by MJ Rodgers
“But when you met him today, he felt like a stranger?”
“Yes…and no. When he rushed over to pick me up and kiss me, I had the strangest sensation. It was like I was in the audience in a movie theater, and he was an actor who had stepped out of the movie screen to come over and embrace me.”
“You don’t ever remember having been embraced or kissed by Sheldon Ayton before?”
“No. Never.”
“Did you find it…pleasant?”
“Not at all. He may mean well, Michael. His actions and anger may even be somewhat understandable, if what he says is true and somehow I met and married him during these last three missing weeks of my life. But it’s impossible to think of myself married to that man. Absolutely impossible.”
Michael was relieved to hear it. And he knew it wasn’t the doctor in him that was feeling that relief.
“Michael, it’s also becoming rather impossible for me to continue accepting your help without any compensation.”
Yes, he knew that had to be eating at her, given her sense of independence.
“You needn’t be concerned, Briana. I have that all figured out.”
“Have you?”
“I intend for you to pay me back, even if it means making me a member of your architectural design firm when this is all over. We’ll call it Berry, Willix, Sands and Associates.”
“And if there is no architectural design firm, Michael?”
He heard the uncharacteristic hesitation in her voice. With all the cold uncertainty she had to deal with, Michael knew she didn’t need any more.
“Of course there is, Briana. Although if we don’t find this Willix guy, I’m all for voting his share out.”
Her laughter burst forth like a blossoming flower. “Psychotics build castles in the air, schizophrenics live in them, and it looks like Dr. Michael Sands remodels them.”
“I know a good real estate investment when I see it. Come on, Briana. Let’s go get you annulled from a man you don’t remember in a name that isn’t yours. Then we’ll tackle some of the weird stuff.”
“THANK THE LORD you found Natalie and she’s okay!” Carlie Taureau said as she smiled up at her new son-in-law.
“She’s not okay,” Sheldon Ayton said. “She’s crazy!”
Carlie felt the jolt of his words at the same time she saw the dark, angry flush on his face.
“Crazy? Shel, what are you talking about?”
“She doesn’t know me!” Sheldon shouted as he stomped in front of her, spilling the Scotch he had just poured into a tumbler onto a priceless Persian carpet. “Just outright refused to come home with me! My own wife!”
“Don’t tell me you two had a fight?” Carlie asked.
“We didn’t have a fight! We were just married. We didn’t have time for a honeymoon, much less a fight!”
Carlie didn’t believe Sheldon Ayton for a minute. Of course they had had a fight. He was notoriously shorttempered and bad-mannered, although he was always on his best behavior with Natalie. Still, Carlie had always wondered if it wouldn’t be just a matter of time before he forgot himself.
And as for Natalie…well, she was sweet, but she was no man’s doormat.
Carlie sometimes thought it was a miracle that she had gotten the two of them together in the first place.
She also knew that if she was to challenge her new sonin-law on the matter of the argument, he would continue to deny it. Sheldon Ayton was a very wealthy, handsome man, and until his marriage to her daughter, he’d been one of the five most eligible bachelors in the world.
And, as such, he thought himself above criticism—and just about everything and everyone else.
Carlie leaned forward on the settee, setting down her cup of tea. This would take delicacy and diplomacy and a boosting of the male ego, all talents bred into her Southern female soul. She put as much polite confusion into her tone as she could.
“Why, this just makes no sense at all, Shel. Natalie adores the ground you walk on. What would ever possess her to leave her own wedding reception and then refuse to come home? There has to be an explanation.”
“Yeah, Shel,” Rory Taureau said as he walked over to the liquor cabinet, his limp quite pronounced today. “My sister always has a good reason for what she does. A very good reason.”
Rory’s tone was sarcastic and biting. Carlie didn’t know what the problem was between her son and her son-in-law, but they had been at each other’s throats from the day they met
“Now, Rory, I know you’re a mite upset,” Carlie said. “We all are. But do let’s try to remain understanding of Shel’s feelings.”
Her son turned to face her, a wicked grin drawing back his lips, a grin that very much resembled his late daddy’s devilish and far-too-charming one. “Oh, I am understanding of Shel’s feelings, Mama. Quite understanding.”
Carlie sighed. Rory was a handful. Always ready for a fight. Or for a loving. Just like his daddy. What a troublesome mix, the Irish-Cajun man! And what an exciting one.
She turned her attention back to her son-in-law.
“What could be the explanation for Natalie’s odd behavior, Shel?”
“Nat doesn’t know me!” Sheldon said, his words bitten off in frustration and anger.
“You sure the problem isn’t she’s gotten to know you a little too well?” Rory taunted.
“Shut up, Taureau!” Sheldon spit out the words.
“Natalie is obviously not herself,” Carlie said quickly. “Where is she, Shel?”
“She’s with this damn doctor at this damn institute.”
“Doctor? Institute?” Carlie parroted, her voice rising along with her sudden jump in blood pressure. “Shel, are you saying she’s at a psychiatric institute?”
“No, no. It’s some kind of dream institute about a hundred miles from here. The police knew all along she was there. Apparently she’s been there since Christmas Eve.”
