“Because of my reaction to you, da
mn it!” He slid her a glance that cut right to the quick. “Let’s start with last night,” he suggested as the tires sang against the pavement. “You were there, you know what happened.”
“Y—yes,” she said, dropping her hand.
“I usually don’t lose control, Marla,” he said earnestly. “It’s not my style.” His gaze, so blue, so cutting, so damned intense drilled into hers and she wanted to shrink away. Instead she met it straight on. “It only happened once before. A long time ago.” His smile twisted with self-loathing. “It’s a pity you don’t remember it.”
Her stomach did a slow roll and she notched up her chin. “Damned right it’s a pity,” she said. “I don’t care what happened between us, Nick, I just want to remember.”
“Well I do, lady. I care and I remember and I’ll be damned if I’m going through that hell all over again.”
He shifted down and roared past a sedan that was slowing for a turn.
She flopped back against the seat, her emotions ripped and raw. There was so much of life that was disconnected, jagged little bits and pieces that just didn’t fit. And her relationship with Nick was so volatile, so worrisome, so damned intense it scared the hell out of her. “Then I guess we’d better find this Kylie person.”
“If she exists.”
“Right.”
Lapsing into silence, he rammed the truck into fourth and stepped on the gas. Marla folded her arms on her chest and wiggled her foot nervously. He was her only ally and sometimes her worst enemy. She felt as if she could trust him and reminded herself he was probably the last person she should have faith in. He had an old grudge against her, a personal axe to grind.
“I want to show you something,” he said, taking the turn to Sausalito rather than connecting with the highway leading back to San Francisco. Tucked on the interior side of the peninsula at the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, the small community was spread upon the hillside, pastel houses, flowers and shrubs climbing the hills for views of the sparkling water.
“Show me what? Where are we going?”
“I thought we’d check out Pam Delacroix’s address.”
“Why?”
“To try to jog your memory,” he said, some of his animosity fading. “Is that okay with you?”
“Anything’s worth a try.”
He pulled into a marina on Richardson Bay and parked in a lot designated for residents. “She lived in a houseboat?” Marla asked, eyeing the floating homes docked along wide wooden piers.
“Ever since her divorce.” Nick pointed out a sun-bleached dock near a two-story floating home and Marla felt as if a ghost had slid through her soul. She tried to imagine the woman she’d seen in the snapshots living here day to day, carrying groceries, calling her daughter on the phone, making plans to sell houses . . . and yet she remembered nothing.
Determined to remember something, anything about the woman who’d given up her life in the wreck, Marla hopped out of the truck and slammed the door. Though the day was bright, the sky clear aside from the clouds rolling in from the west, Marla felt as if she should be skulking in shadows, hiding from the eyes of neighbors if they chanced to peer through the blinds. The wind blew in chilly, November gusts as she approached the front door where a carved wooden heron with glassy eyes held a welcome sign in its long beak. Nick rapped hard. Waited. No one stirred within. No one answered. The blinds didn’t move. Using his hand as a visor, Nick tried to peer inside.
“You really weren’t expecting anyone to be here, were you?” she asked, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her coat.
“No, but I thought seeing this might trigger something for you, ignite some memory.”
“I wish.” She studied the two-storied house, the pilings, the decking and the empty terra cotta pots positioned near the door. No flowers bloomed now, the pots empty aside from a few dried stems. Just like the house. A chill swept through Marla as she stepped across the deck where Pam had walked hundreds of times before, watering her plants, or painting the trim, or sunbathing in the patio chairs that had been stacked beneath the overhang of an upper deck. Climbing the staircase, she felt a deep sadness for the woman she couldn’t remember.
On the second floor, too, the blinds were shut. “I feel like I’m treading on her grave,” Marla said, wrapping her arms around herself and hearing the water lap at the pilings and shore. She stared across the bay toward Angel Island and thought of the woman who had been with her in the car, the woman whose face she’d seen in the photographs Nick had shown her. But there was nothing. Nothing but the questions that had tormented her since first waking from her coma.
Shaking her head, Marla squinted up at Nick. “I’m sorry. This isn’t doing it for me. If you say it’s Pam’s house, I’ll believe you, but you couldn’t prove it by me.”
“It was just an idea. A shot in the dark.”
“Guess it was a blank,” Marla teased. She was starting to trust Nick. Rely upon him. Confide in him. Which was just plain nuts.
Think about last night, Marla. You can’t trust him and you damned sure can’t trust yourself with him. At least not emotionally. He was leaning against the railing, staring across the water, his back to her, one hip thrust out. The wind caught in his black hair, his jacket had risen above his jeans, allowing her a glimpse of his leather belt and the faded denim of his low slung Levis stretched over firm, taut buttocks.
He glanced over his shoulder and she looked sharply away. “I think we should go,” she said, and from the corner of her eye caught his sexy smile. Damn him. He’d known she was staring. Probably even posed on purpose. Sometimes he could be so cocky. So arrogant. Such a bastard. She started for the pickup and called herself a dozen kinds of fool. What the hell was there about him that caused her to forever wonder about making love to him—even while they were trying to unravel the mystery that was her life?
Damn. Damn. Damn.