by Linda Turner
It was the wrong thing to say. At the first reminder of her pregnancy, the heat in his eyes cooled. “I’ll leave you to sort through them,” he said curtly. “We usually eat breakfast at the restaurant, so come on out when you’re ready.”
Striding out of the bedroom that they’d once shared as man and wife, he shut the door behind him with a snap that made her wince. Was this the way he was going to react every time the baby was mentioned? she wondered, staring after him. If he did, it was going to be an awfully long pregnancy.
Chapter 3
Annie expected Joe’s Place to be one of those elegant, high-dollar restaurants where the local in-crowd could be seen sipping champagne over brunch on the river. The second she stepped through the river-level entrance, however, she saw that it was anything but that. Instead of crystal, white tablecloths and fancy chandeliers, it was strictly blue-collar. The decor was straight out of the fifties, complete with black-and-white linoleum floors, red chrome tables and chairs, and a soda bar, in perfect condition, that looked as if it had been salvaged from an old drugstore. Annie took one look and loved it.
The Saturday-morning breakfast crowd was load, relaxed and boisterous, and when customers called out to Joe—and to her, too—she couldn’t help smiling. Fascinated, she watched waitresses in old-fashioned uniforms wind their way through the crowded tables with hurried grace, trays loaded with plates of ham and eggs and hash browns balanced one-handed over their heads. Cholesterol was obviously not a major concern here, and no one seemed to care. The place was packed.
The tantalizing smell of coffee filled the air, as well as that of freshly baked cinnamon rolls, and Annie felt her mouth water. It seemed like days since she had eaten. Closing her eyes, she dragged in a deep breath, savoring the combination of scents. Pancakes and sausage, she thought, smiling. She’d get a short stack and all the coffee she could drink.
The nausea came out of nowhere. One second she was anticipating the sweetness of syrup on her tongue, and the next, her stomach roiled sickeningly. Caught off guard, she stiffened, horrified. No! This couldn’t be happening! Not here. But even as she told herself that she probably just needed to eat, her stomach had other ideas. Nausea rose with sickening swiftness in her throat, and she knew that if she didn’t do something fast, she was going to disgrace herself right there in front of a restaurant full of people. Her hand pressed to her mouth, she looked frantically around for a rest room.
She didn’t remember making a sound, but Joe was suddenly there, immediately taking charge as he slipped an arm around her waist. “Hang on, honey,” he said quietly, and quickly urged her to the rear of the restaurant, where the rest rooms were concealed by a large screen painted with palm trees. Without batting an eye, he whisked her into the ladies’ room.
Before Annie realized that he had followed her inside, she ran out of time. Groaning, she lost the meager contents of her stomach while Joe held her head. Mortified, she wanted to crawl in a hole. “Just shoot me right here and get it over with,” she moaned. “Then I can die in peace. I can’t believe I did that!”
A smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, he chided, “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t remember it, but right after our honeymoon. I got the flu and was sick as a dog for twelve hours straight. You never left my side.” His hands incredibly gentle, he brushed her hair back from her colorless face, gave her a cup of water to rinse her mouth, then helped her over to a chair in front of the vanity mirrors that lined one wall. “Just sit here a minute and get your breath. You’ll be good as new in no time.”
If she’d had the energy, Annie would have laughed at that. He couldn’t be serious! She was a whipped puppy, so embarrassed she didn’t think she’d ever be able to look him in the eye again. “You shouldn’t be in here,” she murmured, turning her face away. “What if someone came in and saw you?”
“They’d just see a man taking care of his nauseated wife,” he said simply, wiping her hot face with a paper towel he wet at the sink. “How’s that feel? Better?”
It felt like heaven. He had big, strong hands, the kind that could, no doubt, break a man in two if he was angry enough. But he was so gentle with her, so careful, she found herself fighting the need to lean into him and give herself over to his caring.
Disturbed, she caught his hand before it could make another cooling swipe down her face. “If this is an example of what the mornings are going to be like for the next couple of months, I’d better not go out in public for a while,” she said with a rueful grimace. “Why don’t you go get us a table and I’ll be out as soon as I wash up? I just need a few moments to get myself together.”
His fingers trapped in hers, Joe stared down at her and felt as if he’d just been kicked in the head by a mule. Morning sickness. When he’d seen the blood drain from her face and her hand flutter to her mouth, his only thought had been that she was in trouble. She’d looked up at him with desperation in her eyes, and he hadn’t known if she was scared of the crowd or what—he’d just known he had to help her. And all the time, the baby was just making its presence known, refusing to be ignored even though it would be months before it would be here. Like it or not, he was going to have to deal with that. But how, dammit? How the hell could he?
Pulling his hand from hers, he straightened, the agitation churning in his gut locked inside where no one could see. “Take your time—there’s no hurry. I have a table by the kitchen reserved for our use at all times.”
No one so much as lifted an eyebrow when he walked out of the women’s rest room, but Joe knew his staff. The second he’d walked through the front door with Annie, the news had spread like wildfire. By the time he took a seat at his table, he wasn’t surprised to see Drake Gallagher, his manager, striding toward him with a frown etching his chiseled face.
