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“Yes, I can do that,” he said to Andy after a moment. “Give me the address.” He listened. “Yeah, no problem. I had court, this morning, in White River Junction. Was on my way back, done for the day. It’s no trouble.”
“Thank you,” she said weakly, after she heard him put away the phone.
“No problem,” he repeated. “We’ll get you home, Charlotte.”
Charlotte … Andy must have said her name, only Daniel had heard it wrong. He didn’t know who she was. The thought came with a wash of relief. Maybe he wouldn’t even remember.
No, he had to remember. He’d brought her up here, six years ago, had given her a passionate, romantic weekend in a gorgeous bed-and-breakfast, and then she’d dumped him two weeks later—or they’d dumped each other, she wasn’t even sure—because …
Well, just because.
Too many reasons to count, and maybe she was ashamed of some of them, or maybe they weren’t all her fault. They’d both had issues that ran deep. They’d both had reason to be angry … and full of regret. She hadn’t been involved with another man since. She’d been burned, and it had been all too easy to retreat into her demanding work and conclude that the thing with Daniel—its intensity and its failure—was a warning sign.
He had to remember.
But right now, he wanted her to move, to climb out of the vehicle. He had one hand on her elbow and one on her shoulder, trying to ease her out from behind the wheel, trying to help her, but it was going to be impossible. She felt incapable of walking, and she couldn’t have corrected him about her name even if she’d wanted to.
And she didn’t want to, because …
Well, just because.
Because it was easier not to have him know who she was.
Not yet. Not until she’d reached a safer, better place than the verge of a county road.
Five and a half years ago, she’d sent Andy to the same bed-and-breakfast that Daniel had brought her to, at a time when Andy had been going off the rails due to stress and ambition. Her brother had found Vermont so good for his soul that he’d moved here, but that little leapfrogging connection wasn’t relevant now.
She doubted that Daniel had looked at her face yet, and might not recognize her even if he did, she must look so wretched, white-skinned against the contrast of the dark frames of her sunglasses. Oh, and she’d been in her blonde phase six years ago, too, the style of it perky and tousled and a lot shorter than it was now.
“Can you help me to your car?” she asked him. “I’m so dizzy.”
“Of course,” was all he said.
She waited for him to hold her shoulders or reach for her hand, hating this feeling of disorientation. Where was he? Which part of her body would he touch first?
Okay, here was his arm coming around her shoulder … and his other arm sliding across the backs of her knees. He was planning to carry her. He lifted her into his arms before she could protest, settled her closer against his body, and then she had to concentrate so hard just on breathing that she couldn’t say a word.
He didn’t speak, either.
She was pretty light, but she was still a grown woman, and this had to be hard for him, but he gave no sign of it, just held her and paced toward his patrol car, his stride as smooth as he could make it. He was trying not to bounce her and she was grateful for that.
Grateful for his shoulder, too. She couldn’t hold her head up without dizziness and wild color strobing behind her closed lids, and his shoulder was the only place to rest her cheek. There, she could smell the summer-heated cotton of his shirt and something nutty and fresh and masculine that was probably shampoo or aftershave.
It was good, the male fragrance. It was familiar, heaven help her. It brought a tangle of powerful, seductive memories, yet still somehow steadied her senses so she kept breathing it, drawing it in through her nostrils in slow pulls of air, while her hair fell across her face and tickled her mouth. She wanted to ask Daniel if he could brush the hair away, but still didn’t trust herself to speak—let alone to make such an intimate request.
Touch my hair. Touch my face. You’ve done it before …
No.
Daniel Porter was carrying her in his arms like a knight rescuing a maiden and his strength and his movement felt so nourishing and good, yet he had no idea who she was.
By the time she was seated inside the patrol car, she felt weak with the aftermath of the short journey. She would have to see if Andy could find something stronger for the migraine pain. These over-the-counter pills were barely taking the edge off. She had to lean against the dash to anchor herself so that the whirling universe would slow down. Once more, her hair hung around her face, hiding skin that must be paper-white by this point. She couldn’t even speak enough right now to say, “I’m sorry.”
