She hurried back and pulled the sheet up to her neck. “Thank you,” she said. “For being there just now, I mean. And for saving my life.”
He nodded, compressed his lips and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Well, I just came by to see if there’s anything I can do for you, anything you need, other than your memory, of course. I took that away from you, but I’m afraid I can’t give it back. No matter what you say, I blame myself that you’re here.”
“I don’t need anything.” She tried to sound more certain than she felt. “I’ll probably wake up in the morning with all my memories intact.” Which didn’t mean she wouldn’t still be terrified.
“I hope so. I hope that by this time tomorrow you’ll be home with the man who gave you that diamond.”
The sparkling ring looked incongruous lying on the nightstand between the plastic tray and plastic water pitcher. She swallowed hard and fought back the resurgence of unreasoning terror and disgust it evoked.
“You need to put it on,” he said. “Jewelry has a bad habit of disappearing in hospitals.”
She continued to stare at the ring, unable to force herself to move closer, to reach for it.
Cole picked up the diamond with one hand and took hers with the other.
His hand was warm and big and capable and she fought down a rekindling of that inappropriate response to his touch that she’d felt while standing in front of the mirror. He was being considerate and kind. That was all.
He touched the tip of her finger with the ring, and terror suddenly overwhelmed her again, a black void that drove out any other emotions and threatened to swallow her up, a nameless, pervasive fear that encompassed everything because she couldn’t recognize its face.
She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to divert herself, to maintain contact with reality. It was only a ring, not some instrument of torture, nothing to cause her breathing to become labored and her mouth dry.
The metal burned as he slid it onto her finger, then stopped at her second knuckle. “Your finger’s swollen, probably from the accident. You’d better wear your ring on a smaller one.”
“No!” She snatched her hand away, curling it to her chest and leaving him holding the ring. “It’ll fall off,” she improvised desperately. “I’ll lose it. You take it.”
Cole sighed and stepped back. “Lady, do you have any idea how much this ring is worth? Way too much for you to entrust it to a stranger.”
“You’re no more of a stranger to me than I am to myself. I trust you.”
“You don’t have any reason to.”
“I don’t have any reason not to. You asked if there was anything you could do for me. You can take that thing away. Please.”
He shook his head then reached inside his pocket and withdrew a battered leather wallet.
“I’ll tell you what. I just cashed a check and I’ve got—” He counted out bills. “Three hundred eighty-five dollars. It’s probably not even close to what this rock is worth. But I’ll take the ring with me and leave you this so you’ll have some money in case your fiancé doesn’t show up immediately and so you can have some reassurance that I’ll get your diamond back to you.”
“All right.” She refrained from telling him that she didn’t want the money, didn’t care if she ever saw the ring again. That would sound crazy.
Besides, she probably would want it back when her fiancé found her, when her memory returned.
Maybe.
Though wanting the vile thing on her finger seemed an impossibility right now.
He gave her the cash then took out a business card and a pen. “Here’s my home and office numbers in case you leave before I get back to you. The home number’s unlisted.”
She took the card and read it, memorizing both numbers. Just in case.
He studied the ring again then slid it into his pocket. “Try to get some sleep, okay?”
She nodded.
“Good night and good luck, uh—”
She held her breath. Was he going to call her Jane Doe the way the nurses had, let her know that he didn’t consider her a real person either?
“Mary Jackson.” His lips quirked upward in a semblance of a smile. “Good thing you’re not a rock-music fan. You might have called yourself something really off the wall.”
She tried to return his smile. “Sure. Things could always be worse. Right?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Well, I’m sure it’ll all work out for you. Good night, Mary. Call me if you need anything.”
He spun on his heel and left, taking his aura of sadness and desolation with him, but instead of feeling lighter, the air seemed heavier and more oppressive than before he’d gone, darker, even though the light still blazed from the ceiling.
Chapter Three
For the next two days and nights Cole saw her haunted, frightened, alluring face on the six o’clock news broadcasts, in the local papers and in his dreams.
Despite all the publicity, however, her groom had not appeared to claim his bride. No one had come in to identify her, to take her home. Every afternoon Cole checked with Pete, and every afternoon the word was the same. Nothing.
She remained a woman with no past, adrift in a world she couldn’t remember. And no matter that she genuinely didn’t seem to blame him for it…he blamed himself. The accident had been unavoidable, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d been the one driving the car, the one who’d caused her problems and, ironically, the only one she’d trusted to help her. He couldn’t help her. He knew that.
Yet the memory of the way she’d lifted her chin and lied so bravely about remembering her name and address to keep from going to the hospital, the startled, pleased way she’d looked when he told her she was beautiful…the memory of her…stayed in the forefront of his mind and made him wish he could help her.
Pete had told him that she’d insisted on leaving the hospital the next day. Using the money he’d loaned her on her engagement ring, she’d rented a hotel room as close as she could get to the scene of the accident, hoping she’d recognize something familiar. He knew the place she’d chosen. It wasn’t luxurious nor was it seedy. It was mediocre. Institutional. Not a place where he could imagine Mary, with her air of fragility and dignity, being comfortable.
Cole tried to get the image of her in that hotel out of his mind as he pulled off the street and into his winding, tree-lined driveway a little after midnight. It was a dark, moonless night and, without the reflective strip on his mailbox, he might have missed the turn.
That driveway had been one of the things Angela had liked about the place, that the casual passerby wouldn’t be able to find them. On the outskirts of Dallas, the heavily wooded lots were large and had offered the requisite city residence for his job on the police force as well as seclusion and safety for Angela.
Which only proved that nobody could ever really be safe.
Not Angela and Billy in their secluded house and not Mary Jackson in her rented room in a mediocre hotel. But he couldn’t do one thing to change that, so why was he even stewing about it?
He pulled into the garage and got out of his car—not the beloved T-bird he’d been driving when he ran into Mary, but a dark blue, midsize sedan, the one he drove when he didn’t want to stand out, didn’t want to be noticed, when his job called for him to blend into the crowd, as he’d done tonight, infiltrating a society party dressed as a waiter.
He left the garage, closing the door behind