Wife With Amnesia (14 page)

Claire laughed, but the sound held no humor. How could he possibly hope to make her happy, to put her fears to rest, by digging up a past that she didn't want to remember? “You didn't do this for me, Matt. You did it for yourself because you can't accept the fact that you made a mistake when you made a little nobody your wife.”

“That's not true. You can't believe that!”

“I can believe it, and I do. Well, I'm going to make it easy on both of us, Matt. I'll save you the trouble of telling me you made a mistake and want out of this marriage by being the one to leave.”

He grabbed her by the arm, his eyes blazing with temper and hurt. “I'm not letting you go.”

Claire looked at the hand wrapped around her arm. “You can't force me to stay.”

“I love you, Red. And I know you love me.” He pulled her close and kissed her hard, deep, endlessly.

With a strength and skill she didn't know she possessed, she forced herself not to respond, when what she wanted to do was fall into his arms and beg him not to let her go. When he finally lifted his head, she made her
voice as cool as a February wind, “If you're finished, I'm going to go pack.”

He flinched as though she'd slapped him. And blocking out his protests and pleas for her not to leave, for her to at least talk to him about this, she packed her bags and walked away from him and out of his life.

At the feel of wet fur brushing her leg, Claire opened her eyes and saw Rocky. His black fur was all spiky and glistening from the rain as he stared up at her with serious gold eyes. Sobbing, Claire clutched the wet cat to her and began to cry.

She'd been deliberately cruel to Matt that night to make him hate her, because she'd been too ashamed to have him learn the truth. While the child she'd been hadn't understood and had remembered little of her mother, the adult she had become knew from those few memories that her mother had been a prostitute…a prostitute who had abandoned her child and had never come back for her as she'd promised.

How could she possibly agree to start a family with Matt knowing that…knowing that inside her she carried that bad seed just as her foster parents had accused? She couldn't. And Matt had wanted children so badly that she knew she had to let him go. She couldn't…wouldn't deny him. So she'd left him.

But what if she'd been wrong? What if her foster parents had been wrong about her? She thought of Maggie's baby at the hospital today. No matter who little Daniela's parents were, it wouldn't have stopped the baby from being the innocent little angel that she was. Was it any different with her? Had she allowed one warped couple's sense of values to nearly destroy her marriage to the man she loved?

Claire jumped as the phone on the desk started to ring
again and Rocky leaped out of her arms. Matt! Matt must be trying to reach her, she thought. Swiping the tears from her eyes, she pushed up to her feet and reached for the phone.

A hand clamped down on her wrist. “Hello, Mary Kate.”

Claire jerked up her gaze, and she stared at the man who'd come into her shop claiming he wanted to buy a cup of coffee and cheesecake. “Wh-who are you? What are you doing in my house?”

“Now is that any way to greet an old friend?” He smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. Then he peeled off the dark glasses and she stared into cold blue eyes. “Remember me now?”

“Carl,” she whispered. Her blood turned to ice in her veins. And suddenly the past—all of her past—came back to her in a rush. “You're the man who killed my mother.”

“D
amn it, Red. Why aren't you answering the phone?” Matt muttered as he listened to the phone ring. Hunched over the steering wheel so he could see through the rain pounding the borrowed SUV, he swerved to his right. And making a silent promise to his brother-in-law to take care of any damage to the vehicle, he drove with two wheels on the curb in order to get around the two flooded cars blocking the street.

When he came to the downed tree in the middle of the road, he cut the connection on the phone. Shifting into four-wheel drive, he climbed the curb and chastised himself for sending Claire home to an empty house. He should have sent her to his mother's. Better yet, he should have just said to hell with the restaurant and gone to get her himself.

Maybe Claire had claimed that she was fine and maybe she had been better during the last couple of heavy rains.
But this was a major storm—one that was sure to leave Claire scared spitless. Hell, it had him scared spitless!

He drove along the neutral ground that served as a median and green space for the avenue, which at the moment looked like a graveyard for cars that had tried but failed to escape the high water. When he saw the dangling wires on the utility pole, Matt kicked into reverse and maneuvered his way between a Toyota hatchback and a Mercedes and shot back down to the street.

On the move again, he punched in the programmed number to connect him to Claire's cell phone. And when the phone picked up after two rings, relief rushed through him. “Jesus, Red, I've been trying—”

“Hi, this is Claire Gallagher,” her recorded voice began. “I can't take your call right now, but if you leave your name and number, I'll call you back the first chance I get.”

Matt swore, tossed his phone to the passenger seat and punched the gas. He knew the faster speed would create a wake that would send the already-high water lapping at people's doorways. He was sorry for that, truly hoped it didn't cause any damage. And if the cops decided to ticket him for the infraction, they would just have to add fleeing the scene of the crime to the charges, because he didn't intend to stop again until he reached home and Claire.

