Married To A Stranger

by Connie Bennett

  “Certainly not,” Arthur replied huffily, settling his straw hat on his head as he dropped his feet into the sand. “But I do think it’s time I went back in. I have been in the sun a bit too long this morning.”

  Actually he hadn’t been in the sun at all thanks to Maddy’s umbrella, but she didn’t challenge him. “Well, it was very nice meeting you, Arthur. But I do wish you’d stay and meet my husband.”

  “Yes, Arthur, stay and meet Madeline’s husband,” Adam said as he stepped between the two chaises.

  Arthur visibly gulped as he looked up at the towering form. “Oh, well…Hello, there.”

  “Hello,” Adam replied, moving toward Maddy’s lounge. He dropped a proprietory kiss onto her forehead, placed the wicker picnic basket on the foot of the chaise, then sat with his body angled so that he could converse with his wife and her neighbor.

  “Adam, this is Arthur Rumbaugh,” Maddy told him, trying to get a fix on his mood. He didn’t look as irritated as he had appeared coming down the beach, but he certainly didn’t seem like his normal charming self, either. “Arthur, this is my husband, Adam Hopewell.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hopewell,” Arthur said as he came to his feet; “but I was just leaving. Perhaps you’d like to use my lounge.”

  “Don’t run off on my account,” Adam said, but Arthur was already moving, and doing so with a great deal more agility than he’d displayed earlier.

  “Bye, Arthur,” Maddy called after him, and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” Adam demanded once Arthur was out of earshot.

  His tone brought out the fighter in Maddy. “I was having a conversation with a computer salesman from Connecticut, if you must know.”

  “Did you approach him or vice versa?”

  “He approached me,” she replied.

  “Then why didn’t you leave immediately?”

  “Because I assessed the possible threat he posed and decided the risk was minimal,” she said, bristling with anger.

  “Minimal,” he repeated, his jaw clenched. “You don’t take even minimal risks, Madeline!”

  “And you don’t order me around!” Maddy began throwing her things into her beach bag as she shifted to the edge of the lounge opposite him. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Adam, there are other people on this planet with whom we might have to converse on occasion. Poor little Arthur Rumbaugh is one of them, and he was perfectly harmless—unless you count boring me to death.as a murder attempt.”

  “All right, all right,” Adam said crossly. “Calm down.”

  “I will not,” she snapped, coming to her feet and circling the lounge. “I have two bodyguards and a very finely honed instinct for self-preservation. I don’t need a husband who turns into Attila the Hun every time I leave his side for five minutes. When will you get it through your thick head that I am not going to do anything stupid?”

  Maddy fully expected his reply to be “When you stop doing stupid things!” but he restrained himself.

  “You’re right, Maddy,” he said as he rose. I over-reacted. But I got scared when I saw that Ed and Bobby had moved in closer than usual. I took that to mean there was some kind of threat.”

  Maddy regarded him suspiciously. “Are you sure you weren’t just jealous?”

  “Jealous? Of that pipsqueak? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Pip…?” Maddy suddenly felt as though she’d been poleaxed between the eyes, and she completely forgot about her argument with Adam.

  There was something there, right on the edge of her consciousness; some memory that wanted to break out of the black hole.

  A memory that was in some way associated with Arthur Rumbaugh!

  “Pip…pipe…pep? Pepper?” she murmured, frowning in concentration.

  “Maddy? What’s wrong?” Adam asked, reaching out to her. “Are you remembering something?”

  She whirled around, searching frantically for Rumbaugh, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Damn it, where is he? How could he have gotten off the beach so fast?” she muttered scanning the beach for a glimpse of his shirt.

  “Maddy!” Adam grabbed her shoulders to hold her still. “What the hell is going on? Did you remember something?”

  “Yes!” she shouted at him, then frowned in frustration. “No. I don’t know. When you called Arthur a pipsqueak I got a flash of something. A name…like Pippin or Pepper…It was just a flash and then it was gone. But it was somehow associated with Arthur Rumbaugh. I think,” she added, because now that the image had evaporated she wasn’t sure of anything.

