A Marriage To Remember

by Cathryn Clare

  Her little gasp as he shifted his embrace told him she was eager. The thought of it made him reckless, half-wild.

  “Nick—”

  That was his name. She was calling his name. He didn’t recognize it, and yet he did. It acted on him like a siren song, like a spell he’d fallen under a very long time ago.

  It didn’t matter where they were, or what was happening around them. He had to know where this half-remembered passion would lead him, had to hear that eager note in Jayne’s sultry voice again.

  Ryder tightened his grip and pulled Jayne even closer, already imagining her legs twined with his, knowing how good it would feel to surround her with his body, to sink all his solitary fears into the warm refuge of her smile.

  He leaned over, starting to ease them both down onto the soft upholstery.

  And felt his rib cage crack apart in the middle.

  The pain jackknifed through him without warning. He froze, trying not to breathe.

  It was nearly impossible, when his heart was hammering so hard. He managed to get a hand onto the back of the seat, and felt Jayne struggling to move free of him. She clasped the headrest with one hand and backed away, taking the warmth with her, shattering the momentary dream that had engulfed him.

  “No—wait—”

  He knew it was ridiculous. He could barely get the words out past the stabbing sensation in his ribs, yet he was pleading with her not to go.

  She shook her glossy head. Ryder recognized the exasperation in the gesture. “This is crazy,” she was saying. “We should have stayed at the hospital. You—”

  “No.” It was nearly impossible to focus on her words when her voice was still shot through with desire. And his own sounded the same way. Or maybe it was pain that was roughening his tone—he couldn’t tell. “We did the right thing. We just—I shouldn’t have—”

  He almost couldn’t say it. His heart was still telling him, Hold on to her—don’t let her go. Illogically but powerfully, he felt as though everything might come crashing back in on him if he let Jayne slip away.

  He thought of the emptiness he’d awakened to in the night, his desperate attempts to call up memories that just weren’t there. He could feel himself resist letting her go, trying to stay in a place that promised pleasure and satisfaction and gentleness instead of confusion and fear.

  But the jangling of his bandaged ribs was telling him a different story. And he knew he should listen to it—for both their sakes.

  “Getting away from the hospital was a good idea,” he said finally, gritting his teeth as he levered himself upright on the seat again. “Getting carried away just now—that was a mistake. My mistake.”

  Her eyes flared, as though he’d touched a nerve without meaning to. He wanted to know what she was thinking. He needed to feel the sweet, certain connection between them once more. But that brief moment of certainty was gone.

  “Your ribs—are they—”

  He clamped down on the pain and frustration inside him and made his voice as definite as he could. “They’ll be all right. And anyway, they’re my problem, not yours. Your problem is getting through to that friend of yours at the police department. Maybe you should go try to do that now.”

  He didn’t miss the way her eyes widened again at his words, or the irony that he was now urging her to call the police, when he’d been arguing against it so strenuously a little while earlier.

  Then, it had seemed too dangerous even to think about.

  Now, the real danger seemed to be coming from his own feelings, his own buried longings. He still wasn’t wild about Jayne’s plan, but at least it offered a respite from the sexual tension filling the car in the wake of their interrupted embrace.

  Did she notice, as she slid out the passenger side, how aroused Ryder was under the flimsy hospital gown? Was her sudden silence a way of masking some of the same lingering desires that he was trying so hard to vanquish?

  He didn’t dare ask her. With luck, it would take her a few minutes to reach her friend at the police department. And by the time she came back maybe he would have himself under control again.

  Boy, you two are hot!

  Madeleine Murphy’s words echoed in Jayne’s thoughts as she held up a pair of stonewashed men’s jeans and tried to assess what Ryder’s waist size. was now.

  Lean and hungry were the words that sprang to mind.

  She shook her head and did her best to chase away the troubling image of Ryder’s long body and lean hips. She could still feel his taut skin under her fingers and hear the deep, ragged sound of his voice at her ear.

  She’d never seen Ryder in a pair of jeans that looked new. He’d always bought the prewashed kind and then worn them until they were practically in tatters. When she thought about the masculine, almost arrogant slant of his hips, about the way the worn denim had always creased at his thighs, about the holes she’d never even suggested patching because the glimpses of his hard, muscled legs had always given her a secret, seductive thrill—

  She blinked and realized she’d closed her eyes and let fantasy take over right in the middle of the store’s menswear department. She needed to get a grip on herself, and that meant chasing all these erotic thoughts about Nick Ryder back where they belonged. The first jeans she’d taken off the rack would just have to do, she decided, and grabbed a belt from the sale table on her way past, in case Ryder really was as much lankier as he looked.

  What do you mean, we’re hot?

  Her conversation with Madeleine. kept replaying itself as she paid for the new clothes.

  I mean, everybody and his brother seems to have heard about that shoot-out at the hospital. I’ve got press calling me already, I’ve had the chief on the line—

  What did you tell them?

  Not a damn thing, because I don’t know a damn thing. I’m hoping you’re going to fix that.

