A Marriage To Remember

by Cathryn Clare

  He was reaching for the pen in the pocket of his windbreaker. “Now, if we could—”

  “I have nothing to tell you.” Ryder’s slow voice cut him off.

  Tad McMaster scratched his head, disordering his hair even more. “Boy,” he said, “if I had a nickel for every time I‘ve—”

  Once again Ryder didn’t let him finish. “I mean it.” he said. “I have no memory of anything that happened more than eight hours ago. I literally have nothing to tell you.”

  “Oh.” For a moment McMaster seemed nonplussed. Then he smiled. “Well, I guess that’s a story in itself, isn’t it?” He plucked the cap off his pen. “It’s got to be quite an experience, losing your memory. Why don’t we start from there, if Mrs. Robards doesn’t mind giving us a few minutes in private—”

  Something wasn’t right about that, either.

  First of all, a good reporter would want to include the wife’s angle, if only because she’d be bound to have information her amnesiac husband wouldn’t know.

  For another thing, Ryder’s accident was news. But his memory loss wasn’t. It was a human-interest story. And in Jayne’s experience, a brand-new reporter at a major daily paper wouldn’t be the one deciding what kind of piece he was going to file.

  Maybe Tad McMaster just wasn’t a very good reporter. Still, something about him made Jayne uneasy enough that she didn’t want to leave the room just yet.

  “I’ll stay, if it’s all the same to you,” she said.

  McMaster scratched his head. “Actually, Mrs. Robards, I do better when I can talk to my subjects one-on-one, without distraction,” he said. “So, if you don’t mind—”

  Ryder was starting to look uneasy now, too. Or rather, his uneasiness had refocused itself on the black-haired reporter.

  It was hard not to contrast the two men. Everything about McMaster was disheveled, fidgety. Across the room, Ryder was smooth, slick, as hard and lean as a sculpted athlete, as watchful as a predator waiting for his prey.

  Except Ryder wasn’t a predator now. If anything, he was the vulnerable one, stripped of everything—clothes, weapons, even his memory.

  Jayne felt unexpectedly protective as she looked over at him. He was obviously trying to sort out his own reactions to what was happening, and not having much luck doing it.

  Physically, he looked as powerful as ever. That lightweight hospital shift did a lousy job of covering him up. Ever since she’d come into the room, she’d been having a hard time keeping her eyes away from the muscled line of his thighs where they showed at the flimsy hem, and the familiar masculine angle of his shoulders under the thin green fabric. It was almost possible—although she’d been doing her best to avoid the temptation—to make out the long outline of his torso, and that washboard-flat stomach that had always turned her own belly soft with longing.

  She felt the dangerous echo of old desires as she looked at him. But she shook it off, and reminded herself that there were a lot of things physical strength couldn’t protect a man from.

  And until she was certain the enigmatic Tad McMaster wasn’t one of those things, she wasn’t happy leaving Ryder on his own with the man.

  “Who assigned you the story for the Herald?” she asked as casually as she could.

  “Margo Addison.” The reply was quick, and just as casual.

  Jayne knew that name, at least. But before she could ask another probing question, McMaster went on, “And I’m due back in with this story by ten. If you know Margo, you’ll know she hates missing a deadline. She wants this piece for tomorrow’s paper, and I’m a new enough kid on the block that I don’t want to let her down.”

  By now Jayne was certain there was something wrong about Tad McMaster. The Miami Herald didn’t go to press until after midnight. McMaster would have the whole day to file his story in time for tomorrow’s paper. Why send him out so early? It didn’t make sense.

  Ryder had been following the exchange intently. Jayne could feel his dark blue gaze flickering from her to McMaster and then back again. Now he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “What is it you don’t like about this guy, Jayne?”

  That was Ryder—jumping straight to the point. It was a style that had made him a good cop. It might have made him a better husband, too, if he’d been that plainspoken about his own feelings.

