Memories of Megan
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The small apartment at the edge of the research center didn’t hold a damn bit of recognition for him. A place he’d been told he’d agreed to rent when he signed on with CIRP and made his transition from…where did they say he’d come from? Some little research hospital in the foothills of Tennessee?
But he remembered none of it. And the apartment he’d chosen to live in didn’t feel like home at all. It felt like a prison.
MEGAN SET THE CUP OF TEA on the kitchen table and folded her hands in her lap. “Thanks, April. I don’t know what I would have done without you the last three days. Please tell all the nurses and staff members how much I appreciate the food they brought.” Casseroles and homemade dishes filled the butcher block counter. So much food. Food she had no appetite for.
“Who was that man talking to you before you left?” April asked.
Megan blew into the tea to cool it. “His name is Cole Hunter. He’s a new psychiatrist at the center.”
Sympathy filled April’s eyes. “It looked as if he upset you.”
Megan shrugged. “He came here to work with Tom.” She didn’t want to tell her the rest, how his touch had given her the strangest feeling. How just looking into his eyes had been unnerving. April would think she was crazy.
“I’m so sorry, Meg.” April leaned over and hugged her. “I know how much you wanted things to work out for you and Tom.”
Megan nodded, warming her hands on the oversize mug and rolling her shoulders. Tension clawed at her, the lack of sleep and emotions over the past few days finally wearing her down.
“You look exhausted. Drink that and get some rest.” April grabbed her raincoat. “And call me if you need me.”
“I will. You be careful.” Megan rose and latched the lock on her front door, her eyes narrowing when she glanced out the window and watched April sprint to her car. Seconds later, April climbed in her Volvo and drove away, rain spewing from the back of her car as she sped toward the cottage she rented on Skidaway Island. Megan let the curtain slip back in place, but a dark sedan across the street drew her eye. It was parked in the shadows of a live oak, the Spanish moss drooping like spider legs, casting it in shadows made worse by the dark sky. She peeled the curtain back and studied the vehicle for a moment, trying to see if someone was inside. Was a cigarette glowing from the interior? Had she seen the car in the neighborhood before? Could it belong to one of her neighbors? People she’d never met because she and Tom had both been too busy at work to entertain? Too busy trying to hold their marriage together?
Except for those last few weeks when he’d moved out, when she sensed he’d given up…
Had she seen the car while he was gone?
After several tense seconds, she decided she must be getting paranoid. The car was empty. And there was no reason for anyone to be lurking outside her apartment. No reason anyone would follow her or want to harm her. After all, Tom’s death had been accidental, not suspicious.
Chuckling at her runaway imagination, she carried her tea to the bedroom, bypassing Tom’s closet with a tentative glance. At some point she had to sort through his things and clear them out. At least what he hadn’t taken with him when they’d separated.
But not tonight. She was too battered by Tom’s funeral.
She slipped beneath the covers and finished the tea, grateful for the small shot of bourbon April had laced it with. Weariness pulled at her, but the uneasiness she’d felt earlier rose again to taunt her. Could someone have been outside watching her? And if they had, who were they?
She couldn’t quite forget the trouble surrounding Nighthawk Island and the research center just a few short weeks ago. That Arnold Hughes, the CEO and cofounder who’d been behind the unsavory sale of some of their research, might not be dead as the police hoped. That his body had never been found.
That Tom had been working on something secretive the last few months, something that had made him jittery and even more closed off from her than before. And that a stranger had been at Tom’s funeral. A man who had recently been in an accident of some kind himself but who’d taken her husband’s place at the hospital.
A man who had come out of nowhere.
COLE WALKED THE OUTER BANKS surrounding the research center on Skidaway Island, amidst the tall sea oats and damp grass, well aware security tracked his every move. He inhaled the scent of ocean, needing the familiarity, because nothing else about his life seemed remotely familiar.
Not the idea of being a psychiatrist or the people he’d met at the funeral or the little apartment he’d returned home to.
Home.
What did it mean for him? He had no friends. No family. Not even back in Tennessee where Davis Jones, the head of the psychiatric ward had told him he’d moved from. Hell, Jones had even shown him his résumé, but the information on it seemed foreign as well. Apparently he’d gone to Vanderbilt, worked at a small private practice before signing on with the research facility in Oakland.
