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“Grace Thackery.”
“You work here or just doing a favor?” he asked and studied her. Not in an uncomfortable way, but curious.
“For almost two years now.” She granted him a smile and he returned it, dimples creasing deep into his cheeks.
He rubbed the stubble on his chin, a shade darker than his close-cropped blond hair. “And before that?”
“This and that.” Probably. Surely. She shrugged. “So, what are you in town doing?” Her lack of memory was no one’s entertainment. It was a horror story at best.
“Business.”
Grace checked her watch. “Well, I hope it goes well. If you need an umbrella, Tish keeps extras by the front door.” She waved and bustled to the kitchen. Before opening it, she tossed a look at Mr. Rainey. He was still watching her, his eyebrows pulled together creating a line across his brow. He couldn’t possibly know her. Could he? If so, why wouldn’t he have said something? She shook off the thought and snagged the to-go box of cinnamon rolls for Hollis, then she poured a cup of coffee and snapped the plastic lid over it.
She hollered a quick goodbye as Tish stirred a vat of gravy for biscuits and then she rushed into the steady rain. Once inside the small four-door Honda Civic, she removed her hood and set off for the SAR facility. She’d been volunteering at the search-and-rescue organization for over a year. It had started out to keep her busy while she was acclimating to her new normal, but when she discovered she loved the outdoors, hiking and had several survival skills—including tying a slip knot like a pro—Hollis had suggested she take the classes to join the volunteer team. Maybe she’d been a Girl Scout troop leader.
Being a part of a team and helping others had been a lifesaver for Grace. Guess Hollis suspected she needed to feel useful. He was intuitive and patient. Always going the extra mile to help others, including Grace. He’d made sure she had a place to live, to work, and he’d also taken her to church on Sundays. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever given her heart and life to God, but after a few months of attending she felt the urge to make the commitment.
The women had been kind and helpful, inviting her to Bible studies and quilting classes—she was a natural with a needle and thread—but the love and friendship she’d been lavished with still didn’t combat the nighttime warring where she wrestled with who she was—who she’d been. Did she want to be that person again? Were her interests and likes now the same as the woman once before? Would she ever know?
As she turned on Old Highway 4, a pop sounded and the car jerked to the right. The smell of rubber stamped out the homey scent of coffee and cinnamon. She veered off the shoulder and parked. Clambering out into the rain, she spotted the right front tire blown, tread hanging limply on the ground. Growling under her breath, she opened the trunk and hauled out the jack and the spare. Hey! She knew how to fix a tire. It was all there in her mind. Score. Maybe she was a mechanic. Or she had an attentive father who wanted her to be independent. Or a husband...boyfriend...brother?
She knelt in the wet puddle and went to work.
Headlights stabbed through the dappled haze. A pickup eased onto the shoulder of the road. She waved as two men clambered out and headed toward her. Both wearing jeans and work boots.
“I got it, fellas, but thanks for getting out in the rain to help a lady.” Were the people where she once lived as cordial?
The shorter, stockier man didn’t smile and the taller one ran a hand through his black rain-slicked hair—his eyes glinted like a shark’s. Grace’s neck hairs stood at attention and a pit of dread hollowed out her gut.
“I see you have a little trouble, eh?” The taller man shot her a wild smile, and the hungry animal gleam in his eyes said he very well may have done something to give her this trouble.
“No...no,” she stammered. “I’m doing fine on my own.” Rain trickled down her face and she gripped the jack as the stockier man edged to the left of her and the one speaking stalked her dead-on.
“We just want to know where the doctor is.”
Grace’s heart hammered in her chest as she jumped to her feet, her knees like jelly and her hands trembling. It was pretty clear they weren’t talking about Dr. Jones, the local General Practitioner. “You...you stay back. I don’t know anything about a doctor.”
He laughed. “Don’t play stupid. All you have to do is tell us the truth and no harm comes to you. But if you hold out...”
She backed up a step and right into the chest of the shorter Latino. He gripped her upper arms with force. “You hold out and we mess you up. Where’s the doctor? We won’t ask again.” He hurled Spanish slurs and she recognized them. She knew Spanish! At least the bad words. His fingers dug into her arms and she winced. Tears burned her eyes. “You don’t understand. I really can’t help you. I was hurt—”
“Now you’re hurt,” the jerk gripping her said, and slung her to the ground into a thick puddle of muddy water saturating the grass. His boot landed on the back of her head, forcing her face into the water. Panic raced through her veins and then into her throat, clogging it with a suppressed scream.
This was going to end terribly.
