“What happened?”
As he told her about being followed from the Recovery Inc. office, a new frustration coupled with a familiar fear edged through her.
“Who are these people and what do they want with me?” she cried in desperation.
“I don’t know, but I’m hoping we’ll have the name of one of them before the night is over. I got a license number of one of the cars that was following me and I put in a call to Wendall Kincaid.”
“The chief of police?” she asked. As always, the idea of the police knowing anything about her made a nervous flutter in her stomach.
“Don’t worry. I told him the driver of the car rear-ended me and I need his name to file an accident report.” Lucas raked a hand through his hair and leaned back in the chair.
He looked exhausted, and a wave of guilt swept through Jane. “Maybe we should go to the police,” she said, and heard the slight tremor in her voice. “This is getting so complicated and I’m sure you’re sick to death of me.”
He smiled, but she could tell it was slightly forced. “I’m not sick of you. I am sick of not knowing what’s going on. I could maybe understand some crazy nut being after you…a stalker boyfriend or husband…but this isn’t just a single individual. It’s a whole group of people.”
“Maybe I really am a spy,” she said. “That’s one of the things Loretta and I came up with. Of course we also thought I might be an undercover rock star or a high-class madame.”
A whisper of a smile curved his lips and she saw him starting to relax. “I guess it’s better to be a high class-madame than a low-class one.”
She leaned back against the pillow once again. “I have discovered one important fact about myself today.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t like soap operas. When you feel like you’re living one, the last thing you want to do is watch one.”
“Your back still hurting?” he asked as she adjusted her position against the pillow.
She nodded. “It’s just a dull ache. I think carrying around this baby weight is pulling on my spine. But it’s fine. I’m fine. I made a pot of stew for dinner, but it’s still simmering and won’t be ready for another hour or so.”
“That’s all right. I’m not hungry. If you don’t mind, I’m going back to the bedroom to make some phone calls. I’m expecting a fax soon and the machine is back there.” He got up from the chair and she watched him disappear down the hallway.
As always when he left, he seemed to take some of the energy from the room, from her. She rubbed her stomach as she thought of the new events that had taken place.
The license plate number he’d managed to get was the first real clue they’d had that might yield answers, and she was surprised to realize she was conflicted about it.
On the one hand she wanted her life back, whatever that life might be. She hated the idea that she was taking advantage of Lucas and keeping him from his own life, but on the other hand she didn’t want to tell him goodbye.
Was she reluctant to let go of him because she had nothing else to hang on to? Perhaps if she were completely truthful with herself she’d accept that that was part of it. But what was more difficult to accept was the fact that she didn’t want to leave him because she was falling in love with him.
It was crazy. It was positively insane. She was carrying somebody’s baby. She didn’t even know her own name, but she knew what was in her heart and if felt like love.
She didn’t believe that Lucas felt as if he was stuck with her, as he’d said at breakfast the first morning in the house. She wasn’t sure what he felt about her. But if that kiss they’d shared and the odd moments when she felt his gaze lingering on her were any indication, he definitely felt something toward her that wasn’t just a reluctant responsibility.
Twice she got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen to stir the stew, then stood at the window and watched the snow. It had finally tapered off to flurries, leaving behind less than an inch on the ground.
She’d returned to the living room and was back on the sofa some time later when Lucas came back into the living room and handed her a sheet of paper with a driver’s license copied on it.
“Recognize him?” he asked as he sat next to her on the sofa.
She took the sheet of paper from him and stared at it. Charles Blankenship. He was fifty-eight years old, weighed two hundred pounds and was five feet eleven.
He had a severe, square jaw and brown eyes, his salt-and-pepper hair was cut military short and he wasn’t smiling for the camera.
She frowned thoughtfully. “He looks vaguely familiar, but I don’t know from where.” She handed him back the sheet of paper. “Who is he?”
“One of the cars that followed me was registered to him. I think first thing in the morning I’m going to pay Mr. Charlie Blankenship a visit.”
“I want to come with you.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he replied with a frown.
“It’s the only idea we’ve got,” she protested. “His picture looks familiar. Maybe seeing him in person will finally jiggle my memory. Besides, I’m not worried about my safety as long as I’m with you. It’s my life, Lucas. Please let me be a part of things.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and in the depths of his dark brown eyes she saw the same emotion that she’d seen moments before he’d kissed her. It was a yearning that made her breath catch in her throat and dried her mouth with sweet anticipation.
He leaned forward, as if drawn to her by an invisible thread, and she parted her lips, wanting him to kiss her again, needing to feel his warm, soft mouth against hers.
Abruptly he stood. “You think that stew is ready now?” His voice was deeper than usual.
She released her breath and nodded. The moment was broken, but it gave her a crazy new hope, the hope that somehow when this was all finished they might be together.
They had just finished eating when Troy and Micah arrived with the rental car. Jane made a pot of coffee as the three men sat at the table and Lucas caught them up on his chase that afternoon.
He showed them the faxed copy of Charles Blankenship’s driver’s license, but neither of them had any idea who the man was or why he’d be following Lucas.
