Memories of Megan

by Rita Herron

  And now they wanted to do the same thing to Megan.

  He had to stop them.

  Even if he died trying.

  “I can’t let you do that to Megan. She doesn’t deserve this.”

  “You can’t stop us now.”

  Cole spun around to argue, but Parnell pulled out a gun and aimed it at his chest.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Megan fought against the haze of drugs and the restraints. She had to escape. She had to tell Cole what was going on.

  Had they wiped out his memories the way they planned to do hers?

  A movement flickered in her peripheral vision. A surgical mask. A man. His face was fuzzy.

  “Just relax, Megan. It will all be over soon.”

  She recognized the voice. Jones.

  Panicking, she pulled against the restraints, crying out when they snapped her arms back painfully. The door squeaked open behind her.

  “What the hell are you doing bringing him in here?”

  “I thought he might like to watch.”

  Megan strained to see, but the men were too far away.

  “Megan, hang on, honey.”

  Cole?

  “This is crazy, gentlemen. You’ve already carried things too far.” Cole’s husky voice penetrated the haze around her, soothing her. “I’ve already contacted Black. He knows where we are. He suspects you have Megan.”

  Parnell cursed.

  Jones laughed. “It won’t make any difference. All he’ll find is a confused Megan.” He chuckled. “In fact, when she wakes up, she’ll be infatuated with me. You’d be amazed at what a few hypnotic suggestions can do.”

  Megan struggled again. He was sick. She had never liked him. She wouldn’t, no matter what he did to her. A person could resist hypnotic suggestions, couldn’t they?

  “I don’t think so,” Cole said, his voice furious. “She will never be with you, Jones. Not after the things you’ve done.”

  “Don’t you dare judge me,” Jones growled. “I’m a genius. No one else could have accomplished the things we have with M-T.”

  “Because no one else is that sick and twisted.” Megan heard footsteps and realized Cole was moving closer to Jones. “No one else is so unethical they would commit murder to preserve their own overinflated ego.”

  Megan startled as a scuffle broke out. Jones yelled an obscenity, a loud grunt of pain followed, and she heard fists pounding against bone. She struggled to move her arms again, fighting for her own escape. But her blood ran cold when a gunshot pierced the air. Another loud grunt and a thump followed. She froze, listening. One of the men had hit the floor. But who?

  Had they killed Cole?

  COLE MANAGED TO KNOCK Jones to the floor. He ducked and dodged the bullet from Parnell’s gun, turned and karate kicked the weapon from Parnell’s hand, then swung back and kicked him in the stomach. Cole snatched the gun from the floor, rolled to a stop by the surgical table and stood. Memories rushed back but he didn’t have time to deal with them. Other fights. Gunfire. The air force. He had been a soldier. His name…

  Loud voices punctuated the silence. The guards were on their way. They had to escape before they found them.

  He hurriedly unfastened the restraints around Megan’s wrists. “Megan, are you okay, honey?”

  She moaned and opened her eyes. “Cole, you…you’re alive?”

  “Yes, baby, and we’re getting you out of here.” He slid his arm around her waist, furious when he realized she was wearing a hospital gown beneath that sheet. Who the hell had taken off her clothes? What had they done to her before they brought her here?

  “Are you hurt, Megan?”

  She shook her head. “Just dizzy from the drugs.”

  He wrapped the sheet around her, scooped her into his arms and ran toward the door. Footsteps sounded from the hallway, and he jogged the opposite direction. Megan clung to his shoulders, burying herself against his chest. A bullet pinged off the hall wall behind him and ricocheted above them. Another hit the glass window of the office door he’d just passed. Glass shattered. Megan jerked in his arms. He passed two corridors, and another office door, saw the staircase exit and took it. Running as fast as he could, he barreled down the steps. The footsteps pounded louder, closing in on them.

  Winded from the run, he heaved a breath and pushed open the concrete door, searching for a place to hide. Two helicopters roared above them and he froze, the wind from the propeller whipping dust around them. A voice boomed out from the bullhorn. “This is the police.”

