Pregnesia

If she’d taken advantage of their kindness, as he suspected, then he sure didn’t want his partners to know he’d been taken for a fool.

He finished his coffee and checked the clock. Just after seven. Loretta would be up by now and he was eager to see what Jane had miraculously remembered this morning.

When he reached Loretta’s apartment door he rapped lightly and his sister answered almost immediately. She was dressed for the day in blue-flowered scrubs and held a cup of coffee in her hand.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said, and motioned him to the kitchen. “My houseguest is still asleep.”

“Did you talk to her after I left last night?” Lucas leaned against the counter.

“A little, but not much. She was exhausted and I figured the best thing for her was a good night’s sleep. I take it you don’t believe her story.”

Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

Loretta sat at the table. “I don’t know. I do think she had a trauma of some kind and she seemed genuinely afraid and confused. She looks to be around eight months pregnant. If some man whacked her upside the head, he should be hung by his manly parts for the rest of her life.”

Lucas grinned. “Ah, Loretta, tell me how you really feel.” Love for his sister surged up inside him. Loretta was six years younger than him. With both their parents dead and the history they shared, the two siblings were particularly close.

“What I feel is that you need to put your overactive cynicism aside when you talk to her. She may not have amnesia, but she’s obviously in trouble.” Loretta drained her coffee cup and got up from the table. “I’ve got to get to work.”

Lucas walked with her to the front door where she turned to look at him once again. “Feed her something, Lucas. And if she needs to stay here a couple more days, it’s fine with me.” She reached up and kissed Lucas on the cheek, then left.

Lucas returned to the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee and then sat at the table. He wasn’t surprised by his sister’s generous offer to a stranger. Loretta made a habit of helping people.

Sometimes it amazed him how his sister had survived the dysfunction of their past with such a goodness of spirit, such a pure, sweet soul. Too bad he couldn’t say the same about himself.

He had his cup halfway to his mouth when Jane appeared in the doorway. She was clad in a white nightgown that stretched taut across her breasts and her belly. Her blond, curly hair was tousled, and it was obvious by the widening of her eyes that she’d expected to find Loretta, not Lucas, in the kitchen.

“Oh!” She instantly hunched her shoulders and crossed one arm over her breasts. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes looked as if she’d been crying. Once again Lucas felt a strange surge of protectiveness. “I’ll just … I’ll be right back.” She darted out of the kitchen and back down the hallway.

It was only then that Lucas realized he’d been holding his breath. He took a sip of his coffee and tried to forget the vision of her, so soft and feminine, and so utterly vulnerable.

She returned moments later, this time clad in the jeans and the dirty, bloodstained white blouse she’d worn the night before.

“Doesn’t Loretta have something you can wear?” he asked.

“Your sister is tiny.” She placed a hand on her stomach. “And right now I’m not. She didn’t have anything big enough to fit my stomach.”

“Sit down and I’ll get you a cup of coffee,” he said.

He got up as she sat. He poured her a cup of coffee and carried it to the table, where he set it before her.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

To Lucas’s horror, she burst into tears. “I thought everything would be all right this morning,” she said between sobs. “I thought I’d wake up and I’d know who I was and what happened, but I don’t know any more now than I did last night.”

The sobs were painful to watch. Lucas grabbed a handful of napkins and handed them to her. She was either the greatest actress on the face of the earth or she was telling the truth.

She cried so hard he got worried about her, about the baby. He pulled up a chair next to her and awkwardly patted her back. “Don’t cry,” he said. “We’ll sort this out, but you’ve got to stop crying. It can’t be good for the baby.”

That seemed to penetrate into her head, because the sobs wore down to sniffles, and finally ceased altogether. She wiped her cheeks, and when she looked at him once again, there was desperation in her eyes.

“I’m so afraid,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

“For now, nothing is going to happen,” Lucas replied. “You’re safe here. Loretta told me to tell you that you’re welcome to stay for a couple of days until you feel better.”

Tears welled up in her eyes once again. “I can’t believe how kind you’re being to me.”

He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t him, that his sister was the kind one. He was the cynical one who still didn’t know whether to believe her or not.

But for the moment he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. If she was lying, then sooner or later he would know. If she was telling the truth, then he sure as hell didn’t want to be responsible for tossing a pregnant woman out on the streets all alone with no money and no memory.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Starving. I can’t remember the last time I ate.” A half-hysterical spurt of laughter burst out of her.

“Scrambled eggs okay?” he asked as he got up from the table.

“Fine. But please, you don’t have to wait on me. If you’ll just show me where things are, I can do for myself.” She started to get up, but he waved her back down.

“I’ll take care of it, just sit tight.” He got the eggs from the refrigerator and set to work making breakfast.

As he worked she stared out the window, tiny frown lines dancing across her forehead. Again he was struck by her prettiness. She wasn’t screamingly drop-dead gorgeous, but rather she had a quiet, simmering beauty. He frowned and whipped the eggs more forcefully than necessary.

The last thing he needed was to be attracted to her. She obviously had a man in her life. And in any case Lucas didn’t do relationships.

She continued to stare out the window as if lost in thought while he fixed the eggs and popped in toast. Then once it was all done he placed the food on two plates, one for her and one for himself.

“Lucas?” She turned to look at him, her blue eyes troubled. “I know this sounds crazy, but I have a terrible feeling that I’m in real danger.”

He set the plates on the table with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. This was growing more complicated by the minute. And there was nothing Lucas hated more than complication.

JANE STARED AT HIM and tried not to notice that his dark hair had a gleaming shine to it that made it look silky soft and that he smelled like soap and shaving cream and a hint of a clean cologne. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

Since the moment she’d told him that she didn’t know who she was, that she had no idea what had happened to her, she’d sensed his suspicious disbelief. And she wasn’t sure why it was so important to her that he accept what she was telling him.

“I don’t know what I believe,” he finally replied. “I think it’s possible you had a fight with your boyfriend or husband or whatever, and you need a safe place to hide out until things cool off and the two of you can kiss and make up.”

She reached up and touched her forehead with a frown. “I can’t imagine wanting to kiss and make up with anyone who did this to me.”

He picked up his fork. “He’ll buy you flowers or candy and swear he’ll never touch you again and you’ll end up going back and things will be great until the next time he loses his temper.” His voice held a harshness in tone.

“I wouldn’t be involved with a man like that,” she exclaimed.

He raised a dark eyebrow. “How do you know?”

She felt the warmth of a blush on her cheeks. “I might not know who I am, but I know what I’d tolerate, and I’d never stay with a man who put his hands on me.”

She felt a swell of tears burning at her eyes and bit them back. She’d cried herself to sleep the night before and had awakened and cried some more. She was tired of crying. “Maybe nobody hit me. Maybe I just fell and hit my head on something,” she said.