One Forgotten Night Page 23

  “She told me that she hated the high life, wanted to get away from it. But one of the top bosses had something on her brother. She said that if her brother tried to stop dealing, his boss would see that he went to prison. I told her I’d help her. The big bust was going down.... I warned her to stay away from the warehouse that night. And I told her to keep her brother away, too. I shouldn’t have done that, Nina, I shouldn’t have done that.”

  Mike started to cry, harsh gasping sobs that racked his injured body and knifed into Nina’s heart. She hushed him and soothed him, kissing the tears away from his eyes. “Don’t say any more,” she told him.

  “No, I want you to hear it all.” He wiped his face with his good hand and went on. “You know what happened. The bust went bad and Jack got blown away. Karen had tipped off the drug bosses. I never even in my wildest dreams thought that she would ever do that.” There was a universe of savage self-reproach in his voice. “I held Jack in my arms while he bled to death, Nina. He knew what had happened. He knew right away. Do you know what he said to me, Nina? He said, ‘Don’t let this destroy you, Mike.’ The guy was dying, and he was worried about me.”

  His eyes closed wearily. “Now you know, Nina. That’s why I couldn’t trust you, couldn’t believe in you. I was afraid you were another Karen. It wasn’t fair.” His voice faded to a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Mike, there’s something I have to tell you.” He looked up at her groggily.

  “I got my memory back.”

  “Did you? That’s good.” He was fading fast.

  “And everything is okay, Mike. I’m not in any trouble. But you were right to be worried. I might have been involved. Don’t be sorry....” Nina’s voice trailed into silence. Mike was unconscious.

  Nina waited, and as she waited she once again saw the flashes of white light that had signaled each of her visions. This vision, like the others, didn’t last long. It was just a glimpse of something—something that might come to be. And when it was over Nina knew, without quite knowing how she knew, that it was the last vision she would ever have. Her gift had served her well—it had saved her life and Mike’s. Now it was gone. The future was as much a mystery to her as it was to every other human being. But in its place she had been given back her past.

  Mike’s head rolled limply in her lap. Nina saw that blood was already beginning to seep through the dressing on his shoulder. His breath was deep and even, and his heartbeat, when she pressed her hand to his chest, was strong and steady. But he felt so cold. She tucked the blankets more closely around him and bent over his still form, cradling his head in her arms.

  The boat was wallowing. Its steady side-to-side motion was almost comforting, as though the sea were a giant rocking chair, lulling them with its eternal rhythm. Rain continued to fall, not in a howling storm but in a straight gray soaking. Even in the cabin the air was dank and chill.

  Nina wondered briefly about Irons. He was sure to be drenched by now. But earlier, when Nina had said something about trying to get him into the cabin, Mike had flared up, a steely glint in his eyes.

  “Let him drown,” he said savagely. “Let him freeze. Only he won’t, the bastard. He can’t reach the wheel or anything else, so he can’t do any harm. Just leave him where he is. If he’d hurt you, Nina, really hurt you—” he paused, and suddenly his drawn face looked ten years older “—I might have killed him.” He pulled her to him then, groaning as the sudden movement pained his shoulder. So Nina had led him to the bunk and thankfully left Irons manacled to his cleat. For all she knew, he was still unconscious.

  Above the smack of the waves and the rattle of the rain she thought she heard another sound. A moment later, there it was again, clearer now. It was the thuk-thuk-thuk of a helicopter, getting closer.

  Mike stirred restlessly in her arms. Nina murmured, “It’s all right, darling. We’re safe. You’re going to be okay,” as she stroked his damp hair. She traced his dark brows and the planes of his face with trembling fingertips. How pale he looked. Nina remembered how he had looked when he knelt above her on their tumbled bed in the fishing cabin; she had touched him then, too, stroking his face and gazing into his eyes as if she’d never seen him before; and then she had tangled her hands in his hair and pulled him into her with a cry, and he had loved her.... Only hours ago. “Hang on, honey, please,” she said.

  The black lashes swept up and Mike’s eyes blazed blue in his white face. “Nina,” he slurred. “Listen. ‘Simportant.”

  “I’m here, Mike. I’m right here.”

  “Love you,” he gasped. “I love you.”

  He passed out.

  “I know,” she whispered. Then the helicopter roared overhead. Its earsplitting racket was the second most beautiful thing Nina had ever heard.

  Epilogue

  Mike woke up in a white room filled with flowers. The first thing he saw was Nina. As soon as his eyes opened she surged up from her chair.

