by B. J Daniels
“Very. We grew up together right on this beach.”
She glanced over at him as the elevator descended. “I didn’t know you grew up in California.”
“My parents divorced when I was young.” He shrugged. “I ended up living out here with my cousin’s family.”
“Not your mother?”
“Nope.” Fortunately the elevator door opened just then, dumping them out on the beach. “Come on.”
He dropped the small cooler along with the towels and began to take off his shirt that he’d pulled on over his swimsuit and jogging pants. The air was cooler with the waning sun. But October in Southern California was still plenty warm, especially compared to Montana.
Kat dropped her jeans and began to unbutton her shirt. As anxious as he was to hit the water, he waited for her. She’d been through a lot today, and it wasn’t over, even though she seemed to think it was.
“Ready?” He smiled at her. Her face glowed from the sun, now level with the horizon. In the light she looked more beautiful than ever standing there. He felt a pull like the tide and had to swallow back the lump in this throat as he turned to look down the beach now cast in gold. “Last one in’s a chicken!”
He turned back toward her in time to see her shrug out of her shirt, the fabric fluttering to the ground around her feet, and for a moment he was too stunned to move. She had an amazing body. Even more amazing than he’d thought from feeling her up after the near hit-and-run.
“Damn,” he said under his breath.
CHAPTER TEN
MAX’S HESITATION WAS just enough to give Kat the edge. She was halfway to the water before he got out of his jogging pants. She’d never been competitive, so this was really unlike her, she thought as she splashed into the surf.
“Last one in,” she said as he caught up before she was waist deep. “Chicken.”
He grinned before he dived in next to her, and she felt the salty spray. A wave hit her, rocking her on her feet. She dived in deeper and came up only inches from Max. Water droplets beaded his pale lashes. His blue eyes shone in the waning sunlight. He smiled over at her, reaching out to flip her wet ponytail off her shoulder.
“You like?” he asked.
She felt the silky, warm, salty water wash over her. “I love.” Her voice broke with emotion she couldn’t explain. She hurriedly ducked under the crest of a large wave and, surfacing, swam out farther into the sea. For a Montana girl, born and raised, it felt surreal swimming in the ocean in October.
Actually, she’d felt like another woman from the moment she’d put on the swimsuit. It was one of her sister Bo’s castoffs, since she hadn’t owned a suit since college. When she’d first pulled it on—after not bothering to try it on back at the ranch—she’d been afraid it would be too tight.
But the royal blue one-piece fit perfectly. Kat had stood in front of the mirror in the beach house bedroom, captivated by the woman she saw reflected there. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d stood before a full-length mirror this scantily dressed. It had been years.
Then she had heard Max in the kitchen. For a moment, she’d almost taken the suit off and told him she’d forgotten hers. But she’d known he would still try to make her go swimming, no matter what. She had looked again in the mirror and felt a tiny tremor of excitement. The smell of the sea coming in one of the windows and the sound of the waves had drawn her, as well as the thought of Max in nothing but a swimsuit. At least she hoped he would be wearing one. Knowing him...
Her body had almost ached to go in the surf—ached to just let go as if she’d been locked up for too long.
She had quickly pulled on the large shirt she’d brought, the jeans and the pair of flip-flops, the only extra clothing she’d packed for the trip.
Now as the waves washed around her, she was thankful she hadn’t changed her mind. She floated in a sea of shifting water and light as the sun began to sink into the Pacific.
“Glad you brought your swimsuit?” Max asked, suddenly appearing next to her. His long blond hair was wet and brushed back from his forehead to curl against his suntanned neck. The water droplets that clung to his eyelashes looked like tiny jewels. He couldn’t have looked more like a bronzed sea god.
She swallowed, only able to nod in answer.
“I’ve missed this sunset,” he said, his face turned to the horizon.
They swam, bathed in the golden light, until the sun dipped below the horizon and was gone.
Kat had a sudden pang of sorrow at its passing. Her gaze met Max’s and saw her own regret mirrored in his eyes. She breathed in the salty air, the water lapping around her, caressing her skin, and felt free and alive in a way that she hadn’t in years.
That alone scared her. Then there was Max. She felt the intensity of his gaze as a wave rocked her and he grabbed for her, pulling her against him. His warm, wet skin brushed against hers, and then his arms were around her, his mouth on hers as he tangled his legs with hers.
Kat lost herself in his kiss, in his mouth, in his touch, as the ocean waves gently rocked them and the sky paled into twilight. A rogue wave dropped over them, driving them underwater—and apart. Kat kicked her way to the surface, coughing on the salt water.
Max came up looking as surprised by the kiss as the wave that had almost drowned them. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. But you looked so damned...kissable.”
The memory of his mouth on hers, his warm skin pressed against hers, the caress of his hands over her, had left her feeling shaken—and worse, vulnerable. She knew better than to let down her guard, especially with a man like Max.
Turning, she swam back toward the beach, telling herself that once back in Montana, there was no reason she’d ever have to see Max again.
