Heir To Secret Memories. Mallory Kane

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СКАЧАТЬ man who could save her didn’t know who he was. Telling him he had a daughter would mean nothing to him.

      “You don’t remember.” Her numb lips formed the words, hoping he would deny them, but knowing he wouldn’t.

      He couldn’t.

      He sent her a terrible, haunted glance, then turned away.

      She stared at his bowed back, watched his bicep flex as he massaged his temple.

      Her brain rejected the idea. It couldn’t be true. She couldn’t allow it to be true.

      “I need your help.” She took a step toward him. “Look at me,” she pleaded. “Look at this.”

      He angled his head, and the muscles in his back rippled the white cotton of his T-shirt. Then he half turned, his long lashes shadowing his eyes.

      She held up the drawing. “You drew me. We were together here, in New Orleans, seven years ago. You can’t tell me you don’t remember that.”

      He faced her, his jaw set, his eyes bleak. He shrugged. “I don’t remember that.”

      “You have to. If you don’t remember me, surely you remember being kidnapped?”

      His eyes narrowed. He took a step toward her. “I was kidnapped?”

      Paige gasped and forced down the panic that bubbled up into her throat. “Of course. Three years ago. It was all over the news. The ransom note demanded two million dollars. After weeks and weeks, your wallet covered with your blood was found in a stolen car out by Chef Menteur Highway. You were—presumed dead.” She couldn’t believe he didn’t remember anything.

      “Your father begged the kidnappers not to harm you. He offered twice the ransom if they’d just let you go.” Paige stopped to take a shaky breath.

      “Your father gave them the money. Nobody understood why they killed…” Her voice died on the word and she stared at his familiar, alien face.

      There was pain there, and a kind of bewildered disbelief. But she also saw a spark of interest, and something that almost broke her heart. For one naked second, she saw hope reflected in his eyes.

      He wasn’t lying. He really didn’t remember.

      Oh, Johnny. What did they do to you?

      She caught herself and shook her head. She didn’t have time for sentiment or pity. She had to save her child. It was her only reason for being here. Her only reason for living now.

      Once she’d thought she knew him better than she knew herself. She’d have staked her life on his honesty. But he’d promised her he was coming back for her and he hadn’t.

      He’d lied to her then. Was he lying now?

      But why would he be here in this seedy hotel instead of living the wealthy life he was born to? Why would he draw her picture then deny he knew her?

      “Do you expect me to believe you don’t remember any of that?” Her gaze fell on the scar that started at his hairline and furrowed along a couple of inches, like a carefully combed part.

      At the same time he lifted his hand and touched it. “All I know is somebody tried to kill me. Who kidnapped me?”

      “I don’t know.” She swallowed, “We weren’t together then. We last saw each other seven years ago.”

      He reached out and took the picture from her hands and looked at it, then at her, searching her eyes as if he hoped to find the answers he sought there.

      “How long did we know each other?”

      She shrugged and twisted the ends of her braid, painfully aware of the time ticking by. “About six weeks.”

      Long enough to create a beautiful child who was out there, held captive by dangerous strangers. What if they hurt her?

      “We knew each other for six weeks seven years ago,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “So why do you haunt my dreams?”

      “Why do I what?”

      He tossed the picture on the bed, on top of other similar sketches. A few were of her.

      He looked up, and for a second the caution and doubt in his face changed to a yearning so strong, Paige felt its pull like a fishing line, reeling her in. Then he blinked and it was gone.

      “So you knew me once,” he said quietly, a bitter longing rising up like bile inside him as he stared at the drawings, those pathetic attempts to capture the visions that streaked through his brain when the headaches hit him.

      He looked at the woman whose face haunted him. “I assume you traced me through that picture to Tante Yvette. She sent you here?”

      She nodded.

      Tante Yvette had trusted her. The strange dark woman claimed to know things, to be able to read minds. He hoped she was right this time.

      He studied the lovely, hauntingly familiar face of Paige Reynolds for a moment. The glint of panic in her golden-green eyes and the tension in her shoulders told him she was a hairsbreadth from losing control.

      But as familiar as she was, he didn’t know her and his small store of memories made it hard for him to trust anyone, even someone Tante Yvette believed.

      “What do you want from me?” he asked coldly.

      He winced at the unguarded hope that flared in her green eyes. “They’ve got my daughter,” she whispered, clenching her fists.

      He hadn’t expected that. “Your daughter? Who does?”

      She shook her head. “I don’t know. But they told me to find you.”

      At her words, Jay tensed. Almost unconsciously he shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, alert, prepared for anything.

      “Were you followed?” he snapped.

      Her brow furrowed briefly. She looked down at her fist, clenched in her jacket pocket, then over her shoulder at the door. “Yes.”

      He heard a noise behind her. “Look out!”

      Wood splintered and the door flew open, hurling her into his arms. The breath hissed out of her and she squealed in pain. He tossed her back toward the bed, hoping to get her out of harm’s way, as the two men attacked him.

      He struggled, fighting dirty, aiming for the groin, the kidneys, the nose, any vulnerable spot. He’d learned how to fight the hard way out on the oil rigs.

      One man was beefier, thicker than the other. Jay concentrated on his face.

      He punched, felt something crunch, then drove an elbow behind him into the smaller man’s solar plexus.

      A fist connected with his jaw. He stumbled. The small man pinned his arms behind him and Beefy reared back a fist, prepared to punch him in the stomach.

      Jay СКАЧАТЬ