Excerpt – TAKEN

The Deception Series - Book One

© Copyright 2011 Barbara Freethy

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

Kayla Sheridan had longed for love, marriage and a family. Now, after a miraculous whirlwind courtship with the man of her dreams, she is his wife. But on their wedding night, he vanishes, leaving Kayla with the bitter realization that her desire has made her an easy mark for deception.

 

Nick Granville has an ingrained sense of honor and an intense desire to succeed in building the world's most challenging high-tech bridges. But when he crosses paths with a ruthless con man, he's robbed of everything he values, including his identity. With nothing left to lose, he'll risk any danger to clear his name and reclaim his life.

 

Thrown together by fate, Kayla and Nick embark on a desperate journey toward the truth -- to uncover the mysterious motives of an ingenious and seductive stranger who boasts he can't be caught ... and to reveal the shocking secrets of their own shattered pasts.

 

 

Prologue

 

"To my wife." Nick Granville gave Kayla Sheridan a dazzling smile as he raised his champagne glass to hers.

Kayla tapped her glass against his. As she looked into the gorgeous blue eyes of the man she had married, she felt a rush of pure joy. She could hardly believe she was married, but an hour ago she’d vowed to love this man above all others. He’d put a ring on her finger and a diamond necklace around her neck and he’d promised to stay forever, which was really all she’d ever wanted. A child of divorce, she’d split her time between two houses, two sets of parents, two cities, and she’d said more than her share of good-byes. That was over now. She was Mrs. Nicholas Granville, and she would make her marriage stick.

The champagne tickled her throat. She felt almost dizzy with delight. "I can’t believe how happy I am," she murmured. "My head is spinning."

"I like it when you’re off balance," he said.

"I’ve been that way since the first second we met," she confessed. "Marrying you tonight is the most impulsive, reckless thing I have ever done in my life." She glanced down at the two-carat diamond ring on her finger. It was huge, dramatic, and wildly expensive. It wasn’t the kind of ring she’d imagined wearing. She’d thought she’d have something set in an old-fashioned silver band, and in her wildest dreams the stone had never been this big; she was an incredibly lucky woman. And Nick was a very generous man. He’d been spoiling her rotten since their first date.

"You do impulsive well," Nick commented. "Better than I would have thought when we first met."

"Because you’re a bad influence," she teased.

His grin broadened. "I’ve been told that before. Life is supposed to be fun. You are having fun, aren’t you?"

"Absolutely. This day has been perfect. The chapel was lovely. The minister made a nice speech about love and marriage. I was afraid it would feel like a quickie wedding, but it didn’t. And this hotel room—it’s incredible." She waved her hand in the air as she glanced around their honeymoon suite. Nick had ordered in scented candles that bathed the room in a soft light, riotous colorful wildflowers on every table, rose petals lining a romantic path to the bedroom, and silver trays with chocolate-covered strawberries, her favorite dessert. She couldn’t have asked for a more romantic setting in which to begin her new life. "You’ve made me so happy, Nick. You’ve given me exactly what I wanted."

He nodded. "I feel the same way." He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the mouth, a promise of what was to come. "I’m going to get some ice." He sent her a meaningful look. "I think we’ll want some cold champagne...later."

A tingle of anticipation ran down her spine. "Don’t be long."

He picked up the ice bucket and headed for the door. Once there, he paused and pulled out the antique pocket watch she’d given him as a wedding present a few minutes earlier. "Thanks again for this," he said. "It means a lot to me."

"My grandmother told me I should give it to the man I love. And that’s you."

Kayla wanted him to say he loved her, too, but he simply smiled and gave her a little wave as he left the room. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t said the words. He’d married her. That was what was important. She’d spent most of her twenties with a commitment-phobic boyfriend who couldn’t bring himself to pop the question. Nick had told her almost immediately that he intended to be her husband. She’d been swept away by his love and his confidence that they were perfect for each other. Now, only three weeks since that first date, she was his wife. She could hardly believe it. Three weeks! This was definitely the craziest thing she’d ever done.

Well, so what? She’d been responsible and cautious her entire life. She was almost thirty years old. It was about time she took a chance.

