Was that little girl really his daughter?

It seemed a slim possibility, but one that he couldn’t ignore, any more than he could disregard the possibility that he, or some alter ego of his, had a wife.

Into his mind swept the image that had haunted his dreams for the past two nights. An image of Meg Avery. She had the same determined chin as her daughter, along with a tilted nose and full mouth. The eyes were filled with turbulent emotion.

Meg’s blouse had shown the outlines of rounded breasts, while her jeans highlighted a slim waist and a very feminine derriere. Could he have made love to such a woman and not remember it?

He needed to find out for sure where he’d been while he was missing.

And he wanted to see Meg Avery again.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Harlequin American Romance. With your search for satisfying reading in mind, every month Harlequin American Romance aims to offer you a stimulating blend of heartwarming, emotional and deeply romantic stories.

Unexpected arrivals lead to the sweetest of surprises as Harlequin American Romance celebrates the love only a baby can bring, in our brand-new promotion, AMERICAN BABY, which begins this month with Jacqueline Diamond’s delightful Surprise, Doc! You’re a Daddy! After months of searching for her missing husband, Meg Avery finally finds him—only, Dr. Hugh Menton doesn’t remember her or their child!

With Valor and Devotion, the latest book in Charlotte Maclay’s exciting MEN OF STATION SIX series, is a must-read about a valorous firefighter who rescues an orphaned boy. Will the steadfast bachelor consider becoming a devoted family man after meeting the little boy’s pretty social worker? JUST FOR KIDS, Mary Anne Wilson’s new miniseries, debuts with Regarding the Tycoon’s Toddler…. This trilogy focuses on a corporate day-care center and the lives and loves of those who work there. And don’t miss The Biological Bond by Jamie Denton, the dramatic story of a mother who is reunited with the child she’d been forced to give away, when her daughter’s adoptive single father seeks her help.

Enjoy this month’s offerings, and be sure to return each and every month to Harlequin American Romance!

Wishing you happy reading,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Surprise, Doc! You’re a Daddy!

Jacqueline Diamond

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A former Associated Press reporter, Jacqueline Diamond has written more than fifty books. She lives in Southern California with her husband and two children, and loves to hear from readers at P.O. Box 1315, Brea, CA 92822.

Books by Jacqueline Diamond
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

79—THE DREAM NEVER DIES

196—AN UNEXPECTED MAN

218—UNLIKELY PARTNERS

239—THE CINDERELLA DARE

270—CAPERS AND RAINBOWS

279—A GHOST OF A CHANCE

315—FLIGHT OF MAGIC

351—BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS

406—OLD DREAMS, NEW DREAMS

446—THE TROUBLE WITH TERRY

491—A DANGEROUS GUY

583—THE RUNAWAY BRIDE

615—YOURS, MINE AND OURS

631—THE COWBOY AND THE HEIRESS

642—ONE HUSBAND TOO MANY

645—DEAR LONELY IN L.A.…

674—MILLION-DOLLAR MOMMY

687—DADDY WARLOCK

716—A REAL-LIVE SHEIKH

734—THE COWBOY & THE SHOTGUN BRIDE

763—LET’S MAKE A BABY!

791—ASSIGNMENT: GROOM!

804—MISTLETOE DADDY

833—I DO! I DO!

855—DADDY, M.D.

875—KISS A HANDSOME STRANGER

889—SURPRISE, DOC! YOU’RE A DADDY!

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

435—AND THE BRIDE VANISHES

512—HIS SECRET SON

550—CAPTURED BY A SHEIKH

Dear Reader,

Having babies was both the scariest and the most exciting thing I ever did. Until I was in my late twenties, I wasn’t even sure I wanted kids, but after I got married, the maternal alarm clock went off in a big way.

Creating a family didn’t turn out to be easy but, as for my hero and heroine, it brought my husband and me closer together. A man’s support for his wife and the special bond he forms with his children help to keep love fresh and wonderful over the years.

My heroine knows that, even when her husband disappears, his love for his daughter will someday reunite them. There is nothing stronger in this life than the bond of a parent with a child.

Warmly,

Jacqueline Diamond

Contents

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

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

Meg Avery twisted in her seat to peek at the baby in the back seat. Cradled in her carrier, tiny Dana slept like an angel.

“Has she grown any more toes in the thirty seconds since the last time you checked?” teased her husband Joe from behind the wheel.

Reassured, Meg settled into place. “Babies can get tangled up, or scared or—well, who knows?” Of course, that hadn’t happened. If it did, she had a feeling Joe would know about it before she did.

He had formed an almost mystical bond with their daughter from the moment of her birth a month ago. Maybe it was because, after Meg suffered pains two weeks early and delayed going to the hospital because she thought it was false labor, Joe had ended up delivering Dana himself.

A doctor couldn’t have done a better job, the paramedics said when they arrived. Ever since, Joe had been the first one to get up and attend to Dana during the night and whenever he was home.

Meg turned her attention to the freeway ahead of her. Through the windshield of her aging sedan, it unrolled for miles as they bypassed downtown Los Angeles, heading north toward her father’s home in Santa Barbara.

Although her dad had had a drinking problem in the past, he was sober now, working as a shoe store manager and eager to meet his first grandchild. Meg looked forward to introducing him to Dana.

She turned around and checked on the baby again. Despite earlier efforts to tame them, wisps of red hair stuck up at odd angles.

“You don’t have to keep checking. There’s no need to worry as long as you follow a few simple precautions,” Joe said, speaking in a formal manner that always puzzled her. For a restaurant worker who, like Meg, had never finished high school, he sometimes talked pretty fancy.

“How would you know? You never had a baby before,” she pointed out.

“I’m not sure how I know.” He rubbed his forehead as if it hurt.

“You’re not getting another headache, are you?” Even though her husband seemed healthy, his recurring headaches made Meg worry that he hadn’t fully recovered from his near fatal accident eighteen months ago. “I can drive if you like.”

“I’m fine, but we are a little low on gas,” Joe said. “I’ll pull over at the next off-ramp.”

“Good idea.” She could rely on Joe to keep track of the gas level the same way he kept track of their finances and every other aspect of their lives. She couldn’t understand how he’d once had a reputation for being irresponsible.

While he watched for an exit sign, Meg indulged herself in admiring the man to whom she’d been married for an incredibly happy year.

From the side, she studied his well-shaped nose and strong jaw. The morning light transformed his blond hair into spun gold and, when he turned his head to smile at her, his deep green eyes glowed like emeralds.

Joe Avery would make a perfect prince in a fairy tale. To Meg, that’s exactly what he was.

Handsome strangers didn’t often wander into Mercy Canyon, the small southern California town where she’d lived most of her life. The few who did paid no attention to waitress Meg O’Flaherty, with her bushy reddish-brown hair and freckled cheeks.

Joe hadn’t had much choice, she reflected with a glint of humor.

He’d come west from Franklin, Tennessee, to take a job he’d arranged on the Internet at the Back Door Cafe, where Meg worked. En route, he’d stopped at the beach town of Oceanside, twenty miles away.

While fishing from the pier, he’d fallen off and bashed his head. Lifeguards had searched for half an hour until, some distance away, they found him thrashing in the surf.

It was a good thing he’d left his wallet on the pier, because he didn’t remember who he was. In his motel room, police had found the phone number of Meg’s boss, Sam Hartman, who’d collected Joe and brought him to Mercy Canyon.

Meg had fallen for Joe on sight and nursed him to health. He’d never regained his memory, although she’d learned plenty about him when she contacted a cousin of his in Tennessee.

She learned that, in the past, Joe had drifted from one job to another, impulsively leaving Tennessee for a post that didn’t pay any more than he was already earning. The police suggested he might have been drinking before he tumbled off the pier.

Meg didn’t care. She knew from personal observation that her Joe Avery was rock-solid. Maybe, she joked to her friends, a blow to the head wasn’t always a bad thing.

Tender and funny and amazingly sexy, Joe had claimed her heart and given her his. After surviving a rough childhood during which she and her younger brother Timmy were shuffled in and out of foster homes, Meg couldn’t believe her luck. Regardless of what anyone else might believe, she trusted her husband completely.

He pulled off the freeway and down a ramp to a service station. In the back seat, Dana began fussing.

“She needs a diaper change,” Joe said, halting at a gas pump.

“I’ll do it.” Meg knew her husband was as good at changing diapers as she was, but he needed to fill the tank. “I’ll take her inside. This chain of gas stations has great baby facilities.”

“Don’t spend too much time. I hate having you out of my sight in a strange place.” Joe wasn’t a controlling person but he’d told her that, since his accident, he felt life was precarious.

“We’ll be quick.” Meg swung out of the car, grabbed the diaper bag and removed Dana from her infant seat.

She took one last, appreciative glance at her husband as he stood at the pump. His muscular build reminded her that he was, indeed, her protector as well as her best friend.

