A Husband To Remember

Fear took a stranglehold of her throat. “I don’t remember,” she lied, not wanting to hear any confirmation that her nightmare had been real, that the terror-riddled dream that had chased her in her sleep wasn’t a figment of her overactive imagination.

The back of her throat tasted acrid. “Were you chasing me up on the ridge?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

He hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. “You were alone, Nikki,” he said, and she knew he was lying through his beautiful white teeth. “There was no one else.”

“Where were you?”

“Waiting. At the mission. I saw you fall.” His face went chalk-white, as if he relived a horrid memory. “I think it would be best...for you...to go home. You’d feel safer and forget the accident.”

Accident? The breath of fear blew through her insides, and she wished she could run again, that her body would support her and she could get away...to...where?

“I don’t think I’d feel safer—”

“But you would be. With me.”

“I don’t even know you,” she said, stark terror beginning to seize her throat.

Sighing, he shoved a hand through his unruly mane. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this. The doctor doesn’t want you getting upset.”

Her patience snapped and she threw caution to the wind. “I can’t remember anything! I don’t remember my life, my job, my parents, my family, and I certainly don’t remember you! I’m already way past upset!”

His mouth twisted heartlessly as his cruel mask slipped easily back into place. “I think we’d better wait for Padillo. See what he has to say.”

There was an edge to his voice that caused sweat to gather at her nape. She couldn’t remember the men she’d dated, but she would swear on her very life that none of those men would look like a rough-and-tumble backwoodsman with hawk-sharp eyes, angular features and scuffed boots. She noticed the beat-up leather jacket tossed carelessly over the back of his chair and the worn heels of his boots. He moved restlessly as if he were a man used to looking over his shoulder. Her throat went dry with fear. He was a con man? Someone sent to kidnap her? Or was he really her husband?

Her mind raced with a thousand reasons why she might be kidnapped, but she didn’t think she was rich or famous or the daughter of some tycoon. She didn’t feel like a political radical or a criminal or anything.... But for some reason this man wanted her, or the people in the hospital, to think that they were married.

She couldn’t remember much, but she was convinced this impostor was not her husband.

But who would believe her on this island? Certainly not Nurse Vásquez, who obviously thought that Trent was besotted with her. But maybe the doctor. If she could talk to Dr. Padillo alone, perhaps she could convince him that something was very wrong.

Trent peered out the window, as if he were searching for someone in the parking lot below.

“I think if I really was married to you, I’d know it,” she said.

“You’ll remember,” he predicted, though no warmth came over his face. He rested his hips on the sill, his gaze shifting from her to the crucifix mounted on the wall, the only decoration in the otherwise stark room. “As soon as I get you out of here.”

“But you can’t,” she said, desperation creeping into her soul. Alone with this man—with no recollections of the past?

He smiled with cold patience. “I’m your husband, Nikki, and now that you’re awake, I’m going to ask the doctor to release you as soon as you’re well enough to go home.”

CHAPTER TWO

“So she wakes up!” the doctor said, poking his head into Nikki’s hospital room. Short and round, with a wide smile, dark eyes and a horseshoe of gray hair, he strode into the room with the air of a man in charge. “Buenos días, you are the sleeping beauty, sí?”

Nikki felt anything but beautiful. Her entire body ached and she knew her face was scratched and bruised. “Buenos días,” she murmured, glad to finally see someone who might be able to help her.

The doctor picked up her chart from its cradle at the foot of the bed and scanned the page. His lab coat, a size too small, strained around his belly, and when he looked up and grinned a glimmer of gold surrounded a few of his teeth. Small, wire-rimmed glasses were perched on his flat nose. “I’m Dr. Padillo,” he said as he dropped the chart and moved in close with his penlight, carefully peeling back Nikki’s eyelid and shining the tiny beam in her eye. “¿Qué tal se siente hoy?”

“Pardon?”

“She doesn’t speak Spanish.” Trent’s voice caused her to stiffen slightly.

With the small beam blinding her, Nikki couldn’t see Trent, but she sensed that he hadn’t moved from his post near the window. He’d spent hours sitting on the ledge or restlessly pacing near the foot of the bed.