  Once again she pushed those useless thoughts out of the way. Things were over between her and Ryder—they’d decided that already. She had no desire to go through the whole process again. She was just helping him out of a problematic situation, that was all.

  And Tad McMaster looked more and more as though he might be a part of that problem.

  “I just think it would be interesting if Mr. McMaster told us who he really is,” Jayne said.

  Ryder was nodding before she’d even finished speaking. For a brief moment, she could feel the old intuitive tug that told her he’d been following her thoughts all along, half knowing what she was about to say.

  Ryder was moving away from the bedside table, crossing the room so he stood between Jayne and the supposed reporter. Was he shielding her, or just getting a better look at the man? It was probably some of both. Obviously his policeman’s instincts had surfaced from somewhere deep in his mind.

  “How about it, McMaster?” he was saying in that slow, deliberate voice she remembered so well. “The lady thinks there’s something funny about you. And so do I.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” McMaster raised his hand from his side, and Jayne saw Ryder tense at the gesture. McMaster was only reaching up to run his fingers through his unruly hair, though, leaving it sticking even farther out from his head. “I came here to do a job. I’m not used to being interrogated by my subjects.”

  “You’ll forgive me for being cautious,” Ryder told him. “It’s been a rough day already. How about showing us some ID, just to set our minds at rest?”

  McMaster looked affronted as he recapped his pen. Jayne watched him put it away and fold up his pad. He stuffed the steno pad back into the bag next to him, muttering something about paranoid ex-cops and letting someone else handle the next amnesia interview.

  And then Jayne saw the gun.

  At first it was only a glimpse of something metallic buried in the mouth of the bulging bag McMaster was reaching into. But it was enough to tell her that her gut reaction about this guy had been right.

  “Ryder!” Her voice was sharp with alarm. Ryder was standing so close to the stranger. If he wasn’t on his guard—

  He was. He’d seen the weapon, too, and as Tad McMaster pulled it out of the bag, Ryder was already moving, launching a flying tackle at the bogus reporter that brought them both down onto the hard linoleum floor.

  Jayne heard Ryder’s grunt of pain and McMaster’s angry snarl. They landed half-under the unoccupied bed, screened by the overhanging blanket, and she couldn’t see who’d gotten control of the gun.

  “Jayne, get out of here!” Ryder’s voice sounded tight, as though he was having trouble getting his breath. “Get a security guard.”

  “Do it and you both die, instead of just him.” McMaster sounded strained, too, but as she dashed around the bed to where they were wrestling, Jayne could see that he’d managed to pin Ryder’s body under him.

  Ryder had one strong hand clamped around the other man’s wrist, holding the gun at arm’s length. But from the look of pain on Ryder’s face, he was going to have a tough time making use of his momentary advantage.

  She recalled what the nurse at the duty station had told her. He has a couple of bruised ribs. she’d said. It’s painful but manageable, unless he wants to start playing football right away.

  What he’d just done was as rough as any scrimmage, and a whole lot more dangerous. Jayne winced as she recalled the thud of Ryder’s big body hitting the floor.

  She had to do something to help him, and fast. She could yell, but it could still take minutes for help to arrive. Surely there was something closer to hand... />
  She saw it in the same instant the thought formed in her mind. McMaster—or whatever his name really was—was trying to push the yellow hospital blanket out of his face so he could get a better grip on Ryder. If she could reach past him and yank the blanket back around his head...

  She’d put on a pair of low leather-soled pumps to go with her sweater and skirt this morning. They were pretty, but they didn’t give her much purchase on the slippery linoleum floor. She nearly lost her balance as McMaster jolted her left leg—had he figured out what she was up to, and wanted to stop her?

  She didn’t want to take the time to check. Lurching forward, hands in front of her to break her headlong fall, she grabbed the neatly tucked-in edge of the yellow blanket and stripped it back off the empty bed.

