Private Vows

She looked back toward the shelter, reluctant to have him see her in such needy circumstances, to reinforce his concern and sympathy. “There’s nowhere private in there. One woman has a baby who cries a lot and someone else has a couple of young kids. Even the sleeping cubicles are open.” And she had no idea how she was going to sleep at night, exposed and vulnerable like that.

He jammed his hands into his pockets and uttered a soft oath.

“It’s not so bad,” she said hastily, contradicting her own thoughts. “And I won’t be here long. I’m going to see about getting a job at a fast-food place. I can’t just sit around while I’m waiting to remember who I am.” She had tossed out the plan without thinking, merely something to reassure Cole that she was all right, that she didn’t need his pity, but as she spoke, she knew that was exactly what she wanted to do…get a job, focus on something other than her problems. Then maybe she could forget to be afraid.

“How? You don’t know your social security number.”

Her resolve wilted. Beaten before she even got started. With a sigh she walked over to the curb and sat down again, resting her chin in her hands and trying hard not to give in to tears.

She felt him come up behind her, felt his approach in the warm tingles up and down her spine, in his wonderfully familiar scent that both attracted and frightened her.

He sat beside her. “Look, I know some people and can probably pull a few strings to get you a temporary job. That’s all you need, anyway…something to fill your time until your fiancé gets here.”

Another chill zigzagged through her, and she shivered in the heat. “If he’s alive,” she whispered. “Officer Townley said the blood on my dress was human.”

“Which doesn’t mean your fiancé’s dead. If they’d found any unclaimed bodies with that type blood, they’d damn sure have pulled you in for questioning.”

“They’re checking with the hospitals and the morgue today and they’ll want me to come down and look at…at anyone they find. Officer Townley said they don’t think the blood belongs to the man you saw me struggling with because there aren’t any other signs around.” She picked up a small pebble from the street and bounced it in one hand. “Maybe that’s why I can’t remember. Maybe it wasn’t the trauma of being hit by a car but the trauma of killing somebody. Somebody I know. Knew.”

“Killing somebody?” He caught her hand in a firm clasp. She let the pebble fall to the street and lifted her face to his. In the bright light, his eyes were more green than brown, searing every inch of her face as they flicked over it, bringing the blood rushing to the surface and more than replacing the heat that chill had stolen. “You didn’t kill anybody,” he said.

She swallowed hard and licked her dry lips as she tried to find her voice, to ignore the sensation of his fingers wrapped around hers, his thigh pressed against hers, the scent of danger that lingered about him and blended with the exhilarating, turbulent way his touch made her feel. “You don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t, but I’d be willing to bet money on it.”

“Why?”

“Gut feeling. It’s never wrong, and it’s saved my life more than once.”

“Saved your life?” She pulled away from him and stood, trying to regain her senses. “You never did tell me who you are, what you do.”

He rose also and shrugged, looking down the street rather than at her. “I’m a private investigator. I find missing people who don’t want to be found, infiltrate big companies and risk terminal boredom to track down embezzlers, crash private parties to save insurance companies from paying false claims. Do you want to go with me to see my friend about the ring? It’s just a few miles from here. Have you had lunch yet? We could grab some while we’re out.”

She had a gut feeling, too, and that gut feeling told her that Cole Grayson had a lot of secrets…those that had caused the barren desert in his gaze and those that caused the aura of danger surrounding him. He hadn’t lied to her, but he hadn’t told her the entire truth, either. She did know one truth about him, though. He was not a man that the faint-of-heart could exist alongside.

And she certainly fell into the faint-of-heart category.

But she wasn’t going to stay that way.

“Yes,” she said, lifting her head and forcing the word. “I want to go to see your friend. And no, I haven’t eaten.”

“Great.” Cole strode over to the blue sedan and opened the door for her.

“This isn’t the same car you were in the other night,” she said.

“No, it’s not. This is my work car.” He shrugged. “And it’s got air-conditioning. I thought you might be more comfortable.”

His work car. The other car had been a restored Thunderbird, obviously a treasure. This car was nothing personal to him. Inviting her into this car was simply giving her a ride, an act of kindness. He wasn’t giving anything of himself. And that, she thought, was the essence of Cole Grayson.

