SAY AHHH...

by Donna Sterling

  Before he let her go, he gruffly reminded her, "Don't take off that dress. I want to do it."

  With a smile on her lips, love in her heart and a sweet, hot desire in her blood, she did as she was told.

  By the end of that week, Sarah believed she thoroughly knew Connor. They'd spent every moment they could together—making love, laughing, rescuing Tofu from the dreary local pound and quietly enjoying each other's company.

  While the shaggy black-and-white dog scampered about the house and yard, Sarah and Connor shared home-cooked suppers and cozy evenings by the fire, deep in conversation. He'd told her about his hectic college days, his two restless years in Boston and his relief at moving back to Sugar Falls.

  It was with some surprise, then, that she discovered a hidden side to him. She'd unpacked the boxes stacked in the guest bedrooms, putting away towels, blankets, clothing and kitchen utensils. Behind the boxes, she'd found chairs, a desk and end tables, which she'd set up in various rooms of the house.

  She then started on the crates in the upstairs "bonus" room, which he hadn't mentioned. She wouldn't have known it was there if she hadn't mistaken its door for a closet.

  The unpacking of those crates turned into a dig for treasure as she uncovered the most exquisite hand carvings, pottery, paintings and tapestries. Many of the pieces were signed by "Deidre Wade" and "Sutton Wade." She guessed that they'd been his parents.

  She then discovered a guitar, a tambourine, a harmonica, a flute and a stereo system. More surprising still, she came across audiotapes with handwritten labels. Most of the songs were written and performed by Sutton Wade.

  One tape featured songs by Connor Wade.

  She set up the stereo system in Connor's living room, then played the tapes. His voice, music and lyrics touched her deeply. He'd been a teenager at the time, she guessed. The music combined the driving beat and soulful guitar of modern rock with the haunting lyrics of a folk ballad. He'd captured in the songs a young man's passionate need for self-discovery.

  In a couple of songs, he was accompanied by a deeper, gruffer voice. From the other tapes, she recognized the voice as Sutton Wade's. His father's.

  Sarah found herself crying for no good reason.

  She spent that entire Thursday afternoon listening to the music and decorating the house with Connor's parents' art. She became so involved in her odyssey through his secret past that she lost track of the time. She hadn't even started cooking supper when Tofu's bark alerted her that Connor was home.

  She met him at the front door.

  The first thing he noticed was her face. "You've been crying." He gathered her to him in concern. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing." She smiled and kissed him. "I was just so … moved."

  "'Moved'?"

  It was then that he noticed the tapestry she'd draped across the wall of his living room … the pottery she'd placed on his mantel … the paintings and carvings that now graced every possible space.

  She waited in breathless expectation for his reaction. The art had added so much warmth and personality to the house that she almost expected to see his eyes fill with tears as hers had.

  "Take it down."

  She blinked. "Pardon me?"

  His face had frozen into stiff lines. "I'm selling all this to a dealer in Denver."

  "Selling it! But wasn't it your parents' art?"

  A troublesome emotion flickered through his eyes, then was quickly gone. "Go to any store in town, charge anything to my account, decorate the house to your heart's content. But put all this away." He headed for the back door without even changing from his work clothes. "I'm going riding. I'd like everything down by the time I come home."

  She followed him through the kitchen, hurt and bewildered by his cold reaction. "What about the tapes? Your father's music, and … and yours. Do I have to pack those up, too?"

  He swung back to her abruptly. "You found the tapes?"

  She nodded, unsure how he'd react. "Give them to me."

  She knew, without a doubt, that he'd destroy them. She shook her head. "No."

  "No?" he repeated, incredulous.

  "That's right." She raised her chin. "No."

  "Sarah, I want the tapes."

  "So do I. I want the art, too. I'll buy it all from you. It might take me a while to pay for it, but I—"

  "Damn it, Sarah, you can't have any of it," he thundered. "It has nothing to do with you."

  "But it has a lot to do with you," she shouted right back at him, "or you wouldn't be this upset!"

