Conard County Marine

From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Lee comes a story of one woman’s survival and her protector’s promise to find answers

The arrival of a single black rose signals danger to come for Kylie Brewer. Recovering from a brutal attack that claimed three years of her memory and her chance at a promising career, Kylie just wants to pick up the remaining fragments of her life. She returns to her hometown of Conard City to live with her sister but soon learns that putting the past in its place won’t be easy.

Marine sergeant Evan Cooper—a trusted family friend who agrees to help Kylie—can’t ignore his protective instincts. Or the steadily growing desire he feels for a woman who has overcome so much. He vows to help keep Kylie’s demons at bay…but someone else has plans to finish what they started.

“You’re a good man, Coop.”

“Sometimes.”

Kylie wanted to argue with him about that, but figured she couldn’t. He had memories he’d never share with her, memories that clearly troubled him. She just hoped that someday he would once again believe that he was a good man. Because he was.

He ran his palm lightly up and down her arm, from shoulder to elbow. Tingles of pleasure began to run through her, warming cold and hollow places inside her. Because of her amnesia, she didn’t know how long it had been for her, but she knew how desperately she needed this feeling now. Good, normal feelings. Nice feelings. As naturally as breathing, she turned into him and smiled up at him. “I like that.”

His gaze jumped to her upturned face, then a slow smile was born. “Dangerous words, lady. And a dangerous time to have them.”

But despite his warning, he bent his head a bit so he could brush a kiss on her lips. Sparklers ignited inside her. Just that light, soft touch and she was sizzling.

“Wrong time,” he murmured.

“Is there ever a right one?”

* * *

Be sure to check out the rest of the

Conard County:

The Next Generation

series!

Dear Reader,

I have always been fascinated by the way memory works. Or perhaps the way it doesn’t. Who among us has not had a conversation with someone we know, only to discover they remember an event quite differently than we do? Absent videotape, no one can say who is right.

I have some selective amnesia myself, periods of my life that I absolutely cannot remember. I could so identify with Kylie and her sense of having lost something she should remember. In her case, it was all her studies, and with it the future she had planned. With me, it was more personal, but it’s troubling sometimes to have people discussing something I was involved in and simply can’t remember.

However, in Kylie’s case, that amnesia proves to be dangerous. If she can’t remember the man who attacked her, how can she know that he is close? Coop, a marine on leave, is all that stands between her and more horror.

Enjoy!

RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

Conard County Marine

Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

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

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

The talk in town said Kylie Brewer was returning to Conard City with no memory of what had happened to her. That should have made the man who had tried to kill her feel good, knowing she couldn’t identify him, but he didn’t trust her amnesia. He was going to have to keep an eye on her in case she started remembering. The possibility terrified him.

And then there was the fact that she was still alive. That bugged him. She was supposed to have died, vanishing forever from his life. Instead she still breathed and walked and talked.

And she might remember.

He was galled by the fact that he had a score to settle with her. He thought he’d done it when he left her in that alley. Apparently not. Or maybe he had. He couldn’t quite make up his mind about that.

Regardless, the need to take her out hadn’t been satisfied, not completely, and it still nagged at him, made him itch. Kylie Brewer should be dead as physically as her memory had become.

He pushed ideas around in his head, trying to square his needs with reality. She had survived, but she’d lost all her plans and a chunk of her life. Kylie was now damaged goods. Surely he could leave it at that. But part of him wasn’t pleased and probably never would be. An unfinished job.

As long as she didn’t remember, maybe he could live with that. Much as he didn’t like to soil his own nest, if she started remembering, he’d have to act even though it would be harder to cover himself in such a small town.

But he’d deal with that if it became necessary. In the meantime, he just had to remain one of her friends. He had to find ways to be around her, to listen to her, to make her trust him.

In case she remembered.

Somewhere deep inside, much as the possibility frightened him, he hoped she would because then he wouldn’t have to argue with himself anymore. The decision would be made for him; the internal uncertainty would be gone.

He’d have all the reasons he needed to finish the job, no matter the danger to him.

But it occurred to him that a little misdirection might be useful. A little scare that would have everyone looking in a different direction. Something that would distract him from the nagging fear that Kylie would remember. Something that would distract everyone else from Kylie.

Humming, he set about changing his appearance with a wig and ugly cheap sunglasses, then went to get one of the old, unrecognizable cars from the barn where his dead father had left them. All he needed now was to find one little girl walking home from school alone.

Chapter 1

Riding into the outskirts of Conard City finally released the awful tension in Kylie Brewer. Her sister, Glenda, was driving, and Kylie had been uneasily aware since they left the hospital in Denver that nothing looked familiar to her. Nothing.