“It has to be Jane,” Lucas said. “They’re looking for her.”
She turned around from the sink as she felt the weight of three pairs of eyes on her. “I wish I could explain it. I wish I knew what was going on.”
“Our plan is to talk to Charles Blankenship in the morning and ask him why he was following me,” Lucas said as Jane joined them at the table.
Micah looked at her. “And you still don’t want to go to the cops?”
She hesitated before replying. No, she didn’t want to go to the police, but she also knew if that’s what Lucas wanted her to do, then that’s what she would do.
“Not yet,” Lucas replied for her. She smiled at him gratefully. At least he wasn’t so sick of her that he was willing to throw her to the dogs. Not yet.
“For whatever reason, Jane feels as if she’d be putting herself at risk by going to the cops and we’re hoping before that becomes our only option her memory will return.”
Micah nodded and tapped the picture of Charles Blankenship with the tip of a finger. “Want me to see what I can dig up on this guy before morning?”
“That would be great,” Lucas replied. “You’re better than anyone I know at digging up facts about people.”
Micah grinned at the compliment, then looked at Troy. “We’d better get out of here so I can get to work.”
The four of them rose from the table and walked to the front door. “Micah, Troy, thank you for all your help,” Jane said. “I’m sure Lucas knows how lucky he is to have friends like you that he can depend on.”
A niggling depression weighed her down as she told the men goodbye and went back to sit on the sofa as Lucas walked out with them.
She’d been missing almo
st six days and still nobody seemed to be looking for her. Why wasn’t somebody worried about her? Why didn’t anyone care that she was missing?
Was she so unimportant in this life that she could disappear for days…for a week…forever and nobody cared?
Chapter Eight
The house was quiet. Jane had gone to bed an hour earlier and Lucas sat at the kitchen table, worrying about everything he’d learned during the course of the evening.
Justin had called to tell him that there had been no hit on Jane’s fingerprints, so that had been a bust.
And Lucas had almost kissed her again.
He frowned and stared out the window. He’d wanted to kiss her again so badly it had ached in his chest and burned in his blood.
Thank God he hadn’t followed through on the impulse. Nothing good could come from him kissing her again.
Still, even now the scent of her remained in his head, the citrus-clean fragrance of her shampoo coupled with a faint, floral, feminine scent that drove him half-mad.
He hadn’t just wanted to kiss her, he’d wanted to touch her skin, rub her belly and feel the kick of her son against his palm. The son she said she was going to name after him.
If he looked deep within himself, he had to recognize that he’d been touched by her words, and yet horrified at the same time. He didn’t want a kid named after him and he definitely didn’t want a woman looking at him with such trust, with something that looked like love.
His cell phone vibrated in his shirt pocket and he pulled it out, grateful for the disruption of his thoughts.
“Ready for a little bit of information?” Micah asked.
“Whatever you’ve got.” Lucas leaned back in his chair.
“Charles Blankenship is an insurance salesman. No criminal record, nothing to indicate he’s anything but a good, upstanding citizen. He’s married and has two grown children, one grandchild. No financial issues, the usual credit card debt and a car loan, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
Lucas bit back a sigh of frustration. “I was hoping for something different, something that might explain his interest in Jane.”
“The only thing I discovered that I think you’ll find interesting is that he’s on the board of directors of the Church of Enlightenment.”
A bolt of adrenaline flashed through Lucas, sitting him up straighter in his chair. “What?”
“The board consists of eight men and two women. Charles is one of them. I don’t know what it means, Lucas, but I’m going to do a little more digging into this church.”
“Yeah, thanks. I’d appreciate it,” Lucas replied thoughtfully. “I don’t get it, Micah. Why would a church want Jane?”
“I don’t know, buddy. We can’t be sure it has anything to do with the church. The worst thing you can do is jump to conclusions without solid evidence. Right now, the fact that this Charles was chasing you and that Jane has an aversion to his church’s logo could be nothing more than coincidence.”
“And you really believe that?” Lucas asked drily.
“Not for one minute,” Micah replied. Lucas could hear the grin in his buddy’s voice.
Long after the two men hung up, Lucas remained at the table, trying to fit together pieces of the puzzle of Jane.
Was it just a coincidence that the logo the church used inspired an irrational fear in Jane and that the man who had been tailing Lucas was a member of the board of that church?
Why would a church be after Jane? It was the question that kept niggling at his brain. None of it made sense. Maybe Charles would be forthcoming in the morning when Lucas had a little visit with him. Yeah, right, and maybe tomorrow it would be warm enough to swim.
He got up from the table and checked the back door to make sure it was securely locked, then turned out the lights and walked through the dark living room.
He checked the front door and headed down the hallway, but he’d only taken a couple of steps when he heard the sound of crying coming from Jane’s room.
Just walk on by, he told himself. She had plenty of reasons to be sad at the moment, but there was nothing he could do to solve her problems, nothing he could say to ease her fears.
Just walk on by.
Steeling himself, he passed her bedroom. The door was just barely cracked open and the soft sound of her weeping seemed to thunder in his head. It sounded so achingly pitiful.
