Borrowed Identity (25 page)

“Wow,” Michael joked. “I thought they’d never leave.”

Kelly trembled with laughter as she ran her hands over his back. He loved the feel of them, of her. Nothing else in this world could feel so good.

“I was scared out of my mind,” she said. “Are we going to have that talk now?”

“Soon,” he promised. “Right now I need to give Paddy a hand.”

Michael slowly, reluctantly, released her and took a step backward with a sigh. He headed for the door.

“I can’t be with you,” Kelly blurted out.

Michael froze with the doorknob in his hand. All of his fears resurfaced with a vengeance. He wanted to turn around and pledge his love to Kelly Hall for an eternity, but the words wouldn’t come. She had already made her choice. She didn’t want him.

This wasn’t how he had pictured their ending. It was sup
posed to be a happy one. He had thought there would be an exchange of kisses, promises, and maybe he would even get the nerve up to tell her he loved her.

“We shouldn’t talk about this right now,” he cautioned. “You just stared death in the face. You’re upset. You can’t make life decisions in this state of mind.”

“I didn’t,” Kelly said. She sank down on the mattress and took a deep breath. “I knew all along that we couldn’t be together.”

He could see the tears beginning to form. She didn’t want to turn him away. She was scared. He didn’t want to upset her further. A few hours or days to mull things over and she would see how right they were for each other.

She looked so beautiful perched on the edge of the bed with her golden hair flowing over one shoulder. He wanted to wrap the strands around his hands and kiss some sense into her. She had to know she was killing him.

“I need to help Paddy with the prisoners,” Michael said. He went to the window and glanced out. “I hope the police can get through. The snow is really starting to come down.”

“Please, don’t change the subject. I’m trying to be honest with you here. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t do this to me!” He turned on her. He hated emotional scenes, but one was brewing here like a violent storm. The backs of his own eyes were beginning to sting. The emotion in his heart boiled to the brink of spilling over, and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. He lowered his voice. “Don’t do this to us.”

“I’m sorry.” She sniffed. “I can’t be with you.”

“Is it because of the scars?” He went to her, kneeling beside her near the bed. His hands rested on her legs. His fingers burned and began to stroke their way up her thighs, a reflex action. The scent of her filled his nostrils. It took every bit of strength he had not to lay her down and make love to her. “I don’t care about them. They’re not as bad
as you seem to think they are. You are the most beautiful—”

“Stop,” she begged, trying to cut off his words.

“—incredible, wonderful woman I’ve ever met. You are the only one I’ve ever loved.”

She cried out in pain and leaped to her feet. Tears cascaded down her face as if there was no end in sight. She put distance between them, both physically and mentally.

Michael could feel himself losing her, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it beyond appealing to her heart.

“I know you love me,” he said from his vantage point on the floor. He felt as if he wouldn’t ever stand upright again; how could he when he’d been cut off at the knees? “I see it in your eyes every time you look at me. We belong together.”

“We would never be happy.” She spoke softly, condemning their future with her prediction. “How could we be? I can’t leave Moore House, and you can’t live here with me.”

“This
is
about your scars. Dammit to hell! I thought you were getting over that.”

“I’m not going to get over it.” She turned her blue eyes on him. “But it isn’t about the scars. It’s about trust. I couldn’t trust you.”

“Angel.” He stood on legs he could barely feel and crossed the room to stand beside her. She turned her back on him, but it didn’t stop him from touching her. He stroked her upper arms and wondered if she felt the tingles in her blood, too. “I know I hurt you, and I know I don’t deserve you. But if you’re worried you can’t trust me, that’s ridiculous. I swear I won’t lie to you again. Not ever. Not if we both live to be a hundred. You have my word.”

Her shoulders shook, her entire body racked by violent sobs. “It isn’t you,” she cried. “It’s me. I don’t have it in me to trust anyone again, not after what happened here.

Look. Everyone I believed in has lied to me, fooled me, used me. I married your brother. Then he stood over me in this very room, after drugging my champagne, and laughed at me. He called me names, belittled me.”

