He’d chosen this airy unit in a Spanish-style complex as a bulwark against childhood memories. Outside, maintenance men kept everything sparkling. Inside, neither moldering laundry nor messy little fingerprints bespoiled the pristine surfaces.
Into this sterile setting he had brought an untamed creature who had already demonstrated her power to disrupt his self-control. At this very moment, when he ought to be poking her awake before dinner got cold, he could only stand there looking at her.
He was glad Lisa had turned up today. He hardly minded that she might be using him again, and that in a few days she would no doubt vanish. Ryder craved those days in between. Maybe it was the risk taker in him that found her so fascinating. Her very unpredictability added to her charm.
At least he didn’t have to worry about her tying him down, he mused. Be careful what you wish for: you might get it. He’d never understood that old saying until now.
Lisa’s eyes fluttered open. Ryder watched her intently. In this unguarded moment, she might let slip a clue to her true identity.
When she saw him, her mouth curved in unrestrained pleasure. There was no visible effort to bring herself under control, nothing to indicate she might be feigning.
Confusion replaced her lazy good cheer. “I expected—”
“What?”
“A different room.”
“Describe it.”
“Blue,” she said. “And white.”
“The chalet.” Naturally she would associate him with the place where they’d spent time together. “Your memory is returning.”
“I hope so. Or I think I do.” She started to finger comb her hair, then stopped as her hand encountered the bandage. “Ouch.”
“Do you remember getting hurt?”
“Not the accident itself. I can recall everything since I woke up at the hospital, though.”
As a policeman, Ryder had learned that it wasn’t unusual for a trauma victim to permanently block out the crime or accident itself. As for the rest of her memory, it should return soon enough. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Good. I’m starved.”
They ate at the small butcher-block kitchen table. As she’d done in the chalet, Lisa kept her fork in her left hand and the knife in her right. The European-style of dining hadn’t been a pretense. Unless she was still pretending.
“Ryder,” she said after a bite of salad. “You refused to take my money, but will you still help me find out who I am?”
“I’ve been considering how to proceed,” he admitted. “Under normal circumstances, I would circulate your description on the Internet. But if someone might be trying to kill you, we shouldn’t provide clues to where you are.”
Lisa studied the patterns of rice on her plate as if they were tea leaves. “You really think I’m in danger?”
“We should proceed on that assumption,” Ryder said, “although the fact that the cab had false papers doesn’t necessarily mean it hit you on purpose. What about at the hospital, Lisa? Did you see anyone suspicious?”
Her forehead puckered in concentration. “I don’t believe so. Do you suppose there are clues in my suitcase that I missed, the way the police overlooked your business card in my pocket? We could go through it together.”
“Sure.” Either she intended for him to find something, or she was being completely open. Ryder wished he didn’t have to be so skeptical, but it was warranted.
He washed the dishes and she dried, clumsily. Ryder wasn’t sure whether that was due to inexperience or to her injury, until he observed her flinch when she moved her shoulder. “Let’s take a look at that.”
She didn’t object as he eased the sweater down. What he saw made Ryder swear at himself under his breath. The whole side of her body, as far as he could see, had turned a blue-ish purple that was only beginning to fade. It should have occurred to him that getting knocked over by a cab would cause serious injuries.
“I’m amazed you can walk around,” he said.
“It seems to me...” She pressed her lips together before resuming. “It seems to me that I tend to disregard my feelings. Does that tell you anything about my background?”
“Unfortunately, a lot of people aren’t in touch with their feelings,” Ryder said. “Let me get you some aspirin and let’s go through your luggage.”
A few minutes later they were sitting in the bedroom with Lisa’s possessions strewn across the comforter. Her light floral scent filled the room. There was no sign of the tomato-stained clothes. He supposed she must have discarded them. Wasn’t that what a rich girl would do?
Although twilight had arrived, warm light from a lamp bathed the room. “This is a funny bed.” From her perch on the padded edge, Lisa pressed the rippling surface.
