Her Miracle Man

by Karen Sandler

  He turned his back to her. “Cover up. You have to stay warm.”

  She dragged the thick comforter over her, pressing herself against the chair. Her jeans and sweater were in a pile beside the recliner, her bra and panties by the fire. Despite the blazing fire, she started shivering, teeth chattering.

  The man turned toward her again but kept his distance. Still, he seemed to loom over her, far too tall, his shoulders far too broad. His black hair brushed those wide shoulders. The hand he’d had resting against her stomach was frighteningly large.

  She clutched the comforter tightly. “What did you do to me?”

  “Rescued you.” He shoved those powerful hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You fell into the creek.”

  She pushed the heel of her hand into her forehead and felt the dampness of her hair. As she ran her fingers through the unruly mess, the smell of creek water teased her nostrils. “Yes. I remember now.” She shut down the instant replay her mind tried to offer. “Thank you.”

  “Sorry about your clothes, but I had to get you warm.” He said it so matter-of-factly, as if he stripped unconscious women every day of the week.

  Heat burned her cheeks. “Of course.”

  He took a step toward her, and she shrank back, fear coursing through her. But instead of drawing closer, he snagged a cushion from where she’d been lying by the fire and plopped it on the sofa.

  He settled onto the cushion. “What the hell were you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “I…” She scrubbed at her forehead again, shook her head.

  “That I don’t remember. I was just…here. Pouring rain. Looking for help. I saw a light off in the distance.”

  “That would have to be this place, since there’s no one else for miles around.” He stretched his arm along the back of the sofa. She could still feel the imprint of his hand against her skin. “I’m Jack Traynor, by the way.”

  He stared at her expectantly, waiting for her to offer her own name. But the only thing playing through her mind was an endless loop of her fall into the creek. She squeezed her eyes shut, willed the spiraling images to stop.

  “I’m…” She lifted her gaze to him, struggled to pull an answer from her still laboring brain. “I’m…”

  “Who are you?” he asked, as if the explicit question might produce better results.

  Tears pricked her eyes, tightened her throat. She could scarcely whisper her response. “I can’t remember.”

  Chapter Two

  “I can’t remember who I am.” She trembled, not from the cold anymore, but from rising panic. “I can’t picture my own face. I don’t even know what color my hair is.”

  She grabbed a handful, tried to pull it far enough forward to see. It was too short. She shook harder.

  He was on his feet and at her side so quickly she didn’t have time to be startled. He sank to the floor beside her, arms around her. She leaned back against his hard chest.

  “Calm down. Take a slow breath. I don’t want you going into shock.”

  Too overwhelmed by her loss of identity, she had no reserves left to be frightened by Jack. Instead his low voice rumbling in her ears soothed her, gave her strength. For the moment she let herself relax against him.

  “I might have a name for you,” he said. “Check your left ankle.”

  She poked her foot out from under the blanket. Raising her leg high enough to see, she made out “Mia” worked into the gold bracelet. “Is that my name?”

  “Is it?” he asked.

  She reached inside herself, groping through the emptiness for recognition. Her stomach lurched as her mind resisted. “It means nothing to me.”

  “I think we should assume it is.”

  Inwardly she rebelled against taking the alien name. But she had to call herself something. “I’m Mia, then.”

  He released her, shifting to face her, putting space between them. “Do you remember anything? Where you’re from? Your parents’ names? Brothers or sisters?”

  She shook her head at each query. Her mind seemed wiped clean, as if she’d been born the moment she’d awakened beside the fire.

  “Where were you born?” he asked. “What do you do for a living?”

  The most elemental pieces of a person’s life, yet she couldn’t summon even one answer for Jack. “I don’t know.”

  “What about your husband’s name?”

  “I’m not married.” That response came quickly, without thinking.

  Jack’s gaze narrowed, then dropped to her left hand clutching the comforter. Nothing on her ring finger, but still, he asked, “How can you be so sure when you remember nothing else?”

