Forbidden Stranger

by Megan Hart

  They’d barely shared a word or two since she’d confronted him about that tracking app. If Nina came into the room where Ewan was, he left shortly after. The meals Aggie had prepared were often left on covered plates in the fridge for him to eat at a different time. Nina had continued working on the files in this very office, but although Ewan had previously made it his habit to work alongside her, he’d been avoiding that, too.

  She had no reason to feel bad about any of this, either, Nina told herself as she headed for the stairs to the second floor. She had every right to be angry with him. Didn’t she? He’d done something invasive, without her permission, and it seemed as though he were continuing in that same vein.

  Because he wanted to make sure she was all right.

  “Gah,” Nina muttered to herself as her fists clenched.

  Ewan’s door was open, but a quick glance showed her he wasn’t inside, and the bathroom she glimpsed from the doorway was also open. Unlikely he would be in there, either, not without closing the door. She said his name anyway, short and sharp, but he didn’t answer.

  He wasn’t in the kitchen, or the dining room, and also not in the den. Aggie and Jerome’s bedroom door was shut, which meant the older woman was taking her regular afternoon nap. Nina went out the back door and into the garden, then through the patchy grass to the shed along the back of the area. She knocked roughly on the door, waiting for Jerome to open it.

  He did after a moment or so, peering out with an expression of surprise. Jerome had never been anything but kind to her, but he and Nina didn’t have the same sort of closeness she had with Aggie. “Miss Nina.”

  She’d never actually been inside the garden shed and had assumed it to be full of . . . well, tools. Gardening equipment. The bank of monitors she spied behind Jerome, each of them showing a different scene including something that looked like an aerial view of the house, didn’t look like they had anything to do with growing potatoes and carrots. The desk and chair there, along with the half-eaten sandwich and coffee carafe, showed Jerome spent a lot of time in here.

  “I’m looking for Ewan,” she said without pushing farther to see past Jerome, although she made no secret that she could view everything in the shed behind him.

  “He’s not in here, Miss. I don’t know where he is.”

  Nina took a step to the side to give the shed’s interior a long, pointed look before she focused her attention on Jerome. “I guess gardening is also out.”

  He looked confused. “Pardon?”

  “Never mind.” Nina shook her head. “Have you seen him at all today?”

  “No, Miss.”

  Frustrated, she sighed, but an idea occurred to her. “Did he leave on the airtranspo?”

  “No, Miss, not that I know of.”

  It was an island, and not a big one. None of them could get very far or stay hidden for very long. Irritated again at the idea that Ewan had been keeping track of her every move and now she couldn’t find him when she wanted to, Nina gave Jerome a curt nod and turned on her heel.

  He had to be on the beach, because that was the only place left to look. Nina took off at a jog, avoiding the stairs the way she always did and taking the long way around. Today the wind off the water was chill, slicing at her through her clothes and whipping her hair into tangles. By the time she got down to the gravelly beach, though, she’d worked her body into a decent warmth so her teeth didn’t chatter.

  Ewan wasn’t there. Nina put her hands on her hips and looked as far as she could see in both directions. He could be on the other side of the island, where the sea crashed against the cliffs in some places and the beach was much harder to access.

  “Screw this.” She wasn’t going to chase him all over the place.

  Nina looked out over the water, trying to take some comfort from it the way she’d done in the past. The monitors in Jerome’s shed had shown views of the ocean for what looked like miles all around. Empty miles of ocean, nothing even on the horizon. A few had shown closer views she recognized as the beach and base of the cliffs. They were security monitors, Nina realized. Monitoring the entire island as well as a good distance around it.

  Assess.

  She staggered as though she’d taken a misstep, although she hadn’t so much as moved. For a moment she was convinced there’d been an earthquake or something, so clearly had the ground felt as though it were moving beneath her feet, but when she opened her eyes nothing else was shifting, and she still felt as though she might fall over.

  Protect.

