With the Material Witness in the Safehouse Page 6

  “So, what did you find out today?” she asked, once he was seated at the table across from her.

  “Same as yesterday and the day before that. Nothing that moves us any closer to finding out what happened to you.” He bit into a chip, his forehead wrinkled with a frown. “I met Hal Smith who owns the hardware store, seemed like a nice guy. Then I met Stuart Chapman who runs the general store. He’s got the names of his wife and kids tattooed up and down his arms. Then there’s Marvin Smith, Hal’s younger brother and he—”

  “Stop,” she said, and held up a hand in protest. “You’re just going to confuse me with all these names and all these people.”

  “Okay, the bottom line is either I’m asking the wrong questions or I’m asking the wrong people, but so far everyone I’ve spoken with tells me they’ve never seen you before.”

  “How would they know if they’ve seen me before or not?” she asked.

  He hesitated a beat, then said, “I have a picture of you. I’ve been flashing it around town.”

  “A picture? Really? Let me see it.” She sat up with interest and dropped the hair she’d been twisting between her fingers.

  He scowled. “Why? You know what you look like.”

  “Please, just let me see the photo.”

  He pulled it from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table to her. Britta picked it up and stared at it. The photo was of both her and Ryan. They were seated in a booth in some kind of restaurant. She wore a light blue dress and he was in a charcoal-gray business suit and they both were smiling. Her first reaction was that he looked as hot in a suit as he did in jeans.

  “That was taken the day the jury came back with a guilty charge on one of the men you testified against,” he said.

  No wonder they were smiling, she thought. It must have been a celebration meal. But did that explain why they were seated so close to each other? Did it explain the casual way his arm was slung around her shoulders? The way she leaned into him? Their body language made them look like much more than just business associates.

  She stared at him, her mind grappling to make sense of things. If only she could remember. If only she could figure out why there were times when she felt as if she knew Ryan Burton intimately. There were moments when she believed she knew the taste of his skin in the hollow of his throat, knew the deep groan he made when she ran her hand across his lower abdomen.

  Then there were other times when she looked at him and she felt that he was dangerous to her, that if she were smart, she’d run as fast and as far away from him as possible.

  But run where? And do what? For the moment she was stuck with Ryan Burton, and that realization filled her with a sense of enormous frustration.

  “Picture?” he said, and held out his hand.

  She gave it back to him. “We look pretty cozy in that shot.”

  He stared down at the photo for a moment, then tucked it back into his pocket. “Yeah, we were both excited because we knew it was the end of our time together,” he replied. “Chip?” He held out a potato chip.

  She shook her head. “So, we didn’t really like each other?”

  Those green eyes of his didn’t quite meet hers. “I told you before, we were friendly and pleasant, but that’s it. We tolerated each other.”

  Britta leaned back in her chair. “Well, in that case, I think you can tolerate spending more time with me than you have in the last three days.”

  He frowned and paused with a chip halfway to his mouth. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been sitting here and thinking about how much better it would be if I were out there on the streets asking the questions right along with you.”

  “Absolutely not,” he replied in a tone that brooked no argument.

  But she wasn’t going to let his attitude dissuade her from the decision she’d already made. She leaned forward in her chair. “This is my life, Ryan. Whoever injected me with that drug stole my memories. I might not remember a lot of things about my life, but I know who I am and I know with certainty that the night I arrived here in Raven’s Cliff I wouldn’t have just gone off with some stranger for a night of fun and experimenting with drugs.”

  “Yeah, so what’s your point?” He pushed his plate away and gazed at her with narrowed eyes.

  “My point is that maybe if the person who injected me with that drug sees me around town asking questions, he’ll show himself. He’ll be afraid that I will remember what he did to me. Maybe if I walk around town, go back to that lighthouse, maybe, just maybe something will finally jog my memory, but it’s not going to happen with me spending day after day trapped in this little cottage.”

  Ryan frowned. “It’s a stupid idea. We’d be using you as bait.”

  “You already told me that you’re certain it isn’t a gang member who’s after me. Nobody knows my real name around here. As far as everyone is concerned I’m Valerie King from Chicago. I came here for a job, and something bad happened and we’re trying to figure out what it is. Why is it such a stupid idea?”

  He scooted back from the table and carried his plate to the sink. “Because I can’t guarantee your safety outside these walls. Because I care…I think it’s just a reckless idea.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “Fine, then if you don’t want to be a part of my idea, no problem. I’ll just do a little exploring in town on my own,” she replied.

  He slammed the palm of a hand down on the countertop. “Dammit, Britta, you are the most stubborn, aggravating woman I’ve ever met. That was the problem the last time we had to spend time together. You don’t listen. It’s a stupid idea and this discussion is over.”

  He stalked out of the kitchen, leaving her to stare after him in frustration.

  IT WAS A STUPID IDEA, Ryan thought as he paced the small confines of the living room. Britta had grabbed the bag of clothes he’d brought in and disappeared into the bedroom, leaving him alone to brood about his failure to gain any answers.

  His cell phone vibrated in his shirt pocket and he pulled it out and answered. “Burton.”