He and Drake went way back, back to the days they’d first worked together as busboys when they were just sixteen. Drake had eventually gone on to manage a place in Austin, but when Joe’s Place had been in trouble, he’d ditched that job to come back to San Antonio and help Joe get the restaurant back on its feet. Annie had always been a favorite with him and, like the rest of the crew, he’d had a hard time accepting her leaving.
Never one to mince words or worry about taking advantage of their friendship, Drake signaled a waitress to bring them both a cup of coffee, grabbed a chair across the table from him, and said without preamble, “It’s about time you two came to your senses. I’d about given up hope on you. So what’s wrong with Annie? She looked a little green around the gills.”
Joe opened his mouth to tell him that she was pregnant, only to shut it with a snap. The news would be out soon enough—there was no sense fueling speculation any sooner than he had to, and he didn’t want to talk about it in front of half the restaurant. “Her stomach’s kind of jittery this morning. We’ve got a problem, Drake.”
“Oh, God. What is it this time?”
His lips twitching at his groan, Joe understood how he felt. In the last few months, they’d done nothing but put out fires. Pouring cream into his coffee, he told him of Annie’s return home and amnesia. “She’s not going to know you or any of the rest of the staff, so spread the word, okay? And make sure none of the guys corner her. She’s pretty skittish right now.”
Stunned, Drake nodded. “Of course. She’s probably scared to death. What do you think happened to her?”
“I don’t know, and neither does she. The police are checking into the situation, but unless she remembers something or the lab finds something on her clothes, they won’t even know where to start an investigation. In the meantime, I don’t want to leave her alone, so you’re going to have to take over most of the load here until things get back to normal.”
“Hey, no problem,” Drake assured him. “You just take care of Annie and don’t worry about this place. I can handle things for as long as you need me to. It’s not like I’ve got a family to rush home to, and Annie needs you. Maybe you should get her out of town for a while
, take a vacation or something. A complete change of scene might do you both good.”
If they’d really been back together, Joe would have jumped at the chance to be alone with her on some secluded beach a million miles from their nearest neighbor. But although she was back, they weren’t even close to being reconciled and there was a possibility that they never would be. Regretfully, he shook his head. “The doctors said she has a better shot at remembering if she has the security of familiar things around her. And I don’t think we should be away from town right now. The builders are coming along fine on the new place, but I want to be here if there’re any glitches. And Annie needs to be near her doctors just in case she starts to remember.”
The conversation turned to business then—a booking for a private party, problems with a supplier, the previous day’s receipts, which were up—and neither man noticed the woman who rushed across the restaurant until she was practically upon them. “Joe! Thank God, I found you! I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve really got to talk to you.”
Surprised, Joe lifted a brow at Phoebe Duncan, Annie’s best friend and partner. A small woman with a shock of red hair and impish green eyes, she was one of those unflappable women who usually roll with the punches. She almost always kept her head when everyone else was losing theirs. But not today. Her freckles stood out in sharp relief across her pale cheeks, her eyes were wild, her curly hair disheveled. She’d been maid of honor at his and Annie’s wedding, and in all the years since, Joe didn’t think he’d ever seen her so frazzled.
Quickly rising to his feet, as Drake excused himself to check things in the kitchen, Joe pulled a chair out for her. “Sit down, Phoeb. You look like you’re stuck on fast-forward. What’s going on?”
She sat, but only to pop up again like a jack-in-the-box. “It’s Annie. God, you must think I’m some kind of nutcase to come rushing in here like this, but I didn’t know what else to do. Have you heard from her? I know you guys haven’t been talking, but I was hoping she called you. No one’s seen her at the office—”
“She’s okay, Phoeb—”
“She didn’t even check in yesterday to let me know she wasn’t coming in,” she continued, not even hearing him. “Of course, she could have gone to Kerrville. She mentioned she had to meet with a lady there who wanted to list her property with us, but she didn’t say when she was going. And I don’t know the woman’s name, so I can’t check with her.” Chewing on her bottom lip, she said, “Something’s wrong, Joe. I can feel it in my bones. She’s not answering her phone and her car’s gone. Maybe you should call the police.”
“She’s fine, Phoebe,” he tried again, smiling. “She showed up at—”
That was as far as he got. Annie stepped out of the rest room then, drawing her friend’s gaze, and with a cry of relief, Phoebe was out of her chair and hugging her as if she hadn’t seen her in years. “Thank God! Do you know how worried I’ve been? Where have you been? I’ve been going crazy picturing you in all sorts of trouble and all the while you were with Joe. You dog, why didn’t you call me and tell me you were back together?”
Taken aback, Annie looked wildly to Joe for help. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who—”
“How did the renter turn out the other night?” Phoebe asked eagerly as she released her and sank back into her chair at the table. “Did he take the entire tenth floor? At the price he was getting, he would have been a fool not to. So did he sign the contract? Tell me everything.”
“What night?” Joe demanded sharply before Annie could so much as open her mouth. “You’re not talking about Thursday night, are you?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Annie had a meeting that night? With who? Where?”
He threw the questions at her like darts, not giving her time to answer one before he thought of another. Surprised, she started to tease him about his fierceness, only to notice just then that Annie was waiting for her to answer as expectantly as Joe was.
