Читать книгу: «Memories of Megan»
He could not sate his desire for Megan Wells
She was vulnerable. Needy. Still grieving over her dead husband. But terror had swept over him when he’d seen her car on fire. For a minute, he’d thought she might be dead.
Where had this desperate fear, this insatiable desire come from?
Images suddenly bombarded him. Images of another time when Megan had readily slipped into his arms. A warm spring day when they had walked naked into the ocean, laughing and teasing like old lovers. A night when he hadn’t needed an invitation to kiss her.
How could he see these things so vividly in his mind when he couldn’t remember anything about his life? When the name Cole Hunter still sounded foreign to his tongue? When Megan swore they had never met?
Could the doctors have made some mistake in identifying him?
Memories of Megan
Rita Herron
MILLS & BOON
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author Rita Herron wrote her first book when she was twelve, but didn’t think real people grew up to be writers. Now she writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job. A former kindergarten teacher and workshop leader, she traded her storytelling for kids for romance, and writes romantic comedies and romantic suspense. She lives in Georgia with her own romance hero and three kids. She loves to hear from readers, so please write her at P.O. Box 921225, Norcross, GA 30092-1225 or visit her Web site at www.ritaherron.com.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Megan Wells—A psychiatric nurse who just lost her husband, Tom. Was his death an accident or murder?
Tom Wells—A psychiatrist at the Coastal Island Research Park who lived for his work. Did he die for it, as well?
Clay Fox—A detective with the Savannah Police Department. He was supposed to meet Tom Wells to get inside information about the research foundation. Was the psychiatrist murdered for his mission?
Cole Hunter—A man with a new face and no memory who has taken Tom Wells’s place at the research center. Will he take his place with his wife also?
Dr. Davis Jones—A doctor at the foundation; he loves women, money and prestige, and will do anything to attain them. But would he commit murder?
Dr. Warner Parnell—A brilliant doctor—is he crossing the line with his medical techniques?
Arnold Hughes—The CEO and cofounder of the Coastal Research Park—is he really dead or has he returned with a new face and name to run the company?
April Conway—Megan’s best friend—or is she?
Connie Blalock—Tom’s secretary—is she as innocent as she seems?
Daryl Boyd—A schizophrenic patient who claims strange things are happening in the psych ward—is he really as crazy as everyone thinks?
To
All those real-life doctors and researchers
who strive to make the world a better place
(this series is NOT about you!)
and
my husband, Lee,
for being one of those doctors,
and for always stopping to answer my questions
and
last but not least,
Melissa Endlich
for liking my crazy ideas instead of calling the funny farm!
Always, Rita
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter One
“Your husband is dead, Mrs. Wells.” Detective Larson sat down in the armchair across from Megan, his expression grave. “His body washed up on the shore a few hours ago.”
Megan clutched her abdomen, the horror of finally hearing her fears confirmed seeping through her body like a slow-spreading virus. It had been six agonizing weeks since Tom had disappeared. Six weeks of not knowing.
Nausea rose to Megan’s throat at the images that speared her. She dropped her head forward into her hands and tried to breathe.
“I’ll get you a glass of water.”
Megan nodded, too numb to do anything else, while the detective hurried to the kitchen.
Behind her, Megan heard the officer opening cabinet doors, turning on the faucet, but the sounds barely registered. Seconds later, he returned and handed her the glass. Megan sipped slowly, grateful for the wetness soothing her parched throat. “Do you know what happened to him?”
The cop’s muddy complexion paled as if he, too, had seen the grisly images that had come unbidden to Megan’s mind. Had he been there when they’d dragged her husband from the sea and actually seen Tom’s body? The ice clinked in the glass as Megan’s hands shook. She didn’t want to know the details.
“Most likely drowned, but the coroner’s doing an autopsy.” Detective Larson shrugged. “I’m not sure how much he’ll be able to determine…”
He let the sentence trail off and Megan clenched the glass of water as if it were a life jacket and she was being dragged into the undertow herself.
“You said he liked to fish sometimes, to take his mind off his work. My first guess would be that he was out late, and didn’t realize how far he’d drifted off shore, got caught in the tides and fell overboard.”
