Tender Deception: A Novel of Romance (23 page)

Seconds before the crash, she got control of the airplane enough to bring the nose up. It was all that saved her life. The crash landing destroyed the plane and threw her around like a rag doll. But the wreck could have been worse. She was conscious enough to unbuckle her safety belt and stagger away from the plane, which was starting to burn. Bruised, burned, in a state of shock, she collapsed on the sand a hundred yards from the plane. There was a billowing flash as the plane exploded. By nightfall, the remains of the airplane had been reduced to a few smoking metal parts. Already the desert sands were blowing around them, covering them. In a few days, the broken skeleton would be almost totally lost to sight.

The chill of night stirred a glimmer of consciousness in Lilly. An instinct of survival dragged her to her feet and sent her staggering on a long, tortured trek across the barren desert. She had no conscious knowledge of who she was or where she was or how far she walked. Her legs would carry her for a while, then she would lose consciousness again and collapse. Her body was a mass of pain. Her tongue became swollen from thirst, her lips cracked. The next day, the sun scorched her flesh.

It was in that pitiful condition that Henry Brownfeather discovered her not far from the Indian pueblo. She had awakened, not knowing who she was. Her memory lost, she had become Lilly Smith—the woman without a past. There had been the convalescence, when she had been nursed back to health by her new friend, Raven Brownfeather. Dr. Glenn Marshall had come into her life, had taken a personal interest in her. There had been the plastic surgery that gave her a new face, and, finally, the painful, partial return of her memory that had sent her on this trip to Millerdale, Louisiana, in search of her past. Now she was standing before the little frame house where she had been born, coming to grips with the reality of who she was and all that had happened to her up to the moment Henry Brownfeather found her in the desert.

Now she knew why she had been wandering injured and out of her mind on the desert. She had been the victim of a plane crash. The remains of her airplane had never been found because she had crashed in such a remote area. The plane had burned, and what was left had no doubt been largely obscured by the shifting sands.

Now her past had taken its place in her identity. The important people in her past, Jimmy LaCross, Kirk Remington, assumed again their roles in the drama of her life. She knew the story behind the gold locket she wore, and who had given it to her and why it meant so much to her.

* * * * * * *

The afternoon shadows lengthened as she stood there, reliving the bittersweet memories that added up to everything she was now. She had to become reacquainted with Lilly Parker.

When at last she moved back to her rented car, she felt emotionally exhausted.

That night in a motel room she sat before a vanity, staring at her reflection. She was no longer Lilly Smith, the lady without a past. Now she had a past. She could no longer escape it or who she was.

But as she gazed at her face in the mirror, a shocking realization came to her. The face that gazed back at her was no longer the face of Lilly Parker or the wife of Kirk Remington. The plastic surgery had given her a new face, a new identity. Even her voice was altogether different. The trauma to her vocal chords had left her with a deeper, huskier voice.

As far as the world was concerned, she was a different person. No one from the past could recognize her. Had the fates, regretting the heartbreak she had endured, arranged this accident to give her a fresh, new start?

She was stunned by all the implications. If she wished, she could return to her former life, a different person! No one would know her. As far as Kirk Remington was concerned, she was dead. If she went back to Jimmy LaCross, he wouldn’t know her either. She felt a wave of loneliness for Jimmy. She had no other family. Marriage to Kirk had been a disaster. Would it be possible to rediscover her childhood dream with Jimmy?

It was not often that life gave one a second chance. But did she really want that chance?

The questions pounded through her mind feverishly. She felt both excited and frightened by the options suddenly opening to her.

Before she could make any decision about her future, she knew she must return to Albuquerque. Raven and Glenn Marshall would be worried about her. She must hurry back and break the news of her discovery of her past identity.

With trembling fingers, she reached for the telephone, called the airport and made a reservation for the earliest flight back.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

When Lilly’s plane landed in Albuquerque, Dr. Glenn Marshall was at the airport to meet her. She saw his familiar, tall, ungainly figure towering a head above the crowd. A wave of warmth and fondness brought a rush of tears to her eyes.

