Debra Webb - Broken

“I’m taking a break,” Mia said, interrupting her friend’s lengthy supposition about the stranger. “I’ll be back in fifteen.”

Mia skirted the dozen or so tourists oohing and ahhing over the dining room and cut through the kitchen to reach the back gardens. She moved away from the house to avoid interruptions by those wandering the blooming paths of the gardens, slid her cell phone from her pocket and called Chandra.

According to Chandra, Reece was a serious potential buyer.

“So this guy is legit?” Mia asked.

“Definitely,” Chandra assured her. “He’s ready to buy and he doesn’t need financing. The man absolutely insisted I show him all three of the historic homes in town that are for sale. On Sunday no less.”

Another surprise. He hadn’t looked like the type with that kind of money or that sort of determination. “He picked the Reid house over the others?” It was by far in the worst condition.

“He preferred a fixer-upper,” Chandra explained. “Wants to get his hands dirty.”

Actually he wanted to get Mia’s hands dirty. “I guess I could call him.”

“Be sure you do, Mia,” Chandra urged. “You know how slow the housing market has been. I could really use the sale.”

Things were tough all over town. “You can count on me.” That was what folks did here in Blossom. They helped each other out.

After Chandra finished her drawn-out monologue about how handsome and mysterious Reece was, Mia grabbed the opportunity to end the call. Mr. Reece had better watch himself. Chandra had been divorced for three years. She had bemoaned the slim pickings hereabouts for that same time. Reece fit the Realtor’s image of the perfect man—hot and loaded.

Mia would call Reece. But not for a couple of hours. She could use the work but she didn’t want to appear desperate. Fair pay wasn’t too much to ask, even in this economy. If he pegged her as desperate he’d start trying to negotiate her prices in the wrong direction.

She propped her hands on her hips. This could be a godsend. Maybe she’d get that new stained-glass window for her bathroom after all. Not to mention a little cushion in her bank account.

Her uncle had offered to replace the window ten times. But Mia was a grown woman. She could support herself. Her uncle had done far too much for her already.

The journey had been long and arduous but Mia Grant was fully capable of standing on her own two feet. She smiled. That had not been the case just a few years ago. Funny how a person’s darkest hours could seem so far away and not so bad after all when looking from well on the other side of tragedy.

Mia liked this view a whole lot better.

1:00 p.m.

It was her.

Linc braced his hands on the bathroom wall and peered into the mirror. It was Lori.

Her face was different, the nose mainly, like Mort had said. But Linc had watched her move. Every move. The way her hands stroked the plaster. The way she arched her back. It was her.

The eyes…Lori’s eyes. Pale brown, almost gold. She wore her shiny brown hair the same. Long, silky. He’d know that mussed ponytail anywhere. While they’d talked he had studied her face. The cheekbones were so much like Lori’s, with only the subtlest changes. The brow area was different, but the lips were exactly the same.

He was certain it was her. But she hadn’t recognized him.

His gut clenched. He’d watched for the faintest flare of recognition in her eyes. Nothing. But when their hands had touched, her pupils had flared. That alone couldn’t be attributed to recognition. He was a stranger. For all he knew this Mia Grant might respond to all strangers, especially males, in that manner. According to one of the guides at the Dowe home where she’d been working, guys were wasting their time setting their sites on Mia. She was untouchable. Of course, the guide was young, twenty-one or twenty-two maybe. Lori—Mia—had turned thirty this year, though she looked closer to twenty and always had. The youthful image had worked to her advantage in undercover work.

Doubt nagged him and Linc pushed it away. It was her.

How was that possible? Everyone on that damned yacht had died except Linc and one of Juan Marcos’s thugs. No one else had survived. They had searched for survivors and bodies for days. Only a few who’d been on board had been found. They had been so deep at sea it was impossible to even hope to find them all.

When the recovery efforts were halted, Linc had lain in the hospital counting the hours and days until he was released. Then, with the help of a private team, he’d searched the water for days more. He’d gone to every hospital and clinic in a hundred-mile radius. Nothing. Not a single other survivor had been treated in the area.

Eventually he’d given up.

Linc stared at his weary reflection. Maybe he’d lost his mind. No. If that were the case, then Mort was crazy, too. Mort was sure this woman was Lori.

But Mia didn’t remember Linc.

Amnesia? Chances were she had sustained a head injury in the accident. If the amnesia had been merely traumatic or only partial, she’d be past that now. Was it possible that all she needed was the right mental nudges? He needed to talk to a specialist. He had no idea what the ramifications of a memory loss so profound and long-lasting could be.

The other screaming question was how she had gotten here.

This was nuts.

Linc wrenched the faucet handles, letting the water flow from the tap. He bent down and washed his face. Think! How can this be?

He grabbed a towel and scrubbed it over his face. If she would take the job he’d offered her, he could buy some time to figure this out. For the past seven years he hadn’t given one damn about material possessions. His paychecks had gone into the bank. He’d lived on bourbon and the occasional sandwich. Buying the Reid house wouldn’t be a hardship. Staying here for as long as necessary wouldn’t be, either.

His cell vibrated. He snagged it by two fingers and slid it from his front pocket. The number on the screen told him it was the boss. “Reece.”

“Have you made contact?” Keaton asked.

Slade Keaton ran a tight ship at the Equalizers. He cared that his investigators were good to go professionally as well as personally. But he never stepped over the line. In recent weeks, though, his personal involvement with his staff had changed considerably. When Linc had first come on board, Keaton had been all but anonymous.

“I spoke to her briefly.” Linc forked the fingers of his free hand through his hair as he moved to the bed and plopped down. “It’s her.” The words echoed over and over in his brain.

“The dental records were faxed to my office. I’m loading them into a PDF. I’ll send them to you shortly.”

“Thanks.” Not that he had a clue how he would accomplish the comparison just yet.

“You’re certain there are no living family members?”

“None. Both her parents passed away when she was in college, and she’s an only child.” Linc wished like hell he could go the DNA route, but there was no comparison sample. Fingerprints would have been the simplest method, but the gas leak explosion at the L.A. Hall of Records a year after the accident that had taken her life—or so he’d thought—had decimated all official files, including the DMV files. The obliterated files hadn’t meant anything at the time, but now he couldn’t help wondering if the two incidents had been related.

“No prints, no DNA.” Keaton made a sound that reflected his own skepticism. “Sounds almost like a well-thought-out plan.”

Anger stirred in Linc. “She wouldn’t have done that.” No way in hell Lori would have set up her own death to get away from her life…from Linc.