Memories at Midnight

by Joanna Wayne

  “I don’t know if I could have. Not only have I clattered around in here all morning, but Loopy took up a barking frenzy when he heard Randy’s truck drive up about an hour ago. You slept right through it.” Clint smiled.

  She rubbed her eyes and headed straight for the coffeepot. Lifting it off the range, she shook it gently. “Is this stuff still decent?”

  “All depends on what you call ‘decent.’ I made it a few minutes ago, so it’s fresh.”

  She picked up the pottery mug he’d left out for her and filled her cup. Propping her backside against his Formica counter, she sipped the brew and then made a face. “You do know you’re supposed to add water to the grounds, don’t you?”

  “I like it strong.” He sat back and watched her, relief sweetening a morning that had gotten off to a bad start. Even after they’d arrived back at his place last night and talked about the images she’d experienced, she’d been quiet, visibly shaken.

  Now, this morning she was her old self, sassy as ever. Too much her old self. If he half tried, he could almost believe they had drifted back in time, picked up where they’d left off, with mornings full of teasing and laughter. Full of passion.

  “My granddad always said coffee should be bitter and women sweet,” he said, determined not to let his memories do him in.

  “And you followed his advice, I see.”

  “I try. I usually succeed with the coffee part of the formula.”

  “Perhaps you have different tastes in women than your granddad. Sweet is not all it’s cracked up to be, except in too-strong coffee and peanut-butter fudge.”

  “Sleep apparently did you good,” he said, pushing back the stack of faxed responses Randy had delivered earlier.

  She carried her coffee to the table and took the kitchen chair opposite his. “About last night...”

  He waved her off. “Why don’t we delve into that subject after you’ve had breakfast? I can fry up some bacon and scramble you some eggs straight from Betsy Crow’s henhouse.”

  “Eggs straight from the hen. I bet I never had that in D.C.”

  “See what you’ve been missing?”

  She toyed with the fringed edge of a dishcloth that peeked from under a section of the morning newspaper. “I’ve noticed several things I’ve probably been missing. Eggs isn’t one of them.”

  The timbre of her voice was noticeably seductive. Clint gripped the pen in his hand the way he needed to grip his resolve. Grabbing his empty cup, he pushed back from the table and walked over to refill it. Before Darlene had woken up and walked into his kitchen in her cute little bunny pajamas, he’d convinced himself that he could handle this situation.

  Now he wasn’t so sure. He’d have to keep their relationship as focused as possible on the unsolved mystery. If he let his emotions rule, he’d fall victim to his own needs.

  “Have I been in this house before, Clint? Is this where you lived when we were...when we dated?” She scooted her chair around to face him.

  He considered his answer, and damned her poor timing. “You spent some time here. Not a lot. We were only together one summer.”

  “The summer before I went to Quantico for my training.” She scanned the room. “I feel comfortable here, not at all like the hospital. Almost like I belong. I didn’t wake up once during the night.” She walked over and ran her fingers along the hem of gingham curtain at the window. “I was just thinking—it might be my memory breaking free, responding to familiar surroundings.”

  “Could be. Those curtains were your addition,” he said, ignoring the lump that had settled in his chest. “You said my place was too drab. ‘Nothing but cowboy clutter.’ I think that’s how you put it.”

  She winced. “I wasn’t too tactful, was I?”

  “You were honest.”

  “I hope that wasn’t my best quality.”

  “Not nearly.” He didn’t elaborate. It wouldn’t be in the interest of self-preservation.

  Pulling back the curtains, she stared out at the biggest oak tree on his property. Past that was his corral. There was a chestnut at the fence, head held high as if he knew he had an admirer.

  She finished her coffee and ambled back to her chair. The expression on her face had taken a turn to the serious. “About last night...”

  “After breakfast. Dr. Bennigan said you needed to eat. Part of your recovery plan.”

  “Just toast then. I wouldn’t want you to lose your nursing credentials.”