Daniel didn’t seem to need the apology. “It’s okay,” he said, just as if she had managed the words. “It’s fine. You’re not heavy.” The tone was friendly, professionally reassuring, with the same measured carefulness she still remembered so well.
As if words were too powerful, sometimes, and might detonate an emotional bomb blast if you spoke too many of them, or if you said the wrong ones.
“Just sit for a bit,” he continued. “I’ll open the windows so you have some air.” She heard the humming sound of the glass lowering in its frame. “Your keys are still in the ignition, right? Just nod.”
But with her throbbing head, speaking was easier than nodding. “Yes.”
“I’ll pull your car over, farther from the road.” He made a momentary pause, then added, “That’s why I thought I should stop and check on you, before, on my way through. Your car isn’t pulled off to a safe distance.”
“I couldn’t.”
“I understand that. It’s okay. It’s a quiet time of day.”
Daniel Porter left her, and she sat with closed eyes and her forehead against the dash and listened to the sound of her car being moved. He was back in a couple of minutes, putting her purse carefully into her lap through the open passenger window, below the stiff forward angle of her upper body, and guiding her hand to close around the keys he gave her. “Got them?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else you needed?” A pause. “I’m sorry, I should have asked before.”
“My bags are in the trunk.”
“Right, okay.”
“But they can stay there until Andy organizes to get my car to his place. Did you lock it?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Thank you.”
Poor woman, Daniel thought, as he pulled onto the road. When he’d carried her, every step and every tiny movement he made had seemed to worsen her dizziness and pain, and she’d felt too light and limp in his arms, with her head pillowed on his shoulder like that.
He really would have preferred to take her direct to Mitchum Medical Center, but her brother was a doctor and hadn’t insisted on the need for urgent medical attention, so he deferred to the expert opinion.
Dr. McKinley’s house was only a mile or two from here, in the oldest part of the town, a street of grand old Victorians dating from when nearby marble quarries gave Radford a vibrant economy. The street had gone through a period of decline at one point, and Daniel vaguely remembered from early in his childhood that some of these places had been pretty run-down, divided into cheap apartments or lived in by families who couldn’t afford to keep them maintained.
They weren’t run-down anymore. He passed a bed-and-breakfast place, an architect’s office, an upscale hair and beauty salon, each with a professionally painted sign swinging on pieces of chain hanging from a wooden stand planted in the lawn.
Dr. McKinley’s wouldn’t have a sign. Which of the elegant houses was it? He had the number, but glanced sideways to see if his passenger might point it out.
She wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
She still had her head pressed onto the dash, with her forearms folded above. As he’d noted before, she looked too thin, as if she hadn’t been eating properly or as if she burned all her calories in stress. Suddenly there seemed something familiar about her. He couldn’t place it, but realized that he easily might have seen her up here before if coming to visit her brother was a regular thing.
No, he thought. It wasn’t that kind of familiarity. It had been triggered by seeing her beside him in the car, as if he’d had her as a passenger in his vehicle before.
He couldn’t think about it now … 2564 … 2570 … This was Dr. McKinley’s house right here, nicely done up but not too feminine or fancy. Cream and dark green paint, newly stained timber on the front porch.
He turned into the first of two driveways. “Do you have a key to your brother’s house?”
“No, but I know where he keeps one. Could you … get it for me?”
“If you tell me where it is.”
She described the location, somewhat less obvious than under the doormat or sitting on top of the frame. Fourth planter pot to the left of the driveway, under the dark gray rock. She waited in the car while he unlocked the front door—the big Victorian was divided into two apartments, and he guessed that Andy’s was 2572, not 2572A—then he had to come back to help her out. She clung to him and leaned on him as if he was the only fixed point in the whole universe, but at least she was walking on her own, this time.
Suddenly, holding her in his arms once again, recognition came. It elbowed its way past the changed hair color and style, the pale face beneath the large sunglasses, the weight loss, and came fully into focus.
It was Scarlett.
Scarlett Sharpe.
Shoot! Damn! It really was!
Scarlett Sharpe was Andy McKinley’s sister?
