Eyewitness

Chapter Two

Kieran dug his long fingers into the boy’s bony shoulder. Was his mother injured? Relieved to see her son?

Or had she just seen a ghost?

The squirming boy broke away from his grasp and flew to the woman still kneeling on the ground. Holding the boy against his will had pained Kieran. He had frightened the boy when he’d plucked him from those rocks and carried him down to the sand, but he’d probably saved him from a tumble over the edge and into the sea.

Maybe he should’ve allowed the other man making his way toward the boy a chance to save him. He turned, but the man had disappeared.

Kieran had been watching them-the boy and his mother. He’d been watching them for a few days and knew the woman would come to Columbella House. Just as Kieran, through the foggy memories of his messed-up mind, had been drawn to this small town and the house looming over the sea, the woman had been lured here as well. He’d recognized the woman as soon as he’d seen her on the street-recognized her from his dreams.

When the ethereal blonde had dropped to the ground, Kieran’s first response had been to rush to her rescue. But when she looked up at him, she was laughing…crying…laughing and crying at the same time.

Now she stumbled to her feet, gripping the little boy’s hand, a smile of pure joy lighting her beautiful face. She reached her other hand out to him and breathed his name. “Kieran.”

Pain sliced through his head, pooling in his damaged eye. Gritting his teeth, he rode it out, allowing the memories to crisscross his brain. He’d heard his name on her lips many times before-in laughter, in anger, in desire. He tried to focus, but as usual, the strands of his life floated away out of reach.

“Are you okay?” He took a step forward.

Her eyes widened and a haze of confusion shifted across her face. “A-am I okay? I thought you were dead.”

Did she expect him to sweep her into his arms? Assure her he’d never leave her again? Shoving his hands in his pockets, he dug his heels into the grains of sand littering the rock. He couldn’t do that-not now, not ever.

After he’d escaped from that hellhole in Afghanistan and made it to safety, the army had sent him to a hospital in Germany. They’d told him his name and a few other basics, but then the military sent him to Walter Reed. They wanted to debrief him in the States and scheduled him to see an army psychiatrist to help him regain his memory.

But he’d had enough of people telling him what to do.

Kieran squared his shoulders and took a deep breath of moist, salty air. “I don’t know who you are.”

Her face crumpled and she looked ready to pitch forward.

He had to do better than that. He dragged his hands out of his pockets and held them out in supplication.

“I have some memory, but some things…I have jolts or flashes. I know you,” he clenched his fist and pounded it against his chest, “here, but I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your name.”

She covered her mouth with one hand as silent tears dripped from her eyes and streamed across her fingers. Wiping her hand across her nose, she drew in a shuddering breath. “I’m Devon. Devon Reese. I’m your… We were engaged.”

Kieran squeezed his good eye closed and whispered her name. “Devon. Devon.”

Yes, the name filled him with warmth and longing, those feelings belonged to his hazy past. They were engaged. A woman like Devon, filled with golden light and promise, would never want a damaged man like him.

Maybe she’d already moved on. The boy had to have a father somewhere. And if she hadn’t already moved on, Kieran would make sure she did.

Soft fingers traced the edge of his eye patch, and he jerked back. She’d moved across the sand silently, tugging the quiet boy in her wake. He looked into her tear-streaked face and had to drag his gaze away from the luminous depths of her blue eyes before he drowned. He didn’t have time for weakness, the kind of weakness that had drawn him to this place and this woman. For four long years he’d expunged every kind of weakness from his soul…or his captors had beaten it out of him.

“What happened to your eye?”

He scanned her voice for an ounce of pity. Finding none, he shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

The ocean breeze tousled Devon’s blond mane, and she grabbed it with one hand, pulling it back from her face. “Can we continue this conversation up top? The tide’s going to be moving in soon.”

Kieran wanted to continue talking to Devon. He wanted to continue basking in her glow. He wanted to get answers. He knew the conversation would end in heartache for her, but his years imprisoned in that filthy hovel had taught him selfishness. It had given him a brittle heart.

“Sure.” He pointed to the boy who had been clinging to Devon’s leg throughout their exchange. “Is your son okay?”

Devon’s cheeks flushed bright red. “Michael’s fine.”

