A Marriage To Remember

by Cathryn Clare

  Then why was she so reluctant to walk away from him?

  It is over, she told herself firmly. All of it—their marriage, their shared adventure, her impractical dreams of rediscovering what they’d lost. The only things left were the legal details and the runaway passion that still Hared in her whenever she looked at Ryder’s rangy body and disheveled dark blond hair.

  It had to be over, because she could never go back to a life with a man who shut her out of his heart at exactly the moments when he should have been inviting her in.

  But somehow...

  Was it the look in his eyes as he met her gaze across the parking lot that was stopping her where she stood?

  His face was hungry, searching, nothing at all like the closed-off mask he’d worn ever since he’d wakened her this morning. She could see those old storm clouds in the blue depths of his eyes again. And she could feel herself responding to them, just as she’d responded when he’d reappeared without warning in that hospital room after his accident.

  No doubt he was finally realizing she’d meant what she’d told him earlier, she thought. It must be sinking in at fast—that things really were over between them, that the future he’d refused to talk about was simply never going to arrive.

  Go, Jayne, she told herself. Just go. How many more times do you want to live through this?

  “Come on, Jayne.” Greg Iverson echoed her thoughts as he opened the passenger door of the little red sports car and waited for her to lower herself into the black leather seat. “There’s nothing more you can do here. These guys have got a lot of business to discuss. And you look as though you could use a hot bath and a good meal. I’ll drive you home, and then maybe we can go out and try to forget about all this.”

  Forget! Jayne almost laughed. Ryder’s knife, in its leather scabbard, dug into her as she settled into the passenger seat, like a physical reminder of all the things she was sure she would never forget.

  She knew Greg was right. She needed to get back to her own life, the sooner the better.

  If only Ryder’s eyes didn’t look so haunted, so desperate, as he watched her getting into the car. If only her heart wasn’t thumping so erratically at the idea of leaving him forever.

  Greg didn’t seem to have noticed her reactions. He was climbing into the driver’s seat, turning the key in the ignition, adjusting the thermostat controls to counter the raw November breeze.

  “I’ve been having nightmares about people chasing you,” he was saying as he fiddled with the little buttons. “My God, Jayne, when I think about that fake reporter pulling a gun on you back in the hospital—”

  Jayne went suddenly still.

  Frowning, she tried to remember how much she’d told Greg about their near escape from the hospital. There hadn’t been time to give him all the details, she recalled. Had she mentioned that the gunman had been posing as a reporter?

  She was virtually certain she hadn’t.

  “Reporter?” She made the question sound as innocuous as she could.

  “Yeah, you know, that Tad McMaster guy, or whatever his name was.”

  She knew she hadn’t told Greg the man’s name.

  What was happening here?

  “And then those characters showing up at the diner—” He shook his head, apparently unaware of her sudden scrutiny. “I just keep seeing that scene over and over in my head. I tell you, it’s been keeping me awake nights.”

  Three people knew the details of that incident in Ryder’s hospital room: Ryder, and Jayne, and the gunman.

  And she knew she hadn’t told them to Greg.

  Then who had?

  It was a safe bet it wasn’t Ryder. She glanced back to where he stood next to the two tall men, and her frown deepened.

  What if that turbulent look in his eyes meant more than she’d realized?

  What if—

  “Jaynie?”

  Greg’s smooth voice jolted her back to reality. But it didn’t do anything to calm the fears that were suddenly roiling in her belly.

  That was Ryder’s name for her. No one else ever used it. And Greg knew that.

  Why was he using it now? And why had he steered her so protectively toward his car, making certain she didn’t get any closer to the FBI agents he’d contacted? Was it possible—

  If Greg Iverson was a part of this whole corruption ring, then the danger around them hadn’t gone away at all. It had just become more deadly than ever.

  The idea seemed ridiculous, unthinkable. But in a horrible way, she knew it made sense.

  It would explain a lot of things—like the fact that Greg had been the prosecuting attorney on Jimmy Trujillo’s case. What if he and Judge Brady had conspired to let Trujillo off with a light sentence, protecting Brady’s financial involvement with the mobster’s construction firm?

  It would explain how Greg had been tailed to the diner, despite his protests that no one had been behind him. If Greg, like John Brady, was being manipulated by the mob, no doubt his silent partners would have been keeping a very close eye on his comings and goings after the search for Ryder had begun.

  It would explain how Greg had known that fake reporter‘s name. He was part of the plot—he had to be. Jayne tried to see a way around it, and couldn’t find one.

  Ryder had already figured it out, one way or another. That must be what was behind the anguish she’d seen moments ago in his eyes.

  And he was letting her walk away.

  To keep her safe. To keep her alive.

  He was so stubborn, so silent. So strong.

  And so certain that he had to prove himself, over and over and over again, before he was worthy of anyone’s love.

  He was doing it now. She could see it in his face, in the rigid way he was holding his jaw and the tortured despair in his dark blue eyes.

  He would let her go, without a word, because he believed it was the right thing to do.

  He was holding everything in, as he’d always done, refusing—out of the depths of his own vulnerability, she’d finally come to realize—to fight for the future they’d once hoped to share.