Across the pavement, a red sports car pulled away from a pump. When it went by, the woman driver studied Joe with interest.

Look but don’t touch, Meg thought. That man belongs to me.

JOE’S HEART squeezed as his wife crossed toward the station’s mini-mart with their daughter on her shoulder. Those two people meant everything in the world to him.

He had no one else. Heck, he didn’t even remember the people he’d worked with back in Franklin. Maybe if he’d had some close family, they might have jogged his memory, but his parents had died a few years earlier and there were no siblings.

He wished someone could fill in the inexplicable gaps, the parts of himself that made no sense. When he delivered his daughter, he’d known exactly what to do, yet, when asked, his cousin back in Tennessee couldn’t remember him helping with a birth before.

Well, what difference did it make? He was happy being assistant manager of the Back Door Cafe and happy being married to a woman who laughed a lot, had the warmest heart in the world and drove him crazy in bed.

The automatic shutoff on the pump clicked, prompting Joe to remove the nozzle. He’d been so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed two young men in baggy clothing walking toward him, he realized with a start.

Where had everyone else gone? Despite the freeway traffic roaring along nearby, the station was deserted. From out here, Joe couldn’t even see the attendant inside the mini-mart.

The men separated, one heading directly toward him and the other coming around the far side of the car. Please don’t let Meg come out of the station now, he thought with a spurt of alarm.

He would willingly give up his wallet and the car, too. Just so no harm came to his family.

“Can I help you?” Joe asked.

“Yeah.” The man closest to him pulled a gun from his gray jacket. “Get in the car.”

“Here’s the keys.” Joe held them out, along with his wallet.

“And leave you to yell your head off?” Gray Jacket swiped the wallet and waggled the gun. “Get in or I’ll shoot.”

Joe shifted uneasily, trying to figure out what to do.

“Now!”

His buddy, a stocky guy in a blue baseball cap, cut off escape in the other direction. Joe weighed dodging between the gas pumps, but if Meg emerged at the wrong moment, things could turn deadly. “Okay, okay.” He got into the driver’s seat. Blue Cap swung in beside him while Gray Jacket hopped in back, keeping the gun aimed at Joe’s head.

“Move it. Fast! South, toward L.A.”

The muzzle pressed into his neck. Joe rolled the car forward.

If only there were a way to leave a message for Meg. He hoped that at least someone had witnessed his abduction, so she would know he hadn’t run off.

His cousin in Tennessee had told her how unreliable he was. For all he knew, that might once have been true. But he would never leave Meg.

Blue Cap rifled through the glove compartment, cursing at finding nothing but maps, candy and baby wipes. The men grew angrier when they extracted only a small amount of cash from Joe’s wallet.

They were looking for drugs and drug money, he gathered. He hoped they would leave when they couldn’t find any.

It made him uneasy to realize how many miles were disappearing between him and Meg. Why didn’t the men let him pull over and get out?

As he drove, the Los Angeles freeway system began to seem familiar, which was strange considering that Joe hadn’t driven much around here before. Not as far as he knew, anyway.

Finally his captors ordered him to exit the freeway in a central city area full of boarded-up buildings covered with graffiti. Blue Cap and Gray Jacket muttered to each other. “Not here.” Although Gray Jacket spoke in a low voice, Joe’s hearing was keen. “Some place less public.”

“Naw. Around here they won’t notice the shots,” hissed Blue Cap.

They were going to kill him.

Joe’s gut tightened. Why would they want to shoot him? Because he could identify them for a crime that so far had done no serious harm? It seemed a ridiculous reason to take someone’s life, but these men obviously didn’t care.

He had to get away. Had to get back to Meg, to let her know how much he loved her.

At a yellow light, Joe halted sharply. While the two men were regaining their balance, he thrust open the door and leaped out.

“Hey!” Gray Jacket started to roll down his window. About to run across the street, Joe had to scramble back as a truck sped toward him.

Expecting to hear the crack of a bullet at any moment, he zigzagged around the front of the car. Blue Cap grabbed the wheel and hit the gas, coming after him.

Joe flung himself over the curb a split second before the car reached it, but he wasn’t safe yet. As he ducked into an alley, he heard a gunshot.

Desperately, he flung himself to one side. His foot connected with a slippery patch of sidewalk, some kind of spilled food, and he couldn’t check his fall.

Flailing in a desperate attempt to regain control, Joe twisted and toppled off balance. For a suspended moment, he registered the fact that his skull was about to hit the corner of a building.

Blinding pain shot through his head. Vaguely, Joe heard a distant siren and the screech of tires as the carjackers fled. Then darkness closed in.

“EVEN WITH the recent advances in imaging technology, there’s still a lot we don’t know about brain damage,” a voice said somewhere in the stratosphere.

A throbbing ache kept his eyes shut. He inhaled the scent of antiseptic and heard a familiar blur of noises: doctors being paged on an intercom, carts jouncing out in a hallway.

“This fresh injury on top of the old one, how is it going to affect his memory?” asked a woman’s dry voice.

He recognized the sound, but he couldn’t place her. A faint image came into his mind of a rounded face with a charming touch of freckles.

Someone leaned over him. He squinted up through the harsh light.

The face belonged to a woman in her sixties, with wavy silver hair and hazel eyes. Instinctively, his mouth formed the name, “Mom.”

His parents were dead. That’s what people said in…where?

He tried to recapture the name of the town, or the face he’d visualized earlier. It seemed terribly important, but all he could see was his mother’s startled expression.

“He’s awake!” she cried. “Hugh’s awake!”

Hugh. He rose on a warm cloud of relief. Of course, his name was Hugh, and he’d just come out of an immense black hole. The last thing he remembered was struggling to breathe through shattering waves of cold water.

He’d been sailing with his friend Rick when the boat overturned in the wake of a cabin cruiser. “How’s Rick?” Hugh asked thickly.

“Oh, thank God!” his mother cried. “He can speak!” She squeezed his hand. “We’ll talk about Rick later.”

Something was wrong, he gathered, but couldn’t figure out what. Was he worried about Rick or something else?

Impossible to concentrate.

Whatever was nagging at him, he couldn’t deal with it now, and he didn’t have to. He was safe, in a place where he belonged.

After all, where should a doctor feel more at home than in a hospital?

HOURS LATER, Meg sat drinking tea across the table from her father in his Santa Barbara home. She was still trembling with disbelief.

The events of the day had passed in a nightmarish glare of unreality. Coming out of the gas station to find no sign of her husband. Calling the police, answering endless questions, listening to speculation about how and why Joe had disappeared.

“Somebody must have forced him,” she kept saying, but no witnesses could be found. Zack O’Flaherty had driven down when she called and waited for her, clumsily offering to help with Dana, tactfully refraining from voicing the suspicions Meg knew he must feel. She would always be grateful that, at this time of need, her father had come through for her.

The phone rang, startling her so badly she spilled tea on the table.

“I’ll get it.” With his thin face and pouchy eyes, Zack looked older than his forty-five years, but he walked to the phone with a steady gait.

Meg couldn’t bring herself to look at Dana, sleeping nearby in a crib borrowed from a neighbor. What if the police had found Joe’s body? What if her little girl had to grow up without a father?

“Yes, I see. Where—? Was there any sign—? I understand. Thank you, officer.” Gently, Zack put down the phone.

He isn’t dead. If he were, Dad would have asked about claiming the body. Meg managed to breathe again.

“They found your car at a train depot in Los Angeles.” Her father resumed his seat across from her. “It was ransacked, but that might have happened after it was abandoned.”

“A train depot?” she repeated, trying to derive some useful information from this development.

“They didn’t find any blood in the car or nearby,” Zack went on. “And no bodies…no injured men have been reported near freeways. For now, Joe’s classified as a missing person.”

“He was kidnapped!” Meg said.

“I don’t doubt it, honey.” Her father covered her hand with his. “He had no reason to run off. Even if he suffered some kind of panic attack, he’ll come back.”

“He didn’t leave of his own free will,” she said. “I know that, Dad.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

He couldn’t be sure, though, Meg thought. No one could, except her, because no one else knew Joe so well.

A gurgle from the crib drew her attention, and she walked over to monitor the baby. Her daughter wiggled beneath the blanket, then settled back with a blissful sigh.

Joe wouldn’t leave her and Dana. Wherever he was, whatever had happened to him, his connection to his wife and daughter would bring him home.

Meg would never stop searching for her husband or believing in him. No matter how long it took.

Chapter Two

Two years later…

Through the tinted window of the high-rise office building, Dr. Hugh Menton stared down over the sundrenched vista of West Los Angeles. Below, expensive cars navigated the street between sleek modern structures.

He ought to be thrilled that he and his brother could afford a suite in such a prestigious area. Once, being pediatrician to the children of celebrities and business tycoons had been everything he’d hoped for.

