“You’re trying too hard to remember, Luc,”

Alison said, her tone sympathetic to his frustration. “Sometimes, memories come when you least expect them.”

Luc turned around to face her. Something was nudging a thought in his mind. But it was shimmering just out of reach.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he said finally.

He saw her smile and immediately felt something stir inside him in response. The smile was sensual, but innocent at the same time. More questions came to mind, but this time they had to do with her.

Maybe she was the missing link—not just to his memory, but to his heart….

Found: His Perfect Wife
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Sissie, For her friendship, Jessie’s mom

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Terrific, just terrific.

For the first time in a very long time, he felt like having a drink. But that wouldn’t help anything. It was because he’d taken a drink—several drinks—that he was in this predicament to begin with.

“Bad news?”

Luc LeBlanc looked over his shoulder to see his cousin Ike standing behind him. The Salty, the saloon they both owned and Ike ran, was nearly empty this time of day.

Ike had been watching his cousin for a while now. He indicated the letter lying on the table in front of him.

Luc drew the letter closer to him. “What makes you ask that?”

“The vein in your neck looked like it was going to pop out just then.” Without waiting to be invited, Ike turned the letter toward him and scanned the contents. They were closer than brothers and there were no secrets between them. For that matter, there were precious few in a town the size of Hades. It was average only by Alaskan standards. Coming to the portion that had Luc silently swearing, Ike raised his eyes to look at his cousin. “Wow, what makes Jacob think you’re—?”

“Married?” Luc shrugged, looking off. “Might have been something I said when I ran into him in Anchorage.”

“Well, if you want to save face, looks like you might have to go on a wife hunt.” Ike grinned. “I’d lend you mine but I’m just getting the hang of being a husband myself and I might lose my place if I let you borrow Marta for appearance’s sake.” He grew serious. “What are you going to do?”

Luc stared down at the letter. “I don’t know.”

“This,” Ike said as he got up to get the bar ready for the mine workers who came in to the Salty Saloon at noon, “is going to be interesting.”

Interesting wouldn’t have been the word he would have used, Luc thought. Frustration surged through him. He resisted the urge to crumple the letter. Crumpling it wouldn’t make the problem go away. It was coming via an airplane in a little more than three weeks. Both of them were coming.

Served him right. He’d lied; now he was going to have to pay for it. Which meant owning up to the truth.

Something he wasn’t looking forward to.

He’d lived with and by the truth all his life, not fanatically, but just because it was his way. To his recollection, the lie he’d allowed to slip out in a moment of pure, unadulterated weakness had been the only one he’d ever told.

People lied every day, even here in Hades. Especially here in Hades, he thought, where boredom almost demanded it. It was a form of creative art in this tiny town hovering a hundred miles away from Anchorage. None of the townsfolk had probably ever had to face up to the fact that they had lied to someone who had once, when life was simpler, been their best friend.

But he had lied to Jacob and now he was going to have to admit it.

What he needed, Luc decided, wasn’t a drink. It was to get away. Both were only temporary fixes, but a trip would do him far more good than alcohol. Maybe now was the time for that visit to Seattle he’d been promising himself.

He rolled it over in his head. Seattle. Sure, why not?

It might just be the thing to help him pull his thoughts together and figure out how to handle this without completely humiliating himself.

Chapter One

The indignant scream sliced through his thoughts like a newly honed scalpel.

By the time the angry barrage of words had followed in the scream’s wake, Jean-Luc LeBlanc had already whirled around on his heel and was running to the rescue. The reaction was purely instinctive, without so much as a shred of thought on his part to slow him down. Certainly it didn’t occur to him that a threat here on the streets of Seattle was something quite different from a threat in Hades, Alaska. There, more than likely, danger came from four-legged creatures or merciless weather. In the lower forty-nine, danger walked on two legs and could be just as merciless as any act of nature. Sometimes even more.

Luc didn’t stop to reason out anything, or weigh pros and cons. None of that mattered. Someone needed help and Luc was close by. That was enough for him.

It took only a moment to orient himself. Behind him in the alley, the taxi driver—who’d picked him up at the airport and had just, less than half a minute earlier, dropped him off near the hotel where he would be staying—was fighting someone off. The attacker was in the front seat of the cab, grappling with her. Something flashed, catching the light.

The man had a knife.

Luc threw aside his suitcase, running faster. “Let her go!”

The voice, deep and dangerous, seemed almost incongruous with his open, blond good looks. But he had the build and the muscles to back up the warning in his voice. Reaching the cab, Luc grabbed the would-be mugger by the back of the neck and roughly hauled him out. He threw the mugger aside as if the man was nothing more than an undesirable, miserable rag.

Caught by surprise, the man’s knife flew out of his hand. He went crashing into the broad side of a Dumpster housed against the rear of a tall building opposite the back of the hotel. Luc could almost feel the man’s brains rattling as his head made contact with the metal side.

His eyes still on the mugger, Luc stooped to pick up the fallen knife, meaning to toss it out of play.

Shrieking a curse that was almost intelligible, the mugger scrambled to his feet and lunged himself at Luc. Rather than throw it, Luc could only kick the knife aside. With the wind knocked out of him, Luc still managed to gain his feet quickly. He raised his fists to defend himself the way he’d learned when he was barely into his teens.

Luc heard the cabdriver yell and realized a heartbeat later that it was a warning. The warning melded with the sudden, excruciating pain crashing down on his skull.

And then everything went black.

Damn it, she shouldn’t have parked here.

She should have known better. But the street out in front of the Embassy Hotel was being torn up in both directions. The ongoing reconstruction of MacArthur Boulevard had forced her to pull the cab around to an alley that was best left to inhabitants of the night and to burly deliverymen driving large trucks. The alley certainly wasn’t any place for a recently graduated nursing student who drove her brother’s taxi in an attempt to earn a little money.

One eye on the fight, her heart pounding double time, Alison Quintano looked frantically around for a patrol car, but there was none in sight. It figured.

Swearing, she grabbed the lid of a trash can and hurled it at the second mugger who had appeared out of nowhere. The arm that had her older brothers swearing should have belonged to a first draft baseball rookie remained true and she clipped the second mugger on the back of the head, throwing him off balance. But not before the man had knocked out her recent fare.

Fury was in the man’s eyes as he swung around. Reflexes had him clutching at the back of his head. When he looked at his hand, there was blood. “Son of a bitch, I’m going to make you pay for that.”

He started after her, only to have his partner yell at him. “Ain’t got time for that.” He rifled through the prone man’s pockets. “We’ve gotta get out of here!”

The second mugger looked torn. Common sense prevailed and he followed the first man, stopping only to grab the fallen suitcase. Running down the alley, they disappeared.

Alison fought back the desire to chase after them. That would be stupid. There wasn’t anything she could do. Besides, there were two of them, and while not big, they could still easily overpower her. Look what they had done to her fare.

Abandoning the thought of pursuit, she hurried over to her Good Samaritan.

The man was flat on his stomach.

She got a sick feeling in hers.

Dropping to her knees, she placed her fingertips to the side of his neck. A pulse. She released the breath that had gotten clogged in her lungs at the sight of his unconscious body.

He was alive, but out cold. The second mugger had come up on him from behind, hitting him over the head with what looked like a kid’s bat. How much damage was there? Very gently she rolled the man onto his back. Gingerly she pried apart his eyelids one at a time. His pupils didn’t appear to be dilated, but that could still change.

Except for one cut over his left eye and what looked like the beginning of a nasty bruise on his cheek, it looked as if her Good Samaritan hadn’t been too seriously hurt.

She hoped.

Placing her hand lightly on his shoulder, she gently tried to rouse him without success.

“Are you all right?” She leaned in closer so that he could hear her. “Mister, can you hear me? Are you all right?”

He lay still and unresponsive.

This wasn’t good.

Worried, Alison looked around, but there was absolutely no one walking by the alley’s opening. Murphy’s Law. It seemed almost impossible, given that she was practically in the heart of Seattle.

For a second, she debated trying to wake him again. Maybe she should just go for help. To do the latter, she’d have to leave him and she was reluctant. He was unconscious and couldn’t defend himself, and while crime didn’t exactly run rampant in the streets, they had just been mugged. She didn’t want to take any more chances. The man was unconscious and that made him her responsibility.

Alison settled on trying to raise her brother on the two-way radio in the cab. She glanced at her watch. Almost two, but it was still considered lunchtime by a few. If she had any sort of luck left, Kevin should still be in his office.

This was going to make her brother blow his top, she thought. He hadn’t been keen on her taking the part-time position to begin with, never mind that it was with the cab company he owned. She was the baby of the family and everyone was always being protective of her.

Except once, but that had been no one’s fault.

Right now, she was far more concerned with her Good Samaritan than her brother’s reaction. She’d deal with that later. As she began to rise, she saw the man’s eyes flutter slightly.

He was coming around.

