Главная страница | Современные любовные романы | You Must Remember This

You Must Remember This
Marilyn Pappano
A kiss is still a kiss….MAN WITHOUT A PASTSarah James knew the stranger who had staggered out of the rainswept night and fallen into her arms was bad news. And yet she couldn't turn him away, this man who knew nothing about himself–not even his own name….Night after night she cared for his wounds, fighting her growing desire for him–and her rising fear. For as fragments of his shattered memory returned, it was becoming clear that he could be a fugitive from justice–or something far worse….Yet night after night she was falling more and more deeply in love with a man who was a complete stranger to her–and even to himself….


As a devastating summer storm hits Grand Springs, Colorado, the next thirty-six hours will change the town and its residents forever…
How did Mayor Olivia Stuart really die? And how is Martin Smith connected to her death?
The night of the storm, a stranger walked into Grand Springs's hospital. “Martin Smith” can’t remember his name or where he was going when he lost control of his car and crashed.
Months later he’s still searching for his identity. His intuition tells him the mayor’s murder holds the key, and he’s determined to stay in Grand Springs until he finds the truth.
Computer guru Juliet Crandall is the perfect person to help. She has the know-how and computer access to research the past of anyone in town. Helping the gorgeous and intriguing Martin is a breath of fresh air in her solitary life. But who is he really? Martin’s scars hint at a violent past—could he be dangerous?
Find out in the dramatic conclusion of the 36 Hours series.

You Must Remember This
Marilyn Pappano


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Contents
Prologue (#ud3d45ac6-23dd-5027-bf60-3565e869f975)
Chapter One (#u7c6b094a-d6f6-51a9-b39c-d70d897c356e)
Chapter Two (#ue7c8dc39-8d3e-539b-94c4-8a8aad89919b)
Chapter Three (#u042d1cd5-0dd4-5739-b2f5-9e6cf4d55460)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue
Friday, June 6
The emergency room was bustling, with every cubicle occupied, every chair in the waiting room taken. Some patients waited quietly. Others were vocal about their discomfort—and their displeasure.
The man walked past all the waiting patients to the broad hallway, where a harried clerk stopped him. “Can I help you?”
He looked blankly at her. Did he need help? He wasn’t in any pain except for the headache, and it would go away soon enough. The crack to his head had left him a little dazed, but that would go away, too.
“Sir? Are you hurt? Do you need to see a doctor?”
The bright lights in the hall made the ache in his head throb. When he closed his eyes to block the glare, he swayed unsteadily, and the woman took hold of his arm. “Sit down over here, and the doctor will see you as soon as possible. Did you hit your head?”
He sank into the chair against the wall and realized how good it felt to sit. It had been a long walk from the banged-up car on the highway to the well-lit hospital.
“Sir?”
Lifting one hand, he touched the knot raised when his head came in contact with some part of the car. “Yes, I…”
She crouched in front of him, pen poised over clipboard. “What’s your name?”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Nothing. In a flash, the muscles in his stomach knotted and panic surged through him. It was a simple question, the simplest question in the whole world. What was his name? It was…
Still nothing.
“Sir, I need your name for our records.”
When he reached out, his hand trembled. When his fingers made contact with the clerk’s hand, they wrapped tightly around it. She tried to pull free, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he leaned closer, staring fearfully, desperately, into her face. “I don’t know… I don’t…”
Oh, God, he couldn’t remember.
* * *
“Should I list him as John Doe?”
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, only half listening to the medical staff around him. He had been examined, poked and prodded, X-rayed and interrogated and, finally, medicated. His clothes had been searched for identification, but none was found. His wallet—if he’d had one—was gone. His driver’s license was gone. His identity was gone.
On the up side, so was his headache.
“He doesn’t look like a John to me. Can we pick another name?”
“How about Chris?”
“No…he’s not the Chris Hemsworth type.” The answer was dry and mocking and made him wonder for the first time what he looked like. Did he have blond hair and blue eyes, like the actor? If he saw a photograph of himself, would he recognize it? If he walked over to the mirror above the sink, would he find himself facing a stranger?
He didn’t have the nerve yet to find out.
“Hey, I know what we can call him. Martin—”
The other female voice joined in. “Smith. Yes, of course. Perfect.”
“Who is Martin Smith?” That was the doctor, sounding disinterested as he made notes in the chart.
“He’s a character on the soap we watch. He’s tall, blond, blue-eyed—”
One of the women gave him a furtive glance that he caught from the corner of his eye, then lowered her voice. “A hunk.”
That was good, wasn’t it? It meant he didn’t look half as bad as he felt—and even without the headache, he felt pretty damn bad. He was scared.
Ever since he’d been brought back to the examination room, he’d been talked at, around and about. Finally, the doctor spoke to him. “You want to be Martin Smith?”
No. He wanted to be— He wanted to be whoever the hell he really was, not some soap opera pretty boy. He didn’t say that, though. Instead he simply nodded. He could be someone he wasn’t. He knew how to do that. Then, sooner or later, he would find out who he was.
Wouldn’t he?
“All right, Mr. Smith. You can get up now. We’re just about finished.”
He sat up on the examination table so that he was facing the mirror. Once he found the courage to look, he saw blue eyes and blond hair. The man in the mirror needed a shave. He confirmed it by rubbing his hand along his own jaw. He combed his fingers through his hair, then touched his face again. The mirror image did the same.
He was looking at himself.
He was looking at a stranger.
“If you’ll wait by the desk, Mr. Smith, I’ll have the admissions clerk call the police. Maybe they can help you find out who you really are.”
He nodded numbly, slid to the floor and followed the doctor to the desk. The chairs were still all full, so he wandered around the large room, pausing to look at bulletin boards and pictures, listening to the conversations around him to distract himself from his own problems.
“Yes, Doreen fell down the stairs when the lights went out. Doctor thinks she might have broken…”
“Melvin was in a wreck right downtown. The stoplights quit working, just like that, and some idiot who had a red light before just kept on…”
“The lights went off, and—poof—Randi just disappeared. From her own wedding! I declare…”
“Isn’t it awful about Olivia Stuart? To suffer a heart attack on the day of her son’s wedding! The poor woman.”
He stopped moving and pretended to study a poster advertising first aid classes at the local Methodist church. Olivia Stuart. Did the name mean anything to him? He couldn’t say. It felt…not familiar, but different from Doreen, Melvin and Randi.
“I heard Josie Reynolds went to her house looking for her when she didn’t show up at the wedding and found her unconscious on the kitchen floor. Bless her heart, maybe being the mayor has just been too much stress for her.”
Olivia Stuart was mayor of this town. That must be why her name stood out. That must be why he felt some vague response to her heart attack. It probably wasn’t anything—“Mr. Smith?”
If the police officer hadn’t spoken the name practically in his ear, he wouldn’t have responded. How quickly he’d forgotten the soap opera hunk. Forgetting could be a fatal error, one he rarely made.
“Will you come with us?”
As he left the waiting room with the two officers, he smiled the faintest of smiles. This time he’d forgotten the biggest, most important, most vital thing of all.
He’d forgotten himself.

Chapter One
Juliet Crandall sat at her computer, her fingers resting on the keyboard, but her attention was distant from her work—about fifty feet distant, she estimated, at a table in the library’s reference section.
The man seated there was one of Grand Springs’s intriguing mysteries. He was called Martin Smith—an unimaginative name for such an intense and handsome man—but no one knew who he really was, he least of all. He was a regular at the library, poring over newspapers, magazines, old high school yearbooks—anything that might jog his memory. It looked as if it was yearbooks today.
She wondered why he wasted his time. Grand Springs wasn’t so large that a student at one of the high schools could go totally unknown. If he had attended school here, someone would remember. A handsome face wasn’t easily forgotten. Six foot three, lean and mean weren’t very forgettable, either. No, if Martin Smith had lived here long enough to get his picture in a yearbook some twenty years ago, someone would know.
Though Juliet had been in town only a few weeks, she’d learned from library gossip that he’d been searching for ten months for some clue to his identity, and for ten months, he’d come up empty-handed. The police department—Juliet’s other new employer—had taken his fingerprints and sent them off to the state crime bureau and the FBI, but they’d gotten back a not-on-file response. So he wasn’t a cop or a criminal. He’d never been in the military, applied for a gun permit or held any sort of job that required a security clearance. Just like a few hundred million other people in the country.
Not. She’d seen her share of ordinary, everyday, average citizens, and Martin Smith, whoever he was, was definitely not like them. He was the stuff fantasies—hers, at least—were made of. Broad-shouldered, lean-hipped and long-legged. Carelessly tousled blond hair and stunning blue eyes that actors and models paid money to achieve with contacts. Skin of creamy gold as if he’d just finished up a month on a tropical beach instead of a winter of snow and ice in the Rocky Mountains. His clothes were casual—jeans, always jeans, faded ones that fit the way women wanted, and shirts, plaid flannel, chambray, plain white with the sleeves rolled up or snug-fitting T-shirts.
He was enough to distract even the most dedicated computer analyst-programmer-archivist from her work.
And she’d never even spoken to him.
He had sought help from the woman who’d held this job before her, but in her two weeks here, he’d never approached her. Maybe he’d developed a preference for working on his own. Maybe he’d simply run out of things to check. Maybe he just didn’t think she had anything to offer him.
That wouldn’t be a first.
With a sigh, Juliet forced her gaze from the window that was her small office’s only interesting feature and tried to focus on the computer screen. Grand Springs was finally bringing its library into the age of technology, reorganizing and computerizing. It was her job—every Tuesday and Thursday, at least—to do just that. The rest of her work week was spent at the police department, upgrading their computer system to allow them to take full advantage of the FBI’s new computer systems. When both jobs were completed, she’d be taking a full-time position in the police department as head of their records division. It wouldn’t be exciting, but at least it was different from what she’d done previously.
She’d lived all her life in the same Dallas neighborhood—heavens, in the very same house. It had been cheaper to live at home while attending college, cheaper than getting a place of her own when she’d gone to work. After her father’s death, she’d stayed to help her mother, and after her mother’s death, she’d stayed because it was comfortably familiar. Just as she’d stayed at the same job all those years, sitting in the same cubicle at the same keyboard, seeing the same people. She had shopped at the same stores, followed the same routines and faced the same depressing future.
At least here things were different. Not perfect. No, she was still the same shy, quiet woman she’d always been. She still didn’t have many friends. She still got all hot and tongue-tied at the idea of dealing with members of the opposite sex unless they were old enough to be her father or young enough to be her son. She still spent all her free time alone, and she still conducted her social life—what there was of it—in cyberspace.