  Nina went to her hands and knees hard enough to scrape her palms. She let out a low, angry cry at the way her body had betrayed her. She curled her fingers against the stones of the beach, some of them jagged and others smooth. She focused the sensations, willing herself back under control.

  Eliminate.

  Eliminate.

  Eliminate.

  “No,” Nina said aloud in a low, fierce growl that hurt her throat. “No, no, no.”

  Blinking hard to clear her vision, she got to her feet. The voice in her head, the one she now recognized as her own, did not come back. She waited a moment, breathing hard, her heart thudding but slowing gently. She opened her palms to look at the faint lines of blood from the scrapes.

  “No,” she told herself again. “Whatever the hell that is, no more.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ewan had always preferred the woods and mountains to the ocean, but he had to admit that since he’d started coming to his island, the constant crashing of the waves and the smell of the salt water had come to feel more like home to him than any other place. Today he’d woken in the pearly light of early dawn to meet the airtranspo that had arrived with the island’s supplies. He’d ordered something special for Nina, and he wanted to be sure he got to it before anyone else, so he could surprise her.

  Zulik had told him he was suggesting Nina have some options for entertainment. A hobby, Zulik had said, and Ewan had wracked his brain to think of something that might appeal to her. He’d set up the easel and paints in the office where the light was best, not that he knew dick-all about painting or light or even art, for that matter.

  He had wanted to give Nina the gift personally, but since she’d demanded that he delete the tracking app they’d barely spoken. Instead, he’d left it for her to find, and he’d made himself scarce. The island was navigable on foot all around the perimeter, on the rocky beaches and in one section, up a broad, sandy path to the top of the cliffs and down again, with only one section that was impossible to run on because of the rocks.

  By the time he’d finished the circuit about four times, sweating, his thigh muscles aching, he’d reached the top of the cliff nearest the garden. Instead of heading for the garden path, the outbuildings, and then into the main house, he paused and headed down the steep stone stairs. He hadn’t known for sure he’d find Nina down there on the rocky beach, but he’d been hoping he would.

  Spotting her on the beach, Ewan stopped about halfway down the stairs to watch her. She pushed her body through a series of motions so graceful it was hard to believe she could kill someone with them. The salt-thick air had twisted her hair into a riot of curls that had escaped the confines of her short ponytail.

  Nina on the island usually wore crimson and emerald and royal blue. Dresses with soft, flowing lines. Loosely knit sweaters that hung off her bare shoulders. She did not dress in the uniform of black leggings, shirt, and harness laden with gear that he’d been so used to seeing her wear, although he’d left those clothes, minus the equipment, in her dresser in case she wanted to. He’d seen her wear them only once, the night she’d woken and shared tea with him in the kitchen. He had seen her clad in high fashion, stilettos, and jewels, and he’d seen her naked, but the woman on the beach was the one he knew best. Nina the soldier.

  Ewan couldn’t decide if forgetting the horrors she’d seen or worse, created, was a gift Nina had been given, or if it was a loss. Something taken from her, a piece of herself that
she’d believed made her who she was. Watching her now, though, he knew it was something inside her that would never go away.

  Ewan took the rest of the stairs in quick strides and waited for her to notice and acknowledge him. As her fluid motions became a beautiful stillness, he braced himself for her anger, or at the least, disdain. She gave him a long, steady look, and at last a faint smile that gave him some hope.

  Nina leaped ahead of him a few steps to jump onto a large flat boulder. She faced the sea, her eyes closed, and let the whipping breeze push her hair off her face. She held out her arms so her sleeves flapped.

  “What made you think I’d want to paint?” she asked.

  Ewan moved closer. The chill air gusting off the water sent a shiver down his spine, or maybe it was the way her clear amber eyes held his. “A guess. If you don’t like it . . .”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  He nodded. “If you change your mind, you can always get rid of it.”

