awake.
Apparently sensing her presence, he turned his head on the pillow and gazed at her from a pair of deep brown eyes that were more alert than she would have expected, and far more unsettling. There was something positively intimate in the way they held her gaze.
“Hello,” he said, his voice slow and raspy.
Eden held the mug in front of her, as though she were gripping a weapon. Swallowing nervously, she made the effort to address him with a casualness she was a long way from feeling. “Good morning. How do you feel?”
He frowned, considering her question for a moment before answering her in that husky voice. “Like an eighteen-wheeler rolled over me. I seem to be aching in places I didn’t know I had.”
“Your head?”
“Not inside, but—” He broke off to raise one of his hands to his head. His fingers began to explore the wounds on his face. He looked puzzled when they encountered the bandage across the bridge of his nose. “Your work?”
Eden shook her head. “No, Tia’s from upstairs. She’s a nurse-practitioner.”
“I’ll have to thank Tia.”
“You’ll have to wait to do that. She left for the day.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t remember Tia. Is she one of our friends?”
Eden thought it was an odd thing for him to say. He sounded normal enough otherwise. In fact, he was in a far better state than she could have hoped for, but she experienced a moment of uneasiness. If he was still dazed, not entirely lucid, it could mean he had sustained a head injury after all.
He was looking at her as though waiting for her reassurance. “Well, she’s my friend, anyway. Are you sure you don’t have anything like a headache? Or some dizziness maybe?”
“Not this morning, no.”
She fought the need to ask him about Nathanial, why he had been carrying a photograph of a child she was convinced was her son along with her business card, both of which were tucked now into her purse for safekeeping. But an interrogation like that would be insensitive when his well-being had to be their immediate concern. Her urgent questions would have to wait.
“Does that mean you did have a headache last night? That you experienced dizziness?”
“I suppose so,” he said vaguely.
“You had quite a lump on the back of your skull. The swelling went down after Tia applied ice packs.”
“That’s good.”
He didn’t seem troubled by any of it, but Eden was beginning to be worried for him. How could he be so blithe about everything? His behavior under the circumstances didn’t seem altogether rational. “Do you remember last night at all? How you found your way here and passed out on the piazza?”
“Sure I do. I had a hell of a time getting here.”
“What happened to you? How did you get those injuries?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Eden’s uneasiness was beginning to deepen into alarm.
“I remember everything from the time I found myself wandering out there beside a river, but not before that.”
“Nothing?”
He pondered her earnest question for a few seconds and then shook his head. “Afraid not.”
“What about before last night? You must remember something.”
He thought about it again. “Sorry. It’s all a blank.”
Eden stared down at him, shaken by the realization of his condition. He had no memory. No past. “Are you telling me,” she asked him slowly, “that you don’t know who you are? That you’re suffering from amnesia?”
He lifted his head from the pillow, his wide mouth offering her a smile. It was a smile that was both reassuring and unexpectedly sensual. “Don’t worry about it. Now that I’m back, everything will be fine. You can tell me all about us, everything I need to know. I’ll listen, and it’ll come back to me. Even exactly what happened to me last night. That coffee smells good,” he said cheerfully, indicating the mug she was clutching. “Do you think I could have a cup?”
He couldn’t know it, but he had just given her exactly what she craved at this moment—an opportunity to escape his presence long enough to recover from her astonishment, to collect her bewildered thoughts.
“Of course,” she said.
Eden fled from the room. It wasn’t until she reached the kitchen that she realized her hand bearing the coffee mug was trembling. She set the mug on the counter and drew a steadying breath before making an effort to deal with her confusion.
He had amnesia. That was frustrating enough right there, because if he couldn’t remember who he was, how could he possibly tell her anything about Nathanial? Even more puzzling, he had somehow gotten the idea into his head that they knew each other, that she could tell him all about himself. She couldn’t begin to imagine why.
What was she going to do about him? The answer was an obvious one. If he needed professional help, and it was beginning to look as though he did, then she had an obligation to surrender him to the people who were equipped to handle this kind of thing. Except she couldn’t bring herself to do that. Not just yet. Not until she tried to find some way to unlock his memory.
Because you are professional help. That’s exactly what a private investigator is supposed to do, deal with people’s troubles.
She was arguing herself into something that was morally questionable, and she knew it. But she couldn’t help herself. She had to have those answers about Nathanial.
Her patient was waiting for his coffee. She filled a mug, then hesitated. Did he take it black or white? With sweetener or without? No way of knowing if he even remembered that much. She put the mug on a small tray and placed a spoon, sugar bowl and container of milk beside it.
He presented a disturbing sight when she returned to the guest room with the tray. He had propped himself up against the headboard in her absence, displaying an expanse of naked male flesh he seemed in no way self-conscious about.
Eden had viewed that hard body last night when she and Tia had examined him and attended to his injuries. But that had been an impersonal thing. Now, though, with him awake and aware of her standing there…
She tried not to gape at the powerful chest whose allure was not diminished by its several scars as she set the tray on the bedside table. Ignoring the sugar and milk as though they didn’t exist, he reached for the mug and brought it to his mouth. She watched him drink the coffee in eager gulps. There was something strangely mesmerizing in the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his strong, corded throat as he swallowed.
“Ah, that’s better,” he said, lowering
