Not Without You

by Taylor, Janelle

  Jarred thought of the perfectly dressed woman he’d encountered earlier and couldn’t imagine calling her anything even remotely maternal. What was happening to him? He knew certain information as fact, but bits and pieces floated around without direction inside his head— the flotsam and jetsam of an unwanted past.

  “Did you know I was taking that flight that day?” Jarred asked.

  Will shook his head. “It was a Sunday, and you’d said something on Thursday about leaving for the weekend, but apparently you didn’t leave till Sunday afternoon.”

  “I changed my flight plan?”

  “Uh-uh. It was always set for’Sunday afternoon. At least that’s what the official report says. And Mary Hennessy said you seemed normal, so…” He shrugged.

  “Mary Hennessy?” Jarred asked, honestly confused.

  “Damn.” Will exhaled on a soft breath. “Your cook. The family’s cook for all the years you’ve been alive on this planet. Don’t tell me you don’t remember her, Jarred. She’s like an institution!”

  Memory arrived like a bullet—and with a certain amount of pain attached, as if it had actually blasted into his brain. Mary Hennessy. Late fifties. No sense of humor. Dour and solid and honest as the day was long. His sometime cook and housekeeper since she’d semiretired after leaving Nola’s employ.

  He suddenly felt extremely weary. As if on cue, Dr. Alastair stepped into the room. Glancing toward Jarred, he said rather sharply to Will, “Excuse me please while I examine the patient.” Will’s brows lifted. “When Sarah arrives, tell her I’ll be at the office late. I want to talk to her.”

  Alastair’s lips thinned in disapproval as he waited for Will to exit. Jarred almost smiled, but the effort was too great. Instead he resigned himself for another brain probe from the well-meaning, but far too serious Dr. Alastair.

  “I’ve contacted a specialist from New York. He’s interested in your case.”

  Now Jarred really wanted to laugh. He closed his eyes and counted to five. “Because I’m an amnesiac?”

  Alastair nodded. “It appears that against my direct orders, members of your family have been filling in the blanks for you.”

  Jarred sighed. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a few memories of my own.”

  “Oh?”

  “I just need time.” He lifted his lids and gave the doctor a long look. “I just don’t feel like jumping into my old life without a net. Do you understand?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “Let them all talk to me,” Jarred directed. “It’s not going to hurt. Take care of the physical side of things, Doc, and let me do the rest.”

  “Are you saying your memory has returned?”

  “Yes—at least partially.”

  “But you want to keep this information from members of your family and your business associates?”

  “I’m saying there’s a Detective Newcastle who wants to talk to me about a plane crash, and I’ve got a feeling it’s not because we simply ran out of gas. I’m not a trusting man, and I don’t trust anyone here.”

  “I’m not going to lie for you, Mr. Bryant.” The doctor was stiff.

  “I’ve got gaps in my memory. The accident’s still a complete loss. Maybe it’ll come back. Maybe it won’t. You’ll be telling the truth if you say I can’t remember anything about the plane crash.”

  Alastair considered. “Detective Newcastle wants to see you as soon as you’re able.”

  “Fine.” Jarred sighed. “He won’t learn anything, but I’ll see him.”

  Dr. Alastair nodded. He seemed slightly disappointed, and Jarred could well imagine how unhappy he would feel to have to tell the eminent specialist that his star amnesiar’s memory had partially returned.

  “Oh, and I’d like my wife to be here, too, when the detective comes,” Jarred added as the doctor turned to leave. “Could you arrange that? I don’t want anyone else.”

  “I’ll call her.”

  “Jarred?”

  A tall woman with short, styled blond hair and a strong chin stepped into the room. She gave the doctor a brief, cold smile. Warm, she was not, and Jarred knew instantly that this was Sarah Ackerman.

  Dr. Alastair sent Jarred an askance look. Jarred’s own weariness must have transmitted itself to him because he said, “Mr. Bryant just asked that he be given some uninterrupted rest. He’s already been severely overtaxed.”

  “I won’t stay long.”

