by Joanna Wayne
Or dead.
And Darlene, confused and vulnerable in a hospital bed in town might well be the only witness. His muscles tightened, and he tasted the bitter edge of fear. He pushed it aside. He had a guard at her door. She’d be safe.
“Keep looking, Randy. I’ll be back as soon as I make a call from the truck.”
“Anxious to report our find?”
“Yeah.” And even more anxious to check on Darlene. But the deputy didn’t have to know everything. A man couldn’t help how he felt, but he could control his actions. He wasn’t about to let the whole town know that the woman who’d dumped him years ago still messed with his mind.
He headed back to the truck, his brain shifting into overdrive. Right now he’d give a month’s pay to know what had happened out here last night, and exactly what role FBI agent Darlene Remington had played.
OPEN YOUR EYES. Open your eyes.
She did, but still the darkness closed in, a suffocating cloak of nothingness, pushing her deeper and deeper. She flung her arms wildly. She had to grab the edge, hold on to something, anything to break her fall.
“You’re all right. I’m right here with you.”
Slowly the hazy brightness of reality swallowed the darkness. Darlene steadied her breathing and studied the face of the woman standing over her. Her cheeks were pudgy and red, her eyes a cool gray. But the touch was reassuring.
“Do you know where you are?”
Darlene blinked and reached to her head, letting her fingers find and trace the edges of the familiar bandage. “In the hospital,” she answered, her mouth so dry the words seemed to get stuck in her throat. “Somewhere in Texas.”
“That’s right. Vaquero, Texas. Is that all you remember?”
Darlene looked around the room. The lines in the curtains were sharp and clear, the furniture solid. It was her mind that held the shadows. “There was a man here.” She forced herself to concentrate. “He said I’d been attacked,” she continued haltingly. “That he’d found me in the woods.”
“Good. That man was Sheriff Clint Richards. If you were so far gone you didn’t remember him, I’d fear there was no hope for you. He’s not the kind we women forget.” She chuckled and fluffed her permed hair.
“I remember seeing the doctor too.” Darlene scooted up, using her elbows to propel her to a near sitting position. “Was that this morning?”
“A few hours ago. You’ve been asleep.”
Asleep. In a hospital. With her head spinning in a fog so thick she couldn’t find herself. “What type of drugs am I taking? They seem to have shut down my memory.”
“I’ll let the doctor explain all that to you. He asked me to call him the minute you woke up. While I’m doing that, why don’t you just try to relax and maybe eat some of your lunch.”
The nurse pushed the swing-tray table over so that a plate of unappetizing food stared up at Darlene. “If you need anything before the doctor gets here, just buzz.”
Darlene watched her walk away, the broad hips swinging beneath the crisp white of her uniform, her white oxfords silent on the tiled floor. For a second the urge to call her back was almost overpowering. Not that Darlene needed anything, but the fact that she was alone, without memory of anyone close to her, frightened her.
Instead, she picked up the packaged wet wipe and opened it, rubbing her hands with the sterile cleanser. The antiseptic smell, the slight sting to her dry hands, awakened her senses, and she realized she was hungry. Probably a very good sign, she decided. Maybe if she ate something, the food would dull the effect of the drugs.
Hands still shaky, she opened the carton of milk and peeled the paper from the plastic straw before dunking it. Actions so routine, she did them without thinking. Raising the straw to her mouth, she let the liquid spill over her tongue and down her parched throat.
The milk was cold, and she drank it all before even considering the plate of food: a slice of turkey, a helping of overcooked peas, a mound of potatoes. Funny, she recognized every item, and knew they weren’t her favorites. So why couldn’t she wrestle from her memory the things that mattered, like who she was or how she had ended up in this hospital? She shook her head and bit back a sob. She wasn’t the type to cry.
Or was she? She might be anything—good, bad, cruel, selfish. Only, whatever she’d been had disappeared somewhere in her mind. All she knew was what the sheriff had told her. She searched her murky brain again, coming up with remnants of the morning’s conversation.
Don’t pull that FBI secrecy routine on me.
She had no idea what he meant, but it had been clear he didn’t fully trust her. The problem was, could she trust him? But then, how could she trust anyone?
The door opened and she looked up, expecting the doctor and a few answers. But it was cowboy Sheriff Clint Richards who strode into her room, his western boots clacking against the tile, power and purpose emanating from his every pore.
She met his dominating gaze head-on. She might be trembling inside, but she had no intention of letting the sheriff know just how defenseless she really was. Not until she got the answers she needed from him.
CLINT WALKED OVER to the bed, the control he’d strolled in with as fleeting as morning dew in the Texas sun. It wasn’t the paleness. He’d expected and prepared himself for that. It was the childlike confusion that bled into her dark eyes. It was the forced jut of her chin, the weakened condition of a woman who’d never before displayed anything but strength.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, managing to keep most of the telltale strain from his voice.
“Weak. Achy. Confused.” Her lips parted in the slightest of smiles. “But thankful that I’m still alive and able to feel. In case I didn’t say it earlier, I appreciate your finding me last night and getting me to the hospital.”