To her surprise, that thought didn’t make her feel better.
* * *
THE SHERIFF LOOKED up as his wife stepped into his office and closed the door behind her. “I was just getting ready to head home,” he said, surprised to see her. “What’s wrong?”
“Sarah Hamilton is getting married,” Lynette announced.
“To whom?”
She laughed as she took a chair. “That does seem to be the first question that comes to mind. Russell Murdock.”
Frank shook his head, dismissing the rumor she’d driven all the way to Big Timber to share. “You really shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” he said, looking again at the expense sheets on his desk. He loved his job—except for the paperwork. When he retired, he wasn’t going to miss this part at all.
“Even if I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth?” his wife demanded.
He looked up to her. “Sarah told you this? Sarah, who is in hiding from the press?”
“Russell told me—and Mabel Murphy.”
He let out a low whistle. “So it’s all over three counties by now.”
“That’s why I wanted you to be one of the first to hear.” Her good cheer seemed to leave her. “Russell is so happy about it.” She met her husband’s eyes. “He can’t have any idea what he’s getting into.”
Frank shook his head in both wonderment and worry.
“Don’t you think you should tell him what we found out about the brain wiping?” Lynette asked.
“It was Russell who came to me with the theory.” Russell was already convinced that the reason Sarah couldn’t remember the past twenty-two years of her life was because her brain had been wiped. He was also convinced that Buckmaster Hamilton was behind it.
“But shouldn’t he be told he was right?” she argued.
“Not until I have proof. I’ve been trying to track down Dr. Ralph Venable without much luck.”
When he’d first heard this theory, he had been more than a little skeptical. Brain wiping? While it sounded like something out of a sci-fi m
ovie, he’d soon discovered that scientists could actually now wipe a brain of certain memories. They could also restore them.
As far as Frank knew, the method had only been tested on rats. But once he’d found out that there’d been a doctor doing the research more than twenty-two years ago, it had led him to White Sulphur Springs and Dr. Venable.
Not only did they learn that the good doctor had been experimenting on humans, but also they had a pretty good idea that Sarah Hamilton had known the doctor and had been at the sanitarium only hours after her SUV had gone under the ice in the Yellowstone River. To add to that, the sanitarium had closed a few days later, and Dr. Venable and the blonde woman had both disappeared.
“But if Russell is right, it was Sarah’s husband, the presumed soon-to-be president of the United States, who had her brain wiped,” Lynette said.
“Your point?”
“Wouldn’t Buckmaster be worried that Sarah is going to remember whatever it was he was trying to cover up?”
“That’s all supposition. We have no proof—especially that Senator Buckmaster Hamilton was even involved,” Frank said.
“What if Buckmaster isn’t behind the brain wiping? What if someone else knows what happened to make Sarah try to kill herself?”
“You mean if she called someone from her past to pick her up that night and not Buckmaster?” he asked.
Lynette nodded. “If they really did wipe her brain, couldn’t they also retrieve those memories whenever they wanted to?”
Frank frowned. “What are you getting at?”
“Couldn’t those same people have a reason they want her to remember at some point?”
“You mean, remember why she tried to kill herself that night in the Yellowstone River?”
She nodded. “If her husband really does have something to hide, as Russell claims, then what if it came out right before the election?”
Frank smiled at his wife. “Or right after. I love the way your mind works.”
“But it would mean that whoever stole those memories would have to put them back. You might not have to keep looking for Dr. Venable much longer. If any of this is more than supposition, I would think the good doctor will be returning to Montana soon.”
* * *
“I’M SORRY YOU didn’t like dinner,” Max said after he and Kat had returned to the beach house. They’d taken the convertible to his favorite Mexican restaurant. She’d been quiet throughout the meal. Now she looked pale as he ushered her into the house.
“It was fine,” Kat said. “I just wasn’t very hungry.” After their swim, she’d changed back into the slacks, blouse and jacket she’d worn on the plane. The outfit hid her amazing body—just as, he suspected, she wanted it. As if that wasn’t sufficient, she’d pulled her hair back into a tight knot again. The entire look was like hanging a closed sign around her neck.
He shouldn’t have kissed her. It had been one of those spur-of-the-moment things, and admittedly he was having trouble regretting it. He’d broken his rule. But any red-blooded American male would have done the same thing, he told himself, thinking of Kat out in the surf in that swimsuit.
It had been the first time he’d seen her happy. He wondered what it would take to get that woman back and then quickly pushed that thought away as too dangerous to consider. That Kat Hamilton would make it almost impossible not to break his golden rule again.
“Join me in a glass of wine?” he asked.
She shook her head. He could tell she was anxious to call it a night.
“I think we should talk about earlier,” he said.
“Earlier?” She seemed to shield herself. Was she afraid he would bring up the kiss? Or the photo?
“The photo,” he reminded her.
She seemed to relax. “There’s really nothing to talk about. The woman wasn’t my mother. I knew that the moment I saw her hair. It was red. My mother is a blonde.”
