The Homecoming
Anne Marie Winston
After his son's disappearance, millionaire Danny Crosby couldn't go home again and fled to a private hideaway off the coast of Hawaii. But then a beautiful woman appeared out of nowhere, stumbling from the scene of an accident. He didn't know why she was there–or why he ached to hold her close.Sydney Aston had no recollection of her purpose in finding Danny or how she could fall so totally in love with this stranger. When the shards of memory returned, she realized her intention to reunite this tormented man with his son. Deep down, she hoped that this could be the homecoming for all of them….
Sydney turned her face into his neck and laid her head against his shoulder. Her breath whispered across his skin.
Danny’s breath caught in his throat and his heart stuttered. It would be so easy to draw her down onto the blanket they shared, to explore the feminine treasures of her body—
What was he thinking? A rogue wave of longing surged high and swept over him, urging him to drop his head and set his mouth against her soft pink lips. He wanted it so badly. Releasing her, he surged to his feet. “Well. We should get going if you want to see the rest of the island’s attractions.”
“Actually, I’m getting tired. It probably would be best if we went back and took a nap.”
Danny hadn’t imagined he’d ever feel such a strong need to make love again. It was almost a relief to know his body still yearned for feminine contact. But he didn’t need Sydney, he reminded himself forcefully. He didn’t need anyone, and the last thing he wanted was to be more involved in her life than he already was.
ANNE MARIE WINSTON
RITA
Award finalist and bestselling author ANNE MARIE WINSTON loves babies she can give back when they cry, animals in all shapes and sizes and just about anything that blooms. When she’s not writing, she’s managing a house full of animals and teenagers, reading anything she can find and trying not to eat chocolate. She will dance at the slightest provocation and weeds her gardens when she can’t see the sun for the weeds anymore. You can learn more about Anne Marie’s novels by visiting her Web site at www.annemariewinston.com.
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
The Homecoming
Anne Marie Winston
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Be a part of
Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.
On an island retreat, a lost man rescues a woman claiming to know his kidnapped son. Will redemption and love touch them both?
Sydney Aston: Her adopted son’s history was mysterious, so she went on a quest to find his biological family. When she encountered Danny Crosby, she fell in love with him and wrestled with her heart. He had to know the truth—that his beloved son was still alive!
Danny Crosby: A broken man after his son’s disappearance, Danny led a reclusive life. But Sydney brought him back into the world…and back to the son he’d ached for all these years. Would he be given a second chance at having a family?
A Logan reunion: The Logans visited their long-lost son and vowed to help the sweet boy robbed from them so many years ago. Robbie Logan had finally come home.
Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.
AVAILABLE JUNE 2010
1.) To Love and Protect by Susan Mallery
2.) Secrets & Seductions by Pamela Toth
3.) Royal Affair by Laurie Paige
4.) For Love and Family by Victoria Pade
AVAILABLE JULY 2010
5.) The Bachelor by Marie Ferrarella
6.) A Precious Gift by Karen Rose Smith
7.) Child of Her Heart by Cheryl St. John
8.) Intimate Surrender by RaeAnne Thayne
AVAILABLE AUGUST 2010
9.) The Secret Heir by Gina Wilkins
10.) The Newlyweds by Elizabeth Bevarly
11.) Right by Her Side by Christie Ridgway
12.) The Homecoming by Anne Marie Winston
AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2010
13.) The Greatest Risk by Cara Colter
14.) What a Man Needs by Patricia Thayer
15.) Undercover Passion by Raye Morgan
16.) Royal Seduction by Donna Clayton
In memory of Katrina Sue Smith. I wish we were still sharing life’s adventures, dear friend. “Precious moments” just aren’t the same without you.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
One
T he dream started as it always did. Danny’s best friend was walking away with the strange man.
Danny was afraid. Their teacher, Miss Hanley, always told them never to get in a car with strangers. She said if they were only going to learn one thing in first grade, that was the one they should learn. Even Danny’s mother, who didn’t seem to care what he did as long as he stayed out of her way, had made him promise never to go anywhere with anyone other than his dad or her without permission.
Danny ran into his house, yelling for his mother. She could stop Robbie. If he could just find his mother, she could help his friend.
But she wasn’t in the kitchen, or the living room, or anywhere. He called and called but she never answered him.
He frantically rushed back outside. There! A lady. One of the neighbors walking down the street. Danny rushed up to her, heedless of the tears streaking his cheeks. “Help me, please,” he cried. “A bad man’s taking my friend!”
But the lady didn’t even look down at him, and he realized suddenly that it wasn’t his neighbor. It wasn’t anybody he knew, and she wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t talk to him.
Another man approached and Danny asked him for help, but the man kept on going as if he hadn’t even heard him. Danny repeated his actions with each passerby, growing ever more frantic as person after person brushed him off and kept going. He could hear himself sobbing, “Help me, please help my friend.”
Then he heard a voice behind him. “I’ll help you. Come with me.”
Danny turned around, relief almost a physical thing rushing through him. But as his gaze focused on the face of the man standing there with his hand outstretched, shock and fear erased the relief.
The bad man stood right behind him. Danny was too terrified to move. All he could do was watch as the man reached for him—
Danny Crosby woke with a shout, sitting bolt upright in his bed. Or had it been a scream? His staff would wonder what was going on in his bedroom at—he glanced at the glowing face of the bedside clock—six in the morning. He raised his hands and scrubbed them over his face, dragging back his thick hair. God, that nightmare had been worse than usual, as bad as it had been when he was much, much younger.
His heart was racing and he felt hot and sweaty, unable to stay in bed a moment longer. He only had nightmares about once a month these days, but he knew from long experience there was no point in attempting to go back to sleep.
Throwing back the light cover, he rose and walked naked through the wide French doors onto the terrace outside his bedroom. He owned the whole island of Nanilani, less than a mile off the southern coast of Kauai island; there was no one around to see him. It was a typically clear and lovely early-July night in the Hawaiian Islands, the temperature hovering in the seventies, although he barely noticed. The beauty of the setting amid which he’d chosen to spend the rest of his life was overlaid by the harsh memories he’d never been able to escape.
He automatically patted his chest for a cigarette, then remembered that he wasn’t wearing anything. And even more importantly, he’d quit smoking when he’d entered rehab well over a decade ago. Even after Noah and Felicia— He cut off the thought before it could go any further. There was a limit to how many kinds of mental torture he could endure in one night.
He raised a hand to pat his pocket again but caught the gesture in midair. Some habits died harder than others. He supposed it was a good thing that cigarettes were all he felt the need for after that damned dream.
He took a deep breath and focused his jangled nerves, letting himself be hypnotized by the rolling surf he could see from the lanai.
Below the outcropping of black volcanic rock that fell away from the edge of the terrace, the sea rolled in against the edges of his beach in rhythmic curls of white that disintegrated as they smashed against the shallow slope that marked the water’s edge. The sand was lighter than the rocks. Black sand beaches were more common in the eastern part of the islands, which were still young and growing, thanks to their active volcanoes. True black sand was created as an explosive result of molten lava entering cool sea water. The reaction literally pulverized the lava. Here on Nanilani, as on the other islands at the northwestern end of the chain, the islands’ growth had stopped eons ago.
It wasn’t really his beach in a personal sense. Brian Summers, the real estate developer back in Portland, had been quite clear about that when he’d found the special piece of secluded property that he’d thought would meet Danny’s needs. All beaches in Hawaii technically were public property, but he owned the rest of the island so there was no access except by sea. And since the beaches of Nanilani were neither exceptionally safe nor exceptionally beautiful compared to some of the state’s most famous, he rarely had to worry about tour boats stopping for any length of time. Of course, beauty was a relative term in Hawaii, where every place you looked were lovely and breathtaking views. Even the name of his island referred to it: nani was the Hawaiian word for beautiful, and lani referred to the sky or heaven. Nanilani: beautiful heaven. Danny sincerely doubted it was possible to buy an ugly piece of property here.
