Memories of Megan. Rita Herron

paper filled the trash can, and a coffee stain darkened the sleek black top of the desk. The man obviously hadn’t been obsessive compulsive about neatness.

      Except that all his notes were typed, not handwritten.

      Probably couldn’t read his own writing.

      He halted, wondering how he had made that deduction. Was it the first sign that he was a psychiatrist? It was a small tidbit but he clung to it. Now what should he do?

      A silver-framed five-by-seven photo of Megan Wells and her husband occupied the corner of the desk. His gut clenched at the ghostly feeling that encompassed him.

      She wore a pale blue sundress that accentuated her eyes, he wore a white polo shirt and khaki shorts. Tom’s arm was thrown around his wife’s shoulders, wind whipped through their hair, sails flapped in the breeze, and the bright sun gleamed off their smiles. They had looked amazingly happy.

      He didn’t think he was normally an emotional man, but it seemed like a betrayal to Wells’s memory for him to move into his space so soon after his death. To take over his office and discard his personal things. To put Wells’s wife’s photo aside and add one of his own. Not that he had any personal photos to add.

      But Jones had insisted that Tom would have wanted his work to continue, that Tom lived for his research and prided himself on his commitment to his profession and his patients.

      What about his wife? Had Wells been a doting husband or had he been so obsessed with his work that she had taken second place?

      He shook away the troubling thought, wondering why he had even given it a moment’s interest. Megan Wells had looked happy in the photo. And she had been grief-stricken at her husband’s funeral. Besides, she was not his problem.

      God knew he had enough of his own.

      Still, so far the memories of her had been more tangible than any others.

      Maybe she held some secret key that might unlock his past.

      MEGAN ENTERED THE RESEARCH center hospital area through the security checkpoint, stopping only to accept brief offers of sympathy from various employees.

      “I’m surprised to see you here,” Doris, one of the young research assistants said.

      “It’s better to keep busy.” Megan moved on for fear of breaking down. Several of the other staff members echoed the same sentiment as she veered down the corridor toward Tom’s office.

      Two of Tom’s colleagues, Davis Jones and Warner Parnell, seemed engrossed in a serious discussion as they approached her from the opposite direction. Something about the case study on autism treatments, she heard one of them say. But as soon as they spotted her, the conversation instantly died.

      “We didn’t expect you to come back to work so soon.” Dr. Jones, a handsome man in his early forties with thick tawny hair and a tanned complexion, met her in the hall in front of Tom’s secretary’s office. Through the crack in the doorway, Megan saw Connie stooped over the computer.

      “I’m not officially on duty,” Megan explained. “So I thought I’d come and clean out Tom’s office.” She hadn’t been able to touch his personal things at home yet.

      Dr. Parnell, an older gray-haired gentlemen with thick dark glasses nodded. “Probably a good idea.”

      “Let me know if I can help, Megan,” Dr. Jones said.

      Megan nodded, anxious to escape the doctors. Davis Jones had always made her uncomfortable. Both his cocky smile and his reputation with the ladies raised her defenses fast. She’d observed Dr. Parnell at work with some of the schizophrenic patients. He could be kind and sympathetic, yet ruthless when dealing with a disgruntled patient who refused medication. She’d also heard that he was working on some new treatment for autism that straddled the ethical line endorsed by the American Medical Association. Was that what they had been discussing in hushed voices?

      She slipped past them into Connie’s office, pasting on a brave smile for the twenty-five-year-old brunette. Tom had treated her for depression. Newly divorced with a three-year-old, Connie had been desperate for a job when Tom hired her.

      Connie’s green eyes reflected remorse. She’d made great strides since starting therapy and taking the job. Hopefully Tom’s death wouldn’t cause her to have a setback.

      “Hi, Mrs. Wells.” Connie’s voice quivered with emotions.

      “Hi, how are you doing?” Megan’s nursing instincts kicked in.

      Connie’s thin shoulders lifted slightly. “Hanging in there. But I sure do miss Dr. T.”

      Megan smiled, surprised to hear Connie refer to him that way.

      “I know he’s actually been gone for weeks, but all that time—” Her voice broke, and she grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk, dabbed at her eyes and swallowed, “…all that time I prayed they’d find him alive.”

      “I know, honey. So did I.” She squeezed Connie’s shoulder. “But we’ll get through this. Just keep telling yourself you have a job now. You have to stay tough for your family.”

      Connie nodded. “You’re about the bravest lady I know, Mrs. Wells.”

      “I’ve told you a dozen times to call me Megan. And you don’t give yourself enough credit—you were brave to leave your husband, and you’re raising your son on your own. That takes courage.”

      Connie nodded again, seeming to draw strength from Megan’s words. Megan brushed at her khakis. “I came to clean out Tom’s office, and to take his personal things home.” Megan closed her hand around the doorknob to Tom’s office, but Connie stood, waving a hand.

      “You won’t believe this, but they’ve already brought in a replacement for Tom.”

      Megan had already pushed the door open though.

      She paused, stunned, when she saw Cole Hunter sitting behind her husband’s long polished desk.

      COLE FELT AS IF DÉJÀ VU had struck him the minute he spotted Megan standing in the doorway. Impossible.

      Jones had told him he had never been in Tom’s office or met Megan before. So, how could he have déjà vu?

      “I…I didn’t realize you were going to be here,” Megan said.

      Cole’s stomach clenched. “I didn’t, either.” He stood, ready to apologize. “Jones said they’d planned to put me in a cubicle, but since…” He let the sentence trail off when he saw the horrible meaning register in Megan’s eyes. No sense wasting good office space, Jones had said. But he didn’t tell her that part. That he had thought Jones seemed cold, impersonal. Then again, sometimes scientists were cold and impersonal. They had to be.

      Another little tidbit, he realized, wondering if these small flashes of insight were memories prying through the empty spaces in his mind.

      She squared her shoulders. “I came to get his personal things.”

      Cole’s gaze strayed to the photo of her and her husband.

      “You looked very happy,” he said, his voice tight.

      Emotions skated across her face. A happy memory obviously surfacing. Then sadness. And something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

      “That was in the Keys, right? Your honeymoon?”

      Her gaze flew to his. “How…how did you know that?”

      “I don’t know. Maybe someone told me.” The image of Megan in an ankle-length white cotton dress floated through his mind. She’d looked like an angel. Other memories crowded through the haze. A kiss. A long walk on the beach. A sailboat. “The boat tipped and you fell in the water.”

      His throat grew thick. She was staring at him, a frightened look in her big blue eyes. “Who told you about our honeymoon?”

      He