“Water bed. Very retro.” Ryder felt along the insides of the suitcase. Since the lining had come loose in a couple of places, he assumed the police had searched for secret compartments. He didn’t find one.
“Is it difficult to sleep with the water rippling?” Lisa asked.
“It’s quite comfortable.” Ryder had bought the water bed because it was cheap, but he’d been pleased at how well it supported his body. “Does anything here stir any impressions?”
Lisa examined the slacks, blouses, sweaters, and a silky black dress. Ryder tried not to stare at the lacy bras and panties. “They’re good quality.” She checked a label. “Does this manufacturer’s name mean anything to you?”
It didn’t. However, Ryder discovered from the other labels that the manufacturers were located in such cities as Paris, Amsterdam, London and Madrid. “You get around, or your shop buyers do.”
She stroked a negligee of cloud-soft aqua silk shot with pink. “Everything here is expensive. You’re right—I must be rich.”
“In a hurry to get back to it?”
“Not really.” She held up a tan scarf through which curved a design reminiscent of a peacock feather. “This might be handy to cover my bandage.”
Ryder’s fingertips brushed a satiny rose blouse. He pictured Lisa wearing these garments, and imagined removing them, one by one. An image slammed into his mind of the bathroom at the chalet. Steaming water. A fluffy rug. Lisa, slick, writhing and eager for him. How could she not recall making love to him? How bizarre that, in her heart, he was no longer her lover but a stranger.
“Wouldn’t you think I’d have brought something other than clothes and shoes.” Lisa fiddled with a soft leather purse. “There’s no diary, no notebooks, no iPad. Either someone took them, or I was deliberately hiding my identity.”
“Or both,” Ryder pointed out.
Her gaze sobered. “I can’t imagine what I was involved in. It’s scary. I wish I could just start over as Lisa Schmidt.”
He did, too. But hard reality would intrude sooner or later.
She stifled a yawn. “You take the bed,” he said. “I’ll be fine on the couch.”
“No,” she said. “It’s too small for you.”
“I’d rather be in the front room,” Ryder countered. “To keep watch.”
“You think someone’s tracked me to L.A.?”
They have to be an incredible tracker. “No, but I prefer caution.”
“You’re very kind.” She was folding her clothes and tucking them back into the suitcase. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Large, dark eyes glistened with gratitude.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said gruffly, and got out of there while he could still keep his hands to himself.
In the living room, Ryder stood by the window and surveyed the landscaped grounds of the apartment complex. Illuminated from below, the pool silhouetted the dark figures of swimmers. Laughter drifted up to him. Malibu lights marked meandering beds of calla lilies and birds-of-paradise.
No surreptitious figures stirred. Ryder shrugged. His instincts told him that if anyone had followed Lisa when she left the hospital, she would have been grabbed by now.
Flopping onto the couch, he clicked on the TV. One o
f L.A.’s newscasts droned on, with no word of New York police seeking a missing woman or anything else that might concern Lisa.
She could work at the beach without fear of recognition. Whatever harm she’d caused him—hurt pride if nothing else—Lisa was about to atone for it by helping him find Ginger Callas. All he had to do was keep his libido in check, survive a few nights on this miserable couch and wait for her memories to return. Then she would go home.
*
I must have left him for his own good. That was the thought in Lisa’s mind when she awoke. Ryder’s distinctly male scent had cocooned her all night as she floated on his bed, and she must have been dreaming about him.
But if she’d seen anything of the past, it had fled the instant she opened her eyes.
Surely she’d intended no harm to him. That kind of cruelty was not in her nature. Nor would she have left out of indifference. He wasn’t the kind of man a woman would choose to leave.
That much had become clear the previous evening. She’d been intensely aware of him at every moment. Not only of his rough-hewn features and muscular body, but of a subliminal presence that rippled across her skin. Reserved and taut, he radiated mystery, the kind that would keep her awake every night until she solved it.
