Fool Me Once
Jessica Joy
ISBN 0-9774682-2-4

Romantic Suspense
224 paperback pages
Multi-format ebook $5.99
Paperback $12.75
Free Shipping

Author Jessica Joy is a mother of three ‘grown’ children. She lives in Canada and has been married to the same great guy for 28 years. ,

Jessica Joy loves writing, reading and crafting, particularly dollmaking and scrapbooking.
         
Jessica Joy writes romance in many flavors. She enjoys mystery and often writes romantic suspense, but loves heart-tugging stories as well. She writes erotic romance and erotic romantic suspense under the pen name Abby Blythe.

Jessica/Abby is hard at work on her next erotic romance Irrepressible, a novella which is a sequel to her novella Incorrigible which was published in the paranormal anthology The Crimson Z.

CHAPTER TWO

Blair tucked Toni's discharge papers into the inside pocket
of his leather jacket and turned to Drew who had been
waiting at the nursing station for him.

"Has Toni remembered anything?"

Blair shook his head. "Nothing."

"Damn." The word slipped out on a heartfelt sigh and
packed a payload of frustration.

For a moment, silence hung between them, each man
locked in his own thoughts.

Drew spoke first. "I'm leaving for Boston. You know my
cell number—use it. Don't call the office. Until the mole is
apprehended Toni's whereabouts are strictly between you and
me. In the meantime, I'll nose around and see what I can find
out without arousing suspicion."

Blair hated the reminder that Hagen's influence had
infiltrated the Bureau. "Do you have any idea at all who the
mole might be?"

Drew shook his head. "Whoever it is, they've managed to
cover their tracks as only one of the best could, so that limits
it to half a dozen agents who have the wherewithal to pull it
off." His expression turned granite hard.

"I hate the thought that one of our agents has sold out to
scum like Hagen." Blair silently vowed that this time the crime
boss would take the fall. Two years ago, he hadn't just lost
two co-workers because of Hagen; he'd lost two friends. It
was time for justice to be served.

For weeks following the ambush, Blair had dreaded going
to sleep because his mind would replay the garish images of
the night of the ambush: the sounds of the gunfire exploding
around him, the coppery scent of the blood staining the
ground, and cries of his fellow agents—his friends—falling and
dying. This morning, for the first time in months, he'd woken
up from a repeat of that same horrific nightmare. Bathed in
sweat, his heart had throbbed in his chest. Toni's arrival had
resurrected the gruesome memories, but it might also provide
the means to exorcise the demons of guilt that dogged him.

He'd asked himself a million times why he'd been spared
when he'd been the one responsible for the screw up that had
killed two good men. No answers ever came, and the burden
of guilt grew heavier. The attackers hadn't finished him off
like the rest of his team. No doubt they assumed the bullets
in his shoulder and side had. Somehow, he'd managed to
hang onto life by a single stubborn thread.

"Don't go there, Blair." Drew's voice dragged him away
from the tormented path his thoughts had taken and back to
the present.

Blair didn't bother to deny what he'd been thinking. Drew
knew him too well and had spent too many hours at his
bedside when his life teetered in the balance not to know the
dark turn his thoughts had taken.

"I can't escape the past any more than you can," Blair said
quietly. The team had been together for five years. Drew
hadn't been present at the time of the massacre, but he'd
taken the team's losses equally hard. Their bonds went deep,
and so did the scars that no one could see.

"We have to nail him this time ... for both our sakes," Blair
added. He straightened before continuing, "Toni should be
ready by now."

Drew nodded. "Keep in touch."

"Will do."

Their eyes met and held before they turned away to begin
the work that would seal this wound for good.
* * * *
Toni darted a glance toward Blair as he maneuvered his
SUV through the narrow streets of the seaside town he called
home. In less than a day and a half, his profile, the lean line
of his jaw, and even the little telltale bump on the bridge of
his nose were already familiar to her. How had he broken his
nose? In a brawl? She gave a silent laugh. There had to be a
less dramatic explanation. Blair didn't seem to be the type
given to bursts of temper.

