Memories: A Husband to RememberNew Year's Daddy (Hqn)

  Inside the Jeep the air was thick. Steam rose on the windshield and Trent flipped on the fan. Cramming her back against the passenger door, Nikki told herself she was the worst kind of fool. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Just who the hell are you?”

  “I told you.”

  “McKenzie’s your real name?”

  “You saw my ID, didn’t you? When you went through my wallet.” The barb stung. Oh, well, Sherlock Holmes she wasn’t.

  “ID can be bought.”

  With a sigh, he flipped down the visor, ripped the registration from its holder and shoved it under her nose. “No aliases, okay?”

  The beat-up vehicle was registered to Trent McKenzie. He wheeled into the drive of her apartment building.

  “Okay. So now I know your name.” She shrugged as if she didn’t care, but couldn’t help asking, “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a freelance investigator. Primarily I work on insurance fraud. I told you all this.” He shifted down and the Jeep slowed.

  “You told me a lot of things.”

  The rig slid to a stop, idling near the doorway of one of the first-floor apartments. “I didn’t lie about the way we met, Nikki.” He cut the engine, and when she tried to open the door, he caught her arm. “Just hear me out.”

  “I’ve heard enough. Two weeks of lies is more than anyone should have to swallow, don’t you think?” She managed to pull on the door handle, breaking a nail in the process. Too damned bad. “You lied to me, McKenzie, and what’s worse, when I knew you weren’t telling the truth, you kept piling on more and more lies.” Her words raced out of her mouth. “Not only that. You took me to bed, brought me back here under false pretenses, used me, and only when you knew the lies would begin to fall apart, did you finally come clean. But not until we made love! Excuse me, what I meant to say is not until we had sex!” So angry she was shaking, she threw off his arm. When he tried to reach for her again, she scrambled out of the Jeep, grabbed her suitcase and ran up the wet steps. He was on her heels, chasing after her, climbing the stairs behind her.

  Her dream returned, surreal but no less terrifying as he followed her. It was as if they’d played this game before. At the landing, she whirled on him. “Leave me alone, Trent,” she ordered, but he was too close. He planted his hands on the door frame near her face, trapping her with his body.

  “I can’t, damn it. Look, Nikki, I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way.” His mouth curved into a self-deprecating frown. “I should have told you sooner, but I couldn’t. Once you were released from the hospital, I...I wanted to stay with you. To keep you safe.”

  “To sleep with me.”

  “Yes!”

  The air crackled with his admission, and Nikki’s throat was suddenly clogged. “Well, lucky you,” she said angrily, but the sharp honesty in his gaze cut through the armor of her defense. “You could have stopped things,” she whispered.

  “I would have.”

  “Sure,” she mocked, and she finally worked up the nerve to ask a question that had been nagging at the back of her mind. “Just who do you think you were protecting me from?”

  His lips thinned a fraction. “Crowley.”

  She sucked in her breath. “So I was right.”

  “Maybe.”

  She had a picture of the silver-haired man with his smooth black cane. She’d met him in the camera shop! Her heart nearly stopped. Yes, there was something deadly about him, the gleam in his eye was cold as an arctic well. But she didn’t believe he had the strength or stamina to run her down through a jungle. “But he wasn’t chasing me.”

  “I don’t know that anyone was.”

  She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. “But my dream. Everything else fits. And who was the man lurking on the veranda, huh? Was that you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well?”

  “I thought it might have been a man I had following you.”

  “Oh, great! Just great! Now you’re trying to tell me that one of the so-called good guys is a Peeping Tom?”

  “No. El Perro denied it.”

  “His name is el Perro? Doesn’t that mean wolf or something?”

  “Dog.”

  “Oh, come on.” She threw her hands toward the sky—in desperation or supplication, she didn’t know which. “This is too damned unbelievable.”

