Make Mine a Marine

by Julie Miller

  "I went through the files in the back office. Yes, you distracting Roylott bought me some uninterrupted time to do the job right." His praise made the creepy memory of Clayton's touch recede. "You want to guess how many times the name James Moriarty comes up? I pulled four good sets of fingerprints. I'll run them through the D.A.'s office. We'll find his identity that way. Until then, I don't want to speculate and raise your hopes. I want you out of here. Now."

  "You know who belongs to the voice I recognized?"

  Drew frowned. His hands tightened once, twice, on her shoulders.

  His sudden hesitation worried her. "What are you afraid to say to me?" she asked.

  "Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch."

  Drew and Emma both froze at the laughing expletive. Clayton had returned, his face wreathed in good humor. He slapped Drew on the shoulder. "I figured out where I know you from."

  Drew turned slightly, angling his shoulder between her and Clayton. "I don't think—"

  "Sure. We worked a couple of jobs together down in Miami. Seven, eight years ago. Your hair's different, and we both have a few more wrinkles. No wonder I didn't recognize you."

  When Drew didn't respond, Emma jumped in. "I didn't know you'd been to Miami."

  Drew's silence didn't bother Clayton. "Yeah, Cam and I hung out together for about a year. Well, I worked for him, of course." He put his hands up in surrender, and the sincerity of his apology made her believe that the two men really did know each other. "Sorry about before. If I had known she was yours… I mean, I thought she was for hire. Stupid mistake, of course."

  For hire? Her concern gave way to indignation. "You thought... I was a… prostitute?"

  "No. No, absolutely not." His dark eyes darted from her to Drew. "Poor choice of words on my part." She realized he was apologizing to Drew for the insult, not to her. He was apologizing for insulting Drew's woman. Smooth charm cast aside, the man was groveling for Drew's forgiveness.

  Emma felt the blood rush down to her toes, making her light-headed. My God. Clayton thought Drew was some kind of criminal. More than that, that he was someone of importance in the criminal world.

  Just what type of work had Drew done when he was bumming around the country, as he'd told her, before coming to Kansas City? She prayed it had been an undercover assignment of some kind. She prayed she hadn't pinned her hopes on the very kind of man her husband had tried to eliminate.

  What was the name Clayton had used? "Cam?" she asked, stepping to his side and looking into his face to prompt Drew out of his continuing silence.

  "Oh, sure," Drew said to Roylott. "Clayton. You were using a different name down there, right?"

  She could tell he was lying. Drew didn't remember a thing. His eyes had lost their sharp focus. Their usual cat-eye gleam had dimmed.

  Clayton nodded, as if discovering an old friend at a class reunion. "Scotty. Everybody called me Scotty. Roylott's a name out of a book. Thought I'd go literary."

  "A Sherlock Holmes book?" Some of the glint returned. Drew was skipping over whatever had just transpired. This was the sly detective, following a lead on his investigation. "Is that your idea or your boss's?"

  "His."

  "This guy you're working for now. Is he around? I might have a deal for him." Emma marveled at Drew's smooth transition from caring defender to confused man to clever criminal. Which one was the real Drew?

  Roylott shook his head. "He had some business to take care of. Flew out of the country this morning. You can work with me, if you want. The boss is always looking for good help."

  Drew closed his hand around Emma's elbow. "Maybe later. Let me get the lady home first."

  Emma pulled free, more than curious about Drew's past. She had quickly discovered that the easiest way to lie was to tell a half-truth. "Nonsense. You know I've been running my own business for years. You can talk in front of me."

  "And you know how I feel about mixing work and pleasure." He gave her a look that mocked her own determination. This was not a battle she could win. Yet. "I'll get your purse and coat."

  She conceded the skirmish but not the victory. In the short time that Drew was gone, she tugged on Clayton's sleeve. With Drew's territorial rights protecting her, she no longer feared his advances. "So you knew Cam down in Miami?"

  "Yeah. We met on a job. But he never stays in one place too long, if you know what I mean."

