White Lies (21 page)

           
 
They lay together for a long time afterward,
too content to move. He put another log on the fire and pulled on his jeans,
then put his own shirt around her to stave off any chill. She sat in the circle
of his arms, her head on his shoulder, wishing nothing would ever happen to
disturb this happiness.

           
 
He watched the waving yellow flames, his rough
chin rubbing back and forth against her hair. "Do you want kids?" he
asked absently. The question startled her enough that she lifted her head from
his shoulder.

           
 
"I... think I do." she replied.
"I've never really thought about it, because it just didn't seem like an
option, but now..." Her voice trailed off.

           
 
"Before, we didn't have much of a
marriage. I don't want it to be like that again. I want to come home every
night, live a normal life." He tightened his arms around her. "I'd like
to have a couple of kids, but that's a mutual decision. I didn't know how you
felt about it."

           
 
"I like kids," she said softly, but
guilt assailed her. They hadn't had any kind of a marriage before! He was
feeling guilty for another man's acts.

           
 
"Yeah, I like them, too." He smiled,
still watching the fire. "I get a kick out of watching Amy—"

           
 
Jay jerked away from him, her eyes wide with
something like panic in them.

           
 
"Who's Amy?"

           
 
Steve's face was hard, his mouth grim. "I
don't know," he muttered. "I feel as if I just ran into a brick wall.
The words just slipped out, then
bam
!
I hit the wall and there's nothing."

           
 
Jay felt sick. Had she been so wrong in
trusting that Frank wouldn't have set this up if Steve had been married? Was he
a father as well as a husband?

           
 
Steve was watching her and sensed the
direction of her thoughts, if not the content. "No, I'm not married and I
don't have any kids," he said sharply, pulling her back to him. "It's
probably just a friend's little girl. Do you know anyone with a little girl
named Amy?"

           
 
She shook her head, not looking at him. The
terror was back; she felt stiff with it. Was his memory returning? When it did,
would he leave?
Paradise
could end at any time.

           
 
Steve lay awake long after they had gone to
bed that night. Jay slept in his arms, as she had every night since the chinook
blew, her hair streaming over his left shoulder and her warm breath sighing
against his neck. Her bare, silky body was pressed all along his left side, and
her slender arm was draped across his chest. She had looked so panicked for a
second when he'd mentioned Amy's name, whoever Amy was. He held her closer,
trying to erase that panic even from her sleep.

           
 
This would probably happen a lot, a casual
remark triggering flashes of memory. He hoped they wouldn't all scare her so
much. Was she truly afraid he wouldn't want her when his memory returned? God,
couldn't she feel how much he loved her? It went beyond memory. It was in his
bones, buried in the very depths of his existence.

           
 
Amy.
Amy.

           
 
The name flashed through his mind like fire
and suddenly he saw a little girl with glossy dark hair, giggling as she shoved
a chubby, dimpled fist into her mouth.
Amy.

           
 
His heart began pounding. His memory had
actually supplied a face to go with the name. He didn't know who she was, but
he knew her name, and now her face. The mental picture faded, but he
concentrated and found he could recall it, just like a real memory. Just as
he'd told Jay, she must be a friend's daughter, someone he'd met since their
divorce.

           
 
He relaxed, pleased that the memory had
solidified. His seAttal satisfaction made his body feel heavy and boneless, and
his chest began to rise and fall in the deeper rhythm of sleep.

           
 
"
Unca
Luke, Unca Luke!
"

           
 
The childish voices echoed in his head and the
movie began to unwind in his mind. Two kids. Two boys, tearing across a green
lawn, jumping and shrieking

           
 
"Unca Luke" at the tops of their
lungs as they ran.

           
 
Another scene.
Northern Ireland
.
Belfast
. He recognized it even as a tingle of dread
ran up his spine. Two little boys played in the street, then suddenly looked
up, hesitated and ran.

           
 
Flash
.
One of the first two little boys looked up with a wobbly lower lip and tears in
his eyes and said, "Please, Unca Dan."

           
 
Flash
.
Dan Rather stacked papers at his newsdesk while the credits rolled.
Flash
. A bumper sticker on a station
wagon said, I'd Rather Be at Disney World.