He’d been unbelievably lucky three years ago; when he’d asked Brian to find him an isolated home in the islands, the Robinson family who owned Ni’ihau and part of Kauai were selling Nanilani.
Suddenly he realized what he’d just been thinking. He’d been lucky? Having his son abducted and his wife kill herself wasn’t the kind of luck he’d wish on anyone. Abandoning thought, he purposely emptied his mind and focused again on the view before him. The breakers rolling in from the ocean were hypnotizing in their endless rhythm. The surf was incredibly powerful here where there were no reefs to slow their approach to land. How many times had he stood down there on that beach and contemplated simply walking into the water until those waves sucked him under?
Plenty. But he’d gone the route of self-destruction in his past and he’d never do it again. Trent would be devastated. And Danny would cut off his arm rather than hurt his older brother, who’d dragged him back from the brink four times already if Danny counted getting him out of that hellish military school, bugging their father Jack to find him when he’d subsequently done his disappearing act, getting him into counseling after that one halfhearted overdose and finally, dragging him back into the company business after Noah and Felicia were gone. The last might not sound like the action of a savior but it had been: it had given Danny a purpose and a focus that had kept him sane throughout the darkest days of his life. He’d sworn he would never let Trent down again, and he wouldn’t. Not in the business and not in any other way.
Damn it, Dan, you’re thinking again. He wasn’t having much success with his mind-emptying meditation today.
To the left, the beach disappeared in a seemingly endless ribbon of sand that he knew from experience went on for miles before it came up against a rock cliff. These older islands also had more beach than the younger ones. On his right, not nearly as far away, another such cliff cut off his beach abruptly. Its base was strewn with dark boulders that had crumbled from the main body of the rock eons ago when earthquakes beneath the sea floor had heaved the rock upward. Like Kauai and Ni’ihau, Nanilani was among the oldest of the existing islands in the Hawaiian chain, with no volcanic activity. All that remained of the earth’s ancient contortions were the black rock and red dirt upon which much of the island was built.
Below him, a scattering of the broken boulders rose from the sea while others lay on the sand, deceptively small from up here. He’d stood on those boulders and he knew many of them were significantly taller than he was.
The waves frothed and churned around the base of the cliff and surged in to smack at the boulders, boiling up around them to the beach. Something caught his eye and he frowned, trying to focus more clearly. Atop one of the smaller boulders lay something light-colored and out of place. He knew this view, had looked out on it for over three years now. Whatever that was, it wasn’t part of the natural scenery.
He studied the shape of the lighter blob, mildly puzzled. There hadn’t been a storm to toss anything up that high out of the water’s reach.
Then his brain clicked into focus and he realized the shape was a person!
The revelation hadn’t even completely jelled in his consciousness as he bolted back inside and snagged a pair of ragged denim shorts from the chair where he’d tossed them when he went to bed. He stepped into the cutoffs and zipped them. Then he ripped the cover from his bed before he raced from his room. Pausing briefly outside the door to shove his feet into his reef shoes, he ran to the stone steps that led from his terrace to the path down the cliff.
Where the hell had the person come from? The figure hadn’t been moving. Please, God, don’t let him be dead. More people drowned each year in this state than anywhere else in the country. And even if he hadn’t drowned, he could be hypothermic if he’d been in the water long enough. Hawaiian waters might be temperate but a prolonged dip in the Pacific when the sun wasn’t out wouldn’t have been a pleasant experience. If indeed, the person had been in the water. He had assumed that was the case, since he hadn’t seen a boat.
As he descended, he could see the lights of Kauai, the northernmost of the main Hawaiian chain and his nearest neighbor, twinkling in the distance. Had the person been sailing from there and gotten lost?
Reaching the bottom of the steps, he raced across the soft, dry sand, which still held the warmth of the day before. The boulders to the right were much farther away than they looked from the bird’s-eye view he had from the house, and he pushed through the soft sand until he hit the hard-packed surface near the water’s edge. Then he settled into a fast but steady pace, much as he did during his daily morning runs.
As he ran, his mind continued to work. It occurred to him that he’d been stupid to run out of the house without one of the portable intercom devices he’d bought. Only two people lived with him on the island, an older native Hawaiian couple who had worked for the previous owner and had proved highly satisfactory to Danny. They had a large family of children and grandchildren who came over in a motor launch several times a week with mail and food and other supplies. Occasionally a couple of them would stay for a few days, but for the most part, it was just Danny and Leilani and Johnny.
Leilani cooked and kept the house clean while her husband did a fine job keeping the house and grounds in top shape. People outside the family called him Big John and the name was well deserved. He had the deceptively beefy build of the native Hawaiian people; he was actually far more muscle than fat. If the person on the rocks was badly hurt, Danny would go back and enlist Johnny to help him get the guy to the house.
Increasing his pace, Danny pushed himself until the boulders drew near. Now the shape on the rocks definitely looked like a person. A person who wasn’t moving and didn’t appear to have changed position since Danny had first seen him. Please don’t let him be dead.
Breathing heavily, Danny scrambled up over the rocks, dropping the blanket he’d tucked beneath his arm as he reached the top. The guy was small. God, he hoped it wasn’t a kid. He had a bad feeling that he might be looking at a drowning victim as he dropped to his knees at the side of the body.
Close up, he was stunned to find that the guy was really a woman. She lay on her stomach with her head turned to one side, her brown hair flung out around her head. It wasn’t dripping but certainly was still wet. The hair partly covered her face and all he could see was the curve of her cheek and a small straight nose.
Rivulets of water had run out of her shorts and shirt and down the sides of the rock. Though it appeared she’d been there long enough for the excess water to drain away, she still was soaking wet, confirming what he’d thought earlier. She must have been on a boat from one of the other islands. Kauai, almost certainly, since Ni’ihau was populated only by a small village of native people. Although why a tourist would come out on the ocean alone escaped him.
He was sure she wasn’t local. What gave her away was the color of her skin. His unmoving guest was paler than the golden sand he’d just run across. And she didn’t look badly sunburned, so she must not have gotten onto these rocks until sometime after dark last night.
A tourist out alone at night?
Placing a tentative hand on one out-flung arm, he nearly sagged with relief. The arm wasn’t cold as in corpse-cold, and beneath the delicate wrist he could feel a pulse. Not strong, but far from thready and faint, either.
He bent over until his ear was near her mouth. Thank God she was breathing as well. Slowly and steadily, with no sign that she might stop.
Gingerly he started running his hands over her arms and legs, noting that she seemed slender and well-muscled. He wasn’t experienced with first aid and probably wouldn’t know a broken bone unless it was an obvious fracture, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him.
She had very pretty skin, he noted with absent appreciation. Smooth and silky, but a little too cool. He shook out the blanket and carefully tucked it around her. If she was in shock, he knew it was important to keep her warm.
“Hey,” he said, reluctant to move her. He placed a hand on her upper arm, a little surprised to see how big his own hand looked in contrast. “Miss? Wake up. Talk to me, please?”
He didn’t want to move her, knew he shouldn’t turn her over. Since she seemed all right, he should go and call for help, then come back. But he hated to leave while she was unconscious. What if she woke up and there was nobody here? She could wander off in the wrong direction.
If she didn’t look at just the right angle she might not see the house high above the cliff. Even if she saw the house, she would have no notion how to get to it. And if she wasn’t fully cognizant of her situation, she might not even realize that the blanket meant someone had found her and would return.
Just then she groaned, and the sound instantly solved his dilemma. He couldn’t leave her if she was about to wake up.
She groaned again, stirring, and he placed a cautionary hand on her back when she made feeble motions as if to get up.
“Don’t try to move yet,” he said. Beneath his hand, he felt her slender frame relax. Moving his hand soothingly over her back in little circles much as he’d done with his infant son when he’d had him, he added, “I don’t know where you swam from, but there’s no sign of your boat, and you might have injuries if you slammed against the rocks on your way in.”
