Marriage: Classified

But even if she lied, it was not a lie she could sustain. She couldn’t answer the simplest question about him, such as where he worked or lived.

And so she said, “I’m sorry. I truly am. But, no, I don’t.”

“My name is Jordan Dawes. Yours is Sara Shepard Dawes. We were married today, Sara—just before you were hit on the head and your father was killed.”

Chapter Two

Sara awoke with a start. She had the strangest feeling that someone…was watching her.

She opened her eyes slowly and let them focus on a white ceiling with acoustical tile. Her insides churned for a moment, as she felt disoriented. Where was she?

She moved her head to look around and a wave of pain shot through it. Her head. The pain. Oh, yes. She was in a hospital.

“You’re awake,” said a familiar male voice. “How do you feel?”

Someone had been watching her. She turned slowly to see Jordan Dawes sitting in a chair near the window.

“Better than yesterday,” she replied. “How long have you been here?”

“All night, more or less. I only went home for a quick shower and some fresh clothes. I wanted to keep an eye on you.”

An unexpected feeling of well-being in a dangerous world curled through Sara. She found herself smiling in gratitude.

His return grin revealed a set of perfect teeth. It did nothing to hide the tiredness around his eyes, though. Lines radiated from their edges and a bruised darkness underscored each. His light brown hair looked as though he had run his long fingers through it rather than a comb.

“I should be asking how you feel,” Sara said. “You look like you need a good night’s sleep.”

“Maybe tonight,” he said. He had a slight hook to his nose that she hadn’t noticed yesterday. It gave his face a little extra character that she found charming. “Or at least as soon as I’m certain there’s no way anyone can get to you.”

Get to her. Not that she had forgotten what had happened yesterday. As appalling as it had been, it was, after all, the only memory she had. But the horror of the day had not been at the forefront of her mind during the few minutes she had been awake. Until now.

“Are there any leads?” she asked, trying to keep the fear from her voice. She touched the bandage at the side of her head.

“Sure.” His tone was confident, but his expression suggested he was just trying to make her feel better. “We’re following up on a bunch.”

We? Sara hadn’t yet inquired what Jordan did for a living. If things were normal, she undoubtedly would know. Now, though, she asked, “Are you a policeman, Jordan?”

His expression contained surprise and a hint of exasperation. “Then you really don’t remember anything? Despite our conversation yesterday, I’d hoped—Well, never mind. I’m a detective with the Santa Gregoria P.D., Sara. I was recently hired by your father, who, as I said yesterday, was chief of police.”

Her father. Casper Shepard, the poor, bloodied man who had been killed yesterday beside her…And she couldn’t even remember him. She couldn’t remember a blessed thing that Jordan hadn’t told her. A small sob shook Sara.

“I’m sorry.” Jordan sat beside her on the bed and held her close against him. “I’m so sorry, Sara. I’d do anything to have prevented Casper’s death. Our plan—” He stopped talking. The hands that had been moving soothingly over her back stopped, too. “We’ll find the murderer,” he finished. “I promise.”

Sara was certain he’d been about to say something else. Before she could question him further, though, a hospital worker came in with her breakfast. She wasn’t hungry but allowed the food to be placed on the tray beside her bed. She made herself take a sip of cold, sweet orange juice and a bite of overcooked eggs. She needed energy—didn’t she?—to get her memory back.

Jordan returned to his seat near the window. This morning he wore a black knit shirt that molded to an all-male body with the broadest of shoulders above thick, substantial biceps. She watched as he crossed one of his legs, encased in tight blue jeans, over the other.

Why on earth was she noticing all that?

The answer came to her very quickly. Her mind had raced over a lot of territory before she had finally succumbed to exhaustion the night before. Though not as urgent as some of the other matters she reflected on, one that had troubled her was where she spent that particular night.

It had been their wedding night. She had become convinced of it, even if she didn’t remember. Jordan had told her so. And she had been wearing a wedding gown.

A bride shouldn’t spend her wedding night alone.