  Emma had no idea. But she smiled anyway, pretending to agree, bluffing her way through this conversation. "Tell me about it."

  Clayton puffed out his chest and nodded in admiration. "He's a mystery man, that one. He insisted we all use nicknames."

  Was this her chance? She pressed her lips together, stalling the impulse to shake more useful information out of him. "What nickname was he using then?"

  "Like I said, he didn't stay around too long."

  Damn the dolt! He'd been well trained in giving ambiguous answers. "But you're sure you knew him?"

  "Oh, yeah. When you're the best in the business, nobody forgets you."

  * * *

  Drew unlocked the door to his apartment and pushed it open for Emma. The arctic chill in her voice when he'd helped her with her coat at Lucky's warned him that something had changed between them. When she'd said, "I want to go someplace private where we can talk," he'd agreed. He was primed to go head to head with Miss Cool, Calm and Collected.

  "Of all the fool stunts, Emma." He locked the door and hung their coats on the coat rack. If she, for one instant, thought he'd been glad to see her endangering that beautiful swan neck of hers by flouting common sense and going to Lucky's—even flirting with a known racketeer like Clayton Roylott—he intended to change her way of thinking. “Do you have any idea the trouble you could have gotten into if I hadn’t shown up tonight?”

  She rubbed her arms as if the apartment chilled her. Maybe, he thought ironically, she had created that chill herself. "Let's talk about being a fool." She turned on him. "Is that what you think I am? A fool? Are you and Roylott working on some con to get my money?"

  Her attack shook some of the wind from his anger. He had no grounds to defend himself. The idea that Roylott had known him in Miami, seven or eight years ago, before the accident, ate a fearful hole in his gut. Obviously, Emma didn't like hearing about that possibility, either.

  While it might explain his affinity for the kind of work he did, he didn't like it. For five years he'd worried that he'd left a family behind, had hurt good friends, had left a job unfinished.

  He hadn't considered that he'd left a life of organized crime.

  He pulled off the band that held his hair in place and shoved his fingers through the length of it, massaging the base of his skull, trying to ease the tension he felt. He stuffed the band into his pocket and strolled into the kitchen, just now giving thought to the appearance of his place. He wasn't much for keeping house, but then there wasn't much house to keep. His bed was made, the dishes were clean. But the bare brick walls and scarcity of furniture that had once made the openness so appealing to him now echoed with an embarrassing loneliness. The brutal barrenness revealed a lack of a past or connection to anything or anyone of importance.

  Could he explain his amnesia to Emma? Or would she see it, like Roylott's reference to this ‘Cam’ in Miami, as just another lie?

  "Make yourself at home." He offered the invitation by rote. "I'll put some coffee on."

  Emma, despite the frostbite of her temperament, looked soft and stunning. Her dress clung to each long curve of her body and stopped short a couple of inches above her knees, revealing a long stretch of knee and calf, and her delicate ankles were set off to sexy perfection by the tall heels she wore. No wonder Roylott hadn’t been able to keep his hands to himself. It required every bit of Drew's considerable willpower to respect the walls she'd thrown up between them.

  Just looking at her, he wanted her. But he would not break Emma's rules. At the moment, winning back the trust he had lost seemed much more important than
staking any possessive claim on her body.

  Drew flipped the switch on the coffeemaker and settled onto the sofa. He rehearsed all the ways he could explain his loss of memory. But each beginning sounded irrational or insane. He bought himself some time by watching Emma's silent inspection of his things and waited for her to speak first. She tested the spongy strength of his exercise mat with her toe, even punched his kick bag once. But when she got to his overflowing bookshelf, she stopped to explore, fingering her way through textbooks and fiction titles.

  Too late, Drew realized the discovery she had made.

  She pulled a dog-eared paperback from the shelf and turned, brandishing it before her like judgment itself. "What kind of sick game are you playing?"

  He rose to his feet, sensing it was too late to defend himself, but desperate to try, anyway. "It's no game, Em. I can explain."

  She advanced on him, a furious frost maiden with a glacial bite to her voice. "Drew Gallagher isn't your real name. You got it from these books.” She waved the tattered detective novel in his face. “It's just another part you're playing."

