Chapter Twelve
The next morning, Delia was up just after daylight and packed when Barb knocked and immediately came into the room.
Delia stared at her as if she were seeing a stranger. Barb’s eyes were red and swollen and she looked as devastated as Delia felt.
“I know you don’t want to talk to me,” she said quickly. “But just give me one minute, please!”
Delia didn’t speak. She was still devastated by what she’d learned.
“I was sixteen. Mama was very strict and I thought she was an old fogy,” Barb said huskily. “So I snuck off one weekend and went to San Antonio with a friend of mine. We bought some cheap dresses and smeared on lots of makeup and went to a bar. Barney was there alone. We started talking and when he left, I went with him. I didn’t know he was married,” she added miserably, wiping at her eyes with a tissue. “But I knew I loved him, and he loved me. I had to go home, and I was afraid to tell him how old I really was, so I just left without a word.”
Delia sat down and folded her hands, waiting for the rest.
Barb sat down, too. At least Delia was listening, she thought. “When I knew I was pregnant, it was devastating, not only because I didn’t know what to do, but because I was going to have to tell mama what I’d done. I knew she’d be ashamed of me, but I couldn’t hide it. Daddy had just died and she was miserable. But the thought of a new baby sort of snapped her out of the depression,” she added with a faint smile. “I disguised my condition with big clothes and tent dresses until I was almost due, and then we went away for a couple of months and stayed with a cousin of Mama’s. We said the baby was Mama’s when we came back home.”
“Why?” Delia demanded.
“Because even today in small towns it’s hard for a child to grow up illegitimate,” Barb said, her tone sad and resigned. “I didn’t want your childhood to be any harder than it had to be. I figured Barney would hate me if he ever found out how young I’d been, and that I’d probably never see him again. So we let you think that my mother was your mother, too. But when you were two years old, Barney finally tracked me down. By then he was divorced, and he was still crazy about me. When he saw you, he just fell in love. So he married me. We wanted to take you with us,” she added, “but Mama went crazy. She said she’d do anything to keep you, right up to running away with you to another country and hiding out like a fugitive.” She grimaced. “Barney and I were afraid she might do it, so we got a house in San Antonio and I was at the house almost every day until you graduated from high school and got a job. We didn’t move to New York until you were self-supporting.”
“I remember,” Delia said heavily.
“We loved you so much, both of us,” Barb said, studying her closely. “We still do. We’ve been bad parents, and we’ve made a lot of mistakes. I know you need time to come to grips with it all. I won’t push and neither will Barney.” She stood up. “But I hope someday you can forgive us.”
Delia was too confused and still too grief-stricken over Marcus and her baby to manage forgiveness for that big a deception. She didn’t look at Barb. After a minute, the other woman’s hopeful expression drifted into one of despair and she turned away.
Barb lowered her head and moved to the door. She hesitated, but she didn’t look back. “We’ll always be there if you need us, baby,” she said gently. “And we’ll always love you. Even if you…can’t love us back, because of what we did.”
Her voice broke with tears. She went out the door and closed it firmly behind her. Delia stared at it with dead eyes. It was just too much at one time. She had to go home, she had to get away from here! Maybe when she was back in a normal place, she could get her life back together again. Maybe she could accept that Barb had done the only thing she could have done, in the circumstances.
The plane ride home seemed terribly long, because Delia dreaded arriving back in Jacobsville. So much pain overwhelmed her. She’d lost Marcus, her baby and now her own identity, all in less than a week.
Her heart was broken. She cried until her eyes were swollen. She didn’t know how she was going to cope with it all. She loved Marcus. That was never going to change. But he didn’t remember her, and he might never. She couldn’t get their last meeting out of her mind. He knew there was something between them, but he had no memory of it. The sight of his tormented face, his sad eyes, would haunt her always. But what they’d had for those few weeks would last her all her life.
She needed time to mourn her child, get over Marcus, and come to grips with what she’d just learned about Barney and Barb. They were her parents. She’d always believed that her father had died before she was born, and that Barb’s mother was also her mother.
