Love and Dreams: The Coltrane Saga, Book 6 (38 page)

“Afraid?” she echoed, then forced herself to lie, “But I don’t even know you.”

He turned to look at her, and she saw that his face, illumined by moonlight, was etched with misery and despair. “Afraid,” he repeated, “or angry. Whichever. I want to know why. What have I done to you in the past that I can’t remember? And I
can’t
remember it, you see…the past…”

For an instant, hearing the way his voice broke, Jade thought he was about to cry, but he quickly recovered, stiffly, to brusquely continue.

“I’m drawn to you, and I don’t know why. That first night I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and when you danced, a strange feeling came over me that I’d known you before. Then, when I saw you go out on the terrace and went out to introduce myself, you looked at me as if I were a ghost. You turned as white as one yourself. I’d like to know why.”

“I…I don’t know,” she lied, hedging, because she couldn’t be sure he was really telling the truth. Maybe Bryan was right. Maybe he did have an injury to his brain that had turned him into a lunatic. Maybe she was in danger. A sudden chill moved up and down her spine. She was alone with him, out on a remote country road. If he suddenly went berserk, there, was no one to hear her scream.

She was even more terrified when they reached a narrow dirt path that curved from the main road to an overlook where people went for the breathtaking view of the winding river below.

“Why are you stopping here?” she demanded. “I want you to take me home. Now!” She raised her voice.

There, in the quiet solitude, the moonlight spilling downward to paint them in an eerie silver glow, Colt turned to look at her,
really
look at her, as though trying desperately to see inside her very soul. And as he stared hard at her, Jade saw that something was happening in his eyes. A shifting. It was like movement in a subtle kaleidoscopic pattern that was composed of bits of smoked glass, all the same beautiful gray color.

And she knew.
Beyond all doubt. In that instant, she knew that he was not lying, not pretending. In a small, choking whisper, she said, “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

He shook his head. “And we aren’t leaving here till you tell me why I’m supposed to.”

Jade was flustered, confused, could not bring herself to tell him, did not dare. Not yet. Not until she had all the answers. “You have a wife, a son,” she said tightly, pointedly. “Don’t you think it a bit improper to be here, alone with another woman—a married woman, at that? Don’t you think we’re inviting gossip and scandal?”

He grinned, that lopsided grin that had thrilled her the first time it was directed at her. “I think you’d better know something, Mrs. Stevens…Jade,” he said with a curt nod of dared familiarity. “I may be married, but there’s some reason I’m drawn to you, and I think you feel the same way, though you’re scared to admit it. That’s why I had to see you again.” He told her that he had returned to the studio and learned from the woman working there that she had gone up to the Valley, so he had followed.

“I heard the Hayeses were having a dinner party tonight, and I figured you’d be there, so I got myself invited. And to answer your question, I don’t give a damn what people think.”

Oh, God, none of her resolves mattered now, Jade thought miserably. All those painful, anguished hours when she’d sworn never to think of him again, to push away for always and always the wondrous, soul-trembling memories of the happy moments they’d shared, the love that smoldered between them. No, none of those things mattered now, because he was here, sitting so close she could feel him against her…reach out and touch him if she dared, and it was Bryan who so rapidly faded from mind and existence. Suddenly she was reaching out with trembling fingertips…to actually touch the one and only man who had ever really and truly set her soul, and body, on fire.

Abruptly, with a moan deep and low in his throat, Colt pulled her against him, lips bruising hers with a searing kiss. Jade could not resist, did not try, and melted against him, reveling in the wonder she had thought lost to her forever.

When at last he released her, his eyes burned into hers, and his breath upon her face was hot, ragged. “I don’t know who you are, but I know I’ve kissed you before, held you before…made love to you…

“And, goddammit,” he swore fervently just before his lips claimed hers once more, “I’m going to do it again…”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

He drew her from the carriage, then took her hand in his and led her to a grassy knoll where night birds sang their plaintive melodies amidst the chorus of the whispering black river below.

He pulled her down beside him to the bed earth provided. The moon, as though endeavoring to give them privacy, discreetly slipped behind a silver cloud. A thousand diamond star shards twinkled their approval against the backdrop of a mystical velvet sky.

“I don’t know who you are,” Colt whispered, gathering her in his arms tenderly, possessively, “I only know I’ve loved you before…”

Jade made no protest, could not deny the cry of her heart. She felt no hesitation, no guilt, for this was the man to whom she truly belonged, and always would.

She wound her hands about his broad shoulders, caressing his skin, holding him close. His lips sought and found hers, and as they melded together in a burning kiss, his hands moved deftly to her clothing. Feeling an urgency, a desire unleashed she’d thought tamed by another, Jade worked with him till she was naked before him.

He raised up on one elbow to gaze down at her, murmuring, “Lovely…so lovely.” His lips found hers once more, while his hand traveled downward in a teasing descent. He caressed the slimness of her waist, the swell of her hip, and the flatness of her belly. Instinctively, her hips arched against him as fire licked at her veins in familiar, uninhibited response.

“Take me,” she begged shamelessly, nails raking the hard flesh of his back as she urged him onward. “Take me, Colt, please—”

He moved to mount her as the moon dared to slip from behind cover to cast an ethereal glow upon their naked, perspiration-slick bodies. “I’ve loved you before,” he huskily proclaimed once more. “I don’t know where or when, but I’ve known this joy before…but never since.”

He entered her, and Jade moaned with delight at the deliciously fierce assault. Time reverted, and there’d been no ’twixt and ’tween those wondrous falling-in-love days they’d known in Russia, France, and the honeymoon splendor spent cruising the seas on the Imperial yacht. This was heaven, this was now, and Jade prayed the moment would never end.