  “I’m not sure of anything.” She breathed deeply, wincing at a tug of pain in her side. “That hurts.”

  “You were pretty banged up by debris in the creek.”

  He would know. He’d seen her naked. At this point he knew her body better than she did. “I want to get dressed.” She sounded like a querulous child.

  “You just regained consciousness. I don’t want you getting up again.”

  “I can’t just sit here with nothing on.”

  “You’ve got the comforter to keep you warm.”

  Yet even with the voluminous comforter, she felt exposed and far too vulnerable. “I just want to put my clothes back on.”

  “They’re soaking wet.”

  She fought back tears. “Please,” she whispered.

  The slightest softness crept into his eyes. “Give me a minute. I’ll put dry clothes in the bathroom for you.”

  He helped her to her feet and settled her in the recliner. She sagged in the chair once he’d left, dropping her head in her hands. She’d feel much better after she’d showered and dressed. But then what would she do? She could ask Jack Traynor to take her someplace, if only she knew where that place might be.

  Hoping for distraction from her exhaustion, Mia looked around her. She’d never been inside a log home, seen how the interlocking timbers worked in the interior space. The vaulted beamed ceilings should have made the great room seem cavernous. But the grouping around the river-rock fireplace of sofa, recliner and side chair created a surprising coziness.

  Jack emerged from a hallway off the entryway and started toward her. “Wait. Let me help you.”

  But she didn’t want his hands on her again. Not because she was afraid of him. She just didn’t like how weak she felt without her clothes.

  She rose, clutching the thick covers tightly. She stumbled slightly with her first few steps as she fought for balance, but shook off his hand when he offered it. “I’m fine.”

  Still, he walked alongside her. “Are you dizzy? If you are, you’re lying down again, now.”

  “Not dizzy. Just a little tired.”

  He blocked the doorway of the bathroom before she could enter. “Did you hit your head when you fell? I couldn’t feel a bump, but I’m no doctor.”

  The thought of those hands on her scalp, fingers gently prodding, sent a prickling along her spine. “I don’t know.” She ran her fingertips through her hair, wincing at three separate sore spots. “Must have.”

  “But you can’t remember?”

  Was that suspicion in his tone? “You think I’m making this up?”

  He stared down at her, topping her by nearly a foot. He could be average height as far as she knew and she was just exceptionally short. But the way he seemed to dominate whatever space he occupied made her doubt that assessment.

  She had to know. “How tall are you?”

  Not a flicker of reaction in his face at the odd question. “Six-four.”

  “How tall am I?”

  He angled in close. Too close. Moved a measuring hand from the top of her head to an inch below his chin. “Maybe five-six.”

  “How old…” Her throat went dry. “How old do you think I am?” Why did it matter? She just felt compelled to fill in those crucial blanks.

  “Late twenties?”

  She nodded, tak
ing that in. “What’s the date?”

  She wondered at the grief in his eyes. “December fourteenth.”

  Her relief surprised her. “I think I knew that.” She smiled. “Only another week or so, then.”

  She heard a trace of anger in his tone. “Until what?”

  “Christmas. What else?”

  He shook his head, moving out of the bathroom doorway. “Go take your shower. Yell if you get into trouble.”

  She moved inside, locking the door and leaning against it. Releasing the comforter and afghan to pool around her ankles, she stepped free and turned to face the wide mirror over the double sink.

  God, she was skinny. Small breasts, hip bones sticking out, collarbone prominent. From her build, she seemed naturally thin, but her body seemed so spare, she wondered if she’d been sick. The red marks on her stomach and her legs just added to the generally unhealthy look of her. The two-inch-long scratch on her left arm was a lurid crimson against the too-pale skin.

  Staring at her body allowed her to delay focusing on her face. She wanted desperately to recognize herself, was terrified she wouldn’t. Nothing in the lines of her slender body brought enlightenment. She had no choice but to lift her gaze higher.