Now she began to see the past for what it was. Barb had always been more protective of her than her grandmother had, and she’d been sheltered by both of them. But her grandmother had always blamed her for Barb’s lapse of judgment. Her grandmother had taken out all her resentments and anger on Delia, without Barb knowing. Looking into Barney’s face was like looking in a mirror, not to mention that she shared Barb’s coloring, but Delia hadn’t wanted to see those things. She’d accepted a lie. Now she knew everything.
She had to find a way to cope. It would take time to get used to the idea of her changed identity. She knew that, in the end, she couldn’t hate Barb. She’d done what she thought was best for Delia, without realizing that Barb’s mother was going to make Delia pay for Barb’s mistake by persecuting her child. She was only disappointed that Barb and Barney had lied to her for so many years. Maybe they did have a legitimate reason. And they certainly didn’t know how hard her grandmother had been on her all those years.
Marcus had been brooding ever since Delia’s visit with her sister and brother-in-law. The feelings he had were unexpected and inexplicable. She wasn’t his type of woman, so why did he feel such turmoil when he was with her? Why did she look at him as if he meant something to her? Why did she look as if he was hurting her every time they were together?
He couldn’t find any answers, and nobody would talk to him about Delia, not even Karen Bainbridge. His memory wasn’t any closer than it had been, either. All of it combined to make him irritable and frustrated.
Roxanne Deluca was still around, and she was behaving very suspiciously. She was trying to coax him into taking her to one of the deserted islands in the Bahamas chain. She’d even chartered a boat without telling him.
“You need to get completely away from here for a day, and I’m taking you to a deserted island with me, tomorrow morning.” she said, cuddling close to him. “We’ll be like Adam and Eve, darling,” she teased breathily.
He knew she was up to something, and it probably had to do with a new contract on his life. He was grateful that Smith had been so forthcoming about the situation, or he might have been killed without ever knowing the reason.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Come on over about nine in the morning, and we’ll go from here. That suit you?”
She smiled broadly. “Yes, it will. I’m so glad you’re better, darling.”
“When were we getting married?” he asked her.
She hesitated. “Oh, in December,” she said, thinking fast.
“December.” He nodded, pretending to go along with it.
“We’re going to be so happy,” she exclaimed.
Later, when she’d gone back to the hotel, he called the cab company and asked for John to come to his house. He paid the cabbie, John, for a double trip that he wasn’t going to take, to allay suspicion, and gave him a note for Dunagan.
“Give it to Barney Cortero,” he told John quietly. “He’ll get it to Dunagan. Don’t do it yourself. Got that? And make sure he gets it today. Or you can come to my funeral.”
John grimaced. “Yes, sir, Mr. Carrera. You can count on me.”
Unfortunately John went across the bridge too fast and T-boned a passing jitney. The wreck gave him a light concussion and a broken rib and sent him directly to the hospital for treatment. It wasn’t until the next morning that he was conscious enough to remember the note. He asked the nurse for the shirt he’d been wearing. She handed it to him. He extracted the note and grimaced as he read it. Carrera and Roxanne were going to the marina at nine for a trip to one of the Out Islands. It was now ten o’clock.
“I must have a telephone, at once,” John croaked to the nurse. “It’s a matter of life or death!”
Barney was just about to leave the room to join Barb downstairs for brunch. They’d overslept and he was still a little groggy. But as he reached the door the phone rang. He ignored it and went out into the hall.
But something nagged at him. He hadn’t heard from Carrera, and he’d expected to. What if it was Marcus?
He unlocked the door and went back inside, lifting the phone just as it stopped ringing.
“Hello? Hello?” he repeated.
A thin, weak voice came on the line. “Mr. Cortero?” a husky voice queried. “This is John. I drive a cab. Mr. Carrera sent me with you last evening with a note, but I was in an automobile crash. I’m in the hospital.”
“I’m sorry. What’s in the note?” Barney asked.
John read the note to him. “You know which island this is?” he added and gave directions.
