Sudden Recall. Jean Barrett

brought him his lunch. They ate in silence, his attention focused on the news. And all the while, Eden was conscious of him, wary of his possible danger to her. She remembered he had tried to assure her he wasn’t evil, and last night her instincts had been convinced he was a decent man. But how could she trust any of that when he was driven by a desperation neither of them understood?

      Well, she was desperate herself, as only a mother could be. She managed to restrain that desperation through the entire lengthy newscast of both local and national events. But by the time the program wrapped up without results for him, she’d had enough. She wanted answers, and she no longer cared how much she might be risking herself to get them.

      Opening her purse, Eden removed the photograph and business card she had found in his jacket last night. His gaze was still fixed on the television screen when she came to her feet and inserted herself between the sofa and the bookshelves.

      “Look at them,” she commanded, facing him with determination as she placed the photo and card on the coffee table in front of him.

      He glanced down and then up. “Again? I thought I told you back in Charleston—”

      “I want to know how you got them. Do you remember at least that much?”

      “No.”

      “Try.”

      “What do you think I’ve been doing since I opened my eyes this morning? When I wasn’t worried about what you were going to try next, that is. And why are you so interested in that picture?”

      Eden was prepared at this point to plead with him. “I have a good reason. The best reason in the world. It’s because—” She stopped abruptly, realizing that, unless someone was able to address an individual by name, an appeal somehow lacked strength. “Look, if you and I are going to spend any time together—”

      “Ah, now you want to spend time with me?”

      “I didn’t think I had any choice about that. You were the one who forced me to come here.” She was getting angry again. That wasn’t the way to reach him. “The point is,” she went on, her voice softening, “you don’t have a name because you don’t know who you are. So what am I supposed to call you?”

      His gaze drifted away from hers. There was a long silence between them. Had the windows been open, she might have heard the gentle lapping of the waters against the pier, a sound that would have soothed her while she waited tensely for his answer. But the windows remained closed, and the only sound in the houseboat was the TV, which droned on behind her.

      She looked at his face. Except for a slight discoloring around the eye that had been bruised and swollen shut last night, what had to be a tenderness in the lip that had been split open, and the bandage that still covered the bridge of his nose, he was healing rapidly.

      There was strength and character in that face. She could see it in the square shape of his jaw, the fine radial lines at the corners of his observant brown eyes, even in the small mole high on one beard-shadowed cheek. That it was also a face with sensual qualities, to which she was regrettably susceptible, Eden preferred not to think about.

      A lean face, too, like the rigorously conditioned body that carried it. Solid and athletic, even with that limp. As though it had been trained for a specific purpose.

      And again the question gnawed at her. Who was he?

      “Him,” he said without expression, nodding in the direction of the TV behind her.

      Puzzled, Eden swung around to face the set. There was a movie playing on it now, a classic old western. She couldn’t remember its title.

      “Shane,” he said. “You can call me Shane.”

      Eden recalled the story now. Shane was its hero, a mysterious loner who had arrived out of nowhere. No past, no other identity beyond that single name. Shane. It was perfect. Like the character in the movie, the name suited him.

      “Shane it is, then,” she said.

      He nodded, satisfied. “Now let’s move on to another name. The kid in that picture. You know who he is, don’t you? Or at least you think you do. Who is he?”

      Eden caught her breath, then released it in an emotional rush. “His name is Nathanial. Where is he, Shane? What have you done with my son?”