About the Author Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE EPILOGUE Copyright

Sandra Marton is the author of over 30 books for Harlequin Presents. Here’s what the reviewers said about her book, A PROPER WIFE:

“The Brilliant storyteller

Sandra Marton...pens an impassioned

tale brimming with vividly real

characters, thrilling scenes and simply

crackling chemistry... Another sure

keeper for your bookshelf.”

—Romantic Times

(Awarded RT’s Gold Medal.)

“Ms. Marton has written a super

entertaining story full of conflict, humor,

romance and love. An excellent read.”

—Rendezvous Magazine

SANDRA MARTON is the author of more than thirty romance novels. Readers around the world love her strong, passionate heroes and determined, spirited heroines. When she’s not writing, Sandra likes to hike, read, explore out-of-the-way restaurants and travel to faraway places. The mother of two grown sons, Sandra lives with her husband in a sun-filled house in a quiet corner of Connecticut where she alternates between extravagant bouts of gourmet cooking and take-out pizza. You can write to her (SASE) at P.O. Box 295, Storrs, Connecticut 06268.

The Second Mrs Adams

Sandra Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

THE siren was loud.

Painfully, agonizingly loud.

The sound was a live thing, burrowing deep into her skull, tunneling into the marrow of her bones.

Make it stop, she thought, oh please, make it stop.

But even when it did, the silence didn’t take the pain away.

“My head,” she whispered. “My head.”

No one was listening. Or perhaps no one could hear her. Was she really saying anything or was she only thinking the words?

People were crowded around, faces looking down at her, some white with concern, others sweaty with curiosity. Hands were moving over her now, very gently, and then they were lifting her; oh, God, it hurt!

“Easy,” somebody said, and then she was inside a...a what? A truck? No. It was an ambulance. And now the doors closed and the ambulance began to move and the sound, that awful sound, began again and they were flying through the streets.

Terror constricted her throat.

What’s happened to me? she thought desperately.

She tried to gasp out the words but she couldn’t form them. She was trapped in silence and in pain as they raced through the city.

Had there been an accident? A picture formed in her mind of wet, glistening pavement, a curb, a taxi hurtling toward her. She heard again the bleat of a horn and the squeal of tires seeking a purchase that was not to be found...

No. No! she thought, and then she screamed her denial but the scream rose to mingle with the wail of the siren as she tumbled down into velvet darkness.

She lay on her back and drifted in the blue waters of a dream. There was a bright yellow light overhead.

Was it the sun?

There were voices... Disembodied voices, floating on the air. Sentence fragments that made no sense, falling around her with the coldness of snow.

“...five more CC’s...”

“...blood pressure not stabilized yet...”

“...wait for a CAT scan before...”

The voices droned on. It wasn’t anything to do with her, she decided drowsily, and fell back into the darkness.

The next time she awoke, the voices were still talking.

“...no prognosis, at this stage...”

“...touch and go for a while, but...”

They were talking about her. But why? What was wrong with her? She wanted to ask, she wanted to tell them to stop discussing her as if she weren’t there because she was there, it was just that she couldn’t get her eyes to open because the lids were so heavy.

She groaned and a hand closed over hers, the fingers gripping hers reassuringly.

“Joanna?”

Who?

“Joanna, can you hear me?”

Joanna? Was that who she was? Was that her name?

“...head injuries are often unpredictable...”

The hand tightened on hers. “Dammit, stop talking about her as if she weren’t here!”

The voice was as masculine as the touch, blunt with anger and command. Blessedly, the buzz of words ceased. Joanna tried to move her fingers, to press them against the ones that clasped hers and let the man know she was grateful for what he’d done, but she couldn’t. Though her mind willed it, her hand wouldn’t respond. It felt like the rest of her, as lifeless as a lump of lead. She could only lie there unmoving, her fingers caught within those of the stranger’s.

“It’s all right, Joanna,” he murmured. “I’m here.”

His voice soothed her but his words sent fear coursing through her blood. Who? she thought wildly, who was here?

Without warning, the blackness opened beneath her and sucked her down.

When she awoke next, it was to silence.

She knew at once that she was alone. There were no voices, no hand holding hers. And though she felt as if she were floating, her mind felt clear.

Would she be able to open her eyes this time? The possibility that she couldn’t terrified her. Was she paralyzed? No. Her toes moved, and her fingers. Her hands, her legs...

All right, then.

Joanna took a breath, held it, then slowly let it out. Then she raised eyelids that felt as if they had been coated with cement.

The sudden rush of light was almost blinding. She blinked against it and looked around her.

She was in a hospital room. There was no mistaking it for anything else. The high ceiling and the bottle suspended beside the bed, dripping something pale and colorless into her vein, confirmed it.

The room was not unpleasant. It was large, drenched in bright sunlight and filled with baskets of fruit and vases of flowers.

Was all that for her? It had to be; hers was the only bed in the room.

What had happened to her? She had seen no cast on her legs or her arms; nothing ached in her body or her limbs. Except for the slender plastic tubing snaking into her arm, she might have awakened from a nap.

Was there a bell to ring? She lifted her head from the pillow. Surely there was a way to call some...

“Ahh!”

Pain lanced through her skull with the keenness of a knife. She fell back and shut her eyes against it.

“Mrs. Adams?”

Joanna’s breath hissed from between her teeth.

“Mrs. Adams, do you hear me? Open your eyes, please, Mrs. Adams, and look at me.”

It hurt, God, it hurt, but she managed to look up into a stern female face that was instantly softened by a smile.

“That’s the way, Mrs. Adams. Good girl. How do you feel?”

Joanna opened her mouth but nothing came out. The nurse nodded sympathetically.

“Wait a moment. Let me moisten your lips with some ice chips. There, how’s that?”

“My head hurts,” Joanna said in a cracked whisper.

The nurse’s smile broadened, as if something wonderful had happened.

“Of course it does, dear. I’m sure the doctor will give you something for it as soon as he’s seen you. I’ll just go and get him...”

Joanna’s hand shot out. She caught the edge of the woman’s crisp white sleeve.

“Please,” she said, “what happened to me?”

“Doctor Corbett will explain everything, Mrs. Adams.”

“Was I in an accident? I don’t remember. A car. A taxi...”

“Hush now, dear.” The woman extricated herself gently from Joanna’s grasp and made her way toward the door. “Just lie back and relax, Mrs. Adams. I’ll only be a moment.”

“Wait!”

The single word stopped the nurse with its urgency. She paused in the doorway and swung around.

“What is it, Mrs. Adams?”

Joanna stared at the round, kindly face. She felt the seconds flying away from her with every pounding beat of her heart.

“You keep calling me...you keep saying, ‘Mrs. Adams...’”

She saw the. sudden twist in the nurse’s mouth, the dawning of sympathetic realization in the woman’s eyes.

“Can you tell me,” Joanna said in a broken whisper, “can you tell me who... What I mean is, could you tell me, please, who I am?”

The doctor came. Two doctors, actually, one a pleasant young man with a gentle touch and another, an older man with a patrician air and a way of looking at her as if she weren’t really there while he poked and prodded but that was OK because Joanna felt as if she wasn’t really there, surely not here in this bed, in this room, without any idea in the world of who she was.

“Mrs. Adams” they all called her, and like some well-trained dog, she learned within moments to answer to the name, to extend her arm and let them take out the tubing, to say “Yes?” when one of them addressed her by the name, but who was Mrs. Adams?

Joanna only knew that she was here, in this room, and that to all intents and purposes, her life had begun an hour before.

