“There will be an unfortunate mix-up with her morphine drip,” the sergeant explained. “It was not cheap—the aide was greedy and time was short. But the money will come out of my own pocket,” he rushed to add.
“Since it was your mistake to begin with,” the colonel said in icy tones, “I never assumed otherwise.”
* * *
“You did what?” Carly demanded, and Marek couldn’t really blame her. He could hardly believe it himself.
“I told Tahra we are engaged,” he repeated. “I cannot tell you why I said it, unless subconsciously I believed it. But I must ask you not to contradict my statement.”
Carly stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “You can’t possibly think I’m going to lie to my sister.”
“Not lie. Just do not disabuse her mind of the notion that I have the right to look after her, both here in the hospital and once she is discharged.”
“You’re crazy if you think—”
“To protect her. That is all I am asking.”
She made a gesture of frustration. “I can take Tahra back to the States. She’d be safe there.”
He shook his head. “Even the United States is not immune to acts of terrorism—you of all people must know this. We know almost nothing of the organization that set the bombs. Ergo, one or more of these men could easily slip into the US, kill Tahra and slip out again before anyone was aware.” Icy determination speared through him. “That is not going to happen to Tahra, even if I die for it. I give you my word, I will not take advantage of the situation. Tahra will be as safe with me as—” He broke off, then finished, “As you could wish her to be.”
“Protecting Tahra doesn’t require lying to her.”
“No,” Marek agreed. “But only I know the memories she is missing. For the past year and a half she and I... That is, I know what her life has been here in Zakhar. I know who she knows, I know who her friends are. Can you say the same?”
Carly shook her head.
“It is also possible that being in close proximity to me will trigger something and those missing memories will return. We were nearly inseparable for most of the past eighteen months, and despite what you might think, Ms. Edwards, the fact that Tahra and I are not truly engaged is a mistake I had every intention of rectifying. When I first proposed, she accepted. Did she tell you that?” He didn’t wait for a response. “It was only later, when I revealed—”
“She told me.”
He continued with barely a pause. “Then you know why she returned my engagement ring. But you cannot think I would leave it at that. I was merely giving Tahra time to come to terms with it. But then this terrorist attack occurred, and I...”
He writhed internally as Carly just stood there for a moment without saying a word, but years of the stoicism demanded of a soldier allowed him to stand calmly under her piercing gaze. Finally she said, “I’ll probably live to regret it, but okay. You’ve convinced me for now not to tell her the truth. But if anything happens to Tahra,” she added fiercely, “I will hold you personally responsible, Captain. That is not a threat—merely a statement of fact.”
“If anything happens to Tahra,” Marek replied, “you will have no target for your vengeance, Ms. Edwards, because I will already be dead. That is also a statement of fact.”
* * *
Marek headed back toward Tahra’s room with Carly at his side keeping pace with his longer stride. He saw a nurse’s aide approach the door carrying something and noted with approval that she was challenged by one of the guards stationed there. He was too far away to hear what was said, but the aide showed the guard something she wore on a lanyard around her neck—hospital badge, Marek guessed, since it was perused intently before she was allowed to pass inside. A minute later Marek quietly pushed open the door and entered the room himself, Carly right behind him.
The aide had already disconnected the drip tube from the half-empty saline bag hanging from the IV stand beside Tahra’s bed and was attempting to insert the tube into another fluid-filled bag, smaller than the first one. She jumped when the door opened, and dropped the full bag she was holding.
“Here,” Marek said, moving quickly to retrieve it from the floor, “let me help you.”
“No. No. I need no help, thank you,” the woman blurted out, grabbing at the bag in Marek’s hands.
Her strange behavior set off warning bells in his head, and he refused to let go. He quickly read the label and went cold all over as he realized exactly what he’d barely managed to prevent. “This is not saline,” he accused the aide. “This is intravenous morphine.”
The woman yanked the bag from Marek’s hands and tried to make a break for it. But he snagged her arm and deftly jerked it behind her back, incapacitating her and making her whimper in pain as she tried ineffectively to free herself.
Carly had swiftly moved to block the door to prevent the aide from escaping but stepped aside when Marek bellowed, “Guard!” and both soldiers on duty burst into the room, guns drawn.
The guards were followed closely by a nurse, and Marek realized someone must have pressed the call button. He shot a look at the bed and saw Tahra—pale and obviously in pain—clutching it in her left hand. Their eyes met for a moment, and another flash of pride in her ripped through him. His Tahra wouldn’t let herself be a victim if she could help it.
* * *
“Retrograde amnesia,” the neuropsychologist explained to Tahra later that morning, long after the aide who’d tried to kill her had been hauled off, under arrest by the Drago police. “Most likely a result of the head trauma you received.”
Tahra glanced from Carly standing on one side of her bed to Marek standing on the other, and with her left hand lightly touched the right side of her head, which was still bandaged. They hadn’t shaved it, the surgeon had explained when he’d visited earlier; they didn’t do that much anymore because of the increased risk of infection. And they hadn’t even had to clip it. She had a deep contusion from where her head had made contact with a park bench, but no laceration, which meant no stitches, no staples, nothing of that nature.
Just a headache, and—oh, yes—the loss of eighteen months out of her life.
“At this stage, I would not worry too much about it,” the neuropsychologist reassured her. “Your motor reflexes are excellent. There is no loss of auditory sensation or perception. Your sight is unaffected, and your grasp of language is unimpaired. More than likely your memory will return slowly over the next few days...possibly even a week or two. But,” he said, holding up a cautionary hand, “do not be surprised if your recollection of the actual incident and the moments leading up to it never return. That is very common in trauma of any kind. The brain...” He smiled. “We do not know everything about the brain, you understand, but this much we do know.”
The specialist continued listing what Tahra could reasonably expect in the coming days and weeks, and she tried to stay focused. But running through her mind was a thread of panic and fear—that her memory would never return. There is nothing more frightening than not remembering, she acknowledged now.
Especially when the not remembering included a terrorist attack...and a fiancé.
Her gaze slid surreptitiously to the man standing so reassuringly beside her. A fiancé who was as obviously unforgettable as Marek Zale.
* * *
Tahra was discharged from the hospital three days later. She no longer sported the bandage on her head that made her look like a freak in her own eyes, although she still retained the cast on her right wrist that made it difficult to do something as simple as brushing her teeth. And the open wounds wrought by the fléchettes that had pierced her body