“Yes,” he contradicted, “I am.”
The answer made her feel fidgety.
When morning arrived, it found her groggy. Though she’d turned in fairly early, Alison had amassed less than four hours’ sleep, having spent most of the night searching for a comfortable spot on her mattress. And failing.
They’d made no progress last night, at least not so far as his memory was concerned. When her brothers came home, they each had tried their hand at prompting Luc’s memory, also to no avail. When they finally all went to bed, Luc’s past was still a sealed mystery.
But it wasn’t his past she was thinking of when she’d gone to bed. It was the very near present.
The kiss they’d shared preyed on her mind, unearthing a multitude of emotions that loomed even larger in the dark. She felt ill equipped to greet another day.
What she needed more than anything was a shower.
As she stumbled out into the hall, she heard her brothers’ voices coming up through the vent. They were in the kitchen, deep in discussion over the Mariners’ chances of making the play-offs this year or at least landing in the wild card position. She heard Kevin complain that life hadn’t been the same since their star pitcher had left the team.
Good. If they were talking, that meant she would have the shower all to herself. Neither Kevin or Jimmy could form a coherent word until after their morning showers. When it came down to it, none of the Quintanos had ever been known to hit the ground bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It took the combined effort of a cold, bracing shower and a large mug of hot, black coffee to bring them around to the world of the living.
Right now she felt light-years away from her goal.
Wishing her mouth tasted of something other than sawdust, Alison placed her hand on the bathroom doorknob and turned it. The door didn’t give. Terrific, it was stuck again. For about the last month or so, the door had been giving her more and more trouble, and in both directions. She was just as likely to get stuck inside the bathroom as well as outside it. Busy studying for finals, she’d asked Kevin, then Jimmy to see about fixing it. She should have known better.
If you want a thing done…
She’d play handywoman later, Alison told herself. Right now she needed that shower or she was going to curl up and die. An extra-cold one. Because in addition to spending a mostly sleepless night, when she’d finally fallen asleep she’d had a dream about Luc. It was the kind of a dream she didn’t have. Ever. A warm, physical dream. Those were for other women who looked forward to the physical aspect of a relationship, who looked forward to marriage and a happy life.
There’d been a time when she’d actually thought about it, believed she was even capable of it. Of being normal. She felt that all her inhibitions and fears would disappear once she was married. But then she’d married Derek and he’d proven her wrong. The marriage had been a disaster from the moment the vows were exchanged. She’d been a disaster, cringing at his very touch. The whole marriage ran aground within a few months. But only after she’d amassed an endless supply of soul-wrenching belittling that always began in their bedroom and escalated from there.
She didn’t need to do this to herself again, especially not when she was only half-conscious, half-capable of warding off the waves of inadequacy that accompanied the memories.
Putting her shoulder to the door, Alison pushed hard. The door flew open.
The next thing to open was her mouth. Wide. The bathroom wasn’t empty the way she’d thought. Luc was in it. His presence filled out every corner. He was toweling his hair dry and wearing only beads of water.
For the first time in years, she was completely, utterly wide-awake without the benefit of water. Alison might have been a nurse and accustomed to seeing people without their clothes on, but that was within the framework of a hospital where she was putting textbook knowledge and hands-on experience into play. It certainly had never been within the confines of a steam-filled bathroom in her own home.
The word magnificent shrieked across her brain like the whine of a plane breaking the sound barrier.
Somewhere, Michelangelo’s David was slinking off in shame.
With a strangled sound, Alison pulled the door shut, blocking out the view and leaving herself on the other side. Her heart was pounding like a drum.
It took her a second to find her tongue and another to get it into working order.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—I was half-asleep—the door—I thought it was just stuck.”
She heard him laughing on the other side of the door. Her stomach tightened, clenching. Refusing to let her breathe. How could that sound so sexy to her, given the situation?
