Get a grip on yourself, he ordered, but the command fell on deaf ears, especially as the American faced him again, her expression as full of light and life as the Aegean itself.
“Francesca,” he whispered, stepping toward her.
Chapter Three
Warning bells weren’t merely ringing in Fran’s ears, they were klaxon-blaring for a three-alarm fire. How had Ari gone from disarming candor and grins to the intensity that now set his face into almost a scowl?
And why didn’t she know anything about this man she was supposed to buddy-up with for an indeterminate amount of time, other than his name and position? She’d known more about her PTSD study participants, and they’d never looked at her like this!
Even as she scrambled for something to say, Ari stopped, his body going rigid for a long moment as he studied her face.
“I’ve frightened you,” he said abruptly. “I’m sorry.”
Fran stopped herself from immediately crying out “no!” though that was her first impulse. The truth was Ari had been about to overstep, to push pass some invisible line in the sand, and until she figured out exactly what she was dealing with in this man she couldn’t afford to let that happen.
He wasn’t her patient, no. But he was someone’s patient. He was hurt, vulnerable. And she needed to respect that. Not give into her own pathetic impulses because an incredibly gorgeous man had stared at her with such an overpowering yearning that her knees went weak.
Oh-kay. Deep breaths.
She realized Ari was waiting for her to speak, and she gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. I’m feeling a little marooned here and I’ve been on the island barely one afternoon. It must be much more difficult for you, with so many questions left unanswered.” She scanned the protected grove curiously. “How is it the wind is so much calmer here?”
“The trees help. And this grotto is set into the rocks.”
As soon as he spoke the words Ari winced and took a step back, his hand going once more to his temple. Fran could have kicked herself as she moved quickly toward him. She wasn’t trying to make him recall facts of his former life, she was asking questions. The same way any tourist would ask questions of a native.
But this native had lost a good portion of his memory, and the strands of his past were tangled up so thickly there was no telling which led to an easily-recalled piece of information, and which to an area riddled with pain.
Clearly, she’d touched on the latter.
“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t ask so many questions. It’s a terrible habit of mine, one I’ve always had...” Her words dropped into a soothing patter as she helped Ari to the bench beneath the trees, the space warmed by the sun and protected from the worst of the wind which, as Ari had said, was deflected by a thick stone wall she now saw. He grimaced, both hands pressed to his head, but he let her sit him down and take his hands in hers.
They shook, she realized. Not violently, but with a tremor that didn’t stop even when she clasped them tight.
“Ryker, are you in pain?” She peered into his face, which he’d tucked in tight to his chest, his muscled shoulders now shaking as well. “I can—I can go get help.”
“No,” Ari gritted out, and his head came up then, his eyes almost wild until they found hers. His hands shifted and she firmed her grip on them, the fury of their trembling not subsiding. But his gaze was steadier as she met it, and she willed every ounce of strength she had into him as she waited for him to continue.
“No,” he said again, more slowly this time. “Please, don’t call for help, or ask for a doctor, or tell anyone about this if you don’t mind. It’ll stop—soon.” His eyelids drooped and his brow knotted as he appeared to focus intently. “It always does.”
Fran longed to reach out to Ari’s forehead, to wipe away the trickle of sweat that creased over his brow, but she said nothing—did nothing but hold his hands tightly and regulate her own breathing, drawing in air slowly and steadily, pushing it out in a calming cadence. Eventually, by plan or chance, the rhythm of Ari’s breathing found and matched her own. She saw the tension loosen first in his shoulders, then his brow…then, finally, his hands.
His eyes flickered open and he spoke a word in Garronois, then seemed to recall himself. “Sorry,” he said, blinking at her. “I didn’t mean for that to go on so long.”
