Which was ludicrous because she knew nothing about this man.
He was quiet as they walked, his hands shoved deep in the front pockets of his jeans, his eyes on the ground in front of him, and as they headed toward her car his words from earlier echoed in her mind. Annie’s brother… Jake had told her she was an only child. That her parents had died years ago. She’d believed him. She’d believed so many things that now could very well be wrong. What else had he lied about?
She pushed that thought aside. Told herself she’d deal with it later. Right now, she had to stay focused on the moment or she’d break down.
When they stopped near her Explorer, she turned toward Mitch and looked into his eyes. Green eyes, she noticed now, that were eerily familiar. Like his niece’s—Julia’s—eyes. Like her eyes. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure.”
She probably should let it go, but she was curious. “You seem like a really nice guy. So nice considering all this and what you must be feeling that I’m having trouble figuring out which guy you really are. The pompous jerk who left me that note this morning, or the supportive brother-in-law you seem to be this afternoon?”
He chuckled and looked down at his feet.
“What?”
“Nothing. That’s just something my sister would have asked me.”
“Oh.” The implication of those words hung in the air between them. He thought she was his sister. She could see it in those emerald eyes. Did she want that? Panic spread through her chest. She didn’t know what she wanted. Was seriously starting to doubt whether coming here had been a smart idea or not. God, why hadn’t she just waited like Simone had told her to do?
She ran a hand over her hair. They stood in silence for several seconds, then her curiosity finally got the best of her. “So which is it?”
“Both, I guess.”
“I see.” But she didn’t. Not really. She didn’t see anything. Doubted she ever would. And that fact left her feeling more lost than anything.
She drew in a deep breath that did nothing to ease the ache in her chest and glanced back toward the house. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“He’s been through a lot. You have to understand, when Annie died, it changed him. They had something special, something most people don’t find in a whole lifetime of looking.”
“I find that hard to believe. I’ve read a lot about him, and nothing I’ve ever seen leads me to believe he’s a caring individual.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.” Something in his voice warned her to be careful about her choice of words. But that voice softened when he added, “Seeing you today, well, it’s something I think he’s dreamt about for years. I just don’t think he ever expected Annie not to remember him. It’s like losing her all over again.”
“I’m not Annie,” she said quietly.
“No. Not yet. At least, not that we know for sure.”
There it was. Spoken aloud she didn’t know what to think. What to feel. What to do for that matter. “He thinks I am.”
“He knew her really well. They were together for ten years.”
Guilt tightened the already snug feeling in her torso. “I didn’t come here to hurt anyone. I hope you know that. I just need answers. You don’t know what it’s like to go through life not knowing who you are. A person without a past, well,” she shook her head, “it’s an anomaly.”
“And scary, I bet.”
“Yes, very,” she whispered as he stared into her eyes. And though she fought it, she couldn’t deny the jolt of déjà vu that coursed through her when she looked at him. “I’m just looking for answers, one way or the other.”
“I get it.”
She didn’t answer, was too afraid of what would come out if she tried. Her pulse beat hard. If he was really her brother, she’d remember right? But there was nothing. No memory flashes, no images in her brain, nothing but this feeling of…familiarity.
When she realized she was staring, she quickly looked away. “I have to go. I’ll, ah, call your office when I have the details mapped out for the test.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Her feet didn’t seem to want to move. But she forced them to. For her sanity as much as his. “Okay,” she said again with a shaky voice as she climbed into her car.
Chapter Six
Midmorning sunlight glinted off the bay, the tall spires of the Golden Gate Bridge rising against a dense, green backdrop of trees and hills. Salt and the ripe stench of fish wafted on the air as Kate sat on a park bench, digging her fingers into the seat. Around her, seagulls swooped, their cries echoing through her mind, jangling her already overstressed nerves.
What she needed was a good kick in the pants to get off her duff and get back to work finding out what had happened to her. What she was doing was waiting for Ryan Harrison.
After three days of biting her fingernails to the quick, languishing over news from Simone about the blood test results, she’d finally given in and called him. She didn’t know why she felt compelled to talk with him, and couldn’t explain why his reaction to her affected her so much. All she knew for sure was that guilt had consumed her every minute of every day since their meeting. And if she didn’t do something to fix it, it was going to eat away at her and prevent her from finding the answers she desperately needed.
She knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. And because of that, she tried to put herself in Ryan’s position, to imagine what she’d do if Jake suddenly returned from the grave.
Her fingers dug deeper into the seat as anger coursed through her. The first thing she’d do is handcuff him to a chair until she got the answers she was looking for. Then she’d sandblast him for putting her through this nightmare.
On a deep breath, she forcibly released her grip and ran her hands over her hair. Jake wasn’t going to rise from the dead. And she was stuck without a past.
She spotted Ryan walking along the waterfront path before he spotted her. That odd sense of déjà vu she’d felt in the street outside his house rushed through her as she watched him. His hands were tucked in the front pockets of his slacks, and he wore dark sunglasses over his eyes, but she didn’t miss the scowl on his face. Or the rigid shoulders and stiff back that screamed of his unease at the current situation.
