Undercover Memories. Lenora Worth

she was doing here.

      Then she did remember something. Grabbing the nurse’s arm, she said, “You mentioned a detective. What’s he got to do with this?”

      “He’s been waiting most of the day to talk to you,” the nurse replied. “I can send him away.”

      “No. Send him in,” Emma said. “Maybe he can help me piece things together.”

      The nurse looked skeptical but finally nodded. “I’ll ask Dr. Sherrington.”

      “No. I said let me speak to the detective. Now.”

      “I’ll go and find him,” the nurse responded.

      Emma sank back against the pillow, drowsiness tugging at her consciousness. She had to talk to that detective. Had she done something wrong? Or did he know who’d done this to her?

      She waited, holding her breath, her prayers as scattered as her memories. The detective might be the one person who could tell her why she had such a strong urgency in her heart to get out of here.

      He flashed his badge. “Detective Ryder Palladin.”

      Emma stared up at the man standing at the foot of her hospital bed. He filled the room and made it shrink until she felt his too-close appraisal.

      To mask her fears and confusion, she turned things back toward him. “Palladin? Really?”

      His wry grin told her he got that a lot.

      “Yep. It’s my real name. But with two Ls.”

      “Like the cellular palladin, not the gunslinger Paladin?”

      “So we’ve established you know your chemistry and that you remember that old Western series.”

      Surprised at herself, she nodded, a memory of sitting on a sofa with some other children when she was tiny hitting her in the gut with a sweet intensity. Did she have a family somewhere? “I guess so. The doc told me I’d have little clusters of memories. Islands of memories, he called them.”

      Ryder Palladin didn’t look like a big-city detective. More like a cowboy straight out of that old Western. Complete with a cream-colored hat, plaid button-up shirt and nicely worn jeans. With dark longish wavy hair and glinting bronze-brown eyes that held a gold mine of secrets.

      He took off his hat and allowed her to enjoy all that luscious wavy hair. “Do you remember who you are?”

      “Emma. Emma Langston, according to the doctor.”

      “But not according to you?”

      “I’m remembering bits and pieces. Why are you here?”

      Lifting a dark slanted brow, he chuckled while his secretive gaze did a round on her. “You get right to the heart of things, don’t you?”

      “I don’t have time for idle chatter.”

      He absorbed that with classic detective disdain. “Need to be somewhere in a hurry, Emma Langston?”

      She didn’t like his smug attitude or the way he made tiny little shivering sensations float down her spine. “What do you know about me?”

      “I’m the one who asks the questions,” he retorted, throwing his hat in a nearby chair. He had the kind of hair a woman wanted to grab onto and hold. Silky, shining, unruly.

      “I’m the one who needs to know what happened,” she replied, her head hammering and grinding in pain while her heart jumped in a fast-beating tempo.

      “You got hit with a baseball bat.”

      He watched her cringe. “Yeah, the nurse told me. But I think I can almost remember that. I need a few more details.”

      He put his hands against the foot of the bed. His big, tanned hands. “You were at the Blue Bull Bar—the Triple B to the locals. Do you almost remember that, too?”

      Emma swallowed away the terror of not remembering, of not knowing. She liked to be in control—of her emotions, of her life, of her work. Somehow, she did know that.

      “Why would I go there?”

      He gave her that lazy slide of a gaze again. “I’m asking you.”

      “I don’t remember.”

      “Your ID shows you’re a private investigator from Galveston.”

      Emma inhaled a breath, the sound of ocean waves crashing against a seawall filling her mind. Images of a tiny beach house, all blue and white and sunny, made her feel secure. But other memories of fear and urgency seemed to want to darken her mind.

      He picked up on her confusion right away. “Do you remember that now?”

      “Some. Maybe. I can see the beach in my mind. A house. I might live there. But why did I come to Dallas?”

      “I’m thinking you were at the Triple B looking for someone or maybe tailing someone.”

      “Why were you there?”

      “Do you always answer a question with a question?”

      “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

      That retort won her a grin of appreciation. “And she has a wicked sense of humor at that.”

      “Seriously, why were you there? It might help me remember.”

      “Good try.” He eyed her for a long minute, still not quite trusting her. Then he leaned in. “I work Vice.”

      “A vice detective? Did I do something wrong?”

      “No. But my partner found you unconscious in the alley behind the Triple B.”

      Another memory of walking into a seedy, dark bar, the smell of beer and smoke assaulting her, making her feel sick. Stares and whispers and...questions.

      “I asked some questions.”

      “I reckon you did.”

      “They told me to get out.”

      “I reckon they would.”

      “I can’t remember why I went there.” The panic started up. “I need to get out of here and find out what’s going on.” She lifted, tried to sit up. But her head went wild with pain and agony, causing her to turn dizzy and confused.

      “Hey, hey,” he said, his hand on her arm strong and steady, his eyes kind now. “Lie back. You can’t go anywhere just yet.”

      Emma gulped in air, nodded. Pretended she hadn’t noticed his touch. Crazy that this man seemed to hit all the marks even when she was in crisis mode. Even when she couldn’t remember if she was married or single. Single sounded more like it. Something she did need to remember. “Do you know who did this to me?”

      He pulled out two grainy snapshots that made her have a flash of a memory. She’d taken such shots in her line of work.

      “Do you recognize these two men?”

      Emma squinted against the pain in her head and carefully studied both photos. “I don’t know. The skinny one seems familiar.”

      He nodded and put the pictures back in his shirt pocket.

      “Can I get you anything?” he asked, his tiger eyes full of concern.

      “My mind back.”

      “We’re working on that.”

      “And you look so happy about it,” she noted out loud.

      He stood, his gaze holding hers for a beat too long. “Big Sam and Little Eddie guard that place. We call them a bounce and an ounce. One’s big, bald and beefy—”

      “—And the other’s short, scrawny and scared?”

      “Good description.”

      “He