“Don’t apologize.” She continued to hold Ari’s hands but they’d finally stopped trembling, loose and relaxed in her grasp but not limp or clammy. They were the hands of a man who worked, she realized suddenly, the finger pads rough and calloused, the palms thick with old scars. Not the hands of a prince, but of a prisoner condemned without trial to a work camp. Who knew what other scars Ari bore, either on his skin or far beneath it, scars he’d received without knowing anything more than a fictitious name and a made-up occupation? “The doctors don’t know any of this?”
He shrugged. “Oh, I’m sure they know some of it. When the week began, I was still having the nightmares.”
Fran’s heart shimmied as Ari sighed wearily and said, “Those were quite a show, from what I understand.”
“You’ve been through a great deal.”
“I suppose I have.” But Ari’s voice sounded almost mocking, and he focused on her with a sudden intensity that put her once more on her guard. “My captors held me in a cage. Did Nicki tell you that?”
At her mute headshake, he swung his gaze away, staring at the far ocean. “A cage like you’d put a big dog in, except we were men, not dogs. We didn’t quite fit. Mine wasn’t so bad—I could move, almost stretch out. Did stretch out, different muscles at different hours every night, like clockwork. Some of the other men…” He shook his head. “They didn’t know the value of doing that. And I couldn’t tell them. Their language was different enough that I couldn’t make myself clear—or they were in no mood to get advice from an outsider.”
Fran squeezed his hands, afraid to speak—and more afraid to let go. Ari didn’t seem to notice, for all that his gaze dropped and he appeared to be staring at their clasped fingers. “All that time in the cage, and I couldn’t remember what I’d done to get there. I’d figured I’d done something—no one imprisons a man for a whole year for no reason, right? I don’t care where you are.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, and Fran chose her words carefully. “It sounds like you weren’t imprisoned by actual law enforcement,” she said. “They didn’t need a reason.”
“But they needed an opportunity,” Ari met her gaze again, and his eyes were clear. Lucid. “I’m not saying what they did was right, for me or those other men. But we had to do something to put ourselves in harm’s way. We had to do something to catch their attention. If I can figure out what that was, if I understood a little more of what had led to my capture…I think it would help.”
Fran watched him critically. He was talking of memories here, without question. His brow was once more furrowed, his expression intent. And yet, there was no indication that he was in pain. He wasn’t flinching away from her, and his words remained even, untroubled. How could he probe these recent memories so easily, yet the most innocuous mention—a flower, a rock formation—literally drove him to his knees? That made no sense to her, but it had to be significant.
“How far back do you remember?” she asked.
He blinked, considering the question. “The crash happened at night,” he said, and his voice held a slight tremor, but she didn’t look away. His hands had started trembling again. “I know that because it was morning when I washed ashore, and I was—clinging to something. That’s the kind of memory I have. Broken up.” He shrugged again. “I wasn’t broken up, though. I remember being proud of that. That I’d managed to come out of the water more or less in one piece. Nothing too badly damaged.”
He shivered though it wasn’t cool. The afternoon sun was warm on Fran’s back. His gaze fixed on a new point over her shoulder, and didn’t waver. “I traded some junk from the airplane for a bo
at—a terrible boat but I didn’t care. I had to get to the mainland, had to hide.”
Hide? A shiver of apprehension slid through Fran. She was out of her depth. Had someone been hunting for Ari? Threatening him from the start? No one had said anything about that. But there was no time to consult the official history of Aristotle Andris before the crash. All she had to work with was Ryker Stavros here, now.
And he needed her.
Ryker knew he should shut the hell up, that he should pull his hands away from Francesca, but neither of those options appealed right now. Sweat dripped cold down his neck, falling onto her hands gripping his, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to let go when he was so—close, he thought. To a breakthrough. A memory. Something.
“Once I got into the open water, I spent as much time rowing as I did bailing. Couldn’t trust the motor. I was taking on water too fast to move at any speed.” He turned away from Francesca’s beautiful face but didn’t see the softly swaying trees behind her. Instead he saw the long rocky shoreline that marked the mainland. And there’d been heat, he remembered now. So much heat.
