by MJ Rodgers
Briana had difficulty disengaging the tiny pearls from their tight loops with only one hand.
“I’ll do that for you,” Michael said, kneeling beside the couch and taking over the job of unfastening them for her.
What was it about the deep resonance of his voice that vibrated through every cell of her body, as though tuning it?
You are definitely Prince Charming, Michael Sands. First you kiss me awake. Next you call me beautiful. And now you kneel at my feet, ready to perform the slightest of services.
She was all too aware of the seductiveness of his rich balsam scent, the close presence of his powerful body, the light shifting like starlight through his thick sandy hair, his warm fingers brushing against the sensitive skin of her arms.
Last time she felt even a fraction of what she was feeling for Michael, the guy had ended up being married, with three kids.
Briana forcibly reminded herself that as charming as Michael Sands seemed to be, she knew nothing about him.
“Do you live here with your…family?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
His response wasn’t casual at all, but direct, and delivered with a brief, emphatic punctuation from his eyes. “If I had been married, Briana, I never would have kissed you.”
He sounded so forthright and sincere when he said it, too. She didn’t know whether she was a fool to believe him. She suspected she probably was.
He undid the final button on her right sleeve and pulled it back to expose the pale blue vein in the crook of her arm. He gave it a careful scrutiny.
“This one is clear. Let’s take a look at the other.”
He turned his attention to her left sleeve. He had it half-unfastened when he asked his question. She supposed she should have anticipated it, but she hadn’t.
“Why did you kiss me back?”
His eyes were such a beautiful blue as they looked directly into hers. Every time Briana saw the warmth inside them, she could feel her pulse race and her heart sigh with pleasure. How could any woman not want to kiss this man back?
“The kiss fit right into this dream I was having, Michael. I know it sounds strange. I can’t really explain it logically, but I was confused for a moment between what was real and what was the dream.”
“It doesn’t sound strange or illogical at all. Confusing a fading dream with emerging reality is not an uncommon occurrence upon first awakening.”
Michael folded back her second sleeve and once again focused his attention on her skin. “This vein is also clear of any recent injections. If you have been drugged, they didn’t use the most obvious sites. However, you should still be checked over very thoroughly.”
Briana felt a flush start up her neck. “I…uh—”
“Naturally, the examination would have to be done by another doctor,” Michael told her, interrupting smoothly as he began to refasten her sleeves. “I’m in no position to perform it with the professional detachment that would be required.”
The smile that lifted his lips this time had a delightfully disreputable twist to it. He was definitely and deliberately flirting with her.
She was thrilled and appalled at how much she enjoyed being the recipient of this charming man’s attention.
“Really, Michael, I feel fine,” Briana said, trying to get a grip on reality. “Great, actually. I don’t need a physical exam. What I need to do now is report what has happened to the police. May I use your phone?”
“Of course.” Michael rose and retrieved a cordless instrument from off a lacquered black credenza. He handed it to Briana.
“Is there a local police?” she asked.
“The Las Vegas metropolitan police force covers all of Clark County. You realize, of course, that they are going to want to see you in person?”
“In which case, maybe I should just call a taxi and go see them.”
“Briana, you’ll never get a taxi to come out here. The Institute is not just ninety miles from Vegas. We’re ninety miles from anywhere. I’ll drive you.”
“Absolutely not, Michael. You’re obviously dressed to go somewhere. I’m not interrupting your evening any more than I already have.”
“I had nothing special planned for tonight, Briana.”
“Oh, right. You lounge around your apartment in a tuxedo all the time.”
He smiled. “The functions I was to attend were far more business obligations than social enjoyments. A couple of phone calls will take care of them. You have to let me drive you. Even if you could get a taxi to come out here, you have no money to pay one with, remember?”
Yes, that, unfortunately, was all too true.
“Besides, you can’t just kiss me senseless, Briana, and then leave me without an explanation to this intriguing mystery.”
Kiss him senseless? Was that what she had done? She did remember putting a definite enthusiasm into that delicious dream embrace. She swallowed uncomfortably as her neck got hot.
“Maybe I could get the police to come out here.”
“Not unless it were a life-threatening emergency. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me as chauffeur.”
He held out his hand to her and smiled.
Stuck with him? Who among the entire female population of America wouldn’t want to be “stuck” with this handsome, charming man?
Bnana slipped her hand into his large, warm one and rose to her feet before him.
She had no idea what was going on. But she had no doubts that whatever had happened to her over the past few hours, at least she had landed under the right Christmas tree.
“YOU REALLY EXPECT ME to swallow this…tale, Ms. Berry?” Sergeant Elena Vierra asked, her dark eyebrows flying up to her prominent widow’s peak as she gave Briana and her wedding outfit yet another incredulous once-over.
Michael found the Las Vegas detective sergeant to be a big-shouldered, fortyish woman with a full mouth that jutted forward defiantly, as though ready to attack.
From the moment she saw them approach, Sergeant Vierra had been treating both them and their situation with irritated disbelief.
