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He slid into the room, rested his hips against the wall, crossed his arms over his massive chest and nodded toward the phone. “Now I don’t believe you.”
She couldn’t make good her threat, didn’t dare call the police. Whatever story she was working on concerning Senator Crowley, it wasn’t yet ready to break and she had to be careful that Diamond Jim didn’t catch on to her. If she pressed charges against Trent, there was the matter of public record to consider, and there would be questions about their trip to Salvaje. Her story was half-baked and bizarre, her memory not yet a hundred percent. No, she had better keep the police out of this. For the time being. She looked up at Trent’s impassive face and wished she could shake some sense into him. He had backed her into the proverbial corner and he knew it.
“Why don’t you get ready for work and I’ll drive you.”
“You don’t have to—” For the first time she realized she was missing her car. She half ran to a window, wiped the glass with her sleeve and stared down at the parking space assigned to her. Empty. Her red-and-white convertible wasn’t in its usual spot. “I don’t suppose you know what happened to my car?”
“My guess is it’s at the airport.”
“The airport!” she cried, her temper flaring again. If he’d only been honest with her earlier, she’d have her own set of wheels by now.
“But then again, maybe not. You didn’t have a parking ticket on you.”
“How do you know?” she demanded, but the answer was clear as the glass top of her coffee table. He’d been given her purse at the hospital when she’d been lying in that tiny room trying to piece together her memory—attempting to recall taking vows with the mysterious, badtempered man who had claimed to be her husband. He could have put anything in her purse or taken anything out. Hence, the wedding ring—that blasted symbol of deceit. “Oh, Lord, this is a mess,” she said with a sigh as she sank onto the couch and closed her eyes. “What am I going to tell everyone? My entire family thinks I’m married. And Connie. What can I say to her?” She cast an accusing glare in his direction. “When you plot to turn someone’s life upside down and inside out, you don’t miss a trick, do you?”
Trying to stay calm, she rested the heel of one of her Reebok shoes on the tabletop and wondered how she was going to face the day. There would be questions about her accident, her face, her honeymoon, her husband. What would she say? What could she?
“You don’t have to tell anyone what’s going on.”
“Oh, right! Next you’ll be suggesting that I keep pretending that we’re married.” She lolled her head back on the couch and sighed.
She heard him skirting the coffee table as he walked to the fireplace. “What would it hurt?”
“It’s a lie.” She cracked open one eye.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Her heart stopped for a second, before she found her voice. “Yes it does,” she said, quietly. A part of her wanted to take the easy way out, keep the lie going until things settled down and to stay with this dangerous, erotic man. Then she could tell her friends and family the truth. Later she could leave him…or would she ever find the strength to let go? Slowly she shook her head and forced her gaze to meet his. “It’ll only get worse.”
As the words fell from her lips, she remembered her older sister, Jan, on bent knees, examining a cut on Nikki’s chin as she had sat, white-faced and trembling, on the edge of the bathtub. “Geez, you look horrible,” Jan had said.
“Thanks,” Nikki muttered, fighting tears.
Her elbow ached and her face felt as bad as it probably looked. There was still gravel ground into the skin of her forearm and blood had dried all the way to her wrist. “So what happened?” Jan had asked, seeming uncertain as to how concerned she should be.
“I fell off my bike.”
“And how.” Jan reached into the medicine cabinet for a dangerous-looking brown bottle and gauze.
Tears welled in Nikki’s eyes. Tasting blood in her mouth where her teeth had bitten into her lower lip, she told Jan the truth. Nikki had been riding her bike with her friend, Terry Watson, a devil-may-care girl whose sense of adventure appealed to Nikki. With her pale blond hair, round blue eyes and quick smile, Terry was popular and had a reputation for being a little bit daring. That day, while Nikki was supposed to have been studying for a history test at Terry’s house, Terry had shoved her books aside and come up with an alternate plan. With only a little persuasion, Terry had convinced Nikki that they should ride their bikes down to the big Safeway store that was three miles away. The only trouble was that the store was located far beyond the boundaries their parents had agreed upon.
The girls had taken off, full of adventure, thrilled to be doing something just a little bit naughty. They had planned to be back by the time Terry’s mom got off work. No one would have been the wiser.
The traffic had been wild, four lanes going fifty-five miles an hour, and the clouds that had been threatening all day suddenly let loose, pouring rain onto the streets, creating rivers flowing into the gutters and turning the day dark as night.
Headlights flashed on, tires sprayed water onto the sidewalks. Rather than ride to the crosswalk, Terry had decided to zigzag across all four lanes of traffic.
“Wait for me!” Nikki had yelled, and Terry, hearing her voice, had turned her head. A car, rounding the corner, had skidded as the driver slammed on his brakes. Horns had blared, tires had squealed. Nikki had squeezed on her brakes. The bike had shimmied in loose gravel, then slid. Nikki had fallen, scraping her knees and elbows and face, her bike flying into the traffic to be crumpled beneath the wheels of a pickup.
“Crazy kids!” The truck’s driver had been livid. “I could a killed you both!” Built like a lumberjack, with a full beard and snapping blue eyes, he’d walked over to Nikki, full of wrath until he saw the scratches on her face and arms. “Hey, kid, are you all right?”
“Fine,” she’d stammered, though she felt wretched. But she’d known her injuries weren’t nearly as bad as the fear that settled around her heart. Her parents would kill her when they found out.
A lady dressed in a long raincoat and huge round glasses speckled with rain, had climbed out of her small compact car with its emergency lights flashing. Shoulders hunched against the downpour, she’d said, “I think we should call an ambulance.”
No! “I’m okay, really.” Nikki had fought to hide her pain and she reached for the handlebars of her bike just as Terry, face pale as death, had wheeled up.
“We gotta get out of here,” Terry had insisted.