There was so much more she wanted to know about him—
about them. He was a photographer. She was a model. Their
careers had brought them together, but why had they
become friends?

As much as she wanted to believe that there was more
than friendship between them, there were times when Blair's
actions confused her. He was attentive and thoughtful. Often,
physical awareness sizzled between them, but there was an
ever-present barrier of reserve. Was it a result of her loss of
memory or something that had happened before the
accident? Had they argued?

He'd already proven he was a devoted friend. The day of
the accident, after she regained consciousness, he had
remained at her bedside through the day, chatting with her
until well after midnight. She knew because she'd awoken in
the night and had studied him through half-closed eyes.
There really hadn't been any reason to feign sleep. She
was sure his thoughts had wandered far from her room. His
gaze had been unfocused while a muscle worked along his
jaw. After a long, heartfelt sigh, he had closed his eyes and
let his head fall back against the chair as if overcome with a
great burden of weariness or sadness.

Though the exact nature of their relationship was wrapped
in mystery, Toni was glad Blair had persuaded her to stay
with him. She grinned. It hadn't taken a whole lot of
convincing. Her mood could swing from hopeful expectation
to bargain basement discouragement at a moment's notice.
Blair was an anchor in this emotional storm.

As if that wasn't enough of a reason to discourage her
from returning to New York, a dream she couldn't remember
woke her in the early hours of the morning and left her
gasping for breath over the thunderous pounding of her
heart. Though anxious to regain her memory, she suspected
dashing off to New York might not be the wisest course of
action. Besides, a smoggy city couldn't compare to this
picturesque town dressed in its Yuletide finery. A sparkling
layer of snow blanketed the roofs of Victorian homes trimmed
with colorful lights, red bows, and evergreen boughs. Children
bundled in brightly colored snowsuits made snow angels in
their front yards and tossed snowballs at each other from
behind three-foot high snow banks. Everything looked so
normal, so peaceful, and so unlike how she felt.

Enough, she scolded silently. It was time to stop allowing
uncertainty to mar the present. Her inability to remember the
past shouldn't prevent her from savoring what was going on
around her. Her injuries were limited to a bump on the head
and a few bruises, when they could have been life
threatening. Though her past with Blair was an ongoing
mystery, he'd proven himself to be a loyal and supportive
friend. She had a lot to be thankful for and she would try to
remember that when frustration started to erode her peace of
mind.

When the silence in the vehicle grew too loud, she glanced
toward Blair once again and said, "Since the doctor has
declared my past is off limits, perhaps you would tell me
about yours."

"Sure. What do you want to know?" Blair answered without
taking his eyes off the road. He guided his vehicle onto the
coastal highway that would take them to his home and leave
the town behind.

"How long have you lived in Mason's Cove?"

"I was born and raised here but moved away right out of
college." He gave a soft laugh. "Like most hotheaded teens
growing up in a small town, I couldn't wait to break out and
have some real adventures. A year and a half ago, I moved
back for good."

Hotheaded? If anything, from what she had observed, Blair
was the opposite—too controlled. "And did you have your
adventures?" she asked with a smile, imagining Blair as a
teen—tall, lanky, and youthfully handsome. Broken hearts
must have littered the streets of this town when he set out for
his grand adventures.

He sobered. A shadow cloaked his eyes and sent a shiver
down Toni's spine. "One too many."

"What happened?"

He gave a shrug. "Adventure isn't everything that it's
cracked up to be."

His tone was too casual. An internal warning bell rang loud
and clear. Toni looked toward him expectantly, waiting for an
explanation. His neutral expression announced that nothing
more would be forthcoming and that hurt. Would he have
shared the tale with her if she hadn't lost her memory, or did
she already know about the shadows in his past?

Perhaps she wasn't the only person whose world had been
turned upside down because of her memory loss. Blair was
saddled with someone who didn't know him at a time when
he might possibly need so much more.