  She hadn’t, not really. Jayne wanted to get information, not give it out. It was only after a lengthy exchange that Madeleine agreed to dig up what she could about Ryder’s case.

  But you owe me, big-time, she’d said. And Jayne had promised that as soon as it was safe to talk, Madeleine would be the first person she called.

  She’d been careful not to give out the number of the pay phone, even to Madeleine. And she’d been just as careful to avoid getting back into the blue sedan with Ryder. She’d taken a walk to check out the storefronts along the adjacent street, and had found a pawnshop, as she’d been hoping. Once the place opened, she’d quickly negotiated a price for her wedding ring. In a bleak, joyless little ceremony, she’d pocketed five hundred dollars cash in exchange for the sparkling diamond that had once signified the kind of treasure that was beyond price.

  Ignoring the pang of loss, she’d headed straight for the now-open mall. It was just as hard to ignore Ryder’s silent presence in the blue sedan parked in the shady corner of the parking lot. Both his physical response to her and his blunt, dead-end words—It’s my problem, not yours—had stirred up a lot of feelings she’d honestly hoped she wasn’t going to have to face again.

  By the time she finished her shopping trip, it was nearly an hour since she’d left Ryder in the car. That was long enough for safety, she told herself as she emerged into the now-bright Saturday-morning sunlight. Long enough for both of them to have cooled off. Long enough to start thinking rationally, planning their next move.

  She was wrong.

  She could see him starting the car as she stepped out of the mall’s main entrance. He’d been watching for her, she thought. The dark blue sedan started crossing the half-empty parking lot, heading toward her at a sedate pace.

  And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

  She couldn’t see what had triggered Ryder’s sudden burst of speed. She heard the sedan’s tires squeal and saw the vehicle lurch as it veered abruptly.

  Out of the corner of her eye she thought she caught a glimpse of movement at the end of a row of parked cars. But there wasn’t time to figure out what it w
as. The sedan was screaming toward the curb, and she ran to meet it, holding tight to the bags that filled her arms.

  The passenger door was flung wide as the car reached her. “Get in!” Ryder shouted. “And get your head down!”

  She wanted to ask why, but there wasn’t time. The tires were spinning again as soon as she grabbed the door handle. She was half jolted onto the front seat, and barely had time to close the door behind her before they were moving again.

  “I said down, damn it!”

  Ryder’s right hand was like hot steel on the back of her neck as he shoved her below the level of the dashboard.

  A second later she realized why he’d done it.

  She heard, rather than saw, the back window shatter. There was a sudden high-pitched noise, like angry surf against a breakwater. And then she was showered with broken bits of glass as Ryder let loose a long string of curses and jammed the accelerator to the floor.

  Chapter 4

  “If you would just hold still—”

  He didn’t seem capable of it. He winced at her touch, half turning away as she started to peel back the bandage.

  “I really think this can wait.”

  His voice was tight with pain or impatience or both. His face was pale again, his teeth clenched, his forehead dotted with sweat that had finally loosened the adhesive tape around his bandage.

  It was lucky she’d bought a first-aid kit during her fast shopping spree in the mall. But Ryder wasn’t exactly making it easy for her to use it.

  “No, it can’t wait,” she told him. “If you pass out while we’re driving, there won’t be any ‘later.’ Nobody’s going to find us here in the next ten minutes, Ryder. I want to make sure nothing’s bleeding under there.”

  There was no blood, although the size of the welt on his forehead made Jayne wince sympathetically. How he’d managed to pull that fancy piece of stunt driving while sporting this nasty lump and a set of badly bruised ribs was beyond her.

  She knew it had been luck as much as skill that had saved them. Crouched by the dashboard, she’d missed most of what was happening. But she’d seen enough out the window above her to realize that Ryder had managed to maneuver them back onto the highway ahead of whoever had been shooting at them.

  When she’d tried to see what was going on, he’d pushed her back down out of the way. But his muttered comments—“ We’re in luck, if these two trucks are getting off where I think they’re going to”—gave her an idea what he was up to.

  He’d waited until the last possible second, then ducked in between two long trailer trucks at the next exit. The squealing tires on the highway above them told Jayne that their pursuer hadn’t made his move in time.

  Ryder had taken no chances after that, changing directions half a dozen times until he was certain no one was behind them. They’d ended up on a road leading to a stretch of state beach, where Ryder had agreed—reluctantly—to pull in for a few minutes.

  There were a few other people in the lot, most of them heading purposefully for the sand that started just beyond the parking area. Ryder backed the car into the shrubs in one corner of the lot, where the smashed rear window wouldn’t be so noticeable.

  “All right,” Jayne said when she’d rebandaged his forehead. “What the heck happened back there? How did they find us?”

  Ryder was reaching for the clothes she’d bought for him at the mall. He had to raise his voice over the rustling of the bag, or maybe it was something else that was making him sound so harsh.

  “It was your phone call,” he said. “They traced the number. It’s the only way it could have happened.”

  Jayne’s mind had been fighting against that possibility. Try as she might, though, she hadn’t been able to come up with any other explanation.