“The local squatters helped—or tried to. Tried to keep me quiet anyway. Out of the way. But they found me.”
“Who?” Francesca prompted and he couldn’t stop the smile that creased his lips. Her word was steady and quiet, but cautious too. Like everything about her was cautious. When he’d said her name so roughly, his intent to kiss her obviously clear, wariness had been Francesca’s primary response. Not fear. Not revulsion. But caution. As if she had to proceed carefully, bit by well-considered bit.
He didn’t mind answering her though. “I don’t know who. Someone new, different. That I understood. Someone else I’d managed to piss off. And hell, maybe I had committed a crime. It seemed like I could have, the way I was so—I don’t know. Guilty, really. I felt guilty. Over what I don’t know.”
He shook his head, knowing how all this must sound. “Believe me, I already laid all this on Stefan. Not the timetable—that was a new memory. That I’d landed at night and all of that. But the guilt…” he chuckled now, recalling that memory clearly when everything else was in such a fog. “I asked him if I’d committed a crime. He stared at me like the idea was insane. So I asked him if I was a priest.”
Francesca’s eyes flashed wide, a bark of laughter sneaking out despite her clear attempt to remain dispassionate. “A priest?”
“Well, who isn’t at least afraid he’s guilty of some crime, other than a man of God? The way Stefan reacted made me laugh but he said no, in the end. They’d checked. There were no crimes committed the day I’d disappeared. No warrants for my arrest. No one asking for my head on a platter.” He grimaced. “And if anyone would know about my past, it’s that guy, let me tell you.”
“He seems thorough.”
Francesca’s voice sounded a little wan, but Ryker knew she understood—anyone who’d met Stefan Mihal understood immediately how far he’d go to get answers. “Yeah, thorough would be how I’d describe him too.” And a few other words Francesca didn’t really need to know, he thought. He’d rather avoid the aristocratic diplomat going forward.
And he could avoid the man a lot more easily if he wasn’t tripping over him two hundred times a day.
“Anyhow, so I’m apparently clean, have no criminal history, and didn’t upset the wrong man at the wrong time.” Ryker breathed a long sigh, finally working up the strength until he could finally let go of Francesca’s hands. He felt their loss like a physical ache, and focused on clenching his own into fists. “Of course, that hasn’t gotten me any closer to getting free of this place, but maybe now that you’re here, things will move more quickly.”
Though he hadn’t intended the words as some kind of negative, Francesca drew herself up sharply. “How do you mean?”
Ryker could have kicked himself. The layer of frost edging Francesca’s tone was gossamer thin—but it was undoubtedly there.
“It’s been silent as a tomb here for a week. Nothing but me, the docs and the VIPs in the big house, who must be here for political asylum or something because they are seriously hiding out. Now that you’re here, however, and it seems like your friend Nicki is about to climb out of her own skin, it feels like…I don’t know. Like life can start moving again.”
To his relief, though he hadn’t realized he’d been nervous, Francesca coughed a short laugh. “I’m glad you have such belief in my abilities to move the indomitable mountain of Stefan Mihal,” she said wryly. “I honestly think Nicki thought they’d say no to having me drop in, so she zoomed over before anyone fully knew what she was up to. Now that I’m here, they’re not sure what to do with me, either.”
“You don’t believe she truly needed you for moral support?”
Once again, Francesca appeared cautious. “I’m not saying she didn’t,” she hedged. “And of course I’m happy to come help her, regardless of what she needed.”
“You two are that close?”
She shrugged, but her manner changed subtly again, becoming more confident. “It’s more a point of knowing we can rely on each other. Nicki is a big believer in the mental side of recovery from an injury, and I’m interested in that too.”
Her last words tugged at him, and he frowned. “The mental side,” he repeated. “You’re a doctor? A trainer?”
Francesca’s easy laugh would have soothed him ordinarily, but he was getting the sense that such reassurance came easily to her, one of the tools she used to give comfort and relief. Not that it wasn’t authentic, but there was something intentional about her every response that made him itch to know the woman below the surface.
