Broken

“I’m taking a break,” Mia said, interrupting her friend’s lengthy supposition about the stranger. “I’ll be back in fifteen.”

Mia skirted the dozen or so tourists oohing and ahhing over the dining room and cut through the kitchen to reach the back gardens. She moved away from the house to avoid interruptions by those wandering the blooming paths of the gardens, slid her cell phone from her pocket and called Chandra.

According to Chandra, Reece was a serious potential buyer.

“So this guy is legit?” Mia asked.

“Definitely,” Chandra assured her. “He’s ready to buy and he doesn’t need financing. The man absolutely insisted I show him all three of the historic homes in town that are for sale. On Sunday no less.”

Another surprise. He hadn’t looked like the type with that kind of money or that sort of determination. “He picked the Reid house over the others?” It was by far in the worst condition.

“He preferred a fixer-upper,” Chandra explained. “Wants to get his hands dirty.”

Actually he wanted to get Mia’s hands dirty. “I guess I could call him.”

“Be sure you do, Mia,” Chandra urged. “You know how slow the housing market has been. I could really use the sale.”

Things were tough all over town. “You can count on me.” That was what folks did here in Blossom. They helped each other out.

After Chandra finished her drawn-out monologue about how handsome and mysterious Reece was, Mia grabbed the opportunity to end the call. Mr. Reece had better watch himself. Chandra had been divorced for three years. She had bemoaned the slim pickings hereabouts for that same time. Reece fit the Realtor’s image of the perfect man—hot and loaded.

Mia would call Reece. But not for a couple of hours. She could use the work but she didn’t want to appear desperate. Fair pay wasn’t too much to ask, even in this economy. If he pegged her as desperate he’d start trying to negotiate her prices in the wrong direction.

She propped her hands on her hips. This could be a godsend. Maybe she’d get that new stained-glass window for her bathroom after all. Not to mention a little cushion in her bank account.

Her uncle had offered to replace the window ten times. But Mia was a grown woman. She could support herself. Her uncle had done far too much for her already.

The journey had been long and arduous but Mia Grant was fully capable of standing on her own two feet. She smiled. That had not been the case just a few years ago. Funny how a person’s darkest hours could seem so far away and not so bad after all when looking from well on the other side of tragedy.

Mia liked this view a whole lot better.

Chapter Three

1:00 p.m.

It was her.

Linc braced his hands on the bathroom wall and peered into the mirror. It was Lori.

Her face was different, the nose mainly, like Mort had said. But Linc had watched her move. Every move. The way her hands stroked the plaster. The way she arched her back. It was her.

The eyes…Lori’s eyes. Pale brown, almost gold. She wore her shiny brown hair the same. Long, silky. He’d know that mussed ponytail anywhere. While they’d talked he had studied her face. The cheekbones were so much like Lori’s, with only the subtlest changes. The brow area was different, but the lips were exactly the same.

He was certain it was her. But she hadn’t recognized him.

His gut clenched. He’d watched for the faintest flare of recognition in her eyes. Nothing. But when their hands had touched, her pupils had flared. That alone couldn’t be attributed to recognition. He was a stranger. For all he knew this Mia Grant might respond to all strangers, especially males, in that manner. According to one of the guides at the Dowe home where she’d been working, guys were wasting their time setting their sites on Mia. She was untouchable. Of course, the guide was young, twenty-one or twenty-two maybe. Lori—Mia—had turned thirty this year, though she looked closer to twenty and always had. The youthful image had worked to her advantage in undercover work.

Doubt nagged him and Linc pushed it away. It was her.

How was that possible? Everyone on that damned yacht had died except Linc and one of Juan Marcos’s thugs. No one else had survived. They had searched for survivors and bodies for days. Only a few who’d been on board had been found. They had been so deep at sea it was impossible to even hope to find them all.

When the recovery efforts were halted, Linc had lain in the hospital counting the hours and days until he was released. Then, with the help of a private team, he’d searched the water for days more. He’d gone to every hospital and clinic in a hundred-mile radius. Nothing. Not a single other survivor had been treated in the area.

Eventually he’d given up.

