by Lee Magner
Owen quickened his pace.
“Are we late or something?” Mariana asked, stumbling to keep up with him.
“No.”
“You just don’t like leisurely walks?”
“Right.”
She glanced at him, her brow furrowing pensively. “You wouldn’t be nervous by any chance?” she suggested slyly.
“Nervous?” he exclaimed in surprise. Then he caught a good look at her expression. His jaw tightened. “Don’t be ridiculous. I was chasing women when you were still in high-school health classes.”
“My, my,” she murmured. “Don’t get touchy, now.”
“I’m not touchy,” he growled.
She patted him on the arm understandingly. “Of course you’re not,” she said soothingly.
He frowned at her, but it had no effect at all on her serene smile. Which only made him feel more off balance than ever. Damn her, anyway. He was relieved to arrive at The Well-Read Book shop.
He briskly untangled their arms and opened the door for her, pointedly allowing her to step inside ahead of him and begin looking over the interior before following himself.
“Seymour, I’ve brought you a new customer,” Owen drawled.
The bookstore owner looked up from the cash register, and Owen proceeded with the introductions.
“Seymour Rushville, meet Mariana.”
The bookman smiled broadly and stretched out his chubby hand. “Ahh...this is a pleasure! We’ve worried about you a lot, you know. Everyone’s been hoping you’d recover. From the triumphant note I heard in that introduction, you really have remembered your name, haven’t you?” he guessed slyly.
“I certainly have,” she exclaimed with relief. “At least...the first name.”
“You’re halfway there, then!” Seymour declared with hearty enthusiasm. “Mariana,” he said, listening to the sound of her name as it rolled off his tongue. “What a lovely, lilting name. Don’t mind me.” He chuckled. “I’m a word lover. I even get a little carried away with the sound of them, on special occasions.”
Mariana laughed. They were still shaking hands. Seymour Rushville seemed like a favorite uncle she’d never met until today. She wondered if he had this effect on everyone.
“You certainly know how to make someone feel at home, Mr. Rushville,” she said honestly.
“Call me Seymour,” he boomed with a hearty laugh. “Only the tax collector and telephone salesmen call me Mr. Rushville!”
They all laughed. Owen leaned against the counter and watched Mariana warm to her new friend. Knowing her own name was giving her confidence. It showed in the steadiness of her gaze. She used to look doubtful about almost everything. Uncertain. A little afraid. But now, all that was receding. Not completely gone yet. But going fast. He wondered what she would remember next. What impact would it have on their relationship? What if there was a man in her life? A husband? Or a lover. A serious boyfriend or something?
Owen’s smile began to fade.
Maybe regaining her memory would end their acquaintance.
He shouldn’t object to that. He’d been reluctant to get involved. Reluctant to stay involved. And yet...
He found the thought of a significant man in her life to be...irritating.
“Is something wrong, Owen?” Seymour asked. He’d been talking with Mariana and had glanced at Owen only to see the peculiar dark expression settling on his face.
Owen straightened his expression into courteous neutrality.
“No. Nothing’s wrong, Seymour. Say, we came in to look for some drawing materials. Didn’t I see some sketch pads and charcoal or pastels around here the last time I was in the store?”
Mariana, who’d been staring at Owen in surprise, was distracted by Seymour’s booming reply.
“Yes, indeed you did! Right over there. Come Mariana...I’ll show you. Do you draw?” he asked with interest.
“I think so,” she said gamely. “We’ll soon find out, I guess.”
Seymour chuckled and stopped in front of the stack of art supplies. “Well, Mademoiselle Artiste, select what you will. It’s on the house. In honor of your miraculous recovery.”
Mariana looked at him in surprise. She hadn’t expected the bookstore owner to give her the things. She reached out and squeezed his hand in genuine thanks.
“Someday, I’ll return your kindness, Seymour,” she vowed sincerely. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
He chuckled and gave her that same avuncular smile.
“Is that everything you’ll need?” Owen asked.
Mariana looked over the art supplies in her arms and nodded.
“If I can’t draw that man’s face, I won’t be able to blame it on the pastels,” she said with a grin.
“Draw what man’s face?” Seymour asked, his curiosity aroused.
“Someone she’s dreamed about but can’t remember,” Owen said.
“Hmm. Well, show me the sketch,” Seymour said jovially. “If I’ve ever seen him, I’ll remember his name. I was always good with names.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Mariana said with a rueful sigh.
“It’ll all come back to you, hon,” Seymour said reassuringly. He patted her on the shoulder. “You just stick with Owen, here. He seems to be on the right track. Whatever he’s doing, it’s helping get your memory back.”
Mariana looked into Owen’s eyes. That strange sensation of being connected to him rippled through her heart like a warm embrace.
“I don’t know what would have become of me, if it hadn’t been for Owen,” she said softly.
