To See The Daises ... First (3 page)

Staring down at her finger, she saw that the strip of flesh was lighter in color—as though the missing ring had been a part of her for a long time.

She rubbed at the spot, reluctantly at first, then with a growing urgency, as if she could wipe out the disturbing evidence somehow.

Lifting her head slowly, she stared at the man seated across from her, her eyes wide. "No," she whispered. Then, raising her chin belligerently, she quickly placed her napkin on the table and stood up.

"I've changed my mind. I don't want you to find out who I am." Smiling politely, she took the remaining breadsticks and shoved them into her pocket, then murmured, "Thank you for the lunch and your time," as she passed him on her way out of the cafe.

Three

For one stunned moment, Ben simply sat and watched her walk away. Then he forced his limbs into action, swearing violently under his breath when he saw the line in front of the cash register. Reaching impatiently around a startled young couple, he thrust a bill into the cashier's hand, then moved quickly out of the cafe.

Glancing up and down the street, he searched the sidewalks and felt the muscles in his throat constrict unexpectedly when he saw no sign of the beige trench coat. Then suddenly, at the end of the block, a group of teenagers moved away from the display window of a small pawnshop. He felt the emptiness that had been settling on him lift as he spotted the unmistakable coat and the glint of sunshine on her golden hair.

"Sunshine!" he called when she began to walk away. "Sunny, wait!"

Running to catch up with her, he watched as she bent to pick up something from the sidewalk, then turned back to the pawnshop.

"Wait," he said again as he reached her, almost breathless.

God, he thought in disgust, I've got to get more exercise. Six months ago the short sprint wouldn't have taken anything out of him. He leaned against the brick wall beside her until the stitch in his side eased, watching her watch him.

"What in hell do you think you're doing?" he said finally, annoyed at the reminder that he was out of shape, annoyed at the way he had reacted to the thought of losing her, and—unreasonably— annoyed that he was thirty-nine and she was twenty-five at most. "Do you think you can spend the rest of your life sleeping in bus stations and depending on strangers to feed you?"

"I'll think of something," she said, glancing away from him to stare curiously at the pawnshop window. "Like I said before—I no longer require the services of a private investigator."

"That's good because I'm not." He held himself stiff, waiting silently for her to react to his blunt admission, but for a moment she didn't seem to take the words in.

She studied the window in front of her intently, then glanced up at him absentmindedly. "I beg your pardon? You're not what?"

"A private investigator," he said, irritated by the way her thoughts seemed to be wandering away from him.

"Oh, really?" Her eyes sparkled with amusement as she looked up at him through ridiculously long lashes, focusing her full attention on him at last. "Did I uncover something devious?" She spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "Are you practicing without a license?"

He wanted to grab her thin shoulders and give her a hard shake—or a hard kiss, he couldn't decide which. "I'm not Charles Bradberry," he stated. "I was simply waiting for him to return to his office."

She leaned against the wall beside him, Interest growing in her blue eyes. "Why do you need a private investigator?"

"I don't need an investigator," he said in exasperation. "I need a drink." He reached out and grasped her arm, feeling the small bones through the bulky coat. Suddenly the muscles in his groin tightened as he remembered her state of undress beneath the coat and he dropped her arm like a hot rock.

"Look, he's a personal friend," he said, running through his hair a hand that—to his consternation—shook slightly. "Now, will you forget about that! Are you going to be reasonable and admit that you need help? If not Charlie's, then mine."

"No—" She stopped suddenly. "What's your name?"

"Ben. Ben Garrison."

"No, Ben," she said, enthusiasm filling her voice. "I think I've figured out what to do."

"Oh God," he groaned. "Tell me. I'm strong, I can take it."

Drawing her hand out of her pocket, she showed him a four-inch fragment of brick. She started tossing it casually in the air, then glanced pointedly down to the corner where a uniformed policeman was talking to the teenagers who had stood beside her earlier. When she was sure he had followed her gaze, she shifted her devilish eyes back to the window beside them, still playfully tossing the piece of brick.