The next second, he opened his eyes. She hadn’t realized, when she’d glanced back at him in her rearview mirror earlier, just how blue his eyes were.

Alison sucked in air, and then exhaled it again, in almost a sigh of relief.

“You’re awake.” Relief was short-lived as her training reared its head again. Just because his eyes were open didn’t mean he was all right—not by a long shot. Sympathy flooded her. At the very least, the man had to have one mother of a headache. “How do you feel? That was some wallop he gave you.”

It took him a second to realize she was talking to him. He’d been too mesmerized by what he saw to absorb any of the words. He’d opened his eyes to find himself looking up at an angel. An angel with an abundance of dark, chestnut-colored wavy hair and eyes the color of the sky that was above her head.

She was talking about someone hitting him. “Who?”

He looked a little disoriented. Under the circumstances she couldn’t blame him. “The mugger.”

“Mugger?” He struggled to sit up, feeling as if there was an anvil on his forehead.

Maybe he hadn’t put two and two together yet, she thought. Taking his hand, she slowly helped him into a sitting position, watching his face carefully. “Yeah, there was another one.”

He was trying to make sense of what she was saying to him and having very little luck. “Another one.”

The unease slowly began to return. “Why are you repeating everything I say?”

Luc passed a hand over his forehead. “Just trying to get a clear picture in my mind.”

Or any picture, he thought. God, but his head ached. The pain was crowding out any thoughts he was trying to grasp, squeezing them away.

Looking at his eyes, Alison sat back on her heels. “Anybody would be muddled after going through what you just did.” The blank look on his face had her adding, “Coming to my rescue like that was nothing short of sheer bravery.” Something straight out of King Arthur, her favorite section of literature. She smiled at him. “Don’t see much of that these days.” Guilt began to nibble at her again. He did look rather out of it. “Sorry you seemed to have gotten the worst of it. I beamed the second guy with a garbage can lid, but it didn’t seem to hurt him very much. Man probably had a head made out of stone, which would be in keeping with his Neanderthal behavior.” And then she smiled at her rescuer. “Not like you.”

He was trying, but he just wasn’t following any of this. “Not like me what?”

“Hurting him. I didn’t hurt him the way you did the other guy.” Now she was really concerned. She looked at him more closely. Her initial impression held. His pupils hadn’t dilated, but that didn’t mean they were out of the woods. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

The pounding in his head was beginning to jar his teeth. “I don’t know. I’m not exactly sure what all right is.”

Oh, God. Anxious now, Alison held up her hand in front of him.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” When he didn’t answer immediately, she moved her hand back and forth until she secured his attention. “How many do you see?”

Luc blinked, but even that seemed to bring about an avalanche thundering in his brain. It took effort to speak. “Two, you’re holding up two fingers. When you’re not wiggling them.”

“Good number. Could be a guess,” she added under her breath. She tried something else. “Do you know what day it is?”

He thought for a long moment, then looked at her. “No.”

Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s not bad yet, she told herself. There were times, when she was very busy, that she lost track of the days, as well. Still, the uneasiness was building within her. “It’s Wednesday. Do you know where you are?”

Though it hurt to move his head, he looked around very slowly. The street was narrow and there were two tall buildings vying for the sky. A distant smell of something rotting drifted toward him. “An alley?”

Alison suppressed the sigh before it could escape. This was looking worse by the second. “Nothing more than that?”

He looked again, this time moving only his eyes. it hurt less that way. “A dirty alley?”

Batting zero. She leaned in closer. “Do you know who I am?”

Her name, along with a license number, was on the back of the front seat. She remembered he’d read it out loud once he’d given her the address of the hotel, commenting that it was pretty. There had been a short, pleasant conversation about nothing on the drive over here.

He paused now before answering. Was she someone important to him? He had a feeling that she might be, but it was nothing that he could actually put into words. “A beautiful woman?”

The answer immediately dredged up suspicions. Was this all a ruse? Was he just trying to hit on her? He had gotten a blow to his head, but maybe he was all right and just milking the incident to elicit sympathy from her and possibly something more.

She sat back on her heels, straightening. “Is this a trick?”

“No, no trick.” He pressed fingertips to his head, wishing he could somehow push back the all-encompassing pain. “Unless you’re doing it with mirrors.” He winced suddenly as the pain seemed to spike upward, all but piercing his skull.

Falling back on professionalism, Alison examined the back of his head more closely. There was no blood, thank God. Still, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t something going on internally. He needed to be seen by a doctor, the sooner the better.

She sighed again, this time exasperated with the situation.

“No mirrors,” she answered. “Just what do you remember?”

He tried to think, but there was a low-grade buzzing in his ears and it made it hard to knit any words together, never mind forming a coherent reply.

After a frustrating moment, he raised his eyes to hers. “Nothing.”

The single-word answer felt like a bullet that had gone straight to her chest. This was her fault. She should have taken her chances with the construction and just let him off in the middle of the block. But she had been in a hurry and had wanted to get to her next fare.

She struggled against the implications that were staring her in the face. “Nothing? What d’you mean, nothing?”

His eyes held hers. She sounded concerned. Who are you? Are we lovers? Friends? Fragments of questions came and went, leaving small, colored trails through his head, which led nowhere.

“I don’t remember anything. It’s all…just a blur.” There was wonder in his voice, as if he was discovering all this for the first time as well. Discovering it and being appalled at the same time.

“You don’t remember where you came from?” She knew what he was saying, yet she had to say it all out loud for herself, stalling for time. Hoping it would all return to him in a flash and absolve her of the responsibility she felt.

He paused and tried to think again. There was nothing. Except defeat. “No.”

He’d given her the hotel’s address. Maybe he was meeting someone there. At least it was a place to start. “How about where you were going?”

This time, the negative reply came accompanied with a sigh that was both weary and frustrated. “No.”

With effort, she drew on what she’d been taught, plus an inherent way of being able to comfort everyone but herself. Her voice was calm, displaying none of the sympathetic panic she was experiencing for the stranger at her feet.

“Your name…can you remember your name?”

There was something, hovering just out of reach, but when he tried to capture it, it broke apart into a thousand tiny pieces, like confetti blowing away in the wind.

“No.”

And then she remembered. He’d mentioned his name to her just after he’d said hers. He made a joke about not having the time to wait for a formal introduction. At the time it had struck her that he was incredibly friendly. She wasn’t accustomed to friendly, not off the campus. People generally kept to themselves in this part of the city, more concerned with where they were going and how fast they could get there.

She thought now. It was John something. No, wait, Jean-Luc, that was it.

She looked at him eagerly, hoping this was the trigger that would start the process rolling. She knew it could be as simple a thing as that, just a word, a look.

“Does the name Jean-Luc sound familiar?”

Though it hurt, he tried to fit the name to himself, waiting for a flash of recognition. Of another name that might attach itself to the first.

But there was nothing.

The only thing he recalled seemed strange and out of context. “Wasn’t there a science-fiction program on with—?”

It had been something she’d said to him when he’d told her his name. That he remembered. Alison banked down her impatience, knowing it was really directed at the situation, not the man.

“Yes. Star Trek, the Next Generation. Captain Jean-Luc Picard.” Repeating the information she’d originally given him verbatim, Alison waited for a sign of some sort of recognition in his eyes.

Nothing.

Either the man was an accomplished actor, or he really did have amnesia.

Amnesia. It was an ugly word.

He tried to resist the disorientation. Like quicksand, it only sucked him in deeper. Looking at her, he felt around his pockets. “Shouldn’t I have some sort of identification on me?”

He really didn’t remember the mugging, she thought. Otherwise he’d know. “They took it from you.” She’d seen the first mugger quickly go through Jean-Luc’s pockets after he went down.

“They?” With effort, struggling for at least an island of sense within this murky sea, he connected two of the myriad of dots floating through his head. “You mean the muggers?”

“Yes.” Alison looked over her shoulder toward the cab. Three of its doors were still hanging open, ponderous wings unable to lift something so heavy. “I think you’d probably be more comfortable in the cab.” She bit her lip, her eyes sweeping over him. “Do you think you can get up?”

“Let’s see.” It seemed like a simple enough question and an even more simple enough feat to execute under normal circumstances.

But when he attempted to do it, the world decided to remain just where it had been a second ago and not make the journey with him.

Instead, it spun around in a mad whirl, mixing colors and buildings all together. Trying desperately to hang on to stability, he still felt himself losing his grasp on his surroundings. Clutching at air, he wound up grabbing at Alison instead.

Oh, God, he was going to fall, Alison realized a second before he grabbed her shoulder. Quickly her arms surrounded him and she felt her knees buckling under the unexpected weight. Contact had her involuntarily stiffening. Remembering.

She forbid herself to go there. “Lean on me,” she ordered through clenched teeth.

It was a miracle they didn’t both fall over. At the last second, in an attempt to compensate for the shift in balance, she braced her legs, planting them farther apart, like a weight lifter going for a world-class record.