“I don’t think I do,” she said in a slow, puzzled voice that was pleasantly husky. “Nothing feels broken.” She was silent for a moment. Finally, she said, “I was in a boat?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.” For the first time it occurred to him that she might not have been alone. “Can you remember if there was anyone else with you?” God, he’d better check around and make sure there wasn’t someone else lying injured and helpless down here.
She was silent. Finally, she said in a small voice, “I don’t remember.”
Giving the area a visual scan, Danny saw no other body on the rocks or shore. Why, then, had this tourist gone out on the ocean alone? Even a native would be unlikely to take a risk like that.
As if she’d read his thoughts, she said, “I took boats out on the r-river all my life.” Her teeth chattered despite the warmth of the dawning day. “But the ocean’s a lot different.”
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “The ocean’s a lot different from a river.” He tried not to think of what could have happened to her had she not fetched up on his rocks. More than one person had gotten caught in the strong currents that ran from the Hawaiian Islands straight across the Pacific with not a speck of land for hundreds of miles. Others, without boats, had been discovered by the sharks that frequented the waters.
He was about to ask her what river she’d meant when she made another bid to get up, and this time he decided he might as well let her try. He moved back, and she rolled to her side, then came up into a sitting position with her knees drawn up. “Oh,” she said. “Dizzy.”
From this angle, he could see why. There was a large and ugly knot just above her right temple with blood still oozing from the broken skin at its center. Looking down, he saw that the rock against which her head had lain was dark with blood.
His stomach lurched. “You’ve got a pretty hefty bump on your head,” he said, trying to stay calm, though his mind was racing, wondering how much blood she’d lost. Calm down, he told himself, everybody knows head wounds bleed like crazy and look worse than they usually are. “Looks like one of those rocks reached out and smacked you on the way in.”
She probably would be pretty, he thought, cleaned up with a little color in her face. She had nice cheekbones to go with that cute little nose, and although her lips were nearly blue, they were nicely shaped and full. She had closed her eyes on sitting up and he hadn’t gotten even a glimpse of their color, but the lashes that shielded them lay across her cheeks like tiny fronds of a thickly feathered fern.
One corner of her mouth had turned up at his words, but he could see that she was swallowing and breathing deeply, probably fighting nausea.
“I’m Danny,” he said, talking just so she wouldn’t feel compelled to respond. “This island is my home. I imagine you came over from Kauai sometime late yesterday and got caught in the currents.”
“Yes. Caught in the currents.” Her voice was faint but definite from beneath the fall of thick hair that fell forward around her bent head as she raised her arms and wrapped them around her raised knees. “Pushed me toward a reef.”
“From Kauai?”
She hesitated. Her shoulders rose and fell. “I’m not sure,” she admitted.
He blinked. It was common, he’d heard, for people with head injuries to forget things temporarily. Especially things that happened right before their accidents.
“What’s your name?” he asked her, still kneeling beside her.
She raised her head cautiously, clearly testing her stomach as she opened her mouth to reply, but then an odd expression crossed her face. She automatically whipped her head around to face him, but immediately winced and dropped it back to her knees. “I— My name is— I don’t know!” She sounded both astonished and bewildered. “Just give me a minute. I’m just a little…a little…I don’t know who I am!”
Her eyes were blue. Very blue at the moment, the irises encircled by dark rings that only made them more compelling. “Okay. Relax. I’m sure it’ll come to you in a moment,” he said soothingly. “We’ll just stay here for a little while and when you feel better I’ll take you to my house.” He hoped Johnny would show up long before that since Danny was pretty sure his nameless guest wasn’t up to taking a stroll along the beach. “Can you look straight at me?” he asked as he moved around in front of her.
“Why?” But she did as he asked.
“I want to check your pupils.”
“Oh.”
They looked fine to him, and he thanked God for that. If they’d been unequal in size, he’d have known something serious was wrong.
He glanced at his watch surreptitiously. Twenty minutes to wait. Leilani would be expecting him for breakfast around seven. When he didn’t show up and wasn’t in the house by then, she would send Johnny to look for him. And since he always ran along the beach before breakfast, the first thing Johnny would do would be to come down the cliff, and Danny would be able to send him back up the hill for something resembling a stretcher. Even though he was in the best shape of his life and the woman beside him looked slender and small-boned, he knew he couldn’t carry her along the beach and up the cliff path alone.
His thoughts were distracted as she put her palms on the ground and prepared to shift her weight onto her feet.
“You probably shouldn’t move,” he said. “I have someone who can help me carry you up to the house in a few minutes.”
“I’m too big to carry,” she said, her lips curving up as if that was extraordinarily funny. “I can walk.” She pushed herself up farther and before he could prevent it, she’d stood up.
Danny stood up, too, fast. He grabbed for her when she started to slide sideways. She was oddly boneless and for a moment he thought she’d passed out as she flopped against him, her head falling into the curve of his shoulder. “Whoa,” he said.
“Sorry.” She sounded as if she’d clenched her teeth together.
“Why don’t you sit back down?” he suggested. “It’s a long walk down the beach to the stairs, and a long, steep climb up to the house. My groundskeeper will be coming this way in a little while and he’ll be able to help.”
She was taller than he’d expected, fitting neatly against his own six-foot frame. Felicia had been short. When they’d danced together, not that they’d ever danced much, he’d got a crick in his neck from looking down at her.
Pain lanced through him. He hadn’t imagined he’d ever hold a woman in his arms again. He hadn’t wanted to. All he wanted was to be left alone.
“…probably should sit down again. Everything’s sort of whirling around me as if I were on a merry-go-round. Sorry. I have this habit of thinking I have to do everything myself.”
“It’s all right.” He struggled to keep his tone level. This poor woman couldn’t even remember her own name. She didn’t need to be saddled with his problems. He lowered her to the boulder, alarmed again at the way her arms flopped down when he pulled them from around his neck.
She sat very still for a moment. “Wow,” she said. “My head is killing me. I must have met a rock headfirst.”
“As soon as we get up to the house,” he said, “I’ll call a doctor.”
“You could just drop me at the nearest hospital,” she said. “I don’t want to be a burden, and I think I probably should get my head looked at.”
He cleared his throat. “This is a private island,” he said. “There is no hospital.”
“No…? You’re kidding.” She knew better than to move her head this time. “Then how are you going to call a doctor?”
His lips quirked but she had her eyes closed again so she didn’t see his amusement. “I’ll manage.”
She couldn’t know that he was so filthy rich he could probably call an entire medical staff over if he wanted. But then the amusement fled. If he had to choose between the Crosby fortune that his father had amassed and having his wife and son back again, he’d give away every dime. He shot to his feet. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go and hurry my friend along and we’ll be back to take you up to the house.”
She was in pain, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t seriously disoriented. She’d sounded pretty rational and he thought she understood.
Then again, he thought as he climbed back down off the boulder and began to lope along the tide line, she didn’t even know her own name right now.
Two
J ohnny was coming down the steps as Danny ran back toward the house. The two men retraced Danny’s steps to where the young woman waited, then carried her up to the house in a sling made of the blanket.
Danny put her in a first-floor sitting room, then called over to Kauai. First he spoke to a doctor, who agreed to come over and examine the woman. The man was a relative of Johnny’s—no surprise there—and Danny had met him before.
Then he called the Kauai Police Department in Lihu’e and asked for the chief. Another relative of Johnny’s, the chief had welcomed him when he’d first come to the island, though Danny had had no reason to call the department before.
After a cordial greeting, Danny said, “Are you missing any female tourists?”
There was a slight pause and Danny could almost feel the man putting on his official hat. “Why do you ask?”
“I found a woman this morning—”
“Alive?”
“Yes. She’s in good shape, just a little banged up. I have a doctor coming over to look at her. Your cousin Eddie, as a matter of fact.”
The chief chuckled. “Dat Eddie, he take care your little wahine.”
Danny was familiar with the interesting brand of pidgin spoken in the islands. He knew the chief would never dream of using it with a tourist or a stranger and he felt oddly flattered. “I hope so,” he said. “She’s having a little trouble remembering how she got here.” And by the way, she doesn’t know her name, either.