Megan’s gaze swung to his. “But Tom was an excellent swimmer.”
“You know how difficult it is to fight an undercurrent, even for the best of swimmers. A bad thunderstorm came through that night, too.”
She nodded, silently admitting Tom had been drinking a lot those last few weeks, and had been a daredevil when it came to the weather. He’d been drinking and secretive. And tired. And disturbed about something. Only he wouldn’t talk to her.
She’d known he was unhappy. Had worried he’d stopped loving her, that he’d planned to ask for a divorce, but hadn’t gotten up the nerve. They had finally separated, but she’d hoped they could work out their differences.
Now she would never know.
But she couldn’t bring herself to ask the questions that had haunted her for the past six weeks.
The detective shuffled, his breathing noisy. “We’ll let you know as soon as the body is released so you can make plans for the burial.”
Oh, God, there would be so much to do. Nausea gripped her stomach again. She’d have to make funeral arrangements. Tell his parents. The people at the research foundation.
Tom had been so young. Barely thirty-one. They’d only been married two years. They’d temporarily sublet this flat because they hadn’t decided for sure where they were going to live. They’d had so many plans when they’d married.
They’d picked out new furniture, not burial plots.
The cop gently patted her shoulder. “Well, let me know if I can do anything for you, Mrs. Wells I’ll let myself out.”
“Thank you.”
She hugged her arms around her middle until she heard the click of the door, and the police car drive away. Finally she forced herself to stand on unsteady legs. But her stomach convulsed and she rushed to the bathroom, sank to her knees and let the tears fall.
The pregnancy test she’d taken earlier mocked her from the sink.
It had been negative. Again. Tom had wanted a baby so badly. She’d felt like a failure when their attempts at conceiving had failed.
Now he would never have a child.
And she had nothing left of him but troubled memories.
And questions. Lots of unanswered questions.
“YOU SAID MY NAME WAS WHAT?” The man pivoted to study the doctor as he unwound the last of the bandages from his face. He was too afraid of what he might see when the last one fell away.
Dr. Crane peered over his silver spectacles, worry creasing his brow. “Cole Hunter. You’re a psychiatrist. You’ve just signed on at the Coastal Island Research Park on Catcall Island. You are—”
“Yeah, yeah, you told me. Thirty-five, single, a workaholic.” Frustration clawed at him. “So, why can’t I remember all this?”
“Because you suffered severe head trauma in the car accident. Your memory should return in bits and pieces. Hopefully you haven’t lost that scientific mind.”
The doctor chuckled at his own joke, but Cole remained stoic. Nothing about the past few weeks had been funny.
He strained for the memories again, for any snippet of his past life. Cole Hunter. A psychiatrist. Somehow during all those painful hours of lying in the hospital he hadn’t imagined himself being a doctor of any kind.
Of course, until a few days ago he’d been in too much pain to care about the past. He’d been struggling through every minute. The long hospital stay, the surgeries, the bandages. The fear of not waking up. The fear of being paralyzed. The fear of looking like a monster.
“Now, see what modern medicine can do.” Dr. Crane spun the stool around so Cole faced the mirror, placed his hands on Cole’s shoulders and directed him to look. “It may not be quite the same as your old face, but it’s not bad. There’s a little swelling and bruising, but it’ll fade.”
Cole stared at the stranger in the mirror, cold terror sweeping over him. Not only did he not remember his name, but he didn’t recognize the face staring back at him, either.
THREE DAYS AFTER MEGAN had received the news of her husband’s death, she stood huddled in her raincoat while they lowered his body into the cold damp ground. Nearly a hundred flower arrangements decorated the dried grass surrounding the grave, their vibrant colors at odds with the dismal day. The church had been packed with Tom’s family and their friends, with various scientists and other employees from the Coastal Island Research Park (CIRP). The preacher offered a few words of comfort, read some scripture, then ended the grave side service with a prayer. Tom’s mother dropped a rose onto the grave and broke into sobs, her husband pulling her into his arms. Megan’s heart clenched as the visitors began to disperse.