He got as far as his bedroom door, then stopped. There was no way he could just go to bed with the sound of her crying in his head.
With a reluctant sigh he turned back around, knowing it was foolish, but unable to stop. He paused just outside her door and then knocked softly. “Jane? Are you all right?” He pushed the door open far enough that he could peek into the room, but the room was too dark for him to see her.
“No. I’m not all right.”
He heard the rustle of the sheets; then the bedside lamp turned on and there she was, clad in a pale pink nightgown with her hair all tousled around her head and her eyes shiny with tears. She sat up and the sheet fell to her waist, exposing her delicate collarbones above the neckline and the thrust of her breasts against the thin material.
He remained in the doorway, afraid to breathe, afraid to move. She looked so achingly lovely despite her tears.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, then grimaced. “Stupid question, right?”
She gave him a watery smile, but it held for only a moment before tears began to trek down her cheeks once again. “I’m being a baby,” she said. “I’ve just been lying here wondering why nobody misses me, why I haven’t been reported missing. People are after me and I don’t know why and my back hurts so much and I don’t have anyone to rub it for me. I’m going to have this baby all alone and I might never know who I am.”
He tried to maintain a barrier around his heart. He didn’t want to feel her pain, didn’t want to get pulled into her despair, but it was impossible not to.
Before he realized what he was doing he found himself standing next to the bed where the sweet scent of her eddied in the air.
“I can’t tell you why nobody has missed you, Jane. I can’t tell you why you have people after you. But you won’t have that baby alone. I’ll make sure of that.”
Someplace in the back of his mind he knew he was making a promise he didn’t intend to keep, but at the moment all he wanted to do was stop her tears, bring that beautiful smile back to her face.
“And if you need somebody to rub your back, then all you need to do is ask,” he heard himself saying.
Her lips trembled slightly as she looked up at him. “Would you? Just for a minute or two? I’d appreciate it so much.” She scooted over and turned on her side, her back to him and her long, blond hair a spill of shiny strands against the pillow.
He tentatively sat on the side of the bed, his brain screaming that he was making a huge mistake, but his body didn’t appear to be listening.
She pulled down the sheet, exposing the length of her, the long nightgown the only barrier between them. He could see the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips and her rounded buttocks as his heartbeat sounded in his ears.
He reached out and laid his palm against her lower back and she released a sigh of sheer pleasure. The warmth of her skin radiated outward through the thin material, and as he began to rub the area, he tried to stay focused on the fact that it was supposed to be a therapeutic massage and nothing more.
“Hmm, that feels so good,” she said, her voice a soft whisper.
Lucas didn’t reply. He couldn’t. His breath was caught in his chest, making speech impossible as desire welled up inside him. He tried to tamp it down, but it refused to dissipate and instead seemed to grow bigger, stronger inside him.
As he rubbed her back with one hand he reached with the other and touched a strand of her hair. It was luxuriously silky, just as he’d expected. He closed his eyes against a new wave of want.
It’s just a back rub, he tried to tell himself. And yet it felt as intimate a
s anything he’d ever experienced. Her heat, her scent seemed to fill him up. Her tiny mewls of pleasure scorched through him.
His jeans grew tight at his groin as he felt himself responding to her. For God’s sake, what was wrong with him? She was pregnant. She didn’t even know her name. This whole thing was completely inappropriate. But nothing his brain told him seemed to be making a connection with his body.
He knew he should stop and run from the room, that he was being sucked into a desire greater than any he’d ever felt before. And yet he continued rubbing her back and caressing her hair, trying to tell himself that he was only doing what she needed, not what he wanted.
She moaned and stretched with pleasure. The sound shot a new surge of electricity through his veins. He had to stop, before things spiraled out of control.
Get out, a voice screamed in his head, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He was caught…trapped by his own desire to continue.
Instead he worked his hands from her lower back up to the center of her back, then to her shoulders, using just enough pressure to ease but not hurt her tight muscles.
“I can’t tell you how good this feels,” she said, her voice slightly husky. She turned a bit so that she could look at him, and the curve of her jaw begged for an exploration by his mouth, her lips tormented him as they curved into a soft smile.
“You give a great massage,” she said.
He dropped his arms to his sides and stood. “Better?”
The smile fell from her face and she eyed him with an intensity that halted his heart for another long beat. “Better,” she replied. She sat up and grabbed his hand. “Don’t go, Lucas. Lie here with me and talk for a little while. I don’t feel like being alone right now.” She patted the bed next to her.
Suddenly he couldn’t think of any place he’d rather be than spending a wintry night in bed with her. No big deal. We’re just going to talk, he told himself.
Still, as he stretched out on the mattress that was still warm with her body heat, he wondered what in the hell he was doing.
IT FELT RIGHT for Lucas to be next to her on the bed. Jane leaned up on one elbow and gazed at him, taking in each and every detail of his features. She loved the length of the lashes that framed his dark eyes and the quirky smile that eased some of the darkness that clung to him. Dark whiskers shadowed the lower half of his jaw and they only added to his rugged, slightly dangerous attractiveness.
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