She’d had hopes for more—that she would fit in here in a way she never had in Dallas. That she would make friends. That she might even meet the mysterious man she’d dreamed of since childhood who would sweep her off her feet with offers of marriage, babies and happily-ever-afters. After all, her last birthday had put her squarely in her mid-thirties. Time was slipping away fast. Just yesterday she’d been a dreamy teenager, lost in the books that were her refuge, convinced that someday her life would change. Tomorrow she would be a sad old maid, lamenting life’s unfairness, regretting the emptiness and loneliness. Today was all she had.
“Excuse me.”
For a moment, lost in the future she dreaded, Juliet didn’t respond to the quiet interruption. When she finally looked up, she wished she hadn’t. Her face grew warm, her mouth went dry, and her fingers went limp on the keyboard.
“You’re the new computer whiz.”
All she could do was stare and nod dumbly.
“I’m Martin Smith.” His mouth twisted in what might have been meant as a smile but was actually a grimace. “At least, that’s who I’ve been since last June.” He came farther into the room and extended his hand.
Her palm was probably sweaty, but it would be too noticeable if she took time to wipe it on her dress. She shook his hand, then quickly drew back.
“You’re…?”
The heat in her cheeks increased a few degrees. It was a simple process. He gave his name, and she offered hers. How could she forget? “Juliet. Crandall. I’m new. I replaced—” The other archivist’s name flew right out of her memory. “Whoever used to do this. The computers and…” Sure that she had sufficiently embarrassed herself, she lapsed into silence with her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Too bad Martin Smith hadn’t approached her via computer. E-mail and real-time chats were so easy. Jcrandall@gsc.edu could easily converse with anyone in the world. Juliet Crandall, face-to-face, couldn’t talk to anyone.
Without waiting for an invitation—one she never would have thought of offering—he sat in the only other chair in the room. “I don’t know if you’ve heard about me—”
“Oh, yes.”
The abruptness of her answer made him blush. On her, a blush was just painful evidence of yet another embarrassment. On him, it was charming. It eased the hard lines of his face and gave him a boyish appeal. “Yeah, I’m the town freak.”
“I didn’t mean…”
He brushed away her words. “You didn’t say it. I did. Actually, it comes in handy. I don’t have to waste time explaining myself to anyone. Terry Sanchez—the woman who used to do this—said that you were really good with computers.”
She shrugged. She’d been computer-friendly since the very first time she’d laid fingers on a keyboard. There were times, though, when she would have given up every skill she possessed to be a little more people-friendly instead. Now was definitely one of those times.
“Can you help me?”
Not ten minutes ago she’d wondered why he’d never sought her help. Now that he had, she wished he hadn’t. Helping him meant spending time with him, and while that was certainly an appealing prospect on one level, on another, it was terrifying. She didn’t do well one-on-one, especially with someone as handsome, intense and fantasy-quality male as Martin Smith.
But if she helped him, she would get to spend time with him. Maybe they could be friends. Maybe she could even learn something from him about relating to men.
“I don’t know. If the police and Terry couldn’t help…”
“I’m not a priority with the police. They ran my fingerprints and sent out a missing persons broadcast, and that was all. They didn’t have the manpower, the budget or the interest in pursuing it any further. As for Terry…she says you’re damn good with the computer.”
She should be. The computers and the Internet were her life. She got her news and entertainment there, visited with friends, planned vacations she never took and had even sold her house in Dallas via an on-line real estate agent.
“I know there are ways you can do searches on the Internet,” Martin continued.
“But you have to have something to work with. I understand you don’t.”
His gaze shifted away and thin lines appeared at the corners of his mouth. “Then it shouldn’t take you long to hit a dead end. You won’t be out much time, and I’ll pay you for it.” His jaw tightened, and his gaze returned. “Please…”
More than that last word, which sounded as if he were unaccustomed to saying it, it was the look in his eyes that got to her. Vulnerability in a man who, she was certain, had never been vulnerable. How awful his situation must be. She wasn’t always happy with who she was, but at least she knew. It must be frightening to lose the very basis of who you are.
“All right,” she agreed, and she saw relief sweep over him. “But I can’t do it during office hours. Why—” Her voice choked, and she had to stop to take a breath. The last man she’d invited to her house had been an account executive with her previous company. He’d been charming, flattering and genuinely interested in her—or so she’d thought. After a half-dozen dates and one long memorable weekend, he had asked for what he’d really wanted: her help in hacking into another account exec’s computer. There had been a big account up for grabs, and he’d needed inside information to be sure he got it.
He hadn’t gotten the information, or the account.
But Martin Smith was being very up front about what he wanted from her. He wasn’t lying, playing her for a fool and trying to seduce her into cooperating.
More’s the pity.
“Why don’t you come to my house this evening? We’ll talk.”
“Around seven? Is that okay?”
“That’ll be fine.” She scrawled her address on a piece of notepaper and laid it on the corner of the desk closest to him. He took it with a nod, then left the office, closing the door quietly behind him.
His fingers still wrapped tightly around the doorknob, Martin drew a deep breath. He hated this feeling, this tightness in his chest, as if he’d just faced some danger and survived. He hated asking for favors, hated pleading, hated like hell feeling helpless and incapable.
Especially in front of a woman like Juliet Crandall.
When Terry Sanchez had quit, she’d told him to ask the new computer whiz for help, and he had fully intended to do so…until he’d seen her. It had been a Monday, her first day on the job, and he’d caught a glimpse of her over at the police department. She was pretty, quiet, apparently interested in little besides her machines, and she scared the hell out of him. It had taken him two weeks to find the courage to approach her.
It had been a long time since he’d been seriously attracted to a woman. At least ten months, he knew. Even longer, he suspected. He’d had a few dates since the accident, but nothing special. Just pleasant evenings with nice women. There had been no electricity, no heat, no potential.
Just seeing Juliet Crandall made him so hot he could melt ice.
She lived in a neat little house with a picket fence less than three blocks from his own place. The house was green, the fence white, the yard big enough for kids. She didn’t have any, though. She didn’t have a husband, either, or, as far as he could tell, anyone special in her life. The male population both in Dallas and Grand Springs must be stupid or blind or both.
Forcing his fingers to unclench, he walked away from her office and out into the warm April sunshine. He wondered if he preferred summer or winter. Would he rather be sweating somewhere under a blazing sun or racing down a mountainside on skis? He’d gone to Squaw Creek Lodge a couple of times over the winter with the intention of renting a pair of skis and taking the lift up the mountain, but fear had kept him from actually doing it. Fear that he would get to the top and be unable to ski down? Or fear that he would be able to? He hadn’t known.
He wondered a lot about the fear. What had frightened him before the accident? Had he been a coward, or had he taken chances? Had fear been an occasional thing, or had he lived with it? He wanted to believe the former. He suspected the latter.
He suspected a lot of things. He suspected that the truth was out there somewhere, if he could just find the smallest clue. He suspected that he might not like what he learned. He suspected that he might not like who he’d been.
But he had to know. No matter what it cost.
He walked down the hill, taking the turns that led to his place, a garage apartment that Stone Richardson, the detective who’d tried to identify him last June, had found for him. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was cheap, and, under the circumstances, cheap was important. He’d worked off and on during the last ten months, though mostly at odd jobs, so his income was pretty meager. Added to the money found in his pocket after the accident, it had stretched, but just barely.
Five hundred dollars and change. That was all he’d had on him when he wandered into the Vanderbilt Memorial emergency room. No wallet, no car keys, no jewelry beyond an inexpensive wristwatch. Just five hundred dollars and clothing that could have been bought in any of a hundred thousand places in the country.
His wallet and the car keys, the police theorized, had been left in the car following the accident. Unfortunately, when the mud slides had been cleared away and the roads had opened again, no car had been found. Maybe, with the keys in it, someone had taken it. Or maybe there had never been a car. Maybe something else entirely had happened, and his scrambled brain had substituted an accident for it.
He climbed the wooden steps to the second-floor landing and unlocked the door. Sometimes he hated coming home because it wasn’t really home. Sometimes he hated leaving it, because at least it was safe. Inside these four walls he didn’t have to be Martin Smith. He didn’t have to be anybody at all, and he didn’t have to pretend that he was coping with being nobody. He could be as angry, bitter and afraid as he wanted—as long as he got it under control before leaving again. Control was important. He remembered that, although he didn’t remember why it was, or what would happen if he lost it.
The apartment was gloomy, and turning on the lights didn’t help. It was one room with a kitchen in this corner, a bathroom in that corner, a closet over there and living quarters in the middle. The furniture had come with it—a bed and night stand, a sofa and chair, a table and four ladderback chairs. Everything was ragged and worn, but still functional.
Like him.
He wasn’t a particularly neat housekeeper. The floor needed sweeping, and the rag rugs needed washing. There was dust on the tables and the lamp shades, and sections of newspapers were scattered everywhere. Ignoring the dirty dishes in the sink and the dirty laundry in the corner, he went to the bathroom and stripped out of his clothes.
Normally he tried to avoid the mirror hanging above the sink. He’d learned the art of focusing his attention so narrowly that he saw only parts—jaw, chin, cheeks—when he shaved, of combing his hair without seeing the face it framed. On occasion, though, he was drawn to the mirror. He could sit for hours staring at the total stranger whose face he wore, desperately seeking some connection, some tiny distant hint of recognition that never came. When he’d seen enough, it usually took far less time to get so drunk that he couldn’t see, period.
This afternoon he stared, cataloging features that he knew by heart and yet didn’t know at all. Blond hair in need of a trim, blue eyes, crooked nose. High cheekbones, thin lips, square jaw.
His gaze slid lower. There was a scar on his upper right chest—round, raised, the edges uneven. A gunshot wound, Dr. Howell had said. The long, straight, clean scar underneath it was from the incision made to remove the bullet. There were a matching set on his back and other smaller scars on his chest and back, plus one on his arm from something jagged—maybe a broken bottle or a dull knife that had torn instead of cut.
God help him, what kind of person had he been?
Violent.
Criminal.
Dangerous.
Had he been a dangerous man? He didn’t want to believe it, but sometimes he did. Sometimes he dreamed that he had been exactly the sort of person who could threaten, intimidate and hurt—maybe kill—someone else. Sometimes the dreams were so vivid, so intense, that they terrified him, and he spent the rest of the night pacing the room to avoid falling asleep again.
That was the first thing he had to tell Juliet Crandall this evening. She hadn’t wanted to help him in the first place. Warning her what kind of man he might be was only fair.