“Thanks, John. There isn’t a minute to lose!” Barney hung up and dialed Dunagan on his cell phone. “It’s me,” he said when Dunagan picked up. “We’ve got an emergency.”
Marcus had packed a gun, just in case, and he wore it in an ankle holster under the flaring denim of his jeans. If they took him out, he was going to go down fighting.
Roxanne was dressed in a flirty white sundress, her long dark hair sleek and expertly cut. She smelled of expensive perfume, and she was beautiful, but she had the eyes of a cobra.
“You love to go exploring undeveloped islands,” she said in a chatty tone as they sailed out of port. “We’ve done this several times, but not lately.”
He didn’t believe her. She didn’t look like the sort of woman who liked exploring primitive places. He was betting that she planned to lead him right into a trap. He was going along with it. By now, Barney and Dunagan would be waiting for the gangsters when they made their play. He smiled to himself, thinking how surprised Roxanne was going to be when her father found himself in federal custody.
The crew of the sailboat seemed oddly familiar, but Marcus couldn’t place them. He was getting bits and pieces of his life back, in odd dreams that woke him in the middle of the night. A shadowy woman had been the main attraction in them, a woman with a loving, sweet personality who made him whole. It hadn’t been Roxanne, he was certain. He’d thought that perhaps he’d run into the unknown woman at the casino. It was a magnet for beautiful, rich women. He was sure that she was extraordinary. He sensed that he hadn’t been involved with anyone for a long time, until just recently. But so far, he hadn’t run across the mystery woman. Sometimes he could almost feel her in his arms, the sensations were so real. Then he woke up, and he had no memory of what she looked like. It was, he thought absently, like the powerful, odd sensations he felt with Barney’s sister-in-law Delia. His attraction to her was as inexplicable as it was shocking. But, then, Delia was a plain, sweet down-home sort of girl, not the type to appeal to his sophisticated tastes. It couldn’t have been her.
Well, he had plenty of time, once he got rid of Deluca, to search for his mystery woman. He’d have the leisure, then, to wait for his memory to come back.
“You’re very quiet,” Roxanne commented as they approached the deserted island she’d described to him.
“I was just trying to remember my recent past,” he said easily. “I remember my childhood, my parents, the place I went to school.” He shrugged and slid his hands into the pockets of his beige slacks. “But I can’t remember what I did a week ago.”
Roxanne seemed to relax. “Don’t force it,” she said. “It will come back.”
He glanced toward her. “Think so? I wonder.”
“We’re here,” she said, pausing to give the crew the order to drop anchor so that she and Marcus could go ashore in the small rowboat.
“You can still row, can’t you?” she teased.
“I suppose I’ll remember how when I start,” he agreed. He gave the crew a searching look, because they still looked familiar to him.
One of them, a tall Berber with the traditional mustache and beard, raised an eyebrow and gave an imperceptible jerk of his head to indicate that Marcus shouldn’t look at him too hard.
That was when he knew that the crew of the sailboat wasn’t working for Roxanne. He actually grinned before he climbed down the ladder into the dingy.
“You’re very cheerful all of a sudden,” Roxanne remarked.
He chuckled. “I have a feeling that I’m going to get my memory back very soon. I don’t know why, but I do.”
“You may be right,” she said, without looking at him.
He rowed the boat into the shallows and they jumped out. He tugged it up on the beach so that it wouldn’t wash out to sea.
“Now what?” he asked Roxanne.
“Now, let’s go exploring!” she said enthusiastically, catching his big hand in hers. “If I remember right, there’s a little shack just through there…”
All his instincts for self-preservation were standing up and shouting at him. He moved along with her, but vigilantly, his eyes ever searching for the glint of the sun on a gun barrel, or a shadowy figure nearby.
“I’ll bet we’ll find a nice cozy little nook in here,” she told Marcus, and went up onto the porch of the rundown shack. “Why don’t you go on in, and I’ll look around for some driftwood so that we can build a fire in the fireplace, like we did before,” she added deliberately, smiling. “I’m sorry you can’t remember it. We had a really good time here!”
