“Let me get your room done up for you.” He continued on into the only bedroom, walking slower, putting his lean linebacker body into each step. He filled the doorway when he passed through it, and she was glad he didn’t see the dreamy clouds that came into her eyes.
He was so much the shabby, fallen angel, confident, oozing with integrity, and quite the package. She lingered in the doorway, watching while he pulled bedding from a cupboard and made the double bed.
“Why didn’t you go for coffee with that doctor when she asked you?” Marcie instantly colored, wishing she could take back the words.
He froze while hunched over to tuck the sheet under the mattress and then slowly turned his head toward her.
Marcie shuffled her feet. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. I just … you took me in; you don’t know me—and you didn’t turn your back on me. You were concerned for me. You turned her down flat without even considering it.”
He flicked the top sheet over the mattress and folded stiff hospital corners. His nostrils flared as he breathed deeply. “Only creeps do that, sugar. It’s not even a consideration, in my mind, to act that way when I’m with another woman who’s flat-out hurt.” He arranged a blanket on the bed and plumped a pillow. “Bathroom’s around the corner if you want to get cleaned up before Jesse’s back with dinner.” Sam directed her with a nod.
“Would you mind if I had a quick bath?”
“Not at all. I’ll get you a towel.”
Marcie followed Sam. He pulled a towel from the linen cupboard and placed it on the worn, chipped counter in the apartment-style bathroom. He paused for a moment. Sadness lurked in his eyes when he touched a hairbrush, lying neatly assembled with cream, lotion, shampoo, and assorted makeup. He closed his eyes tightly as if blocking out some painful emotion waging war inside of him. “Use whatever stuff you need here.” He didn’t tarry but crossed over the threshold and pulled the door closed.
Marcie didn’t know what to make of this, but she remembered the comment Jesse had made before he left. Sam used to have a wife. If so, were these things hers, and what had happened to her?
Chapter Six
Jesse returned shortly after Marcie finished with a quick bath. Her mind was full of questions regarding Sam’s wife, because it was obvious that she remained a ghost in this apartment and still had a prominent place in his life.
Jesse dumped three plastic bags on the kitchen counter, and Sam put away enough food to keep them fed for a few days. Burgers and greasy fries tempted Marcie’s stomach, which grumbled from the savory aroma.
They gathered around the living room coffee table, downing burgers, fries, and soda. Well, the soda was for Marcie; Sam and Jesse opted for beer.
“Drinking on the job, or are you off shift?”
Jesse took a deep swig from a bottle of beer. “You’ve been away too long. You know things are done a little different down here. Besides, it’s just one.” Jesse belched. “Oh, pardon me, ma’am.”
Marcie offered a shy smile and shoved more fries into her mouth.
“So what’re you doing back, Sam? Last I heard, you were running some high-profile case, nailing some big-time drug dealer.”
Sam said nothing but leaned back and downed the rest of his beer. Jesse frowned, deep lines cutting around his eyes. Sam got up and helped himself to another beer from the fridge.
“You know, ever since we were boys and I found you with that busted lip your daddy gave you, I knew that when you clammed up this tight, something bad had happened. You’d get moody, didn’t want to talk. You haven’t changed,” Jesse said.
“What the fuck? Are you my shrink now?”
Marcie bit into her burger while her heart kicked up a bit, watching with large eyes, first Jesse and then Sam. So Sam was a cop, too.
“Marcie, you’re looking kind of pale.” Sam wandered back, sinking down into the worn, narrow couch.
“I’m fine, just hungry.” To prove it, she took another bite of her burger, wondering why she felt so unsettled.
“I noticed you still got her things everywhere. She’s been gone for two years. Don’t you think it’s time you got rid of everything?” Jesse leaned back in the soft easy chair, nursing his beer. “It’s been six years, Sam, since you busted my nose for sticking it into your business. Don’t you think it’s time we cleared the air?
Sam splayed his hands in acquiescence, spilling a few drops of beer on the brown, dingy cushion.
“I shouldn’t have called her a lying piece of whore trash before you married her,” Jesse said.
