Pregnesia

by Carla Cassidy

  With a nod, she turned and walked down the hallway to the bedroom where she’d slept the night before. She couldn’t imagine actually going to sleep, not with the questions whirling around in her head.

  Once again she found herself wondering what might have happened to her if Lucas hadn’t found her in the car. He was like a guardian angel come to her when she needed somebody.

  But was it normal to feel a rivulet of heat when a guardian angel looked at you? Was it normal to wonder what his mouth might feel like pressed against your own?

  Hormones, she thought as she stretched out on her back on the bed. Her hormones were definitely running amok and that was the only reason for her crazy physical attraction toward Lucas.

  She rubbed her stomach as she felt the baby moving inside her. Who was the father? What had happened that had sent her out into the cold in the middle of the night with a head wound?

  Maybe Lucas was right. Maybe she was trying too hard to remember, and her efforts were stifling the very memories she was trying so hard to retrieve.

  She closed her eyes and consciously willed away all thoughts of the moment when the two men had grabbed her arms and tried to get her into the back of the van. She drew in deep breaths and tried to empty her mind of all thought.

  SYMBOLS. They were everywhere. The triangle with the eye inside it. The all-seeing eye. The all-knowing mind. Her heart crashed inside her chest as she ran down a long, dark hallway, needing to escape from it…from them.

  Footsteps sounded behind her and she pressed her back into an alcove, praying they’d move on, that she wouldn’t be found.

  She breathed a sigh of relief as the sound of the footsteps faded away. Run! Her brain screamed the command. Get out!

  Once again she began to move silently down the hallway, hoping she’d come to a door that would allow her to escape. She turned into another corridor and stopped, her blood cold as she saw him standing at the end.

  Even though the hall was too dark for her to see his features, she knew who he was—the all-knowing mind.

  SHE SCREAMED as hands gripped her by the shoulders and she opened her eyes to see Lucas. The dream fell away, but not the horror of it. She gasped as a sob escaped her lips.

  “Hey, you’re okay,” he said as he sat on the edge of the bed. “You were just having a bad dream.”

  Cold. She was cold with terror and she didn’t think twice about launching herself into his arms as another sob ripped out of her.

  He stiffened as she pressed against him and hid her face in his chest. Then he did exactly what she needed; he folded his arms around her and held her.

  In the warmth of the embrace, in the strength of his arms, any tears she’d been able to shed vanished. A dream. It had just been a dream. Or had it?

  “You okay?” His voice was a rumble in her ear as she kept her head against his broad chest.

  Although she found his embrace amazingly welcome, she knew she couldn’t stay in his arms forever. Reluctantly she sat up and moved away from him.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

  She wrapped her arms around her shoulders, the cold wind of fear finding her once again. “It was crazy. There were those symbols everywhere and I was in a dark hallway, trying to escape.”

  “Escape from what?” Lucas’s dark eyes watched her intently.

  She frowned, trying to make sense of the images that she’d dreamed. “I don’t know. It didn’t make sense. I just knew that I had to get away and then I turned a corner and there was a man standing at the end of the hall and I knew I couldn’t get away.” A shudder worked through her.

  “Was it a dream or was it a memory?”

  Jane held his gaze. It would be easy to get lost in those black-lashed dark eyes of his. At the moment she’d like nothing more than to get lost in him, to escape the uncertainty of the unknown, to feel safe and secure in his arms.

  She shook herself. “I’m not sure. I don’t know,” she finally replied. “But if it was a memory, then what could it mean? I mean, why would I feel as if I was a prisoner trying to escape something awful?”

  Lucas ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Maybe it was some kind of symbolism. Maybe what you were trying to escape was your amnesia.”

  “Maybe,” she said grudgingly, although she wasn’t sure what to believe. “How long was I asleep?”

  He looked at his wristwatch. “About an hour or so.”

  He got up from the edge of the bed. “Look, I’ve got some things to do. You should be fine here until Loretta gets home. She should be here by four.”

  She didn’t want him to leave. The idea of being alone terrified her, but she swallowed the fear and nodded. “Please, take care of your business. I’ll be fine.” She offered him a smile that she hoped didn’t look as forced as it felt.

  “I’ll check in with you later this evening.” As he left the room, Jane felt an overwhelming need to tell him that she didn’t want to be by herself, but she didn’t.

  She’d intruded into his life in a very big way and the very least she could do was not be a clinging vine to a man who owed her nothing just because she was overwhelmed with fear.

  Fear. She slid her legs over the side of the bed and drew a deep breath. She had to get control of her fear. There were a million things she didn’t know about herself, about her life, but she needed to focus on what she did know.

  She and the baby were healthy, and at the moment she was in a safe place. Maybe after another good night’s sleep her memory would return. Maybe during dinner tonight she’d have a sudden epiphany and all her memories would just come tumbling back.

  Instead of feeling sorry for herself or afraid, maybe she needed to get her mind on something else. With this thought in mind she headed for the kitchen.

  Maybe she could do something nice for Loretta and cook dinner. Looking in the refrigerator, she spied a pound of thawed hamburger meat. Maybe a meat loaf, she thought.

