A Husband To Remember

“How long was I—?”

“You were in a coma for six days,” Trent said, and from the looks of his jaw he hadn’t shaved the entire time she’d been under. She supposed that it was testament to his undying love that he’d spent the better part of a week keeping his vigil, and yet there was something about him that seemed almost predatory.

Again she looked at his harsh features, trying to find some hint in her memory of the rugged planes of his face. Surely if she’d married him, loved him, slept in the same bed with him, she would recall something about him. She bit down on her lip as he returned her stare, his eyes an opaque blue that gave no hint of his emotions. Desperation put a stranglehold on her heart.

“The nurse will give you medication for the pain,” Dr. Padillo said, making notes on her chart before resting his hip on her bed. “Tell me about the—Dios,” he muttered, snapping his fingers.

“Amnesia,” Trent supplied.

“Sí. Have you any memory?”

Nikki glanced from the doctor to Trent and back again. She needed time alone with the doctor and yet Trent wasn’t about to leave. “Can we speak privately?” she asked, and Padillo’s brows drew together.

“We are alone....” He glanced up at Trent, his furrowed expression showing concern.

“Please.”

“But your husband—”

“Please, Doctor. It’s important!” She wrapped her fingers into the starched fabric of his white jacket.

“It’s probably a good idea,” Trent said with a nonchalant shrug. As if he had nothing to hide. “She’s a little confused right now. Maybe you can straighten things out for her and help her remember.”

I’m not confused about you, she thought, but bit hard on her tongue, because the truth was, she didn’t know a thing about herself.

Trent let his fingers slide along the bottom rail of the hospital bed. “I’ll be in the hall if you need me.” As he left the room, his bootheels ringing softly, he closed the door behind him, and Nikki let out a long sigh.

“That man is not my husband,” she asserted as firmly as she could.

“He’s not?” The doctor’s eyebrows raised skeptically, and he eyed Nikki as if she’d truly lost her mind.

“I—I’m sure of it.”

“Your memory. It has come back?”

“No, but...” Oh, this was hopeless! She clenched a fist in frustration, and pain shot up her arm. “I would remember him. I know it!” Unbidden, hot, wet tears touched the back of her eyelids, but she refused to cry.

Dr. Padillo patted her shoulder. “These things, they take time.”

“But I would remember the man I married.”

“As you remember the rest of your family?”

She didn’t answer. The haze that was her past refused to crystallize and she was left with dark shadows and vague feelings, nothing solid.

“Your home? A pet? Your job? You remember any of these things?”

She closed her eyes and fought the tears building behind her swollen lids. She remembered so little and yet she felt like she was trapped, like an insect caught in the sticky web of a spider, vulnerable and weak. She stared at the IV tube draining into her arm, the iron sides of the bed, the gauze on her arm and the tiny room—her prison until she could walk again.

If only she could remember! Why was Trent posted like a wary guard in her room day and night? Surely he trusted the hospital staff to take care of her. Or was his concern of a different nature? Was he afraid she might escape?

She closed her eyes as the questions pounded at her brain. Why the devil was she on this little island off the coast of Venezuela? And why in God’s name wouldn’t this doctor believe her? There had to be a way to convince him!

“I’ve never set eyes on Trent McKenzie until I woke up a little while ago.”

“See! That is wrong. He is the one who brought you to the hospital.” Padillo smiled reassuringly. “Give it some time, Señora McKenzie. You Americans. Always so in a hurry.”

“Please, call me Nikki.”

“Nikki, then. Do not rush this,” Doctor Padillo said gently. “You have been...lucky. The accident could have been much worse.”

The tone of his voice caught her attention, and for the first time she wondered how she’d become so battered. “What happened to me?” she asked, looking up at him and trying to ignore the horrible feeling that the man to whom this doctor was going to release her was inherently dangerous.

“I’ve talked to your husband as well as the policía. They concur. You and Señor McKenzie were walking along the hills by the mission. These hills, they can be very...es-carpado... uh, sharp...no—”

“Steep,” she supplied, her nightmare becoming vivid again. The jagged cliffs. The roaring sea. The dizzying heights and the mission with its crumbling bell tower.

“Sí. Steep. The path you were on was narrow, near the cliffs, and you stumbled, lost your footing and fell over the edge. Fortunately, you landed on a...saliente—Dios... you call it a...”

