Look into My Eyes

by Glenda Sanders

  * * *

  FOR FIVE DAYS, “now” remained an enchanted place. Holly loved Craig with an intensity and fierceness that shut out the world with all its vagaries and unknowns. Craig returned her love with the same ardor. He never kissed her without telling her that he loved her; he never hugged her without a verbal assurance that no matter what happened, they would find a way for things to work out.

  Although they avoided talking about the uncertainties that hung over their relationship like the savage pendulum suspended over the pit in her heart, Holly knew that eventually, inevitably, Craig’s past would insinuate itself into their relationship. She saw her own fear reflected in Craig’s eyes, and sensed desperation in the way he touched her—the same desperation that made her cling to him with every embrace.

  Saturday after work, they changed into comfortable clothes, called for a pizza and settled in to watch the movies Holly had checked out from the library’s video collection. The evening stretched ahead of them filled with the promise of pleasure.

  “This first movie is really sad,” Holly said, hitting the play button. “We may need tissues.”

  “I thought you didn’t like sad movies,” Craig said.

  “This one’s an exception.” She cuddled close to Craig, resting her head on his shoulder and stretching her arm across his waist in front.

  The film flashed onto the screen. “What is this?” Craig protested. “A cartoon? Pepe Le Pew? I thought you said it was a sad movie!”

  “Pepe never gets the girl,” she said.

  “He’s a skunk!”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” Holly said with laughter in her voice. “Skunks need affection like anybody else.”

  “Saturday night and we’re watching a skunk try to seduce a cat!” Craig grumbled good-naturedly.

  “Are you complaining about the quality of the entertainment?” Holly teased.

  With an unexpected but deft maneuver, he pushed her back onto the couch and crouched over her. “Chérie, do you not know that there ees nowhere else on earth I’d rather be than with you?” he said in a perfect imitation of Pepe. “Tu es jolie. Tu es sexy. Je t’aime avec touts mon coeur. Viens avec moi au Casbah et fais l’amour avec moi.”

  “You speak French?”

  “Mais oui, chérie. C’est la langue d’amour.”

  “You speak French!” she repeated.

  He chortled, as shocked as she. “I’ll be damned. I speak French.” He absorbed the information for several seconds before giving her a deliberately lecherous look. “Now, where were we, ma petite chou? Ah, yes—l’amour!”

  With a mock-savage growl, he pretended to take a bite from her neck, then, lifting his head, he kissed his fingertips and released an exaggerated sigh. “Tu es—”

  The doorbell rang. “Je suis...going to get the pizza,” Holly said, pushing on his chest with the flat of her hands.

  “Mais, chérie—who needs food when we have each other?”

  “Man does not live on l’amour alone,” she said. “Nor does woman.”

  “We could try,” he said.

  Holly picked up the money they’d put on the table in anticipation of the pizza delivery and, cash in hand, opened the door to greet the deliveryman. Everything inside her went cold with premonition when she discovered who had really rung the bell: Josh.

  Spying Craig approaching, he said, “Oh, good. You’re both here. I thought you’d want to hear the good news together.”

  “Good news?” Craig asked. He draped his arm across Holly’s shoulders as Josh stepped into the room.

  “I waited until we were sure this time,” Josh said.

  “You know who I am?” Holly felt Craig tense as he asked the question.

  “Do you two want to sit down to hear this?”

  “Just tell us,” Craig snapped.

  Josh shrugged. “All right. Here it is. Your name is Timothy Edward Sotherland, and you’re an architect from Cincinnati.”

  “Timothy Edward Sotherland,” Craig repeated. His face took on a sudden pallor, but Holly assumed that was to be expected.

  “The reason no one filed a report on you is that you were supposed to be touring Europe on an extended sabbatical. Soaking up inspiration from old-world architecture or something. Apparently, you’re a very promising young architect, because you won a pretty important design competition with a substantial cash endowment.”

  “The VonFremdam Memorial Grant.”

  “You remember?” Josh asked. He didn’t seem to notice the odd flatness in Craig’s voice.

