The Signature (A Perfect Forever Novel) Read online

  “No.” Her voice was low and full.

  It was the truth. Whatever fears hovered inside her—and there were many—it couldn’t compete with the rightness of being here with him now. She wanted this day with Devon. This memory. To lock away in her heart.

  “Did you fix this all yourself? Even the food?” Krystal asked. She was leaning on one elbow, the rim of her glass pressed against her lower lip, while she watched him set out the magnificent collection of food.

  With a teasing smile, he said, “You’d be amazed at all the things I can do.”

  His eyes touched her. She shivered, not doubting for a moment the truth of his words. If he made love half as well as he kissed...she blushed, not wanting to explore that train of thought.

  “You’ll make some woman a wonderful husband. Haven’t you ever been married?”

  “I came close, once. I used to be a foreign correspondent for a wire service. I traveled nonstop for five years. I wasn’t home more than a handful of days the entire time we were involved. Beth said it would have been easier to live with another woman in my life than it was with my work. Another woman, she could have fought.”

  “If she were the right woman, she would know how to offer enticement to woo you away from your work more often.”

  His lips curved with amused mockery. “You don’t make it easy do you? If you want to keep this a professional collaboration, I suggest you don’t use words like enticement and woo in the same sentence while looking at me with those eyes.”

  Leaning forward to place her chin in the upturned cup of her palm, she asked, “How long were you involved?”

  “Four years. In the past five years there’s been no one of any significance.”

  She was munching on a shrimp as she asked, “Tell me about your family. Your brothers.”

  Devon laughed, dishing out more food on Krystal’s plate.

  “How come we start every session with a healthy dose of questions about me?”

  Why indeed? She was hungry for knowledge about Devon. Little pieces she could tuck away in her memory, with these wonderful feelings swirling inside, parts of Devon that would belong to her always once he was gone.

  She shrugged lazily and crinkled her nose. “Maybe you’re not a very good reporter.”

  “I’m an excellent reporter,” he stated with mock reproach. “The problem, pretty lady, is I’ve never interviewed anyone who looks like you. You have a way of getting my circuits crossed.”

  “A delay tactic. I’m still not sure about the wisdom of all this.”

  “You can trust me, Krys. You know that, don’t you? Whatever happens, I would never tell anyone where you are.”

  She nodded, the emotion tight in her throat, and unthinkingly she touched his hand. She did trust him. Her fingers were resting on the back of his hand before she could stop herself.

  “So back to your story. You left off in Red Lodge, Montana...”

  Krystal nodded, lying back in the moist grass and absently picking at her plate as she continued to lay out, piece by piece, her journey to Coos Bay. Her memories were rich with stories of those nameless strangers who had risked so much to protect her.

  “So before Coos Bay you were in Idaho?” Devon asked, an amused smile twisting his lips. “On a farm?”

  “Yes, on a farm. For two weeks,” Krystal answered and then laughed. “It was wonderful. They were Mormons and their children were all grown, and they lived in this big wooden house that looked as if it had fallen out of an Americana Art book. Very Norman Rockwell. They were so kind.”

  “Why did you leave after only two weeks?”

  “Because that’s what we did. We constantly moved. My contact, I don’t know her real name, said that was necessary. Survival for me meant moving and never attempting to put down roots. They told me before I went into the network that I could never relax my guard because the authorities would maintain pursuit. I was on my way to Seattle to another safe house when I met Fritz. It was as if all the pieces came together in a way I could be safe and offer a more stable environment for Katie. I could stand on my own feet here. So I carved out a life for Katie and I included some of the things I love. Some of the things Nick took from me.”

  “Like teaching music to children?” Devon’s face was rich with understanding. “And Jason and the boys.”

  Krystal nodded. “I needed to be close to it, Devon. I had spent four years studying music. At one time, teaching children had been my only dream. Why not put it to good use? And it’s given me more than I ever dreamed possible. Different than my life was. But better, Devon. Better in so many ways.”

