Amanda (36 page)

“The first thing that struck me,” Amanda said, “was that there was no public reference to anything
having happened that night. Until the newspapers wrote up Brian Daulton’s death, there wasn’t even a mention of his wife having left him and taken their child with her.”

“Jesse would have kept it quiet—probably, if I know him, thinking Christine would come back sooner or later.”

“About her running away, that’s what I thought. But I was convinced something else had happened, something that made her run away in fear—and if it happened, it happened without any public notice.”

“Something you didn’t remember—but feared.”

Amanda didn’t let the doubt in his voice discourage her. She kept her voice steady. “I knew something had happened. But I also knew, by then, that at least two other women had claimed to be Amanda Daulton, and it seemed likely I would be viewed with open distrust if I couldn’t prove myself.”

“Which you couldn’t.”

“No. But I didn’t really have a choice; I needed to come here, to find out who I was, and to understand the family I’d come from. Even if … even if I never found out why my mother had run away from Glory, I thought I’d at least have a better understanding of who I was. But whenever I thought about coming here, I was always conscious of that locked room and the terrible thing inside it, the thing I was afraid of.

“My mother had gone to a great deal of trouble to hide us under a different name—and it seemed to me that it would be smart if I did the same thing. So, my investigator helped me to create a background for myself, just in case I had to … make a quick exit. I knew there were holes in it, but I didn’t think it would have to hold up more than a couple of months. After that, either I’d know the truth about what had happened that last night, or it probably wouldn’t matter.”

“you’d be gone?”

Amanda leaned her head back against the couch and looked at him gravely. “I thought I probably would. From the moment I stood on that hill in the pasture and looked at Glory the day you took me out there, I knew I could never live in that house.”

“Why? Because you were afraid?”

She managed a small smile. “Because I knew I didn’t belong there. Oh—it was familiar. It’s when I saw the house that I started remembering bits and pieces of my childhood.”

He was silent for a moment, then asked, “What about that night? Have you remembered anything about what happened?”

“There have been a couple of flashes, very vivid but brief. I remember … going downstairs, past the clock. Out the front door and across the field. Jumping a ditch filled with muddy water, and getting near the stables. Seeing a light. Hearing … something. Something terrible.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. That’s where the memories … and the nightmares … always stop.”

After a silent moment, Walker said, “Does that night have anything to do with your fear of horses?”

“I think so. I loved horses before that night—but not after. So something must have happened, and whatever it was made me afraid of horses. I think … that night, I was sneaking out to see a mare who’d foaled a couple of weeks before. But I don’t remember seeing her. It’s … just a blank after that.”

Walker shook his head. “Christine never told you
anything
about what might have happened that night?”

“Nothing. As far as I can remember, she never said a word to me about it. But I know she was afraid.”

Amanda gazed steadily at Walker, willing him to believe her. “She was always afraid after we left here. And I don’t know why.”

Frowning, Walker said, “Have you asked any of the others what they remember?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“It was just another night to them. Maggie and Kate both said my mother had been unhappy, but neither noticed anything unusual about her. Neither did Jesse. But …”

“Someone did?”

“Victor.”

“What?” Walker’s eyes narrowed swiftly.

Amanda nodded. “Just before he went off on that stock-buying trip, we had a brief conversation by the pool. He said … my mother had been having an affair with a trainer named Matt Darnell that summer.”

“Did you believe him?”

She hesitated, then nodded again. “He said he had proof. Before I could ask about that, he was called away, and we never spoke again. But I went back and checked her journals, and there are some passages that seem to hint at something … passionate happening that summer. And Victor said this Matt Darnell left with my mother and me. He seemed very sure of it.”

“Then maybe that’s your answer,” Walker told her. “Maybe this frightening room you’re afraid to look into was created when you were torn away from a place you loved in the middle of the night and taken from your father.”

“What about the fear of horses?”

