Dark Memories (The DARK Files Book 1)

by Susan Vaughan

  A sob choked her voice. “The ice … the Porsche wasn’t good in winter weather. I shouldn’t—”

  “Stop. Blame the ice, not yourself.”

  “I know.” She cried against his chest. He smelled so good, sunshine and life and strength. She didn’t want him to be her anchor, but she needed him at that moment. “They call it survivor’s guilt. I wasn’t even driving. Angela was. She’d insisted we take the Porsche because she loved driving it. She wanted to buy it from me. Aunt Emily, Angela’s mother, has hated me ever since. If only I hadn’t given in, she might be alive. And our baby might have survived.”

  Our only baby.

  His arms tightened around her, and he murmured, “You couldn’t have known. The accident wasn’t your fault.”

  “Oh, Cole, I wanted our baby. Every day I talked to him and sang to him. I could feel him move, and I saw the sonogram images. They showed his tiny fingers and toes. He…” Sobs racked her, and she could say no more.

  “Hush, I said it before. No if-onlys. Thank God you’re alive. You could’ve died too.”

  Blinking away her tears, she leaned back and gazed at his dear, dear face. He’d donned a defensive mask devoid of emotion, but moisture beaded his lashes.

  Yes, the truth hurt him, but no more than rejection for no reason. She’d been wrong to keep it from him. But not wrong to keep her renewed love to herself. Neither of them needed more heartbreak. She knew love again, but her scars would never heal, and the ghost of what could never be would separate them again. Forever. Her love for him was only a dream she could hug to herself during the long, cold, barren winters to come.

  He smoothed a hand down the side of her face. She savored the roughness of his skin, absorbed it into her memory. “I understand why you went into a depression afterward. You had a lot of grief to work through.”

  After her body had healed from the accident and the surgery, grief and loss threw her into a self-destructive spiral. Maybe telling it would be enough to drive him away. He’d think her unstable and unbalanced

  “My body healed, and I went back to school, but I couldn’t sleep or eat or concentrate on my studies. I skipped classes and slept. Too much. But it kept my mind off the baby and off what happened to Angela.” And off the rest.

  “Then you got some help?”

  “Not soon enough. I couldn’t tolerate anyone touching me. I felt dirty, but I hadn’t the energy to wash. I could barely tolerate me.” She gave a mirthless laugh, expecting him to move away from her. “Shocking, isn’t it? I shocked myself.”

  His chin rested on the top of her head. “You weren’t yourself.”

  Both touched and stymied that he wasn’t repulsed, she rested her cheek on the steady beat of his heart. “Finally my roommates dragged me to a counselor. She hooked me up with other grieving women who’d had miscarriages.”

  “A group.”

  “We had little in common except losing babies. Some of the women had lost more than one. Hearing their stories was wrenching but also healing. We shared our stories, we hugged, we held hands and wrote poems and made small memorials.”

  “And you healed each other,” he finished for her.

  “Their support helped me stop my downward spin. I focused on my studies again. I relearned the comfort of human touch through holding hands with my group and later with my roommates. But I didn’t have another date the rest of my college career.”

  Later she immersed herself in her work and teaching tennis to inner-city youngsters. “Some of us in the group keep in touch by e-mail and grief chat rooms. I’ve missed them terribly since I’ve been in hiding.”

  “No wonder you hated me. I caused you all that pain with my carelessness.” His voice sounded as choked as hers.

  She closed her eyes against the pain of a new realization. If she’d told him about the pregnancy, he’d have stood by her. She should’ve remembered his integrity and sense of responsibility. She shouldn’t have believed Valesko or the rumors. If only she’d been thinking clearly and not through a haze of anger and resentment. There would’ve been no accident, no miscarriage. They would’ve had a son. And possibly more babies. Regret washed over her, choking her with pain.

  When she could breathe again, she raised her head to gaze into his eyes, dark with fierce determination. “Never say that you caused all my pain. You didn’t cause the miscarriage, and both of us made the baby.”

