by Rita Herron
“What does that have to do with me?”
“The memories are of you, Megan. Of us.”
She lost her breath. “What? That’s impossible.”
“We didn’t have an affair?”
“No. I told you that already.” Her voice took on a hard edge. “I never cheated on my husband.” She pointed to the door, but he didn’t budge.
“I’m sorry, Meg. I had to ask.” He gripped her arm. “But last night I had a memory of being in a boat. Of landing on the shore. I know this sounds crazy, but the memories were so real.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
His words were measured. “I think I may be Tom.”
Chapter Seven
Megan stared at Cole in shock. “What did you say?”
“I think I might be Tom.” He hesitated, then reached for her hand but Megan jumped up, nearly knocking the chair over in her haste to get away from him.
“Tom is dead…” Her voice shook as she backed against the wall. “I buried him, you were there, you saw them lower him into the grave—”
“I know. But—”
“No.” Her pulse raced. She had to escape from this man. Was he crazy? Who was he and what did he want with her? “I think you’d better leave.”
“Just hear me out, Megan.”
“Why are you doing this? Why would you come here and tell me something like that?” Her voice rose, anger mingling with fear. “What kind of sick game are you playing?”
“I swear I’m not trying to hurt you or play games.” Cole raked a hand through his hair, the scar on his forehead a reminder of his recent accident. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”
She gathered her nerves, forcing herself not to react to the lost look in his eyes. Could he possibly be sincere?
“I told you I had an accident a few weeks ago. At the funeral, I remember having this strange feeling that I’d had my wreck the same day your husband was reported missing. At first I thought I was suffering from survivor guilt or something like that, but now…”
Megan watched him massage his temple, but she remained silent. He sounded coherent, not crazy. “Go on.”
“Then when we met, I had this flash. An image that we had been together before.” He shook his head slightly. “I had some of the same images yesterday when I brought you home.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I told you I was suffering from head trauma, that I’d lost my memory. And that’s true, but occasionally I get these quick flashes.”
“You met Tom when you came for an interview. He must have told you some things about me.”
“That’s what I thought at first.” He stood, jamming his hands in his hair again. “After my surgery, the doctors at CIRP told me I was Cole Hunter. They gave me a cottage to live in and said I’d come here to work with Tom. But I don’t remember anything about growing up as Cole Hunter.”
“You remember growing up as Tom?”
“No.” He paced to the bay window, stared out at the small back yard. “But I’m pretty sure I’m not the man they say I am. I checked the Oakland Research Center’s Web site, and found an article Cole Hunter had written. It was dated over twenty years ago.”
“But—”
“Don’t you see, Megan. If I were Cole Hunter, I would have been a teenager when I’d started working with them. You and I both know that’s impossible.”
“But maybe there’s two Cole Hunters, maybe he was your father—”
“No, I checked that, too. On the file Jones gave me, my father’s name is listed as George.”
“But if the man I buried wasn’t Tom, who was he?”
“I don’t know.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “All I know is that the memories I do have are of you. I know things about you, about your life here with Tom.”
Megan’s breath caught.
“You have a brass bed with a dark green comforter. You like Jasmine, and your favorite flowers are daisies. You like daisies because the two of you were in a field of daisies the first time you made love.”
A shudder coursed through Megan, the uneasiness intensifying as he continued.
“I had flashbacks last night of going to a cove to meet some man. I…I don’t know who it was, but I sensed I was in danger. Then someone shot me.”
Megan frowned. “Tom wasn’t shot. He—”
“He drowned. And I remember being pulled out to sea, but I was shot first.” He cleared his throat. “The report said the man you buried—”
“Tom. It was Tom.”
Cole simply stared at her, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “The man you buried had been in the water so long he wasn’t recognizable.”
Megan swallowed, dread knotting her stomach. Where was his logic heading?
“What if our bodies were somehow mixed up at the hospital? Our records maybe.”
“But Tom’s body had been in the water for several weeks. Weren’t you hospitalized right after your accident?”
His eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Right. Then the records couldn’t have been accidentally mixed up because we wouldn’t have been admitted at the same time.” He angled his head, raised his scarred hand, his voice low when he spoke again. “Which means that if I am Tom, the center knows it and they purposely gave me another identity.”
“But you don’t look like Tom.”
He placed his hands on the sides of his face. “I had plastic surgery. This face isn’t even mine.”
Megan sank into the chair. The secrets Tom had rose to taunt her. The files she’d found. The nagging feeling she’d had all along that his death hadn’t been accidental.
The little things Cole Hunter had said and done that had reminded her of Tom. The way he’d stroked her hand that day. Was he telling the truth?
Could he possibly be her husband?
A part of her wanted to believe that this man was Tom, that some bizarre twist of fate had sent him back to her to give them a second chance. Like one of the angels in her collection that had come to life.
But part of her sensed he wasn’t Tom. He had a mysterious aura about him. He was too powerful. Too intense. Too darkly male.
