Saving Grace (Serve and Protect Series)

by Wilson, Norah

  She sank on the end of the bed, shaking visibly.

  “I thought you’d gone to work,” he said. “You never leave the door unlocked when you go. I thought there must be an intruder.”

  “For a second, I thought‌—” She broke off abruptly, clasping her hands together in her lap.

  “Thought what?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Suddenly, he knew it did matter. A lot. He moved to the end of the bed to better see her face. “I think it does, Grace. What did you think?”

  “Nothing. I.... Nothing.”

  “You’re shaking like a leaf. Tell me.”

  “For a split second....” She dropped her gaze to her clasped hands.

  “For a split second you thought...?”

  She looked up at him again, her pupils still dilated with shock. “I mean, I know you’d never do anything like that, but just for a second....”

  His heart stumbled, then lurched on with a painful thudding. “You thought I was going to shoot you?”

  She said nothing, but he saw the answer in her eyes.

  She really thought he’d been going to shoot her!

  Him, a cop, sworn to uphold the law. Her own husband.

  He waited for the anger to come, but all he felt was a stunned, sinking despair.

  Dear Lord, what did he look like through her eyes that she could think such a thing, even for a second? No wonder she’d looked for something else.

  Someone else.

  “Oh, Grace.”

  He sank onto the bed beside her. Her gaze dropped and he followed it to his service weapon, now unloaded, which he still cradled in his hand, its weight familiar and comforting. Suddenly, he saw it as she might see it‌—‌an obscene extension of his arm. A tool to amplify male aggression.

  He jumped up, shoved the gun back into its box and locked it. He’d been so goddamn careful with her, tried so hard to always show her gentleness, never let her see the hard face of his soul. But she must have sensed it anyway. Sensed it and magnified it to reach some chilling conclusions.

  He put the strongbox back in the closet and turned back to her. His face must have shown something of his thoughts, for hers creased with remorse.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she said, moving closer. “I didn’t really think you’d hurt me.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No.”

  He just returned her gaze.

  “If I did, it was my own guilt talking.” She stood, laid a hand on his arm. “Why wouldn’t you hate me? I betrayed you.”

  His arm muscles flexed involuntarily, and she dropped her hand. She closed her arms around herself, her whole posture a picture of misery. He looked away. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Well, that’s something, at least. Now, if I could just stop hating me.”

  Her tone drew his gaze back. Damn. He wanted to put his arm around her shoulder, pull her close, comfort her. “Don’t,” he said instead. “Don’t torture yourself.”

  “If I could just remember.” She’d unclasped her arms and began to worry a frayed cuticle on her thumb. “You’d think I could remember something that life-altering, a relationship so important that I chose to throw my marriage away....”

  Her voice broke and this time, Ray did lift an awkward hand to rub her back.

  “You’ll remember,” he said. “I think you were right about going back to work, getting back to routine. Once you take the pressure off yourself, it’ll come.”

  “Ah, yes, work.” She cleared her throat. “Actually, there’s a problem there.”

  “Yeah?”

  Grace turned to him, her blue eyes swimming with unshed tears. “I no longer have a job.”

  Ray’s jaw dropped. “They fired you while you were recuperating from a car accident?”

  “No. I quit.”

  “But why?” He blinked. She loved that damned newspaper. “I thought you were keen to go back.”

  “Apparently I quit the day of my accident. I told them they could keep my accumulated vacation pay in lieu of notice, emptied my desk and left.”

  Ray tried to keep the shock from his face. “You don’t remember any of that?”

  “Nothing. Apparently I was pretty vehement about it. Katie wanted me to work out my notice, but I refused. I guess that’s why she didn’t visit me in hospital.”

  She managed a smile, but the expression held so much pain it made his heart squeeze.

  “You don’t remember thinking about giving your notice?”

  “No.” She shrugged helplessly. “I know I used to complain sometimes that they didn’t take me seriously, but I really thought I’d be there forever, eventually move up the ladder....”