It sounded sexy because of the situation, she pointed out silently, irritated with herself for stumbling in like that. More irritated with herself because of the reaction she was experiencing. She’d wanted to remain in the room, to stare at him until every hard contour of his muscular body was indelibly etched into her brain.
It probably was anyway.
That man was missing and no one was trying to find him? She couldn’t make herself believe that.
A weakness crept into her knees. Needing support, she leaned against the door and almost fell in when it opened again the next minute. Her first thought was that she really should close her eyes.
They stayed open.
Luc’s hair was still wet, plastered to his head. The change of clothing she’d given him last night, courtesy of Jimmy, had been hastily thrown on a body that was faintly damp. Everything clung to him. It made him almost as unsettling to look at as he’d been a couple of seconds ago.
He smiled at her, trying to put her at ease. If she were any pinker, she’d look like cotton candy come to life. The way the realization affected him, he figured he had to have a weakness for cotton candy. “It’s all yours.”
Her mind was a blank. As blank as his probably had been yesterday. “Mine?”
Luc gestured behind him at the room he’d just vacated. “The bathroom.”
“Oh. Right.” She felt like the embodiment of a dimwitted Valley Girl. “Um, thanks.”
Unable to say anything coherent, she quickly closed the door and locked it. The next moment, she moved the hamper up against the door. It wasn’t much of an impedance, but it would make a warning noise. Just in case.
Embarrassment was still shadowing her every move when Alison entered the kitchen. Embarrassment for him and for herself. And at what her brothers would say once they got wind of what had happened. If they hadn’t already.
Braced, she kept her head high as she walked in.
Kevin and Jimmy merely nodded in her direction, too busy eating to verbally acknowledge her presence. Maybe Luc hadn’t said anything.
And then she noticed the table. Instead of the customary toaster waffles or bowls of cereal that they normally had for breakfast, there were huge, plate-sized pancakes, melting pats of butter and absorbing rivers of syrup on each of their plates. Another platter stood on the warming tray Lily had forgotten to take with her when she moved out. The smell permeating the kitchen was heavenly.
Alison glanced around, jumping to the only logical conclusion. “Is Lily here?”
“No, but Luc is.” Finished, Jimmy helped himself to a second serving. “Did you know Luc could cook?”
Luc dismissed the enthusiasm in Jimmy’s voice. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” Kevin snorted. “Hell, if you were a woman, I would have proposed by now.” Sighing his contentment, Kevin moved a plate aside and reached for the French toast.
Now that she noticed, there were waffles on the counter, too. The kind made from scratch. Almost dreading what the sink had to look like in the aftermath of this cooking fest, she slowly slanted her eyes toward it. And got another surprise. Unless he’d thrown them all away, there were no dishes, no dirty pans, nothing.
The man was a wizard in more ways than one.
He also had that strange look on his face again.
; “Luc, what’s the matter?” Kevin asked, concerned. Luc’s jaw had slackened and he was staring at Kevin in the strangest way, as if he’d just been struck by lightning.
“Hey, I was only kidding about that proposing thing. I didn’t mean for you to think that I was—”
But Luc didn’t hear him. He was hearing something else, a voice in his head, triggered by what Kevin had said.
The voice belonged to his cousin Ike.
Chapter Six
Like someone caught standing beneath a giant house of cards that had suddenly come tumbling down, everything came flying in at Luc from all different directions. Faces, words, whole sections of memories rushed at him.
He remembered.
Everything.
“Luc, are you all right?”
The voice, melodious and sweet, broke through the elation encasing him. Luc raised his eyes to see Alison looking at him. For just a second, he found himself captivated by the light and the concern he saw in her eyes.
Slowly a smile curved over his lips. The smile of a man who knew exactly who he was again. “I’m terrific.”
“Is that you bragging, or—?” Alison’s question faded away as the look in his eyes registered. The same empathy she’d felt for him before now brought with it a surge of excitement. “You remember, don’t you?”
