Suzanne Brockmann - Team Ten 08 - Identity Unknown

by Suzanne Brockmann

  "I'm glad you're feeling better. You look..." Delicious. "As if you're...feeling better." Oh, God, why didn't she just go over and drool on his boots?

  "I'll definitely be back before the week's out," he told her. "Helping in the barn, I mean."

  "What are you, nuts?"

  He smiled. It was ludicrous. When he smiled he was even more good-looking. "No, just...bored."

  "Ah," she said. "Bored." Becca found what she was looking for—tomorrow's sign-up sheet for the tennis court—and she breezed past him toward the door. She held it open and gazed at him pointedly. He got the message and went out. She flicked off the lights, and shut the door behind her, making sure it was securely locked. ' 'Is

  that why you came looking for me? Because you were bored?"

  "Oh, Lord," he said. "No. Absolutely not. I just... I..."

  "Forget it." Becca was embarrassed for herself all over again. And angry at herself, as well. She'd practically invited him to kiss her yesterday, and then when he had, she'd stupidly assumed that he'd been as affected by those kisses as she was. They had been nuclear-powered kisses, kisses that completely bulldozed over any of her doubts about bad timing. Hey, for the promise of more kisses like that, she would have invented a whole new calendar. It had been well over twenty-four hours since his lips had last touched hers, and her knees were still weak.

  Yet Mish had said no thanks and walked away. It was a new twist on an old story—a man who was in such a hurry to leave he didn't even bother to start the love affair first.

  But right now he was blocking her path. "I was just thinking that even though the timing's bad..." He couldn't quite hold her gaze. "I don't know," he admitted. "It feels kind of like playing with C-..." He broke off, shaking his head slightly. "I mean, like playing with explosives," he continued. "But..."

  "You want to go get a drink?" she asked him. "Or are you thinking we should skip the formalities and just go straight to bed?"

  Oops, her anger was showing. But at least she'd managed to get him to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was rude of me, and uncalled-for, and—"

  "This was a really bad idea," he said quietly. "You're still upset with me, and you have every right to be. I'm really sorry." He turned to leave, and this time she blocked his path.

  .

  She knew he would eventually leave. Call it whatever you like, self-sabotage, a built-in defense mechanism, lowered expectations, whatever, but she simply didn't hook up with guys who were viable candidates for anything long-term. She knew that about herself. She was okay with Mish leaving. In fact, she was practically planning for it to happen.

  That was because she was a realist. That was because she faced the truth and was honest with herself.

  But there was a very, very small fragment of time in every relationship, right at the very start, where magic could conceivably happen. There was a small moment, maybe an hour or a day or maybe even as long as a week, where hope reigned, and possibilities seemed as limitless and wide as the vast New Mexico sky.

  And during that moment, happily-ever-after didn't seem as much like a myth. And true love didn't sound quite so much like some con artist's clever lie.

  Becca knew, she knew, that Casey "Mission Man" Parker's vocabulary didn't contain the word forever. But when she'd looked into his eyes as he'd slowly lowered his mouth to hers, something had shifted, and in that instant she'd been filled with enough hope to cloud her / vision.

  She could have squeezed an entire month of hope out of just one kiss.

  "How can you just ignore this?" she asked, gesturing between them. Once again she was throwing herself in front of the rejection train, heaven help her. But she had to know. "How can you walk away from something that has such incredible promise?"

  He smiled, a beautiful, regretful, slightly crooked smile. "Well, that's just it. For someone who's walking away, I seem to be back where I started, don't I?"

  "So where on earth did you learn to swim like that?"

  Mish looked down into his glass of beer. He drank imported Canadian beer, he'd somehow known that without really having to think about it. The light from the pool area lit the amber liquid in a way that was completely familiar. Yes, he'd sat in the shadows and stared into many a glass of imported beer and—he tried to make it completely effortless—he'd learned to swim back when he'd...

  Nothing. Nothing came.