“Whoa, you’re more solid than you look,” she gasped. For a second, it was touch and go whether or not they would both land on the pavement.

He felt her breath against his face, felt the heat of her body as she struggled not to be thrown off balance. The sound of her heavy breathing penetrated the fog descending on his brain. With effort, he chased away the darkness encroaching on him.

“Sorry.” A line of perspiration formed along his brow and between his shoulder blades as he struggled to regain his equilibrium.

“Not your fault.” Still braced, testing the waters slowly, she began to release her hold on him. The stiffness within her was harder to release. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“For what?” She felt soft, enticingly soft. The thought pushed its way in through the clutter of pain that insisted on holding him prisoner. It was a tiny bit of sanctuary within a world engulfed in chaos.

“If you hadn’t come to my rescue, you wouldn’t have made intimate contact with the cement. Who knows what they could have done if you hadn’t come along.” Despite herself, she shivered. It took everything she had not to allow the memory to return, to hold her hostage. There was no time for that. She couldn’t let it get the upper hand on her. Not again. “You don’t remember anything, do you?”

His hand on her shoulder to prevent another embarrassing dip, he walked slowly to the cab.

“No, I don’t.” He looked at her, his head pounding. “But if I came to your rescue, I’m glad, even if it did cause everything to disappear.” Concern entered his eyes. “Did they hurt you?”

He was asking about her. His memory had been reduced to that of an eggplant because of her and he was still asking if she was hurt. She couldn’t make up her mind if he was for real or a figment of her imagination.

“They didn’t have time. You were too quick.”

He lowered himself into the back seat, his legs giving out at the last minute. What had that guy hit him with, anyway?

“I don’t feel very quick now,” he confessed. He stopped, considering. “Jean-Luc, huh?”

“That’s what you said.” She remembered something else. “But you added that everyone calls you Luc.”

“Luke.” He rolled the name over in his mind, waiting for a familiar ring. And then something seemed to gel. “Luc,” he said suddenly. “It’s not Luke, it’s Luc.”

She heard no difference, but as long as it made one to him, that was all that mattered. She looked at him eagerly, not wanting this man’s condition on her conscience. She had just attained her life’s dream of becoming a nurse. That meant helping people, not putting them in harm’s way. “Do you remember?”

He knew she meant more. But there was only that. “Just that Luc is my name.”

She wasn’t about to give up easily. “Luc what?” she prodded.

He tried, he really tried, but nothing came. Trying to move his head from side to side, he instantly aborted the effort, regretting it. “I haven’t got the vaguest clue.”

Chapter Two

Detective John Donnelley stared at his notepad. Twenty-five minutes of questioning had resulted in less than half a page of writing. It was hot and muggy and he was struggling to keep his irritability from showing. Passing his hand over a near-bald pate that had once sported more than its share of hair, he shook his head.

“Not much to go on.” He looked at the man he’d been questioning as he flipped the book closed.

Alison resisted the urge to place herself between the two men. It was her natural mothering instinct coming to the fore, an instinct she’d acquired ever since her own mother had passed away over sixteen years ago.

“It all happened very fast,” she interjected. Luc had been through enough, and in her estimation, he wasn’t looking all that good right now. He didn’t need to be grilled any longer. “Five minutes, tops. Probably more like three.”

The bald head moved up and down slowly, thoughtfully. “Usually the way.” Donnelley eyed Luc. The impression that Luc might be a suspect didn’t appear to be entirely out of the detective’s range of thought. “And there’s nothing you can add?”

Luc tried to think, to summon a memory. Something. It was like trying to find angel food cake in a snowdrift. “’Fraid not.”

Still, Donnelley pressed one more time. “Height, weight, coloring—?” Dark eyebrows rose high on an even higher forehead, waiting. Moderately hopeful.

There was no point in pretending. “I wouldn’t know them if they were part of that crowd,” Luc admitted honestly, gesturing toward the people who had gathered behind the sawhorses that defined the crime scene, separating it from the rest of the alley.

Why was the man going over the same thing again? Luc needed a doctor, not a badgering police detective who looked as if he was ten years past weary. “We’ve been through all that,” Alison pointed out.

The protectiveness welled up within her. It would have been funny if she’d stopped to analyze it. She was slight, almost petite in comparison to Luc, yet she felt as if he needed her to run interference. At least until he was himself again. Whoever that was.

“He told you, Detective, he can’t remember anything that happened. Why do you keep asking him the same questions?”

The slight shrug wasn’t a hundred percent convincing. “All I’m saying is that it seems awfully convenient, this loss of memory.” His eyes met Luc’s. Something within him relented. He could feel the girl’s eyes boring into him. She seemed convinced enough for both of them, he thought. “Hey, listen, I’m just trying to do my job here. You don’t push, you don’t get answers, right?”

“Sometimes you don’t get answers even when you do push,” she replied quietly. But he was right, she supposed. The man had probably seen it all. Certainly far more than she ever had. That made everyone suspect in his eyes. Even her. She shrugged. “Sorry, it’s just that he needs to see a doctor.”

Donnelley looked at Luc’s face. His pallor was almost ghostly. No point in beating a dead horse, at least for now.

“Okay, you can go,” he told Luc. His voice was almost casual as he asked what sounded like an afterthought, “Where can we reach you, in case there’s something else?”

Luc slipped his hands into his pockets. If there’d been money there originally, there was none now. His pockets were empty. All he had, as far as he knew, were the clothes on his back.

“I don’t know.”

Luc frowned. He was getting very sick of the sound of that. Perforce, it was his reply to almost everything. Because he didn’t know. Didn’t know his name, didn’t know where he’d been or where he was going. Didn’t even know how old he was or if there was someone waiting for him. Someone getting increasingly worried as the minutes slipped away.

Frustration ate away at him, filling up all the empty spaces.

The detective paused, considering. And then he reached back into his pocket for his notepad. Writing something down quickly, he tore off the page and held the single sheet out to Luc.

“Here’s the address of a shelter in the area.” Donnelley tried to distance himself from what he was saying. There was a hot meal waiting for him at the end of his shift. A hot meal and a good woman in a tidy, three-bedroom house he’d almost paid off. He wouldn’t have liked to be in this kid’s place now. “Cleaner than most. They can fix you up with a meal and a cot. Maybe it’ll come back to you by morning.” The note in his voice said he had his doubts.

Luc took the page. Standing on her toes, Alison managed to look over his shoulder at the address. It was an area she tried to avoid when she drove the cab. Her eyes met the detective’s. “Not the best address.”

Donnelley laughed shortly, avoiding Luc’s eyes. “As a rule, rich people don’t generally need shelters in their neighborhoods.”

Right now, he didn’t have the luxury of being choosy. Folding the sheet, Luc tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Thanks.”

Alison was getting antsy. “And you have my number.” It wasn’t a question.

Donnelley held up his notepad. He’d written the information down on top of the page. “Right here.”

She began to back away. Being the center of attention had never sat well with her, and the crowd kept growing rather than diminishing. “Then we can go?”

The detective gestured toward the taxicab. “Already said you could. Feel free.”

Free was the last thing she felt, but it was all she needed to hear. “Let’s go,” she tossed over her shoulder at Luc.

For a second, he’d thought she was going to leave him behind. Apparently she thought of them as being in this together. He found that oddly comforting, considering that they apparently hadn’t known each other before the fateful cab ride.

He followed behind her. But when he started to open the passenger door in the front, she looked at him in surprise. “What are you doing?”

He stopped. It seemed pretty clear to him. “Getting in.”

Her eyes indicated the back seat. “Why aren’t you getting in the back?” After all, that was where fares were supposed to ride. In the back. Away from her.

He hesitated, then decided to put the matter to her. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather sit up front with you. I feel too isolated sitting back there.” He’d sat there earlier, waiting for the police to arrive and there had been this pervading feeling of being cut off. He couldn’t successfully deal with that right now.

Alison caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She didn’t know if it was a line, or if he was being serious. She supposed it wouldn’t do any harm. He looked far too unsteady to try anything in his present condition. And these were unusual circumstances.

“Okay,” she murmured, getting in on her side. “You can ride up front.”

Luc stared at the seat belt a full moment, as if analyzing it, before he slid the metal tongue into the groove. “Where are we going?”

Picking her way through the alley, she turned the car to the south and prayed for no traffic. “To get you checked out.”

That was going to cost. “I don’t have any money,” he pointed out needlessly.

She flipped her blinker on, easing into the turn lane. “Don’t worry, I know the doctor there.”

The doctor she knew turned out to be an intern. And her brother. Alison knew for a fact that Jimmy, three and a half years her senior, was on call in the emergency room at University Medical Center. With any luck, Luc could be quickly walked through this ordeal.

And then what?

The question drummed through her head as she brought the taxi to a halt in the tiny lot.

And then, she told herself, she’d take it one step at a time. Who knew? Maybe he’d get his memory back by the time they walked out through the doors again.

She was on nodding terms with half the staff on duty during the early-afternoon shift. It was something she was counting on.