Too restless to sit, Kayla got up to look out the window. Their luxurious honeymoon suite was on the hotel’s twenty-fifth floor and offered a spectacular view of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains. She was only four hours from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area, but it felt like a million miles. Her entire life had changed during a simple wedding ceremony that had been witnessed by only two strangers. It was her one regret that neither her family nor Nick’s had attended the wedding. But the past was behind her. Tonight was a new beginning.

Turning away from the window, she entered the bedroom. She took off her dress and slipped on a scarlet see-through silk teddy that left nothing to the imagination. Then she drew a brush through her long, thick, curly brown hair that fell past her shoulders and never seemed to do exactly what she wanted. Her best friend, Samantha, had told her that the messy, curly look was coming back in, so maybe for the first time in her life, Kayla’s hair was actually in style.

A flash of insecurity made her wonder if the hot-red teddy was too much or if she should have gone with elegant white silk. But the sophisticated white lingerie she’d considered purchasing had reminded her of something her mother would wear, and she was definitely not her mother.

Smiling at that thought, Kayla couldn’t help but be pleased by her reflection in the mirror. There was a sparkle in her brown eyes, a rosy glow in her cheeks. She looked like a woman in love. And that was exactly what she was. She’d made the right decision, she told herself again, trying to ignore the niggling little doubt that wouldn’t seem to go away.

The quiet in the room made the voices in her head grow louder. She could hear her mother’s shocked and disgusted words: "Kayla, have you lost your mind? You can’t marry a man you’ve known for three weeks. It’s foolish. You’ll regret this." And her friend Samantha had pleaded with her. "Just wait until I get back from London. You need to think, Kayla. How much do you really know about this man?"

She knew enough, Kayla told herself firmly. And this marriage was between her and Nick, no one else. Turning away from the mirror, she sprayed some perfume in the air and walked through it. Debating whether or not she should wait for Nick in bed, she tried out several sexy poses on the satiny duvet. She felt completely ridiculous and chided herself for being nervous. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t had sex. And it had been good. It would be even better tonight because they were married, they were in love, and they were committed.

As she stood up, the suite seemed too quiet. She wondered what was taking Nick so long. The ice machine was only a short distance from the room, and he had left at least fifteen minutes ago. He must have decided to run downstairs and pick up another special dessert or more champagne. She smiled at the thought. Nick was so romantic. He always knew just how to make her feel loved and cherished.

She walked into the living room and sat down on the couch to wait. She flipped on the television and ran through the channels. The minutes continued to tick by. Glancing at her watch, she realized an hour had passed. An uneasy feeling swept through her body. She got up and paced. Within seconds the room grew too small for her growing agitation. She had a terrible feeling something was wrong.

Returning to the bedroom, she slipped out of her lingerie and dug through her suitcase for a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. All the while she kept hoping to hear Nick’s footsteps or his voice.

Nothing. Silence.

She grabbed the key and left the suite, heading to the nearest ice machine. Nick wasn’t there. She tried the other end of the hall, the next floor up, the next floor down. Her heart began to race. She checked the room again, then took the elevator down to the lobby, searching the casino, the shops, the restaurants and bars, and even the parking lot, where Nick’s Porsche was parked right where they’d left it. She stopped by the phone bank in the lobby and called the room again. There was still no answer.

Kayla didn’t know she was crying until an older woman stopped her by the elevator and asked her if everything was all right.

"My husband. I can’t find my husband," she muttered.

The woman gave her a pitying smile. "Story of my life. He’ll come back when he runs out of money, honey. They all do."

"He’s not gambling. It’s our wedding night. He went to get ice." Kayla entered the next elevator, leaving the woman and her disbelieving expression behind. She didn’t care what that woman thought. Kayla knew Nick wouldn’t gamble away their wedding night. He wouldn’t do that to her. But when she returned to her room, it was as empty as when she’d left it.

She didn’t know what to do. She sat back down to wait.

When the clock struck midnight, and Nick had been gone for almost five hours, Kayla called the front desk and told them her husband was missing. The hotel sent up George Benedict, an older man who worked for hotel security. After discussing her situation, he assured her they would look for Nick, but there was something in his expression that told her they wouldn’t look too hard. It was obvious to Kayla that Mr. Benedict thought Nick was either downstairs gambling and had lost track of time or he had skipped out on her, plain and simple. Neither explanation made sense to her.