And how could she trust him?
Besides, why would the center do something so horrible to Tom, one of their valuable doctors?
April’s warning rang in her head. What if the center had put Cole up to this crazy story to see if she knew anything about Tom’s work? Tom could have told someone at the center more about their life together than she’d realized. And what if he knew about her room because he’d been in it the other night?
“YOU WERE IN MY ROOM the other night?”
“No. I’ve never been in your room. I’m telling you the truth.”
“But why in the world would the people at the research center lie to you?” Megan asked, still unconvinced. “If you were Tom, why wouldn’t they tell you? Tell us?”
He sighed, frustration clawing at him. He knew this was a shocker to her, but he was just as confused. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”
Megan shook her head, as if the questions were piling up, one on top of the other. He understood the overwhelming feeling.
He glanced at the box of Tom’s files. “Do you have any idea what he might have been working on the last few months?”
Again Megan shook her head. “He didn’t confide in me about his work. But he had been secretive about it.”
Distrust colored her eyes. Had Tom been secretive about the rest of his life, too?
She obviously wasn’t ready to divulge the details of her marriage or her problems with him. She probably thought he belonged in the ward with her patients.
Or one of his patients. Tom’s.
Her blue eyes pleaded with him to stop this bizarre train of thought. But he couldn’t. “Megan, I have to know who I am and figure out what’s going on. When I had the flashback last night, I remembered something else.”
She froze, stiffeni
ng as his hand brushed hers. “What?”
He clasped her hand in between his, then traced his finger over her palm and drew a heart in the center. She flinched, recognizing the gesture.
But he couldn’t sugarcoat the truth. Her life might depend on it. “I sensed you were in danger. That whoever had come after me, whoever killed Tom, is going to come after you next.”
He paused, hating the fear in her eyes, but knowing he had to warn her. “Tom was planning on betraying them somehow. They’ll kill you if they suspect you know what Tom had planned to do on the night he died.”
“What did he plan to do?” Megan asked.
“I…I don’t know. I think he was meeting someone, but I have no idea who.”
She clasped her hands together as a bone-chilling coldness settled inside her. “I don’t know what to believe. Tom loved his work. He was so dedicated, but…”
He took the chair beside her and pulled her hands into his lap. His were warm, big, strong, comforting.
But she shouldn’t be comforted by this man. Not unless he was Tom. And if there was any truth to his bizarre story, Tom had lied to her. Had put her in danger.
Her head swam with questions. With uncertainty and fear.
“But what, Megan?”
“I…I sensed something was wrong the last few weeks. He seemed uptight, even at work. But…”
“But what?”
“But I thought he was troubled because of us.” Her voice rasped out. “Because of me.”
A frown puckered the skin between his eyes. When he spoke, his voice sounded low. Soothing. “You were having problems?”
She nodded slowly, tears pricking at her eyes. “He had moved out for a while. But we were going to try to work out things.” Her gaze rose to meet his. “But if you were Tom, you’d know this.”
“It’s the amnesia. Most of the time my memory is like a big black hole.” He stroked her hands gently. “I want, I need for you to trust me, Megan. Whether or not I am Tom, I’m not going to hurt you. I need your help, though.”
She swallowed. Licked her dry lips. Ached for him to make this fear go away.
But she could not lean on this man. Not when she had no idea who he was or if he was telling the truth. But if he was Tom, if there was some chance he had survived and come back to make their marriage work—
“You do want to find out what really happened to your husband, don’t you?”
She nodded, biting down on her lip. She had to know the truth. But what if he wanted to steal Tom’s work? No, CIRP had brought him here.
“Then help me get into Tom’s files. Maybe if I know what he was working on, it’ll help me understand what happened. What I’m doing here as Cole Hunter.” He squeezed her hands gently. “Maybe then I can figure out who I really am. And why the research center would lie to me about my identity.”
She nodded again, knowing she had to help him, had to go along. Only then would she know if the man she buried was her husband, or if by the grace of God, he had come back to rekindle their love.
And if Tom wasn’t alive, she needed to know what had happened to him. And why this stranger made her want to forget her failed marriage and fall into his arms.
Megan didn’t completely believe him. Cole couldn’t blame her. He didn’t quite believe he was her husband, either. But he couldn’t fathom any other explanation for the fact that he had memories of being with her. That he knew things about her he wouldn’t normally know unless he had been intimate with her.
Like the fact that she had a tiny mole on the inside of her upper thigh.
That image had come unbidden to him when he’d been rubbing her hands. He’d remembered stroking other places as well, secret sensitive places that had his body harden just to think about. Whispery touches that she had loved. Places he ached to touch again.
Yet he had no right.
He shifted, his leg throbbing, and thanked her when she set the box of files in front of him. He rummaged through them, glancing through the typed notes of old research material, taking more time on the recent files.