Wind whistled through the sea oats, a seagull swooped onto the shore in search of crumbs, and water lapped at the shore in a soothing rhythm. The doctor warned that it would take time to recover his memories. The sea stretched before him, endless and all consuming, just as the blank spaces in his mind. How much time would it take to recover? Would his memory ever fully return? Would he ever feel like the real Cole Hunter again?
An image of Megan Wells’s grief-stricken face flashed into his mind, emotions gripping him. If they had never met, why had he experienced visions of her when he’d touched her?
HE WAS WATCHING HER. Standing beside her bed, his dark eyes staring at her, his hand outstretched.
Shadows hugged the walls, the curtain billowing out from the window, the whisper of a familiar scent filling the room. His cologne. The one she had given him for Christmas last year.
The one he’d hated.
Megan struggled to reach for his hand but her arm was too heavy. Frustration welled inside her. She focused her energy on lifting her hand, but just as she did, he took a step backward. His frame stood silhouetted in the moonlight, the dark look of concern on his face so somber, a whimper bubbled in her throat.
What was wrong?
It was Tom, wasn’t it?
He opened his mouth as if to speak, his eyebrows pinched the way they did when he was trying to concentrate. But when he opened his mouth, no sound came out. She tried to reach for him again, but he slipped farther away, almost floating now, the distance sucking him in some kind of surreal vacuum… What was he trying to tell her?
“Don’t go,” she whispered. “Please, don’t leave me.”
His lips moved again, slowly as if it were painful, and she traced the movements, studying the words. “Be careful, Megan. Don’t trust anyone.”
Megan jerked upright, her heart pounding. Throwing back the covers, she searched the darkness, a gasp escaping her when she saw the curtain fluttering from the opened window.
Someone had been in her bedroom.
The window had been closed when she’d gone to bed.
HE HUNKERED LOW IN THE CAR, hiding in the shadows of the giant live oak, his only light the cigarette glow in the dim interior of the car. His gaze latched onto Megan Wells’s house while he pressed his cell phone to one ear.
“How did the funeral go?”
He snorted. “It was a funeral. How the hell do you think it went?”
His partner chuckled. “Do you think she suspects anything?”
“No, leastways she’s not asking any questions.” He took a drag from the cigarette, savored the nicotine taste, then blew a smoke ring into the air and watched it swirl in front of him. With a gloved hand, he wiped the fog from the tinted window. A light flickered on in Megan’s bedroom. She was awake now. Probably sitting up in bed, that blond hair tousled around her cheeks, her nightgown clinging to her supple body.
“Good, keep it that way.”
He jerked his thoughts back on track. Back to the scene at the graveyard. “But—”
“But what?”
“That guy Hunter, he talked to her for a few minutes after the service.”
A long tense silence followed. “What did they talk about?”
“Nothing really. Just chitchat, but he kept watching her, sort of creepy, if you know what I mean.”
“Like a man wanting a lay, probably. She is good-looking.”
Worry knotted his stomach. Megan Wells was a sharp nurse, intuitive, sensitive to her patients’ needs. Smart. Maybe too smart. He shrugged off the worry. “Yeah, I guess that was it.” He remembered the way Megan Wells’s long blond hair had looked spread across her pillow. Imagined the silky blond strands wound around the black leather of his glove. Damn right she was good-looking.
Unfortunately her good looks wouldn’t matter if she started asking questions.
Chapter Three
Megan’s heart pounded as she switched on the light and grabbed the cordless phone. She had to search the apartment.
Sliding from the bed, she reached for the umbrella on the desk, planning to use it as a weapon if necessary. Praying she wouldn’t need it, she inched through the room, pausing every few feet to listen for an intruder, but silence hung in the air, deathly calm and frightening.
Her fingers tightened around the umbrella base as she rushed to close the window. On guarded feet, she tiptoed to the doorway and peered into the hallway. Nothing but shadowy blank walls. She took a tentative step, then crept down the hall and checked the small den. Darkness bathed the area, cloaking it in heavy shadows, the leaves of the ficus plant in the corner spearing the wall like thready fingers ready to grab her.
