You Must Remember This

He knew loneliness intimately—the empty, aching need to share at least some small part of your life with someone special. He’d made friends here, but even with them, he still felt the need. He still wondered if there was someone out there somewhere who was lonely for him. Was there someone special, someone he’d loved, someone whose life was incomplete without him?

He didn’t think so. Maybe it was sentimental bull, but he believed that if there had been someone special, some part of him would know. Maybe not his mind, but his heart. His soul. But his heart was too empty. He was too alone. Too attracted to Juliet.

Juliet, who was avoiding facing him, who was embarrassed, who was lonely.

He swallowed hard. Knowing he shouldn’t, he said, “If it wouldn’t be any trouble…”

She flashed a relieved smile. “No, not at all.”

He stayed on his side of the room while she took two more glasses from the cabinet, stretching high to reach, pulling taut fabric even tighter. Stifling a groan, he turned his attention to the back door. It stood open, the screen door unlatched, giving him a glimpse of a night-dark yard with shadows and gloom for cover.

“You need a light in the backyard,” he commented. “Either a floodlight or a motion sensor. And you should keep the screen door latched. Better yet, you should replace both your screen doors with storm doors, the kind with a keyed lock. You need a dead bolt on the door, too—at least a one-inch—and…”

The wary look she gave him made him stop. “This isn’t Dallas.”

“No, it’s Grand Springs. In the ten months I’ve been here, the mayor has been murdered, her daughter and granddaughter were kidnapped, the bank was robbed, and someone tried to kill a couple of cops and the town treasurer. Don’t confuse small with safe. Keep your doors locked.” Though his advice might be coming a little late. She had already let him in, and that just might be the worst mistake she could make.

She offered him a glass. He had to cross the room to take it from her. “Maybe you worked in the home security business.”

“Maybe I worked in the home invasion business.”

“If you were a criminal, you must have been very, very good to reach your age without getting caught. By the way, what age have they settled on for you?”

“Late thirties, maybe forty.” Forty hard years, judging by the lines on his face and the damage done to his body, and he could account for only ten months. The knowledge made him feel less than whole.

After latching the screen and locking the door, he followed her down the hall. He expected her to turn into the semi-businesslike dining room. Instead, she went into the living room, switching on lights before settling on a crimson-and-green love seat. She put the plate of cookies on the table between the love seat and sofa, then gestured for him to sit. He wanted to choose the armchair across the room, beneath a hanging lamp, but he obeyed her and sat on the couch instead.

Munching on a cookie, he gave the rest of the room a look. It was homier than the dining room, with pictures on the walls, and books, plants and collectibles scattered around. It was a comfortable room, the sort of place—maybe minus the family photos—he imagined he might have had in another place in another life.

“These are good. Did you bake them?”

“I bought them at the bakery near the college. They were out of their wonderful little fried pies—”

“With cherries, apples and apricots.”

“You’ve been there?”

He shook his head. He just knew. Sick of things he should remember but couldn’t and things he knew that he shouldn’t, he changed the subject. “Why did you come here?”

The question made her uncomfortable. She was fine asking hard questions of him, but the simplest question about her turned her face pink and made her gaze shift to the family portrait on the opposite wall. “I wanted a change.”

“Are your parents still in Dallas?”

“No. My father died five years ago. My mother died two years later.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“No. A lot of aunts, uncles and cousins, but none I was particularly close to.”

“Why Grand Springs?”

“The job came open, and I liked the idea of living in the mountains.”

“Wait until you’ve spent your first winter here, then see if you like it. Do you ski?”

“No.”

“Hike?”

“No.”

“Camp? Fish? Take long bike rides?”

“No.”

“Then what do you do?”

“I work, and I spend time online.”

He glanced across the hall at the computer. There were few, if any, people in her life, but she had her computer. Cold company, but better than what he had. Nothing kept him company but loneliness, frustration and fear. Fear of who he had been, of who he was, of who he might never be. Fear of knowing and of never knowing.

Grimly he forced his attention back to her. “What do you do online?”