  "Emma." He put up his hands to placate her, but she refused to retreat.

  They stood toe-to-toe. She looked him straight in the eye, her angry breath mingling with his. Drew braced himself for her accusation. "Talk to me, Cam." The name sounded wrong on her lips. It sounded foreign in his memory. "Just what kind of work is it you do? Roylott practically gave himself a hernia bowing and scraping to you because he's afraid of your wrath."

  He stared at her through narrowed eyes. Maybe he hadn't heard her right. "What?"

  "It's a simple question. Just who the hell are you?"

  There was nothing more honest—or more damning—he could say.

  "I don't know."

  * * *

  Drew slumped onto the sofa, the depth of her distrust and disappointment an impossible weight to bear.

  She paced back and forth, a righteous prosecutor digging the truth from her prime suspect. "You don't know? You don't know if you're a hit man or drug runner? Are you a crime lord? An arms dealer? Are you really some cheesy private eye? Or are you just some sick man who gets his kicks by putting me through hell?"

  Drew grabbed her wrist as she walked by, halting her accusations, forcing her to stop and listen. "I honestly don't know who I am."

  She jerked her hand away, avoiding his touch with a vengeance. "Drew? Cam? I knew you were a good liar. But are you so sick that you'd lie to yourself, too?"

  She clutched the book to her chest with both hands. A fine sheen of tears glistened in her eyes. He'd done that to her. Maybe he was sick. Maybe he should have walked away from Emma Ramsey at the very beginning. Using her for his own benefit had brought her to this. By teaming up with him, she probably felt as if she'd colluded with the enemy.

  No wonder the angels hadn't seen fit to help him find his past.

  Not when his lies made Emma feel like this.

  He stood, wanting to hold her, wanting to help her. But she backed away. Drew didn't pursue.

  He offered her the only solace he could give her. The truth.

  "Five years ago I was in an accident. I suffered burns over a third of my body and sustained a head injury that…” He raked his fingers through his hair, wishing he had a better excuse, wishing he had something more tangible to share. "I have amnesia. I don't know who I am or where I come from or what I did before I woke up in a hospital five years ago." He walked around her to the book shelf and glared at the forty or so novels through exhausted eyes. "I took the name Drew Gallagher because I liked the character. It seemed as good a decision as any at the time. It had a better ring to it than John Doe."

  "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

  He actually laughed at the soft-spoken question. "Oh, I don't know. It never came up in conversation."

  “You should have brought it up.” She stopped in front of him, still clutching the paperback like a shield between them. "When you said you thought you knew me, that was just a come-on line, wasn't it?"

  "No." This would truly sound crazy, but he owed her a complete explanation. "I get snatches of my past in dreams." He skipped over the demons that tortured his sleep, and seized on the one shining light he'd known in five years. "I've seen your face. Heard your voice. I remember you. I met you in an office once."

  "That's why you asked me all those questions. You wanted to know where we'd met." She reached past him and returned the book to the shelf.

  Another notch had opened in her defensive walls. Another chance for him to… to what? She was as married a woman as any he'd ever known. Married to another man. And she believed he was a criminal. What the hell did he think he had to offer a woman like Emma, anyway?

  "Well, we haven't met," she said. "I hate to say it, but I'd remember you. A lot more clearly than Clayton Roylott does. Even with the glasses to mask them, I'd remember your eyes if I'd ever seen them before."

  Drew went to the kitchen and poured coffee. He needed something to occupy his hands so he wouldn't reach out to her. He had no right to touch her. No right to make her remember the connection that flared between them whenever they defied rules and logic and dropped their guard. No right at all.

  "I remember your voice." He went on to explain his haunting vision, and tried to express the rare clarity he felt in that one snippet of a memory. "It speaks to me in my dreams, and sounds as sexy and memorable as when you're right here with me."

  She joined him in the kitchen. He devoured her living image with his eyes, believing that his memory was as real as the flesh-and-blood woman standing before him. She picked up her mug, but like him, didn't drink. "What do I say in your dream?"

