She felt downright miserable. “I’m sorry, Dylan, I should have realized my question would upset you.”
“Upset me?” he repeated. “Think back, Alex. From what you remember of our marriage, how could you honestly think I had cheated on you?”
“No, I don’t.” She felt heat simmering deep within her as she sifted through her known memories of what she and Dylan had shared. “I’m still trying to figure all this out, and the only way I could do it was to look at every angle so I could better comprehend it.” A tear slowly made its way down her cheek.
At the sight of that tear Dylan felt his anger subside a little bit. “Did you really think reading the paperwork would bring your memory back? Did it make you feel any better to read a bunch of legalese?” He dug into his back pocket, pulled out a crumpled tissue and handed it to her. She smiled her thanks and dabbed at her eyes.
“I went back and forth about reading it. I wanted to know, but I didn’t want to know that way. Then I guess I convinced myself that if I did read it, everything would come flooding back.” She delicately blew her nose. Alex sighed. “I don’t like having a part of my life missing. I feel as if I’ve lost control.”
“You have lost control.” She winced at his ruthless statement. “So you have to do things differently for a while. Think about it as a change for the better, as the perfect excuse for not remembering something or someone. You literally can’t remember,” he gently teased.
She wanted to ask him if there could be a second chance for her. “Maybe it’s significant that I only remember the good parts of our marriage,” she said.
Dylan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, rolling his water bottle between his palms. “Maybe it is.”
Alex crumpled the tissue in her hand until it resembled a small paper ball and smiled wryly. “Now I understand the look on your face when you came to the emergency room.”
“I thought one of my so-called buddies had set me up for a practical joke,” he explained. “I didn’t expect to see you looking as if a truck ran over you.” His fingers tightened around his water bottle.
“Considering our past I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d left me there. I owe you a great deal of thanks,” she said softly. “I release you from bodyguard duty.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Alex, as long as those guys are out there. I don’t want you to be afraid of anything.”
“I’m not afraid,” she insisted, but her protest fell a bit flat. She started to reach out to him, then held back. Dylan took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. He leaned back against the bench and lifted his face to the morning sun.
“Then let’s just sit here and enjoy the morning,” he said.
Alex closed her eyes and allowed the warmth of the sun to wash over her face, and listened to the distant plop of a tennis ball hitting a racket and the hum of faint voices coming from the tennis court. Her eyes popped open.
Dylan opened an eye. “Can’t relax?”
“I feel that I should be doing something even if it’s just walking.”
“That’s why you need to sit here and veg a little,” he told her. “Just close your eyes and be one with nature.”
She burst out laughing. “That sounds like something from a yoga class.”
“Oh, yeah, me pretending I could bend myself into a pretzel. Wouldn’t that be a sight?” He chuckled. “No thanks, I’m sticking with softball and basketball. Manly sports,” he intoned in a deep voice.
“Stop it!” Alex hit him with her water bottle. Her laughter turned into an unladylike snort.
Dylan choked. “Hey! That’s assault on a police officer.” He grabbed at her bottle but she held it out of his reach. “We’re talking an arrestable offense.”
“Arrestable? Really? We’re talking handcuffs and mug shots and fingerprints?”
“And strip search,” he said, leaning over her as she leaned backward, keeping her arm out over her head. “So hand over your weapon.”
Alex realized that their position had Dylan draped over her, chest to breast, hips to hips. She started to shift her body, then realized her movement had caught his attention. She froze.
Dylan seemed to hold his breath as he looked down at her. She felt his breath warm on her lips, as if he had whispered a kiss across them. The longing for the real thing welled up inside her.
“Dylan?” Alex whispered. “If we stay like this for too long we’ll attract attention.”
“Yeah, well, if I get up too soon I’ll attract even more attention,” he muttered. “Just wait a second.” He inhaled deeply a few times.
Alex shifted her body to relieve the strain on her lower back.
“Dammit, Alex! Don’t move!” he ordered between clenched teeth. A moment later, he backed away. He didn’t look at her as he swallowed the last of his water. “Sorry about that.”
She turned sideways and drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Sorry as Dylan, the ex-husband, or sorry as Dylan, the detective-slash-bodyguard?”
“Probably both.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Let’s see how we finish this walk.”
Alex placed her hand in his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. A flash of light near the tennis courts caught her attention.
“Do you see something?” Dylan asked.
She hesitated. “A couple of times I’ve seen what looks like the sun bouncing off something by the tennis courts,” she replied. “Maybe it’s just a piece of glass.”
He looked over in that direction. “But you don’t think so.”
“I’ve gotten too suspicious lately.” She continued looking down the path, then turned to Dylan with a silent plea.
“Okay, we’ll check it out right now. Think you can find the exact spot?” he asked.
“Pretty sure.” She started walking back the way they came. As they walked, Alex swung her gaze between the tennis courts and the building that held her condo. The closer they drew to the courts, she started looking upward, counting off balconies until she found hers. “Around here,” she said, veering off to the side and walking over to the row of shrubbery that surrounded the courts. She stared at the shrubbery, then up at the building. “Here, I think.”
