Crystal Green – Daddy in the Making (страница 2)

“Any of it look familiar?” Emmet asked.

“Not really.”

Emmet gestured toward the reception desk. “You want to find out if you checked in here that night?”

The hotel had wanted to see some ID in person before giving out that kind of sensitive information. “Yeah.”

Conn took a step toward the long desk, then stopped in his tracks, stilled by a bolt of electricity.

A woman with brown curly hair pulled into a side pony tail that flowed past her shoulder, her torso covered by a white old-fashioned, high-collared blouse that was obviously a part of the hotel’s uniform. She had a lush mouth in an angular face, and light-colored eyes that reflected the same blindsided attraction he was feeling.

All Conn could do was hold his hat to his stomach, which was flipping end over end, crackling with the tremors dancing through it. It was as if a bright light was blazing over his sight, a lightning strike that illuminated that night again.

White sheets on a bed … a woman lying down on them, her hair curled over the pale linen. “Come here, cowboy,” she whispered …

She’d been in St. Valentine.

She was the reason he was here. Somehow, he knew that without a doubt.

When his vision cleared, she was still staring at him, just as if she’d seen one of the ghosts that this hotel was supposed to house.

Did his knees ever go this weak with all those other women he’d supposedly been with? It sure as hell hadn’t happened with the nurses at the hospital. Then again, they hadn’t looked like this brunette.

Besides, something inside him told him that this had never happened before.

But how could he know for sure?

Clutching the necklace until its edges dug into his palm, Conn left Emmet and went to the desk. The woman was still behind it, by herself, but from the way she looked away from him, down at the counter, Conn could tell that she wished she had any guest but him in line for some service.

In fact, as she glanced up again, her gaze had gone from thunderstruck to steely, all in a tumultuous second.

He didn’t even have the chance to utter a hello before she said in a low tone, “So you’re back.”

Steely, all right. A gritted comment that nearly set him back on his heels.

This was the woman in his fragmented memories, right? The limpid-eyed lady who’d begun to appear to him recently at night, giving him pleasant dreams. The one who’d been so happy to be in his bed.

He showed her the necklace, the R split in half across his palm. She sucked in a breath, but then, as if she was real good at recovering quickly, that breath turned into a small laugh.

“You came here to return this?” She was still talking quietly enough so that her voice didn’t carry. “Better late than never, I suppose.”

Return it? Why had he taken it in the first place? He thought that maybe he should apologize about something, but he wasn’t sure just what it was he would be sorry for.

“Can we talk?” he asked. “I need—”

“Talk? That’s a good euphemism.” She laughed again, taking up a pile of paper and neatly straightening it on the desk. “I’ll tell you what, cowboy—you just keep that trophy of yours and we’ll call it even.” She nodded at the necklace he was still holding. “You’ve had it for going on four months, anyway.”

Four months. She would’ve been here, at the St. Valentine Hotel, during his fateful trip.

He glanced down at the necklace again. The letter R. Then he looked up at her name tag.

Rita.

Except, on the tag, her name in cursive was one continuous string, unlike the separated necklace. Unlike his life now.

She called over a young clerk who was straightening a rack of brochures, and once she was manning the desk, Rita walked to the far end of the structure, to a quiet corner where the desk still barred her from him. Conn could hear Emmet clearing his throat as he left him behind.

Conn peered over his shoulder at his brother, who was awkwardly standing there with a “So? What gives?” expression. But it might’ve also been a “Told you this woman was just as temporary as the others” look.

Conn jerked his chin toward Rita, conveying that he still had a lot to take care of and that maybe Emmet should read some of those framed articles on the wall to pass the time. Emmet shrugged and wandered off.

As Rita shuffled papers, probably wishing Conn would think she was too busy to continue talking, he didn’t take her none-too-subtle hint.

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” he said softly, not wanting to make a scene. Strangely, that woman-luring charm his brothers had commented on still came easily to him when not much else did. “But I could really use your help.”

He added a smile for good measure. He had a feeling it had worked a million times.

“My help?” She didn’t look up at him. “Are you asking me for a place to stay the night again? A warm bed? A willing woman who doesn’t know any better than to listen to your promises?”

Oops.

“Begging your pardon,” he said, “but I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you that I don’t know anything I said to you that night. There’s a good reason I came back here, and it wasn’t to return a necklace.”

Eyes narrowed, she waited for him to go on.

He leaned his elbow on the desk, setting his hat down on it. Even from this distance, she smelled like berries and vanilla, and he nearly closed his eyes as the scent traveled through him, warming him deep down. It was as if he hadn’t ever forgotten this part of her, even though the memory had just reemerged.

But he shook himself out of it. Good God, he didn’t have time to be sniffing around a random woman who was no doubt one of many more. He needed to talk to her, not to get her into bed again.

“This is going to sound odd,” he said. How did a guy get around to telling a woman something that amounted to the lamest excuse in the world? Why would she even believe him?

But what else was he going to say?

He was still holding her necklace. “I’d really like your help in … Well, first off, I need to know when we …”

“Did it? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

All right. That was one way of getting over the awkwardness. She was just as forthright as his brothers.

“I wish I were kidding,” he said. “I had some business at the Hervy Ranch about a half hour away in July—”

“I know. You were dealing with livestock. You told me that right before you talked me into …”

She pressed her lips together, color rising in her cheeks. A buzz skimmed his belly at just the mention of what had gone on between them, even though this wasn’t the time or place for it.

The important thing was that he’d done more than just had sex with her. She was someone he’d talked to around the time of his accident, although he didn’t know how long they had chatted before getting to the bedroom. If she could just give him more details about their time together, maybe that would kick-start his brain and he could piece together more of what had happened before and just after the accident.

She shot him a slanted look. “Why the hell wouldn’t you know when we …” She lowered her voice, glancing around. Discovering that the lobby had emptied, she added, “Were together?”

Here it went.

“When I left St. Valentine,” he said, “I got in an accident on the way to my appointment. Enough of one to send me in an ambulance to the hospital.”

She raised her eyebrows. On her face he saw shock … until her gaze softened for a vulnerable moment.

“An accident?” she asked.

“That’s right. And afterward I didn’t remember where I was, who I was … My brothers and mom were there to help me put things together. Most things, anyway. I’ve got holes right where a lot of my memory used to be.”

She just kept watching him, her gaze finally going from soft and gray to unreadable and cool.

Then she laughed softly, and it wasn’t a funny laugh. Her gaze was sad now.

“This is a joke, right?” she asked.

“No.” What kind of psychotic would approach her again just to lay a line like this on her?

“Whatever it is, it’s not funny at all.”

Conn started to assure her that he was deadly serious, but she had already abandoned her stack of papers and rounded the desk corner, her body fully revealed now.

As he laid eyes on her slightly swelling stomach pressing against her skirt, he froze, unable to follow her.

Rita Niles never looked back at him. She just blindly headed for the hallway, then the closed door to the tearoom, hoping he wouldn’t see where she’d gone.

Conn Flannigan, the man she’d put so much hope in, even after one night. Dumbly, naively, regretfully.

She calmly opened the door, but as soon as she was in the empty kitchen, she leaned on a stainless-steel counter, dizzy, her pulse so loud in her ears, so wild in her chest, that she almost slumped to the floor.