A Stranger She Can Trust. Regan Black

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СКАЧАТЬ I guess not.” She studied the man named Grant sitting behind his desk, struggling against the idea that she should know him. The hard jaw and thick build gave off an air of no-nonsense toughness, but his warm brown gaze didn’t induce any fear, and the gray hair salting his temples added a trust factor.

      Dropping her gaze to the floor again, she said, “I can’t tell you where I live. I mean, I don’t know the answer.” She fisted her hands in frustration, and her short fingernails bit into her palms. “I don’t know who to call. The names...” Her breath rattled in and out of her chest. How could her head feel so full and empty at the same time? “The names are just gone,” she finished in a hoarse whisper.

      The man who’d cleaned the blood from her face scooted closer. “Pushing to remember won’t help. You need to let your brain rest and give your body time to recover.”

      Carson. His name was Carson. She clung to the new detail as she tried to find something familiar. She didn’t recognize the silver band on her thumb or the soft floral fabric of her skirt skimming her knees. Wiggling her toes inside her scuffed blue ballet flats, she wondered why her feet felt so sore and achy.

      They’d asked for her name and information about her circumstances, and she wanted to cooperate. At least she thought she should cooperate. But where the information should have been, she had only a dark, blank canvas.

      “I don’t remember getting into the cab. Before that is just a blank.” What the hell had happened to her? “I remember getting out, feeling woozy. The matchbook,” she said, her gaze locking onto the item at the edge of the desk. Something nudged at her mind, like light seeping around the edges of a door. “I don’t think it’s mine. I don’t know why I have it or who gave it to me.”

      She pressed the heel of a hand to her temple near her good eye. Her head felt caught in a vise while her pulse throbbed in her lip and over her battered eye. Her raw throat resisted every word she spoke.

      Carson’s palm covered her other hand, peeling her fingers off the arm of the chair. “Relax. Don’t fight for it. You’ve clearly been through an ordeal.” He sounded so sure and steady, and his gentle touch calmed her.

      “My brain feels like oatmeal.” She could see a pot of oatmeal in her mind, and she could almost smell the homey scent of the dish blended with cinnamon and chunks of warm apples. “How do I know oatmeal and not my own name?”

      “There are several things that can cause this situation.” He cleared his throat, his gaze sliding away for a moment. “I’m confident your memory will return soon...” he said, looking her in the eye.

      She heard the hesitation where he would have used her name if either of them had known it. “You’re confident?”

      “Would you like a second opinion?” he asked with an eager spark in his hazel eyes. “You’d learn more from a full CT scan and workup.”

      Her heart kicked against her ribs at the thought of a hospital. “Your opinion will do,” she said. “No hospitals.” Her feet shifted. Every instinct she had told her to run, but where would she go? Her body ached from head to toe. She’d never outrun the able-bodied people here even if she could think of a direction. “Please, don’t make me go.” She was probably only making a bad situation worse, and she was definitely taking advantage of strangers who had better things to do, but she didn’t have another option.

      “Take it easy.” Carson encouraged her to have more water.

      She drank deeply, washing away the dry-cotton feeling in her mouth.

      The older man, Grant, made several notes on a card, then wrote a few more lines on a second card and slid that one across the desk to her. “You can trust Carson to take care of you tonight. Why don’t you check back with me tomorrow morning?”

      She blinked at the jumble of letters and numbers on the card, utterly overwhelmed. She could read it, but it didn’t mean anything. There had to be people she knew, people who knew her. Had to be, she thought, despite the void in her head. Could she trust what was happening to her now? Her sole possessions included her clothing, a matchbook and now this card. Her acquaintances were limited to the two men in this room until her brain decided to cooperate again.

      She was as eager as they were to learn how she’d ended up here.

      Carson seemed to understand what she couldn’t articulate. “It’s going to be fine,” he said. Picking up the card and matchbook, he placed both items into her palm and curled her fingers around them. “If you’d be more comfortable staying with a woman—”

      “No.” The word burst out of her, and tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision until she blinked them away. “You.” She gulped, knowing she had to calm down. “I trust you.” An absurd claim, considering she’d just met him.

      If her declaration surprised him, it didn’t show. His steady hazel eyes held her gaze. He didn’t look like a creep, he’d tended her wounds with kind hands, and the matchbook indicated that someone trustworthy had sent her here.

      “Then let’s get going,” he said.

      She nodded. No other choice without her memory. She placed her hand in his and let him guide her out of the office, keeping her head down so she wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the lights.

      He proceeded slowly down the hallway, and his fingers gripped hers a little tighter as he pushed open the back door. The yawning darkness and the smells of the river sent a tremor down her spine. This was the only familiar territory in her mind, and the bleak fact made her want to curl up and cry until the world made sense again. She managed to keep moving, thanks to the anchor of Carson’s strong hand enveloping hers.

      His palms were calloused and rough. Something inside her cringed from a memory of similar hands. When she tried to pluck at that thread, it dissolved.

      “Easy,” he said, opening the door of a big gray truck. “Need a boost?”

      “I can do it,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as him as she stepped on the running board to get up into the seat. He checked to be sure she was settled before he closed the door.

      She caught her reflection in the side mirror and gave a start. Her face was a mess with the swelling and bandages and deep bruises. At least she knew she wasn’t supposed to look this way. In the mere seconds it took for him to get around the truck and into the driver’s seat, she fought back a swamping fear of being alone. The reaction startled her, and again something felt wrong about her reaction.

      Everything about everything felt wrong, inside and out.

      “Where do you live?” she asked as he started the truck. His answer meant nothing to her, and she watched a foreign world drift by in the dark as he drove through the streets. “Have you lived here all your life?”

      “Born and raised here in Philadelphia,” he answered, giving her vital information without making her feel stupid. “I’ve traveled a little, but I haven’t found another place I’d rather call home.”

      At the next intersection, he turned off the main road, and she wished for daylight so it might have been easier to remember any possible landmark. He’d told her not to push it, yet she couldn’t stop herself from trying.

      “How do you know so much about my, um, situation?”

      He shrugged a СКАЧАТЬ