As if he were reading Danny’s mind, the chief said, “Sydney Aston. She was staying at the Marriott on Kalapaki Beach. Yesterday she went over to Waimea and rented a boat out of Kikialoa Harbor.”
“Alone?” He couldn’t believe anyone would let a young, single female tourist take a boat out alone.
“Alone.” The chief’s voice held a grim note now. “Ronny Kamehana said he’d take her out. She wanted to go cruisin’ past your island. But Ronny drink too much and when she pay up front and say she know boats, he let her go.”
“I might make a point of coming over there and kicking Ronny Kamehana’s butt one of these days,” Danny said in an equally grim tone. “That woman could have died.”
“Don’worry. Ronny goin’ be sorry,” the chief said. “Besides, his boat gone now, yeah?”
“Yeah. Make sure he doesn’t get another one.”
“So what you goin’ to do with your guest? You want Eddie bring her back?”
“No,” said Danny, “unless she needs urgent medical attention, she can stay here for a day or two until she feels a little better. She’s going to be pretty sore for a while, I imagine.” He didn’t really know why he didn’t just ship her off with Eddie. But he was the one who had found her, and ever since she’d looked at him with those wide blue eyes, he’d wanted to talk to her more.
“Okay,” said the chief. “I’ll let the hotel know where she is. The manager was pretty worried when she was gone all night.”
“Mahalo,” said Danny formally. Thank you.
“You’re welcome,” said the chief in return. “And thank you for your help. Keep me posted.”
Danny hung up the phone and headed for his room to shower and shave. Leilani had taken charge of the guest when he and Johnny had brought her in, and he knew she was in good hands.
Sydney, he thought. Sydney was in good hands.
An hour later Johnny’s cousin Eddie came up the path from the dock on one of the ATVs kept for that purpose. Dr. Eddie Atada was a native Hawaiian success story. He’d gotten a scholarship to Stanford and then gone to medical school before coming back to Hawaii and establishing a practice on his home island of Kauai.
“Howzit?” he inquired when Danny met him at the door, shaking Danny’s hand with such vigor that Danny wondered if he’d need a cast when Eddie was done. Eddie was nearly as tall as Johnny and only slightly less stocky in build. He could easily have been a lineman for any pro football team due to his size alone.
“It’s going well,” Danny said, “except for finding strange women washed up on the beach.”
Eddie laughed, a booming sound that echoed through the wide hallway. “Not such a bad thing, yeah?”
Danny grinned, but made no answer. “She’s back here,” he said, leading the way to the room to which Sydney Aston had been taken.
When he knocked on the door, Leilani’s voice said, “Come in.”
“The doctor’s here,” Danny said, stepping aside so Eddie could enter the room.
Leilani apparently had helped their guest shower, because she looked clean and fresh and her shoulder-length brown hair was shiny and nearly dry. She wore a flowered housecoat-type garment that must have belonged to one of Leilani’s grandchildren, because it was only slightly too large through the shoulders.
“Hello,” she said.
“I’ll wait out here while you examine her,” Danny said to Eddie, suiting action to his words.
He waited in the hallway, hearing the rise and fall of lighter female tones interspersed with Eddie’s rumbling chuckles. Finally, the door opened and Eddie came back into the hallway.
“How is she?” Danny asked.
“Let’s sit down.” Eddie walked back along the hallway until he came to the living room, where he proceeded to park his bulk in one of the comfortable overstuffed chairs.
“Are you going to give me bad news?” Danny tried for flippancy but it didn’t quite come off. Bad news was his middle name.
Eddie regarded him soberly, no teasing glint in his eye now. “You didn’t tell me she can’t remember her name,” he said.
“I thought maybe it would come to her once she was calm and settled.” Danny regarded the doctor anxiously. “You don’t think it’s permanent, do you?”
“I doubt it. Long-term amnesia is very rare. But often after head injuries patients lose chunks of time surrounding the accident that they never recall. She may never be able to tell you how she got on your beach.”
“She’s already remembered bits and pieces of that.”
“That’s a good sign,” Eddie said. “All she really needs is peace and quiet. She’d be better off here than at a hotel. And I really wouldn’t recommend she fly home right away. The whole traveling thing is stressful enough when you’re well, much less when you’ve just landed headfirst on a piece of prime Hawaiian real estate.”
Danny smiled because the other man seemed to require it.
“Don’t worry,” Eddie said. “I’ll bet that after a few restful days here her memory will return and your mystery guest will be able to tell you everything.”
Everett Baker entered the law offices of Gantler & Abernathie hesitantly. The waiting area was expensively appointed, with leather chairs, some kind of pretty tables with inlaid marquetry on the tops, and rugs thicker than his mattress. He could never afford a lawyer like this. But Terrence Logan could, and he’d insisted on getting Everett the best criminal defense lawyer in Portland. The sharp edge of guilt’s knife twisted in his stomach as he thought of his biological father’s generosity.
There were two other people in the reception area and as he gave his name to the woman at the large desk he wondered if either one of them was an arrested criminal out on bail.
Bail. When he’d stood in that Portland courtroom and heard the hefty sum that guaranteed he wouldn’t take off for Timbuktu at the first chance, he’d felt another load of despair land squarely on his shoulders. He’d never be able to raise that kind of money.
But then Terrence Logan—his father—had whispered in the bailiff’s ear, the bailiff had approached the judge, and the next thing Everett knew he was walking out into the warm Oregon air, a temporarily free man. He’d looked at the man who had signed his bail bond and said, “Why?” although it barely squeaked out past the lump in his throat.
Terrence Logan had smiled, and the warmth in his eyes made Everett feel even worse than he already did. “Because you’re my son,” he’d said.
But I tried to ruin your adoption foundation! Everett wanted to say. I’m not worthy to be called your son. But the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t fathom how the Logans could bear to look at him after the damage he’d helped to cause to Children’s Connection. He’d been so stupid! So…gullible, lapping up Charlie’s pretended friendship like a starving dog. He was pathetic. There was no way he could ever be associated with the Logans now, even if he did have that biological connection. Too much time had passed.
“Mr. Baker? Mr. Abernathie will see you now.” The receptionist smiled as she stood and led him into the lawyer’s office.
“Everett.” Bernard Abernathie crossed the room to shake his hand and guide him toward a chair before his desk. “I bet it feels good to be a free man again.”
Everett nodded. “But I shouldn’t be.”
“And you probably wouldn’t be,” the man said sharply, “if you’d continued on with that harebrained notion of representing yourself. I’m glad you’ve decided to accept your parents’ offer.”
Everett shrugged. “I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.”
The lawyer nodded, clasping his hands together. “Whatever your reasons, it seems your parents are most interested in doing whatever they can to help you refute these charges. They’ve offered to pay for your legal defense.”
“I can’t refute the charges,” Everett said dully. “I did everything they say I did.”
“Yes, but it’s why you did it that’s important,” Abernathie told him. “Charlie Prescott manipulated you right from the very beginning.” He leaned forward and placed his hands flat on his desk, pinning Everett with his gaze. “This morning I talked with the prosecutor. Since Prescott’s dead, they’ve come to the end of what they can accomplish in terms of recovering any of the children he stole. That Russian idiot is useless. If you’ll agree to give the cops all the information you have, and if it leads to the recovery of at least some of them, you’ll receive a suspended sentence during which you’ll be required to attend court-appointed psychiatric counseling.”
A suspended sentence. The words echoed in his head. Everett hesitated. It wasn’t right, was it, that he got off unpunished? “But—”
“But nothing,” his counsel said. “There’s no room for nobility when you’re facing prison.”
Everett swallowed. “I broke the law, too.”
Bernard Abernathie sighed. “Look, Everett, or Robert, or whatever you’d like to be called now. I deal with a lot of criminals. I see con artists and liars and worms every day. I represent some of them. You—” He looked Everett squarely in the eye. “—are not a hardened criminal. Jail is the wrong answer for you. If you feel you have to atone, do some kind of volunteer work. But you don’t walk away from a gift like this. This is your freedom we’re talking about here.”
