Mia woke to the smell of something tantalizing cooking in the kitchen. Pushing aside the heavy covers, she puzzled over how she’d ended up in bed. She remembered dressing after her shower, sinking onto the lid of the commode to rest for just a moment. Leaning against the wall and closing her eyes.
He had to have carried her in here. As she eased herself to the edge of the bed, every muscle screaming, she spotted the chair pulled up close. A magazine on the chair, pages folded back marking his place, told her he’d been sitting here with her for some time.
She squinted at the digital clock on the nightstand. Nearly 8:00 p.m. She’d slept for three hours. If she’d dreamed, if her mind had given her clues to her identity during REM, she could recall nothing now.
Her body ached abominably as she rose, but her stomach and her nose pulled her from the room. She’d never felt so ravenous. No telling when she’d eaten last. Based on the leanness of her body, whatever she had eaten hadn’t been enough.
He stood at the stove, his back to her as she traced the delectable aroma to the kitchen. She hesitated in the doorway, watching him lift the sauté pan from the stove and, with an expert flex of his wrist, flip the slices of chicken in it. A large pot of water simmered on a back burner, and a thick red sauce bubbled in another pan up front.
He flicked a glance in her direction. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a truck fell on me.” She inched into the kitchen, the tile floor cool even through the thick socks she wore. “That smells divine.”
“My take on chicken piccata.” He pointed to a cabinet near the sink. “There’s ibuprofen on the second shelf. Glasses in the cabinet next to the fridge.”
She shook out two of the painkillers, then got some water from the tap. As she swallowed the pills, Jack fanned a box of linguini into the boiling water. He stirred the pasta as it relaxed into the pot, then set aside the spoon and faced her.
“You’ll have to spend the night,” he said. “If the weather cooperates, I’ll drive you up to the sheriff’s substation in South Lake Tahoe. County sheriff can take it from there.”
Her stomach knotted, and sudden panic prickled through her. She struggled to ignore it. “I appreciate you letting me stay.”
He stabbed at the pasta again with the black plastic spoon. “On our way out, we’ll look for your car.”
“What car?”
“You had to get here somehow. The creek is four miles from the highway. Did you walk all that way up my road?”
She rubbed her brow. “I remember walking. But not on the road, not at first. Just through the forest. It took me a while to find the road.”
He narrowed his gaze on her. “However you got into those woods, you had to have started out in a car. We’ll find it tomorrow.”
She tried to picture herself behind the wheel, winding her way up that steep gravel road. But she couldn’t even visualize what kind of car she drove, let alone remember herself behind the wheel.
Edgy and anxious, she asked, “Can I do anything?”
“There’s some bagged lettuce in the fridge, bottled dressing in the door. Feel free to add whatever you like to the salad.”
She quickly found the lettuce, then fished tomatoes and a ripe avocado from the crisper door. She added a jar of kalamata olives and carton of feta cheese to the items on the granite countertop.
Without waiting for instruction, she opened cupboards until she found a salad bowl, then slid out a cutting board from beside the knife block. She selected a serrated knife, stood with it poised over the bright red tomato.
Her hand shook. Her throat closed. Her chest felt so tight she couldn’t breathe. Her fingers squeezed the taut skin of the tomato until her nails broke through, expelling juice onto the wooden cutting board. Fear stabbed through her at the sight of those thin red dribbles pooling beside her hand. An image flashed in her mind—her hand gripping the scratch on her left arm, blood oozing from between her fingers.
“Mia.”
The voice echoed through her skull as if her head had emptied of content. Her mind had floated off, seeping from her head, hovering over her. Somehow she was outside herself, watching herself stand there, holding the knife, crushing the tomato in her fingers.
“Mia!”
This time she registered the voice as Jack’s, became aware of his hand wrapped around her wrist. Terror rocketed through her in reaction to his powerful grip, and she tried to pull away. But he didn’t relent, shouting her name as he held on, the name that meant nothing to her.