He’d never felt compelled to warn Terry Sanchez. But he had never seen Terry outside the library, and all he’d wanted was her assistance. He wanted a lot more from Juliet.
A hell of a lot more. But he couldn’t have it. He might have a wife and kids somewhere. There might be warrants for his arrest. Whoever had tried to kill him before might try again. Before he could have any kind of future, he had to find out about his past. He had to find out whether he deserved a future or whether everyone would have been better off if one of those bullets had killed him.
Maybe, once he knew the truth, then he could want someone. Maybe then he could have someone.
Scowling, he turned the shower to hot and stepped into the tub. It wasn’t yet four o’clock. He would be ready to go to Juliet’s house three hours early. Or maybe he would never be ready to go to Juliet’s house.
He bathed quickly, grateful when he got out that the mirror had fogged over. He dressed, combed his hair straight back, then stretched out on the couch to watch the clock. He didn’t turn on the television in the corner or pick up the morning paper his landlady had brought over when she’d finished with it. He just lay there, wishing, wondering, regretting.
The minutes crawled, but finally the bedside clock read six-forty-five. He left the apartment, slipped through the gate in the back fence and made his way to the block where Juliet lived. Her car, a sensible gray sedan, was parked in the driveway, and the front door was open. He raised his hand to knock on the screen door, then stilled.
He could see a corner of the living room, an equal wedge of another room and down the wide hall to the kitchen. As he watched, Juliet turned the corner at the far end and started toward him. She was wearing a dress, a garden-party sort of dress of soft, flowing fabric, subdued flowers, ribbon trim and a row of little white buttons that ran from the modest V-neck all the way to the ankle. They were already fastened from the waist down, as if she had simply undone enough buttons to step inside the garment, and she was buttoning the rest now, her steps slow and leisurely, her head bent.
Maybe he stifled a groan or a board creaked or his skin was sizzling from the sudden influx of heat. Whatever the cause, abruptly she raised her head and stared at him through the screen. He felt dim-witted, thick-tongued and embarrassed, as if he’d been caught spying. He wanted to turn and walk away, to pretend that he’d seen nothing. Truth was, he hadn’t seen anything. Just a narrow strip of pale skin that dipped between her breasts to her waist. Just her fingers working the small buttons. Just enough to know that he wanted more.
She turned her back. When she faced him again, the last button was securely fastened and her face was tinged pink. She held the screen door open a few inches. “Hello.”
He took hold of the handle, but didn’t pull, didn’t step inside. Instead, in a masterpiece of clumsiness, he blurted out, “Before we start, I think you should know that someone tried to kill me.”
“Today?”
“No. Several years ago.” When she looked puzzled, he explained, “I don’t know who I am—who I used to be—but apparently it was someone with enemies. Someone who did something worth killing over.”
For a long time, she simply looked at him. Then abruptly she shrugged, making her hair sway. “Or maybe you were the victim of some crazy with a gun. Lord knows, there are enough of them around. Come on in.”
He went inside, then flipped the hook on the jamb into the eye on the door. By the time he turned, she was already in the room on the right.
It had once been a formal dining room and still held dining room furniture. The pieces were old and oak—an oval table big enough to seat six, four chairs that matched, two office chairs on wheels and a china cabinet. The oak was heirloom quality, suited to a country house with a family to fill the chairs. Here it did duty as a desk, supporting her computer and printer. The shelves of the china hutch held books, flash-drives and printer cartridges. Packages of paper were visible in the cabinet underneath before she shoved the door shut as she passed.
She sat in a bright blue chair in front of the computer but made no effort to turn it on. We’ll talk, she had said, and that was apparently all she intended to do. Doing it here, he assumed, instead of the living room where they would have been more comfortable was her way of keeping it strictly business.
“I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon, and I’m not really sure I can help you.”
He didn’t want to hear that, pretended he didn’t hear it as he circled the room. There were blinds on the windows, no curtains and nothing on the walls but a corkboard directly behind her. From across the room, he couldn’t make out any of the notes thumbtacked to the board. When he pulled out the chair beside her, he still couldn’t read them. Her writing was atrocious.
“Exactly what was Terry doing?”
“We went through old newspapers and school yearbooks, checked town records, looking for something I might remember.”
“You think you’re from here.”
“I know I’ve been here. From the start, I’ve had this feeling…” He wasn’t one to talk much about feelings, or if he did, he disguised them with other words. Instincts. Intuition. Intuition told him he’d been in Grand Springs long enough to gain a familiarity with the place. Too often he knew what was around a corner he’d never turned. He’d known in September about the eighty-foot-tall pine that would be decorated for Christmas in December. There were places—the high school gymnasium, a restaurant downtown, a clothing store—where he knew he’d been at some time in the forgotten past.
“But if you had lived here or spent any length of time here, don’t you think someone would recognize you?”
He scowled at the logic of her argument. “Maybe it was a long time ago. Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe I’m not that noticeable.”
Juliet had to bite her tongue to stop from snorting scornfully at that last comment. Not noticeable? In what galaxy? She’d seen his effect on the females in the library, from giggly teenagers to white-haired grandmothers. There was no way he could have spent any time here and the women of Grand Springs not notice him. “When you appeared in Grand Springs, you didn’t remember anything?”
“I remembered who was president of the United States. I knew that I’ve always liked Italian food. I knew I spoke fluent Spanish. I remembered plenty of things. Just nothing important, like who I am or where I’m from.” He slumped in the chair, his feet stretched out so that they nearly touched hers. She swiveled her chair a few inches to the right.
“What happened the night of the accident?” She knew there’d been a wreck, that he’d suffered a head injury and now had amnesia, but the rumor mill was short on details, and details were desperately needed if she was going to help him.
“The first thing I remember is waking up with a hell of a headache. I guess I lost control of the car in the storm and hit the guardrail.”
The storm. That was how the town referred to that weekend last June. Rains had saturated the area, and the downpour that Friday evening had been more than the ground could bear. There had been massive mud slides, closing the highways and causing a blackout that lasted into Sunday.
“Besides banging your head, were you hurt?”
He shook his head. “I left the car and started walking. The town was completely dark, so when I saw lights, I headed for them. It was the hospital. They examined me, gave me a name—”
“After the soap opera hunk,” she said, and he scowled again. Which offended him more—the soap opera part or the hunk part?
“And called the police. They were busy with the blackout and the mayor’s murder, but eventually they got around to me. They took my fingerprints and sent them to the FBI and the state. They didn’t know who I was, either.”
“So we know you’re not a cop, you were never in the military, and you’re not a crook.”
“At least, not one who’s been caught.”
She ignored his mutterings and went on. “Before the accident, were you coming to Grand Springs or going away from it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Which direction was your car facing when you regained consciousness?”
“I don’t remember. I’d hit my head. I was disoriented.”
“What happened to the car?”
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Once things settled down and the roads were reopened, Stone Richardson took me out to find it. We couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t remember where I left it, but wherever that was, it was no longer there. We drove all the way to the interstate and found nothing.”
“So someone stole it.”
“Or it got swept away by the mud slides.”
“Is that possible?”
His look was dry, his voice even drier. “Have you ever seen a few tons of mud and rock come rushing down a mountainside?”
“I’m from Dallas. We don’t have mountainsides. We don’t even have many hillsides.”
“A mud slide can uproot trees, tear down guardrails and destroy chunks of roadway. It can move a building off its foundation and carry it away, breaking it into splinters along the way. It can destroy a town, kill anyone in its way, and, yes, it can wash away a car.”
“Didn’t anyone search for the car?” It seemed a simple enough task to her: find the places where the mud had rushed over the highway, follow it down the mountainside and find the car. If it wasn’t immediately visible, search any places where the mud was deep enough to cover it. Easy.
“When you moved here, you drove into town from the interstate, didn’t you? You saw the drop-offs in some places along the highway, didn’t you?”
She nodded. In a few places, the shoulder wasn’t more than a few feet wide, and nothing more than a steel guardrail separated a car on the highway from a two-thousand-foot fall. Other drops were less dramatic, but there were plenty where a search would be difficult at best. “Do you think your car went over one of those drop-offs?”
“I don’t know.”
“So Stone took your fingerprints and checked missing persons reports and got nothing. Has he done that recently?”
“Why would he?”
“Maybe, when he checked, your family or friends or employer hadn’t yet realized that you were missing. Maybe you were on vacation and not expected back for several weeks. Maybe they filed a report a few days or weeks later.” Picking up a pen, she made a note on the pad next to the computer. Tomorrow she would be at the police department. She would talk to Stone about trying again. “Do you have any scars, tattoos or distinguishing marks?”
He mumbled his answer as if he preferred not to acknowledge their existence. “Scars.”
Her gaze followed his right hand to his left arm, where he rubbed the thickened skin. She made a note of its location and length even as she wondered what he had done to earn such an injury.
“It’s a defensive wound.”
Given a little time, she could have figured that out. The scar ran four inches along the inside of his arm, as if he had raised his arm to ward off an attacker. But who had attacked him and why? Had he been an innocent victim or an equally guilty transgressor?
She would like to believe “innocent victim,” but it was hard to cast him as either innocent or a victim. On the other hand, it was easy to see him as aggressive, strong, take-charge, bold. It was easy to imagine him meeting an attacker head-on, giving as good as he got.
Unless his attacker was someone he couldn’t defend himself against—a woman, perhaps, a friend or an authority figure. Or unless he believed he deserved the attack. Which brought her back to her original question: what had he done?
Knowing that he could offer no more information than her wild imagination, she pressed on. “You said scars. What about the others?”
“What does it matter?”
“The more identifying information we can provide, the better the chances of getting a match.”
“Assuming that there was someone who cared enough to file a missing persons report.”
“You don’t think there was?”
His fingers knotted, and his eyes turned the bleak blue of a sunless wintry day. “I don’t know.”
Under the best of circumstances, it was a vaguely dissatisfying answer. When it applied to every area of your own life, when it answered even the simplest, most basic questions—What is your name? How old are you? Where do you live?—it must be frustrating as hell.
“You weren’t wearing a wedding ring?”
“No. No tan line, either.”
“Which proves nothing. There has to be someone—a wife, a girlfriend, friends, neighbors, co-workers. You can’t have lived so isolated that no one’s noticed you’re gone.”
“I don’t know.” Rising from his chair, he paced to the other side of the table. He was restless, edgy, and he made her feel edgy. She fiddled with her pen as she watched him.
“What about the other scars?”
For a long moment, he looked at her, then answered in a rush. “I’ve been shot twice—once in the back, left side, down low, and once in the chest, upper right side. There are two entry wounds, plus two surgical scars where the bullets were removed. Based on the way scars mature, the doctor says one is a couple of years old, the other probably a couple of years older than that.”
