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“Right now, I don’t even know what the hell my name is.”
“Jacob Lomax.”
He searched his mind for recognition. Found nothing that was familiar. His headache worsened, making it difficult to think. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Since midnight last night.” She glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Ten hours.”
“Which makes today, what?”
“Tuesday. The twenty-third of September.”
Slowly, he scanned the room, searching. The curtains and comforter, while a yellow plaid, were both trimmed with white lace. The latter was draped over a pine-slotted sleigh bed that sat more than three feet off the floor. Positioned across the room were its matching dresser and mirror.
Jacob studied his image. The blade-sharp cheekbones, the strong, not-quite-square jaw, covered with no more than a day’s worth of whiskers. He rubbed his knuckles against the stubble on one cheek, hollowed more from fatigue he imagined than from pain. A bruise dominated the high forehead, spilled over in a tinge of purple by the deep set eyes of vivid blue.
No flashes of recognition. No threads of familiarity. Nothing more than the image of a stranger staring back.
His focus shifted down. Assorted lotions and powders cluttered the top of the dresser, along with a few scattered papers and a stack of books.
Packing boxes sat opened on the floor. Some were full, others half-empty, but most lay flat, their sides collapsed.
“You’re moving?”
“Yes—”
“You’re awake.” A man entered the room, the black bag in his hand and the stethoscope around his neck identifying him as a doctor.
Grace met the older man halfway across the room. Jacob deliberately said nothing and waited. But his hand shifted closer to the gun beside him.
Her father was on the smaller side of sixty, with a leanness that came with time on a tennis court, not a golf course. His hair was white and well groomed, combed back from a furrowed brow.
After a few murmured words, he patted her shoulder, then approached the bed. “Jacob, my name is Doctor Renne. Grace tells me you don’t remember what happened.”
“That’s right.” Since the older man didn’t ask Jacob if he remembered him, Jacob assumed they’d never met.
“How’s the headache?” Doctor Renne pulled a penlight from his pocket and clicked it on. He shined the light in Jacob’s eyes. First one, then the other. The bright flash set off another series of sledgehammers. He winced. “Bearable.”
“Look up…now down.” Another flash, another jolt of pain.
“How did I get here?”
“Since there was no car, we assumed you walked. Grace discovered you on her porch last night.” The doctor clicked the light off and tucked it back into his inside pocket. “Stay focused on my finger without turning your head.”
Jacob followed the doctor’s finger, this time ignoring the pull of discomfort behind his eyes.
“There’s definite improvement.” The doctor waved his daughter over to the bed. “Grace, I’ll need your help. I want to check his shoulder.”
They eased Jacob back against the headboard. The doctor examined the bandage. “There’s blood. You’re moving around too much. I didn’t spend hours stitching you up for you to take it apart in five minutes.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’ll remember that,” Jacob commented wryly. “I’d tell you where to send the bill if I knew where I lived.”
“Your driver’s license says Los Angeles, California,” Charles answered. “Seems you’re a long way from home.”
Home? Why did the address, even the word, sound so foreign?
Grace leaned over to adjust his pillow. A light floral scent drifted toward him. For a moment he tried to identify the flower, but came up with nothing. Still the fragrance was distinctive. Feminine. Clean.
“Do you remember a woman named Helene Garrett?” Grace asked without looking up.
Frames of shadow and light passed through Jacob’s mind, but nothing he could zero in on, nothing to bring into focus. “No, but…” Suddenly, a snapshot—vivid but brief—flashed across his mind. A woman laughing. Her cheeks and nose pink from the falling snow. Her smile wide, her eyes brimming with…happiness?
No, he realized suddenly. Not happiness.
Love.
Chapter Five (#ulink_8a35769c-a87a-5fec-82fe-d5d90601bdeb)
“You.” Jacob nodded slightly toward Grace, then frowned. “I see you.”
“From last night or this morning?” The doctor asked, then took Jacob’s wrist and checked the younger man’s pulse against his watch.
