You Must Remember This
Page 1
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
Dear Reader
Title Page
Books by Clara Wlmberly
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Copyright
“Stay here with me,” the stranger whispered, his voice rough with weariness. “Just until I’m asleep.”
“It’s all right,” Sarah murmured. “I won’t leave.”
But even when he was asleep, she didn’t pull away.
How would it feel to bend and kiss those lips? she wondered. To have him open his mouth beneath hers? Open those beautiful eyes and gaze at her with surprise and pleasure?
The thought made her take a long, shuddering breath.
It would be so easy to fall into his arms. He would welcome her—she’d seen that much in his eyes. But for how long? Until tomorrow? Until someone came to arrest him—or kill him?
She had to step back. She had to remember that this was a stranger who’d come into her life only because he needed her help.
A forbidden stranger—and one far too dangerous for any woman’s peace of mind…
Dear Reader,
We’ve got some great reading for you this month, but I’ll bet you already knew that Suzanne Carey is back with Whose Baby? The tile already tells you that a custody battle is at the heart of this story, but it’s Suzanne’s name that guarantees all the emotional intensity you want to find between the covers.
Maggie Shayne’s The Littlest Cowboy launches a new miniseries this month, THE TEXAS BRAND. These rough, tough, ranchin’ Texans will win your heart, just as Sheriff Garrett Brand wins the hearts of lovely Chelsea Brennan and her tiny nephew. If you like mysterious and somewhat spooky goings-on, you’ll love Marcia Evanick’s His Chosen Bride, a marriage-of-convenience story with a paranormal twist. Clara Wimberly’s hero in You Must Remember This is a mysterious stranger—mysterious even to himself, because his memory is gone and he has no idea who he is or what has brought him to Sarah James’s door. One thing’s for certain, though: it’s love that keeps him there. In Undercover Husband, Leann Harris creates a heroine who thinks she’s a widow, then finds out she might not be when a handsome—and. somehow familiar—stranger walks through her door. Finally, I know you’ll love Prince Joe, the hero of Suzanne Brockmann’s new book, part of her TALL, DARK AND DANGEROUS miniseries. This is a royal impostor story, with a rough-around- the-edges hero who suddenly has to wear the crown.
Don’t miss a single one of these exciting books, and comeback next month for more of the best romance around—only in Silhouette Intimate Moments. Yours,
Leslie Wainger
Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator
Please address questions and book requests to: Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont L2A 5X3
You Must Remember This
Clara Wimberly
Books by Clara Wlmberly
Silhouette Intimate Moments
Ryan Blake’s Revenge #521
Georgia on My Mind #612
You Must Remember This #718
CLARA WIMBERLY
writes her novels in a one-room cabin in the woods, built for her by her husband and two sons. She loves American history and traveling to old settlements and villages, where she says she finds a lot of wonderful ideas and inspiration. “I suppose if I have been influ- enced by anything, it is the South and the area where I live,” Clara says. “In the mountains there are hundreds of quaint stories and unusual characters.”
To my friend Jane McIlwain,
a lady who has it all:
intellect, charm and an outrageous
sense of humor that’s kept me laughing
for more than twenty years.
Chapter 1
Sarah James muttered beneath her breath as she strug- gled to drive through the pouring rain. The blacktopped county road leading back to the farmhouse was narrow and poorly marked. The lines had faded to a bare visibil- ity and she had to squint to see well enough to keep her pickup truck on the pavement.
She hadn’t known when she left earlier that it would storm so badly or she might not have gone. But her friend Lacy had insisted, pleading with her to get out of the small farmhouse if only for a little while.
“I understand your need to be alone, Sarah.” Lacy had said. “But you have to start living again. It’s been more than a year. There won’t be anyone here except you and me. No one to see the scar or ask any questions. We’ll have a nice quiet dinner together—the way we used to do. How about it? I’ll make my famous Georgia Pine Bark Stew and Peanut Butter Pie.”
“Bribery,” Sarah had said, laughing aloud. It seemed like forever since she’d laughed.
The accident that took away her laughter had happened a little over a year ago. Ironically, she and her husband, Joe, had gone out to celebrate the news that they were go- ing to have their first child. It had been a stormy, rainy night much like tonight. But they had barely noticed the weather.
That night as they drove, Sarah had continued talking and laughing even when a truck pulled up swiftly behind them and flashed its lights. How vividly she could still re- call the look of surprise on Joe’s face. He had glanced up into the rearview mirror, his face clearly illuminated by the lights behind them.
“Wild kids,” he’d muttered, laughing.
Then slowly she saw the laughter leave his eyes. Two small lines appeared at the bridge of his nose and then his gaze shifted nervously toward Sarah.
“Joe? What is it?” she’d asked.
