by Lisa Jackson
* * *
He left her alone the next morning. Exhausted, she’d fallen asleep sometime after midnight, despite his strong arm thrown around her waist and his warm, steady breath against her nape. Once in the middle of the night, she’d awakened and noticed that his hand had cupped her breast, as if he had every right to touch her anywhere he pleased.
She had shifted and the hand fell away, but it left her feeling empty and frustrated and wishing—oh, God, wishing—that she knew who she was.
He’d left a note on the nightstand, telling her that he’d be back before eleven and that she should order room service again.
“Not on your life,” she said, flinging off the covers. She had to work fast. After dressing and combing her hair in record time, she dialed the overseas operator and was able to connect with the United States and the offices of the Seattle Observer. With any luck, Connie would be working the early shift. Nikki crossed her fingers. Within minutes, a pert female voice, thousands of miles away, answered on the fifth ring. “Connie Benson.”
“Holding down the fort?” Nikki asked, her voice lowered though Trent wasn’t due back for a few hours.
“Who is this?”
“Nikki. Nikki Carrothers.”
“Are you kidding?” Connie said, her voice suddenly friendly. “I thought you were somewhere in the South Pacific.”
“The Caribbean,” Nikki corrected, trying to keep her voice steady. She took a deep breath. “On my honeymoon.”
“On your what?” Connie screeched. “Hey, who is this? Is this some kind of joke or what?”
“It’s no joke,” Nikki said, explaining the circumstances as best she could, though she didn’t admit to her amnesia. For now, she decided, the fewer people who knew about her loss of memory, the better.
“I don’t believe it! You. Married.” Connie chuckled, and Nikki saw the image of a red-blond, big-boned woman with freckles and laughing gold eyes. “Well, you know what they say—never say never.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know, after that Dave fiasco, you swore off men for good. So who’s the lucky guy and why didn’t I meet him?”
“You know him,” Nikki said, crossing her fingers. This was her first chance to catch Trent in a lie. “His name is Trent McKenzie and he works for—”
“The insurance company? Puget Sound Insurance?” Connie said on a long breath. “God, he’s gorgeous!”
“Then you remember him?”
“How could you forget a man like that?” she said. “And you married him?”
I wish I knew.
“Let me tell you, if I ever snag a man like that I’ll hire one of those sky pilots to write it in the sky over downtown Seattle and I’ll have the biggest wedding this town has ever seen just to show him off! Come on, Nikki, why didn’t you tell me?”
Nikki was ready for that one. “We wanted to surprise everyone.”
“Oh, God, how romantic!” Again a long, envious sigh. “Wait until I tell Peggy. She’s gonna flip. She’ll think you’ll want to give up your job, stay home and raise about fifty kids.”
“I don’t think so,” Nikki said, but grinned. It felt good to speak to someone she knew she could trust. “So you remember introducing him to me?”
“Of course I do. It was that claim I had a few months ago. He was checking it out. Came into the office to talk to me, and you were there.”
So far, so good. Trent’s story was holding up, but there was still something wrong, something out of sync. “How’s the job going?”
“Same old grind,” Connie said. “It looks like there’s been some scam down at the docks. One of the union bosses has been skimming off of the dues and there’s a drug ring working out of Tacoma, but, of course, John and Max were given those assignments. I got to cover the arrival of Jana, that big-time fashion model from Europe, but other than that it’s the same old, same old. You know, school district stuff, city council news, nothing earthshattering. As for your friend Crowley, he’s still up to his old tricks, but no one seems to be able to prove a thing. If you ask me, Max has dropped the ball on that one.”
A little spark of memory flared. “Crowley?” she said nonchalantly, though her heart was thundering. There was something about that name, something important.
