Enigma

“How do you know my name?” She cast him a quick sideways glance and then focused back on the road.

“The same way you know mine. The same way I knew I was in danger. It’s complicated.”

She turned into the driveway of a neat ranch house and with a press of a button the garage door rose. She pulled in to the garage, then unbuckled her seat belt and turned to look at him, the only illumination the light from the garage-door opener in the ceiling of the garage.

“Are you crazy or am I?” she asked softly.

“You’re the most sane person I’ve ever known,” he replied. “Can we get inside?” He was irritated to realize he felt slightly faint.

“Of course.” She got out of the car and hurried around to his door to help him out. Once again he found himself leaning heavily against her as they walked through the door that led into a cheerful kitchen.

“On the sofa,” she commanded as they walked through the kitchen and into the living room. She guided him to the overstuffed navy sofa, where he collapsed.

“Lie down,” she said and went over to a desk where she grabbed a blood pressure cuff. “I want to check your vitals.”

“I’m fine. I just need to get my strength back.” He plucked at the gown he wore. “And I need to get some clothes.”

She said nothing as she took his blood pressure and then checked his pulse. As always he found her simplest of touches not only familiar and comforting, but also more than a little bit provocative.

He thought of what they’d shared hours earlier when he’d invaded her dreams. Hot. And wild. They’d moved together in perfect unison. It had only been a dream but it had been one of the best experiences of his life.

As she stepped back from him he noticed the faint pink of her cheeks, as if she, too, was remembering her dream. “Your vitals are all good.”

“I feel fine. I’m just incredibly tired.”

“I’ll get you a pillow and blanket. You need to rest and then in the morning you’re going to answer some questions.” As she left the living room and went down the hallway, he felt her fear, this time not just for him but of him.

She returned a moment later carrying a sheet, blanket and pillow. He stood as she efficiently made the sofa into a bed for him for the night. When she was finished he sat back down. “Willa, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’d never hurt you. Your voice, your touch, was what pulled me through the darkness.”

Her eyes searched his as if she could find all the answers to her questions there. “We weren’t sure you’d make it back. When they first brought you in we didn’t think you’d last through the night. But I hoped …” She let her voice trail off and again her cheeks filled with color.

“I know, and it was your hope that made the difference.” He knew his words pleased her. He also knew that the connection she’d felt for him had been more than patient and nurse.

In a perfect world he would have loved to explore the crazy connection they shared. He would have loved to pursue a normal relationship with her, but this wasn’t a perfect world and he wasn’t a normal man.

“There’s a twenty-four-hour discount store two blocks from here. I’ll go now and pick up some clothes for you,” she said. “Will you be okay here alone for thirty minutes or so?”

“I’ll be fine, but shouldn’t you get some sleep?” he asked.

“Right now I’m too wound up to sleep,” she replied.

“I’ll get you some things you need and then we’ll figure everything else out in the morning.”

“Willa, thank you.”

For the first time since she’d walked into his hospital room she smiled and it was just as he’d imagined—warm and inviting and lovely. “Don’t thank me yet. I still think that sometime between the time I left work and the time I walked back into your room I went completely and totally crazy.”

She walked back into the kitchen and he heard her grab her purse from the counter, then a moment later the sound of the garage door opening and then closing.

Jared listened to the sounds of the house, so different than the noise in the hospital. Rest. He needed to rest and get his strength back as quickly as possible. The men who were after him wouldn’t just go away.

Somehow they’d figured out that the John Doe in the hospital in Grand Forks was the man they sought. They knew he was in the area and he wouldn’t be safe until he could get far away and even then safety was just a desirable fantasy. Why it had taken them so long to find him, he wasn’t sure. But now that they had, they wouldn’t give up.

Willa. Thoughts of her jumped back into his mind. He’d told her the truth when he’d said that she’d been what had brought him through the darkness of the coma. He’d not only looked forward to her gentle touch and the pleasant scent of her perfume, but also the sound of her voice as she spoke to him and her thoughts that were both exciting and interesting in their very normalcy.

He would have loved to pursue something with her, something deep and meaningful, something hot and wild and like nothing he’d ever experienced before, but he was afraid for her. He brought nothing but danger to her and he couldn’t forget that.

He closed his eyes and wondered if he would ever be safe, if he would ever know what normal felt like.