“Talk to friends. Read the paper. Check movie reviews and weather forecasts. Order books.” She shrugged. “Everything.”

“Have you ever met these friends before? In person? Face-to-face?”

Discomfort edged into her expression. “I don’t do well face-to-face.”

Maybe she was more comfortable hiding behind a computer screen. The men among those online friends didn’t know what they were missing. Even if she had described herself as five-five, blond and blue, it would say nothing about the stubborn line of her jaw or the way she turned that delicate pink when embarrassed. It didn’t give a hint of the shape of her mouth or the silkiness of her hair or the fragile air that surrounded her. “Five-five, blond and blue” could be a man’s worst nightmare…or his sweetest dream.

“So you get on the computer and talk to people you’ve never met. How do you know they are what they say they are? How do you know they’re not scam artists, stalkers, rapists or killers?”

“How do we know that about anyone?”

How did she know it about him? Point taken.

“These people don’t know me, either. They only know what I choose to tell them.”

“Wouldn’t you rather talk to a flesh-and-blood person? Someone you could see, hear, touch?”

Again she looked uncomfortable. “I’m talking to you.”

He was definitely flesh and blood—very hard flesh, if she came near him, and very hot blood. His smile was thin and unamused. Here he was, warning her about the men online, but he was a bigger threat than any of them. He knew how she looked, moved, sounded. He knew where she lived. He knew he wanted her.

His muscles tensing, he forced his thoughts to a safer path. “Your boyfriend must have been sorry to see you leave.” Yeah, that was good. Juliet with another man, a man who was special to her, getting intimate, making love—that was a definite turnoff.

Or not, he admitted as an image popped into his head: Juliet naked, her skin slick with sweat, her soft little moans erotic and torturous to hear. It didn’t matter that the hands rubbing her body and the mouth suckling her breasts belonged to someone else, didn’t matter that another man would fill her, pleasure her and finish with her. It was arousing as hell. Scary as hell.

“I haven’t been in a relationship in a long time.”

He hadn’t, either, not once in his entire life of ten months and a few days. His body was more than ready. Unfortunately, his spirit wasn’t. He needed answers. Reassurances. Some reason to think that he might be worthy of a relationship with someone special.

“Have you ever been married?”

With a faint smile, she shook her head.

“Ever come close?”

Another shake.

Fools. The entire state of Texas was nothing but fools.

“Have you considered leaving Grand Springs?” she asked, turning the conversation away from herself and back to him. He let her.

“Where would I go? What would I do?”

“To look for someplace familiar. What do you do here?”

“Work occasionally. Try to remember always.”

She showed interest in his first answer. “Work. What do you know how to do? What skills do you have?”

He knew where she was leading. Every time he’d seen someone doing a particular job, he had wondered, Did I do that? “Odd jobs, mostly. At Christmas I worked in a couple of shops downtown. I wasn’t much of a salesman. I filled in on a framing crew when they were shorthanded, and they agreed that I was no carpenter. I’ve bussed tables and washed dishes at the Country House Restaurant.” He shrugged.

“Nothing seemed familiar?”

“No.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve only forgotten things of a personal nature. You remember who’s president, how to drive, how to tie your shoes.”

He nodded.

“Maybe you don’t want to remember the personal stuff. Maybe there’s a reason deep in your subconscious that you’ve blocked it, like a marriage falling apart or the death of someone you loved or—”

“I do want to know—more than you can imagine.” But maybe she was right. Maybe his fear was stronger than his desire to know. After all, right now the front-runner for his previous occupation was “criminal”—or worse. He had good cause to wonder. He noticed things, like how easy it would be to gain entry through her unlocked doors. He was familiar with police procedure, more so, he suspected, than the average law-abiding citizen. Someone had tried to kill him.

And there were the dreams. The nightmares.

He tried to pretend they didn’t exist, tried to go through the day without acknowledging them, to face the night without fearing them. He’d never told anyone about them—not Stone, not Doc Howell, not the shrink named Jeffers they had sent him to. They were too frightening, too threatening, with someone dying in every dream. The details were different—the identity of the victim, the place, the means of death—but one thing always remained the same. He was always there. Innocent witness? Or brutal killer?

