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Yes, this city was home. She’d lived here all her life and remembered driving downtown with her mother and sister, taking the monorail into the shopping district where they would wander through stores and meet their father for lunch. Those happy trips hadn’t happened often and they were long ago, before the rift between Eloise and Ted Carrothers had become so deep it could never be repaired. Nikki, the youngest, had been oblivious to the undercurrents of tension between her parents in the early years, but as she grew older and approached adolescence, she’d begun to realize that her mother was deeply unhappy. Being married to a man who expected his dinner on the table at six-thirty without fail, his shirts washed, starched and ironed, and the house and children kept in spotless condition in case he brought a big client home for dinner had finally taken its toll.
The glass of wine her mother had con
sumed before dinner soon had stretched to two and eventually three. Sometimes Eloise had drunk an entire bottle before the meal, and as soon as the dishes had been stacked in the dishwasher, she had retired upstairs with a “headache.”
Eventually she had barely been able to stay awake through the meal, and the fights that had erupted between Nikki’s parents had rocked the timbers of their Cape Codstyle house in the Queen Anne district.
Nikki remembered lying on her bed, her quilt tucked over her head, trying to block out the sounds of anger that radiated throughout the old house. Even now, more than fifteen years later, the pain cut through her heart. She blinked back tears and told herself everything had turned out for the best—her mother was happy in Southern California, remarried to a real-estate man and living not far from the ocean, and her father, still single, seemed to enjoy his bachelorhood.
Trent wheeled the Jeep into the drive of an old English Tudor home that had been converted to apartments. The rig bounced over a couple of speed bumps before landing in a parking space beneath an oak tree with spreading branches and brittle, dead leaves.
Nikki stared at the building as she slammed the door of the Jeep shut. Home. Seeing the old house should bring back wave after wave of memories. Nervously, she scanned the house, trying to see past the windows which glowed brightly, though the drapes had been drawn against the night. Who were these people who lived so close to her? An old white pickup and a new Ford wagon were parked near the Jeep, but try as she might, she couldn’t conjure up faces for the people who drove the vehicles and shared the same plumbing and roof with her.
Disappointed, she followed Trent as he carried her bags up the exterior stairs to the third-floor landing. Each step was covered with strips of rubber for traction and the rail was well used. Once on her small porch, Nikki fumbled with the keys and, hunching her shoulders against the steady drizzle, unlocked the door.
She dropped her suitcase and purse on the faded Oriental rug and breathed deeply of the musty, stale air. As if from habit, she kicked off her shoes and padded in stocking feet through the long, narrow attic that served as her living room and bedroom. Her hands trailed along the backs of chairs and across the dusty surface of the table, and a sense of belonging wove its way into her heart.
“It’s good to be home,” she admitted huskily, feeling, for the first time in two weeks, that she had some bearings. She glanced at the quilt tossed over the back of her camelbacked couch, smiled at the flowers, now dry and dropping petals, on a small table near one of the windows and noticed that her brass teapot was sitting empty on the stove.
“You remember?” Trent asked.
She shook her head and glanced back at him. Was there just a hint of relief in his gaze? “Not really. No images. Just feelings. But…I think it’s coming.” She crossed to a window and unlatched the panes, allowing the hint of an early autumn breeze to infiltrate the stuffy apartment as she walked to the fireplace. Cool, damp air swirled into the room and followed after her as she ran her fingers along the mantel, picking up a fine layer of dust, looking for any photographs or mementos of the man she’d married. There was nothing. Not a solitary snapshot to verify his claims.
Frowning, she eyed her desk. The calendar lay open to a date that was nearly two weeks past. Chuckling at the “Far Side” cartoon, she flipped forward two weeks. Every page was blank. Aware of Trent’s gaze following her, she turned back a few pages, noted some of the appointments she’d made and kept, she supposed, but realized that there wasn’t a single notation about Trent. Not even his initials. No dinner date or lunch appointment, no mention of a movie or drinks or anything. As if he’d never existed.