“And the scar on your arm?”
“It’s older. I’ve had it since I was a kid.”
“The doctor told you that?”
“No. I just know….” Frustrated, he gestured toward the computer. “What can you do with that?”
She could do anything, go anywhere, be anyone. His interest, of course, was much narrower. What could she do for him? It was her turn to parrot his answer. “I don’t know. I need a name, a town, something to go on.”
“If I had a town, I’d be there, and if I had a name, I wouldn’t need—”
You. She smiled faintly. She knew that, of course. If she didn’t have something tangible to offer, he would have no interest in her. Too bad that she had nothing to offer—just lots of questions and no answers. “You said you’ve had this feeling of familiarity about the town. What about the people?”
He shook his head.
“No one seems familiar? No one brings a particular response?”
He stood at the window, back straight, very still, and stared out. The sun’s last rays shining through the partially opened blinds cast a pattern across his face, with a shadow across his mouth and another over his eyes. At last, he answered, his voice so grim that she didn’t want to see his eyes. “Olivia Stuart.”
Juliet drew her feet onto her chair seat and wrapped her arms around her knees to contain a shiver. For such a short time in town, she’d learned a lot. Olivia Stuart had been widely admired in Grand Springs, hailed as the town’s best mayor ever. Her death last June, presumably from a heart attack, had stunned everyone. The news that the heart attack had been drug-induced had sent shock waves through the town. Last October the police had arrested one of her murderers—a professional killer by the name of Joanna Jackson—and were still looking for another of those involved, Dean Springer. Springer had hired Joanna, but to this day, no one knew whom he was working for. No one knew why his mysterious boss had wanted Olivia Stuart dead.
Maybe Martin Smith knew.
As if he knew the direction her thoughts were traveling, he smiled mockingly. “I was questioned and cleared. At the time the mayor was given the fatal injection, I was somewhere out on the highway. A couple of Grand Springs’s respectable citizens can vouch for that.”
But that only meant that he hadn’t been the one to actually give the injection. Could he be the one who had ordered it? Could he have held a grudge against the mayor with lethal consequences? Juliet didn’t ask the questions aloud, but Martin had already asked them and failed to come up with answers.
“Could you have known Olivia?”
“Maybe.”
“Could you be a relative?”
“No.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“She had a son and a daughter. I’ve met both of them, and they don’t have a clue who I might be.”
It shouldn’t take you long to hit a dead end, he’d said this afternoon, and he had been right. She was running out of questions, and they had learned nothing. “What kind of response does she bring?”
He shrugged but continued to stare out. “That night in the ER, I heard that she’d had a heart attack, and…I was sorry. I didn’t have any idea who she was, but…it mattered. It was as if her death—or her life—was important to me in some way.”
“Maybe you’d done business with her. Maybe you were on your way here to meet with her.”
“Stone checked her appointment book. Everyone listed in it is present and accounted for.”
“Maybe your business with her was personal.”
He shook his head. “She was very organized. She kept track of her personal business as well as her professional matters.”
“It’s human nature to feel some measure of sadness when you hear someone has died. Maybe that’s all it was. You were just being human.”
With another shake of his head, he closed the blinds, then faced her. “I don’t think I’m a very empathetic person.”
“What do you think you are?”
He rested his hands on the back of the chair across from her, and his fingers automatically tightened. “I don’t know, but I think…” He took a deep breath as if it were the only way to force the words out. “I think I’m afraid to find out.”

Chapter Two
“Do you want something to drink?”
Martin nodded as Juliet got to her feet. They’d been at it more than an hour—lots of questions, lots of the same depressing answers. I don’t know. I don’t remember. Why did she bother asking? Why did he bother repeating? Why didn’t they just accept that, for all practical purposes, his life before last June no longer existed? At least not in a place where he could get to it.
After a moment alone in the quiet office, he left his chair and stepped into the hallway. The living room was dark, but he could make out overstuffed furniture in dark stripes, the kind made for stretching out on, and a television, silent in the corner. There were two doors between him and the kitchen, one probably a closet, the other open to reveal a bathroom. A third opening on the opposite side was another hallway, one that presumably led to the bedrooms. That was where he’d first seen her this evening, buttoning her dress, unknowingly teasing him, tantalizing him, turning him on.
He remembered sex—not with any particular person, not at any particular time, but he remembered the need, the raw, aching hunger, the torment in a slow, leisurely seduction and the pleasure in a quick, hard completion. He remembered the sense of power at what he could make a woman feel and the very real vulnerability at what she could do to him.
Sweet hell, what Juliet could do to him, if only he could remember. If only he knew his past.
He walked the length of the hallway, not allowing himself even the quickest of glances down the shorter hall to the bedrooms. She stood at the counter, her back to him, filling glasses with pop and arranging cookies on a plate, and he took advantage of her lack of awareness to study her. Her feet were bare—had he always found that erotic or was this a post-concussion fetish?—and her skirt swirled around her ankles as she moved. The dress was loose and full from the waist down. It clung like a second skin from there up, snug enough that he could tell by the uninterrupted smoothness that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He knew she wasn’t wearing one, because he’d seen that pale delicate skin, so soft and inviting that his fingers ached to touch it.
She was humming softly to herself, with her head bent so her hair fell forward, revealing her neck. It was long, pale, probably soft, definitely erotic. All he would have to do was walk across the room, brush a few strands of hair aside, touch his mouth to her skin, and he would be so damned hot that he just might burst into flames.
He was moving toward her, closing the distance between them, only a few feet away, when she turned from the counter and saw him. Startled, she dropped the glasses she held. Pop, ice and bits of glass went everywhere, splashing her skirt and his jeans, as color flooded her face. “Oh, my God, I didn’t know— Don’t you make noise when you walk?”
Though he hadn’t meant to frighten her, he felt guilty, anyway. He should have spoken from the doorway, should have let her know that she was no longer alone, but he’d seen her, and everything else—except wanting her—had fled his mind. “Sorry,” he said stiffly. “I’ll clean that—”
“I will.” She snatched up a towel from the counter and crouched, careful to tuck her skirt tightly around her legs. He found a broom and dustpan in the corner and, while she mopped up soda, swept the broken glass into a pile. When he knelt to scoop it into the pan, he found himself closer to her than he’d ever been, closer than he should ever be. Close enough to see that her eyes were just a shade more blue than hazel. Close enough to touch her. Close enough to hurt her.
Startled by the thought, he moved back, swept the glass into the pan and got to his feet, quickly putting the length of the room between them. Why the hell would he hurt her? Was that what he did? Hurt vulnerable, helpless women? Maybe even kill them?
Like Olivia Stuart?
The thought had occurred to Juliet earlier that maybe he had given the order for Olivia’s murder. She hadn’t asked, but he knew she had wondered. He wondered, too. Had he been coming to Grand Springs to harm the mayor? To help her? Or was his response to the news of her death nothing more than human nature, as Juliet had suggested? Damn it, he didn’t know.
But, as he’d told her, he didn’t think he was a very empathetic person. He thought he might be a coldhearted bastard. Maybe a cold-blooded killer.
She stood up, wet a handful of paper towels, then crouched to give the floor a thorough swipe. “Sorry about the mess. I’m used to being alone, and you do move quietly. I was just surprised.”
“It was my fault.” He didn’t look at her, but he could see her peripherally—a swirl of soft colors, blond hair, bare feet. What was wrong with all the people she’d known that she was used to being alone? Why weren’t there men lined up at her door? Why wasn’t she spending her evenings with a husband and family instead of a computer? Instead of with him?
“Just give me a second and I’ll have everything—”
“Don’t bother. I should go.” He looked at her finally and saw disappointment flare in her eyes before her face flushed and she turned away to needlessly rearrange the few items on the counter. Disappointment. She didn’t want him to leave. Was she crazy or just lonely?
He knew loneliness intimately—the empty, aching need to share at least some small part of your life with someone special. He’d made friends here, but even with them, he still felt the need. He still wondered if there was someone out there somewhere who was lonely for him. Was there someone special, someone he’d loved, someone whose life was incomplete without him?
He didn’t think so. Maybe it was sentimental bull, but he believed that if there had been someone special, some part of him would know. Maybe not his mind, but his heart. His soul. But his heart was too empty. He was too alone. Too attracted to Juliet.
Juliet, who was avoiding facing him, who was embarrassed, who was lonely.
He swallowed hard. Knowing he shouldn’t, he said, “If it wouldn’t be any trouble…”
She flashed a relieved smile. “No, not at all.”
He stayed on his side of the room while she took two more glasses from the cabinet, stretching high to reach, pulling taut fabric even tighter. Stifling a groan, he turned his attention to the back door. It stood open, the screen door unlatched, giving him a glimpse of a night-dark yard with shadows and gloom for cover.
“You need a light in the backyard,” he commented. “Either a floodlight or a motion sensor. And you should keep the screen door latched. Better yet, you should replace both your screen doors with storm doors, the kind with a keyed lock. You need a dead bolt on the door, too—at least a one-inch—and…”
The wary look she gave him made him stop. “This isn’t Dallas.”
“No, it’s Grand Springs. In the ten months I’ve been here, the mayor has been murdered, her daughter and granddaughter were kidnapped, the bank was robbed, and someone tried to kill a couple of cops and the town treasurer. Don’t confuse small with safe. Keep your doors locked.” Though his advice might be coming a little late. She had already let him in, and that just might be the worst mistake she could make.
She offered him a glass. He had to cross the room to take it from her. “Maybe you worked in the home security business.”
“Maybe I worked in the home invasion business.”
“If you were a criminal, you must have been very, very good to reach your age without getting caught. By the way, what age have they settled on for you?”
“Late thirties, maybe forty.” Forty hard years, judging by the lines on his face and the damage done to his body, and he could account for only ten months. The knowledge made him feel less than whole.
After latching the screen and locking the door, he followed her down the hall. He expected her to turn into the semi-businesslike dining room. Instead, she went into the living room, switching on lights before settling on a crimson-and-green love seat. She put the plate of cookies on the table between the love seat and sofa, then gestured for him to sit. He wanted to choose the armchair across the room, beneath a hanging lamp, but he obeyed her and sat on the couch instead.
Munching on a cookie, he gave the rest of the room a look. It was homier than the dining room, with pictures on the walls, and books, plants and collectibles scattered around. It was a comfortable room, the sort of place—maybe minus the family photos—he imagined he might have had in another place in another life.
“These are good. Did you bake them?”