THREE O’clock in the morning and she was in a store getting clothes for a man who had just come out of a six-month coma and insisted bad men were after him. She had to be out of her mind.

Willa pushed the shopping cart toward the men’s jeans section and hoped she guessed his size right. She could have waited until morning 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, then frowned in obvious confusion. “I don’t know anything about computers, but something is telling me I need one.”

“I have one,” she replied, as confused as he looked by everything that was happening.

“I need to use it and try to contact my brother.”

“Your brother?” She looked at him in surprise. Everyone in the hospital had speculated about the family members of their John Doe. They’d all wondered why nobody had reported him missing, why nobody had shown up to claim him.

He nodded. “My twin brother. He probably thinks I’m dead and I hope he’s still alive. If he is, it’s important that I contact him immediately.”

She walked over to the cabinet, pulled out a cup and then poured herself a cup of coffee and joined him at the table. “Before we even talk about that, I need some answers.”

He’d been attractive when he’d been comatose, but alive and animated he was devastatingly handsome. His intense blue eyes held hers in a gaze that made it impossible for her to look away.

“There are some things I can’t share with you,” he began. “Knowing too much could put you in real danger.”

“I’m already in danger of losing my job if anyone finds out what I’ve done,” she replied. And her job was all that she had, she thought. There was nobody in her life who cared about her except the coworkers who respected and liked her. “I think I deserve to know what’s going on.”

He leaned back in the chair and cast his gaze out her window, where spring flowers bloomed in lush colors. Although too thin and still pale from his convalescence, there was a simmering energy about him that caused a similar energy inside her.

He turned back to look at her. You know part of what you need to know about me. The words were as clear in her head as if he’d spoken, but his lips hadn’t moved.

“How do you do that?” she asked.

“It’s a gift …or a curse, depending on how you look at it. Mental telepathy.”

“So you can read my mind?” The idea was both intriguing and appalling.

He smiled and nodded. “Your thoughts are what got me through the past six months. Your desire for me to live became my own.”

She stared at him and tried to remember every thought that had entered her head during the past six months. Most of them had probably been boring, but some of them had been intensely personal and not intended for anyone else to know.

“Are you doing it now?” she asked warily. She began a mental litany of the presidents of the United States, something she’d learned in sixth grade and somehow had never forgotten. Washington. Adams. Jefferson. Madison. Monroe.

He laughed and the sound of it was so deep and so sexy that a wave of heat swept through her. “That’s an effective way to block me. I promise I won’t get into your head anymore without your permission unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

The promise gave her a little comfort. “Who are the men who are after you?”

Her question instantly doused the light of the smile that had lit his features. “Men who want to hurt me. That’s all you need to know about them.”

She could tell by the shuttered darkness of his eyes that he would tell her no more about the men who were looking for him. “Before we do anything you need something to eat,” she said and got up from the table. “I’ll fix you a scrambled egg and a dry piece of toast. You have to go easy because you aren’t used to solid foods.”

It took her only minutes to fix the breakfast. He was silent as she worked, his gaze once again out the window. She wished she could read his mind, be privy to his innermost thoughts as he’d been with hers.

What was his plan? Where was he going from here and where was he from? He really hadn’t answered any of her questions to her satisfaction.

She was shocked by the sadness that filled her as she realized it was possible within hours he could be gone from her home, from her life.

He’d been her life for the past six months. He’d been the first thing she’d thought of when waking in the morning and the last thing she’d thought of before she closed her eyes to sleep at night. He’d helped the loneliness that had plagued her since she’d moved to Grand Forks.

She wanted him well, she told herself as she placed the plate with the scrambled egg and the piece of toast in front of him. She wanted him well and on his way back to his life. But she’d hoped for a little time to get to know him before she sent him on his way.

She realized that in the past six months she’d done the unthinkable for a nurse, she’d become personally involved with a patient.

“Won’t your parents be worried about you?” she asked as he ate.

He shook his head. “They died when my brother and I were five.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.

He gave her a quick smile. “Yeah, me, too.” He finished the last of the toast and then pushed his plate aside. “Could I use your computer now?” Once again there was an intensity in his eyes, a thrum of energy in the air that felt urgent and desperate.

She had no idea if the danger he spoke of was real or imagined, but it was obvious he believed it was real and far too close for his comfort, and suddenly she was more than just a little bit afraid.

