Except for his lack of surliness, they were right back where they had started, Nina realised in exasperation. He was looking at her as if he expected congratulations for his simple act of recognition. ‘Yes, that’s right, it’s me, Nina—I just told you that. But who—are—you?’
She separated each word to stress the vital importance of the question.
‘Who am I?’ he repeated equally slowly, a disturbing blankness beginning to steal across his face, wiping it clean of all expression.
Her fingers tensed against his hard cheek, keenly aware of the strength—and the terrifying fragility—of the skull beneath the skin.
‘Don’t you know?’ she asked, trying not to let her panic leak into her voice.
His silence was echoed in his empty eyes, and her hand flew up to cover her appalled mouth.
‘Oh, God, you have no idea, do you?’ she said in a shattered whisper. ‘You can’t tell me who you are because you don’t even remember your own name!’
CHAPTER TWO
THE stranger’s eyelids drooped and Nina’s stomach hollowed with fear. Wasn’t excessive drowsiness supposed to be a bad sign? What if he lapsed into a coma?
‘Hey!’ She shook him by the shoulder, trying not to jar his head. ‘Open your eyes—you can’t go to sleep now!’
‘Why not? You planning on turfing me back out into the storm?’ he roused himself to challenge, still wearing the alarmingly vacant expression that persuaded her it would do little good to keep pressing him about his identity. At this point, it might even be dangerous to get him overagitated about his condition.
‘Of course not, but you could have a bit of concussion,’ she told him. She had been far too ready to assume that because he was walking and talking after the accident his injuries were superficial. But what if she was wrong? She, of all people, should know how unpredictable a seemingly minor bump on the head could be….
Unfortunately, as far as getting help was concerned, her options were severely limited. Emergency services were out; there were none on the island—not even a practising GP—and for the duration of the storm they were effectively cut off from the mainland. Even the rescue helicopter would be grounded. Ray had left her his key so she could dash over there and use his telephone, but she didn’t like the idea of having to leave the injured stranger alone in unfamiliar surroundings. Besides, whom would she call?
Who amongst her other close neighbours was likely to be useful? It was no use running off to beg help from someone who was just as ignorant as herself. But at this time of year the candidates were pathetically few.
Almost all of the houses in Puriri Bay were weekenders, and when the weather forecast had been so wretched, most of the owners would have flagged away their weekly pilgrimage to the island. During the winter, the neighbourhood was frequently reduced to a few hardy old-timers and some casual renters with whom Nina had only a nodding acquaintance.
But the Freemans were here! Her back straightened as she recalled seeing their distinctive, shiny green four-wheel drive roll off the ferry the previous day when she had walked over to the jetty to wave Ray off and pick up a mail-order package from the post-box at the store.
Although Nina didn’t know Dave Freeman particularly well herself—he was only an intermittent visitor to his bach—he was a long-time fishing buddy of Ray’s and she knew that he freely gave the older man advice on his arthritis. He was actually a psychiatrist, but shrinks were medical doctors in the first instance, weren’t they? Just because she had been stand-offish to him in the past was no reason to be reluctant to approach him now. While Shearwater Islanders were fiercely respectful of each other’s right to privacy—that was why the island was such a haven for social misfits—in a crisis their community spirit was invariably staunch.
She jumped up and found herself tethered to the couch by a hand that had shot out with surprising speed to fist in the saturated denim bagging around her knee.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Nowhere,’ she soothed, easing the bunched fabric out of his grasp, taken aback by the raw suspicion in his voice. ‘But I’ve just thought of someone who can give me some advice about that gash on your head.’ She raised her voice. ‘Zorro, come here!’
The little dog came trotting out of the kitchen, dragging the discarded soup bone that Nina had used to distract him from chewing on the stranger’s muddy shoes.
A faint, choking sound floated up from the couch. ‘You’re going to ask a dog for a medical opinion!’
His incredulous outrage sent a buzz of amusement humming through her veins, easing the pressure of her intense anxiety.
‘Unfortunately, he’s not licensed to practise.’ Nina removed the bone from the dog’s mouth and picked up the gnawed handle of an expensive fishing rod from the bookcase, holding it out for Zorro to sniff.
‘You know where you got this, don’t you, boy?’ she said encouragingly. ‘Dr Freeman—Dave—gave it to you after you kept stealing it off his back porch at Christmas. You take it along with you when Dave takes you and Ray out fishing on his boat, and he throws this in the water for you, doesn’t he?’
Nina was scribbling a brief line on a scrap of paper and taping it to the stumpy rod as she spoke. ‘You like playing fetch with Dave, don’t you?’ She mimed a throwing action and the terrier began to prance energetically. Nina crouched down and looked into the beady masked eyes as she placed the piece of rod firmly between his jaws. ‘I want you take this along to Dave’s place now. I want you to fetch—Dave! Understand?’
Zorro pricked up his ears, his whine mingling with a sleepy snort from the patient.
‘Of course he can’t understand—he’s a dog!’
Nina bristled in defence of her companion. ‘Zorro is extremely intelligent. He knows what I’m saying, don’t you, boy? You’re going to play fetch with Dave.’
The Jack Russell barked excitedly around the edges of the rod and took off at his customary velocity.
As his claws clicked across the kitchen floor, Nina remembered to call out, ‘Uh, Zorro, just don’t forget that the rod may not—’ There came a sharp rap and a pained whine, followed by a furious rattling and growling. ‘—fit crossways through the cat door.’ The fight sounds rose to a crescendo of frustrated snarls and Nina was about to dive to the rescue when there was a scraping pop and a series of muffled, triumphant yips diminishing into the distance.
‘Extremely intelligent, huh?’
Nina ran her hands through her wringing-wet hair, scooping it off her clammy neck. ‘He tends to leap before he looks sometimes, but even intelligent humans do that,’ she pointed out.
‘You really expect him to do it?’ he wondered.
Rather than following the upward movement of her arms, the blue eyes had drifted in the opposite direction. Nina looked down to see her drenched sweatshirt plastered to her uplifted breasts, shaping their modest fullness and explicitly revealing her lack of a bra. She hastily plucked the wrinkled fabric away from her unpleasantly chilled skin. ‘I know he will. Zorro’s very dedicated when he thinks he’s on a mission,’ she said more confidently than she actually felt. She wouldn’t relish going back out into the storm herself. ‘In the meantime, I’m going to get into some dry clothes.’
‘Don’t bother on my