Yet, even though he’d outwardly recovered from the still mysterious loss of a year and a half of his life, and even though he’d regained his medical skills, Hugh didn’t feel right working here, catering to the rich.

His mouth twisting with disappointment, he turned and tossed the morning mail onto his gleaming oak desk. There was no response yet to his application to take part in a research project working with poor children. He’d hoped to hear from Pacific West Coast University Medical Center by now, since the Whole Child Project started next month, in October.

“You know, the reason you didn’t get your letter is that I’ve been stealing your mail and burning it,” said a tenor voice from the hallway.

Hugh looked up with a grin. “Sure you have.”

“You’ll get tired of playing Dr. Schweitzer,” warned his brother. Despite the teasing tone, there was a glint of worry in his green eyes, so much like Hugh’s.

Although at thirty-seven Andrew was only two years Hugh’s elder, he played the role of senior partner to the hilt. That might be partly because, with his shorter, stockier build and brown hair, he more closely resembled their late father, Frederick Menton, a legendary physician.

And, Hugh reminded himself, Andrew had had to assume the entire responsibility for their joint practice during his own disappearance. “I hope you know that I’d stay here with you if I could. But ever since I got back, I’ve been restless.”

“I’ve noticed.” His brother fiddled with the stethoscope around his neck. “Regardless of how well your injuries have healed, you shouldn’t trust these impulses, bro. This isn’t like you. You used to enjoy the good life.”

Maybe he was right. Hugh couldn’t account, rationally, for the sense of incompleteness that had dogged him since his return.

As far as anyone could tell, he must have spent that year and a half as a drifter. He’d disappeared at sea off Oceanside and been found unconscious nearly eighteen months later in Los Angeles, with a fresh head wound and no identification. In between, there wasn’t a clue where he’d been.

The only thing Hugh knew for certain was that the experience had changed him. Once ambitious for prestige and material success, he now longed to do something meaningful with his life. And for an emotional release that he couldn’t name.

If only he knew what had happened during that lost time!

“As for my leaving, it may be a moot point,” he told his brother. “I haven’t heard from the project, so it doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere.”

“Good.” Andrew checked his watch. “No wonder Helen isn’t bugging us. It’s time for lunch.”

Helen Nguyen was their nurse and, with patients prepped in the examining rooms, would never have allowed them to chat for so long. However, no appointments were scheduled between noon and 1:00 p.m.

“Where shall we go?” Hugh asked. Every Wednesday, the two of them lunched at one of the many restaurants in the area.

Once or twice, he’d had in inexplicable urge to point out to a waiter when he noticed an uncleared table or a messy front counter. It made him wonder whether he might have worked in a restaurant while he was gone, but that didn’t give him much to go on.

Chelsea Byers, their receptionist, appeared behind Andrew, pushing back a strand of her newly dyed maroon hair. “Excuse me.” They both turned toward her. “There’s a woman here without an appointment.”

“Tell her to make one for later,” Andrew said.

“We’re full all afternoon, and she says she’s driven a long ways.” Chelsea bounced a little, as if she were dancing at one of the trendy nightclubs she often mentioned. “Her little girl has an ear infection.”

“If she comes back after lunch, I’ll work her in,” Hugh said. “Have we seen her before?”

The receptionist shook her head, raising an odd-colored cloud. “She doesn’t have insurance, either.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Andrew snapped. “This isn’t the welfare office. Where’s Sandy?” Sandy Craven, their office manager, was in charge of making sure bills got paid.

“Sandy already went to lunch. The woman said she can pay cash,” Chelsea answered. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell her she has to arrange payment with Sandy and then make an appointment.”

Annoyance at his brother’s high-handed attitude spurred Hugh to intervene. “Never mind. I’ll see her now.”

It was highly irregular and an imposition on Helen, who would need to weigh the little girl and take a brief medical history. Ear infections hurt, though, and he didn’t want the child to suffer.

“Don’t wait. Go ahead without me,” he told Andrew.

“I’m not hungry.” Although clearly disgruntled, his brother accepted defeat without further argument.

It occurred to Hugh that, if he did get the research position, Andrew could find a partner who more closely shared his values, someone like Hugh used to be. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

A few minutes later, Helen handed him a chart. “Don’t wait,” Hugh said. “I’m sorry I used up part of your lunch.”

“You might need me,” the nurse warned.

“Thanks, but I’ll handle whatever comes up.” He wasn’t too snooty to administer a shot if necessary.

After Helen left, Hugh glanced at the chart. The child’s name was Dana Avery, age two years. No surgeries or major medical problems. Mother’s name Meg, father’s name Joe.

Joe Avery. It had a familiar ring, but he couldn’t place the man.

Hugh tapped on the door and stepped into the examining room. A small girl with bright green eyes and Little Orphan Annie red hair sat on the examining table, her hands folded in her lap.

It was the sight of the woman standing beside her that, inexplicably, made Hugh’s breath come faster. Despite the well-worn blouse and jeans, despite the frizzy reddish-brown hair pulled into an ungracious ponytail, there was something riveting about her.

She was staring at him, too.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Menton.” Hugh extended his hand. Dazed, she shook it.

He wanted to ask why she looked so startled, but it seemed intrusive. Hugh’s natural reserve would have held him back even if he hadn’t been concerned about professionalism.

“You must be Dana,” he told the little girl. “Which ear hurts?” She pointed to the left. The child had delicate features and the same alert expression as her mother, he noticed.

“Are you Daddy?” she asked as he examined the ear.

“Dana!” Meg Avery found her voice at last.

“Mommy, you said…”

“No, honey. I’m sorry, Doctor.”

“It’s all right.” Hugh was accustomed to hearing kids blurt out unexpected remarks. “Young children see any adult male as a daddy. It’s a generic category.”

“‘Generic category.”’ Nervously, the woman pushed back a strand of hair. “That’s how you used to talk, using those formal words, and I couldn’t figure it out!”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, someone I know talked that way.” The woman took a deep breath, as if fighting the urge to say more.

Hugh hoped she wasn’t unbalanced. Perhaps Andrew had been right to be wary of a new patient who turned up without an appointment.

“Your daughter does have an infection.” Briskly, he reached for his pad. “I’m going to prescribe an antibiotic and a decongestant. Make sure she takes all the antibiotics, and have her rechecked in two weeks. You can take her to her regular pediatrician if you prefer.”

Meg bit her lip as she took the slip from his hand. Perhaps money was a problem, Hugh thought.

“If you can’t afford to fill the prescription, I have some samples in my desk,” he said.

Quickly, she shook her head. “I pay my bills.”

“I’m sorry.” He hadn’t meant to offend her pride. And, instinctively, he knew she had a lot of it.

In fact, he felt as if he knew many things about her. That she laughed infectiously. That she was an easy touch for a friend in trouble, but tough as nails toward anyone who tried to rip her off.

He must be imagining things.

“You really don’t recognize me, do you?” Meg asked.

“Not offhand,” Hugh said. “Have we met?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated, shifting from foot to foot as if unsure whether to ask him another question or bolt from the room.

“Did someone refer you to me?” he asked.

“No. Yes.” She gave an apologetic shrug that was inexplicably familiar. “My brother Tim saw your picture in the newspaper. He’s a truck driver and he stops in L.A. sometimes.”

Hugh and Andrew had been photographed at a recent medical conference. That didn’t explain why this woman would come to see him.

He glanced at the chart. “You live in Mercy Canyon. Where’s that?”

“San Diego County,” she said. “It’s amazing. You look exactly like him. You talk like him, too.”

An uncomfortable suspicion sprang up inside Hugh. “Like who?”

Although the recent photo caption didn’t mention his earlier disappearance, the newspapers had written it up at the time. The unfortunate result had been several attempts to defraud him.

One man claimed he was owed a large gambling debt, and a couple contended they were due hundreds of dollars in back rent. None of them could produce witnesses or signed documents, and the threat of a police investigation had put an end to their claims.

Now this woman contended she had known someone exactly like him. Maybe she’d stumbled across the information on the Internet and decided to try to squeeze out some money.

Yet she didn’t strike Hugh as the manipulative type. Perhaps someone else had put her up to it.

Meg swallowed hard and picked up her daughter. “You can’t have forgotten Dana. You delivered her yourself.”

“I haven’t delivered babies since my internship.” Hugh kept his tone level.

“The paramedics said you were as good as a doctor, and I couldn’t figure it out because you didn’t even have a high school education. You worked at a cafe, like me.” Now that she’d started talking, the words spilled out. “Then you vanished with my car. You left us at a gas station. Doesn’t this ring a bell?”

“Mrs. Avery, you’re clearly distressed,” Hugh said gently. “But I’ve never seen you before.”

“The longer I talk to you, the more sure I am that you’re my husband!”

“Your husband?”

She shifted her daughter against her shoulder. “It’s so hard…you have to remember, Joe. Wait! I can prove it.”