The emotion in her voice threw Owen off balance for a moment. She still was very vulnerable, he realized. And she trusted him. Implicitly. And he...he was attracted to her in a way that he had never been attracted to another woman in his entire life. It was as if they had already known one another, in some other time or place. This was just the reawakening of some deeply intense and eternal link connecting them. He knew then he didn’t want another man to be involved with her. Not in any way at all. It was irrational. He must be crazy, he thought. But...that was exactly how he felt.
He reached out and touched her cheek. They had been looking into one another’s eyes for longer than was seemly for mere friends.
Several other people were entering the store, murmuring and browsing and heading back into the store, passing Owen and Mariana.
Mariana dragged her gaze away from Owen. She smiled at the newcomers as she sidestepped by them, gingerly clutching the art supplies to her bosom.
The curious smiles told her everything. They knew who she was. They were wishing her well.
She smiled back and hurried toward the door.
“Let’s go home and draw,” she suggested.
“Home?” Owen said, surprised to hear her put it that way.
“Your home is my home for now. Isn’t that what you said?”
“That’s what I said,” he admitted. He followed her out of the store. “See you, Seymour,” he said as they left.
“I hope so!” Seymour said, chuckling.
“Seymour?” called out a bewildered voice from inside the bookstore. “Where are you?”
“Coming! I’m coming,” Seymour shouted back. He turned back into the bookstore to socialize with his other customers.
“That’s it!”
Owen walked over to Mariana and looked over her shoulder at the sketch. She’d been working on it for about forty-five minutes. At first, she’d sketched quickly, trying to capture some inner vision. Then her hand had slowed on the page. Shading a little beneath the image of a cheekbone. Darkening the eyes. Shaping the ragged brows.
“I think that’s him,” she said.
Owen frowned thoughtfully. It was a very specific likeness. Someone ought to recognize the man from this sketch.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, her smile fading.
Owen stood up and paced across the room. He stared out the large panels of glass that enclosed the
summer deck. Beyond it everything seemed tranquil. Ducks paddled calmly across the pond. The year-round resident Canada geese walked across the stubbly winter grass, picking leisurely snacks.
“Owen?” She got up and came to join him. She held the picture in her hand. Her face was now clouded with doubt. “I thought you wanted to see his face. Didn’t we agree this was a step in the right direction? I mean, if I could visualize anyone else, I’d be happy to draw them. But this man is the one seared into my memory so deeply that I can get to his image. If we find him, it’ll be a lead. It has to be a lead!”
He nodded and looked at her seriously. “A dangerous lead.”
She nodded. “”Perhaps. If my feelings are right about him, he is very dangerous.”
“It won’t be easy to identify him without revealing that you are alive.”
“If he reads the paper, he already knows that,” she argued.
“And if he doesn’t read the newspapers...the ones where your photograph has been flashed for weeks...what does he think?”
“Well...who knows? I mean...maybe he doesn’t know where I am. Maybe he thinks I’m on a long vacation or missing or hiding out or something.” She began to feel exasperated. “You’re not suggesting we keep this to ourselves, are you?” she demanded, astonished at the possibility that he was doing just that. “Owen? What’s come over you?”
Owen frowned. “Nothing’s come over me,” he said curtly. “I’m thinking ahead. I’m trying to figure out how we can use this information and keep you safely stashed out of sight.”
“Well...so far I’ve been okay. I could stay—” She was about to motion around the room, indicating Owen’s house, but stopped just in time.
“Exactly. You may not be able to stay here, if that court decides to lock me out until the judge has heard the case. Besides, the news media are likely to be crawling around here, once they get wind of the lawsuit. I’m surprised they haven’t showed up already.”
“Well, the local paper doesn’t have a big circulation, surely,” Mariana argued.
“I’m talking about the Washington Post and the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune...for starters.”
Mariana’s jaw dropped in amazement.
“Are you famous?” she asked in astonishment.
“Infamous, my dear, but not, alas, famous,” he replied with a grim smile. “Portia Willowbrook, however, was famous. She was well-known in art and cultural circles in several major cities. She kept homes or apartments in three of them for years. It was only in the last years of her life that she drew back, made New York her principal residence.” He looked at the landscape again and smiled a little. “But this is where her heart was, I think. Although Portia loved to pretend to people that she didn’t have that particular organ in her body.”
“I’m sorry I’ll never meet her,” Mariana said softly. “She sounds like a very unique person.”
“She was.”
“Someone who meant a lot to you.”
“Yes.”
“And you must have meant a very great deal to her, since she left this home and land to you,” Mariana added, a note of tenderness in her voice.
Owen shoved his hands in his pockets and stubbornly stared out into the landscape beyond.
“Why don’t you tell me about her?” Mariana suggested, trying to keep the request casual sounding, hoping Owen would let down some of his armor and let her inside his heart for a little while.
He glanced at her, considering the request.
“At least you can remember, Owen. I’ve shared every memory I’ve recaptured with you. Would it be so hard to share this one with me?”
He sighed. “You know how to get through, don’t you?” he muttered.
“I’m trying,” she conceded with an honest smile.
“All right. But it’ll take some time. Why don’t we go into the living room and sit down on the sofa while it’s still ours to use.”