Kayla didn’t sleep all night. In her mind she ran through a dozen possible scenarios of what could have happened to Nick. Maybe he’d been robbed, hit over the head, knocked unconscious. Maybe he was sitting in a hospital right now with amnesia, not knowing who he was. She hoped to God it wasn’t worse than that. No news had to be good news, right?

Finally, she curled up in a chair by the window, watching the moon go down and the sun come up over the lake.

It was the longest night of her life.

A knock came at the door just before nine o’clock in the morning. She ran to open it, hoping she’d see Nick in the hallway, wearing a sheepish smile, offering some crazy explanation.

It wasn’t Nick. It was the security guy from the night before, George Benedict. His expression was serious, his eyes somber.

Putting a hand to her suddenly racing heart, she said, "What’s happened?"

He held up a black tuxedo jacket. A now limp and wilted red rose boutonniere hung from the lapel. "We found this in a men’s room off the lobby. Is it your husband’s jacket?"

"I...I think so. I don’t understand. Where’s Nick?"

"We don’t know yet, but this was in the pocket." He held out his hand, a solid gold wedding band in his palm.

She took the ring from him, terrified when she read the simple inscription on the inside of the band, FOREVER LOVE, the same words that were engraved on her wedding ring. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.

This was Nick’s ring, the one she’d slipped on his finger when she’d vowed to spend the rest of her life with him. "No," she breathed.

"I’ve seen it happen before," the older man said gently. "A hasty marriage in a casino chapel, second thoughts..."

She saw the pity in his eyes, and she couldn’t accept it. "You’re wrong. You have to be wrong. Nick loved me. He wanted to get married. It was his idea. His idea," she repeated desperately.

She closed her hand around the ring, her fingers tightening into a fist. Her husband had not run out on her... had he?

 

 

Chapter One

 

Two weeks later

 

Nick Granville was happy to be home. He hadn’t left his heart in San Francisco, as the song went, but he had missed the city of narrow, steep streets and sweeping bay vistas. As he set down his suitcases on the gleaming hardwood floor in the living room of his two-story house, he drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. While the past three months spent in the jungles of Africa had been spectacular, engineering bridges in remote parts of the world had taught him to appreciate the simple pleasures in life, like a hot shower, a good cup of coffee, and a soft bed. He intended to enjoy all three as soon as possible.

He walked across the room to throw open the windows. He was surprised to find the blinds open. The cleaning service must have forgotten to close them. He’d hired a service to come in once a month while he was gone to keep the dust under control. They’d obviously done a good job. The air didn’t smell nearly as musty as he’d anticipated, but he opened a window just the same, allowing the cool March breezes to blow through the room.

He’d chosen this small house because it overlooked the Marina Green, the bay, the Marin Headlands, and most important, the Golden Gate Bridge. Bridges were his passion. He was an admitted junkie. His living room walls were covered with photographs of his favorite bridges, a few he’d had a hand in building. There was something about the massive structures that made his blood stir. He’d decided to become an engineer before he graduated from high school, and he’d gone after that career with single-minded determination. It hadn’t been easy. He’d had a lot of other distractions and responsibilities, which he’d acquired when his father had run out on the family, but that was water under the proverbial bridge, he thought with a small smile. He had the life he wanted now. That was all that mattered.

Turning away from the view, he caught sight of his telephone answering machine. The red light was blinking. He pushed the button on the machine and listened as the first message played back. A woman’s voice came out of the speaker.

"Nick, it’s Kayla. Where are you? Please call me as soon as you can."

Kayla? Who the hell was Kayla? The machine beeped.

"Nick, it’s Kayla again. I don’t know what to do. The security guard found your coat and wedding ring in a men's room at the hotel. I'm really worried. If you wanted out, you should have told me. Please call me."

His coat and his wedding ring? He sure as hell didn’t have a wedding ring. She obviously had the wrong number and the wrong Nick.

