Nora Roberts - The Stars of Mithra - Hidden Star

“Good.” She held tightly on to his hand, letting him lead the way. The bass from the band inside the club all but shook the sidewalk. The café a few doors down was nearly as crowded as the club had been, with waiters scurrying to deliver espressos and lattes and iced fruit drinks.

“I came on pretty strong,” he began as he pulled out a chair for her.

“Yes, you did. I’m flattered.”

Head cocked, he sat across from her. “You’re flattered?”

“Yes. I may not remember anything, but I don’t think I’m stupid.” The air, however close and warm, felt glorious. “You’re an incredibly attractive man. And I look around, right here….” Steadying herself, she did just that, scanning the little tables crammed together under a dark green awning. “Beautiful women everywhere. All over the city where we walked today, inside that club, right here in this café. But you came on to me, so I’m flattered.”

“That’s not exactly the reaction I was looking for, or that I expected. But I guess it’ll do for now.” He glanced up at the waiter who hustled to their table. “Cappuccino?” he asked Bailey.

“That would be perfect.”

“Decaf or regular?” the waiter chirped.

“Real coffee,” Cade told him, and leaned closer to Bailey. “Your color’s coming back.”

“I feel better. A woman came in the ladies’ room.”

“Did she hassle you?”

“No, no.” Touched by his immediate instinct to defend, she laid a hand over his. “I was feeling a little shaky, and then she walked in. Sort of swaggered in.” It made her lips curve. “And for a minute, I thought I knew her.”

He turned his hand over, gripped hers. “You recognized her?”

“No, not her, precisely, though I thought… No, it was the type, I suppose you’d say. Arrogant, cocky, striking. A tall redhead in tight denim, with a chip on her shoulder.” She closed her eyes a moment, let out a long breath, opened them again. “M.J.”

“That was the name on the note in your pocket.”

“It’s there,” Bailey murmured, massaging her temples. “It’s there somewhere in my head. And it’s important. It’s vital, but I can’t focus on it. But there’s a woman, and she’s part of my life. And, Cade, something’s wrong.”

“Do you think she’s in trouble?”

“I don’t know. When I start to get a picture—when I can almost see her—it’s just this image of utter confidence and ability. As if nothing could possibly be wrong. But I know there is something wrong. And it’s my fault. It has to be my fault.”

He shook his head. Blame wouldn’t help. It wasn’t the angle they needed to pursue. “Tell me what you see when you start to get that picture. Just try to relax, and tell me.”

“Short, dark red hair, sharp features. Green eyes. But maybe those are yours. But I think hers are green, darker than yours. I could almost draw her face. If I knew how to draw.”

“Maybe you do.” He took a pen and pad out of his pocket. “Give it a try.”

With her lip caught between her teeth, she tried to capture a sharp, triangular face. With a sigh, she set the pen down as their coffee was served. “I think we can safely assume I’m not an artist.”

“So we’ll get one.” He took the pad back, smiled at the pathetic sketch. “Even I could do better than this, and I scraped by with a C my one dismal semester of art. Do you think you can describe her, the features?”

“I can try. I don’t see it all clearly. It’s like trying to focus a camera that’s not working quite right.”

“Police artists are good at putting things together.”

She slopped coffee over the rim of her cup. “The police? Do we have to go to the police?”

“Unofficial, don’t worry. Trust me.”

“I do.” But the word police rang in her head like alarm bells. “I will.”

“We’ve got something to go on. We know M.J.’s a woman, a tall redhead with a chip on her shoulder. Mary Jane, Martha June, Melissa Jo. You were with her in the desert.”

“She was in the dream.” Sun and sky and rock. Contentment. Then fear. “Three of us in the dream, but it won’t come clear.”

“Well, we’ll see if we can put a likeness together, then we’ll have somewhere to start.”

She stared down into her foamy coffee, thinking her life was just that, a cloud concealing the center. “You make it sound easy.”

“It’s just steps, Bailey. You take the next step, and see where that goes.”

She nodded, stared hard into her coffee. “Why did you marry someone you didn’t love?”

Surprised, he leaned back, blew out a breath. “Well, that’s quite a change in topic.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I asked that. It’s none of my business.”

“I don’t know. Under the circumstances, it seems a fair enough question.” He drummed his fingers restlessly on the table. “You could say I got tired, worn down by family pressure, but that’s a cop-out. Nobody held a gun to my head, and I was over twenty-one.”

It annoyed him to admit that, he realized. To be honest with Bailey was to face the truth without excuses. “We liked each other well enough, or at least we did until we got married. A couple of months of marriage fixed that friendship.”

“I’m sorry, Cade.” It was easy to see the discomfort on his face, his unhappiness with the memory. And though she envied him even that unhappiness, she hated knowing she’d helped put it there. “There’s no need to go into it.”

“We were good in bed,” he went on, ignoring her. And kept his eyes on hers when she shrank back, drew in and away from him. “Right up until the end, the sex was good. The trouble was, toward the end, which was a little under two years from the beginning, it was all heat and no heart. We just didn’t give a damn.”

Couldn’t have cared less, he remembered. Just two bored people stuck in the same house. “That’s what it came down to. There wasn’t another man, or another woman. No passionate fights over money, careers, children, dirty dishes. We just didn’t care. And when we stopped caring altogether, we got nasty. Then the lawyers came in, and it got nastier. Then it was done.”

“Did she love you?”

“No.” He answered immediately, then frowned, looked hard at nothing and again tried to be honest. And the answer was sad and bruising. “No, she didn’t, any more than I loved her. And neither one of us worried about working too hard on that part of it.”

He took money from his wallet, dropped it on the table and rose. “Let’s go home.”

“Cade.” She touched his arm. “You deserved better.”

“Yeah.” He looked at the hand on his arm, the delicate fingers, the pretty rings. “So did she. But it’s a little late for that.” He lifted her hand so that the ring gleamed between them. “You can forget a lot of things, Bailey, but can you forget love?”

“Don’t.”

He’d be damned if he’d back off. Suddenly his entire miserable failure of a marriage was slapped into his face. He’d be damned. “If a man put this on your finger, a man you loved, would you forget? Could you?”

“I don’t know.” She wrenched away, rushed down the sidewalk toward his car. When he whirled her around, her eyes were bright with anger and fears. “I don’t know.”

“You wouldn’t forget. You couldn’t, if it mattered. This matters.”

He crushed his mouth to hers, pressing her back against the car and battering them both with his frustration and needs. Gone was the patience, the clever heat of seduction. What was left was all the raw demand that had bubbled beneath it. And he wanted her weak and clinging and as desperate as he. For just that moment.

For just the now.

The panic came first, a choke hold that snagged the air from her throat. She couldn’t answer this vivid, violent need. Simply wasn’t prepared or equipped to meet it and survive.