Читать книгу: «Mysterious Vows»

Chapter One

The June sunlight sparkled on the waters of the marina near Boothbay Harbor. The weather was idyllic, as temperate as it gets on the coast of Maine, and Jason Wakefield Walker turned his face upward to catch the warmth. The sun hovered directly overhead, above the masthead of his twenty-five-foot yacht, Elena. The masthead weather vane indicated a light wind from the north. It was noon. He had been waiting since seven o’clock this morning.

His source had left no communications since yesterday. Therefore he assumed there had been no change in plan. His assignment was to wait, however impatiently, for the arrival of Maria Ramos Hernandez.

He sat in the cockpit of the Elena and stretched his long legs in front of him. The sun’s heat penetrated his khaki slacks and eased the constant ache in his injured left leg. It felt good, but Jason was not yet ready to gracefully accept small pleasures. He’d lost too much. Silently he cursed the fate that had broken his body and reduced him to this position.

He was nothing more than a messenger boy. Waiting and sitting when there was so much more to be done.

“Jason!” His older sister, Alice, called to him as she marched surefooted along the marina walkway and stopped at the Elena‘s slip. Hands on hips, she glared at him. “What are you doing? Just sitting here?”

“Thinking.”

“Wasting your time away,” she accused.

“Not at all,” he said, glancing at his cane. “Moments of quiet contemplation befit a man in my position.”

“Well, excuse me, Mr. Socrates, but there are some of us who still try to get things done.”

Alice was a human whirlwind who was always busy—giving orders, organizing, cleaning and planning. Long ago, Jason had learned that the best method for dealing with this human cyclone was to take cover and wait until she passed.

Rapid-fire, she rattled off a list of very important tasks. “Have you done all that?”

He nodded.

“Oh? Then, I guess the rest is up to me.” Her forehead puckered in a frown. “She’s not here yet, is she?”

“No,” he said simply.

“Where is she?”

“Maria will be here.”

“I simply cannot believe that you gave her such ridiculous directions.” Teasing, she impersonated his low baritone, “`Meet me at the Boothbay Marina, slip eighty-six.’”

He shrugged.

“Why didn’t you meet her at the plane? Or her bus? It’s the least you could do, Jason. After all, she’s coming here all the way from Central America.”

“She didn’t want it that way,” he lied. He had never spoken to Maria. Only to his source.

“I wonder why. Proving her independence?” Alice theorized. “Maybe she needs to show you that she’s capable of getting around by herself. That’s good. That’s the sort of woman you need.”

“Maybe.”

A windy sigh gusted through her lips. “Oh, Jason. I’m still not comfortable with this. I wish you at least loved this woman.”

“We’ll learn to care about each other and take care of each other,” he said. “Isn’t that what marriage is about?”

“But this? A mail-order bride?”

Jason repeated the cover story that he’d told so many times. “I need a woman on Passaquoit Island. Especially now. With my injuries, I need someone around. I don’t have the time or inclination to shop for a wife. That was why I placed all those advertisements in Spanish newspapers. I’m delighted that a suitable woman has responded.”

“You could hire a nurse—”

“I don’t need a nurse.”

“A housekeeper, then. Why marry the woman?” She frowned. “You’re so eligible, Jason. Thirty-five, single, and fairly well-off. You could still be a doctor, you know, if you went back to medical school and finished your internship. It wouldn’t take—”

“Alice, stop.”

“It’s just that I know so many nice ladies that would make marvelous wives.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“A mail-order bride,” she muttered. “I’ve never heard of such a ridiculous, antiquated concept. And where is she? It would serve you right if she didn’t show up. Tomorrow is the wedding, you know.”

“She’ll be here,” he said.

Of that, he was confident. Maria’s life depended upon fulfilling this complex plan.

Alice checked her wristwatch. “I’ll be with the caterers. I hope you’re doing the right thing, Jason.”

“So do I.”

The afternoon dragged. Slowly, the sun rode the clear blue skies. Wavelets monotonously lapped against the hull, washing away the minutes. He’d already done the chores and cleaning that maintained the Elena in shipshape condition. And, contrary to what he’d told his sister, there was only so much quiet contemplation he could stand.