  Cole froze and thanked the heavens. Megan’s fingers curled against his chest. “You saved my life, Cole.”

  A slow smile curved his mouth. “My name isn’t Cole, Megan. It’s Clayton Fox.” He hugged her to him. “But you can call me Clay.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek. “You’re the man Tom was meeting the night he died.”

  Cole’s stomach lurched. He had finally remembered his identity. But even though he wasn’t the horrible Arnold Hughes or that prisoner, if he hadn’t dogged Tom Wells for information, Megan’s husband would still be alive.

  MEGAN WATCHED IN MUTE shock as the police handcuffed and arrested Dr. Jones and Dr. Parnell. She still couldn’t believe that two physicians had gone to the lengths they had to preserve their research project.

  And that Cole Hunter was actually a police detective.

  Not a doctor or scientist at all.

  Tom had planned to meet him the night he had died. So Tom had been one of the good guys. At least in the end.

  Cole—no, Clay—patted her hand as if they were two strangers, his gaze guarded. “Are you all right, Megan?”

  “Yes.” She met his gaze, her heart thumping. What was he thinking? “You were there when Tom died?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you tell me what happened?”

  He nodded, solemnly. “But first I have to talk to Black. Then I’ll take you home. That is, unless you’d rather one of the other policemen drive you?”

  Was he so ready to be finished with her that he hoped she’d say yes? Did he blame her and Tom for what had happened to him? “I’ll wait.”

  A small smile flickered, then disappeared. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She watched him walk away, his stride purposeful, his big board shoulders and arms so thick and strong she longed for them to embrace her. Would he ever hold her again?

  Or would he walk away once he took her home?

  If he did, she would never feel the same kind of passion in another man’s arms as she had felt in his.

  CLAY SLOWLY APPROACHED Adam Black, his heart in his throat. Tidbits of his past life flashed back in painful clarity. The night Adam had gone after Hughes and Santenelli. The night Adam had married his new wife, Sarah.

  The night he had met Tom Wells to get the disk. The gunshot that had most likely killed Tom Wells.

  Black looked at the chopper where the police had just secured Jones and Parnell. “Listen, Hunter, there’s something I have to tell you. The fingerprints…” Black paused and grinned sheepishly. “I took the pen you wrote with at Ms. Wells’s house, anyway, the fingerprints—”

  “Belong to Clay Fox, your partner.”

  Adam broke into a grin. “You remembered?”

  Clay nodded, his hand rubbing his face. “Yeah, partner. I may not look the same, but I’m back.”

  Adam threw his arms around him and pounded him on the back. Clay chuckled, then sobered and said in a voice thick with emotions, “I’ve never been so glad to see you in my life, Black.”

  “SO, THE BODY THE POLICE exhumed was definitely Tom’s?” Megan asked, two hours later when she and Cole—Clay—had settled into her house. She still felt slightly groggy and weak, but the lingering effects of the drugs Jones had given her were slowly wearing off.

  Still, she shivered at the thought of how close she had come to having her memory erased.

  “Yes.” Clay brought her a hot cup of tea.

  Megan’s hands
trembled as she accepted it, the slight contact with his warm hands like a balm to her wounded soul. He noticed the shaky movement, though, and visibly tensed, pulling away to sit in the chair across from her.

  “You wanted to know about Tom, about the night he died?”

  “Yes.” She sipped the tea. grateful for the soothing moisture. Her mouth was so dry it felt like cotton. Probably from the drugs.

  He clasped his hands, leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. His dark eyes looked troubled. Haunted. “My memories are still scattered,” he said in a gruff voice. “But I spoke with him a couple of times at the center. I was trying to get a lead on Hughes, to find out if anyone had heard if he’d resurfaced.”

  “And had they?”

  “I never found out. But Tom seemed disturbed. When I pushed him, he backed off.” He ran a hand over the rough stubble of his beard growth. “Then he contacted me a couple of weeks later. Admitted something was going on that shouldn’t. Said it had gone too far.”