“From a ski trip.” Jacob closed his eyes, for a moment, trying to bring the image back. “I remember her hovering over me.” When he opened them again, he caught the surprise in the doctor’s features.
The doctor didn’t know about me. Jacob decided not to mention how the scent of her shampoo triggered the memory. Not until he understood more.
“You were skiing? Where?”
Grace nearly groaned aloud at her father’s questions. When she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d told him the father of the baby was no one he knew. Just someone she’d met skiing.
Lifting her chin, she met her father’s glare head-on. “In Aspen. A few times.”
When her father said nothing, her gaze shifted from him to Jacob. But her smile was forced, her teeth on edge. “You fell the first time we were there.” What she didn’t add is that he had faked the fall, pulled her into the snow and spent the next twenty minutes kissing her breathless.
She hugged her arms to her chest and walked over to the window.
She didn’t want to see the anger—the disappointment—emanating from her father.
“Who’s Helene Garrett?” Jacob’s question snapped the thread of tension between father and daughter.
“A business associate of yours. And my partner. Ex-partner. She introduced us,” Grace admitted reluctantly, but she continued to stare out the window. The bay’s waves crashed against the sand and dock, not quite over its temper from the night before. She’d stayed awake all night helping her dad, jumping at every sound the wind and rain made. But no one came after her. No one pounded on the door or jumped from the shadows.
Hide, Grace. Before they kill you. The words floated through her mind for the thousandth time. But was the threat real or a side effect to his amnesia?
“Someone shot and killed Helene last night outside our bar.” Grace could feel Jacob’s eyes on her, studying her like some specimen in a jar. Something he’d done while they dated. Before his habit unnerved her, now it just annoyed her.
Amnesia. Her nerves endings snapped and crackled. She didn’t believe him at first, but that lasted only a few moments. Admittedly, she had expected Jacob to clear up the confusion—the fear—that plagued her all night. How can you fight your enemies when you have no idea who they are? Or hadn’t known they even existed until only hours before?
“And you assume because I took a bullet, I was there, too,” Jacob said coolly.
He wasn’t asking a question, but her father answered anyway. “It’s a logical assumption.”
“Did Helene have a gun on her?” Jacob asked, his tone flat.
“Yes, but you didn’t shoot her. And she didn’t put that bullet in your shoulder, either. The two of you were very close,” Grace insisted, but she didn’t face him. Not yet. Not when her emotions could be seen in her expression. The doubt, the fear. Everything in her being told her he wouldn’t harm Helene. She had to believe that, for now. “You might not remember who you are, but I know what kind of man you are. And you aren’t a murderer.”
“Well, for all our sakes, I hope you’re right,” Jacob replied grimly.
“I am.” Her chin lifted, defiant; she was under control again. She was betting her life on it. More importantly, their child’s life. “How long do you think his memory loss will last, Dad?”
The doctor had remained quiet. She swung around, challenging. “Dad?”
“I can’t give you a definitive answer, Grace. We’re dealing with the brain. Anything can happen. The concussion, while it’s nothing to dismiss, doesn’t appear serious enough to have caused permanent damage. Of course, I would prefer to order him to undergo some tests and a day or more of observation to be sure.” The words came out rigid, censured. “Without them, I believe we’re dealing with more of a dissociative amnesia. A loss of memory due to a shock rather than an injury to the brain.”
“Traumatic as in Helene’s murder,” Jacob replied. “So this is mental rather than physical.”
“In my opinion, yes,” Charles answered, but he prodded Jacob’s head wound, checking it. “If that’s the case, my guess is that your memory will return in bits and pieces over the course of time.” Her father took off his stethoscope and placed it in his bag.
“What span of time?”
“There is no telling how much will come back or how long it will take.”
“He remembered his gun,” Grace commented. “First thing when he woke up.”
Dr. Renne glanced at Jacob, surprised. “You did?”
“Yes.” He flexed his right hand, spreading his fingers. “I know I’ve been trained to use it. Even if I don’t remember the when and the why.” The confidence reverberated deep within him, hollow echoes from an empty void.