  “Is it?” He shoved his face so close she could see the small lines of impatience around his mouth. “You asked what I was trying to tell you and it’s simple. You’re in danger. From Crowley or one of his goons. Just because we’re back in Seattle doesn’t mean that you’re safe. I overheard you talking to Connie. I knew you were onto Diamond Jim. That’s when I started doing my research on you—because there was something about you I couldn’t forget. The senator’s dangerous, Nikki.”

  She felt her throat tighten in fear, then shoved the feeling aside. No man, especially not a pathological liar, was going to tell her what to do with her life. “I don’t know why I should believe you.” She reached behind her, found the doorknob and pushed. It didn’t budge.

  “Why would I lie?”

  “You asked me that before and it took me two weeks to find the answer.” She dug through her purse, came up with her ring of keys and wedged the house key into its lock. With a click, the latch gave way. She shouldered open the door and stood on the opposite side of the threshold. “I’d like to say something profound here, something you could remember me by, but I can’t think of a blessed thing, so I’ll just say goodbye.”

  “I’m not leaving.” To prove his point, he stuck the toe of his beat-up leather boots into the apartment.

  “I’ll call the police.”

  “Fine.” He didn’t budge an inch, and she felt the steam rising from the back of her neck.

  “You’ve spent the last two weeks bullying me, Trent McKenzie, but it’s over,” she lied knowing that, in her heart, it would never be finished between them. But she couldn’t think of that now. “I’ll have you up on charges of harassment, fraud and kidnapping. And if those don’t stick, I’ll find some that do. So you’d better haul yourself out of here.”

  He slid into the room, rested his hips against the wall, crossed his arms over his massive chest and nodded toward the phone. “Now I don’t believe you.”

  She couldn’t make good her threat, didn’t dare call the police. Whatever story she was working on concerning Senator Crowley, it wasn’t yet ready to break and she had to be careful that Diamond Jim didn’t catch on to her. If she pressed charges against Trent, there was the matter of public record to consider, and there would be questions about their trip to Salvaje. Her story was half-baked and bizarre, her memory not yet a hundred percent. No, she had better keep the police out of this. For the time being. She looked up at Trent’s impassive face and wished she could shake some sense into him. He had backed her into the proverbial corner and he knew it.

  “Why don’t you get ready for work and I’ll drive you.”

  “You don’t have to—” For the first time she realized she was missing her car. She half ran to a window, wiped the glass with her sleeve and stared down at the parking space assigned to her. Empty. Her red-and-white convertible wasn’t in its usual spot. “I don’t suppose you know what happened to my car?”

  “My guess is it’s at the airport.”

  “The airport!” she cried, her temper flaring again. If he’d only been honest with her earlier, she’d have her own set of wheels by now.

  “But then again, maybe not. You didn’t have a parking ticket on you.”

  “How do you know?” she demanded, but the answer was clear as the glass top of her coffee table. He’d been given her purse at the hospital when she’d been lying in that tiny room trying to piece together her memory—attempting to recall
taking vows with the mysterious, bad-tempered man who had claimed to be her husband. He could have put anything in her purse or taken anything out. Hence, the wedding ring—that blasted symbol of deceit. “Oh, Lord, this is a mess,” she said with a sigh as she sank onto the couch and closed her eyes. “What am I going to tell everyone? My entire family thinks I’m married. And Connie. What can I say to her?” She cast an accusing glare in his direction. “When you plot to turn someone’s life upside down and inside out, you don’t miss a trick, do you?”

  Trying to stay calm, she rested the heel of one of her Reebok shoes on the tabletop and wondered how she was going to face the day. There would be questions about her accident, her face, her honeymoon, her husband. What would she say? What could she?

  “You don’t have to tell anyone what’s going on.”

  “Oh, right! Next you’ll be suggesting that I keep pretending that we’re married.” She lolled her head back on the couch and sighed.

  She heard him skirting the coffee table as he walked to the fireplace. “What would it hurt?”

  “It’s a lie.” She cracked open one eye.

