LITMIR.BIZ

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wrong.” Everything was wrong. Roman’s mind reeled. Leah. “Leah. Is she— How long has she been here? Do you know where she’s from? Do you know—”

      The guy cut him off.

      “Hey, do you know her or something?” He sounded protective, fierce. His whole face turned cold.

      Roman backtracked. “I was just curious.” He had to think fast. Leah hadn’t recognized him—or at least she’d seemed not to have recognized him. He should play it casual, but he was still having a hard time thinking. “I was— She’s a very attractive woman. I’m here on vacation. I thought—”

      “You thought wrong.”

      “Can you tell me her last name?” He still couldn’t believe it. Leah. Alive. Here.

      “I don’t give out personal information about Leah.” The cook gave him a look, then turned around and walked away.

      Realizing that the staff of the Shark and Fin were going to be a dead end in terms of learning about Leah, Roman went into the town. Blocks of crisscrossing, narrow, palm-shaded residential streets surrounded the backbone of the tiny Key, the main road that led to the Overseas Highway. He asked careful questions at the small grocery, the bank, the post office, the tourist office, the library and the Cuban coffeehouse. He learned she went by the name Leah Wells, that Morrie Sanders was trying to sell the Shark and Fin so he could move to New Mexico and be with his grandkids and that Leah Wells had been working for him for more than a year. It was apparent she had quickly become well liked on Thunder Key, and personal questions about her were not welcome.

      He pretended he was interested in the Shark and Fin. He was a businessman from New York, he told them, and he was looking to invest in a business in the Keys.

      Talk to Leah, they said. She could put him in touch with Morrie.

      He wasn’t ready to talk to her yet. He was afraid to talk to her, still afraid he would break the spell and she would disappear. But he had to know more about her, so he followed her. He found that in the mornings she ran on the beach. Like most residents she walked—or sometimes in her case, ran—everywhere she went on the two-mile-wide island. Then she went into town and purchased a café con leche at the Cuban coffeehouse. One morning she went into a boardwalk boutique, part of a circle of shops surrounding a shady courtyard. He discovered she sold some of her designs there. She was still making one-of-a-kind clothes—sexy dresses, barely-there tops, wild-print shorts and pants. He found she made jewelry now, too. Shell necklaces and beaded bracelets. According to the locals, her work was popular with tourists.

      She spent the rest of her time at the Shark and Fin.

      This was her new life, the one she’d taken up after disappearing over a bridge eighteen months ago. This was Leah Wells, who didn’t recognize him.

      He left town and went back to the Shark and Fin. They were busy, but Roman wasn’t going to sit in the back this time. He took the last open place at the bar.

      When the cook came out of the kitchen, he wiped his hands on his apron and said something to Leah that Roman couldn’t hear. It was then that Leah looked down the bar toward Roman.

      Tonight she wore a sleeveless blouse and loose-fitting cotton pants. They were colorful—blue-and-yellow patterned. It was like Leah to wear loud clothes. They were probably her own design. They were cut to show off her slender, shapely form.

      She walked toward him. “Can I help you?”

      Roman’s mouth went dry, his heart constricted. Her voice. Husky, low, sweet. Leah. He had to force himself to speak, to risk breaking the magic spell or dream or fantasy—whatever it was that had brought her back into his life. He had to find out if she was real.

      “Hello, Leah.” He managed to speak in a steady voice.

      She didn’t vanish. But her face held no expression as she stared at him. “Would you like a beer?”

      Her eyes were wide open, the same as before. No recognition.

      He had to know.

      “Do you remember—” His heart was in his throat.

      “Remember what?” She looked confused.

      “—me?” he finished quietly.

      “Um, I saw you here the other night.” Her voice wavered into wariness. “A couple of nights, actually.”

      Either she was the best actress he’d ever seen, or she really didn’t know who he was. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach and at the same time as if the world was opening up all over again.

      “You want a beer?” she asked again.

      “No.”

      She started to turn away.

      “Wait.”

      Her shoulders tensed. She turned back. The noise of people talking, glasses clinking, seemed to fade into the background.

      “I just…want to talk to you,” he said.

      “I don’t have time to talk.” She gave a pointed glance around the bar.

      “Then maybe we can talk after you close. What time is that?”

      “I can’t,” she said. “I go to bed then.”

      “Then, in the morning,” he countered. “I’ll run with you.”

      Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that I run in the morning?”

      “I’ve seen you.”

      “Look,” she said, her eyes cool, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m not interested.”

      “If you don’t know what I’m thinking, how do you know you’re not interested?”

      “Joey told me— He said you were asking questions about me. That you said I was—”

      “Attractive,” he supplied.

      She shrugged.

      He had to speak to her.

      “Give me a few minutes, that’s all. I need to talk to you,” he persisted.

      “I can’t.”

      “Why not?”

      In Manhattan, he would have walked away a long time ago. He never asked a woman out twice if she rebuffed him. He wasn’t a pursuer. But he couldn’t walk away from Leah.

      He knew little—actually, nothing—about memory loss. He’d called his sister Gen’s husband, Mark Davison, the day before. Mark was a physician. He’d been surprised by Roman’s questions but had answered them in a general way.

      Memory loss could be physical or psychological. Short-or long-term. Permanent or temporary. Forcing too much information too soon on the patient could be dangerous. But Mark was a pain specialist, not a psychiatrist, he reminded Roman. He didn’t have all the answers.

      Why the questions? Mark had asked. But Roman had hung up without answering. He’d asked Mark not to tell Gen about the phone call. He wasn’t ready to tell anyone about Leah.

      “I don’t date,” Leah said finally.

      “Why not?” He kept his tone light. She tucked her hair behind her ear. He recognized the familiar gesture. He was making her nervous.

      “I’m a lesbian, all right?”

      Roman almost burst out laughing. “I don’t think so,” he said. His mind rushed with images. Leah playing footsie with him in front of the fire—wearing nothing but socks. Leah pulling him behind a barn for a roll in the hay—at a farm where they had stopped for a wagon ride. Leah crying out during sex—at his parents’ home. She was the most uninhibited, passionate sex partner he’d ever had.

      “Who are you?” she demanded now, and the look in her eyes stopped him

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