Memory Reload
He stood and held a hand out to her. “The guest bedroom is right down the hall.”
She glanced from his eyes to his hand and back again. “Why did you call me that?” she whispered.
“It…kinda slipped out.” His hand dropped to his side. “‘Hey’ is too general and Jane Doe is too…well, it just doesn’t seem to fit you. Those engraved letters look like a monogram and it seems pretty likely it’s yours. AJ’s the closest we’ve come to finding a name….” He tugged at his earlobe. “I’m sorry. If it bothers you, we can come up with something else until we find out your real name.”
“It startled me is all. I rather like how it sounded just now.” A soft blush darkened her cheeks. “Somehow, not being able to remember doesn’t seem quite so hopeless, as long as I have an identity of some sort.”
“Then AJ it is, until we find out otherwise.” He pulled her to her feet and led her down the hallway. “You know, this could be the opportunity of a lifetime.”
She looked at him, disbelief clear in her expression.
“No, really. Think about it.” He pulled a towel from the hall linen closet and handed it to her, along with a facecloth, a new toothbrush and an array of small bottles of toiletries from various hotels. “Not everyone gets to start over with a clean slate. You’re free to decide who you are, what you want to be.”
“Well, I suppose you could look at it that way. I just wish the slate wasn’t quite so clean. All I have is this sense of urgency, of something I need to do. But I have no idea what.” Her eyes widened and she clutched his arm. “Omigod. What if I have a child? Or children. What if they’re somewhere waiting for me? What if they’re in danger because I’ve abandoned them?”
A chill raced through him. Her words hit him harder than she’d ever realize. The picture of a small child with AJ’s eyes and thick black hair popped into his head. The little boy stared back at him with sadness and accusation. He shook his head, banishing the image. That particular shadow belonged to him, not AJ. At least, he hoped that was the case.
He covered her hand with his. “Take it easy, sugar. We’ve got enough on our plates without borrowing more trouble. While you’re in there—” he nodded toward the bathroom “—why don’t you see if there’s any, um, evidence that you’ve had a child.”
She frowned, confused.
“Like stretch marks or, well, um, I don’t really know.” His words trickled to an awkward halt. A dull heat crept up his neck. When had he ever turned red-faced in front of a woman?
Understanding dawned and a blush darkened her face as well. She clutched the pile in her arms to her chest and backed into the bathroom. The door closed between them without either of them saying another word.
Ryan thumped his head on the doorframe. Dumb, dumb, dumb. He cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, leave some clean clothes for you on the bed. In the guest room.”
A muffled “thanks” came from behind the door.
He didn’t tarry over finding clothes for her. Grabbing the first clean items that came to hand, he dropped them on the bed in the guest room and beat a hasty escape back to the kitchen.
AJ’s equipment still occupied the tabletop. He surveyed everything and shook his head. “Women and cameras,” he muttered. “Bound to bring nothin’ but trouble.”
Only, he had the distinct feeling this woman didn’t need a camera to bring him trouble. Just being near her had him thinking all kinds of crazy thoughts. What was it about her that had him wanting to be the knight in shining armor? That was the last role he wanted to be cast in.
Everything worked much better when he kept behind the scenes and did his thing. In and out like a shadow, then on to the next assignment. Alone. No entanglements. Responsible for no one but himself.
Not that it had been like that in Montana. That was the first and last time he ever wanted to go so deep undercover.
He leaned against the kitchen counter and washed away the memories with a gulp of lemonade. The past could stay in the then and gone. He needed to concentrate on the here and now.
AJ’s equipment was as good a place to start as any. The fact that she’d left the room without the bag could be considered something of a breakthrough. Maybe she’d decided to trust him.
Or maybe she’d clung to it as the only connection to her identity. Now, with a name, at least she had another piece of the puzzle.
Or maybe she thought whatever might be hidden there was safe.
He picked up the camera bag. While considerably lighter than when it had been packed, it still seemed heavy for a nylon bag this size. He sat down with the bag in his lap.
