You Must Remember This. Marilyn Pappano
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Nothing kept him company but loneliness, frustration and fear. Fear of who he had been, of who he was, of who he might never be. Fear of knowing and of never knowing.
Grimly he forced his attention back to her. “What do you do online?”
“Talk to friends. Read the paper. Check movie reviews and weather forecasts. Order books.” She shrugged. “Everything.”
“Have you ever met these friends before? In person? Face-to-face?”
Discomfort edged into her expression. “I don’t do well face-to-face.”
Maybe she was more comfortable hiding behind a computer screen. The men among those online friends didn’t know what they were missing. Even if she had described herself as five-five, blond and blue, it would say nothing about the stubborn line of her jaw or the way she turned that delicate pink when embarrassed. It didn’t give a hint of the shape of her mouth or the silkiness of her hair or the fragile air that surrounded her. “Five-five, blond and blue” could be a man’s worst nightmare…or his sweetest dream.
“So you get on the computer and talk to people you’ve never met. How do you know they are what they say they are? How do you know they’re not scam artists, stalkers, rapists or killers?”
“How do we know that about anyone?”
How did she know it about him? Point taken.
“These people don’t know me, either. They only know what I choose to tell them.”
“Wouldn’t you rather talk to a flesh-and-blood person? Someone you could see, hear, touch?”
Again she looked uncomfortable. “I’m talking to you.”
He was definitely flesh and blood—very hard flesh, if she came near him, and very hot blood. His smile was thin and unamused. Here he was, warning her about the men online, but he was a bigger threat than any of them. He knew how she looked, moved, sounded. He knew where she lived. He knew he wanted her.
His muscles tensing, he forced his thoughts to a safer path. “Your boyfriend must have been sorry to see you leave.” Yeah, that was good. Juliet with another man, a man who was special to her, getting intimate, making love—that was a definite turnoff.
Or not, he admitted as an image popped into his head: Juliet naked, her skin slick with sweat, her soft little moans erotic and torturous to hear. It didn’t matter that the hands rubbing her body and the mouth suckling her breasts belonged to someone else, didn’t matter that another man would fill her, pleasure her and finish with her. It was arousing as hell. Scary as hell.
“I haven’t been in a relationship in a long time.”
He hadn’t, either, not once in his entire life of ten months and a few days. His body was more than ready. Unfortunately, his spirit wasn’t. He needed answers. Reassurances. Some reason to think that he might be worthy of a relationship with someone special.
“Have you ever been married?”
With a faint smile, she shook her head.
“Ever come close?”
Another shake.
Fools. The entire state of Texas was nothing but fools.
“Have you considered leaving Grand Springs?” she asked, turning the conversation away from herself and back to him. He let her.
“Where would I go? What would I do?”
“To look for someplace familiar. What do you do here?”
“Work occasionally. Try to remember always.”
She showed interest in his first answer. “Work. What do you know how to do? What skills do you have?”
He knew where she was leading. Every time he’d seen someone doing a particular job, he had wondered, Did I do that? “Odd jobs, mostly. At Christmas I worked in a couple of shops downtown. I wasn’t much of a salesman. I filled in on a framing crew when they were shorthanded, and they agreed that I was no carpenter. I’ve bussed tables and washed dishes at the Country House Restaurant.” He shrugged.
“Nothing seemed familiar?”
“No.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve only forgotten things of a personal nature. You remember who’s president, how to drive, how to tie your shoes.”
He nodded.
“Maybe you don’t want to remember the personal stuff. Maybe there’s a reason deep in your subconscious that you’ve blocked it, like a marriage falling apart or the death of someone you loved or—”
“I do want to know—more than you can imagine.” But maybe she was right. Maybe his fear was stronger than his desire to know. After all, right now the front-runner for his previous occupation was “criminal”—or worse. He had good cause to wonder. He noticed things, like how easy it would be to gain entry through her unlocked doors. He was familiar with police procedure, more so, he suspected, than the average law-abiding citizen. Someone had tried to kill him.
And there were the dreams. The nightmares.
He tried to pretend they didn’t exist, tried to go through the day without acknowledging them, to face the night without fearing them. He’d never told anyone about them—not Stone, not Doc Howell, not the shrink named Jeffers they had sent him to. They were too frightening, too threatening, with someone dying in every dream. The details were different—the identity of the victim, the place, the means of death—but one thing always remained the same. He was always there. Innocent witness? Or brutal killer?
“Have you seen a psychiatrist?”
“For a while. He couldn’t make me remember.”
“Make?”
Her voice was soft, her tone far from accusatory, but it made him defensive, anyway. “He couldn’t help me remember.” All Jeffers had done was interview him at length, give him a diagnosis of generalized amnesia and a prognosis that, at some time, it would probably resolve itself and he’d be back to normal. No help at all.
“I thought most computer whizzes were odd little guys who turned to computers because they couldn’t relate to people, or spoiled, overindulged teenagers whose parents wanted them out of their hair. How did you get interested?”
“I was an odd little overindulged teenager who related better to machines than people. Have you considered hypnosis?”
“We’re talking at cross-purposes here. I’m tired of talking about myself, and you don’t like to talk about yourself. Why is that?”
A blush and a shrug. “I know all about me.”
“I don’t.”
The blush deepened. “We’re here to try to learn about you.”
He wasn’t. Oh, he wanted her help, of course, if she had any to give, but he was here because two weeks and one day ago, he had taken one long, hard look at her and fallen. He was here because he wanted to know more about her, because he wanted to watch the unconsciously sensual way she moved, because he wanted to torment himself with what he shouldn’t want, should never have.
He was here for pleasure. She was here for business. It had never occurred to her that they could be one and the same. It never might.
Okay, hypnosis. “The shrink tried hypnosis, but not everyone’s a good candidate. The results were less than satisfactory.” In fact, it had been an exercise in futility.
She stifled a yawn, and he checked the time. It was only nine—not too late for him, but he didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. He could stay up until dawn and sleep till noon, and no one would care.
Setting his empty glass aside, he got to his feet. “I’d better go.” Even to himself, he sounded tentative, as if one word from her could change his mind. Stay. Don’t go. Spend