Bridal Reconnaissance

by Lisa Childs

  Why had she left him with a stranger? No matter how famous the man was for his care of children, Christopher wasn’t his. And Amanda would never have forgiven herself for not being there if anything had happened to her little boy.

  “Christopher!”

  She skidded to a halt in the doorway to the ex-FBI agent’s room. The screen of the TV in the armoire was filled with an image that had her cringing with fear.

  Weering smiled at a reporter and winked his blind eye. “I thank Senator Van Dover for bringing a halt to the injustice against me in granting my early parole.”

  “Are you saying you were wrongly imprisoned, Mr. Weering?” the reporter asked.

  He sighed with a martyr’s long-suffering weariness. “The police overreacted and misinterpreted the facts. I picked up a transient, a hitchhiker, who tried to steal my car by force. As you can see by my face, I was the wounded party, but my attacker has gone free all these years while I served out a jail sentence for acting in self-defense. Do you call that justice?”

  Amanda shivered over the argument she’d heard in the courtroom all those years ago. Despite having no memory, she’d never believed his story. She’d known she was not a transient. And Evan Quade had proven her right when he’d claimed her as his wife.

  William Weering III flashed his smile again, the one that oozed evil instead of charm and answered his own question. “No, ma’am.”

  “Do you intend to seek justice now, Mr. Weering?”

  He focused on the camera lens, and Amanda swore he stared directly at her. Then he winked again.

  She pressed a fist against her lips to hold in a scream. “Evan!”

  “I’m here. Amanda, I’m here.”

  When he enfolded her in his arms this time, she didn’t cling and weep as she had at the murder scene. She had to hold it together. For Christopher. “Where are they, Evan? Did he get him already?”

  A big hand brushed over her hair and kneaded the tense muscles in her nape. “No, they’re safe. They’re gone.”

  She pulled back, and the hand he had curved around her waist rustled with a piece of notebook paper. “Where? Where are they?”

  “Royce left a note. When he saw the news, he took Christopher and headed directly to Winter Falls. He tried my cell to warn us, but in the excitement, I didn’t check the message.”

  She turned back to the TV, but a weather map filled the screen now. “That was recorded. It had to be. That was him back at…”

  He had been so close to her…with no shatterproof glass between them.

  “I know. I know.”

  “He’ll go after Christopher next,” she said. Her arms ached to hold her little boy until he squirmed free, embarrassed over her mushiness.

  “He may not. But if he does, Christopher will be protected.”

  “He’d hurt him to hurt me.”

  “He’ll hurt you. I talked to him yesterday. He never mentioned the boy. Only you. He’s obsessed with you.” Something flickered in Evan’s dark eyes. She doubted it was fear, not after the way he’d followed a killer through an open window. But she knew there was more to his conversation with Weering.

  “And what else?” she asked.

  “Me.”

  “He knows you?”

  Evan shook his head. “No, not personally. But he will. Before this is all over, Amanda, he’ll know me well.”

  She stepped away from him, reminded of how little she knew of a man who had kissed her only hours before, a man whose last name she shared. “I don’t know what to believe. I just know I have to be with my son. He’ll be scared.”

  She glanced out the window but night had fallen, cloaking the glass in black. No stars twinkled. No moon shone. Gasping for shallow breaths, she focused on her son, off with a stranger for the first time without her. Despite what this man said, Christopher could be in danger. He needed his mother and she needed him.

  “I want to leave now.”

  “They’re probably almost there. And with Weering fixated on you, Christopher’s probably safer being away from you.”

  She gasped, the idea of her presence endangering her son horrifying. “No.”

  “It’ll take us four hours. And it’s dark, Amanda.”

  She shivered over her fear spoken aloud and the fact that this man knew one of her greatest vulnerabilities. “I don’t care,” she lied. “I need to be with my son, need to see that he’s safe.”

  “He is. Not only does Royce have him, but he also made sure one of the security guards we hired followed him in your vehicle. That way you’ll have your things in Winter Falls.”