“More of my imagination, I’m afraid.”
She’d known immediately what he meant. The case he’d been working on as a television journalist had taken up most of his time lately.
The story was so big, so complicated that sometimes he wouldn’t even bother to explain it to her when he came home tired and weary. But she knew it involved survival- ist groups. Men who spent their weekends in the woods, armed to the teeth and fully convinced they would be called on at any time to defend their homes. Some of them sold illegal guns and military equipment stolen from vari- ous army bases; others dealt in drugs. Joe even suspected that there were ties to elected county officials.
All Joe’s imagination, the sheriff had told him.
“Drop it, Joe,” Sheriff Metcalf had said. “Before you get your fool self killed and leave that pretty wife of yours a young widow.”
Sarah’s husband had been very upset when he came home from that meeting.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the sheriff were involved in this, too,” he’d said.
“No,” Sarah had whispered, staring at his troubled face. Her grandfather had known Sheriff Metcalf all his life. He’d voted for him the year before he died.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Joe said. “But something about this is just not right.”
Joe had pretended to heed the sheriff’s words, backing off his demand that the group be investigated. But it hadn’t stopped him from continuing his undercover investigative work on the story. He’d often been angry and frustrated that there was no help from county law enforcement.
Just before the accident they had begun to receive hate messages on their answering
machine. Hang-up calls in the middle of the night. Chilling warnings that Joe should check beneath his car before starting it in the mornings.
Joe had even installed a burglar system on the car only to find the wires disconnected a day or two later.
Sarah envisioned how Joe had tried to speed away from the truck that night. “Hold on, honey,” he’d said, clenching his jaws together.
She closed her eyes, remembering. It had happened on a road similar to this one. Isolated and straight. Closed in on both sides by towering pines glistening with rain when the headlights touched them.
Suddenly the vehicle behind had bumped them. Sarah screamed and reached for Joe.
“Joe!” she screamed. “Your seat belt. You didn’t fas- ten your seat belt!”
She was the worrier and Joe was the daredevil. He of- ten teased her about that. But how many times in her life had she warned him…cajoled him into fastening his belt? She’d even tried to frighten him with stories of accident victims brought into the emergency room. But he had thought himself invincible. And that night, she knew he fully expected he could outrun the truck.
Their small car slid sideways on the road, but Joe had managed to regain control. In the dashlights, she saw the muscles in his thigh flex as he pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor.
Sarah had felt the speed in every inch of her body, making her heart accelerate, making her breath come in small gasps as she clasped her hands together and whis- pered silent prayers.
The truck behind caught them easily and rammed them again, then pulled around until their hood was even with the car’s rear fender.
What happened next was a nightmare that still woke Sarah in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. How many times since then had she lain awake for hours with the same horrible, dark feeling of impending death. Even now, just remembering the feeling made her heart beat faster.
The truck had slammed into them, pushing the small car around sideways on the slick road. She remembered the horrible feeling of sliding out of control, the sound of gravel crunching beneath the wheels and Joe’s curses as he struggled with the wheel. Then there was the surreal feel- ing as the tires caught and the car began to flip. Over and over…
“Joooe!”
Sarah gripped the wheel of the truck and shook her head, trying to shake away the last thing she remembered about that night—the sound of her own voice calling out her husband’s name.
Why on earth had she let herself remember any of it? Especially while driving on a night like this.
She shook the memories away. She had become too thoughtful and introverted since the accident. Lacy had been telling her that for months. Especially after Sarah insisted on remaining in the country even after she had re- covered from her injuries.
It might have been different…she might have been different if she hadn’t lost the baby, too, a few days after the wreck. If she’d had something to live for, something to look forward to in those first dark months after Joe’s death.
Sarah shivered and tried to concentrate on the road and her driving.
Squinting through the darkness and rain, she thought she saw lights ahead and her hands automatically tight ened on the steering wheel. For some reason she felt a lit- tle tingle of alarm race down her arms.
Much of the countryside from Wayland to the ocean was farmland. The Colonial Coast, as the tourist brochures called it. Miles and miles of cultivated fields, or cattle pasture. The rest of the swampy countryside was piny woods—thousands of acres of flat country and tall, slen- der pine trees. A great deal of it belonged to the federal government or the state of Georgia, but no one bothered with it except when it was necessary to fight an occasional forest fire.
Funny that the very thing that frightened her now about being out here in her grandparents’ old home—the isola- tion and quiet—was one of the things that had appealed most to Sarah at first. After Joe’s death, and with the ter- rible scar on her face, Sarah had wanted to be as far away from people and traffic as she could. It was the one thing she thought might save her sanity.
