So why wear the ring?
More important, where was it? In her room? In Pam's wrecked Mercedes? Locked in some safe? There was only one way to find out: find the damned thing. She started with her bathroom and the jewelry box on the counter. No ring. She checked the nightstands, then searched through every drawer in her bureau. Nothing. “Think, Marla, think,” she muttered under her breath and walked into the closet, hoping to spy another cache for her favorite pieces of jewelry, but found nothing.
Maybe Alex had it removed when she'd gone to the hospital.
But he didn't ask that your wedding ring be taken off, now, did he?
She swept her gaze over the contents of the closet once more and stopped short when she spied the case for her tennis racquet. Maybe inside. She unzipped the leather case, looked through the one flat pocket and found no ring, nothing but a credit card receipt from a store downtown.
She stuffed the receipt in her pocket, then pulled out the racquet and held it in her hand, hefted its weight, lifted it up and down, testing its feel.
You've got a serve that scared the devil out of me.
“Okay, ace, let's see it,” she said to herself.
Pretending to toss a ball in the air with her left hand, she drew back her right. In a split second she swung the racquet up high over her shoulder, then slammed it down. Hard. The racquet whooshed and felt awkward as hell. The grip was too large, the weight uncomfortable. Had she really won tournaments? She tried to concentrate, but failed miserably. Again.
“Big surprise,” she mocked. The closet was suddenly too tight, filled with clothes and memories that didn't seem to belong to her. She had to escape, to get out of this unfamiliar house with all its dark secrets and locked doors. She needed to breathe again. To find herself. Snagging a peacoat from a hanger, she hurried down the back stairs and through a mud room to a covered porch. Another few steps and she followed a garden path that wound through the grounds. A thin mist shrouded ancient rhododendrons, ferns and azaleas while tall fir trees rose ever upward to disappear into the fog and this patch of land, on the top of a city hill, seemed oddly isolated.
Burying her fists in the deep pockets, Marla walked along a brick path slick with rain and littered with fir needles. Her breath fogged and she shivered as she passed a series of tiered ponds. Beneath half a dozen lily pads, spotted koi swam lazily.
She was nearly certain she'd never gazed at the pools before.
Nearly.
Frustrated, she glanced upward to the highest peaks of the house where the lights glowed in the windows. Moisture gathered on her cheeks and she caught a glimpse of movement, a dark shadow in an upstairs window. Was that her room? But she'd just come down from there . . . she recognized the print of the drapes . . . but who would be in her bedroom? No one was at home except the servants.
That was it. Whoever was in her room was probably just cleaning up, the maid going about her daily rounds and besides, who cared? It wasn't as if she was hiding anything. And yet . . . Marla glanced up at the window again and the figure was gone.
Angry with her overactive imagination she yanked her hood over her head and she edged around a garden spot where roses had been pruned, all hint of blossoms long disappeared, only short thorny stalks remaining.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose. She felt as if she was being watched. Turning, she looked up at the house again. There he was. The dark figure. He was lurking in another room . . . on the other side of the suite . . . Alex's? But Alex's room had been locked. She'd tested the door herself. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch. Surely it was only a servant, one with a master key, and yet she had the uneasy feeling that she was being silently observed . . . guarded. A raindrop fell from the edge of her hood and she blinked. In that second the image was goneâno sinister figure lurking in the darkened room. No eerie threat.
You're jumping at shadows,
she told herself, but felt her skin crawl with goose bumps as she walked through an arbor and spied a swing set that was beginning to rust. Had she ever pushed Cissy on one of the swings? Ever caught her daughter as Cissy had laughed and slid to the bottom of the short slide?
Think, damn it, Marla. Concentrate. Remember!
She sat in one of the swings and pushed herself with her toe. There were grooves in the gravel beneath the swing, deep impressions made by tiny feet where puddles had begun to collect. She closed her eyes and heard the sounds of the city, the hum of traffic, clatter of a cable car, a dog barking his head off not too far away. Beyond the brick wall there were neighbors. Down the hill was the city, but here, in this fenced estate, she felt cut off from the world.
But San Francisco was just outside the electronic gates.
All she had to do was walk through.
And go where?
“Anywhere,” she murmured, her hands chilling against the cold links of the chain supporting the swing.
Nick's hotel is only a few blocks down the street.
No way would she go there, she told herself, but maybe, once outside this elegant fortress, she would find some peace, force her damned memory to return. She had to uncover what she could about Pam Delacroixâwho the woman was, how Marla knew her and why they were driving to visit Pam's daughter.
Her head pounded with a zillion questions, and guilt, ever lingering just beneath the surface of her consciousness, was with her when she thought of the two people who had died in the crash. Two people. With families. She felt that she should pray, but knew instinctively that prayer wasn't something she did very often. Today, however, she figured she might make an exception. A little spirituality couldn't hurt. But she couldn't call up a single word as she balanced on the child's swing and the rainwater that had collected on the seat seeped through her jeans.
She heard the crunch of shoes on gravel and stiffened. Her fingers tightened on the wet chains supporting the swing.
“Marla?”
Her heartbeat accelerated at the sound of Nick's voice.
He poked his head through the arbor and did a quick scan of the play area. “I wondered where you were.” Wearing a battered leather jacket and a pair of disreputable jeans, he appeared to stand beneath the canopy of a twisted leafless clematis. “What're you doing out here?”
