Make Mine a Marine (75 page)

It thundered again. Drew cursed and sat bolt upright, then cursed again when the bright sun hit his eyes. He blinked the world into semifocus and discovered there was no storm outside.

When he heard the sound a third time, he realized someone was beating on his door. "Coming!"

He thought he yelled the response. But the wad of stuffing that filled his head after last night's dive into self-pity--with the help of Jack Daniels and a few beers—might just have reflected the sound back into his own ears.

His visitor knocked one more time before Drew could find his glasses and climb out of bed. He opened the door without thinking, without putting anything on besides his pants, without a care for who might be on the other side.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Gallagher." Hawk Echohawk's imposing silhouette blended with the shadows of the hallway. But Drew could see he wore a sheepskin coat over his jeans, and he could sense that the mysterious Indian meant business. "You look like hell, my friend."

Drew shook his head and started to shut the door. "I don't believe I'm your friend."

A big, camo and khaki military boot prevented the door from closing. Drew wasn't in the best of shape to defend himself, so he shrugged and opened the door wide. He supposed he had this reckoning at the hands of Jonathan Ramsey's friends coming to him, anyway. He just wished he had a clearer mind to deal with it. He stepped back. "Come in if you feel the need to."

He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and plopped down in it. He heard the click of the door lock behind him like the punch of a gavel pronouncing a guilty verdict.

Hawk moved silently, and he moved fast. By the time Drew knew he was behind him, he'd circled the table and sat on the opposite side. Drew squinted, trying to read the intention in those fathomless dark eyes.

"I don't have time to do much explaining," said Hawk. "But it's enough to know that I sense things about people. When I read your aura at the LadyTech building, and again on Moriarty's island, I sensed that you are not who you claim to be."

Had Ramsey told his friends his claim? That he, Drew Gallagher, was the Chameleon? No. If Hawk thought that Drew was responsible for gun-running and murder, he wouldn't be sitting down now for a chat. Drew shrugged this meeting off as coincidental. "I work undercover a lot. It's easy to get that impression."

The Indian's stoic silence told him that story didn't fly.

Fine.  "How do you know Andrew Gallagher's not my real name?"

Hawk's expression changed into something that might be an amused smile. He got up and sorted through the dirty dishes in the sink and picked up the coffee pot. Once he’d filled it with water and had that started, he disappeared into the bathroom and emerged moments later. He tossed Drew a towel and took off his coat. "Sober yourself up," said Hawk. "I want to hire you."

"To do what?"

"I want you to run a background check on someone."

Drew couldn't believe this. This man should be his enemy, not his employer. He should be offering a choice of punishment instead of coffee and work. "Who do you want me to investigate?"

"You."

* * *

"So, will you file charges against Moriarty?" asked Jonathan, fixing his tie in front of the full-length mirror.

Emma hooked her pearl-and-onyx earrings through her ears and tried not to think what a weird conversation he had started as they put on the finishing touches to go on their date. But at least he was talking to her. "I already have. Against Wyatt Carlisle, too."

"Any idea what this Moriarty looks like?"

Emma nearly laughed. First he promised her wine and roses—now he grilled her about LadyTech instead of romance. "Drew had this crazy idea that you were Moriarty."

"Did he, now?" Apparently this topic bothered him a great deal, because he suddenly appeared beside her in the dresser mirror. And she saw no trace of humor in his expression. "Just how well do you know this Gallagher? You seem to trust him with an awful lot of personal business."

Emma frowned. The need to defend Drew from the implied accusation swelled inside her. "He's a good man. He came through for me when no one else could or would."

"You have feelings for him, don't you?"

Only then did it register that she had taken another man's side against her husband. She tried to play down the urgency of her defense with a more rational argument. "He's a friend. To Kerry and me. He saved your life. You should be grateful to him, too."

"Are you certain it's just gratitude you feel?"

She turned to face the real man instead of the reflection. She adjusted his tie needlessly, straightened his collar, and allowed her hands to linger on his chest. Avoiding the subject meant avoiding a deeper inspection of her own feelings for Drew. "Look. Can we just go to dinner? We need time together, you and me. Let's forget everything else and concentrate on tonight."

She felt the scrutiny of his wary blue eyes. And since she wanted this reunion to work, needed it to work, she lifted her face to meet that gaze. She let her loyalty to him shine through, telling him better than with words that he was the man she loved. Stretching on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his, offering a gentle kiss, a promise of things to come.

In the instant it took to close her eyes, she felt the tension in him leave. Then his hands cupped her shoulders and he deepened the kiss. She obliged him by encircling his neck and running her fingers into his hair. He slid his hands down her back to her waist and pulled her flush against him.

He abandoned her mouth and kissed a trail along her jaw to her ear. "I told you we didn't need dinner tonight," he whispered before taking a nip at her earlobe. Her earring clicked against his teeth, and she stiffened, hearing the almost inaudible sound like a clang in her ear.

Emma schooled herself not to pull away, but she dragged her hands back down to his chest, wedging a bit of breathing space between them. "But I'm hungry." She whispered the soft protest, seeking an understandable excuse to put him off.

His roaming hands swept to her shoulders once more, pushing aside the spaghetti straps of her black dress, and tasting the uncovered spot with his lips and tongue. "I'm hungry, too." His tone held a very different meaning. "Sweetheart… I’ve been without you for so long.”

Emma squirmed in his embrace. If he wanted to arouse her, why didn't he do or say any of the things he knew she liked? As she tilted her shoulder away from his lips, she asked, "Why don't you call me `lady' anymore?"