Toni watched his hands on the steering wheel. Strong.
Large. Like the rest of him. She was tall for a woman, but he
was taller and broader. He made her feel protected, but she
couldn't help wondering if it was Blair who might need help
even more than she did.

One thing was obvious; parts of his past caused him pain.
Had she come here to help dispel some of those ghosts and
help build a happier future? Together? Was this Christmas to
have been the beginning of something fresh and new for both
of them? Or an ending?

Had the demands of her career come between them? Was
this holiday only to have been a bittersweet ending to an
impossible relationship? Lovers destined to become friends,
was a possibility she didn't want to accept.

Shrouded in a thoughtful silence, they followed the sinuous
road along the coast. Breakers crashed against rocks
encrusted with marshmallow ice. Evergreens, sculpted by the
prevailing winds, shook, assaulted by gusts of wind. Puffs of
snow slid from their boughs. The stark beauty reminded her
of Blair and the primitive power emanating from him.

Ten minutes later, they turned off the highway and pulled
onto a narrow road lined by tall snow banks and even taller fir
trees. He pointed to one side.

"That's where you skidded into the ditch."

Other than a dent in the snow bank and a few broken
alders, little indicated something life altering had occurred
there.

Toni shook her head. "Nothing looks familiar." At the
flicker of disappointment in his expression, she reached over
and pressed her hand against the crook of his arm. "I'm sure
it won't be long before everything comes back to me, and we
can enjoy the holidays just like we planned."

His eyebrows arched with surprise, and his gaze dropped
to her hand before he smiled back. "You're right."

She felt a glimmer of hope. They had been friends before
her memory loss, and they could be friends again. Even
though she couldn't remember him or their entwined past,
she was still the same person Blair had invited here to spend
the holidays.

Within seconds the road ended in a wide driveway, and
they rolled to a stop in front of a large, two-car garage. Toni
leaned forward to see past Blair. She strained against her
seatbelt, anxious to explore the place he called home.

Evergreens and the bare skeletons of oak and maple trees
encircled Blair's turn of the century, cedar-shingled house.
The weathered gray shingles contrasted sharply against the
brilliant white of the freshly fallen snow. Tufts of snow, the
size of cotton balls, clung to the twisted limbs of the rosebush
hedge that hugged the side of his home.

Toni didn't wait for Blair to help her out of the vehicle.
Impatient to have a look around, she started down the
narrow path along the side of Blair's home. The wind bit at
her cheeks, and the snow crunched under her boots. She
grinned, her spirits lifting.

A covered veranda stretched the length of the front of his
home, which overlooked a granite pebble-stone beach that
slanted into the frigid Atlantic. Wind driven swells bulging on
the steely ocean water rolled to shore, hungrily sliding over
the rounded stones covering the beach. The austere beauty of
the scene stole her breath and will to move. No wonder they
had decided to celebrate Christmas here. It was the perfect
setting for a romantic holiday.

"Blair, it's breathtaking!" she exclaimed, turning her back
to the wind and burrowing into the collar of her coat. "I can't
believe that I could forget all this."

At her side, Blair's gaze wandered over the shoreline. His
eyes were filled with the same awe she had felt only a few
seconds before. His eyes shone with his love for this place. It
was the first uncensored expression she'd seen in his eyes
since she regained consciousness.

"You couldn't forget it. This is your first visit."

"What?" It was hard to believe that she hadn't visited once
in the eighteen months since he'd returned here. "Why?"

"You preferred the city."

"You must have misunderstood." There was something
hauntingly familiar about a cottage overlooking a rocky
beach. "I'm sure I spent time at my parents' cottage and
loved it there." She hated this muddle in her mind. Were the
hazy images of laughing children splashing in knee-deep
water and aroma of meat cooking on a barbeque real pieces
of her past or simply wishful thinking?

"Your parents never owned a cottage."

"Are you sure? I'm sure I love the water." Her protest
spilled out.

His eyebrows lifted. "I doubt that. You always said you
swam like a rock."