“We’re here,” she announced needlessly to Luc.

Getting out, trying not to move quicker than his head, Luc looked around. “Shouldn’t we be going through the front?”

This was the back entrance, reserved for ambulances and paramedics. And the staff. “This is faster.” She ushered Luc in through the electronic doors.

The receptionist glanced up from her book as Alison hurried by. Her fingers marking her place, she appeared vaguely annoyed at the sudden disturbance.

“Jimmy around, Julie?”

It took the young woman a couple of seconds before recognition set in. A smile followed. “Sure. He’s in the lounge. Slow morning,” she commented just before returning to her book.

“Not anymore,” Alison muttered.

Realizing that Luc wasn’t beside her any longer, she glanced over her shoulder. She’d lost him at the entrance. There were two nurses in front of him, questioning his presence. And just possibly, she observed, trying to draw a little personal information from him, as well.

You’re out of luck, girls.

Not that she could fault them for trying. Luc was definitely in the cute category, she allowed. Actually, she decided, scrutinizing him, he was more than cute. A lot more. Not that that was either here or there. At least, not for her.

Retracing her steps, Alison planted herself between the two nurses and Luc. She knew one of the women. “Grace, I’m looking for Jimmy.”

“In the lounge.” Grace hardly spared her a glance. “Anything we can do?” The question was directed at Luc. “A sponge bath while you’re waiting?”

Without thinking, only reacting, Alison laced her hand through his and pulled Luc away. “He can give himself his own bath.”

Despite his condition, Luc couldn’t help smiling. “Are they always that friendly?”

She led him down a hallway whose walls were long overdue for a painting. Cracked in a number of places, the paint was beginning to peel here and there along the perimeters.

“They usually don’t have enough time to be that friendly. Looks like you picked the right time to be mugged.”

He doubted if there was such a thing. At least, not from the way his head was feeling.

“This way.” Pushing open the unlocked door, she called out to her brother. “Jimmy.”

He looked like her, Luc thought, picking Jimmy Quintano out of the small cluster of men in green livery sitting or standing inside the stuffy room. They had the same color chestnut hair, the same blue eyes and the same winking dimple in their right cheek.

Right now, Jimmy looked a good deal more indolent than his younger sister.

Half turning from the program he was watching on a small, beat-up television someone had donated to the cause, Jimmy leaned back in one of the chairs that framed the kitchen table, another donation.

“Hey, Aly, what’s up?” He looked back at the screen. “I thought you were driving the cab today.”

“I was.” She would have preferred sharing this with him alone, but she couldn’t always pick her locations. Besides, she knew how fast word spread within the infrastructure of the hospital’s staff. “Until two guys decided they wanted the fare money.”

The easy smile vanished. Jimmy was on his feet instantly, crossing to her. “You hurt?” Even as he asked, his eyes washed over her as he passed his hands over her arms.

“I’m okay, but I probably wouldn’t have been if he hadn’t come to my rescue.” For the first time, Jimmy noticed that his sister hadn’t come in alone. He wasn’t accustomed to Alison being with a man. Not since her divorce. “Jimmy, this is Luc. Luc, my brother Jimmy Quintano.”

A few of the others in the room clustered around them, silently giving their sympathy to Alison, respecting her space. Jimmy focused on Luc. Grateful, Jimmy grasped Luc’s hand in both of his. “Hey, man, thanks. I mean it.” Sincerity clouded his mind for a second. “I didn’t catch your last name. Luc what?”

She wanted to spare Luc as much as possible. “That’s part of the reason we’re here,” Alison told Jimmy.

He looked from Luc to his sister. “I don’t understand.”

Before Luc could say anything, Alison began explaining the situation to her brother.

“Luc can’t remember anything. One of the muggers hit him from behind and he went down on the sidewalk.” She indicated the gash on his forehead. “He hit his head. Hard. When he came to, he didn’t know where he was. Or who.”

Jimmy tried to fill in the blanks. “And I take it they took his ID.”

She nodded. “Cleaned him out.” Alison flashed an apologetic look at Luc. “Suitcase, wallet. Everything but the lint in his pockets.”

Jimmy could hear the frustrated tone in his sister’s voice. “Excuse me for a minute.” Making his apology to Luc, he took Alison aside. “You’re not to blame, you know.”

Though she appreciated what he was trying to do, she’d always been willing to take responsibility for her own actions. And this was lying right at her doorstep. “He came to my rescue. He was defending me, Jimmy. If I’m not to blame, then who is?”

He knew she had more than enough to deal with as it was. He was careful not to show it, but he worried about Alison. They all did—he, Kevin and Lily. His younger sister was friendly and outgoing, but there’d always been this definite cut-off point for her past which she wouldn’t allow men to venture. The only exception had been her husband. But that union had been short-lived, not lasting out a year. Ever since then, she’d become even more withdrawn than ever as far as her social life went.

There were times when he thought of her as a wounded sparrow. A hint of the very idea would have probably had her beating on him with both fists just to show him how unsparrowlike she was.

But he knew better. “Society, lax laws, the muggers—I can give you a list.” His eyes were kind as he looked at her closely. “You sure they didn’t hurt you?”

He’d look into her soul if he could, she knew that. But that was a closed area, even to him. “I’m sure. Just take care of Luc, all right? I really feel responsible for him, Jimmy.”

“All right.” Slipping his arm around her shoulders, Jimmy turned toward Luc. “Let’s get that head X-rayed, Luc. Make sure there isn’t something going on we should be aware of.”

Jimmy shut off the back light and pulled the two X rays off the display. Alison had shadowed his every move, insisting on looking at the X rays herself. He knew that her goal was to become a nurse-practitioner, but he wished she would give him a little space right now.

Slipping the X rays into a large manila envelope, he looked at Luc. The news was excellent. “No evidence of any swelling. In my professional opinion, you just got banged up a bit.”

“And the amnesia?” Alison pressed.

Since Luc and not his sister was the patient, Jimmy addressed his words to him. “Should clear up. Day or so.” He paused, then qualified. “With luck.”

“Should,” Luc repeated slowly, absorbing the word into the vast abyss that existed in his mind. “But no guarantees.”

Jimmy knew there was no way he could actually commiserate with his patient’s situation. How would he have felt, waking up, finding his whole world erased? It was a scary thought. “Nothing in life is.”

“Except death and taxes.” Luc stopped abruptly to examine the line that had come to him out of the blue. He’d heard that somewhere. But where, when? He squelched down the frustration and concentrated, instead, on the fact that he had remembered something, no matter how trivial. Progress.

“Yeah.” Jimmy made one final notation in Luc’s chart before closing it. He wondered how the receptionist was going to file this, given that there was no last name. Her problem. “Except for that.” Setting the chart aside, he picked up a small white packet and handed it to Luc. “I’m giving you ten pills. Take one every four hours for the pain if it gets too much. It’ll make you sleepy,” he warned, “but then, it doesn’t look as if you’re about to operate any heavy machinery in the immediate future.”

Luc stared down at the packet before putting it away. “If it’s all the same, I’d rather keep alert. My head’s already fuzzy enough as it is.”

Jimmy could empathize with that. Luc had described one killer of a headache. “Up to you.” He paused, thinking. Without a clue as to who he was and with no money, Luc had nowhere to stay. “You know, there’s a shelter not too far from here—” He began reaching for a pen and something to write on.

“He already has an address to a shelter,” Alison cut in. “The police detective gave it to him.” She had no firsthand knowledge of what one of those places looked like, but she’d watched a documentary. It was enough to help her make up her mind.

Jimmy missed the look in her eyes. “So I guess you’re set.”

“Looks like,” Luc agreed.

“Thanks again for saving the runt.” He nodded at Alison as he shook Luc’s hand. “We’ve gotten used to having her around.”

Luc had a feeling that he had no idea what to do with gratitude. At least, he didn’t know how to respond now, so he merely nodded, letting the words pass. Focusing, instead, on the unspoken affection he heard in the intern’s voice. The same note that existed in Alison’s when she’d first mentioned her brother.

Did he have a family? Was that kind of filial affection part of his life, too? He had no way of proving it right now, only the vaguest hint of a feeling, but he thought that he did. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking on his part.

Saying goodbye, Luc walked out of the hospital with Alison. He noticed that for once she wasn’t talking very much. Probably trying to decide whether to drive him to the shelter, or let him walk there, he thought.

Alison held her tongue until they were outside in the parking lot again and alone. She unlocked the car doors, and then, unable to stand it any longer, her conscience pushed out the words.

“Look, I don’t like the idea of your staying at one of these places.”

“You don’t,” he repeated. He didn’t know her. He had no way of knowing where she was going with this.

She looked at him, torn between guilt and the need to protect her privacy. Guilt won.

“No, I don’t. I don’t know if you saved my life or not, but you very well might have and I would be callous and ungrateful for the sacrifice your coming to my rescue apparently cost you if I let you stay at a flophouse overnight.”