“Dr. Padillo asked how you were feeling today.” As the penlight snapped off she caught a glimpse of him, leaning against the sill, one hip thrown out at a sexy angle.

“The truth?” Nikki asked, blinking.

“Nothing but,” Trent said.

“Like I was ground up into hamburger.”

Padillo’s eyebrows shot up and he removed his glasses. “¿Cómo?”

Trent said something in quick Spanish and the doctor smiled as he polished the lenses of his wire-rims with the corner of his lab coat. He slid his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose. “So you have not lost your sense of humor, eh?”

“Just my memory.”

“Is this right?” he asked Trent and Nikki was more than a little rankled. It wasn’t Trent’s memory that was missing, it was hers, and she resented the two men discussing her.

“Yes, it’s right,” she said a little angrily.

Scowling, Padillo checked her other eye, clicked off his light and glanced at Trent, who had shoved himself upright and was standing in her line of vision. His features were stern and the air of impatience about him hadn’t disappeared. Dr. Padillo rubbed his chin. “You are a very lucky woman, Señora McKenzie. We were all worried about you. Especially your husband.”

“Worried sick,” Trent added, and Nikki thought she heard a trace of mockery in his voice. His cool gaze flicked to her before returning to the doctor.

Shifting on the bed, she grimaced against a sudden pain in her leg. “I feel like I broke every bone in my body.”

Padillo smiled a bit, not certain that she was joking. “The bones—they are fine. And except for your—” he glanced at Trent “—tobillo.”

“Your ankle. It’s sprained but not broken,” Trent told her, though she would rather have heard the news from the doctor himself. The thought of Trent and Padillo discussing her injuries or anything else about her made her stomach begin to knot in dread.

“Sí. The ankle, it is swollen, but lucky not to be broken.”

She supposed she should believe him, but lying in the hospital bed, her body aching, Trent acting as her husband or jailer, she felt anything but lucky.

“Your muscles are sore and you have the cuts and scrapes—contusions. Lacerations. You will be—” he hesitated.

“Black and blue?” Trent supplied.

Doctor Padillo grinned. “Sí. Bruised. But you will live, I think.” His dark eyes twinkled as he touched her lightly on the arms and neck, lifting her hospital gown to expose more of her skin as he eyed the abrasions she could feel on her abdomen and back. “This must be kept clean and covered with antibiotic cream so that she heals and does not get the infection,” he told Trent. To underscore his meaning, he pointed at a scrape that ran beneath her right arm and the side of her ribs, and the air touched the side of her breast.

A tide of embarrassment washed up her face and neck, which was ridiculous if Trent really was her husband. Surely he’d seen her dressed in much less than the hospital gown. Her breasts weren’t something new to him. Yet she was grateful when the thin cotton dropped over her side and afforded her a little bit of modesty.

The headache that had been with her most of the time she was awake started thundering again and hurt all over. Her entire right side was sore and she was conscious of the throbbing in her ankle. Padillo listened to her heartbeat through a stethoscope and asked her to show him that she could make a fist and sit up. She did as she was bid, then hazarded a glance in Trent’s direction, hoping that he had the decency to stare out the window, but his eyes were trained on her as if he had every right to watch as the doctor examined her.

“Ooh!” she cried when Padillo touched her right foot.

The doctor frowned slightly. “Tiene dolor aquí.”

“What?”

“He says you have a pain there—in your foot.”

“Mucho pain,” she said, gritting her teeth.

“Sí.” Padillo placed the sheet and woven blanket over her body again. “It will be...tender for a few days, but should be able to carry your weight by the end of the week.” Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his coat, he added, “We were wondering if you were ever going to wake up.”

“How long was I—?”

“You were in a coma for six days,” Trent said, and from the looks of his jaw he hadn’t shaved the entire time she’d been under. She supposed that it was testament to his undying love that he’d spent the better part of a week keeping his vigil, and yet there was something about him that seemed almost predatory.

Again she looked at his harsh features, trying to find some hint in her memory of the rugged planes of his face. Surely if she’d married him, loved him, slept in the same bed with him, she would recall something about him. She bit down on her lip as he returned her stare, his eyes an opaque blue that gave no hint of his emotions. Desperation put a stranglehold on her heart.