Carlie let out a relieved breath.
“How did she get a hundred miles away?” Rory demanded
“How do I know?” Sheldon yelled. “I was busy with my mother’s needs! I thought my bride was safe in her family’s hands! No one bothered to tell me she was missing!”
“We thought Natalie was with you at the hospital, waiting for word about your mama,” Carlie said.
“Yeah,” Rory said. “Brides generally stay by their groom’s side on their wedding eve. Unless, of course, they realize they’ve made a big mistake.”
“One more word out of you, Taureau—” Sheldon began.
“Rory, Shel, come on,” Carlie said quickly, trying to soothe that odd anger that always erupted between them. “This has been a very difficult last couple of days for us all. Please, let’s not make it worse by attacking one another.”
Rory turned toward the bourbon decanter sitting on the corner credenza and poured himself a shot. He downed it in one gulp. Sheldon continued to nurse his Scotch on the rocks.
Carlie would have given anything for a drink herself. But she knew she couldn’t. Not now.
At least not until this mess was sorted through. What kind of argument could have caused Natalie to bolt like this?
“So what reason did Natalie give for not coming home with you?” Carlie asked, in as gentle a tone as she could manage.
“I told you, she doesn’t remember who I am!” Sheldon shouted, his impatience clearly rising at what he obviously considered to be an unforgivable reminder.
“Doesn’t remember who you are?” Carlie repeated. “Wait a minute, Shel. Are you saying that Natalie has amnesia?”
“Of course that’s what I’m saying! It’s what I’ve been saying! Hasn’t anyone been listening?”
Carlie swallowed and tried to compose herself. She hadn’t understood the seriousness of the situation until now. She told herself to keep a cool head, get the facts, then figure out what in the hell to do about them.
“My sister doesn’t remember who you are?” Rory asked, his voice wiped clean of
its sarcasm for once.
“Natalie doesn’t even remember who she is!” Sheldon yelled back. “She thinks she’s someone called Briana Something.”
Carlie felt Sheldon’s words strike like a blow.
“She said she never even heard of a Natalie Newcastle,” Shel lamented before throwing back the rest of his Scotch. “I don’t know what in the hell has happened to her. She refused to come home with me. And that damn quack at the institute stood in my way when I tried to take her.”
“You tried to take my sister by force?” Rory yelled, his face instantly flushing, as he limped over to stand in front of Sheldon. “You should be glad I wasn’t there.”
“And if you had been there?” Sheldon’s voice baited him.
Sheldon was four inches taller than Rory, and a bull of a man. But Rory’s six-foot frame was far more densely muscular, and he worked out hard every day to keep it that way. That, coupled with his skills as an ex-prizefighter gave Carlie no doubt as to what would happen if Rory and Sheldon ever came to blows. Even with his limp, Rory could still move fast when he wanted to. And his fists were nothing less than lethal weapons.
Carlie didn’t intend for her daughter to become a widow or for her son to become a murderer. She quickly got to her feet and clasped Shel’s arm, the reckless one that looked as if it were ready to make a swing at her son’s jaw.
“Rory, that’s enough! Shel, please. We have to think of what to do about Natalie.”
Rory eyed Sheldon a moment more before turning and heading back toward the bourbon. Carlie felt Shel’s muscles relaxing in his forearm. She released her hold.
Carlie let the ensuing quiet separate the men further as her thoughts whirled and she tried to make sense out of the disturbing news about her daughter.
“What are you planning to do, Shel?” she finally asked.
“I told my damn lawyers that if they don’t figure a way to get her out of that damn dream institute, they’re all fired,” Sheldon said after a moment.
Carlie forced herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Shel, why don’t you go on back to the hospital and be with your mama? I’ll go see Natalie and find out what’s going on.”
“And what will that help?”
“Maybe I can bring her to her senses, bring her home to you.”
Sheldon studied Carlie’s face for a moment. She was used to men looking at her with appreciation, but Sheldon’s green eyes held only cool assessment. His scrutiny made her distinctly uncomfortable, just as it always did. He was a cold man. Natalie was the only one who had ever brought warmth to his eyes.
“Shel, she’s my daughter. Let me handle this.”
“How can you? She’s forgotten who she is.”
“Then I’ll just have to help her to remember, won’t I?”
Carlie saw something that actually looked like gratitude light Sheldon’s eyes.
It once more amazed her how hard love had hit Sheldon Ayton. When that gentler side of him came out, he was almost tolerable.
“I’ll go with you, Mama,” Rory said.
Carlie turned to her son. Although normally she would have welcomed his company, she did not want him in on this particular meeting with Natalie.
“You’ve had too much to drink, Rory. You know Nat doesn’t approve. It’ll upset her. Stay here. I won’t be long.”
“Mama, you know I should be there.”
“Not this time, Rory.”
Rory was clearly not pleased to be left behind. He turned back to the liquor cabinet and the bourbon.
His drinking had gotten way out of hand over the past few months. Carlie suspected it was because he hadn’t been able to find a new profession now that boxing was behind him. She was going to have to insist he do something about his drinking soon.