Catching sight of her, he rushed through the crowd. He was wearing a trench coat that flapped wildly as he walked. As usual, his coat sleeves were too short for his long arms. His tie didn’t match his suit. But she was aware only of the way his eyes engulfed her with love and concern. His doctor’s worry over a patient was struggling with a more personal involvement.

Lilly had phoned Raven Brownfeather before leaving Louisiana, telling her briefly what had happened. She’d asked Raven to relay the message to Glenn Marshall.

Now as her hands were swallowed by his big grasp, she blurted out, “Glenn, I got my memory back. Just the way you promised. It’s a miracle!”

He studied her face and eyes. “Are you all right, Lilly? How do you feel?”

“Wonderful! A little dazed, but—yes...wonderful! Oh, Glenn, you can’t imagine what it’s like. It’s as if a terrible, dull cloud has lifted from my brain and I can think clearly again.”

He took her arm. “Let’s have some coffee. I want you to tell me everything.”

He led her through the crowded airport to a coffee shop where he sought the privacy of a booth. He gave a waitress their order. When steaming cups of coffee were placed before them, Lilly clasped hers, warming her hands that were cold from excitement.

She said, “As soon as I got to Millerdale, memories started coming back to me. Glenn, I drove straight to the house where I was born. I don’t know how I knew, I just
knew.
I stood there and I felt as if a door that had been closed in my mind suddenly burst open. I knew who I was and everything that had happened to me before in my life.”

He nodded gravely. “It happens that way sometimes. No doubt going back to your hometown, being surrounded by so many familiar sights, was the jolt you had been needing to break the mental block.”

He hesitated. There was a moment’s silence. He laughed unsteadily. “There are so many questions I want to ask you, I don’t know where to begin. I feel as if I were meeting you again for the first time.”

“Yes,” she nodded thoughtfully. “It’s true. I’m not the same person who left here to go back to Louisiana. I was Lilly Smith, then, the woman without a past. Now I am Lilly Parker Remington, and I very definitely have a past.”

Glenn Marshall’s face grew solemn. “Lilly Parker Remington,” he repeated.

“Yes. Mrs. Kirk Remington, Glenn.”

A shadow crossed his eyes. “Then you are married. You remember your husband.”

She nodded. She had suspected for some time that his interest in her had gone beyond a doctor-patient relationship. Now, she could see the evidence in his eyes. She felt a rush of emotion. She was filled with gratitude and tenderness for this kind man who had restored her health. The last thing she ever wanted was for him to be hurt because of her.

He looked down at his cup. His jaws knotted. He raised the cup for a sip, then put it back down. She saw that his fingers were trembling. “And you know how you came to be lost in the desert?”

“Yes. I was flying a small, private plane. I crashed during a thunderstorm.”

“A plane crash!” he exclaimed. “That clears up the mystery. No wonder you were so bruised and burned. It’s a miracle you weren’t killed.”

“A lot of miracles have been happening to me,” she nodded.

The doctor consulted his watch. “I have to get back to the hospital. I’ll drop you off at Raven’s apartment. We have to talk some more. Will it be all right if I come by to see you tonight?”

“Of course, Glenn,” she replied.

* * * * * * *

“It’s an incredible story,” Raven Brownfeather exclaimed, wide-eyed. She was beside Lilly on the couch of her Albuquerque apartment. For the past hour, Lilly had talked without stopping.

“What a shock it must have been to suddenly know who you were—to remember all those painful things about your past.” Raven’s eyes filled with tears. She clasped Lilly’s hand. “I should have been there with you.”

“I’m still kind of numb,” Lilly admitted. “But I think it was for the best that I went back there alone, Raven. No one can really go with a person when she makes a trip like that back through her past.”

The beautiful dark-haired Indian girl said, “All those mysteries about you—who you were, what you were doing out in the desert where my father found you—now they’re all cleared up. We imagined all kinds of wild possibilities, that someone might have beaten you up and left you out on the desert to die. I don’t think it occurred to any of us that you had been flying your own plane.”

