Lowering the dishes into the sink, he turned to look at her. His eyes met hers. “Do you?”
Walked right into that one, didn’t you? The look in his eyes had her backpedaling. “I’m not most women.” Cleaning away the napkins, she purposely avoided his eyes. “Besides, I’m too busy.”
“Doing what, besides driving the cab?” He wanted to know about her. To find out everything he could to satisfy this thirst to know things.
“That’s only part-time and to help Kevin out if one of his regulars calls in sick. Like today.” Taking a sponge, she wiped down the table. “Until a couple of weeks ago, I was a nursing student.”
He opened the cabinet and looked for the dishwashing liquid. “What happened a couple of weeks ago?”
Moving around him, she opened the cabinet just under the sink and retrieved the bottle. She offered it to him. “I graduated.” There was that look in his eyes again, like a piece of the puzzle was flying in front of him and he was trying to catch hold of it. “What? Did you just graduate, too?”
“No.” The word school didn’t conjure up any mental images for him. It was another one that had caught his attention. “Nursing…” He couldn’t pull any of it together, but there was this feeling that someone had mentioned something about nursing, or nurses to him recently.
“You’re a nurse?” When he made no response, Alison tried again, shooting another question at him. Hoping to nudge something loose in his mind. It was a little, she mused, like trying to get a computer to unfreeze, or at least re-boot. “You want a nurse,” she guessed.
“No.” But he didn’t mean that, he realized. Looking at her, he could feel something pulling inside him. Something stirring. He couldn’t begin to identify what, or why. But the word want had something to do with it. “That is, not exactly.”
He’d been the one to receive the blow to the head, so why was she feeling weak in the knees? “Um, maybe I’d better wash and you sit down. This has to have been a strain for you, cooking and all.” She all but pushed him toward the chair again. “And you’ve been on your feet too much.”
“I ate sitting down,” he pointed out.
Well, whatever else was wrong, his stubborn streak was alive and well. She moved the chair closer to him.
“Humor me, I’m the professional here.” And then she stopped, realizing that she couldn’t actually make that assumption. “At least, I think I’m the only professional here.”
Luc ignored the chair. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning you could be anything.” She looked at him, trying to picture the kind of career he might have gravitated toward. All she had to go on was basic instinct rather than any real input. She decided to let her imagination run wild. “A doctor, a vacationing postal employee, a billionaire in disguise, a disgruntled CIA assassin trying to catch a little R&R.” She laughed at the absurdity of the last suggestion as the words died away.
The sound went right through him, a ray of sunshine in the midst of gloom. He felt himself smiling. “I guess that means you probably think we should rule out the last choice.”
She hadn’t meant to make it sound as if she were laughing at him. “I’m sorry, you just don’t look like the hit-man type. Too clean, even though…”
She pressed her lips together. When was she ever going to learn to think things through before she started saying them out loud?
“Even though what?” he prodded, curious. Every word could be a clue, hopefully leading him that much more quickly back to familiar ground.
Well, she started it, she thought, she might as well finish it. The last thing he needed was for her to turn enigmatic on him. “Even though there’s that sexy edge to you.”
“Sexy?” What sort of feelings went along with being sexy? “You think I have a sexy edge?”
“Just being impartially observant.” She turned away, feeling as if she’d stuck her foot in her mouth up to her ankle. Changing the subject, she opened the refrigerator again. “Want something to drink? You didn’t have anything with your meal.”
Drinks are on me.
Hey, Luc, we need more beer over here.
“Bartender.”
Can of cola in her hand, she’d just popped the top and began to offer it to him. “You want something alcoholic to drink?” She could feel her stomach tightening. Stop it, she ordered. “I think there might be a six-pack in a cooler in the garage. I can check.”
“No, don’t.” He caught her by the shoulder before she could go. “I don’t want a beer.”
“Okay,” she allowed slowly, her eyes on his. She was desperately trying to follow him and not add to the confusion he had to be feeling. “But you did say ‘bartender.’ Are you remembering something? A bartender?” Someone from his past? “Or are you a bartender?”
Formless thoughts collided in his mind, refusing to come together. He combed his hand through his hair. The headache was whispering along his temples again.
“I don’t know. I should, but I don’t. Maybe I am. Or was.”
There were other possibilities. “Or walked into a bar at the airport just before you caught your flight.” Walked in, maybe, but didn’t stay to have a drink, she thought. “You didn’t have alcohol on your breath when I picked you up.”
“You could smell my breath?”
“Not exactly, but when I picked you up, the windows in the cab were all closed. I was running the air conditioner. If you’d been drinking, I would have been able to pick up the scent in a couple of minutes. I once had this salesman in the cab, fresh from some convention. The whole cab seemed to fill up by the time we reached his destination.” She didn’t add that she’d driven almost the entire way with a churning stomach, even though she’d opened the front window over the passenger’s protest. It had been raining heavily at the time. “Matt had to practically fumigate the thing before I took the cab out again.” The look on his face told her that he didn’t quite understand why the taxi mechanic would have to do that. “The smell of alcohol makes me gag.”