He took out the address the detective had given him and looked at it. “Flophouse?”

He was repeating things again. Alison didn’t know how much clearer to make it for him. “Work with me here,” she retorted.

The look on his face was innocent and compounded her guilt. “I would if I knew what we were working on.”

Trying again, she enunciated each word. “I live at home. With my brothers. You just met Jimmy. There’s Kevin, too. He’s the oldest.” Not that that mattered, she thought, except maybe to Kevin. But they each had a vote on what went on in the house. She knew she could count on Jimmy to back her up. “There’s this room over the garage. It’s not much, but it’s clean and you wouldn’t have to share your space with forty other people.” And any assorted bugs and/or vermin that might decide to spend the night, as well, she added silently.

In his present state, with not even a glimmer of a memory to fall back on for guidance, Luc didn’t want to presume too much. “Are you asking me to stay at your place?”

“No, I’m telling you you’re staying at my place,” she corrected tersely. “My garage,” she amended. “That is—” Frustrated, she dragged a hand through her hair. “Look, I owe you, and I wouldn’t feel very good about myself if I let you stay in one of these places.”

The smile that came to his lips was slow in its progress, a little like sunrise when the sun reached up over the mountain range to clear a path for itself in the sky. She found herself staring at it. At him. And getting lost.

“Can’t have you feeling bad about yourself,” Luc agreed.

For the life of her, Alison couldn’t tell if he was putting her on, teasing her or just being honest with her. In any case, she didn’t have time to straighten it out right now. Glancing at her watch, she realized that she was overdue getting the cab back. Her shift had been over for ten minutes and she had nothing to show for it.

Except Luc.

She doubted that Kevin would think the afternoon had been very profitable.

He was out of his small, windowless office before she brought the cab to a full stop within the large garage where Kevin kept the five cabs that he owned. Slightly shorter and broader than his brother, Kevin Quintano gave the impression of a bulldozer plowing through the underbrush.

He was plowing in her direction now.

Having spent the better part of the last couple of hours trying to reach her on the two-way radio when she didn’t arrive to pick up her next fare, Kevin had been vacillating between furious and frantic. She was, after all, his baby sister, and the city was large. All the maniacs were not confined to cities with more than a million in population.

Now that he saw she was all right, he went back to furious.

“Okay, what the hell’s going on? I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon. Where the hell did you disappear to? I felt like someone in that old sitcom. You know, Car 54, Where Are You? Except in this case—” he jerked a thumb in the cab’s direction “—it was Cab 4.” He waved one of his drivers over. “What are you waiting for? Christmas? Go, go!”

With a nod of his head, the driver eased past Alison and got in on the driver’s side.

Hands on his hips, Kevin turned toward his sister. He didn’t miss the opportunity to glare at the man with his sister, either. He knew it couldn’t be a boyfriend. Gorgeous though she was, Alison didn’t have boyfriends. He and the others had tried, in vain, to fix her up time and again, but she’d stubbornly refused to have any part of it.

When being yelled at, Alison had a tendency to yell back. It didn’t affect the way she felt about her brother at all. “I didn’t have time to call in.”

“Why, why didn’t you have time to call in?” Kevin found himself walking behind her as Alison retreated to his office, the stranger beside her. “Was it because of him? He get fresh with you?” Not waiting for an answer, Kevin moved Alison aside and commandeered the man’s attention. “Listen, buddy, just because she was driving a cab doesn’t make her an easy mark—”

Alison wedged herself between them, glaring at her brother. “Kevin, you’re getting carried away again.”

Deep-seated affection flickered in Kevin’s eyes for a second as he looked at her. The ideas that had been running through his head these last few hours… “You’re my baby sister. I have a right to get carried away if some guy—”

“He saved me, Kevin.”

The barrage of words came to a sudden, skidding halt. Dark brows came together over a Roman nose. “Saved you? Saved you from what?”

“From being mugged.” She’d wanted to find a way to tell him, a nice, calm way, but apparently Kevin wasn’t going to allow that. “Two guys stole the fare money. And all his things. I’m sorry, Kevin. The money’s gone.”

He didn’t give a damn about the money. Only Alison. He looked from Luc to Alison, words temporarily refusing to come. And then they came. In a flood.

“That does it! No more driving the cab. Not full-time, not part-time. Not from here to the edge of the garage—”

“Kevin—”

But he wasn’t listening. “I told you that wasn’t a job for a woman, but no, you wouldn’t listen. You always thought you knew what was best.” When he thought of what could have happened to her, his blood ran cold. “Well, I’ve got news for you. You don’t know—”

She placed her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Slow down, Kevin. Luc has a headache.”

Working up a full head of steam, he was just getting started. “I don’t care—”

But she did. “He got it defending me.”

“Oh.” The words finally penetrated. Chagrined, Kevin looked at the man who had earned his eternal gratitude. “Oh,” he repeated. “Hey, sit down.” He dragged a chair closer, urging Luc to sit. “You want an aspirin?” Kevin pulled open a drawer in his desk, reaching for a half-empty bottle. “Did you take him to see Jimmy—?”

Alison reclaimed the bottle and put it back in the drawer. “He has painkillers and yes, I took him to see Jimmy. I am a nurse, you know.”

“A nurselet,” Kevin corrected fondly. Ten years older than Alison, it was hard for him to think of her in any sort of adult capacity. “But you’re coming along,” he added when he saw the storm clouds gathering in her eyes.

Even though he had no way of knowing for sure, something told Luc that he was accustomed to a less frantic pace. But then, probably everyone was. “You people always talk this fast?”

Kevin looked at him and then laughed. He dragged his hand through his hair in a way that was reminiscent of Alison. “Only when we’re stirred up,” Kevin apologized. “Can I get you anything? Just name it.”

“He needs a place to stay,” Alison interjected before Luc could demur the offer. “If it’s okay with you, I told him he could have the room over the garage. Until his memory comes back.”

Kevin glanced in Luc’s direction. “His memory?”

Alison nodded, pressing her lips together. “He has amnesia.” And it was all her fault.

Kevin could only stare at her.

Chapter Three

“You can’t remember anything?”

Kevin thought of all the things that were crowded into his life, all the treasured memories he had of precious moments. The idea of suddenly losing his grasp on all of them was devastating. Sympathy flooded through him for the young man sitting on the guest side of his small, cluttered desk.

“No.” The single word echoed, dark and lonely, in Luc’s brain. Drawing nothing into the light in its wake except frustration.

Blowing out a breath, Kevin passed his hand over his hair.

“Man, that has got to be awful for you.” At a loss as to what to say, Kevin looked toward his sister. “How long do these kind of things last?”

Alison hesitated, then purposely kept her voice upbeat for Luc’s sake. “Jimmy said it might clear up in a day or two.”

Or longer, she added silently. There was just no telling. Even though she’d asked the same question of Jimmy, Alison knew that there was no blueprint for amnesia to follow. It varied from person to person, a product of cause and effect. It could be gone by tomorrow, or last forever. There was just no telling.

For Luc’s sake, she crossed her fingers and hoped for the first.

“Day or two, huh?” Kevin was a dyed-in-the-wool optimist. He shifted his eyes to look at Luc. “Sure he can stay over the garage,” he told Alison. “You can stay for as long as it takes. Nothing’s too good for the man who saved my little sister.” As if to underscore his sentiment, Kevin threw an arm around Alison, hugging her to him.

Embarrassed, Alison tried not to flush. “We’re a very close family,” she told Luc.

Luc noticed that she subtly shrugged her brother’s arm off and then stepped back. It reminded him of something. Small spaces and claustrophobia. Cave-ins. What did all that mean?

Behind him, he heard the door being opened. “Hey, Kevin, can I see you a sec?” Turning in his chair, he saw a man in stained, zipped-up coveralls peering into the office.

Kevin waved the mechanic back out. “In a minute, Matt. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Grunting, Matt retreated. “It’ll keep.”

An idea suddenly hit Kevin. Perching on the corner of his desk, he looked down at Luc. “Have you been to the police station?”

“No, but I called 911,” Alison told him. “The police came to take down the information about the robbery.”

“Yeah, that.” He dismissed the robbery as unimportant. What mattered was that Alison wasn’t hurt. Money was replaceable, she wasn’t. “No, I mean about Luc here. They’ve got a Missing Persons Bureau, maybe they’ve got something like a Found Persons Bureau.” It made perfect sense to him. There had to be more people wandering around with amnesia than just Luc.

Alison pressed her lips together, holding back a smile. She didn’t want Kevin to think she was laughing at him. There were times when she envied her brother, the simplicity of his soul.

“He’s only had amnesia for less than half a day. That means if he’s ‘missing,’ he’s only been so for that amount of time. If he’s supposed to meet someone, they probably think he’s just been delayed.”

“Meeting someone.” Kevin rolled the idea over in his head. There had to be possibilities they weren’t seeing or tapping into. “Were you on your way to a meeting?”