  His big hands massaged her shoulders. She hadn’t realized how stiffly she was hunching them until he eased the tension. “Now I know even better why you chose Murphy the cat’s name. Nine lives, but three or four have expired. I promise you I’ll get Alexei Markos and whoever he’s hired. You’ll be safe this time.”

  She watched his eyes kindle with a laser-blue flame. Years had passed since she felt the heat of desire. Not since that single weekend with Cole. During her brief relationships later, she went through the motions.

  She didn’t burn.

  Until now. With him.

  She traced the grooves tracking down his cheeks. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I concealed the truth this long, but…” Surely she had more to say, but his heated gaze blurred her mind and seared her body.

  She was finished talking.

  Clearly, so was he.

  The hard ridge of his arousal pressed against her belly. Her confession had shocked him, but he still wanted her. Shaking with love and need, she turned her mind away from the shadow still between them. She needed an affirmation of the love that once produced a small ephemeral life. She needed a flesh-and-blood memory to accompany the dream.

  He slanted his mouth to fit hers. Heart racing, she met his tongue hungrily with her own. Her eyes closed as his lips devoured hers. As his fingers molded her body, her skin heated and her bones melted like butter. She burrowed into his neck, kissing and murmuring her need into his throbbing pulse points. Her body remembered his. The feel of his hands, the texture and salty scent of his skin.

  She felt herself lifted to the counter behind her, her sweatshirt tugged up and her bra roughly pushed aside. He spread her legs and ground his hardness against her as he sucked on one nipple and then the other, shooting sparks of need along her nerves directly to the core of her passion. From somewhere far off she heard a whimper and was startled to recognize her own voice.

  Dropping hot kisses around the shell of her ear, he whispered in a voice smoky with desire, “Laura, you make me crazy.” He tore off his T-shirt, shucked down his jeans. “Say you want this, you want me.”

  “Yes, Cole, yes,” She popped the snap of her own jeans and wrestled with them. He slid them and her panties down and away. She heard a groan escape him when her hand closed over him.

  “Wait,” he rasped out, “I want to protect you.” He stepped away to slip a foil packet from his toiletry kit.

  He didn’t need it, but she couldn’t tell him.

  The air between them seemed to heat as he came to her, sliding his hands over her thighs and up her hips. A wave of need coursed through her. She had to have him inside her, to fill the emptiness, if only temporarily.

  She wrapped her legs around him and dug her fingers into the bunched steel of his shoulders. He lifted her easily and lowered her onto himself. The impact of his entry jolted her entire being. It had been so long. So long.

  Uttering guttural sounds of pleasure and control, he held himself still inside her as she adjusted to him. The magnetic tides that pulled them together stirred and pulsed inside her.

  “Cole! Please…”

  His eyes met hers, and lightning flared between them, searing her to her very core. She strained against him as he drove into her with the same uncontrollable need that raced through her. His thrusts rolled waves of pleasure through her and beckoned her closer to delirious oblivion.

  Tongues of flame licked through her body. When he reached between them to stroke her sensitive center, heat spread relentlessly through her body, and as he followed,
they were catapulted into the heart of the fire itself.

  Chapter 17

  LONG MOMENTS LATER, Cole dragged himself to awareness. His lungs heaved and his heart pounded. He reeled from the emotional and physical tumult. He couldn’t believe he’d been so rough, so fierce in his need, slamming into her like a wild animal. He was a selfish bastard, taking advantage of the emotional maelstrom. But he’d needed her to fill up the fissures of new grief.

  The swell of her breasts, the curve of her cheek, the sweetness of her lips, he drank nectar from each, shaking with lust. He lost himself with her. With no one else had he ever felt such frenzy. In a raging fever, his body burned. He had to be inside her or expire. With her, only with her, passion burned away the reins of control. His whole body erupted with his release. Sex with Laura was earthshaking, a force of nature. Even more, a union of their hearts and spirits.

  Was this time out of time all they had? She said they had no future. When the danger ended, she intended they go back to their separate lives.

