Carrera's Bride

by Diana Palmer

  “Mr. Smith?”

  She nodded. “He’s been running the enterprise while Marcus is here. He’s quite intelligent.”

  “Yes,” Delia agreed.

  “That woman almost didn’t let me into Marcus’s room. Mr. Smith moved her aside and invited me in. Marcus had no idea what was going on, but I imagine Mr. Smith will tell him sometime.”

  Delia was miserable at how possessive that other young woman was, and she couldn’t hide it.

  “There, there, dear,” Karen said softly, reaching out to touch Delia’s hand. “You mustn’t give up. I’ll never forget the way Marcus looked at you, the day we went out on the yacht together.”

  “She’s wearing an engagement ring, and she says he gave it to her,” Delia replied solemnly. “At the casino, before we fell, Marcus told me they’d had a fight and that was the only reason he had anything to do with me. He said I had no place in his life.”

  Karen was shocked. “He can’t have meant it.”

  “He won’t remember it now,” Delia continued. “He won’t remember me, either. But he made it very obvious that he didn’t want anything more to do with me. At first,” she added hesitantly, “I thought he was in danger and he was protecting me by telling me not to come near him. That was before she told me about the engagement. He told me, too, at the casino.”

  Karen’s face fell. “I’m sorry. You seemed like such a perfect couple—and so much in love with each other.”

  “It did feel like that, for a while.” She leaned back against her pillows with a deep breath. “You know, I felt as if I’d known him forever. Now I feel like a fool.” She looked at Karen. “Life teaches painful lessons.”

  “Indeed it does, my dear. My fiancé was killed in Vietnam. I was never able to love anyone else,” the older woman replied gently.

  “Karen, I’m so sorry.”

  She smiled wistfully. “We might have been divorced a week after the wedding, who knows? But the memories are very sweet. He was an American, from Oklahoma. His parents had a ranch that had been in his family for a hundred years.” She stared down into her lap. “He was riding in a helicopter, airlifting wounded men, when the helicopter was shot down.”

  “It must have been devastating,” Delia ventured.

  “It took years to get over it,” Karen agreed. She looked at the younger woman sympathetically. “Death or rejection, it’s all loss, and it hurts. But you can get over this, too, my dear. I’ll help. Any time you want to go sailing, all you have to do is call me.”

  “I’m very grateful,” she replied. “Thank you.”

  “And now, let’s talk about something cheerful! What do you think of my new crop of orchids?” she asked, indicating the bouquet she’d brought with her. She refrained from mentioning that Marcus had given them to her over the years and that her orchids were descended from his. Poor Delia. Her heart ached for the girl. She’d heard about the baby Delia lost, and she knew without asking that it was Marcus’s. She’d told Smith that Delia had lost the child she was carrying. Smith had been shocked. She’d asked him not to share that with Marcus, because of the brunette. Smith had been utterly furious, and hurt. Karen sensed that he felt a responsibility for that loss. But he’d promised he wouldn’t tell Marcus that in addition to losing his memory, he’d lost a child, as well.

  Roxanne was raising so much havoc in Marcus’s room that the nursing staff finally ordered her out. She vowed to return with an attorney, but she left.

  Smith stood beside Marcus’s bed like a stone statue. “Have you remembered anything, Mr. Carrera?” he asked his boss.

  Marcus still felt as if his head was coming off. The nausea was easing a little, thanks to his medication. He stared up at the big, bald man with wide, blank dark eyes. “I don’t know you,” he said. “I don’t know that woman who keeps coming in here, either, but I’ll never believe I was stupid enough to get engaged to her. She’s a lunatic!”

  Smith grimaced. He didn’t dare tell Marcus the truth. It would put the boss in more danger than he was already in.

  Marcus was glaring at him. “You know all about me, don’t you?”

  “I’ve worked for you for a year, now,” Smith said.

  Marcus grimaced. “There was an old woman who came to see me. She said a young woman down the hall threw herself at a man who was trying to shoot me. She saved my life. I don’t remember her. And why was someone trying to kill me?”