Maybe one of Jamie’s focusing exercises would help. Taking a couple deep breaths, Ryan cleared his mind of conscious expectations and blocked out his surroundings. The only sounds he kept tuned to were those of AJ’s movements in the bathroom. He closed his eyes and let his fingers drift over the surfaces of the bag, not seeking with expectations of finding anything in particular. Just feeling for whatever existed.
When nothing presented itself, he turned the bag over and repeated the process. The base seemed to be a solid piece set into the bottom of the bag. Four small pads punctuated each corner. He fiddled with each one, humming with surprised satisfaction when they loosened.
Down the hall, everything was quiet. His eyes snapped open. He held his breath, waiting. When the shower turned on, he blew out a sigh of relief. Let’s hope she likes long showers.
The pads unscrewed easily. The solid base lifted off revealing a false bottom. There was only about an inch of space, but it was ample room for the small black book he found.
He lifted the thin volume from its hiding place and set it on the table. Using the very tips of his fingers, he opened the black vinyl cover. Letters and numbers filled the first page. He flipped through several more pages. Something had been written on all of them.
This didn’t look like AJ’s record book of locations and settings. He flipped open her spiral-bound notebook. Her notes, easily decipherable, were written in a back-slanted looping hand.
A neat, angular handwriting filled the pages of the mystery book with nonsensical combinations of letters and numbers. About halfway through, the cursive writing changed to printed block letters. Neither sample matched AJ’s penmanship.
He tugged on his earlobe. Whoever the author was, the contents had been sensitive enough to prompt the use of a code. He could think of a few reasons something like that would be hidden, none of them good.
AJ, sugar, whatever it is, you are in it deep. And it’s not gonna get better anytime soon.
Whatever the information might be, it had been recorded in a code too complex for him to decipher at first viewing. He’d need some time to do a proper job of it.
The water shut off in the bathroom. He cursed. His window of opportunity had just slammed shut. The little black book would have to wait.
He pulled a sandwich bag from one of the counter drawers and slid the book inside, zipped the seal and slid the package into his pocket. He screwed the bottom panel back into place and set about repacking the camera equipment.
Moving quietly around the kitchen, Ryan tidied up, then settled back at the table with his laptop. He logged on to the Internet and began surfing a few of the medical information sites. Outside, he could hear waves brushing onto the shore. Down the hall, the bathroom door opened.
Chapter Three
Her shower left the bathroom steamy. Too steamy to stay hiding in there any longer. It had taken forever to get rid of all the grit and sand. As for the pain—no matter how long she’d stood under the pounding spray, the pain refused to leave.
When she opened the door and peeked out, cool air rushed into the room. A chill shivered over her skin and she pulled the huge bath sheet tighter around herself. Down the hall, she could only see Ryan’s shoulder and arm as he sat at the kitchen table with his back to her. She padded across the hall to the guest bedroom, slipped inside and closed the door.
Whoever had decorated the room had had nice taste. The pale blond wood furnishings blended with the palette of soft colors used on the walls and bedding to give the room an airy, cool feel. A bowl of potpourri sat atop the dresser, scenting the room with a tangy citrus fragrance. Small handcrafted treasures nestled among the books on the shelves of a bookcase. A small bowl filled with an array of colorful semiprecious stones sat next to an elegant stained-glass lamp on the bedside table.
The overall effect was soothing, offering a sense of peace, of sanctuary. Everything looked so…homey. As though someone actually lived there, rather than a professional decorator had laid out a magazine spread.
She trailed her fingers over the quilted bedspread. Even that had the look of having been lovingly handmade from favorite bits of fabric.
Another shiver danced over her naked shoulders when she encountered the neatly folded pile of clothes. Were they Ryan’s? Or did the owner—Jamie—keep a supply of extra clothing tucked away for his guests along with the extra toothbrushes?
She turned from the bed and came face-to-face with a stranger.
No, not exactly a stranger. She faced a large wood-framed mirror hanging on the closet door. That was the only reason she recognized the woman watching her with guarded eyes. No sense of familiarity stirred. No flood of memories rushed forth to fill in the blanks.