She asked questions, the kind she’d never heard anywhere but in a bad movie and even when she thought that, it amazed her that she’d know there was such a thing as a bad movie.

But the doctor, the young one, said that was what amnesia was like, that you remembered some things and not others, that it wasn’t as if your brain had been wiped clean of everything, and Joanna thought thank goodness for that or she would lie here like a giant turnip. She said as much to the young doctor and he laughed and she laughed, even though it hurt her head when she did, and then, without any warning, she wasn’t laughing at all, she was sobbing as if her heart were going to break, and a needle slid into her arm and she fell into oblivion.

It was nighttime when she woke next.

The room was dark, except for the light seeping in from the hushed silence of the corridor just outside the partly open door. The blackness beyond the windowpane was broken by the glow of lights from what surely had to be a city.

Joanna stirred restlessly. “Nurse?” she whispered.

“Joanna.”

She knew the voice. It was the same masculine one that she’d heard an eternity ago when she’d surfaced from unconsciousness.

“Yes,” she said.

She heard the soft creak of leather and a shape rose from the chair beside her bed. Slowly, carefully, she turned her head on the pillow.

His figure was shrouded in shadow, his face indistinct She could see only that he was big and broad of shoulder, that he seemed powerful, almost mystical in the darkness.

“Joanna,” he said again, his voice gruff as she’d remembered it yet tinged now with a husky softness. His hand closed over hers and this time she had no difficulty flexing her fingers and threading them through his, clasping his hand and holding on as if to a lifeline. “Welcome back,” he said, and she could hear the smile and the relief in the words.

Joanna swallowed hard. There was so much she wanted to ask, but it seemed so stupid to say, “who am I?” or “who are you?” or “where am I?” or “how did I get here?”

“You probably have a lot of questions,” he said, and she almost sobbed with relief.

“Yes,” she murmured.

He nodded. “Ask them, then—or shall I get the nurse first? Do you need anything? Want anything? Water, or some cracked ice, or perhaps you need to go to the bathroom?”

“Answers,” Joanna said urgently, her hand tightening on his, “I need answers.”

“Of course. Shall I turn up the light?”

“No,” she said quickly. If he turned up the light, this would all become real. And it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. “No, it’s fine this way, thank you.”

“Very well, then.” The bed sighed as he sat down beside her. His hip brushed against hers, and she could feel the heat of him, the strength and the power. “Ask away, and I’ll do my best to answer.”

Joanna licked her lips. “What—what happened? I mean, how did I get here? Was there an accident?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“I seem to remember... I don’t know. It was raining, I think.”

“Yes,” he said again. His hand tightened on hers. “It was.”

“I stepped off the curb. The light was with me, I’d checked because... because...” She frowned. There was a reason, she knew there was, and it had something to do with him, but how could it when she didn’t...when she had no idea who he...

Joanna whimpered, and the man bent down and clasped her shoulders.

“It’s all right,” he said, “it’s all right, Joanna.”

It wasn’t, though. The touch of his hands on her was gentle but she could feel the tightly leashed rage in him, smell its hot, masculine scent on the carefully filtered hospital air.

“The taxi...”

“Yes.”

“It—it came flying through the intersection...”

“Hush.”

“I saw it, but by the time I did it was too late...”

Her voice quavered, then broke. The man cursed softly and his hands slid beneath her back and he lifted her toward him, cradling her against his chest.

Pain bloomed like an evil, White-hot flower behind her eyes. A cry rose in her throat and burst from her lips. Instantly, he lay her back against the pillows.

“Hell,” he said. “I’m sorry, Joanna. I shouldn’t have moved you.”

Strangely, the instant of pain had been a small price to pay for the comfort she’d felt in his arms. His strength had seemed to flow into her body; his heartbeat had seemed to give determination to hers.

She wanted to tell him that, but how did you say such things to a stranger?

“Joanna? Are you all right?”

She nodded. “I’m fine. I just—I have so many questions...”

He brushed the back of his hand along her cheek in a wordless gesture.

“I need to know.” She took a breath. “Tell me the rest, please. The taxi hit me, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And an ambulance brought me to... What is this place?”

“You’re in Manhattan Hospital.”

“Am I... am I badly hurt?” He hesitated, and she swallowed hard. “Please, tell me the truth. What kind of injuries do I have?”

“Some bruises. A cut above your eye... they had to put in stitches—”

“Why can’t I remember anything? Do I have amnesia?”

She asked it matter-of-factly, as if she’d been inquiring about nothing more devastating than a common cold, but he wasn’t a fool, she knew he could sense the panic that she fought to keep from her voice because the hands that still clasped her shoulders tightened again.

“The taxi only brushed you,” he said. “But when you fell, you hit your head against the curb.”

“My mind is like a—a blackboard that’s been wiped clean. You keep calling me ‘Joanna’ but the name has no meaning to me. I don’t know who ‘Joanna’ is.”

Her eyes had grown accustomed to the shadowy darkness; she could almost see him clearly now. He had a hard face with strong features: a straight blade of a nose, a slash of a mouth, hair that looked to be thick and dark and perhaps a bit overlong.

“And me?” His voice had fallen to a whisper; she had to strain to hear it. “Do you know who I am, Joanna?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. Should she remember him? Should she at least know his name?

“No,” she said. “No. I don’t.”

There was a long, almost palpable silence. She felt the quick bite of his fingers into her flesh and then he lifted his hands away, carefully, slowly, as if she were a delicate glass figurine he’d just returned to its cabinet for fear a swift movement would make it shatter.

He rose slowly to his feet and now she could see that he was tall, that the broad shoulders were matched by a powerful chest that tapered to a narrow waist, slim hips and long, well-proportioned legs. He stood beside the bed looking down at her, and then he nodded and thrust his fingers through his hair in a gesture instinct told her was as familiar to her as it was habitual to him.

“The doctors told me to expect this,” he said, “but...”

He shrugged so helplessly, despite the obvious power of his silhouette, that Joanna’s heart felt his frustration.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m terribly, terribly sorry.”

His smile was bittersweet. He sat down beside her again and took her hand in his. She had a fleeting memory, one that was gone before she could make sense of it. She saw his dark head bent over a woman’s hand, saw his lips pressed to the palm...

Was the woman her? Was he going to bring her hand to his mouth and kiss it?

Anticipation, bright as the promise of a new day and sweet as the nectar of a flower, made her pulse-beat quicken. But all he did was lay her hand down again and pat it lightly with his.

“It isn’t your fault, Joanna. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

She had the feeling that there was, that she owed him many apologies for many things, but that was silly. How could she owe anything to a man she didn’t know?

“Please,” she said softly, “tell me your name.”

His mouth twisted. Then he rose to his feet, walked to the window and stared out into the night. An eternity seemed to pass before he turned and looked at her again.

“Of course.” There was a difference in him now, in his tone and in the way he held himself, and it frightened her. “My name is David. David Adams.”

Joanna hesitated. The black pit that had swallowed her so many times since the accident seemed to loom at her feet.

“David Adams,” she murmured, turning the name over in her mind, trying—failing—to find in it some hint of familiarity. “We—we have the same last name.”

He laughed, though there was no levity to it:

“I can see you haven’t lost your talent for understatement, Joanna. Yes, we have the same last name.”

“Are we related, then?”

His mouth twisted again, this time with a wry smile. “Indeed, we are, my love. You see, Joanna, I’m your husband.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE nurses all knew him by name, but after ten days there was nothing surprising in that.

What was surprising, David thought as his driver competently snaked the Bentley through the crowded streets of midtown Manhattan, was that he’d become something of a celebrity in the hospital.