First, however, he had to understand the woman on the surface.
“I’m a student, I think is the most accurate to put it,” she said. “I’m training in psychology, but I’ve worked with athletes many times throughout my coursework so far. Soldiers too.”
A psychology student, he thought. That explained a lot of her careful manner. “Soldiers?” he prompted.
“A bit,” she nodded. “I was part of a several-month study to help injured service men and women recover from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. As you can imagine, there are no shortage of candidates for that.”
He stared. “You didn’t go to a war zone, surely.”
“No, one of the allied bases in Europe, there was a hospital there who received patients from multiple places.” She was being deliberately vague, but this he understood. He had served in—
The shock of pain was almost reassuring this time, for all that it gripped him in a crushing vice.
Once again, Francesca was there, her hands on his, her murmured words soothing as he bent toward her, the convulsion brief as the agony raced through his brain and was gone again. Then everything went black for a short while, and there was nothing but Francesca’s voice, steady and even, telling him that everything would be okay, that the sun was bright and warm, that the borage had never bloomed more brightly, that the sea seemed to be calling them, though they were far up on the mountain. Silly words, nonsensical words, yet they formed a pathway that held comfort for him. A pathway leading him home.
When Ryker came to, he was sagging against Francesca on the bench, his heavy body almost dwarfing hers. He struggled back to a seated position and she let him get his bearings, shifting slightly so he could stretch out his legs and tip his head to the full sun.
But she didn’t move away from him, he thought, as his thoughts slowly re-ordered themselves, his pain nothing but a memory. She didn’t move away.
And perhaps more importantly…she didn’t let go.
Chapter Four
Fran climbed back up the stairs to the main villa much later, having finally convinced Ari that she was capable of returning the fifty yards across the courtyard by herself, especially given the patrolling guard.
He’d come out of his episode exhausted but stable, and once again had begged her not to tell the doctors anything. But how co
uld she not? He clearly was enduring tremendous pain every time the past struggled to make itself known. And the fact that he could remember everything up to bits of the trauma of his accident—yet nothing before—seemed significant. She’d need to talk with the doctors to fully understand his condition, she supposed.
Then again, she didn’t want to probe too deeply. It wasn’t her job to get entangled with Ari, merely to make sure he had company until wiser minds determined his next course of action.
Which argued for—
“Francesca.”
Fran stopped short, startled as Queen Catherine stepped out of one of the sumptuous sitting rooms of the guest villa. The queen beamed at her, setting her instantly on her guard.
“Your Highness,” Fran said carefully.
Catherine immediately waved off the honorific. “I beg you, dispense with that. You missed dinner—you should eat.” She practically tugged Fran into the room with her, and a quick glance around the space confirmed no one else was there. “The others wanted to go fetch you, but it would have seemed odd, and there’s enough oddness already without compounding it. Ari might pick up on it, and we can’t allow anything to damage his recovery potential.”
“What is his recovery potential, exactly?” Fran asked as she seated herself on the couch. A tray of sandwiches sat in front of her, and she realized she was hungry. She hadn’t noticed when she’d been walking with Ari, the two of them close enough to embrace…although they hadn’t. He’d let her hands fall away as soon as they’d left the terraced garden. He hadn’t stopped touching her at every reasonable opportunity, though—her shoulder, her waist, her arm. They were bonding, she suspected, but not in the way of patient and doctor.
In a far more dangerous way.
“We don’t know, which is more frustrating than I can possibly express,” the queen said, her hands shaking slightly as she poured water from a large carafe into a tumbler on the coffee table. “According to the doctors, Ari’s brain his healthy. His body, though clearly recovering from the privation of his long stay in the work camp, is healthy. They predict he’ll have joint pain when he’s older, but who is to say anything about that? I have joint pain.”
Crowned: Gowns & Crowns, Book 4 Page 3