"Me again," she said, her voice filled with panic. "I don’t know why I keep calling, except I don’t know what else to do. The police say they can’t help me because there’s no evidence anything happened to you. They think you ran out on me. I guess that’s what you did. Don’t you think you owe me at least an explanation? I love you, Nick." Her voice caught on a sob. "I thought you loved me, too. It was your idea to get married so fast."

Nick shut off the machine, reluctant to hear more of her desperate pleas. He felt as if he had stepped into the middle of someone else’s life, and his relief at being home was tempered by the sense that something was very wrong.

As he looked around the room, his uneasiness grew. Small things began to stand out: the celebrity magazines on the coffee table, the wilted roses in a vase by the window, the empty coffee mug on a side table, the throw blanket that he usually kept on his bed now resting on the arm of his brown leather couch.

Unsettled, Nick walked into the kitchen and found a box of Lucky Charms on the counter, the kind of sugared cereal he’d never eaten in his life. In the refrigerator there was a half-open bottle of chardonnay and a carton of milk that had expired a month ago. His stomach began to churn as he considered the possibilities. Obviously someone had been in his home. The only people who had keys were his mother and the cleaning service. His mother would never leave sour milk in the refrigerator.

His nerves began to tingle. The air was filled with vague scents he couldn’t quite place—a man’s cologne or a woman’s perfume? The silence felt thick and tense. He turned around, feeling as if someone were standing behind him, but there was no one there.

He picked up the phone and called the cleaning service. "This is Nick Granville," he told the woman who answered. "I’d like to speak to the person who has been cleaning my house for the last three months."

He heard the flip of papers, and then she said, "That would be Joanne. She’s not in right now. Can I have her call you?"

"Yes, I need to speak to her as soon as possible. It’s urgent." He ended the call and punched in his mother’s number. She didn’t answer. Not wanting to leave a long message on her machine, he simply told her he was home and asked her to call him back as soon as possible.

He moved across the living room and up the stairs. The master bedroom was the first door on the right. He paused just inside the room. The cream-colored down comforter on his bed was pulled back, the sheets and blankets tangled, as if someone had recently gotten up. A couple of towels from his bathroom lay in a heap on the floor. An empty wineglass sat on the bedside table.

Every detail made his blood pressure rise. What kind of thief slept in his bed, took a shower in his bathroom, and kept food in his kitchen?

The phone rang and he grabbed the extension by the bed, hoping for some answers. It was Joanne from the cleaning service.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Granville?" she asked. "Laurie told me I needed to call you right away."

"Yes, there’s something wrong," he snapped. "This place is a mess. There’s crap everywhere, towels on the floor, and the bed is unmade. What the hell has been going on in my home?"

"Excuse me? I don’t understand," she said, obvious confusion in her voice.

"What don’t you understand? I’ve been out of the country. The only person to have access to my house is your cleaning service."

"But you were home a few weeks ago," she said. "I ran into you right before Valentine’s Day. Don’t you remember? We spoke about how funny it was that we were finally meeting face-to-face."

"What are you talking about? I haven’t been home in three months, so you couldn’t possibly have spoken to me." Nick’s mind raced. Joanne had spoken to someone—who? Obviously it had been a man, and that man had told her that he was Nick Granville. Who would do that? Nick didn’t have any brothers, no friends who would play that kind of a joke on him.

The silence on the phone lengthened. Finally, Joanne said, "I don’t know what to say, Mr. Granville. Perhaps you’ve forgotten. You should ask the woman you were with."

The woman? He was reminded of the pleading, desperate voice from the answering machine.

"You said you were getting married that weekend," Joanne continued. "You both looked incredibly happy. I thought it was so romantic that you were going to have a Valentine’s Day wedding."

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. "That wasn’t me. You didn’t talk to me."

"The man I spoke to said he was Nick Granville," Joanne stated. "I didn’t imagine it."

"I’m sure you spoke to someone, but it wasn’t me. I’ll need to talk to you further about what these people look like. First I’m going to call the police."

"I’ll do whatever I can to help," Joanne replied, a nervous note in her voice. "But I swear I thought the man was you."