  "I don't know," he told her. "I've been able to swim since before I can remember."

  He had to toss the focus back to Becca, but gently. He was treading a conversational tightrope here. If he asked her the obvious questions about herself—where are you from, how long have you worked here—she'd take that as an invitation to simply turn around and throw similar questions back at him.

  He didn't want to lie to her, didn't want to make up a fictional past. Yet at the same time, he knew he couldn't tell anyone about his amnesia. Not even Becca with her beautiful eyes.

  "I bet you can't remember the first time you rode a horse," he said.

  She smiled, and he was glad she'd caught him breaking in to the ranch office. If she'd come along two minutes later, he'd have slipped out undetected, and he'd be sitting alone in his cabin, frustrated by the lack of information in his personnel file.

  That file had contained a previous address and a phone number in Albuquerque. There was a fax number jotted on the margin that had a Wyatt City exchange. Other than that, his so-called file was absurdly thin. Still, an address

  -

  and phone number was more than he'd had to go on an hour ago.

  And, unlike an hour ago, he was no longer sitting in his cabin, alone.

  "Actually," Becca said, "I can remember in complete detail the first time I rode a horse. I was ten, and it was May. It was warm for New York—I can still feel the sun on my face."

  She closed her eyes, lifting her face slightly, as if toward the sun, and just like that, everything Mish was feeling flip-flopped. This was a mistake. Yes, he enjoyed Becca's company. He enjoyed it too much.

  He knew he should stand up, plead sudden intense fatigue—which would go over better than insanity—and walk, very, very quickly, back to cabin .

  Alone.

  What was he doing, sitting here this way? Letting himself dream about kissing the graceful length of her neck? Letting himself imagine burying his face in the soft, sweet-smelling cloud of her hair? Letting himself remember how it had felt to kiss her, the giddy, breathless sensation of her mouth and body pressed against him? Letting himself fantasize about waking up early, in bed next to her, and watching her sleep?

  He was a killer.

  Okay, maybe he didn't know that with absolute certainty, but he was pretty close to positive. He'd certainly spent some time in jail—and if he had to guess what for, the carnage that splattered his dreams provided a heavy-duty hint.

  "I sat there in a saddle for the first time," Becca continued, opening her eyes and giving him a smile that would have melted a glacier, "with all this power and grace beneath me. I was so awed, so completely over-

  whelmed, I nearly cried. The horse was a mare named Teacup, and she must've encountered a dozen little girls just like me every day. She was patient and dignified, and whenever she looked back at me, she seemed to smile. And I fell completely in love. From that moment on, my goal in life was to spend as much time riding as I possibly could. Which wasn't easy, considering I lived in New York."

  He couldn't keep himself from asking. "In the city itself?"

  "No, about forty-five minutes north of Manhattan. Mount Kisco." She paused, and he braced himself. Here it came. "How about you? Where are you from?"

  He'd actually prepared for this one. "I never know what to say when people ask me that," he told her. "I've lived in a lot of different places. I'm not really sure which one I'd call home."

  Thankfully, she didn't seem to think his evasive answer was odd, and he turned the focus back on her. "But I don't think I've ever been to Mount Kisco, New York. I
t's hard to imagine a town with riding stables and horses only a few minutes north of New York City."

  "The really good stables were in Bedford," she told him. "I used to ride my bike ten miles..." She laughed. "So I could work in the stables for free. In exchange for riding time, you know? Funny, I still work for close to nothing, only these days I don't have a lot of extra time to ride." She rolled her eyes. "Of course, when Whitlow gets back and fires me, I'll have a lot of free time, but nowhere to stable Silver."

  "Silver's your horse?"

  Becca nodded. "Yeah. This summer we're celebrating our seventh anniversary."

  "Silver," he said. "Named after...?"

  -

  "Yes, the Lone Ranger's horse. Hi, ho Silver, away. Yeah, I know what you're thinking—not very original. But I didn't name him. And I didn't geld him, either. He was already cut when I bought him."

