“No, I’m serious. Without you and Marjorie, I’d have been in a lot of trouble three weeks ago. Nowhere to go, no one to turn to, no money—not even a clean shirt to my name. There aren’t many people who’d take a guy like that home and practically make him a part of the family.”
Her cheeks were bright pink. “I told you, that was my mother’s idea.”
“Perhaps. But you were the one who sat by my side at the hospital. And you were the one who showed up with bags of clothes when I was discharged.”
To avoid his eyes, she looked at their linked hands on his forearm. “Yes, well, you were going to tell me something?”
“I’m trying to tell you how much I respect you,” he persisted, ignoring her discomfort and his own. This was something he needed to say and
she needed to hear before she very likely stopped speaking to him altogether. “I want you to know how much I admire your generosity and your kindness, your efficiency and your sense of responsibility to your family and your friends. You’ve taken on obligations you never wanted, to keep your mother from being disappointed and to make it easier for your sister to pursue her dreams—even though you make no secret that you disapprove of her choices. You’ve suffered over the fate of an employee you know you have to fire, and you’ve somehow kept your law practice going—quite successfully, from what I’ve heard. You’ve generously taken in a goofy mutt and a battered stranger—and neither of us has properly demonstrated our gratitude.”
She sighed. “Are you trying to embarrass me?”
“I’m trying to thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And by the way, I think you’ve shown your gratitude quite adequately—with, um, all the things you’ve done to help out around here,” she added quickly. “I’ve had no reason to regret bringing you home.”
Because he couldn’t resist, he lifted his hand to the back of her head and tugged her toward him. “Just one more,” he murmured against her lips. And then he kissed her, savoring her warmth and softness, telling himself this would probably be the last time.
At least he hadn’t taken further advantage of her. As many times as he had made love to her in his mind, he’d managed to behave himself when he was with her, for the most part. She could forgive a few kisses—he hoped—but anything more, under the circumstances, would be unconscionable.
She nearly shattered his precarious willpower when she slipped her arms around his neck and parted her lips. There was no way he could resist the impulse to deepen the kiss, to slide his hands down her sides, shape her slender curves beneath his palms. One last time.
Sam didn’t want the kiss to end. He’d been completely honest with Serena—he considered her a very special woman. The kind of woman a man would want to keep in his life, he thought as he slowly lifted his head. If he had a life. A home. A name.
If he’d met her a few weeks earlier, before the beating that had robbed him of his memory, would it have been different between them? Would he have been free to pursue her? Would he have had the sense to do so?
He realized that she was searching his face, her eyes grave and entirely too perceptive. “You’re wearing that look again,” she murmured, laying a cool hand against his bruised cheek.
“What look?”
“The one that breaks my heart,” she startled him by saying. And then she blinked and looked away, as if the words had slipped out without her intending them to do so.
“What is it you need to tell me, Sam?” she asked, extricating herself from his arms. “Is it something about your past?”
He drew a deep breath. “I don’t have a past.”
She looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“Do you remember when I woke up in the hospital, and you spoke to me?”
“Yes, of course.”
“So do I. But that’s the earliest memory I have. Everything before that is a blank.”
“Yes, you told us you had little memory of the beating you took. Dr. Frank said that’s common after a head injury.”
He was making a mess of this—as he’d known he would. “You don’t understand. I have no memories prior to waking up in the hospital. None.”
Frowning, she shook her head. “I still don’t—wait a minute. You’re saying you have amnesia?”
The very word made him wince. “That’s the technical term for it. I can’t remember anything before I woke up.”
She put a hand on the counter, as if she needed the support. “But you knew your name. Your birthday.”
“I made them up. I kept thinking everything would come back to me, and I wanted to be left alone while I recovered. I was afraid if I told the truth, no one would believe me. Or they would believe me, and they’d treat me like some sort of medical oddity.”
“You made it all up.” She seemed to have fixated on that admission. “You made up your name?”