A breeze stirred the trees surrounding the cemetery, dead fall leaves scattering across the grass and flapping against tombstones, crunching beneath the soles of people’s shoes as they milled about, speaking in hushed tones. Connie, Tom’s secretary, cried into her hands.
Exhaustion pulled at Megan as the visitors offered condolences, but she forced herself to shake hands, occasionally sparing her best friend April a glance, silently thanking her for staying by her side, offering support.
Tom’s parents had been anything but supportive, their anger over their loss directed at her, as if by marrying Tom she had caused his death. Of course they never had been logical where she was concerned. She was a measly nurse at the research facility, had grown up on the wrong side of the social tracks and had never been good enough, beautiful enough or classy enough for their precious son.
But at least they’d handled most of the details of the funeral. They’d wanted to choose the casket, the flowers that would serve as the blanket cover and to oversee the myriad details, while all she’d wanted to do was curl up in a ball and grieve.
Connie suddenly stood in front of her, looking lost. “Meg—” Her voice broke.
Megan pulled her into her arms and tried to soothe her. “It’ll be okay, Connie.”
“But you and Tom have been so good to me. I don’t know what I would have done…what I’ll do.”
Tom had helped Connie get up the courage to leave her abusive husband. She was still fragile.
“Just know Tom would be proud of you for taking care of your son,” Megan said softly. “And he’d want you to be strong, to keep doing that.”
Connie pulled away, trying to compose herself, and nodded. “If you need me, Megan, I’m here.”
Megan thanked her, weariness settling in her bones as Connie turned and walked away. The long line of people wanting to speak to her stretched in front of her and she felt herself sway.
April grabbed her elbow. “Here, you’d better sit down.”
Megan nodded dumbly and sank into a metal folding chair, the sea of people blurring in front of her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, mingling with the rain. She didn’t want to be here amidst this crowd of strangers. She wanted to be alone to mourn. Oh, God, there were so many things to mourn for.
The marriage that should have lasted forever.
The man who had died before she could make him happy.
The chance to make things right that was lost forever.
COLE HUNTER WATCHED the casket being lowered into the ground, a bitter chill engulfing him. Oddly, Tom Wells had turned up missing the same day Cole had had his own accident. It could have been his body being lowered into that hole just as easily as Wells.
And for a brief second when he’d seen the casket and the hole in the ground, he’d had a flash that it was him being lowered. That he was Tom Wells and he had died.
Warner Parnell, the doctor at the research center who’d been helping Cole with his recovery after the accident, frowned solemnly. “He was a good man. We’ll miss him at the center.”
“It…it seems strange that I survived, but he died on the same day.”
Parnell gave him a sympathetic look. “Don’t succumb to survivor guilt,” he said in a low voice. “As a doctor, you know that’s dangerous.”
Cole folded his hands. The harsh reality of the timing obviously hadn’t escaped him and had played with his head. He had felt guilty that luck had been on his side that day and he had survived. Granted he had a new face, his memory was shaky and his stride hindered by a slight limp, but hell, at least he was still able to walk.
He shuddered, wondering if he should have come. He hadn’t wanted to. In fact, he had the oddest feeling that he normally didn’t attend funerals, but he couldn’t remember why. He’d hoped seeing so many of the research center’s staff in one place might jog some memory cells.
“I didn’t know him very well, did I?”
Parnell shrugged. “No. You met only once. At the center when you came for the interview. I believe you corresponded through e-mail about your research, but I’m not certain.”
Shaking off the uneasy feeling, Cole stared across the smattering of faces, a few of them familiar from the three days he’d spent getting acquainted with the research center.
His gaze settled on Tom Wells’s wife. Megan.
A nurse in the psychiatric ward.
Another eerie sensation skittered across his nerve endings, a flash of some kind of memory tugging at him. He must have met her before, probably at the facility or at one of the dinners for the center when he was being interviewed. She wouldn’t be an easy woman to forget.
She had the face of an angel, the figure of a temptress and the lips of a lover.
But he had no right to even think such lurid thoughts, especially at a funeral.
From her grief-stricken face, she’d obviously cared for her husband deeply.
During those long, lonely days in the hospital, he had thought about his life, the fact that he had no one. No family who’d come looking for him. No woman who searched him out, sat by his bedside, vowed that she loved him.