The woman just stared back. She concentrated on the reflection but recognition still eluded her.
Why can’t I remember? She stepped closer, leaning in to search for some clue, some detail that would trigger her memory. AJ? A vague sense of recognition stirred as she tried connecting the name Ryan had dubbed her with the reflection in the mirror. She traced the outline of her face on the cool glass. Unfamiliar gray eyes stared back. She leaned closer, looked deeper into the eyes.
Nothing. Nothing except emptiness that went deep, all the way to her heart. She backed away from the stranger in the mirror and sank down on the edge of the bed.
Tears threatened but she forced them back. She’d cried enough already. In the shower where the running water washed away the tears and the sounds of her quiet sobs. And earlier.
She had awakened on the beach to the sound of her own sobs. Her dreams were a jumbled confusion of images, none of them making sense, all of them fading as she became aware of her surroundings. Then she’d realized the dreams weren’t the only things fading from memory. She had no memory of anything. A void existed where her identity should have been. She had no idea why she had been sleeping on a beach, or even where that beach was.
“AJ, are you okay?”
She jumped at Ryan’s voice coming from the other side of the bedroom door. “Yes, I’m fine. I’ll only be a few more minutes.”
“No rush, sugar. We can head into town to drop off that film whenever you’re ready. If you feel up to it.”
“Sure. Fine. That’s…fine.” She lied. She wasn’t fine. How could she be with her mind so empty?
No. Not empty, not exactly. It was more like a drawn curtain, transparent enough to let shadowy images through but too opaque to allow any real detail to show.
She sensed rather than heard Ryan’s quiet steps as he retreated, leaving her alone in the strange room, staring at her reflection, which should have been familiar, but wasn’t.
She wanted to trust him. Her instincts told her she could, but why? All indications were that they’d never met, yet she’d followed him here, to a strange house, with barely a moment’s hesitation. Who was he?
Her heart sped up at the memory of his touch. When they shook hands, it had been magnetic. The jolt hadn’t startled her so much as the strange sense of familiarity had. She didn’t know him, but there had been a sense of recognition on a deeper, more elemental level, as though they were kindred spirits. She hadn’t experienced anything like that since…since…when? Who? Someone else, someone important to her. The knowledge slipped further behind that blasted curtain.
She rubbed her temples, working at the tightness that wrapped around her head like a huge rubber band. Every time she tried to remember, her head ached. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, relaxing with each slow exhalation, willing the pain to leave.
Standing, she rolled her shoulders, raised her arms over her head and stretched. Slowly her knotted muscles relaxed. She paced around the room as she worked the snarls from her long hair and braided it. This task at least seemed familiar, routine. The normalcy served to calm her a little more. She could almost pretend everything was normal. Until she picked up the T-shirt.
It was a man’s V-neck T-shirt, the kind that comes three to a package. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except she knew it had to belong to Ryan. The soft, pale green cotton matched the material of the one he wore right now.
Another shiver, totally unrelated to a chill, swept over her, dragging with it an awareness of the man who’d found her on the beach and brought her into his home. Not an awareness of him as a kind person doing a good deed. But an awareness of him as a very masculine, very attractive man.
This wouldn’t do. Not at all. She hadn’t missed Ryan’s attention to her rings, especially the one he’d found hidden in her camera bag. The one that looked like a wedding ring.
Her thumb rubbed over the twined bands, rolling them back and forth over her knuckle. The motion was familiar, comforting even. The three intertwined circles of gold rolled together easily as she slid them over her knuckle and off her finger. Sadness flowed over her. Her finger felt naked without the ring. She felt lost without that symbol of being connected to someone.
The bands were nicked and burnished, their shine muted with the patina of constant wear. Lettering etched on the inside surface of one of the bands caught her eye.
She switched on the stained-glass lamp and held the ring close to the light. Tilting it back and forth, she found additional markings. Each band had been inscribed. She swallowed hard, fighting back the rush of grief threatening to swamp her tenuous composure.