  “Do you ever think about going back to LA? To what you left behind there?”

  She pushed her plate away and rolled over onto her back. She stared up at the thick branches woven together above her.

  “I think about my family and my friends,” she began slowly, carefully, as if sorting her way through what she had just come to understand herself. “I would like to see my father, my family. For Katie to get to know them. I think about that, but the rest of it—it’s almost as if it belonged to someone else, some other woman. I was different then.”

  It seemed to take Devon a long time to answer. “But it did belong to you, Krystal. You were there, right on the edge of achieving the kind of success that people only dream of. Don’t you ever want to go back, to explore where you’d be if you crossed that line?”

  She rolled over onto her side. “You forget, Howard, I know what’s across the line. I’ve lived with it my whole life. A ringside view of the hurricane that is Morgan’s life. I know what’s across the line. What wasn’t possible being Nick’s wife was to cross other lines, to explore what else there was.”

  “And you’re saying you don’t want it?”

  “I’m saying that I’ve had it and it’s not worth risking Katie for. Maybe someday I’ll go back. If it’s ever safe. And try it all again. It wasn’t who I planned be, but it’s who I became. I would probably go back to it if I could. But I’d do it differently.”

  “Differently? How?”

  She sat up and pushed the hair from her face. “I’d make it a part of my life instead of me as a part of it. There was no me in Krystal Stafford’s life. Only this one-dimensional person, the performer, who did what her managers said, and what Nick said, and what Morgan said. I was a commodity. That’s what I felt like. Nick wanted me as some kind of perfect accessory he could control on a whim. My managers wanted me because I had profit potential. And Morgan—”

  “What did Morgan want?” Devon interrupted sharply.

  Startled, Krystal studied Devon’s face. “That’s the first time you’ve ever asked me about Morgan. Most reporters, that’s all they ever want to know about. As if he were the all-defining aspect of my being.”

  “Well is he?”

  “No. And he never was, Devon.”

  “But he played a big role in who you became, in what you did.”

  “In the beginning he was my mentor. Then my best friend. And later...he had seen it all, Devon. My life before Nick. My life after. He cared about what happened to me. He loved me. Morgan Katz is a better man than people will ever give him credit for. He is giving, generous and kind. I hate the way he trashes himself with the image he creates. I hate the way the media trashes him. He is so much more than he will ever show anyone. We have a powerful bond. I can’t explain it better than that.”

  “He was your lover,” Devon pointed out stiffly.

  “You make it sound as if I were promiscuous the way you say it!”

  “I didn’t mean to. I’m trying to understand Morgan’s role in all this,” Devon said.

  “In my entire life, I have only known two men sexually. And long before Morgan was my lover, we were friends. We will always be friends. We are a permanent part of each other.”

  “Friends? You were going to marry him, Krys, before you ran. He was willing to break the law and walk out on a megastar career for you. He loved you.”

/>   Krystal sat back, stunned. “How did you know that?”

  Shrugging, and struggling not to let his expression betray him, Devon said, “I’m a heck of a reporter, remember?”

  She went very still and he knew that he’d spoken too harshly. But he didn’t want to hear more about her and Morgan. Not if she was still in love with him. He didn’t want to know how it would make him feel to find out if she still loved Morgan.

  He flipped the page in his notepad. “I think it’s time you told me more about you and Nick. You’ve not told me what happened, what the final incident was that made you run.”

  Krystal dropped her gaze. “I won’t discuss every sordid detail. We had a fight. One of many, but it was more violent. I had to leave, Devon. That’s all there is to it.”

  “If people are going to understand, be sympathetic, they have to know.”

  He broke off suddenly. What was the matter with him? He’d brought her here hoping for this closeness, hoping for a way to get her across that last barrier to the truth.

