Married To A Stranger

by Connie Bennett

  Whether it was adrenaline, acrobatics or just plain luck, Maddy couldn’t have said, but somehow Adam controlled their fall. They ended up sprawled on the stairs with Maddy more or less on Adam’s lap, her pulse racing and her limbs tangled with his.

  “Well…” The word came out as a rasp as Maddy tried to catch her breath. “I hope…you’re happy. You just had to see the view from the catwalk, didn’t you? Couldn’t have waited a day or two. You stubborn, mule-headed—”

  Adam’s laughter and a sharp squeeze of his arms around her midsection cut her off. “Woman, you are insane,” he said, chuckling. “Completely and totally nuts.”

  Maddy tilted her head back so she could look into Adam’s eyes. “I know. I’m very difficult and you’re a saint to indulge me with such patience and good humor.” She patted his thigh. “Not to mention, you’d make a damn fine lawn chair.”

  He shook his head in exasperation. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Then get up.”

  “All right. All right.” Maddy took hold of the rail and the boost Adam gave her helped her stand. She moved down several steps to avoid his outstretched legs, then turned to him. It took only a quick, assessing glance to know he’d gotten the worst of their spill. He didn’t appear to be hurt, but his clothes were disheveled and his white slacks would never be the same.

  “Are you all right, Adam?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, coming to his feet.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Certain.” He straightened his shirt and dusted off the seat of his trousers. Even in the dim light, Maddy could see that he was wasting his time. The slacks were filthy.

  “Your cuff is hiked up, too,” she informed him, bending down automatically to assist him, but as she reached for the cuff Adam grabbed her hand.

  “That’s okay, Maddy. I can do it,” he said.

  But it was too late. Maddy had already gotten close enough to see that the pant leg had snagged on something strapped to Adam’s ankle.

  She straightened and looked into her husband’s eyes. “A gun, Adam? You’re carrying a gun?”

  “I’m carrying a means of protecting you,” he replied, settling the pant leg over the weapon.

  Maddy remembered her gibe this morning about slingshots and harsh language. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a gun?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to know,” he replied matter-of-factly. “My job is protecting you. Yours is to get your memory back. A gun’s not going to help you do that.”

  “Maybe not, but it would make me feel a lot safer,” she said shortly. “Where did you get it?”

  “Here in the U.S. About six years ago.”

  Maddy sighed with exasperation. “I wasn’t asking where you bought it, Adam. I want to know how it came to be in your possession now. Didn’t you tell me all of our belongings are in storage in Paris?”

  “Yes, but I usually travel with this when I’m transporting artifacts,” he explained. “I had it on this trip.”

  She held out her hand. “May I see it?”

  Adam hesitated a moment before bending to unsnap the leather safety guard. He removed the gun from the holster and held it out to her.

  Maddy took the slender, stainless-steel automatic. “A 9mm Smith & Wesson 669,” she murmured.

  It fit her hand perfectly—size, weight and balance all excellent. It felt wonderful—no, better than wonderful. It felt as though it belonged there.

  Without really even thinking, Maddy slipped off the safety, popped the clip out, then slapped it back in and jacked a shell into the chamber as though she’d done it a hundred times a day, every day of her life. Without pausing, she brought the automatic over her head, arms extended in a two-handed grip, and took aim at an iron bracket on the tower wall forty feet above her.

  “Maddy!”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to fire,” she said, lowering the gun. “But I could hit that hook, couldn’t I? Even in this light, from this angle…this distance, I could hit it.”

  Adam breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Yes. But please don’t. Island security doesn’t know about the gun yet and I’d rather keep it that way.”

  Maddy wasn’t concerned about island security. “Adam, why do I know how to do this?” she asked as she cleared the chamber and slipped the safety back on. “Why does this gun feel so right in my hand?”

  “Because you’ve got an International Marksman rating of ‘expert’ with both handguns and rifles.”