The words were familiar. On some level, she’d even expected to find them. Still the emptiness swirled around her. AJD, Together Always, Remember 3/15. The same inscription Ryan had found on the silver tag.
She slipped the ring back on and hugged her hand close to her heart. Pacing the room did nothing to ease the knot in her chest. It wasn’t fair. How could grief this strong exist without memory of the person?
The room began to close in on her. The welcoming coziness became smothering. The light scent of the potpourri turned cloying. She pulled on the loaned clothes, ignoring the rippling awareness of whom the items belonged to, intent on one thing—getting out of the room before she started crying again.
Once out of the bedroom, she regained some small measure of calm. She made her way down the short hall, aware of the soft murmur of Ryan’s voice. As she neared the door to the kitchen, he stopped talking. She held her breath, wondering who was in the kitchen with him. She wasn’t ready to face anyone else yet.
He started talking again and she let out a slow sigh. Whoever it was, they were on the other end of the phone line, not in the kitchen. Her calm façade slipped a notch as his quiet words sank into her awareness.
“I don’t know. It could be a setup, but I don’t think so. You’re the only one who knows I’m here.”
Setup? What was he talking about?
“Yeah, I know. You’re the one with the super, weird-vibe detector, but my gut says she’s okay. She comes off as…real, I guess.”
He was talking about her. Her rubber-soled sandals squeaked on the linoleum floor as she stumbled to a halt in the doorway.
Ryan turned to look at her, his steady gaze never wavering as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line. He’d been leaning back against the counter by the door and now he shifted so his entire body faced her. He stood mere inches from her, relaxed, seemingly unbothered by her sudden appearance.
The clean scent of sea air mingled with the tang of the perspiration he’d worked up on his morning run. She was close, too close, too aware of him. Instinct warned her the situation was dangerous, she’d been foolish to trust him so easily.
Before she could step away, his warm fingers wound around her wrist. The pale green of his eyes darkened as he watched her. He swept her with an appreciative gaze, a smile quirking up one corner of his mouth.
“That sounds good,” he said into the phone. “Right, see y’all later.” He returned the phone to its cradle and turned the full strength of his attention to her. “Those clothes never looked better. How ’bout you? Are you feeling better?”
She nodded. “Who were you talking to?”
“The esteemed Jamison McRobbie. Better known as our host, Jamie. I thought he might be able to help us out. He works with the police sometimes—”
“No! No police.” She pulled her arm free from his loose grip and took a quick step away from him.
“AJ?” His soft tone stopped her backward movement.
“No, please, we can’t go to the police.” She fought down the panic threatening to shatter what remained of her hard-gained peace.
“Okay, we won’t.” He reached for her, gently running his hand down her arm. “Can you tell me why we can’t go to the police?”
She closed her eyes and swallowed. A shudder ran across her shoulders, down her back. “I…I don’t know. I just get this huge wave of ‘danger’ at the thought.”
“All right, sugar. Don’t worry about it. We proved your instincts are still pretty sharp, and if they’re telling you to stay away from the police, we will. For now.” He lifted her chin on the edge of his hand.
She opened her eyes. For a moment she lost herself in the pale depths of his steady gaze. How could she not trust him? From the moment they’d met on the beach, his one concern seemed to be helping her. What could he possibly gain from her?
Time stood still as she searched for an answer in his face. “Am I foolish to trust you?” she whispered.
Ryan’s focus shifted from her eyes to her lips. “Probably.” His breath caressed her cheek. “But not for the reason you think.”
His attention to her mouth lasted for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for her to realize how close they were standing to each other, how easy it would be to close that small space. How much she wanted to do exactly that.
Awareness coursed through her, setting her nerve endings on fire. There was more than trust at issue here. She’d just been on the verge of tears over an inscription in a wedding ring, her wedding ring. Whoever her husband was, whatever the status of their relationship, he held a great deal of importance to her. She couldn’t—shouldn’t—be so attracted to Ryan so easily.
But she was. What kind of person am I?
He released her arm and stepped back, putting a little distance between them. Had he been as aware of her as she was of him?