"I’m sure you did." Nick hung up the phone, feeling completely rocked by the conversation. He’d always prided himself on being able to roll with the punches, adapt to any situation, no matter how dangerous or bizarre. But this invasion of his home, his privacy, his life, disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. As he gazed around the room, he saw his computer on the desk. The monitor was dark, but the light on the hard drive was on. Someone had been on his computer. He cursed himself for never setting a password, but he’d put it off. No one used the computer but him. Now he realized whoever had been in his home could have accessed his bank accounts, his credit cards, and God knew what else. It occurred to him that he hadn’t looked at a bank statement in a very long time. He hadn’t felt the need. His income far outstripped his living expenses, especially when he was working in the field. He could have been ripped off in a big way.

He rushed across the room to check the computer. The machine whirred and whirred. It must have frozen. Damn. He turned it off, then back on. While he was waiting for it to boot up, he returned downstairs to the living room and replayed the messages on the answering machine.

"Nick, it’s Kayla...."

Kayla. She had to be involved. How the hell was he going to find her?

 

* * *

 

As Kayla stared down at the shattered pieces of colored glass on her studio worktable, she couldn’t help comparing the broken window to her life. In the case of the glass, a baseball had come out of nowhere, blowing the window apart without warning. In her life that baseball had been Nick Granville. She’d spent the past two weeks living in a whirlwind of emotions, one minute furious at Nick for running out on her, the next minute worrying that something had happened to him. She’d bitten her nails down to the quick. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and couldn’t go ten minutes without thinking about him. Not that anyone else seemed to care.

She’d filed missing-persons reports with the Nevada and the California police, but both, upon hearing that she’d known the man only a few weeks, seemed less than enthusiastic about pursuing the case. There was no evidence of foul play, and further questioning had produced few concrete details. It had become embarrassingly clear that she knew very little about her husband.

When the police threw her missing-persons report into a stack of thousands, she’d turned to a private investigator. He’d listened to her story, barely keeping a straight face, and told her he would need a thousand-dollar retainer to get started. Although she’d been tempted to empty her bank account, some part of her brain had finally woken up and said no. If Nick had suckered her into marriage, for what reason she couldn’t fathom, was she really going to let herself get taken again? She’d walked out the door and prayed that Nick would come back to her, that there would be some crazy but logical explanation for his absence.

She was still waiting for that to happen and feeling more stupid by the minute. Her friends and her family had reminded her that they’d told her so, that no good could come of such a hasty marriage. They had encouraged her to simply get on with her life. How on earth was she supposed to do that with so many unanswered questions?

Stretching her arms over her head, Kayla gave a weary sigh. Work was the only thing that got her through the days and sometimes the nights. It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon, and she’d been working for six straight hours, trying to reconstruct the pattern of the window, so that she could see how best to attack the job. She would be able to use most of the old glass, but she would have to create several smaller pieces to fit where the shards of glass had splintered too finely to be replaced.

It had once been a beautiful window in a small chapel in the Presidio, intact for almost a hundred years—until a group of neighborhood kids decided to play a pickup game of baseball in the field next to the church. Kayla wanted to restore the window to perfection for many reasons, but most of all to prove that nothing was irretrievably broken. Everything could be fixed. That was what her grandfather had always told her. And with her life in tatters, she wanted to believe that now more than ever.

She wished her grandfather were here today. Edward Hirsch, who had taught Kayla the art of stained glass, would know just what to do with this window. The Hirsch family had been creating and restoring stained glass in Germany for almost a century. Edward had passed the family talent down to her. He’d also passed down his house and the converted garage studio. Well, actually, her grandmother had passed it on. Charlotte Hirsch had decided to move out and start over somewhere new after her husband of forty-something years had died.

While Potrero Hill wasn’t as fashionable or sophisticated as downtown San Francisco, the abundance of sunny days on the hill bathed Kayla’s studio in beautiful light more often than not, and the studio was perfect for her needs. Her grandfather had worked with glass only as a hobby, a way to let off creative energy after his day job as a banker. Kayla, however, was turning her passion into a lucrative business.