Touchy subject? He didn’t know much about kids, but the boy didn’t seem fine to him.

Kieran climbed over the first set of boulders and turned to give Devon and her son a hand, but they had navigated the rocks with ease. Even the boy, who had seemed tentative and withdrawn, was scampering across the rocks like his feet knew every step.

“This is the easiest path back up to the road.” Devon jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Or do you remember that?”

Kieran knew it but not because he remembered it from years ago. He knew it because he’d been hiding out at Columbella House…waiting for Devon.

He said, “I know,” and swept his arm in front of him. “Why don’t you two go ahead?”

Hoisting herself up onto his rock, Devon squeezed past him. Her silky hair brushed his shoulder and he inhaled her intoxicating scent-all sweetness and purity. Who needed food and water? That smell alone could sustain him for years.

Kieran clenched his jaw. Stop dreaming, Roarke. You’re on a fact-finding mission. And that’s it.

As Devon climbed ahead of him, Kieran’s gaze traced the outline of her body beneath her baggy sweatshirt and cargo shorts. His fingertips tingled with the remembrance of her smooth skin. Since he’d lost his memory, his senses had taken up where his mind had left off. Smells, sounds and touches could trigger responses from him even if he couldn’t remember the occasions that elicited those responses.

Maybe he should’ve continued with his debriefing and psychiatric help, but he didn’t want the army implanting any memories that didn’t belong there or messing with the ones that did. He knew how the black-ops division of the military conducted business. Hadn’t they told his brother he was dead? Hadn’t they refused to contact his brother or parents when he’d been found alive? Military security. National security. Top secret information. He’d heard it all before.

Of course, nothing stopped him from contacting his family now. But what would they want with him? Apparently, his younger brother, Colin, had escaped from the same captors that had held Kieran against his will for four long years. His brother had probably moved on with his life. He wouldn’t want to be reminded of what he’d endured, especially by a man who had no memories, a man whose very soul had turned black with rage.

Devon slipped and skidded toward him. Kieran caught her around the waist, steadying her. “Careful.”

She looked down at him, her moist lips slightly parted, her blue eyes bright with tears. His hand tightened as his breath came out in short spurts. He shouldn’t have come here. Why subject Devon to his presence when he’d spared his brother and parents?

Her golden lashes fluttered, and his heart skittered in his chest. Weakness. That’s what led him here in the first place. He couldn’t succumb to it. Ever. If he had shown any weakness to his captors, they would’ve killed him.

He dropped his hands from Devon’s waist as if he’d been scorched. She blinked twice, turned and continued to hike up the path to the road.

When they reached the top, Devon faced him with her hands on her hips. “Have you contacted anyone else in Coral Cove? Do you know you have a brother…Colin? There are people, other people who have been devastated by your-” she glanced at her son “-disappearance.”

“Let’s get off the side of the road.” He jerked his head toward Columbella House. “I’ve been bunking there. We can talk on the deck.”

Devon’s brows shot up. “You’ve been staying at Columbella House? Do you know that you have a house down the road? Or rather the house belongs to your parents. You grew up there.”

“I didn’t know that.” He shrugged. He’d figured he’d grown up in Coral Cove, but no other house or location in this town had drawn him like this one. “Is Colin still here?”

“No. Coincidentally, he was in town last month, investigating…investigating.” Devon waved her hands in the air.

Kieran unlatched the gate leading to the back of the house and a wooden deck that perched over the rocks. Nobody from the street could see this deck and Kieran had brushed off the Adirondack chairs and enjoyed several sunsets from this vantage point.

“Have a seat.” He nudged one chair with his foot. Grabbing a wicker basket from the corner, he said, “Michael, do you want to look at some cool shells?”

The boy ignored him, but slid a gaze toward his mother. “Can I find a Columbella?”

“Maybe.” She flicked her fingers toward the basket. “Have a look.”

Michael slipped his backpack from his shoulders and placed it next to the basket. As he sat cross-legged in front of the basket and pulled out the first shell, Devon seemed to melt into the chair.

Something about the boy was off. Of course, Kieran didn’t know Michael at all and he might have judged him a little shy or clingy except for the tension that stiffened Devon’s body whenever she looked at her son.

“So I grew up in Coral Cove and we were engaged.”