"Maybe I was joking." Even though she couldn't remember
learning to swim, she knew she could and, in spite of what
Blair said, that she enjoyed it. Dr. Madigan mentioned that
automatic responses might surface, things so much a part of
her that she would react instinctively like a non-smoker
automatically refusing a cigarette.

Once again, Toni found herself a victim of Blair's probing
gaze. What was he looking for? What did he expect to find?
The sound of an approaching engine rumbled through the
late afternoon quiet and forestalled his reply.

Blair stiffened. "Wait here and stay out of sight," he
commanded quietly, then turned and started back along the
path toward his home.

Ignoring his softly spoken command, Toni trailed behind
him. Blair tossed an impatient glance over his shoulder. "Stay
put until we know who it is."

Though she appreciated his concern, she resented his
overprotective, almost smothering, attitude. "I'm coming with
you."

Blair stopped and turned to face her, blocking her way.
"Do you think you're ready to deal with paparazzi?"

"Not really, but I can't hide away forever. I have to learn
how to deal with them sometime, especially if my memory
decides not to return for a while."

One thick eyebrow lifted eloquently. "Not today you don't."

"Are you always this bossy?" Toni challenged.

"I'm just getting warmed up."

As their gazes clashed, their frosty breaths curled and
tangled in the air between them. Toni saw a struggle between
grudging humor and frustration in his smoky gray eyes.
Hairline cracks forming in his rigid control brought her a
healthy measure of satisfaction. "I should warn you, I've just
remembered something."

"What?"

Toni grinned. A mention of the past always managed to
capture his full attention. "I'm not nearly as good at taking
orders as you seem to be at giving them."

Blair gave a reluctant half laugh. "I liked you better when
you were unconscious."

"Liar," Toni accused with a soft laugh as a navy minivan
slid into the spot beside Blair's SUV.

"Damn," Blair muttered as he stepped in front of her,
blocking her view.

His muttering unsettled her more than she cared to admit.
Perhaps she had been wrong to underestimate the
invasiveness of the paparazzi and should have listened to
Blair. Had her so-called 'glamorous life' become a constant
game of hide and seek?

Toni rose to her tiptoes and peeked over Blair's shoulder to
watch a petite woman bundled up in a deep green, downfilled
jacket step down from the vehicle. Riotous auburn curls
bounced as she strode purposefully toward them. A streak of
blue, a child of about four in a bulky snowsuit, rounded the
front of the vehicle, running as fast as his little legs would
carry him. He threw himself against Blair and wrapped his
short arms around Blair's jean clad leg.

"Hi, Unca Blair"

Blair reached down and pulled the little boy in a blue
snowsuit into his arms. "Hey, Big Guy."

The child hugged Blair, and Toni felt warmth that started in
her chest spread through her body in spite of the frigid
temperatures. She wasn't surprised that Blair was good with
children. They had built-in radar for a genuinely caring adult.
"Blair Clayton Kierstead! Where in heaven's name have
you been? You get home after six weeks of tramping through
some jungle, snapping pictures of who knows what, and
immediately drop out of sight. It's been almost two days, and
you haven't returned one of my calls. I've been worried sick
about you."

With her auburn hair and smoky gray eyes so like Blair's,
this vibrant and vocal woman had to be his sister. Unlike
Blair, his sibling wasn't backward in saying exactly what was
on her mind. Toni grinned, content to watch the mini drama
unfold. His sister wasn't the least bit intimated by Blair's
formidable scowl. Normally, he seemed perfectly able to take
care of himself, and yet Toni wondered if he'd met his match
in his sister and if he lost as many skirmishes as he won.

"Hello to you too, Lissa," he returned wryly. "Look, I'm
sorry I didn't return your calls but something came up—"

"Something came up?" She planted her fisted hands where
her hips would have been under her bulky winter jacket.
"What kind of an answer is that?"

His sister leaned to one side to peek around Blair. The
furrow between her eyebrows disappeared as realization
flashed in her eyes. "I'm beginning to understand why you
were so preoccupied." A knowing grin tugged up the corners
of her mouth. "But you're not off the hook. You still should
have called."