And yet she had lived in Denver for the last three years. She’d even been treated in the hospital where she had worked part-time. The violent assault that had landed her in the hospital at death’s door had stolen those three years from her, and all she wanted was to see and touch something, anything, that was truly familiar.

Now she saw familiar sights at last. The Olmstead ranch, green and lush with the spring, caught her eye and filled her with a sense of peace. Cattle and deer both grazed amid the deepening grasses. She wondered vaguely if Mr. Olmstead minded the deer grazing, but couldn’t recall if she’d ever heard a word about it. Another gap in her memory? She hoped not.

Conard County, Wyoming, was home, and Conard City was as familiar to her as yesterday. Maybe more so, given how much she had forgotten. She had grown up here, and despite all the fear and despair that had dogged her since she awoke in the hospital, now she felt excited, hopeful. At peace, however temporarily.

“A word of warning,” Glenda said, speaking for the first time in the last fifty miles.

“What?”

“I’ve got a houseguest. You remember Connie Parish? She used to be Connie Halloran?”

“Of course I remember her.” It felt so good to be able to say that.

“Well, her cousin is on leave from the marines, and he’s in town for a few weeks. I couldn’t see letting him stay at the motel when I have a perfectly good room to let him use.”

In an instant, all the tension returned to Kylie. “Glenda...I don’t know him.”

Glenda patted her thigh before returning her hand to the steering wheel. “It’s fine. He’s not a threat. He was overseas when you were attacked. He only got here two days ago.”

That was supposed to be comforting? Kylie’s hands knotted into fists. Sharing her sister’s house with a stranger? While it was true she had no memory of the attack on her, and no memory of most of the last three years, she didn’t feel at all comfortable around strangers. Even the hospital staff, some of whom had worked with her before she was attacked, had presented a constant sense of threat simply because they were now strangers.

“They never caught the guy,” she said dully.

“I’m telling you, it couldn’t have been Coop. You want to check his passport?”

Kylie glanced at her sister, feeling irritated, noting that Glenda had become sharper since her divorce. Realizing she was probably being unreasonable herself.

“Look,” said Glenda, “the doctor explained your fear is normal. I understand that. You can’t remember, although I’m not really sure how remembering would help. It’s natural to be uneasy around strangers. That’s what he said. But Coop is Connie’s cousin and he won’t be a stranger for long, okay?”

Kylie managed a stiff nod. All she had wanted to do was come home and sink into the comforting familiarity of a life she could remember, and now a stranger had been thrown into the mix. She nearly felt betrayed by Glenda. Then she tried to tell herself that meeting a real stranger, one she couldn’t possibly remember, could be beneficial itself because she wouldn’t have to rack her absent memory. Somehow she didn’t quite believe her own argument.

Turning her head, she stared out at the passing countryside, picking out the ranches she remembered, realizing they were only minutes from driving into town. She had no idea how much or little had changed about Conard City during the years she couldn’t remember, but she guessed she was going to find out. It would probably be almost the same. Little changed as slowly as Conard City.

The center of town looked pretty much as it always had. There was the courthouse square, surrounded by storefronts, where a handful of retired men regularly met to play checkers or chess at the stone tables in the front park. A few were there now, though the afternoon was still chilly. It was like a snapshot, familiar her entire life long. The picture never changed much, although the faces at the tables did with the turning of the years.

“Brick sidewalks?” she asked suddenly, noticing.

“The resort up the mountain put them in. They were going to paint, too, but the landslide halted everything.”

Small change, an attractive change, but she remembered nothing about a landslide at the resort, although she remembered hearing it was going to be built. Another gap. She wondered if she should bother asking about it. It hardly seemed worth the effort at that moment.

Everything else remained solidly familiar, including her sister’s driveway and the house. It was the family house, a two-story Craftsman style painted white, left to both of them by their grandparents a few years ago. Their parents had both died years before on holiday in Guatemala. Their tourist bus had been attacked by some bandits.

But that had been a long time ago. Fifteen years?

Glenda pulled up to the side door and switched off the ignition. Kylie didn’t move. After a minute, Glenda turned in her seat. “Kylie, if it’s really too much, I’ll ask Coop to move to the motel. I’m sure he and Connie will understand, under the circumstances. But give it a try for me, okay?”

Kylie managed a stiff nod. “I will.”

Glenda sighed and reached for the door latch. “This has got to be hell for you, not remembering the last few years. I can’t imagine it. So be patient with me, okay?”