She set the little girl on a chair and fumbled in her purse. From the doorway, Andrew peered in and frowned. “What’s going on?”

“He’s my husband!” Meg said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for him.”

“You believe my brother is your husband?” Andrew lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

Hugh felt awkward for the woman. She spoke so sincerely and so urgently. And the little girl did resemble him, especially those unusual green eyes.

“Look!” Meg Avery thrust a photograph into his hand.

It was a candid shot of her and a man, both beaming at the camera. The man was the spitting image of Hugh.

“He does resemble me.” He passed the picture to Andrew.

His brother glanced at it. “Photographs can be altered. Besides, you can’t tell me you married a man without knowing who he was.”

“I did know, or I thought I did,” Meg said. “Joe was from Tennessee. Right after he got to California, he fell off a pier in Oceanside and nearly drowned, and he lost his memory. He had ID but…” She stopped in confusion.

“What?” Hugh asked.

“Well…” She spoke hesitantly. “After he vanished, I remembered little things. Like that the picture on his driver’s license was a poor resemblance. And it had his height wrong, too.”

Andrew regarded the woman scornfully. “Let me see if I get this right. You think my brother—a respected pediatrician—stole someone’s ID, married you and then fled? Oh, sure. It happens all the time.”

“Wait a minute,” Hugh said. “Neither of us knows what I did while I had amnesia. I was missing for quite a while.”

“When?” Meg asked.

“I turned up two years ago.”

“That’s when Joe left me!” she said. “I can show you the police report.”

Her story wasn’t as far-fetched as it might seem, Hugh had to admit. He’d disappeared at sea in the accident that killed his friend Rick. Could he have washed up and been mistaken for another accident victim?

On the other hand, if someone had invented this tale, he or she had cleverly woven in the well-publicized details. And chosen a child the right age to fit the timing.

“You’re saying that this is my daughter?” Now Hugh understood why the little girl had called him Daddy. If she’d been deliberately lied to as part of a scheme, it had been a cruel thing to do.

“She is yours,” Meg said. “Can’t you see she’s got your eyes?”

“How do we even know she belongs to you?” Andrew said. “You could have borrowed her to pull a scam.”

Hugh wanted to kick his brother. Whatever Andrew’s opinion of the woman, he shouldn’t speak so harshly in front of the little girl. “The whole question can be resolved by a DNA test,” he said quietly.

This was the point at which he expected Meg to feign outrage. With her unruly hair and flashing amber eyes, she could make a great show of being offended.

Of course, she’d never really had a chance of conning him. A doctor wouldn’t buy a story like hers without proof, but this woman and whoever had encouraged her might be too unsophisticated to realize that.

She visibly fought to subdue the anger smoldering in her gaze. “All right. What do you need? A blood sample?”

Her agreement startled Hugh. Maybe she honestly believed him to be her missing husband.

“That would suffice.” He turned to Andrew. “Would you draw blood for us?”

“You’re joking, right?” said his brother. “You’re not going to dignify this nonsense by submitting to a test!”

Hugh supposed it was insulting to have to go to such lengths to defend himself. He might have withdrawn his offer, except for the tears trembling on the little girl’s lashes.

The grown-ups’ arguing clearly had upset her. He’d always been empathetic toward children, and this girl’s wistfulness touched him deeply.

“What harm can it do? And it will resolve the matter completely.” To Meg, he said, “It’ll take about a week to get the results.”

“I can wait.” While Andrew went to find syringes, Hugh rolled up his sleeve and swabbed his arm with alcohol. He did the same for Dana, while explaining gently that it would hurt a little but was for a good cause.

She believed him instantly. As he leaned close, he inhaled her scent, a blend of baby powder and freshness. The aroma brought a scene vividly to mind.

It was a small room, patchily decorated with flowered curtains and a Minnie Mouse poster. A woman with bushy red hair sat in a rocking chair, nursing a baby.

Maybe it was a scene from a movie, except that it had been summoned to mind by a scent, and movies didn’t have scents. As for Meg’s hair, his mind might be filling in details from the present, Hugh told himself.

“What?” the woman asked. “Are you remembering something?”

Her face was close to his, the eyes wide, the lips parted. Hugh got a sudden urge to kiss the freckles on her nose. He pulled back.

“No. I haven’t eaten lunch yet. I get distracted when I don’t eat.”

“I know,” she said. “You always carried mints for between meals.”

There was a roll of mints in his coat pocket right now. Hugh wondered if she had seen the bulge and guessed at its cause. If so, she was very sharp.

Andrew returned with the equipment. Expressionlessly, he drew blood while Meg hovered over her daughter. The little girl winced but didn’t cry out. After he finished, Meg handed Hugh a scrap of paper with a phone number. “Please call me when the results come in.”

“Our lawyer will call you,” Andrew said.

“She’s either his daughter or she isn’t!” the woman answered. “If she is, that proves he’s my husband. I don’t see why anyone needs a lawyer.”

“If by some bizarre chance you did manage to snare my brother while he wasn’t in his right mind, it isn’t legal,” Andrew said. “You admitted he was using a false ID. You’re married to someone who doesn’t exist.”

“I—” She stared at him in distress. “I never thought of that.”

Her mouth trembled as if she might cry. Before any tears could fall, she gathered her daughter and left.

Once her footsteps had faded away, Andrew said, “You don’t believe a word of this, do you?”

“I can’t dismiss it out of hand.” Hugh’s skin tingled with the memory of the woman’s nearness. He couldn’t explain why he felt such a powerful response to a stranger, and yet it was hard to imagine that the two of them had anything in common.

Except, possibly, for one very sweet little girl.

“We should get the results by next Wednesday,” Andrew said. “Until then, put her out of your mind.”

Hugh wondered if that was possible.

Chapter Three

On the long drive back to Mercy Canyon, Meg battled annoyance and embarrassment as she mentally replayed her meeting with the two doctors. Fortunately, her much-repaired old car rattled along steadily, although the radio was broken and she had to keep the window down to cool the interior.

The brother—Andrew Menton, she remembered from seeing his name on the door—had made her feel sleazy. As for Hugh Menton, he was her Joe right down to his fancy vocabulary and the small scar on his temple. His reserved manner and even temper matched the man she knew, as well.

Meg had instantly recognized the masculine timbre of his voice and the endearing way he ducked his head. When he came close, she’d caught a whiff of the man who’d thrilled her every time he held her. The man she knew with every inch of her body.

Yet he was a complete stranger.

Joe had been an ordinary working guy, blue-collar like her. A man who went bowling with friends and shared the trailer she’d bought with her hard-earned money.

It was doubtful that Dr. Hugh Menton had ever set foot in a trailer. Not unless he’d conked his head and completely lost his marbles, which, when they got the DNA results, was how he would no doubt account for having fathered a child with Meg.

She remembered her first reaction on seeing the newspaper photo, when her brother, Tim, brought it back from L.A. “A doctor?” she’d said. “Look at him in that tuxedo! Come on. My Joe would never rent a tuxedo to go to a dinner.”

Sam, the owner of the Back Door Cafe, had peered over her shoulder at the clipping. “He probably owns the tuxedo.”

“Can you own one?” Tim asked. “I thought you just rented them for special occasions.”

Judy Hartman, Sam’s wife, had poured more coffee for a customer before responding, “I bet you could buy one used, after you rented it.”

“A doctor wouldn’t need to buy a used tuxedo,” Sam said.

They’d debated the topic for a few more minutes before new arrivals at the cafe demanded their attention. Looking back, Meg felt her cheeks get hot.

She could imagine the sneer on Andrew Menton’s face if he had heard their discussion. Having seen that expensive office with its big fish tank, thick carpet and elaborate play area, she didn’t doubt that both doctors owned tuxedoes. Heck, they probably put one on to take out the trash.

She grinned at the image of snobbish Andrew Menton in a tuxedo, carrying a smelly bag of trash. Except that his family must hire servants to do that kind of thing.

She and Hugh lived in different worlds. Unimaginably different.

It was Meg’s friends who’d persuaded her to go to L.A. Tim, Sam and Judy all agreed that the man looked like Joe. So did their bowling buddies Ramon and Rosa Mendez.

“What can it hurt?” Rosa had asked. “You need to take Dana to the doctor anyway. So you make an extra long drive and get a good look at the man. If it’s not him, say ‘hasta la vista, baby,’ and drive away.”

“If it is him, he owes you plenty,” said Ramon. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should be greedy. But he’s Dana’s father.”

For her daughter’s sake, Meg had finally decided to go. She’d struggled financially these past two years to support herself and a small child. Friends had helped with baby-sitting, Tim and her father had given her what money they could spare, and she’d muddled through.

It hadn’t been easy, though, and it would get even harder as Dana grew up. Eventually she would realize that other girls didn’t wear homemade clothes or eat macaroni and cheese three nights a week.

