me. But I suppose I do owe you an explanation.” Taking in a stabilizing breath, she chose her words carefully. “In January, I was involved in an automobile accident. I sustained a head injury. Since then, there have been things I can’t remember. Like, um—” she braced herself, half afraid to utter the rest of the explanation “—Arianne’s last name. Or, where she was born…or—” she finished in a quieter tone “—who her father was.”
She then waited for the bomb to hit target.
At first, his face didn’t register a reaction. As the moment dragged out, his brows converged in a frown. “Are you trying to tell me…?”
He didn’t finish the incredulous question, so Kate finished it for him. “That I don’t know you. Or where you’re from, or anything about you.” When he continued to stare in stupefied silence, she added with fervent honesty, “That’s why I took your wallet. I wanted to see your license…to find out your name.”
CHAPTER FOUR
STUNNED INTO SPEECHLESSNESS, Mitch merely stared at her. Did she actually expect him to believe that she didn’t remember him?
Thoroughly annoyed, he jerked his attention away from her to meet Darryl’s eyes in the rearview mirror. His expression reflected Mitch’s feelings perfectly. Couldn’t remember. Right! Mitch squared his jaw and trained his gaze on the expressway ahead of them. He wouldn’t waste his time responding to her nonsense.
What, he wondered, was the motive behind this ridiculous new claim of hers?
As they exited the expressway and sped down the two-lane rural highway toward Florida’s Gulf Coast, her soft, hesitant voice broke the quiet. “When I first saw you today, the name ‘Mitch’ came to me.” She paused and studied him with wide, beautiful, troubled brown eyes. “Is that your name?”
Mitch couldn’t stop his lip from curling in derision. “No. It’s André.”
“André!” Her brows lifted, like golden wings poised for flight. Those brows soon converged above a frown of bewilderment. “Did anyone ever call you Mitch?”
“No.”
“But…you are Arianne’s father, right?”
That was about as much as Mitch could take. “You know damn well I am. I have no idea what you expect to gain by—” He broke off as the reason for her amnesia ploy occurred to him. By claiming she couldn’t remember him, she’d found an excuse for keeping the baby away for those six months. Despite the fact that she’d disobeyed the custody order by leaving Louisiana with Arianne, the judge might go easier on her.
He clenched his jaw and struggled not to curse. Clever of her. Very clever. But she wouldn’t get away with it. He’d call his attorney and the investigator who’d found her. By the time she told her story to the court, he’d be prepared to expose her as a fraud.
“Your lies won’t get you anywhere, chèr’.”
“I believe you’re the one who’s lying,” she charged with quiet conviction. “I think your name is Mitch.”
Again, she’d managed to astound him. The intensity of her words and the suspicion in her gaze raised the hairs at the back of his neck. She suspected he was lying. But, of course, she had to know….
He searched the depths of her bewildered stare. “What is it you want, Cam? Out of life, I mean. What would have to happen to make you ‘happy ever after’?”
She looked surprised at the question. “Well, I’d take Arianne home, and…and…”
“And what? Have some baby-sitter keep her while you sing in bars at night, sleep during the day and sneak off to drink and gamble in between?”
She gaped at him with an expression that only confused him more—as if the picture he’d painted horrified her; as if she resented his unflattering assumptions; as if he were doing her a grave injustice by reaching those conclusions.
But the Camryn he’d known wouldn’t have found anything wrong with that scenario. She’d always tried to defend that very lifestyle.
“Is…is that what I did?” she asked.
Mitch knew then that he was in trouble. Deep trouble. Because even though he knew she was lying about the amnesia and couldn’t possibly have changed her attitude and lifestyle that much in a span of only six months, he also found it hard to believe she was this good of an actress. She almost had him questioning his basic assumptions about her. Almost.
How the hell could he expect a judge to understand that she was, in fact, incorrigible? That motherhood ranked low on her priority list, far below personal gratification. That her desire for custody sprang from some self-serving ulterior motive. He absolutely knew all of this to be true about her, yet he could clearly see how a judge might be persuaded otherwise.
“By the time my attorney and witnesses get finished with you in court, you’ll look like the worst kind of liar,” he warned. “Take my advice and drop the act now.”
“Is that what you think? That I’m claiming not to remember you in order to sway the court?”
“If that’s not the reason,” he said softly, “then tell me what is.”
Feeling trapped and uncomfortable in her role as Camryn, Kate grappled with the impulse to tell him the truth—that his wife had died, and that she, Kate, was horrified to think of anyone raising a child in the manner he’d described. She hadn’t known that Camryn had gone back to drinking and gambling. She’d thought her sister had sworn off both addictions years ago.
But it seemed Camryn had reverted to her old ways. Had Mitch’s abuse pushed her back into those destructive behaviors? Or…had she considered him “mean” for trying to stop her from them?
If only she could be sure!
All she knew for certain was how Mitch had treated her—forcing his way into her home, handcuffing her, kidnapping her. More than once she’d felt a fearsome anger simmering in him. Until she knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t abuse Arianne, Kate couldn’t confess the truth. Because if she learned that he’d deliberately hurt Camryn or the baby, she would use any edge she had—no matter how devious—to get Arianne away from him.
No, she wouldn’t tell him her true identity. She’d save that for the judge. She’d then charge Mitch with false imprisonment, assault, kidnapping and any other offense her attorney could level against him. Unless, of course, she discovered that Mitch hadn’t been abusive. What would she do then? Give up Arianne?
The thought hurt too much to contemplate. And so far, she found it impossible to believe that he could love Arianne more or give her a better life than she would. In fact, she had only his word that he was her father. She couldn’t change her strategy now.
“Is Joey going to bring Arianne to the dock?” she asked, hoping against hope that she would.
“No. I don’t trust you anywhere near Arianne. And I don’t want her upset by anything you might do.”
She glared at him, and they nursed their mutual animosity in silence.
Nearly an hour later, the van veered off the rural highway onto a crushed-shell driveway that ran alongside an abandoned, boarded-up seafood-processing plant. Behind it, the outriggers and mast pole of a shrimp boat came into view. The van then rounded the corner to the back parking lot, where a weathered wharf bordered the glimmering, dark green waters of a small cove.
At the wharf was docked a large commercial trawler.
“Is that yours?” Kate asked in surprise. “A shrimp boat?”
Mitch answered only with a scornful quirk of his mouth. She supposed it had been a silly question. The trawler was, after all, the only boat at the dock. And as they drove closer, she saw the name painted on the stern. The Lady Jeanette.
The