"Lissa, not now," he warned.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce us?"

He stepped to one side. "Toni, this is my sister, Lissa
Manning, and this bundle of energy is my nephew, Jason."

Her gaze riveted on Toni. "Have we met somewhere
before?" Her eyes flew open wide with recognition. "Good
grief! You're Toni Greer or her identical twin."

"In the flesh, so Blair tells me." Toni stepped around Blair
and took Lissa's gloved hand in her mittened one. This was
her first taste of notoriety. She couldn't decide if she liked it
or not, but she liked Blair's sister.

"So Blair tells you?" Lissa echoed.

At the questioning glance from his sister, Blair supplied the
details of the accident and the resulting amnesia. When a
chilling gust of north wind tugged at their clothes, Blair gave
a nod toward his home and said, "Let's take this inside."

Despite his initial display of annoyance with his sister's
unexpected arrival, it was plain to see there was a strong
bond of affection between them. Toni battled a pang of envy.
According to Blair, she was the only child of older parents who
had passed away ten years ago. If not for Blair and Drew, her
time in the hospital would have been very lonely indeed.

Toni followed Blair and his sister into his home. As soon as
their jackets were hung up in the closet and their boots lined
up on a braided mat, Lissa turned to her brother. "Blair! How
could you keep this a secret! Why didn't you tell us Toni Greer
was going to be here for Christmas?"

"Because we were trying to keep her visit under wraps."

Toni could see hurt in his sister's eyes.

"You could have told me. We're family."

"Lissa..."

His lips parted as if he were teetering on the fence of
divided loyalties. Feeling the need to rescue her protector,
Toni looped her arm through Blair's.

"Please don't blame your brother. From what I've learned,
I'm no doubt to blame for the secrecy. I probably asked him
not to tell anyone."

Blair's head whipped around and those unfathomable eyes
searched hers. Once again, Toni had the feeling she'd
surprised him.

"I guess all the media attention has made me a bit
paranoid," she added.

"It can't be any fun when you spend most of your life
ducking reporters." Compassion and understanding warmed
Lissa's gray eyes. "Come on, let's make some hot chocolate
while the men..." She winked at her son who shot back a
broad grin. "...build us a nice fire."

Jason slipped his hand in Blair's and tugged. Blair turned
and went with him, but there was hesitation in his step and a
line of frustration carved across his forehead. Why was he so
reluctant to leave her?

Toni followed Lissa out of the foyer and through the living
room. The wood walls were the color of liquid honey. A brown
leather couch and sofa faced a beautiful fieldstone fireplace.
The Spartan nature of the room surprised her, and not a
Christmas decoration in sight. He'd probably waited for her to
come so they could decorate together. She was glad that he
had. It would keep her busy until her memories decided to
come out of hiding.

Toni paused in the doorway of the kitchen, turned back
and watched as Blair knelt beside his nephew, his head
inclined toward the little boy as he listened to him.

No shadows lurked in Blair's eyes. His affection for Jason
was stamped in every tender gesture. She couldn't help but
wonder what had happened to cause Blair to erect such a
thick, protective shell. Suddenly she found herself yearning to
learn about his past as much as she wanted to retrieve her
own.
* * * *
His arms full of wood, Blair followed his nephew around the
coffee table toward the fireplace and wondered how things
could have spiraled out of control so quickly. The last thing he
needed or wanted was to have his family anywhere near Toni,
especially with Hagen trying to locate her.

With brutal self-honesty, he acknowledged this wouldn't
have happened two years ago. He would have prepared a
plan to deal with his sister long before he'd left the hospital
with Toni. Instead, he'd allowed memories to swamp him with
alternating riptides of guilt and regret and tie him into a knot.

All the posttraumatic counseling in the world hadn't
prepared him for the feelings that resurfaced when he'd been
faced with Toni and the painful events carved into his past.
Though Blair hated to admit it, the shrink had been right after
all. He hadn't dealt with the past; he'd buried it. It had hid
like a mine just below the surface of the ground and Toni's
arrival had tripped it. The resultant shockwaves were rocking
his life.