  Now there would be no future. He was going to die, and he knew it. The two men were only waiting for Jayne to be out of the way, so there would be no witness to the crime.

  Tears came to her eyes, half-angry, half-panicked. All the love she’d been trying to fight against suddenly filled her like a rising tide. It was nearly impossible to think clearly, when all she wanted to do was run to Ryder’s side, to put her arms around him and never let him go.

  She shook her head, trying to banish those thoughts. There wasn’t time to dwell on them. And if she didn’t come up with something in a big hurry, there might never be time to tell him how the thought of losing him went through her as cruelly and painfully as a knife.

  A knife... She shifted her weight on the seat, and reached out her left hand to stop Greg Iverson’s move toward the shift lever.

  “Can you give me just one more minute, Greg?” Could he hear the way her voice shook? She hoped not. She didn’t want to look too directly at him, in case some of the terror in her belly was finding its way into her eyes, too.

  “Come on, Jayne—”

  The impatience in his tone made her even more certain that his prime concern was to get her out of here before those two guys did whatever they were planning to do to Ryder. Surely they wouldn’t kill him right here, she thought. She had horribly visions of reading about another “traffic accident” in tomorrow’s paper. She had no doubt there was a plan already in place, one that would leave Greg Iverson looking like the well-meaning dupe of a couple of charlatans posing as FBI agents.

  He wouldn’t get away with it—not if Jayne had anything to do with it. But if she going to blow the whistle on the whole scam, she wanted it to be a way of vindicating Ryder, not as revenge for his death. Swallowing hard, she opened the door of the sports car and stepped out onto the pavement.

  She welcomed the chill of the wind in her face. It seemed t
o clear her head, making it easier to focus on what she needed to do.

  “Nick.” She spoke loudly, and saw the three men’s faces snap toward her. “I forgot something.”

  She slowly pulled the knife out of her pocket as she walked, trying her best to look as though what she’d forgotten was of no real importance. She saw, now that she was looking for it, that one of the “agents” was standing slightly behind Ryder with his right arm bent. She couldn’t see his hand, but she had a sinking feeling that he was probably holding a gun.

  She wanted to swallow again, but resisted the temptation. She thought about the male beauty of Ryder’s long body, and the way she’d caressed him with her mouth when they’d been making love last night. She’d kissed him—lightly, teasingly—at almost exactly the spot where there was very likely a gun barrel digging into him right now.

  Undoubtedly, the other man was armed, as well. And she couldn’t be sure how Greg might react. She heard him getting out of the car behind her, calling her name, sounding irritated and more than a little bit nervous.

  She and Ryder were essentially helpless against two, possibly three, armed men.

  The only thing they had on their side was surprise—and that was only if she could somehow communicate her thoughts to Ryder without anyone else knowing what she was up to.

  She’d almost reached them now. Holding the knife in its sheath so that only the ornate inlaid handle was visible, she looked up into Ryder’s eyes and said, “You gave me this a couple of days ago. I just—I’d like you to have it back.”

  She wasn’t prepared for the desolation that filled his face at her words. “Why?” he asked. His voice was slow and dull with what sounded almost like despair.

  Then she realized what he was thinking. He figured she was saying goodbye for good—that now, without realizing how much trouble he was in, she was ending things permanently, returning the gift he’d given her, rubbing salt into an already gaping wound.

  Somehow she had to let him know she did realize what was going on. And she was trying to offer him a gift in return—a slim, outside shot at coming out of this alive.

  One man alone, with only a knife as a weapon, stood virtually no chance against two gunmen. But with an ally, even an unarmed one, the odds were marginally better.

  Keeping her eyes steady with his, she tried to push past the heartache in his blue eyes. “I don’t have any real use for it,” she said as casually as she could. “But I thought you might.”

  One of the two phony agents was starting to look more closely at the object in her hand. She was keeping it half-hidden, but it was only a matter of time before one of the mobsters realized what she was holding. She had to get through to Ryder before that happened.

  There were so many things she hadn’t said to him over the past few days, she thought desperately. Things like I don’t want to lose you and I’ve never felt this way about anyone else.

  Things like I love you.

  Ryder hadn’t been the only one holding back, she saw suddenly. She’d been so intent on protecting her own bruised feelings, waiting for him to come to her instead of opening her heart and telling him how she really felt.

  And now she might never have a chance. Fighting against the growing tremors in her body, she took a final step toward him, holding the knife out and closing her fingers over his when he reached out to take it.

  “It’s got ‘heirloom’ written all over it,” she said huskily. “You can hang on to it and give it to our children someday.”

  It was the word children that finally did it. Ryder’s eyes flared open, and the spark of sudden awareness in them made her want to cry out in relief.

  But she knew it was too soon for relief. There was still no way to get together on any kind of plan—if, in fact, any plan in the world could get the better of the two armed and increasingly suspicious men at Ryder’s elbows.

  But at least Jayne and Ryder were on the same side again. And the elation of it—the sense that their passionate, unspoken partnership hadn’t vanished during the night—gave Jayne new strength.

  “Children, huh?”