Kylie felt a rush of warmth for her sister. “If you’ll be patient with me.”

Glenda smiled. “The house is pretty much the same. I think you’ll remember most of it.”

All of a sudden Kylie reached out and touched her sister’s arm. “Glenda?”

“Yeah?”

“I may have forgotten other things, too. I have no way to know.”

Glenda nodded. “I guess we’ll see. We’ll talk about it more, but let’s go inside and make you some coffee or something. And you must be hungry by now.”

Maybe. Her stomach was still knotted with the trepidation that never quite left her anymore, but she forced herself to get out of the car.

The back steps were concrete, and still had the crumbled corners she remembered. At some point a larger crack had been patched, the concrete a different, lighter gray. The screen door still screeched the same old protest. The glass-topped inner door opened soundlessly on well-oiled hinges.

One step into the kitchen and she paused, looking around, dragging in the familiar smells with a deep breath. Little had changed indeed. The cabinets had been repainted, but the same white. A few new appliances sat on the counter, but otherwise it carried her instantly back to her childhood. She smiled for the first time in ages. “Do I smell marinara?”

“I made some last night. If you want, we can have it later. Let me get your suitcase.”

A suitcase. She had a whole bunch of possessions from an apartment in Denver, but most of them might as well have belonged to someone else. She’d brought a few keepsakes she remembered along with her, and Glenda had ruthlessly put everything else in storage until Kylie decided what she wanted to do with it all.

Gratitude toward her sister once again flooded her, and she made up her mind to do her best with this Coop guy in the house. Besides, he’d probably spend an awful lot of time visiting Connie, Ethan and their children. She probably wouldn’t have to see much of him at all.

Glenda rolled the suitcase inside. “You get your old room,” she said. “It’s always been yours, but you know that.”

“Thank you.”

Glenda smiled. “You don’t have to thank me. What are sisters for? Anyway, this house belongs to both of us.”

Glenda was a few years older than Kylie, which, when they were children, had always given her a superior position. It didn’t feel that way anymore, Kylie realized as Glenda parked the suitcase in one corner of the kitchen and waved her to sit at the old table. The years had at last made them equals...at least to some extent. Kylie definitely felt at a disadvantage with her memory loss, but those were years she hadn’t lived here, anyway.

Glenda buzzed about. For a woman of thirty-four who’d been through an ugly divorce, she looked good, Kylie thought. Even with the gap in her memory she was barely able to note changes in Glenda. She still wore her light brown hair in a ponytail and moved with the ease of someone who was fit, and still seemed to prefer scrubs to jeans. But then Glenda was a nurse, too, like Kylie.

A sharp contrast there, Kylie thought with a touch of humor. Kylie herself was moving much more cautiously these days, since parts of her were still healing. Almost there, she assured herself. Soon she wouldn’t feel the hitches of scars from all the knife slashes, or the ache in her ribs from the beating. Soon she’d be almost normal again.

If she’d ever be normal with a three-year hole in her memory. Three years that had included her own long-awaited training as a nurse-practitioner. Stolen from her by some creep on the street.

As she sat at the table waiting for Glenda to make the coffee, she closed her eyes and listened to the house. It still sounded the same, she realized. An odd thing to notice, but she did. Sounds moved the same way through the structure, echoed in the same way. Even the sound of the refrigerator turning on carried her back in time.

At last Glenda joined her at the table. “Tired?” she asked as she poured the coffee and pushed a plate with toasted bagels closer to Kylie.

“No, not really. I was listening to the house.”

Glenda arched a brow. “Listening? It’s awfully quiet. Not like when we were running around here constantly making noise.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, it was.” Glenda sighed. “So three years are missing?” Until now, Glenda had devoted herself to dealing with each matter that arose, but they really hadn’t talked between them about Kylie’s amnesia. As if Glenda needed some time to deal with it, too. Or maybe Glenda had just been glad to have a chance to rehash her divorce with someone who didn’t already remember every detail of it.

“Pretty much. I can’t remember my training, or my apartment, or anything else. Denver seems like a place I’ve never been before. But the truth is—” Kylie bit her lip “—I can’t be sure I’ve forgotten everything. Or even sure that I haven’t lost even older memories.”

“Memories are a funny thing,” Glenda said, reaching for a buttered bagel. “We rewrite them all the time. So my suggestion to you is that you not get wrapped up in knots over details. It’s not like I could tell you every minute from a day four years ago.”

For the first time Kylie felt like laughing, so she did. “That’s a good point.”

Glenda grinned. “I’m full of good points. I know it must be disturbing, but the doc said there’s a good chance you’ll get at least some of it back. I hope it’s just the good parts.”