With a sigh, Meg remembered Hugh’s offer of free antibiotic samples. She’d been too proud to accept it. Now, as she stopped by the local pharmacy to fill the prescription, she winced at the cost.

She’d been planning to buy Dana a tricycle soon. It would have to wait until Christmas. Later, as she turned into the trailer park, Meg couldn’t help seeing it with critical eyes. The residences were parked close together, with only space for a few flowers in front. Most people kept their units tidy and so did she, but her paint was chipped and the awning had rust streaks.

A wave of longing rushed over her. She and Joe had cherished dreams of buying their own home. Nothing elaborate; a modest three-bedroom fixer-upper.

They’d talked about decorating a nursery, and putting a workshop for Joe in the garage. “I want an extra freezer so I can stock up on meat and pizza when they’re on sale,” Meg had said, relishing the prospect after battling to stuff food into a tiny, overcrowded freezer compartment.

She wanted her Joe back, the man who had shared those dreams. A man who would never have imagined owning a tuxedo or even renting one. He’d worn a plain suit for their wedding, looking heart-stoppingly handsome in the dark fabric.

Meg parked alongside her trailer and lifted Dana from her seat. By the porch, a stray cat who’d been hanging around regarded them with mingled hope and fear. Its fur had a pandalike pattern of black and white.

“Pat kitty!” cried Dana.

“Not right now.” Even in September, this far inland the temperatures soared, and Meg was eager to turn on a fan and make iced tea. “Let’s go inside.”

“Feed kitty?” her daughter asked.

“We shouldn’t encourage him,” Meg said. “We can’t afford a pet.”

Inside, the trailer was stifling. She opened the windows and fixed cold drinks.

After the spaciousness of Hugh’s office, her home felt cramped. Meg tried not to notice the odds and ends of furniture bought at garage sales.

It wasn’t the lack of frills that bothered her. It was the absence of the man she loved. And something else.

As she sank onto the couch, watching Dana play with her favorite dolls, Meg realized what was troubling her.

For two years, she’d refused to give up hope. Even when she saw the doubt in some people’s eyes, she’d persisted in believing that Joe loved her and that, when she found him, they would resume their life together.

Now, perhaps, she had found him, but if Hugh Menton was Joe, he wasn’t her Joe. He might as well live on Jupiter.

Maybe, as Andrew had said, she was in love with someone who didn’t exist. For the first time, Meg had to face the possibility that she might never get her husband back.

NO LETTER came for Hugh on Thursday or Friday. He put in a call to Dr. Vanessa Archikova, director of the Whole Child Project at Pacific West Coast University, and had to leave a message.

It was not a good sign.

Less than a month remained before the research program started. If they wanted him, surely they’d have notified him by now. There was nothing wrong with the job he had, Hugh reflected as he paused between patients to update his notes. Counseling anxious parents, healing injured or ailing children and referring the rare serious cases to the best specialists were valuable services.

Yet a chasm lurked inside him. If his application were rejected, he needed to find some other way to give meaning to his life.

The Whole Child Project, funded by a private research grant, had been designed by a panel of experts headed by Dr. Archikova. It proposed to use medical personnel, in conjunction with parents and schools, to coordinate the care of a group of poor children in hopes of making a large impact on their futures.

Many of the kids came from homeless families. Others lived in foster homes. Most had borderline nutritional and behavioral disorders.

Government-run attempts to help them had bogged down in paperwork and politics. The Whole Child Project was their last chance.

It would be thrilling to make a difference for those kids, Hugh thought. He’d always loved children. Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about one particular little girl with flaming red hair and elfin features.

Was she really his daughter? It seemed a slim possibility, but one he couldn’t ignore, any more than he could disregard the possibility that he, or some alter ego of his, had a wife. Into his mind swept the image that had haunted his dreams for the past two nights. An image of Meg Avery.

She had the same determined chin as her daughter, along with a tilted nose and full mouth. The eyes were filled with turbulent emotion.

Her blouse had shown the outlines of rounded breasts, while her jeans highlighted a slim waist and a very feminine derriere. If she’d been his wife, they must have spent many nights together. Luscious nights tangling between the sheets, steaming up the bedroom.

Had they really lain together, both of them naked and aroused? Could he have made love to such a woman and not remember it?

“You’re a million miles away.” Helen Nguyen smiled as she passed Hugh in the inner corridor between examining rooms. It was midafternoon, and the after-school crowd of patients would soon stream in. “Daydreaming about the weekend?”

“Trying to plan my future,” he said. “It’s hard to move forward when you don’t understand the past.”

“Do you mean that woman who was here Wednesday?” Helen asked. “Andrew told me she claims to be your wife.”

Petite and dark-haired, the nurse twinkled up at him. She’d been a big help in making Hugh feel at home when he came back to work, and she’d become a good friend.

Last February, he’d joined her and her husband in celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, at a festival in Orange County. It was an adventure that the old, stuffy Hugh might have passed up. “I’m not sure what to believe,” he admitted. “What did you think of her?”

Helen paused to reflect. “She was a little nervous. Now I understand why. You know, I liked her. And the child, well, those eyes do look like yours and Andrew’s.”

“I need to know where I was all that time,” Hugh said. “With such a gap in my self-knowledge, any decision I make about the future might be flawed.”

“What? A great and mighty doctor, admit to weakness?” teased Helen. “While I recover from my shock, please excuse me to see to a patient.”

“By all means.” Amused, Hugh picked up a chart and went to examine a little boy who’d twisted his ankle.

Musings about the past dogged him for the rest of the day. He needed to find out for sure where he’d been while he was missing.

And he wanted to see Meg Avery again.

His common sense told him to wait until the DNA results came back. That she might be a trickster, or a nutcase.

Still, he had no plans for the weekend. The palatial Hollywood Hills home he shared with his mother and with Andrew’s family would be empty tomorrow.

Andrew and his wife, Cindi, were taking their children to their vacation cottage in Redondo Beach. Grace Menton, who headed a charitable committee that was sponsoring a dinner and evening at the opera, planned to work hard behind the scenes at that event.

Hugh would be alone. What harm could it do to drive by Mercy Canyon and see where Meg and Dana Avery lived?

Hugh could almost hear his brother warning of possible legal entanglements. There was no need to announce his presence or get involved in any way, however.

As he finished his notes for the evening, he knew he was going to make the trip. If nothing else, it might help him get this woman out of his system.

“NO, I’M NOT SURE it’s him. I mean, I was sure at first, but every day I wonder if I wasn’t imagining the resemblance,” Meg admitted as she awaited her turn at the bowling alley on Saturday.

“It sure looked like Joe in the picture,” said Rosa Mendez, blowing the steam off her cup of coffee. In her early forties, she maintained a trim figure in shorts and a sleeveless blouse.

“Well, I’ve got an old picture of me that looks like Dolly Parton,” said Judy Hartman. Away from work, she wore her long blond hair full and curly, with the help of regular visits to Rosa’s beauty salon. “That doesn’t mean I can sing.”

“That doctor isn’t Joe,” Ramon said from his seat at the scoring table. “Come on. Some big-shot pediatrician worked at the cafe for a year and a half? I don’t believe it.”

“Anybody notice I just got a spare?” asked Sam Hartman, rejoining them.

“Way to go!” cheered Ramon.

As on most Saturdays, the group of friends had met at 11:00 a.m. at Mercy Lanes, next to the Back Door Cafe. The Hartmans were the best players, but everyone enjoyed the fun and the companionship.

The youngsters with them—the Hartmans’ sixteen-year-old son and the Mendezes’ three kids, who ranged from seventeen to twenty-one—formed their own group a few lanes away. Otherwise, the alley was empty except for a cluster of people around the videogames in back.

“If you’re not sure it’s him, what are you going to do?” Judy asked Meg.

“She’s going to play. It’s her turn.” Sam reached for his soft drink.

Glad to escape Judy’s question, Meg hurried to retrieve her ball. She didn’t know what she was going to do about Hugh Menton. She almost hoped the DNA test came back negative so she wouldn’t have to decide.

Life without Joe had settled into a comfortable if sometimes lonely pattern. She enjoyed times like today, when she could chitchat and bowl while Dana played at their next-door neighbor’s trailer.

If Hugh did turn out to be Joe, he might disrupt her entire existence. While he wasn’t likely to claim Meg as his wife, he might insist on spending time with Dana. Maybe even want her to live with him.

Grimly, she stared at the lane in front of her. No way would she give up her daughter! Angrily, Meg rolled the ball.

With a whump, it hit the gutter. Whistles and catcalls erupted behind her.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, girl!” called Rosa.

Darn. The man was messing with her bowling game. When the ball came back, Meg focused, started forward and rolled again.

Clean and sure, the ball flew down the lane and smashed into the pins. With a clatter, they shot in all directions. Of the few that remained, several wobbled and dropped at the last minute, leaving two standing.

