Here to Stay (Silhouette Special Edition) (4 page)

She smiled without guile or guilt. “I see you’ve met Peter.”

“I’ve met
Dr.
Simmons,” he corrected, angry that neither Simmons nor Sasha had mentioned their connection. “The staff shrink. He’s been by a couple of times to try to get me in touch with my feelings.” One of which, if he was being totally honest, he’d have to admit was a touch of jealousy. “What’s he doing on your front porch?”

“He’s one of the kids my parents fostered. He still thinks of himself as my big brother.”

Trying to sort out his reactions to her relationship to the hospital shrink, Miles handed the photos and envelope back to her. Sasha moved away to put the packet into a huge leather purse that looked as if she could use it to pack for a weekend. Then she slid the extra chair a little farther away from him and sat down. “Do you have any idea when you’ll be able to get out of hospital?”

“A couple more days, from what they tell me.”

“You had quite a concussion, didn’t you?”

“So they say.”

“And your ribs?”

“Four dented, nothing broken. Left knee and ankle slightly sprained. Left shoulder dislocated. Everything healing, except the hole in my memory.” He blew out his breath in disgust.

The worry on her face made him feel like a jerk for being such a wimp. No wonder she pitied him.

“Miles, don’t try to force it. Your brain is working on it, even if you don’t think about it. The memories will come back when they’re ready.”

He snorted. “That’s what your friend the shrink told me. Easy to say. He’s not the one in limbo, is he? He knows exactly who he is, every day, all day—from when he wakes up to when he goes to bed. And so do you. Right?”

She was quiet for so long he thought he’d turned her off totally. He wasn’t exactly acting like Prince Charming, but it would be fraud to try. He was frustrated by the situation, and apparently his way of dealing with frustration was to get angry. It didn’t prove who he was, but it probably proved he was human.

Sasha’s dark eyes stayed on his as if she could see right down to what he suspected was his rather black soul. “Would it help to talk about it?” she finally asked, her voice very soft, like a gentle touch to a wound.

Her gentleness made him feel vulnerable. Her compassion gave him permission to be weak, to give in to emotions. He didn’t want to be vulnerable and sensitive. He wanted to get a grip on the situation, and get his life back on whatever track it had been on before the accident. He needed to be in control of his fate, and he needed his memory to do that. Pity wasn’t going to make him stronger.

“No.” She looked hurt by his bluntness. “Maybe later,” he grunted at her, feeling vaguely uneasy.

“Anytime.” She smiled. Irrationally, that made him feel better. “I’ll leave you my pager number, in case you want to call me during the day. Just to, you know, say hello. Get a baseball score. Or a hockey score. Or both.” She tipped her head to one side, that long braid swinging temptingly. “Would you like to borrow a radio? I’ve got one I could spare.”

She was so eager to do something for him. He felt obligated to accept something. “Sure. Thanks.” Her smile widened and her eyes sparkled. Suddenly he was feeling better than he had all day. Over a radio, for crying out loud! That must have been some bang on the head.

“Miles, don’t dismiss Peter’s help. He’s a very good doctor.”

“I’m not crazy, damn it!” he snapped, feeling rotten even as he vented his frustration. “I don’t need a shrink. I need hard facts to hang something on, not touchy-feely psychobabble.”

She opened her mouth, probably to argue, but a sharp knock on his door silenced her. A second later Constable McLeod walked in. He gave Sasha a smile like a kid at his first prom, then switched off his smile and made eye contact with Miles. A flash of another cop, stern, condemning, came into his mind. He felt himself tense.

“Hi, Doc! Good to see you. How are you doing, Mr. Kent?”

“What have you got for me, McLeod?”

“I should go,” Sasha said, starting to get up.

“Stay, Sasha,” Miles told her, not bothering to examine his motives for wanting her with him when McLeod dropped whatever bomb he obviously had ready. She nodded and sat down, and Miles felt some of his tension ease. McLeod’s eyebrows rose. Miles stared back, daring him to say a word out of line.

“Your fingerprints checked out. Turns out the local police had them on record. You had a couple of break-in attempts at your house, and they needed yours to compare with the ones found at the scene. Other than that, I can’t tell you much.”

