A Husband To Remember. Lisa Jackson

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      Shuddering, she thought about her nightmare, her feet losing their purchase on the rocky trail, her body pitching toward the rocky shore hundreds of feet below the ridge. Deep in her heart she’d expected that the horrid dream was real, but she shivered with a fear as cold as the bottom of the sea. She hadn’t fallen over the edge, she’d been pushed, chased by someone...someone darkly evil. Her gaze moved to Trent’s face, so severe and determined. It was hard to imagine that he had saved her from death.... She almost cried out, but forced the tremors in her body to subside. She couldn’t show any sign of weakness to this stranger who claimed to be her husband, and she had to come up with a plan, a way to escape the hospital and find out who she was. Oh, God, if her head didn’t ache so badly, if she could bear weight on her ankle, she’d find a way to uncover the truth.

      A shadow crossed her face as Trent bent over the bed. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he promised, his breath fanning her face. He kissed her lightly on the lips and there was a warmth in the feel of his mouth against hers that caused her heart to trip. Was it possible that she’d fallen in love with this brash, uncompromising man? Nikki couldn’t remember anything about her past, but she didn’t believe for a second that she would marry a man so damned intimidating, a man who just by his mere presence seemed destined to dominate everyone he met. Certainly she would have chosen a kinder, wiser individual—a thinking man.

      His lips moved against hers, and it was all Nikki could do to lay stiffly and unresponsively on the bed. Trent lifted his head and, straightening, smoothed the wrinkles from his shirt as he winked at her. The smile curving his lips was positively wicked—as if he and she shared some dark, indecent secret. He patted the edge of the bed, then walked with the doctor out of the room.

      Silently fuming, Nikki thought of a million ways to strangle him. His little show for the doctor was just an act. Or was it? There was no passion in this kiss, not like the one before, and yet she’d felt a spark of emotion, a tenderness she couldn’t equate with Trent McKenzie or whoever the hell he was. She ground her teeth in frustration and willed her memory to surface, but only vague images drifted into her mind. She remembered a grassy field and riding a horse—no, a pony, a spotted pony. She’d been bareback. A dog had trailed after the chubby little horse, nearly hidden in the tall grass. There had been apple trees—an old orchard, perhaps—in the corner of the field and a copse of oak and fir trees on the other side of the fence line.

      Had the pony been hers? She imagined cattle grazing on the stubble in the next field, but the image turned cloudy and she was left with an emptiness that she couldn’t fill. “Damn it all,” she muttered as she tried and failed to summon any other thoughts about her past.

      What about Trent? Your husband? Any memory of him at all eluded her completely.

      She shifted on the wrinkled sheets and sucked in her breath at the sharp pain at her ankle. From the hallway, she heard Trent and Dr. Padillo, talking softly in the flowing cadences of Spanish. Of course they were discussing her, but she couldn’t hear or understand them. Frustrated, she tried to sit up, but fell back against the pillows. If only she could climb out of this bed, march down to the police station, or the airport, or the American embassy, if there was one on this godforsaken island, and demand to know who she was and how she got here.

      Tears threatened, and she stared at the crucifix on the wall. “Give me strength,” she whispered as Nurse Vásquez returned with her medication. She thought of refusing the drugs, knowing she needed a clear mind, but the pain was too great and she was thankful for the tide of sleep the tiny pills would bring her. She swallowed the sedative eagerly, waiting for the pain to slowly erode and drowsiness to overcome her. Closing her eyes, an old commercial message wafted through her brain. Calgon, take me away...

      When she woke up...then she’d try to remember.

      * * *

      “I want her released as soon as possible.” Trent eyed the little man who was the most highly recommended doctor on the island. However, there couldn’t have been more than three physicians on Salvaje, so Trent wasn’t going to linger here, hoping this man knew what he was doing. Too much was at stake.

      “But you have time...you are on your honeymoon.” With a knowing grin, Padillo patted Trent’s arm. “Be patient.”

      “We have to get back to the States.”

      “Why must you leave so soon?”

      “We’d only planned to stay a week,” Trent explained, trying to keep his temper in check. He was used to doing things his own way. Having Nikki in the local hospital was inconvenient. Damned inconvenient. Probably even dangerous. Don’t get paranoid, he told himself, but he hadn’t slept much in five nights and he was strung tighter than a bowstring. Right now, he wanted to shake some sense into the little doctor, to convince Padillo to release Nikki at that very moment, but he couldn’t tip his hand. Not yet.

      “Salvaje is a beautiful place. You should stay here. Enjoy the climate,” Doctor Padillo was saying as a nurse at the lobby waved at him in an attempt to get his attention. “Your wife...she has not seen much of the island.”

      “We can come back.”

      “You Americans,” the doctor said, clucking his tongue. “Always in a rush.”

       If you only knew.

      “I can release her within three days,” Padillo said, though by the gathering of lines between his flat black brows it was obvious to Trent that the doctor wasn’t happy about his decision. “But there are only a few flights to America.”

      “We’ll find one.”

      “Doctor—” the nurse called, and Padillo waved her away, as if she were a bothersome insect.

      “Then I’ll have the necessary papers ready to sign.”

      “Good. Oh, and while you’re at it, I’ll need my wife’s purse and personal belongings.”

      “Today?”

      “Sí. I think she’d like to look through it before she goes home.”

      “If it is lost, the hospital cannot be responsible—”

      “Don’t worry,” Trent said, thinking of the pretty woman with the battered face as she lay in a hospital bed a few doors down the dark corridor. “Just give me her belongings. I’ll sign a release for everything.”

      * * *

      Nikki wasn’t sure of the time. She’d slept so much, she couldn’t keep track, but it seemed as if two or three days had passed, with Trent forever in the room with her, the doctors and nurses flitting in and out, feeding her, forcing fluids down her, fiddling with the IV, concerned that she eliminate, and assuring her she would be fine.

      They seemed worried about infection, anxious about her temperature and her blood pressure, but no one showed the least bit of uneasiness about the fact that her memory had all but disappeared.

      When Nikki had asked Padillo about her amnesia, he assured her that her memory would return and she would remember everything about her past, most likely in bits and pieces at first, but then, slowly, all the years of her life would blend together and she would know who she was, her family, what she did for a living. She’d even remember becoming Trent McKenzie’s bride.

      She wasn’t so sure.

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