  Smith ground his teeth. “Your doctor says we can’t tell you anything yet. He says your memory will come back all on its own, but you have to give it time.”

  “I could be dead before then.”

  “I’m not letting anybody kill you,” Smith promised him. “You may have lost your memory, but I’ve still got mine. I know all I need to know, in order to protect you. I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust me.”

  “Why is that young woman in the hospital?” Marcus persisted.

  Smith drew in a calming breath. If he didn’t say, Marcus would ask a nurse, and that might provoke gossip. “She was pregnant,” Smith said flatly. “The father of the child didn’t know, if that was your next question. She’s not married.”

  Marcus thought about that for a minute. His face was taut with strain, as if he were trying to remember anything about his past. He sat up in the bed and swayed a little. “Will they let you walk me down the hall?”

  Smith hesitated. “I’ll go ask.”

  He knew where Marcus wanted to go. It was possible that seeing Delia would trigger his memory. But if he meant to do it, it needed to be before Roxanne came back and took over again.

  He asked the nurse, who agreed that Marcus could go down the hall if Smith was careful to support him.

  “Your nurse says you can go walking,” Smith said, helping Marcus into a burgundy bathrobe.

  “Good. I want to see that young woman before my so-called fiancée gets back here. Let’s go.”

  Delia saw her door open with a feeling of apprehension, especially when she realized that Marcus had come to see her.

  He looked dazed, and he was moving very slowly. Smith gave her a quick warning glance, which she interpreted to mean that she wasn’t to tell Marcus anything. She nodded back.

  Marcus stopped at the foot of her bed and stared at her. He saw a plain, green-eyed young woman with tangled blond hair and a slender body. She wasn’t pretty or exciting. She didn’t seem his sort of woman at all.

  He frowned. “Smith said you saved my life,” he said without preamble.

  “So they tell me,” she replied in a heavily Texas-accented voice.

  His eyebrows arched. “My God, what an accent!” he laughed. “Where are you from?”

  She glowered at him. “A little town in south Texas that nobody from Chicago probably ever heard of.”

  He glanced at Smith curiously. “Am I from Chicago?”

  Smith nodded.

  Marcus looked back at the young woman in the bed. “How do you know where I’m from? Are we acquainted?”

  She looked at Smith worriedly.

  “Don’t look at him, look at me,” Marcus grumbled. “Do I know you?”

  Delia took a breath. “You saved me from an assault at your casino,” she said, compromising with the truth. “I saved you from an assault. We’re even.”

  “Not quite.” Marcus stared at her while odd flashes of sensation wound through his big body. “You were pregnant, they said. You lost your child.”

  Delia fought to keep her feelings from showing. “God’s will,” she said in a tight tone.

  His eyebrows arched. “You’re religious?”

  She avoided his eyes. “Yes.”

  He was scowling again. “I think I was, too…Did you want your baby?” he asked bluntly.

  She ground her teeth together. It hurt to answer that question. It hurt to look at him and have him know about their baby, and not be able to tell him that it was his, as well.

  “Yes,” she bit off. “I wanted it.”

  “The fa
ther, did he want it, too?”

  She glared at him, fighting tears. “He didn’t know. But if he had, it wouldn’t have made any difference. He didn’t want me. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted a child of mine.”

  He couldn’t let it go. He felt something when he looked at her. He didn’t understand why he should feel sad. “Did you love him?”

  She couldn’t force herself to meet his searching gaze. “Yes. I loved him.”

  He didn’t say anything. He just looked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, “about your child.”

  She didn’t look up. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you for what you did,” he replied.

  “As I said,” she choked, “I was repaying a favor.”

  He winced. He didn’t know why it hurt him to hear her say that. His mind was spinning. He moved and almost lost his balance. Smith caught him, but he noted an instinctive surge forward from that young woman in the bed. She was concerned for him, even in the midst of her grief. Why should that make him feel guilty?