  No amount of hinting affected the Sarah Ackermans of the world. Jarred suddenly remembered a time when she literally stood between him and Kelsey at a party, as if believing that would somehow bring him to heel. He wondered why he’d put up with her for so long. The answer followed instantly: He’d wanted to make Kelsey jealous.

  Jarred physically jerked at the stinging memory. “I feel… fuzzy,” he murmured.

  “I’ll be quick,” she pressed.

  “I think tomorrow’s a better time,” Dr. Alastair said, taking the initiative, and against Sarah’s protests, he led her into the hall.

  “I’ll be there,” Kelsey said. “Two o’clock tomorrow. Thanks.” She hung up the phone and stared at it as if it were some poisonous snake. Jarred had requested she be at the meeting between him and Detective Newcastle?

  She sank down on the bed in her tiny condominium and stared at the blank cream walls. She’d never decorated. She’d never had the time. She’d spent every moment of the last three years either working or sleeping. She hadn’t been able to make a complete life for herself away from Jarred.

  And now he was pulling her back into his life.

  Felix, her yellow tabby, curled himself around her legs and purred and meowed for attention. Absently, she fondled his ears, her thoughts traveling long unused pathways to very exciting possibilities.

  Jarred wanted her, and it was shocking how good that felt.

  Chapter Three

  Brrrinng! Brrrinng!

  The phone rang insistently from inside Kelsey’s office, Grabbing the handle of the sliding door that led into her converted loft, she heaved with all her might. The forest green metal door eased backward with a protesting squeak and rattle, part of the charm of these redone warehouse units two blocks off Elliott Bay.

  Brrrinng!

  “Don’t hang up,” she yelled across the room.

  After running across the scarred oak floor, she snatched up the receiver on the fly. “Taggart Interiors,” she answered breathlessly.

  “There you are. I’d about given up on you.”

  “Oh, hi, Trevor.” She groped blindly among the papers on her desk for a buried pen. Her coffee sat where she’d left it before her morning meeting with the decorative hardware people who were trying to squeeze an additional dollar out of each and every cabinet knob. Considering that Phase One of Trevor’s current condominium project required about 200 knobs per unit, and there were 800 units to eventually complete, that was a lot of dollars. Kelsey wasn’t about to give in without a fight.

  Eyeing her coffee, she wrinkled her nose, then grabbed the paper cup anyway and swallowed a huge gulp, closing her mind to the fact that it was cold and bitter and downright awful.

  “I’ve left ten messages already,” Trevor grumbled.

  “You’re such an exaggerator.” She glanced at her answering machine and saw that there were actually two messages waiting for her. “I had a meeting with Puget Sound Hardware this morning, those rapists, but I’m making some progress.” She thought about mentioning her pending afternoon appointment with Jarred and Detective Newcastle but immediately rejected the idea. Trevor wasn’t known for being closemouthed.

  “Good. Good. At least you’re back on the job.”

  Kelsey’s mouth quirked. “Jarred’s better, thanks. Really improving. Nice of you to ask.”

  Trevor snorted in embarrassment, momentarily chastised. Still Trevor Taggart, Kelsey’s boss, wasn’t known for being the understanding type either. Since the accident, he hadn’t expressed any emotion except impatience at the time o
ff Kelsey had needed to take. A round man with a dapper sense of style that somehow always appeared slightly comical on his rotund figure, Trevor could be exacting and temperamental and bullish. Kelsey had gone to work for him after a short stint as an assistant to an even more exacting, temperamental, and bullish interior designer. She had been almost grateful when Trevor rescued her. Of course, that was before she’d met and married Jarred Bryant and found she was working for Jarred’s most head-to-head competitor in the race to purchase prime real estate around the Seattle area and convert tired, run-down, and outdated properties into aesthetically beautiful and practical new offices, condominiums, apartments, and town houses. She’d half expected Jarred to insist that she give up her position, but in those days, Jarred had seemed more amused by his young wife’s position than threatened by it. In the long run, Kelsey’s job had proved to be her lifeline and had offered far more permanence and satisfaction than her crumbling marriage.

