“We used to play in here as kids during the summer,” he said, “when your father was away on business. All over the house, actually. Your babysitter du jour never cared, as long as we were quiet and stayed out of her hair while she watched soap operas all day.”
Shaw tried to remember. She wanted to remember the happy, carefree times he’d described. But nothing but a blank was there, where the past had hovered so close only minutes ago.
“Are there more secret passages?” she asked.
“Not from the outside, as far as I know.” He tugged her hand and led her to the desk. “Your father kept a key in the center drawer, taped to the left side near the back.”
He made no move to check for it himself. His overt care not to put himself on the radar of local police was yet another peculiarity they’d have to discuss eventually. For the moment, she opened the drawer so slowly it should have come with a spooky movie soundtrack. She half expected something sinister to fly at her.
It turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary drawer filled with papers and a few ledgers. She felt along the left side until her fingers encountered the blunt edges of something metal and rounded, with ridges down one side. Peeling it away from the tape that held it to the pine interior, she lifted the key out and tried to hand it to Cole.
He shook his head. “You open it.”
She confronted the dust-covered door. She lifted the key, as she suspected she had many times before. It inserted cleanly without a hint of resistance. The smooth feel of it sliced into more than the lock.
She closed her eyes, fresh memories breaking free. She waited for them this time, instead of grasping and finding only emptiness.
Do you think he ever used this when your mother was alive? asked Cole’s voice from long ago. He was much younger than in the last memory. They both were. Young enough to still need a babysitter.
I wish I could remember my mother, Shaw had said. I wish he’d talk about her.
Open it, and let’s see where it goes, Shaw?
“Shaw?” Cole asked, his deep voice pulling her back to the present. He was behind her, standing in almost exactly the same place as in her newest flash of their past. “Are you okay? What—”
“I’m fine.” She turned the key, which took more effort than she’d expected.
The lock gave way reluctantly, grinding, then clicking in submission. She reached for the doorknob with the same apprehension as when she’d opened the drawer. Her mind flashed to the dream memory of being discovered in a closet by a madman. She shoved away the surreal moment and focused on now. On Cole, standing strong and protective beside her. Her hand shook. It closed around the smooth metal. She covered the evidence of her unraveling nerves with her other hand. Then she twisted, pulled, and stumbled triumphantly back into the solid wall of Cole’s body.
The door swung inward, revealing cobwebs. The grime of years of disuse danced in the weak light and chill of the outside world. A riot of ivy cascaded over it, obscuring the view from within and the opening from without. No wonder she’d never noticed it when she’d walked around the grounds.
Cole’s hand curved protectively around her hip. With the other arm, he parted the fall of green. Morning light shafted over them, a spotlight illuminating the dimmest corners of the office. Through the gap he’d made in the vines, she could see the sloping side terrace of the property. In her mind, she could hear echoes of them as children, happily running from the house to play in sweet-smelling summer grass. She smiled at the perfect feel of it.
Then just as quickly, she shivered at the growing creep factor of unearthing so much so quickly. To help brush off her apprehension, she focused on how late it had gotten. They’d been in the office for so long, night had slipped away completely. The sun was up. And thanks to Cole, light was pouring over her, along with another precious memory she wouldn’t have reclaimed without him.
She turned in his grasp, instinct overriding caution. She’d rebelled against this, against the reality of them, since the moment she’d woken in the parlor with him beside her. She’d convinced herself her feelings were one-sided, and that they’d only get in the way. But the impulse to trust Cole kept growing stronger, regardless of the many questions he’d left unanswered. And now she knew for a fact exactly how much he desired her in return.
Caught in a haze of before, encouraged by his silent acceptance and how much his appearance had already brought back to her, she laid her head against his shoulder and held onto him. The moment felt as if she was claiming something infinitely precious, instead of merely giving in to a need for comfort or reassurance.
It was inappropriate, she knew. He’d introduced himself as simply her neighbor, despite the reality of their past. There’d been some kind of bad blood between him and her father. Cole had moved on years ago from their teenage love affair. And thankfully, they’d managed to regain a smidgen of objectivity after her bombshell recollection of how intimate they’d once been. But at the moment she was beyond caring how much of her need for this man she let him see.
“Did I ever remember her?” she asked, her lips trembling against his throat.
“Remember who, darlin’?” Instead of pushing her away, he pulled her hair from her ponytail and rubbed at the pressure points at the base of her skull.
“My mother.”
“You’re remembering the first time we found this?”
She nodded. “I guess. A little.”
He nodded, too. When she kissed the skin beneath his jaw that she somehow knew was ultrasensitive, his body tensed. His hand clenched in her hair. The gesture should have terrified her, given her nightmares. But with Cole, it felt amazing. She eased away, almost convincing herself to let go. Then she saw the passion etched across his face.
“You’re remembering more by the minute.” His attention dropped to her lips.