Sam’s gaze darted over to him, and Marcie wondered for a moment if he’d follow. Positive she must look agog, she shrank back, trying to make herself invisible. So Sam’s wife hadn’t been a nice lady. Now she really wondered what happened to her.
“Look,” Jesse jabbed an extended index finger toward Sam, “we grew up together through the worst of times. Your, piece-of-shit daddy, using you and your mama as punching bags, and mine was no better. How many days and nights did you and me camp out at Mama’s, talking up our dreams? Then in comes Elise, some perky, blond bombshell of a teen, with a black eye and major attitude. Never knew why Mama Reine let her come around.”
“Why? Because Mama was a saint of a woman who opened up her home to all us local beggars every and any time we needed a safe place to hide.” Sam leaned forward and whispered the last part: “She said every child deserved a chance. But it was still our own choice how we wanted to turn out.”
“But you tumbled head over heels in love with her, just a kid tailing her like a love-starved mangy puppy. She was wild, and what she did, she always did for Elise. No one else mattered, whether you’ll admit it or not. How many times did she lie to you? She would show up wearing some fancy trinket only a rich man could afford, always said she found it or that it was given to her. Don’t even try to deny it. You know as well as I do that she’d steal anything not nailed down.” Jesse leaned forward and dumped his empty bottle on the table.
“Why do we have to rehash this? She’s dead, okay?”
Marcie froze and stared down at her plastic cup. His wife was a thief, a whore, and she was dead. She didn’t know what to say, so she firmed her lips tight and hoped one of them would break the silence.
“Marcie, if you’re tired, just leave all this mess and turn in. I threw one of my shirts on the bed for you to sleep in.” Sam jumped up and hastily grabbed the remnants and packaging from their feast, stuffing it all in a plastic bag. “Jesse, you mind dumping this in the trash on your way out?”
Jesse hefted his stocky frame out of the burgundy chair. “Marcie, good night to you. I’ll come by in the morning and see about finding out who you are.”
“Thank you, Jesse, for dinner. You’ve been very thoughtful. I appreciate it,” she said.
His soft, dark eyes swam with a considerate emotion before he winked. Then he moved past Sam, taking the garbage with him.
Marcie climbed into bed. She could hear Sam tinkering with something and knew he planned to sleep on the lumpy couch. She didn’t know how long she lay there, mystified by the strange, sexy man who had taken her in. To learn, second-hand, that his wife wasn’t nice touched some part of her she couldn’t explain.
She should have been devastated, not knowing who she was and where she came from, as that knowledge seemed to be stuck behind an impenetrable brick wall, but she wasn’t. She struggled past the slight ache in her head to understand why. Finally, after much deliberation and no answers, she relaxed into a dream state. It was another time but a familiar place.
“The house is burning!”
Marcie bolted upright and smacked her head on the RV’s low vinyl ceiling. Someone pounded the door. She jolted awake, instant alarm hammering in her chest—boom, boom. Her wide eyes scanned the dim confines of Dan’s second-hand fifth wheel, parked on his newly acquired rural property.
She jumped down from the top bunk, landing hard. In a flash, she pulled on day-old clothes and shov
ed the door with so much force that the metal frame smacked the side of the trailer. She leaped down and bolted to the old house, which was already engulfed in flames. Heat pushed her back as angry fire burst skyward. Richard drove the yellow loader, and Dan maneuvered the compact excavator. Both pushed in an opposite wall, and to anyone else, their actions resembled two desperate men trying to contain a fire. Marcie feared judgment day was battering her with unruly wings. Alarmed, she closed her eyes and listened to the wail of high-pitched sirens, louder and closing in.
“Hurry!” Marcie ran closer and cupped her hands around her mouth, but angry sparks blocked her way.
“Get the hell back,” Richard shouted. Gears ground, and he reversed the loader.
All four walls collapsed. There was so little time. Flames shrieked in fury, consuming what was left. Two fire trucks, sirens screaming, arrived, followed by three sheriff’s cruisers. Lights flashed in unison against the backdrop of rippling flames. All authorities were here and closing in, covered in protective gear, assuming full control. They shouted, “Shut it down now!” over and over—angry words barked at Richard and Dan to get them to pull back.