  Taggart Inc., parent company of her small division, Taggart Interiors—if you could seriously call her oneperson office a division—was a varied business with tentacles reaching into all aspects of real estate development. It wasn’t quite as large as Bryant Industries nor as diverse as Jarred’s company, which over the years had bought and sold divisions as dissimilar as art galleries and sanitation companies along with the ongoing real estate development. Kelsey had once toyed with the idea of working for her husband’s business, but Jarred hadn’t seemed all that keen on hiring her, and she’d thanked her lucky stars later when she learned that her career, not her husband, would turn out to be the most important aspect in her life.

  “So what’s the prognosis?” Trevor asked now.

  “I’m not sure. It’s a day-by-day thing.”

  “But he will be all right, won’t he?”

  “I think so. All his physical injuries appear to be on the mend, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason that he won’t be on his feet again in the next few weeks or months. I don’t know. Sometime anyway.”

  “You sound… unsure how to feel.”

  “I just want him to recover.”

  “Well, of course you do. I wasn’t saying that!”

  “I know what you were saying.”

  “What? What was I saying?” Trevor demanded.

  “Never mind.”

  “Kelsey, just get over here. I want you to come down to the condos. Mitch is going to be there with plans for Phase Two, and I want to get some ideas percolating.”

  “Trevor, I’m fighting with the hardware people and it’s difficult enough right now for me to stay on task. Needless to say, my brain is not in full gear. I just feel…” She let her voice drift off as his words sank in. “We’re going ahead with Phase Two?” she asked in surprise. “When did that happen?”

  “Last night!” he crowed. “Score one for the good guys. I’m sorry about Jarred, but I can’t say I’m sorry about Bryant Industries losing out to us again.”

  “But I thought Bryant Industries had that property wrapped up!”

  “I know, I know.” It was all he could do to not sound gleeful.

  “I’m sure Jarred thought that property was his.” Kelsey’s brows puckered. For all her declarations about her husband and his business, she didn’t like to hear that he’d actually been beaten out of something as important as this particular piece of real estate. Especially now. It was so wrong.

  But the worst of it was that Jarred probably couldn’t remember one thing about the project anyway.

  “I’m sure we’ll hear some repercussions and the obligatory whining out of some folks from Bryant Industries, but it won’t change anything. I’ve been meeting with the owners of that property for months, Kelsey, and they just weren’t happy with the terms of Bryant Industries’ offer.”

  “But they signed, didn’t they? I mean, there’s bound to be a law suit.”

  “Some conditions weren’t completely ironed out,” he said breezily. “It’s ours now.”

  Ours… Kelsey didn’t like the sound of that. What Trevor called Phase Two was actually a section of prime real estate that overlooked Elliott Bay and had been bid on and bargained over for years. The last she’d heard, Bryant Industries had sewn up the deal, promising to keep with the facades of the decaying buildings that stood on the grounds, stripping the interiors to the steel beams but maintaining the architecture and general feel. Even the Historical Society had okayed and applauded Jarred’s efforts. When Trevor had made noise about trying to scoop up the property, Kelsey had just assumed it was too late.

  And Trevor had a tendency to slash and burn when it came to saving historical buildings rather than spending the extra effort to restore their original beauty. Kelsey, in the years she’d spent working for Trevor, had tried hard to get him to keep from throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

  Also she knew Jarred had been working on the deal for over two years. Kelsey might have been having her own problems with Jarred, but she very much wanted his company to be the developers of what Trevor had tagged his Phase Two.

  “I don’t know what to say, Trevor.”

  “Hey, I’m not trying to sound like a ghoul. You did just say Jarred’s recovering, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then…?”

  “It’s just going to take time, Trevor. Jarred needs time and so do I. But I’ll come to the condos. I need to do something anyway, and after all, I’m employed by Taggart Inc.”

  “That’s right. Get on down here and stop thinking about Jarred for a while.”

  “Okay…”

  “I mean it, you know.” Trevor’s voice was a tad less brusque than usual.