When they got there, Mariana curled up on one corner, facing him. Owen stretched out his legs and tried to figure out how to tell her about Portia.
“I had a short childhood,” he said. His brief grin was bitter. “My mother died in a neighborhood drive-by shooting, before it became an everyday occurrence. My father decided to take my brother and sister and me to live in the countryside in New York State. It was supposed to be safer. So he thought.”
Mariana had a sinking feeling in her heart.
“He discovered that his employment skills weren’t in big demand in the little town he’d run to. Within a year, his savings were depleted, my sister ran off with the town’s one and only bad boy and my brother was shot dead in a hunting accident”
“Owen! How awful, for all of you.”
Owen shrugged. “I kind of liked some of the people there, personally. Especially the local sheriff. My high-school basketball coach. And an English teacher that all the boys were dying to get their senior year.”
She was an attractive, well-educated, world-traveled woman. A widow. No children. She’d come back to her late husband’s hometown to help care for his parents. But they chose to move south to Florida, into some retirement home, near a niece. So, she put her house on the market and made plans to move out of town, too.”
Mariana, riveted by his tale, now began to frown a little.
“You’re wondering what this has to do with Portia, I suppose?” He grinned, a little crookedly, and the boyish look of his youth could almost be seen in his face again.
“Right.”
“Well, when that lady needed help moving, I volunteered... along with the entire male population of the high school. And she moved into New York City...around the block from...” He raised his eyebrows expectantly and nodded for Mariana to finish the sentence.
“Portia!”
“Yes. My teacher had been coming to New York City whenever she could get away...on vacations, mostly...trying to find a job there. Not teaching. She wanted to get into international trade, import-export, art...something like that. And she met Portia during a job interview. A friend of Portia’s was looking for an assistant in his art gallery. Well, my pretty English teacher had a lot of talents, but alas, not the skills needed for the art gallery assistant’s job.”
“But Portia Willowbrook took an interest in her,” Mariana guessed.
“She did. Portia was like that. If someone interested her, she’d take them under her wing, help them out, steer them along in directions she felt would benefit them.”
“A fairy godmother?”
Owen roared in laughter and shook his head. “More like a devilish mentor, I’m afraid. She always made clear she expected a return on her investments in people. She offered a low rent on an apartment she owned to my gorgeous English teacher. And she hired her as her own personal secretary.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. The previous secretary had burned out under the exhausting life Portia led. But for a widow who wanted to start a new life in New York City, it was a great deal. So, she took it.”
“And did Portia decide to take you on as an apprentice of some sort?” Mariana teased.
“Not right away.” Owen’s amusement faded. “The life that my English teacher was running away to seemed exotic and exciting to me. I’d lived in cities, but none to compare with New York. I couldn’t wait to graduate from high school. I told my teacher to keep her eyes open for jobs in the neighborhood, and to pass them my way. She wrote to me a couple of times afterward. But she kept telling me to go to college.” Owen snorted. “College! I was going to be lucky to keep from being thrown out onto the street. My father’s fortunes had not improved. My sister had married the jerk she’d run off with and had gotten herself pregnant to boot. Every dime my dad had, he gave to her, trying to get her prenatal care and decent meals.”
“Facing that many problems when you’re so young must have been excruciating,” Mariana murmured, her brow furrowed with worry.
“Yes. But then I met Portia.” Owen grinned, recalling how i
t happened.
“You can’t leave me dangling, now, Owen Blackhart!” Mariana exclaimed with outraged amusement as he fell silent. “How did you meet her?”
Chapter 8
“My English teacher became very insistent that I apply to some colleges in New York. She said I had potential.” Owen raised his brows in male amusement. ”That’s what the teachers said when they were feeling frustrated by the way a kid repeatedly shrugged off opportunities. At the time, though, I was flattered that she’d bother to encourage me. I figured maybe she was right. Maybe I did have potential.“
“What did you do?” Mariana asked curiously.
“I listened. And I did what she asked. I went to a library and dug out some information about colleges. I talked to her about a few of them. She rolled up her crisp, frilly sleeves and helped organize everything and fill out the forms. I kept studying her motives, of course.”
“Of course,” Mariana murmured, stifling tender laughter.
“I kind of begrudgingly filled out the forms and sent them back to her, in the stamped envelopes she’d mailed to me. She thought of everything, that lady did”
“She sounds very thorough. And conscientious,” Mariana murmured.
“She thought like an English teacher,” Owen remarked dryly. “She was organized. Punctual. Detail oriented. A very fastidious woman. And determined to have her way. Well, I figured that I had nothing to lose by humoring her. Maybe if college didn’t work out, she’d help me find a job somewhere. Anywhere. I knew I didn’t want to stay in that damn backwater town after I graduated.”
He hesitated, surprised at the strength of his own feelings. Hell. He’d put this behind him years ago. He glanced at Mariana. He couldn’t remember ever telling anyone this before.
“What?” she asked, staring at him blankly. “What’s the matter? You look...like you don’t want to talk about it any more.” She couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice.
