years of the stoicism demanded of a soldier allowed him to stand calmly under her piercing gaze. Finally she said, “I’ll probably live to regret it, but okay. You’ve convinced me for now not to tell her the truth. But if anything happens to Tahra,” she added fiercely, “I will hold you personally responsible, Captain. That is not a threat—merely a statement of fact.”
“If anything happens to Tahra,” Marek replied, “you will have no target for your vengeance, Ms. Edwards, because I will already be dead. That is also a statement of fact.”
* * *
Marek headed back toward Tahra’s room with Carly at his side keeping pace with his longer stride. He saw a nurse’s aide approach the door carrying something and noted with approval that she was challenged by one of the guards stationed there. He was too far away to hear what was said, but the aide showed the guard something she wore on a lanyard around her neck—hospital badge, Marek guessed, since it was perused intently before she was allowed to pass inside. A minute later Marek quietly pushed open the door and entered the room himself, Carly right behind him.
The aide had already disconnected the drip tube from the half-empty saline bag hanging from the IV stand beside Tahra’s bed and was attempting to insert the tube into another fluid-filled bag, smaller than the first one. She jumped when the door opened, and dropped the full bag she was holding.
“Here,” Marek said, moving quickly to retrieve it from the floor, “let me help you.”
“No. No. I need no help, thank you,” the woman blurted out, grabbing at the bag in Marek’s hands.
Her strange behavior set off warning bells in his head, and he refused to let go. He quickly read the label and went cold all over as he realized exactly what he’d barely managed to prevent. “This is not saline,” he accused the aide. “This is intravenous morphine.”
The woman yanked the bag from Marek’s hands and tried to make a break for it. But he snagged her arm and deftly jerked it behind her back, incapacitating her and making her whimper in pain as she tried ineffectively to free herself.
Carly had swiftly moved to block the door to prevent the aide from escaping but stepped aside when Marek bellowed, “Guard!” and both soldiers on duty burst into the room, guns drawn.
The guards were followed closely by a nurse, and Marek realized someone must have pressed the call button. He shot a look at the bed and saw Tahra—pale and obviously in pain—clutching it in her left hand. Their eyes met for a moment, and another flash of pride in her ripped through him. His Tahra wouldn’t let herself be a victim if she could help it.
* * *
“Retrograde amnesia,” the neuropsychologist explained to Tahra later that morning, long after the aide who’d tried to kill her had been hauled off, under arrest by the Drago police. “Most likely a result of the head trauma you received.”
Tahra glanced from Carly standing on one side of her bed to Marek standing on the other, and with her left hand lightly touched the right side of her head, which was still bandaged. They hadn’t shaved it, the surgeon had explained when he’d visited earlier; they didn’t do that much anymore because of the increased risk of infection. And they hadn’t even had to clip it. She had a deep contusion from where her head had made contact with a park bench, but no laceration, which meant no stitches, no staples, nothing of that nature.
Just a headache, and—oh, yes—the loss of eighteen months out of her life.
“At this stage, I would not worry too much about it,” the neuropsychologist reassured her. “Your motor reflexes are excellent. There is no loss of auditory sensation or perception. Your sight is unaffected, and your grasp of language is unimpaired. More than likely your memory will return slowly over the next few days...possibly even a week or two. But,” he said, holding up a cautionary hand, “do not be surprised if your recollection of the actual incident and the moments leading up to it never return. That is very common in trauma of any kind. The brain...” He smiled. “We do not know everything about the brain, you understand, but this much we do know.”
The specialist continued listing what Tahra could reasonably expect in the coming days and weeks, and she tried to stay focused. But running through her mind was a thread of panic and fear—that her memory would never return. There is nothing more frightening than not remembering, she acknowledged now.
Especially when the not remembering included a terrorist attack...and a fiancé.
Her gaze slid surreptitiously to the man standing so reassuringly beside her. A fiancé who was as obviously unforgettable as Marek Zale.
* * *
Tahra was discharged from the hospital three days later. She no longer sported the bandage on her head that made her look like a freak in her own eyes, although she still retained the cast on her right wrist that made it difficult to do something as simple as brushing her teeth. And the open wounds wrought by the fléchettes that had pierced her body from behind had already been replaced with newly formed pink scar tissue. No woman could look at scars on her body with complacence, but Carly had assured Tahra they weren’t that bad, and the doctor had said they would fade with time.
The only thing that wasn’t on the mend was Tahra’s memory. Either the concussion had been worse than the doctors had realized up front, or they’d been too optimistic in their prognosis. Regardless of the reason, eighteen months of her life had been erased, including any memory of the man who had spent every night at her bedside. Who had treated her as gently as if she were made of crystal. Who had gazed at her with the kind of love most women yearned for...although he’d never spoken a word about it. Who’d made no attempt even to kiss her.
Carly had left the day before, at Tahra’s insistence. “I’m fine,” she’d asserted. “You have a job and a fiancé who both need you more than I do now.” Inside Tahra had been afraid of the gaping unknowns in her life, but she hadn’t revealed that to her sister.
“You’re in good hands,” Carly had whispered as she kissed Tahra goodbye. “Let him look after you until you’re completely recovered.” She’d hesitated, then added enigmatically, “Be kind to him.”
Him could only refer to Marek Zale, the man who had solicitously helped her out of the wheelchair the nurse had wheeled her out in as she was being discharged, and then into the waiting limousine, before going around to the other side to sit beside her in the back.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Your apartment first, to pack whatever you need for an extended stay in the royal palace.”
“What? Why would I—”
“The nurse’s aide who tried to kill you has talked,” Marek replied. “She was bribed to switch the IV bags, which tells us you are in danger. Imminent danger. So the king has decreed you are to be housed in the palace for the time being.” He took a deep breath. “Safer for you, and the US ambassador has agreed. You are on short-term disability leave from your job until such time as your memory returns.”
She voiced her secret fear. “But what if it never returns?”
Marek took her left hand and held it in his much larger one, squeezing gently, and the gesture was more reassuring than Tahra could have imagined. “Let us not think that way, mariskya. Let us remain positive.”
Mariskya. For some reason the word was vaguely familiar, but its meaning