"Do you remember that O. Henry story, 'The Cop and the Anthem'?" she asked in a stage whisper.

"Oh no you don't," he said emphatically, grabbing her hand to remove the brick as her meaning became frighteningly clear. "And if you'll recall, breaking the window didn't land him in jail as he had planned."

"Whatcha wanna bet it would work for me?" she said cockily.

"Forget it," he insisted. "I don't know what fairy tale you've concocted in that marvelous brain of yours, but believe me, you wouldn't like jail."

"But they would feed me regularly and I would have a place to sleep. They might even try to rehabilitate me and give me some clothes and—" her beautiful lips twisted arid her next words came out through her teeth in an outrageously bad imitation of James Cagney—"if those dirty rats try to grill me, I won't tell them anything." She fluttered her gold lashes at him artlessly. "Because I don't know anything."

As he stared down at her impudent face, his irritable mood vanished without a trace and suddenly the whole thing was hilariously funny. His lip twitched irrepressibly as he met the twinkle in her blue eyes and before he knew what was happening, they were standing there in the bright sunshine, ignoring the stares of the passing people as they leaned against the old building, their entwined bodies shaking with helpless laughter.

Gradually he became aware of the pawnshop owner watching with narrow-eyed suspicion through the plate glass window. Ben nudged Sunny to share the sight with her and the man's eagle-eyed stare caused a fresh eruption of laughter. Grabbing her hand, he began to run down the street. But as they approached the policeman— now standing alone—their steps slowed with simultaneous, comic wariness and Ben casually dropped the telltale piece of brick. The officer eyed them sharply as they passed him, strolling arm in arm, whistling tonelessly under their breaths. When he dismissed them as unimportant and turned his attention elsewhere, they broke into a run and quickly swung around the corner, pressing themselves against the wall as they regained their breaths between spurts of laughter.

"Are you sure I wasn't a thief?" she giggled helplessly, her forehead resting weakly on his chest.

"I'm positive. You're much too obvious," he gasped, resting his back against the wall to pull her closer.

His large hands lay loosely on her hips and, as his mind slid with unfaltering determination back to the thought of her slim body under the bulky coat, he found his hands were doing a little sliding of their own. Pulling them away from the rounded buttocks, he swore viciously under his breath. She was lost, alone, and needed his help— and all he could think about was that line of white flesh he had seen earlier.

Tilting her head up, he stared down into her laughing face, his eyes sober. "Sunny, I'm completely ignorant as far as amnesia is concerned, but how can you remember O. Henry and James Cagney without remembering when you learned of them. At the very least, you should recall your reactions to them." He paused reflectively, unaware of the way her face changed as he spoke. "Take O. Henry. How did you feel when you read the story of the tramp who thought of jail as a winter resort?"

For a moment she was perfectly still, then she pulled out of his arms, shoving her hands into the deep pockets of the coat as she turned to walk away from him.

"Hey," he said in surprise, moving to keep in step with her. "Where are you going?"

She shrugged her shoulders in answer, then glanced sideways at him. "I don't want you to probe. Why can't you just leave it alone?"

He had to lean closer to hear the softly spoken words. "It's all going to come back whether you want It to or not," he said quietly. "You can't hide from yourself."

"I can try," she said stubbornly. "And if it comes back, then it will come back in its own time."

Walking beside her, he stared down at her firmly set jaw and thought about what she had said, about everything that had happened since he had first seen her standing in the hall. The thing that stood out with sharp clarity was her attitude toward her unusual situation. She seemed perfectly content with her loss of memory. Content, hell—in her own words, she was having a ball. There had to be a reason for that, maybe the husband she didn't want to know about.

As an uncomfortable tightness gripped his chest, he realized she wasn't the only one who didn't want to know about the missing husband.

He wouldn't try to force her to remember. Carefully blocking out his own feelings, he told himself that the brain was an extremely intricate instrument. It was probably giving her time to regain her strength from some type of trauma before making her face the truth. And in her own stubborn way, she recognized that. Unconsciously she knew there was something in her past that she was not yet capable of handling. And she was right. It had to come in its own time.