Devon’s attention snapped back to him as she sucked in a quick breath.

He’d have to work on his social skills if he hoped to have a life in the free world. His tormenters hadn’t valued the attributes of subtlety or nuance.

“Yes, but not in high school.” She drew up her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs. “We reconnected when we both returned home after graduating from college. I was planning on going to nursing school, and you were going into the military. You had a thing for languages. Do you…?”

“Do I still speak several languages?” Kieran gripped the flat arms of the chair. “Yeah. I didn’t forget the languages, just the rest of my life.”

Devon balanced her chin on her knees, watching Michael. “What happened, Kieran? Can you at least tell me that?”

“A military operation that went south.”

“Colin was with you, but he was with the FBI.”

Kieran’s eye twitched beneath his patch. “It was a multi-task force raid on a terrorist group, but someone snitched us off. I don’t remember much about it. The army briefed me after I escaped.”

“H-how long?” She rolled her head to the side, resting her cheek on her knee as her blond hair swept across her legs.

He knew just how the strands would feel slipping through his fingers. He raked his hair back from his face and said, “Four years.”

She gasped and choked. “You were in some kind of prison for four years?”

“Some kind of prison. Not nearly as nice as what we have going on here.” His lips twisted in a bitter smile. A filthy cot. An earthenware pot for a toilet. Stale bread for dinner. And the beatings, always the beatings.

He’d never tell Devon any of that. She belonged light years away from all of it. Light years away from him.

She closed her eyes and a tear slid from beneath her lashes. “I’m so sorry, Kieran. You lost your memory while you were imprisoned? Everything? Every memory?”

Almost every memory except for a golden warmth that kept him alive.

“I think I took a particularly bad blow to the head during some kind of beating.” He pointed to his patch. “Probably when that happened. When I came to, I could piece together that I was military and that I was a prisoner of war. Certain memories would float in and out.”

Devon looked up, a tear trembling on the edge of her lashes. “But no memories of me?”

How could he explain it to her? He couldn’t remember her face or her name, or even that he had a fiancée. But every day in that damned prison he had a will to survive, some force of goodness and light that shored up his strength, hardened him against the torture, forged a brutal desire to live.

Left a shell of a man.

How ironic that he now had to give up the source of his survival because the survival itself had turned him into a monster.

His jaw tightened. “No. No memories of you.”

The soft sigh from her lips made him clench his hands and turn his gaze onto the boy, patiently sorting shells, examining each one as if looking for a pearl.

“Then why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in treatment or something?” She brushed her hair from her face and straightened her spine, pinning her shoulders to the back of the chair.

Kieran shrugged. “The army wanted to send me to some shrink at Walter Reed. I chose not to go. I want to recover my memories in my own way, in my own time.”

“But surely the army told you about your brother and the location of your parents? They must’ve told you about growing up in Coral Cove.”

The army had told him all of that, but the minute Lieutenant Jeffries, his debriefer, had mentioned Coral Cove, Kieran knew he had to come here first. He knew he’d find his guardian angel in Coral Cove, and as soon as he’d spotted Devon his soul had recognized her. The familiar feelings of hope and optimism had flooded his senses.

“The army also told my parents and my brother that I was dead. They haven’t bothered to notify them otherwise since I was on a top secret mission, even though Colin was on that same mission. I came here first because I wanted to ease into things slowly.” The lie of his last statement came to his lips easily. He’d perfected lying over the past few years-lying and a lot of other skills that had no place in a civilized society. No place in Devon’s life.

Devon peered at him in the encroaching darkness and whispered, “Do you want me to help you?”

“Yes.” The word flew from his lips before he had time to swallow it. “No. I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”

Her eyes widened, and then she tilted her head back and laughed. She doubled over and laughed some more, her shoulders shaking. When she raised her head, strands of hair clung to her wet cheeks. Her laughter continued unabated, but she didn’t have a smile on her beautiful face.

Michael studied his mother with a frown crinkling his face and clutching two shells in his hands. Even he recognized that her laughter was bereft of humor.

“Go to any trouble?” She wiped the back of her hand across her nose and hiccupped. “We were engaged, Kieran. You disappeared from my life, and then Colin told me you were dead. I was devastated. I could barely get out of bed in the morning. I could barely drag myself into work. I couldn’t envision my life without you. I felt dead.”