  A stranger looked back at her. Eyes a somber gray, hair dark brown, pasted to her skull where it wasn’t sticking out at crazy right angles. Cheeks nearly gaunt, adding to that underfed look. Was she anorexic?

  Tired of racking her brain for answers that it refused to produce, she turned from the mirror. Bending over carefully, wary of making herself dizzy, she unclasped the ankle bracelet. She started to put it on top of the vanity, but it crossed her mind she might knock it into the sink and down the drain. Opening a drawer, she dropped it inside.

  A second door in the bathroom led to the shower and commode. She closed that door, as well, glad to have an additional barrier of safety. That brought her up short for a moment, started her wondering why she thought she needed the extra protection.

  Jack had left a stack of clothes on the back of the commode—T-shirt, bright blue sweatshirt, matching sweatpants, white socks. Beside them he’d placed a three-pack of woman’s panties with a price sticker still on it. A wife’s or girlfriend’s? She’d seen no sign of anyone here but him. She smiled when she saw the neatly folded bra under the panties. A D cup. There was her proof he hadn’t taken a very good look at her. Her tiny breasts would never fill those roomy cups.

  Cranking the spigot as hot as it would go, she sat on the edge of the tub and considered a bath instead of a shower. Lying down would be easier than standing under the spray. But she felt nauseous at the thought of being submerged in water.

  Images suddenly overwhelmed her. Her body pounded, twisted and spun. A blow to her midsection, several to her legs. Deadfall in the water, he’d said. Yet even here, when she was perfectly safe, the fragmented memories filled her with fear.

  She couldn’t remember anything else of herself, her life, even how tall she was, for God’s sake. Yet those brief moments in the water dominated her brain, as if nothing else had happened to her before or since.

  With an effort she shook off the dark images as she positioned herself under the shower spray. And prayed she’d somehow get her life back.

  Jack brought in the last load of groceries from the truck and carried the two bags into the kitchen. Setting them beside the others on the black granite countertop, he listened for the sound of the shower. It had taken her a few minutes to turn the water on, so it had only been running for maybe five. Even using hot water, he doubted she’d want to be wet for very long.

  Unexpected images intruded in his mind—Mia’s body arched under the shower spray, hands running along her skin as she washed herself. Him pulling back the shower curtain, stepping inside to press a kiss against her throat, to run gentle fingers along the curve of her small breasts.

  He slammed a lid on his wayward thoughts as the shower shut off. What the hell was he thinking? When he’d undressed Mia, it had been awkward and embarrassing despite the necessity of his actions. With her unconscious—obviously in distress—his body had had no reaction to her nakedness. But with her awake, still unquestionably in distress but with some fight surfacing in her, he’d responded to her as he would any woman.

  Just a normal reaction, he told himself as he efficiently stowed groceries and supplies in the kitchen, garage freezer and pantry. Except for the fact that his libido had been in hiding for months now. Maybe a consequence of living in isolation too long, only venturing into the “real world” as needed for his engineering consulting business. Maybe because it was just simpler to avoid the entanglements of personal relationships. After Elizabeth’s death and the disaster of Joanna Sanchez, he had refused to let himself be vulnerable that way again.

  Whatever the reason, his attraction for Mia was entirely inappropriate. She needed someone to keep her safe for the night, not lust after her body. Hopefully, the weather would clear up enough so he could drive her into town tomorrow. They’d locate her car on the way out and arrange for a tow-truck driver. Likely as not her ID would be in the vehicle, as well. That might be enough to jog her memory.

  The two weeks’ worth of groceries put away, he laid out a box of linguini, jar of sauce and a pair of frozen chicken breasts. As he filled a pot with water for the pasta, he listened for sounds from the bathroom. The silence made him uneasy. Setting the pot on the stove and twisting on the gas, he crossed the great room to the hall. Ear pressed to the bathroom door, he strained to hear her moving inside.

