Sudden Recall

She stood there for a moment in the stillness of the apartment, listening to the sounds of the wind and the rain outside. Then she crossed the parlor and went into the guest room to look in on her patient.

The light from the door she left open was sufficient to reveal the man who lay there, undisturbed by her entrance. She stood beside the bed, gazing down at him, remembering the body concealed now by the quilt that covered his length. It was a tall body, and though it had suffered, it was solidly built, with powerful shoulders, lean hips and long legs. A body that had been conditioned for—

What? She had no way of knowing. That was as much a mystery as the rest of him, including his square-jawed face. “Hard to tell,” Tia had observed when she’d been working on that face, “but there could be something worth looking at under all this battering.”

Restless, he stirred briefly, muttering something in his sleep before he became quiet again. Whatever it was, Eden was unable to understand it. Nothing he had murmured since collapsing on the piazza had been intelligible. Except for those first three words. “Am I home?”

She didn’t know what, if anything, he had meant by them or why at the time she had been so moved at hearing them. Am I home?

Eden mentally embraced those words now, clung to them, because only this way, remembering their poignancy, could she go on convincing herself that she was not making a terrible mistake by keeping this man in her home.

Chapter Two

Eden loved her adopted city. Charleston had so many things to offer, the climate being one of them. Even in midwinter like this, the weather was generally mild. Having grown up in Chicago, she appreciated that.

Last night’s frigid temperature had been an exception. But this morning, early though it still was, the thermometer had climbed to a balmy level that had prompted her to open the door to the garden where the sun was already drying the soaked and sagging vegetation.

Eden could hear the tolling of the bells from Charleston’s historic churches summoning worshipers to Sunday services. It was another thing she enjoyed about the city. Not this morning, however. She was too anxious to be soothed by their restful sounds drifting through the open doorway as she waited for the coffeemaker to finish brewing.

The phone on the kitchen wall rang. She picked it up, knowing it would be Tia, knowing, too, what her friend would immediately ask. She wasn’t wrong.

“Is he awake yet?”

Eden was careful to keep her concern out of her voice. “He’s still sleeping, but after what he must have gone through that’s to be expected, isn’t it?”

“Maybe. You check his vital signs like I showed you?”

“Yes. They’re normal.”

“You want me to come down?”

Eden heard an impatient sound in the background and realized that Tia’s boyfriend was there and not happy about an offer that would delay them. “That’s not necessary. I’ll give him another hour, and if he isn’t conscious by then, I’ll wake him myself.”

“And if you can’t revive him—”

“I’ll call an ambulance. Look, don’t worry. I can handle it. Just go and enjoy your day.”

Eden’s certainty evaporated when she hung up. She was back to wondering again, asking herself the same question that had troubled her since she had last looked in on her patient. Could he have a serious head injury, and was she denying him the treatment he needed by keeping him here?

It was the thought of Nathanial that kept her from reaching for the phone again. Smothering the threat of guilt, she glanced at the coffeemaker, saw that the brew was ready and poured herself a steaming mug. The first few sips steadied her.

Mug in hand, she headed once more for the guest room. Spreading the door inward, she stole quietly into the room. Her silence this time was unnecessary. He was awake.

Apparently sensing her presence, he turned his head on the pillow and gazed at her from a pair of deep brown eyes that were more alert than she would have expected, and far more unsettling. There was something positively intimate in the way they held her gaze.

“Hello,” he said, his voice slow and raspy.

Eden held the mug in front of her, as though she were gripping a weapon. Swallowing nervously, she made the effort to address him with a casualness she was a long way from feeling. “Good morning. How do you feel?”

He frowned, considering her question for a moment before answering her in that husky voice. “Like an eighteen-wheeler rolled over me. I seem to be aching in places I didn’t know I had.”

“Your head?”

“Not inside, but—” He broke off to raise one of his hands to his head. His fingers began to explore the wounds on his face. He looked puzzled when they encountered the bandage across the bridge of his nose. “Your work?”