Had…had Jordan and she spent other nights together? Sara somehow believed that, even if she remembered nothing else, she would recall what it had felt like to make love with the spectacular hunk of a man across the room. To feel those large, strong hands all over her flesh. To run her own fingers along the nakedness of the hard, hard chest against which she had been so protectively held.

Making love with a man as tender and caring, and as phenomenally good-looking as Jordan Dawes would not be something a woman would forget.

But Sara sighed deeply and sank back into her pillows. This woman had forgotten even her name. Her father. The fact that she had been married. The way she loved the man she had wed just yesterday.

Could she also have forgotten making love with him? The answer, absurdly, was yes.

But she wouldn’t spend much longer here in the hospital. She couldn’t. Eventually she would go home with Jordan. They would start their new life together. Try to put all that had happened behind them—except to the extent that they would help to catch her father’s murderer.

In any event, even if her wedding night had been so dismal, there had to be plenty of exciting nights in the future that she could spend with her new husband, Jordan.

Except…she didn’t really know him.

Would it be fair to him to start married life with a wife so flawed she couldn’t even remember their wedding?

Would her memory return, or would she never recall how much they cared for one another? Could they start from scratch and forge a strong new relationship?

Worst of all, no matter how kind, no matter how good-looking Jordan was, how could she plan on being the newly wedded wife of an absolute stranger?

JORDAN SLOWLY PUSHED open the door to Sara’s hospital room. It was late afternoon. He had waited until she had fallen asleep again before going out to get a cup of coffee and a sandwich from the cafeteria.

“Jordan?” Her voice was soft and a little groggy.

“Yes. I hoped you’d sleep longer.” He strode into the room and sat beside her bed on the chair that he had commandeered as his own. He hadn’t allowed her visitors yet, but she seemed to be improving. There were a lot of people who were concerned about her.

None more than he.

He would let a few of the others come to see her, starting that evening—after he’d had a chance to speak with her further.

And only if he was certain of her continued safety.

“All I’ve been doing is sleeping,” she complained, rolling over to face him. “There’s not even a television in this darned room.”

That had been by design. The news was full of lurid details about Casper’s murder on the day of his daughter’s wedding, speculation as to her condition, and a lot of background information that could only hurt her.

She’d be exposed to it soon enough, but Jordan hoped she would be ready first. He would have to tell her everything she needed to know, though, before her lack of memory could hurt her further.

Poor, lovely Sara. His bride. She had been through more heartache than any one person should in the past years—even if she couldn’t remember everything.

And he should have protected her from this last ugly event. Her and her father.

Sara pushed a button and with the hum of a motor her bed moved her into a sitting position. She wore no makeup, but with her porcelain skin and thick fringe of dark lashes, she needed none. Sara had definitely grown into a beautiful woman. Her black hair, styled so carefully yesterday, now formed a gently mussed frame for her high-cheekboned face. The intrusive white bandage at her temple was a stark contrast to her hair’s deep color. Jordan had an urge to touch it, but he kept still.

The sheet had fallen slightly, revealing the top of her ugly green hospital gown and the smooth, pale flesh above it. Tantalizing flesh.

Watch it, Dawes, he warned himself. This was not the time or the place to harbor lustful feelings about Sara.

As if there ever would be.

Careful not to make contact with her, Jordan reached over and pulled up the sheet.

He saw a flush pinken Sara’s skin. “I must be a sight,” she said.

“Absolutely. A lovely sight,” he said.

Her hazel eyes widened and she smiled. “You’re either very kind or very nearsighted,” she retorted.

“My eyesight is just fine,” he said with a grin. Amnesia or not, Sara remained sassy. “And you’d better remember more about me before you start calling me kind.”

Her smile froze then disappeared. “I’d love to remember more.” There was a wistfulness in her voice.

Jordan wanted to issue himself a good, hard kick in the butt for reminding her of her infirmity. “You will,” he said with more assurance than he felt. He had spoken further with her doctors. They had been uncertain as to what, if anything, she would remember—her own past, people, how to do things. It varied in different cases. If all went well, at least some things would start coming back to her soon. But they’d told him that sometimes people with amnesia never fully recalled the incident that resulted in their loss of memory.

