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  One Forgotten Night

  Suzanne Sanders

  For Zachary

  Dear Reader,

  I love romance. As a teenager, I read Daphne du Maurier’s incomparable Rebecca and fell hopelessly under the spell of its brooding, haunted hero and its imperiled heroine. Since that time I’ve read and loved hundreds of romances, from the lush historicals of M. M. Kaye and Katherine Gordon to the exciting contemporary fiction of writers like Linda Howard and Nora Roberts. And now I feel tremendously honored to have my own first romance novel published.

  Writing this book was exhilarating—in the way that the hardest, most demanding work can be exhilarating when it’s directed at a cherished goal. One of the biggest thrills I experienced was the way the characters came alive as I worked, revealing aspects of themselves I hadn’t foreseen and sometimes taking the story off in new directions. I hope that Mike and Nina and the others will come alive for you, too, and that you’ll enjoy reading One Forgotten Night as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  In a world so full of books waiting to be read, the greatest give an author can receive is the gift of a reader’s time. Thank you very much for yours.

  Suzanne Sanders.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Even before she opened her eyes she knew that something was wrong. Her head ached dully, and she was lying on a surface that was much too hard to be a bed. She lifted heavy eyelids and blinked at the dazzle of a bright light overhead. Beyond the light was darkness, a windy void that she knew was the night sky. Cool air blew across her face. Suddenly she realized that she was lying outdoors, on concrete. What was going on?

  Someone knelt next to her. She wanted to sit up, but her body felt heavy and very, very tired. It would be so much easier just to lie there.... She struggled to turn her head, to look around, but her muscles refused to obey. Panic welled up. Then a hand rested firmly but gently against the side of her face, and strong, sure fingers moved along the line of her jaw to the fluttering pulse in her neck. A man’s voice said, “Hang on, sweetheart, you’re going to be fine.” The voice was deep and reassuring. Her panic ebbed. The unknown speaker continued to talk to her in a soft, comforting voice. She was cold, an aching cold that seemed to reach outward from her very bones, but the place where his hand touched her throat was warm. She let her trembling eyelids fall shut: she was not alone.

  Then she felt, rather than heard, a bustle of new arrivals. Someone wrapped a blanket around her; she was being lifted. “You’re all right, it’s okay,” a new voice, a woman’s, said in a tone that was at once soothing and professionally impersonal. “There’s been an accident. We’re taking you to the hospital.”

  An accident. Going to the hospital. She was dimly aware that there was something...something you were supposed to do if you had an accident, something you were supposed to remember. Dizzily she groped through the fog that threatened to swallow up her senses. Aha! That was it; she remembered now. Gathering her fading strength she whispered hoarsely, “I hope I’m wearing my good underwear.”

  Just before she passed out she heard a short, surprised laugh somewhere behind her.

  * * *

  Mike Novalis watched the flashing red ambulance lights recede down the street. A couple of blue-and-whites had pulled up, and uniformed officers were taking names and witness statements from the small crowd that had gathered. Novalis grimaced: even at one o’clock in the morning, even in a deserted and decaying part of town, there was always a crowd. Flashing lights, sirens, the hint of violence or danger—it brought them out of the woodwork, hungry for a cheap thrill. And you’re right here with them, Novalis told himself. Is there really that much difference? It was a question he’d asked himself before. Lately it was getting harder to answer.

  He shivered. It was cold, and he had left home in a hurry, throwing on his jacket over a T-shirt. Now he wished he’d grabbed a sweater. There was a damp rawness in the night air and a halo of mist around the streetlight at the end of the block. Turning up his jacket collar, he headed for his car, beckoning to one of the uniforms.

  The cop hurried over. He was a young black man, with short-cropped hair and an air of barely suppressed excitement. Novalis sighed. The kid had to be a rookie. He hadn’t been on the force long enough to discover that shootings were routine. “What do you need, Lieutenant?” the younger officer asked eagerly.

  Novalis checked the cop’s name tag and then cocked his head at the little crowd, which was beginning to disperse. “Anything good, Simms?”

  “Not so far,” Simms said. “Mostly people who showed up when the ambulance came. But we’ve got the guy who called 911. My partner’s getting his statement now.”

  Novalis hesitated for a moment, leaning against his car. Nothing here required his attention. He could go home, crawl back into bed—turn off his police radio this time, damn it—and try to get some sleep. But something bothered him. He thought of the woman in the ambulance. He’d found her lying in the street like a broken doll, one of those old-fashioned dolls with delicate porcelain skin.... He shook his head impatiently to dislodge that oddly touching image. He’d seen too much in his years on the force to start getting sentimental. Still, she hadn’t looked like a hooker, or like an uptown yuppie cruising for drugs or excitement. What had she been doing on this street? His instincts told him that something in the picture didn’t quite fit.

  Instincts? jeered a voice inside his head. Remember what happened the last time you trusted your “instincts”? Novalis quelled the mocking voice, pushing his self-doubt deep down where he couldn’t hear it. He realized that his jaw was clenched and that his hands had balled into fists; he forced himself to take a deep breath, wondering if Simms had noticed. Simms probably knew about Novalis’s private nightmare. They all knew. Nobody talked about it, though—at least not when he was around. He glanced at Simms, saw only bright-eyed attentiveness.