“Well, he was on his way to a hotel,” Alison told him. Told both of them, she realized. Luc was listening to her as intently as her brother was. She had to remind herself that this was news to him, as well. She wished he had talked more to her when he’d gotten into the cab. Some fares never stopped talking from the moment they got in until she brought them to their destination. But after the exchange of names, Luc had been fairly quiet.

“I picked him up at the airport.”

The information felt like a depth charge aimed at a submarine. Kevin felt disappointment wash over him. “So you don’t even live around here?”

Luc considered the question, turning it over in his mind. Trying to find a bit of information that might begin to answer the query. But not even a glimmer pushed forward.

He sighed. “Not that I know of.”

“There has to be something you remember.” Kevin saw Alison opening her mouth, undoubtedly ready to launch into some sort of medical terminology. He was going with common sense. “People don’t lose their total memory when they get amnesia. I mean, you still speak English and you know how to walk, right?” Eagerness built in his voice. “There’s got to be something else rattling around in your head. You just don’t know, you know.”

There was that simplicity again, cutting to the heart of things. Alison looked at her brother with affection. “Sometimes, Kevin, I think you should have been a Rhodes scholar.”

He had no time for compliments, though it was nice to be appreciated once in a while. “I know all the roads I need to, right here in Seattle.” In his enthusiasm, Kevin leaned in closer to Luc. “Think. Is there anything? Anything at all?”

There was no harm in giving Kevin’s theory a whirl, Alison thought. “Maybe if you closed your eyes, it might make you focus better.”

Luc was game to try anything to jar at least a few thoughts loose. He did as she suggested. After a moment he opened his eyes again.

“Anything?” she pressed, eager. There was something there, she thought. In his eyes. He’d remembered something.

“Snow.”

Alison stared at him, confused. “Excuse me?”

“I had an image of snow.” But even as he said it, the image was fading into oblivion. “Or maybe just a huge expanse of nothingness.” Brought on by wishful thinking, he added silently. “I can’t tell.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder, leaving it there for a single beat before realizing what she was doing. Alison let her hand drop to her side. “It’ll come to you. You’re probably just trying too hard. Maybe after a good night’s sleep—”

“It’s only five o’clock in the afternoon,” Kevin pointed out.

Maybe, but Luc had been through a lot and he was undoubtedly exhausted. Some of his color was returning, which was a good sign, but she didn’t want to push it. Noticing his color, she realized that it looked as if he was tanned. Did he live on the coast? Near a beach? His way of speaking was relaxed, laid-back. Did that make him a Californian?

God, but she was lousy at playing detective. Where was Sherlock Holmes when you needed him?

“He can still get some rest, Kevin. C’mon, I’ll take you home.” Walking out of the office, she stopped abruptly. The space where she’d parked her car this morning was empty. She turned around to look at her brother. Kevin, she noticed, was walking slow, as if he expected the man beside him to collapse at any second. “Where’s my car?”

“Oh.” In all the excitement, he’d forgotten. “Matt parked it over by number 2. I had him do an oil change for you.”

She’d purchased the secondhand car with money she’d earned doing odd jobs since she was sixteen years old. She treated the car as if it were a beloved pet. “I can do my own oil change.”

“Yeah, I know.” It was an old story. She always balked whenever he tried to do something for her, acting as if he was impinging on her independence. She was that way with everyone. “But I enjoy doing little things for you.” He glanced at Luc. “She likes to act feisty.”

“No, just my age,” she countered. And then she sighed, looking at Luc. She’d been over this ground before, more times than she could count. “Being the youngest, they all think they have to take care of me.”

“We do,” Kevin confided to Luc, winking broadly for Alison’s benefit. “You know how it is.”

“No,” Luc replied, a wave of regret washing over him. “I don’t.”

“Yeah, right. Sorry.” Embarrassed at his blunder, Kevin looked away. He dug into his pocket, extracting his wallet and handed two twenties to Luc. “You gotta be hungry. Get yourself something to eat—on me.”

Alison gave up. There was no point in saying that she was perfectly capable of paying for both of them. Who was Kevin going to baby once she was gone? She’d put in her application to several medically depressed areas in the country and gotten back favorable responses. At this point she was just trying to decide which to accept. Kevin was going to have a lot of adjusting to do.

But for now she humored him. “We’ll pick up something on the way.”

Maybe you can pick up a wife on the way.

Almost in a trance, Luc stopped walking. “A wife.”

Alison and Kevin turned in unison to look at Luc, both stunned.

Maybe she’d heard wrong. “What?”

Luc looked at them, just as surprised as they were by what had just come out of his mouth. Very carefully he examined the words that had flashed through his head. But even now they were fading away.

“Someone said that to me…I think. Something about…looking for a wife, picking up a wife on the way. Something like that.” It made less and less sense the more he said it.

Alison laughed shortly. “I didn’t know they were holding a wife special at the mall.” At best, it was an odd clue to the man’s identity. Did he mean picking up his wife, she wondered. Could that be it? He was married and meeting his wife?

Luc tried to hear a voice, attach a face to the speaker, but it was like dropping cotton candy into the water. The words, the memory was dissolving before he could reach it.

“It had something to do with my coming here. Or maybe not,” he added with a helpless shrug of his shoulders. None of it was getting any clearer. If anything, it was becoming murkier.

For all he knew, the line that had echoed in his mind might have been something he’d heard in a movie or a television program.

He looked as if he was getting exasperated. She couldn’t blame him. Wanting to distract Luc, she said, “Let’s go get you settled in.”

To Kevin, it seemed like an odd way to put it. “What’s there to settle? The man has nothing but the clothes on his back.”

Kevin was right. Luc was going to need something else to wear. She scrutinized Luc closely. “Jimmy’s about the same size,” she judged.

“Better check with Jimmy first,” Kevin cautioned. In all likelihood, Jimmy would be generous, but you never knew. “You know how he is about his clothes.”

She laughed, remembering the one time she’d needed a tailored shirt and had to pilfer it out of Jimmy’s closet. The tirade when he discovered the loss had been unbelievable. Especially after he’d seen the wine stains. “Beau Brummell was probably more willing to give his clothes away.”

“Beau Brummell. Nineteenth-century figure, known for his penchant for finery. Friend of the prince of Wales.”

She and Kevin exchanged looks, then turned to look at Luc, who appeared a little amazed himself. He had no idea where that had come from.

“Maybe you’re an encyclopedia salesman,” Kevin suggested, only half kidding.

Luc shrugged. “Right now, that sounds as right as anything.”

Like a child on his first trip away from home, he watched the scenery go by outside the car window. Trying to absorb everything. Feeling a little lost, a little uncertain.

Except in his case, Luc hadn’t a clue where home actually was. All he knew, and not even with any amount of certainty, was that it wasn’t here.

“You’re trying too hard.”

Her voice, soft, understanding, drew his attention back to the car he was in. And to her. “What?”

She’d noted his reflection in the window when they’d stopped at the last traffic light. Alison could have sworn she could see his eyes getting tread worn. Though she’d never experienced anything remotely like amnesia, she could well imagine how frustrating it had to be for him. To think and not remember. To exist and have absolutely no memory of it.

“You’re trying too hard. To remember,” she added after a moment. “Sometimes, things come when you least expect them.”

Luc turned around to face her. Something she’d said was nudging a piece of a thought in his mind. Setting it off.

But it was shimmering just out of reach, just out of focus. For all he knew, it could be animal, vegetable or mineral. For the time being, he left it alone. Not that he had much choice in the matter.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Maybe if he allowed his mind to remain a blank, the pieces would eventually turn up.

He saw her grin and felt something stir inside him in response. The grin was sensual, but innocent at the same time. More questions came to mind, but this time they had to do with her.

“I usually am.” And then Alison laughed. “Not that anyone in my family likes to admit it.”

Family. The word created ripples of a feeling that passed over him. Again it defied capture. He couldn’t quite make it his. Maybe if he kept her talking, the feeling would crystallize into something he could identify.

“How many are there in your family?”

“Four, counting me.” It had been four for a very long time. Her mother had died when she was eight, her father three years after that. For all intents and purposes, Kevin was as much her parent as he was her brother. “You met Kevin and Jimmy. Among the missing, but only for the moment, is Lily.” She grinned again. They were as different as night and day, she and her sister. Lily was the sophisticate. “Lily recently moved out to live over the restaurant she bought into.”

Lily had finally managed to buy out the other owners and rechristen the restaurant. There was no doubt in her mind that within the year, Lily’s would become the trendy place to go in Seattle. Lily wouldn’t have it any other way.

Alison glanced at Luc as she took a side street. It wasn’t far now. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re all eager little beavers in my family.”

“I noticed.” Except that he would have used the word enterprising, he thought, then wondered where the word had come from. “And you’re the youngest.”

She laughed and nodded. At times, it was more of a condition than a chronological position. “And they never let me forget it.” She hesitated, then decided to prod a little. Who knew? It might actually help. “Do you think you have any family?”

