“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded hoarsely, her eyes wide with anger.
“Saving your life,” he told her simply. Still on his knees, Trevor bent over farther, pushing her dark red hair away from her face.
Incensed, afraid and completely disoriented, she slapped away his hand. “Looks more like you’re trying to maul me,” she accused.
Okay, he’d almost just drowned here, trying to save this woman’s life. He didn’t expect a ticker-tape parade, but a little civility would have been nice.
“Right,” he said, exhaling the word in exasperation. “I come out here every night, trolling for bodies riding on the waves, looking to cop a feel.” He rose to his feet, glaring at her. “You were drowning, lady. In case it escaped you, I just saved your life.” His voice grew colder, more sarcastic. “In lieu of a sizable donation to my favorite charity, a simple ‘thank you’ will suffice.”
She frowned as she tried to get up to her feet. Her frown deepened when Trevor offered her his hand. She wanted to ignore it, but even she had to admit she was too wobbly to make it up on her own. Muttering, “Don’t try anything else,” she took the hand he extended.
But once on her feet, she began to sway again. Trevor caught her before she fell, automatically pulling her against him.
A displeased cry died on her lips as her eyes rolled back in her head for a second time.
She was unconscious again.
Trevor sighed and shook his head. “Second verse, same as the first.”
Picking her up into his arms, he walked toward the nearest wooden bench and laid the woman down as gently as possible. He began to rub her wrists and arms, trying to get a little circulation going.
Her dress was plastered to her body. Wet, it looked almost see-through. It obviously offered her very little protection against the escalating wind. It also left very little to his imagination.
She had one hell of a body.
Trevor left her for a moment, hurrying off to where he’d dropped his jacket and shoes. He picked up both, then returned and covered her with his jacket. He checked the cell phone that had been in his pants pocket for the duration of his deep-sea adventure. Soggy, it had died. There was no calling for help.
He began rubbing her arms again. It was several minutes before she opened her eyes for a second time. Trevor braced himself for another waspish confrontation, but this time, she seemed too weak. Instead, she put her hand to her head, as if it was hurting. Squinting at him, he heard her say, “Name?”
“Trevor Marlowe,” he told her. “I—”
“No—” impatience echoed in her frustrated, hoarse whisper “—mine.”
Chapter Two
Trevor sat back on his heels, eyeing the woman he’d just rescued. She couldn’t mean what he thought she meant.
“What do you mean ‘mine?’”
She struggled to sit up. This time, he gently but forcefully held her down. Anger flickered in her eyes, but he didn’t back away. His hands remained on her shoulders, pinning her down. There was no way she could move. She had no choice but to submit. It didn’t make her happy.
“I mean what’s my name?” she retorted.
Trevor quickly scanned her forehead, looking for a sign that she’d sustained a blow. But there was no gash, no telltale fresh abrasions or bump to indicate the possible cause of this dearth of information.
“You don’t know your name?” He looked at her skeptically.
The level of exasperation rose in her voice. What was he, an idiot? “I wouldn’t be asking you if I did.”
Trevor still wasn’t buying into this a hundred percent. Maybe she just had a macabre sense of humor. “This isn’t a joke?”
Fighting a wave of uneasy fear, the redhead spat out, “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“I have no idea,” he told her honestly. “I don’t know you.”
Fear mushroomed within her. There was something about lying here, horizontal, under this man’s intense perusal that stripped her of her strength, not to mention her capacity to think. She grabbed the side of the bench and pulled herself upright.
He’d said something that offered her a glimmer of hope in the appalling darkness. At least he’d cleared up one thing for her.
“So, my not remembering you, that’s okay?” She saw his brows draw together. She knew she wasn’t being very clear, but everything was still hopelessly jumbled in her head, like puzzle pieces thrown haphazardly out of a box. “I mean, I don’t know you, right?”
Trevor shook his head. He would have remembered if a woman the likes of this one had passed his line of vision. “No, not from Adam.”
“Adam?”
She thought he meant an actual person, Trevor realized. It would have been funny—if the situation weren’t so real. “It’s just an expression. Never mind.” He blew out a frustrated breath, thinking. “What’s the last thing that you remember?”
She closed her eyes, as if that could help her focus. By the expression on her face when she opened them again, it hadn’t.
“Water.”
“Okay,” he said gamely. Obviously this was going to require a bit of patience on his part. “Before that.”
The woman took a deep breath. He watched her eyes. In the light from the streetlamp just to the right of the bench, they looked to be a deep, intense green. And troubled. Very troubled.
“Nothing,” she answered.
He saw that her eyes glistened. Oh, God, not tears. He had no idea what to do with tears. Ordinarily, he’d pretend they weren’t there, but he was looking at her face dead-on. If those tears took shape and started to fall, no way could he act as if he didn’t see them.
He hadn’t a clue what to say.
“I don’t remember anything,” the woman told him. He heard the fear mounting in her voice.
She was really trying not to panic. Trevor could all but see the struggle going on within her. She clenched her hands into fists on either side of her body.
“No, that’s not true,” he contradicted in a calm, soothing voice.