So, Lisa mused as she went to shower, she must have left in order to protect him. Which meant that, as soon as she remembered what was going on, she would have to leave again.
She hoped her memory didn’t return too quickly. Even though she couldn’t recall what her life had been like before, these hours and days with Ryder were special, and always would be.
As they breakfasted, she was grateful for the distance he kept between them. He didn’t let their hands touch when he gave her a plate of toast; he stared at the newspaper instead of meeting her eyes. It’s for his own good. And mine.
Ryder had dressed in a navy polo shirt and worn jeans. The clothes emphasized the hardness of his body, and Lisa wondered how she had ever found the nerve to make love to such a self-possessed man.
As they descended from the apartment on an outdoor staircase, he refrained from taking her arm. He limped a little, and her own muscles felt decidedly stiff. The two of them must look like the walking wounded.
“How did you hurt your leg?” she asked.
He glanced at her in surprise. “Skiing. That was how we met.”
“I ran into you?”
“No, I hit someone else. You raced over pretending to be a nurse and took my medical history. Then you drove me home and seduced me.” Ryder led the way between two buildings to the encircling parking area.
The scenario didn’t sound familiar. Lisa tried to push through the mist in her brain, but that made her head throb. “I’m pretty sure I’m not a nurse.”
“You’re not from Mee-ami, either,” he said.
He must be teasing about something she’d said in her former life. She wished she got the joke.
They drove down a broad avenue lined with car lots, gas stations, strip malls and drive-through restaurants. Lisa didn’t see any pedestrians; the entire area was designed for cars, as if they were the dominant life form.
“Tell me more about this girl we’re trying to find,” she said.
“Ginger Callas? She’s sixteen. Her father’s a record producer who’s made a lot of money.”
“What about her mother?”
“Divorced, remarried, divorced again. Not very involved with her daughter.” From his shirt pocket, he handed over a color photograph.
Lisa studied it. As he’d described the previous day, the girl had red, curly hair and an open, freckled face. Only a slight fullness in the lower lip hinted at adolescent petulance. It struck her that she and this girl had wealthy backgrounds in common and had both disappeared. How ironic if someone were searching for her, while she was seeking Ginger.
“You think she’s hanging out with friends?”
“I hope so. Anywhere you find unsupervised kids, like the beach, you also find men who prey on them.” His words chilled her. “Ginger is naive and headstrong. It’s only a question of time before she runs across somebody who could hurt her. We’ve got to find her first.”
“What should I do if I see her?” Lisa asked. “Have her arrested?”
Ryder shook his head. “She hasn’t broken any laws. Unless she’s in imminent danger, we need to learn where she’s staying and notify her father. It’s his job to talk her into going home.”
“How long do we keep at it? I mean, if she doesn’t turn up?”
“You’ll be running the store through Sunday.” That had been the arrangement with Biff. “I’ll spend part of the time on the beach, but I may have to leave to take care of other business,” he said. “Which reminds me...” On the cell phone, which fit into a hands-free station in the car, he pressed a rapid-dial button and hit Send. Over the speaker, Lisa heard it ring several times.
A woman’s voice answered, “Ryder Investigations.”
“It’s me.” He informed his assistant of their plans for the day. “Page me if anything comes up.”
“Will do.”
“Oh, Zizi? Any luck with the game show?”
“No,” she replied cheerily, “but one of the other contestants is a script reader. We have a dinner date Saturday night.”
“Good luck.” As he ended the call, Ryder chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” Lisa asked.
“Zizi isn’t a writer, so she’s wasting her time dating a script reader,” Ryder said. “He can’t help her career.”
“Maybe she likes him.” They must have been nearing the beach, because, through her open window, Lisa could smell salt in the air.
“You see the best in people, don’t you?” Ryder said. “Maybe you’re actually Mary Poppins, except I didn’t see you fly in with an umbrella.”
