Emergency Contact. Susan Peterson
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ID screen. “That’s funny, they hung up. The caller ID says the call originated from the center.”
Tess wasn’t sure why, but the hair on the back of her neck shifted and stood on end.
Ryan shrugged and replaced the receiver. “Whatever it was, they’ll call back.” He gave her a reassuring nod. “Go change. I’ll get started on dinner.”
Tess nodded numbly and backed out of the kitchen as if going to change. But instead, she made her way down the short hall to the front of the house.
At the living-room window, she opened the curtain a crack and peered out. The late-afternoon sun drenched the front lawn, drying the already-brown blades and heating up the driveway macadam. Cicadas droned rhythmically and a deep heaviness seemed to hang in the air. Nothing out of sync. Maybe she was getting spooked.
She took a calming breath and allowed the curtain to fall back. But then, right when she was about to turn away, the soft purr of a car engine caught her attention. Her fingers, trembling slightly, parted the curtain again. A black sedan, its grillwork flashing silver in the sunlight, motored past. The passenger’s side window was down and a man in a dark suit sat with one arm hooked on the ledge.
He turned his head, and, despite the mirror lenses of his sunglasses, Tess knew he was staring directly up at her. She dropped the curtain and stepped away from the window. She knew without question it was one of the men who had watched her leave the center earlier.
Her heart thudded against her breastbone and she wiped her sweat-soaked palms down the sides of her pants. She didn’t believe in coincidences.
A FEW MINUTES LATER, Ryan looked up to see Tess slip through the open screen door and step out onto the patio. She had gathered all that luxurious hair into a knot at the top of her head, and even though she’d pulled it tight, silvery strands shimmering in the late-afternoon light had escaped to dance around her face, highlighting her exquisite features.
He fiddled with the lid of the grill, trying not to stare. The suit, a little too big in the hips and bust, should have done nothing for her figure. Instead, her graceful, streamlined body, with its smooth glide of finely toned muscles, caused a tightening in his groin. The kind of tightening that told him his body was going places it shouldn’t.
Tess tugged at the top of the suit and smiled self-consciously. “It’s a little big.” She held up a string. “I took the lace out of my sneaker. Do you mind tying the straps together. Otherwise I’m afraid I’ll swim right out of it.”
Ryan managed a nod. The thought of her streaking naked through the turquoise water of his pool was almost more than he could handle.
She turned around, flipping the string over one shoulder. It lay against her smooth satiny skin, the end trailing along the upper edge of her shoulder blade.
Ryan had never noticed that his sister’s suit had such a low back, cut just above the sweet curve of Tess’s backside. His gaze lingered for a moment on the smooth, rounded curve of her behind and then along the straight column of her spine, up to the graceful sweep of her neck.
He slipped the lace beneath the straps of the suit and tied them, his fingers lightly brushing the soft skin between her shoulder blades. Her skin was smooth, like fine satin.
Beneath the tips of his fingers, Tess shivered slightly, and her head dropped forward, revealing the soft downy spot at the nape of her neck. Until that moment, Ryan realized he’d never truly recognized the beauty in a woman’s neck. How inviting it was. How erotic. How deliciously vulnerable. His mouth went dry and he felt a sudden tightness in his groin.
He shook his head, trying to break the unsettling mood that had captured him. Man, he needed to get out more. This was ridiculous. The woman wanted him to tie the straps of her suit and he was getting hot, obsessing about her neck. Get a grip.
“Do people from the center drive out this way much?” she asked.
“No, this house and the one just down the road from me are the farthest ones out. Even though the road circles around back to the main gate, no one drives the long way around. So, it’s pretty quiet out here.” He looped the shoestring into a bow while trying desperately to concentrate on the act of tying it and not the feel of Tess’s skin beneath his fingers. He wasn’t too successful.
“Who lives in the house just beyond yours?”
“No one. Bloom keeps it for guests—big shots he’s courting to finance pet projects.”
“Is anyone staying out there right now?”
Ryan paused and then pulled the ends of the string into a perfect bow. He gently turned Tess around. “Okay, I can tell you’re worried about something? Want to tell me what it is?”
Her lashes dipped down to shield her eyes for a moment, as if she was considering how much she wanted to tell him.
Her caution worried him. How was he going to work successfully with her if she fought him at every junction? If she couldn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth?
But finally she glanced up again. “I know this is going to sound paranoid and a little crazy, but a few minutes ago, I saw one of the men from the center drive by the house.”
“And that worries you because…?”
“Because I don’t like the thought of anyone checking up on me.”
Simply cautious or slightly paranoid? He wasn’t sure. She’d been through a lot and that could put a person on edge. “What makes you think he was checking up on you?” he asked.
Frustration tightened the corners of her mouth. “You told me no one was staying in the other house. Why would he drive by a few minutes after you and I get here? The car slowed down and he looked right up here at the house.” He saw a flicker of doubt cross her face as what she was saying registered in her own brain. “You got a hang-up call from the center and then this guy drives by. Don’t you think that’s too much of a coincidence?”
“Not really.” He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to ease the tension. “But if you’re feeling concerned about this, I understand. You’ve been through a lot these past few hours.”
A flush crept up the sides of her cheeks and she roughly shrugged off his hand. “Don’t humor me, Ryan. I hate when people play shrink like that.”
“Has that happened to you before—someone playing shrink with your head?”
Rage flashed in her eyes. “More than you’d know. They’re always trying to play around with my brain. Force me to—” She paused. Her head tilted slightly as if she were trying to remember something.
“Force you to what?” he coaxed.
She shook her head as if coming out of a trance. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it.” She walked over to the steps of the pool. “I’m taking that swim now.”
“Don’t overdo it,” he warned. Flames shot up around the metal grill. “Dinner will be ready before you know it.”
Tess nodded and hit the water with a sleek, shallow dive, the water bursting over her head and driving the air from her lungs. She glided to the surface and gulped air, and then lowered her head and struck out for the opposite end of the pool with a powerful crawl.
Her muscles stretched and contracted, and her body hummed with satisfaction. No paddling around in the low end of the pool for her. Somehow she knew that, even though she didn’t remember her last name or where she came from, she was a person who loved using her body and pushing it to its limit.
The mind-numbing repetition of doing lap after lap lulled her, giving her a sense of deep relaxation. Her brain seemed to stop fighting her, seemed to forget that she was trying to remember who she was and why she’d been walking in a cornfield.
She dug deeper into the water, the palms of her hands scooping the water backward and propelling her forward. The bubbles whispered past her ears.