But his words only seemed to fan the fires already threatening to go out of control.
“Look, you’re not inside this head—I am and there’s nothing. Not a damn thing.” She pressed her lips together to keep a wave of hysteria from bursting out.
Trevor went on as if she hadn’t said a word. “You remember how to talk. You speak English without an accent, international or regional, so most likely, you’re a native Californian, most likely from around here.”
“Terrific, that makes me one of what, forty million people?”
“You remembered that,” he pointed out. “Things are coming back to you, just waiting to be plucked out of the air.” Before she could utter another sarcastic contradiction, Trevor instructed, “Close your eyes again and think.”
“About what?” she demanded. “I don’t remember anything—except how many people there are in Southern California,” she qualified angrily before he could mention that extraneous bit of information again.
Trevor took the display of temper in stride. “I think we can safely rule out that you’re an anger-management counselor. Humor me,” he told her. “Close your eyes and see if anything comes to you.” Obviously annoyed, the woman did as she was told. “Anything?” he asked after she said nothing for several seconds.
“Yeah.” She opened her eyes. “I’m hungry. And cold.”
That wasn’t what he was hoping to hear. “Anything else?”
She pressed her lips together. “And I need to go to the bathroom.”
He would have laughed then if he didn’t feel almost as frustrated as she did. “There’s one right there,” he said, pointing to the public bathroom.
The bathroom was located less than fifty feet away from their bench. Directly in front of the square, stucco building were two outdoor showers, there specifically for people to wash the salt water off their bodies before going back into their cars. Occasionally, in the dead of s
ummer nights, the showers were used by homeless people who longed to feel clean again.
As the woman got up, so did Trevor. There was unabashed suspicion in her eyes as she stopped walking and glared at him.
“You’re not going in with me, are you?”
“Wasn’t planning to,” he answered mildly. “Just want to make sure you’re steady on your feet. You already passed out once,” he reminded her. By the way she frowned, he surmised that somewhere within her now blank world was a woman who liked her independence. Possibly more than the average female, he judged.
“And then what?” she asked as she crossed over to the short, squat building. To her horror, there was no outer door.
“Excuse me?”
She turned around, blocking the building’s entrance. “After you walk me to the bathroom, then what?” She appeared uneasy as she asked, “Are you going home?”
That had been the plan, to go home and recharge for tomorrow. But now things had grown complicated. He couldn’t just abandon her, yet who was she to him? And she obviously resented his being around her. So, instead of answering her directly, he answered, “You said you were hungry.”
“Yes,” she admitted warily.
Trevor couldn’t help wondering if she as always this suspicious, or if her present situation had transformed her. “I’ll take you to Kate’s Kitchen and get you something to eat.”
“Kate’s Kitchen,” she repeated. The words meant nothing to her. “Is that like a homeless shelter, or someone’s house?”
“Neither. That’s my restaurant.”
Even within the context of this minor conversation, mentioning his restaurant filled him with pride. It always did. Having it, running it, had been his goal for a very long time.
She made what seemed to her a logical assumption. “You work in a restaurant?”
Trevor corrected her. “I own a restaurant.”
“Oh.” The single-syllable word was pregnant with meaning and respect—and she hadn’t a clue as to why.
Did she own anything? she wondered. It infuriated her that she didn’t know. This was going on too long, she silently raged. It was as if she were standing in front of a huge, white wall that was locking her out of everything. She couldn’t find the door, couldn’t find any way to enter. The worst was that she didn’t even know what was behind the wall, if anything.
Standing before the entrance to the public bathroom, she hesitated for a moment. She hated this vulnerable feeling. Hated giving in to it or even acknowledging its existence.
But a survival instinct told her that it was necessary. She turned to glance over her shoulder at the man who’d rescued her. The man she probably owed her life to. “You’ll be here when I come out?”
He nodded and she thought she saw a hint of a smile on his lips. Probably laughing at her, she thought. But she had no choice. She couldn’t just wander around on the beach at this time of night.
“I’ll be here,” he promised her.
She had no idea why, but she believed him.
Still, she hurried inside the building to one of the three stalls. None of the doors met and the floor was cold, with sand clinging to the stone here and there, rubbing off on her feet. Shivering as she entered the stall farthest from the doorway, she realized that she didn’t have any shoes on.
Had she lost them in the ocean? Or before?
Nothing came to her.
Within less than a minute, she was finished and standing before the sink closest to the door. She looked at her reflection in the badly cracked mirror. She didn’t recognize the woman with the plastered, chin-length red hair.
Oh, God, who was she? Was someone out there searching for her?
She looked down at her left hand. There was no ring, but she did notice a tan line encircling it. Had there been a ring there? Had she been mugged for that ring? Left for dead? Tossed overboard?
What? her mind screamed.
No answers came in response.
Blowing out a breath, she turned on the faucet. A rumbling noise preceded the emergence of lukewarm water. At least it was clear and not rust-colored. Cupping her hands together, she caught some and threw it on her face, wishing desperately that the simple action would be enough to make her remember.
It wasn’t.