  “The experiments with M-T?”

  “Yes. He was going to give me the disk that night.”

  Megan stared into the tea. “So they killed Tom because he intended to turn them in?”

  Clay nodded. “They didn’t mean to kill him. The shot that got him was meant for me. They only planned to alter his memory.”

  “What?”

  Clay’s expression was grave. “They needed to get rid of me, not Tom. They wanted his knowledge about the research. When he died instead of me, they decided it was the perfect opportunity to try out their new project. They’d get rid of Clay Fox, and save Tom’s memories. They figured if they gave me a whole new identity and I didn’t figure it out, then the project was a success.”

  “God, that’s crazy. I didn’t know it was even possible.”

  “Apparently it didn’t work as they expected.” He released a disgusted grunt. “They tried to isolate cognitive memory cells, but the experiment failed. Some of the emotions Tom felt for you carried over, too.”

  Had all his feelings for her belonged to Tom? And now that his own memories had returned, had his desire for her faded as well?

  CLAY WATCHED MEGAN, struggling to decipher her reaction, but he couldn’t read the myriad of emotions glittering in her expressive eyes. He was confused himself, more memories filtering through the darkness. But a few holes in his past loomed big and wide, like a canyon of emptiness. Parts of his childhood. His hometown.

  He needed to recover all of his past. Or as much of it as he could before he could move on with his life.

  For weeks, he’d been living his life as one man. Courting a dead man’s wife.

  What did his future hold?

  He wanted Megan to be in it. But could she forgive him for setting up the meeting that had cost her husband his life? Even if she hadn’t thought he was Tom, she had spent time with Cole Hunter, the psychiatrist, not Clayton Fox, the cop?

  “I…it looks like the danger is over, Megan.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I guess I should go, then. Let you get some rest.”

  “All right.” She walked him to the door, pulling a blanket around her shoulders.

  He hesitated in the doorway, breathing in her soft feminine scent one more time, memorizing her features, the way her lower lip protruded slightly when she frowned, the way those vibrant blue eyes changed with inflection as her emotions pingponged back and forth.

  “What are you going to do now, Clay?”

  He shrugged. “Try to get my life back together.”

  “Have all your memories returned?”

  He shook his head. “Bits and pieces. I guess it’ll take some time.”

  “What about hypnosis?”

  He had talked to the Dr. Ferguson at the hospital, but he wasn’t sure he’d use anyone at CIRP. “Maybe I will.”

  He gripped the doorknob, a bead of perspiration trickling down his neck. Soft light from the hall lamp bathed her face, outlining the curve of her nose and shimmering off her blond hair. Images flooded him—images of her lying in bed with that hair spilling around her shoulder. Of her cradled in his arms, of her smiles of ecstasy when he’d made love to her.

  “Thank you for everything, Cole…I mean Clay.”

  The sound of the other man’s name on her lips reminded him of the bizarre circumstances that had brought them together.

  He didn’t want her thanks. He wanted her love.

  But that had obviously belonged to her husband.

  A knot tightened in his throat, and he couldn’t help himself. He reached out, cradled the back of her neck with his hand, pulled her to him and kissed her one more time. A real Clayton Fox kiss he hoped she would remember.

  Although this time, he was afraid the kiss meant goodbye.

  MEGAN SET THE SECURITY system, an aching loneliness echoing through her. For the past few days she and Clay had been together around the clock. Now, he had disappeared from her life, and the house felt empty.

  Just as it had when Tom had first left.

  Only different.

  She and Tom had been married, while she and Clay had been what? Lovers? Drawn together through stolen memories?

  The dreams she’d had about Tom had been so real—had he returned through Cole to tell her that he loved her? To tell her to move on?

  Her angel collection had been shattered by the person who’d broken into her house. But Clay had surfaced, like a real-life angel, to protect her. Or had his detective instincts driven him to search for the truth and be her guardian?

  Bittersweet reminders of Clay filled the house now. His scent lingered in the air just as the feel of his hands lingered on her skin.