But she couldn’t worry about that now. Now she had far more serious business to handle.
She had to bring Natalie back.
One more time.
Chapter Six
Briana felt her tolerance for the uncertainty of her situation rapidly disappearing as the helicopter hovered above its pad back at the institute.
The legal maneuvers Michael had put in motion to protect her that morning had made it quite clear just how precarious her position was. She had had to admit to being Natalie Newcastle in order to swear that she wasn’t Natalie Newcastle and hadn’t been of sound mind when she married Sheldon Ayton, a man she didn’t remember marrying at all.
The situation would be absolutely hilarious, if it wasn’t so absolutely dangerous.
Until she could prove who she was, anyone could appear at the door at any time saying almost anything, and she wouldn’t know whether to believe them. Or whether she could disprove it.
As soon as Michael had switched off the engine, she turned to him.
“I need to know what went on in those missing weeks, and why I’ve forgotten them. You said the answers are in my dreams?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s start looking for them. Do we do this in the lab?”
“We can do it anywhere you feel comfortable. The tape and tape machine are portable.”
Briana stared out the windshield for a moment, in thought.
“Somewhere outside, then. What’s it like sitting over there in the gazebo?”
“Like being inside a rainbow.”
“Then by all means, let’s go there,” she said, unfastening her safety harness.
“I’ll get the tape and machine and be back in a minute,” Michael said.
Briana entered the gazebo and found that Michael hadn’t exaggerated. Sitting inside it was like being inside a rainbow. The leaded-glass roof caught the sunlight and acted like a dozen prisms, each separating the colored light onto the curved marble benches in perfect swatches of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.
It was pleasantly warm, the glass capturing heat, as well as light. Briana took off her sweater and rolled up her sleeves.
Michael joined her a few moments later.
She watched as he sat across from her, beneath a yellow swatch. His tanned skin took on a tawny glow. His moonlit sand hair was streaked with molten gold.
Despite the growing chaos in her life, she was amazed at how oddly happy and balanced she felt every time she looked at the solid, sane strength of him. When he boldly stepped between her and Sheldon Ayton, physically preventing the man from getting to her, all of Briana’s insides had gone hot and weak.
Heaven help her, she had it bad. She kept trying to remind herself that she was Michael’s patient. All his kindness, all his protection, all of it, came from the doctor, not the man. But she couldn’t help remembering that first night, when he’d kissed her awake. And later, when he’d brushed a kiss across her knuckles and looked at her with that glow in his eyes.
He hadn’t been the doctor then.
Briana sat across from him under a cool blue light shaft, her legs curled beneath her, as she tried to talk some sense into herself.
She was a woman with memories of a life and face that didn’t exist. A crazy dream made up her reality. A stranger insisted he was her husband.
He probably was.
And as if all that weren’t enough, from the moment Michael became her doctor, she had felt the uncrossable line that he had drawn between them. She had no doubt that he would continue to be unfailingly understanding, protective, kind, warm, funny—in other words, himself.
But he would never cross the line to her side.
He held up a small tape recorder for her to see.
“As I replay the recorded memory of your dream, Briana, I want you to close your eyes and concentrate on the images. Often additional details and even meanings that weren’t initially apparent will come to you. Are you ready?”
Briana nodded, sobered by her thoughts and more than a little depressed by them.
Michael pushed the button on the tape recorder so that Briana’s first dream would replay.
I was in
this elaborate bedroom suite, her taped voice said. Briana closed her eyes and tried to picture it as her taped voice described it. The furniture was very ornate, ponderous.
She heard a click when Michael stopped the tape. “Can you picture that bedroom suite now, Briana?”
She kept her eyes closed, concentrating on the images that were filling her mind. “Yes. The bed was a four-poster, the coverlet a heavy rouge brocade that matched the drapes.”
“Was it in the same house in which you were married in your dreams?”
“I think so. I know the same style of heavy rococo furniture was everywhere in that house.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about that room?”
“No. That’s all I see.”
“Okay. We’ll go on now.” Briana heard the click as Michael pushed the play button to restart the tape.
Who was with you? Michael’s recorded voice asked.
Two women. One was older, in her sixties, I believe. She was elegantly dressed. The other seemed younger, fifty maybe. She was well dressed, too, but not quite as elegantly as the older woman.
Who were these women?
I seemed to know them, Michael, but I don’t know who they were, if that makes any sense.
Michael stopped the tape again. “Can you picture those two women now?”
“Only vaguely.”
“Do you know who they are?”
“No.”
“How did you feel toward these women?”
“I felt as though I knew the younger of the women. The older woman felt almost like a stranger. I wasn’t at all comfortable in her presence.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about these women?”
Briana let her mind free-flow over the fuzzy faces of the women in her mind’s eye. “No. That’s it.”
“Okay, we’ll go on.” Michael restarted the tape again.
The two women were upset at me. It had something to do with this dress the older woman had handed me. It smelled terribly unhappy—like lavender.
You could smell the dress in your dream?
Yes.
Was the dress a lavender color?
No, it was white.
And you’re sure it smelled like lavender?