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  Her heart stopped for a second, before she found her voice. “Yes it does,” she said, quietly. A part of her wanted to take the easy way out, keep the lie going until things settled down and to stay with this dangerous, erotic man. Then she could tell her friends and family the truth. Later she could leave him...or would she ever find the strength to let go? Slowly she shook her head and forced her gaze to meet his. “It’ll only get worse.”

  As the words fell from her lips, she remembered her older sister, Jan, on bent knees, examining a cut on Nikki’s chin as she had sat, white-faced and trembling, on the edge of the bathtub. “Geez, you look horrible,” Jan had said.

  “Thanks,” Nikki muttered, fighting tears.

  Her elbow ached and her face felt as bad as it probably looked. There was still gravel ground into the skin of her forearm and blood had dried all the way to her wrist. “So what happened?” Jan had asked, seeming uncertain as to how concerned she should be.

  “I fell off my bike.”

  “And how.” Jan reached into the medicine cabinet for a dangerous-looking brown bottle and gauze.

  Tears welled in Nikki’s eyes. Tasting blood in her mouth where her teeth had bitten into her lower lip, she told Jan the truth. Nikki had been riding her bike with her friend, Terry Watson, a devil-may-care girl whose sense of adventure appealed to Nikki. With her pale blond hair, round blue eyes and quick smile, Terry was popular and had a reputation for being a little bit daring. That day, while Nikki was supposed to have been studying for a history test at Terry’s house, Terry had shoved her books aside and come up with an alternate plan. With only a little persuasion, Terry had convinced Nikki that they should ride their bikes down to the big Safeway store that was three miles away. The only trouble was that the store was located far beyond the boundaries their parents had agreed upon.

  The girls had taken off, full of adventure, thrilled to be doing something just a little bit naughty. They had planned to be back by the time Terry’s mom got off work. No one would have been the wiser.

  The traffic had been wild, four lanes going fifty-five miles an hour, and the clouds that had been threatening all day suddenly let loose, pouring rain onto the streets, creating rivers flowing into the gutters and turning the day dark as night.

  Headlights flashed on, tires sprayed water onto the sidewalks. Rather than ride to the crosswalk, Terry had decided to zigzag across all four lanes of traffic.

  “Wait for me!” Nikki had yelled, and Terry, hearing her voice, had turned her head. A car, rounding the corner, had skidded as the driver slammed on his brakes. Horns had blared, tires had squealed. Nikki had squeezed on her brakes. The bike had shimmied in loose gravel, then slid. Nikki had fallen, scraping her knees and elbows and face, her bike flying into the traffic to be crumpled beneath the wheels of a pickup.

  “Crazy kids!” The truck’s driver had been livid. “I could a killed you both!” Built like a lumberjack, with a full beard and snapping blue eyes, he’d walked over to Nikki, full of wrath until he saw the scratches on her face and arms. “Hey, kid, are you all right?”

  “Fine,” she’d stammered, though she felt wretched. But she’d known her injuries weren’t nearly as bad as the fear that settled around her heart. Her parents would kill her when they found out.

  A lady dressed in a long raincoat and huge round glasses speckled with rain, had climbed out of her small compact car with its emergency lights flashing. Shoulders hunched against the downpour, she’d said, “I think we should call an ambulance.”

  No! “I’m okay, really.” Nikki had fought to hide her pain and she reached for the handlebars of her bike just as Terry, face pale as death, had wheeled up.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Terry had insisted.

  “Now, honey, the police—”

  That did it. Nikki had hauled her bike up on its bent frame and jumped onto the seat. The rear wheel had rubbed against the fender, and she was stuck in third gear, but she hadn’t thought, just ridden, like the proverbial bat out of hell, as fast as her legs could pedal, all the way home.

  “And that’s what happened,” she had admitted to her sister as she’d tried to balance on the edge of the tub.

  Jan had rolled her eyes. “Big trouble, Nik. Big, big trouble.” She’d swabbed Nikki’s cuts with iodine and as Nikki sucked in her breath through teeth that felt looser than they had earlier in the day, Jan predicted, “Dad’s gonna kill you.”

