so intensely?
“I’m sorry about your husband,” he said in a gruff voice. “I’m afraid I didn’t know him very well—I’d just been hired to work at the center.”
He was nervous, she realized, remembering that Tom had an aversion to funerals as well. Maybe it was a man thing. Not that she enjoyed going to them herself, but sometimes people didn’t have a choice. In fact, she’d already been to enough funerals to last a lifetime.
At ten she had lost her only grandparents. At seventeen, she’d buried her parents.
And now Tom.
She shook her head, operating on autopilot. “Thank you for coming, Mr.…”
“Hunter. Cole Hunter.” A frown pinched his dark eyebrows as he shifted. “Anyway, I just wanted to offer my regrets.”
Megan nodded, clasping her hands together as his dark eyes bore into hers. “I suppose I’ll see you at the center.”
“I suppose.” He lifted his hand to wipe away the raindrops sliding down his cheek. A long scar curved his hand, another smaller one darkened his hairline. She wondered what had happened to him, but forced herself not to ask. Tom’s mother claimed she’d grown up on the wrong side of the tracks of Savannah, but even in shanty town, Megan had been taught manners.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, we’ll be working together.” His voice lowered, sympathy etching it with gruffness. “That is, when you feel like returning to work.”
Megan nodded. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Then again, work would probably fill the endless, empty days ahead. Help take her mind off of her grief. And her patients’ problems were so troubling they usually made hers feel trivial. Except Tom’s death wasn’t trivial. “You’re in psychiatry?”
His dark eyes looked somber. “Yes.”
For the first time, Megan realized he was handsome. Not in the gentlemanly way Tom had been, but in a more rugged way. He was big and muscular; he stood about six foot two, had broad shoulders, and a wide strong jaw.
Guilt suffused her—how could she notice a man’s looks when Tom had just been put in the ground? What kind of wife was she? Had she been?
One who had disappointed her husband…
Cole Hunter shifted again, wincing as if his leg hurt. He was leaning on a dark wooden cane. So, he had been hurt recently. The reason for the scars, perhaps the reason he was so lean…
“I was actually coming to work with Tom.”
Megan’s throat closed. A dozen other questions tumbled through her head, but the realization that she would see this man again, and probably on a daily basis, shook her to the core.
The trouble was she had no idea why the idea upset her so. She only knew that she didn’t want to be around him. And that the eerie feeling she’d had when they’d first met had just magnified tenfold.
COLE STEPPED BACK AS MEGAN stood to leave, and offered a hand for support, but she refused his help, looking wary as if he’d said or done something to upset her. Odd, how just a few moments before he’d met her, he’d had visions of knowing her, of seeing her before, when now his mind almost seemed blank. Like a deep tunnel, long and empty and devastatingly dark.
Briefly he wondered if they could have had an affair.
No, she hadn’t acted as if she’d known him at all.
Of course, his face looked different, but if they’d known each other before, if they’d met, she would have recognized his name.
Instincts told him he wasn’t the kind of man to sleep with another man’s wife.
Or was he?
Confused, he hunched inside his jacket and followed the other mourners. God, he hated that damned cane. A tall redhead gathered Megan Wells into a protective embrace. Obviously a close friend, Megan leaned on the other woman as if she were exhausted. He imagined she was. His own muscles protested the long walk. He hated the weakness right now. Hated any kind of weakness.
The light rain drizzled down, the fall wind kicking up, stirring wet leaves and forcing the flowers from other graves to sway and droop as he limped across the grass.
Parnell turned to wait for him at the edge of the cemetery. “How’s the leg?”
Cole grimaced. “Getting better.” He squinted through the hazy sky as Megan and her friend climbed in the car. “Have I met Mrs. Wells before?”
“Not that I know of.” Parnell frowned and pulled out his keys. “Why do you ask?”
Cole shrugged. “I don’t know. She just seems…familiar.”
“You probably saw a picture of Tom and her somewhere. I believe he’s got one in his office.”
Cole chuckled softly. “Probably.”
“Get some rest. I’ll see you at the center.”
Cole flicked his hand in a wave as Parnell jogged to his car. Cole couldn’t move quite so fast. The scent of sorrow and dank muddy ground assailed him as he headed down the embankment. He dreaded going back to his place.
The small apartment at the edge of the research center didn’t hold a damn bit of recognition for him. A place he’d been told he’d agreed to rent when he signed on with CIRP and made his transition from…where did they say he’d come from? Some little research hospital in the foothills of Tennessee?
But he remembered none of it. And the apartment he’d chosen to live in didn’t feel like home at all. It felt like a prison.
MEGAN SET THE CUP OF TEA on the kitchen table and folded her hands in her lap. “Thanks, April. I don’t know what I would have done without you the last three days. Please tell all the nurses and staff members how much I appreciate the food they brought.” Casseroles and homemade dishes filled the butcher block counter. So much food. Food she had no appetite for.
“Who was that man talking to you before you left?” April asked.
Megan blew into the tea to cool it. “His name is Cole Hunter. He’s a new psychiatrist at the center.”
Sympathy filled April’s eyes. “It looked as if he upset you.”
Megan shrugged. “He came here to work with Tom.” She didn’t want to tell her the rest, how his touch had given her the strangest feeling. How just looking into his eyes had been unnerving. April would think she was crazy.
“I’m so sorry, Meg.” April leaned over and hugged her. “I know how much you wanted things to work out for you and Tom.”
Megan nodded, warming her hands on the oversize mug and rolling her shoulders. Tension clawed at her, the lack of sleep and emotions over the past few days finally wearing her down.
“You look exhausted. Drink that and get some rest.” April grabbed her raincoat. “And call me if you need me.”
“I will. You be careful.”