“I bought them at the bakery near the college. They were out of their wonderful little fried pies—”
“With cherries, apples and apricots.”
“You’ve been there?”
He shook his head. He just knew. Sick of things he should remember but couldn’t and things he knew that he shouldn’t, he changed the subject. “Why did you come here?”
The question made her uncomfortable. She was fine asking hard questions of him, but the simplest question about her turned her face pink and made her gaze shift to the family portrait on the opposite wall. “I wanted a change.”
“Are your parents still in Dallas?”
“No. My father died five years ago. My mother died two years later.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“No. A lot of aunts, uncles and cousins, but none I was particularly close to.”
“Why Grand Springs?”
“The job came open, and I liked the idea of living in the mountains.”
“Wait until you’ve spent your first winter here, then see if you like it. Do you ski?”
“No.”
“Hike?”
“No.”
“Camp? Fish? Take long bike rides?”
“No.”
“Then what do you do?”
“I work, and I spend time online.”
He glanced across the hall at the computer. There were few, if any, people in her life, but she had her computer. Cold company, but better than what he had. Nothing kept him company but loneliness, frustration and fear. Fear of who he had been, of who he was, of who he might never be. Fear of knowing and of never knowing.
Grimly he forced his attention back to her. “What do you do online?”
“Talk to friends. Read the paper. Check movie reviews and weather forecasts. Order books.” She shrugged. “Everything.”
“Have you ever met these friends before? In person? Face-to-face?”
Discomfort edged into her expression. “I don’t do well face-to-face.”
Maybe she was more comfortable hiding behind a computer screen. The men among those online friends didn’t know what they were missing. Even if she had described herself as five-five, blond and blue, it would say nothing about the stubborn line of her jaw or the way she turned that delicate pink when embarrassed. It didn’t give a hint of the shape of her mouth or the silkiness of her hair or the fragile air that surrounded her. “Five-five, blond and blue” could be a man’s worst nightmare…or his sweetest dream.
“So you get on the computer and talk to people you’ve never met. How do you know they are what they say they are? How do you know they’re not scam artists, stalkers, rapists or killers?”
“How do we know that about anyone?”
How did she know it about him? Point taken.
“These people don’t know me, either. They only know what I choose to tell them.”
“Wouldn’t you rather talk to a flesh-and-blood person? Someone you could see, hear, touch?”
Again she looked uncomfortable. “I’m talking to you.”
He was definitely flesh and blood—very hard flesh, if she came near him, and very hot blood. His smile was thin and unamused. Here he was, warning her about the men online, but he was a bigger threat than any of them. He knew how she looked, moved, sounded. He knew where she lived. He knew he wanted her.
His muscles tensing, he forced his thoughts to a safer path. “Your boyfriend must have been sorry to see you leave.” Yeah, that was good. Juliet with another man, a man who was special to her, getting intimate, making love—that was a definite turnoff.
Or not, he admitted as an image popped into his head: Juliet naked, her skin slick with sweat, her soft little moans erotic and torturous to hear. It didn’t matter that the hands rubbing her body and the mouth suckling her breasts belonged to someone else, didn’t matter that another man would fill her, pleasure her and finish with her. It was arousing as hell. Scary as hell.
“I haven’t been in a relationship in a long time.”
He hadn’t, either, not once in his entire life of ten months and a few days. His body was more than ready. Unfortunately, his spirit wasn’t. He needed answers. Reassurances. Some reason to think that he might be worthy of a relationship with someone special.
“Have you ever been married?”
With a faint smile, she shook her head.
“Ever come close?”
Another shake.
Fools. The entire state of Texas was nothing but fools.
“Have you considered leaving Grand Springs?” she asked, turning the conversation away from herself and back to him. He let her.
“Where would I go? What would I do?”
“To look for someplace familiar. What do you do here?”
“Work occasionally. Try to remember always.”
She showed interest in his first answer. “Work. What do you know how to do? What skills do you have?”
He knew where she was leading. Every time he’d seen someone doing a particular job, he had wondered, Did I do that? “Odd jobs, mostly. At Christmas I worked in a couple of shops downtown. I wasn’t much of a salesman. I filled in on a framing crew when they were shorthanded, and they agreed that I was no carpenter. I’ve bussed tables and washed dishes at the Country House Restaurant.” He shrugged.
“Nothing seemed familiar?”
“No.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve only forgotten things of a personal nature. You remember who’s president, how to drive, how to tie your shoes.”
He nodded.
“Maybe you don’t want to remember the personal stuff. Maybe there’s a reason deep in your subconscious that you’ve blocked it, like a marriage falling apart or the death of someone you loved or—”
“I do want to know—more than you can imagine.” But maybe she was right. Maybe his fear was stronger than his desire to know. After all, right now the front-runner for his previous occupation was “criminal”—or worse. He had good cause to wonder. He noticed things, like how easy it would be to gain entry through her unlocked doors. He was familiar with police procedure, more so, he suspected, than the average law-abiding citizen. Someone had tried to kill him.
And there were the dreams. The nightmares.
He tried to pretend they didn’t exist, tried to go through the day without acknowledging them, to face the night without fearing them. He’d never told anyone about them—not Stone, not Doc Howell, not the shrink named Jeffers they had sent him to. They were too frightening, too threatening, with someone dying in every dream. The details were different—the identity of the victim, the place, the means of death—but one thing always remained the same. He was always there. Innocent witness? Or brutal killer?
“Have you seen a psychiatrist?”
“For a while. He couldn’t make me remember.”
“Make?”
Her voice was soft, her tone far from accusatory, but it made him defensive, anyway. “He couldn’t help me remember.” All Jeffers had done was interview him at length, give him a diagnosis of generalized amnesia and a prognosis that, at some time, it would probably resolve itself and he’d be back to normal. No help at all.
“I thought most computer whizzes were odd little guys who turned to computers because they couldn’t relate to people, or spoiled, overindulged teenagers whose parents wanted them out of their hair. How did you get interested?”
“I was an odd little overindulged teenager who related better to machines than people. Have you considered hypnosis?”
“We’re talking at cross-purposes here. I’m tired of talking about myself, and you don’t like to talk about yourself. Why is that?”
A blush and a shrug. “I know all about me.”
“I don’t.”
The blush deepened. “We’re here to try to learn about you.”
He wasn’t. Oh, he wanted her help, of course, if she had any to give, but he was here because two weeks and one day ago, he had taken one long, hard look at her and fallen. He was here because he wanted to know more about her, because he wanted to watch the unconsciously sensual way she moved, because he wanted to torment himself with what he shouldn’t want, should never have.
He was here for pleasure. She was here for business. It had never occurred to her that they could be one and the same. It never might.
Okay, hypnosis. “The shrink tried hypnosis, but not everyone’s a good candidate. The results were less than satisfactory.” In fact, it had been an exercise in futility.
She stifled a yawn, and he checked the time. It was only nine—not too late for him, but he didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. He could stay up until dawn and sleep till noon, and no one would care.
Setting his empty glass aside, he got to his feet. “I’d better go.” Even to himself, he sounded tentative, as if one word from her could change his mind. Stay. Don’t go. Spend the night.
He doubted he had ever been particularly fanciful, but his imagination had run wild in the last two weeks, all without the slightest encouragement. To Juliet Crandall, he was a mystery, no more. A puzzle with its pieces jumbled. She probably hadn’t thought of him even once as a getting-involved, kissing-and-seducing, making-love-and-babies-and-a-future-with kind of man.
She probably never would.
* * *
Juliet stood in the doorway, watching as Martin walked into the night. He moved quickly, silently—stealthily, she thought—into the shadows, disappearing from sight.
Was he a criminal? Was that why he moved like that, why he’d been able to sneak up on her in the kitchen tonight? Did that explain how he’d been able to take a few seconds’ look at her door and yard and find the weaknesses from a security standpoint?
She closed and locked the door, then went into the dining room. By the time she settled in her chair, the computer was up and running. There was a batch of E-mails awaiting her. She scanned the list, but didn’t open any messages.
What did she really know about these people? What did it say about her that her only friends were virtual strangers, hiding behind screen names and identities that were as likely fabricated as truthful? They’d told her their names, marital status, occupations, but online, it was easy to be something you weren’t. Heavens, they thought she was interesting, and online, she was. Her fingers never tripped over words the way her tongue did in a real-life conversation. If she embarrassed herself—as she’d done in the kitchen—no one was there to see it. As far as they were concerned, she was friendly, outgoing, competent and fun.
Geez, maybe they were scam artists, stalkers, rapists and killers.
But more likely they were just average people, a little lonely and a little lost. Like her. Like Martin.
Exiting the mailbox, she called up her favorite search engine and typed in one word. Her search was far too general, giving her every site listed that contained the word amnesia. There were more than twelve million hits. Rather than try to narrow it, she began sorting through them one by one, occasionally stopping to link to another site. By midnight her eyes were gritty, her back was aching, and she’d increased her knowledge of amnesia a hundredfold. But she hadn’t learned anything that could help Martin.
Did it matter? Now that he knew how little she could do, he would probably keep his distance. She sincerely wished she could help—she wouldn’t mind his gratitude at all—but she wasn’t a miracle worker. She had to have something to work with.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling as if she’d somehow let him down.
She would do what she could—send out a missing persons bulletin again and search as many places as she could think of—and that would be the end of it. It was just as well. She didn’t want any man simply because he was grateful for what she’d done for him. If he couldn’t appreciate her for herself, it was his loss. Wasn’t that what her parents had always told her?
But they’d been wrong. It was her loss, too. Living alone, being alone, seeing other women her age with husbands and children and having no opportunity for her own family in sight—those were her losses, and she lived with them every day.
Clicking the mouse, she backed out of the sites she had accessed, thought for a moment about reading her mail, then shut down. She turned off the lights as she made her way to the bedroom.
It was a nice size, with room for the furniture that had been her grandparents’ and a thickly padded chaise that was her favorite place to curl up on a sleepless night. It was a pretty room, too, painted pale peach on two walls and deep coral on the others. The linens were a coral-and-teal floral, the curtains at the window frilly coral, the slipcover on the chaise frilly teal. There were ruffled pillows on the bed and the chaise, and lacy crocheted doilies—gifts from Grandma—everywhere.
It was a woman’s room, she acknowledged as she undid the buttons on her dress. Everywhere she looked, she saw ruffles and frills. Only a man secure in his masculinity could lie in that bed or stretch out on the chaise without being totally overwhelmed.
Martin came to mind.
