Chapter One

      Six Months Later

      Jackson MacAllister bolted upright in bed, his own shout echoing in the darkness of the hotel room.

      Breathing heavily, he dragged his fingers through his hair, trying to calm the fierce pounding of his head.

      The dream. It had come again—as it always did when he was tired or feeling under the weather.

      Or recovering from a nasty concussion.

      Wincing, Jack swung his legs over the edge of the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. His body throbbed with the aftereffects of injuries he’d sustained on the job that day and the dregs of his dreams, causing his head to ache until he thought his skull would split with the pressure.

      Standing, he padded into the bathroom. Under the harsh glare of the overhead light, he shook four aspirin from the bottle on the counter, then gulped them down with a glass of water from the tap.

      Only then did he begin to relax.

      Willing himself not to think of the dream or the woman who had seemed so real, so vulnerable, he moved to the windows. Pulling the heavy curtains aside, he peered down at the pre-dawn glow seeping over the Lincoln Memorial in the distance.

      It had been nearly a week since the stunt car he’d been driving had flipped end-over-end during a staged high-speed chase for the film adaptation of the bestselling techno-thriller …Savage Justice. The scene had been choreographed and reshot three times in the first month of production, but since the director had spent only a quarter of a million dollars more than his budget had allotted, he’d decided to celebrate his good fortune by spending another fifty grand expanding the final chase scene.

      Jack grimaced at the irony of the whole situation. Naturally, the director had decided that the footing showing Jack’s accident was “mar-r-r-velous”—as if Jack had planned to roll out of control and finish the take upside down next to a broken water hydrant. If Jack hadn’t immediately been rushed to the hospital, he would have grabbed the director by the collar, pinned him against a wall and chastised the man for moving a camera crew into the middle of the road—unannounced. As it was, Jack had still been in the emergency room when he’d received the news that the filming was finally—finally—over.

      His anger at the director hadn’t eased with the announcement. If anything, Jack’s ire had increased—to the point where he’d made an effort to ignore the man so that he wouldn’t say anything politically incorrect. Jon Palermo might be an idiot, but his films were spectacular, and Jack enjoyed the creative freedom and lucrative budgets that came with a spot on Palermo’s crew. In the meantime, he planned to avoid Palermo.

      Which was why Jack was booked on the next afternoon flight to Los Angeles. Once he’d returned to California he could put this whole miserable week behind him.

      As if of its own volition, his mind quickly strayed away from all thoughts of Palermo to the nightmare that had awakened him.

      Eleanor Rappaport. Why did the memories of that night, that woman, still continue to haunt him?

      But even as he asked himself the question, he already knew. In the months since the accident, Jack had thought about Eleanor more than he would care to admit. He couldn’t seem to banish the image of her lying next to him, gripping his hand, and crying, “I can’t see!”

      Again, the words shuddered through him like an icy finger touching his heart. He often found himself wondering what had happened in the intervening months. And if she’d ever regained her sight…

      He shook his head as if to clear it of his thoughts, then regretted the action when a slicing pain shot through his head.

      The time had come to put the memories of that night behind him, he told himself fiercely. After all, Eleanor Rappaport was a stranger to him. Other than those few minutes at the scene of the accident, he had never seen her again.

      But he’d tried, a little voice reminded him. He’d brought a huge bouquet of daisies to the hospital where Eleanor had been taken, only to discover she’d been transferred to another facility.

      Sighing, Jack stared out at the jewel-like glow of the historic buildings clustered around the glassy reflecting pool. Maybe the pressures of the job were to blame, but lately the dreams of that night plagued him even more. The details seemed sharper and Eleanor’s panic seemed that much more real.

      If only he could assure himself that she was all right. If only he knew if she’d regained her sight. If he could see her one more time…

      No. He couldn’t even think such a thing. She was a stranger to him. And those few moments they’d had together didn’t give him the right to interfere.

      But she wouldn’t have to know.

      The moment the thought raced through his head, he tried to push it aside, but it returned with even more force.

      If he could somehow find her, he could tell at a glance if she was happy, healthy…

      And whether or not she could see.

      Again, he tried to bury the idea. He was out of his mind to even consider such a thing.

      But he had the time.

      And he needed