  “We should go,” Smith said deliberately, “before your fiancée comes back and misses you. There’ll be a scene.”

  “God knows, we’ve had enough of those,” Marcus muttered. He was still watching Delia. “They say I’m rich. If you need anything, all you have to do is ask.”

  “I don’t need a thing, but thanks,” she replied, forcing a smile. Her eyes wouldn’t go up far enough to meet his.

  “Get better,” Marcus said as he turned away.

  “You, too.”

  “I’ll be fine. My condition’s not a patch on yours,” she said without thinking.

  A patch. A patch. A four-patch, a nine-patch, those were quilting terms. He turned so quickly that he almost fell again. “You make quilts!” he said abruptly.

  Chapter Eleven

  Delia felt her heart rise into her throat. He’d remembered! Would that trigger other memories?

  But his lack of recognition was evident as he looked at her. “I don’t know where that came from,” he said, looking blank. He smiled politely. “Do you quilt?”

  “I teach quilting back home,” she replied. “We…spoke about it after you saved me from the man I was with.”

  He put a hand over his eyes as if he wanted to wipe away the fog that concealed his past. “Someone mentioned that I quilt, too, as a hobby.”

  “You’ve won competitions with your designs,” she agreed.

  He nodded, but he wasn’t thinking so much about quilts as he was wondering why he’d had such an extensive conversation with a woman who didn’t appeal to his senses at all. She seemed like a kind woman, but she didn’t stimulate him or make him wish for a closer acquaintance. There couldn’t have been anything between them, he decided.

  He smiled politely. “Thanks again. I’d better be going.”

  “I hope you regain your memory,” Delia said, with equal politeness.

  He shrugged. “If I don’t, it’s probably no great loss,” he said, chuckling. “It might be nice to start fresh.”

  “It might, indeed,” Delia agreed, although he was twisting a knife through her heart.

  He nodded to Smith, who got under his arm and steadied him down the hall to his own room. Smith felt sick to his soul about Delia. He gave her a last look, grimacing at the moisture growing in her eyes. Poor little thing, he thought miserably.

  The next day, they released Delia and let her go back to the hotel, with instructions to rest for a day or two before doing anything strenuous. Since her plans had to do with sunbathing and sightseeing, she didn’t think of that as a problem.

  Marcus was also released. Roxanne followed behind the limousine as Smith drove him to his beach house. She carried in her suitcase and looked as if she had plans to take over.

  “You’d better stay at the hotel,” Marcus told her.

  “We’re engaged,” she retorted.

  He stared at her for a long time. “I want my memory back. That’s more likely to happen if I’m here on my own with no distractions.”

  “He’s here,” Roxanne fumed, glancing at Smith ruefully.

  “He cooks,” came the reply. “Besides, he’ll be running the casino and the hotel in my absence, so he’s unlikely to be around much anyway.”

  Roxanne paid close attention to that statement. She looked thoughtful.

  Smith noticed and decided to make a couple of phone calls. He was going to add some extra gardeners to the house as well—men he’d worked with before who were handy with sidearms. He didn’t trust Roxanne or her father one bit, and he was suspicious of her concern for Marcus, as well as the mysterious engagement that nobody knew anything about. It could be real, he decided, but only Marcus would know. And Marcus had no memory.

  “Smith, take her over to the hotel and book her into a suite,” Marcus said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Roxanne glared at him but she backed down. “All right, darling, if that’s the way you want it. But all you have to do is phone me if you get lonely.”

  “Thanks,” he replied.

  She pulled her suitcase on wheels back out the door as Smith led the way. Marcus watched her go with mixed feelings, the most prominent of which was suspicion.

  Later, when Smith returned, Marcus was dressed in lightweight white slacks with a red and white patterned shirt. He was standing out on his balcony with the wind ruffling his hair. He’d been drawn to the balcony, as if something important had happened to him there. He wished he knew what it was. The harder he tried to remember, the worse his head throbbed.