  As if some force of nature intervened on his behalf, he heard her whisper absently, “Nick was a madman towards the end. No one could talk to him. No one could handle him. He got into my house. I don’t know how. And was waiting for me. It started how it always did, with Nick threatening me and busting up the furnishings.”

  “But something changed this time, didn’t it?”

  “He meant to kill me. Planned to, I think. He’d found out I was marrying Morgan and he snapped. I think he was shocked that I fought so hard to survive. But I knew if I didn’t fight, he would kill me, and then where would Katie be? I screamed so hard, but he kept on hitting me, pushing me, kicking me, like I was some stubborn little toy that wouldn’t break, and he wanted to break me.

  “I don’t know how I got to Morgan’s. The pieces are like fragments in my memories. All I knew is I needed to get somewhere safe with Katie. Somewhere where I could figure out what to do. I could trust Morgan not to let anyone know I was hiding out in his house.

  “Morgan wanted me to call the police. He wanted everyone to see what Nick was capable of. I was afraid. All I could hear in my head was the audio of Nicole Simpson’s 911 call and think how no one protected her—who was going to protect me? It wasn’t worth trying to fight it out in LA to keep my life and to put Nick in jail, when it could just as easily end the other way, with me dead, and Katie with Nick. That was a risk I couldn’t take. So I ran. Nothing in my life was worth risking Katie over. I ran to protect the life of my child. Nick would not have ended this until I was dead.”

  “Why didn’t you press charges, Krystal? Why run? If this is true, if Nick tried to kill you, he deserves to be in prison!”

  Her entire body went as stiff like wood. Her face turned toward him, her eyes wide and angry.

  “If it’s true? You say it as if it’s something I made up, just like those other reporters who thought my fear of Nick was some kind of stunt or ploy to cut Nick out of Katie’s life!”

  She had misunderstood his meaning, but there was no point in explaining that now. It was the hardest thing Devon had ever done, not to stop her, to let her finally put everything out between them.

  She rose up on her knees and, with shaking hands, jerked down the collar of her shirt. For the first time, he understood the modest line of the clothes that always covered her gorgeously curved upper body. He should have suspected; perhaps the pain of believing it might be true had made him suppress the thought.

  Above the top of her left breast was the most horrible looking scar Devon had ever seen, the area around it marred with a permanent indentation. There were other scars. One on her shoulder. Lesser ones near the one on her breast; they looked more like burns. Her shoulders had what were clearly cigarette burns.

  The sight of the burns and scars sickened Devon. It wasn’t how they looked that sickened him, it was the thought of someone harming her like this, and what it must have felt like to her and what it meant to her now.

  “My, god, Krystal, you don’t have to say anything more,” he told her in a voice that clearly shook.

  Emotion sandpapered her voice. “You came here for the truth, Devon. Well, here is the truth about Nick and why I ran! Do you know what this is?” Her finger jabbed at the indentation above her breast. “Do you know how it happened? This is what you get when you are stuck repeatedly with a bottle. Hit harder and harder because it won’t break. And Nick wanted it to break, to use the broken edges of the glass on my face.

  “Do you think it was some whim that I ran? I know what people were saying back then. That the stories I told were lies. A sick publicity stunt, or worse, exaggerations as some perverse revenge against Nick!

  “Nick, who could be so charming. So convincing. Was it possible that such a madman existed behind that smiling facade? Inside that man who could joke with reporters and sit through my frustrated ramblings in court with hardly a hair turned out of place.

  “Where’s your camera, Devon? Take a picture of this to run with your interview. Ask any of those people who thought I lied if they can look at this and still let Nick near their child, sister, or any woman they care for!”

  Those blue pools opened wide at him pierced his heart, hurting him, shaming him. Forgive me, sweetheart. Forgive me. I didn’t know he permanently scarred your body! I didn’t know...

  “Devon, he...” Her voice held almost no sound. “He would have killed me. Can’t you see? I ran because Nick would have killed us!”