  Material things didn’t matter. The attack had left her with nothing. No memory. No possessions but for the jewelry she’d pawned. And she’d didn’t miss it. All she missed was Christopher.

  His voice low and soothing as if he spoke to a frightened child, he continued assuring her, “I understand your fears—trust me, I do. But we’ve had an emotionally trying day, and you need to rest. To regroup so we can deal with Weering. We can stay here tonight and leave first thing in the morning.”

  “No!” She backed away from him, through the living room and toward the outside door. “If you won’t drive me, I’ll find him myself!”

  “Amanda, that’s what Weering wants you to do…run off by yourself, make yourself an easy target. He’s waiting for you to do that.”

  The muscles he had briefly loosened in her neck tensed up, and pain gnawed at her temples. “Then maybe he knows me better than you do. He knows I won’t be separated from my son. But you don’t seem to know that. I may have lost my memory of you, but I doubt you really knew me at all.”

  His jaw cracked he clenched it so hard. “I didn’t.”

  “So that’s why I left you then?”

  He lifted one broad shoulder and shrugged it. “I don’t know why. I never knew why. All these years the only reason I could come up with was the fact that I wanted a child, and you didn’t.”

  HE LIED. SHE COULDN’T consider the other alternative. That she might not have wanted Christopher, that she hadn’t wanted to give her husband a child.

  No.

  She’d fought for her unborn child. She’d blinded a man to save herself and her baby.

  He lied. And maybe that was why he’d relented and agreed to bring her to Winter Falls tonight. Either that or her near hysteria at being separated from her son had softened him.

  She glanced over, studying his granite profile illuminated by the dashboard lights. Why would he lie? Was he hiding the real reason from her? Had he hurt her? She doubted he would have physically harmed her. She didn’t feel that kind of fear, the kind of fear that paralyzed her with just the mention of Weering’s name.

  If he had hurt her, it must have been emotionally. Had he cheated? Was he hiding his infidelity with this despicable lie?

  His deep voice rumbled in harmony with the purring engine of the sports car. “You don’t believe me.”

  “I love my son.” Her hands knotted together in her lap, knuckles turned white with the anxiety coursing through her—fear for Christopher’s safety and fear of the dark that engulfed the little car, isolating them in a world of supple leather and pale amber lights.

  His dark gaze flickered over her, missing nothing, she suspected. “I don’t doubt that.”

  Now. Although he’d left it off, she heard the word. What kind of woman had she once been? Had she forgotten herself for another reason than the trauma she had suffered at William Weering’s cruel hands?

  “What was…?” She couldn’t ask about herself. She wasn’t this woman from his past. She wasn’t the wife he remembered. She knew that. And to ask about her was like asking about another woman, a stranger.

  “What were you like?” His nostrils flared as he dragged in a deep breath. Almost imperceptible, but she caught the gesture, the method of controlling his emotions. She practiced that, too. Had she learned it from the shrinks, or had she already known it from him?

  Did talking about th
e past upset him? Or just talking about her?

  He sighed and his hands shifted on the steering wheel. “I thought you didn’t want to know anything about the past.”

  “I didn’t have time then. I do now.” And she needed to concentrate on anything other than the darkness. His voice, deep and rumbly, provided a distraction.

  “So what do you want to know?”

  “What did I do? Did I have a career?”

  He chuckled. “Career? I’d call it more a way of life. Your father is a fashion designer. You were his apprentice. Your mother is a model. You traveled your entire life, and I doubt you ever would have stopped…”

  Bitterness had deepened his voice even more, and once again she heard the words he left unsaid. Out of pity for her situation or his own pride? She didn’t know which she’d prefer, his pity or his pride.

  “If not for the attack,” she finished. “Now, I hate to travel. I can’t see this life you’re saying I lived. But I do sew. I must have learned it back then.”

  “Taking care of your father.” He made no effort to hide the bitterness now. “Taking care of his business.”