She turned to go down the beach.
He stepped up onto the porch. But instead of going inside, he bent, as if to retie the rawhide lace on his deck shoes. As he squatted down, he palmed the ankle gun.
His heart raced madly. He wondered what the sailboat crew had in mind. If a contract killer was hiding here waiting for him, he’d have to manage alone.
Roxanne, sensing something, turned around and frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Nothing, I just had to tie my shoelace,” he called, rising.
“Go on in and wait for me, darling,” she cooed.
Wait, the devil, he thought, gritting his teeth. He opened the door and threw himself to one side just as a shot rang out.
He fired without even thinking, reacting to the shot as he had in the old days. The old days…
Everything became crystal clear in seconds. The man in front of him clutched his chest with an expression of disbelief and slumped to the floor, a red stain spreading over the back of his shirt as he landed facedown on the wooden floor of the shack.
“Did you get him?” Roxanne yelled.
“No such luck, baby,” Marcus returned. He kicked the killer’s gun aside and stepped onto the porch, his dark eyes blazing as he looked over the rail at her. “And that’s the second time you and your father have struck out.”
Roxanne’s mouth fell open. Before she could do anything, say anything, three men came out from the back of the shack with leveled guns.
“Put your hands up, Miss Deluca,” the Berber said pleasantly, “unless you want to join your father’s hired man in hell.”
Roxanne put her hands up at once. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “He’s…dead?”
“Looks that way,” Marcus said, his voice even and cold. He came down the steps with the pistol still in his hand. “Was he the only one?” he asked the Berber.
“Yes. We searched thoroughly. Are you all right?”
Marcus laughed hollowly. “Apparently.” He gave the taller man a curious appraisal. “Who the hell are you guys?”
“Friends of Mr. Smith,” the Berber told him with a grin. “And that’s all you need to know. We were barely in time to bluff the crew Miss Deluca had hired and tell her they had a prior engagement and sent us to replace them. Luckily she swallowed it. Dunagan said to tell you that he’s found an ‘associate’ of Mr. Deluca’s who’s willing to spill his guts in exchange for immunity. His name’s Fred Warner.”
“Fred!” Roxanne exclaimed. “The weasley little coward…!”
“Sticks and stones, Miss Deluca,” the Berber said. “Let’s go.”
“What about him?” Marcus asked, nodding toward the shack.
“Bahamian police are already on the way. They were looking for the guy in Nassau, but we figured Miss Deluca here had him waiting for you in a secluded place. So we came along for the ride.”
“Thanks for the backup,” Marcus told them.
“Our pleasure. Now, we’d better get going.”
Barney, Barb and Dunagan had supper together that night, after statements had been given to the police and the body of the contract killer had been tucked away in the local morgue. The man, like Deluca’s other hired gun, had a rap sheet as long as a towel. Deluca had been picked up in Miami on federal racketeering charges stemming from statements made by his banker, Fred Warner. Roxanne Deluca was arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. Once jurisdiction was established, the two of them could expect a lengthy stay in jail.
They’d invited Marcus to eat with them, so they could fill him in on everything that had happened about Deluca. Even Barb hadn’t protested. She was so lonely for Delia that she’d given up her vendetta against the man who’d wronged her. Marcus hadn’t completely regained his memory, but he felt more optimistic that he would, despite all the unsettling business of the day. Bits and pieces of the past were fitting themselves into place with each passing hour. He noticed that Barney and Barb were positively morose. Dunagan was manfully trying to keep the conversation going all by himself.
“You two look like the world just ended,” Marcus commented.
“Personal problems,” Barney replied.
“We all have them,” Marcus said heavily.
“It’s a good thing you’re a dead shot,” Dunagan said. “Because John was in a wreck and we didn’t even know what was going down until you were halfway to the island with Roxanne.”