Morgana, his P.A., had laughed when he’d first expressed amazement and then annoyance at his star status.

“I’m not Richard Gere, for heaven’s sake,” he’d told her irritably after he’d been stopped half a dozen times for his autograph en route to Joanna’s room. “What in hell do they want with the signature of a stodgy Wall Street banker?”

Morgana had pointed out that he wasn’t just a Wall Street banker, he was the man both the President of the World Bank and the President of the United States turned to for financial advice, even though his politics were not known by either.

As for stodgy...Morgana reminded him that CityLife magazine had only last month named him to its list of New York’s Ten Sexiest Men.

David, who’d been embarrassed enough by the designation so he’d done an admirable job of all but forgetting it, had flushed.

“Absurd of them to even have mentioned my name in that stupid article,” he’d muttered, and Morgana, honest as always, had agreed.

The media thought otherwise. In a rare week of no news, an accident involving the beautiful young wife of New York’s Sexiest Stockbroker was a four-star event.

The ghouls had arrived at the Emergency Room damned near as fast as he had so that when he’d jumped from his taxi he’d found himself in a sea of microphones and cameras and shouted questions, some so personal he wouldn’t have asked them of a close friend. David had clenched his jaw, ignored them all and shoved his way through the avaricious mob without pausing.

That first encounter had taught him a lesson. Now, he came and went by limousine even though he hated the formality and pretentiousness of the oversize car he never used but for the most formal business occasions. Joanna had liked it, though. She loved the luxury of the plush passenger compartment with its built-in bar, TV and stereo.

David’s mouth twisted. What irony, that the car he disliked and his wife loved should have become his vehicle of choice, since the accident.

It had nothing to do with the bar or the TV. It was just that he’d quickly learned that the reporters who still hung around outside the hospital pounced on taxis like hyenas on wounded wildebeests. Arriving by limo avoided the problem. The car simply pulled up at the physicians’ entrance, David stepped out, waved to the security man as if he’d been doing it every day of his life and walked straight in. The reporters had yet to catch on, though it wouldn’t matter, after tonight. This would be his last visit to the hospital.

By this time tomorrow, Joanna would be installed in a comfortable suite at Bright Meadows Rehabilitation Center. The place had an excellent reputation, both for helping its patients recover and for keeping them safe from unwelcome visitors. Bright Meadows was accustomed to catering to high-profile guests. No one whose name hadn’t been placed on an approved list would get past the high stone walls and there was even a helicopter pad on the grounds, if a phalanx of reporters decided to gather at the gates.

Hollister pulled up to the private entrance as usual and David waved to the guard as he walked briskly through the door and into a waiting elevator. He was on the verge of breathing a sigh of relief when a bottle blonde with a triumphant smile on her face and a microphone clutched in her hand sprang out of the shadows and into the elevator. She jammed her finger on the Stop button and turned up the wattage on her smile.

“Mr. Adams,” she said, “millions of interested Sun readers want to know how Mrs. Adams is doing.”

“She’s doing very well, thank you,” David said politely.

“Is she really?” Her voice dropped to a whisper that oozed compassion the same way a crocodile shed tears. “You can tell Sun readers the truth, David. What’s the real extent of your wife’s injuries?”

“Would you take your finger off that button, please, miss?”

The blonde edged nearer. “Is it true she’s in a coma?”

“Step back, please, and let go of that button.”

“David.” The blond leaned forward, her heavily kohled eyes, her cleavage and her microphone all aimed straight at him. “We heard that your wife’s accident occurred while she was en route to the airport for your second honeymoon in the Caribbean. Can you confirm that for our readers?”

David’s jaw tightened. He could sure as hell wipe that look of phony sympathy from the blonde’s face, he thought grimly. All he had to do was tell her the truth, that Joanna had been on her way to the airport, all right, and then to the Caribbean—and to the swift, civilized divorce they had agreed upon.

But the last thing he’d ever do was feed tabloid gossip. His life was private. Besides, ending the marriage was out of the question now. He and Joanna were husband and wife, by license if not by choice. He would stand by her, provide the best care possible until she was well again...

“Mr. Adams?”

The blonde wasn’t going to give up easily. She had rearranged her face so that her expression had gone from compassion to sincere inquiry. He thought of telling her that the last time he’d seen that look it had been on the face of a shark that had a sincere interest in one or more of his limbs while he’d been diving off the Mexican coast.

“I only want to help you share your problems with our readers,” she said. “Sharing makes grief so much easier to bear, don’t you agree?”

David smiled. “Well, Miss...”

“Washbourne.” She smiled back, triumphant. “Mona Washbourne, but you can call me Mona.”

“Well, Mona, I’ll be happy to share this much.” David’s smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He raised his arm, shot back the cuff of his dark blue suit jacket, and looked at his watch. “Get that mike out of my face and your finger off that button in the next ten seconds or you’re going to regret it.”

“Is that a threat, Mr. Adams?”

“Your word, Mona, not mine.”

“Because it certainly sounded like one. And I’ve got every word, right here, on my tape rec—”

“I never make threats, I only make promises. Anyone who’s had any dealings with me can tell you that.” His eyes met hers. “You’re down to four seconds, and still counting.”

Whatever Mona Washbourne saw in that cold, steady gaze made her jerk her finger from the Stop button and step out of the elevator.

“Didn’t you ever hear of freedom of the press? You can’t go around bullying reporters.”

“Is that what you are?” David said politely. He punched the button for Joanna’s floor and the doors began to shut. “A member of the press? Damn. And here I was, thinking you were a...”

The doors snapped closed. Just as well, he thought wearily, and leaned back against the wall. Insulting the Mona Washbournes of the world only made them more vicious, and what was the point? He was accustomed to pressure, it was part of the way he earned his living.

OK, so the last week and a half had been rough. Personally rough. He didn’t love Joanna anymore, hell, he wasn’t even sure if he had ever loved her to begin with, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t almost gone crazy with fear when the call had come, notifying him of the accident. He wasn’t heartless. What man wouldn’t react to the news that the woman he was married to had been hurt?

And, as it had turned out, “hurt” was a wild word to describe what had happened to Jo. David’s mouth thinned. She’d lost her memory. She didn’t remember anything. Not her name, not their marriage...

Not him.

The elevator doors opened. The nurse on duty looked up, frowning, an automatic reminder that it was past visiting hours on her lips, but then her stern features softened into a girlish smile.

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Adams. We thought you might not be stopping by this evening.”

“I’m afraid I got tied up in a meeting, Miss Howell.”

“Well, certainly, sir. That’s what I told Mrs. Adams, that you were probably running late.”

“How is my wife this evening?”

“Very well, sir.” The nurse’s smite broadened. “She’s had her hair done. Her makeup, too. I suspect you’ll find her looking more and more like her old self.”

“Ah.” David nodded. “Yes, well, that’s good news.”

He told himself that it was as he headed down the hall toward Joanna’s room. She hadn’t looked at all like herself since the accident.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she’d asked him, just last evening, and when he hadn’t answered, her hand had shot to her forehead, clamping over the livid, half-moon scar that marred her perfect skin. “It’s ugly, isn’t it?”

David had stood there, wanting to tell her that what he’d been staring at was the sight of a Joanna he’d all but forgotten, one who lent grace and beauty even to an undistinguished white hospital gown, who wore her dark hair loose in a curling, silken cloud, whose dark-lashed violet eyes were not just free of makeup but wide and vulnerable, whose full mouth was the pink of roses.