Her words punched him in the gut, adding to his guilt and rage that he hadn’t escaped his captors sooner. “I’m sorry, Devon.”

He gazed at Michael, who had gone back to his game with the shells when his mother had stopped laughing. Devon had gone on. Had met someone else. Reclaimed her life. That little boy was evidence of that.

“Don’t be sorry.” Devon gathered her blond hair and twisted it around her hand like a golden rope. “It was fate, just like running into you in Coral Cove on my escape from the city.”

Escape? What was she running from? Unease crawled across his flesh. He slid a look at Michael. Where was his father?

Kieran inhaled the sea air and expelled it between his clenched teeth. “Was that Michael’s father on the cliff? Is that why you were so worried?”

“What?” Her brow furrowed as she tilted her head. “Was who Michael’s father?”

“The man in the white van on the cliff. The man watching Michael.”

THE WHITE VAN.

Kieran’s words sliced through the fog swirling around her brain. Too many discoveries had pummeled her in such a short period of time, her mind was still reeling. For a minute, she’d thought Kieran had asked about Michael’s father.

She remembered the white van in the lookout area. “There was someone watching Michael when he came up on the rocks?”

Kieran’s shoulders relaxed. “I-I saw you and Michael climb down to the beach. A man had gotten out of the van and was standing at the edge of the lookout. I thought he was making a move toward Michael when he clambered out of the cave, but I got to the boy first.”

Devon shrugged, but a finger of fear had touched the back of her neck. Why had she even noticed that van? She’d been on edge ever since Mrs. Del Vecchio’s murder.

But now she had bigger issues on her plate. Kieran didn’t even remember her. She hadn’t had a chance to tell him about her pregnancy before he’d left for Afghanistan on that top secret mission.

Should she give him some time to piece together the fragments of his life before springing paternity on him? She glanced at the dark stranger coiled in the deck chair, the black patch hiding one eye and a guarded secrecy hiding the other.

Hugging herself, she rubbed her arms. “The guy in the van was a stranger. I’m not running from Michael’s father if that’s what you’re thinking.”

At least not yet.

“That’s good.” He tilted his chin toward her. “Are you cold? Should we continue this conversation inside?”

He couldn’t even bring himself to touch her. What had those monsters done to him?

“Inside Columbella?” She glanced at Michael, whose hands had stalled above the shells.

“It’s shelter from the breeze, anyway.”

“Have you actually been staying in the house?”

“It’s the only place I remembered.”

“H-have you been to the burned-out room?” Did he remember that room? It had been their secret place.

“I saw a room off the library that was scorched.” He threw a sidelong glance at Michael. “It seemed…”

“There was a fire there last month.” She scooted up to the edge of her chair. “I have a better idea.”

His frame stiffened and he clutched the arms of the chair as if ready for takeoff. “What?”

“Your parents have a perfectly good house across the street.” She waved her arm in the general direction of the street on the other side of Columbella House. “It has electricity and everything.”

“Is it occupied?”

Kieran didn’t want to see his family? Yes, he was a different man.

“No. Your parents live in Hawaii now, and Colin just left. He’d been staying there while he was in town.” She crooked her finger at a sleepy Michael, rubbing his eyes, and patted her lap.

“Where’s Colin now?”

Devon scooped Michael into her lap, and he tucked his head into the hollow of her neck. His dark lashes fluttered on his cheeks and Devon’s heart skipped a beat. Couldn’t Kieran see his mirror image in Michael?

“I don’t know. I asked, but apparently Colin took off with Michelle Girard. Do you remember her? She lived…” She trailed off as Kieran shook his head. “Anyway, they took off for parts unknown.”

Kieran rubbed his knuckles against the black stubble of his beard. “People are going to know me here, aren’t they?”

Devon allowed her mouth to hang open for a few seconds. “Of course. I don’t understand how you’ve avoided detection up until this point.”

“I haven’t been here long and I haven’t been out much. The town’s already clogged with tourists. What’s one more with a baseball cap pulled over his face?”

