A Memory Worth Dying For (2 page)

She forged a straight line to the back of the gallery and barely made it around the corner before she collapsed on the chair sitting inches inside the door of the tiny kitchenette. Her breath came in gulps. She struggled for each breath. Numbness traveled through her body, and she recognized the first signs of a full blown panic attack.

No
!
Not now
!

She hadn’t had an attack in months. Her eyelids felt heavy as she concentrated on the advice the counselor had given her.

Relax! Breathe deeply
.

Stop thinking about the stimulus—
Daniel
.

Repeat the coping words.

“I’m fine. Everything is fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

“Marti, what’s wrong?” Sandra’s voice sounded like it came from a deep hole.

Marti covered her eyes with her hands and concentrated on breathing.

Sandra placed a hand on Marti’s auburn hair. “What’s the matter, love?”

Marti shook her head. “Sandra . . . that man . . . he’s . . .”

Sandra’s blond head leaned back around the corner. Surprise registered on her face, and she turned to Marti.

“Is that Daniel?”

Eyes squeezed shut, Marti nodded jerkily. Her face felt cold and clammy.

“Should I ring 9-1-1?”

Marti shook her head. “No, it’s been three years. Surely by now—”

“What’s he doing in Tennessee? Do you know?”

Marti shuddered. Tears burned the back of her eyes. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

Sandra placed an arm around Marti’s shoulders in a supporting hug and waited until her breathing slowed and her trembling lessened.

“Marti, you need to go in there, look him in the face, and demand to know what happened between you three years ago.”

The shake of Marti’s head moved auburn tendrils of hair into her eyes. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Well, this is certainly at sixes and sevens. What are you going to do?” Sandra blew out a pained breath. “You can’t hide back here all evening. It’s your show, for goodness sake. Do you want me to tell him to leave?”

Marti’s eyes popped open. Normally Sandra’s British expressions brought a smile to her face, but not this time. Leaning her head against the wall behind her chair, she looked up. What should she do? She had to go back in there. If he came here to taunt her, he would have sought her out by now.

She stared at the kitchenette’s wispy blue ceiling she and Sandra had painted and decided to hold fast to the life she had created for herself during the last three years.

“No. I’ll go back out there. I don’t care if he’s here or not. I’ll ignore him. I can do this.”

She summoned a look she hoped was filled with determination and spunk. “I will
not
let him ruin my life—not again.”

“That-a-girl. Remember, fear exists only in your mind.”

Marti stood on shaky limbs. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

She took another deep breath and slowly rounded the corner. Daniel and his companion were nowhere in sight. She blew out a relieved puff of air, gave Sandra a faltering smile, and turned to meet her customers.

After fifteen minutes of dealing with several interested shoppers, she completed the sale of two paintings and three signed prints. She also had a portrait commission pending after the first of the following month.

When Marti finished handling the sale of her last painting, she turned around and suddenly found Daniel towering over her. His nearness spiraled her back into the past and stirred up pleasant memories of sawdust and basswood. Her eyes rose to meet his like magnets. She felt her soul being pulled into the brown depths, and she could only stare.

Daniel held out his hand, took her trembling hand into his, and shook it.

“Hi. Are you the one I need to see about buying a painting?”

When his hands touched hers, shock exploded across his face, and questions filled his eyes. He pulled his hand back immediately. After masking his own surprised reaction to her touch, he crooked his head slightly.

When the meaning of his question dawned on Marti, her eyes widened in incredulity.

“What?”

“Uh . . . I’m interested in buying the landscape at the end of that wall, if you can give me a price.” He pointed to one of her larger paintings. It was a landscape of mountains she painted from memory—of the mountains outside their former bedroom window.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Marti’s breath was coming fast. “Daniel, why are you doing this?”

“I beg your pardon? You know my name?”

The world was crumbling around her. Daniel acted as if he didn’t know who she was. She couldn’t pull her gaze away from his, and she could read confusion in the brown spheres.

He doesn’t know me. He really doesn’t know me.

