A Man Worth Remembering

“Houston?” he spat out. “We’re just outside New Orleans.”

Sweet heaven. Even with a multiple choice, she wouldn’t have gotten it right. What the heck was she doing here?

“You honestly don’t remember?” he asked.

“No.” It was the one answer of which she was certain.

“All right, let’s try something easy. What’s the date?”

Again, she tried to concentrate. “Is it June something?”

He blew out a long breath. “Not quite. It’s August twelfth. Okay. Here’s a question that nobody gets wrong. What’s your name?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Absolutely nothing. Her mind was a complete blank.

He stilled, his expression registering more than a little alarm. “You don’t know your own name?”

She shook her head, trying to will away the dizziness that started to overpower her. “I have no idea.” And she didn’t. No idea whatsoever.

She was ready to panic, when it occurred to her that this had to be a dream. Yes, a dream. It was the only logical explanation. A full-fledged, mind-blowing nightmare. All she had to do was wake up, and she’d remember everything. Heck, right now she probably wasn’t anywhere near this lake but in her own bed at home.

Wherever home was.

She blinked hard several times, trying to force a different scene to appear in front of her, but the nightmare was still there. And so was Gabe Sanchez. He stared at her, his dark, suspicious eyes filled with questions that she knew she couldn’t answer.

So, with the taste of the muddy lake still in her mouth, she closed her eyes and let the dream take over.

VOICES WOKE HER. She caught a word here and there, but much of what she heard didn’t make sense. Philip. Frank Templeton. Sanchez.

Gabe Sanchez.

The man who saved her. There were at least two other voices: a male and a female. All three used hushed tones, but they seemed to be arguing.

She forced her eyes open, even though the overhead fluorescent lights made her wince, and pain stabbed through her head. She felt groggy, almost drunk, but she finally managed to see the trio near the doorway. Sanchez, an attractive woman with pinned-up dark hair and a tall blond man.

The woman and the other man wore business suits in neutral colors. No suit for Sanchez. He had on faded jeans, a plain white T-shirt and a shoulder holster that had a pistol sticking out of it. There was a beeper attached to his belt loop.

She glanced down at her own clothes. Someone had dressed her in drab green surgical scrubs. And she was on a gurney.

“I’m not in ICU,” she said to herself. “Or in an emergency room.”

It looked more like a huge supply closet. There were several metal shelves crammed with boxes. A single window graced the far wall, and the blinds were closed, so she couldn’t tell if it was night or day. Or if it was covered with bars. She was afraid it might have bars.

“It’s what you have to tell her,” the woman insisted.

Sanchez shook his head. “I won’t.”

The woman folded her arms over her chest and tapped her foot. “It wasn’t a request. Now, what part of it didn’t you understand?”

“The part where you started spouting Justice Department garbage, that’s when, Teresa.”

“You’d rather have her dead? Because that’s what’ll happen. Heck, it almost did, or have you forgotten that already?”

“I haven’t forgotten anything. I’m the one who pulled her out of that lake.” Sanchez mumbled something under his breath. Leigh only caught the Jesucristo part. “Hell, she almost died in my arms.”

She lifted her head off the gurney. “Who are you people?”

The three rifled their gazes toward her, but they didn’t say anything. She studied each one, trying to interpret their expressions and the snippets of conversation she’d heard.

She definitely didn’t trust the blond man, and yet she couldn’t say why. The woman was no ally either. She didn’t know what to make of Sanchez, but since he’d saved her from drowning, she would cast her lot with him if it came down to choosing sides.

It would, she feared, come down to choosing sides.

“Better yet,” she amended when none of them answered her, “who am I?”

Gabe Sanchez walked toward her with an almost graceful ease. He was tall, over six feet, and muscular. His biceps strained against the cotton T-shirt. He had chocolate-colored hair that was short and neat. Efficient. Low maintenance.

When he got closer, she saw that his eyes were a deep blue. They, too, seemed efficient—his gaze swept over her with a minimal amount of effort. However, she had no doubt that he’d just given her the once-over.

The others trailed behind Sanchez, stopping when he did. They were friends. No, more than that. Or less than that. Maybe much, much less.

God, why was it so hard to figure out things?

“You still don’t remember who you are?” Sanchez asked her.

“No. Why is that? What’s wrong with me?”

“You took a hard hit on the head. It might take a while for everything to come back.”

She touched the bandage on her forehead. There was indeed a lump under the gauze swatch, but she hadn’t needed to feel it to know it was there. That was no doubt the source of her vicious headache.

“I have a concussion?” she asked.

Sanchez nodded. “And a few stitches in your forehead and on your ankle where the rope abraded your skin. The doctor examined you, but he doesn’t think your memory loss has anything to do with the head injury. In other words, no brain damage. He said it was brought on by emotional trauma.”

“Disassociative amnesia,” she softly added. “How long will it last?” But she already knew. Like her aversion to the blond man and the woman, she just didn’t know how she knew it.

It was Sanchez who answered. “The doctor’s not sure. It could be hours. Or days.”

“Or I might never regain my memory,” she provided.

She lowered her head and tried to absorb that. She couldn’t. It was impossible to understand anything while her thoughts whirled around like a tornado.

God, what she was going to do? She didn’t know who she was, not her name, not her age. Nothing. She didn’t know if she was still in danger or if she could trust anyone. She didn’t even know what these people had to do with her.

But they knew.

They likely knew everything about her.