He hadn’t said any of that, of course, partly because it was just sentimental slop and partly because he knew she wouldn’t want to hear it. That Joanna had disappeared months after their wedding and the Joanna who’d replaced her was always careful about presenting an impeccably groomed self to him and to the world. So he’d muttered something about the scar being not at all bad and then he’d changed the subject, but he hadn’t forgotten the moment.

It had left a funny feeling in his gut, seeing Joanna that way, as if a gust of wind had blown across a calendar and turned the pages backward. He’d mentioned it to Morgana in passing, not the clutch in his belly but how different Joanna looked and his Personal Assistant, with the clever, understanding instincts of one woman for another, had cluck-clucked.

“The poor girl,” she’d said, “of course she looks different! Think what she’s gone through, David. She probably dreads looking at herself in the mirror. Her cosmetic case and a visit from her hairdresser will go a long way toward cheering her spirits. Shall I make the arrangements?”

David had hesitated, though he couldn’t imagine the reason. Then he’d said yes, of course, that he’d have done it himself, if he’d thought of it, and Morgana had smiled and said that the less men knew about women’s desires to make themselves beautiful, the better.

So Morgana had made the necessary calls, and he’d seen to it that Joanna’s own robes, nightgowns and slippers were packed by her maid and delivered to the hospital first thing this morning, and now, as he knocked and then opened the door of her room, he was not surprised to find the Joanna he knew waiting for him.

She was standing at the window, her back to him. She was dressed in a pale blue cashmere robe, her hair drawn back from her face and secured at the nape in an elegant knot. Her posture was straight and proud—or was there a curve to. her shoulders and a tremble to them, as well?

He stepped inside the room and let the door swing shut behind him.

“Joanna?”

She turned at the sound of his voice and he saw that everything about her had gone back to normal. The vulnerability had left her eyes; they’d been done up in some way he didn’t pretend to understand so that they were somehow less huge and far more sophisticated. The bright color had been toned down in her cheeks and her mouth, while still full and beautiful, was no longer the color of a rose but of the artificial blossoms only found in a lipstick tube.

The girl he had once called his Gypsy was gone. The stunning Manhattan sophisticate was back and it was stupid to feel a twinge of loss because he’d lost his Gypsy a long, long time ago.

“David,” Joanna said. “I didn’t expect you.”

“I was stuck in a meeting... Joanna? Have you been crying?”

“No,” she said quickly, “no, of course not. I just—I have a bit of a headache, that’s all.” She swallowed; he could see the movement of muscle in her long, pale throat. “Thank you for the clothes you sent over.”

“Don’t be silly. I should have thought of having your own things delivered to you days ago.”

The tip of her tongue snaked across her lips. She looked down at her robe, then back at him.

“You mean...I selected these things myself?”

He nodded. “Of course. Ellen packed them straight from your closet.”

“Ellen?”

“Your maid.”

“My...” She gave a little laugh, walked to the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress. “I have a maid?” David nodded. “Well, thank her for me, too, please. Oh, and thank you for arranging for me to have my hair and my makeup done.”

“It isn’t necessary to thank me, Joanna. But you’re welcome.”

He spoke as politely as she did, even though he had the sudden urge to tell her that he’d liked her better with her hair wild and free, with color in her cheeks that didn’t come from a makeup box and her eyes dark and sparkling with laughter.

She was beautiful now but she’d been twice as beautiful before.

David frowned. The pressure of the past ten days was definitely getting to him. There was no point in remembering the past when the past had never been real.

“So,” he said briskly, “are you looking forward to getting sprung from this place tomorrow?”

Joanna stared at him. She knew what she was supposed to say. And the prospect of getting out of the hospital had been exciting... until she’d begun to think about what awaited her outside these walls.

By now, she knew she and David lived in a town house near Central Park but she couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of life they led. David was rich, that much was obvious, and yet she had the feeling she didn’t know what it meant to lead the life of a wealthy woman.

Which was, of course, crazy, because she didn’t know what it meant to lead any sort of life, especially one as this stranger’s wife.

He was so handsome, this man she couldn’t remember. So unabashedly male, and here she’d been lying around looking like something the cat had dragged in, dressed in a shapeless hospital gown with no makeup at all on her face and her hair wild as a whirlwind, and then her clothes and her hairdresser and her makeup had arrived and she’d realized that her husband preferred her to look chic and sophisticated.

No wonder he’d looked at her as if he’d never seen her before just last evening.

Maybe things would improve between them now. The nurses all talked about how lucky she was to be Mrs. David Adams. He was gorgeous, they giggled, so sexy...

So polite, and so cold.

The nurses didn’t know that, but Joanna did. Was that how he’d always treated her? As if they were strangers who’d just met, always careful to do and say the right thing? Or was it the accident that had changed things between them? Was he so removed, so proper, because he knew she couldn’t remember him or their marriage?

Joanna wanted to ask, but how could you ask such intimate things of a man you didn’t know?

“Joanna, what’s the matter?” She blinked and looked up at David. His green eyes were narrowed with concern as they met hers. “Have the doctors changed their minds about releasing you?”

Joanna forced a smile to her lips. “No, no, the cell door’s still scheduled to open at ten in the morning. I was just thinking about...about how it’s going to be to go...to go...” Home, she thought. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word, but then, she didn’t have to. She wasn’t going home tomorrow, she was going to a rehab center. More white-tiled walls, more high ceilings, more brightly smiling nurses... “Where is Big Meadows, anyway?”

“Bright Meadows,” David said, with a smile. “It’s about an hour’s drive from here. You’ll like the place, Jo. Lots of trees, rolling hills, an Olympic-size swimming pool and there’s even an exercise room. Nothing as high-tech as your club, I don’t think, but even so—”

“My club?”

Damn, David thought, damn! The doctors had warned him against jogging her memory until she was ready, until she began asking questions on her own.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Do I belong to an exercise club?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You mean, one of those places where you dress up in a silly Spandex suit so you can climb on a treadmill to work up a sweat?”

David grinned. It was his unspoken description of the Power Place, to a tee.

“I think the Power Place would be offended to hear itself described in quite that way but I can’t argue with it, either.”

Joanna laughed. “I can’t even imagine doing that. I had the TV on this morning and there was this roomful of people jumping up and down...they looked so silly, and now you’re telling me that I do the same thing?”

“The Power Place,” David said solemnly, “would definitely not like to hear you say that.”

“Why don’t I run outdoors? Or walk? Didn’t yóu say I—we—live near Central Park?”

His smile tilted. It was as if she was talking about another person instead of herself.

“Yes. We live less than a block away. And I don’t know why you didn’t run there. I do, every morning.”

“Without me?” she said.

“Yes. Without you.”

“Didn’t we ever run together?”

He stared at her. They had; he’d almost forgotten. She’d run right along with him the first few weeks after their marriage. They’d even gone running one warm, drizzly morning and had the path almost all to themselves. They’d been jogging along in silence when she’d suddenly yelled out a challenge and sped away from him. He’d let her think she was going to beat him for thirty or forty yards and then he’d put on some speed, come up behind her, snatched her into his arms and tumbled them both off the path and into the grass. He’d kissed her until she’d stopped laughing and gone soft with desire in his arms, and then they’d flagged a cab to take them the short block back home...

He frowned, turned away and strode to the closet. “You said you preferred to join the club,” he said brusquely, “that it was where all your friends went and that it was a lot more pleasant and a lot safer to run on an indoor track than in the park. Have you decided what you’re going to wear tomorrow?”

“But how could it be safer? If you and I ran together, I was safe enough, wasn’t I?”