  “Should I even ask how you knew? Who told you, Aggie?” Nina paused but didn’t give him time to answer before she said, “It was the doc, huh? So I need to be worried that Zulik is gossiping about me? I know my brains don’t work for shit, Ewan, but I do seem to recall that there are some kind of laws about doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  There were rules, and there were ways around the rules. Nina’s sister, her last living relative, had signed over to Ewan Nina’s power of attorney, both medical and financial. She’d done it in exchange for a big credit transfer into her bank account with some extra added to guarantee that she would never try to contact Nina again unless Ewan gave her permission. Considering her part in Nina’s kidnapping, Patrice should count her blessings that she hadn’t ended up in prison right alongside Jordie Dev.

  “Let me guess,” Nina barked, again before Ewan had the chance to speak. “You’re keeping tabs on me to make sure I’m all right.”

  Her words dripped with contempt, and finally, Ewan couldn’t take any more.

  “Yes. You got it right. I’m the totally selfish prick who just keeps trying to do his best to keep you safe from harm. That’s me,” he shot back.

  “Why?” she cried. “What the hell happened to me that you feel so scratching guilty about? Why do you do this?”

  “Because I—” he began and cut off his words as cleanly as a cleaver through cake.

  Nina shook her fists at the sky, her face a twisted mask of anger and frustration. “What? Just tell me! I know there’s something wrong with me, I know something bad happened and it was more than a simple accident! Tell me!”

  On impulse, he hopped onto the rock next to her. There was barely enough room for them both, and it was slipperier than he’d expected. He teetered, arms pinwheeling, certain he was going to go headfirst into the rocky pool. Crack his skull.

  Nina caught him at the last second, her reflexes as fast as they’d ever been. She gripped his elbow with one hand and his jacket at the base of his throat with the other. She tugged him back from the precipice. They ended up chest-to-chest, face-to-face. A fine spray of mist dampened them as a wave came up. Ewan put his hands on her hips and pulled her close to him or pulled himself closer to her, he wasn’t sure what exactly was going on.

  She kissed him.

  At first, a brush of lips on lips, fleeting and delicate as the ocean’s spray. In fact, he could taste the salt on her lips a moment before they parted and his mouth was flooded with the rich, glorious flavor of her.

  It lasted only long enough for a rush of craving to rise inside him, stronger than the ocean itself. His hands tightened on her waist. His tongue stroked hers.

  Then it was over, and she’d shoved him hard enough to almost send him tumbling into the ocean, and she was hopping off the rock onto the soggy sand below.

  * * *

  Ewan had tasted like the sort of heaven Nina wondered if she’d ever believed in, but simply could not remember now. Furious with herself for the kiss, and at him for allowing it, she scrubbed at her lips with her stinging, injured palm. The metallic stink and taste of the drying blood could not chase away his flavor, so she spat to the side to try and get rid of it.

  “Nina!”

  “Leave me alone!” she said over her shoulder, wishing her voice would not crack and shake and break; wishing she could keep herself strong in front of him.

  “I’m not going to leave you alone, so you might as well stop,” Ewan shouted.

  With a low mutter, she faced him. The spray had dampened his hair and it spiked off his face when he ran a hand through it. She hated his face. Too handsome. He’d been too kind. She didn’t want to forgive him.

  She’d kissed him.

  “Don’t touch me,” she warned.

  Ewan shook his head. “I wasn’t going to.”

  Nina’s muscles trembled with tension. She didn’t go to her hands and knees this time, although she wanted to. She tensed, waiting for the voice in her head to start up, but it stayed mercifully silent.

  “Why do you come here, Ewan? To this island.”

  “Because I love it here,” he said quietly, his gaze never leaving hers.

  “I love it here, too.” She let her tongue press to the bottom of her lip. “But . . . I can’t stay here forever.”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t expect you to. Once you’re recovered, I know you’re going to leave.”

