“Sit back down,” she ordered, pushing herself to her feet. “I’ll make us some dinner.”
“That’s really not—”
“I’m hungry,” she said simply. “I’m sure you are, too. And we still need to talk.”
He sat slowly. “I don’t suppose you want to sit in my lap again while we talk.”
It was a weak joke, and poorly timed. The look Serena gave him made him sink into the chair with his mouth tightly closed, telling himself to shut up while he was—well, not ahead, perhaps, but at least not too far behind.
Either Sam had been hungrier than he’d admitted, or he used food to avoid conversation during the dinner Serena had thrown together. She suspected the latter. Of course, she didn’t say much during the meal, either. She didn’t really know what to say.
She was still struggling to accept the fact that Sam—the only name she had for him—had amnesia. Seeing her beside his hospital bed was his earliest memory. Everything he’d told her since had been sheer fabrication.
He could be married. Every time he’d kissed her, he might have been betraying another woman. She should be relieved that they’d gone no further than a few heated kisses. But, strangely enough, it wasn’t relief she felt.
Abused boy. Obviously well-educated man. Familiar with computers, yet comfortable waiting tables in a small-town diner. A man found beaten senseless in a ditch. A man with a kind heart, a wry humor, a likable manner and an overdeveloped sense of self-sufficiency. Who was he?
“You said you’ve been having dreams,” she said when he seemed to be nearing completion of his meal. “What are they like?”
Sam set his fork down. “Faces. Voices. Nothing solid.”
“The same faces and voices? Or are they different every time?”
His expression was distant, as if he were looking into one of those dreams as they spoke. “Sometimes the same. Sometimes different.”
She found herself speaking softly, as if to keep from rousing him too completely. “Are they good dreams?”
“For the most part. Usually, the people I see are laughing. Talking. Playing games.”
“That sounds pleasant.”
“Mostly, yes.”
She noticed that he rubbed his leg as he spoke, indicating that the fresh wounds he’d received were bothering him. “Do you want something for pain?”
His hand stilled. “No. I’m fine.”
Knowing him too well to argue with that particular tone, she returned to her questioning. “You said most of the dreams are pleasant. What about the ones that aren’t?”
His grimace let her know she’d stepped into a sensitive area. “The people in those don’t laugh.”
He didn’t seem to want to talk about the bad dreams—and she supposed she couldn’t blame him for that. “There has to be a clue somewhere about what happened to you,” she murmured. “Dan said he searched the ditch where you were found very thoroughly, but maybe he missed something.”
Sam shook his head. “I’ve looked. That’s what I’d been doing the last time Walter got out.”
It had been the day he’d fixed the fence. She’d fussed at him for walking all the way down to the lake so soon after recovering from his injuries. She’d had no way of knowing, of course, that he’d been searching for his identity.
“We’ll find out who you are,” she reiterated. “With Dan and Dr. Frank’s help, we’ll get your answers.”
He looked away, but not before she recognized the expression in his eyes. She knew now why she’d thought of it as his lost look. He was lost.
The thought of what he’d been going through made her heart ache for him. It was bad enough that he’d been in such terrible shape from the beating. But to wake up confused and hurting, surrounded by strangers, his memories gone—it must have been terrifying.
She was still stunned that he’d decided to try to conceal his amnesia rather than ask for help—but who knew how she would react under the same circumstances? Like Sam, she disliked being dependent on others, hated being sick and at the mercy of the medical profession. She preferred to solve her own problems, take care of herself—and her family, for that matter. Was it entirely inconceivable that she might have reacted much as Sam had? Stalled for time while she tried to solve her predicament in her own way?
Okay, maybe she wouldn’t have handled it exactly the way Sam had. But she could—sort of—understand how he’d felt.
“There’s some pecan pie in the fridge,” she said, deciding he needed to talk about something else for a while. “Mother made it earlier this week. Would you like some?”