The aging Victorian house also felt like home to her, and one day it would be perfect for raising a family, with its three bedrooms and basement playroom. Nick had loved it the minute he’d seen it. He’d wanted to explore every nook and cranny of the two-story house. They’d picked out the bedroom they would turn into a nursery. They’d talked about remodeling the old kitchen and tearing up the carpets and restoring the hardwood floors. She’d believed in him, trusted him, confident that his actions would follow his words. When he’d told her on their wedding night that he was going to get ice and that he’d be right back, she’d never thought for a second that would be the last conversation they would have.

Getting to her feet, she walked over to the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee. Taking a sip, she realized it was barely lukewarm. She made a face and tossed it down the sink. As she rinsed her mug, she glanced out the window at the wild cottage garden that was still very much one of her many works in progress. She’d planted a ring of wildflowers around the sprawling old apple tree and added a wooden bench and a birdfeeder to attract the hummingbirds. An arbor entwined with climbing roses stood in one corner of the yard; a thick row of shrubs ran along the perimeter, hiding the neighboring houses from view. She’d mixed rosemary and sage with currant and blueberry bushes. She’d added foxglove and sunflowers to attract the butterflies, and filled in the rest of the garden with whatever color she could find, cosmos, zinnia, and marigold. She especially loved the splash of lavender that spilled over the path leading back to the house.

She’d thought about trying to capture the essence of her garden in glass, but she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to do justice to the wild beauty, that she wouldn’t be able to fully capture the nuances of the changing colors of each new season. She smiled to herself as she remembered Nick’s face when he’d first seen her garden. She’d tried to explain the method behind the madness, but he’d simply shaken his head and looked at her as if he thought she was completely crazy. He’d said the only thing he’d ever wanted in a backyard was a pool or a hot tub. Funny how the bits and pieces she remembered about him now made her wonder just how compatible they’d really been. Had it all been a mistake? Had Nick changed his mind? Or had something terrible happened to him?

Turning away from the window, she forced her mind away from the frustrating questions that had no answers and started to clean up her work area. A few minutes later, the door to her studio opened unexpectedly. She couldn’t prevent the involuntary skip of her heart. Two and a half weeks had passed, and she still couldn’t stop jumping at every ring of the phone, every knock at the door. But it wasn’t her husband entering the studio; it was her longtime friend and business associate, Samantha Jennings. A tall, thin ash blonde with an energetic personality and a sarcastic wit, Samantha was a marketing whiz who had built a thriving business representing various artists, including Kayla. However, their relationship went far beyond business, their friendship dating back to childhood.

Unfortunately, their bond had been strained since Kayla’s wedding. Samantha had been in London for most of the month that Kayla and Nick were together. She’d begged Kayla not to get married until she returned, but at the time Kayla just hadn’t wanted to wait one more second to have everything she’d ever dreamed about. Now she was left not only to repair her broken heart but also to mend her friendship with Sam.

Samantha perched on the edge of the worktable and glanced down at the glass. "How’s the window coming along?"

"Slowly," Kayla replied, sitting down in her chair. There was a sparkle in Samantha’s eyes. It was obvious that she was practically bursting at the seams to tell her something. "What’s up?" Kayla asked.

"I just took a call from the Carleton Court Hotel in Sausalito. They’re doing massive renovations, and listen to this—they want you to bid on doing two stained-glass windows in the lobby. Isn’t that cool? Not only will it be great money, but it will also be tremendous exposure for you as an artist."

"That sounds like a big job." Kayla felt both excited and terrified at the prospect. Living in limbo the past month had cut into her confidence, her trust in herself and other people.

"It is big, but you can do it," Samantha said. "You’re so talented."

"Still..."

"Look, I know you’ve been going through a rough time, but this will be good for you—for both of us."

Her no-nonsense words reminded Kayla that she wasn’t in this business alone and that she owed it to Samantha to keep putting one foot in front of the next, something she hadn’t been doing particularly well since her aborted wedding night. "When do I meet with them?"

"Not for three weeks. You have plenty of time to get ready. They gave me some ideas of what they want." She handed Kayla a folder. "It’s all there."

"I’ll take a look later tonight," she said.

"Good. I have to run," Samantha said, sliding to her feet. "Tonight is my second date with Jeff."

"You brought him back for a repeat performance—I’m impressed," Kayla said with a smile. Samantha was notoriously picky when it came to men, and unlike Kayla, she wasn’t in any hurry to get to the marriage, kids, white-picket-fence kind of life.

