Taking both her hands in his, Matt looked into her eyes.

“Jane, nothing that you discover about the person you were in the past will change the person you’ve created. The person I’ve come to—”

Matt stopped speaking. Had he been about to tell Jane that he loved her?

He was aware of Jane’s slender hands in his, her eyes gazing up at him, still glistening with unshed tears. His arms ached with the urge to pull her to him, to cradle her against his chest; his lips longed to feel hers beneath them. But that wasn’t love. It was desire. It was a need to connect that went so deep, it burned the pit of his stomach. Love existed for other people….

But not for him.

Dear Reader,

While taking a breather from decorating and gift-wrapping, check out this month’s exciting treats from Silhouette Special Edition. The Summer House (#1510) contains two fabulous stories in one neat package. “Marrying Mandy” by veteran author Susan Mallery features the reunion of two sweethearts who fall in love all over again. Joining Susan is fellow romance writer Teresa Southwick whose story “Courting Cassandra” shows how an old crush blossoms into full-blown love.

In Joan Elliott Pickart’s Tall, Dark and Irresistible (#1507), a hero comes to terms with his heritage and meets a special woman who opens his heart to the possibilities. Award-winning author Anne McAllister gets us in the holiday spirit with The Cowboy’s Christmas Miracle (#1508) in which a lone-wolf cowboy finds out he’s a dad to an adorable little boy, then realizes the woman who’d always been his “best buddy” now makes his heart race at top speed! And count on Christine Rimmer for another page-turner in Scrooge and the Single Girl (#1509). This heart-thumping romance features an anti-Santa hero and an independent heroine, both resigned to singlehood and stranded in a tiny little mountain cabin where they’ll have a holiday they’ll never forget!

Judy Duarte returns to the line-up with Family Practice (#1511), a darling tale of a handsome doctor who picks up the pieces after a bitter divorce and during a much-needed vacation falls in love with a hardworking heroine and her two kids. In Elane Osborn’s A Season To Believe (#1512), a woman survives a car crash but wakes up with amnesia. When a handsome private detective takes her plight to heart, she finds more than one reason to be thankful.

As you can see, we have an abundance of rich and emotionally complex love stories to share with you. I wish you happiness, fun and a little romance this holiday season!

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

A Season to Believe
Elane Osborn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Dar: For housing me and for your company on so many of

my research trips, but most of all for your support and

friendship on this trip called Life.

And to Dad: For everything you shared with me, from creating

a window display to potato stamping, but especially for your

encouragement and for teaching me that the worst four-letter

S-word is, “can’t.” I miss you.

ELANE OSBORN

is a daydream believer whose active imagination tends to intrude on her life at the most inopportune moments. Her penchant for slipping into “alternative reality” severely hampered her work life, leading to a gamut of jobs that includes, but is not limited to: airline reservation agent, waitress, salesgirl and seamstress in the wardrobe department of a casino showroom. In writing, she has discovered a career that not only does not punish flights of fancy, it demands them. Drawing on her daydreams, she has published three historical romance novels and is now using the experiences she has collected in her many varied jobs in the “real world” to fuel contemporary stories that blend romance and suspense.

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 Nineteen

Chapter One

“Silver bells…”

The first strains of the Christmas song brought an instant frown to the woman standing at the glass counter. She stared blankly at the burgundy-and-tan scarf draped across the palm of her hand as she heard “It’s Christmas time…”

Hot, unreasoning anger sent blood pounding through her ears, drowning out the rest of the tune. Her fingers crushed the silk scarf as she turned toward the figure on the other side of the counter.

“Don’t you think this is just a little ridiculous?”

The salesperson, a girl in her late teens with short, tousled red hair, jumped and turned from the display of necklaces she was straightening.

“I’m sorry.” She blinked. “Are you, um, having a problem finding what you want?”

“What I want is to shop in peace, without being assaulted by shamelessly blatant attempts to whip the public into a seasonal buying frenzy at such an absurdly early date.”

The girl responded with a blank stare.

The woman’s fingers tightened. “I don’t suppose that you could do anything about changing the piped-in music?”

A tiny frown appeared over the girl’s blue eyes. “Um, I’m sorry, no. But…” She paused, then flashed an overly bright smile as she went on. “You know, sometimes all the crowds and the music and the hustle-bustle of shopping can really be wearing. Have you thought about taking a break in our food court? A cup of eggnog-flavored coffee and a peppermint cookie might put you right back into the spirit.”

Back in the spirit? Was this young woman nuts?

“I doubt that would work. I detest eggnog, for one thing.” An involuntary shudder ripped through the woman. “And even if I did like the vile stuff, I certainly wouldn’t consider drinking it in May.”

“M-May?” The salesclerk took a deep breath and raised her chin. “Um, ma’am? It’s November. November twenty-ninth. The day after Thanksgiving.” The girl frowned again, then went on. “Um, you know, I could call someone from Security and…”

The woman willed the girl’s next words to dull to an unintelligible hum. Obviously the young lady was unbalanced. There was no way it could be November. Only yesterday, the woman thought, she had been watching waves crash onto the shore and thinking how unusually warm it was for May.

“Silver bells…”

The refrain intruded. The woman glanced toward a wide bank of glass to her right. Sunlight streamed in. The bit of sky she could see was clear blue. However, she did notice that the hats hanging from the chrome pole at the end of the aisle were all dark—black, brown, forest-green and red circles of felt, along with a few knitted caps. Not one summery straw hat in the bunch.

Fighting off a shiver, the woman let her gaze fall on the round table several feet away. Pieces of silver and gold jewelry were nestled within open boxes decorated in a burgundy-and-green plaid.

She looked up, searching for the speaker responsible for the offending music, only to see a collection of glittery snowflakes dangling from the ceiling. As she stared at them, she heard a man behind her say, “This is Santa’s first day in the store, honey, so you’re going to have to be a good little girl if…”

As the voice faded in the distance, a blush heated the woman’s cheeks. The salesclerk must be right. It must be November, after all. And she must be—another shudder shook her shoulders—Christmas shopping. In some store in downtown…

Downtown where? The woman froze as she asked herself, What city am I in? When her mind came up blank, her heart thudded to a stop. The snowflakes began to spin, quickly forming a shimmering blizzard above her. The music grew louder, while she frantically asked herself, Where am I?

Then, Who am I?

Again there was no answer. Her heart began to race. Her fingers could no longer feel the glass counter she gripped so tightly. Her breath felt as if it was jammed in her chest, unable to escape. Blood pounded in her ears.

“Ma’am? Ma’am?”

The second sharp-edged address penetrated the dizzying vortex. She pulled her attention to the clerk, just as the girl said, “The security guard will be here in a moment. He’ll take you to our quiet lounge, where you can—”

“No. That won’t be necessary.” The woman added more firmly, “Really.”

With that she turned and began walking quickly away, ignoring the clerk’s cries of protest as she moved toward the wall of windows that she assumed, prayed, held the store entrance—and more importantly, its exit.

I just need some fresh air, she told herself. I just need to get my bearings, she thought as she wove past a series of clear plastic shoe displays. Once I figure out where I am, I’ll know who I am, and then I’ll be fine.

Desperate to escape the crowds, the decorations and the far-too-jolly notes now jangling in her ears, she practically ran up the shallow, wide staircase leading to the glass door and pushed it open. Moist, cool air hit her face as she exited, then moved to one side, away from the stream of people entering and departing the store.

She’d made it outside. Now, certainly, she would know where she was, she assured herself as she glanced around. Nothing looked the least bit familiar. Oh lord. Panic widened her eyes, sent her heart racing again. She had no idea where in the world she might be. Yes, you do, a voice in her mind insisted impatiently. You have to know where you are. Look around again. What do you see? Think. Breathe.

Obeying this last command first, she then slowly took in her surroundings. On the opposite side of the street, a series of brick planters stair-stepped up to an area bordered by a row of benches. Beyond these, perhaps a block away, she saw a tall ivory building emblazoned with the words Saks Fifth Avenue.

All right. There was a Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. She didn’t know how she knew this or, for that matter, why she felt so certain this was not New York. But it was somewhat comforting to feel certain about something.

The surrounding structures weren’t tall enough for New York. And—

Her thoughts stilled as she spied a car with a California license plate.

In a flash she knew this was San Francisco. The park in front of her was Union Square. The store she’d just stepped out of was Maxwell’s Department Store.

She turned to the wall of windows behind her. To one side, a calendar had been posted bearing the longer holiday hours, topped by a banner warning that there were only twenty-six more shopping days to Christmas.

So, it was indeed November. Not May.

She wondered how she could have made that mistake, then brushed the thought away. It didn’t matter how or why she’d fallen into this pit of amnesia. All that mattered was that she knew again. She was in San Francisco, at Maxwell’s, and her name was Jane. Jane Ashbury.

At least, that’s who she was now.

Reflected in the window, Jane saw a slender woman dressed in a red suit jacket over an ankle-length black skirt. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, and was of medium height with light brown hair. This was layered into thick bangs to cover the scar on her forehead, and the sides fell just past her narrow jaw.

In the past year and a half, Jane had come to accept that the large, gray-brown eyes, the tiny scar at the right corner of her mouth and the not-quite-symmetrical features belonged to her, just as she’d learned to answer to the name Jane. What she had looked like before, or what her name had once been, were lost in a darkness far deeper than the one she’d experienced inside the store—a darkness she’d long since given up trying to penetrate.

Jane became aware of the jangling sound of a ringing bell just as a man jostled past behind her. She fought off a shiver.

She hated crowds. They made her want to escape to some open place where she could breathe. She turned to do just that. Before she could take a step, a hand closed over her arm, then tightened, and she gasped as a deep voice said, “Forget it, honey. You and that scarf you took are coming with me.”

In a small, gray room, Jane slumped in a hard chair, a slit of a window in the wall on her right, a closed door on her left. Too weary to do more than stare at the burgundy-and-tan pile of silk in the middle of the desk in front of her, she listened to the two men sitting on the other side.

“Thanks for calling me.”

Jane glanced at the speaker. With his short blond hair and linebacker’s body straining the shoulders of his blue sport coat, Detective Bruce Wilcox was an imposing figure, even sitting down. She didn’t feel any more comfortable with him today than she had the only other time they’d met, well over a year ago.

“Actually, it was her idea.”

