Secret Seduction

‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated huskily. She finished preparing the coffee on automatic pilot and handed him a steaming mug as a peace offering.

He took it silently and stilled as he looked down into its fragrant contents. Nina followed his brooding gaze and then glanced uneasily at her own bitter black brew as she realised what she had done.

‘Don’t you take milk and sugar?’

He slowly lifted his eyes to her nervous face. ‘I don’t know.’ He took a cautious sip and his eyebrows rose. ‘But apparently, you do.’ He took a bigger swallow and uttered a sensuous sigh. ‘Oh, yes, that tastes good—just how I like it,’ he decided, his eyes speculative above the rim. ‘Just a lucky guess?’

Nina felt a ridiculous twinge of panic. ‘I—it’s ideal for shock when it’s sweet and milky,’ she said, plucking the explanation out of the air without quite knowing why she felt the need to be evasive.

He lifted his mug in an ironic toast. ‘It must be pure serendipity, then, that it happens to be so perfectly to my taste. One sugar, was it?’

‘Two.’ For some reason, it felt like an admission of guilt, so she hurried on. ‘There’s white or brown bread for toast,’ she offered, determined to avoid a repeat of the awkwardness. ‘Which would you prefer?’

He took another savouring sip and smiled guilelessly at her. ‘Why don’t you surprise me? You’ve had such good luck so far it almost seems as if you know me better than I know myself.’

‘Well, that’s not such a difficult accomplishment at the moment, is it?’ she shot back, then put a hand over her mouth as if she could push back the words. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Why not? If it’s the truth. I can handle the truth, Nina. The question is, can you?’

The air suddenly crackled with electricity, and Nina nearly jumped out of her overly tight skin when there was a sharp rap on the door. She rushed to answer it, gratefully blotting Ryan’s cryptic remark out of her mind as she welcomed a dripping Dave Freeman over the threshold.

‘Hi, sorry about the early hour, but we have a bit of wind damage that Jeannie wants me to fix up, so I thought I’d nip over and see how the patient is doing before I knuckle down to work,’ he said, nodding at Ryan as he eased his muddy gumboots off on the doorstep. ‘I also thought I’d take a look up the road before we get any traffic coming through, see if I could find anything.’ He slid the black strap off his shoulder and held up the muddy leather travel bag that had been hanging over his back. ‘This yours?’

Ryan looked at it impassively. ‘I suppose it could be.’

Dave’s expression sharpened at the judicious choice of words.

‘He still can’t remember anything,’ Nina confirmed. ‘Where did you find the bag?’

‘I didn’t—this little guy did.’ Dave jerked his balding head sideways. ‘He was dragging it down the road when I met him. From the state of it, I’d say he probably dug it out from the ditch.’

Nina was hard put to distinguish the mud from the dog.

‘Oh, Zorro!’ The muddy ears drooped at her tone, and she hastened to correct the impression he was in for a scolding. ‘Good boy! Clever dog!’ His tail started wagging again, thick globules of mud splodging onto the concrete steps, and he danced back out into the rain, obviously intent on garnering more praise for diligent treasure hunting.

Dave had dropped the sodden bag on the kitchen floor and now sat Ryan at the dining-room table to conduct a brief examination. He checked that the sutures were holding satisfactorily and confirmed his previous opinion that there were no signs of delayed concussion or organic damage. Then he accepted Nina’s offer of coffee and joined them at the table, directing a series of questions, both pertinent and seemingly pointless, at Ryan.

‘Why don’t we just look in the bag?’ Nina asked impatiently, watching Ryan become increasingly taciturn, frustrated as he was by his inability to answer.

‘I just wanted to see how much he could recall in the absence of any retrieval cues. It’s almost a textbook presentation of traumatic amnesia,’ he told Ryan matter-of-factly. ‘Your implicit memories, that is, your learned skills, are intact. It’s your event memory that’s affected, and of course that encompasses your personal and emotional experiences.’