The thought chilled her. How could you not remember someone after living together four years as husband and wife? She clutched her stomach and tried to breathe.

Sandra hurried up to them and turned toward Daniel. “I’ll help you, sir.”

Marti backed off—never taking her eyes from Daniel’s face. The tan skin and rugged features sent a wave of longing through her that made the breath catch in her throat. Her feelings for him were still strong—the truth screamed at her. In spite of what he had done, she still loved him. She could feel it all the way to her toes.

The realization hit her between the eyes, and her eyes filled with tears.

After three years of separation, anyone would think the tingle his presence evoked would diminish, but the gravitational pull between them was as strong as ever.

She turned to force herself away from the claustrophobic space and came face-to-face with Daniel’s companion—the redheaded woman dressed in a green satin Armani.

“Veronica!”

Veronica Duke raised her head in total shock, obviously surprised to see her. Veronica veiled her eyes and raised her brows in a victory salute as she linked her arm in Daniel’s and gave him an affectionate squeeze.

Marti shook her head and turned in desperation toward the back room. Her head throbbed as she took the steps two at a time to her apartment above the gallery. She plunged onto the comforter stretched across the bed and buried her tears in the pillow.

All the pain, the deep sorrow, the loneliness that plagued her for the last three years came gushing from her heart to her eyes. She thought she was over the devastation, but one glimpse of the man she loved brought it all back in full force.

Her heart yearned to stomp back into the gallery and confront him—to hear the truth of what happened that night three years ago in Texas. But the superior look on Veronica’s face stopped her. Veronica’s possessive claim of Daniel’s attention spoke more than words could say. She obviously had stepped in and claimed Daniel as her own when Marti left.

Marti sat up slowly and reached for the tiny gold chain she wore around her neck. At the end of the long length was a miniature horse’s head—carved from wood with intricate detail. A shiny emerald in the horse’s mane glittered in the light. It was one of a matching set. Daniel had carved them for her as a gift for their third anniversary. The rest of the set had been left behind when she was forced to leave Daniel’s home. She rubbed the tiny horse’s smooth surface as tears once again burned through her thoughts.

TWO

M
ARTI RALLIED WHEN SHE HEARD
Sandra climbing the stairway at the end of the apartment.

“Marti, love? Are you okay?”

Marti sat up in bed and sighed. A headache pounded between her temples.

Sandra came in and sat down beside her. “He’s gone.”

Marti nodded—a whole universe of hurt burned in her eyes. “His eyes were blank—like he didn’t recognize me at all, and I don’t believe he was pretending.”

Sandra shrugged. “What are you going to do now?”

Marti rubbed her eyes with her fingers. “Go on with my life.”

“The counselor said confronting your fear is the only way to heal, Marti. Go talk to Daniel. At least find out what happened between you.”

“No way. I can’t handle it.” Marti’s shook her head. “Sandra, I can’t remember everything that happened that day in Texas, but I still have nightmares about the hours in the hospital—the pain, the depression, waiting for Daniel to come to me after the accident. He never came. And the things he said when I returned home still torture me in the wee hours of the night.”

Marti trembled uncontrollably.

Sandra patted Marti’s arm comfortingly. “Sweetie, you told me Daniel sent you away, but you never said why. Do you know?”

Marti shook her head. The loss and pain of the accident were hard to live through but were nothing compared to the shocked agony over Daniel’s surprise welcome home.

“I thought it was because I was to blame for the accident. But he called me horrible names and never gave me reasons why.” She took a tremulous breath. “A policeman picked me up from the hospital and took me straight to the police station in Carson City. When they realized I couldn’t remember anything about the accident, they took me home. The funeral for Daniel’s sister and her husband was that day, and when I got home, Daniel was furious. He shouted at me to get out. He said he . . .” Marti sobbed and took deep breaths so she could continue. “He said he never w-wanted to see me again. When I tried to argue with him . . . he . . . he slapped me.” Marti’s hand automatically touched her cheek as if she could still feel the searing pain of the blow.

Sandra drew in a shocked breath, and her eyes widened. Marti stood up and paced the room.