Together they left the world, soaring into the realm of ecstasy. When they finally drifted their way back to earth, Jade knew this was where she belonged…but was suddenly and painfully aware she had no right to remain. The visit to paradise was an illusion—she could not take up permanent residence…did not have the right. This was all they could ever have, and it was this reality that brought tears to her eyes.

Colt held her tenderly against him as he urged, “Tell me who you are. Tell me
when
,
where
, we loved before.”

“
You
tell
me
something, Colt. Tell me all about your marriage, how you came to marry Lorena Vordane.”

His sigh was one of deep vexation, and he rolled away from her to lie on his back and stare pensively into the night. “What
can
I tell you? I know only what I’ve been told—that we met in Paris, where I was visiting my family. We fell madly in love. We got married. Then, when we were coming here, on our honeymoon, there was a bad storm at sea. I fell. Something struck my head. I don’t remember anything,” he finished miserably.

Anxiously Jade wanted to know, “What do your doctors say—about the possibility of you getting your memory back?”

He gave a helpless shrug. “Oh, they don’t know much about this kind of thing. Maybe I never will, and then maybe I’ll wake up one morning and remember everything. Who knows?” He rolled over onto his side to place his arm across her waist and gaze down at her lovingly.

“I’d reached the point I didn’t care. I mean, I do have a son, and since he was born, he gives me some reason for living. Lorena and I—well, to be honest with you, I can’t figure out why I would ever love someone like her. She’s sweet, kind, and she’d make somebody else a wonderful wife—but not me. The feelings just aren’t there. Anyway, as I said, I’d reached the point I didn’t care. I accepted my life for what it was.”

His smile in the faint moonlight was bittersweet. “But then I saw you, and everything turned upside down. I was driven, like a man gone mad, to find out who you were, and even though I still don’t know that, I know I did love you before, and now I’ve got to know how I could have ever let you go. And how did I wind up married to Lorena? How did I get from there to here? You can tell me, Jade, please…” He searched her face in desperation for some kind of answer to his torment.

She closed her eyes, struggling for the wisdom to say the right things, but so many other thoughts were crowding her mind—such as why did Lorena tell him they had been married in Paris? And what was behind her scheme to trick him? When Jade had talked with her on the ship, she’d claimed to be madly in love with the young man her mother had made her leave. And hadn’t Bryan said he thought they’d married after arriving in New York? Just what, exactly, did the Pinkerton report say? She recalled with annoyance that he’d snatched it from her hand, wouldn’t let her read it herself. Why? What was
he
hiding? And what was Lorena hiding?

Jade asked another question. “Your family in France. What do you hear from them?”

He was puzzled by her inquiry. “Did you know them? Is that where we knew each other before? Paris? You have a slight accent, but I don’t distinguish it as being French. A mixture…”

“Russian and Irish.” She saw no harm in telling him that much, then suddenly decided she didn’t have to tell him the whole story, just enough to soothe his desperation. “We were lovers in Europe, Colt. We knew each other there. A long time ago. I met your family.”

He grinned, relieved. “Then I’m not losing my mind. I
did
know you before, but why—”

“Your family,” she prodded again, wanting to skirt the other subject. “What do you hear from them?”

“Lorena takes care of all the correspondence with them, and she says they’re fine.” He went on to explain lest she think him uncaring where his family was concerned. “You see, reading and writing seem to provoke my headaches, so I let her handle all that.”

How convenient!
Jade thought.

Suddenly Jade sat up straight as yet another question assailed her. Were Colt and Lorena really married…or had Lorena just told him they were? Had there even been a ceremony? If so, why the lie about Paris—because the wedding damn well could not have taken place there! So many, many unanswered questions!

Colt sensed her sudden anxiety. “What’s wrong? What are you thinking?”

Jade knew she had to be very, very careful now. She did not want to answer any of his questions, or ask any more of her own, until she saw that Pinkerton report for herself.

Finally she told him it had all been a shock, seeing him again, that she wanted time to think things over. “After all, we’re married to other people now, Colt. What we’re doing is dangerous.”

He reached out and pulled her down beside him once more, raining kisses over her face, her throat, her breasts, her belly, as he feverishly, fervently avowed, “I don’t know why I let you go. I had to have been the world’s biggest fool, but I tell you one thing, my love…if this is all we can have, then so be it, because I won’t lose you again…
whoever
you are.”

He took her home so late that all the servants were asleep, and the next morning Jade excitedly rode her horse out early to meet him in the woods. They had agreed that no one could know they were seeing each other. Their relationship had to be kept secret at all costs. Jade further confessed she did love him but would not discuss the future. Dear Lord, how could she worry about the future when she couldn’t understand the present?

They were together all day, and that night Jade waited till the servants slept, then sneaked outside to where he waited on his horse. She rode behind him to their secret bluff overlooking the river. There, lying on a blanket he’d brought, they made love eagerly, as though they could not get enough of each other.

Then, when exhausted, they spent the rest of the time trying to fit the pieces of Colt’s past together with Jade’s.

He told her the first memory he had was of waking up in a hospital in New York. “They tell me I was laid up for a long time—a couple of months. Blinding headaches. Dizzy spells. All I knew was that I was married. Lorena was a complete stranger, but I was aware she was always there, beside my bed, during the times I’d come and go from consciousness to the black pit where I seemed to want to stay. Then I started staying awake longer and longer, and one day they said I could leave the hospital. By then Lorena knew she was going to have a baby, and I guess she got that way on the ship. Anyway, I don’t remember that, either. In fact…” He paused to laugh with a touch of bitterness. “I can’t remember ever making love to her.”

“But now?” Jade dared to ask. “Since the baby—?”

“She moved into the nursery when I came home from the hospital,” he told her, “and she’s stayed there since after Andy was born.”