Everett still hesitated, evaluating Abernathie’s words.
“Isn’t there anything you care about enough to avoid prison?” His lawyer’s voice was laced with exasperation and what sounded like a trace of compassion.
Anything you care about. Nancy Allen’s face flashed across his mind. His heart squeezed in pain. He could never approach her again. She knew about what he’d done, knew the full story. He’d used her to gain information about the babies at Portland General Hospital. Surely she wished she’d never met him. She must hate him.
Even so, he realized he wouldn’t get her out of his heart so easily. Nancy was everything good and right, the best thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life, and he’d never forget her.
Danny’s unexpected visitor slept and rested most of the rest of the day. The next morning, when he went down for his first cup of coffee, Leilani said, “The young lady’s awake. I could set up breakfast for the two of you on the lanai.”
Danny glanced at his housekeeper sharply, hoping she wasn’t having visions of matchmaking. But Leilani’s broad, pretty face was serene and she met his gaze as she waited for his answer.
“I guess that would be all right,” he said slowly. He wanted to talk to Sydney Aston anyway. Did she even know she was Sydney Aston yet? Eddie had warned him to let her set the pace of her recovery. If she asked, he would tell her what her name was. But he hoped she’d remember on her own.
He went out to the terrace after his workout and shower to find Leilani just seating his guest.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning.” She smiled at him. “You know, I’m not sure I even got your name yesterday. Did you tell me you’re Danny?”
He nodded, smiling in return as he extended a hand. “Daniel Dane Crosby, but everyone calls me Danny.”
“Well, Daniel Dane Crosby called Danny,” she said, “I owe you an enormous debt. If you hadn’t seen me, I can’t imagine what might have happened.”
“At the very least, a really nasty sunburn,” Danny said, trying to lighten the moment.
She laughed, but a moment later, her lovely face lost its glow. “I still can’t remember my name.”
“Eddie—Dr. Atada—says you’ll probably begin to remember soon. You just need a little rest and relaxation.” He poured a glass of the fresh strawberry papaya juice and offered it to her. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”
She smiled again, and he noticed that she had a small dimple in her left cheek. “Careful. It’s so lovely here I might be tempted to stay indefinitely.”
“Danny?” Leilani came to the French doors that led into the house. “You have a telephone call. From Portland,” she added. “I think it’s your brother.”
Danny was puzzled as he excused himself to take the call. Why would Trent be calling him this early? Although, he supposed, it was late morning on the mainland’s West Coast. Normally he and his brother corresponded through e-mail and instant messaging. The last time they’d spoken in person was a month ago.
He headed for the phone in his office. Picking up the handset, he punched the talk button. “Danny here.”
“Danny.” It was Trent, as he’d anticipated. “How are you?”
“Good,” he said cautiously. “How are you?”
Trent laughed. “I’m fine. You sound like you think I’m coming through the phone to bite you.”
“Well, you don’t usually call unless there’s something urgent,” Danny pointed out. “What’s up?”
Trent hesitated.
Danny felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. A shiver rippled down his spine. He had no idea what his brother was about to say but something in the constrained quality of that momentary silence raised every alarm he possessed. “What is it?” he demanded.
“Sit down,” Trent suggested. “I have some news that is going to weaken your knees.”
Danny sat. “All right. Tell me.” His mouth was so dry he had to try twice before the words came out. They found Noah’s body. He knew before Trent spoke again what his brother was going to say. His son was dead, just as he’d feared for the past four endless years.
“Robbie Logan is alive.” Trent’s voice was hushed.
The words didn’t register for a long moment. Uncomprehending, Danny said, “It’s not about Noah?”
“God, no!” Trent was suddenly more animated. “I’m sorry, Danny, I should have realized what you were thinking.” More gently, he said, “There’s still no news of Noah. This is about Robbie. Your friend Robbie’s been found.”
Robbie. Found. “But Robbie’s dead.” He still couldn’t grasp it. “He can’t be alive. He was buried a long time ago.”
“Robbie Logan is alive,” Trent repeated. “He’s already had testing done that proves it. And, Danny, there’s more. He was arrested in Portland under the name Everett Baker.”
“Arrested?” He felt as if he’d followed Alice down the rabbit hole.
“Yes. Apparently he’s been involved with a scheme to kidnap babies for resale to wealthy families. He worked for Children’s Connection and used his contacts there to set up the snatches.”
“My God.” Danny was horrified. Kidnapping babies. How could he? He was a kidnapped child. And even worse, the Logans were ardent supporters of Children’s Connection. Had he known who he was all along? Had Robbie deliberately set out to sabotage his parents’ project? If he hadn’t, it sure was a huge coincidence.
The talk of kidnapping and baby-snatching inevitably led to an image of his son, Noah, bald as a billiard ball, waving his little arms and squealing with pleasure as Danny lifted him high in the air. Drool glistened on his chin and several tiny white teeth were plainly visible through his grin.
True, this story was different from his own situation in that the babies were being provided to the wealthy instead of taken from them, but still… Where had Robbie gotten those babies in the first place? Somewhere, some parents’ lives had been changed forever when their child was stolen. The similarities made his stomach churn.
“Where has he been all these years and why didn’t he ever come home?” Anger was beginning to curl around the edges of the shock. “How could he let them—all of us—think he was dead?”
“From what little I know, I don’t think he knew he wasn’t Everett Baker until the woman he thought was his mother passed away a few years ago. He must have been treated pretty badly by the people who had him, and by the time he learned who he really was, he believed the Logans didn’t care about him.”
“But he was six years old when he was taken!” Danny protested. “How could he not remember his family?”
“We don’t know what he went through, Danny.” Trent was quietly reproving. “And you know firsthand the living hell an adult can put a kid through. Maybe he had to forget to survive.”
Danny fell silent. Trent had hit a nerve. Their own mother was a sick, abusive witch. She’d damn near succeeded in making him believe he was worthless, so Trent was right: He shouldn’t be judging Robbie.
Robbie! He couldn’t believe the little boy had lived. For years they’d thought he was dead. The police had even found a child’s body along the Willamette River that had been widely accepted to be Robbie’s. And now here he was, alive!
He had another moment’s pity for some other family still waiting in vain for their little boy to come home. Maybe now that they knew Robbie was alive, the Logans would exhume the child they’d buried. Surely DNA testing was sophisticated enough to figure out who that little victim had been.
“God,” he said slowly. “This creates a host of issues to resolve, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does,” Trent said. “But I’m mostly concerned about how it’s going to affect you.”
Danny shrugged, then realized his brother couldn’t see him. “I don’t think it’s going to, in any significant way. I mean, I’m glad he’s alive, but it’s not going to change my life.”
“No, but it should give you hope. Doesn’t it make you think it’s possible that Noah is still out there somewhere?”
“I don’t think about Noah,” Danny said flatly. “I can’t. It’s terrific that the Logans have found their son, but let’s face it. Most children abducted by strangers are killed within the first few hours if they aren’t found.” And besides, with Noah’s heart defect, he didn’t have much of a chance in the first place. Even if whoever took him hadn’t killed him, they wouldn’t have known that he desperately needed surgery within the next year.
What he didn’t tell his brother was that he knew Noah wasn’t still alive for another reason—because he’d had the misfortune to be Danny Crosby’s son. Danny knew that the therapists he’d once seen would say it was ridiculous, but even now he couldn’t shake the gut-deep certainty that his son’s disappearance was a cosmic payback for his failure to save his little friend all those years ago. And even learning that Robbie had been found alive didn’t alleviate the feeling. Because he hadn’t acted quickly enough, Robbie had been through God only knew what, and he and his family had lost an entire childhood together.
He realized suddenly that there was a strained silence from the other end of the line.
“I do appreciate the call, Trent,” he said. “That’s really good news.” And then he disconnected.