  It was even harder to keep her feet under her as she hauled the blanket away from the mattress. The hospital corners were stubbornly efficient, and McMaster was definitely trying to knock her off balance. She felt him slam sideways against her again, and scrambled for a foothold as her heels skidded against the polished floor.

  It was the thought of Ryder that kept her moving. If he was hurt—if he was too close to that damned gun...

  She was already falling backward as she dragged the blanket clear of the bed. But it didn’t matter now if she stayed upright. In fact, the force of her fall helped pull the blanket tightly around Tad McMaster’s face. She heard him squawk as he was enveloped in the yellow cocoon.

  Her right knee felt numb, as though she’d landed hard on it without realizing it. She forced herself back to her feet, anyway, tugging the blanket tighter, wrapping it all the way around McMaster’s head and shoulders.

  “Ryder, come on!”

  She could see him struggling to get out from under the gunman’s weight. His face was almost as white as the bandage across his forehead, and she knew she’d been right about how hard he’d fallen on his already-bruised ribs.

  But he was clamping down on whatever pain he was in, staying grimly silent as he took the hand Jayne extended toward him. By the time McMaster had started to unwrap the blanket that was hampering him, Ryder was out of his way.

  But not out of danger.

  “We’ve got to get out of here.” His grip on Jayne’s hand tightened as he pulled her with him toward the door.

  She’d seen the silencer on the end of the gun when McMaster had raised it in their direction. What saved them was that the blanket still kept McMaster from aiming with any accuracy. Jayne heard the quick, muffled bite as he pulled the trigger, and then she and Ryder were out the door and sprinting down the hallway.

  “My bag—”

  “Leave it. How the hell do we get out of this place?”

  Jayne scanned the long corridor. She’d come in from the other direction, but the nurses’ station was too far away for them to reach before McMaster would be at the doorway.

  “There!” She tugged Ryder toward the nearest exit sign. An orderly gave them a startled glance as they hurtled past him, and Jayne thought she heard someone yelling “Hey!” in protest.

  There wasn’t time to see who it was. Ryder was pushing the door open—she saw him wince as he did it. Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of McMaster stepping out of the hospital room and looking in their direction.

  Someone screamed, and Jayne saw people in the hallway flattening to the floor. She had just enough time to think, Please, God, don’t let him hit anybody before she was through the exit door after Ryder and pelting down the concrete staircase behind him.

  There wasn’t time to talk. Jayne wasn’t sure either of them had the breath for it, anyway. She clung tight to Ryder’s hand and followed the trailing strings of his green hospital johnny.

  The gaps in the flimsy garment left long stretches of his body exposed. She could see the small of his back—and more—as he grabbed the railing with his free hand and swung around to the next flight of steps.

  The sight made it even harder to catch her breath. Ryder had always been lean and rangy. She’d loved that about him—the hardness of his stomach and thighs, the strength in the way he moved. Even now, with a murderous stranger on their heels and a thousand unanswered questions swirling in her head, it was impossible not to follow his long strides with her eyes as he pulled her across the next landing, impossible not to feel the hot steel of his grip where his hand closed over hers.

  “Where—are we going?” She could barely shape the words around the thudding in her chest.

  “Out.” His voice was clipped and tight. “Got any ideas how to get there?”

  The sharp creak of a door opening above told her their attacker must have seen where they’d gone. In the echoing concrete stairwell, they’d be an easy target if they didn’t get out of the way in a hurry.

  “How about here?” They were down to the next floor by now. They must be nearly at ground level, Jayne thought, grabbing the door handle on the landing they’d just reached.

  “Sounds good to me.” Ryder was right at her side as she stepped out of the stairwell, pausing only long enough to keep the door from banging behind them and giving them away.

  “You think we’ve lost him?” She tried to slow her breathing, but her heart was still banging in her chest, and her words sounded breathless and unsure.

  “Don’t know.” Ryder seemed to be trying to do the same thing, with even less success. He looked drained and pale, his eyes dark and wild. “And I don’t want to stand around wondering about it too long, either.”