  “I’ll be there,” she said through a thick throat. Good Lord, she was on emotional burnout. With Chance dead and Jarred in the hospital, she felt unstable and weak and totally unlike herself.

  Pull yourself together, Kelsey.

  Grabbing her purse, she hurried to the warehouse elevator—a wrought-iron contraption with its own sliding, collapsible door and rickety, jerking movements. Her thoughts touched on Jarred and the two o’clock meeting. She could just pop in on Trevor and placate him, then she was off to the hospital again.

  Still consumed by a feeling of unreality, she pushed the button to descend. The elevator groaned and bucked before moving at a snail’s pace to the lower floor. To the uninitiated it was a heart-in-the-throat ride, but Kelsey was so inured to the elevator’s series of jolts and rattles that she scarcely noticed any longer. And today her thoughts were full of Jarred and Chance and a lot of jumbled emotions she was pretty sure she didn’t even want to touch.

  The condos were a hefty walk from Kelsey’s warehouse office—a rented space that Taggart Inc. paid for because it was closer to the work site than the company’s headquarters just north of Seattle proper. Trevor also rented a second office nearer to the site, but his suite of rooms was on the fourteenth floor of a rather ugly modern building on the next block. In his quest to keep up with Jarred, he was in negotiations to purchase that building, as well, but so far no deal had been inked. Trevor only wanted it because it was near Bryant Industries’ headquarters and Jarred’s company owned the building that housed their corporate headquarters. Trevor just hated being behind in any race with Jarred.

  Kelsey passed Bryant Industries’ headquarters on the walk and glanced skyward. Trevor lusted after Jarred’s building as well. It was only six floors—a relic from the early part of the century surrounded by newer, taller additions to the skyline—but its brick Georgian facade and stately columns were a pleasant diversion from the steel-and-glass architecture surrounding it. Apart from a bank and a restaurant on the street floor and several attorneys’ offices on the third and fourth, Bryant Industries occupied most of the available space, and its very existence was a source of envy for Trevor. Kelsey knew her boss’s eccentricities and insecurities, and she also understood her own role in his overall plan. But he paid well and appreciated her, and he gave her the independence that had he
lped her survive her marriage.

  Still, Trevor wasn’t exactly Mr. Aesthetic and it was lucky he hadn’t been able to get his hands on Jarred’s building. With his tastes, he would likely strip the place of all its natural beauty and history in his quest for renovation and modernization. Sometimes, with Trevor, she felt as if she were the lone soldier fighting an entire army bent on demolition. However, he wasn’t really about destroying the old to make room for the new. He just didn’t get it.

  “Oh, shoot,” Kelsey muttered, bending her head against a gust of sudden rain. She’d forgotten her umbrella. Scurrying bareheaded through the misting precipitation, she reached the condos half an hour later. Trevor was pacing back and forth in the open model unit. “There you are!” he declared. “My God, Kelsey. Learn to use an umbrella. Or bring a hat. You’ll drip over everything.”

  Tara, one of Trevor’s employees who was currently sitting the model, shot Kelsey a sympathetic look. They both knew how fussy Trevor could be, and they both gave him a certain amount of lip service before doing exactly as they pleased.

  “You’re right,” Kelsey told him now, finger combing her curling tresses. “Where’s Mitch?”

  “He’ll be right along.” Trevor instantly forgot Kelsey’s appearance. Though short and round, Trevor nevertheless possessed a natural bearing and leadership that made others respond with deference. “You said Jarred’s physical injuries were on the mend. What about the rest of him?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Is he still the same bastard you married?”

  “Trevor, that is a truly rotten thing to say,” Kelsey said softly.

  He grimaced at his own tastelessness. “You’re right,” he said, sounding almost contrite. “I’m sorry.” Then he added with a sly grin, “But is he?”

  “Oh, for the love of Pete,” Kelsey muttered.

  “Trevor.” Tara sighed. “You really are the limit.”

  “People don’t change overnight. I was just asking. Anyway, it sounds like he’s going to be his old self again. That’s good.”

  Kelsey didn’t respond. Even Jarred didn’t want to be his old self again, and she sure as heck didn’t want him to be.