The thin faced security guard, in his brown uniform and billed cap, was the person who had grabbed her arm and brought her up here, then refused to listen to her explanations. Mr. Jessup continued to speak to the detective.

“She gave me this cockamamy story about forgetting who she was, then told me to call the police and ask for the detectives who had been in charge of her case. When the officer I spoke with said that neither of those men were on the force now, she came up with your name. Until you showed up, I was sure she was lying.”

“Nope. She was telling you the truth. At least, the part about her being Jane Doe Number Thirteen. The scarf story we’ll have to check out.”

Jane barely heard the last words. Her mind was stuck on Jane Doe Number Thirteen. She hated that name, hated the memories it conjured up—waking to find she didn’t know where she was, who she was, why her jaw was frozen shut, why her face was bandaged, what was causing the deep ache in her pelvis. Even worse had been the cheery nurses smiling at her when she shook her head in response to their questions, doctors asking if this hurt, if that hurt.

Then the detectives had arrived, with more questions. But Manuel Mendosa and Matthew Sullivan hadn’t been anything like Wilcox. Patient and kind, they had never treated her like a suspect. Jane’s stomach twisted as she realized she’d somehow managed to forget that, of the two detectives who had worked on her case, one was now dead and the other—

The click of a key in the lock broke into Jane’s thoughts. She turned as the door swung open, then started. The man standing there was that second detective—Matthew Sullivan.

The man looked just as she remembered—black hair and dark green eyes; tall and athletically trim in his faded jeans and tan, open-neck shirt. But as he stepped into the room, Jane noticed that his face was more deeply lined, making him look older than his mid-thirties. And the expression in his eyes was almost grim.

He stopped just inside the doorway and his glance skimmed the two men on the other side of the desk. When his eyes met hers, they widened momentarily, then he smiled. That deep dimple she recalled so well creased his left cheek, but his eyes still lacked the devil-may-care expression she remembered so well.

“Hello there, Jane,” he said.

She’d always found his deep voice soothing, but today there seemed to be a harsh edge to it. Conscious of the way he continued to study her, she slowly got to her feet. His gaze swept down, then back up. His smile widened, and all the carefully chosen words Jane had been about to utter tumbled out in random order.

“Matt. I’m surprised to see you. I was just thinking about you.” Realizing that her voice sounded more raspy than usual, she cleared her throat. “Worrying, actually. Well, worrying isn’t exactly the right word. Though I did do that when I heard you were shot, of course.”

Jane knew she was rambling. She forced herself to speak more slowly. “What I was doing before you came in was berating myself for forgetting that you’d left the police force and—”

“Forgetting,” Wilcox broke in, “seems to be a habit with you, doesn’t it?”

Jane turned toward the detective, but not before she saw Matt’s dark eyebrows move together in a quick frown.

“Just what is going on here?” Matt asked.

Wilcox leaned back in his chair. “I’m here to investigate a report of shoplifting. What are you doing here?”

“I was at the station, trying to get some information on a case Jack and I are working on. I happened to hear Baker call you on your cell phone about a matter involving Jane Ashbury and Maxwell’s. I decided to find out what was going on. I know it’s not my case anymore, but call it for old times’ sake. Care to fill me in?”

In the silence that followed, Jane glanced from one man to the other. Matt, with his narrowed eyes and firmly set lips, didn’t look at all like a man who was asking a favor. And Wilcox, with his hard blue eyes and head cocked to one side, didn’t look like one who was predisposed to grant one. But slowly the man’s lips curved slightly.

“Sure. Why not? So far, we have established the fact that Miss Ashbury here ran out of the store carrying this scarf, valued at one hundred and thirty-four dollars. She claims that she became confused, didn’t know where she was, what month it was, or even who she was. That, however, has yet to be proven.”

Matt looked at Jane. Before he could say a word, however, Mr. Jessup spoke up.

“Well, actually, when the salesgirl called me, she did say she had a customer who seemed to think it was May, and was acting rather strangely.”

Matt’s gaze seemed to sharpen. “May?” he asked Jane.

She barely managed to nod before Wilcox spoke.

“All right. So she was confused. Familiar story, right? That doesn’t explain why she took the scarf with her.”

Matt turned to Wilcox and took a step toward the man as he asked, “What’s wrong with you? My guess is, she forgot she was holding it.” He turned his attention to the security guard. “Where did you apprehend Miss Ashbury?”

“She was standing in front of the store, staring into the window.”

“I see. Where was the scarf?”

“In her hand.”

“Had the tag been removed?”

The man shook his head.

“Would you mind telling me just how many shoplifters you’ve known to stop right outside, with the stolen merchandise in clear view?”

Jessup sighed. “None. But she was moving away when I grabbed her. And her story—”

“Needs to be confirmed,” Wilcox finished as he stood up. “Mr. Jessup, let’s go speak to that salesclerk. I think we can safely leave her in Mr. Sullivan’s custody. He used to be a cop.”

A minute later, Jessup closed the door, leaving Jane alone with Matt. The silence in the room seemed to grow, demanding to be filled.

“I’m sorry about Manny,” she said. “I wanted to come see you, in the hospital, but I was told you couldn’t have visitors. Then Zoe took me to—”

“Hey,” Matt broke in.

He stepped toward her, halting once he was two feet away. Jane could almost feel the strength emanating from him. Or was she recalling the way his arms had held her so tightly as she sobbed uncontrollably the last time she’d seen him?

“I’ve been out of the hospital for a year now,” Matt said. “If anyone should apologize, it’s me. I’ve been meaning to look you up, but—”

“But,” Jane interrupted. Embarrassed by where her earlier thoughts had wandered, and the weakness she’d shown that long-ago day, she went on quickly. “You’ve been busy putting your life back together. I understand how that goes.”

Matt’s jaw tightened. He knew Jane wasn’t offering an empty reassurance. If anyone knew what it took to put a life back together—or create a new one out of nothing, for that matter—it was Jane Ashbury.

In the middle of May, nearly a year and a half ago, he and his partner had been called to the scene of a suspicious accident. A car had gone off a cliff near the ocean and burst into flames, but not before a young woman had been thrown onto the rocks. There were no skid marks to suggest that the driver had been speeding, and the wheel tracks on the grassy cliff indicated the car had come from an odd angle. Any identification that the woman might have been carrying had been destroyed by the fire, and her body and face had been shattered by the impact.

When a check of fingerprint files, dental records and missing persons lists all came up blank, the woman was tagged with the designation normally given to unidentified bodies—Jane Doe—and given the number thirteen to distinguish her from those who had come before and those who would follow. When she came out of her coma, in the middle of June, she had no idea who she was and didn’t recognize the face the plastic surgeons had created for her.

He and Manny had elicited the aid of the media, and Jane’s story was widely covered by newspapers and television. Numerous people came to see her, hoping she might prove to be their missing sister, daughter, wife. What few people knew, however, was how devastating both her celebrity and the subsequent disappointments had been for Jane. Matt knew, though. He had witnessed the last of such visits, had held Jane in his arms as she mourned the fact that, yet again, all parties concerned had been disappointed and she still was left without an identity.

However, when she pulled away from him that day and dried her eyes, a new Jane had emerged.

That quietly self-controlled person stood in front of Matt now—more or less. She wasn’t as painfully thin as he remembered; the hair that had been shaved prior to the emergency operation on her bruised brain had grown out to frame her slender face in a chin-length cap of light brown; and the scar at the left corner of her mouth had faded to the palest of pinks.

But her smoky gray-brown eyes held the same mixture of vulnerability and determination he’d seen the day she declared she was ready to move forward, that she would never search for her past again. However, from what the security guard had said, it seemed that today Jane’s past had come searching for her.

“So,” Matt said. “You remembered something.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “No. I didn’t.”

Matt gave her a small smile. “Jessup just told me you thought it was May. That was the month your car went over that embankment.” It hadn’t been her car, of course. The vehicle subsequently had proved to be stolen. Glossing over the inaccuracy, Matt got to the heart of the matter. “Don’t you think there might be some connection?”

“No.” She took a step back as she spoke, and broke eye contact. Her gaze fell on the scarf. “I was looking at this scarf one minute, then hearing some Christmas tune the next, and suddenly wondered why the store would play that kind of music so early in the year.”

From the evasiveness in her whiskey-toned voice, Matt knew there was more to the story. He considered pressing the matter, then thought about Wilcox’s attitude and decided to hold off, for the moment. Instead, as Jane slowly met his gaze again, he lifted the scarf from the center of the table.

“Good taste,” he said, then let it fall back into a soft puddle as he looked into Jane’s eyes. He tried to lend some lightness to his next words. “Well, for the record, I don’t believe for one moment that you’re some shoplifter making up a story to escape apprehension.”

Jane stared at him. Her wide mouth began to twitch, as if she was fighting a smile. “You still talk like a cop.”

Matt shrugged. Some of the tightness eased from his shoulders. “Force of habit. Besides, I’m still in law enforcement, sort of. I’m a private detective now.”

Jane lifted one brow. “Did you come here thinking I might need your services?”

There was no missing the almost desperate note in that low, throaty voice of Jane’s, a sexy quality that was the direct result of injuries sustained in a crime unsolved. Temporarily unsolved, Matt reminded himself. Now Jane Doe Num—Jane Ashbury—was no longer a half-forgotten part of his life. She was here, in front of him, a bit of unfinished business that had too long been pushed to the back of his mind by events that had turned his own life upside down.

His assessment of the crash made him doubt the theory that Jane had sent the car over the embankment herself, either accidentally or as a suicide attempt. When he and Manny were temporarily pulled off the case, they were certain that they’d eventually be able to prove that Jane’s “accident” had been a murder attempt.

Matt frowned. It was obvious that Wilcox had done nothing with the case the man had inherited. And maybe it was just as well. No one had ever been punished for Manny’s murder, or for the damage that had been done to Matt’s body and life. The idea of justice denied ate at him daily. Maybe he would feel better if he caught the person responsible for the attempt on Jane’s life and brought him, or her, to justice.

But first there was this matter of shoplifting to deal with.

“Well, to be honest,” Matt said, “I don’t consider this much of a case. I’d be very surprised if Mr. Jessup doesn’t return with an apology for having doubted you.”

Jane looked deeply skeptical, but before she could say anything, the door opened and the security guard entered the room. Wilcox followed him, but stopped just inside the door.

“Miss Ashbury,” Jessup said as he approached Jane. “I’m sorry for the…misunderstanding.”