  “All right,” Adam said, guiding her back to the chaise and urging her to sit. “Let’s calm down and analyze this. When he first approached you, did Rumbaugh show any sign that he recognized you?”

  Maddy thought back. “No, but he did act as though he was trying to draw attention to himself.” She went on to explain how he’d initiated their conversation, and she even confessed the suspicions she’d had about the incongruities she’d spotted.

  “You thought he was putting on an act?”

  “At first, yes.”

  “Did he say anything that indicated he knew about your amnesia?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Think back, Maddy,” he commanded. “Could he have been posing for you?”

  “Posing?”

  “Making sure you got a good look at him so that he could find out whether or not you recognized him?”

  Maddy felt like an idiot for not having considered the possibility herself. “Of course. That could have been exactly what he was doing.”

  “And you did recognize him, didn’t you?”

  “No! At least not until you said what you did. Then it was as if someone held up a picture in front of me and snatched it away before I could get a good look. It could be that Arthur just reminded me of someone I once knew.”

  “Or he could have been the man who attacked you at the airport.”

  A shiver ran down her spine and she nodded. “It’s possible.”

  Adam carried it one step further. “And if he somehow learned that you have amnesia—by hanging around the hospital, maybe—then it’s logical to assume he’d want to know if you’d regained your memory before…”

  “Before he tries to kill me again.”

  “Yeah.” Adam came to his feet, grabbing Maddy’s arm and bringing her with him, but when he started pulling her across the sand, she yanked away.

  “Wait a minute! My bag! Our lunch!” she protested, reaching toward the lounge.

  “Forget about them!” Adam got hold of her again. “I’m getting you to someplace safe, and you’re going to stay there until we know everything there is to know about Arthur Rumbaugh or Arthur Pippin or Pepper, or whatever the hell his name is. Now move!”

  “Oh, what the hell,” Maddy muttered, letting Adam hustle her toward the Cabaña. “I didn’t like that book, anyway.”

  ADAM’S URGENCY was hard to miss and Maddy’s bodyguards responded accordingly by closing in. With Ed and Bobby flanking them, Adam dragged Maddy into the alcove entrance between the men’s and women’s changing rooms.

  “What’s wrong, Mr. Hopewell?” Ed asked him.

  “That man who sat down next to my wife. What do you know about him?”

  “His name’s Arthur Rumbaugh. He’s a computer salesman from Hartford, Connecticut, who checked in three days ago,” Ed replied. “When I heard him introduce himself to Mrs. Hopewell I phoned the office and found out he’d cleared a stage-one security check.”

  “What does that entail?” Maddy asked him.

  “It’s a general background search conducted by computer.”

  “Does it validate that he is who he claims to be? Could he be an impostor?” she asked.

  Ed thought it over. “I suppose it’s possible. Our search proves that there is an Arthur Rumbaugh, but it would take a stage-two security check—maybe even a stage-three—to prove that someone is impersonating him.”r />
  “Then get on it. Now,” Adam commanded. “Call Tom Graves and have him send a vehicle down here— something enclosed—so I can get my wife back to the hotel, and tell him I want to see him as soon as we get there.”

  “Yes, sir!” Ed pulled out his cellular phone and set the wheels in motion.

  TWO HOURS LATER Maddy’s head felt worse than it had the day Adam walked into her hospital room and introduced himself as her husband. Once he had her safely back in their hotel room he’d bombarded her with more questions about the vague memory flash she’d had, then the Bride’s Bay security chief, Tom Graves, had arrived to ask her even more questions.

  She explained what had happened with Rumbaugh from beginning to end, and it sounded so innocuous that she didn’t blame Tom for looking at her as though she was nuts for raising such a fuss. To placate Adam, Tom put out a security alert to determine where Arthur had gone after he left the beach, and word came back that Rumbaugh was at the pool sitting in the shade of a beach umbrella. Not exactly suspicious behavior, Tom noted, flatly refusing Adam’s request that he question Arthur directly.

