by Linda Turner
Considering the fact that she didn’t remember her middle name, let alone her favorite brand of soda, he wondered how she could possibly know what she did and didn’t like. But he only said, “Trust me. You’ll love it.”
“What is it?”
“Fajita chicken spaghetti. You helped me come up with it on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and I’ve been serving it at the restaurant ever since. It’s one of the most popular items on the menu.”
“Restaurant?” she echoed, surprised. “You own a restaurant?”
“Right down there, around the bend,” he said, nodding downstream. Watching her closely, he said, “It’s called Joe’s Place. Don’t you remember?”
Mutely, she shook her head and took a bite of the spaghetti. “Oh, this is delicious! And this is something we came up with together? When? How?”
She was full of questions, and as they both dug into their food, she asked about everything from the restaurant to how they’d met. “Actually, you have the house to thank for that,” he told her ruefully. “I tempted fate the day I moved in here.”
“How?”
“Apparently, a lot of cowboys met their downfall here when this place was still a social club. I don’t know if the ghost of the lady who ran the place is still wandering around working her magic or what, but according to legend, when anyone single moves in here, they end up falling in love within one year.”
“And you lived here when you met me? How long?”
“Two weeks.”
Her eyes dancing, Annie clearly didn’t believe him. “You’re kidding.”
“Ask Mrs. Truelove if you don’t believe me. The old lady who manages the place,” he explained when she looked at him inquiringly. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but supposedly she’s the granddaughter of the lady who originally ran the place after the Civil War. I’ll introduce you to her tomorrow.”
Remembering the doctor’s suggestion that she be allowed to remember in her own way at her own speed, Joe turned the conversation to their neighbors and life on the river, avoiding more personal topics…like how she’d turned his bachelor pad into a home soon after he’d married her and brought her home with him for good. They’d been so happy then, neither one of them had thought anything could ever come between them.
Then she asked about their separation. Leaning back in her chair, she frowned. “Why did I leave you? What happened? Was there another woman or what?”
She could have been asking about the marriage of a stranger on the street for all the emotion she showed. “No,” he said flatly. “It was nothing like that. I never cheated on you, Annie. When I make a vow, I stand by it. I thought you were the same way.”
He didn’t make any accusations, but he didn’t have to. She was the one who’d left him and come back pregnant, without a clue as to who the father of her baby was. And there wasn’t a single thing she could say to defend herself.
The easy, lighthearted mood shattered, and what was left of her appetite evaporated. Suddenly she found herself fighting the need to cry and was horrified. It was just the baby, she rationalized. Pregnant women cried over everything, didn’t they? Especially when they were tired. She needed sleep, some time to herself to think, to try to figure out who she was. Tomorrow, she promised herself dispiritedly, would be better. It had to be. How could it get any worse?
Carefully setting down her fork, she dropped her napkin next to her half-full plate. “I wish I could tell you that my vows were just as important to me,” she said with quiet dignity. “Obviously, I can’t. No one regrets that more than I do. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day.”
She pushed to her feet, but he was there, blocking her path, before she could step back into the kitchen. “I know you’re exhausted and I promise I’ll let you go to bed in just a second, but first there’s someone I need you to talk to—”
The doorbell rang then, cutting him off, and there was something in his sudden inability to quite meet her eye that set Annie’s heart thumping in her chest. Warily, she looked past his broad shoulders toward the entrance hall. “What have you done, Joe? Who is that?”
“It’s just Sam Kelly. I called him while you were sleeping and asked him to come over after supper. He’s a friend, Annie. He won’t hurt you.”
“If he’s another doctor—”
“He’s not. He’s a detective with the San Antonio Police Department.”
Alarmed, she took a quick step back and came up hard against the patio table. “He’s a cop? No! I don’t care if he is a friend of yours, I won’t speak to him. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Cursing himself for not telling her sooner and giving her time to prepare herself, he tried to calm her without touching her, as he instinctively wanted to. He might as well have asked himself not to breathe. He could do it for a while, but not forever.
“It isn’t a question of you doing anything wrong,” he told her, hooking his thumbs in the back pockets of his jeans to keep from reaching for her. “Something happened to you, and we need to find out what it was. Sam can help. He’s not just a friend—he’s our neighbor. He lives right next door. I called him because I thought you’d be more comfortable talking to him than some rookie you don’t know from Adam.”
If panic hadn’t been churning in her stomach like boiling acid, she might have been amused. How did she make him understand that she didn’t know anyone from Adam? “There’s nothing to talk about,” she argued. “I don’t remember anything.”
“He still needs to be aware of the situation. Sam’s a damn good detective. If anyone can find out what happened to you, it’s him.” When the doorbell rang again, he lifted an eyebrow at her. “It’s your call. If you really don’t want to talk to him, I’ll explain the situation to him. Considering the circumstances, I’m sure he’ll understand.”
She hesitated, wanting nothing so much as to escape to the bedroom. But whatever she was, she didn’t like to think that she might be a coward. She needed to know what she was running from. If this Sam character could help, then she had to talk to him. Even if her knees did shake at the thought.