He stopped a few feet away. Clenched his jaw. When she stood to meet him, her stomach pitched, a reaction she wasn’t prepared for.
“Thanks for coming,” she managed.
“I’m not entirely sure why I did.” There was an icy tone to his voice she didn’t like. Did he use it in his business dealings to intimidate and influence? If so, it was effective.
“I appreciate it, all the same.” She shifted her weight, not sure what she wanted to say now that he was standing in front of her. An awkward silence spread between them like a vast ocean.
“I doubt you know anything yet, so why this little meeting?” he asked.
For some reason, she wanted to reach out and bridge the gap between them. To comfort him. Which was an unexpected reaction. “No, I don’t. Simone said it would take probably a week for the test results. Which, by the way, I wanted to thank you for agreeing to.”
He didn’t respond, just rocked back on his heels and watched her. A whiff of his scent drifted on the air, and a shiver of awareness swept over her when she drew it in, that musky spice oddly familiar.
Not familiarity, she told herself. Awareness. He was an attractive and powerful man, and underneath it all, she was still a woman. Even before any of this had happened, she’d thought he was handsome. The tabloids and magazines, though, didn’t do him justice. His nose was straight, his jaw square and clean shaven, his features chiseled and so very masculine. And his mouth…
Her gaze traveled to his lips. Full. Smooth. Tempting. She wondered what it would feel like to brush her thumb across that bottom lip, to trace the faint scar down the right side of his chin. The man had a sensual mouth that at one time she??
?d probably kissed and tasted and claimed as her own.
Whoa.
Where the heck had that come from? She forced her gaze away from that tantalizing mouth and back up to his eyes—or his sunglasses, to be more precise.
And because she couldn’t see those eyes, she was having an increasingly difficult time reading him. It only added to her unease.
“Okay, look,” she said, straightening her back, putting the hormonal thoughts out of her mind. “I just wanted to apologize for all of this. I know you’re not very happy with me. And I want you to know that I’m really sorry. I just want to know the truth. You have no idea what this is like for me.”
“For you?” His blond brow raised behind dark glasses. “I don’t know what this is like for you? Try being in my place for ten seconds.”
A sigh escaped her lips. “I have. I know this isn’t easy for you, for any of you. I didn’t intentionally wake up one morning and say, ‘Hey, I think I’ll find Ryan Harrison and screw up his life.’ I’m not like that.”
“Oh really? Because that’s just what you did.” He started to walk away, stopped, and turned back to her. “Do you have any idea how many freaks are out there trying to mess up my life? My personal life is my business, no one else’s. Dammit! If the press gets one whiff of you, they’re going to gather like flies on shit. Did you even stop to think about the consequences, even for a minute? My daughter is going to get sucked into this. The press will have a field day with her, and I’ve spent the last five years making sure she’s been shielded from them. It would be one thing if you came looking for us because you cared, but just to show up on our doorstep because you’re curious? It’s crap!”
There was more anger in him than she’d realized. She tried to keep her voice even and calm. “It’s not like that.”
“It is like that. We mean nothing to you. I can read it on your face. I saw it the day you stood in front of my house. You look at us and see nothing. And we look at you and see everything. And it doesn’t matter one damn bit.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, irritation radiating from his strong, muscular body.
Kate dropped to the bench, all the fight suddenly gone. “It does matter. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. It’s not just about knowing. It’s more than that. If I turn out to be Annie Harrison, then that means Julia is my daughter. And I can’t turn away from that. I never would have left my daughter on purpose. And I wouldn’t want her growing up thinking I did. If I didn’t do something to set this right, I’d never be able to live with myself.”
She swallowed hard at the implications of what she’d just said. If she turned out to be Annie Harrison, and Julia really was her daughter, then there was a strong chance Reed was Ryan’s son. Not Jake’s as she’d been led to believe. Reed looked so much like Ryan—even she could see that—was she fooling herself thinking she wasn’t Annie Harrison?
She forced back the fear. No matter what, she had to know. One way or the other, she had to know the truth.
She glanced up, wished desperately that he’d take off those damn glasses. “I don’t want to screw things up for Julia. I don’t, please believe that. And I wouldn’t want to put her in harm’s way. But…but if she’s my daughter then I have to know.”
For a minute, she was sure he was going to turn and walk away, but then he eased onto the bench next to her, slid off his sunglasses, and rested his head in his hands. A man defeated. One who was hurting, just like her. “Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? Christ, that’s all I’ve thought about for the past three days. Julia’s my whole world. And she’s pissed about this. She doesn’t understand it. She’s a very grown-up nine-year-old, but she doesn’t understand any of this. I don’t, either, for that matter.”
“That makes three of us.”
He looked out over the water. “I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how this could even be possible. What happened to you between the time I dropped you off at the airport and that plane took off without you on it? They said you were on that flight. I identified your purse and laptop from the wreckage afterwards. Whatever happened to you had to have occurred in the time-span of less than an hour. For the life of me, I can’t figure it out.”