“Let go of the knife, Mia!”
At his shouted command, she looked dully down at their joined hands. Saw the way her index finger had shifted too far up the handle and now curled around the blade. Deep red droplets joined the puddling tomato juice on the cutting board.
With a gasp, she flung the knife away. Jack gentled his hold on her, then guided her to the sink. He cranked on the cold water and held her hand under its flow.
“Don’t move,” he barked, leaving her side long enough to turn off the burners.
She stared down at the thinning blood as the water diluted it. Still with that sense of distant observation, she realized it wasn’t much of a cut. She’d only caught the edge of the knife, and despite her frozen grip, hadn’t pressed it in too deeply.
She turned off the water and grabbed a paper towel. Only a dab of blood welled from the cut. A little pressure would stanch the flow.
Jack bracketed her face with his large hands. “You’re as white as a sheet.”
His touch grounded her, driving the fog from her brain. She shook her head, enjoying the feel of him moving with her. “I’m fine.”
“The hell you are.” He dropped his hands. “I’m going to assume you just need to eat. You’re nothing but skin and bones.”
The assessment stung, despite the simple truth of it. Heat rising in her cheeks, she took a step toward the counter where she’d left the makings of the salad.
Jack intervened. “I’ll do that. You sit down. There’s bread on the table. I want you to eat some with plenty of butter.”
She was too desperate for something to eat to waste the energy for argument. She pulled back one of the chairs where he’d laid a place setting and helped herself to a thick slice of French bread from the basket. As she slathered it generously with butter, Jack drained the pasta, then turned to assemble the salad.
He threw away the ruined tomato and opened the refrigerator for a replacement. He took it in his hand and placed it on the counter.
“No,” Mia said, more loudly than she’d intended. “No tomato, please.”
Jack gave her a long look. “You don’t like them?”
“Yes. No. Dammit, I don’t know. Just don’t put it in the salad.”
With a nod, he put it back in the crisper drawer. As she choked down a bite of bread, Mia swiped away the fragments of memory that still swirled in her mind—anger, blood, pain. She knew she should be trying to remember, should force those images into awareness. But for the moment, she’d just as soon not know what darkness lurked in her past.
Chapter Three
After two helpings of chicken, a full plate of pasta, a healthy serving of salad and more bread, Mia’s head felt clearer. It seemed as if she hadn’t eaten properly for a good long while and needed to make up for lost time. Still, as she ate she felt twinges of anxiety—was she eating too much? Would she get too fat? She pushed aside the nagging messages as she ate, driven on by her body’s imperative.
Jack let her help carry the dishes in from the dining-room table, but when she tried to rinse her plate, he plucked it from her hands and pointed her toward a bar stool pulled up to the breakfast bar. He made quick work of slotting plates and flatware into the dishwasher, then washing the cookware he’d used.
“Stay there,” he ordered as he shut off the water and strode from the kitchen.
The moment he was out of sight, she slid from the stool. He’d left the bread basket on the table with a couple slices
of French bread still in it. No sense in letting it go stale; she’d find a plastic bag and put it away.
She found the bags in the third drawer she opened. Slipping one out, she turned too swiftly back toward the dining room. Her head swam, sparkles of light dancing in her vision as she groped for the nearest counter. But the bag was still in that hand and the slick plastic gave her no purchase on the polished granite.
She stumbled, banging her shin against the kitchen trash can, no doubt adding to the collection of bruises there. Before she could regain her balance, she felt his hands on her, righting her. With firm determination he plunked her down into a dining-room chair. He set a white-and-blue first-aid box beside her.
“I told you to sit still,” he said, a trace of irritation in his tone.
“I wanted to put the bread away.” She gestured at the basket.
He grabbed the plastic bag from the counter and tucked the slices in it. “Push up your left sleeve.” He opened the box and laid out hydrogen peroxide, a tube of ointment, gauze and tape, then pulled a chair over for himself.
