The Choice (13 page)

“Sure, and then I need to head back before Derek decides to put an APB on me too.”

Didn’t they realize she stood beside them? Even with this lapse in memory, Marcie knew, she had a voice, yet she said nothing.

Sam was being high handed and protective, and honestly, she liked it. Jesse, what could she say? He was Sam’s friend.

Jesse cocked his head toward Marcie, a purely chauvinistic motion. “You sure she didn’t get her memory back, even a little?”

Both men studied her. Marcie felt her cheeks burn from being thrust into the hot seat, her integrity constantly in question. She directed her response solely to Sam. “No, the girl didn’t get her memory back.” Her voice mocked an imitation of Jesse’s southern drawl. “And please stop talking around me as if I’m not in the room.”

Jesse flashed a wide smile. His deep, raspy laugh shook his soft belly. Marcie wasn’t sure if this was humor or another insult. So she glared, and in a childlike retreat, turned and walked over to the stove, pouring herself a cup of coffee that had just begun to perk.

Sam reached around her and grabbed a second mug on a plastic rack above the stove. He poured a cup and handed it to Jesse.

“Thanks.”

Marcie felt heaviness expand the room. For a moment, nothing was said. Sam and Jesse exchanged some shared knowing only they were in on.

“You’re not going to let me take Marcie, are you?”

“No Jesse, I’m not. There are too many pieces missing in this puzzle. Look at her. She wouldn’t stand a chance with Derek. I need to find answers first.”

“I better get going. Call me, especially if mystery girl here remembers what she was really doing. Oh and thanks for putting me in touch with Diane. At least now I know who to call to make sure you stay out of trouble.” Jesse blew on the hot coffee and took a couple swigs before setting the mug on the table.

“Ma’am.” Jesse’s dark eyes cut deep in her heart, a warning she understood—don’t mess with my boy. Then he gave Sam a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Watch your back.” Sam followed Jesse and locked the door behind him.

Irritation steeped a standoff on opposite sides of the room. Marcie dumped her coffee out and listened to the gurgled idle of Jesse’s car. Tension burned in this after silence, magnified by her soft breath and the intensity of Sam’s mutinous glare.

What a childish game. But Sam caved first with a heavy sigh. He walked right up to her and rested his palms on her shoulders, sliding them down her slender arms. A gentle caress, and then he leaned his forehead against hers. “Don’t get so pissed off. Jesse’s put his neck on the line.”

She touched the tobacco colored two-day growth shadowing his face. On any other man, it would look disheveled, but not Sam. It only accentuated his full lips that looked like they were made for kissing a woman and knew how to do it right. He was a stretch. The top of her head only reached his chin. His blue eyes darkened as he slid both hands to her waist.

“He loves you, and he’s trying to protect you from being hurt by me.”

He framed her face, combing his fingers through
her long wavy hair
.

“He pisses you off.”

“Yes, but I respect him. And in an odd way he gives me peace knowing he’s one person watching your back.”

Boy, did he look good, that wavy, sandy blonde hair, those magnetic blue eyes that sparkled when they connected with her. Not to mention his well-defined shoulders, strong, solid, something a girl could really lean into.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, as if he was the only steady thing that could anchor her.

“Your heart’s pounding, I can feel it.” He pressed his hand against her heart.

She blinked when he leaned in. So close now, his warm breath teased her.

“Ah, I…” She couldn’t speak, not from fear, but spellbound by this fiery tug of attraction—
oh yeah
—and something more—a rightness, as if they were meant to be together.

She made the move unconsciously or was it together? Their lips touched, brushed lightly as his firm lips feathered across hers. His life breath she took. His hand slid like magic under her shirt caressing her bare skin. Shifting up, skimming her navel to tease her slender curves. It was an unchoreographed play from a storybook. The dance of his fingers lifted and glided under the swell of her breast. “Sam, what’s happening?” She trailed off, a pathetic attempt to get him to stop, which no doubt was exactly what she didn’t want him to do.

“I want to see all of you and this amazing body of yours.” His breath whispered across her wanting lips.