           
 
Mickey Mouse dancing... Flash... a mouse
crawling through the garbage in an alley... Flash... a grenade sailing in slow
motion through the air and hitting a garbage can with a loud thump; then a
louder thump and the can goes sailing... Flash... a white sailboat with sassy
red-and-white striped sails tacking closer to shore and a tanned young man
waves... Flash flash flash...

           
 
The scenes ripped through his consciousness,
and they were truly only flashes, following each other like pages of a book
being flipped through in front of his eyes.

           
 
He was sweating again. Damn, these
free-association memories were hell. What did they mean? Had they truly
happened? He wouldn't mind them if he could tell which ones were real and which
ones were just something he'd seen on television or in a movie, or maybe even
imagined from a scene in a book. Okay, some of them were obvious, like the one
of Dan Rather with the credits rolling across his face. But he'd watched
network news many times since the bandages had come off his eyes, so that could
even be a recent memory.

           
 
But... Uncle Luke. Uncle Dan. Something about
those kids, and those names, seemed very real, just as Amy was real.

           
 
He eased out of bed, being very careful not to
wake Jay, and walked into the living room where he stood for a long time in
front of the banked fire, watching the embers glow. Full memory was close, and
he knew it. It was as if all he had to do was turn a corner and everything
would be there; but turning that mental corner wasn't as easy as it sounded. He
had become a different man in the months since the explosion; he was trying to
connect two separate people and merge them into one.

           
 
He had been absently rubbing his fingertips
with his thumb. When he noticed what he was doing, he lifted his hand to look
at it. The calluses were back, courtesy of chopping wood, but his fingertips
were still smooth. How much of him was left, or had his identity been erased as
surely as his fingerprints had been? When he looked in the mirror, how much of
it was Steve Cross-field and how much of it was courtesy of the reconstructive
surgery? His face was changed, his voice was changed, his fingerprints gone.

           
 
He was new. He had been born out of the
darkness, brought to life by Jay's voice calling him toward the light.

           
 
Regardless of what he did or didn't remember,
he still had Jay. She was a part of him that surgery couldn't change.

           
 
The room had taken on a chill as the fire
died, and finally he felt the coldness on his naked body. He returned to the
bedroom and slipped under the quilt, feeling Jay's body warmth wrap around him.
She murmured something, moving closer to him in her sleep, seeking her usual
position.

           
 
Instantly desire fired through him, as urgent
as if it hadn't been slaked only an hour or so before. "Jay," he
said, his voice low and dark, and he pulled her beneath him. She woke and
reached for him, her hands sliding around his neck, and in the darkness they
loved each other until he had no room for memories other than those they made
together.

           
 
They left the cabin early the next morning so
they could rendezvous with Frank at
Colorado Springs
that afternoon. Jay felt a wrench at
leaving the cabin; it had been their private world for so long that, away from
it, she felt exposed. Only the thought that they would be returning the next
day gave her the courage to leave it at all. She knew that eventually she would
have to leave it forever, but she wasn't ready to face that day right now. She
wanted more time with the man she loved.

           
 
She intended to ask Frank the name of the American
agent who had been

           
 
"killed." He might not tell her, but
she had to ask. Even if she couldn't say it aloud, she needed to know, she had
to put a name to her love. She looked at him as he skillfully handled the Jeep,
holding it steady even on the snow, and her heart swelled. He was big and
rough-looking, not handsome at all with his rearranged features, but just one
glance from those fierce yellowish eyes had the power to make her dizzy with
delight. How could they ever have thought they could pass this man off as Steve
Crossfield?

           
 
Their subterfuge was riddled with holes, but
she hadn't seen them until she had been too deeply in love with him to care.
They had relied on shock and urgency to keep her from asking the pointed
questions to which they would have had no answers, such as why they didn't use
blood type or their own agent's dental records to determine the identity of the
patient. She had known at the tune that Frank was hiding something from her,
but she had been too concerned over

           
 
"Steve" to think it was anything
more than protecting the details of a classified mission. The truth was that
she had been misled so easily because she had wanted to be; after the first
tune she had seen him lying in the hospital, so desperately wounded but still
fighting with that grim determination of his that burned through
unconsciousness, she had wanted nothing more than to be by his side and help
him fight.