“Thinking. Or trying to.”
“Figure anything out?”
“I wish,” she admitted with half a smile. “What about you? What're you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” His face was all angles and planes with a hard jaw, blade-thin lips and a nose that wasn't quite straight. Standing dead center in the arbor, feet planted as wide as his shoulders, as if he didn't dare step any closer, he said, “I wanted to catch you alone.”
The muscles in the back of her neck tightened. She met the intensity of his gaze through the morning mist. Forbidden images of kissing him crept stealthily through her mind. For a second she wondered what it would be like to make love to him, to touch his skin, feel his muscles beneath the surface, run her fingers along that square, beard-darkened jaw. Her stomach did a slow roll of anticipation and she mentally berated herself for the lust that raced through her blood. He was her brother-in-law. She was a married woman.
Married.
She couldn't have these taboo fantasies. Wouldn't.
“I knew no one was supposed to be home this morning. Cissy's at school, Mother is with the board of Cahill House, Alex has a meeting downtown, so I figured that I'd pretty much find you by yourself.”
She cleared her throat and imagined she recognized dangerously erotic thoughts running through his eyes. The same illicit visions that she was battling. “Why?” she asked over the steady drip of the rain and her voice sounded strangled. She told herself it was just because her teeth were wired together, but knew differently. “Why were you looking for me?”
“I had a visitor the other night,” he said. “Cherise. She wants to see you.”
“Why doesn't she just drop by?” Marla asked, and tried to ignore the fact that his jeans hung low on his hips, and that his shoulders stretched the width of his jacket, or that he was incredibly sexyâtreacherously so.
“Alex nixed it.”
“He doesn't much like her or her brother,” Marla observed, dragging her eyes away from him as she recalled conversations between Alex and his mother about the cousinsâbloodsuckers, money-hungry leeches, isn't that what he'd called them?
“Because they have a bone to pick with him. A sizable bone. Anyway, she asked me to pass the request along.” Nick folded his arms over his chest and his leather jacket creaked as it stretched over his shoulders. Raindrops slid down his bare head and along his throat to disappear beneath his collar. Her eyes followed the motion.
Marla's mouth was suddenly as dry as the Sahara.
“I figured you had the right to know,” he added.
“Iâdid. Do.” She took control of her tongue. “Of course she can visit. Any time.”
“She wants to read you Bible passages.”
“Oh. Well.” She cleared her throat then cast him a wry grin. “Maybe God's trying to tell me something. You know, that I should get some religion or something.”
He snorted. “Cherise and her husband would be only too glad to accommodate you.”
“I'll keep that in mind.”
He dug into his jacket pocket, withdrew a card and walked forward, his boots crunching in the gravel. Handing her the card, he added, “You can call Cherise yourself. No need for me to be a go-between.” Again his eyes touched hers and she knew that if the moment was right, if things were different, she would have reached out, touched him, silently invited him to kiss her.
A few seconds stretched out and she heard the hum of traffic, the steady drip of moisture from the tree branches and the erratic beating of her heart.
“Thanks.” He turned, but she couldn't let him go. Not yet. Climbing out of the swing she stepped around the puddles that had collected near the play set and hurried to catch up with him. “Nick, wait. There's something I've been wanting to ask you.”
She saw the cords stand out in the back of his neck before he turned to face her again.
“Yeah?”
“You remember how it was before . . . how I was.”
“Before what?”
“Before I was married,” she said and the skin over his face muscles stretched taut.
“I try not to.”
“But . . . did I play tennis?” Her hood slipped off her head.
“You tore up the court.”
“Ride horses?”
“I don't think so.” He shifted and she stepped closer, tilting her head up to look deep into his eyes.
Every muscle in her body tensed, but she forced herself to ask the question that had been plaguing her since her conversation with Joanna. “What kind of woman was I?”
“That's a loaded question.”
“Tell me.”
His lips folded in on themselves. “You were a spoiled brat,” he said. “Your parents gave you anything you wanted.”
“And what was that?” she asked and thought she heard the scrape of a shoe on the brick path, but ignored it.
Nick's eyes darkened seductively. “Everything.”
“Everything?”
“You had it all, Marla. Money, brains, beauty and it wasn't enough. You wanted it all . . . the whole damned world.” One side of his mouth lifted in self-mockery. “And you damned near got it.”
“Did I . . .” She began, stumbled, then pushed on. “Did I want you?”
He snorted. “No.” His eyes narrowed and raw emotion played upon his strong features. His hands shot forward suddenly. He grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers like steel through the jacket. He drew her so close that she could feel his heat, smell the hint of aftershave upon his skin, saw the slight, disgusted flare of his nostrils. “But I wanted you,” he said through lips that barely moved. Contempt edged his words. “More than a man with any brains should want a woman, more than I'd wanted anything in my whole damned life. Is that what you wanted to hear? Are you satisfied?”
“Nâno,” she admitted, more confused than ever.
“Then things are just as they should be, because, Marla, you never were.”
Footsteps crunched on the other side of the arbor. Nick dropped her arms as if she was suddenly too hot to handle.
Lars rounded the corner. Dressed in old jeans and a sweatshirt, he carried a shovel in one hand and a rake in the other. His face was hard, his eyes darting from Nick to Marla and she wondered how much he'd heard of the conversation, how long he'd been in the garden. Had he been watching them through the rising mist, hiding behind the walls of rhododendron and fir?