“You’re one of Coral Cove’s favorite sons, Kieran. High school football star, football scholarship to college, prestigious language institute before joining the Green Berets.” She brushed a hand across Michael’s smooth cheek, taking note of his measured breathing, and whispered, “People think you’re dead.”

His one dark eye glittered, unfathomable beneath a half-mast lid. “I suppose I’d cause a stir if I hit the streets.”

“If you hit the streets? You’re not staying?” Her hands bunched Michael’s T-shirt as she hugged his sleeping form closer to her body. “Y-you need medical treatment. Psychiatric treatment.”

“I can get that at Walter Reed.”

“I thought you didn’t trust the government.”

“Is that what you’re doing here?”

“What?” She wasn’t sure she liked this abrupt-talking stranger with the piercing eyes…eye. Was he blind beneath that patch?

He leveled a finger at Michael. “What’s wrong with your boy?”

Devon hunched over Michael’s body in a protective gesture. Was it so clear that Michael had issues? Or was Kieran extra perceptive because of his half blindness…or because he was Michael’s father?

“What do you mean?”

“He’s what? Five? Six? He’s not very vocal. He’s jumpy. Uneasy. Watchful.”

Like his father.

“He’s four.” Devon held her breath, waiting for Kieran to start calculating the years in his head. Did he even remember the last time they were together? Probably not if he thought Michael could be six years old.

Devon slumped in her chair. “Our downstairs neighbor was murdered last month. Michael hasn’t been the same since.”

“Murder can be tough for a kid to handle. Did he know her well?”

“They were…close. But I never told Michael Mrs. Del Vecchio was murdered, just that she had died.”

“Maybe he found out.”

“I don’t know. He won’t talk about it.” Her nose tingled with tears and she buried her face in Michael’s soft hair.

“Is he in treatment?”

“He was seeing a therapist in the city, but I wanted to get away from our apartment house. The therapist thought it was a good idea, too.”

“And now?”

“This is my hometown, a refuge.” Or at least it was before her dead fiancé showed up with no memory. “There also happens to be a great therapist here, who works with hypnosis. She’s a family friend, too, so I trust her with Michael.”

“Hypnosis, huh?”

“She could probably help you, too, Kieran. She’s a family therapist-sees both kids and adults.” She needed another way to keep him here in Coral Cove besides the obvious. Once she told him about Michael, would he feel obligated to stay and try to work things out? The man already had enough pressure.

“Maybe.” He stretched his long legs in front of him and his arms over his head. “Your little one is out. You should get him to bed.”

She peered at the sun dipping into the ocean, one orange crescent floating on a dark blue ripple. “It’s dinner time. He’s going to have to wake up to eat.”

Kieran pushed up from his chair and crossed to hers in two long steps. He held out his arms. “Do you want me to carry him back to your car?”

“I have a better idea. Your parents’ place is just down the street, and I know where they keep the key.”

She shifted, and Kieran bent over, arms still outstretched to take Michael.

“Are you sure?”

“Are you sure? Will he freak out if he wakes up and I’m carrying him?”

Devon gulped. Maybe not if he knew you were his father.

“He’s a pretty heavy sleeper. I think he’ll be okay.”

Kieran slid his arms beneath Michael’s body, one under his back and the other behind his knees. Devon released her son to his father for the first time ever.

Straightening, Kieran hoisted Michael in his arms and secured him against his broad chest.

Devon blinked her eyes and dipped her head, allowing her hair to create a veil over her face. She had to tell him. The knowledge might mess with his mind even more, but it might help him, give him something to live for…because she wasn’t enough for him anymore.

“Lead the way.”

The fact that she was guiding Kieran to his parents’ house created another level of unreality to this day. Why had Columbella House imprinted itself on his memory instead of his family home? A tiny flame of hope flickered in her chest. Was it because of her? Because of what they’d shared in that house, in that now burned-out room?

She held the side gate open for Kieran and Michael snug in his arms. “Let’s stop at my car first. I want to grab my purse. You can wait here.”

“I’ll come with you. Michael’s as light as a feather.”

Their feet crunched the gravel as they walked single file on the road around the bend to the lookout. Her car sat all by itself. The other two people hadn’t stayed for the sunset after all.

As she approached her car, she tilted her head. “Why’s my car listing to one side?”

Kieran swore. “Because your tires have been slashed.”