           
 
They were to stay at a different motel than
the one they'd been in before, because Frank didn't want to take the chance the
desk clerk might recognize them. They even used different names. When they got
there, Frank had already arrived, and he'd made reservations for them under the
names of Michael Carter and Faye Wheeler. Separate rooms. Steve looked
distinctly displeased, but placed Jay's overnighter in her room without comment
and went along to his own room. The eye specialist checked Steve's eyes
immediately; then he was taken to an optometrist to be fitted for glasses,
which would be ready for him the next morning. Jay remained behind, wondering
what strings Frank had pulled and whose arms he had twisted to get everything
done so fast.

           
 
They returned a little after dark, and Steve
came immediately to Jay's room.

           
 
"Hi, baby," he said, stepping inside
and closing the door behind him. Before she could answer he was kissing her,
his hands tight on her arms, his mouth hard and searching.

           
 
She shivered with excitement, crowding closer
to his body as she dug her fingers into his cold hair. He smelled like wind and
snow, and his skin was cold, but his tongue was warm and probing. Finally he
lifted his head, a very male look of satisfaction stamped on his hard face. He
rubbed his thumb across her lips, which were reddened from contact with his. "Sweetheart,
I may freeze my naked butt off sneaking into your room tonight, but I'm not
sleeping alone." "I have a suggestion," she purred. "Let's
hear it."

           
 
"Leave your clothes on until you get
here." He laughed and kissed her again. Her mouth was driving him crazy;
it had the most erotic effect on him. Kissing her was more arousing than
actually making love had been with other women—

           
 
and just for a moment, before they faded away,
some of those other women were in his mind.

           
 
"The doctor is already on his way back to
Washington
. Frank is staying until the morning, so
it's the three of us again. Are you hungry? Frank's stomach is still on
Washington
time."

           
 
"Actually, I am a little hungry. We don't
keep late hours ourselves, you know." He looked at the bed. "I
know."

           
 
Jay hoped to have the chance to ask Frank
about the agent's name; she couldn't take the risk of asking him in Steve's
presence, because the sound of his own name might trigger his memory, and she
couldn't face the possibility of that. She wanted him to remember, but she
wanted it to be when they were alone in their high meadow. If the chance to
talk to Frank didn't present itself, she could always call him after they'd
retired to their individual rooms for the night, provided Steve didn't come
straight to hers, but she didn't think he would. He'd probably take a shower
first, and put on fresh clothes. She sighed, weary of having to second-guess
and predict; she wasn't cut out for this business. Steve noted the sigh, and
the faint desperation in her eyes. She hadn't said anything, but that look had
been there since he'd had that first flash of memory the day before. It puzzled
him; he couldn't think of any reason why Jay should dread his returning memory.
Because it puzzled him and because there was no logical reason, he couldn't let
it go. It wasn't in his makeup. When something bothered him, he worried at it
until it made sense. He never quit, never let go. His sister had often said he
was at least half bulldog— Sister?

           
 
He was quiet as the three of them ate dinner
at an Italian restaurant. Part of him enjoyed the spicy food, and part of him
was actively involved in the easy conversation around the table, but another
part of him examined the sliver of memory from every angle. If he had a sister,
why had he told Jay he was an orphan? Why hadn't Frank had a record of any
relatives? That was the screwy part. He could accept that he might have told
Jay a different version of his life, because he didn't know what the
circumstances had been at the time, but it was impossible that Frank hadn't had
a list of next of kin. That was assuming he was remembering "real"
things.

           
 
A sister. His logic told him it was
impossible. His guts told him his logic could take a flyer. A sister. Amy.
Unca Luke! Unca Luke!
 
The childish voices re-verberated in his head
even as he laughed at something Frank said.
Unca
Dan.
Unca Luke. Unca Luke Unca Luke... Luke... Luke...