Apparently he hadn’t made any friends in Oakland, either.
In a strange way, he envied Tom Wells.
He knew that was sick. The poor man was dead, for God’s sake, and here he stood, alive and breathing, feeling sorry for himself.
One by one, the visitors stopped to speak to Megan.
“I’m going to give her my condolences,” Parnell said.
Cole hesitated. Finally he took a deep breath and shuffled across the damp ground through the throng of people. Her gaze rose and met his across the crowd. Raindrops dotted her face, mingling with tears, the raincoat shielding her honey-colored hair and shapely body. But it was the shadows beneath her haunted blue eyes that made his gut clench.
An older man and woman Parnell had pointed out as Wells’s parents stopped beside her. Megan stiffened, clasping her hands tightly together. Cole moved into the shadows of the funeral home tent, close enough to hear.
“You will send us Tom’s things, won’t you?” the woman asked in a clipped voice.
“Yes, if you want them.”
“Of course we do.” Mrs. Wells flashed Megan a cold look. “He never should have come here, you know.”
Megan jutted her chin in the air. “I’m not going to argue with you at Tom’s funeral. I don’t think he’d want that, Kathleen.”
Mr. Wells pulled at his designer tie. “Let’s go, honey.” He threw a sorrowful glance over his shoulder at the grave. “There’s nothing more we can do.”
The couple strode off, huddled together. Hurt strained Megan’s features. A fleeting feeling that he’d lived that moment before struck Cole, then disappeared as quickly as it had hit him.
Without remembering how he reached her, Cole found himself standing in front of her, not knowing what to say, but extending his hand, wanting to take away the sting of the Wells’s attitude.
She slowly lifted her small hand and placed it inside his, the whisper of her soft skin brushing his callused fingertips. A small surge of awareness skated through him. Her lips parted slightly as if she, too, felt the odd connection between them.
A wave of images suddenly flashed through his head like a movie trailer. Images of Megan Wells looking at him with those haunted blue eyes. Images of her crying on his shoulder. Images of her raising on tiptoe to smother his mouth with kisses. Images of her lying naked in his arms and calling his name in the darkness of the night.
He snapped his hand back and felt himself grow weak. What in the hell had just happened? Those flashes seemed so real. But they couldn’t have been memories.
Could they?
Chapter Two
Megan’s hand trembled as she pulled it from the stranger’s, a slight chill slithering up her spine. She pulled her raincoat around her, trying to place his face in the fog of grief engulfing her, yet she had never met him before. Or had she?
And why was he looking at her so intensely?
“I’m sorry about your husband,” he said in a gruff voice. “I’m afraid I didn’t know him very well—I’d just been hired to work at the center.”
He was nervous, she realized, remembering that Tom had an aversion to funerals as well. Maybe it was a man thing. Not that she enjoyed going to them herself, but sometimes people didn’t have a choice. In fact, she’d already been to enough funerals to last a lifetime.
At ten she had lost her only grandparents. At seventeen, she’d buried her parents.
And now Tom.
She shook her head, operating on autopilot. “Thank you for coming, Mr.…”
“Hunter. Cole Hunter.” A frown pinched his dark eyebrows as he shifted. “Anyway, I just wanted to offer my regrets.”
Megan nodded, clasping her hands together as his dark eyes bore into hers. “I suppose I’ll see you at the center.”
“I suppose.” He lifted his hand to wipe away the raindrops sliding down his cheek. A long scar curved his hand, another smaller one darkened his hairline. She wondered what had happened to him, but forced herself not to ask. Tom’s mother claimed she’d grown up on the wrong side of the tracks of Savannah, but even in shanty town, Megan had been taught manners.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, we’ll be working together.” His voice lowered, sympathy etching it with gruffness. “That is, when you feel like returning to work.”
Megan nodded. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Then again, work would probably fill the endless, empty days ahead. Help take her mind off of her grief. And her patients’ problems were so troubling they usually made hers feel trivial. Except Tom’s death wasn’t trivial. “You’re in psychiatry?”
His dark eyes looked somber. “Yes.”