  Nothing. “Mia?” he called out. No answer. “Mia!” he shouted.

  Still no response. Could she have stumbled getting out of the shower and hit her head? Or simply collapsed with exhaustion? Either way, she’d need his help.

  He pounded on the door, yelling out, “Mia, I’m coming in!” When she didn’t protest, he tried the knob, then grabbed the key he kept above the door on the edge of the molding.

  He let himself in, his first glance taking in his comforter in a mound on the floor and the closed door to the shower area. Maybe she hadn’t heard him yelling, knocking? Was she using the toilet?

  He shouted her name again, then knocked. His heart pounding in the silence, he turned the knob. The door caught on something—her legs. Through the six-inch crack, he could see her, dressed in Elizabeth’s sweatsuit, sitting on the closed toilet seat and leaning against the wall.

  When he nudged her with the door, she shifted her legs, making way for him even in her sleep. Relief surged through him that she hadn’t lost consciousness again. But she still slumped against the dividing wall, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

  He shook her shoulder, but she didn’t waken. She tried to turn away from him, her face scrunching like a petulant child’s. Obviously, she’d expended whatever energy her adrenaline had given her just showering and getting dressed. Although she probably needed to eat, for the moment it would be best to let her sleep.

  As he lifted her carefully, he noticed the bra on the back of the toilet. He’d known Elizabeth hadn’t been anywhere near Mia’s size. Why had he given it to her? Because Mia without a bra gave him far too much to think about. Especially now with her pressed against his chest, warm and relaxed in his arms. His soap and shampoo smelled different on her, more floral, enigmatic.

  Ignoring the intriguing fragrance, he carried Mia to the guest room and laid her on one side of the queen-size bed. Hurrying around the bed, he pulled back the covers, then transferred her carefully. As he arranged the sheet and comforter over her, she barely stirred, just snuggled deeper into the pillow.

  Returning to the kitchen to turn off the stove, he paced the room trying to figure out what to do next. Ordinarily on a Sunday evening, he’d catch up on reading his technical magazines, watch a little television, maybe tinker with one of the electronic toys he created as a hobby. Knowing he had errands to run today, he’d had a long visit via Web cam with William Franklin yesterday. For the past six months Jack had been men
toring William, a boy as scary brilliant at age eight as Jack himself had been.

  Of course, this wasn’t an ordinary Sunday evening. Not with the anniversary looming, with all the pain and grief that went with it. Ten days away, he still had fair control of his emotions, but the memories had started chewing at his insides. Maybe the distraction Mia provided wasn’t so bad.

  Grabbing a stack of magazines from the great room, he moved back toward the guest bedroom. It wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on her until she woke again. She might need something, and he might not hear her call out if he was in the great room or his office. He could read in the guest room as well as he could anywhere else.

  Sliding the two months’ worth of a half-dozen magazines onto the nightstand, he scooted an armchair from the corner toward the bed. She’d turned in her sleep so that she faced him, her lips parted slightly, her cheeks showing more color than when he’d first placed her beside the hearth.

  He remembered watching Elizabeth sleep. In those early days, after he’d taught his last class at U.C. Berkeley, he’d work so late at the lab he leased in Oakland she would be in bed when he got home. He was on strict orders to wake her and usually he did, as eager as she for time together. But sometimes he sat on the edge of the bed in their cramped Berkeley apartment and listened to her breathe, watching her chest rise and fall, guessing at her dreams.

  He’d thought they’d have decades together, not seven short years. If he’d known, he would have held her tighter, told her more often he loved her.

  Mia let out a long sigh, drawing his attention to the pixie haired stranger. If he were one to always look for symbolism and significance as Elizabeth had been, he might have interpreted Mia’s sudden appearance in his life as auspicious, rather than mere coincidence. Maybe even a message from Elizabeth herself, dug from his subconscious.

  But five years after her death, there was only one message he would welcome. It was all a mistake, love. I’m still alive.