The grin nearly split his face. Without thinking, he picked her up and spun her around. “Everything.”
Exhilarated, he set her down again. It was such a relief, such an incredible relief to have that black drop cloth lifted from around the rest of his life, allowing him to see, to remember. To feel something again besides frustration and bewilderment. Even embarrassment, generated in his not-too-distant past, was welcomed.
Pleased with himself and his earlier diagnosis, Jimmy beamed. “See?” He used his fork to punctuate his statement. “I said his amnesia wouldn’t last long.”
Obviously her brother was forgetting that she was in the room when he’d offered that prognosis, hedging about the time. “Lucky guess, hotshot,” Alison sniffed. But she felt too happy for Luc to carry on the pretense of disdain.
Kevin and Jimmy exchanged curious looks. It was very apparent to both that their sister was elated at this newest turn of events. More so than either one of them would have thought.
“What set you off?” she asked Luc.
“I don’t really know,” he confessed. It didn’t matter how it happened, only that it did. “Something that Kevin said, I think. Suddenly I was hearing Ike’s voice in my head.”
“Ike,” Kevin repeated uncertainly. “You mean like the president? Dwight Eisenhower?”
Luc thought of his cousin, a charmer since the day he was born. Ike would have gotten a kick out of the mix-up. “No, my cousin. Klondyke.”
“Strange name for a guy,” Alison commented. It sounded more like something someone would have named their pet.
Luc grinned. Ike hated the formal version of his first name, but it had been the whim of Ike’s parents to name both their children after an area strictly associated with their home state. “Not when you live in Alaska.”
“Your cousin lives in Alaska?” Alison looked at Luc. It seemed like a whole other world. When Luc nodded, the only logical question followed. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
It felt good to remember home and all the things it meant to him. He had always been happy living in Alaska, even though so many of the people in the town, people he’d grown up with, had left as soon as they were legally old enough to do so. Some even younger than that. He had never felt that urge himself, except for a fleeting moment just before he’d left for Seattle. But there had been a reason for that.
“I live in a little town called Hades, about a hundred miles or so out of Anchorage. The only way you can get to it in the winter is by plane. The roads are impassable.”
Kevin couldn’t imagine living anywhere but in the heart of a thriving city. Wrapping his hand around the chunky glass filled with orange juice, he took a deep swig before saying, “Sounds isolated. No wonder you came here.”
“Yes, and got mugged less than half an hour after he landed,” Alison reminded him.
“You gotta take the good with the bad,” Kevin commented philosophically.
“And this is definitely the good. Well, I for one think that this calls for a celebration.” Wrapping up the remainder of his breakfast in a napkin, Jimmy got up from the table. He was late, but that was nothing new. “What do you say? You and me, we can do this city up right tonight.”
“I’d like a piece of that,” Kevin chimed in.
Alison looked at her older brother in surprise. Kevin rarely went anywhere but the garage and the house, preferring his entertainment in small doses and restricted to the company of a few good friends. Clubs were Jimmy’s domain, not Kevin’s.
Jimmy looked more than happy to have Kevin along. “You’re in.” He broke off a piece of bacon from Kevin’s plate, popping it into his mouth. “I’ve gotta run, but we’ll talk when I get off my shift,” he told Luc. “We’ll take in a few hot spots, make you forget all about Alaska.”
“I’ve had enough of forgetting for a while,” Luc told him. “But I would like to see a few things.”
“Great. Later.” Jimmy was a memory the next moment, hurrying out the front door.
Without realizing it, Alison moved closer to Luc. “If you want to see Seattle, I think the Space Needle would be a good start. Jimmy’ll probably only drag you to where his friends go.” Out of the corner of her eye, Alison saw Kevin grinning.
“Nothing wrong with that.” With a reluctant sigh, Kevin pushed away from the table. “Haven’t eaten that well since Lily moved out. Well, time for me to be going, too.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll see you tonight, Luc. Glad that you’re in your right mind again.” Tickled by his own wording, he winked at Luc.