“It was better that way, Joanna. We both agreed that it was. My schedule’s become more and more erratic. I have to devote a lot of hours to business. You know that. I mean, you don’t know it, not anymore, but...”

“That’s OK, you don’t have to explain.” Joanna smiled tightly. “You’re a very busy man. And a famous one. The nurses all keep telling me how lucky I am to be married to you.”

David’s hand closed around the mauve silk suit hanging in the closet.

“They ought to mind their business,” he said gruffly.

“Don’t be angry with them, David. They mean well.”

“Everybody ought to mind their damned business,” he said, fighting against the rage he felt suddenly, inexplicably, rising within him. “The nurses, the reporters—”

“Reporters?”

For the second time that night, David cursed himself. He could hear the sudden panic in Joanna’s voice and he turned and looked at her.

“Don’t worry about them. I won’t let them get near you.”

“But why...” She stopped, then puffed out her breath. “Of course. They want to know about the accident, about me, because I’m Mrs. David Adams.”

“They won’t bother you, Joanna. Once I get you to Bright Meadows...”

“The doctors say I’ll have therapy at Bright Meadows.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of therapy?”

“I don’t know exactly. They have to evaluate you first.”

“Evaluate me?” she said with a quick smile.

“Look, the place is known throughout the country. The staff, the facilities, are all highly rated.”

Joanna ran the tip of her tongue across her lips. “I don’t need therapy,” she said brightly. “I just need to remember.”

“The therapy will help you do that.”

“How?” She tilted her head up. Her smile was brilliant though he could see it wobble just a little. “There’s nothing wrong with me physically, David. Or mentally. I don’t need to go for walks on the arm of an aide or learn basket-weaving or—or lie on a couch while some doctor asks me silly questions about a childhood I can’t remember.”

David’s frown deepened. She was saying the same things he’d said when Bright Meadows had been recommended to him.

“Joanna’s not crazy,” he’d said bluntly, “and she’s not crippled.”

The doctors had agreed, but they’d pointed out that there really wasn’t anywhere else to send a woman with amnesia... unless, of course, Mr. Adams wished to take his wife home? She needed peaceful, stress-free surroundings and, at least temporarily, someone to watch out for her. Could a man who put in twelve-hour days provide that?

No, David had said, he could not. He had to devote himself to his career. He had a high-powered Wall Street firm to run and clients to deal with. Besides, though he didn’t say so to the doctors, he knew that he and Joanna could never endure too much time alone together.

There was no question but that Bright Meadows was the right place for Joanna. The doctors, and David, had agreed.

Had Joanna agreed, too? He was damned if he could remember.

“David?”

He looked at Joanna. She was smiling tremulously.

“Couldn’t I just...isn’t there someplace I could go that isn’t a hospital? A place I could stay, I mean, where maybe the things around me would jog my memory?”

“You need peace and quiet, Joanna. Our town house isn’t—”

She nodded and turned away, but not before he’d seen the glitter of tears in her eyes. She was crying. Quietly, with great dignity, but she was crying all the same.

“Joanna,” he said gently, “don’t.”

“I’m sorry.” She rose quickly and hurried to the window where she stood with her back to him. “Go on home, please, David. It’s late, and you’ve had a long day. The last thing you need on your hands is a woman who’s feeling sorry for herself.”

Had she always been so slight? His mental image of his wife was of a slender, tall woman with a straight back and straight shoulders, but the woman he saw at the window seemed small and painfully defenseless.

“Jo,” he said, and he started slowly toward her, “listen, everything’s going to be OK. I promise.”

She nodded. “Sure,” she said in a choked whisper.

He was standing just behind her now, close enough so that he could see the reddish glints in her black hair, so that he could almost convince himself he smelled the delicate scent of gardenia that had always risen from her skin until she’d changed to some more sophisticated scent.

“Joanna, if you don’t like Bright Meadows, we’ll find another place and—”

She spun toward him, her eyes bright with tears and with something else. Anger?

“Dammit, don’t talk to me as if I were a child!”

“I’m not. I’m just trying to reassure you. I’ll see to it you have the best of care. You know that.”

“I don’t know anything,” she said, her voice trembling not with self-pity but yes, definitely, with anger. “You just don’t understand, do you? You think, if you have them fix my hair and my face, and ship me my clothes and make me look like Joanna Adams, I’ll turn into Joanna Adams.”

“No,” David said quickly. “I mean, yes, in a way. I’m trying to help you be who you are.”

Joanna lifted her clenched fist and slammed it against his chest. David stumbled back, not from the blow which he’d hardly felt, but from shock. He couldn’t remember Joanna raising her voice, let alone her hand. Well, yes, there’d been that time after they were first married, when he’d been caught late at a dinner meeting and he hadn’t telephoned and she’d been frantic with worry by the time he came in at two in the morning...

“Damn you, David! I don’t know who I am! I don’t know this Joanna person.” She raised her hand again, this time to punctuate each of her next words with a finger poked into his chest. “And I certainly don’t know you!”

“What do you want to know? Ask and I’ll tell you.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “For starters, I’d like to know why I’m expected to believe I’m really your wife!”

David started to laugh, then stopped. She wasn’t joking. One look into her eyes was proof of that. They had gone from violet to a color that was almost black. Her hands were on her hips, her posture hostile. She looked furious, defiant...and incredibly beautiful.

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean, what am I talking about? I said it clearly enough, didn’t I? You say I’m your wife, but I don’t remember you. So why should I let you run my life?”

“Joanna, for heaven’s sake—”

“Can you prove that we’re married?”

David threw up his hands. “I don’t believe this!”

“Can you prove it, David?”

“Of course I can prove it! What would you like to see? Our marriage license? The cards we both signed and mailed out last Christmas? Dammit, of course we’re married. Why would I lie about such a thing?”

He wouldn’t. She knew that, deep down inside, but that had nothing to do with this. She was angry. She was furious. Let him try waking up in a hospital bed without knowing who he was, let him try having a stranger walk in and announce that as of that moment, all the important decisions of your life were being taken out of your hands.

But most of all, let him deal with the uncomfortable feeling that the person you were married to had been a stranger for a long, long time, not just since you’d awakened with a lump on your head and a terrible blankness behind your eyes.

“Answer me, Joanna. Why in hell would I lie?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even saying that you are. I’m just trying to point out that the only knowledge I have of my own identity is your word.”

David caught hold of her shoulders. “My word is damned well all you need!”

It was, she knew it was. It wasn’t just the things the nurses had said about how lucky she was to be the wife of such a wonderful man as David Adams. She’d managed to read a bit about him in a couple of old magazines she’d found in the lounge.

On the face of it, David Adams was Everywoman’s Dream.

But she wasn’t Everywoman. She was lost on a dark road without a light to guide her and the only thing she felt whenever she thought of herself as Mrs. David Adams was a dizzying sense of disaster mingled in with something else, something just as dizzying but also incredibly exciting.

It terrified her, almost as much as the lack of a past, yet instinct warned that she mustn’t let him know that, that the best defense against whatever it was David made her feel when he got too close was a strong offense, and so instead of backing down under his furious glare, Joanna glared right back.

“No,” she said, “your word isn’t enough! I don’t know anything about you. Not anything, what you eat for breakfast or—or what movies you like to see or who chooses those—those stodgy suits you wear or—”

“Stodgy?” he growled. “Stodgy?”

“You heard me.”

David stared down at the stranger he held clasped by the shoulders. Stodgy? Hell, for Joanna to use that word to describe him was ludicrous. She was right, she didn’t know the first thing about him; they were strangers.

