LITMIR.BIZ

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quiet cough from the doorway caused him to stand straight and flush up the back of his neck. Embarrassed, he managed a smile for the nurse who filled the doorway. “She’s awake,” he said, shrugging with the innocent guile of a child caught stealing a cookie from the jar. All trace of the coldness she’d sensed in him had been quickly hidden.

      “Dios. We thank the Virgin.” The nurse, a big, buxom woman with copper-colored skin and eyes as black as obsidian, moved to Nikki’s bedside. Smothering a smile over the tender scene she just witnessed, she shooed the man back away from the bed where he suddenly hung like a lovesick puppy.

      Nikki tried to explain. “I don’t know what’s going on, but—”

      “Shh, Señora. Please.” With trained fingers, Nurse Consuela Vásquez, according to the nametag pinned to her ample bosom, took Nikki’s pulse, blood pressure and temperature. Nikki tried to protest, to ask questions, but she was told by the big woman to wait. “First we see how you are doing. Then you tell us everything. Okay?”

      Impatiently Nikki waited, wanting to wiggle from beneath the stranger’s stare, for his eyes, as she was examined, never left her. Finally, when Nurse Vásquez had checked the IV bag and scratched Nikki’s vital information on her chart, she offered Nikki a sincere and relieved smile. “Well, Señora Makinzee, you wake up. ¿Qué tal se siente hoy?”

      Nikki’s brows drew together and she shook her head. “I...I don’t understand. I don’t speak Spanish.”

      “She wants to know how you feel,” the man interjected.

      “Like I’ve been run over by an eighteen-wheeler.”

       “¿Cómo?”

      The corners of the stranger’s mouth curved upward just a little as he explained to the nurse, and Consuela Vásquez chuckled.

      “Sí. You are lucky to be alive. Your husband...he save your life.”

      Nikki’s gaze moved to the man leaning over the bed. He wasn’t smiling any longer and his gaze had suddenly become unreadable. Like a chameleon, always changing. “He did?” she whispered, her heart hammering and sweat collecting along her spine. She wanted to confide in the nurse, to explain about the frightening blackness that seemed to be in the spot that should have held her memory, but hesitated, wondering if it would be wise to admit as much while this man—this man who had kissed her so passionately while she was lying helplessly in the bed—was standing nearby. “My husband? But I’m not married.”

      The nurse’s smile collapsed. “He is your husband, señora.”

      Nikki shook her head, but a jagged streak of pain ripped through her brain and she was forced to draw in a sharp breath. “I’m not married,” she said again, her gaze locking with that of the stranger, the man claiming to have married her. Was it her imagination or did the skin around the corners of his mouth tighten a little?

      “But, Señor Makinzee—”

      “McKenzie. Trent McKenzie.” His eyes didn’t warm as he said, “You remember, we were married just before we came to Salvaje for our honeymoon.”

      Dear God, was he telling the truth? Why would he lie? But certainly she would remember her own wedding.

      “My name is—” She squinted against the blinding pain, trying to see through the door that was locked in her mind.

      “Nikki Carrothers,” Trent supplied.

      That sounded right. It fit, like a favorite pair of old slippers.

      “Nikki Carrothers McKenzie.”

      The slippers were suddenly too tight. “I don’t think so,” she said uncertainly. Could she possibly have been married to this man? Eyeing him, she mentally removed several days’ growth of beard, the tired lines of strain around his eyes, the unkempt hair. He could be considered handsome, she supposed. He was just shy of six feet with a thick chest that tapered to slim hips and muscles that were visible whenever he moved. Lean and mean. For there wasn’t a trace of kindness in his eyes and she knew that undying love wasn’t one of the reasons he’d had for staying at her bedside.

      “No memory?” the nurse asked.

      Try, Nikki, try. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, willing her memories—her life—to come back to her. “None. I...I...I just can’t,” she reluctantly admitted, her head throbbing.

      Consuela’s worried expression deepened. “Dr. Padilla will be in soon. He will talk to you.” She turned questioning eyes to Trent and then, after promising a sponge bath and breakfast and a pill for pain, she hurried out the door with a rustle of her crisp uniform. Trent followed the nurse into the corridor, and though Nikki strained to listen, she heard only snatches of their conversation which was spoken in whispered Spanish. What was she doing here in this foreign country—in a hospital, for God’s sake—with no memory?

      Her heart thudded and she tried to raise her arms. Her left was strapped to the bed, the IV taped to her wrist. Her right was free, but ached when she tried to move it. In fact, now that the pain in her head had eased to a dull throb, she realized that she hurt all over. Her legs and torso—everywhere—felt bruised and battered.

       Your husband. He save your life.

      Her throat tightened. What was she doing with Trent McKenzie?

      She glanced around the room, to the thick stucco walls and single window. Fading sunlight was streaming through the fronds of a palm tree that moved in the wind just outside the glass, causing shadows to play on the wall at the foot of her bed. The window was partially opened and the scent of the sea wafted through the room, mingling with the fragrance of the roses, two dozen red buds interspersed with white carnations in a vase on the metal stand near the table.

      The card had been opened. Pinned to a huge white bow, it read: “All my love, Trent.” These flowers were from that hard-edged man who claimed he was married to her? Nikki tried to imagine Trent McKenzie, in a florist’s shop, browsing over vases of cut lilies, bachelor’s buttons and orchids. She couldn’t. The man who’d camped out in her hospital room was tough and suspicious and had a cruel streak in his eyes. No way would he have sent flowers. And no way would she have married him.

      But why would he lie?

      If only she could remember. Her head began to throb again.

      Somewhere down the hallway a patient moaned and a woman was softly weeping. Bells clanged and footsteps hurried through the hushed corridors. Several people passed by the doorway, all with black hair and dark skin, natives of this island off the coast of Venezuela. When Trent had mentioned Salvaje to her, Nikki had flashed upon a mental picture of the tropical island. The picture had been from a brochure that touted Salvaje as a garden paradise, a quaint tropical island. There had been pictures, small captioned photographs of white, sandy beaches, lush, dense foliage, happy natives and breathtakingly beautiful jagged cliffs that seemed to rise from the sea. Nikki’s pulse skyrocketed as she remembered a final photo in the brochure, a picture of an abandoned mission, built hundreds of years ago at the highest point of the island. The mission with the crumbling bell tower and weathered statue of the Madonna. The mission in her nightmare.

      She convulsed, her heart hammering. What was she doing here on Salvaje, and why did this man, the only other American she’d seen, claim to be her husband? If only she could remember! She slammed her eyes shut, fighting against the bleak emptiness in her brain, and heard the steady click of boot heels against the tile.

      He was back. Her body tensed in fear, but she forced her eyes open and told herself that he’d inadvertently given her a glimpse of her memory when he had mentioned Salvaje, the Wild Island, and if she could, she should try to get him to give her more information, hoping that any little piece might trigger other recollections.

      He strode to her bed, towering over her with his cynical demeanor and lying eyes. Nikki, tied to the rails, forced to lie under a thin sheet and blanket, felt

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