“It could have been a separate incident, something that happened before or after that night. You said yourself your memories have been flashes, too elusive
to get hold of. Maybe it’s all jumbled together in your mind.”

“And my mother’s fear?”

“She was a runaway wife, and the Daultons were powerful. She could have lost custody of you. She must have known Jesse wouldn’t stop looking after Brian died, and if he’d found the two of you, you can bet he would have taken her to court.”

“Maybe.” The possible explanations he offered were plausible, certainly. But they didn’t explain why Christine Daulton had continued to be afraid long after Amanda had come of age. They didn’t explain why Amanda had absolutely no memory of Matt Darnell. And they didn’t explain Amanda’s growing certainty that her fear of horses
did
stem from something that had happened that night.

But for now, she was tired of thinking about it, tired of having all the questions and worries chasing their tails inside her head. Helen had said she would remember when the time was right, and Amanda had to believe that was true.

She was on the point of telling Walker that she might have been deliberately poisoned at the party, and that Victor might have been killed because of whatever he hadn’t gotten the chance to tell her, and that maybe the dogs had been taken away so that someone could get to her—God, it was all so nebulous! Mights and maybes, whatevers and what-ifs. Walker would think she was paranoid, and she was beginning to think the same thing.

“So,” she said instead, meeting his intent gaze, “now you know the truth. My story, with all the
i’s
dotted and the t’s crossed, just the way a lawyer likes them.”

He smiled slightly. “Thank you.”

She was a little surprised. “For what?”

“For trusting me.”

Amanda looked down at his hand still holding hers, watched his thumb move gently to rub her skin. “Are you going to tell Jesse?” she asked almost idly.

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“I’d rather tell him myself,” she said. “Explain about the fake background, I mean. But … I’d rather wait awhile.”

“Until you remember?” He smiled again when she gave him a startled look. “Yes, I know you don’t buy my nice, logical theories about what may have happened twenty years ago. Well … I’m not so sure I do, either. In any case, giving you time to try to remember makes sense.”

“And in the meantime?”

“In the meantime, we have this comfortable, private office all to ourselves. You may have noticed I gave my secretary the afternoon off, and forwarded all calls to my answering machine at home.”

“I wondered why the phone hadn’t rung,” she murmured.

“That’s why. Because I’m a man who plans ahead.”

Amanda eyed him consideringly. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking—how could you possibly know our little confrontation today would end on a positive note? I was going to leave, you know. I was going to walk out of here.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“I wasn’t?”

“No.” His free hand began toying with the buttons on her blouse.

“you’re very sure of yourself,” she noted somewhat resentfully.

He leaned over and kissed her, taking his time about it, then smiled at her. “What I’m sure of is a whisper I heard in the night.”

Amanda would have liked to have been able to stare him defiantly in the eye and ask what the hell he was talking about. Unfortunately, she knew her voice would betray her, just as her body was betraying her. She watched his nimble fingers cope with buttons, and caught her breath when they slid inside her blouse to touch her sensitive skin.

His green eyes were gleaming at her. Probably with male triumph.

“I did hear that whisper, didn’t I, Amanda?” His lips feathered kisses over her cheek and down her throat.

“I don’t remember any whisper,” she managed.

“Don’t you?” He unfastened the front clasp of her bra and pressed his lips to her breastbone.

“Well … maybe I do.” She conjured a glare when he raised his head. “Are you going to seduce me right here under your father’s picture?”

“I thought I would.”

She blinked and lost the glare. “Oh.”

“Tell me you love me, Amanda.”

“you’re not being fair.”

“I know.” He lowered his head again, and pushed aside the lacy cup of her bra so that his mouth could brush the straining tip of her breast. “But tell me anyway.”

Amanda slid her fingers into his hair. “Bastard. I love you.”

She caught the flash of a green glance and thought dazedly that there was definite male triumph there. So at least it mattered to him. …

It was nearly suppertime when Walker finally took her back to Glory, so of course he stayed for the meal. He might have stayed all night, except that Amanda gathered the
scraps of her dignity about her and refused to ask him.