"He made a good first impression," Samantha said. She paused, an uncomfortable note entering her voice as she asked, "Did you talk to your stepsister about filing for divorce?"

"No," Kayla said with annoyance. "It’s only been two weeks. The police are still investigating."

Samantha shot her a skeptical look. "Sure they are. I’m sorry if I’m pressuring you, but you should be filing for divorce. Get the ball rolling, so you can put this whole disaster behind you."

"He could still come back."

"What if he does?" Samantha asked in amazement. "What could he possibly say, aside from that he’d been kidnapped or was suffering from extended amnesia, that would explain why he ran out on you without a word?"

"It’s possible he was kidnapped. And amnesia is a real clinical diagnosis."

Samantha let out a long, disgusted sigh. "That’s your imagination talking, Kay. You know it is."

She did know it. But the alternative left her feeling like even more of an idiot. "You’re right, but it’s easier to think something happened to him than to believe he ran out on me."

"Well, better he did it now than in a year or two, or after you had a kid. He probably just realized you’d both made an impulsive mistake and took off. You know how men are. They like to take the easy way out."

"I don’t think I know men at all," Kayla said wearily.

"Well, I do. So next time you listen to me," Samantha said, shaking a finger at Kayla. "Call me next week, and we’ll go to lunch. But don’t call too early," she added, as she headed to the door. "I’m planning on some very late nights," she said with a wicked smile.

After Samantha left, Kayla got up, switched off the light, and headed down the well-worn path between her studio and the house. She checked her bare cupboards and refrigerator and decided it was time to find some food. Throwing a short jean jacket over her skimpy bright orange T-shirt, she pulled the rubber band out of her ponytail and shook her hair out, running her fingers through the tangled strands. She should probably run a brush through it, but what the heck—it wasn’t as if she needed to dress up to pick up a pizza.

When she got into her car, she told herself to drive straight to her destination, no stops, but the urge to take a little side trip past Nick’s house grew stronger with each block. To be honest, it wasn’t a side trip; it was a hike across town, and she really needed to stop torturing herself this way. Maybe this would be her final trip, one last good-bye, she told herself. Closure. That was what she needed to put an end to this chapter of her life.

Driven by rationalizations that didn’t sound true even in her own head, Kayla kept going until she reached the Marina Green, a large expanse of grass that edged San Francisco Bay and provided a spectacular view of ships sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge. She couldn’t imagine getting much work done if she lived down here. She’d be too tempted to take long, windy walks or simply stare out the window at the setting sun that even now was lighting up the clear, dusky sky with a wild splash of purples, oranges, and pinks.

As she paused at a stoplight, she drew in a breath at the awesome color palette provided by Mother Nature and immediately envisioned a new stained-glass window with exactly those colors. She doubted she would ever be able to match the perfection that was before her now. Even as she tried to commit the colors to memory, they began to fade into the night. Nothing ever stayed the same.

When the light changed to green, she turned left, her heart beating more rapidly as Nick’s home came into view. She’d driven down this street a hundred times since her wedding day, hoping against hope to see some sign of life. Every time she’d been disappointed.

Until now...

The light in the window shocked her so much she blinked twice to make sure it was real. With shaky hands, she steered into a nearby parking spot and shut off the engine, her heart beating double-time. Nick was back. He was home. She was going to see him tonight, get the answers to her questions. So why couldn’t she move? Why was she frozen with fear?

She shouldn’t be scared. She should be angry, furious. She should go up there and give him a piece of her mind.

That was exactly what she would do.

Throwing her shoulders back, she stepped out of the car and walked across the street and up the stairs to the front door. Her knock brought the sound of heavy footsteps. She was afraid to breathe.

The door opened abruptly, and a man stood before her.

"Who are you?" she asked in shock. This wasn’t Nick. It was a stranger—a man who towered over her five-foot-four-inch frame by at least ten inches. He had dark hair and the most piercing green eyes she’d ever seen. She took a step back, feeling an instinctive need to defend herself—against what, she didn’t know. "Who are you?" she repeated.

"I’m Nick Granville."

 

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