Grace’s lungs lit on fire with the need to consume air.
Suddenly her right foot connected with his groin, as if it had a mind of its own, releasing his boot from her head. She flipped on her back, gulped in the air, rose up and grabbed the man hunching over her by his shirt collar, pulling him toward her and the ground while placing her feet on his chest. She rolled back into the soggy earth, using the momentum to flip the man over her body and into the taller guy.
They both crumpled into the spongey grass.
How had she done that? The shorter attacker growled and told the other guy, in Spanish, to get a handle on her. Before she had a good clear thought she launched toward the man making it to his feet and muscled him toward the car, then she shoved his head onto the hood with so much force it reverberated through her entire arm. He collapsed and didn’t move.
The last assailant grabbed her hair and she bent forward, tossing him over her, then clutched the jack and slammed it into his head.
Grace dropped it when he went still. Oh no. What had she done? Her body trembled with total fear—from the men, from her behavior. Flight mode kicked in and she sprinted the two miles to the SAR facility.
She busted into Hollis’s office, startling him out of his chair. “I’m a ninja!” she squawked, panting for breath, dripping wet. “I’m a...ninja!” She frantically shook her head, disbelief washing over her again as the scenario replayed through her brain. “I thought I was a chef or a Girl Scout leader. But I’m a ninja! I’m a ninja—”
She assaulted a man with a jack! Yes, he came at her first...but she didn’t even hesitate. A weird predatory urge had taken over and she...she... What had she done?
“Grace,” Hollis said in a calming but wary tone as he swung around the desk, his dark-eyed gaze giving her the strength she needed. “I need you to breathe, honey. Slow down. Let’s press Pause. Get your bearings.” He pushed a mass of wet hair from her face and tipped her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “Focus,” he drawled in his rich baritone voice that always brought her comfort.
“You don’t understand.” He hadn’t witnessed her takedown, beating them like ragdolls with no thought whatsoever. “I have kung fu moves. And I know Spanish!” She told him in perfect Spanish she was a ninja and she thought she’d killed a man.
Hollis’s eyes widened. “What man?”
“Hollis, you know Spanish too?” Of course, he did. He was a former navy SEAL. He’d done a few tours. She was no navy SEAL. But it sure felt like it out there. “I know I’m not making any sense.” Her blood froze and she shivered. The room tipped.
“You’re going into shock.” Hollis raced to the lockers on the far side of the wall and grabbed a blanket, wrapping it around her. He lifted her eyelids. “Pupils are dilated.” He cupped her face. “Look at me. Inhale. Exhale.” He rubbed her forearms, working to generate body heat, then he enveloped her, working his hands down her back. “Keep breathing.”
His voice soothed her, his touch eased her knotted muscles as she followed his instructions. Slowly she gained her wits, until the hysteria passed and she could rationally think. “Hollis, two Latino men pulled up behind me on the highway. My tire blew. I’m pretty sure they set it up.” She told him what happened next and how she singlehandedly put them on the ground. Grace had almost been murdered; the fear was overwhelming. Didn’t matter that she had defended herself. She had been harmed. Might be attacked again. She collapsed into his powerful arms. “I can’t be a murderer, Hollis.”
Hollis held her tighter and she melded into him—a safe place. The safest place she’d been since she’d lost her memory, possibly ever. He smelled like oranges and fabric softener. His dark stubble scraped against her cheek as he soothed her with soft shhs. She peered into his eyes, almost as dark as hers, searching for wisdom, answers...hope.
“It’s going to be okay. Let’s go to the site. Figure it out.” He lifted the collar of her jacket. “First go get some fatigues and get dry, then meet me here.” She frantically nodded and did as he instructed. When she returned, she’d wrung out her hair and wrapped it in a wet knot at the base of her neck. She wore khaki fatigues and her spare pair of hiking boots she kept at the facility.
Hollis scrutinized her. “You ready?”
No. She was terrified. Either someone had mistaken her for someone she wasn’t. Or Grace had secrets that were so dark, she didn’t ever want to remember.
* * *
Hollis kept his emotions close to the vest. He didn’t want to cause further panic, didn’t want Grace to be even more afraid, and showing his concern would set her off. Calmly, he escorted her to his pickup and opened the door for her. “It’s going to be okay,” he reassured her again. When he’d found her two years ago during SAR dive drills in the river, she’d been roughed up and left for dead on the bank. She was seizing and frothing at the mouth. He feared the trauma had affected her brain and she’d never recover. By the time he got her to the hospital, she was unresponsive, but breathing, though shallow. Then she’d slipped into a coma. The Grace he knew today might not be the Grace she used to be.
