The Stars of Mithra: Hidden Star

“I’m devastated. I really hoped you’d be married, with six kids. I really only enjoy making love with married women.”

“No, I meant… Was it—was I—was everything all right?”

“Bailey.” On a half laugh, he rolled over so that she could settle on his chest. “You’re perfect. Absolutely, completely perfect. I love you.” She went very still, and her cheek stayed pressed to his heart. “You know I do,” he said quietly. “From the moment I saw you.”

Now she wanted to weep, because it was everything she wanted to hear, and nothing she could accept. “You don’t know me.”

“Neither do you.”

She lifted her head, shook it fiercely. “That’s exactly the point. Joking about it doesn’t change the truth.”

“Here’s the truth, then.” He sat up, took her firmly by the shoulders. “I’m in love with you. In love with the woman I’m holding right now. You’re exactly what I want, what I need, and sweetheart—” he kissed her lightly “—I’m keeping you.”

“You know it’s not that simple.”

“I’m not asking for simple.” He slid his hands down, gripped hers. “I’m asking you to marry me.”

“That’s impossible.” Panicked, she tugged on her hands, but he gripped them calmly and held her in place. “You know that’s impossible. I don’t know where I come from, what I’ve done. I met you three days ago.”

“That all makes sense, or would, except for one thing.” He drew her against him and shot reason to hell with a kiss.

“Don’t do this.” Torn to pieces, she wrapped her arms around his neck, held tight. “Don’t do this, Cade. Whatever my life was, right now it’s a mess. I need to find the answers.”

“We’ll find the answers. I promise you that. But there’s one I want from you now.” He drew her head back. He’d expected the tears, knew they’d be shimmering in her eyes and turning them deep gold. “Tell me you love me, Bailey, or tell me you don’t.”

“I can’t—”

“Just one question,” he murmured. “You don’t need a yesterday to answer it.”

No, she needed nothing but her own heart. “I can’t tell you I don’t love you, because I can’t lie to you.” She shook her head, pressed her fingers to his lips before he could speak. “I won’t tell you I do, because it wouldn’t be fair. It’s an answer that has to wait until I know all the others. Until I know who the woman is who’ll tell you. Give me time.”

He’d give her time, he thought when her head was nestled on his shoulder again. Because nothing and no one was taking her from him, whatever they found on the other side of her past.

Cade liked to say that getting to a solution was just a matter of taking steps. Bailey wondered how many more there were left to climb. She felt she’d rushed up a very long staircase that day, and when reaching the landing been just as lost as ever.

Not entirely true, she told herself as she settled down at the kitchen table with a notepad and pencil. Even the urge to make a list of what she knew indicated that she was an organized person, and one who liked to review things in black and white.

Who is Bailey?

A woman who habitually rose at the same hour daily. Did that make her tedious and predictable, or responsible? She liked coffee black and strong, scrambled eggs, and her steaks medium rare. Fairly ordinary tastes. Her body was trim, not particularly muscular, and without tan lines. So, she wasn’t a fitness fanatic or a sun-worshiper. Perhaps she had a job that kept her indoors.

Which meant, she thought with some humor, she wasn’t a lumberjack or a lifeguard.

She was a right-handed, brown-eyed blonde, and was reasonably sure her hair color was natural or close to what she’d been born with.

She knew a great deal about gemstones, which could mean they were a hobby, a career, or just something she liked to wear. She had possession of a diamond worth a fortune that she’d either stolen, bought—highly unlikely, she thought—or gained through an accident of some sort.

She’d witnessed a violent attack, possibly a murder, and run away.

Because that fact made her temple start to throb again, she skipped over it.

She hummed classical music in the shower and liked to watch classic film noir on television. And she couldn’t figure out what that said about her personality or her background.

She liked attractive clothes, good materials, and shied away from strong colors unless pushed.

It worried her that she might be vain and frivolous.

But she had at least two female friends who shared part of her life. Grace and M.J., M.J. and Grace. Bailey wrote the names on the pad, over and over, hoping that the simple repetition would strike a fresh spark.

They mattered to her, she could feel that. She was frightened for them and didn’t know why. Her mind might be blank, but her heart told her that they were special to her, closer to her than anyone else in the world.

But she was afraid to trust her heart.

There was something else she knew that Bailey didn’t want to write down, didn’t want to review in black and white.

She’d had no lover. There’d been no one she cared for enough, or who cared for her enough, for intimacy. Perhaps in the life she led she’d been too judgmental, too intolerant, too self-absorbed, to accept a man into her bed.

Or perhaps she’d been too ordinary, too boring, too undesirable, for a man to accept her into his.

In any case, she had a lover now.

Why hadn’t the act of lovemaking seemed foreign to her, or frightening, as it seemed it would to the uninitiated? Instead, with Cade, it had been as natural as breathing.

Natural, exciting and perfect.

He said he loved her, but how could she believe it? He knew only one small piece of her, a fraction of the whole. When her memory surfaced, he might find her to be the very type of woman he disliked.

No, she wouldn’t hold him to what he’d said to this Bailey, until she knew the whole woman.

And her feelings? With a half laugh, she set the pencil aside. She’d been drawn to him instantly, trusted him completely the moment he took her hand. And fallen in love with him while she watched him stand in this kitchen, breaking brown eggs into a white bowl.

But her heart couldn’t be trusted in this case, either. The closer they came to finding the truth, the closer they came to the time when they might turn from each other and walk away.

However much she wished it, they couldn’t leave the canvas bag and its contents in his safe, forget they existed and just be.

“You forgot some things.”

She jolted, turned her head quickly and looked into his face. How long, she wondered, had he been standing behind her, reading her notes over her shoulder, while she was thinking of him?

“I thought it might help me to write down what I know.”

“Always a good plan.” He walked to the fridge, took out a beer, poured her a glass of iced tea.

She sat feeling foolish and awkward, her hands clutched in her lap. Had they really rolled naked on a sun-washed bed an hour before? How was such intimacy handled in a tidy kitchen over cold drinks and puzzles?

He didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Cade sat across from her, propped his feet on an empty chair and scooted her pad over. “You’re a worrier.”

“I am?”