“You okay in there?”
She jumped when she heard the man—Trevor, was it?—call out the question. Her heart hammered.
“Just peachy,” she heard herself respond.
Even to her own ears, it didn’t sound right. There was an angry edge in her voice, which shamed her. This guy, this restaurant owner, didn’t have to help her. Didn’t have to risk his life to rescue her from a watery grave. Why was she being so nasty to him?
“Sorry,” she called out. “I don’t mean to be taking this out on you. I just want to remember. I should remember,” she insisted.
Because she’d tendered a half apology, Trevor’s annoyance with her instantly abated. It took very little to get on his good side.
“You’re going through a lot,” he told her soothingly. She came out then, the expression on her flawless face just a shade contrite. It was all he needed. “C’mon,” he urged, “I’ll take you to the restaurant. It’s within walking distance.”
Rather than guide her toward the parking lot, he indicated that they were going to go in the opposite direction.
As he placed his hand to the small of her back, he felt her stiffen beneath his fingertips. Giving no indication that he’d noticed, he dropped his hand to his side.
“The restaurant’s right over here.”
She stopped and looked at the blue-and-gray stucco single-story building. Navy-blue trim outlined the door and windows. The building went on for half a city block. A terrace ran along the length of the back of the restaurant. The tables and chairs that usually occupied it during working hours were tucked just inside a wall of glass for the night.
It looked nice. Inviting, even in the darkness. “This is yours?”
Taking his key out, he unlocked the door and then held it open for her. “Mine and the bank’s.”
She walked in front of him. He hit a switch to the right of the door. Lights came on, illuminating the way.
It was homey, she thought, as she scanned the interior. Warm. She liked it.
“It’s nice,” she commented. Desperate to find something familiar to grasp, she continued her search over to the reception desk. Nothing around her nudged at any distant images. Still, she heard herself asking, “Have I ever been in here before?”
He turned on another series of lights, not wanting her to feel any more disoriented. “Not that I know of, but then, I’m usually in the kitchen.” He only came out on occasion, when someone he knew was in the dining area.
When he said he owned the restaurant, she’d thought of the financial end. She hadn’t thought of him in any other capacity. Cocking her head, she tried to picture him at a stove, surrounded with boiling pots.
“You’re a chef?”
Trevor smiled, thinking of the diploma from the culinary academy that hung on the wall of his tiny office in the back. “So I like to think.”
“Who’s Kate?” she asked suddenly, turning toward him. “Your wife?”
“My stepmother.”
“Oh.” Now that was odd. Most people thought of stepmothers as creatures to get away from, not immortalize. She had no idea where the thought came from, but it took root, planting itself firmly in her mind. Did she have a stepmother? Was that why she felt like that?
“That’s a little strange.” And then she realized that she’d said the words out loud. She didn’t want to offend him, not after he’d rescued her. “Sorry, none of my business.”
He couldn’t help wondering what sort of unsavory scenario she’d just conjured up in her mind. Something from her past? Was she remembering?
“My stepmother came to work for my dad as our nanny a little more than twenty years ago. She basically saved our lives—not the way I save
d yours,” he qualified, “but in a sense, just as dramatically.” On the outside, they had seemed like a family, but inside, they’d all kept to themselves, at least as far as the pain was concerned. Losing their mother had been hard on all of them. “She brought a lot of happiness into our world and she’s been supportive of all of us from the first day, even when we gave her a hard time.”
Trevor continued turning on lights as he went toward the rear of the restaurant, to where the walk-in refrigerator was located.
She followed him, but she’d stopped listening right after Trevor had said the part about saving her life. It came home to her in letters ten feet high.
He had saved her life.
If not for this man, she would have quite possibly died in that ocean.
By design?
By accident?
Damn it, why wasn’t anything coming back to her? she silently demanded. Why didn’t she even know her own name? At least the first name, if not the last.
Lost in thought, she impotently clenched her hands into fists again and sighed, struggling to keep her frustration in check.
He heard the loud sigh. Trevor doubted the woman was even aware of it. Opening the door to the refrigerator, he took a step in, then looked around at several racks containing covered pans.
“Can you remember liking anything in particular?” he asked her. When there was no answer, he turned to glance at her over his shoulder. There was a puzzled expression on her face. “Food,” he specified. “Can you remember a favorite food?” She seemed to be trying to remember, but then shook her head. “Okay then,” he said philosophically. “Maybe this’ll be your new favorite food.”
He took out a tray, placed a serving on a subdued Wedgwood blue plate and stuck it into the microwave. A minute and a half later, he took out a warm plate of chicken tetrazzini. It had been on this evening’s menu. While it was always a popular item, he’d had a few servings left when he closed his doors.
Tomorrow, everything that hadn’t been consumed today would find its way to St. Anne’s Homeless Shelter. Luther, a man who had worked and lived at the shelter these last twelve years, came by every morning at eight to pick up the leftovers. Trevor made sure that there always were some, even if he had to prepare them that morning. Luther never left empty-handed.
[Kate's Boys 02] - The Bride With No Name Page 2