McLeod opened his black notebook. “You live on a private island off the Gulf Coast of Florida, and have an office on the mainland. You subscribe to the
Miami Herald,
the
New York Times
and the
Wall Street Journal,
as well as
Forbes
and
The New Yorker.
You have a housekeeper who comes over twice a week. Her husband does the ground work. They’re paid by your office and you don’t spend a lot of time chatting with either of them. Your meals come from a catering service. No wife, no live-in girlfriend, no kids, no pets.”

The cop looked up from his notes and gave a quick glance at Sasha. Miles clenched his teeth. McLeod looked back at his notes. Miles let out his breath.

“You have one full-time employee, a Mrs. Eleanor Dobbs, who holds the title of executive assistant. She didn’t report you missing after forty-eight hours. Presumably, she knew you were leaving, but not why or where you were going.”

McLeod looked up again. “I don’t think your Mrs. Dobbs trusted us. She refused to tell us anything except that she’ll phone you tonight. She especially declined to describe the nature of your business.” He gave a short bark of a laugh that Miles knew didn’t have anything to do with amusement. “I’m going to assume it isn’t anything illicit in nature.”

He shrugged. None of it rang any bells. “What about the restaurant receipts?”

“You had dinner twice, and stayed two nights at a bed-and-breakfast nearby. You paid in U.S. currency. The owners shared a healthy portion of single malt Scotch with you on the first night, but couldn’t get anything out of you except that you were from Florida and escaping from the usual rat race. The wife especially was disappointed.” McLeod grinned. “She said they opened the B and B in order to meet new and interesting people, but you didn’t exactly play the game.”

Miles snorted. “Doesn’t sound like I’m much of a party animal,” he suggested wryly.

The truth was, it didn’t sound as if he had much of a life. An existence, but not a life. All those facts and not a single thing that told him who he really was. Nothing he could hang an identity on. His life was like a glass mountain.

McLeod chuckled, but Sasha leaped to her feet, her dark eyes shooting sparks.
Now
what? Frustration made him shake his head, which set up a series of sharp pains, as if someone had just sent billiard balls colliding in his head.

“How can you make a joke about this?” she scolded. “How can you laugh about the fact that no one seems to know you or care that you’re missing? How can you go through life not touching anyone, not being touched by anyone, then shrug it off?”

“Hey, Doc, take it easy,” McLeod said.

“Don’t tell me to take it easy, Dave McLeod! This is serious. Miles is hurt and he’s lost his memory. Someone has to care about him! Someone has to worry about him and try to do something! If you aren’t going to do anything...”

Her voice broke and Miles realized she was about to cry. Cry over him as if he was some mutt that had been hit by a car. Damn it all! He was her flavor-of-the-month stray, and she was going to charge in and help him whether he wanted it or not. He glared at her, his free hand gripping the wooden arm of the chair as if to splinter it. He would have, if he could.

Sasha didn’t seem to notice. “Dave, isn’t there any way we can—”

“Back off, Sasha,” Miles told her, his voice tight. “It’s my life, even if I can’t remember it right now. I don’t need you to tell me how to feel, and I don’t need you to organize a police investigation into my identity, just to make you feel like you’re doing something useful and good.” He managed to speak without exploding, but he was feeling dangerously like a volcano ready to blow.

She gasped, and stared at him. “But—”

“I don’t need you feeling sorry for me, damn it! I don’t need you treating me like one of your crippled strays. I don’t have to know who I am to know I can speak for myself, and look out for myself. I don’t need your help and I sure as hell don’t want it! Got that?” he growled at her, his voice coming out like the warning of a junkyard dog.

Sasha backed away. The stricken expression in her dark eyes cut straight to his soul. Too late, he realized he’d attacked the only person who genuinely seemed to care what happened to him. In disgust, in shame, he turned away. He had to apologize, but his own stupidity made him speechless.

The shock of Miles’s anger knocked Sasha’s breath out of her. All she could do was stand there, her mouth agape, staring at him as her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, didn’t want him to know how his attack had hurt her, but she simply couldn’t make her arms and legs respond to her brain’s commands to move.