For the first time, Megan realized he was handsome. Not in the gentlemanly way Tom had been, but in a more rugged way. He was big and muscular; he stood about six foot two, had broad shoulders, and a wide strong jaw.
Guilt suffused her—how could she notice a man’s looks when Tom had just been put in the ground? What kind of wife was she? Had she been?
One who had disappointed her husband…
Cole Hunter shifted again, wincing as if his leg hurt. He was leaning on a dark wooden cane. So, he had been hurt recently. The reason for the scars, perhaps the reason he was so lean…
“I was actually coming to work with Tom.”
Megan’s throat closed. A dozen other questions tumbled through her head, but the realization that she would see this man again, and probably on a daily basis, shook her to the core.
The trouble was she had no idea why the idea upset her so. She only knew that she didn’t want to be around him. And that the eerie feeling she’d had when they’d first met had just magnified tenfold.
COLE STEPPED BACK AS MEGAN stood to leave, and offered a hand for support, but she refused his help, looking wary as if he’d said or done something to upset her. Odd, how just a few moments before he’d met her, he’d had visions of knowing her, of seeing her before, when now his mind almost seemed blank. Like a deep tunnel, long and empty and devastatingly dark.
Briefly he wondered if they could have had an affair.
No, she hadn’t acted as if she’d known him at all.
Of course, his face looked different, but if they’d known each other before, if they’d met, she would have recognized his name.
Instincts told him he wasn’t the kind of man to sleep with another man’s wife.
Or was he?
Confused, he hunched inside his jacket and followed the other mourners. God, he hated that damned cane. A tall redhead gathered Megan Wells into a protective embrace. Obviously a close friend, Megan leaned on the other woman as if she were exhausted. He imagined she was. His own muscles protested the long walk. He hated the weakness right now. Hated any kind of weakness.
The light rain drizzled down, the fall wind kicking up, stirring wet leaves and forcing the flowers from other graves to sway and droop as he limped across the grass.
Parnell turned to wait for him at the edge of the cemetery. “How’s the leg?”
Cole grimaced. “Getting better.” He squinted through the hazy sky as Megan and her friend climbed in the car. “Have I met Mrs. Wells before?”
“Not that I know of.” Parnell frowned and pulled out his keys. “Why do you ask?”
Cole shrugged. “I don’t know. She just seems…familiar.”
“You probably saw a picture of Tom and her somewhere. I believe he’s got one in his office.”
Cole chuckled softly. “Probably.”
“Get some rest. I’ll see you at the center.”
Cole flicked his hand in a wave as Parnell jogged to his car. Cole couldn’t move quite so fast. The scent of sorrow and dank muddy ground assailed him as he headed down the embankment. He dreaded going back to his place.
The small apartment at the edge of the research center didn’t hold a damn bit of recognition for him. A place he’d been told he’d agreed to rent when he signed on with CIRP and made his transition from…where did they say he’d come from? Some little research hospital in the foothills of Tennessee?
But he remembered none of it. And the apartment he’d chosen to live in didn’t feel like home at all. It felt like a prison.
MEGAN SET THE CUP OF TEA on the kitchen table and folded her hands in her lap. “Thanks, April. I don’t know what I would have done without you the last three days. Please tell all the nurses and staff members how much I appreciate the food they brought.” Casseroles and homemade dishes filled the butcher block counter. So much food. Food she had no appetite for.
“Who was that man talking to you before you left?” April asked.
Megan blew into the tea to cool it. “His name is Cole Hunter. He’s a new psychiatrist at the center.”
Sympathy filled April’s eyes. “It looked as if he upset you.”
Megan shrugged. “He came here to work with Tom.” She didn’t want to tell her the rest, how his touch had given her the strangest feeling. How just looking into his eyes had been unnerving. April would think she was crazy.
“I’m so sorry, Meg.” April leaned over and hugged her. “I know how much you wanted things to work out for you and Tom.”
Megan nodded, warming her hands on the oversize mug and rolling her shoulders. Tension clawed at her, the lack of sleep and emotions over the past few days finally wearing her down.
“You look exhausted. Drink that and get some rest.” April grabbed her raincoat. “And call me if you need me.”