When he pulled into his driveway ten minutes later, he realized he'd left the garage door opener in his car and that his house key was on the ring with the car keys he'd given to Dan. Didn't matter, he told himself as he exited the SUV and made a dash through the rain to the side door of the garage. If Claire was curled up in a ball on the couch as he suspected, there was no point in ringing the bell because she'd be too frightened to hear it. He
started to enter the security code, saw it wasn't on and scowled. A twist of the doorknob revealed it wasn't locked, either. Blinking rainwater from his eyes, he stepped inside.

The sixty-second courtesy light that went on whenever either garage door opened allowed him to make his way across the room without incident. He yanked open the door and started across the kitchen—then froze.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He tensed. His gut told him something wasn't right. Something that had nothing to do with the storm raging outside. Then he heard it—voices. Claire's voice, unsteady, frightened. And the cold scratchy voice of a stranger. It was the cool, menacing voice of the stranger that made Matt think about the gun in the desk drawer in his study. But he knew he couldn't get to it without alerting them to his presence. So he settled for a tire iron from the garage and started toward the den.

As he passed the open door to the patio deck, Matt strained to make out the voices above the screaming wind and the steady lash of rain against the house. Lightning exploded in the sky. And when a loud boom followed and shook the house, he took advantage of the deafening noise and hurried down the hall. Armed with the tire iron, he crouched down and crept toward the study. Fear jolted through him at the sight of the stranger holding Claire by the arm and aiming a gun at her.

“It was you,” Claire accused. “You were the one who killed my mother.”

Dexter!

Matt knew without even getting a good look at the guy's face that it was him. Claire's mother's boyfriend who had beaten a scared, defenseless child. Something dark and savage ripped through Matt. Everything in him
wanted to attack, to tear the man's heart out and feed it to him. For what he had done to the child Claire had been, for threatening the woman she was now. But he couldn't risk it—not as long as Dexter had that gun trained on Claire. Clamping down on the rage burning inside him, Matt listened. And he waited.

“Oh, God, I remember,” she said, her voice breaking on a sob, her face deathly pale. “That night during the hurricane…I saw you. You were waiting for my mother outside the church.”

“I always wondered if you had seen what happened that night. Kitty said you were in a safe place where I couldn't find you. But I thought I saw those big eyes of yours watching from the shadows.”

“I was supposed to stay hidden, but I didn't. I followed Momma and saw you,” Claire said, and the haunted look in her eyes, the emptiness in her voice had Matt's heart in a vise. “You stabbed her with a knife. You killed her.”

“It was your fault,” Carl spat out. “She'd still be alive if it wasn't for you. Kitty was one of my best girls until she got herself knocked up with you. She wouldn't get rid of you and then, after you were born, she refused to give you up. You were just a squalling little brat, always in the way. But Kitty wanted you, said she was going to walk because I slapped you around a few times.”

“So you killed her.”

“No broad walks out on me.”

“All these years I thought she'd left me,” Claire said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I thought she didn't come back because she didn't love me. But that wasn't true. She couldn't come back for me like she'd promised because she was dead. Because you killed her. You killed
her. And all these years, I'd blocked it out. I didn't remember.”

“You shouldn't have tried to unblock it. That was a mistake.”

As though Claire sensed his presence nearby, she cut a glance in his direction. Matt put a finger to his lips, signaling her to remain silent.

“And having that rich husband of yours send a P.I. to hunt me down was another mistake.”

Temper flashed in Claire's eyes. “I didn't tell Matt to send anyone to look for you. I didn't even remember you until now.”

Dexter smiled. “So it was your husband's idea, huh? I wondered about that when you didn't recognize me that night outside your store when I tried to warn you off. But that old biddy came along, and I had to make it look like a robbery.”

“It was you! You were the one who mugged me!”

“Right again, Mary Kate. Maybe instead of coming after you, I should have gone to see your husband. Bet it would have been worth quite a piece of change to him and his fancy family for me to keep quiet about his little nobody wife. I imagine he wasn't too happy finding out that his wife's momma was just a two-bit hooker who got knocked up by one of her Johns.”

“You wouldn't have gotten a dime,” she assured him. “Matt loves me for who I am. Who my mother was or where I came from doesn't matter to him.”

“Blood always matters to people who have money.”

“You don't know my husband,” Claire said firmly. She slid a quick glance at him, and Matt locked his eyes with hers.

“You don't know rich people,” Dexter returned. “The
way I see it, I'll be doing that fancy husband of yours a favor by getting rid of you.”

“You'll never get away with it. Matt knows it was you who attacked me that night in the parking lot,” Claire told him. “He loves me. He'll hunt you down, and when he finds you he'll kill you like the snake you are.”

“Yeah? Well, he'll have to find me first,” Dexter said angrily. He twisted her arm, held the gun under her chin. “I've wasted enough time strolling down memory lane with you. It's time for you and me to take a little walk. Somehow it seems fitting that there's a hurricane tonight. There was a hurricane hitting the city all those years ago when I should have killed you, and tonight when I'm going to finish the job, there's another hurricane hitting the city.”

“You won't get away with it,” she insisted.