Marcus smiled, having heard that from the Berber. “Your guys showed up, at least, but they couldn’t go ashore with us without arousing Roxanne’s suspicions. But I always carry a hide gun. Old habits die hard.” He scowled. “How did I know that?”
“Looks like your memory’s trying to reboot,” Dunagan said, grinning.
“I wouldn’t mind. It’s like living in the dark.” He stared at Barney curiously. “It’s odd how much your sister-in-law looks like you,” he said out of the blue.
“That’s because she’s actually my daughter,” Barney said miserably.
Barb took a big swallow of her drink. “And my daughter, too,” she added. She gave Marcus a wry glance. “It’s almost funny. I was so determined to keep her away from you, because I thought you’d wreck her life. And Barney and I did it all by ourselves.”
Marcus frowned. “What do you mean, keep her away from me?”
Barney was trying to give Barb hand signals but she was already three sheets to the wind and she wasn’t looking at him.
“She was going around with you while Barney and I were in Miami,” she said heavily. “She thought the sun rose and set on you. I didn’t know how far things had gone until…ouch!”
She rubbed her shin, where Barney had kicked it. He gave her a hard look, which she finally interpreted. Marcus had lost his memory and they’d said not to tell him a lot about the past. It could be dangerous.
“Don’t mind me,” Barb said, trying to backtrack. She laughed inanely. “I’m drunk. I think we’d better go, Barney. I need some sleep.”
“Me, too,” Barney agreed. “Good to see you all in one piece, Marcus,” he said.
“And thanks for the help,” Dunagan added, rising.
“We won’t forget.”
Marcus shrugged. “It’s been my year to play Good Samaritan. Back in the spring, I helped bag a guy who kidnapped Tippy Moore. Remember her, the supermodel who became a movie star?” he recalled with a smile. “She married an old friend of mine, Cash Grier. He’s a police chief in a small town in Texas.” He paused, shocked. Those memories had come back without any work at all.
“Jacobsville,” Barb informed him. “That’s where Delia and I are from.”
Marcus was very still. Jacobsville. Small town. Texas. Cash Grier. Tippy’s kidnapping. He remembered! He’d visited Tippy in the hospital in New York. He’d been in the hospital in Nassau with a concussion. Delia had been down the hall. He’d gone in to see her without knowing why. She’d looked so familiar to him. She’d been pregnant…
“Good night,” Barney called as he and Dunagan shepherded a weaving Barb out the door.
Marcus waved, but he barely heard them. His mind was going full tilt. Delia had been pregnant. She’d saved his life. She’d lost her baby. Her baby.
He signed the tab—no big deal, because he owned the hotel—and went up to his office. Smith glanced at him with subdued concern.
“I heard what happened,” he said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. It was all I could do to get the guys together and send them after you. They were working on a job for a friend of mine, in the area. It was a lucky break for me, because I couldn’t find Dunagan or Barney and I had no idea what was going on.”
Marcus waved away the apology. “Tell me about Delia,” he said curtly.
Smith hesitated.
“Barney’s wife said I was going around with her.”
Smith grimaced. “Well, yes.”
Marcus stilled. “Smith—she was pregnant. Was it…mine?”
Smith’s eyes closed and opened. “Yes,” he said huskily.
Marcus sat down behind his desk. The baby was the key that opened the lock. He had sudden, sharp flashes of memory. Delia, laughing up at him with the wind blowing through her blond hair as he drove her in the convertible. Delia, in his arms, loving him with unbridled passion despite her utter innocence. Delia, looking at him as if he were some sort of hero when he saved her from Fred. Delia, with tears in her eyes, understanding that he didn’t remember her or know about the baby. Delia, walking away from him with her heart breaking…
“Dear God, I let her go!” he burst out. “She was pregnant. She lost the baby, lost me, lost everything. I told her she wasn’t my kind of woman, that she could never appeal to me. I actually said that to her. And then, I just let her walk away, without a word! She must have been devastated!”
“Boss, you didn’t know who she was,” Smith said gently. “She understood.”
He put his face in his hands and groaned in utter anguish. “She lost our baby, saving my life,” he whispered. “She fell!”