  “I’m never going to be fully recovered. I think we both know that. I’ll be without pain, or I’ll learn to live with the pain I have. I’ll manage, somehow, to work around the memory loss. But the docs all told me the same thing. It’s unlikely I’m ever going to be fully recovered.” Saying what she’d been thinking for the past month or so out loud was easier than she’d thought it would be. Hearing her own words gave them weight, somehow. Weight, but not fear.

  “Don’t,” Ewan began, but stopped himself at the look on her face. “Nina. You’re going to be fine.”

  She nodded. “Yes. I am. But I’m not ever going to be fully okay. And I can’t stay here forever, creating files from old data that I can see have no real value beyond busywork. To give me something to do with myself. But every time I think about leaving, it’s like everything inside me tries to . . . wants to . . .”

  “What?”

  “To die,” she told him bluntly. “When I think about leaving the island, I can feel the horror of it like a fist squeezing my heart. In every inch of me. And I wonder, Ewan, is it the island I am so terrified of leaving? Or is it something else?”

  In this gray light, his hazel eyes looked more green than blue. His gaze burned. He took a couple steps toward her, not close enough to touch.

  “Is it someone else?”

  “All I ever wanted was to help you,” he said.

  “Because you felt like it was your responsibility.” She drew in a long, slow breath, while all around them the wind and the sea crashed and moaned.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what really happened to me, Ewan.”

  He half-turned. “Nina . . .”

  “Tell me,” she urged. “What really happened to me? Was it really an accident?”

  “Someone hurt you,” Ewan said.

  A coldness burned along her veins. It concentrated in her temples. She stopped herself from pressing her fingers to the pain because she didn’t want him to see it. She straightened her spine and forced the question she didn’t want to ask, the one she still was desperate to know.

  “Was it you?”

  * * *

  “No!” Ewan recoiled at her question and took a few strides toward her. “No, Nina. It wasn’t me.”

  “I had to ask,” she said. “Because of the way you’ve taken on the blame and guilt. Because of how it feels when I look at you, and how it feels when I think about never seeing you again.”

  “If you thought I was the one who hurt you, why would you have kissed me?” Ewan took another step toward her.

  He wanted to take her in his arms, but didn’t dare.
He satisfied himself with putting himself close enough to her that she could kiss him again, if she wanted. Of course, that meant he was close enough that she could sock him in the jaw if she wanted, too. He’d have to be ready for that to happen. Hell, he knew he’d deserve that more than he would another kiss.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. It just happened.” Nina shook her head and put her fingers briefly to her lips before taking them away immediately, like his kiss had left her mouth feeling stung or sore. “I’m tired of not knowing the truth.”

  “Nina, the last thing in the world I want to do is lie to you. That is the truth.”

  “But you won’t tell me what happened?” She paused, looking at him as something like understanding glimmered in her eyes. “You . . . can’t?”

  Ewan nodded, hating this, all of it. What he wanted was to take her in his arms and kiss her until neither of them could breathe. He wanted to show her pics of them together, looking happy. In love. He wanted to tell her she was all he wanted for the rest of his life. She was all that mattered.

  “Why can’t you tell me? What would happen?”

  “You might get hurt worse than you already have,” he told her. “I can’t explain to you exactly why. I know that’s not a good enough answer, Nina. I’m sorry. All I can tell you is that your memories need to come back to you on their own, or else it could be really, really bad for you.”

  “Traumatic brain damage?” she asked him.

  “Yes. Or worse.”

  She pursed her lips. “I hear voices in my head. Sometimes it’s like scraps of conversations, sometimes it sounds like myself. Warning me. Or maybe not warning, maybe something else, more like trying to teach me something. Trying to get me to remember. My body reacts when that happens, kind of the way it does when I think about leaving. Zulik told me the mind and body are connected, that one can’t fully heal without the other. My body is healed, Ewan. Why isn’t my mind?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Nina moved closer to him. Now they stood less than an arm’s length apart. “Why did I kiss you? Do you know that?”