I’m a fool to come here.”
Jasmine had never been a fool. Nor could he imagine her thinking herself one. “No, you’re no fool,” he said studying her. “Can you remember anything about the day you disappeared?”
She shook her head slowly and let out a small laugh. “I didn’t even know I’d…disappeared.”
He smiled realizing that, from her perspective, that was probably true. “Have you seen a doctor about your memory loss?”
She nodded. “He said sometimes a blow to the head can cause it. I would imagine that’s where I got this.” She lifted a lock of her blond hair away from the left side of her forehead.
The scar was shaped like a crescent moon, pale white and about an inch and a half long. He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Head wounds bled a lot. That would explain all the blood in her car.
He felt a wave of relief. Not that she didn’t look and act like Jasmine, but the cop in him had questioned how she could be alive given the large amount of blood that had been found in her car. The blood loss, the head injury, couldn’t those both contribute to memory loss? And couldn’t that explain why she’d just disappeared for seven years?
“You don’t know how you got the scar?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It was just there one day when I looked in the mirror.”
He could see that the scar had scared her. He tried to imagine just looking in the mirror one day and seeing a scar and not knowing when or where you’d gotten it.
It should have scared her, he thought. It certainly did him, just trying to imagine how she’d gotten it.
She absently touched the scar with her fingers. “I think I came here hoping to find…myself.” Her voice broke a little and tears glistened in her eyes.
He’d never seen Jasmine vulnerable before. That he did remember. It took everything in him not to pull her into his arms. But he was a stranger to her. And she was clearly scared. The last thing he wanted her to do was bolt.
“I realized when I saw the photograph that I’ve put my life on hold for years waiting for something I didn’t understand.” She frowned. “Does that make any sense to you?”
He wished it didn’t. He’d done the same thing and hadn’t consciously realized he was doing it. With a start, he remembered that Bernard would be flying in. “Your brother—stepbrother—Bernard is on his way here. If he’s not already here.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. She shook her head. “But what if I’m not Jasmine? I don’t want to get his hopes up.”
Cash doubted Bernard’s hopes would be raised by the thought of Jasmine being alive. Bernard had inherited everything when Archie had died, as far as Cash knew. And knowing even as little as he did of Bernard, Cash couldn’t see Bernard wanting to share it with a stepsister back from the dead.
“It would be like him losing his sister all over again,” she was saying. “And I couldn’t bear to think I had a brother only to have him snatched away if I’m right and I’m not Jasmine.”
Losing Bernard wouldn’t break anyone’s heart, Cash thought. “You don’t have to see him if you’d rather not.”
Her relief was almost palpable. “It’s not that I don’t want to see him. Later. If I really am Jasmine. Isn’t there some way we can keep this quiet until we know for sure?”
He hated to tell her how impossible that would be in a town the size of Antelope Flats. He had to tell State Investigator John Mathews. But he had no way of reaching him at this hour. Cash couldn’t see what it would hurt to wait. Mathews would do everything he could to keep the story from blowing wide open, but he would want to question Jasmine—and in her state, Cash feared she would take off again.
Cash knew he was just making excuses.
What he needed was time. Before anyone else got involved, he had to be sure in his own mind that she really was the woman he’d spent seven years trying to forget.
“Maybe there is a way to keep it quiet,” he said, watching for her reaction. “I can take your fingerprints and send them to the FBI. They have Jasmine’s on file.”
“How long will it take to get the results?” she asked without even a blink.
He would send them to his friend in the FBI. With luck he would know by tonight, but he didn’t tell her that. “It usually takes a week. Maybe more.”
She seemed relieved rather than upset by that news. He got the feeling that things were happening too fast for her.
“I’ll just stay in a motel out of sight until then.”
“Your brother will be staying at the only motel in town.”
She looked surprised, then worried. “What can we do?”
We? A sliver of doubt embedded itself under his skin. He told himself he was just being a cop. She had come to him, she needed his help. Of course, she would say “we.” So why was he suddenly suspicious of her motives?
Because she’d involved him so slickly into a conspiracy to keep her existence a secret. It worked perfectly into his plan to have her to himself until he could decide if she was really Jasmine—and what she wanted.
But he had to wonder if it also worked perfectly into some plan she had.
“If anyone finds out that I came to you before we know for certain if I’m Jasmine… Can you imagine what would happen if the newspapers got hold of this story?”
He could well imagine. His life had been blown wide open for months after she’d disappeared. But she didn’t need to sell him any further on hiding her. “There might be a way to keep you hidden until we have proof that you’re Jasmine.” He let the words hang in the air for a few moments, not wanting to act too eager. “You can stay with me.”
Her surprise almost seemed genuine. “Oh, I couldn’t.”
“I have a large house. There is plenty of room. It is the only way to stay hidden in a town this size. Unless you’d rather not, under the circumstances.”
She frowned. “Circumstances?”
“The general assumption was that you were abducted by a man at the gas station who is now in prison,” Cash said. “But for several reasons I don’t think that was the case.”
“What reasons?” she asked, sounding more curious than worried.
“First off, the man serving time in prison right now was offered a deal if he told them what he’d done with you. He didn’t take the deal. I don’t think he was the one the station clerk saw get into your car.” He was watching her, not exactly sure what he was looking for, just a feeling that he should be leery of her. Especially if she was Jasmine.
“Secondly,” he continued when her expression didn’t change. “You would never have gotten into your car with a stranger even if he was holding a gun on you. You’d been taught what to do because kidnapping was a real threat given your family’s wealth.