“Not enough. Not why I trust you and need you and feel afraid of you all at the same time, when we haven’t seen each other in years. It’s scaring me to death, more than any of the rest. Wanting you, wanting this…it’s nonsensical. But I can’t stop it, Cole. I can’t stop needing you more every time we touch.”
His eyes darkened at her bold admission. She reached up to touch his face, craving the connection. His hand stopped her, gripping her wrist tightly enough to leave prints on her skin.
“You’re playing with fire,” he warned, recalling to her mind the flames that had invaded her nightmares the moment she’d found him in the woods.
She shook her head, refusing to back off. Not this time. Not from him.
“I’m terrified of fire,” she said. “It keeps showing up in my mind, in places I’m sure it doesn’t belong. Does that mean anything to you? Does it mean I should be afraid of you, too?”
“I’ll do everything I can not to hurt you,” was his cryptic response.
“This time,” she half expected him to add.
When he didn’t, she curled her lower body into him. The frank evidence that he was as aroused as she was nestled against her stomach. She didn’t really know him. Not enough to be responding to him this way. But Cole was suddenly the one memory Shaw had to have.
“I guess I’m going to have to take my chances, then.” She stretched to her toes until they were face-to-face. “Will I remember even more if you kiss me again?”
A wicked gleam transformed his pale gaze. “There’s only one way to find out.”
His challenge was enthralling. Tempting. She was a woman who thrived on solving impossible puzzles instead of letting them defeat her the way she’d been allowing her nightmare to for so long. A breeze ruffled the ivy beyond the door, scattering goose bumps up her spine. Cole’s hand in her hair pulled ever so slightly, once more rewriting a horrible moment in her dream with an exciting, tender alternative. Her scalp, her entire body, tingled. Her head tilted back, her m
outh lifting, an invitation, a dare.
Because she wanted this. She had to know. If they took the passion seething between them further, would she recapture even more of their past? Would she recapture him?
As Cole had said, there was only one way to find out.
She brushed his lips with hers. His breath rushed in. Her fingers dug into his biceps, determined to keep him with her if he decided to move away. His body tensed beneath her touch. His mouth inched away, and she prepared to beg. But then his lips crashed back to hers, this man who’d become a bridge between her dreams and her reality. And she was lost, swept along by the need pouring into her from his kiss.
The roaming possession of his hands molded down her back, one aching vertebrae at a time, past her hips. His hands clenched around her bottom, tilting her, settling her more snugly against him. She gasped, and he devoured her surrender. He angled his mouth over hers in a twist that opened her lips wider for the invasion of his tongue. He thrust into her mouth, sweeping her deeper into him and away from everything else.
Her arms slid around his neck. She sipped at him, sucked him in, and nearly cried out at the memories suddenly flashing through her, fueling her desire for him. Memories not of any one moment. There were no images or voices this time, nothing specific. They were only feelings, but they were everything she hadn’t known she’d been missing.
Powerful sensations swamped her, along with the confidence that this was her truth. His truth. Theirs. This was who she’d been, the Shaw she’d lost. And she knew that this, being in Cole’s arms and shaking with the strength and honesty of their need for each other, this was the most real she had ever felt. This was a life worth risking anything to get back.
His teeth nipped at her bottom lip, then the corner of her mouth. She rubbed her forehead against his and tried to breathe. She heard laughter and realized it was hers.
“You feel so real.” She kissed his cheek, his closed eyes, the sinful cleft in his chin. “Have you always felt this good, Cole? I swear I can remember it. Us. I can remember the fire we had.”
He gazed down at her. The backs of his fingers rubbed across her cheek.
“I should be taking better care of you,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.
“You should be kissing me again.” Her hand smoothed across the well-defined muscles of his chest. Her mouth watered at his masculine shudder. She was drunk with the magic they held over each other.
“Shaw, you—” His lips were as warm and welcoming the second time she took his kiss. “Damn.” He groaned. His thumb tipped up her chin. His eyes, a stormy blue now, gleamed with the very passion consuming her. “I’ve missed you. I never should have left, no matter what he said. How could I have left you?”
No matter what he said…
The memory attacked this time, powerful, without warning. There was no easy glide into a soft, safe yesterday. This time, the past had claws. It ripped at her as she plummeted backward…
“He’s responsible,” an angry voice said in this very room, long ago.
“He’s not, Father. You can’t believe that Cole—”
“Started the fire that killed your brother and almost took you away from me, too? What else am I to believe?”
“He was in as much danger as I was.” Shaw’s skin felt as if it were still on fire, where the flames had scorched her arms and legs. But she was alive—because Cole had gotten her out. “He carried me away from the barn when I was too terrified to run myself.”
“He’s a murderer. The police found his prints on the gasoline can used to start the blaze. Not ten feet from the loft where they found your brother’s body. The loft where you’ve been whoring yourself out to my overseer’s bastard all summer. Now he’s killed my boy!”