Using high-powered binoculars, Jason spied on the woodpeckers in the pines and the gulls overhead. He watched the fishing boats retrieve the day’s catch from lobster traps. And he surveyed the shoreline, again and again, looking for Maria.

If something had gone wrong, how would the source contact him? Jason had never met this person. His only source was a voice on the phone and an occasional letter. They had not discussed the possibility of Maria not showing up.

Late in the afternoon, a Friday afternoon, activity picked up at the marina. The graceful sailboats, the sleek motorcraft, the festive party barges received their inhabitants.

Jason far preferred the solitude. The fewer witnesses, the better. From his pocket he took out a one-page letter, the only message he’d received directly from Maria. Though she was an accomplished journalist, English was her second language and the sentences, written in neat script, seemed halting.

Dear Mr. Walker,

My intense gratitude belongs to you. For your proposal and protection, I thank you so much. We shall succeed in our journey. We must.

Between the lines he saw bravery and strength of character. Maria was willing to sacrifice everything for patriotism, for the love of her small Central American country and hatred of injustice. He hoped the privacy and protection he could offer would be sufficient.

At dusk he scanned with his binoculars and saw a woman standing immobile on the shore, staring through the forest of sailboat masts. A family, toting picnic baskets, separated to walk around her. She took no notice.

Maria? She wore Levi’s and a T-shirt. Her long black hair was yanked back in a ponytail. Though she carried no luggage, she wore a red scarf around her throat.

Jason’s heart took a leap. The red scarf was the first signal of recognition.

She stumbled as she walked along the planks of the pier. Even at this distance, he discerned the slump of her shoulders and a drag in her step. The woman appeared to be exhausted, which was not surprising. If this was Maria, she’d just completed a journey of more than two thousand miles.

As he observed her progress through his binoculars, Jason found himself hoping that this was the woman he had been waiting for, the woman he would wed. Despite her exhaustion, she seemed to be reasonably attractive, and his pride was appeased that he would not be stuck marrying an ugly woman. Even if the mail-order marriage was nothing but a cover story, he would be required to introduce her as his bride.

She entered the marina, passed the boathouse.

Using his cane, he climbed out of the cockpit and stood beside the slip. After waiting so long, he felt like running toward her—as if he could run. But the instructions were clear. She was to come to him.

She stood beside the marker for slip number eighty-six, turned her head and looked up at him. Her eyes were an odd shade of hazel, almost green. Their pale color stood out dramatically against her dusky complexion.

Without saying a word, she held up her left hand and he saw the heavy gold ring inscribed with branches of thorns and a golden rose.

“Maria?”

She looked puzzled but nodded. He held out his hand to help her into the boat. Her touch was cold, trembling. He asked, in Spanish, if she was all right, if she needed anything.

In Spanish, she replied, “Sleep. I must sleep.”

He guided her into the cabin, and she crawled onto the V-berth in the forward hull and thanked him. Before he could question her to find out why she was so late, she was unconscious, curled up on the bed, sound asleep.

In repose, her features were delicate. Thick lashes formed dark crescents on her high cheekbones. Her lips parted as she breathed shallowly.

Her journey had been difficult, he thought. But she was here now, and he would make certain no one harmed her.

While she slept, he motored back to the island. There was a need for haste, and no time for sailing, so he did not hoist the dolphin sail on the Elena‘s mast. They crossed the twenty-two miles of open sea to Passaquoit Island at a smooth, even clip.

* * *

THE HEAVY MIST that blanketed her mind parted, showing light, but her eyelids were closed. Was she dead?

She was falling again, struggling up from liquid darkness. She must be dreaming, but her sensation was utterly real. She struggled against the paralyzing weakness, fought to shake off the cloying miasma that suffocated her. Falling.

She felt an arm at her waist. On her shoulder.

She was not alone.

The hands tightened their grasp.

