Marriage: Classified

Her father. Casper Shepard, the poor, bloodied man who had been killed yesterday beside her…And she couldn’t even remember him. She couldn’t remember a blessed thing that Jordan hadn’t told her. A small sob shook Sara.

“I’m sorry.” Jordan sat beside her on the bed and held her close against him. “I’m so sorry, Sara. I’d do anything to have prevented Casper’s death. Our plan—” He stopped talking. The hands that had been moving soothingly over her back stopped, too. “We’ll find the murderer,” he finished. “I promise.”

Sara was certain he’d been about to say something else. Before she could question him further, though, a hospital worker came in with her breakfast. She wasn’t hungry but allowed the food to be placed on the tray beside her bed. She made herself take a sip of cold, sweet orange juice and a bite of overcooked eggs. She needed energy—didn’t she?—to get her memory back.

Jordan returned to his seat near the window. This morning he wore a black knit shirt that molded to an all-male body with the broadest of shoulders above thick, substantial biceps. She watched as he crossed one of his legs, encased in tight blue jeans, over the other.

Why on earth was she noticing all that?

The answer came to her very quickly. Her mind had raced over a lot of territory before she had finally succumbed to exhaustion the night before. Though not as urgent as some of the other matters she reflected on, one that had troubled her was where she spent that particular night.

It had been their wedding night. She had become convinced of it, even if she didn’t remember. Jordan had told her so. And she had been wearing a wedding gown.

A bride shouldn’t spend her wedding night alone.

Had…had Jordan and she spent other nights together? Sara somehow believed that, even if she remembered nothing else, she would recall what it had felt like to make love with the spectacular hunk of a man across the room. To feel those large, strong hands all over her flesh. To run her own fingers along the nakedness of the hard, hard chest against which she had been so protectively held.

Making love with a man as tender and caring, and as phenomenally good-looking as Jordan Dawes would not be something a woman would forget.

But Sara sighed deeply and sank back into her pillows. This woman had forgotten even her name. Her father. The fact that she had been married. The way she loved the man she had wed just yesterday.

Could she also have forgotten making love with him? The answer, absurdly, was yes.

But she wouldn’t spend much longer here in the hospital. She couldn’t. Eventually she would go home with Jordan. They would start their new life together. Try to put all that had happened behind them—except to the extent that they would help to catch her father’s murderer.

In any event, even if her wedding night had been so dismal, there had to be plenty of exciting nights in the future that she could spend with her new husband, Jordan.

Except…she didn’t really know him.

Would it be fair to him to start married life with a wife so flawed she couldn’t even remember their wedding?

Would her memory return, or would she never recall how much they cared for one another? Could they start from scratch and forge a strong new relationship?

Worst of all, no matter how kind, no matter how good-looking Jordan was, how could she plan on being the newly wedded wife of an absolute stranger?

JORDAN SLOWLY PUSHED open the door to Sara’s hospital room. It was late afternoon. He had waited until she had fallen asleep again before going out to get a cup of coffee and a sandwich from the cafeteria.

“Jordan?” Her voice was soft and a little groggy.

“Yes. I hoped you’d sleep longer.” He strode into the room and sat beside her bed on the chair that he had commandeered as his own. He hadn’t allowed her visitors yet, but she seemed to be improving. There were a lot of people who were concerned about her.

None more than he.

He would let a few of the others come to see her, starting that evening—after he’d had a chance to speak with her further.

And only if he was certain of her continued safety.

“All I’ve been doing is sleeping,” she complained, rolling over to face him. “There’s not even a television in this darned room.”

That had been by design. The news was full of lurid details about Casper’s murder on the day of his daughter’s wedding, speculation as to her condition, and a lot of background information that could only hurt her.

She’d be exposed to it soon enough, but Jordan hoped she would be ready first. He would have to tell her everything she needed to know, though, before her lack of memory could hurt her further.

Poor, lovely Sara. His bride. She had been through more heartache than any one person should in the past years—even if she couldn’t remember everything.

And he should have protected her from this last ugly event. Her and her father.

Sara pushed a button and with the hum of a motor her bed moved her into a sitting position. She wore no makeup, but with her porcelain skin and thick fringe of dark lashes, she needed none. Sara had definitely grown into a beautiful woman. Her black hair, styled so carefully yesterday, now formed a gently mussed frame for her high-cheekboned face. The intrusive white bandage at her temple was a stark contrast to her hair’s deep color. Jordan had an urge to touch it, but he kept still.

The sheet had fallen slightly, revealing the top of her ugly green hospital gown and the smooth, pale flesh above it. Tantalizing flesh.

Watch it, Dawes, he warned himself. This was not the time or the place to harbor lustful feelings about Sara.

As if there ever would be.

Careful not to make contact with her, Jordan reached over and pulled up the sheet.

He saw a flush pinken Sara’s skin. “I must be a sight,” she said.

“Absolutely. A lovely sight,” he said.

Her hazel eyes widened and she smiled. “You’re either very kind or very nearsighted,” she retorted.

“My eyesight is just fine,” he said with a grin. Amnesia or not, Sara remained sassy. “And you’d better remember more about me before you start calling me kind.”

Her smile froze then disappeared. “I’d love to remember more.” There was a wistfulness in her voice.

Jordan wanted to issue himself a good, hard kick in the butt for reminding her of her infirmity. “You will,” he said with more assurance than he felt. He had spoken further with her doctors. They had been uncertain as to what, if anything, she would remember—her own past, people, how to do things. It varied in different cases. If all went well, at least some things would start coming back to her soon. But they’d told him that sometimes people with amnesia never fully recalled the incident that resulted in their loss of memory.

If only he could get inside Sara’s skull, see what she had seen in that hotel room…find out the identity of the dirty scumbag who had killed Casper and had hurt her that way.

The same scumbag, he was certain, who’d been the target of their elaborate scheme that had backfired so miserably.

“Tell me.” Sara seemed to sit up straighter. One of her hands appeared from beneath the sheet and gestured plaintively toward him.

“Tell you what?”

“Everything. All that I should remember.”

“I’ll tell you what I can,” he dissembled, hoping his dismay didn’t ooze visibly from every pore. There were things he didn’t want to tell her just yet. The doctors had also said that amnesia could be the mind’s way of protecting a person from events she couldn’t, for the moment, bear to recall. That was why, for now, there were things he couldn’t mention. And why he couldn’t even consider attempting forensic hypnosis, though he had been trained in it. Still, he could hand her back a little of her present. Innocuous things that she’d hear soon enough anyway.

“Okay,” she said agreeably, her eyes wide with anticipation. “Go ahead.”

“Well, I already told you that I’m a police detective, and that your father was my boss. Did you know he was your boss, too?”

“Really?”

“You’re a dispatcher with the Santa Gregoria Police Department, Sara.”