Rita Herron - Memories of Megan

He shook away the troubling thought, wondering why he had even given it a moment’s interest. Megan Wells had looked happy in the photo. And she had been grief-stricken at her husband’s funeral. Besides, she was not his problem.

God knew he had enough of his own.

Still, so far the memories of her had been more tangible than any others.

Maybe she held some secret key that might unlock his past.

MEGAN ENTERED THE RESEARCH center hospital area through the security checkpoint, stopping only to accept brief offers of sympathy from various employees.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Doris, one of the young research assistants said.

“It’s better to keep busy.” Megan moved on for fear of breaking down. Several of the other staff members echoed the same sentiment as she veered down the corridor toward Tom’s office.

Two of Tom’s colleagues, Davis Jones and Warner Parnell, seemed engrossed in a serious discussion as they approached her from the opposite direction. Something about the case study on autism treatments, she heard one of them say. But as soon as they spotted her, the conversation instantly died.

“We didn’t expect you to come back to work so soon.” Dr. Jones, a handsome man in his early forties with thick tawny hair and a tanned complexion, met her in the hall in front of Tom’s secretary’s office. Through the crack in the doorway, Megan saw Connie stooped over the computer.

“I’m not officially on duty,” Megan explained. “So I thought I’d come and clean out Tom’s office.” She hadn’t been able to touch his personal things at home yet.

Dr. Parnell, an older gray-haired gentlemen with thick dark glasses nodded. “Probably a good idea.”

“Let me know if I can help, Megan,” Dr. Jones said.

Megan nodded, anxious to escape the doctors. Davis Jones had always made her uncomfortable. Both his cocky smile and his reputation with the ladies raised her defenses fast. She’d observed Dr. Parnell at work with some of the schizophrenic patients. He could be kind and sympathetic, yet ruthless when dealing with a disgruntled patient who refused medication. She’d also heard that he was working on some new treatment for autism that straddled the ethical line endorsed by the American Medical Association. Was that what they had been discussing in hushed voices?

She slipped past them into Connie’s office, pasting on a brave smile for the twenty-five-year-old brunette. Tom had treated her for depression. Newly divorced with a three-year-old, Connie had been desperate for a job when Tom hired her.

Connie’s green eyes reflected remorse. She’d made great strides since starting therapy and taking the job. Hopefully Tom’s death wouldn’t cause her to have a setback.

“Hi, Mrs. Wells.” Connie’s voice quivered with emotions.

“Hi, how are you doing?” Megan’s nursing instincts kicked in.

Connie’s thin shoulders lifted slightly. “Hanging in there. But I sure do miss Dr. T.”

Megan smiled, surprised to hear Connie refer to him that way.

“I know he’s actually been gone for weeks, but all that time—” Her voice broke, and she grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk, dabbed at her eyes and swallowed, “…all that time I prayed they’d find him alive.”

“I know, honey. So did I.” She squeezed Connie’s shoulder. “But we’ll get through this. Just keep telling yourself you have a job now. You have to stay tough for your family.”

Connie nodded. “You’re about the bravest lady I know, Mrs. Wells.”

“I’ve told you a dozen times to call me Megan. And you don’t give yourself enough credit—you were brave to leave your husband, and you’re raising your son on your own. That takes courage.”

Connie nodded again, seeming to draw strength from Megan’s words. Megan brushed at her khakis. “I came to clean out Tom’s office, and to take his personal things home.” Megan closed her hand around the doorknob to Tom’s office, but Connie stood, waving a hand.

“You won’t believe this, but they’ve already brought in a replacement for Tom.”

Megan had already pushed the door open though.

She paused, stunned, when she saw Cole Hunter sitting behind her husband’s long polished desk.

COLE FELT AS IF DÉJÀ VU had struck him the minute he spotted Megan standing in the doorway. Impossible.

Jones had told him he had never been in Tom’s office or met Megan before. So, how could he have déjà vu?

“I…I didn’t realize you were going to be here,” Megan said.

Cole’s stomach clenched. “I didn’t, either.” He stood, ready to apologize. “Jones said they’d planned to put me in a cubicle, but since…” He let the sentence trail off when he saw the horrible meaning register in Megan’s eyes. No sense wasting good office space, Jones had said. But he didn’t tell her that part. That he had thought Jones seemed cold, impersonal. Then again, sometimes scientists were cold and impersonal. They had to be.

Another little tidbit, he realized, wondering if these small flashes of insight were memories prying through the empty spaces in his mind.

She squared her shoulders. “I came to get his personal things.”

Cole’s gaze strayed to the photo of her and her husband.

“You looked very happy,” he said, his voice tight.

Emotions skated across her face. A happy memory obviously surfacing. Then sadness. And something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“That was in the Keys, right? Your honeymoon?”

Her gaze flew to his. “How…how did you know that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone told me.” The image of Megan in an ankle-length white cotton dress floated through his mind. She’d looked like an angel. Other memories crowded through the haze. A kiss. A long walk on the beach. A sailboat. “The boat tipped and you fell in the water.”

His throat grew thick. She was staring at him, a frightened look in her big blue eyes. “Who told you about our honeymoon?”

He had no idea. Worse, just as quickly as the images had come to him, they disappeared. And once again, his mind was an empty hole.

MEGAN GRIPPED THE EDGES of the photograph, searching Cole Hunter’s face for some explanation about his comment, but he offered none. Instead he seemed confused, almost as troubled as she was about his knowledge.

She had told only a few of the nurses about their short trip to the Keys. As far as she knew, Tom had told no one. Of course, anyone who had come in his office might have asked about the photo, so Tom might have explained the picture. He certainly wouldn’t have shared any details, though.

Tom was not that kind of man.

He kept his personal life and feelings to himself, his business life almost a different entity. If she hadn’t worked at the center herself, she might never have met his colleagues.

“I’ll step outside while you go through things,” Cole offered.

Megan nodded, needing some space. Not only did she dread the task ahead, but being in close proximity to Cole Hunter unnerved her. His presence seemed to take up all the space in the office, filling it with a different sense, a huge, breathtaking masculine one.

A frightening one.

Or maybe it wasn’t him at all, but just the fact that he’d been sitting in her late husband’s chair.

He reached for the cane and leaned on it, then moved to the door, hesitating. “I’m sorry if my being here makes it more difficult for you.”

Megan clamped down on her lip with her teeth. “It’s not your fault.”

He gripped the door, confusion in his eyes again. “I didn’t ask for Tom’s office, Megan. Dr. Jones insisted. In fact…”

“Yes?”

“I feel uncomfortable being here, too.”

Megan’s anxiety lifted slightly. She understood how difficult it was to be the new man on the block. As a nurse and employee of CIRP, she should be welcoming him, easing his transition.