If only he could get inside Sara’s skull, see what she had seen in that hotel room…find out the identity of the dirty scumbag who had killed Casper and had hurt her that way.

The same scumbag, he was certain, who’d been the target of their elaborate scheme that had backfired so miserably.

“Tell me.” Sara seemed to sit up straighter. One of her hands appeared from beneath the sheet and gestured plaintively toward him.

“Tell you what?”

“Everything. All that I should remember.”

“I’ll tell you what I can,” he dissembled, hoping his dismay didn’t ooze visibly from every pore. There were things he didn’t want to tell her just yet. The doctors had also said that amnesia could be the mind’s way of protecting a person from events she couldn’t, for the moment, bear to recall. That was why, for now, there were things he couldn’t mention. And why he couldn’t even consider attempting forensic hypnosis, though he had been trained in it. Still, he could hand her back a little of her present. Innocuous things that she’d hear soon enough anyway.

“Okay,” she said agreeably, her eyes wide with anticipation. “Go ahead.”

“Well, I already told you that I’m a police detective, and that your father was my boss. Did you know he was your boss, too?”

“Really?”

“You’re a dispatcher with the Santa Gregoria Police Department, Sara.”

“Oh, Jordan,” she said with a sudden intake of breath. A big tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m so glad to know—but even now that you’ve told me, I don’t recall a thing about it.”

He wanted to sit on the edge of her bed. Pull her into his arms. Comfort her.

But that could not be. For Sara was a lovely woman. He found her more than a little appealing—and a lot sexy. Contact with her, even innocently, could lead him to want more. Much more.

And that was why, for his own sanity, he didn’t dare touch his bride.

TWO DAYS LATER, Sara finally awaited her release from the hospital. The doctors had professed they had done all they could for her. They had given her the name of a private physician to see and had told her that her memory would return—sometime. They suggested hypnosis if her memory didn’t come back, but not till she felt up to it. She wasn’t sure she ever would.

But she could finally go home.

Not before facing one further ordeal, though: her father’s funeral. She had been told that the investigation details involving his body had been conducted thoroughly but fast, and he had already been prepared for interment.

As Sara dressed for the sad event in preparation for leaving the hospital, Jordan wasn’t with her. June Roehmer, dressed in a formal police uniform, was. June was a pixieish woman a few inches shorter and a year or two older than Sara.

“I’m really so sorry,” June told Sara as she handed her a deep gold blouse, long brown skirt and panty hose that Jordan had sent with her, “that you don’t remember how close you and I are.” Beneath her cap of short, dusty-blond hair, her gray eyes widened in dismay. “Of course, there are more important things going on with you now. Your dad wasn’t the easiest person for us uniform cops to get along with, but he was a fine chief of police. I’ve never heard anyone say otherwise.”

“Thanks, June,” Sara said. She wished the woman would stop talking for just thirty seconds. Sara’s head had been feeling much better—until faced with June’s garrulousness. “I’m sorry I don’t remember how close we were, too.”

She took the clothes from June and went into the bathroom to change, leaving the door slightly ajar. She felt a little dizzy, and her head still hurt. She would call for help if necessary.

“Do you remember anything about what happened in that hotel room?” June called. “I mean, all of us were upstairs at your reception. From what people are saying, you and your dad just left the reception with no explanation. Jordan was on a phone call on his cellular and didn’t see you go. And then—then…and you don’t remember any of it?”

“No,” Sara answered sadly, sitting on the edge of the closed toilet seat as she pulled on her panty hose. “I don’t recall why we went to that room…if Dad asked me to come along—anything.”

Dad. She had called her father “Dad.” Sara was sure of it.

Was that her first memory to return? She felt the corners of her mouth lift a little at this tiny milestone, but then she stopped her grin. She shouldn’t admit to anyone when any memory returned. Jordan and she had discussed that, and it made sense.

She had no idea whom to trust.

Even Jordan, though she could hardly tell him that. She certainly didn’t want to think that the handsome man who was apparently her husband had anything to do with her father’s murder and her own assault. But until she remembered who had done it, she had to be cautious.

She wondered where he was. He’d said he would be at the funeral. That June would be with her until then. But she wanted Jordan.