Pure relief softened Jane’s features as she came around the desk and faced the security guard. “I’m free to go, then?”

The man nodded. Jane gave him a wide smile, then opened her arms and gave him a quick hug. When Jane stepped back, the guard blinked and straightened the cap that had been knocked askew by her enthusiasm.

Matt fought a smile. The Jane he remembered had seemed to be far younger than her estimated late-twenties to early thirties. The doctors explained this was because she had no memory of the personal experiences that forge maturity. However, the Jane he’d met upon entering this room had seemed wary and suspicious in a most adult way. He was glad to see that she’d managed to keep at least some of the childlike openness he’d found so refreshing.

“And thank you, Matt.”

Jane had turned toward him. Still smiling, she crossed the room and, before he could anticipate her intent, she went on tiptoe, threw her arms around his shoulders and drew him into a tight embrace.

Automatically Matt’s arms went around her slender body. In an instant he realized this wasn’t anything like the hugs he’d exchanged with Jane before, when she’d been as thin as an eleven-year-old girl. The woman he now held was still slender, but had developed gentle curves that seemed to melt into him, warming him, stirring him in ways he hadn’t allowed his body to experience in far too long. Without willing them to, his arms tightened around her.

For the second time that day, Jane felt the life she’d spent a year carefully building shift beneath her feet. As she found herself drawn into Matt’s embrace, a strange heat washed through her body, and although she had no memory of ever experiencing this particular sort of knee-weakening warmth, she knew what it was. It was the moment she’d read about in all those romance novels, when the woman’s body responds to a man’s. To the man. The one she is meant to be with, now and forever.

But real life, she heard a voice say, isn’t anything like a romance novel. The voice was Matt’s, she realized, echoing from a moment when he’d stood over her hospital bed. He’d tried to explain that there were better ways to fill the blanks in her knowledge than watching movies and television or reading fiction, then he’d handed her a book about the science of the brain and another on world history.

But today proved that he’d been wrong all those months ago. This was just like those novels—a moment of breathless expectation, of heart-pounding joy, of…of absolute idiocy.

A chill slithered through Jane. Kyle Rogers had elicited similar sensations. As she reminded herself of the painful lessons she’d learned in the past year about confusing love with physical attraction, she released her hold on Matt’s neck. As she stepped back, Matt’s arms released her slowly. She found herself standing a foot in front of him, staring mutely into those dark-lashed green eyes of his. Embarrassed heat flooded her cheeks, and she forced herself to speak.

“It was super of you to come down and help me out of this mess. I really appreciate it.” She paused. “I’m sure you have more important things to be doing. And Mr. Jessup here should no doubt be out looking for real shoplifters, so if he’ll return my purse to me, I believe it’s time I headed home.”

“Not so quick—”

Jane had almost forgotten Wilcox. She turned to him as he finished, “I think the three of us have a few things to discuss.”

Chapter Two

The security guard told Detective Wilcox to lock the door when they were finished speaking, then left the room. Neither Matt nor Wilcox had moved during all this. They stood on either side of the door, silently glaring at each other.

“You haven’t done a thing on Jane’s case, have you?” Matt asked the moment the door was shut.

“There hasn’t been a thing to do,” Wilcox replied. “I told her to call me if she remembered anything. Until today, I haven’t heard a word from her.”

The man turned to Jane. “You say you became confused downstairs because you suddenly recalled standing on a beach in the middle of May. Is that right?”

Jane nodded.

“Well, you could have been remembering a day from this past May, right?”

Jane was tempted to lie. It would make things far more simple. But the truth mattered more than convenience.

“No.”

Wilcox’s square features registered skepticism. “You sound rather certain of that.”

Jane shrugged. “I didn’t go to the beach this past May.”

“Okay. What, exactly, did you recall today, standing in front of the scarves?”

“Just what I told Mr. Jessup. I heard the Christmas music playing, and for one second, I could remember standing on the beach and thinking how warm it was for May. Then I became irritated that a store would play Christmas tunes so early.”

“Nothing more?”

Jane shook her head.

“Well, that’s not enough to relaunch any investigation.”

That was fine with Jane. She was releasing a slow breath of relief, when Matt spoke up.

“You have never believed that someone tried to murder her, have you. You still think she tried to kill herself.”

Wilcox met Matt’s accusation with one of his own. “You and Mendosa never put together a shred of real evidence to convince me otherwise.”

“Oh, come on. Are you forgetting that the seat belt broke? It would hardly make sense to buckle up if one were intent on suicide. And do you really think Jane would know how to rig a car to explode?”

“That evidence was inconclusive.”

“Wilcox, none of the evidence in this case, taken a piece at a time, is conclusive. But when you put together the fact that Forensics found scuff marks indicating that the car had been pushed off the cliff, that the air bag had been disabled, and that the steering wheel revealed only Jane’s fingerprints—not even one belonging to the owner of the car—any cop with two brain cells to rub together could make a case for attempted homicide.”

Jane tensed as Wilcox took a step toward Matt. Matt was a couple of inches taller, but the police detective’s muscular form carried a silent, credible threat.

“If someone tried to kill her, why haven’t they made another attempt? Her whereabouts and the fact that she hadn’t died in that accident were well publicized.”

“Exactly,” Matt replied. “As was the fact that she had no memory and that several of her doctors believed the amnesia might have been caused by the trauma to her head, and thus be permanent. Why risk getting caught while making another attempt to kill her, when the media made it clear that there were no clues to her past, meaning the authorities had no idea who would have a motive to murder her?”

Wilcox shook his head. “Look, Lone Ranger. I know that you and your partner enjoyed tilting at windmills, solving the impossible cases. Me, I have enough to do pursuing criminals I have half a chance of catching.”

He turned to Jane. “You should go see that therapist person who was working with you, the one who hypnotizes people. If she manages to help you recall a fact I can follow up on, then call me.”

With that, Wilcox turned and left the room.

Jane drew a deep breath, then let it slide quietly through her barely parted lips. She reached for the purse Jessup had placed on the desk, then turned to Matt.

“Well, I think that was enough excitement for one day. I’d better be getting home.”

Matt turned to her, effectively blocking the path to the door. “First, we need to talk. I understand there’s a coffee shop in the basement.”

Jane frowned as she placed her cup next to a small plate that was almost completely covered by an enormous chocolate chip cookie, then lowered herself into the chair Matt had pulled out for her. We need to talk, he’d said. It hadn’t been a request. And what a good girl she was being, responding to the man’s understated demand like a sheep stepping back into formation at the direction of a border collie.

Not that she didn’t want to talk to Matt. She had a million questions to ask him—over a year’s worth, in fact. But something about the way his eyes had narrowed when he’d uttered those words suggested strongly that he wasn’t going to be the subject of their discussion. Unless, that is, she moved quickly.

“No one ever told me why you left the force,” she said.

Matt paused in the act of scooting his chair closer to the table and looked up sharply. His eyes met hers, a dusky shade of sea green, slightly wide with surprise. When he frowned, that color turned murky. Jane felt a tremor in her chest, but held his gaze as she continued.

“I tried to come see you at the hospital after you were shot,” she said quietly. “But you were in intensive care for a long time, and I was told you weren’t allowed visitors. Then it was time for Zoe and I to—”

“Leave for Maine,” Matt said. “I know. I was the one who set that up, remember?”

Remember? How she hated that word.

“Of course I do. I remember everything that has happened to me since I woke in the hospital. For example, I recall the fact that I never got a chance to thank you for all you did for me. You, and Manny.”

Her voice deepened as her throat tightened over the name. She swallowed as she gazed across at Matt, saw his expression go bleak, watched him glance away briefly before meeting her eyes once more.

“There wasn’t anything to thank us for,” he said softly. “We were doing our job. I just wish we could have finished it.”

Jane shook her head. “You went far beyond just doing a job. Despite my lack of memory, which gave you a lack of motive, you and Manny stuck with me, did everything you could…”

Her words trailed off as she thought about all the times one or both of the men had sat in her room, explaining things she found confusing, making her laugh when the darkness closed around her. She drew a deep breath.

“You were needed elsewhere. And it was hardly part of your job to arrange for me to get a new identity. In fact, I realize now that you two spent a lot of time with me, in a case that was going nowhere. That could have gotten you into a lot of trouble.”

With Matt’s eyes gazing into hers, Jane felt an embarrassed flush heat her cheeks. The word trouble, when used with respect to Matt Sullivan and Manny Mendosa, was a woefully inadequate one. It would serve her right if Matt reminded her then and there just how inadequately.

A year ago August, the two detectives had been told to put her investigation on a back burner while they worked another case. Two weeks later, Manny had been killed by an unknown assailant. That was more than “trouble.” That was tragic. And, until now, she’d been robbed of the opportunity to express her sorrow over Manny’s passing to the man in front of her.

“I wanted to call you, after I heard about Manny,” she said softly. “But—”

“I know,” Matt interrupted. “I was undercover. In fact, I heard about Manny’s death while driving up the coast, carrying some marked bills as the final step in flushing out the head of a money-laundering scheme. We got the guy, but not before he shot me.”

He paused and glanced away again. Jane saw a frown drop over his eyes. It disappeared in a flash as he returned his attention to her.

“I got your card when I finally regained consciousness. It was good to hear from you. You know how it is when you’re tied to a hospital bed—not much to do but read your cards and letters and catch up on your soaps.”

He grinned as he finished speaking. Jane was quite familiar with the way Matt Sullivan used humor to deflect pain. It was a trait she’d adopted herself, finding it easier to laugh at life as she tried to dodge its slings and arrows than to let herself be swallowed up in the shadows lurking in the darkness of her unknown past.

“Soaps?” she said, taking the bait offered. “Aren’t you the fellow who sat by my bed, telling me what a waste of time they were? How they distort reality?”

“Yep. Same fellow. Turns out that sometimes reality begs to be distorted, or at least ignored for a bit.” Again he paused. Leaning forward, he looked meaningfully into her eyes. “Only for a while, of course. Then it’s time to deal with whatever you’ve been handed.”

Jane fought the temptation to look away. “It appears you’ve done that admirably. You mentioned that you’re a private detective now. Do you like working on your own?”

“I work with my cousin, Jack. Also an ex-cop.”

“Still trying to put the bad guys away?”