Hoses were pulled out, connected and hooked to a standpipe at the front corner of the property, every maneuver synchronized. Two more red fire trucks pulled in, Discovery Bay written on their sides.
Marcie couldn’t keep track; there were too many people—too many lights. Richard and Dan refused to stop. It was too much for her eyes. She didn’t know where to look: the heat, the sparks, the overwhelming smoke and surrounding darkness. “Oh my God.”
Two firefighters climbed up on the moving equipment and forcibly shut them down. The sheriff arrived, angry—shouting, waving his powerful authority.
Three abandoned cars in front of the house were scorched. One by one, windshields exploded from the heat. A uniformed deputy grabbed her arm, holding tight when she tried to move away. The sheriff and another deputy cornered Richard and Dan. Dan locked his hazel eyes on her. She instinctively knew the unspoken words he was sending her: Shut up. Say nothing.
An agitated volunteer approached the deputy, who let go of Marcie and turned away. A white flash drew Marcie’s attention. She peered behind her in the dark and glimpsed a strange woman in front of the RV. She stood horribly unnatural. A breeze kicked up, waving her long blond hair in an odd rhythm. The woman smiled in a way that was cold, mischievous, and vaguely familiar. The woman’s hand seemed to reach right into Marcie’s heart and squeeze. She’d never get used to that sudden chill.
“Who are you?” Marcie couldn’t breathe. The air was stuck somewhere beneath her stomach; she choked. This sultry, kickass woman didn’t answer. She just aimed her index finger and thumb like a loaded gun, a direct line of fire, straight at Marcie. The eerie sound of metal grinding jarred the marrow inside her bones. Then the strange woman laughed a deep, throaty chuckle, tossed her head back, and strode around the trailer to the old woodshed, hidden in plain sight.
Panic licked the back of her throat. She didn’t know how she moved. All she knew was that no one could go near the shed. Heat closed around them. She became deaf to everything but the drumbeats filling her head. Shivering and haunted by nothing but darkness, the padlocked wooden shed, and a crazy, dead woman, Marcie felt very much alone.
Marcie bolted upright. Out of breath, she gasped for air. Her chest hurt, and a vise-like pressure from her pounding heart wouldn’t ease even a little. She pressed her hand to her heart. Dizziness blurred her vision until one by one, her sense of body and awareness returned to the pinching ache of her swollen gash, taped on her forehead.
Pots clattered, and she breathed in the fragrant aroma of sizzling bacon. She slid her legs over the side of the bed in this strange, cramped room. Marcie gazed at her pale, bare legs as awkwardness hit hard. She dropped her pounding head into her hands, covering her face. There was nothing but a big blank in her memory, although she remembered her handsome knight and the dark, disheveled detective who cared so deeply for Sam that he had risked their friendship by speaking truthfully about Sam’s dead wife. A thick, dark fog of nothingness hid every memory before the airport floor and the blood on her hand.
She touched her soiled clothes, dumped in a heap at the end of the bed, and wondered if she was decent enough to leave the room and say good morning. She slid off the bed. Sam’s large T-shirt slid down to mid-thigh.
Her head hurt after her dream-filled, restless sleep. She padded barefoot across the cool wooden floor into the kitchen.
“You’re up. How’d you sleep?”
Marcie stood in the doorway of his open kitchen. “In fits, really. I’m not sure.…” She trailed off when the room took a sick, slow spin. Before she could stagger and lean against the wall, Sam raced across the room and scooped her into his arms.
“Whoa, whoa, girl; you need to lie down. I’ll get you back to the doctor.” He deposited her on the sofa as if she weighed nothing more than a feather. “Lie there.” He pulled a knitted blanket over her. “Look at me. You got a headache?” He examined her eyes the same intent way the intern had done the night before.
“I’m good, sorry. I don’t know what happened. I think I kind of got up too fast. I didn’t sleep that well, and…”
“And what? Come on, what were you going to say? Finish it—don’t leave me hanging out there, sugar.” He sat in front of her on the cluttered coffee table, scattering beer bottles. He ignored the mess even when they clanked on the floor.
Her face heated when he aimed those magnificent blue eyes at her.
