by Kait Nolan
“Amnesia, huh?” said the doctor, looking at the chart.
Not knowing what else to do, he nodded.
The doctor shone a light in his eyes and ordered blood tests and a CT scan. He was formally admitted to the hospital. Sometime after the scan and while still waiting for the results of the blood tests, the cops showed up to interview him. He was thankful he wasn’t still in the damned hospital gown.
Neither officer seemed particularly inclined to believe him. He guessed in Vegas they saw all kinds of weird shit and people who wanted to forget who they really were. That was supposed to be the point of Vegas, wasn’t it? They asked questions. He repeated himself a lot. They got annoyed when he gave them no answers. Eventually they took his fingerprints—and weren’t they fucking lucky that those hadn’t been burned away?—and left.
He slept fitfully, off and on, exhaustion tugging him under despite the rock hard exam bed. Hours later, after the tox screen came back negative and the CT scan had verified that there was nothing physically abnormal with his brain, another woman showed up with two cups of lousy coffee in her hands. She was older, with streaks of silver shooting through her dark brown hair. A well-used leather briefcase hung over one shoulder of her black pantsuit, which hung wilted on her slightly plump frame.
“I’m Alice Graham,” she said, handing him one Styrofoam cup. “I’m with the Clark County Department of Social Services. Have you eaten?”
The irritated grumble of his stomach answered that.
“C’mon, we’ll hit the cafeteria.”
Not until they sat at a table in the mostly empty cafeteria with plates of questionable spaghetti did she pull a file out of the briefcase by her chair. She slid the plain manila folder across the table.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“According to your fingerprints, you.”
He stared down at the folder, suddenly uncertain whether he really wanted to know who he was. What if he was a criminal with a record longer than his arm? What if he was in massive debt? What if he was some deadbeat dad who’d run out on paying child support and alimony?
When he looked up at Alice again, she was gazing at him with sympathy. It occurred to him that if he was in real trouble, they’d have sent the cops back instead of a social worker. So he opened the folder.
The page on top read MISSING. The boy pictured looked out of a sober, unsmiling face. A shaggy mop of brown hair fell over blue eyes. Beneath the picture he read Cade Shepherd, Age: 8, Disappeared: August 9, 1985. He waited for the zing of recognition, the trickle of a memory. Anything that would connect him to this boy. But he felt nothing.
He looked back up at Alice.
“You’ve been missing for fifteen years, Cade.”
The name didn’t feel any more familiar as it tripped off of her tongue.
When he didn’t make any move to page further through the folder, Alice continued. “You’re from Tennessee originally. Memphis.”
That explained the accent.
“You disappeared from a hospital there right after your mother passed away.”
His mother had died in a hospital. He should feel something at that, but he didn’t. That would explain why he hated hospitals.
Cade roused himself to speak. “How did she die?”
Alice paused as if gauging whether to tell him. “She was admitted with the kind of severe trauma consistent with being beaten.”
“By my father?”
“Are you remembering?”
“Guessing.”
“Records indicate he was probably abusive. There was a child services record on you. It’s all in the file.”
“Where is he now?”
“He died eight years ago. Lung cancer.”
There was a distant, grim satisfaction in that. “Any family?”“he asked.
“No siblings. We’re still looking to see if there’s any extended family, but it doesn’t look like it. There’s an attorney in New Orleans, where your father relocated. His number is in the file too. I spoke with him briefly this afternoon. There’s a small inheritance, maybe enough to help you get back on your feet. Assuming you need help getting back on your feet. You may remember everything tomorrow or next week.”
“They don’t know what’s wrong with me,” said Cade.
“It’s called a dissociative fugue. It’s a rare, temporary form of amnesia where you’ve blocked out everything about your personal identity. It’s usually brought on by some form of traumatic stress. God only knows where you’ve been the last fifteen years or what you went through. It should clear up in a matter of days or weeks.”
“And if it doesn’t?” he asked.
She tipped her head, studying him. “Some people would give anything for this kind of blank slate. This is your opportunity to turn yourself into whoever you want to be. I’d make the most of it.”
Chapter 2
Stadium seating rose high on either side of the steep concrete steps. Embry paused at a landing, ostensibly to check the row number nearby and swept her gaze over the cavernous space. Almost every seat was filled. Not surprising given that this was the last fight of the evening. In the center of the coliseum, she’d expected to see something like a boxing ring. Similar to what they had in the training areas at headquarters when they weren’t just doing mat work. But here there was an eight-sided platform, surrounded by black chain-link fencing, with some kind of thick padding on the railing. A cage. It reminded her of Mad Max, except that it was only about five feet tall.
Two men enter, one man leaves.
All around her people milled, talking in excited voices, making their way through all the sets of double doors that led into the arena. Everyone was focused on the fight to come.
Embry was focused on one of the fighters. He smiled, bigger than life on the screen of the Jumbotron hanging above.