Linc stared at his weary reflection. Maybe he’d lost his mind. No. If that were the case, then Mort was crazy, too. Mort was sure this woman was Lori.

But Mia didn’t remember Linc.

Amnesia? Chances were she had sustained a head injury in the accident. If the amnesia had been merely traumatic or only partial, she’d be past that now. Was it possible that all she needed was the right mental nudges? He needed to talk to a specialist. He had no idea what the ramifications of a memory loss so profound and long-lasting could be.

The other screaming question was how she had gotten here.

This was nuts.

Linc wrenched the faucet handles, letting the water flow from the tap. He bent down and washed his face. Think! How can this be?

He grabbed a towel and scrubbed it over his face. If she would take the job he’d offered her, he could buy some time to figure this out. For the past seven years he hadn’t given one damn about material possessions. His paychecks had gone into the bank. He’d lived on bourbon and the occasional sandwich. Buying the Reid house wouldn’t be a hardship. Staying here for as long as necessary wouldn’t be, either.

His cell vibrated. He snagged it by two fingers and slid it from his front pocket. The number on the screen told him it was the boss. “Reece.”

“Have you made contact?” Keaton asked.

Slade Keaton ran a tight ship at the Equalizers. He cared that his investigators were good to go professionally as well as personally. But he never stepped over the line. In recent weeks, though, his personal involvement with his staff had changed considerably. When Linc had first come on board, Keaton had been all but anonymous.

“I spoke to her briefly.” Linc forked the fingers of his free hand through his hair as he moved to the bed and plopped down. “It’s her.” The words echoed over and over in his brain.

“The dental records were faxed to my office. I’m loading them into a PDF. I’ll send them to you shortly.”

“Thanks.” Not that he had a clue how he would accomplish the comparison just yet.

“You’re certain there are no living family members?”

“None. Both her parents passed away when she was in college, and she’s an only child.” Linc wished like hell he could go the DNA route, but there was no comparison sample. Fingerprints would have been the simplest method, but the gas leak explosion at the L.A. Hall of Records a year after the accident that had taken her life—or so he’d thought—had decimated all official files, including the DMV files. The obliterated files hadn’t meant anything at the time, but now he couldn’t help wondering if the two incidents had been related.

“No prints, no DNA.” Keaton made a sound that reflected his own skepticism. “Sounds almost like a well-thought-out plan.”

Anger stirred in Linc. “She wouldn’t have done that.” No way in hell Lori would have set up her own death to get away from her life…from Linc.

“That wasn’t an accusation,” Keaton assured him. “Only a statement of fact.”

Linc rubbed his weary eyes. His chest tightened to the point of restricting any possibility of a breath. “Point taken.”

How the hell was he going to do this?

There was no quick and easy method. He needed time and access.

“If you require any other of my available resources—”

“I’ll call.” Linc hesitated. “Look, I don’t know what I’m doing here.” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “This is…crazy.”

“Maybe,” Keaton agreed, “but there’s only one way to find out.”

That was the bottom line. “If I were working this as a case, I’d be looking into any Marcos connections in the area.” Even though Juan Marcos was dead. Like Lori. “If this is my wife, Marcos had something to do with it.” No damned question. Marcos had been the biggest drug lord on the West Coast. Many had tried, but no one had been able to get close to him, much less bring him down, until Linc and Lori infiltrated his organization.

“I’m on it,” Keaton guaranteed. “I have the details you provided as well as headlines I pulled up on the Net. I’ll reach out to my contacts.”

Linc cleared his throat of the emotion clogged there. “Appreciate it.”

He closed his cell and tossed it onto the bed. He’d been here thirty-some-odd hours and he had already hit a brick wall. Every part of him believed this woman was Lori. Yet he had no way to prove it.

He closed his eyes and allowed the memories to invade his mind. Lori had come to the LAPD straight from college. Linc had just made detective. They were married within three months. A year later she was on the narco team with him. They’d been assigned to the Marcos operation because they fit the necessary profile—young and attractive. Marcos surrounded himself with youth and beauty. It was the only way into his exclusive, lethal club.

