Enigma

She answered the phone, trying to make her hello sound groggy, as if she’d been asleep for hours.

“Willa, it’s Casey.” Casey Durham was the night supervisor on the floor. “Where are you?”

“Where do you think I am? At home, in bed.” The lie tasted badly on her tongue. She wasn’t used to lying to anyone.

“Sorry to wake you, but I thought you’d like to know.”

“Know what?”

“You’re never going to believe what’s happened. A man came in and said he thought our John Doe might be a relative of his. I took him to John Doe’s room and he was gone.”

“Who was gone?” Willa asked, as if confused.

“John Doe. His bed was empty and he was nowhere to be found.”

“What?” Willa tried to inject shock into her voice. “How is that possible? He was in a coma! What do you think happened?”

“I have no idea. The doctors are speculating that maybe he came out of his coma and didn’t know where he was and somehow stumbled outside the building. Security is checking the immediate area. I just knew you’d want to know what’s happened.”

“Wow, I’m just stunned. Thanks for calling me. Oh, what about the man who said he thought he knew John Doe. What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I guess he took off. Too bad we don’t have security cameras. Anyway, things should be calmed down by the time you come in on Monday morning. Maybe by that time we’ll have located our John Doe. The good news is it looks like he woke up. I know that’s what you’d hoped for.”

“Thanks again, Casey.” Willa shut her phone and dropped it back in her purse. A faint chill walked up her spine.

Jared had told her somebody was coming for him and somebody had shown up. He’d known her name before she’d told it to him and she’d known his from a dream.

Was he truly in danger? Who was the man who had shown up to ask about him and what did that man have to do with him?

She started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. Maybe she was still asleep. Maybe this was just an intensely vivid dream. Perhaps there was no man on her sofa and she was still in her own bed and not driving through the middle of the night checking her rearview mirror to see if she were being followed.

“Are you there?” she asked softly and waited for the voice in her head to respond. There was no answering reply.

She gripped the steering wheel more tightly in her hands and once again wondered if she’d had some sort of psychotic snap with reality.

Within minutes she was once again parked in her garage. She carried her purchases into the house and set the bag on the table.

He was on the sofa, sleeping so soundly he didn’t stir when she drew close. Real. He was as real as the beat of her heart, as the ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantel.

He was so still that if it wasn’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest she might have thought him dead. Questions whirled around in her head but she knew that none of them would be answered tonight.

As the adrenaline that had pumped through her since the moment she’d awakened from her erotic dream began to leave her, she realized she was exhausted.

She went into her bedroom and changed back into her nightgown and then got into bed. There was a stranger in her house and yet she wasn’t afraid. She believed him when he said he wouldn’t harm her. Not only did he have no reason to want to hurt her, but he also wasn’t strong enough to do much of anything.

The truth was she wasn’t afraid of him because as crazy as it seemed, as wild as the night had been, she trusted him like she’d never trusted anyone else in her life.

She fell asleep wondering what the morning would bring and awakened just after seven to the sound of birds singing outside her window.

As she remembered all that had transpired the night before, she jumped out of bed and ran into the living room, her heart pounding when she saw the empty sofa.

It was only when she smelled the scent of fresh-brewed coffee that filled the air that she realized her patient was already up.

She hurried into the kitchen and found him showered and dressed in one of the pairs of jeans and a navy T-shirt she’d bought. He had his long fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee and he looked stronger, more vital than he had the night before.

His amazing blue eyes lit with pleasure at the sight of her and she remembered she was clad only in her skimpy nightgown. “Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she replied. “I’m just going to take a quick shower and dress and I’ll be right back.”

As she hurried down the hallway her cheeks burned. She hadn’t missed the way his gaze had slid down the length of her, not just with a heady heat, but with a sweet familiarity. It was disconcerting.

It was oddly exciting.

Answers. That was what she needed more than anything today, and she was going to get them from him or she was going to drive him straight back to the hospital and ask for a psychiatric evaluation for him and maybe one for herself, as well.

Dressed in a pair of jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt, she finally left the bathroom and returned to the kitchen. He sat in the same place where he’d been when she’d left.

“Do you have a computer with Internet access?” he asked, then frowned in obvious confusion. “I don’t know anything about computers, but something is telling me I need one.”

“I have one,” she replied, as confused as he looked by everything that was happening.

“I need to use it and try to contact my brother.”

“Your brother?” She looked at him in surprise. Everyone in the hospital had speculated about the family members of their John Doe. They’d all wondered why nobody had reported him missing, why nobody had shown up to claim him.

He nodded. “My twin brother. He probably thinks I’m dead and I hope he’s still alive. If he is, it’s important that I contact him immediately.”

She walked over to the cabinet, pulled out a cup and then poured herself a cup of coffee and joined him at the table. “Before we even talk about that, I need some answers.”

He’d been attractive when he’d been comatose, but alive and animated he was devastatingly handsome. His intense blue eyes held hers in a gaze that made it impossible for her to look away.

“There are some things I can’t share with you,” he began. “Knowing too much could put you in real danger.”

“I’m already in danger of losing my job if anyone finds out what I’ve done,” she replied. And her job was all that she had, she thought. There was nobody in her life who cared about her except the coworkers who respected and liked her. “I think I deserve to know what’s going on.”

He leaned back in the chair and cast his gaze out her window, where spring flowers bloomed in lush colors. Although too thin and still pale from his convalescence, there was a simmering energy about him that caused a similar energy inside her.

He turned back to look at her. You know part of what you need to know about me. The words were as clear in her head as if he’d spoken, but his lips hadn’t moved.

“How do you do that?” she asked.

“It’s a gift …or a curse, depending on how you look at it. Mental telepathy.”

“So you can read my mind?” The idea was both intriguing and appalling.

He smiled and nodded. “Your thoughts are what got me through the past six months. Your desire for me to live became my own.”

She stared at him and tried to remember every thought that had entered her head during the past six months. Most of them had probably been boring, but some of them had been intensely personal and not intended for anyone else to know.