LITMIR.BIZ

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closed her eyes, as if that could help her focus. By the expression on her face when she opened them again, it hadn’t.

      “Water.”

      “Okay,” he said gamely. Obviously this was going to require a bit of patience on his part. “Before that.”

      The woman took a deep breath. He watched her eyes. In the light from the streetlamp just to the right of the bench, they looked to be a deep, intense green. And troubled. Very troubled.

      “Nothing,” she answered.

      He saw that her eyes glistened. Oh, God, not tears. He had no idea what to do with tears. Ordinarily, he’d pretend they weren’t there, but he was looking at her face deadon. If those tears took shape and started to fall, no way could he act as if he didn’t see them.

      He hadn’t a clue what to say.

      “I don’t remember anything,” the woman told him. He heard the fear mounting in her voice.

      She was really trying not to panic. Trevor could all but see the struggle going on within her. She clenched her hands into fists on either side of her body.

      “No, that’s not true,” he contradicted in a calm, soothing voice.

      But his words only seemed to fan the fires already threatening to go out of control.

      “Look, you’re not inside this head—I am and there’s nothing. Not a damn thing.” She pressed her lips together to keep a wave of hysteria from bursting out.

      Trevor went on as if she hadn’t said a word. “You remember how to talk. You speak English without an accent, international or regional, so most likely, you’re a native Californian, most likely from around here.”

      “Terrific, that makes me one of what, forty million people?”

      “You remembered that,” he pointed out. “Things are coming back to you, just waiting to be plucked out of the air.” Before she could utter another sarcastic contradiction, Trevor instructed, “Close your eyes again and think.”

      “About what?” she demanded. “I don’t remember anything—except how many people there are in Southern California,” she qualified angrily before he could mention that extraneous bit of information again.

      Trevor took the display of temper in stride. “I think we can safely rule out that you’re an anger-management counselor. Humor me,” he told her. “Close your eyes and see if anything comes to you.” Obviously annoyed, the woman did as she was told. “Anything?” he asked after she said nothing for several seconds.

      “Yeah.” She opened her eyes. “I’m hungry. And cold.”

      That wasn’t what he was hoping to hear. “Anything else?”

      She pressed her lips together. “And I need to go to the bathroom.”

      He would have laughed then if he didn’t feel almost as frustrated as she did. “There’s one right there,” he said, pointing to the public bathroom.

      The bathroom was located less than fifty feet away from their bench. Directly in front of the square, stucco building were two outdoor showers, there specifically for people to wash the salt water off their bodies before going back into their cars. Occasionally, in the dead of summer nights, the showers were used by homeless people who longed to feel clean again.

      As the woman got up, so did Trevor. There was unabashed suspicion in her eyes as she stopped walking and glared at him.

      “You’re not going in with me, are you?”

      “Wasn’t planning to,” he answered mildly. “Just want to make sure you’re steady on your feet. You already passed out once,” he reminded her. By the way she frowned, he surmised that somewhere within her now blank world was a woman who liked her independence. Possibly more than the average female, he judged.

      “And then what?” she asked as she crossed over to the short, squat building. To her horror, there was no outer door.

      “Excuse me?”

      She turned around, blocking the building’s entrance. “After you walk me to the bathroom, then what?” She appeared uneasy as she asked, “Are you going home?”

      That had been the plan, to go home and recharge for tomorrow. But now things had grown complicated. He couldn’t just abandon her, yet who was she to him? And she obviously resented his being around her. So, instead of answering her directly, he answered, “You said you were hungry.”

      “Yes,” she admitted warily.

      Trevor couldn’t help wondering if she as always this suspicious, or if her present situation had transformed her. “I’ll take you to Kate’s Kitchen and get you something to eat.”

      “Kate’s Kitchen,” she repeated. The words meant nothing to her. “Is that like a homeless shelter, or someone’s house?”

      “Neither. That’s my restaurant.”

      Even within the context of this minor conversation, mentioning his restaurant filled him with pride. It always did. Having it, running it, had been his goal for a very long time.

      She made what seemed to her a logical assumption. “You work in a restaurant?”

      Trevor corrected her. “I own a restaurant.”

      “Oh.” The single-syllable word was pregnant with meaning and respect—and she hadn’t a clue as to why.

      Did she own anything? she wondered. It infuriated her that she didn’t know. This was going on too long, she silently raged. It was as if she were standing in front of a huge, white wall that was locking her out of everything. She couldn’t find the door, couldn’t find any way to enter. The worst was that she didn’t even know what was behind the wall, if anything.

      Standing before the entrance to the public bathroom, she hesitated for a moment. She hated this vulnerable feeling. Hated giving in to it or even acknowledging its existence.

      But a survival instinct told her that it was necessary. She turned to glance over her shoulder at the man who’d rescued her. The man she probably owed her life to. “You’ll be here when I come out?”

      He nodded and she thought she saw a hint of a smile on his lips. Probably laughing at her, she thought. But she had no choice. She couldn’t just wander around on the beach at this time of night.

      “I’ll be here,” he promised her.

      She had no idea why, but she believed him.

      Still, she hurried inside the building to one of the three stalls. None of the doors met and the floor was cold, with sand clinging to the stone here and there, rubbing off on her feet. Shivering as she entered the stall farthest from the doorway, she realized that she didn’t have any shoes on.

      Had she lost them in the ocean? Or before?

      Nothing came to her.

      Within less than a minute, she was finished and standing before the sink closest to the door. She looked at her reflection in the badly cracked mirror. She didn’t recognize the woman with the plastered, chin-length red hair.

      Oh, God, who was she? Was someone out there searching for her?

      She looked down at her left hand. There was no ring, but she did notice a tan line encircling it. Had there been a ring there? Had she been mugged for that ring? Left for dead? Tossed overboard?

      What? her mind screamed.

      No answers came in response.

      Blowing out a breath, she turned on the faucet. A rumbling noise preceded the emergence of lukewarm water. At least it was clear and not rust-colored. Cupping her hands together, she caught some and threw it on her face, wishing desperately that the simple action would be enough to make her remember.

      It wasn’t.

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