  She laughed then. "That's one way to identify a man who's a greenhorn," she continued. "Talk about geldings. He'll wince every time."

  Mish laughed self-consciously. "Did I?"

  Her smile was so sincere and contagious. "Oh, yeah."

  "It seems...so barbaric."

  "Stallions can be pretty wild," she told him. "And too much testosterone in one stable can create chaos. They fight, sometimes pretty viciously. And they get...shall we say amorous at the most inopportune moments. Like the time that the Mortensons—four kids under age eight— were staying here at the ranch. I swear, every time we turned around, Valiant had broken through his fence again and was mounting one of the mares."

  How had this happened? They were sitting here talking about sex. True, it was only about horses having sex, but still...

  Mish cleared his throat and grabbed hold of the conversation with both hands. "You know, I just can't believe Justin Whitlow would fire you." He took another sip of cold beer. "This place can't run itself. And from what Hazel's told me, she's not interested in your job."

  Becca drew lines of moisture on the plastic table with the bottom of her glass. "I don't blame her—the way things've been going, I'm not interested in my job." She looked up at him. "I don't suppose any of the places you've worked recently were looking for a manager?"

  Mish forced himself not to shift in his seat. "Not that I know of, no." He finished his beer, knowing that it was time for him to stand up and say good-night. He had to

  get out of here before her questions got more personal. Or before he did something completely idiotic, like hold her hand. If he held her hand, he would kiss her again. And if he kissed her again...

  "Yeah, I didn't think so." She sighed, her chin resting dejectedly in her palm. "God, I despise the whole job-hunting, resume thing. And the thought of going into a new position, in a new place, expending all that energy, hoping that this time it'll be better or at least different, and then..." She sighed again. "It's depressing. Finding out it's all exactly the same. Same struggles, same old boss-induced problems."

  "You need to work for yourself," Mish told her. "Buy your own spread."

  Becca laughed. "Yes, thank you very much, I should, but last time I looked, the millionaires weren't exactly lining up with marriage proposals. And the bank's not likely to give me a three-million-dollar mortgage with only a beat-up pickup truck as collateral."

  He couldn't seem to force himself to stand up. "Is that really what it would cost?''

  "I don't know," she admitted. "It's so outside of the realm of possibility, I haven't even checked to see if any local properties are for sale."

  "Maybe you should."

  "Why torture myself?" she challenged.

  "It's only torture if you think in terms of what you don't have. If you look at it as something to strive for, it's a dream. And it's amazing what people can achieve with just a little bit of hope and a dream."

  She was looking at him the same way she had back in the barn, the same way she'd looked at him right before he'd kissed her in the office. Her eyes were soft and so impossibly warm.

  •

  "What's your dream, Mish?" she whispered.

  "Peace," he said. He didn't have to hesitate. "My dream is to find some peace."

  Oh, Lord, he was doing it again. He was leaning toward her, closer and closer and... He pushed himself back in his seat and somehow managed to smile. "Peace, and a ride into Santa Fe tomorrow morning."

  "Santa Fe?" She shifted slightly back in her own chair. "Are you leaving already?"

  She'd moved just slightly, barely noticeably. That and the shade of disappointment in her eyes were almost imperceptible. Yet there was something about her words, something about her resignation that sucker punched him with a double dose of emotion. Frustration. And anger. Anger at himself. Anger at her for guilting him out every time he...

  Every time he...

  Left...?

  What the hell...?

  "Mish, are you all right?" Across the table, Becca's eyes were wide as she gazed at him.

  He took a deep breath, blowing it out hard. "Sorry," he said. "I was... That was...deja vu or something, I don't know. Weird." He ran his hand down his face. "I'm just...I'm going to Santa Fe—Albuquerque, actually—for a few days. I have something that needs to be taken care of. I figured as long as you're giving me this time off, I might as well put it to good use. I'll be back by Monday at the latest."

