She felt somewhat like a little girl playing dress-up, but the three-way, full-length mirrors dispelled that image. Her size and the strangely disturbing short, curling hairstyle she now wore conspired to give her the appearance of a gamine. But her eyes held secrets that gave lie to that impression—secrets they wouldn’t reveal, even to her.
She was a stranger to herself. As everyone she had met was a stranger to her. As everyone she would meet until this mental blackout was ended would be a stranger to her. And it was a mental blackout. Melissa had made sure she understood that there was no physical reason, now, for her not to remember.
She found herself twisting the rings on her finger and reluctantly, knowing it was only partially for their protection, drew them from her hand and tucked them into a deep pocket of the slacks.
Realizing she was only postponing the inevitable, Lexi lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. If this was her home, she wouldn’t hide in the bedroom; if this was her family, she wouldn’t cower from them, no matter how foreboding they might seem.
Maybe.
Heading downstairs, Lexi sighed with relief when she found the breakfast room. Here, as in her bedroom, someone had banished the gloom. Sheer Austrian curtains covered floor-to-ceiling windows against which the rain spat, but even the foul weather couldn’t dispel the charm of the graceful furnishings and the delicate marble fountain set in the bow of one windowed wall. Maybe this house could be—had been—a home, after all.
She pushed through a heavy door and entered an institution-size kitchen.
A fiftyish woman, with neat gray hair caught in a severe bun and wearing an equally neat gray dress over her stolid figure, raised her head from the recipe file on the table in front of her. Her look of surprise quickly turned to barely disguised dismay.
“Mrs. Jordan!”
Lexi stopped hesitantly just inside the doorway. Was this someone else she was supposed to know?
The woman rose from her chair. “Mr. Jordan said you would probably sleep quite late. He told me not to disturb you. But if you had rung me, I would have had your tray brought to you.”
Lexi felt a smile quirking her lips as well as a quick stab of frustration. “I’m afraid no one explained the system to me.”
“Oh.” The woman seemed nonplussed for a moment, and her glance darted around the kitchen before returning to Lexi’s face. “I’m sorry. We tend to forget. I—we—I’ll be happy to show you how it works. It’s tied in with the telephones.”
“Thank you,” Lexi said. “I would appreciate that.” She glanced at the pile of recipe cards and at the well-used oak kitchen table. “I wonder if I might have some coffee.”
“Of course.” The woman stacked the cards into a neat pile. “You just go on into the breakfast room, and I’ll bring it right out.”
A dismissal? As polite as it had been, the woman’s response had all the earmarks of a firm dismissal.
In only a matter of moments the woman came through the doorway into the breakfast room carrying a tray. Lexi turned from the window where she had been staring out into the rain.
“You can’t see the lake this morning because of all the rain,” the woman said, setting the tray on the cherry table that would seat ten comfortably. “But it’s sure to be roiling and peaking.”
Lexi released the curtain and let it drop back into place. “Can we usually see the lake from here?”
The woman looked at her curiously. “Of course.”
Was our home built near the lake?
Not exactly.
Why had Richard said that? She shook her head and walked to the table. A silver coffeepot and one delicate cup waited for her. No cream. No sugar. But then, she didn’t need cream and sugar. She looked up at the woman, who was watching her, almost anxiously, from a position by the door.
“I’m—I’m Eva Handly,” the woman said reluctantly. “My husband Jack—he met you at the landing strip last night—have worked for Mr. Jordan for years, here, and—and for you.”
Lexi sighed and nodded her head in acknowledgment of the introduction. “Thank you, Mrs. Handly,” she said softly. “I really do hate to have to ask.”
For a moment the woman seemed to warm toward her, but only for a moment. “I’ll have your breakfast out in a few minutes.”
“No,” Lexi said. “This is all I want.”
“Young Mrs. Knapp has already given me my orders,” Mrs. Handly said firmly before leaving the room.
Melissa’s idea of a suitable breakfast left a lot to be desired, Lexi thought later. It was suitable, she supposed for a farm hand or a laborer, but there was no way she could eat all of the beautifully prepared meal. There was no way she wanted to try.
Had Melissa always been so arbitrary? Maybe she had. Maybe only now was Lexi beginning to resent it. But surely the decision of whether she wanted breakfast was one she was capable of making for herself.
She was pushing the food around on her plate, wondering what she would do with the rest of the morning, when Richard walked into the room.
She started guiltily as she looked up at him, and abandoned her immediate halfhearted fight against the pleasure she felt at seeing him. He looked almost rested, and he was dressed casually in faded jeans and another of his innumerable long-sleeved turtleneck sweaters that set off the strength in his arms and shoulders and threw his dark features into harsh relief. He looked at home here, at ease with his surroundings, and although he gave her another of his wary smiles, he seemed almost happy to see her, too.
“Eva told me you were here,” he said in the comforting voice she had relied upon for so many days before she had begun to notice his detachment, that she still relied upon when he came to her in the long hours of the night. He drew out the chair next to her and seated himself. “Did you rest well?”
“Yes.” She dared a hesitant smile. “Did you?”
This time his smile was less wary. “Surprisingly well.” He glanced at the plate in front of her. “Don’t let me keep you from your breakfast.”
Lexi glanced at the mountain of food remaining and surrendered to a tiny grimace. “Please do.” She gestured toward the silver pot. “Would you like some coffee?”
He shook his head. “I’ve had more than I need already this morning.”
She poured a little more of the still steaming liquid into her cup and sipped at it tentatively. She hated to break the mood between them, but then, what was the mood?
“What now?” she asked.
He reached with his strong, long-fingered, unscarred hand and traced the path of a feathered curl against her cheek. Beneath his touch, her cheek seemed to tingle, to throb almost painfully as though too long denied the sustenance of blood, of life. Lexi caught her lower lip between her teeth as she watched his dark eyes follow the path of his hand and then look to hers questioningly.
“I thought I’d give you a tour of the house so that you won’t be completely lost,” he said at last. “If you would like.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, not wanting to be relegated back to the solitude of her room, and not wanting, yet, to be deprived of Richard’s company. “I’d like that very much.”
Richard started the tour with the adjacent room, a dining room that dwarfed the proportions of the breakfast room. Lexi seated herself on the arm of a chair and stared around it pensively.
The room was heavy. That was the only word for it. Heavy Spanish furnishings.