Her fingers stopped on the buttons as she turned to face the mirror, to see what he had seen when he’d first arrived. The fabric gapped to her waist—not a lot, not immodestly, but enough. The material was soft and pretty, like an impressionist watercolor, and the skin that showed was pale. Tentatively she touched herself, just one fingertip at the point of the vee, drawing it slowly along exposed skin to her waist. Closing her eyes, she did it again, only this time, in her mind, the hand was dark, the fingertip callused, the touch incredibly sexual. It was enough to make her shiver, then flush.
She wasn’t so terribly needy that she had to fantasize over a man who clearly held little interest in her as a woman. It hadn’t been so long since she’d had sex. It had lasted the weekend—the entire weekend—and had been the best sex she’d ever experienced, and it had been only…
Only twenty months ago. She scowled. She was needy enough to fantasize about Martin Smith. But it was only fair. He was so well suited for feminine fantasies.
Giving herself a shake, she finished undressing and got ready for bed. She was lucky enough to be a sound sleeper, and she slept through the night, awakening in plenty of time for breakfast before work. The job at the library was okay, but she liked her three days at the police department better. The clerk who worked in the office, Mariellen, required constant supervision, but Juliet liked everyone else and she liked the work.
She was only a few blocks from the house when she spied a familiar figure ahead. Martin didn’t have a driver’s license, according to Tracey at the library. He didn’t have any official documents at all. There must be some provision for obtaining them when you truly had no idea who you were, but maybe he wasn’t interested. Maybe he couldn’t face becoming Martin Smith officially. Maybe he feared that would somehow rob him of the man he really was.
As she drove the half block that separated them, she debated, then pulled to the curb. “Can I give you a ride?”
When he turned her way, he looked exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot, his features fixed in a scowl. “I’m not going anywhere.”
A curious answer. “Then how about a ride home?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he climbed in beside her. He was so tall and broad-shouldered that immediately the car seemed to shrink by half.
“Tough night?”
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Yeah. I couldn’t sleep.”
She wondered how hard he had tried. His jaw was unshaven, his hair disheveled as if he—or someone—had combed it with his—or her?—fingers, and he still wore the same snug jeans and emerald shirt he’d worn to her house last night. She could see the pop stains on the lower leg.
She had assumed, when he’d said good-night, that he was going home. Now she wondered. Not that it was any of her business.
Realizing that they weren’t moving, he looked at her. “What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know where you live.”
He gave her the address, only five blocks in the opposite direction. She made a U-turn and tried very hard to think of something to say, anything at all to break the silence that pricked at her and didn’t seem to bother him in the least. Before she came up with a single, simple, asinine comment—nice day, for God’s sake—she was pulling into his driveway.
The house was old and lovely, three stories, big enough for a family or two or three. She looked at it, then him. “You live here?” Brilliant, Juliet. He told you he did, didn’t he?
“Back there.” He gestured toward the back, and she saw the detached garage with an apartment overhead. “Thanks for the ride.”
That was it—no goodbye, no mention of last night, no small talk, nothing personal at all. Thanks for the ride.
“You’re pathetic, Juliet,” she berated herself as she backed into the street again. “Any other female in town could have done better than that. Five blocks, and you don’t say a word—not a word! And you wonder why men don’t go nuts over you.”
No, that wasn’t true. She never expected men to even notice her. Last night Martin had suggested that he might have been unnoticeable in his previous life, which was laughable. She knew unnoticeable, because she was. All her life people had been looking through her. Maybe she could have gotten by okay being plain and too smart, but shyness on top of plainness and braininess was the kiss of death.
And she wasn’t kidding herself: she was plain. Only her parents had ever thought differently, and they were supposed to think she was beautiful because they loved her. She had always thought that someday some man would also think she was beautiful, because that would surely mean he loved her, but it had never happened, and it probably never would.
Even if it did, it wouldn’t necessarily mean he loved her. It might just mean his vision wasn’t so great.
Her office in the Grand Springs Police Department was nothing fancy. Since she would soon be doing the job, she was already situated in the records supervisor’s office, a square room with a big window, like her other office, that gave her a view of the daily workings of the department. She rarely had time to look…but she’d always managed to find a few minutes whenever Martin had come in to visit one detective or another.
She locked her purse in the bottom desk drawer, picked up her coffee cup and headed for the machine in the outer room. Once the cup was filled, she stopped at Stone Richardson’s desk. The detective was typing a report and grumbling under his breath. He sat back in his chair. “What can I do for you?”
“I talked to Martin Smith last night. He said you guys did a missing persons broadcast right after his accident.”
“Yeah. We got a couple of possible hits, but they didn’t pan out. You have an idea?”
“I’d like to do it again. Maybe, at that time, no one was aware that he was missing, but surely after ten months, someone has realized that something’s wrong.”
“Good idea. The file is in your office. Go to it.”
With a smile of thanks, she took the coffee back to her office, pulled the folder and pulled up the National Crime Information Center on her computer.
She was working on the required state certification as an NCIC terminal operator, along with her other duties, but she’d been granted access in the meantime. It was slow going, though. Ditzy Mariellen, whose desk sat right outside the door, could have the information typed in and the broadcast sent in the time it would take Juliet to thumb through the manual that would help her locate and fill out the proper form.
But she didn’t hand the file to Mariellen. She opened it and studied Stone’s notes. A John Doe white male, approximately forty years of age, six-three, blond and blue. Not much of a description for the best-looking man she’d come across in recent memory. There were notes on the scars—six in all, the last attributed to a burn—but no other identifying marks, no tattoos, no birthmarks. Of course, six scars were enough.
He feared he’d lived a violent life, and the evidence seemed to be on his side. Innocent people did become victims, but three times, possibly four?
She just couldn’t imagine him as a criminal. And why not? Because he was handsome? A quick look through the mug books would confirm that handsome men did, in fact, commit crimes. Because he seemed so lost? She couldn’t call any figures to mind at the moment, but she suspected that lost, lonely people were more likely to commit crimes than happy, well-adjusted people with everything going their way. Because she was attracted to him? Heavens, she’d been attracted to losers before. The last man in her life had been unethical and immoral. Criminal was just one short step down.
Still, she didn’t believe Martin Smith had been a criminal before his accident. Even if he had been, he was a different man now. People could change. Wasn’t waking up a new person one of her favorite fantasies? With his accident last summer, Martin had been given the perfect opportunity to start over new, with no name, no memories and no past to haunt him. He could be anyone he wanted to be, could correct old mistakes and make right bad choices. It could be a dream come true.
The questions were the only downside. To fully accept and enjoy his new life, he had to know about his old life. Were there parents who missed him, a wife who mourned him, children who were slowly forgetting him? Or had he been alone, with no one to care?
They would find out soon enough. A loving family surely would have turned to the police for help when he failed to return from his trip. Surely they would be searching for him, distributing flyers, setting up social networking pages, showing photographs, asking questions. Surely there would be a response to this broadcast she was about to send to every law enforcement agency in the country.
And if there wasn’t?
Then he was more than likely a free man, free to make a new life for himself. The odds of him including her in it, even temporarily, weren’t great, but she could always dream, couldn’t she?

Chapter Three
The Courthouse Deli was located across the street and down a block from the police department. It was busy from noon to one, but after that a diner looking for privacy couldn’t find a better place. Bringing along official-looking reading and choosing a table in the distant corner helped keep most people away…but Martin wasn’t most people.
He walked past two dozen empty tables to the back, stopping beside the empty chair. “Mind if I join you?”
Juliet looked surprised but didn’t say a word as he slid into the chair and folded his hands together on the table. “They told me over at the department that you usually eat lunch here.” A simple statement that wasn’t entirely true. One of the dispatchers had told him that—a week ago—and she’d said “always.” She always eats at the deli and sits in the back facing the wall to discourage anyone from noticing her. The only problem with that was that he wasn’t so easily discouraged and she was far from unnoticeable.
“That doesn’t look like light reading.”
She glanced down at the newsletter. “It’s about the new computer system. Once it’s up and running, it’ll offer better versions of everything—image processing, automated single fingerprint matching, new databases, linkage fields and automated statistical collection. With the equipment that will be available in the patrol cars, an officer in the field is able to take photographs and scan a single fingerprint, then send them to the bureau and have a response back so much faster. It will be—” She broke off abruptly and shrugged. “A big improvement. Grand Springs will finally catch up with the big cities.”
For a moment there she had been supremely confident, as she should be. The instant the thought had occurred to her, though, that she might be talking too much, the confidence had faded away with the words. Too bad.
“So part of your job is getting the Grand Springs PD up to speed for this new system.”
She nodded.
“It can’t be easy. Some of those guys hate change.”
“Once they realize how much easier the system makes their job, they’ll love it.” She fell silent while the waitress came to take his order, then said, “I sent out another missing persons broadcast this morning. Maybe we’ll get somewhere this time.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know. I’m still pretty new at this.”
Stone had told him the last time that a positive response was difficult to predict. It could take a few hours or, if a department was really swamped, a few months. If there was no missing persons report out there that matched his description, there would be no response at all. That had been hard enough to face ten months ago. It would be even harder now, finding out that he’d been the kind of person who could simply disappear from the face of the earth and no one cared.
The suspicion that he’d been exactly that kind of person made him uneasy. Deliberately he changed the subject. “Did you work in law enforcement in Dallas?”
“No. I worked for a large corporation that had its fingers in a little bit of everything. I set up their systems, wrote programs specific to their needs and kept everything running. When this position came up, I applied and was hired. The library job seemed okay, but the police department job sounded ex—interesting.”
Exciting. To a computer genius who spent more time with machines than people, even the fringes of police work probably did sound exciting. “Is it interesting?”
“It beats cataloguing library books.” She said it with a smile, too light and sweet for the likes of him. He stared at her until it faded, until her blue gaze dropped away from his and familiar discomfort came into her manner.
The waitress served their meal. After scraping the lettuce from her sandwich, Juliet asked, “Did you get some sleep this morning?”
Such an innocent question to spark such intimate images linked one to another: sleep, bed, Juliet, naked, hot, needy, desperate. Fumbling for his glass, he took a drink, swallowed hard and blinked to clear his vision. “Yes.” He had spent half the night pacing his apartment and the other half roaming the streets. He’d had a glass of milk at the all-night diner—the cook’s remedy for insomnia—and walked until he was exhausted. He’d needed the ride she’d given him—had been half asleep before it was over—and had slept the sleep of the dead the rest of the morning.
All because last night he had dreamed the dreams of the dead.
“Have you had insomnia since the accident?”
His throat was still tight, his voice still husky. “I don’t have insomnia.”
“But this morning you said you couldn’t sleep.”