Drew was right to have doubts about his abilities, but their
options were limited. Who else could he have turned to? With
a mole in his department, allowing anyone to learn of Toni's
whereabouts wasn't an alternative. And no one else had the
knowledge and skills, even if his were rusty, to deal with this
situation.

Why had Toni come to the one place on earth where he'd
found a measure of peace? It was bad enough that she had
invaded his haven, but the thought that her arrival had
possibly placed Lissa and Jason at risk was something that
chilled the blood in his veins. His parents died only weeks
before the ill-fated assignment, so his sister and nephew were
all that was left of his immediate family.

Jason skidded to a stop on his knees on the hard wood
floor in front of the raised hearth of the fireplace. Blissfully
unaware of his uncle's inner turmoil, he crumpled paper and
tossed it into the fireplace. Blair watched him and considered
how all of his intensive and very expensive training hadn't
prepared him for his unpredictable reactions to this Toni. Not
the Toni he'd known two years ago, but rather the woman
who was in his kitchen laughing with his sister.

The sound of her laughter reminded him how infrequently
he'd heard it when they had been friends. The Toni of two
years ago had been the least physically demonstrative person
he had ever known. In his car, this woman had
uncharacteristically reached out and touched him in a gesture
of reassurance, and then, only a short time later, had lit up
like fireworks at his brusque command to stay out of sight.

This morning when he'd asked Aram about the differences
he'd noticed in her, the easy smiles and frankly expressed
emotions, his friend had said it was possible that when she'd
lost her memory, whatever had caused her to withdraw had
been hidden from her as well. Though it sounded plausible, he
couldn't help but wonder if a person could be so drastically
different inside from the persona they projected to the world.

The image of the admiration shining in her eyes at her first
sight of the cove was branded in his mind's eye. How many
times had he felt that same awe? He didn't want to connect
with her on any level, and yet she was already burrowing
under his skin in ways no other woman had. Even her past
actions weren't an antidote against the primitive pull tugging
at his self-control.

One thing had been the same, however. Once again, Toni
had seen right through him, just as she had two years ago.
She was right; he'd been lying when he said he liked her
better when she was unconscious. For a few seconds, they'd
stood nose-to-nose in a silent battle of wills. This vibrant Toni
had banished thoughts of the past from his mind and fueled
images of tangled sheets and steamy passion.

Jason tugged on Blair's hand, dragging him back to the
task at hand. It was time for him to put the kindling on the
mountain of wadded paper in the fireplace and start the fire.

Normally, Blair would have enjoyed this time with his
nephew, but now he was burdened by the knowledge there
were too many variables out of his control and ominous
clouds of danger resting on the horizon. Caution was critical.
Toni's wasn't the only life possibly in danger.

Going into a situation undercover when he had an identity
in place and without friends or family nearby, was different
than trying to live a lie here, where he had always been
himself. After every mission, he'd come back to his hometown
to rest and recover from the strain of working on a case
where a slip could mean a bullet in the back. Mason's Cove
had been his refuge, untouched by his work. He'd never told
Lissa about his undercover work. Like everyone else here, she
thought he was a freelance photographer. He was now, and
he had been for a couple of years after he graduated from
college.

Then, he'd been caught in the middle of a bust; his quick
thinking had impressed Drew and his superiors. They thought
he would be perfect for the deep undercover work they did.
And they were right. He'd thrived on the danger, living on the
edge. At least, he had until his last assignment. Once he'd
recovered from his injuries, he'd returned to photography,
taking back-to-back assignments to keep his head from
rehashing what his conscience refused to forget.

Jason crawled onto his knee. Blair hugged his nephew
against his chest, half-listening to his chatter. How different
his life would have been if he'd never met Drew and never
been recruited to for undercover work.

Hopefully, he hadn't been away from the intrigue and
deception so long that he couldn't make it work one more
time. Failure wasn't an option. There was more at stake than
simply exorcising the past.