  Before she’d touched the gun, that would’ve surprised her. It didn’t now. “Why? Why did I go that far?”

  “Maddy, you’ve never done anything halfway in your life. When you decided you wanted to learn to shoot, you had to become the best.”

  The burst of adrenaline Maddy had gotten as a result of their fall was wearing off, and she turned to sit on the stairs. “But isn’t that a strange hobby for a woman? Why did I want to learn in the first place?”

  Adam sat next to her. “Your father was a champion marksman. He taught you to shoot when you were fairly young, and from what you’ve told me, he was grooming you to follow in his footsteps. You won several junior competitions, and you continued on your own after he died.”

  Maddy felt a wave of sadness that was even more oppressive than her exhaustion. She leaned against Adam, her shoulder pressed to his, her gaze fixed on the automatic in her hand. “Why can’t I remember that? My father spent time with me, taught me…and I can’t remember any of it.”

  “You will, Maddy,” Adam assured her, taking the gun out of her hand and returning it to the ankle holster.

  Maddy was struck by the ridiculous feeling that he’d just stripped her naked. “I don’t suppose you have another one of those handy.”

  “No.”

  “Can you get me one?”

  He looked at her sternly. “No, Maddy, I can’t. I won’t even be carrying this one much longer. Once the Secret Service sets up metal detectors, I won’t be able to leave our suite with this thing.”

  “But in the meantime…”

  “In the meantime, I’ll take care of you—and the Smith & Wesson.”

  Maddy knew that arguing with him was pointless. Adam was never going to relinquish the gun to her. But accepting his edict didn’t mean she’d lost her curiosity about just how good she was with a gun. “There’s a rifle range on the island, isn’t there, Adam?” she asked.

  “Yes. And there’s an indoor pistol gallery, too,” he told her. “You can’t practice with the Smith & Wesson, of course, but if you’d like, I can reserve a time for us tomorrow. You can use one of the resort’s target pistols and blast away to your heart’s content.”

  He had taken a hard line against her carrying a weapon, but clearly he understood how much this new bit of information about herself meant to her. Shooting at an inanimate target wasn’t the same as shooting at a man, but if it meant saving her life or Adam’s, she knew she could make that transition with ease.

  Tomorrow, she would find out exactly what it meant to be an expert marksman.

  And as long as Adam was the one with custody of the gun, she decided she’d better find out how good he was, too.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE MAN WAS DYING in her arms. His blood was everywhere, and he was whispering to her. She knew his words were important, but she couldn’t hear them. Images flew at her out of the darkness, and then she was running, leaving the blood behind. Running, with the sound of a hundred voices shrieking at her, blaming her for the blood. Blaming her for the lifeless body she’d left behind.

  And then the voices caught her. Their dark, faceless shapes pinned her into a suffocating space as they congealed into one shape, a giant shadow that spread its dark, evil wings and streaked toward her. The black wings enfolded her, the demon screamed again, and this time the woman screamed, too, as she fought against the trap she had fallen into.

  “Maddy, wake up! Damn it, Maddy! Wake up!”

  Finally words that
made sense. Words the woman could understand and respond to. She fought her way toward the familiar voice, desperately hoping she would find safety there, but something was holding her and she couldn’t break free, no matter how hard she struggled.

  “Damn it, Maddy! Stop fighting me! I don’t want to hurt you! Freeze, damn it!”

  She froze. The harsh command pierced through the black veil of her nightmare and brought her into the present. What she discovered, though, wasn’t vastly different from the dream. She was sitting on an unfamiliar bed in a dark room with only a sliver of light falling across her, barely illuminating the man who had her pinioned against his chest.

  “Adam?”

  Maddy saw the relief that flooded the handsome face only inches from hers. “That’s right, Maddy. Are you awake?”

  “I think so,” she replied thickly, still trying to make sense of her surroundings and the strange predicament she found herself in. She was experiencing a moderate amount of discomfort, particularly because Adam had her left arm stapled behind her back, and her right wrist was pinned between her chest and his in an unbreakable vise grip.