Finally she gathered her wits. Grabbing her purse from the floor, she rushed past Dave. She kept the tears barely under control as she reached for the door handle. Sasha yanked open the door, pulled it shut behind her and then leaned against the wall beside Miles’s door. Outside, in the hallway, nurses and orderlies passed by, intent on their jobs. Visitors wandered along, some beside shuffling pa-tients, some appearing to search for a room number. No one seemed to pay any attention to her.

Sasha wiped hastily at her eyes and cheeks with the back of her hand, then adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder and headed for the elevators. Just as the doors opened, a heavy hand on her shoulder stopped her. Startled, she turned and looked into Dave McLeod’s earnest young face.

“Are you okay, Doc?”

“I’ll live,” she said with a shaky smile. They stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind them. Sasha was acutely aware of the other passengers and could tell that Dave wanted to speak, but not in a crowded elevator. She hoped she could slip away before he said whatever he thought he should say, intending to make her feel better, which would only make her feel worse. Bad enough to be stupid. Awful to have a witness.

Dave stuck by her side when the elevator came to the ground floor. “Come on. I’ll walk you to the parking lot. Never know what kind of weirdos can be lurking in dark corners.” He pushed open the front door and waited for her to walk through.

Hugging her jacket around herself as she strode across the parking lot a half step ahead of him, Sasha welcomed the sting of the crisp night wind on her damp cheeks. Dave cupped her elbow in his hand and lengthened his stride to keep up with her. When she reached her truck, she stopped and fumbled in her pocket for her keys.

“Listen, Sasha, I’m no psychologist, but I’m guessing Kent is hiding something.”

His words almost made her smile. “He isn’t
hiding
anything, Dave. He can’t
remember
anything. There’s a difference, don’t you think?”

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I mean
before
the accident. Were you listening to my notes? The only human being we could find who admitted she knew him refused to tell us anything. I can’t tell if she’s protecting him or afraid of him. And that bothers me. Watch yourself around him, eh? You know what they say about biting the hand that feeds you. And if you have any doubts, about anything, call me right away.”

Dave withdrew one hand from his pocket and held out a business card. His suspicions about Miles disturbed her even more because they reflected her own. Still, she felt compelled to defend him.

“I think you’re wrong about Miles being sinister and dangerous. But it doesn’t really matter. I doubt I’ll be seeing him after tonight. He made that pretty clear.” She realized, too, that she hadn’t had time to leave her phone number. Of course, he could look her up in the book, or ask Emmy. But she would bet her farm that he wouldn’t do either. He was too angry, too proud, too stubborn and too hurt to ask for help. And some of that was her fault.

Dave shook his head. “You’re a soft touch, aren’t you, Doc? Hell, any guy in his right mind would love to have a woman like you fussing and worrying over him. I sure wouldn’t mind.” As if they had a will of their own, her eyebrows rose. He gave her a quick, almost apologetic grin. “Just being honest. Look, Kent’s acting like a cornered bear, like he can’t afford to let his guard down. You better not let yours down, either.”

Now there was a familiar refrain. Sasha smiled. If only Dave knew how many times in her life someone—her parents, her grandparents, her teachers and mentors, her foster siblings and her friends and colleagues—had warned her to leave some wounded critter alone. She really wasn’t as compulsive as they seemed to think. Occasionally, reluctantly, she’d even taken their advice and watched help-lessly as the critter had slunk away to nurse its wounds alone.

But why would a man of Miles’s looks, intelligence and wealth live such a desolate life? Was he hiding something, or hiding
from
something?

“You’re a nice lady, Doc. Play it safe, okay? I mean, hell, just because Kent doesn’t have a police record doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. Desperate men do desperate things sometimes. You stay out of his way. Okay?”

She smiled at Dave’s earnest lecture. “Thank you.”

He nodded. Taking the keys from her clenched fingers, he unlocked her door. “Go on. Drive safely. The roads are getting slick again. See you, okay?”

Sasha climbed into the truck and started her engine. Dave gave her a jaunty salute and she waved as she shifted into first gear and let out the clutch.

“Maybe Dave is right,” she muttered to herself as she aimed the truck toward the parking-lot exit. “If Miles Kent thinks I’m mistaking him for a crippled stray, that’s his business. I’ve got enough to keep me busy without wasting time on a man with the world’s biggest chip on his shoulder. Miles Kent can go to hell, for all I care.”