Michael muttered an emphatic curse. “I’m not Jimmy.”

“I know you aren’t. I’m not confusing the two of you anymore.” She paused for a second before continuing. “I’m sorry. I want to be able to love you like you should be loved. I would give anything to be a normal person again, to be able to trust you and not wonder if you were lying to me or using me.”

“What do I have to do to convince you my love for you is real?” Michael asked urgently. “I would do anything.”

“There isn’t anything you can do, because the problem is inside of me.”

“But you trust Wade. He hasn’t lied to you. If you can believe in him, maybe someday you can believe in me, too. We can have a future. It doesn’t have to be now. I can wait until you’re ready.”

“I don’t want you to do that.” Kelly shook her head vehemently. “Don’t wait for me. I want you to be happy, have a good life.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that without you in it?” He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. He could feel her slipping away a little more with each passing second, and he was helpless to stop it.

Desperate, Michael grabbed Kelly by the shoulders and forced her eyes to meet his. Sensual awareness burned a pathway to his heart. He had to have her. In such a short time she had come to mean everything to him. He stared into those incredible blue orbs and repeated the words he hoped would make the difference.

“I love you.”

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head, sending her hair flying. “I can’t love you.”

Michael didn’t know what to do. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. But the ugly facts weren’t going to vanish just because he wanted them to. She was right. She was light and he was darkness. They couldn’t possibly make a marriage work. What had he been thinking? He’d allowed himself to believe in the impossible.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said as he released her and turned toward the door. “The police will want to talk to you. I’ll make sure they don’t harass you too much. You’ll be fine here on your own.”

“Goodbye, Michael.” Her lower lip quivered, and she hugged herself. “Thank you for everything. You’ll never know what a difference you’ve made in my life.”

He wished that were true. If he had made a difference, she would be in his arms right now instead of on the other side of the room.

Michael took a last look at his angel. She wasn’t wearing the white gown now, but she exuded that ethereal beauty all the same. Her eyes shone with tears, looking like bright sapphires in the darkness. Her petite frame trembled beneath his gaze. The picture seared deep into his brain. This was how he would remember her.

He shut the door softly, knowing she would be safe now. They’d caught the bad guys. Kelly would hide in her little world, safe from feeling too much, safe from pain. He was going to keep his mouth shut and let her live her life the way she wanted to. After all, he wasn’t the foremost authority on living a happy life. She needed to follow her own path.

Maybe she knew what she was doing.

She wanted honesty and trust, and his world was built around lies.

K
ELLY WALKED THROUGH
the next couple of days like a zombie. She hadn’t seen Michael or Paddy. They were busy
with paperwork and debriefing. Her life was getting back to normal, but it felt wrong. In her entire life she couldn’t remember being truly lonely, until now. Every time she glanced at the door, she expected Michael to stroll in. Each time she heard a noise, she expected to see him.

She and Wade were hard at work restoring the kitchen to its original beauty, so she was keeping busy. But her thoughts returned to Michael over and over again. There wasn’t anything she could do about it. She couldn’t shut her mind off. Everything reminded her of him, from the snow covering the ground outside to the pitcher of iced tea in the refrigerator.

The doorbell rang one lazy Saturday afternoon as Kelly finished paying her bills. She wasn’t expecting Wade, and he was the only one who visited now that Margo was gone. Kelly raced to the front door, her heart in her throat. The feeling that she would find Michael standing there sent her running at breakneck speed.

She opened the door. Boomer bolted, knocking into Michael’s legs. Michael lost his balance and almost fell on the front porch. The dog happily romped in the snow.

Michael smiled and nodded at her. “Can I come in for a second?”

“Of course,” she said. Her heart soared at the sight of him, then plummeted when she remembered they weren’t together anymore. They wouldn’t be together again, thanks to her. She had no idea what to say to him.

He looked better than any man had a right to. His dark hair spilled over his forehead, partially shading his dark, sultry eyes. The lines around his mouth seemed deeper now, as if the strain of everything that had happened had sliced into him, bleeding him dry.