  He widened his eyes and made his face go blank. “Who are you?” he said, putting a hand to his head. He groaned and blinked at her. “Where am I? Who am I?”

  She stopped dead in her tracks, an expression of incredulous dismay on her face. “Oh, no,” she wailed. “Not this. I don’t believe it!”

  “April Fool,” he said with his widest grin.

  She stamped her foot. “Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again,” she warned. “And anyway, it’s October—just in case you’ve forgotten the month, too,” she added sarcastically.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I couldn’t resist,” he said. “But I promise—no more amnesia jokes ever again. Now come here.”

  “Well...all right.” But she was smiling, and her eyes were bright with happiness.

  Mike wanted to take her in his arms, but the left one wasn’t working just then, so he had to settle for gathering her to him with his right arm only. She came to him tentatively.

  “I won’t break,” he growled into her hair, and with a joyous laugh she lay next to him and held him tight.

  “I’m glad you haven’t forgotten this,“ she murmured.

  He answered, “Never.” And meant it, too, more than he’d ever meant anything in his life.

  He smelled again the smell of her, that hint of soap and sandalwood, and felt her smiling into his neck. Her breasts were deliciously full against him, one long leg rested across his thighs...and Mike noted bemusedly that his body was reacting to hers just as though he hadn’t recently taken a beating and a bullet.

  In the hospital? he asked himself, and knew that where Nina was concerned, his answer had to be: Anytime, anyplace. Still, he could at least try to act like a respectable patient.

  “You’d better get up for a minute, sweetheart,” he said regretfully, “or you’ll have to find a Do Not Disturb sign for the door.”

  Nina sat up and threw back her hair, eyes sparkling wickedly. “I wouldn’t mind, but the doctor did say you shouldn’t, um, overdo it for a while. You need to build up your strength.”

  “It’s already built up,” he muttered, but beyond an impish glance down the bed Nina pretended not to know what he was talking about. She pulled her chair to the side of his bed, sat down and took his hand.

  “I think you’re up to a little hand-holding.”

  “Get back on this bed, and I’ll show you what I’m up to,” Mike invited.

  She shook her head. “Some other time,” she said, and there was a promise in her eyes. Mike demanded an update on everything that had happened during the eighteen hours he’d been asleep. His first question was about Sig. He relaxed when Nina told him that Sig was at her apartment, happily drooling on the bed and gnawing on the last remains of the much-abused sofa cushions.

  Then they talked about Irons. He was under arrest. In all the confusion, the key to the handcuffs had been washed into the boat’s bilge, and the Coast Guard had had to get a special tool and unscrew the cleat to get Irons clear. It should have been funny, but it wasn’t. Nina shuddered, remembering th
e venomous glance he had thrown her as they led him away. She was glad there was to be no bail.

  A federal prosecutor had arrived from Washington, accompanied by a retinue of DEA, FBI and Treasury officials, all eager to talk to Mike and Nina. A probe of Irons’s link to Colombian drug money was under way. In the meantime, Irons had been charged with kidnapping, attempted first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder. The trial would be a long drawn-out circus, but in the end Irons would face a long prison sentence.

  “The Duchesnes?” Mike asked.

  “Nothing. The official verdict is lost at sea.”

  Shark bait, Mike thought, and was not sorry for it. He laughed a little harshly. “The emeralds,” he said. “When the story gets out, every scuba diver on the East Coast will be trying his luck.”

  “The Coast Guard divers are already out there,” she told him. “But the currents are strong, the mud on the bottom is deep and that box wasn’t very big. Somehow I don’t think those stones’ll ever be found.” She thought of Julien’s upturned face vanishing astern. “At least I hope not.”

  The sad irony of it all was that everything that had happened to her, from the shooting on, had been unnecessary. Nina hadn’t known enough about the smuggling operation to get anyone in trouble. The single stone she’d found in Julien’s desk wasn’t enough to incriminate him; he could easily have explained it away. But he panicked, thinking that Nina knew more than she did. He flew to Switzerland as planned and established an alibi there while Marta shot Nina. And once they had gone that far, the conspirators were committed. They couldn’t be positive that Nina really did have amnesia; she could nail them for attempted murder, if not for the smuggling. Their only hope was to find out what she knew and get rid of her before she could turn them in. They had almost succeeded—until a stubborn rogue cop had gotten in their way.

  Mike jerked a thumb at the largest and most elaborate floral arrangement. “Where’d this stuff come from?”