  Clint stripped the plastic closure from the bread and popped a couple of slices into the toaster. Toast, and then talk. He’d spent half the night going over the bizarre events she’d described last night and had come up with only one answer. A long shot. But if he was right, this would be the first real clue of the case.

  First toast, then he’d nail her with his take on what she’d pictured in her mind last night. It wouldn’t be a fair trade-off.

  “JUST BREATHE THAT AIR.” Darlene threw her head back and took another lung-filling gulp. “I feel as if I’ve been cooped up for weeks instead of days.” She barely controlled the urge to skip ahead of Clint as they neared the corral.

  “It beats hibernating inside four walls.”

  “Definitely. I think we should have our talk right over there.” She pointed toward a sunny spot just east of the corral. “That way we have a view of the horses and the hillside.”

  “Looks like as good a spot as any.”

  “But first, I think we should stop and say hello to the chestnut who’s prancing around the fence, explain to him why we can’t take him for a ride.”

  “That’s Brandy. And you aren’t trying to put off the inevitable, are you?”

  She gave his question some thought. “The last few days have been like a living hell. This morning, I feel like I’ve escaped the heat for a few hours, landed in a temporary haven where things have at least a vague sense of normalcy. I guess I am hesitant to jump back into the chaos and fear.”

  That said, she danced ahead of Clint and climbed to the first rung of the wooden fence. “Here, boy, come talk to me.” The chestnut loped over to the fence and poked his head over the top rail.

  Darlene rubbed Brandy’s long neck, whispering to him all the while about what a beautiful and regal creature he was. The actions came as naturally to her as brushing her teeth or dressing herself. Meaning, she must have done this many times before. She turned to find Clint standing a few yards behind, not walking, only watching her.

  He probably thought she was some kind of dingbat, crooning to a horse when he was waiting to talk to her about the next steps in finding a man bent on being her executioner. But here, at Clint’s ranch, the terrifying events of the past few days seemed more surreal than ever.

  Yet nothing had really changed except her setting. The images that had emerged last night hadn’t lost their substance. Images so vivid she had felt the heat of the blazing fire that had raged through a deserted village, and the terror of an event she could never have known in real life.

  The horse neighed and backed away from her, tapping the ground with his right front hoof and tossing his head to the side. His keen perception had picked up the switch in her mood even before she had. Darlene had let the images back into her mind, and the false veil of normalcy had vanished as quickly as smoke in the wind.

  “That’s no way to treat your favorite lady, Brandy. Not when it’s been so long since she’s come calling on us.”

  Clint’s lips at Darlene’s ear reassured her and the cautious chestnut. Brandy eased back to the fence, and pressed his cheek against Clint’s outstretched hand.

  “So Brandy’s part of the past I don’t remember.”

  “You talked me into buying him from McCord, and then persuaded the senator to give me a sweetheart of a deal.”

  She reached across Clint and scratched Brandy’s forehead. “And then I moved away and left you. No wonder you haven’t forgiven me, Brandy.”

  “That would be asking a lot.”

  Clint
’s voice was husky, revealing, leaving no doubt that he was no longer referring to Brandy. There was a crazy, undefined fluttering across her nerve endings. She had once made love to the rugged, devastatingly handsome sheriff that stood at her elbow. Had she walked away, as his statement indicated? Left Vaquero, left this ranch, left this man whose arms she ached to crawl into this very minute?

  If she had, she hoped she’d had a very good reason.

  She climbed down from the fence. “I guess it’s time we had our talk,” she said.

  “Yeah.” Clint gave Brandy a parting love pat, and started toward the spot Darlene had chosen earlier, not bothering to wait for her. “The business at hand. That’s the reason you’re here.”

  She joined him, kicking away an assortment of twigs before she smoothed a seat in the carpet of dry leaves. “Looks like my idea to talk outside might have been a bad one, after all,” she said, spying the clouds that had gathered and darkened over their heads.