“The nurse will give you medication for the pain,” Dr. Padillo said, making notes on her chart before resting his hip on her bed. “Tell me about the—Dios,” he muttered, snapping his fingers.

“Amnesia,” Trent supplied.

“Sí. Have you any memory?”

Nikki glanced from the doctor to Trent and back again. She needed time alone with the doctor and yet Trent wasn’t about to leave. “Can we speak privately?” she asked, and Padillo’s brows drew together.

“We are alone....” He glanced up at Trent, his furrowed expression showing concern.

“Please.”

“But your husband—”

“Please, Doctor. It’s important!” She wrapped her fingers into the starched fabric of his white jacket.

“It’s probably a good idea,” Trent said with a nonchalant shrug. As if he had nothing to hide. “She’s a little confused right now. Maybe you can straighten things out for her and help her remember.”

I’m not confused about you, she thought, but bit hard on her tongue, because the truth was, she didn’t know a thing about herself.

Trent let his fingers slide along the bottom rail of the hospital bed. “I’ll be in the hall if you need me.” As he left the room, his bootheels ringing softly, he closed the door behind him, and Nikki let out a long sigh.

“That man is not my husband,” she asserted as firmly as she could.

“He’s not?” The doctor’s eyebrows raised skeptically, and he eyed Nikki as if she’d truly lost her mind.

“I—I’m sure of it.”

“Your memory. It has come back?”

“No, but...” Oh, this was hopeless! She clenched a fist in frustration, and pain shot up her arm. “I would remember him. I know it!” Unbidden, hot, wet tears touched the back of her eyelids, but she refused to cry.

Dr. Padillo patted her shoulder. “These things, they take time.”

“But I would remember the man I married.”

“As you remember the rest of your family?”

She didn’t answer. The haze that was her past refused to crystallize and she was left with dark shadows and vague feelings, nothing solid.

“Your home? A pet? Your job? You remember any of these things?”

She closed her eyes and fought the tears building behind her swollen lids. She remembered so little and yet she felt like she was trapped, like an insect caught in the sticky web of a spider, vulnerable and weak. She stared at the IV tube draining into her arm, the iron sides of the bed, the gauze on her arm and the tiny room—her prison until she could walk again.

If only she could remember! Why was Trent posted like a wary guard in her room day and night? Surely he trusted the hospital staff to take care of her. Or was his concern of a different nature? Was he afraid she might escape?

She closed her eyes as the questions pounded at her brain. Why the devil was she on this little island off the coast of Venezuela? And why in God’s name wouldn’t this doctor believe her? There had to be a way to convince him!

“I’ve never set eyes on Trent McKenzie until I woke up a little while ago.”

“See! That is wrong. He is the one who brought you to the hospital.” Padillo smiled reassuringly. “Give it some time, Señora McKenzie. You Americans. Always so in a hurry.”

“Please, call me Nikki.”

“Nikki, then. Do not rush this,” Doctor Padillo said gently. “You have been...lucky. The accident could have been much worse.”

The tone of his voice caught her attention, and for the first time she wondered how she’d become so battered. “What happened to me?” she asked, looking up at him and trying to ignore the horrible feeling that the man to whom this doctor was going to release her was inherently dangerous.

“I’ve talked to your husband as well as the policía. They concur. You and Señor McKenzie were walking along the hills by the mission. These hills, they can be very...es-carpado... uh, sharp...no—”

“Steep,” she supplied, her nightmare becoming vivid again. The jagged cliffs. The roaring sea. The dizzying heights and the mission with its crumbling bell tower.

“Sí. Steep. The path you were on was narrow, near the cliffs, and you stumbled, lost your footing and fell over the edge. Fortunately, you landed on a...saliente—Dios... you call it a...”

“A ledge,” Trent supplied as he opened the door and heard the tail end of the discussion. His gaze was pinned to Nikki’s and his mouth was a thin grim line. “You slid over the side and landed on a ledge that jutted beneath the edge of the cliff. If you’d rolled another two feet, you would have fallen over a hundred feet into the sea.”