She shoved the sleeve up past her elbow. “Whose clothes are these?”
He dabbed hydrogen peroxide on her arm, and it foamed along the scratch. “My wife’s.”
“Is she—”
“She’s dead.” He squeezed a line of antibiotic ointment on a square of gauze and pressed it to her arm.
“I’m sorry.”
“A long time ago.”
His long, capable fingers held the gauze steady as he affixed it with tape. His gentleness melted something inside her, a knot of fear she hadn’t even known she still harbored. With his head bent so close to her, she could look up at him sidelong and study him surreptitiously.
He’d tucked his long, black hair behind his ears, revealing high cheekbones that could have been Native American. His eyes were nearly as dark as his hair and were opaque as if they concealed secrets. The sensuality of his full mouth, despite the grim line he now held it in, stirred her imagination. What would it be like to have that mouth pressed against the crook of her arm, along her throat? Or trailing a line of moist kisses across her collarbone, down between her breasts…
As if he’d read her mind, he lifted his gaze to hers. Those dark eyes, so fathomless, seemed to bore into her soul, searching for the truth buried there. If he really could ferret out her identity, she should be grateful. But she felt as stripped bare emotionally by his probing gaze as she’d been naked to him physically.
He released her arm and abruptly rose. “Go to bed. You need a good night’s rest.”
While he replaced the contents of the first-aid box, Mia eased herself up. The spurt of energy she’d felt after dinner had faded and she wanted nothing more than to crawl back into that bed. But she wasn’t used to being ordered around.
She wasn’t? How could she know that, when she remembered nothing else? She had a sense of being in control, being in charge. Being the one to give the orders.
She thought about her reflection in the mirror—skinny, almost frail. It didn’t jibe with her more-powerful mental image of herself.
Still, it rankled to simply march off to bed, obedient as a child. When he finished with the first-aid box and fixed her with his stare, she just stared back.
“How long were you married?” she asked.
Silence beat for several seconds. He turned away before he answered, setting the box on the black granite countertop.
“Seven years.”
“How long ago did she…”
He turned toward her again, that beautiful mouth compressed tightly. “Let’s stick to figuring out who you are, not who I am.”
He walked out of the kitchen. Mia followed, watched him cross the great room into what she guessed was the master bedroom. She made her way to the guest room, tiredness weighing heavily with each step. Shifting aside the magazine, she sank into the chair beside the bed.
Her eyes shut, she didn’t know he’d entered the room until he spoke. “I thought you’d need these.”
His hands were wrapped around a satiny pink bundle. He set the pile on the bed.
“A pair of Elizabeth’s pajamas. She only wore them once or twice. Too big for you, I’m guessing, but it’s the best I can do.” He fished something out from the pajamas. “A new toothbrush and toothpaste. Will you need anything else?”
Answers, she thought. “No, thank you.”
Edging around her, he gathered up his magazines. “You’re okay getting dressed on your own?” Color rose in his cheeks as he asked the question.
She felt a flush rise in her own cheeks. “Yes. I’m fine.”
He retraced his steps from the room but then hesitated by the door. “It’s been five years,” he said. Then he walked out, leaving her alone.
Magazines piled on the sofa beside him, Jack stared moodily at the dying embers in the pellet stove, all too aware of the woman sleeping just a couple dozen feet away. After she’d finished in the bathroom, he’d wandered over toward the guest room a few times, looking for the light under her door. She’d switched it off an hour ago, and when he’d checked ten minutes later, she was asleep.
He didn’t let himself stay there, watching her as he’d done earlier. He felt dangerously vulnerable already, so near the anniversary. The last thing he needed was to start fantasizing about Mia’s body and how it might feel under his hands, his mouth.
Ministering to the scratch on her arm, despite the necessity of it, had been a mistake. What should have been a clinical cleansing and bandaging had been transformed by his over-fertile imagination into a sensual experience. He’d let himself enjoy the silky texture of her skin against his fingers, the warmth of her, the faint scent of her freshly washed hair.