  Devon ached to hold her. He could feel her agony. But if he touched her now, he would crumble. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Her suffering was a physical torture for him. Too quickly, too easily, she had come to mean everything to him. Cold sweat lightly misted his body.

  “Of course you had to run, Krys. Thank God you had the courage and Nick never found you.”

  “Courage?” she choked. “I’m scared to death half the time! I know what will happen if I’m caught, but that’s nothing compared to the fear that Nick will find me. That he’ll finish what he started two years ago. That he’ll get Katie!”

  He couldn’t stay silent. “You don’t have to be afraid of Nick. I know you have little reason to believe this, but Nick isn’t a danger to you. Or Katie. Not anymore. You can go back...”

  “I’ll never go back.” Her face was so very pale. “Never. I’ve read all about Nick. The remarkable change he’s supposedly made. But those people, they don’t know the Nick I know—the dark side that can hide so cleverly behind his smiling brown eyes and his easy charm.”

  “You’re safe, Krystal. No one will find you. I promise you that!”

  She was shaking. “You found me, Devon.” Her voice broke. “If you were able to find me, how long will it be before someone else does? Before Nick finds me? Or the police?”

  Guilt rose up sharply like a knife inside him. Devon caught her around the waist, drawing her down across his lap, and held her against his chest.

  Tenderly, he wiped her red, tear-stained face. Please God, don’t let her say anything else, he thought. It hurt simply to listen to the words. What must it feel like for her to say them? She had every reason to be terrified of Nick. What woman wouldn’t be? And he couldn’t imagine the fear she lived under, the fear of knowing Nick might find her.

  He wanted to end this nightmare she suffered, and yet he couldn’t. It would never be over and never not be a part of her. The most he could pray for is that Morgan could give her reason to believe that she was safe, that the threat no longer existed, and that she could live a day in peace without fearing that Nick Stafford would find her.

  Lightly, he kissed her face, picking up a stray tear or two. Waiting had a new cost now, an edge sharper and crueler, because he was as afraid for Krystal as she was for herself. Dear God, what if Morgan was wrong about Nick?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Krystal opened her eyes to a black sky littered with stars. For a moment, she was hardly conscious of anything, and then she felt
Devon’s gaze upon her and sat up to find him sitting close by, watching.

  “How long have I been asleep?” she asked nervously, fighting to orient her senses.

  Devon held her gaze as he reached for her hand. “Only an hour or so.”

  “How boring for you. Have you been watching me all this time?”

  “Don’t make it sound so terrible,” his voice lifting. “You’re charming when you sleep. You even snore in key. Do you feel better? Today was a bit of a rough one for you.”

  Those warm green eyes were tender above her. She nodded her head. She did feel better. She had needed to share those truths, those hurts locked in her heart for so long. And with Devon it had felt right to expose everything to him, take shelter in his arms, and release the tears she’d needed to let out for so long.

  He leaned forward, plucking a dry leaf from her hair, his eyes never leaving her. His touch sent a shimmering shower of energy sparks around them. His thumb lightly traced the stiff line of her lips, and when it stopped, she felt the movement of his head, knowing where it would lead, knowing that she should stop it.

  Her mouth softened, accepting his gentle contact, light and spiced with potent, sensual play. Another, earthier emotion stole over her fear, and she knew why her guard always deserted her with Devon. It was all part of the trap, the natural erosion of barriers, so that desire could slowly recreate two people into one.

  His hands slid up her sides, and she melted against him, wanting to pull herself inside him.

  At some point, she realized that their kissing had become fierce, fiercer than was safe for either of them.

  It was Devon who pulled back first this time. “Before we go somewhere with this that you don’t want to go, you had better tell me what it is you want.”

  “Want?”

  Oh, she knew what she wanted. She wanted to make love with Devon. But what then? Every worry conveniently pushed from her brain returned in an unsettling storm. Wanting wasn’t enough to make it right.