  "You ask if you can help me. You're sitting at a desk behind a counter, and you say, 'May I help you?’"

  "What else?"

  He hesitated. "That's all I know."

  "You don't remember anything else about your past?"

  Of course, she'd challenge him. Admitting how much of his life he had lost sounded ludicrous to his own ears. And telling her about the grenade and explosion, the death-hunt through the jungle, would only solidify her belief that he was some sort of heinous criminal.

  Her brow furrowed as if she was thinking of her own past, as if she was actually trying to help him. "I worked a lot of secretarial jobs."

  "I know. I checked it out."

  "I see." She exhaled a heavy sigh, and Drew knew that her momentary assistance had ended. "So you spied on me. You took advantage of my situation to get close to me."

  He set his mug on the table, calming a flare of anger at her refusal to believe in him. "If I just wanted to use you, Em, I wouldn't be helping you."

  "Are you really helping me? Or are you like James Moriarty, playing a game with my company and my life?"

  "I'm not like him."

  "How do you know?" She slammed her mug on the counter and stalked out, her long legs carrying her all the way to the front door before he caught up to her and spun her around.

  "Damn it, Em, you have to judge me by the man I am now. Not cast me aside because of someone you think I used to be."

  She struggled against his grip on her arms, but he refused to let go. "How am I supposed to do that?" she asked.

  "If you really think I'm capable of extortion and racketeering and God knows what else, like Roylott, why would you come here, alone, to my apartment?"

  Everything about her went still, except for the rapid rise and fall of her chest that matched his own heated breathing. "I'm looking for evidence to back up his story. He's involved with Moriarty, and maybe you are, too."

  He saw through her tough talk to the vulnerable woman inside. He dared her to be as honest as he'd been. "Try again."

  Her eyes searched his for seconds that lasted into eons. She caught her lip between her teeth, fighting against whatever emotion she trapped inside. "Maybe I want you to prove me wrong."

  He brushed his thumb against her lips, easing the strain there. "You
said I was a man of honor.”

  "You denied it."

  "You told me things about growing up I don't think you've shared with many people. You trust me."

  She trembled beneath his hand. "That was a mistake."

  He smoothed her hair behind her ear, shushing her like a wounded bird, letting her know that her secret would always be safe with him. A tear welled in the corner of her eye, and Drew's voice dropped to a hoarse whisper at the sight. "Your daughter believes in me."

  She moved her hands to his chest and fisted her fingers around the collar of his shirt, reaching for him, yet pushing him away. "She's seven years old. How does she know what to believe in?"

  Drew framed her face between his hands and tilted it to his, forcing her to read the candid admission in his eyes. "Damn it, Em. I care about you. Maybe I'm even falling in love with you. That has to count for something.”

  "Love?" she repeated, staring wide-eyed as if he were a madman. "It counts for nothing. Not when you're a man who doesn't tell the truth."

  Chapter Nine

  Emma crushed the crisp cotton of Drew's shirt in her hands, angry at him for daring to say such a thing. Angrier at herself for wanting it to be true. "Love?" she challenged him. "What do you know about love?"

  She expected him to give her a graphic description of their physical attraction. She expected an angst-filled outpouring about a man searching for something or someone to belong to. She expected the story of a fateful connection between two people who understood each other like no one else could.

  She didn't expect, "Not much."

  He moved his hands to cover hers, clinging to her for a moment before he pried her fingers loose and walked away. She hugged her arms in front of her, mourning the sudden loss of his body heat, chilled from within and without. She leaned back against the steel door, needing some kind of support for her shaky resolve. "What do you mean?" she asked. "How can you feel something if you don't know what it is?"

  Drew was a man in pain. A pain as deep and tragic as any she had ever known. The demons had shone clear and cunning in the depths of his world-weary eyes. She stayed at the door, part of her wanting to go to him, to offer comfort in words or a touch. But part of her held back, the part that was afraid of giving, the part that was afraid of opening up her heart and losing everything all over again.