Vierra had disregarded his credentials, as she had the obvious sincerity with which Bnana told her story. She was more than beginning to get on Michael’s nerves.
But Briana chuckled good-naturedly in the face of the sergeant’s pointed disbelief. She obviously possessed a special type of toughness, the ability to simply stand firm. She spoke slowly, reassuringly, with the ease of conviction.
“I don’t blame you for doubting it. Sergeant. I’m sure if I were in your position, I’d be wondering what I had been drinking, too. But I am sober, and very serious. This is no joke. I have lost my purse, my clothes, and three hours out of my life.”
Michael watched the hard-nosed woman detective as she stared at Briana. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he might actually be seeing a flash of uncertainty cross her dark eyes.
She leaned forward in her chair and reached for the phone on her desk. “You registered at the Mirage for this convention?”
“Yes.”
The sergeant hit a button on her speed dialer, then spoke to someone who was obviously a clerk at the desk at the Mirage. She asked several questions about Bnana and the convention. Nothing on her face revealed what answers she was getting. When she hung up the phone, she looked directly at Briana.
“The Mirage has no record of your reservation, nor of your checking in. What’s more, they don’t have a convention for architects at their hotel.”
“But they do,” Briana insisted. “The hotel’s famous erupting volcano was on the front of the brochure announcing the convention. Call my partner. He’ll tell you. He was the one who first showed it to me.”
“Who is this partner of yours?”
“Lee Willix.”
“And the firm you’re partners in?”
“Berry, Willix and Associates.”
Sergeant Vierra wrote down the telephone number Briana gave for her firm. “Let me see your driver’s license, Dr. Sands.”
Michael handed it over.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Sergeant Vierra said as she rose and walked to the end of the room, where she stepped around a corner and disappeared out of sight.
Michael understood that she had left the room to check out the information she’d been given.
“She doesn’t believe me,” Briana said, resting back in her chair with a shake of her head.
“The police are taught to be suspicious of anything out of the ordinary, Briana.”
She nodded, and the light danced like fireflies through her thick flame hair. Her voice was lovely, thick and mellow, reminding him of autumn honey. Still, he found her eyes to be her most arresting feature. When she first opened them on his couch, he had thought them an enticing teal blue, and a striking contrast to her luscious flame hair.
But as he looked at them now, beneath the harsh fluorescent lights of the police station, he could see that they were actually a pale, clear crystal, absorbing and reflecting back whatever colors were around them.
Michael didn’t doubt that Briana was telling the truth about not knowing how she’d come to be at the institute. Everything about her struck him as genuine—completely genuine.
“Michael, I’ve been thinking. It took us well over an hour to drive into the city from the institute. That means that whoever was behind this bizarre charade had less than two hours to somehow incapacitate me, take my purse and clothes and deck me out in this wedding dress. Does all that seem possible?”
“There could have been more than one person involved.”
“But what possible reason could anyone have for such outlandish behavior?”
“Maybe this was meant to be a romantic escapade—like when the South Sea islanders used to kidnap the young maiden who was to become the bride and spirit her away to where the groom waited in seclusion. When your ‘playful’ kidnappers suddenly realized they had grabbed the wrong woman, they panicked and left you at the nearest dwelling, which in this case just happened to be mine, out in the middle of the desert.”
“You should be a scriptwriter,” Briana said. “That’s certainly a better plotline than those horrible made-for-TV movies where a trusted lover or husband turns out to be a psycho and chases the hapless heroine through the last ten minutes of the program with a sharp knife and a lot of screaming.”
“Watched some of those, have you?”
“Too many. Whatever happened to those nice little murder mysteries where the villains were imperfect—not psychotic—and the story emphasized the indomitable sleuth uncovering the clues?”
“You know what they say about a society’s fiction, Briana.”
“Actually, I have no idea. What do they say?”
“That it’s a mirror of its emotional health.”
“Now that’s a frightening thought.”
“Take heart. Nearly fifty percent of all paperback novels sold are romances. There are still some sane souls left out there.”
Her face broke into an immediate smile, and light danced in her eyes. “Now I know you’re too good to be true. What planet are you from, Michael Sands?”
He chuckled. “Debra, one of my favorite clients, is an editor at a major publishing house in New York. I’ve shared a few things about dreaming with her. She’s helped to smooth out that rough male-chauvinist-pig edge to my Y chromosone.”
Briana’s sudden laugh was filled with spontaneity, generosity, and a hearty humor that held not an ounce of pretension.
He could imagine that most people finding themselves in such bizarre circumstances as hers would have become angry, frightened, even hysterical, by now. But she had remained amazingly calm, intelligently examining the situation in logical steps and with a gently humorous air.
Michael had thought her enchanting when she was asleep. Now that she was awake, he found her absolutely fascinating.
He didn’t know by what chance fate had brought her into his life. But he had no intention of letting her out of it until he had gotten to the bottom of the mystery that surrounded her.
Sergeant Vierra came pounding back into the room and lumbered over to her desk, plopping heavily into her chair. The moment Michael saw the expression in her dark eyes as she glared at Briana, he knew that whatever news she had brought with her would not be good.
