Men Made in America Mega-Bundle

by Gayle Wilson, Marie Ferrarella, Jennifer Greene, Annette Broadrick, Judith Arnold, Rita Herron, Anne Stuart, Diana Palmer, Elizabeth Bevarly, Patricia Rosemoor, Emilie Richards

  He hardly heard her answer. Something had just come to him. Too vague to be labeled a memory, it was almost like a feeling. “I’ve had too much frozen.”

  Instantly alert, she grasped at the information, wanting to coax more out. “You remember eating frozen food?”

  “No.” That wasn’t it. He strained, trying to catch hold of the silvery thread, to expand it into something larger. Something tangible he could handle. “I remember—ice, lots of it.” His eyes seemed to glow with the fragmented thought. “And snow.”

  It was progress. Of a sort, she supposed. But such vague progress, it was hard not to sound discouraged. “That could be anywhere except for Southern California and Hawaii. What else do you remember?”

  There was a blank. A huge blank. Hoping to stimulate something more, Luc stared into the open vegetable crisper again.

  “I’m not sure.” And then he saw a stove in his mind’s eye. A large, six-burner, industrial gas stove. He could almost feel the heat. His eyes widened as he turned toward her. “Cooking, I remember—cooking.”

  His smile was wide and boyishly engaging. Alison could almost feel it burrowing into her. Seeking a response. Her heart fluttered. But that was only in empathy. She was identifying with him at this breakthrough he was having. There couldn’t be any other reason for it.

  Derek had taught her that she wasn’t meant for things like romance and love. If you can’t swim, don’t put your toe into the water.

  She kept her toes where they belonged.

  But she couldn’t help the wave of enthusiasm she felt for Luc. “See, it’s coming back to you already. You want to fool around in the kitchen?” He looked at her, bemused. Or maybe amused. She realized what that had to have sounded like. “With the ingredients I mean.” Moving quickly, wanting to cover the flustered feeling that had suddenly hit her from left field, she took out the peppers and lined them up on the counter. “Maybe something’ll come back to you.”

  Something already had. A wave of bittersweetness. A sense of loss and resignation, sneaking up out of nowhere and drenching him. But loss of what? Resignation over what?

  About what?

  Or who?

  All questions echoing in his brain, having no answers.

  “You’re trying too hard again.” She smoothed back the furrow between his eyes even as he shifted them toward her questioningly. Realizing that maybe she was stepping over some invisible line that was best kept enforced, she dropped her hand to her side. “The last flash came to you without any effort on your part. The rest will, too. Maybe even by morning.” At least, it certainly looked promising enough. She peered at him. He no longer looked as if he was staving off agony. “How’s your headache, by the way?”

  He’d forgotten about it until she’d mentioned it just now. “Almost gone.” The realization surprised him as much as it pleased him.

  Another good sign. Jimmy had given him an injection to mute the pain, but that had been a while ago and she knew he hadn’t taken any of the pills that her brother had given him. There was every indication that their houseguest wouldn’t be staying long.

  And that, of course, was for the good, she told herself.

  “Then maybe puttering around in the kitchen might not be a bad idea.” She was already taking out the carton and placing it on the counter beside the peppers. If he needed anything more, he was going to have to tell her. “See what you can cook up—for you and for me.”

  He said the first thing that suggested itself. “An omelet?”

  He said it as if he thought it was the wrong time of day for it. She’d been raised on eggs at night and steak in the morning. Food was food.

  “Hey, I’m hungry enough to eat waxed paper. An omelet sounds like heaven.” She paused, not knowing what he needed in addition to the two ingredients she’d put out. “I’d offer to help cook, but that’s a contradiction in terms as far as I’m concerned.” And then she grinned. “I can be your cheering section.”

  His cheering section. She’d put into words just how he saw her. “I’d like that.”

  She closed her eyes, savoring this bite as much as she had the first and the second. The man was nothing short of a miracle worker. He even cooked rings around Lily. This wasn’t an omelet, it was a minor miracle.

  Lily was going to love him.

  As if her older sister needed another man in her life. The thought was without malice. Dedicated, hardworking, Lily also knew how to play hard. And to enjoy herself.

  Not for you, Alison. You were meant for other things, she told herself.

