He could feel her body heat, warming the mild spring afternoon. He could feel himself begin to heat up, as well. How was he ever going to be able to keep his distance from this woman?
“Tell me how we met,” Karen said as he drove out of town. “Tell me everything.”
“Wouldn’t you rather wait until your memory comes back on its own?” he asked.
“No,” she said, cuddling next to him. “I want to hear your version, then when I remember, I’ll know how we both felt. It really must have been love at first sight. I just can’t imagine me doing something so…”
“Impetuous?” he supplied. It was going around.
She smiled and nodded. “I’ve always been so prudent and cautious. You must have really swept me off my feet.”
Prudent and cautious? That definitely didn’t fit the woman he’d come to know.
“You must bring out another side of me I didn’t even know existed.”
He groaned, afraid that just might be the case. Imagine what side he’d bring out in her when she got her memory back. The murderous side.
“Please tell me everything, from the moment we met to how we fell in love to the wedding ceremony and how I ended up in a phone booth on my honeymoon with a knot on my head.” She ended with a laugh. “Don’t leave out a single detail.”
“Well,” he began, wondering just where to begin and how much to tell her. Since the whole marriage was nothing but a lie, he could have made up any story he liked.
But instead, he found himself telling the truth. Up to a point.
“I literally could not take my eyes off you the first time I saw you,” he began.
“LIZ JONES,” Karen said, shaking her head as they left Missoula far behind. “How strange after all these years and how awful.”
He’d had to tell her about the murder. Wasn’t any way to get around it. Just as he’d had to tell her about the man she’d seen in the hotel hallway. The man who had seen her and Jack’s fear that she might be in danger.
She smiled and snuggled against him. “I know it must not seem odd to you—it certainly does to me—but I feel so safe with you and I don’t really remember you.” She looked up into his eyes then, her expression serious. She seemed to study him for a very long time. “I do know you,” she said after a moment. “Maybe not in my head but definitely in my heart.”
Guilt twisted at his insides. He almost told her the truth right then. He knew by lying about the marriage he had only compounded the problem. But if he hoped to keep Karen alive, he had to protect her not only from the killer but the police. He had to consider that there was a leak in the department. Or that Baxter had gotten sloppy when he stashed Karen on the top floor of the hotel. And where had all the cops been at the second stakeout?
Whatever was going on, he couldn’t trust the police to take care of her.
Karen loved the ski lodge and the view, just as she had the first time. Only now, in what was left of daylight, she wanted to explore the place, including the old chalet. He had to smile at her delight at finding the chalet stuffed with old furniture and odds and ends. She was full of ideas on what they could do to restore the place and live in it full-time, and he listened to her, caught up in her excitement. But he knew once she found out the truth, all of those ideas would be tossed out like yesterday’s newspaper—along with him.
“Jack, I know something is bothering you,” she said later back at the lodge. “Are you having regrets about…us?”
He looked over at her, her eyes large and filled with anguish. He quickly shook his head, his gaze softening at just the sight of her. This woman had the ability to turn him to mush with just a look. Or turn him as hard as titanium with a whole other look.
“I could never regret meeting you,” he said, realizing just how true that was. “You are the most amazing thing that has happened to me.”
She smiled, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, Jack.” She rushed into his arms. He held her, wondering how something so wrong could feel so right.
“What did the doctor say about…” Her eyes were large, her gaze so filled with