“Daniel blamed me for the accident that killed his sister and brother-in-law. Then his father came in. Gerald said the same thing . . . only in much stronger language. My head nearly vibrated when he shouted, ‘You’re a disgrace to this family. Nothing can ever undo what you’ve done. Leave this house and never come back.’”

“Oh, Marti.”

Marti sat back down on the bed and hung her head in her hands.

“Is that when you left?”

Marti nodded. “I got a hotel room in town until after the judge’s ruling. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t remember anything about the accident. That’s what hurt—the accusations they hurled at me might have been true.”

“Oh, love, I doubt that. You’re too sweet a person to do anything beastly. I can’t believe for a minute you’d do anything to shame anyone.”

Marti shuddered. Even after three years, the heartless claims pulsed inside her like the pain of a sore tooth.

“They didn’t give you any kind of reason? No facts?”

“I don’t know, Sandra. I can’t remember. I was so devastated. I can hardly remember that day—only that the one who promised to love me ‘in sickness and in health’ didn’t anymore. Instead, he stopped loving me that day and ordered me to leave the only home I’d ever known since the orphanage.”

Sandra frowned and shook her head. She waited patiently for Marti to continue.

“I packed my clothes and walked out the same day. My eyes were so blurry from crying that I could hardly see, and my heart was broken into a million pieces. I left with nothing but a suitcase full of clothes and the car Daniel gave me for a wedding gift, and I wouldn’t have taken that if I’d had any other way of leaving. I even left my wedding rings behind—sitting on the bedside table.”

“What about this woman, Veronica? Do you think she had anything to do with Daniel’s rejection?”

Marti shook her head. “No, but I do remember her being at the house the day I came home from the hospital. She and her mother brought food after the funeral.”

“What’s her connection with Daniel?”

“She and Daniel were neighbors; the ranches connect on the back fence line. Both their parents raise quarter horses, and they spent a lot of time together growing up. After Daniel and I married, Parker, the Rushing’s butler, told me Shane and Mary Duke had pushed Veronica and Daniel together every chance they could, knowing it was Veronica’s dream to marry Daniel one day.”

“But you came along and swept Daniel off his feet.”

Marti sighed and leaned back on her elbows. “We met at a regional rodeo. Immediately, our feelings for each other blossomed into something more than friendship. He never left my side until our wedding a year later.”

“Did that upset the Dukes?”

“They never seemed to be upset. Even Veronica had someone make us a handmade quilt for a wedding gift. Shane and Mary gave us a silver tea set from Germany.”

“Don’t you think it’s time to go back and confront him about the accusations? Find out why he called you those horrible names?”

“How can I do that when he doesn’t even remember who I am? I know I’ve changed some in the last three years, but surely I’m not unrecognizable.”

“Surely he remembers what happened three years ago. You need to ask. You just admitted you left without finding out why he sent you away. I can still see the circle of pain in your eyes, Marti, and it’s growing like a festering sore. You need to lance the wound so the pain will go away. Maybe you were too distraught back then to get to the bottom of the wedge that tore you apart, but you’re strong enough now to handle it.”

Marti shook her head and shuddered. “What about my stalker?”

“Do you still think Daniel was the one stalking you?”

Marti frowned. “I don’t know.”

“I thought you told me the investigating officer in Alabama said Daniel couldn’t have been involved because he was overseas during those months. Why do you still think it was him?”

Marti shrugged. “I guess because Daniel showed me a side of him I didn’t know existed when he threw me out of the house. In our four years of marriage, I never saw him angry. Not once. And, just because he had an alibi doesn’t mean he didn’t hire someone to make those calls and to vandalize my apartments and my car. What a nightmare—flat tires on my car, all the mirrors broken in my apartment, furniture vandalized in my bedroom. Wherever I moved, it was the same. I tried to run, to hide from him, but no matter where I went, he found me—in four different states. And the phone calls . . .” She shuddered.

“You never told me about the phone calls.”

Marti stood up and paced across the room and back.