  She held up her empty fork, raising a phantom glass in a toast.

  “Where did you learn to cook like that?” And then her question hit her. If he could answer that, then he wouldn’t have been here in the first place. She offered him an apologetic look. “Sorry, I was just trying to sneak out another piece of information.”

  It was an excuse, a way of covering for herself. But now that she said it, she realized that it wasn’t such a bad way to go. If she talked enough, prodded enough, maybe something else would come back to him. Maybe even everything.

  “The subconscious is a strange thing.” She fell back on textbook knowledge. He was, after all, her first amnesia patient. And he was her responsibility, as well, because she meant to have him get better in her care. “It’s all in there, you know, every thought you’ve ever had, every memory you ever gathered.” Her eyes strayed to the small TV set on the counter near the sink. It was there at her insistence. “And every program you ever watched.”

  He followed her line of vision and reflected. “I don’t think I’ve watched many programs.”

  The concept, voluntarily adhered to, was almost impossible for her to believe. Unless there was a reason. Her eyes lit up. Worth a shot.

  “Maybe your parents were disciplinarians. I had a friend whose parents would only let her watch one hour of television a week. Me, I was plugged into a television set the day I was born. Kevin says I’m a walking trivia book on cartoons and sitcoms.”

  She stopped to take in another forkful. Every one had been a delight. “This is really great. You know, if this amnesia of yours continues for a while and you need a job, I know Lily would love to get her hands on you.”

  Probably literally and otherwise, she added silently. Lily had radar as far as good-looking men went. Luc not only fell into the category, he looked as if he could probably rise to the head of the column.

  “Right now, she can’t find a chef to meet her standards, so she’s doing all the cooking at Lily’s herself.” She finished her meal and felt a pang of regret. She was full, but she would have been willing to eat more. A lot more. “If you can make anything else besides omelets, you’d be an answer to a prayer for her.”

  “I can cook anything.” He grinned at the cocky way that sounded. But there was no denying the wave of confidence that had come over him. He knew he could cook. It was nice to finally be sure of something, even something as trivial as this. “I can.”

  Using her fork as a microphone, she pretended to be a news announcer and declared, “And we’ve established a beachhead.” Her eyes were eager. “Anything else coming back to you?”

  “You already asked that.”

  “I thought we’d do spot checks every hour, see if anything else drifts back to you.” She propped her head up on her fisted hand. “Like, do you remember saving anyone else?”

  He wondered if she knew how genial her smile was. How warm. He shook his head in answer to her question. “I don’t even remember saving you.”

  “You did. You were like the U.S. cavalry. Or a Canadian Mountie.” They were near the Canadian border. Maybe he was a Canadian, on vacation in the States. If that were the case, this would probably go down as one of the worst vacations on record, just a few lines below booking passage on the Titanic.

  She could tell he wanted her to elaborate. “You hauled that guy out of the cab as if he was some rag doll instead of this stocky pig.” Alison smiled, recallin
g. “He looked really scared, even though he had a knife and you just had your bare hands.”

  None of this was coming back to him. It was as if she was talking about something that had happened to someone else. “Did I hit him?”

  She laughed. “Into next Sunday. If he hadn’t had a partner skulking in the shadows, he would have been cooling his heels in jail right now.” Her narrative over, her voice softened. “And you would still have your memory. I’m really very sorry about that.”

  He didn’t want her feeling guilty. “It’s not your fault.”

  But she didn’t see it that way. “I should have parked in the street.” One little misstep had caused all this. “It was just that I wanted to avoid getting snarled up in traffic.”

  He dismissed it with a shrug, wanting her to do the same. Leaning over, he picked up her empty plate as well as his own and rose to his feet. “Logical.”

  A smile curved her lips as she watched him. “You do dishes, too?”

  He looked down at the plates and realized that he was bringing them over to the sink. He’d done it automatically, as if he’d been preprogrammed. “I guess I do.”

  The man was single. If she hadn’t decided the matter earlier, this would have convinced her. “Well, memory loss or not, you’re not going to be on the market long.” Getting up, she pushed in her chair. “You cook, clean up after yourself and put yourself on the line to rescue damsels in distress. Most women go to bed every night praying to meet someone like you.”

  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 t
ightened 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 work 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.”