“As red as the woman in the photograph’s hair was, I’d say it was dyed.” He stepped to the table where he’d dropped the envelope earlier. “I think you’d better take another look,” he said as he pulled out the copy of the photograph of the Prophecy.
“There is no need to. The woman isn’t—”
“Humor me,” Max said turning on an extra light as he held the photo out to her.
“This is ridiculous,” she snapped. “Admit that you got it wrong and move on.”
He waited until she stormed over to snatch the photo from him. “Look at it in the light. And this time, try to get past the red hair. Look at her face, Kat.”
“I already looked at it.” But she moved to the lamp he’d just lit and looked down at the copy of the photo now in her hand.
The copy wasn’t as good as the original, but it was a whole lot better than the one that had run in the ’70s when the group had been active.
Max saw the change in her expression and knew that she’d finally looked past the red hair to the woman’s face. There was no way she couldn’t see the resemblance since the woman in the snapshot was the spitting image of Kat herself.
* * *
KAT SANK DOWN into a chair and rested an elbow on the table as she stared hard at the woman in the photo. She’d been so sure when she’d seen the vivid red hair that she wasn’t looking at her mother. But she’d never really looked at the woman’s face. Or had she just refused to accept what was plain to see?
She had desperately wanted to believe that Max was wrong. That he was the kind of man who saw what he wanted to see and made up the rest. Now as she stared at the photo, she tried to quell the trembling of her fingers. As much as she wanted to argue that the woman couldn’t possibly be her mother, she didn’t bother.
Max knew. She hated that he’d been right as much as she hated the way her stomach roiled at the sight of the woman in the photo.
The resemblance was uncanny. It was her own face, only different. She stared at the woman, still having trouble seeing her mother. Red, as she had gone by according to Max, didn’t just have fiery red hair. That same fire burned in her eyes. There was a radical confidence and defiance in the way she stood, the way she held the assault rifle in her hands, the insolent way she looked into the camera.
Most people would never see meek, shy Sarah Hamilton in the redheaded firebrand in the photograph. What Kat saw was the part of herself who had kissed Max out in the surf earlier. The part of her that had cut loose so many years ago, only to regret it.
She put the photo down on the table. “There might be a slight resemblance.”
He moved to the table to pick up the photo. “Like I said, lying isn’t your strong suit.”
“But it certainly is yours. You saw the photo before today. You knew, and bringing me to see it was just some...cruel trick.”
Max shook his head, looking shocked that she would accuse him of such a thing. “After you confirmed what I already suspected about your mother not having any proof that she’d attended college those years, I just took the next logical step.”
“In other words, if my mother wasn’t in the university chess club, then she had to be in some radical antigovernment domestic terrorist group.”
He shrugged as he pulled up a chair next to her. “It wasn’t that much of a leap. The ’60s and ’70s were a turbulent time, and domestic terrorists often recruited members from campuses.”
Max Malone was really good at this, she thought with grudging appreciation as he slid the photo over to her. “I want you to take a look at the others in the photo. Do you recognize any of the people there?”
“Seriously? I wasn’t even born yet when this photo was taken.”
“Humor me. Isn’t it possible that the group had contact with your mother after two of them went to prison and the rest split up?”
She hadn’t thought of that. Didn’t even
want to contemplate it, but to humor him, she looked down at the photo again, praying she didn’t recognize any of them. If she did, then there would be no doubt, would there?
Moving from her mother to each of the seven men with her, she studied their faces. One woman, seven men—who had her mother been? She shuddered at the thought of what her relationship had been with the men. A part of her still wanted to rebel against this. Wasn’t it possible Red was just some woman who resembled her and her mother? Didn’t each of them have a double somewhere, a doppelgänger?
“You recognized one of them,” Max said, startling her.
Kat hadn’t realized that she’d hesitated on one of the men. She pushed the copy of the photos away. “No, I—” She shook her head, but she could see it was useless. Max saw through people in a way that made her think he knew her better than anyone she’d ever met.
That terrified her because he made her feel as if she wanted to throw caution to the wind. She’d protected herself for so long and yet she could sense Max tearing down the walls around her, brick by brick.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“IT WAS THIS MAN, wasn’t it?” Max said, dragging the photo over again. “This one.” He tapped a handsome man standing to the left of Red.
She shook her head. “I don’t know why I hesitated on him. I can’t say I’ve ever seen him before.” She could feel Max’s blue gaze on her.
“He caught your eye. That’s why you hesitated.” He shoved the photo back over to her. “You might have seen him with your mother. You would have been young. Didn’t you say you were eight when your mother disappeared from your life?”
She nodded distractedly. “Who is this man?”
“If I had to guess, given how close they’re standing? I’d say her lover.”
She looked again at the man in the photograph. A memory, if that’s what it was, teased at the back of her mind. She tried to bring it into focus, but it instantly disappeared. “I don’t...I don’t remember him. I’m sorry.”
Max looked disappointed. “It’s okay. I was just hoping...”