  Timothy Sotherland’s voice, Holly corrected in her mind.

  “Yes. I...when you said my name—”

  He crumbled so suddenly that neither of them had time to react. Holly grabbed for his arm, but her strength was no match for his weight and the downward momentum he’d already gathered. Josh had lunged to catch him, but was half a second too late to do any good.

  Craig’s head hit the corner of an end table with a sickening thunk. A groan pushed its way through his throat as his head rolled limply to the side.

  “Craig!” Holly dropped to her knees beside him and gasped in horror at the puddle of blood gathering beneath his head. Instinctively, she reached to check the injury, but Josh, also kneeling, clasped her wrist.

  “Don’t move him. If he’s sustained a neck- or spinal-cord injury, you could make it worse.”

  “Call an ambulance!” she ordered.

  “You got it!”

  Holly was only vaguely aware of his using the phone before he returned with a towel, which he carefully tucked near Craig’s head. “This should protect your carpet a little.”

  “Who cares about the carpet?” she snapped at him. “Craig could be dying!”

  “Tim,” Josh corrected. “And I don’t think he’s dying. He hit on the toughest part of his head.”

  “But the blood—”

  “A little blood goes a long way,” Josh said.

  “I hope you’re right,” she said, staring at the stain dubiously. “What’s keeping the ambulance?”

  “It’s only been two minutes.”

  “It seems like forever.”

  Seconds continued to crawl snaillike into what seemed like hours. The paramedics arrived, strapped Craig to a board and started an IV line. “His pulse is strong and his breathing is normal,” one of the paramedics told her. “It’s probably not too bad.”

  All Holly could do was nod gratefully and trail after them as they wheeled Craig out to the ambulance, then watch as they loaded the gurney onto the vehicle.

  Josh drove her to the hospital behind the ambulance. “He’s going to be just fine,” he said. “You heard the paramedic. They don’t hand out false optimism.”

  Hands balled into tight fists, Holly stared at the blinking lights of the vehicle ahead of them, imagining Craig, pale and still, strapped and wired, inside. Craig Ford. Timothy Sotherland. An architect.

  “He’s not married,” Josh said.

  “What?” Holly said. Her mind teemed with questions, but her concern for his welfare superseded them.

  “He’s single. Never been married.”

  “One thing at a time,” she said. “I’ll celebrate his bachelorhood as soon as I know he’s going to be all right.”

  He was all right. He had to be. She repeated the litany over and over to herself during the endless wait for news at the hospital.

  * * *

  SOMEONE WAS POKING needles into the side of his head. Was the groan he heard his own?

  “He’s coming around,” said a female voice.

  “Wh-what?” Tim asked, but the word didn’t sound right. He tried to open his eyes, then shut them against the piercing light.

  A soothing hand stroked his upper arm, and the voice said, “Just relax and lie still. You’re in the emergency room. You’ve had a bump on the head. We’re patching you up. We’re almost finished.”

  He was more than happy to lie perfectly still. Damn! What were they doing to his head? Didn’t
they believe in anesthetics?

  “Four stitches,” said a new voice, male. “That’s nothing for a Saturday-night emergency. The nurse is going to get you bandaged, then we’ll be moving you up to a room for overnight observation. We’ve called Dr. Kale. He’s on his way.”

  Dr. Kale?

  Tim became increasingly aware of the unique hospital smells and noises as the nurse dabbed and blotted, snipped and taped. His head throbbed. “Aspirin?” he asked, or tried to.

  “Dr. Kale will take care of that,” the nurse said. “He’ll want to check you out first.”

  He tried opening his eyes to a squint until they adjusted to the light, then opened them the rest of the way. Machines. Rolling trays. Metal counters with canisters of swabs and cartons of gauze and sealed packets of disinfectant pads. God, he hated hospitals. He’d had his fill of them after the rafting disaster.

  “How?” he said.

  “You came in in an ambulance after a close encounter with an immovable object,” the nurse informed him.