Her eyelids snapped open. The profusion of light and color startled her. There was sunlight pouring through tall windows. Not darkness. She gulped air, filling her lungs. Her heart throbbed painfully beneath her rib cage. And her head— Oh, God, her head and shoulders ached.

“Maria, cómo está usted?”

She looked into the eyes of a stranger. In Spanish he repeated, “Maria, are you all right?”

“Muerte,” she murmured. Death. The angel of death had been so near she could feel its chilling embrace. “Where am I?”

“On the island.”

An island? She had no recollection of how she’d come to be here. Her mind was blank. Something terrible must have happened, something that had spun her life out of control.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am your husband-to-be. You are my bride.”

Her husband? Surely that could not be possible. The man was lying to her. She had a vague sense of other men, dangerous men who wanted to kill her. Was he one of them?

She sat bolt upright on the sofa where she had been reclining. Her head rang with fierce pain. Thunderbolts crashed inside her skull. She groaned. “My head.”

“Don’t you remember?” he asked.

Her instincts warned her to play along with him, to tell him what he wanted to hear. “Sí, I remember.”

Her fingers coursed down the length of white fabric of the dress she was wearing. Simple lace at the neck, polished cotton, long sleeves and a full skirt. A wedding gown.

Without knowing how or why, she’d dropped into a strange reality. And she was about to be a bride.

“Maria. We need to do this now.”

He spoke Spanish with the fluency of a native, but she detected an American accent in his inflection and tone. His words were slower than a native speaker’s. “We need to get started,” he said. “We need to get this ceremony under way as soon as possible.”

“What ceremony?” She saw impatience in his dark gray eyes.

“The wedding.”

Her head was pounding. She raised her fingertips to her temples and massaged lightly. Her forehead felt like it might explode.

“Are you ill?” he asked.

Dying, she thought. The misery spread to her neck and shoulders. Yet she said to him, “I will survive.”

“I don’t understand why your head hurts. I’ve examined you thoroughly. You have some bruises and a cracked rib. But I don’t see evidence of a head injury. Do you have a history of migraines?”

“No, but I need an aspirin. Please. Por favor.“

He took her hand. From a small vial, he tapped a blue-and-white capsule into her open palm and passed her a glass of water that had been standing on a table beside the sofa.

Though the pounding in her head threatened to consume her, she hesitated. What had he given her? A drug that would destroy the remnants of her brain? Suspiciously she demanded, “What kind of pill is this? What will it do to me?”

“I told you before,” he said. “I gave you some of this pain medication last night. I use it for my leg, but it seems to work on your headaches.”

If she’d taken one of these capsules before, she should have remembered. But her memory was gone, erased.

“Take it,” he ordered sharply. “There isn’t time for you to have a headache.”

She didn’t know this man. But the pain behind her eyes was so intense that she would have to risk the medication. She couldn’t begin to think until this agony subsided. She tossed back the capsule and washed it down.

“Listen carefully, Maria. No one must suspect there is anything wrong. Comprende? Do you understand?”

She lay back on the sofa, concentrated on breathing evenly while she waited for the pain to lessen. Why was he calling her Maria? That wasn’t her name. It was... An involuntary sob shuddered her body. Her name was...

Oh, God, why couldn’t she remember this basic, essential piece of herself? Calm down. Try to think.

She heard someone else enter the room. A woman.

In English the woman asked, “Is she all right?”

“She’ll be okay, Alice. Don’t worry.”

“I don’t think she’s well. Last night and this morning, she had a weird, blank look. Like she was awake, but not conscious. You should call off the wedding.”

“Maria will be fine. She’s tough. Comes from a tough country.”

“Well, it looks to me like something more serious than a case of prenuptial jitters.”

“Leave this to me.” His voice was harsh. “I know what I’m doing.”

The woman hovered above her. “Maria?”

She opened her eyes. Though it wasn’t her name, she would be Maria.

“Maria, do you need a doctor?”

“I’ll make that decision,” the man said. “Please leave us, Alice. We’ll be ready soon.”

