Which was true. Nina didn’t like to talk about the circumstances of her arrival on Shearwater Island, but that was only because she was too busy with the exciting challenges of the present to waste time looking back over her shoulder. She certainly didn’t need to consult a psychiatrist!
‘Most women would envy your being able to honestly deny remembering a couple of birthdays,’ Dave agreed in the same joking vein, reflecting her own attitude back at her in a way that eased the fine tension from her body as he continued. ‘But you’re right—Ryan’s global amnesia is different, although I’m sure it’s only a temporary trauma. He’s a bit shocky, and that compounded with the concussion has probably scrambled the links between his memory systems. It’s a pretty classic pattern. After he has a good rest and his system settles down, his ability to concentrate should return, along with his memory.’
Nina felt she was learning more than she really wanted to know about the mysteries of the brain. She had never been one for clinical details, which was probably why she tried to rule doctors and hospitals out of her life.
‘Were you able to find out anything else about him?’ she asked, determined to keep the focus firmly back where it belonged.
He plucked his beard thoughtfully. ‘Well, he has a few old scars—’ he tilted his head roguishly ‘—but I think they come under doctor-patient privilege. He couldn’t say where he’d come from or where he was going and we couldn’t find any wallet in his clothing—maybe he lost it out there on the road. You’re more familiar with who’s living around here than I am at the moment. Are you certain you haven’t seen him before, even casually?’
‘I’m positive. He’s a total stranger,’ she said firmly. ‘That was the first thing that struck me about him. Believe me, if I knew who this Ryan was, I’d leap at the chance to hand him over to whoever invited him to visit. I don’t mind helping out in an emergency, but I’m really not prepared for a house guest right now.’ She was aware that sounded selfish, but already the stranger had caused a disruption to her peaceful existence.
‘Speaking of which—have you got something else he can wear, or should I bring some of my clothing over? He needs to keep warm to counteract the effects of shock.’
‘I think I have a few things lying around that should fit him.’ Karl had been the last person she had had to stay, and he was notoriously untidy with his possessions.
She half turned and her breathing shortened as she suddenly saw the man leaning against the corner where the living-room wall abutted the kitchen. How long had he been standing there listening? And how much of the conversation had he actually taken in? There was a guarded watchfulness in the blue eyes, a kind of baffled fury that made her think of a trapped animal.
And, without the mohair rug, there was nothing to disguise the animal-like sleekness of his body, streamlined with lithe and sinewy muscle, the thick tangle of hair on his chest tapering down to a narrow line where the broad band of elastic dipped low across his slim hips, the thin, stretchy, grey boxers softly clinging to contours of his masculinity.
Nina could feel her cheeks warm. She cleared her throat. ‘I was just saying goodbye to the doctor.’
His intent stare didn’t shift from her face. ‘I need to use the bathroom,’ he said bluntly.
‘Oh…’ Her blush deepened. ‘It’s straight down the hall, first on the right,’ she said, pointing, and as he pushed himself away from the wall and shambled stiffly off in the right direction, she looked anxiously over her shoulder at Dave.
He grinned. ‘His kidneys are working—that’s definitely a very good sign.’
She decided that the psychiatrist was an incurable optimist by nature. ‘Will he be all right by himself?’ she worried.
He pursed his lips. ‘Would you like me to check before I leave?’
‘Yes, please. And then could you show him across the hall to the spare room? I’ll make up the bed in there. It’ll be much more comfortable than the couch.’ If the storm was going to keep her awake, she didn’t want to have to spend all night watching her uninvited guest sleep. Briefly looking in on him once every two hours would be much less taxing on the nerves!
CHAPTER THREE
A REVERBERATING crash wrenched Nina upright in her chair, her hand flattened against her pounding chest, a scream hovering in the back of her dry throat.
She blinked around the dimly lit room, half expecting to see that the roof had fallen in, but everything looked reassuringly normal. The fire had been reduced to glowing embers, and shifting her cramped legs under the mohair rug, she was surprised to realise that she must have nodded off despite the gale still rocking the house on its foundations.
At least the thunder and lightning at the leading edge of the storm had passed over. But the rain had barely eased, driving horizontally against the front of the house and drum-rolling across the roof to overflow the gutters in a noisy tattoo on the wooden decking below.
Perhaps the noise that had woken her had been a loose branch smashing against the creaking weatherboards. Zorro wasn’t in his usual sprawl in front of the fire, and for a moment she was concerned until she remembered that he had surprisingly chosen to sacrifice his comfort to keep vigil over the stranger, curled up on the floor on the worn piece of sheepskin he used as a portable bed.
It was still pitch-black outside the rain-streaked window, and Nina turned her wrist, squinting down at her bare arm before she remembered that she wasn’t wearing a watch. She hadn’t made that slip in a very long time. She had broken her watch in her companionway fall on the ferry that had first brought her to Shearwater and in the months that followed had never taken the ferry company up on their offer to replace it. Only people who had to live to a schedule needed to carry around a constant reminder of their next appointment. Time was relative, and Nina preferred the more flexible version: island time. ‘She’ll be right, mate,’ an islander would chuckle if someone missed the late-afternoon ferry sailing. ‘There’ll be another one along tomorrow!’
Nina looked over at the small driftwood clock on the stone mantelpiece above the sluggish fire. Barely 4:00 a.m.—still a little too soon to wake Ryan up again, she decided conscientiously. She picked up the book that had slipped off her lap and fallen face down on the floor. So far he had passed all the little tests that Dave had suggested with flying colours, and as the hours crept by, she had begun to rationalise her previous worries as absurdly excessive. Of course he would be all right. And in the clear light of day, they would establish exactly who he was and he would be happily, if not entirely healthily, on his way!
Suddenly, there was another crash and the unmistakable sound of shattering glass from along the hall, and she realised that the noise that had startled her out of her sleep had come from the same direction. The accompanying hoarse cry of her name galvanised her into action and she dashed down to the spare bedroom, her heart in her mouth.
Her hand scrabbled for the light-switch, and as the overhead light blazed into life, her gaze cut to the figure standing by the narrow single bed pushed against the far wall.
‘Ryan, are you all right?’ She didn’t need to ask what had happened. The rudimentary lamp, made of a sand-filled chianti bottle topped off with a bare light bulb, was lying on the wooden floor, along with the upended pot plant that had sat next to it on the bedside cabinet, concealing the electric flex. Nearer to the edge of the bed lay the remains of a tall glass, the broken shards glinting wickedly in the widening pool of water seeping across the waxed floorboards. Zorro was warily skirting the debris, sniffing at the encroaching water.
‘Nina?’ Ryan lifted his hand to shade his eyes, narrowed against the sudden glare. ‘It was dark…I couldn’t find the lamp…I was thirsty.’ His body swayed in her direction. ‘Where were you?’
‘Don’t