He had been the small bit of thread binding her to her sanity these past few days. She didn’t feel like the kind of person who was comfortable relying on anyone else…but she didn’t really remember what kind of person she was. And she still missed Jordan.

At least he’d given her a rundown of what, and whom, to expect at the funeral: a huge turnout of cops from all over, expressing support for one of their fallen comrades. And lots of news coverage.

She sighed as she put on her blouse and skirt. Jordan had promised that she would be protected from the media. She didn’t want to be part of the circus. She could not remember anything of interest to tell them, anyway.

Slowly, she walked back into her room.

June took a hairbrush from some items of Sara’s that Jordan had sent and began carefully brushing her shoulder-length black hair, obviously taking care to avoid the area around her bandage. Even her small tugs caused Sara’s head to hurt, though, and she took the brush from June. “Thanks, but I’d better do this.” She sat on the edge of the bed and brushed her own hair.

“I hurt you? Sorry.” June looked so contrite that Sara shot her a warm smile.

“You did a great job. I’m just a bit sensitive now.”

“You were always a little sensitive,” June told her with a smile that softened the words and the shake of her head. She stood in the middle of the hospital room with her arms folded. “I said so over and over—though I think you did the right thing about Jordan. He’s a hunk, isn’t he? And he’s always seemed very nice to me, no matter what Casper thought. But when you left the wedding reception with your dad, did he…I mean, might he have been giving you a final warning about Jordan?”

Sara froze. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t remember that, either?” June sighed. She uncrossed her arms and one edge of her mouth lifted in a worried expression. “Look, Sara, I don’t want to be carrying tales. You’d better ask Jordan.”

“I’m asking you.” Sara knew full well that June was eager to toss out whatever was on her mind; her reluctance was only for show. She stood and took a step toward this woman who professed to be a friend. Maybe she was a friend, but if this were the kind of game she usually played, Sara wasn’t sure why she’d have tolerated it before. “Please, June,” she said. “If there was something…awkward between my father and Jordan, I don’t remember it. Since we’re good friends, I need to rely on you to tell me what I need to know.”

June crossed the small gulf of space in the hospital room and grasped Sara’s hand. June’s was icy, making Sara immediately conscious of the warmth of her own hand. “All right.” June managed to sound reluctant, though her gray eyes sparkled in apparent anticipation. “You do need to know this, Sara. Not that I suspect Jordan of anything. As far as I know, he didn’t even leave the reception until hotel security got the call from the third floor. But Casper—your dad—didn’t like Jordan much.”

“I thought Jordan said that Dad—my father—recently hired him.”

“He did—after you got engaged. I don’t know the whole story, but it was something like Jordan used to know Stu, and you and he kept in touch after you saw each other three years ago. You got engaged, and Jordan decided to move here. It worked out great, since Casper needed another good detective. Jordan had been a Texas Ranger.”

Jordan had been a Texas Ranger? Why hadn’t he mentioned that? Of course, he hadn’t said much about her past or his background. He’d primarily told her about Santa Gregoria, its police force, his job and hers.

And the rest of what June had said—Sara’s head was hurting her something fierce once more. She pulled away gently from June’s chilly grip and leaned against the bed. “I still don’t understand. If Dad didn’t like Jordan, even if we were engaged, he didn’t have to hire him.”

June turned her back on Sara and began to look through her closet. “We need to make sure you’re not leaving anything here.” She pulled out a sweater and an extra nightgown that Jordan had brought for her and folded them neatly. “Anyhow, I suspect Casper wouldn’t have been pleased with any cop who was interested in his little girl.”

That didn’t sound correct to Sara, but she didn’t know why. “I see,” she said simply. Another question struck her. Its answer was important, she was certain. She looked down at the clothing items June had placed on the bed beside her and began stacking them into neat piles. “Who’s Stu?” she asked nonchalantly.

She glanced up from the corner of her eye as the movement across the room suddenly stopped. “Oh, Sara. I’m so sorry. You don’t remember that, either?”