“It’s a car,” she muttered, focusing again on the lights ahead of her. Peering through the rain-spattered wind- shield she saw two definite spots of light. Was the vehicle stopped? Was it an accident or…?
She heard something then. A muffled explosion, like the spat of a gun. But was it a gunshot, or just her heightened imagination? She told herself it was probably nothing more than a car backfiring.
Suddenly the carlights coming toward her brightened. She could sense that the vehicle was moving now and she breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Even with her nurse’s training, she wasn’t sure she was ready to assist with a car accident.
A dark van sped past her, heading toward town. It was going too fast, at an almost frenzied speed, she thought.
Sarah found herself trembling as she watched the glim- mer of red taillights in her rearview mirror and saw them disappear into the rainy darkness. Without realizing it, she had slowed her truck to a crawl. There were no other lights for miles now, either ahead or behind her. She could hear her own unsteady breathing mingled with the quiet thump of the windshield wipers and the loud hiss of rain on the cab of the pickup.
“For heaven’s sake,” she muttered, shivering. “Get a grip.”
She had thought too much about what happened last year, that was why she was so unsettled. Tonight, in the downpour, everything had reminded her. And it was not a good time to be out driving, or remembering.
Instinctively Sarah reached up to touch the raised red line on her face that ran from the corner of her mouth al- most up to her hairline. It was an ugly scar. But one that could be repaired, the surgeons had assured her, when- ever she was ready.
But she wasn’t ready. Simply because she didn’t care. Joe’s death had devastated her and she was still bitter that she didn’t even have his child to help soothe the ache in her heart. She wasn’t sure she would ever care about anything again. At this point, she thought she might be content to stay hidden away in the country forever, at least until the insurance money ran out. And that could take a long, long time.
“It’s all right,” she whispered to herself.
In a few minutes she’d be in the warm, dry safety of the house. What she’d seen was nothing. Probably just a van full of teenagers playing their usual Saturday night pranks.
Sarah thought she’d never been so relieved to see any- thing as the sight of the reflectors that marked the drive- way to the farmhouse.
She allowed herself only a moment of panic when she pulled into the driveway and noticed that the security light in the yard was out. So were the other lights she’d left on inside the house.
She put the truck into Park and grabbed a flashlight from the seat. Then, pulling her jacket over her head, she made a dash through the rain to the porch.
Sarah felt a tingle of apprehension race up her back. The hair at the back of her neck prickled and she turned to wave the light out through the rain and over the soaked bushes and thicket beyond the yard.
“Is anyone there?” she called. “Tom?”
Was that silly cat out there in the bushes somewhere? She hadn’t really heard anything to make her think that. It was just a feeling, a heart-pounding anxiety that she couldn’t quite explain. Almost as if someone were watch- ing her.
“Tom…is that you?” she called again.
Finally she waved the light toward the end of the porch. The big gray striped cat, hearing her call, had crawled out of his warm, cozy box and stretched now before padding slowly and silently across the wooden planks toward her.
Sarah smiled and bent to scratch his furry head. When she straightened and unlocked the door, her hands were trembling.
She held the door open for a minute, wishing that for once, the stray tabby who had wandered here a few months ago, would finally come inside.
“Want to come in?” she asked softly…hopefully.
Tom rubbed against her legs, then sniffed
the cool air that drifted out of the house. But in the end, he turned and sauntered back toward his box on the porch.
Sarah hurried inside, feeling somewhat safer once she closed the door and was standing in familiar territory. God, was she turning into one of those people who never ventured out into public? Who had panic attacks unless they were in the security of their own home?
She muttered irritably as she flicked a switch and con- firmed that the storm had knocked the electricity out. Flashing the light around the darkened house, she assured herself that nothing was amiss and that the place was just as she’d left it a few hours earlier.
In minutes she had candles glowing in the hallway and bathroom, and in her bedroom across from it. And at the end of the hallway, the light from a kerosene lamp in the kitchen spilled warmly out across the wood floors.
Sarah hung her wet jacket on the hooks of an antique hall tree and went into the bathroom to dry her hair. It was then she heard the sound, quiet and muffled.
The thump of a car door? A limb falling on the roof? Or had it been a footstep on the front porch?
Sarah swallowed hard and picked up the flashlight again. If she’d learned anything from living out here alone, it was to face her fears immediately. Waiting and thinking only heightened her phobias.
She walked to the front door and pushed back the cur- tains that covered the small window at eye level. She pressed the flashlight against the glass and what she saw made her heart seem to stop.
A man stood there in the darkness, slumped over slightly, his shoulder pressed against one of the porch posts. Lightning flashed and outlined him for a moment like some eerie scene from a movie.
Sarah wanted to scream, to run. But to her horror, not a sound emerged from her lips. Her feet, instead of mov- ing, seemed cemented to the spot.