The Homecoming. Anne Marie Winston

accidents.

      “What’s your name?” he asked her, still kneeling beside her.

      She raised her head cautiously, clearly testing her stomach as she opened her mouth to reply, but then an odd expression crossed her face. She automatically whipped her head around to face him, but immediately winced and dropped it back to her knees. “I— My name is— I don’t know!” She sounded both astonished and bewildered. “Just give me a minute. I’m just a little…a little…I don’t know who I am!”

      Her eyes were blue. Very blue at the moment, the irises encircled by dark rings that only made them more compelling. “Okay. Relax. I’m sure it’ll come to you in a moment,” he said soothingly. “We’ll just stay here for a little while and when you feel better I’ll take you to my house.” He hoped Johnny would show up long before that since Danny was pretty sure his nameless guest wasn’t up to taking a stroll along the beach. “Can you look straight at me?” he asked as he moved around in front of her.

      “Why?” But she did as he asked.

      “I want to check your pupils.”

      “Oh.”

      They looked fine to him, and he thanked God for that. If they’d been unequal in size, he’d have known something serious was wrong.

      He glanced at his watch surreptitiously. Twenty minutes to wait. Leilani would be expecting him for breakfast around seven. When he didn’t show up and wasn’t in the house by then, she would send Johnny to look for him. And since he always ran along the beach before breakfast, the first thing Johnny would do would be to come down the cliff, and Danny would be able to send him back up the hill for something resembling a stretcher. Even though he was in the best shape of his life and the woman beside him looked slender and small-boned, he knew he couldn’t carry her along the beach and up the cliff path alone.

      His thoughts were distracted as she put her palms on the ground and prepared to shift her weight onto her feet.

      “You probably shouldn’t move,” he said. “I have someone who can help me carry you up to the house in a few minutes.”

      “I’m too big to carry,” she said, her lips curving up as if that was extraordinarily funny. “I can walk.” She pushed herself up farther and before he could prevent it, she’d stood up.

      Danny stood up, too, fast. He grabbed for her when she started to slide sideways. She was oddly boneless and for a moment he thought she’d passed out as she flopped against him, her head falling into the curve of his shoulder. “Whoa,” he said.

      “Sorry.” She sounded as if she’d clenched her teeth together.

      “Why don’t you sit back down?” he suggested. “It’s a long walk down the beach to the stairs, and a long, steep climb up to the house. My groundskeeper will be coming this way in a little while and he’ll be able to help.”

      She was taller than he’d expected, fitting neatly against his own six-foot frame. Felicia had been short. When they’d danced together, not that they’d ever danced much, he’d got a crick in his neck from looking down at her.

      Pain lanced through him. He hadn’t imagined he’d ever hold a woman in his arms again. He hadn’t wanted to. All he wanted was to be left alone.

      “…probably should sit down again. Everything’s sort of whirling around me as if I were on a merry-go-round. Sorry. I have this habit of thinking I have to do everything myself.”

      “It’s all right.” He struggled to keep his tone level. This poor woman couldn’t even remember her own name. She didn’t need to be saddled with his problems. He lowered her to the boulder, alarmed again at the way her arms flopped down when he pulled them from around his neck.

      She sat very still for a moment. “Wow,” she said. “My head is killing me. I must have met a rock headfirst.”

      “As soon as we get up to the house,” he said, “I’ll call a doctor.”

      “You could just drop me at the nearest hospital,” she said. “I don’t want to be a burden, and I think I probably should get my head looked at.”

      He cleared his throat. “This is a private island,” he said. “There is no hospital.”

      “No…? You’re kidding.” She knew better than to move her head this time. “Then how are you going to call a doctor?”

      His lips quirked but she had her eyes closed again so she didn’t see his amusement. “I’ll manage.”

      She couldn’t know that he was so filthy rich he could probably call an entire medical staff over if he wanted. But then the amusement fled. If he had to choose between the Crosby fortune that his father had amassed and having his wife and son back again, he’d give away every dime. He shot to his feet. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go and hurry my friend along and we’ll be back to take you up to the house.”

      She was in pain, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t seriously disoriented. She’d sounded pretty rational and he thought she understood.

      Then again, he thought as he climbed back down off the boulder and began to lope along the tide line, she didn’t even know her own name right now.

       Two

       J ohnny was coming down the steps as Danny ran back toward the house. The two men retraced Danny’s steps to where the young woman waited, then carried her up to the house in a sling made of the blanket.

      Danny put her in a first-floor sitting room, then called over to Kauai. First he spoke to a doctor, who agreed to come over and examine the woman. The man was a relative of Johnny’s—no surprise there—and Danny had met him before.

      Then he called the Kauai Police Department in Lihu’e and asked for the chief. Another relative of Johnny’s, the chief had welcomed him when he’d first come to the island, though Danny had had no reason to call the department before.

      After a cordial greeting, Danny said, “Are you missing any female tourists?”

      There was a slight pause and Danny could almost feel the man putting on his official hat. “Why do you ask?”

      “I found a woman this morning—”

      “Alive?”

      “Yes. She’s in good shape, just a little banged up. I have a doctor coming over to look at her. Your cousin Eddie, as a matter of fact.”

      The chief chuckled. “Dat Eddie, he take care your little wahine.”

      Danny was familiar with the interesting brand of pidgin spoken in the islands. He knew the chief would never dream of using it with a tourist or a stranger and he felt oddly flattered. “I hope so,” he said. “She’s having a little trouble remembering how she got here.” And by the way, she doesn’t know her name, either.

      As if he were reading Danny’s mind, the chief said, “Sydney Aston. She was staying at the Marriott on Kalapaki Beach. Yesterday she went over to Waimea and rented a boat out of Kikialoa Harbor.”

      “Alone?” He couldn’t believe anyone would let a young, single female tourist take a boat out alone.

      “Alone.” The chief’s voice held a grim note now. “Ronny Kamehana said he’d take her out. She wanted to go cruisin’ past your island. But Ronny drink too much and when she pay up front and say she know boats, he let her go.”

      “I might make a point of coming over there and kicking Ronny Kamehana’s butt one of these days,” Danny said in an equally grim tone. “That woman could have died.”

      “Don’worry. Ronny goin’ be sorry,” the chief said. “Besides, his boat gone now, yeah?”

      “Yeah. Make sure he doesn’t get another one.”

      “So what you goin’ to do with your guest? You want Eddie