  Her gold wedding band shimmered in the lamplight. She had slept with Clay; it was time to accept that her marriage to Tom had ended. Slowly she slipped the band off and placed it in her jewelry case beside the silver chain Tom had given her. As she closed the case, she knew she was closing the chapter on her life with Tom.

  Thoughts of the night she’d spent with Clay filled her mind again. The pleasure and passion she’d experienced with him had been so intense. Would she ever see him again?

  A cold chill engulfed her, and she burrowed deeper into the afghan. As she climbed in bed, she imagined the afghan was Clay’s big strong arms. And her pillow she imagined as his shoulder.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next two weeks passed in a miserable blur for Megan. She dragged the last of her summer clothes out and packed them away, her mind still sorting through her emotions.

  She had settled her insurance claim and bought a new car. She’d also phoned the hospital and requested a leave of absence, claiming she needed time to regroup, to clear the cobwebs from her mind. Under the circumstances, the head of psychiatry had been more than cordial. She supposed he expected a lawsuit on his hands, but Megan didn’t want revenge. She simply wanted peace. She did have mixed feelings about working at the center again. Too many reminders of Tom and now Clay occupied the place. And her trust in the people she worked with had been severed by Jones’s and Parnell’s actions.

  Jumping into a relationship with Clay had come on the heels of Tom’s death—had her feelings for him been borne out of loneliness or confusion over Clay’s identity?

  She didn’t think so…

  A wave of nausea sent her head spinning and Megan dropped the box of clothes, struggling for composure. This was the second time this week she’d felt sick. Clutching her stomach, she went to the bathroom and opened the cabinet. The pregnancy test kit she’d purchased when she and Tom had been trying to conceive glared at her like an owl with knowing eyes from the top shelf.

  Her hand trembled as she reached for it.

  CLAY GRABBED A STALE doughnut from the tray, poured a thick cup of black coffee into a foam cup and ambled over to his desk. One bite into the doughnut, and he tossed it into the trash. He didn’t have a taste for anything anymore. Not food or life.

  He was starving for Megan.
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br />   He shoved the image of her face from his mind and tried to focus on work. “Any news on Chadburn?”

  “No word,” Adam said. “Seems he disappeared. Just like Hughes.”

  “You think he might be Hughes?”

  “It’s possible. He was definitely in on M-T.”

  Clay nodded, the words on the pages in front of him blurring. M-T was the most bizarre case he’d worked on to date. But if it hadn’t been for it, he never would have met Megan.

  “Have you called her?”

  Clay frowned in disgust. “What, does mind reading come with marriage?”

  Adam swiveled in his chair and rested his boots on his desk. “Figured it was either the woman or the shrink you’ve been seeing.”

  Clay cursed. “The shrink is simply helping me regain my memories. I’m not a lunatic.”

  Deep laughter rumbled from Adam’s chest. “I know that, partner. But you’ve been through a hell of a lot lately. Being the object of a research experiment, having your memories erased, receiving a new face, all that would do a number on anyone.”

  “I appreciate the concern,” Clay snarled, hating the fact that his friend had hit the nail on the head. “But I’m fine.”

  “Right. The way you’ve been moping around, I’d say this woman really got under your skin.”

  Clay shot him a dark look. “Just because you’re crazy about a woman doesn’t mean everyone has to get hitched.”

  “So, you have thought about marriage?”

  Clay cursed again. Why had he said that? “Listen, Black, Megan Wells only got involved with me because she was in danger and she thought I might be her husband. She wanted a second chance with him.”

  “But he’s dead now,” Black said matter-of-factly. “And she did get involved with you. So what are you going to do about it?”

  Clay shrugged, the lines on the file he needed to read blurring. He had ignored the stab of envy he’d felt at his partner’s wedding a couple of months ago. But he couldn’t ignore the same envy that snaked through him when he thought about Black going home to a loving wife every night. And he couldn’t deny his feelings for Megan any longer.