Sara gnawed at the inside of her bottom lip for a moment. June Roehmer was one of the most annoying people she had ever met—or at least she thought so for now. “No, June,” she said as slowly as if June were the one with a mental deficiency. “I have amnesia. I hate it, but that’s the way it is for now. I don’t remember anything, or anybody, from the time before I was struck on the head. Now, tell me about Stu.”

She was suddenly certain she didn’t want to hear. Her hands went out in front of her in a protective anticipatory gesture, but she had already loosened June’s tongue.

“Stuart Shepard was your brother, Sara,” the policewoman said softly. There was a catch in her voice, as though telling this particular tale hurt her, too. Sara looked up and saw tears glistening in gray eyes beneath arched blond brows. “He died three years ago, honey. He and I had been dating at the time. Stu was a wonderful guy.”

“Stu?” The name spilled from Sara’s lips as though it belonged there. Did she truly remember him? She wasn’t sure, but she had a sudden mental image of a tall young man with short, dark hair, laughing hazel eyes and a quirky smile. “Dead? How?”

“He was murdered, Sara. Stabbed with a steak knife, like your father. And the killer has never been caught.”

SARA WOULD ARRIVE any minute. Jordan quashed the urge to call June Roehmer on her police radio to ask for their estimated time of arrival. He needed to prepare himself to be the rock Sara would lean on in the ordeal to come.

For Stu’s sake and Casper’s, he would take care of her. Properly. His own unanticipated attraction toward her would not get in the way. He wouldn’t let it.

He had been at the Santa Gregoria Community Church for an hour, checking out every cranny in the old, Gothic-style gray-stone church that was bleak and dismal enough to hold a funeral every day of the week. But this day, only one was scheduled: Casper Shepard’s. He would be buried in the church’s graveyard.

Jordan stopped outside the small vestry where Casper’s closed casket lay. The area smelled of burned wax. He stared at the simple metal casket that he had chosen. Would it have been Casper’s choice? Sara’s?

He remembered the similar funerary container that had been chosen for Stu three years earlier. Jordan sucked in a deep breath. I’m sorry, buddy, he thought. This wasn’t supposed to happen. But I promise you I’ll get the son of a—

“Everything in order, Dawes?”

Jordan turned rapidly to face Carroll Heumann, the assistant chief of police, now acting chief—and Jordan’s boss. Heumann was dressed in a formal blue uniform, though most of the time on the job he wore civilian style suits.

He scowled at Jordan’s own dark suit as though it emphasized his being an outsider.

Heumann was a heavy man with more chins than neck and a decided lack of hair. His narrowed brown eyes reflected his no-nonsense outlook. For the moment, they studied Jordan.

Jordan responded to his question. “Far as I can tell, everything here is as it should be.” That was a lie, of course. Nothing here was as it should be. Casper Shepard should not be dead. This should not be the day of the funeral of one of the most vital, kind, determined men Jordan had ever met.

“All right,” Heumann said, joining Jordan beside the doorway to the vestry. The hall where they stood was carpeted with a well-worn, patterned red runner with a blue-and-red border. The walls were textured and dingy white, and dark, dreary paintings of European cathedrals hung here and there. “There’ll be a few cops in town from nearby jurisdictions to keep an eye on things, since most of our people will be attending the funeral. I don’t anticipate any trouble, but you never know when it may come, or from where.” His scrutiny of Jordan’s face had intensified.

“No,” Jordan agreed. “You don’t.” He wondered if there was a message hidden behind Heumann’s words—such as an intimation that trouble came from Texas, just like Jordan.

“Your bride’s all right?”

The inquiry seemed belated to Jordan, but he answered willingly. He had every intention of making certain that everyone in the world knew Sara’s condition.

It was safer for her that way.

“In most aspects, she seems fine. But that blow to her head—the doctors have no idea if her memory will ever return.”

“She doesn’t remember anything now?”

“No,” Jordan said, looking steadily into his superior’s bulldog face. Had he seen a hint of relief flash through his eyes—or was it suspicion? No one was off Jordan’s suspect list for now.

He supposed that everyone on the case felt the same way—and that he was at the top of some suspect lists himself. People knew that Casper and he had been arguing.