“The best way to thank me would be to answer some questions for me, as honestly as you can.”
“Then, let’s make a deal. You answer mine first. Then I’ll cooperate as much as I can with your investigation.”
“As much as you ‘can.’ Do you ever talk without including qualifiers?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice lowered to a shaky whisper. “Why don’t you tell me? You seem to know a lot more about me than I know about myself.”
Clint pulled up a chair. Either the amnesia was genuine or she’d become much better at lying since she’d left Vaquero. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Tell me who I am. Not my name. That’s written on my wristband. Tell me who I really am, what I do, where I’m from.” She sucked in her bottom lip. “What kind of person I am.”
What kind of person? The kind of woman who burrows under a man’s skin, sidles into his heart, makes love with such ravenous abandonment that a man can never forget you.
He rubbed his hands down the rough denim on his thighs. “You’re an agent for the FBI, assigned to the Washington, D.C. area, the last I heard. You joined the Bureau right after you graduated from the University of Texas six years ago.”
“Then that would make me about twenty-eight.”
“You will be on your next birthday. March sixteenth.”
“Do I have family?”
“Your father was a diplomat. He and your mom were killed in a car accident when you were a teenager. That’s when you moved to Vaquero. You lived here with your grandmother during your junior and senior years in high school. After that, you went away to Austin and the University of Texas.”
“Where is my grandmother now?”
“Mrs. Remington’s in a nursing home in Washington. You had her moved up there so you could be close to her.”
“Then there’s no husband, no children?”
“You never married.”
“And no significant other?”
The muscles tightened in Clint’s jaw, and his teeth ground together. If appearances could be trusted, last night had begun as a secret rendezvous in a parked truck that had been pulled off into the woods. A tryst with the last man
in the world he’d want to think had been intimate with Darlene.
But then, he knew things about the good senator that other people didn’t. And now was not the time to go into any of that. He tried to force his voice to stay steady and totally detached from the emotions that were wringing him raw.
“I guess you’re the only one who can answer the question of significance in your life.”
“And of course, I can’t.” Frustration stretched her lips into thin, drawn lines.
“The doctors say your memory will come back—that amnesia is rare, and when it occurs it is usually short-lived.”
“So in the meantime, I take up residence in a hospital and wait for the man who attacked me last night to come calling again. When he does, I’ll probably welcome him with open arms. He could be anyone.”
“It’s not likely he’ll come calling here. There’s an armed guard outside your door.”
“An armed guard.” She sucked in a deep, audible breath. “So you do believe I’m still in danger. Have you talked to the FBI? Do you know why I’m down here?”
“No, I saved that task for you. I was waiting until you were coherent enough to talk.”
“I guess that’s now,” she said, reaching for the phone.
Clint stopped her. “I wouldn’t just yet. There are a few additional facts you might like to know first.”
She listened quietly while Clint replayed the few details he knew. He watched carefully for a spark of recognition when he mentioned James McCord, but the same emptiness that had haunted her eyes since the attack held tight. The only sign of emotion was the flicker of fear that caught in her voice when she questioned him in detail about the attack.
More than once he had to fight the crazy impulse to take her in his arms. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to reassure her or just remind her that he had held her before. Only it wouldn’t have reminded her of anything. Her memories were locked away. It was his that were getting in the way of the investigation.
He finished his slightly doctored version of the night before and then picked up the phone. “Would you like me to dial the Bureau for you?”
She pursed her lips in a tight curl. “So I can tell them that I lost a senator for them and that I don’t have a clue as to where he is or who he’s with? I’ll be lucky if they don’t fire me over the phone. But go ahead, I might as well get it over with. Besides, hopefully they can give us a few clues as to what we’re dealing with.”
“Always the career woman.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Just stating the facts, ma’am.”
And facts were what he had to concentrate on right now. A couple of important ones were that Darlene had walked away by choice and come back into his life by accident. Meaning, she would be walking again as soon as her memory returned.
But first and foremost were the facts that he had a senator missing, maybe dead, and that the perpetrator was still on the loose. And he had every reason to come gunning for the only witness.
He dialed the number for the Washington office where Darlene worked, and waited for the first ring before handing her the receiver. Before she’d said hello, he’d already picked up the other phone in the room—the one he’d had rigged to let him listen in.
She glared at him, her eyes finally reflecting the fire he remembered so well. But she responded to the hello, and started revealing a tale that was sure to keep the Bureau gossip lines buzzing for days.
DARLENE LAY IN THE DARKNESS of the pre-dawn hours, the night noises of the hospital finally quieting. She’d slept for a few hours, then woken to the same inky dream of falling down an endless cavity. Since then, her mind had embroiled itself with the disturbing conversation she’d had with her supervisor at the Bureau.
Apparently she’d gone into the office two days ago and asked for a few days off, vacation time that she had coming. So, whatever had brought her to Vaquero was personal, not connected to the FBI.
She turned as her door squeaked open. A man walked in, holding his hand behind his back. He pulled his hand around, and she saw the gun pointed at her and...