           
 
"Are you all right?" Jay asked, her
eyes dark with concern as she put her hand lightly on his wrist. She could feel
tension emanating from him and was vaguely startled that Frank hadn't seemed to
notice anything unusual. The pounding left his head as he looked at her and
smiled. He'd gladly count his past well lost as long as he could have Jay. The
sensory umbilical cord linking them was as acutely sensitive as the strings on
a precisely tuned Stradivarius. "It's just a headache," he said.
"The drive was a strain on my eyes." Both statements were true,
though the second wasn't the cause of the first. Also, there hadn't been that
much strain. His problem was the precise, close-up focusing needed for reading;
his distance vision was as sharp as ever, which was better than twentytwenty.
He had the vision of a jet pilot. Jay returned to her conversation with Frank,
but she was as aware of Steve's fading tension as she had been of the fact that
he'd been as taut as a guide wire. Had something happened that afternoon that
he hadn't told her? A feeling of dread almost overwhelmed her, and she wanted
badly to be back at the cabin. When they returned to the motel, she noted with
relief that Steve went to his own room rather than stopping to talk with Frank
or immediately following her to hers. She darted to the phone and dialed
Frank's room. He answered on the first ring.

           
 
"It's Jay." She identified herself.

           
 
"Is something wrong?" He was
immediately alert.

           
 
"No, everything's okay. It's just that
something's been bothering me, but I didn't want to ask you in front of
Steve."

           
 
In his room, Frank tensed. Had they failed to
cover all bases? "Is it about Steve?"

           
 
"Well, no, not really. The agent who
died... what was his name? It's been on my mind a lot lately, that he died and
I never even heard his name."

           
 
"There's no reason you should have. You'd
never met him."

           
 
"I know," she said softly. "I
just wanted to know something about him. It could have been Steve. Now that
he's dead, there's no reason to keep his name secret, is there?" Frank
thought. He could give her a fictitious name, but he decided to tell her at
least that much of the truth. She'd know his name eventually, and it might help
if she could simply think a mistake had been made. It would give her a small
fact she could focus on for reference. "His name was Lucas Stone."

           
 
"Lucas Stone." Her voice was very
soft as she repeated the name. "Was he married? Did he have a
family?"

           
 
"No, he wasn't married." He
deliberately didn't answer her second question.

           
 
"Thanks for telling me. It's bothered me
that I didn't know." He'd never know how much, she thought as she quietly
replaced the receiver. Lucas Stone. She repeated the name over and over in her
mind, applying it to a battered face and feeling her heart begin to pound.
Lucas Stone. Yes.

           
 
Only then did she realize what a mistake she'd
made. If it had been difficult before to refer to him as Steve, it would be
almost impossible now. Steve had been a stolen name, but one she'd used because
there had been no alternative. What if the name Lucas slipped out?

           
 
She sat on the bed for a long time while she
mentally flailed against the hall of mirrors that trapped her with its false
reflections. The things she didn't know bound her as securely as the things she
knew, until she was afraid to trust her own instincts. She wasn't made for
deception; she was straightforward, which was one reason why she hadn't fitted
into the world of investment banking, a world that required a certain measure
of "slickery," that balance of slickness and trickery. Finally, too
tired to open any more blank doors, she took a shower and got ready for bed.
When she came out of the bathroom, Lucas—Stevel she reminded herself
frantically—was stretched out on the bed, already partially undressed. She
looked at the locked door. "Haven't we done this before?" He rolled
to his feet and caught her arms, pulling her to him. "With one difference.
A big difference."

           
 
He smelled of soap and shaving cream, and the
underlying muskiness of man. She clung to him, pressing her face into his neck
to inhale that special scent. What would she do if he left her? It would be a
life without color, forever incomplete. Slowly she ran her hands over his broad
chest, rubbing her ringers through the crisp, curly hair and feeling the warmth
of his skin, then the iron layer of muscles beneath. He was so hard that her
fingers barely made an impression. Bemused, she pressed experimentally on his
upper arm, watching as her fingernails turned white from the pressure but had
noticeably little effect on him.

           
 
"What are you doing?" he asked
curiously.

           
 
"Seeing how hard you are."

           
 
"Honey, that's not the right place."

           
 
Her face was bright with laughter as she
swiftly looked up at him. "I think I know all your other places."

           
 
"Is that so? There are places, and then
there are places. Some places need a lot more attention than others." As
he spoke he began moving her toward the bed. He was already aroused, his
hardness pressing against her. Jay moved her hand down to cover the ridge
beneath his jeans.

           
 
"Is this one of the places in need of
attention?"

           
 
"A lot of attention," he assured her
as he levered them both onto the bed. He felt her legs move, her hips lifting
to cradle him, and all amusement faded out of his eyes, leaving them fierce and
narrow. It was a look that made Jay shudder in exquisite anticipation.