Lilly shrugged. “I hadn’t dreamed I could fly a plane. But I hadn’t known I was a musician either until I happened to sit down at the piano that night I was out with you and Glenn.” Then she frowned. “But I wonder why someone didn’t find the wreckage of my plane?”

Raven shook her head. “Lilly, that’s a totally wild part of the countryside, filled with ravines, arroyos, outcroppings of rocks. It would be like hunting a needle in a haystack. Probably most of the wreckage was covered by the sandstorms that sweep across there regularly. I doubt if it will ever be found. There’s no telling how far you strayed from the wreck.”

Lilly drew a deep breath. “It really doesn’t matter now anyway.”

“That’s true,” Raven agreed. “What does matter is what your plans are now that you know who you are. Are you going to notify your husband?”

A cold shadow darkened Lilly’s mind. “I—I don’t think I’m ready to deal with that, Raven. It’s still too painful. I’m going to have to be a lot stronger before I can face Kirk. Every time I think about that situation, I sense all those bad feelings coming back. My head starts throbbing.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t want to talk to Kirk yet. When I do, it will be through a lawyer, anyway.”

“There’s no rush, I suppose—”

“I don’t see why there should be. It would be a different matter if Kirk loved me, if we’d had a happy marriage. The first thing I’d want to do would be to rush to a telephone. But Kirk never loved me. By now he’s convinced I’m dead. I’d just as soon leave it that way for the time being. Eventually, I’ll talk with a lawyer about the situation. He can notify Kirk I’m alive and that I’m filing for a divorce.”

“Then you plan to stay here in Albuquerque?”

Lilly hesitated. “No...I want to go back to the West Coast and pick up the threads of my life there again, Raven. I think I’d really like to go back and see Jimmy again.”

“Jimmy? He’s the trumpet player you fell in love with when you were in high school, your husband’s brother....”

Lilly nodded.

“Raven, I’m not exactly sure how I feel about Jimmy. You see, for so many years, Jimmy was the only man in my heart. I wore his locket and dreamed that I’d grow up and he’d fall in love with me. Then I went to New Orleans and Kirk, his brother, came into my life and swept me off my feet. I still cared a lot for Jimmy, but Kirk convinced me that what I’d felt for Jimmy was a carry-over from an adolescent crush. Perhaps it was. I guess it wouldn’t have mattered one way or another because Jimmy just wasn’t the type to commit himself to a serious relationship. He only wanted to blow his horn and have a good time. Jimmy lives for today and to heck with tomorrow. I guess that’s one of the things that makes him so lovable.”

“Anyway,” Lilly continued, “I fell so desperately in love with Kirk that I no longer thought of Jimmy in those terms. I was still as fond of him as ever. Perhaps a part of me still loved him. But Kirk filled my life. If Kirk had loved me in return, there never would have been another man for as long as I lived. But it wasn’t me Kirk was in love with,” she said sadly. “Now I’m back where I started. I have a strong urge to see Jimmy again. Maybe, with Kirk out of the way, things between Jimmy and me might be different.”

Raven rose and went to the little kitchenette where she brewed a pot of tea. She brought the tea with cups and saucers on a tray to the coffee table beside the couch and took a seat again, curling her legs under her.

Lilly sipped the cup of steaming liquid, lost in thought. Finally she broke the silence. “I’ve been thinking, Raven.... I could go back to San Francisco and nobody would know me. The surgery has changed my face completely. I could dye my hair dark.”

Raven stared at her in astonishment. “Why would you want to do that?”

“I’d like to see how Jimmy would react. He always thought of me as a little kid he knew in school. He was fond of me, but more the way a brother would be toward a younger sister. What if he met me and I were a totally different woman? Would he feel differently? I’d be safe from Kirk, too. He wouldn’t try to make me go back to him by threatening to fire Jimmy. Nobody would know me.”