He’d been asking himself the same thing. With no results. “I don’t know, but I don’t think so, at least not in the traditional way.” He tried to make sense of it for himself as well as her. “There’s this vague feeling that there’s someone, but…not really.”

That didn’t make a hell of a whole lot of sense, did it, he thought. And yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been someone, someone important, who wasn’t there anymore. Had they died? A hollow feeling took hold of him as the realization sank in. Someone important to him could have died recently and he didn’t even know.

Without thinking, she slipped her hand over his in mute comfort, then replaced it on the steering wheel. “Sounds like a ghost.”

“That,” he agreed. “Or something that wasn’t.” The words drifted from his lips slowly, just as the thought had drifted in. It wasn’t the death of a person that he was feeling, but of something. What did that mean?

“I don’t follow you.”

That made two of them, he thought ruefully. “Sorry, it’s just something that seemed to pop into my head and then out again.” And he couldn’t make a damn bit of sense out of it.

She didn’t want him getting too frustrated, not when she thought he was still weak.

“Well, when it pops back in, try to hang on to it. Something tells me those missing pieces of your puzzle are doing their damnedest to try to show up again.” Pulling up to a compact, two-story house, she parked at the curb. They took turns using the garage. This week, Kevin’s car and Jimmy’s motorcycle got to stay out of Seattle’s daily mist. “In the meantime, this is where you can crash.”

“Crash?”

She shut off the engine and got out. “Set up your tent.” Walking ahead of him, she led the way to the detached garage. There was a wooden staircase on the side closer to the house. “Park your body. You know, stay.”

For the first time since he’d opened his eyes, amusement materialized. “Do you always use this many words?”

She took the wooden stairs two at a time. “I love the sound of words.” Reaching the landing, she unlocked the door. She turned around and waited for him to join her. “I was going to become an English teacher, but then I thought that wouldn’t make enough of a difference.” She let him walk in first.

The room was small, made smaller by the presence of a queen-size bed and a massive chest of drawers that had once occupied the master bedroom. “Does that mean a lot to you, making a difference?”

There was no way she could put into words just how much it did mean. No one really knew or understood. Sometimes, the feeling even left her a little mystified.

“When you’re the littlest and the youngest, you have a tendency to want to be the loudest just to be noticed. I want to make a difference, to know that because of me, someone feels better. Is better.” That’s why nursing had seemed so right to her. It allowed her the time to hold a patient’s hand, to offer comfort. In order to heal, the spirit had to be helped along as well as the body. Hearing herself, Alison stopped abruptly. “I’m talking too much.”

He didn’t want her to stop. “No, please, talk. Listening to you helps fill up the empty spaces in my head.”

For some reason, there wasn’t enough air in the room. She’d never noticed how small the room was. How tight the space around the bed seemed. There was no place to back up and suddenly she felt as if she needed to.

“You should be filling them up with your own thoughts.”

He smiled at the irony of her words. “I seem to have misplaced them. Temporarily I hope.”

“Do you think you’re married?” She had no idea where the question came from. Or why she wanted to know. Her curiosity didn’t feel idle, but active. It made her uneasy. Trying to move around Luc, Alison maneuvered toward the door and opened it.

“I don’t know.” He searched, recalled nothing. “What does being married feel like?”

It took effort not to shiver as she remembered her own short, disastrous venture. Buried two years in her past, the mark it had left behind was still vivid. “Like you can’t breathe.”

“Then I’m not married.”

He probably thought she was strange, if not crazy. Needing something to do, she crossed to the window, opening it. The room hadn’t been aired out since their cousin had come to spend the holidays with them last Christmas. “Sorry, that was harsh. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She needed to be moving all the time. Was that because she had so much energy to spare, or was she trying to outdistance something? There’d been a note in her voice he couldn’t quite recognize. Not that, he thought, he’d recognize a hell of a whole lot right now.

“Why not?”

“Because I just shouldn’t have.” Why couldn’t he leave it at that? It was his mind they needed to explore, not hers. “Besides, you’re a stranger.”

“And your husband wouldn’t like you talking to strangers,” he guessed.

“I’m not married.” He probably didn’t make the connection, or remember at any rate. “I live here, remember?”

Luc watched her fuss with the bedspread. “Yes, it’s just that I thought maybe you lived here with your husband. You sounded so adamant just now, about marriage.”

She had, too. Probably too adamant. Alison ran her hand along her neck, trying to lighten the moment. “It’s been a rough day. I was almost mugged.”

His eyes met hers. Humor glinted in them. “Yeah, I know.”

It felt as if his eyes were touching her. Air became thick in her throat, almost solidifying. She turned away, unsettled by the pull she felt. “There’s a tiny bathroom in the back. No shower, but you can wash your hands. I know it’s not much, but—”

“I don’t need much,” he assured her. There was no need to apologize. She and her brother were being more than kind, taking in a stranger. “And I appreciate you and your brothers letting me stay here.”

The image of a small room, dark but warm, flashed through his brain, remaining in less time than it took to identify it.

Alison touched his arm, drawing his attention back into the room above the garage. “What is it?”

He blinked, trying to focus. Aware only of the fact that she was standing very close to him again. And that she wore a fragrance that reminded him of—what? “Hmm?”

“You just had a very strange look on your face. Did you just remember something?”

“A half of something,” he allowed. “A room.” He turned around slowly, taking in the details of the room for the first time. The room in his mind had been cheerier. “Kind of like this. It was dark. Outside,” he realized, “it was dark.”

“Nighttime,” she guessed.

He was about to agree, then stopped. “No, it wasn’t. It was daytime.”

Then why was it dark? “A storm?” Or maybe his mind was playing tricks on him.

It sounded like a logical guess, but he couldn’t really say for sure. “I don’t know.”

Her heart went out to him. In his place, she wouldn’t have known if she could stand it as calmly as he was. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be plying you with questions. It’s just that I keep thinking if I ask the right one, suddenly everything’ll come back to you.”

He smiled, grateful for her help. She made him feel less alone. “It beats you hitting me on the head, hoping that might jar the thoughts back into my brain.”

She’d seen a cartoon like that once. Maybe, subconsciously, he was remembering the same one. “If everything else fails, maybe we’ll fall back on that.” She remembered Kevin giving Luc money for dinner. She’d forgotten to stop at the store. “Why don’t you follow me into the house and we can see what there is in the refrigerator to heat up?” If she was lucky, Lily had stopped by to stock it for them.

“Sounds like a plan, and since I don’t seem to have any previous engagements that I’m aware of, I happen to be free.” He opened the door and waited for her to step through.

Something sizzled in her veins as she did so. Surprised, she suppressed it.

Chapter Four

The kitchen was state-of-the-art, with highly polished, copper pots and pans hanging from ceiling hooks arranged in a rectangle that encompassed the fluorescent light fixture. A butcher-block island stood in the middle, unadorned and vacant, while a blue-tiled utility bar housed only newspapers from days past and a small television set that was dormant at the moment.

It was a kitchen waiting in vain to be pressed into service.

This had been Lily’s domain. For a time, Alison had felt intimidated and inadequate just walking into it until she’d made her peace with the fact that she enjoyed eating sandwiches and two-minute microwave specials.

Leading the way in, she opened both sides of the refrigerator, allowing Luc a full view of the interior. It was Jimmy’s turn to go shopping. Which would explain why there was so little within the “magic box,” as she used to call it when she was a little girl. Back then, her mother had presided here and she could remember warm, wonderful smells coupled with a feeling of well-being coming from this room. There’d been no pots hanging from the ceiling, no butcher-block island then, only a breakfast nook. And love.

Until everything had changed.

“Okay.” She glanced over her shoulder at Luc. “What’s your pleasure?”

The question caught him unprepared. He’d just allowed his mind to wander, to dwell on the woman who had taken him under her wing because, according to her, he’d come to her rescue. He wished he could remember at least that part. But he couldn’t.

Instead, what was teasing his mind now was the very real, very strong attraction he was experiencing standing so close to her. Pleasure was the word for it, all right.

“Excuse me?”

“Food.” She gestured toward the open freezer. Stacked inside were several colorful boxes, the names on the side hinting at culinary heaven in under five minutes. She tilted her head so that she could read the labels better. Her hair brushed along his bare arm, sending ripples of current through him. “We have frozen pot pie, frozen Mexican entrée, frozen—” Straightening, she looked at him with a self-depreciating smile. “Well, pretty much frozen everything.”

He was more interested in the other side of the refrigerator. Edging her to the side, he indicated the contents on the lower two shelves. “You’ve got some vegetables and a carton of eggs.”

There was no point in even mentioning that. “I don’t want to add ptomaine poisoning to your list of troubles.” She began to close that side of the refrigerator.

He placed his hand in the way, stopping her. “Why, are they spoiled?” Reaching inside, he picked up the larger of the two red peppers languishing beside the three sprigs of broccoli and pressed his fingers along the sides. “Feels pretty firm to me.”