  “Any change there?” Michael Kelly asked.

  “None.” Ryan sank down on one corner of the sofa.

  “She still doesn’t remember anything?”

  Ryan sighed. “She doesn’t remember and I’m not getting any answers from anyone I’ve talked to here in town. What about you? Have you found out anything more about the Stinging Flower drug?”

  “Nothing, but I do have some other news you might find interesting. Joey McNabb was found dead last night, murdered in his bed and his right-hand man, Lorenzo Taylor, was gunned down this morning in an alley.”

  “Wow, that is news,” Ryan replied. Joey McNabb had headed the Boston Gentlemen since the gang had first begun.

  “We think they were killed by one of their own, that there’s an internal battle going on for power. I’d say that’s good news for Britta. They’ll be far too distracted by their own problems to be thinking about her.”

  “That is good news. Maybe they’ll all kill themselves and we won’t have to worry about them anymore.” Ryan gripped the phone more tightly against his ear as Britta entered the room.

  She’d changed from the oversize baggy sweats to a pair of shorts that displayed her long, shapely legs and a T-shirt that hugged her rounded, firm breasts. He should never have bought those damned shorts. Instantly the living room felt too small and too hot.

  “How long are you giving this?” Michael asked. “How long do you plan to stay there?”

  “As short a time as possible,” Ryan replied as he tore his gaze from Britta, who had sat on the opposite end of the sofa.

  “But I’m not leaving here without some kind of answers.” He frowned and got up and moved to the front window to stare outside where, as usual, gray skies hung low overhead.

  “Something isn’t right here. My instincts are all screaming that this town is sick—” He broke off, wondering if his fellow FBI agent thought he was the one who was si
ck—sick in the head.

  “Are you sure you don’t need me out there? I’m unassigned at the moment, and you know how much I hate being inactive.”

  “There’s nothing for you to do here right now, but I’ll let you know if things change.” Ryan turned away from the window. “I’ll keep you posted and you let me know if you manage to dig anything up on that drug.” He clicked off and tucked the phone back into his pocket.

  Britta’s pale blue eyes studied him intently. “The town is sick? What do you mean by that?”

  He sat in the chair across from the sofa, not wanting to be near enough to her that he could smell the clean fragrance of her hair or the familiar scent that was hers alone.

  “I’m not sure how to answer,” he replied. “It’s just a gut feeling that things aren’t right in Raven’s Cliff.” He frowned thoughtfully. “It started on the day of the wedding when I saw a man give the mayor what looked to be a wad of money. The mayor immediately shoved it into his pocket in a furtive way, as if the whole thing was a deep, dark secret.”

  “You think the mayor is doing something illegal? That he’s on the take or something?” She leaned forward, her brow puckering between her pale, perfectly arched eyebrows as she concentrated on what he was saying.

  “I don’t know.” He got up, too restless to remain seated.

  “Maybe I’m feeling uneasy about this place because of what happened to you or maybe it has something to do with the fact that on the first day I arrived a young bride was blown off a cliff and they still haven’t found her.”

  “She’s in the sea.” Britta gazed off and a dreamy expression swept over her features. “She went to the sea.” Her voice suddenly had a singsong quality, just like it had the night that he’d found her in the lighthouse.

  “Britta!” he said sharply, and sat on the sofa next to her.

  Her unfocused gaze found his, and the vague expression on her face disappeared as panic took its place. She grabbed hold of his forearm, her fingernails biting into his bare skin.

  “What just happened?” she asked. “Oh, God, what did I do?”

  Ryan eyed her closely. “You zoned out for a minute. Are you okay?”

  Without warning, she released her hold on him and instead threw herself into his arms. He stiffened at the sensual assault, the scent of her filling his nose, the warmth of her curves in his arms. He desperately tried not to remember making love to her until they were both gasping and sated.

  He wanted to escape her very nearness, and yet at the same time his arms enfolded her as she began to cry. She buried her head in the crook of his neck, her heartbeat palpable beneath the press of her breasts against his chest.

  He didn’t know exactly what had caused her tears, but her obvious distress broke his heart. Maybe it was because in the months they had shared together he’d rarely seen her cry. But on the rare occasions she had, he’d been a sucker for her tears.

  “Shh,” he said as he patted her back. “Don’t cry,” he said gruffly. As irritated as he’d often gotten with her, he’d never liked to see her weep.

  “I just feel so lost.” Her warm breath against the hollow of his neck felt far too good and reignited memories he wished would stay buried deep in his mind.

  What bothered him as much as her tears was the momentary blankness of her features a few moments earlier, the strange fugue state she’d seemed to fall into when she’d mentioned the sea.

  “Please, sir, take me back to the sea,” she’d said when he’d found her in the lighthouse. Then she’d had the same blank look in her eyes and her voice had held the same strange singsong rhythm.

  Maybe it was just the stress of the situation, he thought. He couldn’t imagine just waking up one morning and discovering he had lost months of his life. “Britta, it’s going to be all right. We’re going to figure things out.”