Kylie heartily agreed with that. She definitely did not want to remember the attack, although she felt bad that she couldn’t identify her attacker. It might have protected some other woman from the guy.

“And you can always start your training again,” Glenda added cheerfully.

That was exactly the wrong thing to say. Kylie battled back a sense of darkness that threatened to swamp her. She’d been pursuing her master’s in nursing with an eye to becoming a physician’s assistant. She couldn’t do that here. To do that would mean going back to Denver, to the program that had promised to reinstate her entire scholarship so she could afford it, and she couldn’t imagine any possible future path that would take her back to that city. Not now. Not ever.

She heard Glenda sigh and opened her eyes.

“Sorry,” Glenda said. “I was trying to be positive and I guess I put my foot right in it. But there are other schools in the country.”

“It’s okay.” But it wasn’t okay. In the broad daylight of a late afternoon, Glenda had brought the nightmare back. Usually the evil darkness pursued her only in her sleep, but now here she was wide awake and she felt as if a demon were looking over her shoulder. God, she hated the feeling.

Just then, causing her to start, there was a knock at the side door.

“Coop,” said Glenda, pushing back from the table. Kylie could see only the silhouette of a man on the other side of the sheer white curtains, and her heart hit an immediate gallop. Stop it, she told herself. Stop it. She was safe. She was not alone. She was home.

Glenda opened the door. The sun was at a perfect angle to bathe the man standing on the top step in golden sunlight so brilliant that Kylie had to blink. For an instant she couldn’t make out any details while her eyes adjusted to the brightness.

Then, stepping out of that halo came a tall man dressed in jeans and a blue polo shirt. His impact was instant. He was big, muscular and still golden from the light, even his dark brown hair.

“Is my timing bad?” he asked immediately. A deep baritone voice that seemed to go along with his size.

“Kylie and I are having some coffee. Join us?”

Kylie realized she was gripping the edge of the table as if it were a lifeline and she was about to drown. She tried to tell herself she was being ridiculous, but she couldn’t loosen her grip. She did manage what felt like a wan smile.

Coop stepped farther into the kitchen while Glenda closed the door, but he didn’t come close to Kylie. “Hi, I’m Evan Cooper. Everyone calls me Coop, obviously. And if you want, I’ll just disappear upstairs. I...heard you’ve had a bad time.”

Kylie didn’t want to be rude, much as she wished she didn’t have to face this, not yet. Not before she got her feet beneath her and felt more comfortable about being home. But she also didn’t want to be discourteous, and Glenda had asked this man to stay here. Absent three years, she still knew that Connie and Ethan Parish had three kids who probably filled their house to the rafters. Be civil, she told herself. You can always run upstairs if you feel overwhelmed.

“Please,” she said quietly. “Join us. You just got back?”

So Glenda rearranged things, putting the table between Coop and Kylie, and settling herself at the end between them. Then he smiled at Kylie, speaking easily. “I arrived in Baltimore three days ago, then flew out here to see Connie and the kids.”

“Where were you before?” Thank God she hadn’t completely lost her ability to make casual conversation.

For the first time she noticed how blue his eyes were, maybe because they almost twinkled at her. “I was here and there. Lately in Afghanistan and then Germany.”

She was relieved to feel her fingers starting to relax. Just in time, because they had begun to ache. “You must travel a lot.”

“I rarely get to hold still. Say, listen.”

Reluctantly she looked at him again and saw that he was addressing her. “Yes?”

“If me being here makes you uncomfortable, there is a motel. I’ll gladly move. Glenda told me you’re...recovering, and having me around might not be restful. I can understand that.”

She glanced at Glenda, and saw her sister looked unhappy. Was Glenda interested in this guy? Oh, hell. “No, of course you can stay here. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to move out.”

“As long as you’re sure, because I’m used to far worse digs than the local motel.”

A little laugh escaped Glenda. Relief? Kylie couldn’t tell. Glenda spoke. “Yeah, like rocky ground?”

“Yeah, like that. Cold, too. So really, neither of you need to worry about me.”

“I like Connie,” Kylie said, reaching for the old self she still retained. “I’ve known her all my life. It only seems right that if we have an extra room, you should be able to use it.”

Speaking the words had an odd effect on her. Maybe because it was the first time since she woke in the hospital that she’d made a real decision for herself. Taking control again, in a small way. She sensed a smile form on her lips. It felt good.

“Well, if I get to bothering you, just send me on my way.” He shook his head, smiling. “It wouldn’t be the first time my butt has been booted out of a place.”