It rained all night.

It also rained all day Tuesday, and the weather forecasts were filled with warnings of the flash flooding possible in mountain streams. Walker called that evening to tell Amanda that the stream beside their gazebo was so swollen it was threatening to wash away the footbridge and that the path would be ankle-deep in mud for days if this kept up. He could always drive over, though, he said, if she felt like having company.

Still annoyed with him, Amanda retorted that it was a lousy night to go anywhere and she thought she’d curl up with a good book.

It rained all night.

Though Reece could get away to his office and Sully went to the stables rain or shine, Jesse, Amanda, Kate, and Maggie had more or less been stuck in the house, and all had been showing signs of cabin fever. By the time the sun made a tentative appearance on Wednesday morning, everyone was so delighted that they practically tumbled out of the house like children freed from the prison of school.

Kate bolted for the stables and Ben; Maggie coaxed Jesse out to walk in the garden; and Amanda briefly tried the path to King High before being forced to admit that Walker had been right—it was ankle-deep in mud. And he wasn’t home anyway. So she contented herself with walking around the vast yard, breathing in the rain-washed air and stretching her legs.

The day teased them, sunlight disappearing from time to time behind angry clouds, and two brief showers driving them back inside the house, but by afternoon it seemed the worst was over.

“Afraid not,” Kate said when Amanda offered that
hopeful statement. “I just heard the weather forecast; we’re expecting a hell of a storm late tonight.”

Amanda groaned. “Whatever happened to the
sunny
South? Much more of this and We’ll have to build an ark.”

“No kidding. And Sully says at least two of the streams nearby have changed course, so We’ve already got flooding problems on some of the trails. It’s a mess.”

It was indeed.

Amanda wandered the house restlessly during the second of the two brief showers, then finally broke down and called Walker about midafternoon. And at least he didn’t crow—though he did chuckle—when he said he could cut his workday short around four and come over if she liked.

With time to kill and fair weather threatened, she decided to go for a walk, this time in the garden. Everyone seemed to have vanished from the house, but she found Jesse just coming out of his study when she passed by.

“Walker’s coming over later,” she told him.

“Is he?” Jesse looked at her oddly, then surprised her by lifting a big, weathered hand to touch her cheek very lightly. “I’m very glad you’re here, honey. You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded. “You’ve … made me feel very welcome here.” It was a lie, but Amanda told it without flinching.

A smile softened his harsh face. “Good. That’s good.”

There was something almost fierce in his tarnished-silver eyes, and he made her a little uncomfortable because she didn’t understand it. As smoothly as possible, she eased away from him and continued down the hallway, saying over her shoulder, “I want to
catch some of this sunshine before it goes away again.”

“Good idea,” he called after her.

Amanda walked in the garden lazily, following the gravelled paths that were still neat despite pouring rain. Some of the June flowers were rather beaten down, their petals scattered over the grass, but all in all it seemed the garden was surviving nature’s onslaught courageously.

She hadn’t intended to go anywhere else, but Amanda could have sworn she heard a dog barking, and that drew her out one of the side paths to stand at the northwest corner of the garden. She stood listening intently, silently cursing a bird chirping merrily in a nearby tree. Had she been mistaken? Yes—

No. She heard it again, faint and distant but quite definitely a dog barking. Without even thinking about it, Amanda set off, hurrying across the lawn toward the northwest mountain.

If she had stopped and thought about it, Amanda probably would have waited for Walker; paranoid or not, she had stuck close to the house when she was alone—and she had caught herself being ridiculously careful on the stairs as well. But she didn’t think about anything except the possibility of finding the dogs after all this time.

Amanda went some distance before pausing to get another navigational fix; she shouted the dogs’ names, and listened until she heard the barks, still faint. She changed course slightly and went over a rise to find a creek where one hadn’t been only days before. She picked her way across and climbed again, heading away from the noise of the water.