  Not if he could help it.

  She had so much pain to overcome, but not alone. She was so brave, so strong, with his support, she could move on to a future they would build together. With more children. He kissed her mouth gently and held her close, wanting, needing to keep their bodies connected awhile longer, linking them in the only way he could. For now.

  He felt her raise her head and shift position. She sighed, clearly still dazed. Then she leaned forward and lightly kissed his chest. The brush of her lips triggered heat in his loins again. A blush colored her cheeks, and her hand went automatically to her throat to close her collar, but the sweatshirt she still wore had none.

  “Don’t hide from me,” he said softly. He traced the highest scar with a finger, soothing the reddened ridge that formed a jagged arc up the side of her neck. “You’ve survived more than any one person should ever have to endure. Those scars are badges of courage.”

  “Scars, yes…” Her eyes widened in what seemed fear, and she tugged down her sweatshirt, twisted and bunched up under her arms, to cover herself. “It’s late.”

  A jarring dinging noise turned their heads around.

  “The brownies,” she said. “I have to get down.” The rich aroma of baking chocolate filled the room, masking the scent and aura of their loving.

  She kept her eyes averted as he lifted her down, separating their bodies. She yanked on her jeans and tugged her sweatshirt down as if to conceal her entire body.

  He made a quick trip to the bathroom. When he returned, she was sliding the brownies from the oven.

  Once she set down the hot pan on a burner to cool, he pivoted her to him. He cupped her chin and nailed her with a challenging stare. “You can’t pretend it didn’t happen. We burned each other up. Whatever else time has erased, we still have that. You were right there with me.”

  She shook her head, her skin waxen. Exhaustion probably. “I know. But it was just because of the emotion of the moment. It can’t happen again. We can’t go back.”

  His gut clenched. After so many years, he hoped he again understood her. If he didn’t, if he couldn’t reach her, and they had no chance. “Not back. Forward.” He crossed mental fingers and toes. “Your survivor’s guilt is talking. And guilt for more than the car crash that took our baby. You urged me to let go my guilt about my father. Take your own advice, sweetheart.”

  Suspicion crinkling her eyes, she paused from wrapping foil over the brownie pan. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve forgiven me for the carelessness that made you pregnant, but have you forgiven yourself for that same carelessness?”

  “You don’t understand. There’s too much pain. There’s ….” Shaking her head, she dashed to the bedroom.

  Letting her go hurt him, but he ought to give her time to think.

  For him, their loving meant more than the emotion of the moment. Sex could never be simple between them. Gentle and kind, courageous and vulnerable, she never backed down. She challenged him to be the man he’d made himself, not the bitter biker with a chip on his shoulder as big as a Humvee.

  Or was he only kidding himself? Maybe she wanted no more from him than a wham bam thank you ma’am. Did she need him only so long as she was in danger? To her was he still a Harley hoodlum? Doubt’s long stinger pierced his chest. Rubbing his chest, he shuffled to the couch and spread the covers. He might as well rest, but he wouldn’t sleep. More turmoil spun in his mind.

  A son. David. They’d made a son.

  His chest ached. He felt like Prometheus who stole fire from the gods. Cole had dared to steal love, another heavenly fire. Having his guts chewed over and over by a vulture was the Greek’s punishment. Grieving for his lost son chewed Cole to shreds. The loss would gnaw at him every day from now on.

  Laura had suffered that torture for the last ten years. She’d nurtured their child within her, loved him and wanted him. The accident that took him from her almost killed her. After the brake line sabotage caused another accident, she clutched her belly and murmured. Her disjointed, mumbled words coalesced in his mind.

  My baby … my baby.

  Thank God she’d survived. She’d overcome death over and over. He had to keep her safe this time. His hands trembled. So she was right to reject him. Sex between them would complicate matters too much. Complicate and maybe compromise protecting her and finding the scumbag hit man Janus.