  Jayne couldn’t have agreed more. She felt glaringly exposed, painfully vulnerable. What if the gunman had seen which door they’d taken? If he had, they could be under fire again at any second.

  “There.” She pointed to the lobby at the end of the crowded corridor they’d found themselves in. “We can get out that way.”

  Fear told her to keep running, but Ryder’s grip held her to a walking pace as they threaded their way through the staff, patients and visitors who thronged the busy main lobby of the hospital.

  “Slow down,” Ryder muttered at her ear. “We don’t want to attract too much attention.”

  She knew he was right. Any kind of disturbance could tip their pursuer off about where they were. And Jayne wasn’t sure she really wanted to explain why she was walking out of the building with a patient who obviously hadn’t been officially discharged.

  They made it almost to the exit before it happened. Jayne was already stepping forward into the automatic revolving door when she heard a voice behind them calling, “Hey, sir! You with the bandage—wait a minute.”

  “Keep walking.” Ryder stepped into the revolving door next to her, acting as though he hadn’t heard the summons.

  “Maybe we should let him catch up to us.” Jayne glanced over her shoulder as she reached the sidewalk in front of the hospital. “We could use some help.”

  “Not that kind.” Ryder was propelling her forward again, sliding one arm around her waist and heading for a row of vehicles parked by the curb. “If that guy was crazy enough to shoot in broad daylight with witnesses standing around, he’s crazy enough for anything. He wants me dead, and he doesn’t seem to care if anybody else gets in the way. We’ve got to get out of here, or nobody’s safe.”

  “How are we going to get away? My car keys are in my bag, back in your room.”

  Ryder didn’t hesitate, just kept moving forward, as though he’d already taken the loss of her keys into account, as though the pavement of the parking lot wasn’t gritty and hard under his bare feet, as though people weren’t staring at them from all sides.

  As though he wasn’t in serious pain.

  Jayne knew better. She could feel his labored breathing where she was tucked against his side. His arm was trembling with tension where it was wrapped around her waist, and she half wondered whether he was using her to hold himself up.

  There wasn’t time to ask him. People were calling out to them now, but Ryder ignored them. He kept a straight course for the row of cars
by the hospital entrance. There was a big blue sedan with its driver’s door standing open.

  And its engine running.

  “We can’t do this.” Jayne finally realized what he was planning. “Ryder, you can’t steal somebody’s car.”

  “I’m not stealing it. I’m borrowing it. Get in.”

  He didn’t leave her a choice. Despite the shaking she could feel in his arm, he had enough strength to muscle her into the front seat through the open door before sliding in himself. Jayne heard a shouted challenge from the sidewalk—the car’s owner, no doubt—but the sound disappeared as Ryder slammed the door shut and reached for the gearshift.

  And then, quite slowly and deliberately, he pulled away from the curb and left the hospital behind them.

  Chapter 3

  His head was pounding.

  He had no idea where he was going, or who the guy with the gun was.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do next.

  In two minutes the police would probably be on his tail. And the only thing he did know was that he didn’t want anything to do with the police.

  He was damn near naked. His ribs felt as though they’d been jammed together by someone who hadn’t been following the instructions properly.

  That was the bad news.

  On the plus side, he was still alive.

  And so was Jayne Robards.

  His heart started to thud all over again when he remembered that moment in the hospital corridor just before they’d ducked into the stairwell. He’d seen that gun leveled at Jayne’s body, and his stomach had seemed to come all the way up into his throat. If they’d been a split second slower getting through that door—if the shooter had been just a little more skillful...

  At the moment, it was his clearest and worst memory. And he wasn’t anxious to repeat it. Forcing himself to push past the pain in his head and ribs, he concentrated on driving the car. For the moment, all he cared about was keeping Jayne safe.

  As far as Ryder was concerned, that meant getting as far away from her as possible, as soon as possible. Unfortunately, she seemed to have other ideas.