Born in Mystery

by Susan Kearney

  “I’ve always thought women with dark hair possessed exotic attributes. Now I know it’s true. I like your hair dark.”

  Damn it. She needed the license, and he didn’t seem inclined to give it up. Her nerves stretched taut. Keep the conversation light, she reminded herself. “Seems to me you like redheads and blondes, as well.”

  He looked down at the license. “My favorite . . .”

  His thumb moved. He stared at the license. His eyes narrowed. He frowned.

  Fear scrambled down her neck, trampled over her spine and twisted in her stomach.

  He knew.

  His hand trembled. He dropped the license. His fingers closed into a fist. One look at the rage in his gaze, the hard set of his jaw, and she took a step back.

  “You lied to me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your name isn’t Warren, is it?”

  “No.”

  She bit her inside cheek, despising herself for her sudden fear. If he put everything together, and he would, she couldn’t blame him if he abandoned her after what she had done. The power she now held over him would break a stronger man.

  He lowered his voice to a menacing hiss. “The name Warren is the name on our marriage license.”

  “Yes.”

  “You married me using a fake name?”

  “Yes.”

  His voice turned flat, cold. “And exactly what are the legal ramifications of your lie?”

  Oh, God. Clearly he’d already guessed most of the truth. She didn’t want to tell him the rest. Couldn’t face the affection he’d shown her changing to loathing.

  She chewed her bottom lip nervously. “According to California law, our marriage isn’t valid.”

  Chapter Nine

  “WHAT THE HELL do you mean our marriage isn’t valid?” Craig’s rage had every muscle bundled tight enough to slam his fist into the wall. He’d insisted on marriage to protect him from the chance of a surrogate changing her mind and fighting him for custody. And now, Bianca had stripped that protection from him.

  With the blinds drawn back, bright daylight poured into the kitchen. Highlighted by the sun streaming through the windows, she edged back from him. He stood a few feet away, his back to the ocean.

  Every cell in him wanted to shake her.

  And from her face she recognized she might have pushed too far. He saw a wariness in her eyes along with the guilt. And he steeled himself against her hurt and pain. She was the guilty party here.

  The reality of what she’d done suddenly hit him with the force of a heavyweight’s punch. He’d made love to a woman who had given him a fake name. If he hadn’t seen her driver’s license, she’d be lying to him still. She could have gotten him killed, his babies killed.

  “Deliberately lying about my name invalidates our marriage contract,” she admitted.

  With her admission, betrayal knocked him breathless. Pain rocked him back on his heels. He’d trusted her with his children. How could he have been such a fool?

  Anger and bitterness hardened his tone. “Your real name is Bianca Roberts?”

  “Yes.”

  He shot questions at her with the speed of bullets.

  “You are pregnant?”

  Pink rose to her cheeks, but she kept her voice even. “Yes.”

  “With my children?”

  She flinched. “Yes, your children. I never had any intention—”

  “I don’t give a damn about your intentions.” He loomed over her, his face inches from hers.

  “But—”

  “You lied from the beginning. You used me. You placed my children in danger.”

  “Not intentionally.”

  He swatted her words aside like flies. “You asked me to protect you. Now you can legally leave and take the babies, too.”

  His eyes bored into her, his fury and relentless accusations clearly making it difficult for her to speak. Still, she tried. “I wouldn’t—”

  “Damn right, you won’t.” He smacked his fist into his palm. “Because if you try, I’ll follow you. I’ll hunt you down. You won’t have one peaceful moment until you give me back my children.”

  At the menace in his tone, Bianca’s knees buckled. “I wouldn’t. I’m not capable . . . by God, we just made love.”

  “Yeah, I just made love to a woman whose name I didn’t know.”

  “I suppose I deserve that.” Sagging against the cold, granite counter, she slumped to the floor. She pulled her knees to her chest and her hands to her face and sat rocking. Looking thoroughly miserable.

  Probably because he’d caught her in her lies. He’d locked up his pity. She was acting.

  And she’d taken away solid legal control.

  “I couldn’t see the future. I didn’t know you’d turn out to be . . . you.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “I always intended to give you your children.”

  Acid burned through the lining of his stomach. “Right.”

  “So I thought legal ties to a stranger were unnecessary.”

  “And what about what I wanted? What about what I thought was best for my children?”

  She lifted her head. “Suppose you’d changed your mind about giving me a divorce? In addition to my other problems, putting myself in the middle of a legal battle I couldn’t afford would be foolhardy.”

  “It’s always about you.”

  “I didn’t know you a few months ago. Everything seemed so clear then. Now, I’ve made a mess of my life.”

  “And ruined mine, too.” Craig’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Does Harry Pibbs know you married me under false pretenses? Is that what he wants to talk to you about?”

  Without looking into his angry eyes, she shook her head. “I never discussed my plans with anyone except Gran.”

  “She approved your shenanigans?”

  “Gran thought I should marry you.”

  “She was right.” Craig sighed. “Well, at least that’s one mistake we can fix. Go dress in something appropriate to wear to court.”

  “Why are you hauling me back to the judge?”