What she couldn’t know was that it had been that way for a long time.

But not always. No, not always, he thought while his anger grew, and before he could think too much about what he was about to do, he hauled Joanna into his arms and kissed her.

She gave a gasp of shock and struggled against the kiss. But he was remorseless, driven at first by pure male outrage and then by the taste of her, a taste he had not known in months. The feel of her in his arms, the softness of her breasts against his chest, the long length of her legs against his, made him hard with remembering.

He fisted one hand in her hair, holding her captive to his kiss, while the other swept down and cupped her bottom, lifting her into his embrace, bringing her so close to him that he felt the sudden quickened beat of her heart, heard the soft little moan that broke in her throat as his lips parted hers, and then her arms were around his neck and she was kissing him back as hungrily as he was kissing her...

“Oh, my, I’m terribly sorry. I’ll come back a bit later, shall I?”

They sprang apart at the sound of the shocked female voice. Both of them looked at the door where the night nurse stood staring at them, her eyes wide.

“I thought Mrs. Adams might want some help getting ready for bed but I suppose...I mean, I can see...” The nurse blushed. “Has Mrs. Adams regained her memory?”

“Mrs. Adams is capable of being spoken to, not about,” Joanna said sharply. Her cheeks colored but her gaze was steady. “And no, she has not regained her memory.”

“No,” David said grimly, “she has not.” He stalked past the nurse and pushed open the door. “But she’s going to,” he said. “She can count on it.”

CHAPTER THREE

ALL right. Ok. So he’d made an ass of himself last night.

David stood in his darkened kitchen at six o’clock in the morning and told himself it didn’t take a genius to figure that much out.

Kissing Joanna, losing his temper...the whole thing had been stupid. It had been worse than stupid. Joanna wasn’t supposed to get upset and he sure as hell had upset her.

So why hadn’t he just gone home, phoned her room and apologized? Why couldn’t he just mentally kick himself in the tail, then put what had happened out of his head?

They were all good questions. It was just too bad that he didn’t have any good answers, and he’d already wasted half the night trying to come up with one.

He’d always prided himself on his ability to face a mistake squarely, learn from it, then put it behind him and move on.

That was the way he’d survived childhood in a series of foster homes, a double hitch in the Marines and then a four year scholarship at an Ivy League university where he’d felt as out of place as a wolf at a sheep convention.

So, why was he standing here, drinking a cup of the worst coffee he’d ever tasted in his life, replaying that kiss as if it were a videotape caught in a loop?

He made a face, dumped the contents of the pot and the cup into the sink, then washed them both and put them into the drainer. Mrs. Timmons, his cook cum housekeeper, would be putting in an appearance in half an hour.

Why should she have to clean up a mess that he’d made?

David opened the refrigerator, took out a pitcher of orange juice and poured himself a glass. You made a mess, you cleaned it up...which brought him straight back to why he was standing around here in the first place.

The unvarnished truth was that if he’d divorced Joanna sooner, he wouldn’t be in this situation. By the time she’d stepped off that curb, she’d have been out of his life.

He’d known almost two years ago that he wanted out of the marriage, that the woman he’d taken as his wife had been nothing but a figment of his imagination. Joanna hadn’t been a sweet innocent whose heart he’d stolen. She’d been a cold-blooded schemer who’d set out to snare a rich husband, and she’d succeeded.

Because it had taken him so damned long to admit the truth, he was stuck in this sham of a marriage for God only knew how much longer.

David slammed the refrigerator door shut with far more force than the job needed, walked to the glass doors that opened onto the tiny patch of green that passed for a private garden in midtown Manhattan, and stared at the early morning sky.

Corbett and his team of white-coated witch doctors wouldn’t say how long it would take her to recover. They wouldn’t even guarantee there’d be a recovery. The only thing they’d say was that she needed time.

“These things can’t be rushed,” Corbett had said solemnly. “Your wife needs a lot of rest, Mr. Adams. No shocks. No unpleasant surprises. That’s vital. You do understand that, don’t you?”

David understood it, all right. There was no possibility of walking into Joanna’s room and saying, “Good evening, Joanna, and by the way, did I mention that we were in the middle of a divorce when you got hit by that taxi?”

Not that he’d have done it anyway. He didn’t feel anything for Joanna, one way or another. Emotionally, mentally, he’d put her out of his life. Still, he couldn’t in good conscience turn his back on her when she didn’t even remember her own name.

When she didn’t even remember him, or that she was his wife.

It was crazy, but as the days passed, that had been the toughest thing to take. It was one thing to want a woman out of your life but quite another to have her look at you blankly, or speak to you as if you were a stranger, her tone proper and always polite.

Until last night, when she’d suddenly turned on him in anger. And then he’d felt an answering anger rise deep inside himself, one so intense it had blurred his brain. What in hell had possessed him to haul her into his arms and kiss her like that? He’d thought she was going to slug him. What he’d never expected was that she’d turn soft and warm in his arms and kiss him back.

For a minute he’d almost forgotten that he didn’t love her anymore, that she had never loved him, that everything he’d thought lay between them had been built on the quicksand of lies and deceit.

He turned away from the garden.

Maybe he should have listened to his attorney instead of the doctors. Jack insisted it was stupid to let sentiment get in the way of reality.

“So she shouldn’t have any shocks,” he’d said, “so big deal, she shouldn’t have played you for a sucker, either. You want to play the saint, David? OK, that’s fine. Pay her medical bills. Put her into that fancy sanitarium and shell out the dough for however long it takes for her to remember who she is. Put a fancy settlement into her bank account—but before you do any of that, first do yourself a favor and divorce the broad.”

David had puffed out his breath.

“I hear what you’re saying, Jack. But her doctors say—”

“Forget her doctors. Listen, if you want I can come up with our own doctors who’ll say she’s non compos mentis or that she’s faking it and you’re more than entitled to divorce her, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“Nothing’s worrying me,” David had replied brusquely. “I just want to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I survived four years being married to Joanna. I’ll survive another couple of months.”

Brave words, and true ones. David put his empty glass into the dishwasher, switched off the kitchen light and headed through the silent house toward the staircase and his bedroom.

And survive he would. He understood Jack’s concern but he wasn’t letting Joanna back into his life, he was just doing what he could to ease her into a life of her own.

She didn’t affect him anymore, not down deep where it mattered. The truth was that she never had. He’d tricked himself into thinking he’d loved her when actually the only part of his anatomy Joanna had ever reached was the part that had been getting men into trouble from the beginning of time...the part that had responded to her last night.

Well, there was no more danger of that. He wouldn’t be seeing much of his wife after today. Once he’d driven her to Bright Meadows, that would be it. Except for paying the bills and a once-a-week visit, she’d be the problem of the Bright Meadows staff, not his.

Sooner or later, her memory would come back. And when it did, this pretense of a marriage would be over.

Joanna sat in the back of the chauffeured Bentley and wondered what Dr. Corbett would say if she told him she almost preferred being in the hospital to being in this car with her husband.

For that matter, what would her husband say?

She shot David a guarded look.

Not much, judging by his stony profile, folded arms and cold silence. From the looks of things, he wasn’t any more pleased they were trapped inside this overstuffed living room on wheels than she was.

What a terrible marriage theirs must have been. Her throat constricted. Dr. Corbett had made a point of telling her that you didn’t lose your intellect when you lost your memory. Well, you didn’t lose your instincts, either, and every instinct she possessed told her that the marriage of Joanna and David Adams had not been a storybook love affair.

Was he like this with everyone, or only with her? He never seemed to smile, to laugh, to show affection.

