Tess Gerritsen - Double Impact

“You’re still up,” he commented, surprise as well as concern marring his handsome brow as he strode through the door. He draped his suit jacket over the nearest chair and tugged at his tie, his expectant gaze searching hers.

“I was worried.” She clasped her arms around her bent legs, propped her chin on her knees and waited for him to realize he hadn’t called.

A frown pulled his lips downward. “Why would-?” He swore, something he rarely did. “I didn’t call,” he realized out loud. He sat on the edge of the bed, next to her, and pressed his forehead to hers. “I am so sorry, baby. It was an emergency meeting of the board. They’re stressing over that lawsuit against Jacobs. I didn’t have time to think of anything else. I swear I’ll make it up to you.”

She kissed his nose. “Forgiven.” Then she fixed him with a firm look. “But don’t ever do it again.”

A deep chuckle rumbled from his chest. “Shall I make it up to you tonight?” He brushed a kiss across her lips. “It might be late, but I’m not that tired.”

She studied his teasing gray eyes, worry twisting unreasonably in her stomach. She did care so for this man. She just wasn’t quite sure that what she felt was love, which was why she still hadn’t agreed to become Mrs. Robert Allen. But she did care deeply for him. “Maybe,” she offered in an attempt to hang on to the playful moment a little bit longer. “But first we have to talk.”

He arched a skeptical brow. “Talk?” He stood and pulled his shirt from his slacks, then began to unbutton it. “This sounds serious. Did Josh Cowden leave his bicycle in the driveway again?”

Ami patted the spot he’d vacated. “Sit. This is serious.”

His fingers stilled in their work, his expression instantly turning as solemn as her own. “Has something happened?” He eased back down onto the mattress. “Is Nicholas all right?”

“He’s fine. It’s not that kind of serious.”

His sigh of relief was audible.

Ami moistened her lips and tried to decide how to tell him what had happened and how she felt without sounding hormonal or totally paranoid. “There’s some kind of international financial summit in town, did you know that?”

He lifted one shoulder and dropped it in a halfhearted shrug. “I may have heard something about it. But I didn’t have time to more than glance at the news this morning.” His gaze searched hers, his frown deepening. “Why?”

“There was an assassination attempt.” She splayed her palms, as uncertain of the exact details as the newscaster who’d reported them. “The man who was shot came in on my ER shift.”

Robert dragged the undone tie from around his neck. “Who was he?”

“Natan Olment. He’s an aide to the Israeli prime minister. According to the news, he stepped in front of the intended target just as the shot was fired.”

“Bad timing for him.” Robert’s tie dropped silently to the carpeted floor. “Did he survive?”

She nodded. “He’s in ICU in stable condition. But something strange happened in the ER.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me,” he urged. His shirt hit the floor next.

Ami took a moment of reprieve to appreciate his well-defined torso. He was a wonderful man, and very nice to look at, blond hair, kind gray eyes. Why hadn’t she said yes months ago? What was it that made her hesitate when he had done so very much for her? He’d been there for her every step of the way, even when she’d longed for a career after Nicholas’s birth. Robert had been the one to notice her unusual grasp of medical terminology. A battery of tests had quickly revealed an undeniable education from her previous life in the medical field. He helped her get licensed as well as to obtain the position she now held.

“Ami,” he prompted firmly. “Tell me what happened.”

“Just before we sent him up to the OR, I was adding another IV line and he…” Her mind quickly replayed every frantic moment like a video on fast forward. “He looked straight at me and just went ballistic.” She shook her head, still finding the whole episode unbelievable. She knew how it sounded, but she was there, she also knew what she saw. “He was screaming something at me. Something none of us could understand, of course.” She took a breath and forced herself to calm. “Even with two bullets in his chest, he tried to get away.” She looked straight into Robert’s eyes. “He tried to get away from me. He seemed scared to death.”

“Drugs?” Robert suggested.

“That’s the really weird part, his tox screen was clean.”

Robert took her hands in his. “Look,” he said gently. “Just because the guy freaked, doesn’t mean it had anything to do with you. He was probably suffering from trauma-induced hallucinations. You’ve seen it happen before.”

This was true, but today was different somehow. She just couldn’t seem to make him understand that. Ami squeezed his hands, holding on with all her might. “You don’t think it could’ve had anything to do with…before?”

He smiled patiently, the expression full of the assurance she needed so desperately. “Of course not. It was just a coincidence that his attention focused on you when the episode started.”

Still not fully convinced, she went on. “It was like he knew me. And whatever he knew wasn’t good.”

“Ami.” Robert slipped into his therapist mode. The tone of his voice not quite so patient as before, his posture a little stiffer, his expression closed, free of emotion. She remembered it all well from when they’d first met. Before he’d turned her case over to someone else so that the two of them could pursue a personal relationship.

“You have focal retrograde amnesia. You’re always going to wonder whenever anyone looks at you just the right way if they somehow know you. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

She let go a heavy breath. “Then why does it feel so…wrong?”

“Because you keep hoping someone will simply walk up to you and fill in all the blanks.” He shook his head slowly, sympathy filling those gray eyes now despite the irritation she knew he must feel. They’d had this discussion a hundred times. “It’s not going to happen. You have to accept that.”

She looked away. “I know. It’s like I sprang forth fully grown just two years ago.” She thought of her sweet baby. “And four weeks’ pregnant.”

“But you know that’s not the case.” He took her face in his hands, his hold tender, certain. “You came from somewhere, we just may never know where. And that doesn’t matter to me, but it matters to you. That’s why you’re reading too much into an injured man’s hallucinations.”

“Maybe I am,” she relented. “It just felt so real. The whole trauma team noticed it.”

Robert pressed a kiss to her forehead, then looked deeply into her eyes. “Your past is gone, Ami. None of the therapy we tried worked, and we tried it all. That past isn’t coming back.”

She wound her arms around his neck and relished the security of having him near. “You’re right. I know.”

“You’re Ami Donovan,” he murmured close to her ear, the words, his voice, soothing. “Whoever you were before is gone for good.”

SHE WAS DREAMING of him again. Only this time he pulled her into the shadows with him. Not a threatening gesture, but one of fierce need. He whispered to her, his voice deep and alluring, the words soothing, sensual, and in some foreign language she somehow understood.

He kissed her and fire rushed through Ami’s body. Her fingers splayed over his chest. Warm skin, stretched taut over powerful muscle, sent her every nerve ending on alert. She knew instinctively that he could kill her in an instant, but instead he was making her come. Her loins ached from his masterful touch. Pleasure cascaded over her as his lips tasted, teased, and his hands skimmed her body. His long, dark hair brushed against her skin like a medieval warrior’s. And his eyes were even darker…almost bottomless, but deeply sensual and alluring. She wanted nothing but to be with him…forever.