“I got away with killing Kitty twenty-five years ago, and I'll get away with killing you, too.” He shoved her toward the door, pointing the gun at her back.

Matt flattened himself against the wall and when Claire moved past, he came down on Dexter's arm with the tire iron. Everything happened in a blur. The sound of bones cracking, the spurt of blood, the gun flying out of Dexter's hand, the man's agonized screams.

“Run, Claire!”

Matt swung back around, but Dexter was already up. He kicked the tire iron from Matt's hand, retrieved a knife from his boot. He came at Matt slashing, slicing at him with the knife. Matt delivered a karate kick to Dexter's damaged hand, swung around and kicked the knife from the other one. “Get out of here, Claire,” Matt yelled. When he turned around, Dexter was up and coming at him again.

Out of nowhere a blur of black fur flew through the air, and Rocky jumped on Dexter's back.

Dexter screamed. He flung the cat off him, but it was enough time for Matt to kick the knife out of range. Then he came at Dexter with both fists. He pounded him, beat him for hurting Claire, for all he'd put her through. His knuckles sang with pain, but still he continued to deliver blows.

“Matt. Matt, you have to stop.”

Claire's voice came to him out of a haze red with rage.

“Matt, he's unconscious. You have to stop or you'll kill him.”

He wanted to kill him, Matt admitted. He wanted to kill the scum who had caused Claire so much pain, who had stolen her mother, her childhood from her, who had nearly stolen Claire from him.

“Let me take a look at your hands.”

“They're all right,” he told her.

“Oh, my God. Your poor hands. They're all bruised and bleeding.” She urged him to his feet, guided him from the hall.

“I'm okay,” he told her again.

“I know. But come with me, anyway. Let me clean and bandage your hands for you.”

“I have to call Delvecchio,” he argued, needing a few more minutes to shake the violence that still burned inside him.

“I've already called the police. They're on their way.”

She led him to the kitchen and insisted he sit down while she got the bandages and ointment. But at the sound of the police sirens, Matt headed for the front door.

Claire met him there and directed the police to where Dexter lay unconscious on the floor. And when he started
to follow, she clutched Matt's arm. “It's over, Matt. Let the police do their job.”

 

Matt allowed the police to do their job. And once they'd hauled Dexter away and he'd rewarded Rocky with a dish of caviar, Matt went in search of Claire. He found her in his study, seated on the floor, holding the damning investigator's reports in her hands, with tears running down her cheeks.

She looked up at him, and Matt felt as if he'd been kicked in the gut. “The police are gone, and Rocky's in the kitchen enjoying his reward.”

“I remembered, Matt,” she told him. “I remembered everything tonight. About my mother, about Carl Dexter killing her, about us.”

He went to her, knelt beside her. “I'm sorry, Red. I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you, to put you in danger the way I did. I don't blame you if you hate me. You have every right to after what I've done, what I've put you through.”

“Matt, I—”

“But I love you. I love you so much. I don't want to lose you again. I can't lose you again.”

“Matt, you're not—”

“No, let me finish. You're my soul mate, Claire. My other half. You're what makes me whole. I need you in my life. I need you to love me, to believe in me, to trust me. Who you are…who your parents were or where you came from doesn't matter to me. It never did. Please believe that. All that has ever mattered to me is you. The woman you are. That's who I love. That's who I need in my life.”

“Are you finished?”

“Yes,” he told her.

“I can't forgive you, Matt,” she said, and he felt as though she'd run him through with a sword. “I can't forgive you because there is nothing to forgive.”

“I deceived you.”

“You loved me,” she corrected. “Don't you see? It wasn't you I didn't believe in or trust, Matt, and it wasn't you I was running away from. It was me. I was running away from myself, from my own fears of inadequacy. I didn't remember about Dexter killing my mother. I guess I blocked it out because I didn't want to face it. But I knew what my mother was. Maybe not when I was a child, but I remembered enough about her to know when I was older what she was, to realize that she sold her body to men for money. I was ashamed of her, Matt. And I was ashamed of myself…of what I came from. I didn't want you to know. I didn't want anyone to know.”

Matt held her, stroked her head. “It's nothing for you to be ashamed of.”

“But I was. And because I was ashamed, I allowed it to feed my insecurities. I doubted your love for me when I never had any reason to. I let pride blind me. I lost sight of the fact that the two people who created me biologically are only responsible for the color of my eyes and hair. Not for the person I am inside, the person I am in my heart. I'm responsible for that person.”

“And who are you?” Matt asked, his heart filled with hope, with love.

She took his face between her palms. “I'm the woman who loves you—today, tomorrow, always. I'm the woman who wants to be your wife, who wants to have babies with you, lots and lots of babies,” she murmured, and took his mouth with hers.

Thunder grumbled outside. Lightning streaked through the sky. But it didn't come close to the love thundering
in her heart, the desire streaking through her veins as she kissed Matt. Claire reached for the edge of his sweater, pulled it off and started on the buttons of his shirt. She was eager to have him naked, to feel his skin, to taste his flesh.