  “I still can’t believe Madeleine would do that,” she said.

  “She might not have.” He pulled the jeans out of the bag and held them up in front of him. “How many people in the police department know you two are friends?”

  “Lots.” She could see where his thoughts were headed. “So you think once the hospital reported that you’d been involved in a shooting incident—”

  “And that my wife was with me—”

  “It wouldn’t have been hard to make the connection.”

  “Right. Whoever’s after me must have figured there was a good chance you would call Madeleine if you were looking for information.”

  “Could they have gotten a tap on her phone so quickly?”

  “You started to call her from the hospital, remember? You left your name, just before I cut off the call. If somebody had been monitoring calls coming in for Madeleine, they’d have picked up on it.”

  “And been waiting when I called back later.”

  “With a tap on her line, which led them straight to that mall parking lot. And we were still there, like a couple of sitting ducks.”

  She still didn’t want to believe it. But if it was true—and she couldn’t see a good way around it—it meant that Ryder’s gut instincts had been right all along.

  Someone in the Miami police department did want him dead. And it didn’t seem to matter to them if Jayne got caught in the cross fire.

  That wasn’t the only thought troubling her at the moment. Ryder was shifting his long body on the front seat, angling himself so he could shimmy into the jeans without getting out of the car.

  She caught one glimpse of the long, bare stretch of his thigh, and quickly shifted her gaze. Even the terror of that bullet coming through the back window of the car hadn’t been enough to chase away the memory of everything she’d felt in Ryder’s arms when they’d first pulled into that parking lot.

  She wasn’t sure she really wanted to sit next to him now as he struggled out of that impossibly skimpy hospital gown. “There’s a men’s room just over there,” she told him. “You could—”

  He shook his head. “Too risky,” he said. “I don’t want to attract anybody’s attention. And parading around in this damn gown is a good way to do exactly that.”

  It wasn’t until he’d gotten his bare feet into the legs of the jeans that it seemed to occur to him he’d managed to capture Jayne’s attention in a way he likely hadn’t intended. His dark blue eyes narrowed suggestively as he added, “Why? What’s the matter? If we were really married for—how long?”

  “Thirteen years.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as husky as it felt.

  “Thirteen years—well, hell, you must have pretty much seen all of me there is to see, haven’t you?”

  Of course she had.

  That was the problem.

  She resisted the impulse to clear her throat as she watched him raise his hips and pull the new jeans over them. The motion accented the length of his legs and the washboard-flatness of his belly. And this time it was impossible to tear her eyes away.

  How many times had her body turned liquid at the feeling of that flat stomach against hers? She’d had a hard time remembering her dreams in the difficult months since Ryder had been in jail. But she suspected—no, she knew, from the rumpled pillows she sometimes found in the middle of the bed when she woke in the mornings—that there were parts of her that had never stopped longing for the magic of his touch, the heat of his loving.

  All those half-buried longings had exploded vividly into life when he’d pulled her into his arms just a little while ago.

  And at that exact moment, someone had been on their trail for the deadliest of reasons.

  This was no time to be getting all breathless about the sexy slant of Ryder’s hips and the broad shoulders she could see once he’d freed himself from the hospital gown. She looked away again, willing herself not to linger over the hard curve of his upper arm when he reached into the bag on the seat between them and pulled out the dark blue polo shirt she’d bought.

  “I thought I’d seen the last of you,” she said as firmly as she could. “I’m just having a difficult time sorting out everything that’s going on, that�
��s all. I still haven’t figured out how you got one jump ahead of the guy with the gun. Did you see him before he saw you?”

  Fortunately, she was used to asking questions. She fell back on professional habit, hoping it would cover the fact that she’d started to quiver inside all over again as Ryder raised those strong arms over his head and pulled the shirt over his bandaged, but still beautiful, body.

  “I saw his truck.” He dropped the hospital gown and the bag into the back seat and turned the key in the ignition.

  “How did you—”

  “I saw a white pickup with red and maroon pinstriping outside the hospital just before you showed up this morning. When I saw what looked like the same truck in the mall parking lot, I figured we were probably in trouble.”

  And he’d been right. Jayne didn’t ask how he’d happened to notice the truck in the first place. Ryder had always been a demon for detail, obsessively taking note of his surroundings wherever he happened to be.

  Once, that had made him a good detective.

  And no matter which side of the law he was on now, those same skills had kept them alive, against the odds. She might still be reeling from the astonishing moment of closeness and desire that had overtaken them a little while ago. But Ryder’s tense, shuttered expression was telling her he’d managed to put it far behind him.

  Where it belonged.

  It wasn’t easy, but she followed his example and kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead of them as he pulled the car out of the park and started in search of whatever haven they could find.

  The Olde Maritimer Motel was at the very end of the strip, far beyond its classier competitors on the other side of Fort Lauderdale.

  There was a half-rotted wooden fishing boat in the front yard with a bunch of straggly-looking flowers growing out of it The grass was mostly brown, and the motel’s red-and-white sign badly needed repainting.