Her brows drawing together in a frown, Phoebe glanced back and forth between the two of them in confusion. “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on here or do I have to guess? Annie?” she asked when her friend hesitated and looked to Joe for an answer. “Why are you looking at Joe like that? What’s wrong?”
“She has amnesia,” Joe answered for her. “That’s why she didn’t call in yesterday—she didn’t even know you existed.”
“Oh, c’mon!”
Amused, she clearly didn’t believe him, but Joe was dead serious. “I talked to Sam Kelly about it last night, and if you’d waited a little while, he would have showed up at your office some time today to tell you all about it. Annie came home Thursday night after I’d gone to bed and I didn’t know she was there until the next morning. I should have called you myself, but yesterday was so wild, frankly, I didn’t even think about it. We spent the day going from one doctor to the next trying to find out what happened to her.”
The blood slowly draining from her face, Phoebe glanced uncertainly at Annie. “This is a joke, isn’t it? Like that time you tried to convince me that George Strait listed his house with us?”
Liking her immediately, Annie wished she could have given her the answer she wanted, but she had no memory of that or any other joke she might have played on her. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. I know we must be friends, but I don’t even know your name. Have we known each other long?”
The other woman winced as if she’d struck her, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, God, Annie, you really don’t remember! I’m Phoebe. Phoebe Duncan. We’ve been best friends since first grade. How can you not know me?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Joe interjected. “Let’s order breakfast, then you can tell us about this meeting Thursday night.”
After her earlier bout of nausea, Annie was sure she was crazy to even think about eating breakfast, but the second the waitress set her order of pancakes and sausage in front of her, her mouth watered hungrily. Suddenly starving, she dug into her food like a field hand who’d been hard at work for hours and immediately discovered why Joe’s Place was packed to the gills with customers. The food was out of this world.
While they were eating, Phoebe told Annie about how they had met in first grade, their instant friendship, and the mischief they’d just naturally fallen into over the years. Unable to stop grinning, Annie was sure her friend was stretching the truth, but Joe assured her she wasn’t. When she and Phoebe got together, there was no telling what would happen.
Polishing off the last of her French toast, Phoebe sighed in contentment and pushed her plate away. “Well, there’s another inch to the hips, but it was worth it. I don’t know how you do it, Joe. Every time I eat here, the food gets better. So when are you going to give me some of your recipes?”
“I’m not,” he retorted, chuckling as he leaned back in his chair. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Phoeb. You know that.”
Undaunted, she only shrugged, her green eyes twinkling. “You can’t blame a girl for trying. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“True enough. Now what about Annie’s meeting Thursday night? Who was it with and where?”
“A Mr. Sal Larkin,” she answered, abruptly somber, “at the Transit Tower. He was coming from Houston and wouldn’t be able to meet with her until around eight o’clock. Normally, I would have.gone with her, but it was my grandfather’s eighty-fifth birthday and the family was having a party I couldn’t get out of.”
“So you went to the party, and Annie met the renter alone. And that’s the last time you saw or heard from her?”
She nodded miserably. “I had no idea she was in any kind of trouble. By the time I got in Thursday night, it was too late to call her, so I figured I’d check in with her the next morning before I left for a seminar in Austin for the day. But I missed her again. She never showed up at the office at all yesterday, and when I couldn’t reach her at home this morning, I really started to worry.”
“What about this Sal Lark
in character?” Joe asked with a frown. “What do you know about him? Is he someone you’ve dealt with before?”
“No. We got the leasing contract with the Transit Tower and ran our first ad at the beginning of the week. Mr. Larkin called on Wednesday and spoke to Annie about needing an entire floor of the building. Apparently he wanted to get out of Houston and move his telecommunications company to San Antonio.”
“Have you heard from him? Did he actually show up for the appointment?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t call, so I assume he showed up.” Glancing at Annie, she said, “Does any of this ring a bell, girlfriend? What happened after you left the office that night?”
Annie would have given anything to remember, but her mind was a clean slate. “No, nothing. I can’t even tell you where our office is, let alone what happened after I left it.”
“You can’t, but maybe someone can at the Transit Tower,” Joe said. “I’m going to check it out. Phoebe, will you stay with Annie until I get back? I don’t like leaving her alone.”
Annie, already rising to her feet, had no intention of being baby-sat like a two-year-old. “I’m going with you. If something happened there, I have a right to know what it was.”
“I’ll tell you everything when I get back,” Joe promised. “Here are the keys to the apartment—”
“I’m going, Joe,” she cut in firmly. “Just because I lost my memory doesn’t mean you have to treat me like a little girl. I can handle this.”
Exasperated, he demanded, “How do you know? You don’t even know what this is!”
“Then I’ll find out at the same time you do,” she said stubbornly, lifting her chin. “You’re coming, aren’t you, Phoebe? I’d like for you to be there.”
“You’re damn right I’m coming! Somebody hurt you, and I want to find him as much as you do. Besides,” she added, grinning, “after watching you two avoid each other like the plague for months, just seeing you talk to each other again is the best surprise I’ve had all year. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Let’s go.”