“Father, no. Cole wouldn’t—”
“He hated Sebastian. Your brother was trying to protect you from him. He told me what’s been going on. I know he threatened to throw Cole and his no-account father off our property. Cole was furious. He wanted to take you from me, and your brother was in his way.”
“That’s not what happened. We both barely made it out alive.”
“I identified your brother’s body in the burned-out shell of our barn!” Her father was in a rage. “It’s true. All of it. And Cole Marinos is going to pay…”
Shaw jerked violently as the past vanished in an instant.
She fought to stay with it, to see more. But all that remained were the flames, reaching for her, terrorizing her with what she’d felt that night, racing through the woods with Cole, away from the barn, while Sebastian had died inside it.
Sebastian.
A brother she knew in name only.
Dead by Cole’s hand?
“It’s not true.” She was whipping her head back and forth, her eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t believe it. I won’t. It’s not true. It can’t be true…”
“Shaw?”
Strong arms held her, shook her.
“Shaw!” Cole’s unshaven face appeared before hers. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“The barn.” She didn’t want this memory, but there was no forgetting her father’s anger and hatred. “The fire you brought into my dreams.”
Cole’s expression was once more the remote mask she despised. “What are you remembering?”
“My father and me, arguing about why you left the mountain when we were teenagers.”
She couldn’t piece it all together. But it fit, the same as Cole’s touch and his kisses and the desire for him that stole her breath away.
“My brother. You were accused of killing Sebastian.”
Chapter Ten
Shaw had to get out of there.
“Wait,” she heard Cole say behind her, but she couldn’t wait.
She’d seduced him into kissing her. She’d wanted him to. And she’d even wanted what they were doing to jar more of the past from her mind. Well, she’d gotten her wish, with devastating results. And she couldn’t take another confusing minute of it. She had to be alone. She had to think. She had to make something make sense.
Her head pounding, she left Cole calling after her and rushed up the stairs to her bedroom, where all this craziness had begun last night. She slammed the door behind her and locked it. The calm serenity of the beautiful things her grandmother had once loved settled around her—setting her nerves even more on edge.
She’d gotten exactly what she deserved. She’d invited someone she couldn’t remember into her home. She’d lied to Dawson about him. She’d kissed Cole and loved every ill-advised moment of it. Of course he’d turn out to be someone who’d been accused of murder. Her brother’s murder. For all she knew Cole really was her stalker, as she’d first thought, playing mind games with her. He could easily be behind everything that had been happening to her, no matter how rationally he’d explained away or avoided each question she’d asked. If he meant to be a threat to her, Cole had her right where he wanted her.
Her mind flashed to his overnight bag. He’d carried it to the office with him. She hadn’t even thought to ask what was inside. Because it had felt right. He had felt right. And even with what she’d just remembered, damn it, he still did. She squeezed her fists against her temples. Why hadn’t she just stayed in her father’s office like a sensible adult and asked him more questions? Gotten to the bottom of why he’d misled her so completely. Why hadn’t she calmed down instead of embarrassing herself and running away again like a terrified child?
It was humiliating, unacceptable, the way trauma had ripped to shreds what must have been a perfectly sane, rational mind. Now the mere thought of having trusted someone others had once considered capable of such a heinous crime had been enough to shut her down. She stopped pacing back and forth across the faded carpet. She spared a glance toward her feline companion, but Esmeralda was sti
ll curled in a tight ball, sleeping at the foot of the bed. There was no one she could talk through her questions with, except herself.
She was missing something. She was sure of it. Something she’d sensed for weeks…but it felt closer now that Cole had insinuated himself back into her life.
Wait.
If he’d been that much a part of her High Lake past, wouldn’t there have been something in the Victorian to remind her of him? She thought of how she’d been tearing the place apart, looking for something she couldn’t quite place. Searching. She hurried over to the stack of photo albums that she’d collected from all over the mansion and began flipping through the one on top that she’d returned earlier. She found the pictures from her final summer on the mountain, the summer her brother had died. And almost immediately, she saw what her mind hadn’t allowed her to grasp before.
Every few pages, amidst the array of neatly assembled images, were missing photos. No more than one or two blank spots at a time, but it was enough disorder to seem odd to her now. Someone had ripped pictures out. Photos of her and Cole? That was why she hadn’t recognized him, not by sight. If she flipped through the other books, she expected she’d discover the same pattern. Someone had systematically removed every visual trace of the courageous young man her teenage self had been head-over-heels in love with.
All along, Cole had been the memory she’d been searching the pictures for.
She scanned the bedroom around her. She’d been instinctively drawn to this charming room that said so much about the grandmother she couldn’t remember. And she’d felt just as drawn, even more so, to Cole. She found herself more confident than ever that she was safe in his arms. When she touched him, she was powerful and demanding and independent. She was herself. That’s what was real. Him and her, and here and now. Not the mania that had temporarily shaken her confidence downstairs, because his kisses had helped her regain another piece of who she’d been.
She touched her lips. They were still throbbing.
Her Forgotten Betrayal Page 10