Quickly wiping her lips, Alison tossed aside her napkin. She was planning on getting a ride in this morning. “Wait a minute, I’m—”
Kevin glanced over his shoulder, the look in his eyes freezing her in place. “Going to stay right here and keep our guest entertained. I figure it’s the least you can do.”
She didn’t particularly like having her responsibilities outlined for her, especially not in front of strangers. “I’m driving today, remember?”
“Only if I say so—” He narrowed his eyes, leaving no room for argument. “And I’m not saying so.”
She should have known this was coming. Kevin was still overreacting. Nothing had happened to her yesterday. Besides, she could take care of herself. Alison dug in.
“Kevin—”
“Aly—” Kevin teased back. He looked toward Luc, seeking an ally. “See if you can keep her busy today. I’d take it as a personal favor.”
Alison’s mouth dropped open. Kevin was using Luc to gang up on her. Luc was her discovery, not Kevin’s. “But—”
“See you later, kid,” Kevin called out from the hallway.
And then it was just the two of them in the kitchen. In the house. The two of them and the memory of his very damp, very firm body, glistening with water beads and looking like every woman’s fantasy come to life.
Alison reached for her glass and drained it. She had to get her mind to go beyond that image.
But it didn’t.
Her mind seemed to be stuck in Park, the engine revving and thoughts coming at her fast and furious.
Thoughts that didn’t belong in a kitchen.
Thoughts that were, she realized, completely out of character for her. She didn’t know whether to be glad, or nervous.
Needing something to occupy herself, she began picking up the dishes from the table. For the first time in four years, she had nothing to do and nowhere to be. Freedom felt very strange.
She did her best to sound casual. “So, where would you like to go?”
Luc watched her as she began to wash dishes. Was it his imagination, or was she nervous about something again? “I don
’t want to put you out—”
“You’re not,” she heard herself snap, and then bit her tongue. What was the matter with her? “I mean, it’s my choice and I want to. Besides, I suddenly seem to be at loose ends today.”
Rinsing off the last dish in the sink, she placed it in the dishwasher then turned to pick up the rest from the table. She caught her breath as she bumped into Luc. Alison forced a smile to her lips and took the dish from his hand. Why did the room feel smaller suddenly, as if someone had pushed all the walls in closer?
He looked toward the telephone. “First thing I want to do is call home. I’ll reverse the charges—”
He’d come to her rescue, she wasn’t about to let him pay for a measly long-distance phone call. “You do and you’ll have trouble pushing the buttons after I flatten your hand.”
He laughed, wondering if she realized how funny the threat sounded, coming from someone nearly a foot shorter than he was. “I guess the muggers aren’t the only ones who are violent in this city.”
“Nope.” Leaning over the work counter, she pulled the phone closer to them. “Make your call. Your family’s probably worried sick.”
There’d been no promise of calling on landing, just a tacit understanding that he’d call at some point or other. “I doubt they even noticed. Ike still feels like he’s on his honeymoon even though he and Marta have been married for a couple of months now.”
And going at it like newlyweds, he thought fondly. There’d been a time that he’d thought he and Janice would be like that. But that had obviously just been wishful thinking on his part.
Alison waited, but Luc didn’t continue. “Anyone else?”
He thought of Sydney and Shayne. “Just friends, but nobody who’d expect me to call them when I got in.”
“Oh.” She didn’t realize she was smiling until she caught her reflection in the kitchen mirror as he began to dial.
She took him to see the Space Needle. Because the breakfast he’d made had effectively filled up every available nook and cranny in her body. Even around lunchtime, they only had coffee in the restaurant, taking in the breathtaking view of the city beneath their feet. After that, she brought him to the Kingdome and Pike Place Market. She supposed that she harbored the secret hope of tiring him out so that he’d pass on Jimmy’s invitation when her brother came home from the hospital.
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