Just nine weeks later Linc and Lori had moved into the inner sanctum. Many weeks later, a celebration on the Marcos yacht was the prelude to his takedown. All his major players were to be there. But a competitor had seized the opportunity to take out all the real competition in one fell swoop.

It had worked.

Agony swelled inside Linc. He’d lost her and nothing else had mattered since.

He reached for his phone. Might as well walk around town and see what he could dig up in the way of info on Mia Grant. Hanging around the town’s only hotel, an ancient house that had been converted into a bed-and-breakfast, would have him climbing the walls.

He stuffed his shirt back into his jeans and left. Downstairs the lady who’d registered him as a guest looked up from the paperback book she was reading and smiled. She hadn’t been at her desk when he’d returned half an hour ago.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Reece. Did you have lunch? I can warm you up a plate. Our guests are welcome to all meals prepared.”

“Thanks, but I’m on my way out.” He flashed her a halfhearted smile.

“I hear you’re going to buy the Reid house.”

The small-town grapevine was obviously alive and well. “I’m considering it.” He continued toward the door. Adding to the rumor mill wasn’t on his agenda. Slowing for additional conversation would lead to questions he didn’t want to answer.

“Mia will make that place look like the day it was built.” Her face gleamed with pride. “She’s just amazing.”

Linc changed course and headed for the desk where the chatty lady sat. Either she was guessing or Mia had already discussed taking the job with someone on the gossip loop. “Are her prices reasonable?” Seemed like a safe lead-in.

“Never heard nobody complain.” She pursed her lips and lifted her chin triumphantly.

“Mrs. Crist, you sound like a big fan of Miss Grant’s. I’m not sure you’re objective.” Mrs. Crist, the owner of the bed-and-breakfast, was seventy if she was a day, but her eyes were as keen as a seventeen-year-old’s.

“I’m a fan rightly enough,” she confessed. “But the girl’s got a magic touch with plaster. That’s the God’s truth.”

“Do she and her husband work together?”

Mrs. Crist puckered her face with a combination of humor and confusion. “Where in the world did you hear she had a husband?” Her gaze narrowed. “You been talking to that Teddy Stewart down at the Gas and Go? That young fella is just trying to ward off any suitors. Mia’s not married. She doesn’t even have a boyfriend. She’s too busy for such.” She raised her eyebrows at Linc. “Or so she says.”

Linc chuckled. “If we come to an agreeable price, I plan to keep her busy for a while.”

Crist grinned. “I see she’s already turned your head.”

His tone as he’d made the statement reverberated in his ears, then kicked him square between the eyes. He’d sounded exactly like a man interested in more than a woman’s professional skills. Not a good thing. He needed time with Mia Grant, not to scare her off. He needed to be sure.

“Only for her talent with plaster.” He gave the lady a nod and headed for the door before he stuck his foot any deeper down his throat.

Outside he rounded the corner of the Victorian bed-and-breakfast and reached for his keys. He’d considered using an alias while he was here, but he wanted Mia to know his name. To hear it. To say it.

Linc wanted whoever had brought her here to know he had arrived. He was here for his wife.

His cell vibrated.

He hit the remote and unlocked the SUV as he tugged the phone from his pocket.

Unknown number with a Tennessee area code. Tension rushed through his veins, escalating his already too-fast respiration. “Reece.”

“Mr. Reece, this is Mia Grant.”

“You found time in your schedule?” He held his breath in anticipation of her answer.

“Yes.”

The air seeped from his lungs.

“I’d like to meet at the house and see what you have in mind.”

The sound of her voice made his knees rubbery. “Name the time.” Damn. They needed to include the real estate agent. He’d have to call her immediately. The sooner he could see this Mia Grant again the sooner he would find the answers he needed.

“I’ll pick up the key from Chandra and meet you there in fifteen minutes,” she said.

Even better. “I’ll be there.”

She said goodbye and ended the call.

Linc leaned against his SUV and closed his eyes. Her voice…Lori’s voice.

His wife was alive.