“A ledge,” Trent supplied as he opened the door and heard the tail end of the discussion. His gaze was pinned to Nikki’s and his mouth was a thin grim line. “You slid over the side and landed on a ledge that jutted beneath the edge of the cliff. If you’d rolled another two feet, you would have fallen over a hundred feet into the sea.”

Her body jarred as she remembered pitching in the air. So the nightmare was real. Oh, God, help me! Her throat closed in fear, but she managed to whisper hoarsely, “And you saved me?”

His lips tightened a little. “I couldn’t save you from falling over the edge—I was already at the mission. But I heard you scream.” His jaw clenched. “I followed the sound and ran back to the spot where you’d fallen. Fortunately I could climb down and carry you back.”

Was he lying? “How did you get down to me?”

“It was tricky,” he admitted as he rolled up the sleeve of a cotton work shirt. “But I’ve climbed mountains.”

“So you didn’t see me fall?”

His eyes locked with hers, and he hesitated for a fraction of an instant. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone on ahead.”

Nikki wasn’t convinced he was telling the truth, but the pain in her body was intense and she knew arguing with these two men was useless. Could Trent possibly be her savior as he claimed, or had he been the man chasing her, the man who pushed her over the edge? But if so, why would he have brought her back for medical care? Oh, Lord, her brain hurt.

Shuddering, she thought about her nightmare, her feet losing their purchase on the rocky trail, her body pitching toward the rocky shore hundreds of feet below the ridge. Deep in her heart she’d expected that the horrid dream was real, but she shivered with a fear as cold as the bottom of the sea. She hadn’t fallen over the edge, she’d been pushed, chased by someone...someone darkly evil. Her gaze moved to Trent’s face, so severe and determined. It was hard to imagine that he had saved her from death.... She almost cried out, but forced the tremors in her body to subside. She couldn’t show any sign of weakness to this stranger who claimed to be her husband, and she had to come up with a plan, a way to escape the hospital and find out who she was. Oh, God, if her head didn’t ache so badly, if she could bear weight on her ankle, she’d find a way to uncover the truth.

A shadow crossed her face as Trent bent over the bed. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he promised, his breath fanning her face. He kissed her lightly on the lips and there was a warmth in the feel of his mouth against hers that caused her heart to trip. Was it possible that she’d fallen in love with this brash, uncompromising man? Nikki couldn’t remember anything about her past, but she didn’t believe for a second that she would marry a man so damned intimidating, a man who just by his mere presence seemed destined to dominate everyone he met. Certainly she would have chosen a kinder, wiser individual—a thinking man.

His lips moved against hers, and it was all Nikki could do to lay stiffly and unresponsively on the bed. Trent lifted his head and, straightening, smoothed the wrinkles from his shirt as he winked at her. The smile curving his lips was positively wicked—as if he and she shared some dark, indecent secret. He patted the edge of the bed, then walked with the doctor out of the room.

Silently fuming, Nikki thought of a million ways to strangle him. His little show for the doctor was just an act. Or was it? There was no passion in this kiss, not like the one before, and yet she’d felt a spark of emotion, a tenderness she couldn’t equate with Trent McKenzie or whoever the hell he was. She ground her teeth in frustration and willed her memory to surface, but only vague images drifted into her mind. She remembered a grassy field and riding a horse—no, a pony, a spotted pony. She’d been bareback. A dog had trailed after the chubby little horse, nearly hidden in the tall grass. There had been apple trees—an old orchard, perhaps—in the corner of the field and a copse of oak and fir trees on the other side of the fence line.

Had the pony been hers? She imagined cattle grazing on the stubble in the next field, but the image turned cloudy and she was left with an emptiness that she couldn’t fill. “Damn it all,” she muttered as she tried and failed to summon any other thoughts about her past.

What about Trent? Your husband? Any memory of him at all eluded her completely.

She shifted on the wrinkled sheets and sucked in her breath at the sharp pain at her ankle. From the hallway, she heard Trent and Dr. Padillo, talking softly in the flowing cadences of Spanish. Of course they were discussing her, but she couldn’t hear or understand them. Frustrated, she tried to sit up, but fell back against the pillows. If only she could climb out of this bed, march down to the police station, or the airport, or the American embassy, if there was one on this godforsaken island, and demand to know who she was and how she got here.