  It was a threatening tableau, but Maddy had regained her senses enough to realize what had happened. She’d had the nightmare again, and some of the screaming she’d heard had probably been her own this time. Adam had rushed in here to awaken her, she’d fought him, and this had been his way of defending himself.

  But she wasn’t fighting anymore. “I’m okay,” she said. “You can let me go now.”

  Adam didn’t move. “I’ll be happy to let you go, darling, just as soon as you let go of that…thing.”

  Maddy’s right wrist was beginning to ache and her clenched fingers felt numb. “What thing?” she snapped. She started to squirm, but Adam gave a hard tug on her left arm, holding her still.

  “That sharp, pointy thing you have pressed to my jugular vein, darling,” he replied calmly. “If you release that, I’ll be happy to let you go.”

  Maddy lowered her gaze a few inches to the dark, shadowed area below Adam’s chin. The reason her fingers felt numb was because she was holding her nail file in a white-knuckled death grip, with the stiletto point pressing into Adam’s throat.

  “Oh, my God,” Maddy breathed, relaxing her fingers at once. The nail file fell out of her hand and Adam relaxed, too, gentling his hold, but not quite letting her go until he was certain she was supporting herself. When she was sitting upright in bed of her own accord, Adam leaned over and turned on the light.

  The part of her mind that was growing more rational immediately registered two things. One was the gun on the nightstand, which Adam had obviously grabbed after he heard her scream; the other was that her husband didn’t sleep in pajamas. He was naked except for a pair of plain white briefs.

  He didn’t seem to notice, so Maddy tried not to, either.

  “Adam, I’m so sorry,” she said, gently brushing at the reddening scratch on his throat. “It’s a miracle it didn’t break the skin.”

  “If s a miracle you didn’t kill me,” he corrected her. “Maddy, what the hell was that and where did you get it?”

  She ran her hands over the rumpled bedclothes until she relocated her weapon. “It’s a nail file I found in my cosmetic bag.”

  Adam took it and studied the sharply honed blade. “You were filing your nails in your sleep?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. She was still trembling from the nightmare, she was embarrassed about having attacked him, and she was keenly aware of Adam’s state of undress. All three combined to put her on the defensive. “I’ve been keeping the file with me all the time for more than a week now.”

  He looked at her sharply. “You even sleep with it?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “My God, Maddy, do you have any idea how dangerous that is? You could’ve hurt yourself!”

  “I need something for protection!” she argued.

  “Why? I had guards at your door in the hospital. Here, you’ve got—”

  “Those are your precautions, Adam, not mine!”

  He looked surprised. “You don’t trust me to protect you?”

  “I don’t even know you! Why the hell should I trust you?”

  The words flew out of her mouth before she could censor them, and it was too late to call them back. The damage was done. Adam’s face-went absolutely blank, then turned as cold and hard as stone.

  “Oh, Adam, I’m sorry…” she began, but he rose abruptly, snatched the gun off the nightstand and left without a word.

  Cursing her short temper and sharp tongue, Maddy climbed off the bed and slipped into her robe. The dressing room was dark, but there was a light coming from Adam’s room and she followed it.

  “Adam?”

  He wasn’t in the bedroom, but the French doors were wide open. A cool breeze stirred the curtains and filled the air with the scent of magnolia and roses. Tightening the belt of her robe, Maddy padded across the thick carpet to the balcony and found Adam standing at the railing, his face turned toward the perfect half-moon that hung above the western horizon. He had stopped in his room long enough to don a pair of trousers, but he was still bare-chested, which high-lighted the fact that his back was ramrod straight and the well-defined muscles in his shoulders were bunched with tension.

  Maddy moved to the railing, mirroring his position. “Adam, please, I’m really sorry.”

  “For what?” he asked without looking at her. “You were just telling the truth—your husband is a complete stranger.”