Maybe that was why what had happened last night had been such a shock. That outburst of raw desire was the last thing she’d expected. Had it been a rarity or was that the way it had been between them before the accident, polite tolerance interrupted by moments of rage that ended with her clinging to David’s shoulders, almost pleading for him to take her, while the world spun out from beneath her feet?

She’d hardly slept last night. Even after she’d rung for the nurse and asked for a sleeping pill, she’d lain staring into the darkness, trying to imagine what would have happened if that passionate, incredible kiss hadn’t been interrupted.

She liked to think she’d have regained her senses, pulled out of David’s arms and slapped him silly.

But a sly whisper inside her head said that maybe she wouldn’t have, that maybe, instead, they’d have ended up on the bed and to hell with the fact that the man kissing her was an absolute stranger.

Eventually, she’d tumbled into exhausted sleep only to dream about David stripping away her robe and nightgown, kissing her breasts and her belly and then taking her right there, on that antiseptically white hospital bed with her legs wrapped around his waist and her head thrown back and her sobs of pleasure filling the room.

A flush rose into Joanna’s cheeks.

Which only proved how little dreams had to do with reality. David had apologized for his behaviour and she’d accepted the apology, but if he so much as touched her again, she‘d—she’d—

“What’s the matter?”

She turned and looked at him. He was frowning, though that wasn’t surprising. His face had been set in a scowl all morning.

“Nothing,” she said brightly.

“I thought I heard you whimper.”

“Whimper? Me?” She laughed, or hoped she did. “No, I didn’t...well, maybe I did. I have a, ah, a bit of a headache.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” He leaned forward and opened the paneled bar that was built into the Bentley. “Corbett gave you some pills, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but I don’t need them.”

“Dammit, must you argue with me about everything?”

“I don’t argue about everything...do I?”

David looked at her. She didn’t. Actually, she never had. It was-just this mood he was in this morning.

He sighed and shook his head. “Sorry. I guess I’m just feeling irritable today. Look, it can’t hurt to take a couple of whatever he gave you, can it?”

“No, I suppose not.”

He smiled, a first for the day that she could recall, poured her a tumbler of iced Perrier and handed it to her.

“Here. Swallow them down with this.”

Joanna shook two tablets out of the vial and did as he’d asked.

“There,” she said politely. “Are you happy now?”

It was the wrong thing to say. His brow furrowed instantly and his mouth took on that narrowed look she was coming to recognize and dislike.

“Since when did worrying about what makes me happy ever convince you to do anything?”

The words were out before he could call them back. Damn, he thought, what was the matter with him? A couple of hours ago, he’d been congratulating himself on his decision to play the role of supportive husband. Now, with at least half an hour’s drive time to go, he was close to blowing the whole thing.

And whose fault was that? He’d walked into Joanna’s room this morning and she’d looked at him as if she expected him to turn into a monster.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he’d said gruffly, and she’d made a gesture that made it clear that what had happened had no importance at all...but she’d jumped like a scared cat when he’d tried to help her into the back of the car and just a couple of minutes ago, after sitting like a marble statue for the past hour, he’d caught her shooting him the kind of nervous look he’d always figured people reserved for vicious dogs.

Oh, hell, he thought, and turned toward her.

“Listen,” he said, “about what happened last night...”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No, neither do I. I just want to assure you it won’t happen again.”

“No,” she said. Her eyes met his. “It won’t.”

“We’ve both been under a lot of pressure. The accident, your loss of memory...”

“What about before the accident?”

“What do you mean?”

Joanna hesitated. “I get the feeling that we...that we didn’t have a very happy marriage.”

It was his turn to hesitate now, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie.

“It was a marriage,” he said finally. “I don’t know how to quantify it.”

Joanna nodded. What he meant was, no, they hadn’t been happy. It wasn’t a surprise. Her husband didn’t like her very much and she...well, she didn’t know him enough to like him or dislike him, but it was hard to imagine she could ever have been in love with a man like this.

“Did Dr. Corbett tell you not to discuss our relationship with me? Whether it was good or not, I mean?”

“No,” he said, this time with all honesty. “I didn’t discuss our marriage with Corbett. Why would I?”

“I don’t know. I just thought...” She sighed and tugged at the hem of her skirt. Not that there was any reason to. The hem fell well below her knees. “I just thought he might have asked you questions about—about us.”

“I wouldn’t have answered them,” David said bluntly. “Corbett’s a neurosurgeon, not a shrink.”

“I know. I guess I’ve just got psychiatry on the brain this morning, considering where we’re going.”

“Bright Meadows? But I told you, it’s a rehab center.”

“Oh, I know that. I just can’t get this weird picture out of my head. I don’t know where it comes from but I keep seeing a flight of steps leading up to an old mansion with a nurse standing on top of the steps. She’s wearing a white uniform and a cape, and she has—I know it’s silly, but she has a mustache and buck teeth and a hump on her back.”

David burst out laughing. “Cloris Leachman!”

“Who?”

“An actress. What you’re remembering is a scene from an old movie with Mel Brooks called...I think it was High Anxiety. He played a shrink and she played—give me a minute—she played evil Nurse Diesel.”

Joanna laughed. “Evil Nurse Diesel?”

“Uh-huh. We found the movie playing on cable late one night, not long after we met. We both said we didn’t like Mel Brooks’ stuff, slapstick comedy, but we watched for a few minutes and we got hooked. After a while, we were both laughing so hard we couldn’t stop.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. We watched right to the end, and then I phoned around until I found an all-night place to order pizza and you popped a bottle of wine into the freezer to chill and then...” And then I told you that I loved you and asked you to be my wife.

“And then?”

David shrugged. “And then, we decided we’d give Mel Brooks’ movies another chance.” He cleared his throat. “It’s got to be a good sign, that you remembered a movie.”

She nodded. “A snippet of a movie, at least.”

“Anyway, there’s nothing to worry about.” He reached out and patted her hand. “Believe me, you’re not going to find anything like that waiting for you at Bright Meadows.”

She didn’t.

There was no nurse with a mustache and too many teeth waiting at the top of the steps. There were no dreary corridors or spaced-out patients wandering the grounds.

Instead, there was an air of almost manic cheer about the place. The receptionist smiled, the admitting nurse bubbled, the attendant who led them to a private, sun-drenched room beamed with goodwill.

“I just know you’re going to enjoy your stay with us, Mrs. Adams,” the girl said.

She sounds as if she’s welcoming me to a hotel, Joanna thought. But this isn’t a hotel, it’s a hospital, even if nobody calls it that, and I’m not sick. I just can’t remember anything...

No. She couldn’t think about that or the terror of it would rise up and she’d scream.

And she couldn’t do that. She’d kept the fear under control until now, she hadn’t let anyone see the panic that woke her in the night, heart pounding and pillow soaked with sweat.

Joanna turned toward the window and forced herself to take a deep, deep breath.

“Joanna?” David looked at the straight, proud back. A few strands of dark hair had come loose; they hung down against his wife’s neck. He knew Joanna would fix it if she knew, that she’d never tolerate such imperfection. Despite the straightness of her spine, the severity of her suit, the tumble of curls lent her a vulnerability. He thought of how she’d once been...of how she’d once seemed.

All right, he knew that what she’d seemed had been a lie, that she wasn’t the sweet, loving wife he’d wanted, but even so, she was in a tough spot now. It couldn’t be easy, losing your memory.

He crossed the room silently, put his hands on her shoulders. He felt her jump beneath his touch and when he turned her gently toward him and she looked up at him, he even thought he saw her mouth tremble.