  “Mostly from Armand,” Nina explained. “This whole thing has been a nightmare for him, too. But at least everyone knows he didn’t have anything to do with the smuggling and the drug money. He just ran the design side of the business. In fact, he’s relieved to be rid of Julien.”

  Nina gave Mike the highlights of a long talk she’d had with Armand Zakroff that morning. “I’m too old to run this business by myself,” Armand had said, “and too young to give it up. I need a partner I can trust, someone whose ideas are like my own. I want you to be that partner, Nina.”

  The offer was appealing. Except that Nina knew that she did not want to measure her work by dollar values and profit margins alone. She had seen with brutal clarity the dark side of the world of precious stones, the fatal power of gems to corrupt and destroy. So she had accepted Armand’s offer—but only if he agreed to turn the import dealership into a training center for gemology and jewelry making.

  “And he loves the idea,” Nina said enthusiastically. “He wants to get students from all over the country, and experts to come in and give seminars. We’ll still do some buying and selling, but the emphasis will be on design. I’ll get to teach some classes on semiprecious stones—”

  “Like spodumene,” Mike teased.

  “Exactly like spodumene,” she said firmly. But her heart was singing, because Mike had remembered their silly little joke. So this is what it’s like, she realized with sudden wonder. This feeling that everything that happens between us is ours alone, that nothing like it has ever happened before.

  She squeezed his hand and concluded, “We’ve worked out a deal where I’ll earn my share of the business over time. I think it’s going to be great.”

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “To your success.”

  “And Armand’s,” she added dutifully.

  “If you think I’m going to kiss Armand’s hand—”

  “Just kiss mine again.”

  He did so. “So the company will still be Z and D,” he said thoughtfully. “Zakroff and Dennison.”

  Nina looked at him, remembering her first glimpse of him in this same hospital. He still needed a haircut and a shave. She studied the deeply etched lines in his forehead: evidence of a lot of frowns over the years. Oh, there was no doubt about it. Mike Novalis was arrogant, hot tempered and very used to being on his own. But he was also funny, and kind, and brave, and passionate. And she knew that once he had given his word and his heart, he would be faithful to the end of time. She loved him.

  And love made her want to offer him the best she had. Mike had taken a leap of faith when he told her he loved her. Now it was her turn to be greatly daring for him. “Actually,” she said, “I’m pretty sick of the initials Z and D after everything that’s happened. I was thinking of changing them.” She drew a deep breath and was surprised at how fearless she felt, how right. “How about Z and N? For Zakroff and Novalis.”

  He went utterly still, and her heart almost stopped. She’d taken the leap—but was he going to meet her, after all? Or was she wrong about everything?

  “Do you mean—” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Do you mean you’ll marry me?” His voice was almost a whisper, but it was full of uncertain hope, and in his eyes she saw a hunger and a need that matched her own.

  “If you’ll propose,” she said.

  He pulled her close. “Will you,” he said between kisses, “marry me?”

  “Yes,” she answered breathlessly.

  “Did you foresee this? Did you know I wanted to marry you?”

  “No. Not like the visions. That’s over, now that I have my memory back. I don’t know how I know that, but I’m sure of it.”

  He stroked her hair. “Are you sorry that the gift is gone?”

  She looked at him, and her face shone with love and joy. “How could I be? Look at all I’ve gained.” Someday, she knew, she’d tell him about that final vision she’d had while she waited with him on the boat, the vision that had filled her with hope and made her believe that dreams can come true. For in that vision she’d seen herself and Mike in a hospital room. Their heads were together, and Mike’s arms formed a circle around her shoulders, her haven of safety and strength, and in her arms she held a baby. That was their future; she knew it. She blinked tears of happiness out of her eyes and smiled at the man she loved.

  Mike took her face in his hands and kissed her again, knowing as he did so that a lifetime of sleeping and waking with this woman, of sharing her life and her heart, would not be enough. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. His mouth moved urgently against hers, claiming her, and she answered his deepening passion with her own—until he drew back to ask with mock wariness, “You’re not going to want an emerald engagement ring, are you?”

  She gazed up into azure eyes and said dreamily, “No, I think I’d like a sapphire. If I can find one that’s exactly the right color.”

  “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he said, holding her tight again. “You’re the expert. But be sure you find one you really like. Because you’re going to be wearing it for the rest of your life.”

  * * * * *

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-8742-6

  One Forgotten Night

  Copyright © 1995 by Rebecca Stefoff

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