She tried to scream for help, but no sound came from her mouth. And then she was falling. Deeper and deeper into a cold, watery pit.
Chapter Three
Randy jumped, bouncing the front legs of his chair onto the floor as he grabbed for the knob to Darlene’s door. “What’s going on in here?” he demanded, rushing to keep Darlene from lunging from the bed.
Darlene sat up, her arms wrapped around her heaving chest. “Where’s the man who was here?”
Randy grabbed her arm to steady her. “There’s no man in here except me. The only other people who’ve been in here all night are the nurses who came in to check on you.” He tried to keep his voice calm, though his insides weren’t. He had no desire to handle a berserk female.
“But there was a man,” Darlene persisted. “I saw him.”
“No. You must have been having a nightmare. That’s all. Look around. There’s only you and me in here.”
Darlene’s gaze darted about the room like that of a caged animal. Finally she dropped her head back to the pillow.
“Are you all right now?”
“All right? How could I be? I don’t even know reality from nightmares anymore.”
“Maybe you were remembering something about how you got that lump on your head. Maybe that’s what scared you. You sure looked as if you were seeing a ghost, pale-faced as you were when I walked through that door.”
She frowned. “I thought someone was in my room trying to kill me.”
“Are you sure you don’t remember anything about what happened out on Glenn Road last night?”
“I’m positive.”
He slid a chair across the tile floor and placed it at the head of her bed. “I’ll stay in here with you for a while. You just relax. But if you remember anything, anything at all, you tell me. Do you understand?”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
He fingered the butt on the gun at his waist. “If you can’t trust the law, who can you trust?”
She rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t trust anyone. I don’t trust anyone.”
He stayed in her room until she fell asleep, a fretful rest interrupted by moans and jarring jumps that seemed to affect every muscle in her body. But he was convinced now that the amnesia was real. She couldn’t fake the confusion and fear that draped her eyes.
She didn’t remember anything. Not yet. And she was probably all the better for it.
DARLENE YANKED at the neck of the hospital gown, pulling it down from the choking position it had assumed around her neck. She wasn’t sure whether it was her role as amnesia patient or the backless, shapeless gown that delivered such a wallop of impotence when she tried to press her point with the all-knowing doctor.
This was her third morning in the hospital, and she still didn’t remember a thing about the attack that put her here. Worse, last night, in spite of her insistence that she didn’t want to take any more medication, she had been given another shot.
The doctor was clearly unaffected by her claims that she had never asked for the medication. And now, in the light of the sun glaring through the hospital window, even she wasn’t sure where her nightmares ended and reality started.
She hadn’t even been sure what day it was until she’d asked the nurse a few minutes ago. Thursday, December 16. She’d been here since Monday night, but it seemed more like weeks.
“I know I’m confused about a lot of things,” she explained, needing desperately to make someone listen and understand her concerns. “But the last thing I remember telling the nurse was that I didn’t want any sleeping medication.”
Dr. Bennigan stepped toward her bed, his blue eyes studying her intently. “The confusion is to be expected, but I have your chart right here.” He tapped the end of a pencil against the folder he held in his hands. “The nurse noted that you woke up fearful and
asked if she could give you something to make the nightmares stop. It’s documented right here.”
“I don’t remember that.”
Dr. Bennigan smiled, his patronizing attitude rubbing her raw nerves like sandpaper. How long could she go on like this, imagining things that hadn’t happened, shutting out things that had?
“Isn’t it possible the nurse decided on her own that I was distraught and needed medication?”
He stepped closer to her bed, his eyes warm and friendly behind the thin wire spectacles. He was obviously trying not to upset her even more than she already was. “It’s not unusual to imagine things when you’re forced to deal with amnesia, Darlene. It’s a very fearful state, and paranoia is not an uncommon side effect of the condition.”
She ran her thumb and forefinger along a wrinkle in her top sheet, pressing a neat crease in the cotton fabric. “So you think I asked for the shot last night, even though I don’t remember it that way?”
“I’m sure of it. You had a nightmares that left you confused, similar to the ones you’ve been having ever since you were admitted to the hospital.” He placed a reassuring hand on hers. “But I’m not surprised at your having vivid nightmares after such a brutal attack. You’ve been through a lot, but right now all you need to concentrate on is getting your strength back and letting that head wound heal.”
“How long do you expect that to take?”
“It’s difficult to say.” He ran his thumb down the edge of her chart. “If we were only considering the injury, you’d be ready to leave the hospital in another day or two. Maybe even today, if you had someone with you. But—” he scratched his clean-shaven chin and cocked his head to one side “—the loss of memory adds another dimension to your recovery process.”
“The amnesia that we have no control over.”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that. In most cases of temporary amnesia, full memory returns within hours. Yours could return today.”
“Or never.” The breath of exasperation escaped from Darlene’s lungs in a slow stream. She was in a time warp, trapped in the present with no glimmer of the past and no confidence in her future. And lying here in this hospital bed taking mind-numbing drugs was doing nothing to aid her recall or to ease her worries. She needed to be doing something—anything—besides lying here and hallucinating about people trying to kill her.