Eden shook her head. “No, Tia’s from upstairs. She’s a nurse-practitioner.”

“I’ll have to thank Tia.”

“You’ll have to wait to do that. She left for the day.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t remember Tia. Is she one of our friends?”

Eden thought it was an odd thing for him to say. He sounded normal enough otherwise. In fact, he was in a far better state than she could have hoped for, but she experienced a moment of uneasiness. If he was still dazed, not entirely lucid, it could mean he had sustained a head injury after all.

He was looking at her as though waiting for her reassurance. “Well, she’s my friend, anyway. Are you sure you don’t have anything like a headache? Or some dizziness maybe?”

“Not this morning, no.”

She fought the need to ask him about Nathanial, why he had been carrying a photograph of a child she was convinced was her son along with her business card, both of which were tucked now into her purse for safekeeping. But an interrogation like that would be insensitive when his well-being had to be their immediate concern. Her urgent questions would have to wait.

“Does that mean you did have a headache last night? That you experienced dizziness?”

“I suppose so,” he said vaguely.

“You had quite a lump on the back of your skull. The swelling went down after Tia applied ice packs.”

“That’s good.”

He didn’t seem troubled by any of it, but Eden was beginning to be worried for him. How could he be so blithe about everything? His behavior under the circumstances didn’t seem altogether rational. “Do you remember last night at all? How you found your way here and passed out on the piazza?”

“Sure I do. I had a hell of a time getting here.”

“What happened to you? How did you get those injuries?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Eden’s uneasiness was beginning to deepen into alarm.

“I remember everything from the time I found myself wandering out there beside a river, but not before that.”

“Nothing?”

He pondered her earnest question for a few seconds and then shook his head. “Afraid not.”

“What about before last night? You must remember something.”

He thought about it again. “Sorry. It’s all a blank.”

Eden stared down at him, shaken by the realization of his condition. He had no memory. No past. “Are you telling me,” she asked him slowly, “that you don’t know who you are? That you’re suffering from amnesia?”

He lifted his head from the pillow, his wide mouth offering her a smile. It was a smile that was both reassuring and unexpectedly sensual. “Don’t worry about it. Now that I’m back, everything will be fine. You can tell me all about us, everything I need to know. I’ll listen, and it’ll come back to me. Even exactly what happened to me last night. That coffee smells good,” he said cheerfully, indicating the mug she was clutching. “Do you think I could have a cup?”

He couldn’t know it, but he had just given her exactly what she craved at this moment—an opportunity to escape his presence long enough to recover from her astonishment, to collect her bewildered thoughts.

“Of course,” she said.

Eden fled from the room. It wasn’t until she reached the kitchen that she realized her hand bearing the coffee mug was trembling. She set the mug on the counter and drew a steadying breath before making an effort to deal with her confusion.

He had amnesia. That was frustrating enough right there, because if he couldn’t remember who he was, how could he possibly tell her anything about Nathanial? Even more puzzling, he had somehow gotten the idea into his head that they knew each other, that she could tell him all about himself. She couldn’t begin to imagine why.

What was she going to do about him? The answer was an obvious one. If he needed professional help, and it was beginning to look as though he did, then she had an obligation to surrender him to the people who were equipped to handle this kind of thing. Except she couldn’t bring herself to do that. Not just yet. Not until she tried to find some way to unlock his memory.

Because you are professional help. That’s exactly what a private investigator is supposed to do, deal with people’s troubles.

She was arguing herself into something that was morally questionable, and she knew it. But she couldn’t help herself. She had to have those answers about Nathanial.

Her patient was waiting for his coffee. She filled a mug, then hesitated. Did he take it black or white? With sweetener or without? No way of knowing if he even remembered that much. She put the mug on a small tray and placed a spoon, sugar bowl and container of milk beside it.