The floor lamp looked ominous, the sofa, the closet, every small crevice a possible hiding place. Taking a deep breath, she flicked on the light, and braced herself. Thankfully her apartment was laid out as one open room, so she could see both the kitchen and den at once. Her gaze searched the parameters. Nothing. She sucked in a deep breath and tiptoed around the corner, then checked underneath the breakfast counter. Again nothing.
Thank God. Adrenaline surged through her as she ran to the door and checked the locks, the windows, the closet. But everything remained intact. No spooky demons or monsters hiding inside or beneath anything.
Her breathing still unsteady, she crept back to the bedroom and stared at the room. The deep maroon walls looked almost bloodlike, the shadows of the tree limbs ominous. She had once thought the room a cozy sanctuary for her and Tom.
Now it seemed frightening. She glanced outside for the dark sedan, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. The car was gone. Still, someone had been inside her house.
Should she call the police? And tell them what? That she thought someone had been in the house because her window was open?
Or had she just imagined that someone had been there? Had she been dreaming of Tom? But what about the faint scent of a man’s cologne lingering in the room? Was she imagining that, too?
Stumbling back to bed, she reminded herself how safe she had felt when she and Tom had moved in.
Now she felt anything but safe.
MONDAY MORNING, COLE stepped inside the research center on Catcall Island, feeling lost. His leg throbbed and he leaned on the cane in disgust. He needed a good run, some vigorous exercise to release his tension, but running was definitely out of the question. And the exercises he did to strengthen his leg were painful, slow and frustrating as hell.
“Good morning, Dr. Hunter. I’m Connie, your secretary.”
He offered a strained smile. Had he met her?
“I worked for Dr. Wells.”
“I…I’m sorry about your boss.”
She gestured toward Wells’s office, which adjoined hers, although each had separate entrances to the hall as well. “I’m afraid Dr. Wells didn’t get a chance to tell me much about you, but welcome to the center.”
“Thanks.” Unfortunately he couldn’t tell her much, either.
“If you need anything, just let me know.” She backed toward her desk where he noticed the computer. “Dr. Parnell mentioned that you won’t be seeing patients for a while.”
“That’s right. I need time to get acquainted with things.” He pushed open the door to Wells’s office. His new office. “But thanks for the offer.”
“The delivery man brought in your boxes already.”
Great. Only he had no idea what was in them.
He stepped inside, scanning the space. The office seemed familiar, yet foreign at the same time. Propping the cane beside the desk, he stretched out his leg and began to rifle though the desk. The next few hours, he searched his memory for anything to jog his mind as he unpacked the stacks of research books and material he had been told belonged to him. Books and notes on schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, hypnosis, manic depression and every mental disorder known to man filled the boxes. He thumbed through each one, frowning at some of the technical jargon. Was he supposedly a specialist on one particular disorder? And if so, why didn’t any of the material ring a bell in his foggy brain?
Hopefully they would, he told himself, he just had to be patient. Be patient and move through the days, settling in and familiarizing himself with the routine, the research center, with the work Tom Wells had been doing. Wells’s own books and research manuals cluttered the bookcases on one wall, the materials piled haphazardly as if in no particular order. A small oval plastic cup overflowed with paper clips, shredded paper filled the trash can, and a coffee stain darkened the sleek black top of the desk. The man obviously hadn’t been obsessive compulsive about neatness.
Except that all his notes were typed, not handwritten.
Probably couldn’t read his own writing.
He halted, wondering how he had made that deduction. Was it the first sign that he was a psychiatrist? It was a small tidbit but he clung to it. Now what should he do?
A silver-framed five-by-seven photo of Megan Wells and her husband occupied the corner of the desk. His gut clenched at the ghostly feeling that encompassed him.
She wore a pale blue sundress that accentuated her eyes, he wore a white polo shirt and khaki shorts. Tom’s arm was thrown around his wife’s shoulders, wind whipped through their hair, sails flapped in the breeze, and the bright sun gleamed off their smiles. They had looked amazingly happy.