“There’s just one problem with your story, Ms. Berry,” Sergeant Vierra said. “None of it checks out.”
“Excuse me?” Briana said.
“That wasn’t the telephone number of a Lee Willix you gave me. It belongs to a Mrs. Eliot. She’s never heard of a Lee Willix, or any Willix, for that matter.”
“You must have reached a wrong number,” Briana said.
“There’s also no listing for an architectural firm of Berry, Wilix and Associates in Seattle.”
“Of course there is,” Briana said evenly.
“Look, I don’t know what your problem is, lady,” Sergeant Vierra said. “And I don’t want to know. Get out”
“Hold on a minute, Sergeant—” Michael began.
“No, you hold on, Dr. Sands,” Sergeant Vierra said, as she threw his driver’s license on the desk in front of him. “Be happy that I was able to verify that you, at least, are who you say you are. Otherwise, believe me, I’d have called the guys in white coats to come get you both.”
“This is absurd, Sergeant,” Michael said, pocketing his license. “Ms. Berry is perfectly sane. She is the victim of a crime. Her purse and personal possessions have been taken. Now, there has to be a logical way to approach this situation.”
“Well, here’s my logical approach. You take her out of here right now, or I book her and she spends tonight and Christmas in jail for filing a false police report.”
“Christmas?” Briana repeated, but the sergeant ignored her as she continued to shoot her angry words at Michael.
“And trust me, Dr. Sands—she’ll do the time. No judge or prosecutor is going to come in tomorrow for the bail hearing of a lunatic. Now, am I making myself understood?”
Michael rose, turned to Briana and offered her his hand as she rose. He’d heard enough.
“Perfectly,” he said through clenched teeth.
Michael turned and led Briana quickly to the door. And with every step, he fought to keep his anger in check.
“Michael, I don’t—”
“It’s all right, Briana,” Michael told her, eager to be out of the police station and away from the irritating sergeant
Michael welcomed the sting of the freezing night air against his overheated skin as they walked to his car in the parking lot. But when he realized that Briana was shivering beside him, he took off his tuxedo jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, quickening his pace to the passenger door.
When they were settled inside, he turned to her.
“I didn’t mean to cut you off back there, Briana. But I tend to get a little hot under the collar when an uninformed person starts yelling ‘crazy’ at someone or some situation they simply don’t choose to take the time to understand.”
“But, Michael, there is something crazy here.”
Michael stared at Briana’s face, softly lit by the overhead streetlight. What he saw there caused a small warning bell to go off in his brain.
“Briana, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Sergeant Vierra said she’d put me in jail tonight and keep me through Christmas without bail. But how could she? Today’s December third. Christmas is more than three weeks away.”
Michael felt his thoughts twisting, skittering, trying to avoid their collision course with the wall of logic that lay dead ahead.
“Briana, tonight is Christmas Eve,” he said slowly, carefully. “Christmas is tomorrow.”
He watched his words flash across her face, robbing it of all color. When she spoke again, her voice came out on a hoarse chuckle, its brave humor trying to mask the horror of her words.
“Looks as though I’m not just missing three hours, Michael. I’m missing thr
ee weeks.”
Chapter Two
Michael’s classic pale-cream-and-bronze 1955 Thunderbird convertible flew over the deserted desert highway.
Briana knew it was fortunate that he had the top up. Otherwise, she felt certain, they both would have been pulled out of their seats by the sheer force of the wind whipping past. She had glanced at the speedometer only once. The pointer was quivering past a hundred. She hadn’t looked at it again.
She’d never been comfortable with speed, but, oddly, she didn’t feel afraid. The way Michael’s broad hands held the wheel with such steady ease told her that he was in command of both the car and himself.
She, on the other hand, wasn’t even in command of her own memory.
Three weeks out of her life! Gone! Blank! As though they had never been! It was unbelievable. Unthinkable. And yet, undoubtable.
What had happened to her in those three weeks?
And how could she not have known she was missing a part of her life? How could she have awakened feeling so normal? Clearly, she was not. It was a good thing she’d been dumped on the doorstep of a psychiatrist.
She gazed over at Michael’s chiseled-stone profile. His mind was clearly elsewhere as he stared unblinkingly ahead at the black desert highway. Since the moment she told him that she was missing not just three hours but three weeks from her life, Michael’s demeanor had undergone a definite change.
Briana supposed it was only to be expected. He had to be reassessing his belief in her sanity—a belief that he had so assuredly expressed to Sergeant Vierra less than thirty minutes before. He’d been her stalwart supporter then. Briana wondered what he would say to the good sergeant on that subject now.
Michael moved the car over into the right lane and began to slow down. Briana couldn’t see anything beyond the headlights streaking into the black night. Still, she knew that the exit for the Institute of Dreams would not be along for a while.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Dr. Fay Wynd lives a few miles from here. Fay’s one of my colleagues at the Institute. I’d like her to take a professional look at you.”
Briana felt her stomach turn. “By professional look, I suppose you mean psychiatric evaluation?”
