The dance troupe completed their final number—finishing at approximately the same time—and Sam joined the others in enthusiastic applause. So maybe none of them would be joining the Rockettes. They were cute.
“You like kids, Sam?” Lindsey asked, a big slice of watermelon in her hands.
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“None of your own?”
He sincerely hoped there weren’t any children anywhere crying for their daddy. He felt badly enough to think about any adults who could be sick with worry about him. But the memories were coming back slowly, he reminded himself. Only flashes, of course, and those didn’t make much sense at this point, but he was sure it wouldn’t be much longer before it all returned.
Only a couple of days remained of the three weeks he’d given himself to fully recover his memory. If it wasn’t back by then, he would definitely tell someone. Probably, he amended.
“Sam? I asked if you have any kids,” Lindsey prodded.
“Oh, uh, no. No kids.” And wouldn’t she love to know the truth about him? He could already envision the headlines for the story she would write. “Nameless man pulls wool over town’s eyes, takes advantage of kindness of locals.”
No, he couldn’t let Lindsey find out. Not yet, anyway. If he was lucky, not ever.
Because this line of conversation was making him nervous, he decided to put an end to it. Gathering his used paper plate, napkin, plastic cutlery and empty soft drink can, he stacked them in one hand and reached for Serena’s trash. “Here, I’ll take that for you. I saw some bins on the other side of the stage.”
“I can carry my own,” she said automatically.
“No need. I’m going anyway.”
Probably because it would have looked foolish for her to continue to protest, she conceded. Surely she didn’t think his disposing of her trash implied an intimate relationship between them, he thought as he allowed Lindsey to add her used items to the growing pile. It was just a polite gesture, nothing more. There were times when it wouldn’t hurt Serena to be a little more like her mother.
He had just dumped the last paper plate in the garbage can when he saw the man he’d noticed before, the one who had seemed so out of place. The guy was standing with his back to Sam, seeming to scan the crowd on the other side of the football field. Even though the sun was beginning to set, the man still wore his designer sunglasses. Apparently, he hadn’t made any friends since Sam had first spotted him nearly an hour earlier; he still looked very much alone.
“This guy seems to be seriously socially challenged,” he murmured to himself.
Though the stranger was too far away to have heard, he turned at that moment and faced in Sam’s direction. Maybe he’d had that universal tingly feeling that someone was watching him. He looked straight at Sam—and froze. Sam could see the guy stiffen. He had a feeling that if he could see the eyes behind the designer sunglasses, they would be wide and startled. Who the hell?
“Excuse me, Sam. I can’t get to the trash can.” The man Sam knew only as Serena’s friend Joe— Claudia’s husband and Stephanie’s father—stood behind him, his hands filled with used plates and napkins.
“Sorry, Joe. Hey, do you recognize that guy over there?”
Sam turned to point him out—but couldn’t find him. Whoever the guy was, he’d disappeared into the crowd. “Never mind. I’ve lost him.”
“Point him out to me if you see him again. I’ve lived in Edstown all my life. I know most of the folks around here, at least by sight.”
Sam had the uncomfortable feeling that Joe wouldn’t know this guy.
Who was he? And why had he looked at Sam as if he’d been startled to see him there, when Sam would have been willing to bet they’d never met? At least, not since he’d arrived in Edstown. Remembering the way he’d been found—the attack he’d suffered at unknown hands—he wasn’t sure this was someone he wanted to remember.
Maybe the other man had been surprised to see Sam because he hadn’t expected to see him alive.
Or maybe Sam was letting his overactive imagination run away with him. Maybe the guy was just cruising for women and had wondered why Sam was staring at him.
Shaking his head in self-disgust, he turned to rejoin the others. A high school concert band was tuning up to perform—at least, he hoped the noises they were making were tune-up sounds and not intended to actually resemble music.
Serena and her friends had no trouble passing the time during the next hour, laughing, cracking jokes, talking so fast their words overlapped. Someone in the group produced a pocket trivia game, and they spent several minutes reading questions from the cards and calling out answers—not playing seriously, just having fun trying to beat each other to the correct answers. Riley turned out to be a near genius with trivia; the others called him a “fount of obscure details.”
It frustrated Sam no end that he could remember the answers to so many of those meaningless questions when he couldn’t remember anything significant about his own past.
Though the group included Sam in their fun as much as possible, considering that he didn’t share their history or their inside jokes, he was content for the most part to watch and listen. He was experiencing another major episode of déjà vu—there was a pleasant familiarity to sitting among a group of friends, listening to their foolishness. He closed his eyes for a moment and could almost hear other voices speaking. Men and women, exchanging quips, finishing each other’s sentences. People he had known? Imagined? Watched on TV? Who were they?
“Sam? Are you okay?”
He opened his eyes to find that Serena had leaned closer to his chair. It was almost dark, and several large stadium lights had been turned on to provide illumination for the festivities. Sam could see the concern in Serena’s face. “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Just enjoying the evening.”