Chapter Four

The house looked as bad as Mia remembered. The plaster was a real mess, more the walls than the molding. The ceilings had some bad areas, but fortunately the original wood floors were in considerably better condition. The windows and doors looked salvageable. Surprisingly, the two baths and the kitchen were in better condition than any other room, which was good considering they could suck up major bucks in a renovation.

“I can work with this,” she announced.

Reece nodded. “When can you start?”

Mia laughed. “Don’t you want to know my price first?” He’d followed her from room to room for the last half hour. He hadn’t said a word since the initial hello.

Surprise flashed across his face, but he quickly schooled the expression. “Mrs. Crist tells me your prices are fair.”

“Maybe so.” Mia didn’t know this man. She wanted no miscommunications between them. “But I’d feel more comfortable if we agreed upon a price first.”

He nodded his head. “Understandable.”

Mia chewed the inside of her cheek. Perhaps the price she’d mentally calculated was too low. No, it was fair. She wouldn’t jack up her price simply because he appeared prepared to pay whatever she named. This man was from out of town and clearly money was no issue, that was true. Still, right was right. She stated her price and prepared for his reaction.

“Sounds reasonable,” Reece said without hesitation or detectable reluctance.

“It’ll take some time,” she warned. “I have a couple of days left at the Dowe house.” Day and a half maybe. Better to give herself sufficient time than to risk not meeting a stated target date. “I’ll need at least two weeks here.”

Some aspect of her answer didn’t appear to sit well with him. A frown furrowed his brow. “Is it possible to work a couple of hours here each day while you finish up there?”

A frown of her own worried her forehead. “Are you on a deadline, Mr. Reece?”

“Linc.”

“Linc,” she echoed. His stare turned so intense that she suddenly felt uncomfortable alone with him. Knock it off, Mia. She squared her shoulders against the uneasiness. “You should call me Mia.”

“Mia.”

Silence thickened in the room as her senses absorbed the sound of her name on his lips. What was it about this man that made her feel so…restless?

“You…you have a deadline?” He hadn’t answered her question.

He crossed the parlor to the expanse of windows looking out over the well-manicured lawn. The city council required that properties in town, whether inhabited or not, be maintained on the outside. Overgrown and littered yards were bad for tourism as well as community pride.

“Time isn’t an issue,” he said, his back still turned to her. “I’m merely anxious to get started.”

That was true of most folks when they got their hearts set on a project. “I could maybe get a couple hours in tomorrow afternoon. I’ll pick up enough material to get started.”

He nodded. She noticed only because she was watching for a response. Her initial analysis of him had been right. Brooding. “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.” Tucking her notepad into her apron pocket, she started for the entry hall.

“Are you available for dinner this evening?”

Startled by the request, Mia paused. He was watching her. That was it, she realized. He didn’t really look at her. He watched her. Analyzed her. And it made her restless. “Dinner?”

“I’d like to discuss any recommendations you might have for the other work.”

She nodded. “Plumbing and electrical. And the floors.”

“Is that a yes to dinner?”

He moved closer, his posture oddly rigid. That restlessness she’d been experiencing picked up its pace, making her pulse quicken. Was he trying to intimidate her or was this just his way?

“Blossom Café?” she proposed. It was a safe choice. She knew the folks who ran the café and she would know all the patrons. Her little bungalow was only a couple of blocks away. It was perfect.

“Eight?”

He was definitely from the city, she thought. “Around here we call it supper and it’s around six.”

Why did he stare at her that way? Every response came after a considerable delay.

“Six, then.”

More of that breath-stealing silence followed.

Suppressing that danged uneasiness, she tacked a smile into place. “See you then.”

Mia turned toward her original destination. This time he didn’t stop her. She walked out the door and straight to her old truck. The safety and familiarity of it felt like a balm to her frayed nerves. More than forty years old and a little beat-up, the truck served her purposes just fine. A handy toolbox was mounted in the back and a smaller, handheld version waited in the cab. She liked her truck and she liked her life.

Feeling out of sorts wasn’t the norm for her, at least not in a really long time. Back during her recovery there had been a lot of days filled with pain and uncertainty. Feelings of loss that she hadn’t been able to fully measure or articulate. But those days were long gone.

As Mia slid behind the wheel of her trusty truck she caught a glimpse of Mr. Reece watching her from the broad parlor window.