  She was still watching him closely, concern in her eyes. "Anything I can help with?"

  Becca wasn't being nosy. She actually meant it. She wanted to help.

  But what would she do if he told her, "Yeah. See, I

  have complete and total amnesia. I have absolutely no idea who I am—oh, except for the little clues I've picked up here and there, which lead me to believe I'm a hired assassin and an ex-con. While I go visit the previous address that was listed in my personnel file and try to stir up any suppressed memories, why don't you check out the faces on the most-wanted list in the post office, and see if you can find me there?''

  Mish cleared his throat. "No," he said instead. "Thanks, though."

  She poured the rest of her beer into her glass. "Well," she said. "I'm actually driving into Santa Fe day after tomorrow, if you want to wait until then to go. I've got to put in an appearance for the Whitlows at a fund-raising dinner for the Santa Fe Opera."

  "Thanks," Mish said again. "But the sooner I get there, the better. I really should go tomorrow."

  "Maybe," Becca said, then stopped. She laughed. "God, this is insane, but... I have an extra ticket to the dinner. The food's great...and I'm just so pathetic—I can't believe I'm asking you out again." She laughed again as she slumped over the table, head buried in her arms.

  Mish didn't know what to say.

  She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. "I don't do this with everyone. In fact, I've never done this with anyone. I just...really like you."

  Her words warmed him. She liked him. "I don't know why. You don't know me, Bee. I could be someone awful."

  "No, you couldn't. You're too nice. You have this basic goodness at the core of your being—''

  He let loose a pungent curse he rarely said aloud. "You

  '

  don't know that. So I pulled a kid out of a river. That doesn't make me a saint."

  ' 'Maybe not, but it makes you someone I want to know better." She leaned toward him. "Come to this dinner with me—as a friend. We can set some boundaries right now, if you want. No sex. Okay? We meet at the dinner, we leave separately. No pressure, no temptation, even."

  Mish had to laugh at that. "You know, I think this is a first for me. Being enticed to go out to dinner by the promise of no sex."

  Her eyes sparked. ' 'If you want, we can set different boundaries—''

  "No," he said hastily.

  "I'll leave the ticket at the door for you," Becca told him. She stood up, and he rose to his feet, too. "The party's being held at the Sidewinder Cafe—it's a restaurant near the center of town. Doors open at six. I'll probably arrive at six forty-five."

 
; He had nothing to wear to a formal party. And even if he did, he had no business deceiving this woman any further. She thought he was nice. He knew—for both of their sakes—he should stay far away from her.

  But when he opened his mouth, he said, "All right. I'll see you on Saturday. At six forty-five."

  He was completely insane.

  "Well," Becca said. "Good."

  And she smiled. And when she smiled, her entire face lit up, and as Mish watched her walk away, being completely insane suddenly didn't seem so terrible.

  Bobby and Wes climbed into the van, carrying two paper bags from which there escaped an incredibly delicious aroma.

  "Hey," Lucky said, glancing up from the less-than-

  inspiring view he had of the bus station lockers. From where he was parked, he could see locker number through the tinted van windshield and through the bus station window. It wasn't the most inconspicuous surveillance setup, but it was better than sitting on the grimy plastic bus-station chairs, in full view of anyone driving by. "I didn't expect you guys for another few hours."

  "Man cannot live on M&Ms from the candy machine alone," Wes said, digging through the bags. "So we brought you this celebratory meal from Texas Stan's."

  With a flourish, Wes handed Lucky a large container of Texas Stan's four-alarm chili and a plastic fork.

  "Bless you, Ren. Bless you, Stimpy. What are we celebrating?" Lucky asked, taking the lid off the container. God, it smelled good.

  "Joe Cat called," Wes reported, his mouth already filled with one of Texas Stan's spicy beef enchiladas.

  Lucky nearly dropped the chili. "Did Shaw turn up?"

  "No," Bob said from the back seat. "The news is good, but not that good. The captain had a message for you from your sister."