When the woman backed away, Maria wanted to call out to her, to tell her that she needed a doctor, needed to talk to someone in authority. But what would this man—this stranger—do if she caused a problem?

“You’ll be all right,” the man said. “Close your eyes and let the medication work.”

Gradually the aching began to fade. Her mind felt more clear. She sat up, turning her head slowly so she wouldn’t jar the fragile relief.

The man sat in a wingback chair next to the sofa. In spite of his obvious impatience, he was very handsome. There was an aristocratic sculpting to his features. Near his hairline, where his thick, dark hair swept back off a high forehead, she saw the start of a faded scar that extended to the brow above his left eye.

She sensed that she ought to know him, but her memory didn’t seem willing to function. “Cómo se llama?”

“My name? You want to know my name?”

He regarded her with a mixture of astonishment and irritation. Too angry, she thought, to be a caring husband. Why had he brought her here? Who was he?

Her eyes squeezed shut, then she opened them again. She needed to think, to create logic from the crippling confusion that churned inside her brain, making her stupid, foolish, ridiculous. She had to proceed intelligently if she hoped to survive. Of that much, she was certain.

More information. She needed to gather facts.

The small room where they sat was furnished with dark wood antiques, but the wallpaper was light, patterned in gray fleur-de-lis. Sunlight poured through the lace curtains at the windows. They were alone, but she heard the mumblings of other people outside the closed oak door.

“I can’t call off the wedding,” he said. “I promise that the ceremony will be brief. You can get through it, then go upstairs to your room and sleep.”

“What will I be called,” she asked, rephrasing her earlier question, “when we are man and wife?”

“You will be Mrs. Jason Wakefield Walker the Third.”

An impressive name. But she had never heard it before. “And this will be my home. This...island.”

Outside the windows she saw scrub oak and pine. There were only a few wildflowers in splashes of yellow and red. The foliage was not typical of a tropical island where Spanish might be the native tongue, and yet she had spoken only Spanish.

“Please, Maria, try to concentrate.”

“Upon what? Tell me again.”

He sighed and began speaking in a low baritone. In spite of his obvious irritation, the sound of his voice was gentle and soothing.

Though she tried to listen and compile enough data to understand, a darkness rose up behind her eyes and she could feel herself tuning out. Was her delirium an effect of the capsule he’d given her? She stared blankly while he mentioned immigration and their enemies. In a dull voice, he concluded, “It is your assignment, today, to convince our guests that you are delighted to be my wife.”

A swell of organ music resounded from the opposite side of the closed door. “The Wedding March.” Surely she was dreaming.

Her fingers laced in a tight knot on her lap. The worst of the headache had ebbed. “I am feeling much better,” she said.

“I’m glad.” He sounded sympathetic, but his tightly clenched jaw and frowning eyebrows told another story. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

He certainly didn’t behave like a person who was about to be wedded. On the other hand, neither did she.

Maria... She repeated her new name to herself. I am Maria. And Maria had no time for marriage. There was her career to think of. She couldn’t just run off and get married. It would be unprofessional. She’d worked hard to develop her contacts, to become a...

A what? What did she do for a living? In her mind, she envisioned bookshelves, papers on a desk. When she tried to read the pages, to find a clue, the wind blew swiftly through the open window beside the desk and the sheaves of paper drifted and swirled like so many leaves caught in autumn breezes. And the wind came faster. Her mind filled with a white paper storm, and she was cold. Blank. Unable to remember.

“Maria!” he snapped again. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nada,” she murmured. “Nothing.”

She would tell him nothing until she knew if he was a friend or a foe.

There were people who wanted to hurt her, she realized with a shock. There were people who wanted to kill her. An unnatural terror coiled deep within her. Fear was her only certainty, and she must keep her secrets until she regained her ability to think.

He placed a bouquet of red roses and baby’s breath in her hand. Her wedding bouquet. She held the flowers close to her face, inhaling the fragrance.

He seemed gentler when he said, “These are for you, Maria.”

“Gracias.”

“Come along, now. This will only take a minute.”