Her body jarred as she remembered pitching in the air. So the nightmare was real. Oh, God, help me! Her throat closed in fear, but she managed to whisper hoarsely, “And you saved me?”

His lips tightened a little. “I couldn’t save you from falling over the edge—I was already at the mission. But I heard you scream.” His jaw clenched. “I followed the sound and ran back to the spot where you’d fallen. Fortunately I could climb down and carry you back.”

Was he lying? “How did you get down to me?”

“It was tricky,” he admitted as he rolled up the sleeve of a cotton work shirt. “But I’ve climbed mountains.”

“So you didn’t see me fall?”

His eyes locked with hers, and he hesitated for a fraction of an instant. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone on ahead.”

Nikki wasn’t convinced he was telling the truth, but the pain in her body was intense and she knew arguing with these two men was useless. Could Trent possibly be her savior as he claimed, or had he been the man chasing her, the man who pushed her over the edge? But if so, why would he have brought her back for medical care? Oh, Lord, her brain hurt.

Shuddering, she thought about her nightmare, her feet losing their purchase on the rocky trail, her body pitching toward the rocky shore hundreds of feet below the ridge. Deep in her heart she’d expected that the horrid dream was real, but she shivered with a fear as cold as the bottom of the sea. She hadn’t fallen over the edge, she’d been pushed, chased by someone...someone darkly evil. Her gaze moved to Trent’s face, so severe and determined. It was hard to imagine that he had saved her from death.... She almost cried out, but forced the tremors in her body to subside. She couldn’t show any sign of weakness to this stranger who claimed to be her husband, and she had to come up with a plan, a way to escape the hospital and find out who she was. Oh, God, if her head didn’t ache so badly, if she could bear weight on her ankle, she’d find a way to uncover the truth.

A shadow crossed her face as Trent bent over the bed. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he promised, his breath fanning her face. He kissed her lightly on the lips and there was a warmth in the feel of his mouth against hers that caused her heart to trip. Was it possible that she’d fallen in love with this brash, uncompromising man? Nikki couldn’t remember anything about her past, but she didn’t believe for a second that she would marry a man so damned intimidating, a man who just by his mere presence seemed destined to dominate everyone he met. Certainly she would have chosen a kinder, wiser individual—a thinking man.

His lips moved against hers, and it was all Nikki could do to lay stiffly and unresponsively on the bed. Trent lifted his head and, straightening, smoothed the wrinkles from his shirt as he winked at her. The smile curving his lips was positively wicked—as if he and she shared some dark, indecent secret. He patted the edge of the bed, then walked with the doctor out of the room.

Silently fuming, Nikki thought of a million ways to strangle him. His little show for the doctor was just an act. Or was it? There was no passion in this kiss, not like the one before, and yet she’d felt a spark of emotion, a tenderness she couldn’t equate with Trent McKenzie or whoever the hell he was. She ground her teeth in frustration and willed her memory to surface, but only vague images drifted into her mind. She remembered a grassy field and riding a horse—no, a pony, a spotted pony. She’d been bareback. A dog had trailed after the chubby little horse, nearly hidden in the tall grass. There had been apple trees—an old orchard, perhaps—in the corner of the field and a copse of oak and fir trees on the other side of the fence line.

Had the pony been hers? She imagined cattle grazing on the stubble in the next field, but the image turned cloudy and she was left with an emptiness that she couldn’t fill. “Damn it all,” she muttered as she tried and failed to summon any other thoughts about her past.

What about Trent? Your husband? Any memory of him at all eluded her completely.

She shifted on the wrinkled sheets and sucked in her breath at the sharp pain at her ankle. From the hallway, she heard Trent and Dr. Padillo, talking softly in the flowing cadences of Spanish. Of course they were discussing her, but she couldn’t hear or understand them. Frustrated, she tried to sit up, but fell back against the pillows. If only she could climb out of this bed, march down to the police station, or the airport, or the American embassy, if there was one on this godforsaken island, and demand to know who she was and how she got here.

Tears threatened, and she stared at the crucifix on the wall. “Give me strength,” she whispered as Nurse Vásquez returned with her medication. She thought of refusing the drugs, knowing she needed a clear mind, but the pain was too great and she was thankful for the tide of sleep the tiny pills would bring her. She swallowed the sedative eagerly, waiting for the pain to slowly erode and drowsiness to overcome her. Closing her eyes, an old commercial message wafted through her brain. Calgon, take me away...