Jane recalled Matt and Manny trading jokes and insults about past cases, arguing over who had found what evidence, who had missed seeing something. It had been a comfort listening to them, not just because they made her laugh, but because she learned that the emptiness she found in her mind each time she tried to recall the past hadn’t affected her ability to follow a conversation, to make the connections necessary to find things funny, sad, amusing or frightening.

“As many as possible,” Matt replied. “Keeps us pretty busy. Not too busy, though, to take up old cases. Yours, for example.”

Jane was aware that her smile had frozen. “You heard what I told Wilcox, Matt. Nothing has changed. I still have no idea who I used to be. And, without knowing who I am, there’s no way of establishing who might have had a motive for trying to kill me. If that is, indeed, what happened.”

“If you’re referring to Wilcox’s suggestion that you tried to commit suicide, forget it. And something has changed. Today your memory started to return.”

“No.” Jane reached blindly for the chocolate chip cookie, brought it to her mouth and said, “It didn’t,” then took a bite.

“Really?” Matt lifted one eyebrow. “How would you describe the event that caused you to insist that it was the middle of May?”

Jane chewed slowly. She felt the combination of dough and chocolate soften in her mouth, but could taste nothing, as she thought back to the incident at the scarf counter. She shrugged as she swallowed.

“A moment of confusion. There was a lot of noise, and people and music…” She paused to fight a sudden chill. “It was my first real experience with Christmas crowds, actually. Last year, Zoe and I stayed with her family in a town that consisted of three square blocks surrounded by farms.”

“What’s that have to do with thinking you’d been standing on the beach yesterday?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I had a subconscious yearning for somewhere quiet and peaceful. You know, a daydream.”

“A daydream. Hmm. Tell me about this daydream.”

The speculative expression in Matt’s narrowed eyes made Jane uneasy. Or maybe it was remembering how she’d felt standing at the glass counter and discovering she had no idea what month it was, where she was, and worst of all who she was, that made her reluctant to discuss the fleeting but oh-so-real image that seemed to have thrown her into such confusion.

“It wasn’t really anything,” she said, then picked up her coffee cup.

Matt was aware that Jane was evading his question. He should know, being the self-acknowledged king of evasion himself. Remembering how transparent Jane had been when she first recovered from her three-week coma, he wondered if she’d learned this tactic from observing the way he and Manny joked around in an attempt to keep the particulars of her accident from her, hoping that she’d remember these things on her own.

Matt watched Jane take a drink, saw her mouth twist with distaste as she backed off from the cup.

“You don’t like eggnog-flavored coffee?”

Her eyes met his as she lifted her chin. “Certainly.”

Matt felt that her voice sounded a tad too defensive, but he wasn’t going to let this minor mystery deflect him from going after the larger story.

“You told Wilcox you weren’t at the beach this past May, right?”

Jane took another sip of coffee before placing the cup back on the table. She nodded, then picked up her cookie and began breaking it into tiny pieces.

“Okay. How about June?”

Matt watched as Jane turned her attention to the sliver of cookie between her fingers, then raised her eyes to his.

“No. And I didn’t go to the beach in July or August, either. I’ve been too busy.”

Matt couldn’t miss the fear shadowing those unusual smoky eyes of hers. How could he have forgotten that haunted look, or the fact that Jane had always responded better to teasing than to police-type inquisitions? Maybe he’d been taken with the fact that she seemed so much more…grown-up, courtesy of the businesslike red jacket she wore and the sophisticated way her hair had been cut to fall in soft, spiky layers around her face.

“Too busy for the beach?” Matt purposely exaggerated his surprise. “Didn’t you learn anything from me and Man—from that day we took you to Ocean Beach and demonstrated the fine art of surfing? I must say, whoever took over the job of educating you in the joy of living definitely fell down on the job.”

Jane’s smile was weak, but Matt took a great deal of satisfaction in having managed to get that much.

She said, “That would be Zoe. She’s going pretty strong for a woman in her seventies, but I think surfing is a little out of her range.”

“Okay. So you weren’t at the beach this past May.” He released an exaggerated sigh. “Well then, it seems clear to me that you must have flashed back to a day you spent at the beach a year ago May—before your accident.”

Matt watched the tiny curve of the edge of Jane’s mouth disappear. Her eyes seemed to darken as she stared at him, and her jaw visibly tightened before she said, “So?”

“So?” Matt’s voice softened as he prepared to do battle. “Sooo, I would say that you have had your first honest-to-goodness memory in over a year. A matter worth celebrating.”

With that he took a long drink of aromatic French roast. Savoring the rich, strong flavor, he placed his cup on the table, swallowed and grinned at her again.

“Matt, that brief image of sand and sea could hardly be considered a memory. And even if it was, I still don’t have any desire to know who I once was. I’ve moved forward, just like I said I wanted to, and I have no interest in looking back.”

Matt remembered the warm July day that Jane had made that particular declaration. She’d just returned to her hospital room, after meeting with a family who had come five hundred miles to see her, certain she would prove to be their lost loved one—only to discover they were wrong. He recalled the way Jane had dashed away the tears of disappointment, then declared she wanted nothing more to do with the past.

There was no sign of tears in her eyes now, but Matt recognized the same determination he’d seen on that day. The memory of that resolve had reassured him whenever he thought about Jane’s unsolved case while battling back from his own injuries, then working tirelessly with his cousin Jack to build the sort of detective agency they both needed.

He and Jack had been determined to continue their childhood dream of catching the bad guys. It had taken a long time, and a lot of legwork to prove themselves, but they’d built a reputation for solving cases that the police had given up on, or were forced to let lie fallow as they pursued matters with more promise.

Like the case of Jane Doe Number Thirteen.

This had been his investigation. It was his again. Now he had the time, the autonomy and the resources to find out who had sent this lovely young woman over the edge of a cliff in a car rigged to burst into flame. And, it seemed that Jane just might be ready to provide the most important item in the equation—the memories that would lead him to the person or persons with a motive strong enough to set that horror in motion.

If, that is, he could get Jane to cooperate.

Changing tactics, Matt relaxed back in his chair. “You mentioned Zoe. How is she?”

Jane seemed to study him a moment before answering. “She’s fine. I rent an apartment from her, and in case you’re wondering, she has accepted my decision to forget about the past, and never bugs me about it.”

Matt managed to keep his expression neutral at this news. Zoe Zeffarelli had come highly recommended by a couple of cops he and Manny knew. The therapist had used a combination of psychology and hypnotism to help crack several cases. Matt had found the woman to be a no-nonsense sort who had instantly gained Jane’s trust and his respect. He had assumed that when he and Manny went to work on the money-laundering scheme, Ms. Zeffarelli would help Jane recover her memory and build a life for herself. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, that hadn’t happened.

Maintaining his casual attitude, Matt said, “Okay, we’ll leave the distant past alone. Tell me what’s kept you too busy to go to the beach.”

“I started my own business.”

“Yeah? What kind of business?”

“I make elves and fairies.”

“Really? Would this be the one-wish sort, or three?”

As Matt watched Jane’s eyes crinkle at the corners, he found himself smiling easily and naturally in a way he hadn’t done since…

He let that thought go unfinished. Jane’s stance on not dwelling on the past was right, at least as it pertained to his past. Hers was another matter.

“No wishes, I’m afraid,” she said with a sad sigh. “They just sit around and look magical.”

“I see. How did you get into the business of magic?”

Jane grinned. “Zoe’s cousin got me started, last October in Maine. She makes dolls. I tried to copy hers, but all the faces I carved looked more elflike, so that’s what my creations became. I was looking for a way to support myself, so she suggested I put my things on consignment at the shop she owns, and they all sold. Somehow, almost magically, I’ve managed to build a thriving business.”

She grinned as she finished speaking, then lifted her cup to take a sip of coffee. The grin became a grimace as she swallowed, then choked on the liquid.

After her coughing fit ended, Matt said, “I’m not sure why you insist on drinking something you obviously don’t like, but for the moment, I’m more interested in another little mystery.”

“And that would be?”

Jane looked so wary that Matt almost regretted what he was about to do. “That question,” he said, “is why such an obviously intelligent and talented woman would be so determined to ignore the chance to look into her past, where she might discover the source of this magical ability of hers.”

Chapter Three

She should have seen that coming.

Jane stared at the man who had just manipulated the conversation in the exact direction she’d been trying so very hard to avoid.

“You’re good,” she said quietly.

Matt’s eyebrows rose in silent acknowledgment of her reluctant compliment. He continued to gaze into her eyes as his smile widened, increasing the depth of his single dimple.

Jane’s shoulders sagged. She knew when she’d been out-maneuvered. She should have recognized the tactics. How many times had Matt and Manny started their visits to her hospital room with a series of jokes that got her laughing too hard to worry about the news they’d brought?

Perhaps some new reporter wanted to interview the celebrated amnesiac who had miraculously escaped death, or yet another person wanted to see if she might be the female who had disappeared from their lives a month, a year, a decade ago. And somehow, because Matt and Manny got her laughing, she’d always found a way to face these people, to give them what they wanted, so she might get what she wanted—answering invasive questions from reporters in the desperate hope that someone, the right someone, would read the story, see her picture and somehow recognize her, then give her a past, a family, somewhere to belong.

And when these people showed up—the ones Jane came to think of as “searchers”—she drew upon the lighthearted moments Manny and Matt provided, to help her smile while she covered her near baldness with a wig that matched the color of the missing person du jour, managed to hold hope in her heart as she prepared to enter the room where this newest searcher waited, and told herself that surely, this time, someone would find something familiar in the features the plastic surgeon had pieced together for her.

Considering that the lower half of her face had been smashed in, her nose broken and her jaw shattered, the plastic surgeon called in to make the emergency repairs hadn’t done a bad job. Her nose was slightly crooked, her left cheekbone was not quite as prominent as the right and her jaw seemed a little too narrow. The tiny scar at the corner of her mouth and the larger one on her forehead were still noticeable, but the doctors had used the tiniest of stitches, and promised that over time they would fade to a pale white.

So, as faces went, hers didn’t seem to vary too far from the norm. In fact, it was quite generic. And perhaps this was the problem, for each time she’d met with a searcher, it seemed she had lacked that special, unique or quirky thing that would tell them that Jane was their missing wife-girlfriend-sister-daughter.

And now Matt wanted her to go through all of that all over again. She’d seen the speculative glint in his eyes when he first asked her about the memory, or flashback, or moment of insanity that had gripped her on the department store floor. The very thought that she might have begun to remember filled her with fear, excitement, dread, hope and utter confusion, an impossible mixture of emotions that now led her to glare at the man who had pushed her into the corner of her mind where this cauldron boiled.