He presented a disturbing sight when she returned to the guest room with the tray. He had propped himself up against the headboard in her absence, displaying an expanse of naked male flesh he seemed in no way self-conscious about.

Eden had viewed that hard body last night when she and Tia had examined him and attended to his injuries. But that had been an impersonal thing. Now, though, with him awake and aware of her standing there…

She tried not to gape at the powerful chest whose allure was not diminished by its several scars as she set the tray on the bedside table. Ignoring the sugar and milk as though they didn’t exist, he reached for the mug and brought it to his mouth. She watched him drink the coffee in eager gulps. There was something strangely mesmerizing in the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his strong, corded throat as he swallowed.

“Ah, that’s better,” he said, lowering the mug. Leaning toward her, he sniffed the air, then demanded abruptly, “What is it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The scent you’re wearing. I don’t remember that either, just the whiffs of it I caught last night when you were helping me and my thinking how much I liked it. Something floral, huh?”

“Lily of the Valley.”

“Nice,” he said, putting the mug back on the tray.

Before she could back away from the side of the bed, he reached out, wrapping his big hand around her own hand and dragging it up to his face. Turning it over, he buried his nose into the back of her wrist, inhaling deeply.

“Yeah, very nice,” he growled softly.

Eden was so startled that she failed to react. Failed to stop him when his bold mouth covered the place where his nose had been. He planted a warm kiss on her wrist, the tip of his tongue caressing its vulnerable pulse point. The action was so unexpected, and so instantly tantalizing, that a jolt of electricity raced up her arm. Gasping, she snatched her hand away from his provocative assault.

He chuckled. “What’s the matter? Can’t a man nuzzle his own wife?”

“What did you say?” she whispered.

“Nothing, just that I was appreciating how my wife smells.” He laughed again. “Among other things.”

Eden stared down at him, so stunned that she was speechless. This was incredible, much more involved than just his impression they knew each other. He thought he was her husband! That they were actually married!

Tell him. Why aren’t you telling him?

Eden didn’t know what was holding her back from immediately and emphatically correcting his mistaken belief. Or was it that she didn’t want to know, because a remorseless little voice was already telling her that she could take advantage of this situation? Unthinkable! How could she even consider it? And yet…

“Do you suppose I could have some breakfast to go with this coffee? I’d fix it for myself if I remembered where things are.”

Eden managed to find her voice then, shaky though it was. “Do you think you’re well enough to eat?”

“My insides tell me I am.” Demonstrating his rapid recovery, he swung his long legs over the side of the bed and eased himself to his feet. To her relief, he kept the quilt wound around his hips. “See? Perfectly steady. Now, if you could point me to my clothes…”

She nodded in the direction of the adjoining bathroom. “In there. I laundered and folded them for you.”

What if he asked for a change of outfit? Clothing he hadn’t been wearing last night? What would she tell him? But he accepted her choice without question.

She watched him, making certain that he was capable of reaching the bathroom without her assistance. When the door closed behind him, she picked up the tray and retreated from the bedroom.

Her brain couldn’t be any more numbed than his had been as she moved around the kitchen, preparing a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, trusting that he wouldn’t expect cereal instead. Or, for all she knew, steak and potatoes.

Am I home?

The words he had uttered last night before passing out on the piazza floor made sense now. He’d been convinced he had fought his way home to his wife and was safe. All the rest were clear as well. The way he had looked at her so intimately, his thinking he was supposed to remember Tia, grasping her hand and kissing it like that. Those made sense, yes, but nothing else did.

Man and wife. How could he think it? What in his jumbled mind had led him to such a fantastic conclusion?

And you’re planning to make use of it, too, aren’t you? That’s why you haven’t told him the truth. You see this as an opportunity.

All right, so it was wrong of her to let him go on thinking she was his wife, even cruel. But the temptation was too strong for her to resist, because his assumption that she was his wife meant that he trusted her. Trusted her fully. And only if he continued to trust her would he willingly share with her whatever he knew about the photograph she had discovered inside his jacket.