He closed the magazine on his lap and tossed it aside. It wasn’t quite eleven and he rarely went to sleep before midnight. But he couldn’t stand to sit still any longer, pretending to read. He pushed to his feet and headed for his office, switching off lights as he went.
His satellite Internet link was sometimes iffy in a storm of the magnitude of the one still roaring outside. If he couldn’t connect to the Web, he’d have to resort to one of the DVDs stacked beside the entertainment unit in the master suite. He doubted a movie, no matter how riveting, would keep him focused tonight.
But he had no trouble connecting to a search site. As the wind moaned outside, rain spattering against the windows, he typed in “Mia” and “missing.” It was just an initial foray; he’d have to add other search terms to narrow down the results.
As he scanned page one of the million-plus hits, he realized for the first time the irony of Mia’s name. MIA. Missing in Action. If there was any information on the World Wide Web about a missing woman named Mia, it was drowned in the hundreds of thousands of Internet pages about missing soldiers.
So engrossed was he in flipping through the pages of search hits, he didn’t hear her enter his office, her bare feet silent on the thick carpet. When her hand gripped the back of his chair, he swung around to look up at her. She stared at the screen, her gray eyes wide with fear. Had she just woken from a nightmare?
“What are you doing?” she asked, knuckles white where she gripped the chair.
“Seeing what I can find out about you.”
She’d gone so pale, he worried about her passing out again. The pink satin pajamas, far too large for her, seemed to shrink her into a fragile doll.
Rising, he peeled her hand from the back of the chair. “Sit down.”
She resisted him, keeping her gaze riveted on the screen. “You can’t…please don’t…” She pushed past him, reaching for the mouse. She clicked the X in the upper-right corner, and the Internet browser vanished.
She all but collapsed into the chair. Jack went down on one knee and took her hands. They were icy. Her breathing was more rapid than he liked and he could see the tension that fear had put into her face.
“What is it, Mia? What am I not supposed to do?”
She
shook her head, as if to pull herself from a daze. “Don’t look for me.”
“I thought you wanted to find out who you are.”
“I do.” Her brow furrowed. “It makes sense to search the Internet.” She shook her head again slowly. “But the thought of what you’ll find terrifies me.”
Her hands, so small in his, had warmed, her fingers curled within his own. She turned her wrists, her thumbs curving around his as if to anchor herself. He closed his hands around hers more snugly.
Her shoulders slumping, she tipped her head down, the fragrance of his own shampoo in her hair alchemized into something mysterious and intriguing. He could feel her trembling, and he tugged her closer, wrapping his arms around her.
A big mistake. The slick feel of the satiny pajamas brought back vague memories of Elizabeth, of holding her just as he held Mia. The memories intertwined, except it wasn’t Elizabeth’s thick blond hair he longed to bury his face in, it was Mia’s short silky cap. Mia’s ear he wanted to brush his mouth along, Mia’s sensitive lobe he wanted to taste.
He pulled away from her. “You should get back to bed.”
She looked up at him. “You won’t do any more searches?”
What did it matter? She’d be gone in the morning, anyway. He might as well leave it to the county sheriff. “I won’t.”
She flattened a hand on his desk to push herself to her feet. He grabbed for her when she swayed, then held her elbow as he walked her back to the guest room. Her exhaustion squelched his errant thoughts. He got her back into bed without doing anything stupid.
Returning to his office, he switched off the lights. A novel waited for him on his nightstand, one of the latest hot thrillers. Maybe he could read himself to sleep.
When he saw the stripped bed, he remembered the comforter he’d wrapped Mia in after he’d undressed her. She’d left it and the afghan in a heap in the bathroom, likely too enervated to fold them. He threw the afghan into the laundry room, then carried the comforter back to his room.
Her Miracle Man Page 3