  He clicked off the light. His first decision had been the right one. Stuff his hormones and his emotions in his Harley saddlebags and do the job.

  ***

  Dawn crept in with a cool, misty summer rain that veiled the world and kept most vacationers indoors.

  Laura would teach no sailing or tennis that day. The sailing-race celebration would have to wait, so she stowed the brownies in the refrigerator. Puttering about, cleaning and straightening, she worked around Cole, who tapped away on his laptop at the table. Instead of using the landline, he set up a miniature satellite receiver. He said ordinary wireless would be too easily compromised.

  Using a torn T-shirt, she dusted the small tables around the couch, the funny little one made from a power company spool and the other low one of bamboo-like plastic. She smiled. Until a few months ago, she would have turned up her nose at such tacky furniture. Now she counted herself lucky to have a roof over her head.

  At his mumbled curse, she glanced up. He was utterly focused on the screen, his back to her.

  Being cooped up with him in her cabin had her grinding her teeth. After their lovemaking last night, her every molecule was tuned to his frequency. He sat quietly working, but didn’t merely occupy space. He controlled it. He dominated the entire room. The scent of his soap and shampoo seemed to follow her. His wide back looked too sexy and touchable. She longed to run her hands across his shoulders, down the ridge of bone covered with thick muscle that shifted and flexed with his every movement. Even the tapping sound of his fingers on the keys aroused her senses.

  Yes, she had a memory to tuck away for later, a memory of heated passion and emotions on overload, but at this moment the memory tormented her with the desire for more.

  More would be a disaster.

  In their frenzy to possess each other, she’d forgotten her other scar, the surgical one on her abdomen. Since she’d remained partially clothed, he didn’t notice. She made sure of that afterward. She would conceal her sad secret if she could, but she wouldn’t lie to him. If she succumbed again, he would see the scar and surely ask. And she would have to answer. Seeing rejection in his eyes was what she expected, but pity or sympathy would tear her apart. So she needed to resist temptation.

  Finished with the dusting, she wandered to the kitchen, sidling past him at the table. Over his shoulder, she glimpsed the name Marisol in an e-mail.

  Just what she needed to quell her libido. And ignite her temper.

  After making love with her, how dare he exchange notes with another woman! She slammed t
he neglected brownie pan to soak into the sink and twisted on the faucet full force. She attacked the baked-on cake bits with steel wool.

  “You find Alexei Markos in that sink? Or something else grinding your gears?”

  Her hand fluttered to her collar, then to her burning cheek. She had no right to be jealous. Hadn’t she told herself a hundred times they had no future? Add to that she’d been snooping.

  How to explain the fit of uncharacteristic temper? “Sorry. It’s just being cooped up.” With you. “I’m used to being active, to being outdoors.” She rinsed the pan and deposited it in the dish drainer.

  Drying her hands, she turned and shrugged. “I enjoy cooking, but I’ve discovered that I hate cleaning. I’d rather scrape paint off a boat hull or pick up seventy-five tennis balls or catalog the cross-references for third-century Aegean pottery than clean house.”

  He tilted the chair back on its rear legs and folded his arms. “The domestic type you’re not. The maternal type is more like it. You’re damn good with those kids.” His eyes softened, and he held out his right hand.

  She wanted to accept it, to let him fold her into his arms, to tell him she loved him. But she couldn’t. If she did, she’d have to tell him the rest. Heart thumping painfully, she skirted the table and sat opposite him.

  The laptop lid suited her as a wall. “Are there any reports on Markos?”

  His canted chair clacked down to four on the floor. “He seems to have vanished again. The operatives tracking him must have their heads up their asses.” He scratched his jaw and frowned. “I’ve been going through the background checks on guests and employees.”

  “And?”

  “And zip.” He slapped the laptop closed. At least the table remained between them. “Everybody’s cleaner than that pan you reamed out. Nobody who could be Janus, but some folks who need money. Who doesn’t? Even Stan. Look at the employee cabins and the furnishings. This resort is in hock to the bank for the next forty years.”