“If I knew the answer to that question, this wouldn’t be so hard to take.”
He shook his head, looked down. “No. Nothing could make this easier.”
His words settled between them, his heartache over the situation hanging in the air. When he finally looked over at her she saw honesty and truth in those brilliant blue eyes. And a jolt ran through her, one she wasn’t prepared for.
“If I had known you weren’t on that plane, I swear to God I would have been looking for you.”
The determination in his voice shook her right to her core. Those fierce, unwavering eyes seemed to be looking all the way into her soul, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t break away from his gaze. It drew her, tugged at something that felt like it was awakening inside her. “I believe you,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes, then looked back over the water, breaking the spell pulling her under. “So, what do we do now?”
“I…I don’t know. Wait, I guess.”
“We already know the answer. I know it. You know it too, or else you wouldn’t be sitting here with me right now.”
A lump clogged in her throat, the realization hitting her that he was right. She shook her head. “I need to know for sure. Julia’s not going to want to have anything to do with me until we can prove it one way or the other.”
“She’s probably not going to want to have anything to do with you regardless of the outcome. She’s been through hell and back.”
A dull ache settled in her chest. She didn’t want that. She only wanted to make things better. For all of them. “I don’t want to hurt her, or you.”
“No matter what you do, it’s going to hurt us.” He stood and slipped his sunglasses back on. The glint of gold caught her attention as he moved, and for the first time, she noticed the ring on his left hand.
“We’ll deal with it when we know for sure.” His voice was no longer soft but hard and cold. “Until then, don’t try to go see her. She needs time to get used to this whole thing. Your hanging around would just confuse her more.”
Kate nodded, unable to make sense of the changes that came over him. She’d never experienced anything like it. One moment his voice was tugging on her heartstrings, and the next it was slicing through her, straight to the bone, sending chills up and down her spine. “Okay. I can understand that. Are you going to be okay?”
“Me? Yeah, I’m pretty much used to hell. I’ll get by.”
She watched as he walked away. But she didn’t feel any better than she had before. If anything, she felt worse. Talking with him had only proved he’d loved his wife a great deal more than she’d anticipated.
***
No file found.
Kate glared at the computer screen, the blinking cursor only accentuating the tension headache behind her eyes. Waves crashed outside on the beach. A gray drizzle slapped at the second-floor window outside her home office.
She should be keying in edits on an article that was supposed to be finished two days ago. Instead, she was running another search on Ryan Harrison.
So far, she’d found pictures of him cozied up to a black-haired vixen at some charity function. Another hit showed him with a blonde on his arm at a baseball game. And the National Star had a whole file of pictures of him with that voluptuous, redheaded model.
The man obviously got around.
“Mama?”
“Hmm?”
Why did she care? Just because he may have been her husband? That was stupid. She’d been married to Jake, after all. It wasn’t like she had a reason to be jealous.
But what did surprise her was that from all her research, his life had apparently changed after his wife had died. Before, he’d been vice president of a small pharmaceutical company. After, he’d branched out on his own, expand
ed, and made a killing in the field. Was it just a stronger work ethic since becoming single? Or had he used his wife’s life insurance money to expand his company?
Either way, he’d benefited immensely from Annie Harrison’s death.
Kate typed in AmCorp Pharmaceuticals and came up with their home page. She scanned the technical information. Mostly cancer drugs. Specialized cancer drugs that often were pushed through the FDA because of need and a promise of significant benefit.
“Mama,” Reed said from her feet where he lay on his belly on the floor next to her, playing with his Power Rangers, “I asked you something.”
She tore her eyes from the computer. “What, baby?”
“Where do you go when you die?”
Her fingers paused on the keyboard. Reed hadn’t once asked about death in the weeks since Jake’s passing. “To heaven.”
He rammed a red motorcycle into a black one, his gaze intent on the destruction he was causing. “You don’t come back?”
Oh, man. Of all the topics to bring up, he had to go for this one. Easing off her chair, she settled onto the rug next to him. “Who said you come back?”
“Michael at preschool says when starfish die, they come back to life.”
A smile tugged at her mouth. “Starfish can reproduce by something called regeneration. When an arm is cut off, a whole new starfish can grow out of it. It doesn’t mean they die, though, and then come back to life. Once a starfish dies, it’s gone for good.”
His sapphire eyes lifted to meet hers. Eyes, she realized, that were just like the eyes she’d seen on that computer screen. “To starfish heaven?”
A laugh escaped her lips. “Yeah, baby. To starfish heaven.”
He went back to his toys. “But you died and came back.”
Kate drew in a breath. How did he know that? Had Jake told him? “That was different. Reed, look at me.” His gaze lifted. So innocent and adorable. Her only link to her past life. The only thing she really had left. “Mommy’s heart stopped because of an…accident. The doctors started it again. It’s different from someone dying. When you die, you don’t come back.”