“Pollyanna was the one who saw good in everybody, not Mary Poppins,” she corrected, and wondered how she could recall the names of literary characters. The data must, she supposed, be stored in a different part of the brain.
The beach lot lay nearly empty at this hour. A trace of morning fog kept the air cool, and, beyond the asphalt, a watermark on the sand etched the reach of the high tide.
At the surf shop, Ryder unlocked the door and punched in the security code. Lisa felt like an intruder, stepping into the dark store amid the scents of wax and rubber. The lights came on, banishing the eeriness.
“Would you help me review what I’m supposed to do with the cash register?” she asked.
“Have you forgotten already?”
Startled, she realized that Ryder had mistaken her uncertainty for a faulty memory. “No, my brain’s functioning fine. I’m intimidated about running this place while you’re out on the beach, that’s all.”
“I’ll stay and help for a while,” he assured her. “Let’s see if Biff got the flyers run off.”
Everything was ready, and Lisa recalled the proper procedures without a struggle. As customers wandered in and a few made small purchases, her confidence grew. She wasn’t qualified to help with surfboard selection, but then, neither was Ryder.
“If they need assistance, they’ll have to wait till Monday,” he reminded her about eleven o’clock as he prepared to distribute Biff’s advertising.
Lisa smoothed down the sarong-style dress she’d purchased along with a pair of sandals. Judging by Ryder’s sidelong glances, the garment flattered her figure. “You’re not going to take his advice and get cutoffs?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Jeans are good enough. Nobody would mistake me for a teenager, anyway.”
“You don’t seem like somebody who would be handing out ads for a surf shop.” Lisa couldn’t resist brushing away a bit of lint from his dark blue shirt. “Maybe you should circulate flyers with Ginger’s picture on them instead.”
Other than a twitch of his jaw as her fingers brushed his chest, he gave no other response. “That would chase her deeper into hiding. Maybe out of the area entirely.”
He was right, she thought. “Good luck, then.”
For the next hour, Lisa chatted idly with customers and rang up a couple of sales. A few people asked about her bruises. When no one was around, she slipped into the changing booth and studied her image in the mirror.
She’d removed the bandage this morning before showering, and wrapped the scarf around her head. Beneath it, her eyes appeared larger than usual, eclipsing the bruises, which she’d half-covered with makeup.
The wraparound dress brought out her olive skin tones and bared the upper swell of her breasts. She liked the effect, and hoped Ryder did, too. Because whenever he was near, longing shimmered through her.
It was no wonder she’d seduced him in her previous life. The prospect of putting her arms around Ryder and letting his strong hands stroke her body was almost too delicious to contemplate.
Tearing herself away from her thoughts, she went out of the booth to watch for customers. Or Ryder. Surely he’d be back soon.
It was nearly one o’clock, and Lisa’s stomach began to rumble. She’d forgotten to ask about the eating arrangements. A mother and her children strolled past on the walkway, eating hot dogs. The scent of charcoal grilling drifted inside, and suddenly Lisa wasn’t just hungry, she was ravenous.
Reaching under the counter, she retrieved her purse. Most of her money remained at Ryder’s apartment, but she’d brought enough to pay for her new clothes, and there were a few dollars left. Feeling guilty about leaving her post, she hung up a “Be Right Back” sign, closed the door and stepped outside.
A couple of skateboarders clattered by, barely missing her. As she dodged, she squinted against the glare of sunlight no longer softened by the shop’s tinted glass. From inside, she’d caught only occasional glimpses of beachgoers through the window display. Now color and movement flooded her vision: striped umbrellas shading picnickers, beach balls flying and children of all sizes splashing in the surf. As far as she could see in either direction, hundreds of bronzed bodies roasted on rainbow towels.
No wonder it was taking Ryder so long to distribute his flyers. How could he hope to find one girl in this madhouse?
Let's Make a Baby! Page 11