He rounded the truck and climbed in the cab. Grace wrung her slender hands—hands that had a few scars—and chewed on lips that should be kissed not tortured with worrisome gnawing. She was beautiful. Lightly bronzed skin—like the sun had kissed her—and hair as thick and black as night matching her eyes, and long lashes that reminded him of a Southern belle fan. She’d been extremely toned and sculpted when he’d found her, which told him she was a health nut, and the dress she’d been wearing exposed most of her back, revealing scars there as well.
His friend and ER nurse, Daphne, had overstepped HIPAA and confirmed that Grace had past injuries. Broken bones. Two arms. A collarbone. Her right leg. Left ankle. Several fingers. Hollis immediately suspected domestic abuse, but no one came calling for her. He’d called in a favor with an old SEAL buddy who ran a private security company now, but his search hadn’t turned up anything. He had done a missing persons check to see if anyone of her description had vanished around the time Hollis had found Grace, but no one matching her physical appearance had. And without knowing her name, her birthdate or any information that would aid in a background check or missing person’s report, it made things practically impossible. With her scars and broken bones, Hollis and the sheriff had agreed it was best to search for her identity discreetly. If the person who had injured Grace resurfaced, and she didn’t know him or her—and neither did Hollis nor Sheriff Freeman—then Grace was a sitting duck. What quiet investigating and inquiry they had done all hit dead ends. It was as if Grace didn’t exist.
Except she did and it was mind-boggling. Nothing but grace she survived. Day in and out Hollis came and sat at her bedside, talking with her even though she was unresponsive. He needed to call her something. Grace fit. Thackery was his great grandmother’s name. It wasn’t like he could call her Grace Montgomery. Then one day he was reading her a psalm and her eyelids flickered...once...twice and those coffee bean–colored eyes looked into his. For a split second it was like she knew him. Had heard every word he’d ever spoken or read to her. He thought she might even say his name, but then it registered she had no idea where she was or even who she was. Couldn’t recall a single thing and hysteria had set in.
He quietly drove through the rain, waiting for her to speak now.
Finally, she did. She told him in further detail what had happened. “Do you think I learned self-defense?”
That was the rational woman he’d come to know and admire. He smirked. “Already tossed the ninja theory out? I kinda liked it.”
Grace playfully frowned at his teasing. “I’m not quiet enough to be a ninja.”
“I’ll attest. You barreled into my office and scared my socks off.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. Just in case. “It’s possible you learned self-defense or martial arts.” Health nut and martial arts or kickboxing—both great exercises. Or she may have taken it up to protect herself from whoever inflicted those wounds and had broken her body. One theory was her husband or boyfriend discovered she was leaving and tracked her, gave her the beating of her life and left her for dead. But she was wearing a red dress and heels. Someone running away wouldn’t have been in that flimsy—and slightly provocative—dress. There were other theories, but they were darker and Hollis didn’t let his mind wander there.
“What if I did kill them? What will happen?” she asked softly.
“It was self-defense.” They approached Grace’s car—no other vehicle around.
“The truck is gone!” Grace threw off her seat belt and bolted from the vehicle before it got good and stopped, darting toward her car, ignoring the drizzle. “No one is here!” Her voice held a measure of fear and relief. She hadn’t killed anyone. Good. But they were gone and that meant they could return. Not good. Hollis stood beside her and squatted, inspecting the tire.
“It’s been punctured by a blade of some kind. They must have stabbed it before you left the inn this morning, then followed you waiting on it to blow.”
“I don’t understand, Hollis. This makes no sense.”
But it might if she had her memories. “If you gave them a solid whupping like you say you did—if that was a skill they were aware of—then they aren’t going to believe you have no memory.”
“It’s retrograde amnesia!” she protested and Hollis snorted. “What? What is so amusing?”
“I doubt two probable criminals care or know much about amnesia. All they know is you kicked their butts from here to Timbuktu, and they’ve gone to lick their injured pride.”
Grace’s cheeks paled. “And when it’s been mended?”
“They’ll return with new tactics.” Likely the kind that don’t involve getting too close. That triggered a new wave of panic through his chest, squeezing it tight.
“Like the kind they can administer from a distance?”
Too perceptive. He kinda dug it. “I wasn’t going to say that but...yeah.” He changed her tire and wiped his wet, dirty hands on his jeans. “It’ll be okay, though, Grace. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”
“Gonna be on me like blue on sky.”