And she had assumed, as everyone else did, that by couldn’t, he meant physically unable to. That was what he wanted them to think, wasn’t it? “I wouldn’t let myself fall asleep last night.” His tone was halting, his gaze fixed on his hands. They were familiar, yet strange. Long fingers, callused skin, strong grip, capable of all the things hands were designed for and maybe more. Capable, maybe, of inflicting great pain, of stealing someone else’s very life. “Sometimes I have dreams….”
She leaned forward, and her voice brightened, as if the subject had suddenly become ex—interesting. “About your past?”
“I think so. I don’t know. Maybe not.” Please, God, no.
“What kind of dreams?”
“Just dreams.”
“You don’t remember them?”
His silence let her believe one answer, but the truth was completely different. He remembered too much. Not enough.
“Are you in these dreams?”
“Look, I’d rather not—”
“But they may be important. Maybe the key to your memory is in these dreams, Martin.”
It was the first time she’d said his name. Such a plain, simple name, serviceable but nothing special. But it sounded special in her voice. “Look, they’re just dreams, nothing more. They don’t mean anything. They’re not important.”
“But they disturb you.”
He scowled, wishing he’d let her believe, like everyone else, that he was an insomniac. Since it was too late for that, he chose instead to turn the conversation in a direction that was sure to make her forget his sleep problems. “Not as much as you do.”
She stared at him, her face turning as red as the cloth on the table. “I didn’t…” She fidgeted, then straightened and sat primly. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“No, Juliet, I’m sure you don’t,” he agreed quietly, then lightened up. “When you were in school, did the kids tease you about your name?”
Her look was wary, her tone cautious. “Of course. How could they resist?”
“‘What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!’”
“My mother was a fan of Shakespeare. What can I say?”
“There are worse things in the world to be named after.”
“Like a soap opera hunk?”
He nodded.
“I did some reading about amnesia last night.”
“You keep medical books around the house?”
“On the Internet.”
He’d left last night so she could go to bed. If he’d known she was going to stay up late, he would have hung around until she’d shoved him out the door. He would have delayed going home and to bed himself, would have delayed the nightmares. “Learn anything interesting?”
“Lots, but nothing that might help.”
“I don’t think I was computer-friendly. All this online stuff seems like a whole new world to me.”
“It’s the way everything is done now. It can offer some pretty vast possibilities.”
“It can also isolate you. It offers so many possibilities that you lose the need for real people in your life.”
“But if you don’t have real people in your life, it’s a decent substitute.”
He wondered about that. Maybe standing on the sidelines watching life go by via a computer monitor was okay for her, but he suspected it would make him just that much hungrier for human contact.
He was already pretty damn hungry for contact with her.
Finishing with her meal, she tucked the computer newsletter in her bag, picked up her tab and got to her feet. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“I’m heading that way. Mind if I walk with you?”
Her only response was a shake of her head.
The weather was springtime warm, which didn’t mean they were safe from a cold snap or even snow. After all, it was only late April. They could easily wake up any time in the next month and find themselves snowed in.
He knew where he hoped he would be in the event of such luck.
The block-long walk passed quickly. Too soon they were inside the police department, and Juliet was looking eager to gain the privacy of her office. He tried to think of something to say—some excuse to see her again, some courage to ask for another evening of her time—but the words didn’t come. With a faint smile and a murmured “See you around,” she went down the hall to her office. A moment later he saw her through the window, taking a seat at her desk, turning her attention immediately to the computer there.
“Look, Jack, a Peeping Tom right here in the department.”
He glanced over his shoulder to find Stone Richardson and Jack Stryker, another detective who was working the Olivia Stuart homicide, standing behind him.
“What’s so interesting?” Stryker looked, then shrugged. “Oh. The new records supervisor.” He said it as if Juliet were of no more interest than the grandmotherly administrative assistant sitting outside the chief’s office, as if she weren’t the prettiest woman to set foot in Grand Springs in a long time.
Come to think of it, Stone didn’t seem particularly impressed, either. Granted, both men had gotten married in the last year—Jack to Josie Reynolds, the town treasurer, and Stone to Jessica Hanson, the bookkeeper at the ski lodge—but did that mean they’d lost their ability to recognize beauty when they saw it?
To each his own, so the saying went, and apparently it was true. After all, while Martin liked what he knew of Josie and Jessica, he personally didn’t find either particularly attractive. It was clear, though, that their husbands thought differently.
“You looking for us?”
The two detectives were so far from the reason for Martin’s presence in the department that, for a moment, Stone’s question didn’t register. Finally, though, he offered a noncommittal shrug. “Any news?”
“On Olivia’s case?” The cop shook his head. “Still no sign of Springer.”
Dean Springer had lived in Grand Springs without attracting anyone’s attention for years. He’d been a nobody, a loner who kept a low profile and minded his own business. Somehow his business had come to include the mayor’s death. The woman who had actually carried out the murder had identified Springer as the man who’d hired her, but there was no question that he’d merely been the go-between. He was neither smart enough nor prosperous enough to arrange a murder-for-hire, and there was the little matter of lack of motive. No, he’d been working for someone else. If the police ever located him, maybe they would find out who.
What if it was Martin?
“Juliet sent out another broadcast on you today.”
Still troubled by his doubts, he gave Stone little attention. “Yeah, she told me. I’d better get going.” He had a job this afternoon, and for the next few days, over at Grace Tabernacle on Aspen Street. Reverend Murphy had hired him to help with a renovation project too small to hire out to professionals. Considering his luck with construction in the past, he hoped the preacher was more experienced with such work.
He wasn’t, he announced when Martin met him on the front steps of the church. “But I’m a great believer in miracles.”
“As long as you’re praying for one, ask for one for me,” Martin said dryly. He didn’t think he’d been a church-going man before the accident, and he hadn’t converted to one after, but he was sure he believed in God, both before and after. Sometimes in his dreams, he prayed—frantic, panicked pleas—and sometimes he could manage no more than the deity’s name—Oh God, oh God, oh God.
“I’ve been praying for you from the beginning,” the reverend said as he opened the door and led the way inside.
The glass doors led into a short, broad hallway. Straight ahead, up three steps and through another set of doors, was the sanctuary with pews on either side and a burgundy carpeted aisle down the center. The door on the left led to a kitchen, and a hallway at the back of the sanctuary led to Sunday school rooms and bathrooms. Martin knew all that even though he’d taken no more than five steps through the front door.
Reverend Murphy stopped at the second double doors and looked back. “Although the Lord would like to see you in one of his houses on Sundays, he’s not going to smite you for coming Wednesday afternoon instead.”
“I’ve been here before.”
“When? I don’t recall—” The reverend turned back from the doors and approached him. “You mean before the accident. What do you remember?”
The harder he tried, the less there was to remember. The déjà vu faded, taking with it the faint images of the rooms behind the closed doors. “Nothing,” he said flatly, disappointment almost too strong to bear. “I don’t remember anything.”
* * *
When she left the police department after putting in an extra hour, Juliet had nothing more on her mind than going home, putting on her nightgown and vegging out in front of the computer. When she saw Martin leaning against the fender of her little silver car, everything fled her mind, including all words more intelligent or complicated than “Hi.”
“Hey.” He straightened and shoved his hands in his hip pockets. “Working late?”
She nodded. “Too much to do, too little time. Are you waiting on someone?”
“You.”
Her gaze automatically shifted away, her smile trembled and disappeared, and a rush of nerves gave her a shiver. She waited until she was sure—or, at least, hopeful—her voice wouldn’t quiver, then asked, “Why?”
“I thought maybe we could get some dinner.”
She wanted to ask why again, but she already knew his answer. He hadn’t yet accepted that there was no help she could give him. He wanted to talk, wanted her to find some answers for him. It wasn’t the same as being wanted for herself, but, hey, it wasn’t as if she had any better offers to consider. “All right. Where would you like to go?”
“The Saloon is just down the street. The music’s kind of loud, but they have good greasy burgers.”
Greasy burgers did sound good. So did loud music to fill in the silence when conversation failed her, as it always did. “We can take my car—”
“I’d rather walk, if you don’t mind. It’s a nice night.”
She agreed. They walked a block or more in silence, giving her an opportunity to window-shop. Grand Springs had a lovely downtown with a hundred percent occupancy. Everything was closed now, but as summer drew nearer and tourists began using the town as a base for their mountain excursions, the shops would keep later hours.
“Busy day?”
She caught a glimpse of Martin’s reflection in the plate glass, staring straight ahead, presenting a handsome if less than perfect profile. His nose was crooked, and so was his jaw. In fact, there was a little asymmetry to his whole face, one side not quite matching the other, but it didn’t detract from his appearance. She’d been lusting after him for more than two weeks now, and she’d never noticed the flaws until the evening sun had highlighted them.
“Busy enough. The department’s network was outdated when they bought it—precisely why they got such a good deal on it—so I’m trying to get it upgraded, and I’ve got to get certified to use NCIC, so I’m working on that, and my clerk is years behind in entering data on the computer, so I’m helping her with that. I could use another clerk—”
“Or maybe just one who actually does her job.”
She smiled. “You know Mariellen.”
“She dots the i in her name with a little heart.”
“It’s a star now. How do you know her?”
“She asked me out.”
Juliet gave him a surprised look that made him laugh.
“I know. I don’t need to know how old I am to know that she’s way too young for me.”
“Some women prefer older men.” And all women liked some combination of sexy, handsome, tough, endearing, vulnerable, mysterious and lost. Martin scored on all counts.
“Mariellen got that job when she was dating a cop,” he said. “She thought working at the same place meant spending a lot of time together. Then they broke up and he moved off to take a job in Denver, and she kept the job. She’s not particularly good at it, but—”
“She’s young, pretty and sweet. You can’t help but like her and overlook her shortcomings.” Juliet had once been that young, and underneath all her shyness, she’d been sweet, too, but no one had ever been willing to overlook her failings—maybe because she hadn’t been pretty, too? Instead, she had worked extra hard at having no failings. She’d knocked herself out to be the best employee her boss could ever ask for. In the department, everyone was satisfied—herself included—if Mariellen showed up for work less than thirty minutes late.
“So you didn’t go out with Mariellen. Do you see anyone in particular?”
The look he gave her was long and chiding. “Would I be here with you if I did?”
She was saved from answering because they’d arrived at the Saloon. She puzzled over his response, though, as they made their way to the booth farthest from the door. What did a girlfriend have to do with his presence with her this evening? If this were a date, sure, she could see the conflict, but it wasn’t. They were here to discuss the problem of his missing identity and the possibility, however remote, that her computer skills could be of use to him.