“Have you seen a psychiatrist?”

“For a while. He couldn’t make me remember.”

“Make?”

Her voice was soft, her tone far from accusatory, but it made him defensive, anyway. “He couldn’t help me remember.” All Jeffers had done was interview him at length, give him a diagnosis of generalized amnesia and a prognosis that, at some time, it would probably resolve itself and he’d be back to normal. No help at all.

“I thought most computer whizzes were odd little guys who turned to computers because they couldn’t relate to people, or spoiled, overindulged teenagers whose parents wanted them out of their hair. How did you get interested?”

“I was an odd little overindulged teenager who related better to machines than people. Have you considered hypnosis?”

“We’re talking at cross-purposes here. I’m tired of talking about myself, and you don’t like to talk about yourself. Why is that?”

A blush and a shrug. “I know all about me.”

“I don’t.”

The blush deepened. “We’re here to try to learn about you.”

He wasn’t. Oh, he wanted her help, of course, if she had any to give, but he was here because two weeks and one day ago, he had taken one long, hard look at her and fallen. He was here because he wanted to know more about her, because he wanted to watch the unconsciously sensual way she moved, because he wanted to torment himself with what he shouldn’t want, should never have.

He was here for pleasure. She was here for business. It had never occurred to her that they could be one and the same. It never might.

Okay, hypnosis. “The shrink tried hypnosis, but not everyone’s a good candidate. The results were less than satisfactory.” In fact, it had been an exercise in futility.

She stifled a yawn, and he checked the time. It was only nine—not too late for him, but he didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. He could stay up until dawn and sleep till noon, and no one would care.

Setting his empty glass aside, he got to his feet. “I’d better go.” Even to himself, he sounded tentative, as if one word from her could change his mind. Stay. Don’t go. Spend the night.

He doubted he had ever been particularly fanciful, but his imagination had run wild in the last two weeks, all without the slightest encouragement. To Juliet Crandall, he was a mystery, no more. A puzzle with its pieces jumbled. She probably hadn’t thought of him even once as a getting-involved, kissing-and-seducing, making-love-and-babies-and-a-future-with kind of man.

She probably never would.

* * *

Juliet stood in the doorway, watching as Martin walked into the night. He moved quickly, silently—stealthily, she thought—into the shadows, disappearing from sight.

Was he a criminal? Was that why he moved like that, why he’d been able to sneak up on her in the kitchen tonight? Did that explain how he’d been able to take a few seconds’ look at her door and yard and find the weaknesses from a security standpoint?

She closed and locked the door, then went into the dining room. By the time she settled in her chair, the computer was up and running. There was a batch of E-mails awaiting her. She scanned the list, but didn’t open any messages.

What did she really know about these people? What did it say about her that her only friends were virtual strangers, hiding behind screen names and identities that were as likely fabricated as truthful? They’d told her their names, marital status, occupations, but online, it was easy to be something you weren’t. Heavens, they thought she was interesting, and online, she was. Her fingers never tripped over words the way her tongue did in a real-life conversation. If she embarrassed herself—as she’d done in the kitchen—no one was there to see it. As far as they were concerned, she was friendly, outgoing, competent and fun.

Geez, maybe they were scam artists, stalkers, rapists and killers.

But more likely they were just average people, a little lonely and a little lost. Like her. Like Martin.

Exiting the mailbox, she called up her favorite search engine and typed in one word. Her search was far too general, giving her every site listed that contained the word amnesia. There were more than twelve million hits. Rather than try to narrow it, she began sorting through them one by one, occasionally stopping to link to another site. By midnight her eyes were gritty, her back was aching, and she’d increased her knowledge of amnesia a hundredfold. But she hadn’t learned anything that could help Martin.

Did it matter? Now that he knew how little she could do, he would probably keep his distance. She sincerely wished she could help—she wouldn’t mind his gratitude at all—but she wasn’t a miracle worker. She had to have something to work with.