“Too bad you didn’t get your act together the first time,” Ramon said as she returned. “You could have hit a spare.”

“They’re too far apart,” Meg said. “I’d never have made it.”

“That’s your problem, Meg,” advised Sam as his wife went to bowl. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“Don’t mention credit.” She shuddered. No matter how hard she tried to pay down her charge card, the balance always hovered near her limit. The mobile home park fee, food and baby-sitting ate most of her income.

“I’ll tell you what,” Rosa said. “I’ll give you a freebie. Come by the salon this afternoon and I’ll cut your hair. It’ll look cute.”

Rosa had been itching to get her hands on Meg’s mane for years. Without her bushy hair, though, Meg wouldn’t feel like herself. “No, thanks. I’m taking Dana swimming.”

The local community center pool cost a dollar per person, with kids under five free. It was one of the few treats they could afford.

Judy hit a strike, and whooped with delight at besting her husband this round. After that, the players concentrated on their games, and Meg finished with a respectable score.

She felt better by the time she left. Life in Mercy Canyon was safe and solid.

Even if he turned out to be Joe, Hugh Menton might never appreciate this town as he once had. Heck, he’d probably never bother to visit here.

Meg didn’t care. She knew where she belonged, and nothing could change that.

TO REACH Mercy Canyon, Hugh drove his luxury sedan on narrow, winding back roads. He hadn’t believed two-lane highways existed anymore in the age of carpool lanes and ever-wider freeways.

For a long stretch after he left the tightly packed developments of the coastal zone, he saw only a few isolated shacks and passed a mere handful of cars. Urban sprawl hadn’t reached this part of San Diego County.

In September, the height of the dry season, a scattering of dusty trees drooped in a rocky canyon filled with dry grasses and flowers. The area didn’t look familiar. Had he truly lived here for a year and a half?

As he descended from a slope, a sign alerted Hugh that he was entering the town of Mercy Canyon. He didn’t see anything until he rounded a rock outcropping and suddenly, below him, spread the community where he might have spent his lost months. Wanting time to collect his impressions, he stopped the car on the shoulder.

From this rise, he made out clusters of stores, an elementary school, a church, a couple of modest-size light-industrial buildings and numerous houses. There was a trailer park at the far end of town.

Hoping the scents would jog his memory, Hugh rolled down the window. Hot air blasted into his airconditioned cocoon.

As he’d expected, it carried the smells of eucalyptus and desert plants. For a split second, he remembered coming out of a cool building into the same heated air.

He was emerging from a church with a woman at his side. People lined the walkway, blowing soap bubbles. Could it be his own wedding?

Although Hugh had come here in search of the past, this possibility disturbed him. It was alarming to think that he might really have been a different person and lived a different life for so many months.

He knew of course that he’d been somewhere during his absence. Yet couldn’t the time have passed, as his family wanted to believe, in a succession of meaningless days of panhandling and sleeping in shelters?

On the other hand, before he was released from the hospital, Hugh’s doctor had remarked on what good shape he was in, aside from the head injury. He hadn’t been starving on the streets.

Maybe Meg’s story was true. He might be a husband and father. Hugh’s breath caught in his throat. So much for the rationalization that he could drive by Mercy Canyon and leave without seeing the Averys.

He’d brought Meg’s address. He could see the park distantly from here, neat rows of mobile homes glinting in the sunlight.

At the prospect of visiting what might be his old home, a twinge of fear ran through Hugh. What was he afraid of, that he would stumble into an unpleasant trap of his own making? Or that he would discover he’d once lived in paradise and couldn’t go back again?

There was no sense in delaying the inevitable. After rolling up the window, he turned on the ignition and started forward.

Chapter Four

Halfway through the town of Mercy Canyon, Hugh got a prickly sensation down his back. He knew this place as if from a dream.

The strip mall to one side of the road looked like a thousand others in Southern California. Yet he felt a twinge of recognition as he parked in front of a coffee shop called the Back Door Cafe.

Handwritten specials and flyers for local school fundraisers plastered the window, while the interior was hidden behind a lopsided Venetian blind. A thought came to him: The slats always pull crookedly. You’d think they’d have fixed them by now.

To one side sat a bowling alley. On the other, a bilingual video store featured posters of newly released films in Spanish and English.

At the end of the mall lay a salon called Rosa’s Beauty Spot. Oddly, he knew that Rosa was married to the owner of the video store.

He had been here before.

Hugh sat in his car, staring at the cafe. He’d had flashes of memory before, but none had ever been tied to a particular place. The clatter of dishes in a restaurant, the cry of a baby, the scent of old-fashioned perfume would snatch him momentarily from his reality, and then drop him right back into it.

His heart raced with an emotion akin to fear. There was no reason for alarm, yet it disturbed him to realize that he might be about to confront an unknown part of himself.

Most likely, he’d psyched himself to believe he’d once worked here because of what Meg had said, Hugh thought sternly. Annoyed at himself for indulging in useless worry, he got out, crossed the walkway and pushed open the cafe door.

The smell of coffee and frying hamburgers greeted him, familiar as a friend’s face. Still, who hadn’t smelled coffee and hamburgers before?

To his left stretched a counter where a grizzled man in a cowboy hat sat drinking coffee. To his right lay a row of booths, one of which held a family of four. In the back, past an open archway, sunlight from side windows streamed into a large room filled with tables and booths.

“Can I help you?” A young Hispanic man behind the counter regarded Hugh with impersonal friendliness that rapidly changed to confusion. “Say, man, you look familiar.”

“Have you worked here long?”

“About a year.” The fellow was no older than twenty, Hugh guessed. “I’m the assistant manager, Miguel Mendez.” He extended his hand.

Hugh shook it. “I’m Dr. Hugh Menton.” He hadn’t meant to throw in his title, but it slipped out.

“You’re a doctor?”

“Pediatrician.” Hugh decided to risk another question. “Does Meg Avery work here?”

“Sure.”

A tall, blond waitress came out of the kitchen hefting a tray of burgers, fries and drinks. When she saw Hugh, she stopped dead.

“Doggone you, Joe Avery!” she said. “What do you mean disappearing and then turning up like this? Does Meg know you’re here?”

“I thought you looked familiar,” Miguel said. “What’s this doctor business, man?”

Hugh wondered if he’d fallen asleep. This felt like one of those dreams in which he found himself on stage, expected to enact a role he hadn’t learned. Or in an operating room, about to perform surgery on an organ he’d never heard of.

“You think I look like Joe Avery?” he asked.

“Do I think you look like him?” The woman uttered an unladylike snort. “Come on, Joe, I worked with you for a year and a half.”

“You served me coffee every morning,” confirmed the grizzled man at the counter. “So you became a doctor? That’s pretty smart.”

“You can’t become a doctor in two years,” said Miguel. “I don’t think so, anyway.”

“Sam!” yelled the waitress. “Get out here right now!”

Through the swinging door barreled a large, beefy man wearing a white apron and holding a fire extinguisher. “What’s going on?”

“You can put that away. There’s no fire, just a prodigal son,” said his wife.

His wife. Her name’s Julie…no, Judy. Hugh stared at them both. He knew these people, or half knew them.

“Do you recognize me?” he asked.

“Joe Avery! I’ll be doggoned!” Sam frowned as he studied Hugh. “You got a new scar on your forehead. Where’d that come from?”

“I hit my head on the side of a building, so the police tell me,” he said.

“Get this. Joe told Miguel he’s a doctor,” Judy said.

“According to Meg, he is a doctor, remember?” Sam said. “You saw the clipping.”

“Doctors don’t serve coffee in restaurants,” said the grizzled man. “Although one time when you spilled some on my hand, you bandaged it real nice. I’m Vinnie Vesputo. Remember me?”

“I wish I did,” Hugh said.

The mother in the booth waved her hand. “Could we have our food, please?”

“Sorry!” Judy carried the tray to them.

“Would you mind showing us some ID?” Sam asked Hugh. “It might make things a little clearer.”

“Yeah. I’m kind of confused,” Miguel said.

“You’re not the only one.” Hugh took out his wallet and showed them the driver’s license. Judy came over and scrutinized it, finally shrugging as she absorbed the fact that he was indeed Hugh Menton, M.D. “I’ve got a year and a half missing from my past. To walk in here and meet people who know me feels strange.”

“You don’t recognize us?” Sam sounded hurt. “Not at all?”

This was a good man, Hugh knew. A man who’d helped him when he was hurt. “You took care of me at one point, didn’t you?”

“Hauled you back from Oceanside like a drowned rat and held your job until you got over your pneumonia,” he said. “So that really was you that Meg went to see in Los Angeles?”

“It was indeed.”

“Quite a shock for both of you, huh?”

“You might say that. In fact, you could definitely say that.” Hugh was surprised at how easily he fell into conversation with Sam. Although superficially they had nothing in common, he liked the fellow.