He stood, and she noticed that his dark gray suit seemed too large for his tall, lean frame. He picked up a polished ebony cane with a silver head. When he walked to the door, his steps were halting. His left leg was stiff. Her first impulse was to run up beside him and help him, but she sensed that he would be displeased by her offer of assistance.

She opened her mouth to speak. What was his name again? “Jason Walker.”

He turned clumsily. Not comfortable with his cane. “Yes, Maria?”

She was about to be married. But did he love her? Did she love him? That seemed impossible. Even if her conscious mind had been erased, the emotion of love could not vanish. Her soul would remember being in love.

When she looked at this man, her heart trembled. Not with love, but with fear. How could she allow herself to be married to a man she couldn’t remember seeing before? She gestured hopelessly. “We cannot do this.”

“We can’t back out now. Your life depends upon it.”

A chill raced down her spine, and she knew he was telling the truth. Her very survival depended upon going through with this ceremony. She must not flinch. In a low, determined voice, she said, “Sí, Mr. Walker. I will marry you.”

“Thank you.” He nodded. “By the way, you look very pretty in your gown. Maria, you make a beautiful bride.”

Jason hobbled from the small parlor, closed the door behind him and forced himself to smile at the guests in the front room. His sister, Alice, bustled up to him. Her china blue eyes were wide with concern. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine. Maria needs a moment alone.”

“And you, Jason? How are you?”

“Couldn’t be better.” With Alice beside him, he edged across the rear of the room and went into his office. “I’ll be out in just a moment.”

“Should I check on Maria?”

“You’d know better than I would.”

“Oh, Jason!” She gave a short, exasperated sigh. “You never did understand women, did you?”

“Apparently not.”

He closed the door to his study.

Maria Ramos Hernandez was not what he’d expected. He’d been told that she was strong and brave, a ferocious fighter when threatened. But no one had mentioned her beauty. And the woman who waited in the parlor to become his bride was a creature of surpassing loveliness. Her thick, wavy black hair tumbled past her shoulders in a riot of curls. Her eyes shone like green emeralds in her dusky complexion. Jason was sorry that this would be a marriage in name only.

When she looked at him with that beguiling innocence, he wanted to touch her, to kiss her ripe, full lips, to soothe her fears.

She had refused to speak of the journey. Since he’d picked her up in his boat, she had done nothing more than sleep, bathe, and take in barely enough food to satisfy a hummingbird.

No doubt, there had been difficulties along her route. Maria had arrived ten hours late with several fresh bruises. Most disturbing, however, was her apparent memory loss. Her short-term memory was gone. She forgot everything he told her from one minute to the next, and must have asked his name half a dozen times.

Alice had been correct when she’d suggested that Maria see a doctor. Though her injuries weren’t immediately life-threatening and her vital signs were good, he was worried about her. He wasn’t sure of her medical history, wasn’t sure exactly how treatment should be handled.

It was dangerous to make any unplanned moves. At his desk, he picked up the telephone and punched out the number he had tried at least a dozen times since Maria had arrived. He allowed the phone to ring and ring. There was still no answer.

He replaced the receiver on the hook. “Damn.”

It was a hell of a time for his source to be missing.

He limped gingerly through the door and skirted the edge of the small gathering of guests and witnesses, greeting some and accepting congratulations from others. Jason took his place beside the reverend, positioning his weight carefully and trying to ignore the constant ache from his shattered leg. The doctors assured him that someday he would be able to move around freely, and he was doing so well now that he barely needed the cane. But there would always be pain.

Jason nodded to his sister and she opened the door to the parlor adjoining the larger room. Everyone turned to catch their first glimpse of the bride. There were gasps when they recognized, as he had, that Maria made a beautiful bride, clad in white, holding her rose bouquet. Her black hair shone with a magnificent luster.

Reverend Blaylock whispered to him, “Very attractive.”

“Yes,” Jason answered. “I know.”

Maria stood frozen in the doorway, her shoulders straight and her small chin lifted defiantly. The woman who played the piano paused with her fingers lifted above the keys, then she started again to play “The Wedding March.”