Long-Lost Wife? Read online

  “I won’t go home with you!”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Also by

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  “I won’t go home with you!”

  Annabel clutched at the sheet on her hospital bed.

  She tried to tell Luis that she didn’t believe he was her husband and she didn’t want to go with him.

  But before she could speak, he told the nurse, “My wife is becoming agitated.”

  “No,” Annabel said, “I’m not. I—” She felt the prick of a needle and tried to object. “But—”

  Luis interrupted. “Take it easy, my dear,” he soothed. “You’ll rest and feel better.”

  “I don’t want to rest.” She fought the mist that closed around her. She didn’t want to be alone with Luis.

  He looked at her, a strange and knowing smile in his silver-gray eyes. “Sleep, my dear,” he said. “When you wake, I’ll be right here with you.”

  And that, of course, was what she was afraid of.

  Dear Reader,

  We’ve got six great books for you this month, and three of them are part of miniseries you’ve grown to love. Dallas Schulze continues A FAMILY CIRCLE with Addie and the Renegade. Dallas is known to readers worldwide as an author whose mastery of emotion is unparalleled, and this book will only enhance her well-deserved reputation. For Cole Walker, love seems like an impossibility—until he’s stranded with Addie Smith, and suddenly... Well, maybe I’d better let you read for yourself. In Leader of the Pack, Justine Davis keeps us located on TRINITY STREET WEST. You met Ryan Buckhart in Lover Under Cover; now meet Lacey Buckhart, the one woman—the one wife!—he’s never been able to forget. Then finish off Laura Parker’s ROGUES’ GALLERY with Found: One Marriage. Amnesia, exes who still share a love they’ve never been able to equal anywhere else...this one has it all.

  Of course, our other three books are equally special. Nikki Benjamin’s The lady and Alex Payton is the follow-up to The Wedding Venture, and it features a kidnapped almost-bade. Barbara Faith brings you Long-Lost Wife? For Annabel the past is a mystery—and the appearance of a man claiming to be her husband doesn’t make things any clearer, irresistible though he may be. Finally, try Beverly Bird’s The Marrying Kind. Hero John Gunner thinks that’s just the kind of man he’s not, but meeting Tessa Hadley-Bryant proves to him just how wrong a man can be.

  And be sure to come back next month for more of the best romantic reading around—here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Yours.

  Leslie Wainger

  Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator

  * * *

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  * * *

  LONG-LOST WIFE?

  BARBARA FAITH

  Books by Barbara Faith

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  The Promise of Summer #16

  Wind Whispers #47

  Bedouin Bride #63

  Awake to Splendor #101

  Islands in Turquoise #124

  Tomorrow is Forever #140

  Sing Me a Lovesong #146

  Desert Song #173

  Kiss of the Dragon #193

  Asking for Trouble #208

  Beyond Forever #244

  Flower of the Desert #262

  In a Rebel’s Arms #277

  Capricorn Moon #306

  Danger in Paradise #332

  Lord of the Desert #361

  The Matador #432

  Queen of Hearts #446

  Cloud Man #502

  Midnight Man #544

  Desert Man #578

  Moonlight Lady #623

  Long-Lost Wife? #730

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Return to Summer #335

  Say Hello Again #436

  Heather on the Hill #533

  Choices of the Heart #615

  Echoes of Summer #650

  Mr. Macho Meets His Match #715

  This Above All #812

  Scarlet Woman #975

  Happy Father’s Day #1033

  Silhouette Desire

  Lion of the Desert #670

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  A Silence of Dreams #13

  Dark, Dark My Lover’s Eyes #43

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Summer Sizzlers 1988

  “Fiesta!”

  Silhouette Summer Sizzlers 1995

  “The Sheikh’s Woman”

  BARBARA FAITH, a long-time contributor to Silhouette Books, passed away in October of 1995. She will be greatly missed by her husband, fellow authors, friends and all the editors who have worked with her, and by her readers. Her books captured the spirit of adventure and love that she displayed throughout her life. Barbara’s warmth and energy were infectious and joyous and touched all who knew her in person and through her stories. She leaves behind a wonderful legacy.

  Prologue

  Bright, blinding sun. Burning her skin, parching her lips.

  Thirsty. Oh God, so thirsty. Ran her tongue over dry, cracked lips. Tried to move. Hurt too much. Everything hurt. Headache. Monster headache. She reached up to touch her head and felt crusted blood.

  Slept for a while. Awoke to the slap of waves against the small rubber boat.

  Night closed in around her. She slept again, and in her dreams she heard the screams and saw, as through a misty darkness, the terrible scene of violence.

  And wept dry tears.

  Another day. The sun blistered her skin, burned through her eyes into her skull. She dreamed of iced tea, chocolate sodas with cool, minty ice cream, ice cubes tinkling in a tall glass of lemonade.

  Another night. The same dream of horror. They screamed again. Who screamed again? Screamed and kept screaming.