Her breath caught, quaked and escaped. “Don’t stop.” The sensuous words tumbled out filled with desire. She covered his cheeks with her palms, the close connection, and the hard bedroom eyes. She opened herself completely to him.

He slipped the shirt over her head and then let his gaze run over her naked body. He trailed his hands up from her waist and cupped her breasts. Her breath caught, held and then released when her knees started to weaken. He lifted her in his arms as if she weighed nothing and carried her to the side of the bed, kneeling over her.

“The light.”

“It can stay on. I want to see all of you.”

He pulled off his shirt and shed the rest of his clothes. His hands were hard as iron one moment; then soft as cotton the next. She wrapped her slender legs around his waist. Maybe it was his passion, his skill, which had her opening herself willingly to him. No, the truth was she wanted all he’d offer. She balanced in between bits and pieces of tortuous sensation as he trailed tender nips down her shoulder, over her plump, full breast, trapped and gentled her nipple between his teeth. Pleasure rushed into her so fast she nearly panicked. This trust, this absolute surrender she knew on some level, she’d given to no other. “Oh Sam, Sam.” She said it with a moan, as he drove himself into her, pressing her thighs wide. Fast and hurried, a desperate pace as he rocked within her, leading her to a place hovering on the edge of some sheer rock face, becoming her choice to let go and glory in the abyss he took her. Deeper he pushed. Their tongues entwined, retreated, touched and teased. It was fevered and fast, flesh against flesh, nothing pretty and dainty, when she sobbed his name. She tightened, building up, higher, faster and shattering the veil thin wall separating her from him. But it was his hoarse shout, followed by the fiery magic, which bound them together.

Her first surprise came when she opened her eyes to bright sunlight already filling the small room. She had no dreams and felt relatively rested. The second surprise was Sam’s firm hand keeping her anchored to him, on the edge of the small double bed, saving her from tumbling out while he lay sprawled in the center.

After all, it was considerate of him to make sure she stayed there instead of falling out and landing on her head. When she tried to wiggle her way out, he tightened his hold, pulling her back against him, and she realized then not all of him was asleep. “Sam, time to get up. I’m hungry.”

He answered her with merely a grunt and slid his hand up to cover her breast and then lifted her leg and showed her how awake he was.

“Me too, so you can lay here while I feed my hunger.”

Later as they shared a shower and then dressed with such easy intimacy, she had a vision of how it could be with them. Easy mornings spent loving and cuddling together could easily slip into routine, but one built on commitment. Something cracked inside her heart as if that dream was something she’d never deemed herself worthy.

“I got to go out. I’ll be gone a couple hours. So bolt the door behind me. Don’t let anyone in and don’t go out.” He pulled her from those fairytale thoughts, dropping a fast kiss on her brooding lips, before walking out of the bedroom.

“Sam, I tried to get in the attic last night when you were out, but the door’s locked. Do you think you could open it before you go?” He paused and faced her as if contemplating what to say. Did he expect her to sit quietly and do nothing while he was gone? She reached up to touch the tiny nick on his chin from shaving this morning. But he grabbed her hand when he noticed the scabbed over puncture.

“What did you do to your hand?”

“I tried to pick the lock on the attic door and cut myself.”

“What the hell did you use, a knife?”

“No, I found a chicken skewer in the drawer, and I tried to pick the lock. But it wouldn’t work.”

His mouth fell open.

“Well you made it look really easy.”

“There’s antiseptic in the kitchen.” The old wood floor squeaked when he stomped to the kitchen and yanked open the cupboard door, taking out a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide. “Use it, Marcie or I’ll do it for you. The last thing we need right now is to be red flagged while sitting in an emergency room because you’ve got an infection.”

She viewed the bottle as poison, already feeling the ripe sting, even before she poured it over the wound. “Fine, but what about the door, can you open it? Please.”

“Why do you want to go up there, it’s dusty, dirty and filled with a bunch of old junk?”