She slid inside and Cole started to close the door, when one of the volunteers from the shelter came running out.

“Ms. Jackson! There’s a police officer on the phone who wants to talk to you.”

The terror again swept over her, swirling through her like a black, destructive tornado. Had someone from her past finally found her? Had Sam Maynard done something else? Had the police found a body?

Why did all those prospects terrify her equally? Shouldn’t the thought of recovering her past make her happy instead of frightened?

“I’ll go in with you,” Cole offered.

“No.” She desperately wanted and needed him to come with her. Therefore, she couldn’t let him. Somewhere along the line, she was going to have to learn to stand on her own.

“Yes,” he countered, and she didn’t have the strength to protest a second time.

As she made her way back inside the shelter, through the noisy main room and into a private office, she could feel Cole’s presence behind her, supporting her and giving her strength as surely as if he were physically touching her.

She picked up the telephone on the desk. “Hello?”

“This is Pete Townley. We’ve got a John Doe down here we’d like you to come look at. Fished him out of the river this morning. He’s been dead about two days, has type AB blood, the same as what was on your dress, and multiple stab wounds.”

Stab wounds.

The cold, shiny blade of a knife slashed through her mind.

A torrent of red burst over her, filling her nostrils with a coppery scent and her soul with unbearable horror.

She had to get away from it, run as fast and as far as she could, into the dark oblivion that beckoned her with its promise of escape.

“Mary?” Strong arms gripped her, pulling her back from the edge. “Mary!”

She clutched Cole’s chest like a lifeline, holding herself barely out of the void.

That must be what had happened before. She’d allowed herself to seek the relief of complete forgetfulness when her life became unbearable.

Had she just retrieved the first memory of that life? If so, she didn’t want it!

“There was so much blood,” she whispered.

“Whose blood?”

The prosaic question snapped her completely back to the present. She looked into Cole’s dark eyes, now shadowed with concern. He’d been able to pull her back because he’d known where she was going. He’d been there himself.

Whatever had happened, whatever she’d done, she had to face it the way he’d faced his nightmare.

She realized she still clutched the telephone receiver in one hand while a small voice asked, “Are you there? Mary? Hello?”

With a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she pushed away from Cole, into the thin air of the world, and lifted the receiver to her ear. “I’ll be there to look at the body,” she said, forcing the words up her constricted throat and past her dry lips.

Chapter Four

Cole had been present many times when someone had to look at a body. Most of them cried, especially the women and some of the men…cried from grief if they knew the person, from relief if they didn’t. Some of them passed out. Some got sick.

Mary just stood beside the slab in the morgue, trembling, arms wrapped around herself, staring down at the body.

“Look familiar?” Pete asked. “Ring any bells? Set off any alarms?”

She shook her head, the movement jerky.

In spite of knowing he couldn’t help her and should stay as far away as possible so he didn’t make matters any worse, Cole wrapped a comforting arm around her and pulled her rigid body against him.

“Nobody you know? You’re sure?” Pete pursued, and Cole resisted the urge to tell him to back off. Pete was only doing his job, the same job Cole himself had done many times. It couldn’t be helped that Mary wasn’t strong enough for this kind of ordeal. Some people just weren’t, and there was nothing he or Pete or anyone else could do to change that.

“How can I tell if it’s somebody I know when I didn’t recognize my own face two days ago?” she whispered.

“Let’s go,” Cole said, gently turning her away from the cold marble slab with its grisly occupant. “She can’t tell you anything, Pete.”

Pete nodded. “Thanks for coming down.”

When they finally got back outside the building, into daylight and warmth, Mary stopped on the sidewalk and drew in a deep breath.

“I never thought I’d enjoy the smell of exhaust fumes,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Yeah, I guess it does beat the hell out of smelling death and decay.” He had to admit, he shared her relief at getting out of the morgue. The place had been a part of his life for twelve years and he’d thought himself immune to its horrors, but today Mary’s distress had affected him, had made its way inside his pores.

Empathy.

Guilt.