“Joanna,” he said, his voice softening, “look, if you don’t like this place, I’m sure there are others that—”

“This is fine,” she said briskly.

He blinked, looked at her again, and knew he’d let his imagination work overtime. Her lips were curved in a cool smile and her eyes were clear.

David’s hands fell to his sides. Whatever he’d thought he’d seen in her a moment ago had been just another example of how easily he could still be taken in, if not by his wife then by his own imagination.

“I’m sure I’m going to like it here,” she said. “Now, if you don’t mind terribly, I really would like to take a nap.”

“Of course. I’d forgotten what an exhausting day this must have been for you.” He started for the door. Halfway there, he paused and swung toward her. “I, uh, I’m not quite certain when I’ll be able to get to see you again.”

“Don’t worry about it, David. This is a long way to come after a day’s work and besides, I’m sure I’ll be so busy I won’t have time for visitors.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Joanna smiled. “Safe trip home,” she said.

She held the smile until the door snicked shut after him. Then it dropped from her lips and she buried her face in her hands and wept.

Until today, she’d thought nothing could be as awful as waking up and remembering nothing about your life.

Now, she knew that it was even more horrible to realize that you were part of a loveless marriage.

“Mr. Adams?”

David looked up. He’d had his nose buried in a pile of reports he’d dredged out of the briefcase he always kept near at hand until the voice of his chauffeur intruded over the intercom.

“What is it, Hollister?”

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but I just caught a report on the radio about an overturned tractor trailer near the tunnel approach to the city.”

David sighed and ran his hand through his hair. It wasn’t any bother at all. The truth was, he didn’t have the foggiest idea what was in the papers spread out on the seat beside him. He’d tried his damnedest to concentrate but that split instant when he’d seen those wispy curls lying against Joanna’s pale skin kept intruding.

“Did they say anything about the traffic?”

“It’s tied up for miles. Would you want me to take the long way? We could detour to the Palisades Parkway and take the bridge.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea, Hollister. Take the next turnoff and...” David frowned, then leaned forward. “No, the hell with that. Just pull over.”

“Sir?”

“I said, pull over. Up ahead, where the shoulder of the road widens.”

“Is there a problem, Mr. Adams?”

A taut smile twisted across David’s mouth.

“No,” he said, as the big car glided to a stop. “I just want to change seats with you.”

“Sir?” Hollister said again. There was a world of meaning in the single word.

David laughed and jerked open the car door.

“I feel like driving, Hollister. You can stay up front, if you like. Just slide across the seat and put your belt on because I’m in the mood to see if this car can do anything besides look good.”

For the first time in memory, Hollister smiled.

“She can do a lot besides look good, sir. She’s not your Jaguar by a long shot but if you put your foot right to the floor, I think she’ll surprise you.”

David grinned. He waited until his chauffeur had fastened his seat belt and then he did as the man had suggested, put the car in gear and the pedal to the metal, and forgot everything but the road.

He called Joanna every evening, promptly at seven. Their conversations were always the same.

How was she? he asked.

Fine, she answered.

And how was she getting along at Bright Meadows?

She said “fine” to that one, too.

Friday evening, when he phoned, he told her he had some work to do Saturday but he’d see her on Sunday.

Only if he could fit it into his schedule, she said.

His teeth ground together at the polite distance in the words. Evidently, she didn’t need to remember the past to know how she wanted to behave in the present.

“I’ll be there,” he said grimly, and hung up the phone.

Sunday morning, he went for his usual run. He showered, put on a pair of time-worn jeans, a pair of sneakers and—in deference to the warming Spring weather—a lightweight blue sweatshirt. Then he got behind the wheel of the Jaguar and drove upstate.

Halfway there, he realized that he was out of uniform. Joanna didn’t care for the casual look. She didn’t care for this car, either. She had, a long time ago. At least, she’d pretended she had.

The hell with it. It was too late to worry about and besides, it was one thing to pretend they hadn’t been about to get divorced and quite another to redo his life. He’d done that for damned near four years and that had been three years and a handful of months too many.

The grounds of the rehab center were crowded with patients and visitors, but he spotted Joanna as soon as he drove through the gates. She was sitting on a stone bench beside a dogwood tree that was just coming into flower, the creamy blossoms a counterpoint to her dark hair. She was reading a book and oblivious to anything around her, which was typical of her. It was how she’d dealt with him during so much of the time they’d been married, as if she were living on a separate planet.

It made him furious, which was stupid, because he’d gotten over giving a damn about how she acted a long time ago. Still, after he’d parked the car and walked back to where she was sitting, he had to force himself to smile.

“Hi.”

She looked up, her dark eyes wide with surprise. “David!”

“Why so shocked?” He sat down beside her. “I told you I’d be here today.”

“Well, I know what you said, but...”

But he hadn’t cared enough to come up all week. Not that it mattered to her if she saw him or not...

“But?”

Joanna shut the book and put it on the bench beside her. “Nothing,” she said. “I guess you just caught me by surprise.”

He waited for her to say something more. When she didn’t, he cleared his throat.

“So, how are things going? Have you settled in?”

“Oh, yes. Everyone’s very nice.”

“Good. And are they helping you?”

“Have I remembered, do you mean?” Joanna got to her feet and he rose, too. They began walking slowly along a path that wound behind the main building. “No, not a thing. Everyone tells me to be patient.”

“But it’s hard.”

“Yes.” She looked up at him. “For you, too.”

He knew he was supposed to deny it, but he couldn’t.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “for me, too.”

Joanna nodded. “I just can’t help wondering...”

“What?”

She shook her head. She’d promised herself not to say anything; the words had just slipped out.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Joanna, you were going to ask me something. What is it?”

“Well, I know I’m not a doctor or anything, but—” She hesitated. “Wouldn’t my memory come back faster if I were in familiar surroundings?” He looked at her, saying nothing, and she spoke more quickly. “You don’t know what it’s like, David, not to be able to picture your own house. The furniture, or the colors of the walls...”

“You want to come home,” he said.

Joanna looked up at him. There was no mistaking the sudden flatness in his voice.

“I just want to get my memory back,” she said softly. “It’s what you want, too, isn’t it?”

A muscle flickered in his jaw. “It wouldn’t work,” he said carefully. “You need peace and quiet, someone to look after you. I’m hardly ever home before ten at night and even when I am, the phone’s forever ringing, and the fax is going...”

A cold hand seemed to clamp around her heart.

“I understand,” she said.

“Who would take care of you? I could hire a nurse, yes, but—”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.” Her voice took on an edge. “I’m an amnesiac, not an invalid.”

“Well, I know, but what about therapy?”

“What about it?” she said with sudden heat. “I don’t see how learning to paint by numbers or weave baskets is going to help my memory.”

David stopped and clasped her shoulders. He turned her toward him.

“You don’t really weave baskets, do you?”

She sighed. “No, not really.”

“Good.” A grin twitched across his mouth. “For a minute there, I thought Nurse Diesel might be breathing down our necks.”

Joanna’s mouth curved. “Don’t even mention that movie when you’re here,” she said in an exaggerated whisper. “They’ve got no sense of humor when it comes to things like that.”

He laughed. “You said something?”

“Sure. The first day, an aide came to call for me. She said she was taking me to physical therapy and we got into this old, creaky elevator and headed for the basement. ‘So,’ I said, when the doors finally wheezed open, ‘is this where you guys keep the chains and cattle prods?’” Joanna’s eyes lit with laughter. “I thought she was going to go bonkers. I got a five minute lecture on the strides that have been made in mental health, blah, blah, blah...”

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