Only for a little while, she promised herself, silencing the guilt that was gnawing at her conscience. Just long enough for her to tap into whatever memory he might still possess, and then she would set him straight. She had to know.

“I think I’m ready for action again.”

Eden swung around at the sound of his deep voice behind her. Her first thought when she caught sight of him standing there in the doorway was how appropriate his declaration was. He’d meant it as a simple assurance that he was feeling better, but no adult female with functioning vision could have failed to put a spin on his words. He was that impressive, with the kind of athletic body meant to be wrapped around a woman.

He definitely knew how to fill a pair of jeans to maximum effect. She hadn’t noticed it last night, but the cut of both those jeans and his shirt were western in character. She recognized the style because of her brother, Roark, who lived and worked in Texas. There was something else she observed. His skin was bronzed and his brown hair streaked in front to shades of blond, like a man who has been exposed to a desert sun. Did they mean nothing, or were they clues to his origin?

“Sit down,” she instructed him. “Breakfast is almost ready.”

He started toward the table she had been setting at one end of the parlor, when she noticed what the trailing quilt had concealed in the bedroom. He had a faint but definite limp.

“Your leg,” she said, voicing her concern over what she assumed was another of last night’s injuries. “If you’re in pain, then maybe you shouldn’t be on it. Maybe you should have stayed in bed.”

He stopped midway across the room and gazed down in puzzlement at the leg to which she referred. “I don’t have any pain in my leg,” he said. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Eden assured him, suddenly remembering that Tia had directed her attention last night to an old scar on his right leg. Then his slight lameness wasn’t the result of any recent injury but something that had happened in the past and become so much an accepted part of him he was no longer aware of its existence, particularly now when he had no memory of its cause.

After he’d settled himself at the table, she went back into the adjoining kitchen. When she returned with eggs and toast, she found him gazing with interest at his surroundings. She knew he was seeing for the first time all the elements of the parlor that she so loved—the delicate molding that had suffered scuffs and marks over the decades, the cracked but elegant marble surround of the fireplace, the worn boards of the polished floor.

But, of course, he didn’t know that he’d never viewed any of these things before. It was painful to watch him struggling to renew a knowledge he had never possessed. So painful that she was tempted then and there to tell him the truth. But, remembering Nathanial, she held her tongue.

“The painting,” he said, his gaze settling on the framed scene above the fireplace. “Do I know that place? Where is it?”

“It’s a watercolor of the houseboat that—” she’d been about to say I but corrected herself in time “—we keep up along the Ashley River.”

“For weekend getaways, you mean?”

“Yes, something like that.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I like it. It looks quiet and peaceful.”

“You’d better eat before your breakfast gets cold.” She seated herself across from him.

He started to pick up the glass of orange juice beside his plate and then hesitated, frowning over it as if he wasn’t sure whether he liked orange juice. And if he didn’t, would he wonder why his wife had given it to him? This deception was proving to be more difficult than she’d anticipated, Eden realized. Any little mistake could arouse his suspicion, cost her his trust, which was a good reason not to waste time going after the answers she wanted.

Apparently deciding the orange juice was acceptable, he drank it. She waited just long enough to permit him to help himself to scrambled eggs before she led into her cautious interrogation. “Do you have any recollection yet of what happened to you last night?”

“Afraid not. Aren’t you going to eat?” he asked, noticing that she had nothing in front of her but her coffee mug.

“I had something earlier. No clue at all then about last night?”

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I figure I must have been beaten and robbed. Whoever the punks were, they got away with my wallet and everything in it.” Something occurred to him then, and he glanced at her quickly. “You report this to the police?”

“Not yet, but we should, don’t you think?”

“No,” he said, a sudden sharpness in his voice, which he amended with a softer “Let’s wait a bit and see if I can remember anything useful to give them.”

Was it her imagination, or did the idea of the police worry him? “Were you missing anything else?” she asked, hoping he would recall the photograph in his jacket.