"Ben." The softly spoken word startled him and he glanced down at her solemn face with its huge, anxious eyes. "I did try to remember my reactions to O. Henry," she said hesitantly. "But I can only tell you how I feel about the story now. I don't know if it's the same way I felt then."

Good Lord, he thought, closing his eyes in consternation, she thinks she's hurt my feelings. She's trying to soothe my ego.

Opening his eyes, he pulled her close in a brief, hard hug. "Don't worry about it." He smiled at her. "You're right. You'll remember when it's time." He glanced up and found they were almost even with the car he had parked on the street two hours earlier. Stepping in front of her, he opened the passenger door and waited for her to slide in.

"Where are we going?" She didn't sound reluctant, merely curious.

"To my place. It's not much, I'm afraid, but it beats the bus station hands down."

Sliding into the car, she looked up at him as he g closed the door behind her. "Why are we going to your place?"

"Where else would we go?" he said, then walked around the front of the car to fold his large frame behind the wheel. "It'll give you a chance to relax and think everything over without having to worry about things like food and clothing."

She stared at him for a moment, then said slowly, "In other words, you want me to live with you until I remember?" She fell silent again, then suddenly she began to laugh.

"You find the oddest things funny," he muttered, turning his head slightly to watch her face. "What on earth set you off this time?"

"I started to say I don't do that kind of stuff," she said, chuckling. "Then it suddenly occurred to me that I don't know. I may do that kind of stuff on a regular basis." She paused, her eyes growing reflective. "Do you suppose—"

"No," he interrupted firmly. "If by 'that kind of stuff ' you mean what I think you mean, then no, you weren't a loose woman in your other life." Reaching down, he started the car and pulled away from the curb.

"How do you know? I could have been more than a loose woman. I could have been a hooker."

Smiling grimly, he said, "If you had been that kind of woman, you wouldn't have put that creep off last night. You would have charged him for your services and had money for food and a room."

She sat silently for a moment, then turned to him with a strange expression on her face—as though she had bitten into a rotten apple. "Yuck," she said. "You're right. I don't think I could have done it. Which is a shame really. It's a job opportunity I hadn't considered. The pay is good and I bet the customers never even ask for a Social Security card. I wouldn't even have to have new clothes for the job. What I'm wearing would be perfect."

Lord, he moaned silently. He wished she hadn't mentioned that again. It was difficult enough keeping his mind off it. Especially since the coat had slipped again and was now exposing a not indecent but thoroughly provocative bit of thigh.

"Stop worrying about a job," he said gruffly, keeping his eyes firmly front and center. "I don't exactly live in the lap of luxury, but I think I can manage to feed you."

"But why should you?"

"What else am I supposed to do with you?" That was a stupid way to put it, you fool. "Look, if you're really afraid I might have dark designs on your body, you can forget it. I don't have anything like that in mind." Liar, he accused silently, still avoiding looking in her direction. If it weren't for that mark on her finger, you would have made a move already. He could feel her staring at him and her voice, when it came, was low and whimsical.

"It may sound weird—in fact, it sounds weird to me—but I'm not worried about that," she said slowly. "But I still want to know why you should take me in. I don't want to seem rude, but your car doesn't exactly indicate a wealthy eccentric who goes around helping people in need."

She shifted her position on the seat and he remembered the spring that was sticking through the upholstery on the passenger side.

"So why should you put yourself out to help me?" she continued. "Or is it simply the 'No man is an island' thing?"

"I guess you could put it that way," he murmured. "But it's not putting me out to help you. Worrying about your being out on the streets alone would disrupt my life more. So you could say that I'm taking the course that's easiest for me." There was no need for her to know the black emptiness that he had felt descend on him when he lost sight of her on the street... no need at all.

"You mean you're doing this for you instead of for me?" she said slowly, making no effort to hide the amusement and disbelief in her voice.