Sydney was still sitting on the lanai having a cup of decaf coffee when her rescuer returned from his telephone call. As Daniel Crosby walked toward her, she studied him from beneath her lashes.
Her host was definitely a hottie. He looked like a young god from a Greek story, with his golden hair and blue, blue eyes. And his build did nothing to detract from the image. He was tall, with wide shoulders that tapered to a slender waist and strong thighs that showed beneath the khaki shorts he wore today with a white sport shirt that hugged his chest, hinting at even more hard, muscled flesh.
She wasn’t looking for a man, but if she were, she’d look twice at him.
Then she stopped with her coffee cup halfway to her lips. She’d just remembered something! She was single, she was sure of it. Not even a fiancé or a boyfriend. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she did.
Then she saw Danny’s face and she immediately set her new knowledge aside. “What’s wrong?”
Danny resumed his seat opposite her at the lovely glass-topped table beneath the umbrella. He sighed. “My brother called with some good news. At least, it’s sort of good news.”
Sydney raised an eyebrow. “Well, that explains why you look as if your last friend in the world just died.”
Danny looked at her strangely. “Actually, it’s the very opposite of that.”
She was intrigued by the statement, and by the air of melancholy that surrounded the handsome man. She’d noticed even through yesterday’s somewhat muddled impressions that Danny rarely smiled. The corners of his mouth turned up a little when something amused him, but his expressions were nearly all variations on a sober theme. What could make a man look like that?
“I’m sorry,” Danny was saying. “You have enough to worry about. How’s your head feeling?”
But she wasn’t going to abandon his moment of sharing, regardless of whether he regretted it. Danny needed someone to talk to, she was certain. It would be a small thing to do in return for what he’d done for her. “My head’s fine,” she said firmly. “Tell me what you meant about your friend.”
Danny hesitated. One long finger traced the rim of his saucer over and over in a gesture she doubted he even knew he was making. “When I was six years old,” he said at last, “my best friend was abducted. A man took him right out of my front yard.”
She was horrified both by the revelation and by what he hadn’t said. “Did you see it happen?” she asked carefully.
He nodded.
“Oh, dear heaven.” Without thinking she reached out and placed her hand atop his. “I’m so sorry.”
He looked surprised as his gaze locked on her face. “Thank you,” he said. “It was a tough thing to go through.”
“I can’t imagine,” she responded. When he didn’t speak, she prompted, “You said you had some good news.”
He nodded. “Apparently, my friend has been found alive. He was living under another name.”
“Wow.” Realizing she was still holding his hand, she released him and tried unobtrusively to draw her own hand back across the table. “That is good news.”
“Yes, but he’s been accused of being involved in a kidnapping ring.”
She shook her head, speechless. Every time he revealed something new, she was sure her mouth was hanging open. “Well,” she finally said, “I can see why you aren’t sure it’s good news. Does his family know?”
“Trent didn’t say. But I’m sure they must. That’s part of what’s so awful. They held a funeral for him—or at least for a child they thought was him—years ago. And the kidnapping ring has been targeting an adoption and fertility clinic called Children’s Connection, which his parents, the Logans, have supported in a big way.”
Children’s Connection. The name hit her like a bolt from a clear blue sky. She must have made some sound or expression of shock, because Danny leaned forward, looking alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“Children’s Connection is in Portland. Attached to the hospital.”
This time he was the one who took her hand in a strong grip. “That’s right! You remember that? What else?”
“I—I’m not from Portland, I’m from Washington state. But I moved to Portland several years ago.” She felt as if she were swimming underwater with her eyes open, seeing things with the blurred vision the water produced. “And I’m Sydney, Sydney…Aston!” she said triumphantly.
Danny was squeezing her hand tightly and she turned her fingers up without thinking and laced them through his. “That’s terrific,” he said. “You’re remembering.”
He didn’t sound entirely surprised, and she paused in the middle of the returning memories to glance at him. “You knew already, didn’t you?”
“Only your name,” he said. “I didn’t know you lived in Portland. That’s interesting. My family is from Portland.”
“Crosby,” she said, her eyes widening. “You’re one of the Crosby Systems Crosbys?”
“Yeah.” His lips curved upward in that intriguing little smile. “I guess I am.”
“How weird is that, that I should be rescued by someone from my own city?” She shook her head. “How did you know my name, anyway?”
“When I called the police to report finding you, your hotel had reported a woman of your description missing. But the doctor didn’t think I should prompt you.”
“The Marriott,” she said promptly. “So they know I’m all right?” Then something else floated to the surface of her mind. “Good heavens, I’ve got to call my mother. She’ll be frantic, not hearing from me in two days. She’s keeping my son. I have a son! Nicholas.” She smiled crookedly, feeling tears rise. “I can’t believe I forgot him. He’s five and he’s wonderful and I miss him so much.”
Danny carefully withdrew his hand from hers and stood. “I’m glad you’re remembering,” he said. “I’ll go call the doctor and let him know.” He turned and started across the terrace toward the house.
“This is a wonderful day!” she said exuberantly. “Lots of good news.”
Danny paused for a moment, turning to look at her. “Yes,” he said, “lots of good news.” But his expression was odd—remote, as if he were no longer involved in their conversation but merely a disinterested observer.
Her euphoria dropped a notch as he left the lanai. Sipping her juice, she thought back over their conversation. When she’d begun to tell him what she remembered, he disappeared. What had happened to cause that reaction? He’d withdrawn as surely as if he’d pulled a curtain down between them.
Leilani, the housekeeper who’d been so kind to her, came out to the table with a covered dish, which she set on a trivet with a conch-shell beside Sydney’s plate. “Macadamia-nut pancakes, eggs Benedict and fresh pineapple,” she said, whipping the shiny cover off with a flourish. “Guaranteed to put some meat on your skinny little bones.”
Sydney forced a laugh, though her thoughts were still on Danny. “Thank you,” she said. “Sounds delicious.”
“Where Danny go?” Leilani asked, looking around.
Sydney shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
Leilani made a plainly disgruntled sound beneath her breath. “Dat boy,” she said, “need something to distract him from his troubles. But if he won’t stick around and talk to you, how he gonna distract himself?”
Before Sydney could ask what she meant by that cryptic comment, the housekeeper had vanished, leaving her to eat her breakfast on the beautiful patio overlooking the ocean. From here she could see the green hills and red cliffs of Kauai, the island from which she’d come, and the marvelous blue shades of the water between.
What a beautiful spot to call your home. Of course, it was extremely isolated, which would never do for someone with children. Children needed other children to play with, places to go, things to see and try.
Suddenly, a reason for Danny’s withdrawal occurred to her. Perhaps he thought she was married. He hadn’t seemed to back away until she’d mentioned her son, she recalled. Could that be why? There was no denying that she found her host extremely attractive, and when he’d looked into her eyes she’d thought that perhaps he felt the same way.
It might have been nice to get to know him better.
Then she laughed at herself. And how do you propose to do that, Sydney Leigh Ashton? The man lives on a remote Hawaiian island and you live in Portland.
Thinking of Portland reminded her again of Nick. She hastened to finish her breakfast so she could call her mother in Washington and tell her that she wouldn’t be home tomorrow as she’d originally planned.
But she wouldn’t tell her mother about the boating accident or what had possessed her to try to sail alone from Kauai to Nanilani. Or that she couldn’t really remember much about Nicholas yet. She had the sense that there was something important, something urgent, that she still needed to recall, but it eluded her as surely as her name had eluded her for more than a day.
Oh, well. She finished her breakfast and gathered the dishes to carry inside so Leilani wouldn’t have to make an extra trip out to get them. She’d just have to trust that it would come back, as everything else seemed to have.
And hope it was nothing terrible she was forgetting.
Three
S ydney called her mother, who confessed she’d been getting worried. It wasn’t like Sydney to go so long without calling, and she hadn’t answered the phone in her hotel room.