  “You didn’t like my parents?”

  He sighed. “I didn’t understand them.”

  “Or me?”

  A dimple pierced his cheek when he grinned. “Least of all, you.”

  “Then why did you marry me?” For love? Somehow she doubted that.

  The silence stretched between them, his gaze leaving the road only to scan the gauges. “We need gas. There’s a station ahead.”

  She closed her eyes, preferring the darkness inside her to out. “You’re not going to answer me.”

  Gravel crunched beneath the tires as he downshifted and pulled off the road. “You don’t believe me anyways.”

  She mulled that over as he stopped the car and stepped outside. Why couldn’t she trust him? Because she never had? Because of something he’d done? Or because of what had been done to her at the hands of an animal?

  She dragged in a calming breath and inhaled the scent of Evan, the rich woodsy leathery fragrance that instinctively she knew cost a fortune. As did his car and his clothes…

  He opened the door again. “I’m going to get a coffee. Do you want anything?”

  She nodded. “Coffee would be great. Cream—”

  “And sugar, I know.”

  He remembered. Why couldn’t she?

  After filling the tank—and she suspected it hadn’t needed much—he crossed in front of the hood to the brightly lit station. His overcoat swirled around his long lean legs, and a breeze ruffled his gleaming black hair.

  He was successful, powerful… If not for love, why had he married her?

  What kind of woman had she been before her abduction?

  She opened her eyes and leaned forward in the seat to gaze into the rearview mirror. A woman with a pale face and wide frightened eyes stared back at her. Slightly crooked nose. Chopped-up hair. She was no beauty, not now if she had ever been.

  But beauty mattered little to her. Raising her son, being a good loving mother—that was all she cared about.

  Not a man.

  Not even her husband.

  And although he claimed he’d spent six years searching for her, she didn’t think he cared much, either.

  But he had agreed to help her.

  And right now, help was more important to her than love, than passion. Than any of her forgotten past.

  Now if she could only forget that kiss. The one that had weakened her knees and threatened to make her faint as memories had loomed at the edge of her consciousness. So close.

  Why did her body remember him so well when her mind did not? Her pulse beat faster in his presence, her breath shallower. Her body had known his intimately, as evidenced by their son, who looked so much like his father.

  But after what she’d been through, after what a man had nearly done to her once, would she ever want to be intimate with one again?

  A kiss was nothing.

  Liar.

  Somehow she knew that if he even gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek, passion would flare between them.

  Lights flashed in the mirror, blinding her for a moment until she refocused. The headlamps were up high, and behind them gleamed the metal of a big pickup truck.

  Then the beams flashed off. And she could see the driver, who stared back at her. Her breath caught in her throat, threatening to choke her.

  The glow of the lights from the station illuminated the interior of the cab, shining off the pale blond, almost white hair of the driver.

  And the white of his blind eye, which he closed in a wink.

  Chapter Six

  Using an elbow, Evan pushed open the door to the gas station and juggled two foam cups of scalding hot coffee. At the roar of an engine, he glanced up and saw a truck peel out of the lot, spewing gravel from the rear tires.

  The familiarity of the noise caused him to jerk, and coffee oozed from under the lid and over his fingers, leaving a burnt trail. “Amanda!”

  The station lights glinted off the windshield of the Viper, casting shadows in the interior. No blond hair gleamed, nor green eyes flashed. Had the bastard taken her right out from under him?

  Evan tossed the cups down and raced toward the passenger’s door, jerking at the handle. The lock held. When he pounded on the glass, Amanda rose up from where she had crouched on the floorboards. Tears shimmered in her enormous fear-widened eyes, and her hands shook as she struggled with the door.

  “Evan!” She catapulted out of the car and into his arms. “It was him!”

  He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew she spoke the truth. And he cursed himself for leaving her alone and vulnerable. His arms tightened around her trembling body. “He’s gone.”