Okay, maybe he didn’t know his last name, but some things, as Kevin had pointed out, did seem to stick with him. “Isn’t that kind of a strange allergy?”
“Unusual, maybe,” she allowed, her tone dismissing any follow-up to the question.
It wasn’t an allergy for her so much as it stirred up a memory. A recollection she wanted to be free of, but that continued to haunt her nonetheless, thirteen years later. The pungent smell of whiskey swirling around her, assaulting her mouth even as Jack tightened his fingers around her wrist…
“What’s the matter?”
She realized that he was looking at her closely. Alison straightened. “What?”
The color had drained from her face suddenly, as if she’d remembered something that bothered her. “You look pale.”
She laughed it off. “I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately.” And then she looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “And besides, who’s the nurse here?”
“You.” And then he added with a smile, “As far as we know.”
She thought that one over. It didn’t fit. “I don’t think so. I can’t picture you as a nurse any more than I can as a hit man.”
He crossed his arms before him gamely. “Okay, what do you picture me as?”
That took her a moment. She scrutinized him slowly, taking in each feature. His face was just the slightest bit chiseled, at odds with the boyish impression he first cast. And there was nothing boyish about his shoulders or the muscles in his forearms. That was all man. As was the way he moved and stood, with his weight evenly distributed while balancing on the balls of his feet. A tiger ready to spring into action—just the way he had in the alley.
“A cowboy?” she finally ventured. He probably wasn’t, but he certainly looked like every woman’s fantasy of a cowboy. His skin was even a golden tan, unless he came by the coloring naturally via an enviable gene pool.
No bells rang, but the idea amused him. He grinned. “Do I have my own ranch, or do I wo
rk for someone?”
Enjoying herself, a little lost in the way he smiled, she played along. “Both. You started out working for someone, maybe your father, and then saved up enough to get your own place.”
He nodded, his expression thoughtful. “Horses or cattle?”
Carrying the fantasy a little further, she could see him in the saddle, his knees in tight against his mount’s flanks, hands occupied with a lariat. An untamed colt trying to escape. And failing.
“You’re more the horse type.” And then she gave up the game, laughing at the scenario she’d just verbally sketched. “You’re probably some computer wizard.”
Even as she said it, the idea gained breadth and appeal. Computers were the burgeoning field. Dropping the dish towel she was holding on the table, she took his hand, eager to see if she was right. She crossed to the rear of the house.
“C’mon, why don’t we find out?”
He knew his mind was fuzzy and that’s why he wasn’t following her, but he couldn’t help wondering if his mind had ever been able to jump around the way hers did. “If I’m a wizard?”
“Well, maybe not a wizard, but if you know anything about computers at any rate.”
Opening the door, she took him into the den. Books and papers were strewn on every available surface. Many had found their way to the rug either by design, or accident. Kevin did his bookkeeping here, and she and Jimmy put in their hours studying here. It looked like a paper war zone.
Stepping over a sliding mound of books, she reached the desk. An apologetic grin flashed at him over her shoulder. “Sorry about the mess, but we all share Big Al.”
“Big Al?”
“The computer.” There was affection in her voice, as if she was talking about a person rather than a collection of slotted cards, semiconductors and massive wires tangled in hopeless knots. She patted the oversize monitor. “I named it.”
He looked for some indication as to why that and not something else. Like a company logo or an acronym. But there was nothing. He’d bite. “Why Big Al?”
She shrugged. “It seemed to fit.” Reaching around the side of the minitower, she switched the computer on. Humming began instantly. Within seconds, it was up and running.
Taking the pile of papers off the chair, she set them on the floor. “Okay, sit down.”
But he didn’t. Instead, he looked at the icons on the screen. They neither looked familiar, nor strange. They were just there. “And then do what?”
“Whatever comes naturally.”
Luc paused for a moment, thinking. Trying to connect what he was feeling with a tangible action.
“Okay.”
But instead of sitting down at the computer, he took a very stunned Alison into his arms and kissed her.
Chapter Five
Wizard.
A first-class wizard.
The thought vibrated through Alison’s brain. If there were such things as wizards, and they could indeed cast spells over unsuspecting mortals, then this man was certainly one of them.
Because, for one brief moment, Luc had cast a spell over her. That had to be it. Otherwise, why else was she still here, lost in this uncharted region and wanting to embrace it instead of pushing him angrily away, demanding to know what the hell he thought he was doing?
He knew damn well what he was doing.
But she didn’t.
Not exactly. And her reaction to it was tearing her in half because part of her wanted to run while the other part wanted to linger. To savor.
The protest that sprang to her lips on contact died the same moment. Disappearing as if it had never been. Instead of the suffocating fear and driving fury that had always lurked in the shadows whenever Derek had tried to make love to her, something else was going on.
Something else was happening within her.
It was almost as frightening as her reaction to anyone’s touch. But at the same time, it was a different kind of frightening. It was softer, a great deal softer. And incredibly seductive. She couldn’t begin to explain it.