  “I should refuse to be responsible for you since you aren’t my wife.”

  She rubbed the brows over her nose as if he’d hurt her. “Surely you wouldn’t send me to jail?”

  “I don’t want my children to be in jail.” At the implication that he wouldn’t mind her being in jail, she shuddered. For a moment, he ached for the pain he’d caused her, then shut it down. He would not feel sorry for her.

  Bianca cocked her head as if listening to something in the distance. “Where are we going?”

  “To the courthouse.”

  She swallowed back obvious apprehension. “Why?”

  “To get married.”

  She jerked as if he’d just shot her. Then with a trembling hand, she picked up her license and purse, then shoved herself to her feet. “The only reason you want to marry me is so you’ll have a legal claim to the kids.”

  “You got that right.”

  “You don’t need a marriage certificate.” If his eyes had been a storm they would have engulfed her in thunderclouds. She tried to explain. “The kids are yours—”

  “Do I look crazy?”

  She jerked up her head. “What are you talking about?”

  She stopped looking at him, and her gaze narrowed. “Did you hear something?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. Can you think of even one reason why I should trust you?” he demanded.

  She picked up the pitcher of orange juice. He figured she’d ignore him and fix herself breakfast. Instead, in one smooth motion, as if she was out to kill him, she heaved the full pitcher at his head.

  “Duck!” she y
elled, her voice hoarse.

  Instinctively, he dropped to the floor. Not fast enough. His head exploded in pain. His pulse hammered his eardrums, the roar of a distant, dark wave sweeping forward, unstoppable, consuming. Blackness closed in.

  HE AWAKENED WITH Bianca slapping his face. “Get up. Wake up. He’s here. He found us.”

  Craig’s ears rang. His head throbbed as if a jackhammer was pounding his skull. What had happened? The last thing he recalled was Bianca tossing the juice pitcher, using his head for target practice. He ought to wring her pretty neck. Lucky for her he hadn’t the strength of a ten-year-old.

  From his position on the floor, he twisted, ignored the fiery pain and perused the evidence. The pitcher she’d thrown lay shattered near his head. Spilled juice ran in rivulets across the floor, some matting his hair. Or was the sticky sensation blood?

  He raised his hand, gingerly touched the lump and pulled back, relieved to see only juice on his fingers. Unwilling to reveal any weakness, he kept to himself the eight blurry fingers and two thumbs he counted on one hand.

  She shook him. “We have to leave. He could be back any moment.”

  Fresh pain shocked him out of his stupor. He took in her pinched lips, her chalky face, the gun in her hand. His heart turned cold. First she’d conked him out with a juice pitcher; now she intended to shoot him. Why?

  For some reason, he couldn’t drum up any fear of her. Instead, disappointment and weariness resonated through him. If this attack was simply another ploy to avoid marriage she wouldn’t get away with it. “Get away from me.”

  She looked into his eyes and frowned. “Let me help you up. Your eyes aren’t focused.”

  “No kidding. I can’t even handle one of you. How do you expect me to handle a duplicate?”

  She didn’t laugh at his feeble attempt at humor. “You aren’t going to pass out on me again, are you?”

  He groaned. “What does it matter? Will you shoot me if I refuse to get up?”

  She tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans. “He must have hit you harder than I thought. You aren’t making sense.”

  Neither was she. Hell, what did she expect him to think? He’d regained consciousness to find her holding a gun on him. Mustering the last of his cool, he held back a growl. “Are you saying you didn’t hit me with the pitcher?”

  “Of course not.” Her tone exuded indignation. “He came back. How else would I have gotten the gun?”

  “He returned and handed you his gun?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Maybe a genie granted you three wishes. Perhaps the tooth fairy has a wicked sense of humor.” Craig rolled to his side and held his hand out to her. “Pull.” She hauled him up to a sitting position. Once she seemed satisfied he wasn’t about to keel over, she headed to the fridge and returned with ice in a plastic bag and wrapped in a towel.

  She parted his hair gently. “You aren’t bleeding, but you have a grade-A-egg-size bump.” She placed the icy towel on his head. “I’m sorry. I should have reacted faster.”

  The pressure hurt, but the ice would reduce the swelling and hopefully the pain. His double vision had already disappeared. “Tell me what happened.”

  “While we were arguing, I thought I heard something.”

  “You seriously expect me to believe—?”

  “The stalker must have slipped into the house. The back door is wide open. When he raised the gun over your head, I was afraid if I said something, he’d shoot. So I grabbed the pitcher and threw it. As you ducked, he clubbed you.”

  A good thing. His drop to the floor had softened the descending blow. Otherwise, he might still be out cold, maybe dead. “I remember your throwing the pitcher at my head. I thought I was the target.”

  “I missed him, but he slipped in the juice when he ducked. The gun flew from his hand and skidded toward me. I grabbed it and tried to shoot him. The safety was on, and by the time I clicked it off, he’d fled.”

  Oddly her far-fetched story had the ring of honesty. Besides, he could see a large orange-juice footprint on the tile floor. She might be telling the truth. Still, after all her lies, he couldn’t contain his suspicion. “What did the intruder look like?”