  With an anger she'd never seen in him before, he strode from the house. Furious, she snatched every blessed piece of art down from the walls, shelves and mantel, carried it upstairs to the packing crates and then locked herself in the guest bedroom.

  She lay on the bed and cuddled Tofu to her for comfort. It seemed an eternity before she heard a knock at her door.

  "Sarah," Connor called out, "I'm sorry."

  She didn't answer. He'd hurt her, and she wanted him to know it. "This has nothing to do with you," he'd said. He couldn't have told her more clearly that she wasn't welcome in the private areas of his heart.

  "I was wrong," he admitted hoarsely. "I shouldn't have yelled, or walked out."

  She sat up on the bed and let the dog scamper from her embrace. Neither of the things Connor had mentioned bothered her as much as his refusal to share his feelings.

  "Open the door, Sarah. Please." He sounded utterly weary. "None of the art or the tapes mean anything to me … but you do." In an almost inaudible whisper, he added, "You mean everything."

  Her heart beat in her throat as she slowly rose from the bed and opened the door.

  His eyes blazed with dark, tumultuous emotion.

  "I don't need your ATM card," she said, "or free use of your stables, or the keys to your car. But damn it, Connor, I do need to understand you."

  He pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair, holding her so tightly she could feel his inner turmoil.

  She'd caused him pain, she realized. In her zeal to make him happy, she'd caused him pain. "Connor," she whispered, shaken by her own heedlessness, "I'm so sorry."

  He took her face between his hands and kissed her as if he were drowning and she was his only salvation. She answered with a passion that awed her. He drew her down onto the cushions in front of the fireplace. Delving into long, emotion-charged kisses, they undressed each other.

  He then pinned her beneath his naked, muscle-hard body, pressed her hands above her head and gazed deeply into her eyes as he made slow, hard love to her.

  Her climax came from someplace deeper than it ever had before, and left her hot, quaking and inexplicably needy.

  She wanted to own him, heart and soul. When they were both able to stand, she led him from the living room to his bed, where she loved him in bold, new ways. She kissed him everywhere with long, languorous tastes, then concentrated her attention on his swollen tip, savoring for the first time the salty, male flavor of him.

  "Sarah," he groaned, breaking into a sweat and grabbing for her shoulders, "you don't have to—"

  "Shh." A feather-light flick of her tongue brought his hips off the bed. She whispered, "Just say 'ahhh…'"

  He did, uncontrollably. When she'd goaded him into desperation, she straddled him, impaling herself with slow, sensuous undulations. Urgently he gripped her hips and thrust upward until every muscle in his glistening body strained and he cried out in a shuddering climax.

  She knew she never had loved anyone else as she loved him. She needed no memories to be certain.

  Later, as they lay sated, dreamy and exhausted in each other's arms, she asked him about his parents. She wanted to understand the pain she'd caused him earlier.

  He began hesitantly, but soon lost himself in the telling.

  "They met in San Francisco during the late sixties. Haight-Ashbury," he specified. "A place of epic significance." The lightly mocking inflection in his tone bewildered her. "They move
d to a site just north of here with friends and started a colony for artists and musicians.

  "They'd lived the 'natural way', according to my father's definition—as vegetarians, pacifists and holistic healers. They spurned conventional medicine in favor of herbs, aromatherapy and—" he twisted his mouth at this "—flute music. Oh, and marijuana."

  "Still, you became a traditional doctor," she noted with interest.

  He squared his jaw, but didn't comment.

  Sarah urged him on with questions, listening in fascination as he described his upbringing. For years, they'd lived without electricity until they'd learned about solar power. "My father approved of that. He considered it more 'natural.' And, it allowed him to play electric guitar and record his songs. Music," he explained, "was sacred."

  "I could see that," she whispered. "I listened to yours."

  Again, he didn't comment, but smoothly changed the subject. "My mother taught me and the other kids academic subjects. We rarely went into town—any of us—except to sell artwork."

  "Then how did you attend high school in Sugar Falls?"