Still, she couldn’t help feeling as if she’d somehow let him down.

She would do what she could—send out a missing persons bulletin again and search as many places as she could think of—and that would be the end of it. It was just as well. She didn’t want any man simply because he was grateful for what she’d done for him. If he couldn’t appreciate her for herself, it was his loss. Wasn’t that what her parents had always told her?

But they’d been wrong. It was her loss, too. Living alone, being alone, seeing other women her age with husbands and children and having no opportunity for her own family in sight—those were her losses, and she lived with them every day.

Clicking the mouse, she backed out of the sites she had accessed, thought for a moment about reading her mail, then shut down. She turned off the lights as she made her way to the bedroom.

It was a nice size, with room for the furniture that had been her grandparents’ and a thickly padded chaise that was her favorite place to curl up on a sleepless night. It was a pretty room, too, painted pale peach on two walls and deep coral on the others. The linens were a coral-and-teal floral, the curtains at the window frilly coral, the slipcover on the chaise frilly teal. There were ruffled pillows on the bed and the chaise, and lacy crocheted doilies—gifts from Grandma—everywhere.

It was a woman’s room, she acknowledged as she undid the buttons on her dress. Everywhere she looked, she saw ruffles and frills. Only a man secure in his masculinity could lie in that bed or stretch out on the chaise without being totally overwhelmed.

Martin came to mind.

Her fingers stopped on the buttons as she turned to face the mirror, to see what he had seen when he’d first arrived. The fabric gapped to her waist—not a lot, not immodestly, but enough. The material was soft and pretty, like an impressionist watercolor, and the skin that showed was pale. Tentatively she touched herself, just one fingertip at the point of the vee, drawing it slowly along exposed skin to her waist. Closing her eyes, she did it again, only this time, in her mind, the hand was dark, the fingertip callused, the touch incredibly sexual. It was enough to make her shiver, then flush.

She wasn’t so terribly needy that she had to fantasize over a man who clearly held little interest in her as a woman. It hadn’t been so long since she’d had sex. It had lasted the weekend—the entire weekend—and had been the best sex she’d ever experienced, and it had been only…

Only twenty months ago. She scowled. She was needy enough to fantasize about Martin Smith. But it was only fair. He was so well suited for feminine fantasies.

Giving herself a shake, she finished undressing and got ready for bed. She was lucky enough to be a sound sleeper, and she slept through the night, awakening in plenty of time for breakfast before work. The job at the library was okay, but she liked her three days at the police department better. The clerk who worked in the office, Mariellen, required constant supervision, but Juliet liked everyone else and she liked the work.

She was only a few blocks from the house when she spied a familiar figure ahead. Martin didn’t have a driver’s license, according to Tracey at the library. He didn’t have any official documents at all. There must be some provision for obtaining them when you truly had no idea who you were, but maybe he wasn’t interested. Maybe he couldn’t face becoming Martin Smith officially. Maybe he feared that would somehow rob him of the man he really was.

As she drove the half block that separated them, she debated, then pulled to the curb. “Can I give you a ride?”

When he turned her way, he looked exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot, his features fixed in a scowl. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A curious answer. “Then how about a ride home?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he climbed in beside her. He was so tall and broad-shouldered that immediately the car seemed to shrink by half.

“Tough night?”

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Yeah. I couldn’t sleep.”

She wondered how hard he had tried. His jaw was unshaven, his hair disheveled as if he—or someone—had combed it with his—or her?—fingers, and he still wore the same snug jeans and emerald shirt he’d worn to her house last night. She could see the pop stains on the lower leg.

She had assumed, when he’d said good-night, that he was going home. Now she wondered. Not that it was any of her business.

Realizing that they weren’t moving, he looked at her. “What are you waiting for?”

“I don’t know where you live.”

He gave her the address, only five blocks in the opposite direction. She made a U-turn and tried very hard to think of something to say, anything at all to break the silence that pricked at her and didn’t seem to bother him in the least. Before she came up with a single, simple, asinine comment—nice day, for God’s sake—she was pulling into his driveway.