“Please Sam. There’s something about the attic, call it intuition, but I can’t shake this voice, like an angel telling me there’s something up there I’m supposed to see.” She closed her eyes. “You think I’m nuts, don’t you?” She opened her eyes to a man who wasn’t watching her with horror, but a man intrigued. She stumbled a bit. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

He raised his eyebrows. “No, but if your angels are guiding you to some buried treasure stashed up there, remember it’s mine.”

She laughed when a bit of lightness filled her heart and pranced behind him up the steep steps. This time she watched closely, while he bent with a pick he pulled from his brown leather wallet. She breathed in a distinct piney scent from his soap, which overpowered the musty shirt. He smelled good—really good—and that was a very real problem, which distracted her. She licked her lips, and drew his eyes to her.

“Watch yourself girl or you’ll be in heaps of trouble before I go.” Then the door was pushed open. Light streamed in from the small corner window. Dust and cobwebs lingered over boxes and old furniture piled up in the cramped eight by ten space.

Sam went in first. “Stay there until I know this old floor’s safe to walk on. I don’t remember when I last came up here, if ever.”

He shoved boxes over and appeared to study the old plank floor while he ran a hand over the buckled hardwood by the only corner window.

“What’re you looking for?”

“Rot, cracked boards where the floor’s not stable.”

“Sam, where did all this stuff come from?”

“It’s always been here. This was my Granddaddy’s place. He willed it to me. It’s been in the family for generations. I guess he liked to save things. I didn’t know him. A lawyer found me. Apparently, my real daddy died before I was born. Joseph Carre, who I thought was my daddy, turned out to be just a stepfather. Always wondered why he hated me.” He moved toward her but remained distant with a vague light in his eyes.
Must be a lot on his mind.
He stopped and lifted her chin with his finger.

“Happy hunting and remember keep the door locked.”

She cut him off before he could finish. “Don’t answer the door, do not go outside for any reason, stay in the house like a good little girl and make no noise.” Sam looked skyward as if searching for help from some unseen force and then squeezed past her.

“Marcie, get down here and lock the door behind me. Then clean your hand, before you start rummaging through junk.”

Oops, I guess he’s punchy too. Instead of arguing, she followed him down and bolted the door. She listened to his tires grind in the dirt as he pulled away. Peace washed over her, just being here with him had changed things between them. They were closer. She couldn’t explain why.

Marcie wandered to the sink and eyed the bottle of peroxide. She promised. So she didn’t think it to death. She unscrewed the white cap, held her hand over the sink and dumped a small amount of fizzy liquid over the wound. She shook off the miserable sting before putting away the bottle and racing upstairs.

Dusty cardboard boxes and wooden crates were stacked against the wall. Some labeled; others left bare. Old furniture was mixed among the boxes, stacked and draped with yellow dusty sheets. Marcie batted at the cobwebs.

She breathed in dust and coughed and then made her way over to the small corner window. She turned a rusty old latch and tried to lift, but the window was stuck. Make a choice, put up with the stuffy air or abandon the search.

Marcie moved closer to the door, at least it wasn’t as bad there. The first box had the name Benjamin Reynolds scripted in thick black ink. Intrigued, she opened it. Inside were stacks of old photos, a football jersey and an old high school yearbook from 1960. At the bottom of the box was a yellowed newspaper clipping of a tragic accident. A front-page photo featured the dark haired man driving the car in her dream and the same mountain cliff. A crushing energy tightened in her stomach and spiraled like a funnel cloud. She read the news story depicting an overtired driver losing control and driving off a cliff, leaving behind his young bride. A friend of Benjamin Reynolds’ had been quoted in the story—
Ben was struggling with some personal issues and had come to him for support. He said he tried to help. That Ben felt overwhelmed with his new responsibilities.
The friend, Joseph Carre, was photographed escorting Benjamin’s young wife to the funeral. This man and woman were the same two in her dream standing at a roadside grave marker. This was plain weird. Sam’s real father. But what she picked up in her gut when she looked at the clipping was a terrible feeling it was no accident. Sam’s real daddy went off that road, and she suspected Joseph Carre was responsible.