Dylan nodded and moved in for a closer look but kept his feet on the path. Alex stood behind him, looking over his shoulder.
“Do you see footprints or a gum wrapper or monogrammed cigarette case that can be traced back to its owner?” she asked.
He glanced at her. “We’re not Nick and Nora Charles, Alex.”
She shook her head in confusion. “Who?”
“We really must talk about your education regarding the cinema’s most famous amateur detectives.” He carefully pushed aside one bush to look behind it. “Hello.”
“What? What did you find?” She stood up on her tiptoes to get a better look at whatever he found.
“Footprints that don’t look like they’d belong to the maintenance workers.”
“How do you know that?” She almost rested her chin on his shoulder.
“These look more like footprints belonging to hard-soled shoes, not work boots a gardener would wear.” He looked at the fence and beyond. “Our best bet is to head back to the balcony and see if you see that flash of light from here again. Then we’ll see what we find.”
Alex warmed at his use of “we.”
“What if I got out more? If these men are still around they’d follow us, right? And you’d have a chance to catch them and find out what they want from me,” she suggested.
“What I would do is turn them over to Whitmire since he’s in charge of this case,” Dylan said, starting back to the building. “I can’t imagine anyone would be dumb enough to stay out here for too long. The security lights are placed close enough together that it isn’t easy for anyone to remain unnoticed.”
When they entered the condo, Alex noticed her voice-mail
-message light blinking on her phone. She picked it up and pressed for messages.
“Good thing Janet listed all my passwords,” she murmured, punching in a code. She jotted down notes on a pad by the phone and hung up. “Janet wants me to call her. A few of my clients are demanding to see me,” she explained, punching out the office number, then Janet’s extension number. “Hi, Janet, it’s me.” She picked up her notepad and walked over to a chair.
“We have four clients who won’t be put off,” her assistant informed her. “They’re not interested in my explanation you were in an accident.”
“Are any of these people in the paperwork I looked at the other day?” Alex glanced at Dylan, who was stretched out on the couch with a happy Clarence curled up on his stomach, purring like a well-tuned engine.
“All of them. Is that a problem?” Janet gave Alex the names.
Alex made a face. “These are all clients I’ve picked up within the past two years.” She made eye contact with Dylan again.
“I used the story you asked me to. That you had been in an accident and were out on medical leave. I referred the troublemakers to Will’s office. But none of them want to talk to Will, they want to talk to you.”
“Just a minute, Janet.” She covered the receiver and relayed the news to Dylan. “If one of them is involved, they could be calling to keep the heat off them.”
“Keep the heat off?” he repeated with a chuckle as he rubbed the cat behind his ears. “Yep, I really need to work on your cop education.”
“Janet, just be firm and tell them I’m still under a doctor’s care. Tell them I’m very sorry about this but it can’t be helped. If any of them act out of the ordinary, please let Dylan know right away. You have his cell-phone number, right?”
“Yes, but what do you consider out of the ordinary? Yelling at me? Crying because you can’t look over a new contract? You’ve always been available to them so they don’t know how to act without you.”
“I’m sorry about all this, Janet, but we both know I couldn’t be effective for them.” Alex closed her eyes and thought for a moment. “Do me a favor and e-mail me a list of who called and what their problems are.”
“You’re thinking it’s one of them, aren’t you?”
“I can’t afford to overlook anything. If anyone we don’t know comes in asking for me, write down a description along with the name, please.”
“So far it’s only been present clients, but I’ll alert Reception. Are you doing all right? Have you remembered anything?”
“Not really,” Alex replied, looking around at a room she still didn’t remember and at an ex-husband she did. He looked inquiringly at her. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“Nothing that matters. Does this mean I’ll see a nice bonus this year?”
“I could say yes and when my memory comes back I won’t remember I said yes, will I?” she teased. “Is there anything else?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay. Call me if anything else important comes up.”
“Pushy clients?” Dylan asked when Alex finished her call.
“Not just pushy clients, but pushy clients I don’t remember,” she said. “Janet’s going to e-mail me the details. Maybe something will sound familiar. I’ll tell you what I can after I read it over.”
“Which will be next to nothing.” He picked up a throw pillow and wedged it behind his head.
Alex jumped up and began pacing back and forth. “I can’t just stay here and do nothing. I’m not used to all this inactivity.”
For a split second Dylan thought of an activity that could take up most of the day and be enjoyable for the both of them.
Down, boy! He silently ordered his libido. Not a good time to be thinking about this. Then he noticed the way her breasts seemed to brush against the soft fabric of her top and how the end of her ponytail brushed the top of her shoulders. And the way her thighs were outlined by the clingy pants. Yep, definitely time to get out of here again!
“If you think you remember what that driver looks like we can go down to the station where you can talk to our sketch artist,” Dylan offered as a diversion. “We probably should have done it right after we lost the driver.”