  Tim tried to concentrate. At the hotel? No. Couldn’t be. He’d had lunch with Tom, and then he’d gone to the beach until—

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  The nurse, a pleasant-looking woman in her forties, consulted her watch. “Just after nine.”

  “I missed the shuttle.” He wiped his face with his hand. It was shaky. After nine? “I must have missed my flight, too. Wait a minute—” He tried to concentrate. Everything was fuzzy. “Did the doctor say it was Saturday?”

  “It has been all day.”

  “Have I been unconscious?” Even so, they wouldn’t wait two days to stitch up a wound.

  “You’d better talk to Dr. Kale about that,” she said.

  “Who’s Dr. Kale?”

  “Your neurologist.” She nodded toward the wide aisle separating the rows of treatment rooms, where an orderly was approaching with a gurney. “Looks like your limo is here. The floor nurses will get you settled into your room, and Dr. Kale will see you there.”

  In the waiting room in a different part of the hospital, Holly was pacing restlessly.

  “If he’s conscious, and he’s in a room, why won’t they let us see him?”

  “You heard what they said. The neurologist wants to see him first,” Josh said. “You know hospitals. They have their own way of doing things.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Ten-twenty,” Scalisi answered. He’d shown up about an hour after they arrived at the hospital, anxious to speak to Craig—Timothy—so he could close out the paperwork on his case.

  “Seven minutes later than the last time you asked,” Josh said. “Would you sit down, please. You’re getting on my nerves.”

  “I can’t just sit still.”

  “We’ll deal you in on the next hand.”

  “I don’t play poker.”

  Josh rolled his eyes and gave Scalisi a look of male camaraderie. “Too bad we don’t have a fourth. We could have a bridge party.”

  “We’d have to send out for some of those little finger sandwiches,” Scalisi elaborated.

  “And a pot of tea,” Josh said, affecting a British accent and holding an imaginary cup with his pinkie extended.

  Holly stopped pacing and crossed her arms. “You guys are funny as a toothache.”

  “Hey, this is no picnic for any of us,” Josh said. “It’s Saturday night. I have a certain reputation to live up to.”

  “You said it,” Scalisi agreed. “Marci had a baby-sitter lined up. We were supposed to go to a movie. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “You don’t have to stay on my account,” Holly said.

  “I drove you here, remember?” Josh said. “I can’t leave you stranded.”

  “And I have a thousand loose ends to tie up with this case. Frankly, I’ll be damned glad to get it off my desk.”

  “I’d kill for a beer,” Josh said.

  “You and me both,” Scalisi said, shuffling the cards. “Are you sure you don’t want us to deal you in, Holly?”

  Another half hour passed before a distinguished-looking man in khaki jeans and a doctor’s smock entered the room and looked around. “Officer Scalisi,” he said as Scalisi rose to greet him. “It’s good to see you again.”

  The doctor’s name was Kale. Scalisi introduced Holly and Josh, explaining that Holly was a special friend of the patient’s.

  “I’m glad he has friends here,” Dr. Kale said, pumping their hands enthusiastically. “I don’t know how this case has been from your perspective, Officer Scalisi, but from my point of view, it’s one of the most interesting I’ve encountered in eighteen years of specialty medical practice.”

  He paused to collect his thoughts, adopting a crisp, professional manner. “There’s something I think you should know about your friend’s condition.”

  Holly looked at him in alarm. “He’s not—”

  “Physically, he’s fine. The bump on the head was superficial, little more than a nasty scratch. May I ask—were you with him when he was injured?”

  “Yes. We were at my apartment,” Holly replied.

  “Do you mind telling me how it happened?” He listened with rapt attention as Josh and Holly gave a detailed account of the accident.

  “So he was confronted with the information about his identity prior to the fall, and he showed indications of remembering his past?”

  “Yes,” Holly said. “The name seemed to bring everything back.”

  “He remembered the name of the grant he’d received,” Josh volunteered.

  Dr. Kale’s mouth hardened into a straight line as he mulled over the information he’d just been told. At last, he said, “This is quite an interesting and complex case.”

