Enigma. Carla Cassidy
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to do this, but she’d needed to get away from him for a few minutes and besides, she hadn’t wanted to see him in the morning with that skimpy butt-baring hospital gown. “And what a fine butt it is,” she muttered as she grabbed two pair of jeans that she thought would fit him.
Was he really in some kind of danger or was he delusional? she wondered as she headed to the T-shirts. She tossed a packet of three T-shirts in different colors into her basket and then frowned as she thought about underwear.
Boxers or briefs?
Briefs.
A gasp escaped her. It was definitely his voice she heard in her head. It was as if he stood next to her in the store and whispered in her ear.
And it wasn’t the first time he’d been inside her head. She grabbed a packet of briefs off the shelf and then hurried toward the checkout.
She felt as if she’d stepped into the middle of some sort of science-fiction flick. The only problem was the movie was halfway over and nobody would explain to her what she’d missed.
She’d never really believed in psychic abilities like mental telepathy and precognition. She never looked up in the sky for UFOs or worried about seven years of bad luck if she broke a mirror.
She was rooted in reality, with no flights of fancy, and yet she knew with an unsettling certainty that somehow he was able to communicate with her inside her head.
Had the dream been real? Had he somehow really been with her in her bedroom, made love to her through some sort of spirit world?
Her cheeks burned with her blush as she paid for her purchases. Funny, she didn’t even consider paying with a credit card because she knew charge card transactions could be traced. She’d already half bought in to his assertion that somebody evil was after him.
She had just gotten into her car and started the engine when her cell phone rang. She jumped and grabbed it from her purse and looked at the caller ID. It was the hospital.
Play dumb. Please, don’t tell. The words thundered in her head.
She shut off the car engine and drew a deep breath. “Don’t worry,” she said dryly. There was no way she could say anything about what happened. Jared would potentially be put in danger, but she’d definitely lose her job and be locked up in a mental ward.
She answered the phone, trying to make her hello sound groggy, as if she’d been asleep for hours.
“Willa, it’s Casey.” Casey Durham was the night supervisor on the floor. “Where are you?”
“Where do you think I am? At home, in bed.” The lie tasted badly on her tongue. She wasn’t used to lying to anyone.
“Sorry to wake you, but I thought you’d like to know.”
“Know what?”
“You’re never going to believe what’s happened. A man came in and said he thought our John Doe might be a relative of his. I took him to John Doe’s room and he was gone.”
“Who was gone?” Willa asked, as if confused.
“John Doe. His bed was empty and he was nowhere to be found.”
“What?” Willa tried to inject shock into her voice. “How is that possible? He was in a coma! What do you think happened?”
“I have no idea. The doctors are speculating that maybe he came out of his coma and didn’t know where he was and somehow stumbled outside the building. Security is checking the immediate area. I just knew you’d want to know what’s happened.”
“Wow, I’m just stunned. Thanks for calling me. Oh, what about the man who said he thought he knew John Doe. What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. I guess he took off. Too bad we don’t have security cameras. Anyway, things should be calmed down by the time you come in on Monday morning. Maybe by that time we’ll have located our John Doe. The good news is it looks like he woke up. I know that’s what you’d hoped for.”
“Thanks again, Casey.” Willa shut her phone and dropped it back in her purse. A faint chill walked up her spine.
Jared had told her somebody was coming for him and somebody had shown up. He’d known her name before she’d told it to him and she’d known his from a dream.
Was he truly in danger? Who was the man who had shown up to ask about him and what did that man have to do with him?
She started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. Maybe she was still asleep. Maybe this was just an intensely vivid dream. Perhaps there was no man on her sofa and she was still in her own bed and not driving through the middle of the night checking her rearview mirror to see if she were being followed.
“Are you there?” she asked softly and waited for the voice in her head to respond. There was no answering reply.
She gripped the steering wheel more tightly in her hands and once again wondered if she’d had some sort of psychotic snap with reality.
Within minutes she was once again parked in her garage. She carried her purchases into the house and set the bag on the table.
He was on the sofa, sleeping so soundly he didn’t stir when she drew close. Real. He was as real as the beat of her heart, as the ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantel.
He was so still that if it wasn’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest she might have thought him dead. Questions whirled around in her head but she knew that none of them would be answered tonight.
As the adrenaline that had pumped through her since the moment she’d awakened from her erotic dream began to leave her, she realized she was exhausted.
She went into her bedroom and changed back into her nightgown and then got into bed. There was a stranger in her house and yet she wasn’t afraid. She believed him when he said he wouldn’t harm her. Not only did he have no reason to want to hurt her, but he also wasn’t strong enough to do much of anything.
The truth was she wasn’t afraid of him because as crazy as it seemed, as wild as the night had been, she trusted him like she’d never trusted anyone else in her life.
She fell asleep wondering what the morning would bring and awakened just after seven to the sound of birds singing outside her window.
As she remembered all that had transpired the night before, she jumped out of bed and ran into the living room, her heart pounding when she saw the empty sofa.
It was only when she smelled the scent of fresh-brewed coffee that filled the air that she realized her patient was already up.
She hurried into the kitchen and found him showered and dressed in one of the pairs of jeans and a navy T-shirt she’d bought. He had his long fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee and he looked stronger, more vital than he had the night before.
His amazing blue eyes lit with pleasure at the sight of her and she remembered she was clad only in her skimpy nightgown. “Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” she replied. “I’m just going to take a quick shower and dress and I’ll be right back.”
As she hurried down the hallway her cheeks burned. She hadn’t missed the way his gaze had slid down the length of her, not just with a heady heat, but with a sweet familiarity. It was disconcerting.
It was oddly exciting.
Answers. That was what she needed more than anything today, and she was going to get them from him or she was going to drive him straight back to the hospital and ask for a psychiatric evaluation for him and maybe one for herself, as well.
Dressed in a pair of jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt, she finally left the bathroom and returned to the kitchen. He sat in the same place where he’d been when she’d left.
“Do you have a computer with Internet access?” he asked,