The house was old and lovely, three stories, big enough for a family or two or three. She looked at it, then him. “You live here?” Brilliant, Juliet. He told you he did, didn’t he?

“Back there.” He gestured toward the back, and she saw the detached garage with an apartment overhead. “Thanks for the ride.”

That was it—no goodbye, no mention of last night, no small talk, nothing personal at all. Thanks for the ride.

“You’re pathetic, Juliet,” she berated herself as she backed into the street again. “Any other female in town could have done better than that. Five blocks, and you don’t say a word—not a word! And you wonder why men don’t go nuts over you.”

No, that wasn’t true. She never expected men to even notice her. Last night Martin had suggested that he might have been unnoticeable in his previous life, which was laughable. She knew unnoticeable, because she was. All her life people had been looking through her. Maybe she could have gotten by okay being plain and too smart, but shyness on top of plainness and braininess was the kiss of death.

And she wasn’t kidding herself: she was plain. Only her parents had ever thought differently, and they were supposed to think she was beautiful because they loved her. She had always thought that someday some man would also think she was beautiful, because that would surely mean he loved her, but it had never happened, and it probably never would.

Even if it did, it wouldn’t necessarily mean he loved her. It might just mean his vision wasn’t so great.

Her office in the Grand Springs Police Department was nothing fancy. Since she would soon be doing the job, she was already situated in the records supervisor’s office, a square room with a big window, like her other office, that gave her a view of the daily workings of the department. She rarely had time to look…but she’d always managed to find a few minutes whenever Martin had come in to visit one detective or another.

She locked her purse in the bottom desk drawer, picked up her coffee cup and headed for the machine in the outer room. Once the cup was filled, she stopped at Stone Richardson’s desk. The detective was typing a report and grumbling under his breath. He sat back in his chair. “What can I do for you?”

“I talked to Martin Smith last night. He said you guys did a missing persons broadcast right after his accident.”

“Yeah. We got a couple of possible hits, but they didn’t pan out. You have an idea?”

“I’d like to do it again. Maybe, at that time, no one was aware that he was missing, but surely after ten months, someone has realized that something’s wrong.”

“Good idea. The file is in your office. Go to it.”

With a smile of thanks, she took the coffee back to her office, pulled the folder and pulled up the National Crime Information Center on her computer.

She was working on the required state certification as an NCIC terminal operator, along with her other duties, but she’d been granted access in the meantime. It was slow going, though. Ditzy Mariellen, whose desk sat right outside the door, could have the information typed in and the broadcast sent in the time it would take Juliet to thumb through the manual that would help her locate and fill out the proper form.

But she didn’t hand the file to Mariellen. She opened it and studied Stone’s notes. A John Doe white male, approximately forty years of age, six-three, blond and blue. Not much of a description for the best-looking man she’d come across in recent memory. There were notes on the scars—six in all, the last attributed to a burn—but no other identifying marks, no tattoos, no birthmarks. Of course, six scars were enough.

He feared he’d lived a violent life, and the evidence seemed to be on his side. Innocent people did become victims, but three times, possibly four?

She just couldn’t imagine him as a criminal. And why not? Because he was handsome? A quick look through the mug books would confirm that handsome men did, in fact, commit crimes. Because he seemed so lost? She couldn’t call any figures to mind at the moment, but she suspected that lost, lonely people were more likely to commit crimes than happy, well-adjusted people with everything going their way. Because she was attracted to him? Heavens, she’d been attracted to losers before. The last man in her life had been unethical and immoral. Criminal was just one short step down.

Still, she didn’t believe Martin Smith had been a criminal before his accident. Even if he had been, he was a different man now. People could change. Wasn’t waking up a new person one of her favorite fantasies? With his accident last summer, Martin had been given the perfect opportunity to start over new, with no name, no memories and no past to haunt him. He could be anyone he wanted to be, could correct old mistakes and make right bad choices. It could be a dream come true.