He didn’t think he was normally an emotional man, but it seemed like a betrayal to Wells’s memory for him to move into his space so soon after his death. To take over his office and discard his personal things. To put Wells’s wife’s photo aside and add one of his own. Not that he had any personal photos to add.
But Jones had insisted that Tom would have wanted his work to continue, that Tom lived for his research and prided himself on his commitment to his profession and his patients.
What about his wife? Had Wells been a doting husband or had he been so obsessed with his work that she had taken second place?
He shook away the troubling thought, wondering why he had even given it a moment’s interest. Megan Wells had looked happy in the photo. And she had been grief-stricken at her husband’s funeral. Besides, she was not his problem.
God knew he had enough of his own.
Still, so far the memories of her had been more tangible than any others.
Maybe she held some secret key that might unlock his past.
MEGAN ENTERED THE RESEARCH center hospital area through the security checkpoint, stopping only to accept brief offers of sympathy from various employees.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” Doris, one of the young research assistants said.
“It’s better to keep busy.” Megan moved on for fear of breaking down. Several of the other staff members echoed the same sentiment as she veered down the corridor toward Tom’s office.
Two of Tom’s colleagues, Davis Jones and Warner Parnell, seemed engrossed in a serious discussion as they approached her from the opposite direction. Something about the case study on autism treatments, she heard one of them say. But as soon as they spotted her, the conversation instantly died.
“We didn’t expect you to come back to work so soon.” Dr. Jones, a handsome man in his early forties with thick tawny hair and a tanned complexion, met her in the hall in front of Tom’s secretary’s office. Through the crack in the doorway, Megan saw Connie stooped over the computer.
“I’m not officially on duty,” Megan explained. “So I thought I’d come and clean out Tom’s office.” She hadn’t been able to touch his personal things at home yet.
Dr. Parnell, an older gray-haired gentlemen with thick dark glasses nodded. “Probably a good idea.”
“Let me know if I can help, Megan,” Dr. Jones said.
Megan nodded, anxious to escape the doctors. Davis Jones had always made her uncomfortable. Both his cocky smile and his reputation with the ladies raised her defenses fast. She’d observed Dr. Parnell at work with some of the schizophrenic patients. He could be kind and sympathetic, yet ruthless when dealing with a disgruntled patient who refused medication. She’d also heard that he was working on some new treatment for autism that straddled the ethical line endorsed by the American Medical Association. Was that what they had been discussing in hushed voices?
She slipped past them into Connie’s office, pasting on a brave smile for the twenty-five-year-old brunette. Tom had treated her for depression. Newly divorced with a three-year-old, Connie had been desperate for a job when Tom hired her.
Connie’s green eyes reflected remorse. She’d made great strides since starting therapy and taking the job. Hopefully Tom’s death wouldn’t cause her to have a setback.
“Hi, Mrs. Wells.” Connie’s voice quivered with emotions.
“Hi, how are you doing?” Megan’s nursing instincts kicked in.
Connie’s thin shoulders lifted slightly. “Hanging in there. But I sure do miss Dr. T.”
Megan smiled, surprised to hear Connie refer to him that way.
“I know he’s actually been gone for weeks, but all that time—” Her voice broke, and she grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk, dabbed at her eyes and swallowed, “…all that time I prayed they’d find him alive.”
“I know, honey. So did I.” She squeezed Connie’s shoulder. “But we’ll get through this. Just keep telling yourself you have a job now. You have to stay tough for your family.”
Connie nodded. “You’re about the bravest lady I know, Mrs. Wells.”
“I’ve told you a dozen times to call me Megan. And you don’t give yourself enough credit—you were brave to leave your husband, and you’re raising your son on your own. That takes courage.”
Connie nodded again, seeming to draw strength from Megan’s words. Megan brushed at her khakis. “I came to clean out Tom’s office, and to take his personal things home.” Megan closed her hand around the doorknob to Tom’s office, but Connie stood, waving a hand.
“You won’t believe this, but they’ve already brought in a replacement for Tom.”
Megan had already pushed the door open though.
She paused, stunned, when she saw Cole Hunter sitting behind her husband’s long polished desk.