“What difference is it to you, if, indeed, I have finally remembered some little nugget?” She didn’t give Matt a chance to respond before she went on. “The past is the past. No one claimed me, so whoever I was, I didn’t matter to anyone. For all I know, Wilcox is right. Perhaps I did try to kill myself.”

Matt leaned forward, looked hard into her eyes. “Forget Wilcox. First off, no one who had a death wish would have worked as hard on their recovery as you did. Secondly, toxicology tests revealed barbiturates in your system, which I believe indicates that someone had drugged you before placing you in that stolen car rigged to explode and sending it off that cliff. Whoever this was went to a lot of trouble not only to kill you, but to see to it that your body burned beyond recognition. I would say that whoever you were, you mattered very much to someone.”

For a moment, Jane could only stare at the very serious expression in Matt’s eyes, her mind playing his words back. This was his idea of being important to someone? The idea was so absurd that she laughed out loud.

The look on Matt’s face made her laugh harder. She held her stomach as she rocked back and forth, then pulled herself up straight and sobered, only to collapse again, this time burying her face in her hands as her mind reverberated with the ridiculousness of Matt’s statement.

A hand closed over one of Jane’s wrists. Matt’s hand, warm and strong. How many times had she fantasized back in the hospital about his touch—before she’d learned that it was typical, almost redundantly so, for victims of violent crimes to fantasize about their rescuers?

The mirth died on Jane’s lips. She looked into Matt’s eyes as she lifted her free hand to brush away a laugh-tear and took a deep breath. “Just what part of your statement,” she asked, “is supposed to encourage me to care about my past?”

Matt grimaced. “Good point. How about this. The idea that you might have begun to remember your past matters because it’s my job, my life’s work, to go after the bad guys and put them away. Recently Jack and I have had some success in that area, but none of those can make up for certain personal failures.”

Matt’s features tightened. “I wanted to find who shot Manny. As soon as I was released from the hospital, I double-checked the extensive police investigation. The only evidence is the bullet that killed him, and it doesn’t match any weapon in the system. I couldn’t even get justice in my own case. The man who almost took my life, who did rob me of a career I loved, died when my cousin Jack shot the guy before he could finish me off. I don’t equate death with justice, so that brings me to the matter of Jane Doe Number Thirteen.”

Matt stared hard into Jane’s eyes. “Hers is a case every bit as baffling and frustrating as the question of who killed Manny. Both continue to eat at me. Manny is gone, leaving no clues at the scene of the crime or in his past cases to point to someone who might have wanted him dead. You, however, are alive. And maybe, just maybe, your past is ready to speak to you. If so, I want to listen. I want a chance to find the answers to this puzzle, to get justice for at least one of the cases that means something—”

Matt broke off. His fierce expression reflected pain and bitterness. Jane blinked, stunned into silence at the sudden change in the man she had thought she knew so well.

But then, how well could she have known him? He’d been in her life a mere eight weeks before he and Manny were sent undercover. She could see now that she’d been a child at the time, at least figuratively. Without her memory, she’d had no experiences to draw on, to teach her how to behave.

And that is how Matt had seen her. After the doctors and nurses had finished poking and prodding her, he and Manny had appeared at her bedside. When she realized how disappointed the two detectives were to learn that she couldn’t answer any of their long list of questions, she’d begun to cry. The only sound in that sterile hospital room had been her sobs, until Matt whispered, “Hush, now. It’s okay,” as he gently traced a cloth down the path of her tears.

She’d pulled herself together with a shuddering sigh, opened her eyes to see that Matt had twisted his slightly damp handkerchief around his hand and pulled the ends into two rabbit ears. The makeshift puppet bobbed and weaved as a high-pitched voice, unmistakably Matt’s in origin, scolded Manny for browbeating the subject of their investigation and making her cry.

In moments she was laughing. After that, each visit from these two had made her feel stronger, even the times when they’d tried to coax her memory to life. As they included her in their teasing banter, she’d begun to feel less lost, less lonely, and discovered that although she might not have a memory, she wasn’t without intelligence and wit.

So, did that mean, she found herself asking as she studied the serious lines etched into Matt’s features, that all those jokes had been an act on Matt’s part? Or had the loss of his partner and his own brush with death woken the grim expression she’d glimpsed when he first walked into the security office a mere hour ago—the one that tightened his features now?

Or was it something about her today, that had brought out an aspect of Matt’s personality he’d previously kept hidden? Last year he would have used silly humor to coerce her into exploring the brief memory that had assaulted her. Had he dropped his mask of joviality because he recognized that now, after taking charge of her life, her education, her career, she was no longer a lost waif in need of coddling?

She would like to think so, but it really didn’t matter. She recognized a challenge when she saw one.

“All right, Matt,” Jane said softly. “You win.”

“Win what?”

Gone were the tight, fan-shaped lines that had bracketed Matt’s sharply narrowed eyes only moments before. Gone also were the deep vertical grooves that had been etched on either side of his lips. His smile wasn’t particularly wide, but his green eyes were lit with anticipation. Someone who hadn’t observed the relationship Matt had shared with his partner might wonder if he’d manufactured his earlier expression just to get her to this point.

“I did have some sort of memory,” she replied. “I warn you, though, it was a very little one. I can’t promise it will lead anywhere.”

“Of course you can’t.” He got to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“To Zoe’s. If the door to your memory is finally unlocked, she’s the one to push it open. Where’s your car?”

“Car?” Jane asked as she got to her feet.

“Yes. I parked in the lot beneath Union Square. If you’re parked somewhere else, I can drive you to your car, then follow you to Zoe’s.”

“I don’t drive. I took the bus.”

“Good.” Matt’s hand closed over Jane’s elbow, and she let him steer her toward the escalator. “That will make things much easier.”

Matt turned down the street Jane indicated and drove past a row of houses crowded next to each other. Most were some shade of off-white or tan, interspersed here and there with more boldly painted structures. Various styles were represented, from Mediterranean to English Tudor. Each rose several stories above garage doors, most with recessed ground-level entries protected by some kind of fancy iron gate.

“Nice,” he said appreciatively as he braked at a stop sign. “The Marina District has always been one of my favorite parts of San Francisco.”

When Jane did not respond to his comment, he glanced her way. She was staring straight ahead, her large smoky eyes wide and without focus.

He knew the signs. Something had frightened her. And he didn’t have to ask what it was. Her past.

He could hardly blame her. If he’d gone through the horrors Jane must have faced at the hands of whoever had gone to so much trouble to end her life, he wouldn’t be looking forward to searching that dark, shadow-filled memory, either. But he was aware, now even more than he had been when he was first assigned to her case, how important it was to pull the monsters out of the closet and defeat them.

“Jane.”

She jumped and turned to him. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring, lighthearted smile. “Do I go straight, or turn again?”

After a getting-her-bearings glance around, Jane said, “Straight. It’s the four-story gray house on the left. You can park in the driveway.”

Matt followed instructions, pulling his black Jeep up to a double garage door of the same color. By the time he switched the motor off and removed his keys from the ignition, Jane had already unbuckled her seat belt and opened her door. He got out and followed her up the curving staircase, with its ornate wrought-iron handrail. Before he could say a word, she had stopped within the arch of the second-story portico and was opening the bright pink door.

She turned as he started to follow, her eyes dark. For one moment he thought she was going to tell him she’d changed her mind, that she just wanted to leave the past alone—and then slam the door in his face. When he stepped into the foyer as a defensive tactic, however, she closed the door behind him and glanced at her watch.

“Zoe usually naps from three to three-thirty,” she said, then moved toward a pair of French doors to her left. “She should be up by now. Wait in here, while I go up and tell her what’s going on.”

Matt followed Jane into a long, narrow room. To his right, a mahogany desk sat between a pair of bookcases. On his left, golden light spilled through an arched window onto a large tobacco-colored sofa. Two chairs sat on either side of the glass-and-iron coffee table in front of the couch, one a muscular wing chair covered in brown leather, the other a curvy, dainty thing upholstered in a tapestry flower print.

“Take a seat,” Jane said. “I don’t think we’ll be long. Something tells me Zoe will be almost as excited as you to learn about what happened today.”

Matt saw Jane’s lips curve ever so slightly before she turned and left the room. The ghost of a smile was encouraging, Matt thought as he lowered himself into the leather wing chair. However, her eyes hadn’t lost that haunted expression. It was almost enough to make him think twice about making her face the past she’d worked so hard to…well, put in her past.

After all, how often did anyone get a chance to start over, with a completely clean slate? No embarrassing mistakes to make you second-guess yourself, no old opinions to try to overcome, no emotional wounds urging you to lock your heart up, where it couldn’t get tromped on again. Jane, it seemed, had taken full advantage of this freedom, had made a new life for herself, just as she’d vowed. And now here he was, stepping in to insist that she—

“Matthew?” A soft voice broke into his thoughts.

Matt got to his feet, stood and turned to greet the tall woman with the short gray hair who moved toward him.

“Ms. Zeffarelli,” he said, taking her hand into his as she reached out. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Call me Zoe, please,” she said with a smile and just the faintest hint of a French accent. “I am sorry you and I did not get to know each other better last year. But I am happy to see that you have recovered so nicely from your horrible ordeal. And now, according to our little friend here, it seems we will finally have a chance to work together.”

Matt nodded, then glanced at Jane. Her eyes no longer looked haunted. Instead her eyebrows dipped beneath the uneven fringe of her bangs in an expression he recognized as pure determination. Her eyes locked with his briefly before she turned to Zoe.

“Well,” Jane said, “I guess we’d better get down to it.”

Zoe lifted thick black eyebrows. “You are suddenly excited now, after months of insisting you want nothing to do with your past?”

Jane shook her head tightly. “Hardly. I just want to get this over with. And I assumed you’d want to work with this memory, if you can really call it that, while it’s still fresh in my mind.”

“True.” The woman nodded. “But I would prefer that you be at least a leetle bit relaxed when we attempt this thing. I suggest we all sit down and have a cup of tea, a cookie or two, and a tiny chat before we get down to business.”

A half hour later, Jane sat in the center of the overstuffed sofa, with Zoe in the delicate chair the woman had proudly rescued from a thrift shop years before, and Matt looking right at home in the leather wing chair.