  “The rain should hold off long enough for us to finish our discussion.”

  Clint fingered the brim of his hat, a habit when he had a lot on his mind. Darlene was amazed at the things she’d learned about him in such a short time. Possibly because she had no past to muddy her recall. “So, what shall we talk about?” she said, knowing full well that Clint had plans for the conversation he’d said they needed to put off until after breakfast.

  “Are you ready to talk about the images you experienced at the Altamira last night?”

  “I would be if they made any sense.”

  “I have a theory about them.” Clint hunched down beside her, drawing a series of short, straight lines in the earth with a sharp twig. “The theory’s not tied together with a strong lariat, but it’s a place to start.”

  “Not tied together because I lost the rope in the misty caverns of my mind.”

  “A matter of time. I see lots of signs your memory’s returning.”

  “Fill me in.” She stretched her legs in front of her, pushing brown oak leaves into a pile at the heel of her boots. “I could use some encouraging news.”

  “You think and frequently talk like someone in law enforcement. You moved around my house last night and this morning like someone who’d been there before, opening the right drawers, even getting extra towels.”

  “You never said anything about it,” she said, realizing he was right.

  “I didn’t want to draw your attention to it. When you concentrate on remembering, you get overwhelmed with frustration. You do better if you just go with the flow, let the memories find their own way of surfacing.”

  “You are a very intuitive man, Sheriff Clint Richards. Only one of your talents, I expect.”

  He cocked his head sideways, and she caught a glimpse of his eyes and a glimmer of something that looked like...desire. She leaned against the trunk, imagining what other talents he might have, then deciding this was not the time to go there.

  “Talents such as the ability to come up with the theory you’re about to share with me,” she added, attempting to get past the hint of flirting from her earlier comment.

  “I owe much of the substance of my theory to you. It started with the images you described last night.” He moved across from her, leaning against a branch that had taken off from the tree at a bizarre angle, a past victim of wind or lightning. “You said last night that the images were memories, but that they weren’t yours.”

  “I actually believed that at the time. They were so vivid, so frightening. But I’m smart enough to know that can’t be possible. At least, I hope it can’t.”

  “I think it can.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Clint.”

  “I wouldn’t. Just let me explain. I think the images you saw last night were so real because they’re part of the trauma that caused your mind to go into overload and block out the past. I know that’s not how a psychiatrist or a neurologist would explain amnesia, but it’s how I see it, at least in your situation.”

  “I was on Glenn Road on Monday night, not in Vietnam.”

  “Vietnam? You didn’t mention Vietnam last night.”

  “Vietnam.” She stood up, a feeble attempt to shake off the confusion that had dropped its impenetrable cloak over her mind again. “I don’t know where that came from, Clint. Have I ever been to Vietnam?”

  “No. But McCord has. He won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the heat of battle.” Clint reached out and grabbed her hand, tugging her closer so she stood beneath the bare branches of the tree with him.

  “It ties into my theory. I think McCord is being threatened by someone or some group because of something that happened in Vietnam. When the threats became too real, he called you and asked you to come down here so that he could enlist your help in getting to the bottom of it.”

  “Why didn’t he just ask for the FBI’s official help? Serious threats against a high political figure would warrant that.”

  “I don’t have any answers, except that McCord prides himself on handling his own business. Or maybe he thinks letting the story out will grab too much negative media attention at a time when his name’s being bandied about as the next president of the country.”

  “Okay. Let’s see if I have your theory straight. Someone’s threatening McCord. He calls on me for unofficial help. I show up. He ditches all of his security men, and we drive out to a deserted spot on Glenn Road so that no one will overhear what he has to tell me. Someone follows us and seizes upon that opportunity to attack us. McCord gets away, though bleeding, and I’m left wounded.”

  She shook her head. The pieces didn’t fit. “Why didn’t he just kill me then and there?”

