The Right Side Of The Law

It was a viable excuse, one Salva couldn’t contest. Everyone knew their daughter had been fussy for the past two days; it was amazing how a tiny two-and-a-half-year-old could disrupt even the most rigid of households. And the Maland home, located on a small island in the Caribbean just off the coast of Belize, was the most well-guarded, efficiently run home Kristen had ever seen.

“Then this isn’t about this morning. You’re not punishing me, are you? Because if that’s what this is about, I swear—”

“It’s not,” Kristen assured, though Salva’s cruelty before dawn had made her final decision easier.

She was so tired. Tired of being afraid. Tired of being on her best behavior or else. Tired of asking herself the same questions over and over again—such as who was this man who claimed to be her husband? And why had she agreed to marry a man she couldn’t remember falling in love with?

But if she knew that, she would also know the standard information a healthy mind takes for granted. She would know her own birthday and remember her parent’s faces. She would know where she’d grown up, and if she’d shared her childhood with other siblings.

Oh, Salva had given her answers. Three years ago, when she’d opened her eyes and found herself naked in his huge brass bed, he’d assured her that there was nothing to worry about; she was safe, at home with her loving husband. Then he had filled in the blanks: she was Kristen Harris from St. Petersburg, Florida. She was twenty-one, and as far as he knew, she had no family. He suspected her real name wasn’t Harris, he told her, because she had been eluding the police at the time they’d met.

That particular news had shocked her, and seeing that it had, Salva had patted her hand and assured her that whatever mistakes she’d made were unimportant. That he and the island were her future—the perfect safe haven for a fugitive on the run.

Salva’s words had made sense. Still, Kristen had insisted on seeing a doctor. The next day her husband had sent for a neurologist. Dr. Eden—George to her husband—had explained her condition, calling it retrograde amnesia. In Kristen’s case, the blow to her head in the boating accident had been the culprit for her memory loss. In most cases the amnesia wasn’t permanent, Dr. Eden had attested. There was, however, no medicine or treatment to reverse her condition.

Three years later, Kristen was still playing a waiting game, still unable to remember anything past the morning she’d opened her eyes and learned she was the wife of a perfect stranger. A very dangerous stranger.

“Then you forgive me, Princess?”

Kristen blinked out of her muse. “Forgive you?”

“For this morning.”

She would never forgive him for that or for any of the other times he’d forced himself on her. But Kristen carefully nodded, her gaze drifting over the imposing naked body that lay beside her, knowing full well that whether she forgave him or not had nothing to do with the outcome of the next few hours.

In the moonlight, all six feet, two inches of Salvador Maland radiated danger and authority. He was the perfect male specimen—a tropical tan on an athletic body, and sinfully handsome. His commanding dark eyes almost too exotic for a man.

The island women thought him breathtaking. Kristen thought him frightening. The man behind the model’s build and the sculptured perfection was the epitome of arrogance—second only to his violent temper, which he demonstrated daily by making the maids cry and the guards shake in their boots. More than once Kristen had found herself backed into a corner pleading for mercy for herself or Amanda. And there, standing over her, wearing a smug expression while she squirmed like a vulnerable fish on a deadly hook, was this stranger who called himself her husband.

“I forbid you to leave this room tonight.” He raised his arm to rest his sleek, shaved head in the palm of his hand. “Amanda has a competent nanny. She doesn’t need you sitting up with her or walking the floor.”

Kristen had learned she was pregnant only a few short weeks after she’d opened her eyes and found herself on the island. As if dealing with an empty head and a strange husband wasn’t enough, for the next several months she had endured severe morning sickness. Seven months later she’d given birth to a little blond angel Salva had insisted they name Amanda after his mother, the island’s wealthy Creole grande dame, Miandera Maland.

In the beginning Kristen had wanted to believe Salva. She had wanted the island paradise to be her and Amanda’s refuge, and she had wanted Salva to be their savior—the hero every woman dreams of marrying. But as time passed it became clear that Salva was as dangerous and unpredictable as the jaguars that prowled the wildlife preserve at Cockscomb. He was a ruthless man, and his island paradise Kristen’s prison—a prison she ached to escape.

“Did you hear me? You will not leave my side tonight. Is that understood?”

“Salva, be reasonable. Amanda’s a baby. These rules of yours—”

Like a snake striking on instinct, he wrapped his fingers around Kristen’s neck. She fell silent, knowing what it would cost her if she challenged Salva’s authority further.

Her quick submission brought a gleam of satisfaction to his confident dark eyes. Slowly he traced her small, fragile mouth with a blunt-tipped finger. “Amanda will learn her lessons eventually.” His smile broadened, his eyes turning carnal. “And you, my lovely, have waited long enough to be rewarded for being so forgiving. Lie back, Princess.”

Dread swept over Kristen. “Salva, I don’t feel—”

His long fingers slid down her neck, squeezing and cutting off her protest, demanding that she flatten out on the bed. “You’re amazing,” he praised. “So fragile, and so remarkably perfect. From the moment I saw you, I knew I had to have you.”

Lavish compliments—this was the way it started—the prelude to several hours of enduring a woman’s worst nightmare. Dread seized the moment and Kristen began to beg. “Salva, please… I’m bruised and—”

“Shh. This morning I was angry,” he reasoned. “Tonight that’s not the case. I don’t enjoy hurting you, Princess.”