  He turned at Smith’s approach. “Who is that woman?” he asked.

  “She’s Deluca’s daughter. He’s a Miami hood who wants to own crooked casinos down here and launder money through a local banker,” Smith said honestly. “Her father doesn’t like you, so don’t believe it when she tells you he’s your biggest fan. You didn’t have any plans to marry her, either.”

  Marcus put a big hand to his forehead and groaned.

  “Sorry, boss,” Smith said at once. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “I wanted to know.” The pain was terrible. He lifted his head, trying to focus. He looked right at Smith. “Who tried to kill me?”

  “An insignificant little contract killer with a four-page rap sheet,” Smith said. “Listen, boss, I’m not sure I should be telling you this stuff.”

  “There’s nobody else who can.” Marcus moved to the balcony overlooking the ocean. “Who sent him after me?”

  Smith hesitated.

  Marcus pinned him with threatening dark eyes. “Spill it!”

  “Deluca,” he said.

  Marcus raised both eyebrows. “Why?”

  Smith ground his teeth together. Well, it might save the boss’s life if he knew. He had to tell him. “You’re trying to shut Deluca down,” he said tautly.

  “That doesn’t make sense!”

  “Yes, it does.” Smith moved closer. “You had a brother, Carlo. He married Cecelia Hayes, his childhood sweetheart. They had two beautiful little kids, Cosima and Julio. Carlo finally got off drugs and straightened out, but before he could get his life back together, he was killed by the banker Deluca’s working with, because he informed about some Colombian cocaine shipments to the feds. He died and you swore to get even. You’ve been working with the feds to shut down the banker and keep Deluca from coming in here and starting up crooked gaming.” Smith cleared his throat. “The banker doesn’t know you found out about him being involved in Carlo’s death, but he did find out you were working for the government, and he was angry that you hit him to save Delia Mason from him that night at the casino. So he sold you out to Deluca and Deluca sent a cleaner after you. That’s it in a nutshell.”

  Marcus felt ill. He leaned hard against the balcony. He had a brother, a niece and nephew, and he didn’t remember any of it. A man was trying to kill him.

  “Where does Roxanne come in?” he asked.

  “She was hanging around you with a peace offer from
her father that you were considering. She was supposed to keep you unsuspecting while the killer did his work. But Delia Mason got in the way. When you got amnesia Roxanne moved in and pretended you were engaged. She was overheard talking to her father on a cell phone to tell him you were vulnerable and they could take you on at their leisure.”

  “In other words, he’ll send someone else to tie up the loose ends,” Marcus guessed.

  “Exactly. But you have amnesia and you trust Roxanne, so they won’t play such a close hand this time. They’ll feel safe.”

  Marcus smiled. “Good. Can you get me in touch with the feds I’m working with, unobtrusively?”

  “That’s going to be tricky. One of them cuffed the perp in plain view of Roxanne. He was playing the part of a tourist, but he’s blown his cover. He was seen in the company of Delia’s brother-in-law, who’s also helping the government with this sting operation. That means I can’t get you close to the feds. And if I’m seen with them, the jig’s up, too.”

  “What about the woman, Delia?” he asked.

  Smith grimaced. “Good God, boss, she’s been through enough!”

  Marcus glared at him. “Do you think she’s safe? She foiled the hit, didn’t she? Do you think Deluca will let that slide?”

  “I hear from my sources that he’s got something on her sister that he’s planning to use, by way of revenge. He can’t kill her, everybody would know who did it.”

  “Everybody will know who did it if he hits me, too,” Marcus reminded him.

  “Maybe. But Deluca’s daughter is supposedly engaged to you, which means he’s not got a visible motive for killing you.”

  Marcus sighed angrily, and glared out over the ocean. “I can’t remember a damned thing. I still don’t understand why the Mason woman risked her life and her child’s life to save mine. She isn’t my type. I don’t even find her interesting. Surely I didn’t encourage her?”