  Parked in a corner of the lot was one of the bodyguards he had hired. The woman, Cullen Murphy’s sister and an ex-cop, would have been there, would have acted if something outwardly threatening had happened. “What did he do, Amanda?”

  She shuddered. “He winked.”

  The bastard was playing with her, taunting her. He wanted absolute power over her before he tortured and killed her. Evan got the message and read Weering’s intent.

  Maybe the evidence didn’t exist to tie Weering to those other crimes, but Evan knew he had killed those victims. Only Amanda had survived, and Weering wouldn’t let her live if he had a chance.

  Evan couldn’t give him that chance.

  She jerked free of his arms. “You don’t believe me. You don’t think I saw him!”

  He guided her back into the passenger’s seat. “I believe you, Amanda. And now we have to get back on the road.”

  “To Christopher. We have to get Christopher before he tries…”

  Evan rounded the hood and slid behind the wheel. “He won’t. Our son is safe.”

  Our son.

  He’d said the words. He’d accepted that he was a father, accepted the child he never thought he’d have with Amanda.

  To calm her fears about her son, Evan punched in Royce’s number.

  “Everything okay?” the ex-agent said as he answered his phone.

  Evan sighed into his cell. “What have you heard?”

  “About Snake’s murder. Be careful, man. That’s one dangerous SOB.”

  “I know. How’s the boy?”

  “Good. He enjoyed our little adventure. I brought him home with me. He’s had fun playing with Jeremy, but now he’s tired. He wants his mom and he’s been asking about you.”

  “Me?”

  “I think he knows, Evan. You guys are going to have to tell him something.” Royce chuckled. “And here he is.”

  Evan bit off a remark as the little boy came on the phone. “Hi,” said the high-pitched voice.

  He hadn’t intended to speak to him and was totally unprepared for the wave of warmth that spread through his chest. “Hi, Christopher. Are you having fun?”

  “Uh-huh. Is my mommy with you?” his son asked.
<
br />   “Yes, she is.” He glanced to the passenger’s seat, relieved to see she had pulled herself together at the mention of her son’s name.

  She reached for the phone, but before Evan could hand it over, the little boy asked one more question. “Are you my daddy?”

  In the background Royce’s groan echoed the one Evan swallowed. But he could not lie, not to his son. “Yes, I am.”

  “Okay. Can I talk to my mommy now?”

  With nerveless fingers, Evan passed the phone to her. Then, with an urge to get back on the road, he started the car and eased out of the station lot. He divided his time between watching for truck lights and watching Amanda.

  Her face, animated as she told an obviously oft-repeated bedtime story to their son, had never been lovelier. Her full lips moved as she made silly noises and her eyes flashed with humor. But despite the show of bravado for Christopher, Evan sensed her fear. When she hung up after an emotional goodbye to their son, she confirmed his suspicion.

  She blew out a ragged breath, her bangs dancing across her forehead. “You must think I’m such a coward, hiding like I was.”

  Evan glanced from the winding Lake Michigan coastal road, his gaze skimming over her pale face. Long curly lashes fluttered over those wide green eyes fighting back tears. “You have a damn good reason to be afraid. In fact, you’d be a fool if you weren’t.”

  “I’m afraid of you, too.”

  That startled him. What did she know? “You are?”

  “You told him.”

  He sighed. “He’s a smart little kid. He asked and I couldn’t lie to him.”

  “Why not?”

  Good question.

  Life would be much simpler if he had. But from the moment he’d met Amanda, life had been anything but simple for Evan. “I don’t lie.”

  “So anything I ask you about the past, you’ll tell me the truth?”

  No matter how painful…

  If she asked him again why he had married her, he’d tell her the truth.

  “Yes.”

  “That scares me, too.”

  To his relief she asked no questions, and a tense silence filled the Viper. When he glanced her way again and again, he noticed she kept her eyes closed. But he didn’t think she was asleep, for her hands were clenched so tightly in her lap that the tips of her nails had turned white while the beds were a deep red. Like blood.