Although Jane had suspected that the combination of Zoe’s strong tea and a sugar-laden sweet—make that several sugar-laden sweets—would render her even more keyed up, she was surprised to find that she was actually feeling calm. Maybe all that stomach-churning angst she’d experienced upon arriving at the house hadn’t been due to dread. Perhaps she’d simply been hungry. After all, she’d actually only ingested a bite or two of that cookie in Maxwell’s cellar, along with a few tiny sips of that eggnog coffee.

“The tea too strong, ma petite?”

Jane turned to Zoe with a smile. “It’s always too strong. But loaded with milk and sugar, it is just perfect.”

To prove her point and clear her palate of the remembered eggnog, Jane lifted her teacup and drained it of the bittersweet, milky contents. She then returned the cup to its delicate saucer and said, “In fact, I think I’d like a second cup.”

Zoe’s smile was gentle and she slowly shook her head. “I think not. I think it is now time for you to tell me what happened to you at Maxwell’s. But first, get yourself comfortable. Take a deep breath.”

As Jane leaned into the sofa cushions at her back, she glanced from Zoe to Matt. His expression was encouraging. Zoe wore a similar expression as she spoke again.

“Draw the breath deep into your belly, hold it, then release it very slowly.”

Jane nodded. She knew the routine, had followed it each time Zoe worked with her in the hospital. All to no avail. Not one hypnosis session had brought forth even the tiniest scrap of memory.

“Jane.”

Zoe’s sharp tone broke into Jane’s errant thoughts. She looked over to see that her friend was frowning.

“You are not listening to me, are you.”

Jane shook her head. “I’m sorry. Let’s try again.”

This time Jane focused carefully on every word Zoe said, followed each direction carefully. After breathing deeply several more times, she closed her eyes as she was bidden and pictured herself back in Maxwell’s Department Store. As instructed, she let herself recall the slightly perfumed air, the weight of her purse on her shoulder, the hard floor beneath the thin soles of her shoes. Then, when Zoe asked her to, Jane let her imagination put the image into motion, reaching toward the brightly colored strips of fabric draped from a metal rack sitting atop a glass counter.

“I’m examining a burgundy-and-tan plaid scarf,” she reported.

“How does it feel?”

“Soft,” Jane replied. “Cold and silky at the same time. Like the ocean.”

The moment Jane uttered that last word, the image on her closed eyelids changed. The fluorescent-lit department store was replaced by the sight of a wave curling toward her. No longer did hard flooring punish her feet. Instead, moist sand supported every arch and curve, and icy water slipped over her toes.

“I’m at the beach,” she said.

“And what do you see?”

“White foam at my feet, pale green waves breaking farther out. Beyond that, sunbeams dancing on the dark blue sea. A cloudless blue sky above. The beach.”

“Hold that image,” Zoe urged. “Relax, then see what you can make out in your peripheral vision.”

Jane did as she was asked. To her left there seemed to be nothing but foam sliding onto the damp sand. But— “I see cliffs, on my right.”

“Close, or far?”

“Far, I think. I can only see the part where the cliff juts into the sea, not where it meets the shore.”

“Do you know the name of this beach?”

Jane waited, feeling again the cold water over her toes. Nothing about the image changed. The same wave broke in exactly the same way it had a moment before, like some instant replay. No knowledge accompanied either the sensation of silky salt water or the image of curling, foaming green-blue water.

“No. I don’t,” Jane replied.

“All right,” Zoe said. “Focus on your other senses.”

As if by magic, Jane found she could suddenly smell salt—the briny scent that she knew, somehow, belonged to seaweed drying on the sand. “I smell the sea,” she said. “And I hear birds—gulls crying and screeching and…”

Jane frowned as another sound intruded. “I hear music. It’s too soft to identify the tune. It might be coming from a radio playing on the beach behind me. No. It’s coming from above me, louder now. I can almost make out the melody. It’s—”

Jane jerked straight up, her eyes flew open. Gone was the sun-sparkled water, the crashing waves, the cloudless blue sky. What she saw now was Zoe, regarding her with an expression that blended excitement with concern. The woman leaned forward in her chair.

“The song I heard was ‘Silver Bells,’” Jane said woodenly. “That was the tune playing on the department store sound system just before I harassed that salesgirl for rushing the Christmas season.”

“And that was the tune that pulled you out of that moment from the past,” Zoe said.

Every muscle in Jane’s body had constricted. Her heart was racing, her breath was shallow as she stared at Zoe. Focusing on the woman’s strong, angular features, she managed a stiff nod.

Zoe’s black eyebrows formed a worried frown. “Jane, you understand, do you not, that it was this memory that confused you so, made you think that it was not November, but May?”

“Yes.”

Jane wanted to say more, but at the moment it was all she could do keep from leaping to her feet, dashing up two flights of stairs to her attic apartment and shutting the door behind her.

“Why May?”

Matt’s question brought Jane’s attention back to him.

“Why did you think this particular sunny day was May?” he went on. “Why not July, or August? Or any other month, for that matter? This is, after all, California. Even up here in the northern regions, we have pockets of warmth all year long that draw people to the beach.”

Jane couldn’t answer. She knew only that her first thought upon hearing that music was that May was too early for Christmas tunes. She would have given that reply, if it weren’t for the strange, insidious panic now clamping her jaws shut, holding her body prisoner. She could only stare into Matt’s eyes, watch them darken as he moved from the chair to the floor next to her. Resting on one knee, he took her hands in his.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you,” he asked gently.

Jane frowned. Yes, this tension gripping her was indeed fear. What was worse, she didn’t understand what exactly had caused a memory of sea and sand to freeze her with terror. Now, crowds of people was a different matter. Add to that—

“Do you think,” Matt was asking, “that you might have been abducted from that beach? You know you’re safe now. There isn’t anything to be afraid of.”

Jane glanced at Matt’s large hands sandwiching hers. The gentle strength in his grip returned sensation to her fingers, warming them. She looked again into his eyes—eyes that promised to bring her assailant to justice, to make sure she was safe.

Oh, how she wished it were as simple as that.

A shiver broke her paralysis. She shook her head. “That memory didn’t make me afraid of whoever tried to kill me,” she finally said. “It made me afraid of the person I was.”

Chapter Four

Afraid of herself?

Matt tightened his fingers around Jane’s icy hand, and wondered what in the hell was going on in that mind of hers. Of course, uncovering what was going on in her mind—or hidden in it—had been the point of this exercise in hypnotherapy.

He was surprised at the details Zoe had managed to draw out of what had to have been the briefest of flashbacks. Perhaps, with a little time, Jane might begin to recall larger pieces of her past, giving Zoe more than the image of an unnamed beach to—

The beach. If he could find that beach, take Jane to it, perhaps revisiting the sights and sounds she recalled so briefly would open her mind to further details. However, would Jane go along with his plan, such as it was? The fear plainly etched upon her pale features said not, but he knew how to take care of that.

Cocking his head to one side, Matt squinted at her in exaggerated puzzlement. “You’re afraid of the person you were?” he asked. “What, you recall being at the beach, and suddenly worry that you might have spent your past roaming the seashore, randomly destroying sandcastles built by innocent children? That you were once an evil surfer girl bent on mowing down unsuspecting swimmers with your ten-foot board?”

His ploy worked. Jane’s lips twitched slightly, and some of the anxiety retreated from her eyes. “No.” She sighed. “I’m frightened of what happened at Maxwell’s, after I became aware of the music.”

Matt squeezed her hand. “You thought it was May. Most people would be irritated by having the holiday buying season forced upon them in late spring. It’s bad enough that Halloween is barely—”

Jane shook her head. “It wasn’t just the timing. It was the idea of Christmas itself that irritated me. No. Infuriated me.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “When the salesclerk suggested I might like to get a cup of coffee, eggnog flavored to be specific, I informed her that I hated the stuff.”

“Then, why did you try to drink it later?”

“Because I don’t want to hate anything about Christmas.”

“What about last Christmas? Did you like it then?”

“I had a cold and couldn’t really taste or smell it. Besides, disliking eggnog isn’t the worst part. When I realized that it was indeed the day after Thanksgiving and that I had been Christmas shopping, I actually shuddered with revulsion.”

As she finished speaking, a tiny tremor shook her slender form.

Matt smiled. “You zeem to have a very zerious zyndrome, young lady. You are afraid zat in your past you ver Ebenezer Scrooge, or ze Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Is zer a cure for ziz, Doctor Zeffarelli?”

He turned to Zoe, but she didn’t look at him.

“Jane,” the woman said softly. “I have spoken with many people who have issues with Christmas. Most feel overwhelmed at the idea of adding shopping, wrapping and parties to already incredibly busy lives. Some feel that commercial aspects overpower the spiritual meaning of the season. And many are plagued with childhood memories of Christmas involving deprivation or, worse, abuse. Sometimes, the effort to put on a show of good cheer is such an effort for these people that they end up resenting everything about the holiday.”

Matt felt his smile grow tight.

“That makes no sense,” Jane said, “I had a wonderful time last Christmas with your cousin’s family in Maine, tromping through the forest to chop down the tree, then decorating it with the popcorn and cranberries I’d helped string, wrapping the gifts I’d made and walking over glittering snow on the way to midnight Mass.”

Matt was relieved when Jane brought her Currier and Ives reminiscences to an end. With each new jolly image, his muscles had tensed further. The smile faded from his lips and he glanced away from Jane’s features, where the glow of remembered joy warred with an expression of annoyance.

“Yes,” Zoe replied. “But we were in a very small town, not a large city. She turned to Matt. “Does this description sound like any of the Christmases you remember?”

He forced his smile to widen. “Well, certainly not the snowy part. However, my McDermott cousins do have a party every year, where whoever wants to can string popcorn.”

Zoe’s sharp glance suggested she was going to ask him another question. Instead, she gave her head a little shake and turned to Jane.

“When you insisted on going downtown today, I warned you about the crowds. That might be what set you off, so it is best you put your worries out of your mind until you remember more of your past.”

“I’ve got a question about that, Zoe,” Matt said. “I think I might be familiar with the beach Jane described. Do you think it would help her to remember more if I took her there?”

“Well, the senses, that of smell in particular, are known to have a powerful effect upon the memory. Jane, how do you feel about a trip to the beach with Matt?”

Jane wasn’t sure how she felt about anything at that moment. Other than completely exhausted. A profound sense of weariness had banished the tension in her muscles, leaving her with barely the strength to remain upright with her eyes open.