Smith didn’t know what to say. He said nothing.
Marcus continued, “She ran right into that little weasel and knocked the gun out of his hand. He was going to kill me. She saved my life and what did I do? I acted as if I couldn’t have cared less about her! I was convinced that I’d never have gotten mixed up with some plain little small-town woman from Texas. I was looking for the mystery woman in my past, for someone beautiful and rich and sophisticated. Delia was standing right in front of me, and I treated her like a stranger. What an idiot I was!” He moved to the balcony and opened the sliding glass doors to let the wind in. He stood there, shattered, vulnerable, hating himself.
“She went home, didn’t she?” he asked belatedly.
“Yes,” Smith replied.
“And why not? I suppose she thought I’d never get my memory back. I know I looked at her as if she couldn’t have interested me any less. She’d been hurt, she’d lost the baby, she’d lost me…” Marcus’s eyes were tormented. “No wonder she looked at me as if I were killing her, when I walked into her hospital room.” His eyes closed and he fought tears. “After all she’d been through, I turned my back on her, too.”
“You didn’t know,” Smith said again.
“I should have known,” Marcus said heavily. He pushed back his unruly hair with a big hand. “I lit up like a rocket whenever she came near me. I ached to hold her when she was close to me. Even that didn’t register.”
“You were hurt, too.”
“Not enough,” he said icily. “Everything I got, I damned well deserved. There was going to be a baby,” he added, and the pain almost doubled him over. “A baby, Smith. My baby. She…lost it.”
Smith closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see the torment in that dark face. Marcus Carrera was one tough customer, but he was melting in front of Smith’s eyes.
“I’m sorry about that,” Smith said.
“She just found out that her sister was really her mother, and her brother-in-law was really her father,” Marcus added dully. “That, the baby, me…I guess she figured she didn’t have any reason to stay here. She probably felt as if we all sold her out.”
“She needs time,” Smith said wisely. “It’s a lot to have to adjust to.”
“Yeah.” Marcus moved back into the office, his manner distracted. “I’d like to just rush down to Texas and scoop her up and bring her right back here. But you’re right. She’s going to need time. So I’m going to give her a few months, to get over the worst of it. Meanwhile, I’ve just thought of a project that may help my case when I go after her.”
“Go…after her?”
Marcus smiled faintly. “Half a man can’t live, Smith,” he said simply. “Not for long, anyway. I’m going to marry her.”
Smith’s green eyes sparkled at the idea of his boss, a loner by nature, being so smitten with a woman.
Marcus gave his bodyguard a speaking glance. “You’ve never married, I guess?”
Smith shook his head, smiling. “I’m too picky.”
“There were rumors that you were crazy for Kip Tennison,” Marcus added.
“I was responsible for Kip and her son for several years, you know,” Smith told him. “I’m terribly fond of them both, but her heart always belonged to Cy Harden and I always knew it.”
“You didn’t stay with them.”
Smith chuckled. “Harden and I didn’t quite come to blows, but we’re too much alike to get along. Besides, since they had their second child, Kip’s given up most of her work for the Tennison corporation and she’s working as a vice president for Harden’s companies. It’s her former brother-in-law who’s in the line of fire now. I wasn’t needed.” He cleared his throat. “Harden never did take to Tiny. I think he had a secret lizard phobia.”
“Maybe it was an excuse to get rid of the competition,” Marcus chuckled.
Smith shrugged. “A man as good-looking and talented as I am would inspire jealousy in most men,” he said with a straight face.
Marcus grinned. “Just as well I got landed with you. When Delia comes back, you’re going to be needed more than ever. I expect to found a small dynasty down here,” he added, the smile fading to sadness as he thought of the child he’d lost before he even knew it existed. “Babies are nice. In fact,” he mused, breaking out of his somber mood as he turned, “I’ve got some nice blue and pink batik prints and a few fat quarters of whimsical fabric that would make the sweetest little quilt…”
He was gone before Smith had to hide his amused smile.