After reassuring her mother, she spoke briefly to Nick. His grandfather had taken her son out on his tractor, and he was full of excited chatter about the big event. When she told him she’d probably be away a few more days, he didn’t even protest. And although she sort of wished he missed her a little more, she knew that his easy acceptance was a good sign of a well-adjusted child. Given the nightmares he’d had off and on over the years—a recurrent dream in which someone was trying to steal him from her—she was particularly thankful.
Afterward, feeling ridiculously fatigued, she returned to the lovely room Leilani had put her in and took a nap.
She woke before noon, stretching and wincing when she began to move. Her shoulders, she’d noticed, were stiff and sore, presumably from something to do with the boat she’d been in or from swimming to shore. The ugly knot on her right temple was sore, too, as she’d discovered the hard way when she’d been washing her hair in the shower earlier.
As she rose from the bed, Leilani knocked quietly on the partially open door. “How you feelin’ now, little miss?”
Sydney smiled. “Much better, thank you. I feel silly sleeping in the middle of the day. Usually it’s my son who nods off.”
“You have a son?”
At Sydney’s nod, Leilani said, “How old?”
“He’s five and a half.”
The housekeeper’s eyes widened. “The same age as Mr. Danny’s little boy.”
“Danny has a son, too? He hasn’t mentioned him to me.” She was too surprised to resist the urge to gossip, though she knew it was rude.
Leilani’s expressive face was suddenly so sad that Sydney was alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“Mr. Danny’s son kidnapped four years ago. Never been found.”
“Dear heaven.” Knees weak, Sydney reached for the edge of the mattress as she sank back down. “How old?”
“He was a year old when he was taken. He’d be five now, same as your little boy.”
A shiver ran down Sydney’s spine, making her shudder. “How awful.”
“It is.” Leilani shook her head sadly, then cleared her throat. “I didn’t come up here to make you sad. I came to tell you lunch will be ready in about half an hour.”
After Leilani had left the room, Sydney sat for a long moment on the edge of the bed. No wonder Danny had gotten quiet this morning. She had inadvertently reminded him of his pain, she was sure.
She couldn’t even imagine what she’d do if something happened to Nick. His big blue eyes, the silky feel of his flyaway dark curls beneath her hand, the warmth of his small body snuggled against her when they read their nightly story… She could practically feel him in her arms right now and her throat grew tight. She missed him so much!
She wondered if his father— His father? A panicked sensation caught at her throat and tensed her muscles. She couldn’t remember his father! Something was knocking at the closed doors of her consciousness, taunting her, but she simply couldn’t bring it into focus. But it had something to do with her son, she was sure.
Why couldn’t she remember his father? Her clasped hands clenched so tightly her knuckles went white. It wasn’t just the man she couldn’t recall. There was absolutely nothing in her memory about Nick’s birth. Or about the husband she must have had at the time. Was it possible she’d borne a child out of wedlock? She might have a head injury but she was pretty sure her moral values hadn’t changed that much. Her instinctive recoil at the thought of giving a child the stigma of illegitimacy told her that it was highly unlikely she’d done so.
Thinking back over her conversation with her mother, she reflected that her mother had said nothing about her child’s father. Was it possible there wasn’t one in the picture? If that were true, where had he gone and why was she raising a child alone? Had he died? Surely she’d know it if he were dead.
She waited for some feeling, some sense of truth or falsehood to strike, but finally she had to admit that she had no idea, none at all, what the story of her son’s father might be.
Darn it all! She’d had a few short moments of euphoria when she’d remembered her name and Nick and her family. She simply hadn’t taken a complete mental inventory to see what else she might have lost that hadn’t returned. She was so frustrated she could feel tears rising, and the weakness only made her angry, which made her cry even more.
Then she glanced at the clock and squeaked in alarm. Lunch was going to be served in a few moments. She didn’t want to insult Leilani or her host by appearing rude or indifferent to their exceptional goodwill. Springing to her feet, she rushed into the adjoining bathroom and splashed cold water over her face. Quickly she ran a brush through her shoulder-length brown hair, then headed for the terrace where Leilani had served breakfast.
Sydney rushed through the French doors onto the lanai breathlessly, saying “I’m sorry I’m late.”
Danny turned from the edge of the flagstones, where he’d been standing studying the ocean. “Lunch hasn’t been served yet.”
Sydney made a nervous gesture, then caught herself and clasped her hands before her. The small movement made him wonder what she was so nervous about. “What have you been doing this morning?” he asked.
She smiled at that, a wry expression that made her lovely blue eyes twinkle. “I was busy napping. Breakfast wore me out.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I think I must have been swimming before I hit the rock.” She indicated her temple, where a striking blue-and-purple bruise had formed. “My shoulders are sore and my arms feel like two bags of concrete.”
“Your boat hasn’t washed up,” he said. “Are you a strong swimmer?”
“I thought I was,” she said. “I grew up swimming in a river with some pretty strong currents. But the current of Kauai’s beaches was a shock the first day I got here.”
He nodded. “There are a few places where it’s protected and safe to swim. But there also are a lot of beaches that are too dangerous for swimmers. You should check at your hotel before going in the water.”
Sydney smiled again. “Too late.” Then the smile faded. “Although I might have asked. I don’t remember. I don’t remember getting a boat, either. I just have a vague impression of waves—one really big one—swamping a small boat I was in, and of swimming.”
“Rogue wave,” he told her. “It’s not uncommon here for the surf to be unpredictable. An unusually large wave can come out of nowhere without any warning.”
Leilani came onto the patio then with lunch, which she served beneath the same large umbrella where they’d eaten breakfast.
“This looks wonderful,” Sydney told her. “What are these dishes?”
“Seared ahi with a mustard-soy sauce,” Leilani said, “macadamia-nut wontons stuffed with brie, sea-vegetable salad and for dessert, Kilohana mud pie with mocha ice cream.”
“Ahi is just tuna,” Danny told her. “And she stole the recipe for the mud pie from her cousin who works at Gaylord’s over on Kauai.”
The housekeeper sniffed. “It was my idea first. She’s the one who copied. But I don’t mind. It’s a compliment to know that my cooking is so in demand.”
Danny couldn’t entirely suppress the smile that tugged at his lips. “I bet you’re making her pay you royalties on that recipe.”
“Ha. What you know?” Leilani gave him her best menacing glare before turning and heading back into the house.
Sydney was staring at him. “Is she really mad at you?”
He shook his head. “Nah. She sharpens her tongue on me all the time. It’s a good day when I can pay her back a little.”
Sydney smiled at him as he stepped forward and held her chair. “She and her husband are sort of like family to you, aren’t they?”
Family. The word actually hurt. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing as he took his seat. But when he glanced at her, Sydney looked stricken.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “That was thoughtless of me. Leilani told me about your son.”
He nodded curtly. “Apology accepted.”
There was a strained silence as they passed the food. Sydney shook out a huge snowy white napkin and placed it over the short pink shirt and skirt set Leilani had given her that morning. The outfit was one that a granddaughter had left behind and it bared her pale, slender midriff and nicely toned arms.
Danny cleared his throat as she cut into her tuna. “If you’d like to tell me about your son, it’s all right.”
As olive branches went, he thought that was quite a large limb. Apparently she agreed, because she looked across the table at him. “He’s just a typical little boy.” Then she frowned. “Except for his family structure.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” she admitted, frustration coloring her tone. “I thought I’d remembered everything but this morning I realized I can’t recall anything about Nick’s father. Nothing! It’s like I found my baby under a toadstool or something.”
“You mean you don’t remember…” There was no way to put it delicately so he didn’t finish the sentence.
A blush that matched her top flooded into her cheeks. “No. But it’s odd. I don’t feel as if I’ve ever been married, but I also don’t think I’m the kind of woman who’d conceive a child without being in a committed relationship.” She stumbled over her explanation a little, but plowed on. “I really don’t have an idea what kind of person I am! I could have a much more colorful history than I think I do.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes while he digested all that she’d told him.
“Have you asked anyone who knew you before?” he said at last. “About what you were like before this?” He didn’t think she seemed like a woman who’d sleep around, either. She had the genteel, restrained manner of one who’d been raised a lady. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and he’d bet she hadn’t worn one any time in the recent past, because her ring finger was smooth and unmarred by any paler skin or slight groove from a ring.