“I need to get used to that, don’t I?” she said, staring across the street toward the parking lot but, he suspected, not really seeing it. She held her hands at her sides, clenched into tight fists.

“Probably. Every stiff they dig up that has AB blood, they’re going to want you to come take a look. It could be worse. Could have been type O blood on that gown. A more common blood type, more bodies.”

She grimaced. “Yes, I suppose things could always be worse.”

She didn’t sound as if she believed her own statement, and he didn’t blame her. Things were pretty bad in her life right now.

“You ready to go get some lunch and visit with my friend about the ring?” he asked, thinking how small a contribution he was offering to her well-being, considering the major contribution he’d made to her problems.

“I’m not hungry. I think I’d like to go straight back to the shelter.”

“You’re so thin. You need to eat.” He wanted to bite back the words as soon as he said them. He sounded like her father, for crying out loud. She was a grown woman, capable of making her own decisions. She didn’t need anybody to take care of her.

She’s a frightened, vulnerable woman alone without even her memories. And no matter what anybody said, he’d had a hand in making her that way. He had a responsibility even though he wasn’t sure he could fulfill that responsibility.

“They’ll have lunch at the shelter. I really need some time to deal with this.”

She was going to deal with it on her own. He was off the hook.

But something deep inside didn’t quite buy it as he thought of her in that crowded, anonymous shelter, eating anonymous food among strangers, sleeping with no privacy. She wasn’t strong, couldn’t stand alone. If he hadn’t run into her, she’d be safe in a comfortable home somewhere with a fiancé who loved her and could take care of her instead of planning to return to that place for people who’d lost their lives.

Nevertheless, he didn’t know what he could do to help at this point.

“I understand,” he forced himself to say. “We’ll visit my friend tomorrow.” With one hand he gestured to his car in the parking lot across the street, resisting the urge to place that hand at her waist, guide her, touch her. Any excuse to touch her. He sensed she felt the same attraction he did, but he wasn’t going to start down that road, take advantage of her helpless, needy situation.

Especially not with her engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket and the man who gave it to her probably frantic with worry by now.

As she started to step off the curb, a delivery van zipped past, pulled over and parked a few yards up the street…and Mary whirled around, eyes wide, pupils shrunken to pinpoints, face ghostly pale, sheer panic in total possession of her.

He grabbed her as she lunged forward in an effort to run down the walk, get away from the harmless van.

“It’s okay! It’s okay!” He held her tightly as she struggled to get free. Over and over he repeated the nonsensical phrase. Of course it wasn’t okay when anybody was that terrified. He’d said the same thing over and over for Angela and achieved only minimal, temporary results, never anything approaching okay.

Gradually she stopped fighting him, closed her eyes and slumped in his arms. For a moment he thought she might have fainted.

She drew in a deep breath and her spine stiffened, though she kept her face turned to his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft with a slight quaver but an underlying determination. “I have no idea what just happened.”

“The van,” he speculated. “It’s basically the same kind of vehicle as the ambulance you didn’t want to get into the other night. You must have some kind of phobia about ambulances.”

Maybe she wasn’t completely off base about the blood belonging to her fiancé. Maybe she had a phobia about ambulances because he’d been taken away in one, though Cole certainly didn’t think she’d put him there.

He could be wrong, of course. She could have been a completely different person before her memory loss. But he didn’t think so. Her kind of helpless terror was bone-deep and came from the soul.

She nodded, still not looking at him, as if she was embarrassed over her outburst. “It’s hard to fight your fears when you don’t know what causes them.”

She sounded quite rational. She’d be fine. He should release her, let her stand without his support, take her back to the shelter and leave her alone to cope with things as best she could.

He should release her, but, damn, she felt good in his arms. Now that her panic had subsided, she was no longer a victim but merely a beautiful woman…a woman with rounded breasts beneath her white cotton blouse, breasts that were pressed against him because he held her so tightly, one hand at her slim waist and the other splayed across her back. Her hair the color of moonlight was long and soft and brushed his hand as she leaned her head back to look up at him. Her full lips were slightly parted as if she knew he wanted to kiss them…as if she wanted him to kiss them.

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