“I’ll be back in a minute.” She disappeared into her bedroom and reappeared five minutes later with a fresh coat of peach gloss on her lips. “I’m ready.” She wasted no time picking up her purse and sunglasses.
Dylan, who had been prepared to wait a minimum of half an hour for Alex to apply makeup and change into something more appropriate, looked up, surprised. He picked up Clarence and set him on the end of the couch. “Aren’t you going to change first?”
She looked down at herself. “Why? Everything’s still clean.” She checked herself again. “Not what I normally wear in public?”
“To yoga class, but that’s it.”
“I’m changing,” Alex said, hearing a new firmness in her voice as she walked to the door. “And it’s not my clothes, either.”
Dylan admired the gentle sway of her trim hips as she walked. “Fine by me,” he murmured. “Change is a good thing.”
As they walked down to his truck, Dylan kept a close eye on their surroundings. He didn’t feel as if they were in danger, but he did feel as if they were being observed.
Alex was surprising him by the minute. Even if they hadn’t really talked during the past two years, he knew Alex wouldn’t have left home in such casual clothing unless she was heading for her yoga class. Not to mention she would have worn more makeup than lip gloss.
“Could we stop for an iced mocha-mint-chip frappuccino on the way?” she asked, looking over her shoulder as they descended the stairs.
Dylan smiled. “Your wish is my command.”
Soon Alex was ensconced at the sketch artist’s desk, where he patiently had her repeat what she remembered. She was able to give him a fairly accurate description of the man she’d seen.
“He doesn’t look familiar to me, which means he’s not local,” Detective Whitmire said, studying the final sketch. “But I’ll see what I can do.” His head snapped up at the rude slurping sound of a straw sucking up the last of an iced cappuccino.
“Sorry.” Alex offered an apologetic smile. She dropped her empty cup in the wastebasket.
“How did you manage to do this in just a few days?” Detective Whitmire asked Dylan under his breath so Alex wouldn’t overhear.
“Do what?”
“According to her coworkers, Ms. Spencer is known to be a very detail-oriented, extremely conservative woman.” He made a slight gesture with his hand in Alex’s direction. “Someone who believes in making a good impression at all times.”
Dylan shrugged. “It’s Casual Friday.”
Detective Whitmire ground his teeth. “I don’t know how Detective Dante can work with you.”
“She’s reforming me. Will you call me if you get a hit on that sketch?”
“Sure.”
Dylan looked over at Alex. “I’ve got to see the lieutenant for a moment, then I’ll be right back.”
She nodded.
When Dylan walked into his superior’s office he found the man giving him a look that didn’t bode well for him.
“You left a message that you wanted to see me, sir.” He didn’t have a good feeling about this meeting.
“I understand Ms. Spencer saw the man she believed to be the one who attacked her and she provided us with a description. And that when she saw this man you gave chase.”
“Yes, sir.” Dylan shifted from one foot to the other.
“Even with our having a description, there still isn’t enough to pursue this case much more,” he said.
“Then I want to take some of my vacation time,” Dylan said instantly. “I’m not going to leave her alone, Lieu.”
Lieutenant Adams smiled. “Now, how did I know you’d say that? You realize if you’re taking vacation time you’re officially off duty?”
“I can work with that.” Dy
lan nodded as he stood up and left the office.
He found Alex tense when he returned to her. He didn’t need to be a mind reader to know she was eager to get out of there.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as they walked out of the station.
She shook her head. “I listened to them talk about how cases can’t be solved after what seems like a short period of time and it’s frustrating.”
“Forty-eight hours and a case starts getting cold unless evidence comes up,” he admitted. “It’s pretty standard.”
“Not when you’re talking about my safety!” she shouted at him, suddenly hitting him with her purse. She spun on her heel and stalked off.
It took Dylan a second to register that Alex’s temper was flaring hot. Knowing he was putting himself in danger’s way, he quickly ran to catch up. “What do you think you’re doing?” He grasped her arm and spun her around.
“Let go of me!” She batted him with her hands. Her cheeks were flushed with temper while her entire body was strung tighter than a violin. She looked ready for a good old-fashioned fight.
“You can’t be out here alone.” The minute the words left his mouth he knew he was in big trouble.
Alex narrowed her eyes to fiery green slits. “Guess what, Parker, I was fully able to take care of myself just fine before you came along and I obviously have done it for the past two years. Go back and tell the lieutenant he’s welcome to you. This puppy is doing this her way.” She turned and started to walk off, but Dylan grabbed her arm again and pulled her back to him. “I said let me go!”
Dylan’s temper flared up just as quickly. “Right, Alex, you’ve done such a good job of taking care of yourself that someone’s after you for something you can’t even remember. It’s that kind of thinking that gets people killed!”
She breathed deeply, but there was no way she was keeping her temper in check. “You told me to make a choice and I did.”
The barb hit its mark with deadly accuracy. She could tell by the tightening of his lips. Even if she didn’t remember the origin of the line, he did. Then just as quickly, he reverted to cop mode. “So help me, Alex, if I have to put you in handcuffs and haul you back there, I will.”
Memories After Midnight Page 15