  "By that time, I was old enough to rebel. I had to experience more of the world than just—" He broke off into tight-lipped silence. He obviously wasn't ready to share his feelings about his home.

  "Did you know people in the town?"

  "Not many. They'd all heard rumors about the 'hippies in the mountains.' Drug use, paganistic rituals, orgies."

  "Were the rumors true?"

  He slanted her an uneasy glance. "Not all of them."

  She realized then how mortified he'd been by the townspeople's view of him. He'd been a boy in a town full of strangers, made to feel ashamed of his family and his past.

  "Once I came to understand how most of society lived," he continued, "there was no going back. I felt like I'd been liberated."

  Funny, she thought, how one man's freedom could be another man's prison. "It must have been hard for you during high school," she mused, "socially and academically."

  He didn't reply.

  "Did you travel down from your home every day?"

  "No. I rented a room from Gladys."

  "Gladys, your nurse?" she asked in surprise.

  He nodded. "She's the one who first got me interested in the medical profession and guided me through the rough spots."

  Sarah thought back to Gladys's vehement defense of him during her first visit to his office, when she'd insisted he was one of the finest doctors to be found. Though she didn't know the petite, gray-haired lady at all, she already loved her.

  "How did your parents feel about your venturing out into the world?"

  The stiffness returned to his face; the shutters drew over his eyes. "Betrayed."

  Gently, almost fearfully, she asked, "Did you ever go back?"

  "Not while my parents were alive."

  Her heart bled for him.

  After a long pause, he said, "My father died from appendicitis during my first year in med school. I wrote to my mother and tried to get her to move into town. She secretly wanted to, for as long as I could remember. But she wouldn't. Said she felt closer to my father in their home." He shook his head grimly. "A few months later, she died of exposure in a snowstorm." He met her gaze, and Sarah saw the pain for what it was. Grief. "They were crazy as hell. Both of them."

  "I wish I could have known them," she whispered.

  Disapproval twisted his mouth, and he looked as if he might chastise her. She raised her brows, daring him to.

  He settled his head back against the pillow and grudgingly let out a laugh. "Something tells me they would have loved you."

  Oddly enough, she believed he meant it as a compliment.

  Tofu barked sharply from the other room, and the doorbell rang. Connor and Sarah glanced at each other in surprise, then at the clock. It was only nine, but felt much later.

  "Who the hell—?" muttered Connor. Quickly he donned his jeans while Sarah shrugged into his large terry-cloth robe. She lingered in the hallway and curiously watched as Connor headed for the door with Tofu prancing at his heels.

  "Annie!" Connor greeted in surprise.

  "Annie?" cried Sarah, hurrying forward as her friend, mentor and rescuing angel stepped into the living room.

  The petite redhead caught her in a tight hug.

  "Sarah, honey, how are you?" She searched her face with motherly concern. "I was so worried about you. I called you at Lorna's house yesterday, and was told that you no longer worked there. Ted and I came home right away. I was so afraid you'd be holed up in some hotel somewhere, if you even had the money for that." She glanced from a shirtless Connor to a robe-clad Sarah, and her freckled face reddened. "Seems you found a place, though."

  Sarah ignored the warmth rising in her own cheeks. "I told you not to worry about me. I'm fine. Connor has been—" the warmth in her face deepened as she glanced at him "—wonderful."

  "Uh, yeah," Annie replied. "I've heard that."

  Connor's hazel eyes twinkled in amused response.

  "So, Sarah," asked Annie, her voice sounding a little strained, "has there been anything … new?"

  From the concerned undertone in Annie's voice, Sarah realized she meant memory-wise. "It's okay to talk in front of Connor," she said. "He knows everything. And yes, a few memories have come back, but nothing to tell me who I am."

  "At least the memories have begun to return."

  "Have a seat, Annie," Connor invited, gesturing toward the chairs Sarah had arranged in his living room. "I'll make coffee."

  "No, I'm not going to stay. I just wanted to tell Sarah something that might be important." The anxious look that had come over her face drew Sarah's concerned attention.