COLE FELT AS IF DÉJÀ VU had struck him the minute he spotted Megan standing in the doorway. Impossible.
Jones had told him he had never been in Tom’s office or met Megan before. So, how could he have déjà vu?
“I…I didn’t realize you were going to be here,” Megan said.
Cole’s stomach clenched. “I didn’t, either.” He stood, ready to apologize. “Jones said they’d planned to put me in a cubicle, but since…” He let the sentence trail off when he saw the horrible meaning register in Megan’s eyes. No sense wasting good office space, Jones had said. But he didn’t tell her that part. That he had thought Jones seemed cold, impersonal. Then again, sometimes scientists were cold and impersonal. They had to be.
Another little tidbit, he realized, wondering if these small flashes of insight were memories prying through the empty spaces in his mind.
She squared her shoulders. “I came to get his personal things.”
Cole’s gaze strayed to the photo of her and her husband.
“You looked very happy,” he said, his voice tight.
Emotions skated across her face. A happy memory obviously surfacing. Then sadness. And something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“That was in the Keys, right? Your honeymoon?”
Her gaze flew to his. “How…how did you know that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone told me.” The image of Megan in an ankle-length white cotton dress floated through his mind. She’d looked like an angel. Other memories crowded through the haze. A kiss. A long walk on the beach. A sailboat. “The boat tipped and you fell in the water.”
His throat grew thick. She was staring at him, a frightened look in her big blue eyes. “Who told you about our honeymoon?”
He had no idea. Worse, just as quickly as the images had come to him, they disappeared. And once again, his mind was an empty hole.
MEGAN GRIPPED THE EDGES of the photograph, searching Cole Hunter’s face for some explanation about his comment, but he offered none. Instead he seemed confused, almost as troubled as she was about his knowledge.
She had told only a few of the nurses about their short trip to the Keys. As far as she knew, Tom had told no one. Of course, anyone who had come in his office might have asked about the photo, so Tom might have explained the picture. He certainly wouldn’t have shared any details, though.
Tom was not that kind of man.
He kept his personal life and feelings to himself, his business life almost a different entity. If she hadn’t worked at the center herself, she might never have met his colleagues.
“I’ll step outside while you go through things,” Cole offered.
Megan nodded, needing some space. Not only did she dread the task ahead, but being in close proximity to Cole Hunter unnerved her. His presence seemed to take up all the space in the office, filling it with a different sense, a huge, breathtaking masculine one.
A frightening one.
Or maybe it wasn’t him at all, but just the fact that he’d been sitting in her late husband’s chair.
He reached for the cane and leaned on it, then moved to the door, hesitating. “I’m sorry if my being here makes it more difficult for you.”
Megan clamped down on her lip with her teeth. “It’s not your fault.”
He gripped the door, confusion in his eyes again. “I didn’t ask for Tom’s office, Megan. Dr. Jones insisted. In fact…”
“Yes?”
“I feel uncomfortable being here, too.”
Megan’s anxiety lifted slightly. She understood how difficult it was to be the new man on the block. As a nurse and employee of CIRP, she should be welcoming him, easing his transition.
“I do need to review his files at some point,” Cole said.
“All right.” Megan placed the photograph in the box. “Will you be taking over his patients also? And his research?”
He glanced down at his hand as if her question disturbed him. “Not right away. I recently had an accident myself.”
“I’m sorry. Was it serious?” Megan remembered the scars.
“Yes. I haven’t fully recovered.” She waited for further explanation but he didn’t elaborate. In fact, she sensed the accident was difficult for him to discuss. She understood about not sharing one’s problems, too; her entire life had been a hard road, one that had kept throwing her curves when she least expected it.
Just as it was doing now.
Cole stepped into Connie’s office, wondering where the brunette had disappeared to. He felt a small headache pulsing behind his eyes. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the corner table and massaged the side of his temple. What had happened back in Wells’s office? How had he known where the photo of Megan and her husband had been taken? Had one of the other doctors told him? According to Jones, he had only met Tom Wells for a brief minute or two when he’d interviewed for the job. Would he have shared something personal with a stranger? Most men didn’t.