  “I’m sure he planned to. Only McCord was his first priority.”

  “So he left me bleeding and wounded.”

  “And possibly unconscious. He might even have thought he’d killed you. Only, before he got back to make sure you were dead, you came to and wandered off.”

  Darlene guided her fingers to her temples as the familiar nagging pain struck with renewed vengeance. “So, if you hadn’t shown up when you did, I’d probably be dead.”

  He gathered her in his arms. “But you’re not. You’re here. Safe.”

  She looked up, studying the fine lines etched at the outside corners of Clint’s eyes and the deeper ones that bracketed his drawn mouth. Whatever their past had been, she owed him a lot in the present.

  “Are you ready to go in?” he asked, his hand riding her arm in a slow, reassuring movement. “The rain isn’t going to hold off much longer.”

  “In a minute.” She pressed her mind to make sense of everything they’d talked about. “You said your theory sprung from the wide-awake nightmare I experienced last night. I still don’t see the connection, except that McCord was in the war.”

  “I think McCord related that story to you before the two of you were attacked. I think you were dealing with the horror of it when you were ambushed and hit over the head. When you came to, it had buried itself in some niche of your mind, along with all your other memories.”

  The first spray of a chilling mist stung Darlene’s face as she considered the possibility that Clint was right. If he was, the country was in big trouble. They were about to elect to the land’s highest office a man who’d been party to a murder.

  And this man had been her friend, her mentor, a surrogate father, if she believed everything she’d been told. Why else would she have run to answer his call for help? But this was only a theory. A flawed one, she hoped.

  “What’s our next step, Clint?”

  “I’ve located an old war buddy of McCord’s. He’s still a close friend, according to Mary. We’re paying a call on him this afternoon, right after you get checked over by Dr. Bennigan.”

  The mist suddenly intensified into a cold rain.

  “Let’s make a run for it before we get soaked.” Clint took her hand, and she sprinted beside him to the house, not slowing until they’d stamped up the stairs and reached
the overhang of the porch.

  They hadn’t run fast enough. Water trickled from her hair and dripped down her neck, and her wet shirt clung to her breasts.

  Clint nudged the door with his foot and pulled her inside. “Get into some dry clothes. I’ll build a fire,” he said, his fingers already fumbling with the buttons on his own wet shirt.

  She didn’t move to follow suit. The room was already too warm and growing warmer by the second. She watched as his loosened shirt stretched open, revealing dark, thick hairs. He looked up and caught her staring.

  A second later, he’d cleared the distance between them.

  Chapter Eight

  Clint knew he was making a big mistake when he grabbed a towel from the basket of unfolded laundry and wrapped it around Darlene’s wet hair. But he’d read the desire in her eyes and it hit him as hard as if she’d thrown her naked body in front of him. He had to touch her. It was killing him not to, even if it was only to soak up the raindrops that were trailing down her face and neck.

  He should laugh, tease, make a joke of the two of them dripping all over the floor. But the restraint he had been using for the last few days stretched beyond his limits. His thumbs rode the smooth lines of her neck, from her earlobe down to her shoulders and back again.

  The pain of craving what he shouldn’t let himself even think about was excruciating. They had been caught in a thunderstorm. She should look drenched and bedraggled. But all he could see was the woman he’d fallen so desperately in love with that long-ago summer.

  His gaze fell to the intoxicating swell of her breasts. To the exquisite thrust of her nipples below the clingy wetness of her shirt. He was out of his mind with wanting her, hungry to carry her to his bedroom and make the memories that were driving him over the edge come alive for her. Hard and hurting from wanting her, he trailed his thumbs from her shoulder, tracing the delicate border of her shirt as it dipped into forbidden areas.

  Darlene didn’t back away. If she had, he might have been able to force himself to stop. Instead, she took his right hand and placed it on her breast. The movement was a statement, an acknowledgment of the need that raged inside her, the same way it did him. Even more, a statement of trust.