“That explains the other marks you’re sporting. Two bullet scars on your back and a six-inch knife scar on your hip.”
Charles Renne moved from the bed, his bag in hand. “Some traits—like combat training or studied languages—will surface instinctively. But most memories are triggered by emotions, reactions, physical evidence. A scent. A song. Any number of things. Experiencing them might eventually help your recollection, but there are no guarantees.”
“He also remembered my name. Last night, before he passed out, he called me by my name,” Grace inserted.
“If that’s true, why don’t I remember you now?” Jacob asked.
“Something must have happened while you were unconscious. Your brain could’ve just shut down from the emotional shock,” Charles said. “If that’s the case, your mind will decide if and when it’s ready to remember.”
“If?”
“There’s always the chance you might not regain any of your memories,” Charles indicated. “Especially those from last night.”
Jacob considered the doctor’s words. The sense of danger intensified after the mention of Helene Garrett. Could he have killed a woman he considered a friend? There was no doubt he had killed before. The certainty of it resonated through him.
Obviously, some things amnesia couldn’t erase.
“I can make arrangements—”
“No, Dad. No arrangements. If he isn’t wanted for murder, he soon will be.”
“He carries a gun, Grace. One that might be a murder weapon. Do realize the implications of that?”
“Do you mean to your reputation or to my safety?”
“For once in your life, don’t be irresponsible,” Charles retorted impatiently. “So far this morning, we’ve been fortunate. It won’t take long for the police to show up on your doorstep. Then what will you do?” Charles’s gaze dropped to her stomach. “It’s not just you I’m concerned for. You’re not thinking about—”
“We agreed last night that it’s not your decision.”
“I’m required by law to report a gunshot wound,” Charles snapped. “If I don’t, I could lose my practice.”
“Do what you have to do, Dad,” she answered, the truth lying bitter against her tongue. It wasn’t the first time she’d defied him. But a few moments earlier, when his eyes moved from her stomach back to her face, it was the first time she’d ever seen fear etched in his features.
“Damn it, Grace. I don’t want to turn this into the same old argument. The man was shot. Your friend was killed. This is not about the fact that once again I’m choosing my practice over—”
“Over what? Me?” Grace rubbed the back of her neck, trying to loosen the tension. Even she couldn’t ask him to go against his oath. “You’re right, Dad.” She sighed. “I put you in this position with my phone call and I’m sorry.” The words were sad, made so by their unending conflict. “But I’m not going to budge on my decision, either. He stays with me until we figure this out.”
Jacob had been about to agree with the doctor. No matter who he was, hiding behind a woman wasn’t acceptable. But the undercurrent of emotion in the room changed his mind. Something wasn’t being said and Jacob wanted to know what it was. Better to wait and get the information from the daughter.
“I’m safer with Jacob. Trust me, Dad.” When he said nothing, she added, “Please.”
Finally, it was Charles who turned away. “The pain is going to get worse. You’re going to need morphine in a short while, Jacob. Enough to take the edge off. I can give you some but I have to go get the prescription filled.” He closed his bag and turned to his daughter. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
The threat was there, Jacob knew. He had less than an hour to find out what the hell was going on.
Chapter Six (#ulink_c59ebe05-3831-5786-97cc-4f0edae37d09)
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Tell him what?” Jacob asked.
“That you won’t take the morphine he’s bringing back.”
She was right, of course. He couldn’t risk being doped up if trouble started. “For a person who doesn’t know me, you understand me pretty well,” he commented dryly.
“One doesn’t discount the other,” she countered. Her gazed drifted over his face. “You’ve lost weight.”
“Really?” Jacob’s mouth twisted derisively. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Yes, well—”
“I didn’t tell him I didn’t want the morphine because I thought you needed some breathing room,” he lied. “But I agree with your father, Grace.”
“A man you just met.”
“Technically, I’ve just met you, too.”
Her body grew rigid. “You remembered Aspen.”
He’d hurt her with his comment. A vulnerability he could take advantage of, if needed. “I stand corrected.”