  “Truth or not, I know it hurts you and I’m sorry for that.”

  “Are you?” Adam looked at her finally, but Maddy almost wished he hadn’t because the coldness in his face was frightening. “If you’re so sorry, why do you keep bludgeoning me over the head with it?”

  Maddy frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “You refuse to trust me, Maddy. If you were keeping me any farther away emotionally we’d be in separate time zones! Why? Why are you doing this to us?”

  “I’m not doing anything to us! I’m just trying to survive!”

  “By keeping me at arm’s length?”

  “Yes!”

  “For God’s sake, why?”

  “I don’t know! It just feels safer!” she flung back at him, her fists clenched in frustration.

  “Physically safer or emotionally?” Adam asked, his voice hushed and hard.

  Maddy felt tears of frustration welling up. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore! Twelve days ago I woke up weak, confused and alone, surrounded by a world full of strangers—one of whom wants me dead! I’m scared, Adam! Don’t you get it? I’m so scared I can’t see straight!”

  A huge knot of emotions exploded inside her, stealing her breath and bringing the tears flooding to her eyes. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop them from spilling over. The tears she’d never allowed herself to shed in the hospital coursed down her cheeks, and a sob caught in her throat.

  When Adam reached for her, she didn’t pull away. She went into his arms and let him pull her close, let him wrap her in a loving cocoon that promised warmth and safety and a dozen other things that were so foreign Maddy couldn’t even put a name to them.

  She cried until there were no tears left, until the fear she’d been living with didn’t seem quite so over-whelming, until her confusion and frustration began to take a back seat to a number of imminently pleasurable sensations.

  As the black emotions ebbed away, they made room for other feelings. Feelings that Maddy had been suppressing since the day Adam walked into her hospital room—because she’d known even then that once she opened the door to him she’d have to let him in all the way.

  And she’d been right. The warmth she’d always felt low in her abdomen when he looked at her was in-creasing now from warmth to heat. Her pulse was quickening the way it often did when he flashed his devilish, dimpled smile. Her feminine senses were growing a hundred times s
harper than they had when he’d brushed her lips with a chaste good-night kiss or when his hand had accidentally touched hers.

  But of course he wasn’t just touching her now; he was holding her. Maddy’s body was pressed against the full length of his and she could feel the corded sinews of his arms, the sculpted musculature of his torso and the supple strength of his thighs. A wonderfully pleasurable ache was beginning to throb between her thighs, and amnesia or no amnesia, she knew exactly what it would take to make that ache go away.

  That thought—that feeling—was so intense it frightened Maddy, but this was a fear she wasn’t sure she wanted to run from. The man who was generating these intense feelings of desire was her husband, after all. If he could make her feel this way with just a simple embrace, how much more could he do with a kiss or a caress? What other sensations would she experience if Adam touched her intimately, with a hand on her breast or his lips on her throat?

  Maddy wanted desperately to find out.

  She raised her face from Adam’s chest, and he gently cupped her cheek in one hand, brushing at her tears with his thumb. “Better now? Maddy, you’re…" Adam looked into her eyes then, and what he saw made whatever he’d been about to say fly right out of his mind. Maddy’s gray eyes were usually guarded and reserved, even when she was at play or at rest. Now they were dark with a sensuality so potent it robbed Adam of thought.

  For over a week, he’d been keeping his thoughts and his feelings under tight rein, doing everything in his power to keep Maddy from seeing what torture it was to be near her and not be able to touch her.

  The way she felt in his arms and that totally unexpected look of hunger in her eyes nearly undid him. Senses that had already been aroused by having her in his arms escaped his control, and a hunger matching hers coursed through his veins.

  This wasn’t the result he’d had in mind when he deliberately pushed her into getting her emotions out in the open. He’d wanted to break down the wall she’d built between them, get her to admit she was afraid and hopefully lead her a step closer to trusting him.