  Within minutes she’d gathered all the ingredients she needed to make the dish and set to work. Funny, she had a feeling she made a great meat loaf, and adding the appropriate amount of bread crumbs and seasonings came to her without thought.

  She’d just popped it into the oven when she heard the sound of the front door open. “Hello?” Loretta called out.

  “I’m in the kitchen,” Jane replied. As Loretta came into the room, Jane felt a touch of shyness. She’d hardly spoken to the woman the night before and hadn’t seen her that morning.

  “You look much better than you did last night,” Loretta said with a warm smile that instantly put Jane at ease.

  “Maybe on the outside, but unfortunately nothing has changed on the inside,” Jane replied.

  “Still don’t remember anything?” Loretta asked as she sat in one of the kitchen chairs and kicked off her blue clogs.

  “Nothing. I hope you don’t mind that I’m still here. I took the liberty of making a meat loaf for dinner.”

  “Mind? If you cook for me every night I might just think about marrying you,” Loretta exclaimed with a laugh.

  Jane relaxed and joined her at the table. “I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness. I’m hoping maybe after another good night’s sleep things will become clear.”

  “Don’t worry about taking advantage. What’s important is that you give yourself some time to get your memory back. Where’s my brother?”

  “He said he needed to take care of some business and left about an hour ago. He said he’d check back in sometime this evening. He’s been very kind to me.”

  Loretta smiled. “He can be a bit hard and crusty on the outside, but he’s a good man.” She frowned and looked as if she wanted to say something more, but instead she stood. “I’m going to go take a quick shower. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll go ahead and set the table.”

  “Mind? Knock yourself out,” Loretta exclaimed, and then left the kitchen.

  Jane found t
he appropriate plates and silverware and got the table prepared for the meal. She made a salad, opened a can of corn and got it warming on the stove top by the time Loretta had returned, now dressed in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.

  “Now, tell me about your day,” she said as she put a kettle of water on the stove to boil for tea.

  Jane told her about their trip to the store and the kidnapping attempt. As she related the story, that familiar cold fear seeped into her bones.

  “Oh my God,” Loretta exclaimed when she was finished. “You poor thing.”

  “Even that didn’t jiggle loose any memories, but Lucas said he was going to have his partners do some research and see if they could find out what the symbol means.”

  “If you’re in some kind of trouble, Lucas, Troy and Micah are the men to help you out. If there are answers to be found, they’ll find them.”

  A half hour later as they ate, Loretta told Jane about Lucas’s partners and the business that they owned. But what Jane wanted most of all was to learn more about Lucas.

  “Your brother told me that when you two were growing up it was you and him against the world. You had a tough childhood?” she asked.

  Loretta frowned thoughtfully. “Not so much me, but things were tough on Lucas. My father had anger issues and most of his rage was always directed at my brother.” She shrugged. “He got through it. We both did. But it made us unusually close. Lucas was my hero when I was growing up, and throughout the years that’s never changed.”

  “It must be nice to have somebody like that in your life,” Jane said. “Somebody who will always be there for you, somebody you can depend on.” A wistfulness filled her and again she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been looking for somebody like that in her life or if she’d already found him and just couldn’t remember who he was.

  “Yeah, the only thing nicer than having a brother like that would be having a husband like that,” Loretta said with a laugh. “But there will be time for romance once I’m finished with medical school.”

  The rest of the meal they chatted about Loretta’s desire to become a doctor and speculated on what Jane might do as a career. It didn’t take long for them to get silly. Loretta thought Jane might be a Hollywood actress who had escaped the prying eyes of the paparazzi to have her baby in private. Of course the baby’s father was a high-profile rock star who loved her to distraction, but was afraid marriage would hurt his image.

  Jane offered the scenario that she’d been abducted by a space alien and impregnated and they’d erased her memories so she wouldn’t bring back secrets of their planet.

  The laughter felt wonderful and they were still giggling like high school best friends when Lucas walked in.

  Instantly, Jane felt as if the kitchen shrank in size as he filled it with his dark energy, his bigger-than-life presence.

  “Sounds like you two are having fun,” he said as he grabbed a plate from the cabinet and sat at the table.

  “We were just speculating on Jane’s life,” Loretta explained, her eyes still sparkling with merriment. “We’ve decided she’s either a spy or a hooker going incognito.”

  Jane laughed again. “Your sister is a hoot.”

  Lucas filled his plate from the food still on the table. “Yeah, she’s a regular comedian.”

  “What have you been doing?” Loretta asked.

  “I had to go try on a tux for the wedding. Then I stopped at the office to catch up on things,” he replied.

  “Wedding?” Jane asked.

  “My partner Micah is getting married in less than a month. I’m his best man. Good meat loaf,” he said.

  “You can thank Jane for dinner. She surprised me by fixing it. I told her if she cooks like this every night I might decide to keep her,” Loretta said.

  “You might have to keep her, at least for another day or two.” He grabbed a piece of bread to add to his plate.

  “I talked to Kincaid at the police station. There’ve been no reports of missing women filed in the past forty-eight hours.”

