“You know me. But I don’t know you . . . I mean I know of you, but I—”
Raw pain flared in his eyes, and the words stopped in her throat. The room was warm, but she still shivered. She had no idea where to start.
“Why are you here?” he demanded quietly at her hesitation. “After everything that happened, I never thought you’d come here.” Concern flickered in his gaze, and he folded his arms across his chest, relaxing his posture a bit. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me what you meant about not knowing me?”
He was so calm, so gently reassuring. Yet all she felt inside was a slow building of raw fear. Terror, harsh and acrid, stung the back of her throat, and she knew if she fought to find those missing months, the pieces of her life she’d been slowly recovering would be shattered. The life she was building would be drastically changed once again.
Chapter Three
“Exactly how do you know me?” The question sounded too demanding, but it made no sense for her to waver, when all she wanted to do was flee. Better to get it out before she lost her courage.
Devlin frowned. “Look, Ava, I don’t have time for games. You’re the one who said I should stay away from you, and now you’re here, asking me—what, exactly?”
She went around the table and sat in the breakfast nook. His stare was hot and probing, yet he didn’t rush her. He’d always been a patient man. That knowledge filtered into her mind and her mouth went suddenly dry. He made as if to join her, but she held up her hand. “Please stay there. I . . . I . . . would be more comfortable if you stayed on the stool, okay?”
He shrugged, but his eyes never left her face.
She took a deep breath. “Twelve months and two weeks ago, I woke up in Benton County hospital from a car accident.”
It was his turn to freeze, and the panic that chased his features clued her in a little more. He still cared about her.
She clenched her hands tightly under the table, not wanting him to see how hard it was for her to tell her story—no matter that she’d repeated it dozens of time already. “I didn’t have all of my memory—the entire year before my accident was missing.”
“What?”
Ava exhaled shakily. “I could remember everything, but those twelve months of my life. Retrograde amnesia, I was told. Or some version of it. The doctors said I may never remember that year fully.”
; He shifted in his seat, his expression intent, as if he was straining not to come to her, to hold her and comfort her.
Now for the hard part. She took a deep breath and sat straighter in the chair. “I’ve had flashes of memories—I think of them as snapshots of my life—but they always elude me when I try to focus on them. Sometimes I’m in town, and something small triggers a fleeting memory. When I strain to recapture it, I have an attack . . . a panic attack. But I’ve never been able to remember a full memory from that year after a panic attack. Until three days ago.” She swallowed, fighting the blush that tried to climb her face. She was twenty-three, for God’s sake. But still, the mere idea of mentioning the details of her visions about what they’d done together was embarrassing. Especially to a guy who, for all intents and purposes, was a complete stranger to her.
She pushed back the chair, surged to her feet, and started to pace, careful not to look in his direction. “When I saw you at Jenny’s diner, memories of you slammed into me, but I don’t know you. I remembered . . . I remembered us making love. Skinny dipping in Lake Coonan.”
She waited, but he said nothing. The silence stretched. She desperately wanted to assess his expression, but couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
Finally, he chuckled, low and mocking. “It figures I’d be the one person you’d forget.”
At his bland drawl, she whirled to face him.
He was slicing rye bread and making a sandwich?
A flare of anger burned in her. “I didn’t choose to forget you!”
He rested the knife on the counter and shifted to face her fully, leaning his hip against the counter. “Forgive me, Ava. I know you didn’t. I’m very sorry about your accident and the pain you must have felt . . . are still feeling.” Regret gleamed in his gaze, and the tension that had been simmering in her gut relented.
His eyes darkened as he visibly braced himself. “You came here for an important reason if you drove in this weather. At this time of night. What do you want from me?”
Something was happening, but she couldn’t figure out what. He seemed tense, as if making the sandwich had been his way of staying in control. He was trying to appear relaxed, but she could see the taut wired tension vibrating through his frame.
“I came here because I wanted to understand. To find some closure. I’ve tried to move on with my life.” Her hands fisted in the front of her thick, hand knitted sweater and twisted the yarns. Frustration formed a dry lump which rose choking her throat and making her cough huskily. “I’ve tried to accept I may never recover those memories in full but I need to understand why I have these memories of you, in the first place.”
He wiped his hands on a towel and prowled over towards her. Since he’d opened the door, she’d had been doing her very best not to stare at his chest, but now he was standing so close to her, she couldn’t help it. She could not only see the extent of his powerful muscular body, but she could smell the sweet musk of his skin so close to her. It was intoxicating and she wanted to reach out and touch and breathe deep the scent of the essence of him. Greedily she drank in the strong powerful lines of his torso, the rigid sculpted muscles, trying to ignore the beating laden power surging through her limbs.
He was beautiful, sensual, and so graceful. How had they been lovers?
He lifted a hand to her cheek, using his thumb to caress her lower lip, and Ava ached deep inside of her, ached for wanting him. She wanted him to kiss her. Damn it. Now wasn’t the time. She trembled, fighting the instinct to move closer to his heady warmth.