  Daylight. No sun now. Mist rolling in. Enveloping her in moist coolness. She tried to catch the mist with her tongue, but when she knew she could not, she closed her eyes and drifted on the gentle sea, drifted into that fine mist.

  Chapter 1

  “Miss? Young lady?” A hand on her shoulder. “Come on now, wake up.”

  The light hurt her eyes. She blinked, tried again and focused on the man bending over her. A dark-skinned man with wire-rimmed glasses. Large nose in a nice face. White coat.

  “I’m Dr. Hunnicut.”

  “That’s nice.” Her eyes drifted closed.

  “Stay awake,” he said. “Talk to me.”

  “Sleepy.”

  “You can sleep later.” He gave her shoulder a gentle nudge. “I want you to wake up now. Come on, open your eyes.”

  She tried to will him away, but when he wouldn’t go, she opened her eyes again. “Where...where am I?”

  “In a hospital in Nassau.”

  “My head hurts.”

  “You’ve had a concussion and you’ve got a bad sunburn.”

  That’s why her skin hurt.

  “You were dehydrated when you were picked up—”

  “Picked up?”

  “But you’re safe now, you’re going to be all right.” He leaned down and held a light in her right eye. “Look
up,” he ordered.

  She did and he said, “Uh-huh,” then turned the light on her left eye. When that was done, he said, “Can you tell me your name?”

  “It’s...” She stopped, a little bewildered, then took a deep breath and tried again. “My name is...” she looked up at the doctor, uncertain, frightened. “It’s...” Sweat beaded her forehead.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “Don’t be alarmed. A lapse of memory sometimes happens with a concussion. Can you tell me where you’re from or where you were going when the accident happened?”

  An accident? What kind of an accident? She willed herself to stay calm. “I’m from...”

  “Try to remember,” the doctor prodded.

  “Don’t push her.” A man she had never seen before stepped forward. “She’s tired. Let her rest.”

  She looked up, grateful to him for standing up for her. He was very tall, at least as she looked up at him from the bed he seemed very tall. He had a strong, somewhat angular face, a nicer nose than the doctor and silver gray eyes.

  “Your name is Annabel,” he said. “Annabel Alarcon.” He took her hand. “You’re my wife.”

  “Your...your wife?” Her heart started beating hard and she felt the gray mists closing in around her again.

  His hand tightened on hers. He leaned closer, holding her with his silver eyes. “Annabel Alarcon.” His voice became a whisper through the tunnel of her darkness. “Annabel. Annabel...my wife.”

  No, I’m not! she thought she said. But the words were unspoken and the mist enveloped her.

  Screams cut through the darkness of her mind, piercing and shrill. “My God! Oh my God, what’s happening? What...what are you doing?”

  Screams echoing in her mind before they faded into nothingness.

  Oh please, oh please, oh please...

  A bright kaleidoscope of color whirling round and round in her brain. Colors so bright they hurt her eyes; flames orange and blood red that ripped and tore upward through the sky. Up and up before they fell back on top of her. The sky was falling...falling.

  She screamed... ,

  “Annabel. Annabel, my dear, you’re dreaming. Wake up.”

  “Oh, God,” she moaned. “They were screaming.”

  He put his arms around her and, lifting her close, whispered, “Who was screaming, Annabel? Tell me. Tell me about your dream.”

  “No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. Tell me.”

  She shuddered and brought her hands up to cover her eyes.

  He took her hands away. He smoothed her hair from her face and, when she was a little calmer, asked, “What happened on the boat, Annabel?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She was trembling, her teeth were chattering.

  “Try, Annabel. Try to remember.”

  “No.” She pulled away from him. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Luis Miguel. I’m your husband.”

  Luis Miguel. The name meant nothing.

  He eased her back into the bed. In the dim light from a lamp at the other end of the room, she looked up at him. His face was too strong, too masculine. Very tanned. His eyebrows were dark, his nose was straight. His silver gray eyes, Spanish eyes, she thought, seemed to be hiding secrets she could not understand. His mouth... The breath caught in her throat. His mouth was both sensuous and cruel, as cruel as pictures she had seen of the ascetics who had ruled over the Spanish Inquisition.

  “Luis Miguel Alarcon,” he said. “Your husband.”

  “What...what kind of a name is Alarcon?”

  “Spanish”

  Spanish eyes. She wondered how she’d known.

  “My family came from the north of Spain, near Burgos.”

  She shivered and he said, “Are you cold? Do you want a blanket? Shall I turn down the air-conditioning?”

  “No.” She gripped the edge of the sheet. “No, I’m all right.”

  “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal.”

  “Have I?” She shook her head. “But I don’t remember. Tell me...please tell me what happened.”

  He pulled a chair closer to the bed. “You were picked up by a fishing boat and flown to the hospital here in Nassau. You had been found drifting in a rubber raft thirty miles east of Eleuthera.” He took her hand. “I chartered a plane and flew in two days ago.”