  “Flirting isn’t a crime at Bride’s Bay,” the chief told Adam. “I won’t harass a guest without good reason.”

  “But you don’t understand,” Adam argued. “Maddy remembered him after he left, and she associated a different name with him.”

  “Begging your pardon, Mr. Hopewell, but that’s not what I heard your wife say. She said he reminded her of someone. And she can’t even recall who that someone is.”

  “He’s right, Adam,” Maddy said, inserting herself into the conversation in the hope of calming her husband down. “Arthur didn’t do anything wrong. I overreacted to a perfectly harmless stranger.”

  “But what about your memory flash?” Adam asked.

  “What about it? I remembered part of a name. Big deal. When I can remember my own name, then we’ll get excited.”

  Tom Graves folded the notebook he’d been scribbling in and stood, looking down at Maddy. “I don’t blame you for being frustrated, Mrs. Hopewell,” he said sympathetically. “If I were in your situation, I’d probably…Hell, I don’t have a clue what I’d do, but I guarantee you I wouldn’t be handling it half as well as you are.”

  Maddy looked up at him with her lips pursed thoughtfully. “You know, for a security guy you’ve got a pretty nifty bedside manner. I’ll bet you say that to all your cranky guests.”

  He smiled at her. “Nope. Only the ones who have a right to be cranky.” He glanced at Adam and back to Maddy. “Look, I don’t want either of you to think I’m dismissing your concerns. As soon as I get downstairs I’m going to initiate a full security sweep on Mr. Rumbaugh and I’ll ask Luther if he can make some additional inquiries. By the time we finish with him, we’ll know what brand of after-shave he uses and whether or not his mother wore dentures.”

  “I’d settle for knowing that he is who he claims to be,” Adam replied tersely, though Maddy could tell that he was somewhat mollified by Tom’s promise.

  “I think I can assure you of an answer on that by this time tomorrow,” Tom replied, moving toward the door. “And in the meantime I’ll have my people keep an eye on him.”

  Adam escorted Tom across the room. “Please let us know if he does anything suspicious.”

  “You can count on it.” He stopped just short of the door. “This hasn’t changed your plan to go into Charleston tomorrow, has it?”

  Maddy could tell from the way Adam hesitated that he hadn’t thought that far ahead yet, so she took the high ground. “No, it hasn’t,” she said, coming to her feet. “We’ll need Ed and Bobby to accompany us to the hospital at eight-thirty in the morning, and you can expect us to be gone most of the day. Once Dr. Manion finishes examining me, I have some shopping to do.”

  Adam turned to her. “Now, wait a minute. We’re not—”

  “Oh, yes we are,” she argued. “The only clothes I have are the ones you bought for me while I was in the hospital and the odds and ends I picked up in the boutique downstairs. Would you like me to recite my shopping list in front of Mr. Graves?” She smiled sweetly at the security chief. “I’m in desperate need of a number of toiletry items, as well as—”

  “All right! All right!” Adam looked at Tom. “We’ll need Ed and Bobby all day tomorrow.”

  “No problem,” Tom said, doing his best to restrain a smile. “We’ll keep Mr. Rumbaugh under surveillance and notify Ed on the cellular if he leaves the island.”

  “Fine.”

  They confirmed the flight arrangements Adam had already made with Duke Masterson, and then Tom left.

  “Maddy, are you sure about tomorrow?” Adam asked as he came toward her. “We could postpone or maybe even get Dr. Manion to come out here.”

  “No, Adam. I am not going to let one little blownout-of-proportion incident send me into hiding.”

  “Who says it was blown out of proportion?” Adam asked, frowning.

  “I do,” she replied. “We let our paranoia get out of control today, but it won’t happen again. I am not going to keep crying wolf and find that no one will come when I really do need help.”

  Adam closed the scant distance between them and gently pulled her into his arms. “I will always come, Maddy,” he swore. “Don’t ever doubt that.”

  Maddy was moved by his sincerity. “I don’t doubt it, Adam. But I should remind you that you were the one who took a flying leap off the deep end today. I was just along for the ride, remember?”

  “I won’t apologize for doing everything I can to protect you.”