There was a different fear now than what she’d experienced before. Fear of the unknown rather than fear of the known. Because to Alison, Luc represented the unknown.
He tasted of something dark and exciting, rather than of beer and demanding appetites. There was a gentleness to him that she found captivating. Soothing even while it was arousing. His lips moved over hers slowly, coaxing, drawing her out.
Her pulse raced, rushing toward some unknown goal line that was never to be reached. But she couldn’t stop the racing, even though she tried.
She held her body rigid, stiff. But even as she did so, the stiffness was easing away.
Luc had had no idea, until he was smack-dab in the middle of it, that he was going to kiss her. He wasn’t even sure what had come over him. It was just that, when Alison had told him to do what came naturally, this was all that occurred to him: an overwhelming, sudden desire to kiss her.
He had no recollection of kissing another woman, no recollection of ever wanting to. So for him, at least at this junction, this was something brand-new.
And it packed a wallop that nearly knocked him on his butt, igniting other desires rather than satisfying the one he’d had.
The degree with which he wanted her took him by storm and stunned him.
It took effort to draw back, to surrender what he’d laid claim to. Her expression when he drew his head away was impassive, but there was something in her eyes. Fear. Guilt kicked him in the ribs, stealing his breath almost as effectively as she had done only a moment ago.
She’d said he’d come to her aid and now here he was, frightening her. He wasn’t sure just what had come over him.
“I’m sorry, that’s no way to pay you back for your hospitality.” He wanted to touch her, to comfort her, but knew that would only make things worse. Helpless, he shoved his hands into his pockets and wished himself somewhere else.
The words, kind, apologetic, were incongruous with the sentiment raised by the kiss that had just passed between them. More than that, they were almost on opposite ends of the spectrum he’d just opened up for her. She didn’t know what to make of him.
Trying to be blasé, Alison shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. In some books it would have been.”
He had no gift of gab to fall back on, no charm like…like who? There was someone in his life who could have talked his way out of this, but it wasn’t him, and for now that was all that mattered. Later, maybe it would come to him.
Luc went with honesty. It was his only weapon. He hoped it was enough. “I just suddenly wanted to kiss you. So I did.”
Yes, he certainly did. Alison knew that if she’d been anyone else…but she wasn’t. She had a history and she couldn’t escape it or deny it, no matter how desperately she wanted to at times. It haunted her like a smudge made by a laundry marker, a smudge that couldn’t be washed away.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, hating the fact that she felt nervous. “Any more sudden urges I should know about?”
That look he’d seen in her eyes still bothered him, but he knew any reference to it would only be met with her terse denial—and they’d both feel even more awkward than they did right at this moment. “No, I think I can keep things under control.”
She wished he’d kept his lips under control, as well. She didn’t like this feeling that was pervading her. Nerves skittered through her like tiny mice running for high ground, away from waters that were rising dangerously.
The best way to proceed, she decided, was to pretend that she hadn’t been affected. And that she hadn’t come dangerously close to being unraveled.
Alison indicated the computer. “Do you want to see if you’re as familiar with a computer as you are with raising pulses?”
Straddling the chair next to the computer, he looked up at her. A grin played along his lips. “Then you felt something, too?”
Maybe honesty was the best way to go after all. He was making it sou
nd as if he’d been just as stunned by the kiss as she was. No suggestions of continuing, no chest beating like some male gorilla, positive that every woman wanted him.
She felt a small smile tugging on her lips. “I would have had to have been a stone not to.” She pulled over another chair to the desk, moving aside a pile of papers. “I can’t believe you’re walking around free.”
He looked down at the mouse pad. It showed an arctic scene. For a fleeing instant he was transported. “There aren’t many women around.” Even as the words came, he had no idea what prompted him to say them.
Alison looked at him. “Sure there are.” And then she stopped. It was as if part of him wasn’t in the room. Part of him was struggling to grasp another fragment. Compassion nudged out unease. “Did you just remember something?”
Luc blew out a breath, temporarily surrendering. “I thought I did, but it’s gone now.”
Luc saw a glimmer of his reflection on the monitor. At this angle, he looked ghostly, just like his thoughts. He kept feeling these surges through his brain, flashes of images, words telegraphing themselves across his mind. It was exhausting. Worse, because he had nothing to show for it. No larger pieces to put together, no memories suddenly returning.
“It’s a little like being in a storm that’s knocked the power lines out,” he speculated. “Electricity keeps trying to come through, making fitful starts and stops and a lot of crackling noises, but the room doesn’t get lit. I can’t make out any of the shapes—they’re still in the dark.” Just like I am.
He seemed to know what he was talking about. She tried to build on his imagery. “Maybe it’s stormy where you come from.”
“Maybe,” he allowed. “But I’m not sure.” He glanced out the window. The weather was still dreary, the way it had been when it had accompanied them on the trip to the house. “But I don’t seem to remember constant misting, either.” Not that that meant a lot, he added silently.
Found: His Perfect Wife Page 6