“This is the easiest path back up to the road.” Devon jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Or do you remember that?”
Kieran knew it but not because he remembered it from years ago. He knew it because he’d been hiding out at Columbella House…waiting for Devon.
He said, “I know,” and swept his arm in front of him. “Why don’t you two go ahead?”
Hoisting herself up onto his rock, Devon squeezed past him. Her silky hair brushed his shoulder and he inhaled her intoxicating scent—all sweetness and purity. Who needed food and water? That smell alone could sustain him for years.
Kieran clenched his jaw. Stop dreaming, Roarke. You’re on a fact-finding mission. And that’s it.
As Devon climbed ahead of him, Kieran’s gaze traced the outline of her body beneath her baggy sweatshirt and cargo shorts. His fingertips tingled with the remembrance of her smooth skin. Since he’d lost his memory, his senses had taken up where his mind had left off. Smells, sounds and touches could trigger responses from him even if he couldn’t remember the occasions that elicited those responses.
Maybe he should’ve continued with his debriefing and psychiatric help, but he didn’t want the army implanting any memories that didn’t belong there or messing with the ones that did. He knew how the black-ops division of the military conducted business. Hadn’t they told his brother he was dead? Hadn’t they refused to contact his brother or parents when he’d been found alive? Military security. National security. Top secret information. He’d heard it all before.
Of course, nothing stopped him from contacting his family now. But what would they want with him? Apparently, his younger brother, Colin, had escaped from the same captors that had held Kieran against his will for four long years. His brother had probably moved on with his life. He wouldn’t want to be reminded of what he’d endured, especially by a man who had no memories, a man whose very soul had turned black with rage.
Devon slipped and skidded toward him. Kieran caught her around the waist, steadying her. “Careful.”
She looked down at him, her moist lips slightly parted, her blue eyes bright with tears. His hand tightened as his breath came out in short spurts. He shouldn’t have come here. Why subject Devon to his presence when he’d spared his brother and parents?
Her golden lashes fluttered, and his heart skittered in his chest. Weakness. That’s what led him here in the first place. He couldn’t succumb to it. Ever. If he had shown any weakness to his captors, they would’ve killed him.
He dropped his hands from Devon’s waist as if he’d been scorched. She blinked twice, turned and continued to hike up the path to the road.
When they reached the top, Devon faced him with her hands on her hips. “Have you contacted anyone else in Coral Cove? Do you know you have a brother…Colin? There are people, other people who have been devastated by your—” she glanced at her son “—disappearance.”
“Let’s get off the side of the road.” He jerked his head toward Columbella House. “I’ve been bunking there. We can talk on the deck.”
Devon’s brows shot up. “You’ve been staying at Columbella House? Do you know that you have a house down the road? Or rather the house belongs to your parents. You grew up there.”
“I didn’t know that.” He shrugged. He’d figured he’d grown up in Coral Cove, but no other house or location in this town had drawn him like this one. “Is Colin still here?”
“No. Coincidentally, he was in town last month, investigating…investigating.” Devon waved her hands in the air.
Kieran unlatched the gate leading to the back of the house and a wooden deck that perched over the rocks. Nobody from the street could see this deck and Kieran had brushed off the Adirondack chairs and enjoyed several sunsets from this vantage point.
“Have a seat.” He nudged one chair with his foot. Grabbing a wicker basket from the corner, he said, “Michael, do you want to look at some cool shells?”
The boy ignored him, but slid a gaze toward his mother. “Can I find a Columbella?”
“Maybe.” She flicked her fingers toward the basket. “Have a look.”
Michael slipped his backpack from his shoulders and placed it next to the basket. As he sat cross-legged in front of the basket and pulled out the first shell, Devon seemed to melt into the chair.
Something about the boy was off. Of course, Kieran didn’t know Michael at all and he might have judged him a little shy or clingy except for the tension that stiffened Devon’s body whenever she looked at her son.
“So I grew up in Coral Cove and we were engaged.”
Devon’s attention snapped back to him as she sucked in a quick breath.
He’d have to work on his social skills if he hoped to have a life in the free world. His tormenters hadn’t valued the attributes of subtlety or nuance.
“Yes, but not in high school.” She drew up her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs. “We reconnected when we both returned home after graduating from college. I was planning on going to nursing school, and you were going into the military. You had a thing for languages. Do you…?”
“Do I still speak several languages?” Kieran gripped the flat arms of the chair. “Yeah. I didn’t forget the languages, just the rest of my life.”
Devon balanced her chin on her knees, watching Michael. “What happened, Kieran? Can you at least tell me that?”
“A military operation that went south.”
“Colin was with you, but he was with the FBI.”
Kieran’s eye twitched beneath his patch. “It was a multi–task force raid on a terrorist group, but someone snitched us off. I don’t remember much about it. The army briefed me after I escaped.”
“H-how long?” She rolled her head to the side, resting her cheek on her knee as her blond hair swept across her legs.
He knew just how the strands would feel slipping through his fingers. He raked his hair back from his face and said, “Four years.”
She gasped and choked. “You were in some kind of prison for four years?”
“Some kind of prison. Not nearly as nice as what we have going on here.” His lips twisted in a bitter smile. A filthy cot. An earthenware pot for a toilet. Stale bread for dinner. And the beatings, always the beatings.
He’d never tell Devon any of that. She belonged light years away from all of it. Light years away from him.
She closed her eyes and a tear slid from beneath her lashes. “I’m so sorry, Kieran. You lost your memory while you were imprisoned? Everything? Every memory?”
Almost every memory except for a golden warmth that kept him alive.
“I think I took a particularly bad blow to the head during some kind of beating.” He pointed to his patch. “Probably when that happened. When I came to, I could piece together that I was military and that I was a prisoner of