More people entered the cafe, and Judy went to show them to a table. At Sam’s gesture, Hugh followed him through swinging doors into the kitchen.

Metallic counters and sinks gleamed on both sides of the narrow room. Through a slim horizontal opening, they could see the counter area.

“We can talk better in here. Besides, I’ve got work to do,” Sam said. “Have a seat, Doc.”

Hugh perched on a stool. “Tell me about myself. What I was like.”

“Incompetent, at first.” Sam lifted a metal basket of French fries from boiling fat, let it drain and set it under a warmer. “But careful. Man, the first time you made coffee, it was like you were measuring it for a science experiment.”

“So that’s where I learned to make coffee.” Hugh had startled his office staff one morning when he arrived early by taking care of that task for the first time. He’d been puzzled when he discovered that he knew instinctively what to do.

“After a while, you loosened up,” Sam said. “Cracked jokes. Sneaked in beer when we were working late. Talked me into driving all the way to San Diego to look at a panda in the zoo. You were the first guy I ever met who’s as crazy as I am.”

“Me?” Crazy was not an adjective anyone would apply to the cautious Hugh Menton.

Hugh had kept his nose to the grindstone through medical school, conscious of the need to live up to his legendary father’s reputation and to Andrew’s excellent record. Looking back, he supposed the other students had found his perfectionism annoying.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider coming back?” Sam asked wistfully. “Miguel’s a nice kid but he ought to go to college. Besides, he’s not very interesting to talk to.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” Hugh said. “Although I appreciate the offer.”

“You’re really a doctor?” Sam persisted. “It’s not just some mail-order Ph.D.?”

“U.C.L.A. Medical School,” Hugh said. “With a residency in pediatrics.”

“How’d you end up as Joe Avery, anyway?” Sam asked.

Hugh explained about the capsized boat, Rick’s death and how he’d apparently washed ashore. “I suppose it happened right when the real Joe Avery fell off the pier,” he said.

“So he must be dead?” Sam asked.

“My brother says that, shortly after I disappeared, he was contacted about an unidentified drowning victim in Oceanside. Of course, it wasn’t me, and by then Joe was no longer considered missing. Yesterday, I called the police to suggest they compare the DNA to that of the real Joe Avery.”

“I’m glad. The guy deserves to rest in peace.” Sam removed some hamburger patties from a freezer.

Hugh’s original plan to view the town and slip away unnoticed would be impossible now that he’d been recognized. Besides, he was in no hurry to leave. “Is Meg working today?”

“Not till tonight. She took Dana to the community pool,” Sam said. “How are things between you two, anyway?”

“Unsettled.”

“Meg’s a good woman. You should…” The cook broke off as his wife thrust an order at him through the narrow aperture.

It was an informal setup, Hugh noted, based on his observation of coffee shops he’d patronized over the years. “You ought to enlarge that window and put in some warmers so you could set the trays there. Buy one of those round holders that she could clip the orders to.”

“Yeah, like you never said that before!” Sam shook his head. “I guess you don’t remember saying it, do you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Hugh said. “Whatever advice I gave you, I’m sure it was right on target.”

“Man, you haven’t changed! Still as cocky as ever.”

They grinned at each other. A strange but pleasant sensation rippled through Hugh. A sense of belonging.

He gave himself a mental shake. “I’d like to find Meg. Where’s the pool she took Dana to?”

“Go two blocks south and turn right on Arroyo Grande,” Sam said.

“Thanks.” A few minutes later, Hugh was on his way.

DANA HAD MADE a new friend in the wading pool, a little boy with a plastic boat. They spent half an hour pretend-racing it from side to side, weaving between the other children.

Meg sunbathed in her bikini. Although she occasionally greeted an old friend en route to the larger pool nearby, she felt very much alone. In the kiddie section, most of the moms were accompanied by their husbands, except for one young woman who’d come with her mother.

Keeping a cautious eye on Dana, Meg leaned back in the plastic lounge chair and imagined how Corinne O’Flaherty would have doted on a granddaughter.

Thinking of her mother was like picturing two entirely different people. One warm and loving, full of fun. The second alternating between deep depression and intense irritability.

Her father’s bouts with alcohol hadn’t made life any easier. Since his recovery, however, Meg had forgiven him and they’d grown close these last few years.

Tim refused even to speak to the man. He understood that their mother had been a victim of mental illness, but he couldn’t extend the same forgiveness to the father who’d abandoned them.

Meg wished Tim could find a woman to make him as happy as Joe Avery had made her. Once he was a father himself, maybe he would soften toward the man who now deeply regretted having failed them. She knew how much she’d matured after experiencing true intimacy with Joe.

Looking up, she squinted against the glare of sunlight. That man walking toward her sure did resemble her husband. It must be a trick of the light, or of her longing.

He had the same graceful stride, straight shoulders and strong arms. The same boyish crease in one cheek that, as always, set her heart pounding.

Despite his modesty, Joe had always had a magnetic presence, and now she noticed how women’s heads swiveled to follow him. With an electric jolt, Meg realized it was Hugh Menton.

She straightened on her chaise longue. “What are you doing here?”

He pulled over a plastic chair, checked to make sure it was dry and sat down. Although tailored slacks and a crisp short-sleeved shirt might seem overdressed at a pool, it was the other people who looked underdressed by comparison.

“I dropped by to see the town,” he said. “I thought it might jog some memories.”

“Remember anything yet?”

Instead of answering, Hugh glanced toward the wading pool. “I could spot Dana a mile away. That hair is amazing.”

As always, mention of her daughter made Meg smile. “She comes by it naturally.” She shook back her own frizzy cloud until it tickled her shoulders.

“So I see.” Hugh regarded her warmly. “I like your hair loose that way.”

His appreciation quivered through her. How like Joe to talk about her hair when she was sitting here in a bikini! Unlike most men, he was too much of a gentleman to comment on how the rest of her looked.

That didn’t mean he was unaware of her. Sensitized to him as always, Meg noted his speeded-up intake of breath. In response, heat thrilled through her.

She missed him physically as well as emotionally. Missed the hungry probing of his mouth and the way he gently but firmly took command when they made love.

Yet this man remembered none of that. Even if he once had been her husband, he was a stranger now.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said. “Does any of this seem familiar?”

“I went by the restaurant.” He relaxed as the breeze ruffled his sandy hair. “Saw Sam and Judy. I’m not sure whether I recognize them or I was responding to suggestion.”

There he went again, using high-flown language. “I guess you mean that I put ideas in your head.”

“That’s right. Not that I’m implying you did it on purpose.”

“Two years is a long time for you to be in the dark,” she said. “Can’t your doctors do anything about this amnesia business?”

“The brain is incredibly complicated and still not fully understood.” Hugh watched as Dana and her new friend splashed each other playfully. “My neurologist can’t say why I’ve recovered everything from before my accident but lost that year and a half. He thinks it might be because I reinjured the same area of the brain.”

“So the time you spent here could be gone permanently?” Meg asked. “Erased like an old videotape?”

He shot her a startled glance. “That’s a good simile.”

“A good what?”

“Figure of speech,” he said. “The answer is, I was beginning to fear it might be gone forever, but visiting the restaurant today stirred something. Either memories or false memories. Not entirely false, though, I don’t think.”

Meg had seen a story on TV about people so gullible that they could be persuaded to remember things that had never happened. She supposed that was what he meant by false memories, but surely that wasn’t the case with Hugh.

There was another question she ached to ask. A dangerous question, but this seemed as good a time as any. “Joe—Hugh—is there someone else? Another woman in your life?”

“No. Ever since I got back, I knew there was something missing. Until I figured it out, I wasn’t ready to start a new relationship,” he said.

Hugh had missed her. A tiny hope lit within Meg.

Maybe he couldn’t go back to being the same Joe she’d known, but if he loved her, he might move to Mercy Canyon and practice medicine here. Their lives could continue pretty much as planned.

The security she’d longed for since she was small might still be possible. To have a loving husband here where she belonged, surrounded by old friends, and to have her daughter grow up in such a safe environment, was all Meg wanted.

At the wading pool, the little boy’s mother lifted him onto a towel to dry off. Dana climbed out and headed for Meg.

When she spotted Hugh, the little girl’s eyes widened. With an expression of pure bliss, she shouted, “Daddy!” and ran to him.

He barely got out of his chair in time to catch her. “Hi, honey.” Hugging her, Hugh paid no notice to the water dripping over his clothes.

“My Daddy!” Dana announced to everyone. “Mine!”

When he lifted her, she wrapped herself around him as if she’d known him all her life. “Are you having a good time, sweetie?”

“Us go home!” she cried.

“That’s right, we’re going home,” Hugh said. “Together.”

Meg’s chest squeezed at seeing her family reunited. “Last one to the parking lot’s a cross-eyed gopher!” she said, and grabbed her gear.