“But you do hurt me!” She regretted the words the minute she said them. His gaze turned brittle, and Kristen could see his temper begin to slowly build like a determined island storm.

“Are you thinking of denying me, Princess?” His eyes lit up, ready for the challenge.

She shook her head.

He leaned forward and brushed his lips over her mouth. His breath scalded her with the sickening scent of mint. “Mother says you’ve cast a spell over me. It’s true I’m unable to get enough of you. It’s been three years and I still…” He paused, his hard gaze studying her young face. “Are you a witch then, capable of bringing me to my knees? Or simply the most perfect creature a man could ever envision owning? I ask you, witch or wife, Princess?”

“Wife,” Kristen answered, motioning to the wine that sat on the nightstand. “A dutiful wife.”

He seemed pleased with her answer and, too, that she’d remembered the wine. He reached out and spread her long pale hair over the white satin pillowcase. “You’re my beautiful princess,” he mused out loud, then whispered, “and I’m your king.”

“I’m no princess,” Kristen refuted. Just a wife with no memory, she thought. A trapped wife, desperately seeking answers.

His cold hand covered her breast and squeezed, then slowly, possessively, he worked her nipple into a hard knot with his thumb. As he kissed her, his powerful gaze penetrated her soft brown eyes.

What was it? Kristen wondered. What was she reading in his eyes? Was it suspicion? Had she been careless earlier when she’d slipped into his private office? Had she failed to wipe clean her fingerprints when she’d taken the gun? Or was he simply testing her…again?

Kristen forced herself to snuggle against her husband’s naked body. Anything to distract him, she thought—even this.

“I need to see you,” he insisted, and quickly made a rag of the expensive nightgown.

Stripped in a heartbeat, Kristen squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart hammered against her chest and her breath caught in her throat. The desperate keening sound that escaped her lips was mistaken for passion and with a satisfied grunt, Salvador Maland lodged himself inside her. “Much better, Princess. Much better than this morning. Much…”

Kristen had been waiting, listening for her daughter’s birdlike voice to call to her. The moment she heard it, she slid from the bed, retrieved her robe, and left Salva sprawled on his stomach in a deep sleep. In Amanda’s room, she dismissed the nanny. “I’ll stay with her, Celia. You go back to bed.”

The nanny’s eyes widened, and Kristen knew why— Salva had given her strict instructions to stay with Amanda the entire night. “No, Mrs. Maland. No, no! I can’t leave.”

“It’s all right. My husband will sleep through the night. I’m sure of it,” Kristen said, recalling the two empty bottles that sat on the nightstand in their bedroom—a testimony to her husband’s passion for expensive wine. She ushered the young girl into the hall. “Don’t worry, Celia. I’ll see to Amanda’s fussing, and you,” she leaned to whisper, “if you’re not tired, should check on Captain Carmichael. He may be in need of a little distraction from his nightly guard duty.” She smiled, then winked at the pretty nanny.

The young dark-haired girl blushed. “Thank you, Mrs. Maland. You are so generous and kind.”

As soon as Kristen was left alone with her baby daughter, she lifted Amanda into her arms. “We need to hurry, sweetheart.”

Within minutes Kristen had Amanda dressed and sitting in the middle of the bed. The child resembled her mother, from her pale blond hair to her petite bone structure and delicate mouth. She was a shy little girl, with sweet brown eyes. Her mommy’s eyes.

Kristen went in search of the small black bag she’d stashed earlier in the far corner of the closet. From the bag, she pulled out a pair of jeans, a black T-shirt, and dark deck shoes. She dressed quickly, and while repacking the bag with necessities for Amanda, her fingers grazed hard steel.

Kristen hated guns, but the .22 derringer she’d hidden in the bag looked almost toylike in size, thus not so menacing. She’d actually chosen it because it was the smallest gun in Salva’s private collection and the one that might go unnoticed the longest. Then, too, it hadn’t looked all that complicated to load or shoot. No, she didn’t intend to use it on anyone. But the gun would be good for intimidation’s sake if necessary. No one needed to know she had never fired one before—that is, that she remembered.

Convinced she was doing the right thing, Kristen moved on to the next stage of her plan. With trembling hands, she forced herself to do the unthinkable—an act no mother would ever consider if she had a choice. She drugged her beloved Amanda with a small chip of one of her prescription sleeping pills.

Twenty minutes later Kristen shouldered the black bag, lifted her sleeping daughter into her arms, and slipped soundlessly down the grand hall of the Maland estate. She already knew where the guards would be and which escape route to take out of the house.

Praying Celia had lured Davis Carmichael away from his post at the front gate, she left the house. She had made friends with the guard dogs the first year on the island—her kindness rewarded this day by reaching the iron gate without alarming man or beast.

Unattended… Silently, Kristen thanked Celia for enticing Davis into one of the private gardens. Lifting her sleeping daughter’s foot, she punched the sequence of numbers she’d written on the sole of Amanda’s shoe into the electronic keypad. As the gate opened Kristen blinked back tears and hurried to the sailboat docked a quarter mile down the beach. She didn’t question her knowledge of sailing as she boarded the sleek vessel and stowed Amanda safely below; she simply thanked God for gifting her with a means to escape.