"What?" He took advantage of her position and dipped his mouth to kiss the swell of her breast, revealed by the fallen strap. Her breath came in rapid pants as she fought off the unconscious panic he created by kissing his way along the vee of her neckline toward the shadowy cleft between her breasts.

"You used to always call me 'lady.' It was a pet name." She laughed, hearing it sound a bit forced in her own ears. "Despite where I came from, you always said I had class, that you'd never think of me as anything but a lady."

"Do you have to talk so much?" Backing up his words, he raised his head and claimed her mouth in a fiercely possessive kiss. The sound in her ear intensified as alarm rang throughout her entire body.

She braced her feet and pushed against his chest, turning her head away when his hold on her tightened. "You remember that, don't you?"

"Enough talk already. Kiss me."

She heard nothing gentle or pleading in his command. Felt nothing gentle or seductive in his touch as he tightened his grip and lifted her off the floor. She twisted and kicked, uncaring that this was her husband she was hurting. He carried her to the bed. Her foot tangled between his legs, and he fell with her, landing on top and trapping her.

"Stop it, Jonathan," she hissed. “I’m not ready for this.”  She stabbed at his face with her fingers as he nipped at her shoulder and rolled his hips over hers. "Get off me!"

He shifted slightly, palmed her breast. He grabbed the neckline of her dress and started to pull. But the change in balance freed her whole arm. "Jonathan!"

She smashed his nose with the heel of her palm, just the way he had taught her to defend herself all those years ago. His head snapped back. He scrambled to his knees on the bed, holding his face in both hands and screaming an awful string of curses.

Emma tried to roll away from him, but his knee anchored the hem of her dress. She sat up and yanked at the binding material. She felt it give, heard a rip and a pop, and she was free.

Almost.

Jonathan grabbed her by the chin, folded his palm around her jaw, and jerked her face up to his. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Emma shoved at his chest and pushed him away. He stumbled off the bed on one side, and she crawled off the other. "I asked you to stop."

"I'm your husband."

"No, you're not!" She pulled her straps back on to her shoulders and straightened her skirt. "The man I married would never behave this way. I don't know you anymore. You're not like the man I fell in love with. You've changed."

"You don’t think five years in captivity would do that to a man?" he challenged. The growl in his voice was still menacing despite the grip he kept on his nose. "It's that Gallagher, isn't it? He's not a friend of yours. He was your lover, wasn't he?"

"No! I've always been faithful to you." She clenched her fists in front of her, cursing fate and chameleons and the passage of time. "You're the only man I've ever been with."

"You may be a knockout package on stilts, sweetheart, but as far as I'm concerned, you're a cold fish. So much for a warm welcome home." He turned to the mirror to inspect the damage to his face.

"How dare you." She rounded the bed, advancing on him with the strength of righteous indignation to guide her. She tugged on his sleeve, jerked hard to get him to face her. "First you reject your daughter, then you treat me like nothing more than a sex object."

"Oh, no, I value your business expertise, too."

His callous response twisted her heart like a corkscrew. She released him and crossed her arms in front of her, shielding herself from another crippling attack on everything she'd believed in for so long. "What about love, Jonathan? I love you. I have always loved you."

He slid his gaze over her body in a way that made her sick to her stomach. "Then prove it."

Anger gave her strength. "Get out. Pack your things and go to a hotel."

"No. I'll move into the guest bedroom. But I'm not moving out. I know my rights."

* * *

Drew studied the thick file on the table in front of him and took another sip from his bottle of water. The ache in his head had dulled to a tolerable level. He even relished the telltale signs of eye strain as at least a productive abuse of his body.

He'd taken Hawk Echohawk's challenge at face value, and had resurrected his investigation into his own past. Without revealing how much he knew, Hawk had said he'd guessed Drew suffered from amnesia. Drew hadn't questioned the Indian's perception. Something about those midnight-dark eyes made him think Hawk could see things that most men couldn't.

He flipped the page and read yet another of Kel Murphy's accounts of crimes attributed to the unidentified Chameleon. Stealing guns and other types of weaponry and selling them to the highest international bidder—that seemed to be his mainstay. The man who had escaped any photo, fingerprints, or artist's rendering had also dabbled in the drug trade. And along with his marketing of munitions, he was credited for conveying a sensitive secret or two from government to government. The man supplied revolutions and, according to Kel and Hawk, incited a few himself in order to make a profit.

Drew closed the file and sank back in his chair. And
he
might be this Chameleon.

The name Cam, remembered by Clayton Roylott, was close enough to Chameleon to be an identification.

Jonathan Ramsey said he was a match.

But Hawk had shared two very interesting pieces of information with Drew. First, he assured Drew that he didn't believe he could be the Chameleon.

Hawk had said he would be able to sense underlying criminal motives, a past history in Drew, which he did not. And second, those very traits Hawk said were missing in Drew he'd found in someone else.

Jonathan Ramsey.

"You don't trust your commanding officer?  Your friend?" Drew had challenged him.

Hawk would not be baited. "Do your job, Mr. Gallagher. Anyone with a connection to Isla Tenebrosa during the same time frame we were there is too big a coincidence to ignore."

"You think my history can explain anything?"

"I want to know why you were in Tenebrosa, and what happened to you there."

Drew rose to his feet and cleaned up the remains of his takeout dinner. "What happened?" His sharp laugh reflected little humor and a great deal of frustration. "I almost died is what happened."

Not for the first time, he wondered if he'd have been better off if he had died. He was a man without a memory, a man without a clue, a man without a past.

And a man without much of a future if he couldn't prove that he
wasn't
the Chameleon.