Someone jostled her and she started moving again, down, down, down the steps, being careful not to stumble in the too high heels—how do other women wear these without breaking an ankle?—all the way to the front row. Right beside the cage so he couldn’t help but see her. He wouldn’t know her. That was the nature of the spell. But he would see her, and he was a man, after all. She’d dressed to appeal in a sexy black dress with an abbreviated hemline and a plunging neckline that accentuated her cleavage. Judging by the looks and leers she gathered from the predominantly male attendees in the seats nearby, she’d hit the mark.
She sat and tried to cross her legs, but that caused the short skirt to ride up into Hey, I’m for sale territory, so she tugged it back down and turned her eyes to the handbill she’d been clutching like a lifeline since she’d walked into the building.
As last season’s winner of The Ultimate Fighter, Cade Shepherd was the favorite for tonight’s fight. He was bulkier now, the picture showing muscular arms crossed over a broad chest, and a face that held none of the boyishness she remembered. He looked, quite simply, like what he’d been trained to be—a warrior. She found it interesting that he’d fallen into life as a fighter even though his memory had been stripped from him.
They called him The Shadow. And isn’t that ironic, thought Embry, tracing a light finger over the barely quirked lip that suggested he thought so too—or would if he remembered what he was.
She shifted her focus to the openings beneath the stands where the fighters would emerge. One to the left, one to the right. There was an excitement in the air, an electricity that crawled along her skin. It was a mixture of the crowd’s thirst for violence and her own sense of urgency, held ruthlessly in check.
There’s not much time.
As if in response to her thought, the announcer began to speak. “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome back to UFC Fight Night! It’s time for the main event! Please welcome our first competitor, weighing in at two hundred and fifteen pounds and six feet, one inch tall, from right here in New Orleans, Louisiana—” He rattled off a list of titles that didn’t mean anything to her. “—Cade ‘The Shadow’ Shepherd
!”
Embry was only vaguely aware of the music playing, the crowd roaring. He came in from the left, dressed in a pair of boxing trunks, crossing right in front of her. And suddenly everything inside her went still. Oh God. He really was here, and he really was alive. Whole. She’d known it in an academic sense since Matthias had told her. Trusted it enough to conceive of this plan, the success of which depended on Cade. But it wasn’t the same as seeing him in the flesh mere feet away. Part of her thought it was a trick. A horrible diversion meant to keep her from breaking protocol and going against orders.
Relief and fury tangled inside her, an emotional maelstrom that threatened to burst into something hot and alive and very much out of place in a human crowd. Embry willed him to turn his head, to look at her. But he was utterly focused, controlled, as he’d always been during training. It was a skill she’d struggled to emulate back then. Well, she could remain focused and controlled too. She pulled the emotion tight inside her and locked it deep.
He went into the cage and the world snapped back to life. She missed everything the announcer said about Richard Archer except for the fact that he hailed from Iowa. Whereas Archer bounced on his feet, throwing a few test punches at the air like a boxer, Cade—she still couldn’t get used to the name—stood almost tranquil in his corner. He rolled his massive shoulders and popped his neck, all the while those glacier chip eyes followed his opponent. Both fighters walked to the center of the cage and listened as the referees spoke to them, presumably going over rules and asking for a clean fight. When they finished, the contenders bumped fists briefly and stepped back. The extra people in the cage backed out.
And then with the ding of a bell, the fight began.
The pair circled each other like wary animals. Archer, practically vibrating with adrenaline, made the first move, a lightning fast right cross that Cade evaded by bobbing back and slamming a roundhouse into the other man’s side. And just like that, the study period was over and fists were flying. Archer landed maybe one punch for every three of Cade’s, his face darkening with effort and frustration as Cade continued to dodge and strike. Moving, always moving.
And God could he move. He had always been able to move. That had been part of the attraction. Now he was better. Good. That would be good, Embry thought. She’d need those skills.
Cade landed an open-handed strike against Archer’s sternum. The blow knocked the other man back, but only for a second. He dove toward Cade like a freight train, tackling him around the middle and taking them both to the mat. Cade wrapped his powerful legs around his opponent’s waist and struggled to get him into an arm bar. They rolled, a human pretzel, Archer still trying to get Cade into any kind of solid hold. Then, in a move fluid as water, Cade got the upper hand, reversing their positions until he could strike at Archer’s head.
The bell rang, signaling the end of the round, and the refs separated the fighters.
Archer stumbled to his corner in a way that made Embry certain he had a concussion. Cade accepted a bottle of water from someone on the sidelines and stared into the ring. His expression was fierce and searching, but something in his face made her think it wasn’t totally about the fight. She knew that face, the barely leashed rage underneath. It was how he’d looked the last time she’d seen him. When he’d been trying to protect her.
* * *
The bell rang.
Round Two.
Archer shook his head like a big bull preparing to charge. Cade could see the sequence unfold in his mind. Archer rushing forward, aiming for another grapple. Missing and swinging with a powerful left. But the left would be off, just slightly down from his aim. And that would be his mistake.
It was always like that for him, always had been. Though Cade could remember nothing about his life before waking up in that motel room ten years ago, he had some bone-deep understanding that he had been fighting all his life. He never felt closer to opening up the secrets of his past than when he was in the ring, and striving for that elusive key had become an addiction for him.