  She’d quit the paper. The knowledge twisted his gut. She really had planned to leave.

  “What am I going to do?”

  She sounded so damned desolate. All he could do was shrug. “Ask for your job back.”

  She shook her head, blinking rapidly.

  “Katie might be pissed, but she’ll take you back. Want me to talk to her?”

  “No!”

  He stiffened. “Right. I forgot. This is your mess. You don’t want my help.” He turned to leave but she gripped his arm.

  “They’ve already replaced me.”

  Her voice broke again. He looked down at her upturned face and knew he couldn’t leave her like this. Her eyes, so wide and blue, were filled with unanswerable misery.

  “What’s happening to me?” she asked. “How could I do these things and not remember?”

  “It’s okay.” He did slide a comforting arm around her this time. She felt smaller and more fragile than he remembered. “You’ll see, Gracie. It’ll be okay.”

  She clung to him hard, and for a moment, he thought she was finally going to have a good cry. Instead she surprised him by pulling away after only a few seconds, drawing herself up. He could almost see her pulling her pain inward.

  “I’ve been thinking.” She sniffed and swiped at her eyes. “We should retrieve my bags from the trunk of the Mustang. Maybe if I could look at what I’d packed, it might trigger‌—”

  “Damn, I forgot. Quigg recovered that stuff. He gave it to me the night of the accident.”

  “You’ve got my bags?”

  “In the back seat of my truck. I’ll fetch them.”

  A moment later, he popped the hatch on the SUV and hauled out the bags. As he did so, he remembered the look Tommy Godsoe had sent him this morning when he’d searched the overnight bag, after his canine partner had pronounced it explosives-free.

  “This yours, Razor?” Tommy’d held the bag up by its handle.

  “Grace’s,” Ray had replied. “I forgot it was in there.”

  Tommy had given him an odd look over the roof of the Pathfinder. “Grace’s, eh? Well, old buddy, I wouldn’t waste any time getting it back to her, if I were you,” he’d said, then zipped the bag closed again and resumed his search.

  Ray’s face burned again as it had then, imagining only too well what was in the bag.

  Grace had a passion for underwear. Nothing tacky, but she loved color. Funky orange and lime green and deep purple, in silk and lace and velvet. Bras that cupped her lush breasts and high-cut panties that made her legs look miles long.

  Cursing, Ray slammed the hatch and went back inside.

  Grace hovered just inside the door.

  “Where do you want ’em?”

  “The bedroom, I guess.”

  He carried his burden upstairs, with Grace on his heels. Briskly, he flopped the suitcase on the bed and dropped the leather satchel beside it.

  “There you go.”

  He turned to leave, but she called his name. He stopped in the doorway but didn’t turn.

  “You’re not going to stay while I go through them?”

  He turned his head to the side. “So I can see what you packed to start your new life? No, Grace, I think I’ll give that a pass.”

  The distressed little sound she mad
e echoing in his ears, he went downstairs, where he lay down on the couch and draped an arm over his eyes.

  Grace turned back to the bed, looking at the suitcases through a film of tears.

  She lifted her gaze to the mirror above the dresser. “Don’t you dare cry,” she told her reflection. “You brought this down on your own head. Deal with it.”

  Except dealing with it was easier said than done. She’d never had to suffer Ray’s contempt before. She let her breath out on a sob. How was she going to bear it?

  The same way he’s had to bear what you did to him.

  This time, she tried not to flinch from that truth. She’d ditched him in the most brutal way imaginable. Then she’d proceeded to leave her employer in the lurch, pack her bags and leave town. And for what? A man she couldn’t even remember.

  Couldn’t remember, for pity’s sake.

  And not for lack of trying. When she’d come back from the office, she’d lain on the couch, numb from shock. As her mind floated, she’d tried to bring this man’s features together. She’d closed her eyes and tried to hear her lover’s voice, feel his touch, taste his kiss. But no matter how the features she conjured started out, they always shaped themselves into Ray’s dark face. The only voice she could imagine whispering sweet words in her ear was Ray’s. The only smell, only taste, only touch‌—‌his.