She felt the urge to brush her hand against his face, wiping the weariness from his eyes and giving him a moment of comfort and peace, but she didn’t do it. She wasn’t sure
if he would accept even the smallest gesture from her. She watched for a signal—something, anything that would tell her he wanted her to.

Kelly stared at his body in wonder. One word from him and she would bolt into his arms, holding him close. She wanted to meld her thin form against his tall, muscular frame. His broad shoulders strained against the black T-shirt. She’d been a fool to walk away from him.

She prayed he would reach out to her.

“I wanted to fill you in before I leave town,” Michael said. “Since you were the intended victim, I thought you should know. Margo was not Fuller’s daughter, after all. Margo roomed with your mother at the hospital for seven years, and your mother talked about the history of Moore House nonstop.” He shrugged. “Margo was in and out of hospitals her whole life. She’s even suspected of killing her adoptive parents by setting fire to their home.”

Kelly gasped. She had been living next to a lunatic, having lunch with her, and she hadn’t suspected a thing.

“Did Margo set fire to Moore House?” she asked.

“She actually had Grant do it. He’s also the one who screamed ‘Fire!’ at the top of his lungs. She didn’t want to kill anyone, just scare us off.”

“Did Margo have a tape of Jimmy being killed?”

“If she did, I haven’t seen it. The woman is babbling in a padded cell right now. She isn’t making sense to anyone.”

“I feel like such a fool,” Kelly admitted. “I told her about my fear of getting sick like my mother, and she used it against me. What is it about me? Why do I attract the nuts and the con artists?”

“It’s not you, honey. It’s the house. Both Margo and Jimmy wanted the diamonds.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said with a fluttery laugh. “The invisible diamonds.”

“That was a real good story you used to stall Margo.
Hearing that you found the diamonds already kept her distracted, but how did you come up with it?”

“It was true in part. Wade and I did tear out the old shower, but we didn’t find anything. If there were diamonds hidden there, you can believe we would have found them.”

“Yeah,” Michael chuckled. “Wade is good at finding things.”

They both stopped breathing for a shared moment and their eyes connected. Kelly knew he was thinking the same thing she was.

“What do diamonds look like when they’re uncut?” She asked even though she knew what the answer would be.

Michael sighed. “They look like rocks.”

Wade had a box full of rocks in his lost-and-found.

“I’ve told him several times not to take things from my home without asking,” she said. “Oh, well. He can have them. I don’t really care about the diamonds.”

“But other people do,” Michael reminded her. “If we could figure it out, so could somebody else. Wade could be in danger. Besides that, people won’t stop treasure hunting in your house until everybody knows the diamonds have been found.”

Kelly nodded. Michael was right. Wade had no idea what he was sitting on.

“We need to go to Wade’s and get those diamonds right now,” Kelly said. “Then we can take them to the proper officials.”

“Do you have any idea how deep the snow is out there? If I hadn’t rented a jeep, I wouldn’t have made it here. Call Wade. I doubt he’s in any danger. If we can’t get to him, neither can anyone else.”

She nodded in agreement, then offered, “Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thanks.” Michael turned to the door. “If I’m going to get out of here, I need to go now. The snow has started
to fall again. They think we’ll have several inches by nightfall. Will you be okay here on your own?”

“Of course.” She watched him head for the door, and every fiber of her being told her to call him back. She could make him stay with three little words. If she admitted she loved him, told him she couldn’t live without him, he would stay. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind.

But it wouldn’t be fair to him. Try as she might, she wouldn’t be able to completely trust him without reservation. She was a horrible judge of character, as naive as they came. How could she love and trust him? Or anyone else for that matter?

Michael stopped at the door. He turned to face her and their eyes locked for one long, painful moment. He hesitated as if he was hoping she had changed her mind about them being together. They stood for several silent seconds.

He mumbled goodbye and left.

Kelly stretched out her hand, wanting to reach for him.
Call him back,
her mind shouted at her.
It isn’t too late.
She ran to the door and yanked it open, but Michael was gone. The Jeep was heading out the wrought-iron gates, taking her only chance at happiness with it.