Chapter Five

Hugh felt as if he’d been holding this little girl in his arms every day for the past two years. The way she curled against him and the fresh scent of her hair felt utterly familiar.

His daughter. She’d always been with him, even if he hadn’t known it.

He’d missed so much of her life. And, without realizing it, he’d missed Meg.

Hugh had wondered at his lack of response to women in the past two years. He’d kept watching for some quality that was missing. An honesty that, he realized now, was an essential part of Meg’s appeal.

He loved the way she looked, too, even though she wasn’t conventionally beautiful. Walking ahead of him with a towel slung around her shoulders, she glowed with natural sensuality.

He wished he could remember making love to her. How she looked without that bikini….

When they reached Meg’s car, he strapped Dana into her child seat. This dented sedan made him uneasy, as if a painful memory were connected with it. He couldn’t summon any specifics and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

In his own car, Hugh followed Meg through town. He had an urge to shout at every vehicle that approached, “Slow down! Don’t hit them!”

He wanted to protect them. It was such a fundamental urge that it bypassed his intellect, which warned that they might not really be his.

The two-car caravan entered the trailer park between a scattering of tall palm trees. Mobile homes crammed the spaces, and a flock of children rode scooters in the narrow roadway.

As Hugh steered carefully between them, he vowed silently that his daughter wouldn’t grow up playing in the street. She should have her own yard and a sidewalk where she’d be safe.

Meg stopped at a small unit and, leaning out the car window, waved him to the visitor slots a short distance farther. After parking, Hugh walked back amid the blare of a radio through an open window and the chatter of a TV from another unit.

Meg waited till he reached her before shepherding Dana inside. Following, Hugh found himself wanting to crouch because of the low ceiling, although it wasn’t low enough to bean him.

He took in the sprinkling of toys on the floor, the mismatched furniture, the plastic flowers filling a vase on the coffee table. Disappointment darkened his mood. If he’d ever stayed in this place, his brain contained no record of it.

“Did we live here?” he asked.

Meg nodded. “I hoped you might remember.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Never mind. Excuse me a minute. I’ve got to help Dana change clothes.” She carried the toddler into a bedroom.

Perhaps he really wasn’t Joe, Hugh thought. Surely her husband would feel at home in the place where they’d lived.

He certainly wouldn’t have forgotten making love to Meg. Eating dinner with her, curling up in bed with her, taking a shower together in the morning. Not if he’d really done those things.

Without thinking, he trailed in Meg’s wake and peered into Dana’s room. Flowered curtains. An aging rocker. A poster of Minnie Mouse on the wall.

He’d pictured those things when Meg was in his office. This very room. So he had been here before!

The clues fit too, Hugh reflected, sorting through them mentally. Rick’s sailboat had sunk shortly before the watery rescue of Joe Avery. People at the Back Door Cafe recognized him, and Meg had a police report showing that her husband had vanished the same day Hugh turned up in Los Angeles.

Everything pointed to the likelihood that he had lived in this place and fathered a child. Still, that didn’t make it true. As a doctor, Hugh knew that mountains of circumstantial evidence didn’t amount to gold-standard proof. Even his own memories might be misleading.

Seeking more clues, he gazed at a couple of photos on the living room wall. There was one of him and Meg with baby Dana, but Hugh, or rather Joe, had his face slightly averted. Another picture showed Meg beside a thin young man with reddish-brown hair like her own.

“That’s my brother, Tim,” she said, joining him. Changed into a pair of white jeans and a blue-green camp shirt, she smelled of flowers and a trace of chlorine. “I dropped out of school to raise him after our mother died.”

“Couldn’t your father handle him?”

“Dad had a drinking problem. He wasn’t around,” she said. “He’s been dry for nearly ten years now.”

Hugh moved away from the pictures. “Where’s Dana?”

“Taking a nap,” she said. “Want some coffee?”

“Sure.” In the small kitchen, he turned a chair backward and straddled it.

“You always sat that way.” She pointed at the floor. “Look.”

On the linoleum, two worn patches lay directly beneath Hugh’s feet. It gave him an eerie feeling to realize that he, or someone, had sat in exactly this position many times.

“That is interesting,” he said.

He still didn’t recall living in the trailer. Or perhaps he couldn’t think straight with Meg sitting across from him, her camp shirt’s low V-neck revealing the swell of her breasts. To Hugh’s embarrassment, Meg noticed him staring. “Stir any memories?”

“Is that what you’re trying to stir?” he teased. “I’m only human, you know.”

She gave him a mischievous grin. “You’re a doctor. Anatomy isn’t supposed to affect you.”

“It depends on the circumstances. Shall I treat you as the mother of a patient, or as the mother of my child?”

“That depends on how you see me.” Her amber eyes dared him to respond.

“I don’t know how I see you,” Hugh admitted. “It’s hard to trust someone who suddenly appears in my life, no matter how much I want to.”

She sighed. “Thank goodness for DNA tests. What if they didn’t exist? I’d have to find another way to prove my case.”

“How would you do that?” he asked, intrigued.

Meg tossed her mane. “I suppose I could seduce you and hope it reminded you of what we had before. That raises some weird moral issues. I don’t even know if you’re legally my husband.”

“People don’t have to be married to make love,” he said.

“I did!” Her mouth tightened. “You were the first man I was ever with.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you.” Hugh reached across the table to cup her hand. He tried to ignore the shiver of desire that ran through him at the contact. “That was a special gift you gave me.”

As Meg turned away, he saw a sheen of moisture in her eyes. “I waited a long time for the right man. Who could have believed we’d end up in such a mess?”

“I’m curious about our relationship.” Despite a few immature entanglements earlier in life, Hugh had never felt truly close to a woman. Yet during his lost months, he’d evidently fallen in love with Meg and she with him. “How did you know I was the right man?”

“Joe—you—made me laugh,” she said.

“Me? I never make anybody laugh except when I trip over my own feet.”

“You made me laugh with the way you saw things, like everything was fresh and new and wonderful,” she said. “Also, I liked the way you moved.”

“I wasn’t aware of moving in any particular manner.” Although Hugh had been a diver in college and swam laps daily in the family pool, he considered himself a klutz on the dance floor.

“That’s because you can’t see yourself from the rear,” Meg teased.

He ducked his head. “I never thought about the way I walk.”

“You’re cute when you’re embarrassed,” she said. “That’s the third thing I like.”

“Those aren’t reasons to fall in love,” he protested.

“Why not?”

“They lack substance.”

“People don’t fall in love with their brains,” Meg said.

He supposed she was right. Through his hand curved over hers, Hugh was intensely aware of the softness and warmth of her skin. He noted the quivering freckles across her cheeks and the way the collar of the shirt fell open to bare a vulnerable patch of shoulder.

Sexual attraction wasn’t love, but it might be the first step. Besides, what he felt went far beyond the physical.

“I wish I remembered what it was like to be with you.” He gave her an apologetic grin. “I’m sure it was spectacular.”

“I remember what you were like,” she retorted, and had the grace to blush. “Now we’re both embarrassed.”

In the other room, Dana began babbling. Meg excused herself to check on her. When she returned, she stood by the counter. “She was talking in her sleep.”

The spell had broken between them, although Hugh felt a residual hum of excitement. He’d never met a woman to whom he responded so strongly. Even if he weren’t Joe, he was glad to have discovered Meg.

And Dana. “Have you thought about her future?” he asked. “Your—our—daughter’s?”

“What about her future?”

“Surely you don’t want her to grow up riding a scooter in the street.” He gestured toward the window, through which they could hear children’s shouts and the scrape of metal wheels on concrete. “And you want her to get a good education, don’t you?”

Meg gripped her mug. “Of course, I want her to graduate from high school.”

“Then she should go on to college,” Hugh said.

“There’s a community college not far away.” Meg remained standing. “She could commute and work at the restaurant on weekends.”

“I know she isn’t even in preschool yet,” he said. “But if she’s my daughter, Meg, I want more for her. Where I live, the environment is much more challenging….”

He stopped, seeing the determination written on her face. Apparently he’d struck a nerve.

“Mercy Canyon is our home,” Meg said. “We have friends here, people who love us. Who stood by us when we needed them.”

Hugh thought of Sam’s blustering kindness. “Friends are precious. I lost my closest buddy in that boating accident, and I’d give anything to have him back. I’m not suggesting that you give up your friends, Meg.”

“It sure sounded like it.”

“People move around a lot these days. You can keep in touch even if you don’t stay in Mercy Canyon.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to grow up the way I did.” Her expression tense, Meg collected the mugs and took them to the sink. “Tim and I couldn’t rely on our parents. Some nights we weren’t even sure we would have a roof over our heads. If we hadn’t had friends to rely on, I shudder to think what might have happened to us.”

“You’re not a child anymore,” Hugh pointed out gently. “And I would never let my daughter suffer like that.”

“She needs security. Money is only part of it,” Meg said. “She needs to know where she belongs, and so do I.”

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