Chapter Three

She led him down the hallway to a bedroom he knew wasn’t where she slept, but rather a guest room where a computer was set up on a small desk in a corner.

Jared had known fear when he’d come out of the coma and realized he needed to get out of the hospital, needed to get away before the men came for him. But, it was nothing compared to the terror he felt now as he eyed the computer.

He and his twin brother, Jack, had never gone so long without communication. Throughout the hell that they had both suffered for so many years, the mental telepathy they’d shared had kept them strong, had kept them alive and sharing the hope that someday their lives would be different.

But he could pick up nothing now, had not been able to communicate with his brother at all since the moment he’d come out of the coma.

Of course their telepathy power had never been tested by physical distance and Jared didn’t have any idea where Jack might be at the moment. He also didn’t know how the weakness in his body might have weakened his ability to reach out mentally.

What if Jack was dead? What if he hadn’t managed to escape on that November night six months ago? The last time Jared had seen his brother was when the two of them had managed to escape from the place that had been their home—their prison—for fifteen long years.

They had burst out into the cold winter night and silently agreed that they should split up in order to better their odds of getting away.

He now closed his eyes and thought of that final moment with his brother. The night air had been bracing, but welcome after the years of stale forced air through decrepit ventilation systems.

He and Jack had gripped hands in a shake they both knew might be the last time they touched, the last time they ever saw each other, and then Jack had turned and run in one direction and Jared had taken off in the other.

“Jared? Are you okay? Do you need to lie down?”

Willa’s concerned voice pulled him from his memories and he opened his eyes and shook his head. “No, I’m fine.” He gestured her to the chair in front of the computer and as she sat he stood just behind her.

They waited, not speaking as she powered up the computer. Once it was up and running she turned and looked at him expectantly. “Your brother? What’s his name?”

He shook his head. “We won’t be able to find him using his name. We need to look for a Web site with an eight-point star.” He had no idea how he knew this, the information was just a thunder in his veins, a compulsion that had to be followed.

She frowned. “That’s pretty vague. You don’t have anything more specific?”

“If he’s alive, then we’ll find what I’m looking for,” he replied. Tension rippled through him as she typed in the words eight-point star and then hit Search.

Immediately results began to fill the screen. How to make an origami star, how to quilt a star pattern, what do stars mean—all of them results that had nothing to do with what he somehow knew he sought.

If he couldn’t contact Jack then he didn’t know what he would do, where he would go. The only thing he knew with certainty was that he would not be able to remain here with Willa.

Sooner or later somebody would remember how involved she had been with John Doe. Sooner or later somebody might realize he couldn’t have left the hospital under his own steam and might put two and two together.

“It has to be here,” he said in desperation. “There!” he exclaimed and pointed to the search result that simply said eight-pointed star. “Click on that and let’s see what it is.”

She clicked on it and the page filled the screen. “It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s just a picture of a star.”

“If it’s what I hope it is, then it’s proof that my brother got out alive,” he replied.

She looked up at him, her eyes radiating with more questions. “Got out of where alive?”

He ignored her question and pointed to a small icon in the corner of the page. “Look, there’s a place to e-mail a message. Type in ‘birthday parties at the beach are the very best’ and leave your cell phone number.”

For a long moment she held his gaze. “Please,” he said softly. “Just type it in and send it.”

She returned her attention to the screen and did as he asked and then whirled around in the chair to face him once again. “Now what?”

“We wait,” he replied. He had no idea if the Web site belonged to Jack, didn’t know how frequently it was monitored. He wasn’t even sure how he had known to look for it. He only knew that if it was Jack’s site and if his brother read the e-mail, then he would know by the message that it was Jared attempting to get in touch with him.

There was no soft, warm light in Willa’s eyes as she gazed at him. Instead her eyes shone with a determination that was slightly daunting. “Fine, then while we wait you’re going to tell me what’s going on.” She rose from the chair and gestured him out of the room.

As he followed her to the living room he knew he was going to have to tell her something. He couldn’t afford to alienate her until Jack contacted him and yet he had to be wary of telling her so much that she wound up in danger.

A slippery slope, he thought as he sat on the sofa and she eased into the chair across from him, an expectant look on her beautiful face. She looked hot in the yellow T-shirt that clung to her full breasts and he wished he could just sit and appreciate looking at her instead of having the discussion they were about to have.

“You have to understand, if I tell you too much it could be dangerous for you,” he began.