“Yeah. You know, Peggy went to bat for you to cover the story, but it was the higher-ups. Frank Pianzani, he’s grooming Max for his job, so he put the thumbs-down on a woman covering the senator. Sometimes I think the women’s movement never made it through the doors of the Observer. Sure, we can talk it up all we want, and report it—God knows we’ll get all the information into the paper—but practice it? That’ll never happen. Not as long as Pianzani and some of his pals are in charge.”
Nervously, Nikki twisted the phone cord. “So tell me about Crowley.”
“The good senator has been keeping his nose clean and his face out of the paper for the past couple of weeks,” Connie said. “I’ve been too busy to pay much attention to him. Gotta get all the hot news on the school lunch menu, you know. Someone’s got to report if they’re serving hot dogs or jo-jos.” She laughed and Nikki smiled. “You know, my most interesting story since you’ve been gone is whether there’s too much fat in the food that the schools are serving.”
“It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.”
Connie laughed.
“I think I’ll come back home and dig into the Crowley story again,” she said, hoping Connie would fill her in on the details.
“I’d expect it.”
“Just where did everything end?” Nikki persisted, her hands twining in the telephone cord. “What with getting married and all, I barely had time to think about it.”
“Like I said, he’s keeping a low profile. If he’s into anything shady, he’s hiding it well. Anyway, it’ll wait until you get back. Besides, you know we agreed we shouldn’t talk about it on the work lines.”
“Oh.” So this was big enough that they didn’t trust other people at the paper overhearing their conversations? What could it be? Try as she might, she couldn’t remember.
“You know, all this talk about the senator started about the time you met Trent.”
“I…I…know,” Nikki said, though she felt as if she’d been hit by a sledgehammer. Was there a connection between Trent and Senator Crowley and if so, what? What was going on?
“Look, I’ll talk to you when you get home. And if you want, I’ll nose around.”
“That would be great.”
“Consider it done!”
Nikki was more mystified than ever. Who the devil was Senator Crowley?
They talked for a couple of minutes longer, and Nikki explained that she’d be home in a few days. She didn’t have a lot of time before Trent showed up again, but she was still reticent to sever the connection to her friend and her past.
She hung up and sighed. So Trent hadn’t lied. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. One thing was for certain, she couldn’t give up trying to remember everything she could about her life before the accident, and the two items at the top of her list were Trent McKenzie and Senator Crowley.
Glancing at her watch, she decided she had time enough to talk to her mother. If she could get through. Her luck held and in a few minutes, her mother’s high-pitched voice echoed in her ear. Eloise seemed genuinely glad to hear from her. Though the background noise was loud, and more than once her mother had to cover the mouthpiece to shout at one of her teenaged sons, she seemed relieved to hear from her youngest daughter.
“Thank God you finally called,” she reprimanded gently. “Your father phoned. Told me about your accident, but didn’t know where you were staying. Then dropped the bomb that you’d gotten married to some stranger. Nikki, I just never thought you would do anything so rash. Now, Janet, that’s a different story. When she married Tim, I knew it was a mistake. I wouldn’t be surprised if she called me up from Reno or some other place like that and told me she’d gotten
married again. But you…well, you were always the sensible one. You know I was awfully fond of Dave….”
“I know, Mom,” Nikki said, hating the deception. “But it didn’t work out.”
“And this Trevor, he’s—”
“Trent, Mom. Trent McKenzie.”
“I could’ve sworn your father told me his name was Trevor. That man, I tell you…” she grumbled, then let the rest of her thought die. “Look, just come down to L.A. as soon as you can. I’d love to meet him and so would Fred. He thinks of you girls as his own, you know.”
Fred’s affections, Nikki remembered, were anything but directed at his stepdaughters. And her mother knew it. Why she continually tried to deceive them all was beyond Nikki. Fred Sampas had never given any of Eloise’s daughters a second glance. “Extra baggage,” he’d once complained to a friend, and Carole, Nikki’s middle sister, had overheard the comment. “Tell Fred I said hello,” she said, hiding the sarcasm in her voice.