When she woke up...then she’d try to remember.

* * *

“I want her released as soon as possible.” Trent eyed the little man who was the most highly recommended doctor on the island. However, there couldn’t have been more than three physicians on Salvaje, so Trent wasn’t going to linger here, hoping this man knew what he was doing. Too much was at stake.

“But you have time...you are on your honeymoon.” With a knowing grin, Padillo patted Trent’s arm. “Be patient.”

“We have to get back to the States.”

“Why must you leave so soon?”

“We’d only planned to stay a week,” Trent explained, trying to keep his temper in check. He was used to doing things his own way. Having Nikki in the local hospital was inconvenient. Damned inconvenient. Probably even dangerous. Don’t get paranoid, he told himself, but he hadn’t slept much in five nights and he was strung tighter than a bowstring. Right now, he wanted to shake some sense into the little doctor, to convince Padillo to release Nikki at that very moment, but he couldn’t tip his hand. Not yet.

“Salvaje is a beautiful place. You should stay here. Enjoy the climate,” Doctor Padillo was saying as a nurse at the lobby waved at him in an attempt to get his attention. “Your wife...she has not seen much of the island.”

“We can come back.”

“You Americans,” the doctor said, clucking his tongue. “Always in a rush.”

If you only knew.

“I can release her within three days,” Padillo said, though by the gathering of lines between his flat black brows it was obvious to Trent that the doctor wasn’t happy about his decision. “But there are only a few flights to America.”

“We’ll find one.”

“Doctor—” the nurse called, and Padillo waved her away, as if she were a bothersome insect.

“Then I’ll have the necessary papers ready to sign.”

“Good. Oh, and while you’re at it, I’ll need my wife’s purse and personal belongings.”

“Today?”

“Sí. I think she’d like to look through it before she goes home.”

“If it is lost, the hospital cannot be responsible—”

“Don’t worry,” Trent said, thinking of the pretty woman with the battered face as she lay in a hospital bed a few doors down the dark corridor. “Just give me her belongings. I’ll sign a release for everything.”

* * *

Nikki wasn’t sure of the time. She’d slept so much, she couldn’t keep track, but it seemed as if two or three days had passed, with Trent forever in the room with her, the doctors and nurses flitting in and out, feeding her, forcing fluids down her, fiddling with the IV, concerned that she eliminate, and assuring her she would be fine.

They seemed worried about infection, anxious about her temperature and her blood pressure, but no one showed the least bit of uneasiness about the fact that her memory had all but disappeared.

When Nikki had asked Padillo about her amnesia, he assured her that her memory would return and she would remember everything about her past, most likely in bits and pieces at first, but then, slowly, all the years of her life would blend together and she would know who she was, her family, what she did for a living. She’d even remember becoming Trent McKenzie’s bride.

She wasn’t so sure.

When she questioned him, Trent was reticent to talk to her about her amnesia. “Don’t worry,” he’d told her. “It’ll come. Take it easy.” She wondered if he’d been coached by the hospital staff or if there was a reason he didn’t want her to remember her past.

He never gave up his vigil. Sitting with her day and night, refusing the next bed, looking the worse for wear each time she awoke, he was in the room with her. He didn’t bother to shave, but did manage to change into a clean shirt one day. Was he devoted? She didn’t buy it for a minute, yet she was certain that there was something tying them together, something worth much more to him than a wedding ring.

Had he kidnapped her and brought her to this tiny island off the coast of South America?

No—for he wouldn’t have alerted the police to her accident, and Padillo himself had talked to the authorities. Unless the Policía de Salvaje were not sophisticated enough to know about crimes committed in the States. Why would they doubt him? He made all the outward signs of caring for her. She, on the other hand, couldn’t remember where she’d lived all her life. Of course they would believe him.

Her head began to throb, and Trent, sensing she was awake, shifted from his spot near the window to take a chair at the foot of the bed. He propped the worn heels of his boots against the mattress and folded his arms over his chest.