until she was deep beneath the surface where the moon no longer shone that panic first stirred in her. Her heart pounded as she realized she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs began to burn and she tried to swim up, but anemones in various shapes and colors wrapped around her and held her in place. She fought, thrashing her arms and legs in an attempt to escape.
“Britta!”
The deep voice pulled her from the dream, and her eyes snapped open to see Ryan sitting on the edge of the bed. For just a moment it seemed completely natural for him to be on the bed with her, and that only added to her confusion.
He stood, every muscle in his body rigid as he shoved his hands into his pocket. “You must have been having a nightmare. You were crying out.”
She sat up and tried to remember her dream, but it slipped away as full consciousness returned. “I’m sorry.” She worried a hand through her hair. “How long was I asleep?”
“About an hour. How’s the headache?”
“Better.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.
“I fixed lunch. Are you hungry?” he asked as they left the bedroom.
She nodded, surprised to discover that she was hungry. The catered clinic food had been abysmal, so she didn’t know when the last time was that she’d had a good meal.
He pointed her to a chair at the table where he’d already set plates and silverware, then went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of pasta salad. He set it in the middle of the table, then returned to the fridge for a platter of cold cuts. “It’s nothing elaborate.”
“It looks good.”
He handed her a bottle of diet soda, then poured himself a glass of milk. It was disconcerting that he knew her well enough to know what she’d want to drink, and yet she couldn’t remember a darn thing about him.
“We need to go by the inn and get my things,” she said once he was settled in the chair opposite her. “I’m assuming I arrived here in town with at least a suitcase.”
“I don’t want to do that,” he replied. “I bought you some extra clothes and I’ll get you whatever else you need.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand. Why can’t I just get my own things?” Maybe the familiarity of her own clothes would jog something in her memory.
“Right now the only person who knows that you’ve been found is the doctor and a nurse or two. I don’t want anyone else to know because I intend to ask questions about you, questions that will hopefully make somebody nervous enough to show themselves.”
“And then what?”
“Then we find out just what in the hell happened to you over those four days.”
An unexpected chill walked up her spine. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know what had happened to her.
RYAN SHOULD NEVER HAVE gone into the bedroom when he’d heard her crying out. Seeing Britta lying on the bed had brought back a rush of memories he’d tried hard to forget. Even now, as he sat across the table from her, those memories of making love with her lit a simmering flame in the pit of his stomach.
She’d been a wildly passionate lover, a woman comfortable with her own body and equally comfortable with his. They’d been holed up in a duplex for months and there had been few places in that tiny space that they hadn’t made love.
He cast her a surreptitious glance. She picked at the pasta salad as if finding it nearly unpalatable. “You know, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it,” he said. “I’m not exactly a master chef.”
She looked up at him and smiled. It was the first smile she’d offered him, and the power of that gesture kicked him right in the stomach. “It’s very good. I’m just not as hungry as I thought I was.” She set down her fork, obviously deciding not even to pretend to eat.
“I’m overwhelmed at the moment by everything that’s happened since I woke up in the clinic,” she said softly. “I guess I’d feel more comfortable if I at least remembered you.”
He’d feel more comfortable if she never remembered him. “We just need to take this one day at a time,” he replied. “Hopefully in the next couple of days I can find out what happened to you, and in the meantime maybe your memory will start to come back.”
“I hope so,” she said fervently. She tilted her head slightly to one side and gazed at him for a long moment. “I feel as if I’m at such a disadvantage here. You know me well enough to know what I’d want to drink with my lunch and yet I don’t know anything about you.”
“I know what you like to drink because while you were in my custody we ate meals together, but we didn’t share a lot of personal information.” He looked down at his plate so she wouldn’t see the lie in his eyes.
If and when she regained her memories there would probably be hell to pay for the lies he was telling, but he’d worry about that when the time came.
“So, we weren’t really friends?” There was a faint wistfulness in her tone.
He could only imagine that in her present state she was desperately seeking a connection to somebody…to anybody. “We were friendly,” he conceded.
She smiled again, and the flame that had lit in the pit of his stomach burned a little hotter. He got up from the table, feeling the need to get out of there, to escape her nearness.
Besides, he had work to do, and it wouldn’t get done by him sitting here with her. “I’m going to finish unloading the car, then head out for a couple of hours.” He didn’t wait for her reply but went out the back door and to the car.
He had not only his suitcase in the trunk, but also several shopping bags from the discount store. He gathered up everything and returned to the cottage.
Britta followed him into the living room where he dumped all the bags on the sofa. “There’re clothes and toiletries for you in here.” He placed his suitcase on the floor and opened it. On top of his clothes was a cell phone and charger. “This is for you,” he said as he handed her the phone, then plugged the charger into an electric socket in the wall.
“I’ll give you my number so that you can call me if you need me,” he continued. “Stay away from the doors and windows. Nobody knows you’re here and I want to keep it that way.”
“So basically I’m a prisoner here,” she said flatly.
He forced a lazy grin to his lips. “That’s right, darlin’, and I’m your number-one jailer.” He laced his voice with his Texas drawl. “And while I’m out trying to figure out what’s going on in this little village, you might want to use your energy and cook me up a good dinner.”
Her eyes narrowed and her back went rigid, just as he knew they would. She’d hated it before when he’d used the little-woman routine on her, which was why he wanted to use it and see if it brought back any memories. The fact that she merely nodded and didn’t explode let him know just how fragile she was.
“I should be back in a couple of hours.” Once again he felt an incredible need to gain some distance from
