“U.C.L.A. Medical School,” Hugh said. “With a residency in pediatrics.”
“How’d you end up as Joe Avery, anyway?” Sam asked.
Hugh explained about the capsized boat, Rick’s death and how he’d apparently washed ashore. “I suppose it happened right when the real Joe Avery fell off the pier,” he said.
“So he must be dead?” Sam asked.
“My brother says that, shortly after I disappeared, he was contacted about an unidentified drowning victim in Oceanside. Of course, it wasn’t me, and by then Joe was no longer considered missing. Yesterday, I called the police to suggest they compare the DNA to that of the real Joe Avery.”
“I’m glad. The guy deserves to rest in peace.” Sam removed some hamburger patties from a freezer.
Hugh’s original plan to view the town and slip away unnoticed would be impossible now that he’d been recognized. Besides, he was in no hurry to leave. “Is Meg working today?”
“Not till tonight. She took Dana to the community pool,” Sam said. “How are things between you two, anyway?”
“Unsettled.”
“Meg’s a good woman. You should…” The cook broke off as his wife thrust an order at him through the narrow aperture.
It was an informal setup, Hugh noted, based on his observation of coffee shops he’d patronized over the years. “You ought to enlarge that window and put in some warmers so you could set the trays there. Buy one of those round holders that she could clip the orders to.”
“Yeah, like you never said that before!” Sam shook his head. “I guess you don’t remember saying it, do you?”
“I’m afraid not,” Hugh said. “Whatever advice I gave you, I’m sure it was right on target.”
“Man, you haven’t changed! Still as cocky as ever.”
They grinned at each other. A strange but pleasant sensation rippled through Hugh. A sense of belonging.
He gave himself a mental shake. “I’d like to find Meg. Where’s the pool she took Dana to?”
“Go two blocks south and turn right on Arroyo Grande,” Sam said.
“Thanks.” A few minutes later, Hugh was on his way.
DANA HAD MADE a new friend in the wading pool, a little boy with a plastic boat. They spent half an hour pretend-racing it from side to side, weaving between the other children.
Meg sunbathed in her bikini. Although she occasionally greeted an old friend en route to the larger pool nearby, she felt very much alone. In the kiddie section, most of the moms were accompanied by their husbands, except for one young woman who’d come with her mother.
Keeping a cautious eye on Dana, Meg leaned back in the plastic lounge chair and imagined how Corinne O’Flaherty would have doted on a granddaughter.
Thinking of her mother was like picturing two entirely different people. One warm and loving, full of fun. The second alternating between deep depression and intense irritability.
Her father’s bouts with alcohol hadn’t made life any easier. Since his recovery, however, Meg had forgiven him and they’d grown close these last few years.
Tim refused even to speak to the man. He understood that their mother had been a victim of mental illness, but he couldn’t extend the same forgiveness to the father who’d abandoned them.
Meg wished Tim could find a woman to make him as happy as Joe Avery had made her. Once he was a father himself, maybe he would soften toward the man who now deeply regretted having failed them. She knew how much she’d matured after experiencing true intimacy with Joe.
Looking up, she squinted against the glare of sunlight. That man walking toward her sure did resemble her husband. It must be a trick of the light, or of her longing.
He had the same graceful stride, straight shoulders and strong arms. The same boyish crease in one cheek that, as always, set her heart pounding.
Despite his modesty, Joe had always had a magnetic presence, and now she noticed how women’s heads swiveled to follow him. With an electric jolt, Meg realized it was Hugh Menton.
She straightened on her chaise longue. “What are you doing here?”
He pulled over a plastic chair, checked to make sure it was dry and sat down. Although tailored slacks and a crisp short-sleeved shirt might seem overdressed at a pool, it was the other people who looked underdressed by comparison.
“I dropped by to see the town,” he said. “I thought it might jog some memories.”
“Remember anything yet?”
Instead of answering, Hugh glanced toward the wading pool. “I could spot Dana a mile away. That hair is amazing.”
As always, mention of her daughter made Meg smile. “She comes by it naturally.” She shook back her own frizzy cloud until it tickled her shoulders.
“So I see.” Hugh regarded her warmly. “I like your hair loose that way.”
His appreciation quivered through her. How like Joe to talk about her hair when she was sitting here in a bikini! Unlike most men, he was too much of a gentleman to comment on how the rest of her looked.
That didn’t mean he was unaware of her. Sensitized to him as always, Meg noted his speeded-up intake of breath. In response, heat thrilled through her.
She missed him physically as well as emotionally. Missed the hungry probing of his mouth and the way he gently but firmly took command when they made love.
Yet this man remembered none of that. Even if he once had been her husband, he was a stranger now.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said. “Does any of this seem familiar?”
“I went by the restaurant.” He relaxed as the breeze ruffled his sandy hair. “Saw Sam and Judy. I’m not sure whether I recognize them or I was responding to suggestion.”
There he went again, using high-flown language. “I guess you mean that I put ideas in your head.”
“That’s right. Not that I’m implying you did it on purpose.”
“Two years is a long time for you to be in the dark,” she said. “Can’t your doctors do anything about this amnesia business?”
“The brain is incredibly complicated and still not fully understood.” Hugh watched as Dana and her new friend splashed each other playfully. “My neurologist can’t say why I’ve recovered everything from before my accident but lost that year and a half. He thinks it might be because I reinjured the same area of the brain.”
“So the time you spent here could be gone permanently?” Meg asked. “Erased like an old videotape?”
He shot her a startled glance. “That’s a good simile.”
“A good what?”
“Figure of speech,” he said. “The answer is, I was beginning to fear it might be gone forever, but visiting the restaurant today stirred something. Either memories or false memories. Not entirely false, though, I don’t think.”
Meg had seen a story on TV about people so gullible that they could be persuaded to remember things that had never happened. She supposed that was what he meant by false memories, but surely that wasn’t the case with Hugh.
There was another question she ached to ask. A dangerous question, but this seemed as good a time as any. “Joe—Hugh—is there someone else? Another woman in your life?”
“No. Ever since I got back, I knew there was something missing. Until