“Keys. I must have had keys, and I suppose they took those, too. Did I have a car with me?”

It was a question Eden answered with an elusive, “The car is safe in the alley.” No lie. Her car was parked in its usual spot behind the house. “You were on foot.”

“Why was I out there?”

That’s exactly what I was hoping you could tell me. Again her reply, out of necessity, was an evasive one. “You had some business. Maybe it had to do with this.”

She had brought her purse to the table. She extracted the photograph from it and passed it to him across the table. Holding her breath in anticipation, she watched his face for a reaction as he took the picture and studied it carefully.

“They didn’t get this,” he said slowly, a faint grimness in his voice.

“You remember it then?” she said tensely.

“Yes. The photo was in my jacket along with your business card.” He looked up, meeting her searching gaze. “Who’s the little boy?”

Eden managed to hide her deep disappointment. “You don’t know?”

He shook his head. “Is the kid someone I’m supposed to remember?”

Hoping a name would make a connection for him, Eden considered telling him that she believed the boy in the photograph was her son, Nathanial. But she wasn’t ready for this step just yet, to risk the volley of questions that would be certain to follow such an admission.

“It seems that you should, since you were carrying his photograph. Look again,” she urged him. “Maybe if you try hard enough, he’ll start to look familiar to you.”

Lowering his gaze, he reexamined the photo. Once again she watched him closely, studying his face for a revealing expression. She couldn’t be sure, but his features seemed to slowly tighten into something that was guarded, something so automatic that he might not even be aware of it.

“What is it?” she pressed him.

He didn’t answer her. Something else had captured his attention, something that had apparently registered in his peripheral vision. Suddenly alert, his gaze swung in the direction of the window that overlooked the piazza and the garden beyond.

“Who’s that?” he demanded.

Eden had been far too focused on her objective to be aware of anything outside. But now, head turned, she discovered a rotund figure in the garden busy filling a large basket with the debris from last night’s storm.

“Our neighbor, Skip Davis,” she said mildly. “He’s a retired navy officer. He and his wife share the garden. That’s their house on the other side.”

“Oh.” He seemed to visibly relax, but seconds later he asked Eden, “Could you adjust the blinds? The light hurts my eyes. Guess it’s a leftover from last night’s headache.”

“Of course.”

She got up and went to the window, redirecting the light and in the process eliminating any view of the garden. She knew that his request had been an excuse, that the presence of Skip Davis out there disturbed him in some way.

The interruption lost her the opportunity to question him further. When she got back to the table, prepared to resume their session, he had lost interest.

“The face means nothing to me,” he said, placing the photograph on the table and dismissing it. “I’ll try again later, okay?”

Frustrated though she was, he left her no choice. If she pushed him too hard, he might close up altogether. She had to be patient if she was going to stand any chance of acquiring what was locked in his mind. But it wasn’t easy, particularly when those brown eyes with the golden lights in them kept casting looks at her as he went on with his eggs and toast. Looks that were as warm and tender as a pair of hands stroking female flesh. They were also unnervingly possessive.

“Why do you keep on looking at me like that?” she challenged him, returning the photo to her purse for safekeeping.

“I just want to be sure.”

“Of what?”

“That it isn’t my imagination I have damn good taste in wives.”

This had gotten risky, like that moment in the bedroom when he had fondled her hand. It was time to bring an end to the scene before it got out of control.

Eden changed the subject by indicating his plate. “Have you finished?”

“Yes, and the eggs were great, just the way I like them.” He grinned at her outrageously. “Not that I’d know, of course.”

Refusing to fall in with his playful, and she feared sexy, mood, she came to her feet and rounded the table. “I’ll clear up then.”

But when she reached for his plate, he caught her high around the waist and drew her down onto his lap, snugging her tightly against the hard wall of his chest. Alarmed by his increasing familiarity with her, she stiffened in his embrace.