He coughed to bring her back to his world. Had she been ogling him? Flustered, she dropped her eyes, confused by the need for him that was growing inside her. Her dream blazed clearer, and so did the implication of something being not quite right. Fear, guilt, and worry spiked up the heated connection between them. She studied her clasped hands before looking back up. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You remember who you are, where you come from, something?”
Marcie lowered her eyes again and shook her head, saturated by a ridiculous instinctive response to deny. She couldn’t meet his intense, honorable eyes. She felt cornered, unable to tell him about her dream, because she knew, deep in some private, secret hollow, that her dream was a very real memory.
Drenched by a miserable guilt, she felt warm when she glanced up. Sam watched her with grim eyes—eyes that slipped into the soul, searching for secrets, lies, and, she supposed, how a person ticked. What did he see?
He grew silent and seemed to pull all his feelings back inside, behind a heavy armor, right before he stood and walked away. She couldn’t stop her hands from trembling, so she squeezed them and slowly sat up. The unsteady breath she’d been holding escaped, sounding a little too much like relief.
“Just remember something, Marcie—I know when people are lying to me.”
Tiny beads of sweat drenched her forehead. Thick knots tightened her already anxious stomach, and Sam didn’t look back.
Chapter Seven
After breakfast, Marcie carted the Walmart clothes Jesse had picked up for her, the night before, into the bathroom. She climbed into the hot shower and scrubbed her head a little harder than she needed to, but she was mad—mad at herself for not coming clean about the dream. What was the big deal? Well, she already knew the answer. Listening to Jesse talk last night about Elise and how untrustworthy she had been, there was something about Sam, in his quiet confliction, that made Marcie want his respect. She didn’t want to be like Elise.
After she dressed in the pale shirt and khaki shorts that were a size too big, she wandered out to Sam.
She found him on the balcony in the bright sun, barefoot, wearing blue jeans and a clean white T-shirt. He appeared lost in another world, a deep thinker who leaned over the railing, staring into the street. The wind fluttered the sheer curtains, beckoning her forward, so she stepped closer to the lively chatter drifting in from outside. Marcie clenched her damp hands and then relax
ed, releasing a slow, measured breath. One step closer, almost there. The floor creaked on the threshold of the small balcony, and Sam turned and leaned against the black iron rail. He crossed his strong arms. He said nothing, but his hardened eyes reflected suspicion.
“I lied,” she said.
“I know.”
Marcie stood so close that she could feel his warm breath whisk over the top of her head. She licked her bottom lip, sucking in a breath for courage. The breeze whipped up her damp hair. Don’t be scared. “I don’t know if it was real.…” A sharp knock at the door hurled her insides a little closer to the edge. Frustrated, she let her head drop toward her chest. How could she confess with this unwelcome interruption?
“That’s got to be Jesse.” Sam brushed past Marcie, his heavy steps echoing down the hall.
Marcie claimed Sam’s spot leaning over the rail, taking in the beautiful view from this second-floor apartment. The vibrant energy from the colorful crowds of people on the street below rose up and connected with her. For a moment, she was pulled into the flamboyant revelry, like a powerful magnet intercepting a rainbow of emotions from all the people on the street: joy, lust, anger, jealousy, being hurried.
“Oh my God—what the hell?” She jumped back. Her whole body stung as she trembled. Flustered, she pressed her hands flat against the white stucco, flooded by some instinct to breathe. Her mind stilled. She sucked in another deep breath, and the tightness twisting up her stomach eased. “I must be going crazy.” Spooked, she remained plastered against the wall.
“Marcie.”
She jumped as if a fist had jabbed her heart and slammed shut some secret door inside.
“You okay? What are you doing? You talking to someone?” Sam reached out and grasped her elbow, a gentle touch filled with tender concern.
“Yes, no—sorry, just some weirdness, that’s all.” Nervous flutters began inside her chest. He was so good looking, and those solid, tanned arms of his—a girl could get lost in them. His closeness became too much. She needed to look away, so she stalled and tucked her unruly damp hair behind her ears to shake off Sam’s amazing intensity, a gaze like the depths of the ocean weaving its way into her heart.
Danger Deception Devotion The Firsts Page 74