“I will, honey, but first you tell me all about your accident. Your father was sketchy but he said you’re all right. He wasn’t lying, was he? He wasn’t just trying to spare my feelings.”
“No, Mom, I’m okay. I’ve still got a few scrapes and a couple of bruises, but I’ll be fine in a day or two.” She filled in most of the details of her fall and recovery, and her mother, over the crackly long-distance wire, seemed satisfied.
“Thank the Lord you weren’t hurt any worse! You know, Nikki, I don’t know why you can’t slow down a little. Now that you’re married, you should take things easier, quit trying to prove yourself to that darned paper.”
“Is that what I do?”
“Well, you want them to treat you like a man, and you’re not one. I guess you know that now.”
“I just want to be treated equally.”
“There is no equal. Not in this world. Just like there’s nothing fair. You know that as well as I do.” Nikki didn’t bother arguing, but she realized that she wasn’t close to her mother and probably never had been. They talked for a few more minutes before Nikki’s half brothers commanded her mother’s attention and they had to disconnect.
Nikki fell back on the bed and tears burned at the corners of her eyes. Her mother and father had never been happy together, that much she knew, and the divorce had been, for them, a relief, but there had always been a bit of pain, and a little prick of guilt that Nikki had never dislodged. She was old enough to know that she hadn’t caused the deep, angry rift between her mother and father, and yet she’d felt real jealousy that Eloise seemed so content with Fred and her new sons. She let out a slow, shuddering breath. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself,” she chided.
This wasn’t the time to dwell on the sorrows of her past, so she pushed her painful memories—tiny as they were—of her mother aside and concentrated instead on the call with Connie. Their conversation had served to whet her appetite to know more, find out everything she could, and the most certain way of throwing off the dark shadows of her nightmare was to face her past and the accident. The first step was the mission.
* * *
“Let’s go!” Nikki, skirt bunched around her thighs, nudged her heels into the mare’s dappled flanks. The little gray darted forward, galloping up the rocky path leading to the mission. Short, dark legs lengthened stride and the mare’s ears flattened against her head. In the blur that was her vision, Nikki saw tall grass and wildflowers bend as the breeze over the ocean blew inland, carrying ominous clouds and oppressive heat. They rimmed the dark forest where, in her nightmares, she’d been chased in a life-anddeath race for…what?
Nikki glanced at the gray sky nervously. Dressed in a skirt and a T-shirt, she wasn’t ready for a tropical storm. Besides, she had to work fast. Before Trent caught up with her.
Renting the horse hadn’t been easy. A driver of one of the horse-drawn carriages had told her of a man who had horses that could be leased for the day, but Nikki’s halting Spanish, her half-healed face and the desperation in her tone had made the owner cautious. Only after paying him extra did she wind up with the spunky little mare.
“Don’t worry about it,” she told herself. But she felt anxious, partly because of the storm brewing, partly because she was deceiving Trent again and partly because, ever since leaving the hotel, she’d had the uncanny feeling that she was being followed. “Oh, stop being a ninny!” It was just the smell of the storm and the fact that her nerves were strung tight as piano wire. Nothing else.
Ignoring the pain that was beginning to throb in her ankle, she ducked her head closer to the horse’s neck, smelling the scent of animal sweat and hearing the gray’s breathing as she struggled uphill.
“We’re almost there,” Nikki said, hoping to encourage the horse. The wind in her hair and the pounding of hoofs against the gravel-strewn path reminded her of another time, another ride deep in the closed recesses of her mind. She was sure she had ridden often; the leather reins felt right in her hands. Instinctively she moved with the mare, anticipating subtle changes in the horse’s gait, but she couldn’t remember a single instance when she’d ridden.
It’ll come, she told herself, frustrated that she couldn’t control the timing of her memories. As they rounded a curve, the mission came into view, the once-white walls crumbling and gray in ruin.
The path veered closer to the edge of the cliff.