Weren’t they?
She slid onto one bench, laid her purse aside and folded her hands together. She felt prim and stuffy, out of place in the dim lights, loud music and smoky atmosphere of the bar. Of course, her work clothes didn’t help any. At least with his jeans, boots and T-shirt, Martin fit right in. All he needed was a cowboy hat over that nice blond hair.
“Do you like country music?”
“I can take it or leave it.” Truthfully, she never listened to it—not always an easy feat to accomplish living in Dallas.
“What do you like?”
“A little rock, a little classical. The blues.”
“B. B. King, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy? ‘Stormy Monday’?”
“I love that song.” He grinned, and she found herself smiling back. “Maybe you’re from the South.”
“Because I like the blues?”
“Because when I came out of the office, you said ‘hey’ instead of ‘hi.’ Isn’t that a Southern thing?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have a Southern accent.”
“As far as I can tell, you don’t have any accent at all. Maybe you just lived there.”
Another shrug. “You have an accent. You sound Texan—lazy and sultry and—”
The waitress, dressed in a short little flirty denim skirt, a snug red cowboy shirt and red cowboy boots, interrupted with “What’ll you have?”
More of what he was saying, Juliet thought, both dreamy over his comment and disappointed that it’d been cut short. Sultry. No one had ever called her anything even remotely close.
She ordered pop, and so did Martin, and she followed his lead in ordering dinner: burger with cheese and spicy fries. When the waitress brought their drinks a moment later, Juliet scanned the room. Martin seemed to be the only man in the place without a long-necked beer clutched in one hand. Not that he needed beer to prove his masculinity. He could walk to the bar and order a glass of warm milk, and no one would have the nerve to say a word about it. “Do you drink?”
“Occasionally, but I have to be careful not to overdo. It’s too big a risk for me.”
“Do you think that, or do you know it?”
“I know it.” He didn’t offer an explanation of how he knew, just a grim, almost bleak look and the slow, unconscious stroking of his fingers over the scar on his left arm. Souvenir of a drunken barroom brawl? Maybe he’d been an alcoholic in his previous life, or someone else important in that life had had a drinking problem.
“What did you do this afternoon?” she asked, seeking any mundane topic of conversation that could chase away the sorrow in his eyes.
“I’m doing a little work at one of the churches—some stripping, painting, minor remodeling.”
“I thought you weren’t a carpenter.”
“I’m not, but I’m cheap, and the church doesn’t have much money. I just follow the pastor’s directions, and he prays for the best.”
“Sometimes that’s all it takes.”
The music went quiet as, across the room, a young man bent over a guitar and tuned the instrument. There were others on the bandstand with him, kids who looked too young to drink where they played. After a few minutes fiddling with the instruments, the band was ready. Without ado, the young man stepped up to the microphone and eased into the first song.
“The bands around here are usually kids from the college,” Martin said. “Some of them are pretty good.”
Grand Springs College was a small school that co-owned the library with the city. They provided Juliet with Internet access both on and off the job and had tempted her with the possibility of earning a graduate degree someday. At least it would be something to fill her evenings.
Even if she preferred filling them this way.
“Do you like to dance?”
There were only a few couples on the dance floor, couples much better acquainted with each other than she and Martin. They must be, to get so close, to move so intimately. Her cheeks turning pink, she looked back at him. “Actually, I don’t know how.”
“What do you mean you don’t know how? Didn’t you go to your high school dances?”
“I was on the decorating committee for both the homecoming dance and the prom, but no, I didn’t go.”
“Why not?”
The pink in her face turned red. “No one asked me, and frankly, if anyone had, I would have turned him down.”
“Were you too shy to date?”
She nodded, though “too shy to get anyone’s attention” was more like it.
“I think I probably liked shy girls.”
Although she was convinced he was wrong—he’d probably been the captain of the football team, and he’d probably dated the pretty, perky, every-boy’s-dream head cheerleader—she humored him. “Why do you think that?”
“Because there’s something damned appealing about the women they become.”
Her flush turned to heat—lazy, indolent, seeping into every pore, warming her blood, threatening to steam. If she could swallow, she would. If she could pick up her pop for a cooling drink without making the glass sizzle, she would. If she could come up with something smart or provocative or witty to offer in response… Smart she knew-provocative and witty she didn’t—and smart said don’t make assumptions. Don’t fall for a line. Keep it business.
She was seeking something perfectly businesslike to say when he spoke again. “I can teach you to dance.”
Her gaze shot to the couples on the floor, each holding the other so close that there wasn’t room for a breath between them. She’d never been that close to a man in her life unless they were both naked and doing something wild. To get that close—even fully dressed and in public—to Martin required more courage and grace than she’d ever possessed. “I couldn’t.”
“Of course you could.” He rose from the table, took her hand and pulled her to the edge of the dance floor. “Put your arms around my neck and come closer…closer…. Relax…just let me move and you follow. It’s as easy as sex—”
God was in heaven, and he took pity on her. The song ended, and the band moved without pause into the next, a rousing tune that required more dexterity than her feet were capable of. Gratefully, she pulled free of Martin and returned to the booth. His expression as he sat down opposite was part regret, part teasing. “You do indulge in sex from time to time, don’t you?”
Wide-eyed, she stared at him. Not in a long time, too long, and never with a man like him.
“Oh, well, next time,” he said as the waitress set plates in front of them.
Next time. She’d waited all her life for this time. With her luck, next time would never come.
The food was good, the music by turns loud or low and mournful. She ate, watched everyone but Martin and tried to think of something to say. When the silence was finally broken, though, it was by Martin. “What would you rather be doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look like you’re a million miles away. Doing what? And with whom?”
He sounded defensive, which made her answer with more honesty than she normally would have offered. “Looking for something to talk about. With you. I never really developed a talent for small talk. I learned to speak when I had something to say and not to chatter the rest of the time.”
“So let’s talk computers. You can tell me all about them.”
“Except that you don’t want to learn all about them. Your interests are more physical. Active. Outdoors.”
He grinned. “I don’t know about the outdoors part, but I do like physical and active.” His sexy grin spelled out for her exactly what he was referring to, then he controlled it. “That’s the thing about amnesia. You never know what your interests are or how they stack up against what they used to be. I like spicy food. Did I always, or is this something new? I have a weakness for blue-eyed blondes. Has that always been true, or before the accident did I prefer green-eyed redheads? Did I like country music and wear suits and work nine to five, or would I have chosen smashing a steel guitar over listening to one?”
“You may never know.”
He shook his head adamantly. “No. I can’t live with that.”
“You may have no choice, Martin.”
“No. I at least have to know if I’m—” Breaking off, he shook his head again.
If he was married? If he was a criminal? If he was someone he could bear to be? She regretted that she had no answers for him.
“Are you ready?”
“Let me stop by the ladies’ room.” She had to cross the dance floor and circle the opposite end of the bar to reach the narrow hall that led to the bathrooms. On her return trip, she didn’t make it to the end of the hall before a cowboy with the requisite beer blocked her path.
“Whoa there, darlin’. The evenin’ is young. No one’s in a hurry.”
“Excuse me.” She stepped to one side, but he blocked her again.
“I haven’t seen you in here before. Jimmy Ray knows everybody in the Saloon. I ought to, considering I spend my every evening here.”
“You’re right, Jimmy Ray, you haven’t seen me here before. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” When she tried to slip past, he caught her wrist in his free hand.
“What’s your rush, little girl? You come and have a drink with Jimmy Ray and maybe a two-step or two. I can show you a real good time.”
She bet he could, if she weren’t too smart and he weren’t too drunk. He was young and cute, and, like most women, she had a fondness for cute cowboys. Drunk, pushy and manhandling ones, though, weren’t her style.
She tried to twist free, but he held her tighter, his fingers biting into her skin. “I’m not interested in a good time. I’m going home now, so let go or—”
“Or what, sugar? What’re you gonna do?” He pulled until she was against his chest and barely able to breathe. “I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do, darlin’, you’re gonna have a dance and a beer or two with me, and then you’re gonna—”
“Let her go.”
Relief swept through Juliet at the sight of Martin standing behind the cowboy. In the cramped hallway, he looked taller, broader-shouldered and tougher than he ever had before, and his voice was cold enough to freeze fire.
“Go away, man. Find your own woman. This one’s already taken.”
She wriggled, but the cowboy’s arm was around her waist now, and all she accomplished was rubbing suggestively against him. “Let me go, Jimmy Ray,” she pleaded. “Don’t cause any trouble.”
Martin clamped his fingers around the cowboy’s arm and bent it up behind his back, freeing Juliet in the process. As she scrambled away, he shoved Jimmy Ray face first into the wall, then leaned close. “You’re right. She is taken. She’s mine. Now, apologize to the lady.”
“Listen, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t know she was with you—”
“To her, not me.”
“It’s okay, Martin. Let’s just go—”
“Tell her you’re sorry and it’ll never happen again.”
He squirmed, but when Martin twisted his arm higher, a spasm of pain crossed his face and he became still. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean no harm.”
“And it’ll never happen again.”
“It won’t, I swear it.”
“It’s all right. Please, Martin, let him go.”
After a moment, Martin shoved him away. Jimmy Ray stumbled, hit the opposite wall, then staggered off into the men’s room, complaining as he went about the pain in his shoulder. After another moment, Martin faced her. His eyes were grim enough, his expression savage enough, to frighten her far more than the drunken cowboy ever could. She swallowed hard, then touched his hand. “Thank you.”
Slowly, the worst of the threat seeped away, and he gestured toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”
Darkness had fallen, but the street was brightly lit. Martin wished for shadows as they made their silent way back to the police department and Juliet’s car. This wasn’t the first time since the accident that he’d gotten into a situation that could have easily turned violent, but this was the first time that he’d wanted it to. He’d wanted to smash his fist into the cowboy’s face, to break a few bones and loosen a few teeth so that the next time the bastard wanted to harass some woman, he’d think twice.
But Martin could well imagine Juliet’s reaction if he’d taken it any further than he had. Hell, he didn’t have to imagine. He’d seen the fear in her eyes for a split second before she’d swallowed over that lump in her throat and thanked him. Fear. Of him.
They were only a few yards from her car when he finally spoke. “I would never hurt you.” But the promise didn’t come out as absolute and unwavering as he’d intended, because the awful truth was, he didn’t know whether he would. He knew he could have killed that cowboy. He knew, suspected—feared—that he’d killed in the past. When he remembered that past, when he again became the man he’d once been, who knew what he would be capable of?

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/marilyn-pappano/you-must-remember-this/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.