  She finally raised her face to look at him. “You promise?”

  He nodded. “I swear.”

  Before he recognized her intent, before he could stop it from happening, she rose and placed her lips against his. Instantly heat soared through him, and someplace in the back of his mind he knew he needed to pull away, to stop this before it even began.

  But even as he thought this, he made the mistake of kissing her back. The sweetly familiar contours of her lips opened beneath his, allowing him to deepen the kiss to mind-blowing proportions.

  His tongue swirled with hers as she molded her body closer to his, so close he could feel the press of her nipples through her thin T-shirt.

  Without warning she tore her mouth from his and jumped back out of his arms and off the sofa. She stared at him, then lifted a hand and touched her lower lip.

  “I know you,” she whispered. “I know the taste of you.”

  Dammit, he so didn’t want to go there. Ryan stood, as well, and faced her, but he wasn’t sure what to say.

  Her eyes held a hint of accusation. “Tell me the truth, tell me about our relationship before I lost my memories.”

  He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t even want to think about it, but he knew he had to tell her something. She wouldn’t let it rest until she had an answer.

  And there was no way in hell that he intended to tell her the truth. “We didn’t have a relationship,” he said firmly. “There was just one night we both had a little too much to drink and we slept together.”

  He watched as her eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “It was no big deal, we both knew it was a huge mistake and that was the end of it,” he hurriedly added. “Hell, we spent most of our time together fighting.” At least that much was true.

  She touched her mouth once again then dropped her hand to her side and straightened her shoulders. He couldn’t tell if she believed him or not.

  But one thing was certain—if and when she regained all of her memories, she was probably going to hate him more than any man on the face of the earth.

  Chapter Six

  Britta was up and dressed by dawn the next morning. She’d had a restless night, playing and replaying that kiss in her mind, and analyzing what Ryan had said had taken place between them in the past.

  She didn’t believe him. Britta didn’t remember anything that had happened in the past seven months of her life, but she knew with certainty that she would never drink too much, then fall into bed with a man she wasn’t at all sure she even liked, a man who was nothing more than a professional bodyguard. She just wasn’t that kind of woman.

  She didn’t believe him and therefore she was back to the trust issue. She couldn’t figure out why he would lie to her, but the result was that she couldn’t completely trust him.

  She’d awakened that morning with the decision that she didn’t care what he had to say about the matter, she was leaving this cottage today and was going to ask some questions of her own.

  The faster they solved the missing four days of her life, the sooner she could get away from Ryan Burton and get on with her life, whatever that life might be.

  Dressed for the day in a pair of jeans and a bright blue T-shirt, she left the bathroom and crept into the living room where Ryan lay sleeping on the sofa. The blanket had slipped down to his waist, exposing his firmly muscled, naked chest. Definitely an awesome chest, she thought.

  As she stared at him, a vision exploded in her head. Ryan standing in front of a bathroom mirror, a navy blue-and-white-striped towel riding low around his waist and shaving cream smeared on his chiseled lower jaw. She’d wielded the razor, and as their laughter rang in her head the memory faded.

  Was it real? It only served to confuse her even more. And if it wasn’t real, then was it possible the drug she’d been injected with was producing some sort of false memory?

  She went into the kitchen and started the coffee brewing. She’d just poured herself a cup when she heard the sound of the shower running and knew Ryan was up and about.

  That kiss they’d shared had rocked her world. It wasn’t just because there had been a strange se
nse of déjà vu about it. It was the fact that her response to him had been immediate and intense.

  She’d stopped the kiss, but she’d wanted more. In those few minutes that his mouth had been on hers she’d felt more alive than she had since waking in the clinic. She’d wanted him to strip her clothes off her, she’d wanted to feel his lips lingering over her naked body.

  By the time he came into the kitchen she’d downed a cup of coffee and felt mentally prepared to do battle with him. He murmured a good morning, then poured himself a cup of the brew and sat across from her.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday,” he began.

  “I said a lot of things yesterday,” she replied. “Which one have you been thinking about?” She tried not to notice how his white T-shirt pulled across his strong shoulders, how the scent of shaving cream and minty soap wafted from him.

  He took a sip of his coffee, his green eyes studying her above the rim of the cup. “The one where you go out with me today and we see if something or someone here in town jogs your memory.”

  She sat up straighter in her chair with surprise. “I thought I was going to have to fight with you this morning to get you to see things my way,” she said.

  “I’m still not convinced it’s a great idea, but it’s obvious that my plan isn’t working.” Once again he took a sip of his coffee, his gaze going to the nearby window where a glimmer of the sun was peeking through the morning clouds.

  Britta kept silent, knowing he wasn’t finished and afraid if she said anything, he might change his mind and demand that she stay inside as she had done the past three long days.

  She desperately wanted to do something that at least gave her the illusion of control, of being proactive in chasing her elusive memories and getting back some semblance of her life.

  Ryan looked back at her once again. “I spoke to my boss late last night and bounced some things off him, trying to figure out the best way to handle this situation. Although I have some reservations, I think maybe it would be best if we speak to Patrick Swanson.”