Straightening her spine, she sighed. “No. You’re right. Maybe he can help me find some answers.”
The man Joe let into the apartment was tall and lean, with an angular face and dark brown hair that was cropped close and still somehow managed to curl. His smile appeared the second he spied Annie sitting on the couch, his eyes kind but watchful as he approached her. He looked like someone she could trust, but that didn’t do a lot to settle her nerves.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
His tone was wry, his stance nonthreatening, and Annie found herself liking him. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. But don’t take it personally. I don’t remember me, either.”
“Or me,” Joe added as he shut the front door and joined them in the living room. “Since there’s no sign of any head injuries, the doctors think she’s suffering from some sort of trauma-induced amnesia. She showed up here last night, took a shower, and went to bed. That’s all she remembers.”
“So you have no memory of how you got here?” Sam asked, turning to Annie, his forehead knit in a frown. “Did you drive?”
She shrugged. “If I did, I don’t know where I left the car. What kind of car do I have, anyway?”
“A ’62 Volvo sedan,” Joe said, rattling off the license plate number for Sam. “It’s your pride and joy. There’s no way you’d voluntarily walk off and leave it even if you ran the damn thing into a tree.”
Pulling a small notebook from his pocket, Sam noted the information in his own particular brand of shorthand. “I’ll call it in and see if there’re any reports on it.” Watching every nuance of Annie’s expression, he said, “How do you feel when you try to remember? Or do you feel anything at all? What’s going on in your head, Annie?”
That was something she didn’t even have to think about. Her arms stealing around herself, she stared off into the black
ness that had once been her past and felt again that sinister wickedness that lingered just out of sight in the shadows, stalking her every waking moment. “Fear,” she said hoarsely. “I’m scared to death and I don’t know why.”
“Did someone hurt you?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you think you got the bruises?”
Her gaze dropped to the sickly yellow discolorations that marred her wrists below the sleeves of her blouse. There were others under her clothes, on her throat and breasts and thighs. She didn’t have to remember how she had gotten them to know that they weren’t the result of any kind of accident. The outline of gripping fingers was clearly visible on her skin.
Rubbing at them as if she could rub them away, she could only shrug. “I can’t imagine.”
His jaw rigid, Joe retrieved a brown grocery sack from the entrance-hall closet and gave it to Sam. “Those are the clothes she was wearing when she came home. I found them on the bathroom floor this morning. You’d better take a look at them.”
The long-sleeved white blouse, black slacks and tapestry vest that Sam dumped out on the coffee table were caked with dried mud. One sleeve of the blouse was nearly torn off, but it was the large rust-brown stains on the garments that drew both men’s eyes.
Careful not to touch them any more than necessary, Sam scowled. “Someone lost a hell of a lot of blood, and it obviously wasn’t Annie. I’m going to take these into the lab and have them analyzed.”
Annie hardly heard him. She’d seen the clothes before. She knew how terrible they looked. But seeing them now, in the old-fashioned prettiness of the living room, she just felt sick. “I think I-I need t-to lie down. I d-don’t feel…” she swallowed thickly and jerked to her feet “…very well.”
Joe swore and hastily moved to her side, cursing himself for his thoughtlessness. “C’mon, honey, why don’t you go to bed? It’s been a rough day, and you’re worn out. Excuse us a second, Sam. I’ll be right back.”
He didn’t give her time to protest but simply ushered her into the master bedroom and quickly found her one of his old Tshirts to sleep in. He would have helped her change, but one look at her face and he knew that was never going to happen. Which was probably for the best.
“Can I get you anything else?” he asked stiffly. “Something to drink? Another pillow?”
“No, nothing. I’ll be fine. Really.”
If she was fine, he was Rip van Winkle. With his T-shirt clutched to her breast and her blue eyes large and haunted, she looked small and vulnerable and needed somebody to hold her. But it wasn’t going to be him or any other man. Turning away, he headed for the door before he gave in to the temptation to reach for her anyway. “Then I’ll leave you alone. Good night.”
Her soft, husky good-night followed him across the room, but he didn’t look back. He didn’t dare.
“Is she okay?” Sam asked worriedly as soon as he rejoined him in the living room. “I know amnesia must be a hell of a shock to the system, and she didn’t get those bruises from a walk in the park, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so breakable.”
“She’s pregnant,” Joe said, and saw by the quickly concealed surprise on the other man’s face that he didn’t need to elaborate. Sam, like most of their friends, knew that Annie had left him months ago. It didn’t take an Einstein to figure out that her condition, in all likelihood, had nothing to do with her husband. “She’s scared to death of being touched. She wasn’t raped, but it might not have been from lack of trying on some bastard’s part. Until she regains her memory—which could be months, if ever—the only clue we’ve got to what happened to her is her clothes. I want whoever hurt her caught, Sam.”
Sam nodded, understanding perfectly the need for revenge. Whatever their problems were, Annie was still Joe’s wife, and Joe was the type of man who protected what was his. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I get a report from the lab. If nothing else, we should be able to find out something about the blood on her clothes and where she might have picked up that mud. Unfortunately, that’s not a hell of a lot to go on. Finding her car would help. Do you know where she’s been living since she left here?”