Nikki’s heart nearly stopped and she drew back on the reins, yanking hard, causing the horse to shake her head and slide. “Whoa, girl, it’s all right,” Nikki said, as much to convince herself as the game little mare. Prancing and sidestepping, the gray snorted as she dismounted. Nikki could barely breathe, and the sound of the surf, pounding against rocks and sand hundreds of feet below, seemed to echo through her brain.
Fear, winter-cold and numbing, clutched her heart, but she made her way closer to the edge. Her throat felt dry and raw, her fingers twined in the leather straps of the reins as she inched toward the precipice and looked beyond the earth. Oh, Lord! Her heart plummeted as if to the angry depths below. Jagged black rocks pierced the swirling aquamarine water. Foam and spray swirled around the shore.
The nightmare seemed to close in around her. She felt herself falling over the side, and the edge of her vision seemed to grow dark. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted and she glanced swiftly over her shoulder, certain that she would see someone hidden in the shadows of the forest’s growth, eyes hot as he spied upon her. Goose bumps stood on her flesh. For most of the day she’d felt she’d been followed but had never seen anyone tracing her tracks. Now, standing alone on the very ridge from which she’d been pushed, she felt alone and filled with a dread she couldn’t name.
She turned back to the ocean. A flock of birds gathered in rookeries on the uppermost points of the rocks suddenly rose in a startled, frantic cloud toward the ominous sky. Rubbing her arms, Nikki tried to remember the birds. In all of her nightmares, the noisy flock hadn’t existed. “Come on, Nikki, think!” she muttered under her breath in utter frustration. Why couldn’t she call up anything, any damned thing? She kicked a stone in frustration and watched the pebble tumble over the cliff.
The image in her mind switched suddenly. With bloodchilling certainty, she remembered the feel of a harsh hand upon her shoulder, the reeling blow that had pitched her forward, over the edge—
“Nikki!”
She shrieked, nearly jumping out of her skin. The horse snorted, starting to rear, but Nikki held on to the reins and whirled around to find Trent, astride a sorrel gelding, emerging from the thick copse of trees. So he’d been following her! No wonder she’d been on edge. Steeling herself for another one of his lectures on going out alone, she watched as the sorrel raced up the hillside.
Trent moved with the horse, as if he’d ridden for years. His black hair was wild in the wind, his face tanned and harsh, his shirttails flapping. His eyes were covered with aviator glasses but his expression was severe. It didn’t take a genius to realize that he wasn’t pleased.
He leaped off as the gelding slid to a stop, and Nikki’s already thudding heart accelerated.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, advancing on her.
“What the hell are you doing here? You nearly killed me, sneaking up on me like that and shouting my name!”
“I thought you might jump.”
“Are you crazy?” she demanded, her fury seeping a little as she saw, behind his colored glasses, the fear in his gaze. She inched back from the edge and breathed in a deep, calming breath. Tossing her hair from her eyes, she reminded him, “I told you I wanted to come back here.”
“And I said—”
“I know what you commanded,” she said, poking an angry finger at his chest. Her horse, pulled by the bridle, followed her. “But I don’t take orders from you or anyone else.”
“You tried to sneak off behind my back!” He glowered down at her but she refused to be intimidated.
“That’s right! Because you wouldn’t bring me up here yourself.” All her anger reignited in a blast of fury. “I’m tired of you telling me what to do for my own good. And I’m sick to death of lying around trying to piece together my life. If we’re married, and I’m not saying I believe that we are, then you’d better get one thing straight, McKenzie, I’m not the kind of woman who wants to be coddled, or treated like a fragile doll, or commanded around like a slave!”
He stared at her, the wind moving his hair, his eyes hidden by the shaded lenses of his glasses, his mouth set in a thin, unbending line. In faded jeans, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the tails flapping freely, he looked sexy and unpredictable and mysterious. Tanned and proud, he glared down at her, and Nikki didn’t know what to expect.
“What if you would have hurt yourself?”