“Did you already look through this?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you see anything odd?”
Megan hesitated. “Actually yes. In one file, I found notes on two of Tom’s patients he’d been treating with an experimental drug. He made notes about adverse reactions and suggested they be taken off the drug.”
“Why did that seem suspicious?”
“Because someone else vetoed his suggestion. That was odd in itself. Then both patients died. It looked as if there might have been a third patient, but the information on him had been deleted.”
“Tom always kept thorough notes?”
Megan nodded. “Some of the data has actually been whited out.”
He arched a brow in question. “That does sound suspicious.”
“There’s something else.”
He waited calmly, knowing it was difficult for her to trust him.
“I don’t recall either patients’ names or any mention of them at the research center. I think the experiments might have been conducted on Nighthawk Island. He also referenced the project with a code name, M-T.”
“Do you know what that stands for?”
“I have no idea.”
“Then let’s go to the center and see what we can find out.”
“Let me change into my uniform. I’ll be ready in a minute.” Megan stood and brushed down her shirt. “You realize they won’t like us probing into classified projects.”
“Yes, I do.” Cole caught her hand, a shimmer of electricity shooting through him. Her wary gaze met his. “Megan, listen, I appreciate your help. And I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Megan simply stared at him, an emptiness in her eyes that tore at him, as if she still questioned his story. But he promised himself he would keep her safe.
Even if it meant staying away from her himself.
HE CRUSHED THE CIGARETTE butt in the empty foam cup, then wrapped his fist around the flimsy silk of her panties and fisted it in his left hand, the other cradling his cell phone to his ear. Birds twittered across the sky and the sun stretched in the corner, rising like a cheerful welcome sign. He felt anything but cheerful. “Hunter’s at Megan’s house again.”
“What the hell is he doing there?”
“I have no idea. But I don’t like it. It’s barely even daylight.”
“You know, they may have some kind of connection. Something we hadn’t figured on.”
Damn right they hadn’t.
“What are they doing?”
He strained to see through the front window, his palms sweating when he saw Cole Hunter sitting at Megan’s kitchen table, his hands clasped with hers, their heads bowed close together. “I don’t know. Talking, I guess.”
Although the situation looked way too intimate to him.
Damn. Memories of last night rolled through his mind. Another evening with another woman. One who’d tried to satisfy his appetite with her own voracious one.
Only she wasn’t the woman he wanted.
He crushed the cigarette in an empty coffee cup.
The one he wanted was sitting in her house with another man. A man with a new face and a mind that should be focused on work as it had always been.
A man who should have died but who had miraculously come back to life.
Because they had let him.
A man he would have to kill if he started probing too much into Cole Hunter’s life. Or the center’s work on Nighthawk Island.
Chapter Eight
Megan spent the morning doing routine patient care, administering meds, and assessing two incoming patients, one a firemen suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome after a recent explosion at a local state building, the other a possible bipolar disorder. Ready for a coffee break, she slipped into the lounge. April sat at one of the round laminated tables with a coffee and an early lunch, a stack of files piled in front of
her.
Megan poured herself a cup of coffee, added sweetener, then took a seat on the loveseat, exhausted. “How’s Daryl Boyd?”
April pinched the bridge of her nose. “Quiet. Not very communicative.”
“Maybe I’ll check on him later.”
April nodded, and turned to face her. “So, did you get that rental car, Meg?”
Megan nodded. “Yes.”
“Did you take a taxi or what?”
“Actually Dr. Hunter gave me a lift to the rental car office.”
April frowned. “I didn’t realize he lived near you.”
Megan hesitated. Then again, April was her best friend. They usually discussed everything. She had even confided her marital problems with April a few months back, and April had offered advice. “He doesn’t. He came over to ask me some things about Tom’s work.”
“Oh. What kinds of things?”
“He thought I might know about Tom’s latest research projects. You know he’s supposed to be taking over Tom’s patients. And he was working in a similar area back in Oakland.”
“I see.” April tore off a bite of her bagel sandwich and nibbled on it. “What did you tell him?”
Was it her imagination or was April asking a lot of questions today? “Nothing. You know Tom didn’t discuss his private research with me.”
“He took the confidentiality thing seriously, didn’t he?”
“Absolutely.”
“No wonder you two had problems. Couples should be honest with one another.”
Megan didn’t comment. April was right, but she had respected Tom’s privacy. Maybe too much. Now she wished she had known more. Had asked more, at least about his work.
April swirled the coffee in her cup. “Something about that Dr. Hunter seems off, Meg.”
Megan clinched her jaw. “I know. He makes me feel uncomfortable.”
“Maybe you should stay away from him,” April suggested. “Connie said that he’s not taking patients. That he was in some kind of accident and Jonesy—”
Megan chuckled; she couldn’t believe April called the prestigious doctor that name. But they both recognized Davis Jones as a player and neither intended to feed his overinflated ego.