Doubt slipped up on her. Maybe she’d made a mistake agreeing to work for him. There was something very odd about Lincoln Reece. He exhumed frailties she hadn’t suffered in years.

Mia shook her head. You’re making too much of this, girl. She laughed. This was Blossom. Bad things never happened here. That was just another reason why she loved it so very much. It was also why her uncle had brought her here after her release from those long, long months of rehabilitation.

This was home now.

Safe. Reliable. Calm.

LINC COULDN’T MOVE.

He’d made that mistake when he’d asked her about dinner. The closer he’d gotten to her the more his control had dwindled. He’d wanted to grab her and shake her. To demand that she admit that Mia Grant was not her name.

She was Lori…his wife.

Relief, elation and anticipation infused his blood with yearning. He felt it all the way to the core of his being.

The junker of a pickup eased away from the curb. When it had disappeared down the tree-lined street, Linc left the window and surveyed the parlor. There was a lot of work to be done. That would buy him some time. But there were other pressing issues to be considered.

How had Lori gotten here?

Who had rescued her after the explosion on the yacht? More importantly, how had she been rescued? Not that Linc wasn’t grateful, but this was no act of a Good Samaritan. Her rescue had sinister origins. Otherwise her identity would have been tracked down and her next of kin—her husband—contacted.

As right as finding her felt, the circumstances were wrong, way wrong.

Blossom Café, 6:00 p.m.

SHE WAITED AT A TABLE in the center of the small café. For a minute or so Linc studied her. He’d already done a lot of that. It wasn’t smart to risk her catching him yet again. He sensed she was suspicious already, but he couldn’t help himself. From a distance, he could look with the knowledge that this was his wife. The only woman he had ever loved. The woman with whom he had shared every aspect of his life. Back when he’d had a life.

Seven years. At first he had plunged into an oblivion of pain and despair. He had prayed his way back, believing that there had to be a mistake…that she had to be alive. All he had to do was find her. Then defeat had conquered him and he had stopped feeling at all. Inside, he had broken. Given up.

Yet, there she was. The minimal outside changes didn’t matter. It was the inside, the voice, the mannerisms that told him his heart could dare to beat again.

This was his wife and she was alive.

Linc pulled open the door, causing the overhead bell to jingle, and stepped inside. The smell of home cooking made the air thick and damp. Though clearly deep in conversation, most of the patrons glanced his way. Some turned back to their supper companions while others visually followed him to Lori’s table. Mia’s table. He had to remember that.

A smile stretched her lips—lips he had kissed a thousand times. “Did you have trouble finding the place?” The twinkle in her eyes told him she understood that was impossible since this was the only café on the town square open past three in the afternoon.

“I was delayed by a call.” He dragged out the chair opposite her and took a seat.

She passed him a menu. “I already know what I want. The meatloaf is awesome.”

He didn’t bother looking at the menu. “Meatloaf it is, then.”

“Good call.” She held up her glass. “Sweet tea?”

What he really needed was a fifth of bourbon. “Absolutely.”

Linc was vaguely aware that a waitress had strolled up to their table, but he couldn’t shift his focus from the eyes, the mouth he’d cherished for a few short months and then had hungered for during the better part of a decade that had felt more like an eternity.

Mia placed their orders. When the chatty waitress had moved away, Mia pulled out her notepad. “I have a couple of names for you. Jesse Steele is the best plumber anywhere around here.” She pointed to the next name she’d jotted down. “Same goes for Patrick Nunley. He’s an electrician.” She tapped the final name on her handwritten list. “I’ve worked with Jerry Brooks plenty of times. He’s the best carpenter I know. He can handle anything else you need.”

That her lips had stopped moving told him she was waiting for a response from him.

“I’ll need estimates.” He gave himself a mental kick. He needed to focus.

“I can have these guys call you,” she suggested. “Or when I’m at the house they can come by and do their estimates.”

“Either way works for me.” He wanted to get past talk of the house.

“I’ll make the calls.” She tore the page free of the pad and thrust it at him. “You can keep this, so you don’t forget the names.”