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“No… I…” Panic gripped her as she searched her memory, or what had been her memory. Nothing surfaced. Nothing. Not just about this man or this hospital or herself. “I…I don’t remember….” But how could that be? She tried to concentrate, but no single event of her past—no person, no place, no favorite pet or book—would swim to the surface of her memory. “Oh, Lord,” she whispered, her heart hammering, her palms beginning to sweat. “I don’t remember….”
He shoved his hair from his eyes and seemed about to say something, but stopped himself short, and the sharp glance he shot her way said, without words, that he didn’t believe her.
“Who are you?” she demanded. She knew instinctively that she shouldn’t show any kind of weakness to this man.
“You’re serious about this amnesia?” he scoffed in a whisper.
“I don’t—”
Suddenly he leaned over the bed, took her face between his hands and pressed his lips upon hers with the intimacy of a kiss that bespoke of a thousand kisses before. His lips molded against hers with a warm possession, and her heart, already beating in fear, began a wild tempo that pulsed through her veins. He groaned softly into her mouth and whispered, “I’ve missed you, Nikki. Oh, God, I was scared.” His lips claimed hers again with a depth of passion that caused her to tremble and melt inside before she could collect her senses.
Stop this madness. Stop it now!
Even though his mouth and hands were persuasive, she couldn’t respond, because deep in her heart she knew the kiss wasn’t right—the passion and caring of this man were all wrong. There wasn’t any logic involved in her thinking, just a gut feeling that the man wasn’t being honest with her. She tried to struggle, but the IV tube in her arm restrained her and his mouth moved slowly, sensually against hers.
“Thank God you’re safe.” Again he kissed her.
A quiet cough from the doorway caused him to stand straight and flush up the back of his neck. Embarrassed, he managed a smile for the nurse who filled the doorway. “She’s awake,” he said, shrugging with the innocent guile of a child caught stealing a cookie from the jar. All trace of the coldness she’d sensed in him had been quickly hidden.
“Dios. We thank the Virgin.” The nurse, a big, buxom woman with copper-colored skin and eyes as black as obsidian, moved to Nikki’s bedside. Smothering a smile over the tender scene she just witnessed, she shooed the man back away from the bed where he suddenly hung like a lovesick puppy.
Nikki tried to explain. “I don’t know what’s going on, but—”
“Shh, Señora. Please.” With trained fingers, Nurse Consuela Vásquez, according to the nametag pinned to her ample bosom, took Nikki’s pulse, blood pressure and temperature. Nikki tried to protest, to ask questions, but she was told by the big woman to wait. “First we see how you are doing. Then you tell us everything. Okay?”
Impatiently Nikki waited, wanting to wiggle from beneath the stranger’s stare, for his eyes, as she was examined, never left her. Finally, when Nurse Vásquez had checked the IV bag and scratched Nikki’s vital information on her chart, she offered Nikki a sincere and relieved smile. “Well, Señora Makinzee, you wake up. ¿Qué tal se siente hoy?”
Nikki’s brows drew together and she shook her head. “I…I don’t understand. I don’t speak Spanish.”
“She wants to know how you feel,” the man interjected.
“Like I’ve been run over by an eighteen-wheeler.”
“¿Cómo?”
The corners of the stranger’s mouth curved upward just a little as he explained to the nurse, and Consuela Vásquez chuckled.
“Sí. You are lucky to be alive. Your husband…he save your life.”
Nikki’s gaze moved to the man leaning over the bed. He wasn’t smiling any longer and his gaze had suddenly become unreadable. Like a chameleon, always changing. “He did?” she whispered, her heart hammering and sweat collecting along her spine. She wanted to confide in the nurse, to explain about the frightening blackness that seemed to be in the spot that should have held her memory, but hesitated, wonder
ing if it would be wise to admit as much while this man—this man who had kissed her so passionately while she was lying helplessly in the bed—was standing nearby. “My husband? But I’m not married.”
The nurse’s smile collapsed. “He is your husband, señora.”
Nikki shook her head, but a jagged streak of pain ripped through her brain and she was forced to draw in a sharp breath. “I’m not married,” she said again, her gaze locking with that of the stranger, the man claiming to have married her. Was it her imagination or did the skin around the corners of his mouth tighten a little?
“But, Señor Makinzee—”
“McKenzie. Trent McKenzie.” His eyes didn’t warm as he said, “You remember, we were married just before we came to Salvaje for our honeymoon.”
Dear God, was he telling the truth? Why would he lie? But certainly she would remember her own wedding.
“My name is—” She squinted against the blinding pain, trying to see through the door that was locked in her mind.
“Nikki Carrothers,” Trent supplied.
That sounded right. It fit, like a favorite pair of old slippers.
