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was nothing soft about his features. His face was hard and angled, his jaw 32
    Barbara Freethy
    set in an unyielding, determined line. With his hands clenched in fists on his hips, he looked ready to hit someone. She hoped it wouldn’t be her.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked warily.
    “I have a better question — what do you think of my new car?” he asked, his sarcasm clear. “I found it in my garage, right where I usually park my black Grand Cherokee,” he continued. “I also saw a payment made to the car dealer out of my bank account.”
    “I’m not sure what you want me to say,” she said.
    “Do you know who purchased it?”
    “My husband. I was with him when he bought it. He said it was about time he picked a car just for fun.”
    “Oh, I’ll bet he had some fun, all right. What happened to my car?”
    “He traded it in. He said it was too practical.”
    The man glared down at her. “Where is he? Where is the man who robbed me?”
    She didn’t want to admit that Nick had stolen anything. But he certainly had a lot of explaining to do. “I don’t know. If I did, I’d be talking to him right now.”
    His ruthless gaze searched her face for the truth. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to appear as if she were hiding anything.
    “I spoke to the police,” he said a moment later. “I gave them your name.”
    “That’s fine.” She straightened, throwing back her shoulders. “I filed a missing-persons report when Nick disappeared, you know, as soon as I got back from Lake Tahoe.”
    “You went to the police?” he asked in surprise.
    “Of course I went to the police,” she snapped. “My TA K E N
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    husband disappeared without a trace. I thought something terrible had happened to him.”
    “You got married in Lake Tahoe? Let me guess, one of those drive-through wedding chapels?”
    He made it sound so tawdry. “It wasn’t like that. We just wanted a simple, quick ceremony.”
    “Why? Are you pregnant?”
    “No!” The word burst out of her. “Of course not.”
    “Just asking. It’s a reasonable question.”
    “Not from a complete stranger,” she snapped back.
    “Oh, we’re hardly strangers, Kayla,” he drawled, bitterness edging each note. “You apparently took my name when you got married. You’ve been in my house, probably slept in my bed, used my shower —”
    “Please don’t go on.” She put a hand to her stomach, feeling like she wanted to throw up. What kind of mess had she gotten herself into?
    Nick shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down the street, then back at her. “So when did this guy take off — when you got back from Tahoe?”
    She licked her lips, knowing that her reply would make it all sound worse, but there was no point in deny-ing what he could learn from the missing-persons report.
    “He vanished on our wedding night. He went out to get ice and he never came back.”
    “He left on your wedding night?”
    “Don’t make me say it again.”
    “How long ago was that?”
    “A little over two weeks.”
    “What did the police do when you told them?”
    “Nothing. They told me that with no evidence of a crime, it was more than likely he just decided he didn’t 34
    Barbara Freethy
    want to be married. They said they didn’t have time to pursue it. They have hundreds of more important cases.”
    “They told me the same thing. Apparently identity theft is a booming business. I don’t think they’re going to pound the pavement looking for my thief.”
    “I know you won’t believe this, but I wish they would,” she said. “Because I want to know what is going on, too. I want to find out what happened to my husband.”
    “If you wanted to know the truth, why did you run away from me before?” he challenged.
    “You scared me,” she admitted. “And I was confused.
    You want me to believe that you’re Nick Granville, that everything I thought belonged to my husband was yours — is yours.” She folded