  She sighed but held his gaze. “He wore a ski mask.”

  “If we luck out, the police can take prints off the weapon.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Going to the police is not an option I want to consider.”

  For a moment, he debated whether she and a cohort could be conning him. The possibility seemed unlikely. What would be the point?

  He thought back carefully to the time when she’d been threatened at the beach. Those shots had come close, but an average marksman shouldn’t have missed. The bullets had come closer to him than her.

  For all he knew, she’d cut up her own underwear and could have bruised her own neck during the party. But she couldn’t have feigned her fear, the clammy hands, the fast-beating pulse, the terror in her eyes.

  Besides, he couldn’t think of any way she could profit from lies about the stalker. Her motive couldn’t be money. If it was, she wouldn’t have given a fake name on the proxy marriage certificate. She’d have married him legally, then tried to get rid of him to collect. No, whatever she was, she wasn’t a fortune hunter.

  Which meant she’d probably told the truth. Ever since she’d ridden the motorcycle into his yard, his life had taken twists and turns he hadn’t anticipated. Craig liked to plan his life.

  “He could return at any moment. We have to leave. Fast.”

  “You’re that anxious to go to the courthouse for a quickie marriage?”

  “That’s out of the question. If the stalker heard our conversation, he might be waiting for us in town.”

  “How convenient for you,” he muttered, realizing he still wasn’t thinking clearly.

  Bianca hunted through a kitchen drawer, picked up a carving knife and advanced on him, halting his thoughts. As if guessing his doubts about her, she handed the knife to him, hilt first. “Keep this. I’ll pack, write a note for the kid who takes care of the house and leave him some cash to clean this mess.”

  Craig tried and failed to rise to his feet. “We need to go now, before the stalker returns with another gun.”

  “Another five minutes probably won’t matter. I doubt he could get his hands on another weapon that quickly. And for all the stalker knows, I’ve called the cops. Try not to move around too much.” She hurried up the steps, her words floating back over her shoulder. “If you pass out on me again, I won’t be able to help you into the car.”

  The thought of rising to his feet made him nauseous. In his present condition, he was much more of a liability than a help to her. “Leave me. Go hide. Keep the babies safe.”

  She paused on the stairs. “I know you don’t think much of me”—her voice cracked, then hardened—“but I’m not leaving you. Now save your breath. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  She was as good as her word. At least he thought so. He’d slumped against the side of the counter, may have passed out again. It seemed only moments before she slipped a couple of aspirin into his mouth, gave him water to wash down the pills, then scooted under his arm and urged him to his feet.

  She settled her slender arm across his back. “Come on. You can rest in the car.”

  As they staggered through the door, she removed the gun from the waistband of her jeans and flipped off the safety. Through his pain-induced stupor, he noted her experience.

  She lowered him into the passenger seat of the car and headed back to the house to return with their bags and his laptop. After walking around to the driver’s side, she placed the gun between them, started the car and backed out of the driveway.

  He tried to distract himself from the sickening roiling in his stomac
h. “When did you learn to use a gun?”

  “Gran and I took lessons. She said women living alone are vulnerable. No matter how much we practiced, I always felt uncomfortable owning a weapon. I’m out of practice, though,” she admitted. “Kendrick hated guns and didn’t want me using one. Naturally, Gran loves them.” She pulled into the road, looking left, right and frequently in the rearview mirror. “If you’re up to it, I’d like to visit Harry. He may have something important to tell us.”

  “First, let’s stop at the police department.” She opened her mouth, but before she could protest, he voiced his compromise. “We’ll tell them an intruder hit me from behind and dropped the gun. That information should be enough for them to check for prints and maybe where the gun was last sold.”

  Bianca squirmed in her seat. “Suppose the police don’t find any prints on the gun except mine?”

  THE POLICE HADN’T really bought their story. At least, that was Bianca’s impression after she and Craig had handed over the weapon, especially when the officer wanted to know why they’d driven to the station instead of phoning for help. After trying to convince the skeptical policewoman that they were afraid the intruder might return, Bianca was anxious to leave the police and their questions behind.

  Coming here had been useless. She’d been surprised to learn millions of people had never been fingerprinted. Government workers, military personnel, convicted felons and anyone who had been arrested did have prints on file, but the officer’s statistics minimized the likelihood of identifying the intruder from any prints. They should count themselves lucky they hadn’t been seriously hurt or robbed, she’d said.

  The Automated Fingerprint Identification System would take less than twenty-four hours to process any prints from the gun. With a minor miracle, they’d have a match. Meanwhile, their hopes of a quick solution squelched, they drove to Harry’s office to find out why he wanted to see Bianca. She’d offered to drop Craig at a hotel so he could lie down, but despite his obvious pain, he refused to leave her side.

  He didn’t trust her, and although she told herself he had good reason, it still cut deep. The part of her that had allowed herself to rely on him was ringing loud warning bells. Making her hold back tears. Too much was at stake to wallow in could-have-beens. She couldn’t get used to him being there for her. She had to put away her disappointment, focus on staying alive.