Cade raised his fists, keeping them tight and close as Archer rushed him. He stepped to the side, hands opening, ready when the other man swung, placing his arm right into Cade’s hands. Cade swiveled, using Archer’s momentum to bring him up, up, and over in a bruising throw across the mat. Archer landed with an agonized grunt. Cade should have followed, should have moved in for grappling, but he stopped dead in the middle of the cage as he saw the woman in the front row.
He didn’t know her. Didn’t recognize the high cheekbones or the lush, kiss-me-’til-dawn mouth. Couldn’t conjure up a name. But her dark, serious eyes met his through the chain-link, and something inside him just stopped.
Pain exploded in his skull as Archer landed a solid punch to his temple. Cade reeled backward, struggling to pull his focus back to the fight. Archer tackled him, and the cage rattled as they made impact. The arena spun, and he fought for breath against the chokehold Archer had around his throat. The bastard wanted a tap-out.
Fuck that.
Cade closed his eyes, bringing the fight and their positions into his mind, following the sequence of events, watching as they rolled, until he saw the opening he needed. He shifted, pushing with his powerful legs until Archer was beneath him, on his back. Gripping the other man’s arm, he managed to wrench it away from his throat. With a twist and a flip, Cade had him in a solid arm bar.
He hauled back, a hairsbreadth from popping Archer’s shoulder out of socket. Cade had to hand it to him. The bastard lasted a full eighteen seconds before his other hand tapped the mat three times.
The crowd went wild. Cade and Archer got to their feet, shook hands. Then the ref raised Cade’s arm as the winner, and he got half dragged on parade before the audience. His attention wasn’t on them, wasn’t on the belt he was presented. He was looking for her.
She was no longer in her front row seat. His eyes scanned the aisles, searching for a flash of reddish hair. But he couldn’t see much past the first few rows. The lights on the ring were far too bright. She was probably gone.
Because he had to, Cade went through the motions, giving interviews, discussing the fight with his coach, turning down invites from fans and other fighters to go out and hit Bourbon Street, until finally he made it back to the locker room. He just wanted to clean up and get the hell out to his favorite watering hole where he was a person rather than a star.
You just wanna sulk, Shepherd. Because the woman left before you could say boo to her.
Cade ran the soap over his body, washing off the sweat and blood of the match beneath the scalding spray of the shower.
It wasn’t like people usually stuck around after a fight unless they knew him. That was just proof that she hadn’t actually known him from Before. And wasn’t that a damn shame? Because for that fleeting moment in the ring, he’d thought he felt a connection.
No matter how much he enjoyed the life he’d built for himself, the man he’d made himself, that had been one of his secret hopes in all the years he’d been doing this—that someone would see him at a fight or on TV and say I know you. That they’d come forward and erase the gaps. Because time sure as hell hadn’t. Some of the holes from his early childhood he’d managed to fill in. None of it was pretty. But he hadn’t actually, honest-to-God remembered a goddamned thing from before that night he woke up in Nevada.
He shut off the water. Shoving his dripping hair back from his face, Cade reached for the towel he’d hung outside the shower. As his hand closed over terry cloth, a voice said, “I think you dropped this.”
He ripped back the curtain so fast, it tore off half the rings.
She stood there, one hip cocked, as if she had every right to be in the private locker room. Her dark eyes raked over him in frank appraisal and obviously liked what they saw. Cade jerked the towel from her hand and slung it around his waist before stepping forward into her personal space, a conscious intimidation. “Who the hell are you?”
Her lips curve
d in a flirtatious smile. “A fan.” She dragged one finger through the moisture still beading on his chest, then licked the droplet off.
A blast of heat blew through him. He rode the sensation, and the hands at his sides curled into fists to keep from grabbing her. “What do you want?”
She tipped her head to the side. “I thought I’d invite the winner out for a drink. To celebrate.”
Though the smile never wavered, something in her eyes told him this was more than some gutsy woman trying to score a date with the man of the hour. There was potency, a seriousness that belied her flirtatious tone.
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you know me?” He wondered if she heard the urgency beneath his words?
She blinked, surprise flickering in her eyes. They weren’t purely brown as he’d originally thought. A band of amber circled her iris, almost like a sunburst. “Of course,” she said, tossing her auburn hair. “You’re Cade Shepherd.”
“No, I . . . Never mind.” He turned away from her, walking over to the locker where he’d left his things. It was too much to hope that this woman actually knew him. Anything he thought he’d read in her eyes was just wishful thinking.
She watched him without a word as he finished toweling off and dressing. In the mirror he caught a flash of uncertainty on her face.
Rethinking your little game, princess?
By the time he finished packing up his gear, she had her confidence back.
“So how ’bout it, handsome? Let me help you celebrate your win.”
Cade was on the verge of blowing her off. Just leaving her here and going on about his business. Then he looked at her again and was caught, as he had been in the ring. What was it about this woman? If he walked away from her now, he’d probably never get another shot to find out.
He let his lips curve in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
Chapter 3
