Eileen Wilks - Proposition - Marriage

She rubbed the small lump that her locket made. Papa, she thought wistfully, did you ever wonder if some of the chances you took might not have been worth what you risked? Or am I just a coward? Probably she was a coward. Hadn’t she proved how poor she was at coping with danger? Look at what she’d done—made passionate love with a man whose name she didn’t know. Passionate, unprotected love.

Slowly, Jane pulled the door closed behind her. This wasn’t the first call she had refused to answer since she’d gotten home—just in case.

The wind was picking up. It ruffled her hair as she stood on the landing looking down at her reliable old Toyota. She took a steadying breath and promised herself that tomorrow she would buy a Caller ID machine so she wouldn’t freak out every time her phone rang.

She pulled a cracker from the package she carried and nibbled on it as she started down the steps.

Samuel Charmaneaux pulled off into the rest area at the top of a low hill. He sat in the three-year-old black Jeep Cherokee he’d bought last week, though the registration showed he’d bought it new. The name on that registration matched the one on his driver’s license, birth certificate and all the other papers that made a person real in today’s world.

He turned off the stereo and rolled down the window, wanting to listen to the wind that blew here. To taste it.

Samuel had been planning this for months. Oh, not all of it. He’d had to wait on circumstances to supply some details. Certainly the particular detail that had brought him nearly fifteen hundred miles across the country hadn’t been part of his original plan, but Samuel’s plans were always fluid. Objectives were the fixed points in his universe, and he was very good at achieving his objectives.

Good, but not perfect. His eyes darkened as he remembered the sound of Jack choking on his own blood as he’d fought for breath. Samuel had been far less than perfect that day. He didn’t exactly blame himself for his friend’s death, but he accepted the burden of it, knowing he’d been part of the events that had led to it. With that acceptance had come a certainty: he could no longer be part of the world he’d lived in for the past ten years.

At first, he hadn’t known what he would do instead. He still wasn’t sure, but he knew what his new objective was. Samuel wanted to be part of the world that other people knew. The ordinary world.

It wasn’t going to be easy. The official records of his new identity would hold up under much stronger scrutiny than he should ever receive, but he wasn’t as sure of himself as he was of his papers. He was used to living under other names, living bits and pieces of borrowed lives, but this was different. This time it would be for the rest of his life. And for the first time in years, “the rest of his life” meant more than just the next job.

Having a future was going to take some getting used to.

To the west, the sun still shone at the rim of the world, but twilight was seeping up from its eastern edge, blurring the outlines of things. Samuel looked down at the small town of Atherton, where lights were blinking on in houses as dusk drew near.

He hadn’t expected hills.

Admittedly, these hills weren’t much. Compared to their grander cousins in other parts of the world, such as the tumbled hills of Provence or the worn heights crowding the ancient city of Dharmsala, these were barely lumps. But the fact that he’d had expectations that weren’t grounded in experience or research bothered him. He was a thorough man. He’d gotten a background check on the town as well as the woman, yet apparently he’d allowed his thinking to be colored by ideas formed about Kansas when he was very young. He’d expected pancake-flat land—not this green, gently rolling country laced with streams.

He shook his head, disgusted. Had he expected to meet a young girl and her little dog, Toto, too?

It had been a long drive, and Samuel’s left palm ached in spite of the care he’d taken with it. He rested his hand on his thigh and began rhythmically opening and closing the hand. The exercise made it hurt more, of course, but the pain was easy enough to ignore. What he couldn’t ignore was the impairment. His fingers still wouldn’t close tightly.

It’s been less than two weeks since the surgery, he reminded himself. He refused to believe he wouldn’t regain any more function than this.

Thunder rumbled off to the west. It was early April, and spring meant storms in this part of the world. His gaze returned to the town at the foot of the hill, and he thought about the future and his plans.

Jane Smith was down there. Jane Desirée Smith, he thought, smiling as he remembered the report he’d read, which had given her full name. Her middle name suited her. On the surface, she was wonderfully ordinary, but there were surprises inside. He thought about pretty Jane of the innocent eyes and delicious body, practical Jane who had climaxed with such amazement Jane, who hated snakes and rescued beetles and kept walking without complaint while her feet bled into her lacy socks.

What was she doing right now? Was she with her family? Was she laughing or sad or worried?

Had she thought about him today?

Determination clenched inside him. She would think of him soon. And soon, he would have an answer to the question that would determine the shape of his future.

The sudden, hot pain startled him. He looked at his hands. He was holding the steering wheel tightly; his knuckles were white. The left hand hurt fiercely, as if struggling to obey, but would not close fully.

He didn’t even remember gripping the wheel.

Shaken, he relaxed his grip. It was definitely time to retire, if his emotions could control him that way. He took one last, lingering look at the town below. Long habit had him evaluating it in tactical terms, matching what he saw to the map he’d studied earlier, but the feeling that welled up in him as he put the Cherokee into gear had little to do with tactics.

He didn’t have a name for what he felt. The gentle tugging deep inside was nothing he recognized. It didn’t seem strong enough to disturb his control, however, so he ignored it as he had ignored the pain, and pulled away from the rest stop.

It was no wonder the feeling was unfamiliar. The man who was now named Samuel had never come home before.

“Jane!”

“Hmm? Oh.” Jane realized she’d let her thoughts drift off. That had happened too often lately. Hastily she closed the notebook where she’d jotted down the minutes. “Sorry. I was thinking.” Glancing around, she saw that she was the only one still seated in the conference room, though a number of people were milling around, chatting or making their way to the door. “Did you ask me something, Sandy?”

Sandy Clemmons was the local Red Cross director. She was a plump, pretty woman several years older than Jane whose calm temperament disproved the stereotypes about redheads. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Jane pushed her chair back and stood.

“Are you sure? It’s none of my business, but I can’t help noticing that you’ve acted different ever since you got back from that trip.”

“I said I’m fine.” Jane grabbed her purse and her coat.

Sandy’s eyebrows went up. “Heard that sort of comment a little too often, maybe?”

Jane’s mouth twitched in reluctant humor. “Have you been talking to my mother? She wants me to consider therapy. And eat more vegetables.” The suggestions were typical of Marilee Smith, who had also mentioned a CAT scan, earlier bedtimes and Saint-John’s-wort as possible cures for whatever ailed her youngest child.