  He hadn’t. In fact he’d been downright kind as he’d sat on the foot of her bed, hands clasped between his knees, his suit rumpled from the drive home. “I’m just thankful you’re alive,” he’d said, his voice filled with reproach.

  Nikki had wanted to burrow down beneath the covers of her twin bed and never come out. She’d let him down and she felt miserable. Tears had drizzled from her eyes and she’d rolled her lips inward and clamped down hard to keep from sobbing.

  “I hope you’ve learned your lesson. I trusted you to be where you’d told me you’d be. I thought I could believe you.”

  Nikki had blinked hard and swallowed that ever-growing lump in her throat. If only she could undo what had been done!

  “But now...well, we’ll have to start over, Nicole. Trust isn’t just given out—it’s earned, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “So am I, sweetheart, but this time sorry isn’t good enough. You could’ve been killed. For the time being you’re not to see Terry unless it’s at school, and you’re grounded for...well, until I can trust you again.”

  Her future had stretched out endlessly before her. She’d been certain she’d become an old maid before he believed her again. Oh, she’d wanted to die right then and there. Take me, Lord, I’m ready. I can’t stand the thought of being cooped up here until he trusts me again. He never will. Never, never, never!

  God, that had been a long time ago. Nikki rubbed her arms and realized that Trent was staring at her. Waiting for her to respond. “I’m not going to lie about it,” she said, then realized how ridiculous her words sounded. “Well, I’m not going to lie anymore. I’ll just say that it didn’t work out, we rushed into things and that we’re separated.” Cringing inside, she heard “I told you so” being repeated to her over and over by her family and friends.

  Pain darkened his gaze and he cleared his throat. “It would be best if we played along with the charade a little longer,” he said, measuring the words.

  “Why?”

  “Until this mess with Crowley is straightened out.”

  A cold trickle of fear slid down her spine, but she hid it. “Why don’t you tell me all about the good senator? And since we didn’t go to Salvaje together, wh
y were you down there? I can’t imagine that you spend your vacations in the tropics hoping for some woman to lose her memory so you can pounce and take advantage of her.”

  His eyes flashed dangerously. He rubbed his chin and swore, as if he didn’t want to divulge anything to her. “It’s been rumored, but hushed up for the most part, that the senator’s into taking bribes. Nothing’s been proven, of course, and with public officials there’s always a lot of conjecture, and our boy Diamond Jim is as slippery as he is popular. Nothing can be pinned on him—he just seems to slide away from scandal.”

  “What’s this got to do with you?”

  One of his fists closed for a second and a wave of tension tightened every muscle in the back of his neck. “I know the senator. I have a bone to pick with him.”

  “What bone?” she asked, surprised that he was opening up.

  “It’s personal.”

  “Don’t you think I’m involved, personally?”

  “Let’s just say I wouldn’t cry if he went down in flames.”

  “So you and I went down to the island independently.”

  “That’s right. That’s why Rosa, the clerk, recognized you and didn’t know me.”

  “And then what?” she said, watching as emotions, strong and angry, played across his face.

  “We weren’t on the same flight. I’d followed Crowley earlier. You showed up a couple of days later and I recognized you and I thought you might be headed for trouble. I didn’t want to blow my cover, so I just kept my eye on you. I figured, from overhearing your conversation with Connie at the Observer that you’d be tracking down Diamond Jim as well.”

  “So...you were following me.”

  “And Crowley.”

  She clucked her tongue. “Busy boy.”

  “By that time I’d done my research on you, your father, your boyfriends, your interests. Everything. I knew all about you.”

  “Charming,” she muttered with more than a trace of sarcasm.

  He ignored the dig. “Obviously Crowley knew you were onto him. He must’ve recognized you since he’s in tight with your dad. But I don’t think any feelings he has for your old man would affect his ambitions and you, lady, were and are a threat to him.”