Daniel didn’t know if she had recognized him. He thought she was probably in such bad shape that she hadn’t. He must have said his name to Andy, but had she been listening? Had she made the connection? Did she remember? What had he said? Too much?
He felt a wash of anger and embarrassment and regret and yearning and vivid memory, as well as a sense of unfinished business. He fought to keep any of it from showing then realized that she wasn’t going to be picking up on those kinds of emotions, when she was struggling to take one step in front of another.
“I can’t leave you alone here,” he said, trying so hard to keep the reluctance from coloring his voice, so that it ended up sounding completely wooden instead.
“Andy won’t be long.”
“All the same.”
“I’m okay. I just need to drink some water and lie down.”
He was torn by a level of uncertainty and indecision that didn’t happen nearly so often anymore, but which had once been very familiar. How much to give away? How much to trust? What to offer? What to say?
He’d been twenty-four years old when he and Scarlett had known each other before. Six years on, twenty-four seemed like it was just a couple of years beyond boyhood. In so many ways back then he’d been older than his years. In other ways, far out of his depth, with his emotions so powerful and simple that they frightened him.
Lord, he didn’t enjoy some of those memories …
Which was good, because memories weren’t relevant right now.
“I’m going to wait with you until your brother arrives,” he told her, making a decision he didn’t intend to change.
Scarlett didn’t reply.
They made it up the steps and through the door. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“Couch.” Apparently because she didn’t think she could make it any farther, even though he was carrying her again.
He helped her to lie down, finding a red silk pillow for her head. “Could you close the drapes?” she asked weakly. “The light is so bright.”
It wasn’t.
Not to his eyes, anyhow.
But he did as she’d asked, and it seemed to help her. She lay with her eyes closed, still wearing her sunglasses, and less tension stiffening her thin frame. She’d had more weight on her six years ago, for sure. He remembered how her body had felt in his arms, and it hadn’t been scarecrow thin like this, it had been lush and soft, almost plump in places. Recognition might have come sooner if she hadn’t changed so much.
“Can I fetch you the water you wanted?”
“Bottle or tap, I don’t mind. A big glass. It’ll help.”
He went through the adjacent dining room and into the kitchen and ran the faucet into a glass he found upturned in the dish rack, not wanting to check in the refrigerator or open the kitchen cabinets in someone else’s house. When he brought the filled glass back to her, she said in a thready voice, “Is it okay if I don’t try to sit?”
“It’s fine.” He brought the glass awkwardly sideways to her mouth, and it was such a personal action it gave him the jitters. Would she want this from him?
She seemed to prefer the drops spilled down her cheek to the thought of movement. “Thanks. You can go now. Please. Don’t feel you need to stay.”
Did she know who he was?
There was no reason for it to matter, not when she could barely move, and he wasn’t going to ask, or tell her. Not yet. Not unless it seemed truly necessary.
“I’m not leaving.”
She stayed silent for a long moment, as if assessing his determination, and whether to protest. Finally she told him, “Thank you.”
And then they just waited.
Chapter Two
This was Andy now, thank heaven. Scarlett heard his car, then the thump of hurried feet up the steps and onto the wide, wraparound apron of the porch. He barreled through the door and into the front room. “Daniel, thanks so much for staying. Scarlett, how’re you doing?”
“A little better,” she said, putting some chirp into her voice. “My vision is the main thing. Really can’t see.”
“Can I take a look?” She heard him sit on the coffee table in front of the couch. Daniel must be hovering in the background. She couldn’t hear him. They’d been silent together for probably fifteen minutes or more before Andy had showed up. She hoped Daniel put it down to the fact that she was feeling so bad. Hoped he still didn’t know who she was. But really she had no idea. She wasn’t in a position to discern anything about what he was thinking or feeling. He’d never been a man of easy words.
Right now, she was just glad that Andy was here.
“Open your eyes,” Andy ordered.
She did so, to be greeted by blurring and multiple images and blinding light.
“Your pupils aren’t contracting,” Andy said. “That’s why it feels so bright. You’re not focusing at all.”
“Tell me about it!”
There was a pause. “Still biting your nails, Scarlett?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” But she hid her raw-tipped little fingers in the curl of her hand, self-conscious.