  “I don’t expect you to, Adam,” she said, resting her head on his chest. “Truth be told, I’d rather be embarrassed than dead any day of the week.”

  His arms tightened around her as though he was trying to pull her inside him where she’d be even safer. “You are not going to die, Maddy. I don’t want to hear you say that, even in jest.”

  An overwhelming warmth engulfed her that had nothing to do with the intense attraction she felt whenever Adam took her in his arms. This feeling went so much deeper than desire; it was as though all the separate emotions she’d felt for him these past weeks had congealed into one wave of warmth, tenderness and something Maddy was ready to put a name to.

  “Thank you, Adam.”

  “For overreacting?” he asked lightly.

  But Maddy wasn’t in the mood to joke. She wanted to tell Adam how much she loved him, and that wasn’t a laughing matter. “Thank you for taking care of me. For always being just what I need, whenever I need it.”

  She raised her head and looked into his eyes, trying to find just the right words. Suddenly Adam pressed a brief but fervent kiss to her lips, then released her.

  “You’re welcome, darling. Now, if you’re absolutely intent on going shopping tomorrow, I have a few more phone calls I need to make,” he told her as he moved toward the bedroom. “I think a limo will be safer than depending on taxis, and I want our own private investigator doing some checking on Arthur Rumbaugh.”

  “What? Adam…”

  “This won’t take long, I promise.”

  He ducked out of the room, leaving Maddy feeling as though someone had just fast-forwarded her life, cutting out the most important part. One second she’d been about to tell Adam she loved him. The next she was alone.

  Maddy couldn’t help but feel shaken. For two weeks now, Adam had been the perfect husband, sensitive to her every mood, saying all the right things at exactly the right time. It wasn’t fair of her to expect him to be perfect twenty-four hours a day, but he’d picked a helluva time to shut off his sensitivity meter.

  Or had he? Maybe he hadn’t totally misread her mood. Maybe he was just trying to avoid a repeat of their encounter on the balcony several nights ago when she’d thrown herself at him.

  Or even worse, maybe he’d seen what was in her eyes and hadn’t wanted to hear her say “I love you,” because he couldn’t say the same thing in return.

  Bu
t, no. That couldn’t be true, not after everything that had happened, not after all the things he’d said to her, all the tenderness and loving concern he’d shown.

  Or had she taken too much for granted? Just because Adam had been protective and supportive of the shell his wife had once inhabited didn’t mean he loved the woman she’d become—the woman who argued with him at the drop of a hat, who challenged his judgment every time she got the chance, and then clung to him for dear life whenever she got scared or felt insecure.

  “I’m a different woman, aren’t I, Adam?” she murmured to the empty room. “Have I changed into someone you can’t love?”

  Maddy sank onto the sofa, curled her legs beneath her and fought the urge to cry. “What’s going to happen if you don’t get your Maddy back?” she whispered. “What if I never remember us?”

  She’d asked that question once and Adam had told her they’d start over. Now it appeared he might have changed his mind.

  Maddy wasn’t even close to being emotionally ready to ask the question again.

  ADAM CLOSED the bedroom door and fought the urge to smash his fist through it. “Damn, damn, damn, damn,” he muttered.

  That sweet, loving, trusting look in Maddy’s eyes had undone him, and he didn’t know how much more he could take. Fury at himself and this whole miserable situation swept through him, and he moved quickly to the nightstand, snatched up the cordless phone from its base and hurried into the bathroom. He locked the door, turned on the water and punched in a ten-digit phone number and four-digit code.

  When a man answered after only one ring, Adam made his position crystal clear.

  “I want out,” he said harshly. “And I want out now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I NEED A CLONE,” Tom Graves muttered as he hurried out of the Fortress. He’d spent the whole day trying to be in two places at once, and the pressure didn’t show any sign of letting up. He’d been so busy he hadn’t even had time for lunch, and his body was telling him that if it didn’t get some nourishment soon he wasn’t going to make it through the strenuous staff seminar in self-defense he was supposed to conduct in thirty minutes.