“That would be fine,” she replied at last.

Matt stood. Jane managed to look up just as he smiled and said, “Good. I need to speak with Jack on a few matters in the morning, but I can be here at eleven.”

On the one hand, Jane told herself as she pulled the door to her studio apartment behind her, it had been wonderful seeing Matt Sullivan again. Aside from the fact that he was every bit as handsome as she remembered, she’d yet to meet anyone with the same knack for making her laugh, even when she didn’t particularly want to. But still, her insides were in knots over the idea of going anywhere with him.

Jane took a deep breath as she started down the flower-print runner that carpeted the stairway.

On the other hand, she wasn’t sure she wanted anyone to read her all that well. When Manny’s death and Matt’s injuries had pulled those two men out of her life, she had looked for someone to take their place—someone she could trust with her thoughts, hopes, fears. The person she had chosen had used those things against her, so now the idea of trusting anyone made her stomach twist and brought a sour lump to her throat.

And, after the way she’d behaved in Maxwell’s, she wasn’t even sure she could trust herself.

When Jane reached the foyer, she moved to the small window to the left of the front door and stared at the street below. She wouldn’t want to even know the tense, dismissive person she had become for those few moments the day before, let alone be like that. How would Matt Sullivan feel about her if today’s trip to the beach happened to bring out that “dark side” of her personality?

“Ah, there you are—”

Jane turned as Zoe stepped out of her office.

“You look like someone who was about to be led into the lion’s den, or some other horrible fate, instead of what is supposed to be, as they say, a day at the beach.”

Jane drew a deep breath and released it in a quick whoosh. “I know. I am looking forward to spending some time at the ocean again. It’s just that I have some figures to finish, special orders I got when I stopped in at The Gift Box yesterday, you know, and I want to get to work on that new line of elves I started.”

“And you are frightened of what you might remember, of what you might learn about yourself.”

Jane hesitated, then nodded.

Zoe placed a hand on Jane’s shoulder. “My girl, I see patients every day who are afraid of the same thing. People with perfectly good memories, you understand, who have nevertheless built up layer upon layer of fear and denial, until they no longer know where they begin or end—in other words, who they are. They come to therapists like me when they discover that ignoring their pain has become more frightening than facing it.”

“How do they do that?”

“One step at a time. I tell them what I will tell you now. Life tests you only when you have enough strength to rise to the challenge.”

The sound of a car engine drew Jane’s attention to the window. In the driveway below, she saw Matt get out of his black Jeep. Her heart began to pound as he started up the stairs. She turned to Zoe.

“How do you know if you have that strength?”

The corners of the woman’s eyes crinkled. “When life tests you, of course.”

Jane surprised herself by laughing. “Dabbling in Zen, are you?”

“Whatever works,” Zoe replied with a shrug.

At the solid knock on the door, Jane pivoted and pulled it open, then froze—just as she had when she’d seen Matt yesterday, framed in the doorway leading to Maxwell’s security office.

He was, as the saying went, larger than life. Not just because his height topped six feet by several inches, that his shoulders were broad, or that his nearly black hair intensified the sea-green of his eyes. Those physical attributes were formidable, certainly, but the element that sent her heart racing had more to do with the quiet power in his stance, the undeniable cocky tilt to his mouth, and the sudden light of appreciation that swept her form, washing her body with heat.

“Looks like you’ve decided to rise to the challenge,” he said.

“Challenge?”

Jane cringed inwardly at the breathless way the word came out, but Matt’s simple nod suggested he hadn’t noticed.

“You appear to be dressed for a day outside. I assume that means you’ve decided to accompany me and see if we can’t track down the source of that memory of yours, and perhaps scare up some more.”

Although Jane felt a shiver coming on, she found herself giving him a wry smile. “I guess so. Scare being the operative word.”

Matt stepped forward and took her hand in one swift motion. As Jane looked into his eyes, she was aware of the strength of his grip, the warmth of his skin on hers and the reassuring determination in his gaze.

“No matter what happens today,” he said quietly. “I have no doubt that you’ll rise to the occasion.”

“Have you and Zoe been comparing notes on how to handle me?”

When Matt looked quizzical, Jane explained. “She was just bolstering my courage with very similar words. So—” she drew a quick breath “—yes, I’m ready to see if we can find the gate leading to memory lane.”

“All right. Get your jacket and we’ll be off.”

“A jacket? It’s beautiful out.”

“Sun or no sun, the wind on the coast can be quite chilly. You need a jacket.”

With a nod, Jane turned. Matt watched her cross the foyer and start up the stairs, then noticed the way her sneaker-clad feet bounced off each step as she lightly ran up. It seemed like yesterday that he and Manny had escorted Jane, enveloped in a navy sweat suit that only served to emphasize her extreme thinness, to the hospital’s physical therapy department.

Lying in bed for a month, comatose, had given the pelvic fracture she’d suffered in the accident time to heal, but the inactivity had left her as weak as a baby—she was going to have to learn to walk all over again. He and Manny had watched like proud parents as she gripped waist-high parallel bars, then wobbled like a newborn colt as she slowly made her way down the length of the track.

There was nothing spindly or wobbly about Jane now, Matt noticed as she neared the landing. The cut of her faded jeans hugged slender but shapely legs, and her hips had rounded into decidedly womanly curves.

“She has grown much in the past year.”

Zoe’s words made Matt realize where his thoughts had been leading. He turned to the older woman, aware his face had grown uncomfortably warm.

“It seems she has done exactly what she said she would,” he said. “Created a life for herself, on her terms.”

“Yes, she has. She has turned her lack of memory from a handicap to a strength.”

“How so?”

“With no preconceived concept of what she could or could not do, she approaches each challenge with an open mind, along with the assumption that she can succeed.”

Matt mulled this over. “After her accident, one of Jane’s doctors told a reporter that the bruising her brain took may have resulted in permanent memory loss. Do you agree with that assessment?”

Zoe shook her head. “No.”

“Well, Jane mentioned that you haven’t been pushing her to regain her memory. Do you think it’s wrong for me to encourage Jane to remember her past?”

“Not at all. Jane was disheartened when the hypnosis sessions in the hospital were unsuccessful. It would have been cruelty on my part to force her repeatedly to search her memory, only to encounter emptiness. But yesterday’s incident indicates that her mind, and perhaps her spirit as well, has recovered to the point that she can access and, more importantly, accept whatever she remembers.”

Hearing the sound of feet on the stairs above, Matt asked quickly, “Do you have any suggestions about how to handle this? Do I get her to relax, like you did yesterday? Or should I try to push her into remembering?”

Zoe seemed to consider his question for several seconds before she shrugged her shoulders and replied, “Try one first. If that doesn’t work, try the other.”

“All right, now,” Matt said. “I want you to close your eyes and keep them that way until I tell you differently.”

It had taken Matt and Jane over an hour to cross the Golden Gate Bridge and drive up Highway One. After turning on a road leading west, Matt had pulled onto the side of the road, then turned to face Jane before issuing his order.

“Close my eyes?” she repeated.

“Yes. And keep them shut.”

“I thought we came here so I could identify the beach I saw in my memory. I can hardly do that with my eyes closed.”

“No, the prime objective here is to provoke further memories. Although your description was pretty sketchy, I’m fairly certain I have the right place. Remember, I grew up surfing these beaches.”

“So, you think it will be more effective to lead me to the area, then spring it on me all at once.”

“Exactly. Ready? Close your eyes.”

Once Jane had obeyed his order, Matt put the Jeep in drive. Several minutes later, he turned onto the road that would lead them to Limantour Beach. It took him beneath a canopy of cypress trees, then wound down through a sea of golden grass and a crescent of sand that arched to the right, ending at the foot of a sheer cliff that jutted out to the sea.

“Tell me,” he said, “just how do you create these magical dolls of yours.”

“Well, I sculpt the faces, hands and feet from a polymer clay, which hardens in the oven. The bodies are made of wire and stuffing, held together with fabric bodies. But they aren’t meant to be played with, like dolls. They’re collectibles.”

Matt glanced at her. “People collect elves?”

“People collect all sorts of things, it seems. Zoe’s cousin Clara in Maine makes very realistic little men, women and children. She creates three or four new characters each year, and collectors from all over the country buy her numbered pieces.”

“Nice of her to teach you to do this.”

“Well, actually, she’s published a book on her technique. I used it as a jumping-off point to create my own little world, and I assume others do that, too.”

Matt downshifted as he neared the dirt parking lot. “I had no idea there was such a market for…”

“Fantasy figures?” Jane finished for him. “I didn’t, either, but Clara took a few of my pieces to one of the stores that carry her things, and mine sold out right away. So, I made more when I got back to San Francisco, got a few specialty shops to carry them, then participated in a couple of craft fairs this summer, and the thing just mushroomed. Since July I’ve been really busy. I decided to adapt my faces to create special Santas and his little helpers in place of woodland elves and make angels instead of fairies. That’s one of the reasons I was downtown yesterday. I delivered some of these to a place called The Gift Box, and they asked me to make even more.”

“It seems you’ve become quite the businesswoman,” Matt said as he pulled into a parking space overlooking the beach, then added teasingly, “I hope you have someone you trust keeping your books.”

He switched off the engine and turned to Jane.

“I suppose,” she said in a mock huff, “that crack was a veiled reference to my mathematical abilities.”

“No,” Matt said as he opened his door. “It’s a direct reference to your decided lack of said abilities.”

Before Jane could respond to this allusion to what he and Manny had termed her “numerical dyslexia,” Matt slid from his seat and said, “Stay where you are,” before snapping his door shut and stepping around to her side of the car.

“I’ll have you know,” she said the moment he opened her door, “that I have managed to master math. The important stuff, at any rate. I can add, subtract, divide, multiply and figure fractions with the best. The rest is superfluous. The idea of adding a’s and b’s and coming up with x’s is an exercise in futility, if you ask me.”

Matt hooked his hand over the top of the door’s frame, noticing the way Jane’s closed eyes wrinkled as she blindly reached for the buckle of her seat belt. That intense concentration of hers was a wonder to behold. It was the secret, he suspected, behind her swift recovery from the sort of injuries that had kept muscular linebackers out of commission far longer than they had this delicately boned girl.

Woman, he corrected himself when, freed of her seat belt, Jane pivoted toward him, slid out of her seat, then stumbled into his arms.