“I will. You be careful.” Megan rose and latched the lock on her front door, her eyes narrowing when she glanced out the window and watched April sprint to her car. Seconds later, April climbed in her Volvo and drove away, rain spewing from the back of her car as she sped toward the cottage she rented on Skidaway Island. Megan let the curtain slip back in place, but a dark sedan across the street drew her eye. It was parked in the shadows of a live oak, the Spanish moss drooping like spider legs, casting it in shadows made worse by the dark sky. She peeled the curtain back and studied the vehicle for a moment, trying to see if someone was inside. Was a cigarette glowing from the interior? Had she seen the car in the neighborhood before? Could it belong to one of her neighbors? People she’d never met because she and Tom had both been too busy at work to entertain? Too busy trying to hold their marriage together?
Except for those last few weeks when he’d moved out, when she sensed he’d given up…
Had she seen the car while he was gone?
After several tense seconds, she decided she must be getting paranoid. The car was empty. And there was no reason for anyone to be lurking outside her apartment. No reason anyone would follow her or want to harm her. After all, Tom’s death had been accidental, not suspicious.
Chuckling at her runaway imagination, she carried her tea to the bedroom, bypassing Tom’s closet with a tentative glance. At some point she had to sort through his things and clear them out. At least what he hadn’t taken with him when they’d separated.
But not tonight. She was too battered by Tom’s funeral.
She slipped beneath the covers and finished the tea, grateful for the small shot of bourbon April had laced it with. Weariness pulled at her, but the uneasiness she’d felt earlier rose again to taunt her. Could someone have been outside watching her? And if they had, who were they?
She couldn’t quite forget the trouble surrounding Nighthawk Island and the research center just a few short weeks ago. That Arnold Hughes, the CEO and cofounder who’d been behind the unsavory sale of some of their research, might not be dead as the police hoped. That his body had never been found.
That Tom had been working on something secretive the last few months, something that had made him jittery and even more closed off from her than before. And that a stranger had been at Tom’s funeral. A man who had recently been in an accident of some kind himself but who’d taken her husband’s place at the hospital.
A man who had come out of nowhere.
COLE WALKED THE OUTER BANKS surrounding the research center on Skidaway Island, amidst the tall sea oats and damp grass, well aware security tracked his every move. He inhaled the scent of ocean, needing the familiarity, because nothing else about his life seemed remotely familiar.
Not the idea of being a psychiatrist or the people he’d met at the funeral or the little apartment he’d returned home to.
Home.
What did it mean for him? He had no friends. No family. Not even back in Tennessee where Davis Jones, the head of the psychiatric ward had told him he’d moved from. Hell, Jones had even shown him his résumé, but the information on it seemed foreign as well. Apparently he’d gone to Vanderbilt, worked at a small private practice before signing on with the research facility in Oakland.
Wind whistled through the sea oats, a seagull swooped onto the shore in search of crumbs, and water lapped at the shore in a soothing rhythm. The doctor warned that it would take time to recover his memories. The sea stretched before him, endless and all consuming, just as the blank spaces in his mind. How much time would it take to recover? Would his memory ever fully return? Would he ever feel like the real Cole Hunter again?
An image of Megan Wells’s grief-stricken face flashed into his mind, emotions gripping him. If they had never met, why had he experienced visions of her when he’d touched her?
HE WAS WATCHING HER. Standing beside her bed, his dark eyes staring at her, his hand outstretched.
Shadows hugged the walls, the curtain billowing out from the window, the whisper of a familiar scent filling the room. His cologne. The one she had given him for Christmas last year.
The one he’d hated.
Megan struggled to reach for his hand but her arm was too heavy. Frustration welled inside her. She focused her energy on lifting her hand, but just as she did, he took a step backward. His frame stood silhouetted in the moonlight, the dark look of concern on his face so somber, a whimper bubbled in her throat.
What was wrong?
It was Tom, wasn’t it?
He opened his mouth as if to speak, his eyebrows pinched the way they did when he was trying to concentrate. But when he opened his mouth, no sound came out. She tried to reach for him again, but he slipped farther away, almost floating now, the distance sucking him in some kind of surreal vacuum… What was he trying to tell her?
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