“In an apartment on Mockingbird Lane,” Joe replied tersely and gave him the address.
Wishing he didn’t have to ask the next few questions, Sam knew there was no way around them. “I hate like hell to ask you this, Joe, but I’ve got to. Was she living by herself? Dating anyone? What about her neighbors? Do you know anything about them?”
His mouth pressed flat into a thin white line, he shook his head. “No. Nothing. She’s been working with Phoebe at their real estate office, but other than that, she could have taken up with the Dalai Lama and been living with a lover from a past life for all I know. She wanted privacy and I gave it to her.”
Surprised, Sam glanced up from his note-taking. “Do you really think she’d do something like that?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, and silently cursed the bitterness he heard in his voice. “At this point, I don’t know anything except that she’s not going to be able to handle any more questions. You saw the way she reacted to the sight of her clothes. She can’t take the stress right now.”
“Then my best bet would probably be to start at the real estate office,” Sam said as he pushed to his feet and headed for the door with the bag that held Annie’s ruined clothes in his hand. “I’ll nose around her apartment, too, and see what I can find out. I’ll get back to you when I have something to report.”
With Sam’s leaving, silence descended over the apartment, but it was a far from peaceful quiet. Left alone with his thoughts, Joe found his gaze drifting down the hall to the closed door of their bedroom. Was she asleep? he wondered broodingly. Or staring up at the ceiling and dreading the moment he came to bed? Dammit, what was he going to do with her? They were still married, but in her mind, she’d known him all of one day. Considering the circumstances, only a monster would insist on his marital right.
Not that he was looking for or expecting sex with the lady, he hastily assured himself. They made a fine pair. She didn’t want him to touch her, and he, dear God, didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her. Even if her memory came sweeping back tomorrow, what possible chance at a future did they have?
Long after the rest of the world was asleep, he was still pondering the question, the answer as elusive as ever.
He didn’t sleep with her.
The thought hit Annie the moment she opened her eyes the following morning. Staring at the empty side of the bed, she didn’t have to see the unrumpled pillow to know that she had had the bed to herself all night. She seemed to have a sixth sense where Joe Taylor was concerned, and if he’d been anywhere within touching distance over the course of the last eight hours, the thumping of her heart would have awakened her immediately. Instead, he’d chosen to sleep elsewhere rather than share a bed with her.
She should have been relieved. The last thing she needed right now was a husband she didn’t remember crowding her. He’d done the gentlemanly thing and given her space, and she should have been thanking him for it. Instead, something that felt an awful lot like hurt wrapped around her heart, confusing her. Had she actually wanted him to sleep with her?
You’re pregnant, Annie, a voice in her head snapped, and you can’t even assure the man that the baby is his. How else do you expect him to react? A lesser man might have told you to come back when you had the answers he was entitled to. Be thankful he’s letting you stay because you’ve got nowhere else to go.
Flinching at the lonely thought, she threw back the covers and rolled out of bed, only to be presented with another problem when her eyes fell on the jeans and faded shirt she’d worn yesterday. She had no other clothes. What was she supposed to wear?
“Annie? You awake?”
The tap that followed the hushed whisper was the only warning she got. The door flew open and she was caught flat-footed in her panties and the T-shirt she’d borro
wed from Joe as he swept into the room. His arms loaded with clothes, he hardly spared her a glance. “Good, you’re awake. I brought you some things—”
In the act of dumping the clothes on the bed, he looked up…and stopped short. In one all-encompassing look, he took in her bare legs, her tousled hair and the shadowy nipples that she knew were barely concealed by the thin material of his T-shirt. He didn’t move so much as a muscle, but he didn’t have to. His eyes turned hot and molten, and she would have sworn he touched her. Her breath hitched in her throat, her body quickened, confusing her.
She wanted to run, to bolt for the door, but she couldn’t and didn’t know why. He was her husband; he must have seen her like this a thousand times before. There was no reason to act like a virgin caught stepping from her bath. She was safe.
But the look in his brown eyes was dark and dangerous and intimate, touching her deep inside. She felt heat bloom in her cheeks and wanted to hide. All she could do was wrap her arms around herself to cover her breasts and drag her eyes away from his to the colorful garments that slid from his hands to the bed. “You went shopping this early in the morning?”
“Actually, I went over to your apartment and bullied the manager into letting me in,” he replied stiffly. “I thought you’d feel more comfortable in your own things, and there was no use buying anything since you had a whole closet full of clothes right across town. I hope you don’t mind.”
Touched, Annie didn’t know what to say. Going to her apartment, seeing where she’d lived when she’d left him, where she’d possibly betrayed him with another man, couldn’t have been easy for him. But he’d done it for her…to help her feel more like herself. Did he have any idea what that did to her? She wanted to cross to him, to touch him, to ease the rigidness of his jaw and assure him that he had no reason to doubt her. But how could she know that for sure?
So she stayed where she was and said, “No, of course I don’t mind. In fact, I was just wondering what I was going to wear. I’ll have to buy maternity clothes eventually, but for now, I can wear my old clothes. Thanks.”