  Jane stared at him in dismay. She’d somehow hoped that a missing persons report would fill in some of the pieces.

  She wasn’t sure what bothered her more, the fact that strange men had tried to shove her into the back of a van or that apparently there was nobody in her life who had missed her over the past twenty-four hours.

  Chapter Five

  The crushed look on Jane’s face touched a chord in Lucas’s heart. “Maybe it’s too early for anyone to have reported you missing,” he said. “If you went missing not too many hours before I found you, then it’s only been twenty-four hours now. Maybe tomorrow somebody will file a report.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “Or maybe there was nobody in my life to file a report, nobody who misses me.”

  “I can’t imagine that,” Loretta said gently.

  What must it be like to be missing from your life and believe that nobody cares? Lucas couldn’t help but feel a chord of sympathy for her despite his desire to the contrary.

  He listened and ate while the two women talked about babies and fashion, acting as if they’d known each other forever. The first time he heard Jane laugh, the sound shot a burst of warmth through him. She had a great, full-bodied laugh.

  Who had she been before all this? Had she laughed often? Loved passionately? Did she like old movies or New Age music? Did she like quiet, intimate dinners or prefer the club scene? He frowned, irritated that he was even speculating on who she really was.

  As Loretta got up to begin clearing the table, Jane rose, as well. But Loretta waved her back down. “No way. You cooked, so I do the cleanup. Just sit and relax.”

  Jane sat back down. She’d only been sitting a minute when a smile lit her face and she placed her hands on her tummy. “Junior is doing a happy dance.” She smiled at Lucas. “Quick, give me your hand.”

  Without conscious thought he leaned forward and placed his hand on her belly.

  Immediately he felt the undulating movement of life. A sense of awe filled him as he felt a flutter, then a sharper protrusion of an elbow or a foot. A baby, a little human life—amazing, he thought.

  He jerked his hand away and sat back in his chair. He didn’t want to think about babies or beautiful blondes who had smiles filled with sunshine. He refused to get emotionally caught up with the unborn baby and Jane, who would eventually remember her life and return to it.

  “I’ve got to get home,” he said, and stood, needing to escape the warmth of Jane’s smile and the concern that she was all alone in the world, had somehow been all alone in the world even before she lost her memories.

  “Tomorrow I want to take you to the office to meet with my partners. Micah is working to get us some information about that symbol and on the way we’ll take a ride by the place where I found you. Maybe something will break loose in your head if we go back to that area.”

  “What time should I be ready?” Jane asked him.

  “Let’s say around nine?”

  He walked over to his sister and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll see you later,” he said.

  He breathed a sigh of relief as he escaped the apartment and headed down the hallway to his own. He had no idea what it was about his “Jane Doe” that affected him so strongly.

  Even throughout the last couple of hours when he hadn’t been with her, his thoughts kept returning to her. What if the baby came? Who was going to take care of her and the newborn if she didn’t have her memory back?

  Dammit, he didn’t want to feel responsible for her, and yet he did. And if he were completely honest with himself he would admit that despite the fact that she was pregnant, he was attracted to her. Never in a million years had he thought he’d find a pregnant woman sexy, but he found Jane extremely sexy.

  He entered his apartment and checked his machine. No new messages. He hadn’t expected any. His partners knew to get him on his cell phone and there wasn’t anyone else who would want to call him. He sat on the sofa and
for a moment the silence closed in around him.

  The sound of Jane’s laughter had found a place inside him that whispered of a loneliness he hadn’t realized was there. Her warm laughter had momentarily chased it away.

  What he needed was for her to wake up tomorrow and not only remember her name, but also have a family to support her, perhaps a husband who loved her.

  What he really needed was a good night’s sleep without thoughts of Jane intruding in his head. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and returned to the sofa, where he punched the remote to turn on the television.

  As the screen filled with a sitcom he didn’t recognize, he popped the top on the beer and took a deep swallow. Generally, Lucas wasn’t a television kind of guy, but tonight he needed something to keep his mind off a pregnant blonde with warm blue eyes.

  He focused on the sitcom and by nine had finished his beer and decided to call it a night. The next morning brought more of the same. The news didn’t broadcast a missing pregnant woman report, and the moment Jane opened Loretta’s door to his knock, he knew that she still didn’t remember anything.

  “Sleep well?” he asked.

  “Actually, I slept like a baby,” she replied.

  She didn’t look like a baby. The T-shirt she wore that pronounced Baby on Board pulled across the fullness of her breasts, and the maternity jeans they’d bought fit snug on her long, lean legs.

  He could smell her, the clean scent of citrus shampoo and a fragrant soap. Every muscle in his body tensed. “You ready to leave?” he asked, his tone sharper than he’d intended.

  “Just let me get a coat.” She disappeared down the hallway.

  She returned wearing the coat he’d loaned her the day before and together they left the apartment building. A cold wind blew from the north as they hurried to his car in the lot.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked once they were in the car and he’d started the engine.

  “First we’re going to take a ride around the area where I found you to see if that jiggles your memory,” he said. “Then we’ll head over to the office and see what Micah and Troy have found out about that symbol.”