She had no idea why she was identifying with an inanimate object. Why she could almost feel his fingertips pressing her skin. Maybe, she decided, because Luc wasn’t quite real. Without a memory, he could be anyone, like a fantasy come to life for a brief spate of time. Once his memory returned, he’d be gone.

And she would remain unthreatened.

“They’re not spoiled—” she agreed. “Yet. But they would be by the time I get through with whatever I tried to make.” A person had to know her limitations. This was one of hers. “We have a division of labor here as far as the kitchen goes,” she explained, taking the pepper from him and returning it to its place. “Whenever she stops by, Lily creates, Kevin cooks, Jimmy warms up and I destroy.” She made it a point to stay out of the kitchen, except to eat, whenever humanly possible.

He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around what she was saying. “You can’t be as bad as all that.”

“I wouldn’t place any bets on that if I were you.” She glanced overhead at the pan hanging closest to her. “I stand a better chance winning a tennis match with a frying pan than I do making an edible meal with it.”

He hardly heard her answer. Something had just come to him. Too vague to be labeled a memory, it was almost like a feeling. “I’ve had too much frozen.”

Instantly alert, she grasped at the information, wanting to coax more out. “You remember eating frozen food?”

“No.” That wasn’t it. He strained, trying to catch hold of the silvery thread, to expand it into something larger. Something tangible he could handle. “I remember—ice, lots of it.” His eyes seemed to glow with the fragmented thought. “And snow.”

It was progress. Of a sort, she supposed. But such vague progress, it was hard not to sound discouraged. “That could be anywhere except for Southern California and Hawaii. What else do you remember?”

There was a blank. A huge blank. Hoping to stimulate something more, Luc stared into the open vegetable crisper again.

“I’m not sure.” And then he saw a stove in his mind’s eye. A large, six-burner, industrial gas stove. He could almost feel the heat. His eyes widened as he turned toward her. “Cooking, I remember—cooking.”

His smile was wide and boyishly engaging. Alison could almost feel it burrowing into her. Seeking a response. Her heart fluttered. But that was only in empathy. She was identifying with him at this breakthrough he was having. There couldn’t be any other reason for it.

Derek had taught her that she wasn’t meant for things like romance and love. If you can’t swim, don’t put your toe into the water.

She kept her toes where they belonged.

But she couldn’t help the wave of enthusiasm she felt for Luc. “See, it’s coming back to you already. You want to fool around in the kitchen?” He looked at her, bemused. Or maybe amused. She realized what that had to have sounded like. “With the ingredients I mean.” Moving quickly, wanting to cover the flustered feeling that had suddenly hit her from left field, she took out the peppers and lined them up on the counter. “Maybe something’ll come back to you.”

Something already had. A wave of bittersweetness. A sense of loss and resignation, sneaking up out of nowhere and drenching him. But loss of what? Resignation over what?

About what?

Or who?

All questions echoing in his brain, having no answers.

“You’re trying too hard again.” She smoothed back the furrow between his eyes even as he shifted them toward her questioningly. Realizing that maybe she was stepping over some invisible line that was best kept enforced, she dropped her hand to her side. “The last flash came to you without any effort on your part. The rest will, too. Maybe even by morning.” At least, it certainly looked promising enough. She peered at him. He no longer looked as if he was staving off agony. “How’s your headache, by the way?”

He’d forgotten about it until she’d mentioned it just now. “Almost gone.” The realization surprised him as much as it pleased him.

Another good sign. Jimmy had given him an injection to mute the pain, but that had been a while ago and she knew he hadn’t taken any of the pills that her brother had given him. There was every indication that their houseguest wouldn’t be staying long.

And that, of course, was for the good, she told herself.

“Then maybe puttering around in the kitchen might not be a bad idea.” She was already taking out the carton and placing it on the counter beside the peppers. If he needed anything more, he was going to have to tell her. “See what you can cook up—for you and for me.”

He said the first thing that suggested itself. “An omelet?”

He said it as if he thought it was the wrong time of day for it. She’d been raised on eggs at night and steak in the morning. Food was food.

“Hey, I’m hungry enough to eat waxed paper. An omelet sounds like heaven.” She paused, not knowing what he needed in addition to the two ingredients she’d put out. “I’d offer to help cook, but that’s a contradiction in terms as far as I’m concerned.” And then she grinned. “I can be your cheering section.”

His cheering section. She’d put into words just how he saw her. “I’d like that.”

She closed her eyes, savoring this bite as much as she had the first and the second. The man was nothing short of a miracle worker. He even cooked rings around Lily. This wasn’t an omelet, it was a minor miracle.

Lily was going to love him.

As if her older sister needed another man in her life. The thought was without malice. Dedicated, hardworking, Lily also knew how to play hard. And to enjoy herself.

Not for you, Alison. You were meant for other things, she told herself.

She held up her empty fork, raising a phantom glass in a toast.

“Where did you learn to cook like that?” And then her question hit her. If he could answer that, then he wouldn’t have been here in the first place. She offered him an apologetic look. “Sorry, I was just trying to sneak out another piece of information.”

It was an excuse, a way of covering for herself. But now that she said it, she realized that it wasn’t such a bad way to go. If she talked enough, prodded enough, maybe something else would come back to him. Maybe even everything.

“The subconscious is a strange thing.” She fell back on textbook knowledge. He was, after all, her first amnesia patient. And he was her responsibility, as well, because she meant to have him get better in her care. “It’s all in there, you know, every thought you’ve ever had, every memory you ever gathered.” Her eyes strayed to the small TV set on the counter near the sink. It was there at her insistence. “And every program you ever watched.”

He followed her line of vision and reflected. “I don’t think I’ve watched many programs.”

The concept, voluntarily adhered to, was almost impossible for her to believe. Unless there was a reason. Her eyes lit up. Worth a shot.

“Maybe your parents were disciplinarians. I had a friend whose parents would only let her watch one hour of television a week. Me, I was plugged into a television set the day I was born. Kevin says I’m a walking trivia book on cartoons and sitcoms.”

She stopped to take in another forkful. Every one had been a delight. “This is really great. You know, if this amnesia of yours continues for a while and you need a job, I know Lily would love to get her hands on you.”

Probably literally and otherwise, she added silently. Lily had radar as far as good-looking men went. Luc not only fell into the category, he looked as if he could probably rise to the head of the column.

“Right now, she can’t find a chef to meet her standards, so she’s doing all the cooking at Lily’s herself.” She finished her meal and felt a pang of regret. She was full, but she would have been willing to eat more. A lot more. “If you can make anything else besides omelets, you’d be an answer to a prayer for her.”

“I can cook anything.” He grinned at the cocky way that sounded. But there was no denying the wave of confidence that had come over him. He knew he could cook. It was nice to finally be sure of something, even something as trivial as this. “I can.”

Using her fork as a microphone, she pretended to be a news announcer and declared, “And we’ve established a beachhead.” Her eyes were eager. “Anything else coming back to you?”

“You already asked that.”

“I thought we’d do spot checks every hour, see if anything else drifts back to you.” She propped her head up on her fisted hand. “Like, do you remember saving anyone else?”

He wondered if she knew how genial her smile was. How warm. He shook his head in answer to her question. “I don’t even remember saving you.”

“You did. You were like the U.S. cavalry. Or a Canadian Mountie.” They were near the Canadian border. Maybe he was a Canadian, on vacation in the States. If that were the case, this would probably go down as one of the worst vacations on record, just a few lines below booking passage on the Titanic.

She could tell he wanted her to elaborate. “You hauled that guy out of the cab as if he was some rag doll instead of this stocky pig.” Alison smiled, recalling. “He looked really scared, even though he had a knife and you just had your bare hands.”

None of this was coming back to him. It was as if she was talking about something that had happened to someone else. “Did I hit him?”

She laughed. “Into next Sunday. If he hadn’t had a partner skulking in the shadows, he would have been cooling his heels in jail right now.” Her narrative over, her voice softened. “And you would still have your memory. I’m really very sorry about that.”

He didn’t want her feeling guilty. “It’s not your fault.”

But she didn’t see it that way. “I should have parked in the street.” One little misstep had caused all this. “It was just that I wanted to avoid getting snarled up in traffic.”

He dismissed it with a shrug, wanting her to do the same. Leaning over, he picked up her empty plate as well as his own and rose to his feet. “Logical.”

A smile curved her lips as she watched him. “You do dishes, too?”

He looked down at the plates and realized that he was bringing them over to the sink. He’d done it automatically, as if he’d been preprogrammed. “I guess I do.”

The man was single. If she hadn’t decided the matter earlier, this would have convinced her. “Well, memory loss or not, you’re not going to be on the market long.” Getting up, she pushed in her chair. “You cook, clean up after yourself and put yourself on the line to rescue damsels in distress. Most women go to bed every night praying to meet someone like you.”

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