She glanced up at him, half expecting him to come up with some explanation, but his face was unreadable, allowing her to draw whatever conclusions she wanted. “Didn’t we go out?” she asked. “You know, for dinner or something…a date?”
His mouth lifted in the corner and his eyes turned smoky blue. “We started out way beyond the dating stage.”
“But there’s no mention of you. Not one clue….”
Lifting a shoulder as if her concerns were unimportant, he balanced on the overstuffed arm of the couch. The muscles in the back of his neck tightened and he seemed to grapple for the right words. “It was all very spontaneous. I didn’t analyze it. Neither did you.”
She had no reason to believe him, no proof to substantiate what he was saying. Rubbing a kink from her neck, she sighed and glanced at the telephone recorder, its red light flashing impatiently. With a feeling of dread, she pushed the playback button and the tape rewound quickly.
The first four calls were hang-ups. Then Jan’s voice, strained by older-sister concern, echoed through the room. “Nikki? It’s Jan. What the hell’s going on? Mom called and said you were on some island in the Caribbean and you got married there, for God’s sake. To some guy no one in the family’s ever met.” Nikki’s gaze collided with Trent’s. “Is this all on the up-and-up? Call me when you get back and be ready to spill everything! Geez, Nikki, what happened to you! This is just so…I don’t know—impulsive, I guess. I thought you’d finally gotten over all that.” There was a weighty pause when Jan sighed. “Look, it sounds like we’re trying to shut the barn door and the horse has already escaped. I guess I should congratulate you…. Well, just call me.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Trent grumbled as the phone buzzed and clicked over a series of hang-ups.
“Sure we do.”
The next voice on the phone was a computer message about a fabulous deal on a time-share vacation in Colorado; the next, someone taking a survey about television programming.
The final call was more urgent. “Nikki? It’s Dave.” She stiffened. Trent’s lips curled into a humorless smile. “For heaven’s sake, what’s going on? I called your office and talked to Connie and she let it slip that you’re married to a man you barely know! Is this some kind of a joke or something? Connie said you’d hardly dated him before taking off for that island. For crying out loud, Nikki, call me and tell me it’s a lie or a joke or…or anything. I know we had some problems, but I thought we just needed a little time and space to work them out.” There was a lengthy pause and a long sigh. “Look, if you’re really married, I hope this guy is worth it, because you deserve the best….” Nikki closed her eyes and she remembered Dave, big and blond, neat and tidy, spit and polish. At one time, he had seemed to care for her, but the images strobelighting through her mind weren’t filled with love or tenderness or passion. She realized that she probably had never truly loved him. He’d just seemed like the right guy at the wrong time in her life. And he’d been the one who had wanted his “space” and a little more “time,” if she remembered correctly.
His voice filled the emptiness again. “But…well, if this is all a big lie, call me. Or if the guy doesn’t turn out to be Mr. Perfect, for God’s sake, give me a buzz…. Believe it or not, Nikki, I miss you. I just didn’t realize how much until now…. What’s the saying about being a day late and a dollar short? Well, it seems to be the story of my life. I love you, Nikki. I always will.” He hung up abruptly and his words hung on the air, silent, invisible sentinels that stood as strongly as a wall of steel between Nikki and Trent.
“Eloquent,” Trent muttered, his lips thinning into a hard, flat line. “Maybe you married the wrong man.”
“Maybe I’m not even married.”
His mouth curved sardonically and he raked fingers of frustration through his coal-black hair. “Right now I don’t give a good goddamn what you believe, but we’re getting out of here.” He picked up the suitcase she’d dropped and slung the strap over his shoulder. The fingers of his other hand wrapped around the handle of her garment bag as he cocked his head in the general direction of the door.
Nikki refused to be intimidated. “When did we get married?” she demanded, not budging an inch.
“On the Friday we left. At noon.”
Still standing at her desk, she glanced at that particular date on her calendar, but it was, aside from a reminder to pick up her dry cleaning and a note as to the time her plane was scheduled to take off for Salvaje, blank. As if Trent McKenzie, before he’d appeared at her bedside at the hospital in Santa María, hadn’t existed. “I didn’t write it down.”