  “What was it that you wanted to tell us?” Holly asked. “About Craig—Mr. Sotherland’s—situation?”

  “Your friend seems to have fully recovered his memory prior to the accident.” He took a breath. “Or perhaps I should say, prior to the original accident.”

  “The original—do you mean when he was hit by the car?” Holly asked.

  “Exactly,” Dr. Kale said with a nod of emphasis. “Unfortunately, he seems to have lost the intervening interval between the two mishaps.”

  “He doesn’t remember...anything?”

  “He identified himself to me as Timothy Sotherland. He was aware he was in a hospital, but confused as to how he got here. He asked if I was Dr. Kale because the nursing staff told him to expect me. And when I asked him if the name Craig Ford was familiar to him, he drew a total blank.”

  A total blank. The words sent a cold chill down Holly’s spine. If he didn’t remember the name he’d used as his own, he wasn’t likely to remember hers.

  “We’ll work it out. No matter what happens, we’ll work it out.” But what if he didn’t remember that there was anything he wanted to work out?

  “He’s unaware that he’s lost a significant amount of time. He’s concerned about having missed a seven-o’clock flight to London.”

  “He was supposed to catch that flight the day he was hit by the car,” Josh said.

  “I thought that might be the case,” Dr. Kale said. “He’s got to be told about the lapse. He’s already complaining about the television in his room not working. If he catches on that we’re deliberately keeping it off, he’s going to be alarmed. I’d like to tell him before he has a chance to become too agitated.”

  “His head—is he strong enough?” Holly asked, concerned.

  “I believe so.” Dr. Kale looked at each of them. “I’d like you all to accompany me into his room. From what you’ve told me, he remembered his true identity when confronted with his name. It’s possible that seeing someone familiar will jog his memory of the amnesiac period. If that happens, I’d like for him to be among friends. If not, he may have questions. Try to answer them calmly.”

  Numb, Holly walked with the others into the room. Craig—Timothy—was lying in the bed. A white bandage covered the gash behi
nd and slightly below his ear. It took every ounce of restraint she could muster not to rush to the bed and throw her arms around him.

  He acknowledged their entrance with a friendly nod, but Dr. Kale was the only one to whom he spoke. Everyone else he regarded with benign curiosity, the way he would any stranger who’d wandered in.

  “I’ve brought you some visitors,” Dr. Kale said. “This is Holly Bennett—”

  Holly held her breath as his gaze took in her face and lingered one or two seconds. His eyes registered male interest but not the slightest sign of recognition. “You can bring me visitors this pretty anytime,” Craig said.

  Timothy! Holly reminded herself. Timothy. There was no Craig. The name was different now, but the sexy, charming, slightly mischievous smile was so familiar and dear that it made her eyes burn with tears she could not shed. She felt as though someone had plunged a knife into her heart. How could he look straight at her and not know her, when mere hours earlier he had held her in his arms and told her that he loved her?

  “And these are Officers Mick Scalisi and Josh Newmark. They may want to ask you a few questions.”

  “Officers?”

  “Cocoa Police Department,” Scalisi said.

  “Police?” The hair on Tim’s neck prickled. His instincts had been telling him something was askew ever since he woke up with this infernal headache. “Am I in some kind of trouble?”

  “Not in the least,” Officer Scalisi answered.

  He was polite, but he didn’t sound particularly reassuring. He sounded like a cop. And Tim’s head hurt too badly to play cop games. “Then what’s going on?”

  “Please try to relax,” Dr. Kale said.

  Tim looked at the woman with them. The one with the big green eyes and face sweet enough to make a man’s mouth water. “Are you a cop, too?”

  She swallowed nervously. “I’m a librarian.”

  A librarian? She didn’t look like any librarian he’d ever seen. “If this is about an overdue library book, there’s got to be some mistake. I’m from Ohio.”

  Not a smile. Not even a twitch of amusement. Tim tensed involuntarily, which made his head throb even more. “What’s wrong? My family?”