  It was hard to believe how cool he sounded, looking down casually at the knife half-hidden by their hands, for all the world as though nothing was going on under the surface. She wondered if he was feeling the same exhilaration, the same strength that had always blossomed when their two hearts had merged into one.

  If he was, he wasn’t letting it color his voice. But Jayne could see the telltale glitter in his eyes as he asked, “Boys?” He tilted his head very slightly toward the agent nearest to him as he said the word, and then inclined it just as slightly the other way as he added, “Or girls?”

  She got the message. “Boys for you, I think,” she said. Her own voice was breathless, but there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. “And girls for me.”

  It happened so quickly that the landscape became a blur around her.

  All of a sudden, Ryder was pulling the knife away from her, jerking it out of its scabbard. She saw him half turn, the blade of the knife shining in the watery sunlight. His arm swung high and hard, and a split second later the heavyset mobster yowled in pain.

  The boom of a gun going off enveloped them all in sound and the acrid smell of burned powder. Jayne didn’t have a chance to see where the noise had come from, though. As Ryder started to move, she did the same, hurling herself as hard as she could at the second agent, as their subtle signals had determined.

  She caught the man in the midriff and they landed hard on the pavement. She had to gasp to get air into her lungs, and for a moment the force of the landing left her dizzy and uncertain which way was up.

  She couldn’t tell if the gunshot had come from the other man or from the one she was wrestling with. He’d gotten one hand on his weapon and was flailing it in the air, despite her best efforts to pin him down.

  She heard the sharp crack of a fist landing on bone to her left, but there was no chance to see whose fist it had been. The man she’d tackled was getting his wind back now, and starting to struggle in earnest.

  Where was Greg Iverson? Which side would he come down on now that Jayne and Ryder were fighting for their lives? He would know by now that they’d seen through his lies. Would he help them, or keep trying to salvage his own reputation?

  The second gunman swung his free arm and landed a punch in Jayne’s midsection. She gasped with the pain and surprise of it, and tried to maneuver herself so that she had a clear shot at kneeing him in the most vulnerable part of his masculine anatomy.

  She didn’t get a chance. He hit her again, knocking what was left of her wind right out of her. She could feel him starting to scramble to his feet, and she tried desperately to get her breath, to find enough strength to stop him. If Ryder was hurt—

  He wasn’t, not yet. She saw his navy polo shirt at the edges of her vision as he came to her rescue, stepping hard on the mobster’s gun hand, knocking the weapon out of reach.

  Ryder was reaching for it himself when the second shot came.

  Jayne saw him shudder, as though something had hit him from behind. At first she thought the shot must have missed, because he barely paused, grabbing the man she’d felled by the lapels of his jacket, lifting him slightly off the pavement, then delivering a punch that made her own head ring when the blow struck.

  It was enough to put the second man out of action. And the first one was virtually unconscious now, too. She glanced behind her and saw him slump to his side, landing facedown on the pavement.

  But the shot he’d fired hadn’t missed, after all.

  Jayne had just enough time to look over her shoulder and see Greg Iverson standing with a gun in his own hand, looking at the scene in horrified fascination. And then she realized something was wrong with Ryder.

  They were both still half kneeling. But Ryder was swaying now. She felt him lurch against her suddenly, and saw him look down at his side.

  “Damn.” His voice was already faint. Jayne fe
lt abruptly cold again at the sound of iL “Jaynie, I’m sorry. I wasn‘t—quick enough—”

  The hole in his dark blue shirt was ridiculously small and neat. The bullet had caught him high in the rib cage. He pressed one hand there, looking up at her. His eyes were terrifyingly blank again as he started to lean to one side.

  She caught him, still trying to pull enough air into her lungs to keep up with her frantically pounding heart. As she eased him onto the pavement, she looked back at Greg Iverson again.

  “Greg, get help.” It felt so good to hold Ryder. She’d thought she would never have a chance to hold him again. “Don’t just stand there, for heaven‘s—”

  The third gunshot was like pulling a cork out of a bottle.

  It was a quiet pop, nothing like the noise of the two gangsters’ guns. And as it faded away, Jayne realized there were a lot of other noises that she hadn’t noticed until now.

  It was people shouting, mostly. She was aware of voices from the canal, of people running, calling to each other. Maybe they were calling to her. She wasn’t sure.

  She only knew that the sight of Greg Iverson crumbling into a heap on the pavement seemed unreal, unfathomable. Her mind refused to take it in. And the rest of her was wholly consumed by the need to hold on to Ryder, to press her hand over his on top of the wound that was leaking his life out onto the parking lot.

  His eyes were closed now, his face even paler than when she’d seen him a week ago in the hospital. But he was still alive.

  She could feel his heart beating against her own chest. She held on to that—the distant, erratic thump-thump, thump-thump, and told him over and over again, silently, urgently, that this wasn’t finished yet, and she had no intention of sticking with him this far, only to see him miss the ending now.

  Chapter 15

  “Have you got that?”

  He tried to nod and realized he couldn’t do it.

  It wasn’t only that he hurt, although he definitely did.

  He just felt so groggy. It was as though someone had tied weights to all his limbs, including his head. He couldn’t get it to move, despite his certainty that he had to respond to the voice he’d just heard.