  With a slight pull of foreboding, she asked, "What is it?"

  "A stranger called my house, looking for you."

  "For me?"

  "He said he tracked my name and number down through the hospital billing system. He knew that I paid the bills for a patient named Sarah who had suffered amnesia after an accident."

  Sarah's heart began to pound. Connor slid his arm around her, his expression entirely sober now.

  "It seems that a woman he's looking for had disappeared the same day that you were admitted to the hospital. A woman named Sarah." Annie bit her lip nervously, her cheeks flushed, her eyes anxious. "He described you perfectly. I was afraid to tell him anything about you, though, because you swore me to secrecy. I knew you were afraid that someone was after you … so I told him I didn't know what had happened to you after you were discharged."

  Sarah swayed on her feet, feeling suddenly disoriented. Connor tightened his arm and lodged her firmly against him. "Did you get his name," she asked, "and phone number?"

  "I couldn't ask for his number after I said I didn't know anything about you!" exclaimed Annie. "But I did get the number he was calling from. I have a caller-identification box on my phone, you know."

  "Who was he, Annie?" Sarah clutched Connor's hand. "What was his name?"

  "Jack," she replied. "Jack Forrester."

  Jack. The name she'd said in her sleep.

  "Did he say the name of the woman he's looking for?" Sarah inquired in a shaky whisper.

  "He said she could be going under the name Sarah Myers," Annie replied, "or, Sarah Myers Tierney."

  * * *

  9

  « ^ »

  "Do either of those names feel familiar, Sarah?" asked Annie.

  Sarah squeezed her hands together. "I've always felt that my first name was Sarah," she whispered faintly, "and the name Myers has a … familiar feel to it. But—" She shook her head. Sarah Myers. She supposed it was possible. Sarah Myers Tierney. The very sound made her feel sick. So did the name Jack Forrester. She didn't remember the man at all, but the name sent shivers of unease down her spine. Why would he have given two possible names for her?

  "Let me see the number he called from." Connor took the paper that Annie handed to him.

  "Don't call that number
," Sarah cried. "If he was the one who chased me before the accident, he might trace our call." The fear she'd felt during her nightmares seeped back into her bones, as if her phantom pursuer had reached out and touched her. "He'd know where to find us."

  "Us." She'd brought her problems into the lives of both Annie and Connor. Was she endangering them?

  "Sarah, sweetheart, calm down." Connor slid his arm around her and pulled her comfortingly close. "I'm not going to call the number. I'm going to give it to the detective I hired yesterday, along with the names Jack Forrester and Sarah Myers Tierney. He can check them both out for us. That can't hurt, can it?"

  She released a rush of breath. "I suppose not."

  He hugged her to him as he dialed the phone.

  Unable to withstand the anxiety building in her, Sarah broke away and paced across the living room.

  "I guess I'll leave you two to handle this," said Annie, her face creased with worry. "Let me know whatever the detective finds out, or if you remember anything more."

  Sarah thanked her for bringing the news and for withholding all information from the stranger. She then stood at the front door and watched as Annie hurried to her car.

  Staring into the cool springtime darkness long after Annie's headlights had vanished, Sarah faced the obvious possibility that everyone had thoughtfully refrained from mentioning—that "Myers" could be her maiden name. Which would make "Tierney" her married name. No. There had to be another explanation. She closed the door and wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly cold.

  Connor finished his discussion with the detective and turned to Sarah. "He's going to dial the number to see who answers. He'll be calling me back any minute. Tomorrow he'll check out the names. At least we have something to go on now."

  She uttered a vague response, trying to sound optimistic.

  The phone rang, and Connor answered. After a few brief words, he hung up, looking disappointed. "The number turned out to be a pay phone at the hospital in Denver."

  "A pay phone! So we have nothing."

  "It was a long-distance call. He may have charged it to a card or another phone. We also have the name Jack Forrester—if it's his real name. And, most important of all, we have the name Sarah Myers Tierney."