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If only she could ignore the smell of him, male and musk and leather as they paused at the bathroom door.
“¡Señora McKenzie!” A petite nurse hurried down the hallway. Concern creased her forehead and caused her steps to hurry along the smooth tile floor. “¡Espere!” As she approached, she slid a furious glance at Trent. “¿Qué es esto?” Her black eyes snapped fire and her thin lips drew tight like a purse string.
“She wants to know what’s going on here,” Trent explained. There was an exchange of angry Spanish, and finally Nurse Lidia Sánchez shoved open the restroom door with her hip and helped Nikki inside. “I guess she didn’t like my bedside manner,” Trent offered as the door swung shut.
Nurse Sánchez was still muttering furiously in Spanish, but Nikki didn’t even try to understand her. Instead she stared at her reflection in the mirror mounted over the sink. Her heart dropped and all the tears she’d fought valiantly swam to the surface of her eyes. The swelling had gone down, but bruises and scrapes surrounded her eye sockets. Thick scabs covered the abrasions on her cheeks and chin. Her hair was dirty and limp and she barely recognized herself. She hadn’t expected to be beautiful, but she hadn’t thought it would be this bad. Beneath the bruises she could see traces of a woman who would be considered pretty and vivacious, with green eyes, an easy smile and high cheekbones. Her chin-length hair, a light brown streaked with strands of honey-blond, held the promise of thick waves, but today the dirty strands hung limp and lusterless.
Trent certainly wasn’t posing as her husband because he was taken with her beauty. She winced as she touched the corner of her eye where the scab had curdled.
“Pase,” Nurse Sánchez insisted as she held open the door to the lavatory. “Ahora.”
Nikki followed her orders, but on her way out paused at the mirror again and caught Nurse Sánchez in the mirror’s reflection as she attempted to wash her hands. “Do you know which room Mrs. Martínez is in?”
“Sí, room seven. You know her?” she asked skeptically.
“Just of her,” Nikki said, wiping her hands and following the nurse back to her empty room. Trent wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and she felt a mixture of emotions ranging from disappointment to relief. She had started to trust him, but the girl from the hotel had caused all her doubts to creep back into her mind. Somehow she had to find a way to talk to Mrs. Martínez in room seven.
Her bed had been changed, and she lay on the crisp sheets and closed her eyes. Her surface wounds were healing. Even her ankle was much better, but her memory was still a cloudy fog, ever-changing like the tide, allowing short little glimpses into the past life, but never completely rolling away.
She was certain she remembered a golden retriever named Shorty, and that she’d never gotten along with her sisters, who were several years older, but she couldn’t recall their names or their faces.
Instinctively she knew that she’d always been ambitious and that she’d never spent much time lying around idle—already the hospital walls were beginning to cave in on her—yet she couldn’t recall the simple fact that she was married to a man as unforgettable as Trent McKenzie.
She was in limbo. No past. No future. A person who didn’t really exist.
At the sound of the scrape
of his boot, she opened her eyes and found Trent at the foot of her bed. His expression was as grim as she’d ever seen. “There’s good news and bad news,” he said, his fingers gripping the metal rail of the bed until his knuckles showed white. “The good news is that you get to leave this place. Padillo says that you can leave tomorrow.”
“And the bad news?”
“The airline we’re booked on, one of the few carriers that flies to this island, declared Chapter Eleven yesterday.”
“I don’t understand.”
His eyebrows pulled together, forming a solid black line. “They’re in bankruptcy reorganization. Everyone who bought a seat on the plane is scrambling to get passage on the other carriers. The airport’s a madhouse, and my guess is that we won’t get out of here for at least two days.”
“Two days?” she repeated.
“Maybe longer.” His jaw was tight with frustration. “I booked us another room, and I was lucky to get one. I paid for a week. Just in case.” He kicked at an imaginary stone on the floor. “Looks like we’re stuck here for a while, Mrs. McKenzie. Just you and me.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Here it is—home, sweet home.” Trent swung open the door of their hotel room and Nikki felt the cold hand of dread clamp over her heart. So she was here. Alone with her husband.
Swallowing hard, and still holding on to Trent’s arm for balance, Nikki carefully stepped over the threshold of the second-story room. It was furnished with a single queensize bed, a small round table with two chairs situated near the terrace and a single bureau. Matching night tables in an indiscriminate Mediterranean design were placed on either side of the bed.
“Come on. You’d better rest.”
“I’ve done nothing but rest for the past week,” she objected, though leaving the hospital, the bumpy cab ride and walking through the large hotel had been more difficult than she’d anticipated. Doctor Padillo had assured her that she would feel stronger with each passing day, and she certainly hoped so.
Trent hadn’t lied about the problems getting off the island. Never easy, now leaving Salvaje was nearly impossible with the major carrier to the island in a state of flux. “You haven’t found us another flight yet?” she asked, though she guessed from his silence in the cab that his attempts to fly home must have failed.
“I’ll work on it.”
A firm hand on her elbow, he guided her to one side of the bed, pulled down the covers and let her slide onto the clean sheets. She felt awkward and silly. If he were her husband, this was no big deal. If he weren’t…she couldn’t even imagine where being cooped up alone with him might lead.
“There’s a phone here. Good luck getting an overseas line. Everyone who’s stranded here is trying to call out.”