“I talked to my mother briefly this morning,” she told him, “but I didn’t want to alarm her so I didn’t tell her exactly what had happened. Also, I didn’t realize until just a little while ago that there are still some gaps in my memory.” Her voice rose in agitation. “Right now, all I want to do is go home and see Nicholas.”
“I imagine you do,” he said in an effort to calm her, “but it’s only been a little more than a day since I found you. Eddie said you need to give yourself a couple of days to relax without any stress.”
“It’s stressful being away from my son,” she said in an aggrieved tone. Then she seemed to realize what she had said. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was much more subdued. “That’s about as insensitive as I could get.” She looked down at her plate.
“It’s all right.” He reached across the table and tapped the back of her hand gently. “I’m sure your son is in excellent hands with your mother. As for your memory lapse, why don’t you try not to think about it for the rest of the day?”
Her wide brow wrinkled. “It’s hard not to, when I’m just sitting around thinking, thinking, thinking all the time.”
“Now, that I can help with.” He withdrew his hand when he realized he was still lingering, tracing a finger over her soft, satiny skin. “After lunch, I’ll take you down to the beach. It’s beautiful. Then again, we’re in Hawaii. Everything is beautiful.”
“In its own way?” she asked immediately, the twinkle in her eye clueing him in to the fact that she was mimicking the words to an old tune.
He shook his head, groaning. “I’ll only take you if you promise not to do that again.”
Sydney smiled, and the small dimple in her left cheek winked at him. “I won’t—if you don’t give me the opportunity. My mother says I have a song for every occasion.”
“My wife was like that,” he said before he could stop himself.
She went still. “I didn’t realize you’d been married.” She made a face. “I guess I just didn’t think about it or I’d have assumed you were.”
“She’s dead,” he said before she could ask. “After Noah—my son—was kidnapped, she had a terrible struggle with depression. A year later she just couldn’t deal with it anymore.”
“She took her own life?” Sydney’s eyes were soft and compassionate. “Oh, Danny, I’m so sorry. You’ve had some awful moments, haven’t you?”
You don’t know the half of it, he wanted to say. But he’d already talked too much about his problems. “If you’re finished there,” he pointed to her empty plate, “we can go down to the beach. Leilani’s family has left every imaginable type of clothing here. I’m sure there’s a bathing suit somewhere that will fit you.”
“I’m not so certain I want to go swimming again,” she said, and he could tell she was only half kidding.
“I wouldn’t let you,” he said seriously. “It’s not safe to swim in the ocean at most of the beaches on Nanilani.”
“Why?”
“Riptides that flow out through breaks in the reefs, really strong undertow, high surf a lot of the time—you name it. But I’ll show you some of the island’s prettiest beaches and most unusual features.”
“That sounds wonderful,” she said, “but I’m not sure I’m up to hiking yet.”
“You won’t have to.” He stood and came around to pull back her chair. “We use ATVs to get around the island.”
While she went in search of a bathing suit, Danny brought one of the all-terrain vehicles around to the front of the house. It had a double seat to accommodate two passengers, and he put beach towels, water bottles, hats and sunscreen in the attached storage compartment. He also added reef shoes in sizes that he thought might fit her in case she wanted to walk in the water.
A few minutes later Sydney came out the door. She was wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt dress with armholes that drooped nearly to the waist, allowing him a glimpse of a powder-blue bikini beneath.
She climbed on the bike behind him, and Danny suddenly realized how intimate their excursion was going to be. “You’ll have to put your arms around my waist and hang on,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m going to try to go slow and avoid the bumps so your head doesn’t start to hurt again.”
He climbed on the bike and waited for her to settle in behind him. His heart was racing and his body was far too aware of her slim frame as she got onto the bike. When her slender thighs were spread wide on either side of his and her hands gingerly clasped his waist, he thought he might expire with pleasure right on the spot.
He hadn’t thought much about women since Felicia’s death. He’d been functioning on autopilot for the first year or so after her suicide, but even in the three years after that, he hadn’t cared about meeting anyone. He’d assumed his sex drive had died with Felicia.
But judging from the adrenaline rushing through his system now as he put the vehicle into gear and Sydney’s small hands tightened around his waist, he’d been wrong in a big way.
Hell. Sydney was pretty, agreeable and sweet, and he hadn’t been around a woman in ages. There was no more to his physical reaction than that.
He took the main path from the house down to the boat dock in the sheltered cove on the northeastern edge of the island. The reefs were larger and more plentiful all along the north beaches than on the south, and the small cove where the boats came in was a perfect spot to show her first.
He cut the engine and climbed off the bike, then helped her to stand. Her fingers clutched at his and he realized she was a little off-balance, so he slid an arm around her. “You okay?”
She gave him a wobbly smile. “Yes. Just a moment of dizziness. I don’t know why.”
Swimming through God only knew what kind of surf and hitting your head on a rock might have something to do with it, he could have said. But she knew that already. “This cove is where you’ll come when you’re ready to leave the island. Isn’t it pretty?”
“It’s beautiful,” she said. He looked around, seeing it through her eyes. At the right side of the cove was the boat dock, where the water got deep a little faster than around the left side of the circular beach area. Several hundred yards offshore, the waves boiled up against the reef that protected the cove from the stronger surf.
“How do you get in and out of here? That looks dangerous.” She was pointing in the direction he’d been looking.
“It is,” he said. He dropped his arm and moved a pace away, a little unnerved how easy it felt to be with Sydney, to touch her as if they’d been touching for a long, long time. “But there’s a big break in the reef around that headland to the right, and pilots who know the way in have no trouble. I don’t usually swim here but it’s possible over at the west end away from the currents.”
He felt her actually shudder. “I don’t think you have to worry about me swimming.”
After they left Boat Cove, as it was known, he took her northwest around the island, following the beaches. “We have a lot more sand beaches here than the eastern islands do,” he told her as they stood on a wide, sandy beach and watched breakers curl over an offshore reef. “Those islands are geologically a lot newer and haven’t had time to build up the beaches or the reefs like this island has.”
Danny shook out a blanket and sat down, stretching his legs and patting the place beside him. “Take a break. You probably could use a little rest.”
“I hate to admit it, but you’re right.” She sat down a decorous distance from him, drawing up her knees and looping her arms around them as she gazed out to sea. “I’ve never been to Hawaii before,” she said. “I had so much planned and here I sit on one little island, recuperating.” She sighed.
A tingle of excitement that he hadn’t felt in years shot through him. She was remembering more! Carefully, he said, “What kinds of things were you planning to do?”
“I wanted to see the Big Island while I was here,” she said. “Get a close look at the volcanoes and maybe a lava flow. And I wanted to visit Pearl Harbor and tour the Arizona memorial on Oahu. It’s all so beautiful, but I understand that each island is different.”
He nodded. “Kauai has the distinction of having the wettest place on earth. The Big Island has Kilauea, the world’s most active volcano. Each of the others has its own special something.” He paused, then deliberately gave her a test. “Why did you start with Kauai?”
“I had to—” She stopped, whipped her head around to stare at him. “I remembered more, didn’t I?”
He had to smile at her excitement. “You did.”
“But…” Her obvious pleasure was fading fast. “When you asked me about Kauai, I got the strongest feeling that there was something I had to do here first. Something I had to finish before I went home.” Her gaze grew unfocused, though no less intense. “But I can’t remember what it was.”
He put his hand on her shoulder and massaged, feeling the fragile joint, the smooth curve of her supple skin beneath his hand. “It’ll come. Look at what just happened.”
She sighed, an immense exhalation that shook her entire frame. “I hope so.” She looked as pitiful as a balloon that had suddenly lost half its helium, and her misery affected him.
Pulling her close, he rubbed her back for a moment. “It’ll come,” he repeated. Maybe, he thought, he should hire a private detective. He could find out all about her life for her.
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