He chuckled and opened her driver’s-side door for her. “Something like that.”
“You know,” she said wistfully, “I’m handy with a needle and thread, and that time Dennis fell into the ravine I knew how to splint his arm. If these guys are looking for a doctor... I could be a doctor or in the medical field too.”
“Anything is possible. I’ll follow you to the inn. Drive slow on the spare. I’ll have it fixed later today.”
She nodded and cranked her engine. A doctor? Hmm...doubtful, but for now he’d keep his thoughts to himself. He wasn’t sure he liked where they were going.
* * *
Inside the inn, Grace snagged a leftover cinnamon roll. She deserved it. She also deserved to get clean. Her face was a mess, muddy and streaked from the battle a little over an hour ago.
“Hollis, I’m going to take care of all this filth. When I’m done, we can get back to the facility. I need to look at the weather satellites, and I know you want to ride out and inspect the waters around the levee.”
Hollis finished off his roll and nodded. “You really should. You smell.”
“I do not!”
Laughing, he held his mug up in a salute and winked. “Maybe not, but you do look like you wallowed in mud.”
She shuddered. She had and not by choice.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” His eyes held concern.
“You didn’t. I need to clear the gunk off my face.” She headed for the kitchen door.
“Holler if you need anything.”
Her place from the kitchen was about fifteen to twenty feet. Grace waved and made her way out the door and along the sidewalk lined with flower pots—the flowers wilting at the merciless and unending rain. It was overcast but warm. After unlocking her door, she stepped inside and tensed.
Something wasn’t right. Pausing in the entry, she grabbed an umbrella from the wicker basket. Nothing appeared out of sorts. But the eerie sensation skittered across her skin. Everything inside her screamed a warning. Should she call for Hollis? The window in the inn’s kitchen was open. He’d hear. Grace surveyed the open floor plan. To the left of the kitchenette was her bedroom and bathroom. Inching toward her room, her heart galloped. Was she being ridiculous?
She toed her bedroom door farther open and stepped inside, caught a whiff of musk. The smell zinged along her memory pulling something familiar forward, but it was blurry. She inched into the bathroom, switched on the light and felt a presence behind her.
Turning, a figure loomed. Throat constricting, adrenaline racing, she didn’t wait for him to tackle her. She went on the offensive and rushed him, but he dodged her. She swung around and his back was to her. Grace instinctively thrust out the umbrella—the hook catching around his neck like a noose. She yanked—choking him—forcing him backward and toward her.
“You...always...knew how...to make...an entrance...” he sputtered and held his arms out to his side. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Then what are you here for? My valuables? I’ll give you a hint. I don’t have any.” Where on earth did that bravado and snark come from or her instincts to use that umbrella as a weapon?
“I’m turning around.”
She recognized his voice now that her ears weren’t buzzing, but her heart was going wild and she itched to run. Run fast and hard.
With hands raised, Peter Rainey from breakfast faced her. “You can put the umbrella down. Really.”
She lowered it.
“I thought you were dead.” He shook his head, eyes wide. “But then three weeks ago I saw you on the national news. In the background while the SAR chief told the world they’d found the little girl their team had been searching for. It was covered almost nightly. I was in shock. Then confused.”
He was confused? How had he seen her on TV? Hollis had made sure to steer her clear from the media during that hunt for their pastor’s little girl—her scars kept him protective of her, and she appreciated that. She hadn’t found the child for the recognition anyway.
“Why did you settle down in this Podunk town? Why did you pretend not to know me earlier? And why are you volunteering with Search and Rescue and living under a tin roof?”
“Why are you under my tin roof? I don’t have any cinnamon rolls here.” Now probably wasn’t the time to go comedic and dry, but a memory teetered on the edge of her mind—she used this kind of banter to do something...what?
He chuckled. “Always loved that snark. I know you hate me.”
She did?
“I’m here to make amends, Max, even though you have every right to stomp me into the ground for betraying you. I should have known better but...”
Max! Was that her name? Short for Maxine or something? She glanced at the door and her hands shook.
Peter spotted it. “Are...are you afraid?”
She was working hard to conceal it; should she not be? “Well, you did betray me.” If she told him her brain had deflated like a balloon and she was at a loss for memory, he might try to hurt her or clam up. He’d asked why she pretended not to know him. Well, he hadn’t acted like he knew her either, so he was hiding something. He was her only link to her past. She had to play the game for as long as she could.
“Look, I’ll tell you everything, but I may not be the only one who knows you’re alive.”
Oh so true. She had two creeps coming for her already.