“Now then.” He cleared his throat. “We have something really serious to discuss. Breakfast.”
The sudden change of topic granted her a momentary reprieve from her troubling thoughts.
“’Course, I need to clean up before we leave,” he continued. “But that won’t take long. There’s this great little place about ten minutes away. They do a mean loco moco.”
She realized she was nearly hungry enough to tackle the local dish of rice and hamburger patty topped with gravy.
“Or how does fresh fruit and waffles sound?” Ryan offered the alternative.
“Wonderful.” Her stomach rumbled in agreement. How long had it been since she’d eaten?
“Great. I’ll be ready in two shakes. Why don’t you put your feet up in the living room, while I go get gorgeous?” His quick smile revealed teeth so white they would have seemed fake if not for a slight misalignment of the eye-teeth. He led her into a spacious room filled with wicker furniture.
She sank onto the bright floral cushions of the couch and watched Ryan disappear down the hall.
Her camera bag sat on the coffee table. She crossed her legs tailor style and settled the bag in her lap. Its weight was comforting in an odd way. When she opened the cover, she discovered the contents had been neatly stowed back in their proper compartments. Ryan had done an excellent job of returning the equipment to its original order. It all looked and felt…right.
She ran her fingers over her equipment and pulled out her camera. Everything else in her life might be a blank, but this at least held a familiar certainty. It was the same security she’d experienced earlier, when she’d awakened on the beach and reached out for the only solid object near her.
For a few brief moments she’d been able to forget that she had forgotten. The familiar weight of her trusty Nikon had comforted her. When the sunrise had begun, she’d been able to lose herself in capturing the beauty of it through her viewfinder and saving it on film.
She slipped the camera back into its compartment and pulled the notebook out. She leafed through the pages, looking for something, anything that might trigger her memory. Precise notations of locations, times of the day and camera settings filled the pages. The handwriting held a vague sense of familiarity. She dug a pen from one of the pockets, turned to a blank page and began writing. At first it was nothing more than random words, enough to know it really was her handwriting in the book. Then she refocused, became intentional about what she wrote.
My name is…
She couldn’t finish the sentence. She tried again and again, each time starting on a new line, each time getting no further. She closed her eyes and tried again.
Failed again.
She tore the pages from the book, crumpled them into a tight ball and jammed it into a compartment in the bag. The pen and notebook went back into their pockets and she closed the bag with a snap.
People don’t just go around forgetting who they are for no reason. Something terrible must have occurred to wipe out every bit of her conscious memory.
Relax. That’s what she needed to do, just relax. Little things came when she didn’t try so hard. She leaned her head back against the cushions. Her eyes drifted shut as she rubbed her hands over the bag. Each texture, each contour, felt familiar and reassuring beneath her fingers.
The silver pull on the zip hung cool and solid from its chain. Opening her eyes, she examined it, reading the inscription for herself. Remember. Remember what?
A tear traced a hot path down her cheek.
“AJ?”
She jumped at Ryan’s voice, her hand flying to her chest to catch her wildly beating heart. “Jeez, you scared me! Don’t you ever make any noise when you walk?”
“Sorry. Old habit. You seemed to be pretty deep in thought.”
She wiped the tear away with the heel of her hand before turning to look at him.
His short, light brown hair was damp and standing on end, looking like the latest style in a trendy men’s magazine. He wore khaki shorts and a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt that he’d left unbuttoned and untucked. The white T-shirt he’d changed into hugged the contours of his well-muscled torso and set off his tan. A small gold ring hung on a chain around his neck. With these clothes, he looked as if he’d fit right in with the tourist crowd. Provided the tourists were a bunch of Olympic competitors.
And she was still far too aware of him and his athletic body for her comfort.
“I’ve only been sitting here eight-and-a-half minutes. Did you get a real shower taken?” She shut out the brief image of him in the shower before it could fully develop.
“Yes, ma’am. Even washed behind my ears. Mind if I ask a question?” He waited for her consenting nod before continuing. “How do you know it’s been eight minutes? There aren’t any clocks in here and you aren’t wearing a watch.”