CHAPTER FOURTEEN
COLIN FINALLY CONSENTED to release Nell into the custody of her brother the next morning. He drove her to her parents’ house and waited until Felix came to the door. After the briefest of introductions, he then issued instructions and extracted a promise from them both to meet him for lunch.
In bemusement, her brother watched Colin stride back to his SUV. Shaking his head, he shut the door. “What’s got him hot and bothered? I know he’s the guy who found you, but why are you still hooked up with him?”
She peered cautiously past him. “Is Mom home?”
He looked troubled. “Yes, but she went back upstairs when I told her you were coming. Neither she nor Dad said a word about you last night. Does that have anything to do with what’s got your cop stirred up?”
“Uh...no.” She sighed. “Yesterday was eventful.”
“Well, I haven’t had breakfast. Why don’t we go out?”
“Please,” she begged, stealing another furtive look up the stairs at the still-empty hall.
He took her to a Pancake Haus and wolfed down a truly enormous breakfast while she nibbled on toast and sipped coffee. He listened, his expression still worried, as she told him about her talk with their parents.
“Mom is excellent at denial” was his only comment.
He reacted with predictable alarm to the rest of her story. “Maybe you should buy a gun.” He shook his head. “No, you don’t have to say it. Dumb idea. Maddie...maybe what you should do is leave. Go back to Seattle.”
He was the one person besides Colin she had told about her life in the past twelve years. If nothing else good came out of this journey back in time, finding her brother made the trip worth it. Now she had family. He’d even talked about job hunting in Seattle once he completed law school. Her flicker of pleasure at the idea of having Felix near had been drowned by grief at what she’d lose when she went back.
But...maybe that wouldn’t happen. Colin hadn’t said he loved her, but he had implied.
What we’re going to do, though, Nell, it’s making love.
Unless he were only trying to make her feel good about it. Distinguish between the act that shamed her and an honest sharing with a man who cared.
The look on his face yesterday when he walked toward her at the Hales’ had stunned her. She had good friends, but no one had ever looked at her like that, as if his world would end if she died. That was more than caring, wasn’t it?
Now, she told Felix what Colin had pointed out—that if he could find her, so could other people. It would be easier now. The publicity about her return might well have reached Seattle. Chances were good she’d find herself a minicelebrity when she went back to work at the library. Too many people would know plain Nell Smith was also Maddie Dubeau.
“That makes sense,” Felix agreed, his forehead still creased. “What if you come home with me for a little while?”
She smiled tremulously at him. “Thank you, but I’d have to resume my life at some point, and then what would happen? I’m here to try to remember what happened.”
“And if you can’t?”
Nell didn’t answer. Somebody wanted her dead. Recovering her memory and finding out who might be her only hope.
* * *
HIS PHONE RANG and Colin glanced at it impatiently. Considering he planned to take a whack out of his day for Nell... And then he saw the name of the caller.
He picked the phone up. “Cait?” he answered in disbelief.
“It’s me,” his sister said. “I, um, just called to say hi.”
“To say hi,” he repeated. It had been years since she’d called for any reason, never mind to chat.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get more time when you were in Seattle. Blake wanted to come with me, and then you and I didn’t get much chance to talk.”
“No, we didn’t,” he said.
“I shouldn’t have told him I was meeting you.”
She couldn’t have simply told the guy she was getting together with her brother and she’d rather go on her own?
“He wanted to meet you,” she added, as if reading his mind.
“I see.” He frowned. “Cait, are you okay?”
“Of course I am,” she said hastily, but for the first time he realized how soft and uncertain she sounded. Not okay at all.
To get her to open up, he asked how her Ph.D. dissertation was going, and her voice gained some animation. She hoped to have it done by summer, which meant she’d be job-hunting in the not-too-distant future. She asked about his work, and they talked superficially about their lives for maybe five minutes. Colin relaxed some, but didn’t lose his worry that something was wrong. Whatever that something was, it became apparent she hadn’t called to tell him.