  She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream, No, I didn’t do it! She wouldn’t have done it. Couldn’t have done it.

  Yet she must have done it. The evidence was damning.

  Her gaze fell on the suitcases. Ray was right. She needed to unearth those memories. There must be an explanation for her behavior. She had to believe it. For all that people were inclined to dismiss her as a lightweight, she wasn’t flighty. And she certainly wasn’t given to mad impulse.

  Of course, she would also have qualified herself as loyal as a Labrador Retriever, and look what she’d done.

  Tears started to well again. The suitcase, she reminded herself. She wiped damp palms on her jeans, then opened the big suitcase.

  Oh, thank God. The top layer was all familiar stuff. She actually smiled. What had she expected? A black leather bustier? Edible underwear? Crazy to be so relieved.

  Or maybe not so crazy. Her small smile faded. If she could cheat on Ray, she obviously didn’t know herself very well.

  Forcing her attention back to the task, she started removing garments one by one, piling them on the bed.

  Two pairs of jeans, two pairs of khakis, a half-dozen t-shirts, a few blouses, two sweaters, a pair of low-heeled pumps, her Puma runners, and her most serviceable underwear. Some of the items she’d known she’d find because she’d noticed them missing. Other items, she hadn’t yet missed. But there was nothing remarkable in the whole lot.

  Her brow furrowed as her initial relief that the bag wasn’t jammed with crotchless panties gave way to puzzlement. Why hadn’t she packed better underwear?

  Because you wouldn’t wear anything for another man that you’d worn for Ray.

  Okay, but surely she’d have bought new stuff. Underwear was too important to her. She wouldn’t pitch an idea for a feature to Katie without wearing her best underwear, let alone run off to meet a man who was actually going to see it.

  She picked up the perfectly nice but unexceptional underwear and slid the pieces into her dresser drawer with their finer cousins. Obviously, the decision to leave had been made in haste.

  Or in a fit of despair.

  On that thought, she stowed the rest of the clothes back in the drawers and closets, then turned her attention to the other bag.

  If the suitcase told her little, the overnight case would tell her less. She already knew what it contained. Hair dryer, cosmetics, skin-care products, and all those other little items that were missing from the bathroom vanity, dresser top and jewelry box.

  Suddenly, the idea of unpacking and putting away all the accouterments of her life with Ray made her throat hurt. How long before she’d be packing it all up again?

  Don’t, Grace. Just don’t.

  Jumping up, she snagged the handle of the satchel and pulled it closer to the edge of the bed. A tug of the zipper, a wrench of the wrists and the bag lay open.

  Grace leapt back. Holy cow! Guess she hadn’t remembered everything she’d packed.

  “Ray?”

  His name emerged as little more than a croak, probably because of the fear bleeding the strength from her limbs and making her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth. She swallowed, then turned and walked carefully out of the bedroom to the head of the stairs. She called Ray’s name again, louder this time. He materialized below a second later.

  “What is it?” he asked, his expression politely inquiring.

  “I think you’d better come up here and take a look.”

  Chapter 4

  OH, LORD, DIDN’T SHE get it? He didn’t want to know if she’d packed that mocha-colored lace number or her silk kimono or her diaphragm.

  He was just about to tell her so when he noticed how white she’d suddenly gone. Then she swayed. Ray took the stairs two at a time, catching her before she could fall.

  “What is it? Is it your head? Are you dizzy?”

  She sagged against him as he pulled her back from the top of the stairs.

  “In there....”

  “In the bedroom?”

  She backed away far enough to look up at him, blue eyes wide in her fear-pinched face. “I don’t know where it came from, Ray.”

  Her fear leapt to him like a wildfire jumping a fire break. “Grace, what are you talking about?”

  “In the suitcase....”

  “What’s in the suitcase?”