For the second time in two days Matt found himself holding her close to him. For one moment, he wondered if he could somehow absorb the joy that seemed to emanate from her, even when she was frightened. He had once responded to life that way, too, thrilled by the surge of adrenaline that came with walking the tightrope between safety and danger. He hadn’t experienced that since leaving the hospital.

Until yesterday—when he’d walked into Maxwell’s security office and gone to Jane’s defense.

And now, the idea that Jane had begun to remember, that there was a chance he might solve a crime that had its origins back in the days before Manny died, before he had given up the career he loved, seemed to promise that he could reawaken the passion he’d brought to his old job.

Slowly, as Matt continued to hold Jane, he became aware of the awakening of a different sort of passion, the kind that heated his body, tempted him to tighten his arms around the woman he was holding, to lower his mouth to kiss lips that were still softly parted with surprise.

He just as quickly became aware of how inappropriate it was to feel this way toward the subject of an investigation.

After checking to see that Jane had gained her footing, he released her and stepped back in one quick motion. Instantly, her eyes flew open, surprised and tinged with hurt.

A second later she shut her eyes and muttered, “Sorry,” in a voice more husky than usual.

Damn. Matt’s jaw tightened. Keeping his distance from Jane Ashbury was going to be a challenge, and today it might even prove to be a conflict of interest.

Yesterday he had watched Zoe carefully. Today he’d planned to copy the therapist’s methods, get Jane to relax in the hope that this would release those trapped memories of hers. Something told him that brusquely stepping away from her wasn’t the best way to go about this.

Or keep himself sane.

Chapter Five

“I didn’t see anything,” Jane said. Not sure her tone was light enough, she smiled wryly and said, “Well, other than you.”

A moment of silence followed Jane’s words. Then she heard Matt chuckle before he replied, “Good. But if you had seen the beach, it would have been my fault for not thinking to guide you out of the seat. I’ll do better now.” His hands tightened on her shoulders as he went on. “I need you to step to the left—I’m sorry, that would be your right—so I can close the door.”

Jane responded to his directions, sidestepping, then standing still when he requested. She heard the slam of the door, then the click of the key in the lock, all the while silently cursing herself for feeling so damn vulnerable.

She had to admit, it had felt wonderful, standing within Matt’s strong arms for those few moments, feeling his warmth envelop her, his strength support her. Sometimes she got so blasted tired of taking care of herself, pushing to become a woman of independent means who needed to rely on no one.

Of course, when he’d pushed her away it had become clear that she couldn’t afford to grow accustomed to that sort of feeling.

“Here—” Matt’s deep voice broke into her thoughts. “Take my hand.”

Matt’s fingers had barely brushed hers when she pulled her arm away and said, “I can manage myself.”

“No, you can’t.” Again he chuckled. “You remind me of my two-year-old cousin who’s always insisting, ‘Me do it.’ The path down the beach is uneven. If you don’t want to trip and fall, you’ll let me hold your hand and guide you.”

Jane hesitated. When she nodded, Matt’s large hand closed over hers, gave it a tug, and she began to walk. It took a few moments to focus on the sound of his feet on the sand so she could walk beside him instead of being towed down the path. With each step she grew even more aware of the strength and warmth radiating from the man at her side.

“Do we have far to walk?” she wondered out loud.

“Not really,” he replied. “You all right? Warm enough?”

His question brought Jane’s attention to the brisk breeze ruffling her hair and cooling her cheeks. “Yes, thanks to your suggestion.”

She touched the lapel of her dark blue fleece jacket to indicate her meaning. Matt didn’t reply, and for several minutes the only sound was the crunch of the sand beneath their feet and the occasional crash of a wave some distance in front of her. The silence seemed to beg to be filled, and Jane asked the first question that came to mind.

“Why did Detective Wilcox call you the Lone Ranger yesterday?”

More silence. Then Matt replied, “It was my nickname on the force. Until I was partnered with Manny, I preferred to work on my own whenever possible.”

“Why?”

“Just a quirk of my nature, I guess.”

Jane took a few steps before she said softly, “You miss him a lot, don’t you.”

For several seconds she heard only the sibilant whisper of waves breaking gently on the shore.

“Yeah, I do,” he said quietly, then his voice drew stronger. “Fortunately, my cousin Jack understands how I work. And I understand him. He’s always been drawn to the mystery aspect of law enforcement—tracking down the clues, hence his nickname—Sherlock Holmes—while I like the chase. We make a good team.”

“Do you charge a lot?”

“We try to keep our fees reasonable.”

“How much, exactly? Say, to find a murderer?”

Matt was quiet for a moment. “If you’re thinking of paying me, forget it. I want to find out who tried to kill you for myself as much as for you. Now—” he stopped walking “—we’re here. I want you to turn, like so. Take a deep breath, relax and take a look when you’re ready.”

Jane did as Matt ordered. When she opened her eyes, she was staring at a pale green sea beneath a watery blue sky.

“What do you think?” Matt asked. “Is this the place?”

Jane studied the seascape before her. “Well, the cliff over on the right does match the image I remember. But the colors of the sky and water are more washed out. And the waves were bigger, more aggressive than these.”

“Yeah, well, the waves here tend to be pretty anemic, from a surfer’s point of view,” Matt said slowly. “The beach faces southwest, so they come in at an angle, instead of bowling right into the shore. But try just staring at the water for a while, relax and see if anything comes.”

Jane gave him what she hoped was a cheerful smile. Yeah, right, she thought. Watching the curling surf was one thing. Relaxing? Now, that was another matter altogether. How was she supposed to relax when she knew the man standing next to her was waiting anxiously for something to happen—something, moreover, that she wasn’t sure she even wanted to come about.

However, Matt deserved her help in his quest for justice. Drawing a salt-laden breath, she released it, then repeated the action as she gazed straight ahead. She managed to breathe some softness into muscles tingling with awareness of Matt—but no memories came.

Finally she shook her head and turned to Matt. She caught his expression of disappointment before he had a chance to smile and shrug. Jane wasn’t fooled. She knew she’d let him down. This man, who had cheered all her efforts to walk again, to recover knowledge she’d forgotten; who had held her as she sobbed when that last disappointment had made her vow to stop searching for her past, stop trying to figure out who people wanted her to be.

The idea that she had failed Matt made Jane want to cry, something she hadn’t done since that day nearly sixteen months ago—something she wasn’t going to do now. As she had so many times since, Jane hardened the ache in her heart to anger.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she stepped away from him. “This isn’t working. I really don’t want to remember my past. For all I know, I was a thief, or a drug dealer, or something worse. After all, what does it say about the person I was that someone hated me enough to attempt to kill me?”

Matt was no longer smiling. In fact, as Jane glared up at him, his features twisted into an angry scowl. His hand reached out to close over hers with almost painful strength as he pulled her to him and bent his head toward hers.

“It doesn’t say a damn thing about you,” Matt said, his voice low, tight. “The fact that someone is driven to kill, only tells me about the perpetrator, not the victim. No matter what the crime, the victim is not at fault. And hey, we know you’ve never been arrested—or fingerprinted.”

Jane’s heart raced as his dark green eyes looked unwaveringly into hers. She watched as the deep vertical line between his eyebrows relaxed and his intent gaze softened to one of speculation.

“However,” he said, “I’m not sure if I’ve ever met an injured party less deserving of the term victim than you. You, my friend, are the epitome of the title Survivor.”

Matt’s words surprised sudden tears to her eyes, tears that she was not about to shed. She blinked them away, to find that Matt was now grinning.

“So,” he said, “your worries about what kind of person you were before you were injured? Forget ’em. It doesn’t matter who you were. What matters is who you are now, the person you have made yourself into.”

Jane thought her heart was going to pound itself right out of her chest. She could hardly believe this was happening. She’d dreamed so many times of a moment like this one. Even after Kyle Rogers had taught her, so very painfully, that her heart was not to be trusted, she’d held on to the belief that the one man in whose hands she could place the love she felt was Matt Sullivan.

She’d read all about her condition, knew that people who survived brain trauma often experienced bouts of hero worship, until their emotional states stabilized and matured. She believed that this explained how she’d fallen under Kyle’s spell, but she knew her feelings for Matt were different.

And now he stood looking down at her, his gaze holding hers with all the tenderness she could wish for.

“You’re wondering,” Matt said, “if it’s true that who you were isn’t important, then why am I pushing you to recall your past.”

Well, not really, Jane thought, but she wasn’t about to reveal her true thoughts, so she let him continue.

“It’s because the person you were is the key to the entire investigation.”

Jane’s heartbeat slowed. “Investigation?”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “The investigation into who tried to kill you. Once I learn who you were, I’ll be able to find out who knew you. Then, with any luck, I can determine which of these people had a motive to put an end to your life.”

Turning, Jane stared out over the sea. Great. She had the starring role in Matt Sullivan’s detective novel. Just what she wanted.

“You don’t have to force your memory.” Obviously misunderstanding her intent, Matt placed his hands on Jane’s shoulders and swiveled her toward him. “It was a crazy idea to bring you down here and think that making you stare at the ocean would result in some sort of epiphany. Besides, I’m getting hungry. Are you ready to go?”

Jane shrugged. “Sure.”

Matt took her hand, then turned and started back up the beach. Far ahead Jane could see a path leading to the parking lot above and to their left. She was surprised to realize how far she had come earlier with her eyes closed, conversing with Matt. The walk back now, in silence, seemed much longer. The wind was blowing harder, too, bringing bone-chilling moisture from the ocean. And beneath her feet, the uneven sand seemed to fight her desire to hurry away from this place of disappointment.

About thirty yards from the path, Matt stopped, bent forward and rubbed his right knee, then straightened and turned to her. “How about we take a little break before we head up to the car?”

It was on the tip of Jane’s tongue to say she wasn’t tired, when she connected his action to the injury he’d suffered. Uncertain just how sensitive he might be about the subject, she simply replied, “Sure,” then followed him to the dune on their left. When he sat down and leaned against the hill, she followed suit.

The wind seemed less biting at this level. Between the warmth of the sand against her back and the rays of the weak winter sun, Jane felt almost toasty within her soft fleece jacket. Gazing forward, she noticed that the surf had grown rougher. Each wave created a large head of foam as it rolled and crashed. The hypnotic motion and rhythmic whisper slowly teased the tension from her muscles, calmed her mind and coaxed her to shut her eyes.

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