  “But if I didn’t know who I was, how did you... why did you think it was me?”

  “You went to Miami ten days ago to do some shopping. The night before you were to fly back, you called to say you were going to return on a friend’s boat. I didn’t want you to. We argued, but you insisted. That was five days ago.”

  “I don’t understand. I flew to Miami from where?”

  “We’ll talk about that later.”

  “But what happened?”

  “All anyone knows is that there was an explosion at sea and that you were the only survivor.”

  “An explosion?” She touched her head, trying to remember. And when she could, she asked, “Where do you live?”

  “Not me, Annabel. We. We live on San Sebastian.”

  “San...?” She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s a small island in the Bahamas, north of the Caicos. It’s our private island.” He tightened his hand around hers. “I’ll take you there as soon as the doctor says you’re able to travel.”

  She couldn’t do that, couldn’t go anywhere with this man, this stranger. Frightened now, she said, “I don’t know you. I don’t want to go with you.”

  “Annabel—”

  “I’m not Annabel. I’m...” She struggled up, frantic now, searching for a name. Searching...

  He rang for the nurse. She hurried in and he said, “My wife is upset. Can you give her something to help her sleep?”

  “Of course.”

  She reached for Annabel’s arm. “No!” Annabel said, and tried to pull away. “No, please.”

  “Now hush, dear.” The nurse gripped her arm, quickly swabbed a spot and inserted the needle. “You’ll rest now,” she said when she released Annabel.

  “I don’t want to rest,” Annabel protested. “I want to get out of here. I want to go back to...” Oh, God. Back to where? She saw him exchange a look with the nurse, raise an eyebrow and shake his head.

  She felt herself slipping away and fought to keep her eyes open. “No,” she whispered as the darkness closed in.

  The next morning a nurse with cocoa brown skin came into her room with a copy of the Miami Herald. She handed the newspaper to Annabel, announced that her name was Rebecca and, after she had taken Annabel’s blood pressure and temperature, said, “It’s a pure miracle, being picked up the way you were. The coast guard found some debris from a boat so they think you were on it and that there was an explosion of some kind.”

  She handed Annabel the newspaper. “It’s a couple of days old,” she said, “but I thought you’d like to catch up on what happened. The story’s on page three.”

  There was a picture of a woman being carried from the fishing boat onto the pier at Nassau. And a headline that read Mystery Woman Connected to Explosion at Sea.

  She stared at the photograph. “May I...” She swallowed hard. “May I have a mirror?”

  “There isn’t one. I mean, the only one is the mirror over the washstand in the bathroom.”

  “Please,” Annabel said.

  “All right. I have one in my purse. I’ll bring it.”

  The nurse hurried out of the room, and when she returned she handed Annabel a small mirror.

  She stared at the face in the mirror, a face she had no recollection of ever having seen before. Tangled blond hair. A brush of bangs over the wide forehead. A bump with stitches near her hairline. A long red scratch on her cheek and a bruise near her temple. And frightened blue eyes that looked almost too big for her face. The face of a stranger.

  She handed the mirror back. “I don’t know her,” she whispered.

&nb
sp; The nurse stared at her, startled, chagrined. With a shake of her head she said, “But you will. Soon as you feel better you’ll remember everything, Annabel.”

  Annabel. She looked at the face in the mirror. Did she look like an Annabel? And what, after all, did an Annabel look like?

  With hands that trembled, she picked up the newspaper and began to read. The story that followed told about the remnants of a boat, thought to be a pleasure craft, that had been found off the coast of Eleuthera. The coast guard had no idea as to its origin, the registry or the names of the owners. The only clue was a windbreaker jacket with the name Z. Flynn emblazoned on the chest that had been found floating with the wreckage.

  Flynn, the story read, was from Pompano Beach, Florida. He had been a captain for hire as well as a deep-sea diver.

  The story went on to recap her rescue and her transfer to Nassau. She had been wearing shorts and a shirt when she’d been picked up. She had no identification. The only thing that had been found was a gold doubloon in the pocket of her shorts.

  Annabel reread that part. A gold doubloon? Doubloons were...what? Old Spanish coins? They had to do with pirates and the Spanish Main. What was one doing in the pocket of her shorts? And where was the coin now?

  “Where are my clothes?” she asked the nurse. “It says in the paper that I was wearing shorts and a shirt when I was brought in.”

  “Your husband threw them away.”

  “And the...” Annabel indicated the story she had just read. “And the gold doubloon?” she asked.

  “I’m sure he must have it.” Rebecca grinned down at Annabel. “A gold doubloon to add to what he already has.”

  “He’s rich?”

  Rebecca looked surprised, then she smiled gently and said, “I forgot. You don’t remember, do you?”

  Annabel shook her head. “Not him, not anything.” She hesitated, then, motioning the nurse closer, whispered, “I really don’t believe he’s my husband.”