  “Maybe it’s in my head. Maybe I’m hallucinating.” Her fingers dug into his biceps, eyes pleading. “Please tell me I imagined it.”

  “Okay, let’s just go have a look.”

  Keeping one arm around her shoulders, Ray urged her toward the bedroom. Her steps dragged with reluctance, so he left her standing on the threshold and strode into the room himself.

  The larger suitcase lay open on the bed, empty, and the leather satchel sat there beside it. It was unzipped, but the soft sides had fallen together again, shielding its contents. He felt sweat break out on his forehead.

  Logic told him there couldn’t be anything dangerous in the bag; Tom Godsoe and his dog had gone over both suitcases. But whatever was in there, it scared Grace so bad she couldn’t say it aloud. Whatever it was, it made her prefer to think she was delusional.

  And whatever it was, it was going to change his life. Again.

  Shaking the last thought away, he yanked the bag open.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Money. Cash money. Lots of it.

  Grace, from the doorway: “I didn’t imagine it, did I?”

  Ray lifted one of the bundles, fanning the bills. “There must be...” - he paused to do a mental calculation - “...nine or ten thousand dollars here. Where the hell’d you get this wad?”

  She stepped into the room. “I told you, I don’t know.”

  “But so much ... how can you not remember where you got it?”

  She stiffened. “Ray, I threw my marriage away, quit my job, and tried to leave my life behind.” She marched over to the bed, snatched up a bundle of twenties and shook it under his face. “If I can’t remember why I did those things, why should I remember this?”

  Stupid thing to say. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  The fight seemed to drain out of her at his apology. She looked down at the money in her hand for a moment, and when she lifted her gaze again, her eyes looked tortured.

  “I’d shred every last one of these notes, then burn the scraps, if I could just have my life back.”

  Her words caught him fair in the heart. “Aw, Grace.” She looked so miserable he just couldn’t bear it. Lifting his right hand, he cupped her face, and for a moment she leaned into his palm, closing her eyes. Then, abruptly, she pulled back.

  “O
kay, we’d better figure this out,” she said, her voice brisk if a little tremulous. She tossed the money down on the bed. “I don’t think I could have embezzled it from the paper. No access or opportunity.”

  Embezzled? Gracie? “I don’t think you have to worry about that. You’re not a thief.”

  “I didn’t think I was an adulterer or a liar, either.” Her lips twisted in the kind of bitter smile he never imagined her wearing. “I think we have to consider all the possibilities, however improbable they sound.”

  A spark of admiration ignited in his chest. The old Grace would have fallen apart. She’d have cried on his shoulder, borrowed his strength and accepted his comfort. But this new Grace seemed determined to face the situation squarely.

  “I’ll start with the bank.”

  “The bank?” Ray lifted an eyebrow. “We don’t have that kind of money laying around.”

  “Unless I cashed in my RRSPs.”

  His heart contracted at the bleak expression on her face, but he knew better than to show it. She was holding herself together by force of will.

  “You’re right. We have to think outside the box, here. Okay, you check on the RRSPs. I’ll call the insurance company to see if the equity in our policies is still there.”

  “God, yes, the policies. You check them out.”

  Grace used the phone by the bed while Ray used his cell phone. As he waited on hold for the agent to check on the policies, he listened to Grace’s one-sided conversation. By the time the insurance agent came back on the line, Ray already knew the RRSPs were intact. So was the equity in the policies.

  “Well, there’s a small mercy. At least I didn’t clean us out.” Grace sat on the bed and pushed her hair behind her ears.

  Ray almost wished she had cleaned them out. At least then they’d know where the money had come from. He sat down beside her.

  “So, where does that leave us?” she asked. “Should I stash it in our safety deposit box until my memory comes back?”

  “Dammit.”

  “What?”

  “Tommy Godsoe.”

  “What about Tommy Godsoe?”

  “He saw the cash in my truck.”

  She blinked. “What was Tommy doing going through my bag?”