Memories of Megan. Rita Herron

BACK AS MEGAN stood to leave, and offered a hand for support, but she refused his help, looking wary as if he’d said or done something to upset her. Odd, how just a few moments before he’d met her, he’d had visions of knowing her, of seeing her before, when now his mind almost seemed blank. Like a deep tunnel, long and empty and devastatingly dark.

      Briefly he wondered if they could have had an affair.

      No, she hadn’t acted as if she’d known him at all.

      Of course, his face looked different, but if they’d known each other before, if they’d met, she would have recognized his name.

      Instincts told him he wasn’t the kind of man to sleep with another man’s wife.

      Or was he?

      Confused, he hunched inside his jacket and followed the other mourners. God, he hated that damned cane. A tall redhead gathered Megan Wells into a protective embrace. Obviously a close friend, Megan leaned on the other woman as if she were exhausted. He imagined she was. His own muscles protested the long walk. He hated the weakness right now. Hated any kind of weakness.

      The light rain drizzled down, the fall wind kicking up, stirring wet leaves and forcing the flowers from other graves to sway and droop as he limped across the grass.

      Parnell turned to wait for him at the edge of the cemetery. “How’s the leg?”

      Cole grimaced. “Getting better.” He squinted through the hazy sky as Megan and her friend climbed in the car. “Have I met Mrs. Wells before?”

      “Not that I know of.” Parnell frowned and pulled out his keys. “Why do you ask?”

      Cole shrugged. “I don’t know. She just seems…familiar.”

      “You probably saw a picture of Tom and her somewhere. I believe he’s got one in his office.”

      Cole chuckled softly. “Probably.”

      “Get some rest. I’ll see you at the center.”

      Cole flicked his hand in a wave as Parnell jogged to his car. Cole couldn’t move quite so fast. The scent of sorrow and dank muddy ground assailed him as he headed down the embankment. He dreaded going back to his place.

      The small apartment at the edge of the research center didn’t hold a damn bit of recognition for him. A place he’d been told he’d agreed to rent when he signed on with CIRP and made his transition from…where did they say he’d come from? Some little research hospital in the foothills of Tennessee?

      But he remembered none of it. And the apartment he’d chosen to live in didn’t feel like home at all. It felt like a prison.

      MEGAN SET THE CUP OF TEA on the kitchen table and folded her hands in her lap. “Thanks, April. I don’t know what I would have done without you the last three days. Please tell all the nurses and staff members how much I appreciate the food they brought.” Casseroles and homemade dishes filled the butcher block counter. So much food. Food she had no appetite for.

      “Who was that man talking to you before you left?” April asked.

      Megan blew into the tea to cool it. “His name is Cole Hunter. He’s a new psychiatrist at the center.”

      Sympathy filled April’s eyes. “It looked as if he upset you.”

      Megan shrugged. “He came here to work with Tom.” She didn’t want to tell her the rest, how his touch had given her the strangest feeling. How just looking into his eyes had been unnerving. April would think she was crazy.

      “I’m so sorry, Meg.” April leaned over and hugged her. “I know how much you wanted things to work out for you and Tom.”

      Megan nodded, warming her hands on the oversize mug and rolling her shoulders. Tension clawed at her, the lack of sleep and emotions over the past few days finally wearing her down.

      “You look exhausted. Drink that and get some rest.” April grabbed her raincoat. “And call me if you need me.”

      “I will. You be careful.” Megan rose and latched the lock on her front door, her eyes narrowing when she glanced out the window and watched April sprint to her car. Seconds later, April climbed in her Volvo and drove away, rain spewing from the back of her car as she sped toward the cottage she rented on Skidaway Island. Megan let the curtain slip back in place, but a dark sedan across the street drew her eye. It was parked in the shadows of a live oak, the Spanish moss drooping like spider legs, casting it in shadows made worse by the dark sky. She peeled the curtain back and studied the vehicle for a moment, trying to see if someone was inside. Was a cigarette glowing from the interior? Had she seen the car in the neighborhood before? Could it belong to one of her neighbors? People she’d never met because she and Tom had both been too busy at work to entertain? Too busy trying to hold their marriage together?

      Except for those last few weeks when he’d moved out, when she sensed he’d given up…

      Had she seen the car while he was gone?

      After several tense seconds, she decided she must be getting paranoid. The car was empty. And there was no reason for anyone to be lurking outside her apartment. No reason anyone would follow her or want to harm her. After all, Tom’s death had been accidental, not suspicious.

      Chuckling at her runaway imagination, she carried her tea to the bedroom, bypassing Tom’s closet with a tentative glance. At some point she had to sort through his things and clear them out. At least what he hadn’t taken with him when they’d separated.

      But not tonight. She was too battered by Tom’s funeral.

      She slipped beneath the covers and finished the tea, grateful for the small shot of bourbon April had laced it with. Weariness pulled at her, but the uneasiness she’d felt earlier rose again to taunt her. Could someone have been outside watching her? And if they had, who were they?

      She couldn’t quite forget the trouble surrounding Nighthawk Island and the research center just a few short weeks ago. That Arnold Hughes, the CEO and cofounder who’d been behind the unsavory sale of some of their research, might not be dead as the police hoped. That his body had never been found.

      That Tom had been working on something secretive the last few months, something that had made him jittery and even more closed off from her than before. And that a stranger had been at Tom’s funeral. A man who had recently been in an accident of some kind himself but who’d taken her husband’s place at the hospital.

      A man who had come out of nowhere.

      COLE WALKED THE OUTER BANKS surrounding the research center on Skidaway Island, amidst the tall sea oats and damp grass, well aware security tracked his every move. He inhaled the scent of ocean, needing the familiarity, because nothing else about his life seemed remotely familiar.

      Not the idea of being a psychiatrist or the people he’d met at the funeral or the little apartment he’d returned home to.

      Home.

      What did it mean for him? He had no friends. No family. Not even back in Tennessee where Davis Jones, the head of the psychiatric ward had told him he’d moved from. Hell, Jones had even shown him his résumé, but the information on it seemed foreign as well. Apparently he’d gone to Vanderbilt, worked at a small private practice before signing on with the research facility in Oakland.

      Wind whistled through the sea oats, a seagull swooped onto the shore in search of crumbs, and water lapped at the shore in a soothing rhythm. The doctor warned that it would take time to recover his memories. The sea stretched before him, endless and all consuming, just as the blank spaces in his mind. How much time would it take to recover? Would his memory ever fully return? Would he ever feel like the real Cole Hunter again?

      An image of Megan Wells’s grief-stricken face flashed into his mind, emotions gripping him. If they had never met, why had he experienced visions of her when he’d touched her?

      HE WAS WATCHING HER. Standing beside her bed, his dark eyes