  “I’m going on to the hospital,” he decided. “Call me there with the statements and whatever you get from forensics.” He clapped Simms on the shoulder and climbed wearily into his car. Only when he started to drive away did he notice the dark stain of her blood on his fingers.

  * * *

  The next time she woke it was in a hospital room. The antiseptic odor, the echo of long hallways and the white acoustic ceiling tiles told her at once where she was, but she wasn’t alarmed. Her body felt warm and light, and she floated in a pleasant, unconcerned haze. A woman in a nurse’s uniform was snugging a blanket over her. She noticed idly that the nurse wore an engagement ring. A nice little stone, she thought drowsily. Just under a carat, the cut’s nothing special but the color is good....

  “Ah, you’re awake,” she heard a man’s voice say, and a white-coated doctor stepped up to the side of the bed. “How are you feeling?” The bed moved, jogging her up into a sitting position. Suddenly her senses prickled. Like an animal that senses someone’s near, she felt eyes were watching her. Craning her neck, she saw that there was a fourth person in the room.

  He sat unobtrusively in a corner by the head of the bed. He wore a beat-up brown leather aviator’s jacket over a wrinkled blue T-shirt and jeans, and his shaggy black hair was overlong; he certainly didn’t look like a doctor. His thick dark brows were drawn sharply down into a V, and he looked impatient. As he intently watched her the dreamy lassitude that had enveloped her began to melt away. Heat invaded her body as, w
ith a tingle of heightened awareness, she reacted to the intensity of his gaze. He was waiting for something. For her. Deep inside she trembled at the thought.

  “How are you feeling?” the doctor asked her again, and she dragged her gaze back to him.

  “Fine, I guess. What happened?” Her voice sounded strange and weak. Like a dark cloud on the horizon, moving swiftly nearer, her feeling that something was terribly wrong was growing stronger by the second. She just couldn’t pin down what it was.

  “You had a minor injury—” The doctor paused and glanced toward the dark-haired man. “That is to say, you suffered a slight head wound. But don’t worry, you’re going to be fine.”

  “A head wound? How?”

  The dark-haired man rose from his chair in a single lithe motion and stood beside the bed. He was several inches taller than the doctor and more athletically built, with broad shoulders and a muscular, long-limbed frame. He looked down at her for a moment, and in his eyes was a flicker of some expression that she could not quite read. “Someone shot at you,” he said.

  “Shot!” Her voice cracked on the exclamation. “How—? What—?” Her confusion was so vast that she couldn’t finish either question. He was still looking at her, and despite the bizarre unreality of the circumstances she couldn’t help noticing that his eyes were a fathomless blue, several shades darker than the faded T-shirt that was stretched tight over his chest. His gaze was watchful but guarded, as though he wished to give nothing away. “Who are you?” she asked.

  In a gesture eerily familiar from movies and television, he pulled a leather folder from inside his jacket and flipped it open to show her a gleaming badge. “Detective Lieutenant Mike Novalis,” he said crisply, and she felt a pang of loss. It was totally irrational, she knew, but for some reason she’d been sure that this man was someone she knew, someone close to her.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said. “Did you see the person who shot you?”

  There was that horrible word again. Shot. This couldn’t be happening. Every instant she grew more certain that something was badly wrong. If only her head would stop hurting for a minute she could figure out what it was. She put her hand to her forehead and felt something stiff and smooth. A bandage.

  “It’s all right,” the doctor said comfortingly, with an irritated sidelong glance at the policeman. “The bullet just grazed your temple. You have a tiny crease—it probably won’t even leave a scar.”

  The policeman stood waiting. Novalis, that was his name. His name! Suddenly she knew what was wrong, and the knowledge was as shocking as a blow. She felt sick and dizzy, as though she were standing on the brink of a deep, dark cavern that could swallow her up if she made one false step.

  She looked at Novalis, the doctor and the nurse, and then, in a voice that shook despite her desperate effort at control, she said, “Who am I?”

  There was a moment of startled silence. Detective Lieutenant Novalis broke it. “You’re saying you don’t remember anything about the shooting?” His voice was carefully neutral, but she thought his gaze sharpened.

  “That’s exactly right. I don’t. I don’t remember anything!“ She heard the rising shrillness in her voice and fell silent, afraid to give in to the sick terror she felt. She pressed her lips together to stop their trembling and, to keep panic at bay, forced herself to focus on the silvery stethoscope around the doctor’s neck. She felt as if she were trapped in a dream. A bad one.

  “If you don’t mind, Detective?” The doctor took her hand and felt for her pulse.

  “Sure, Doc,” Novalis said. “You take over. I’ll just sit here until you get this sorted out.”

  Novalis retreated to his chair. But she was conscious of his brooding gaze as she sat stiffly upright, trying to still the clamor of her thoughts while the doctor looked into each of her eyes in turn. Then the doctor handed her a black leather shoulder bag. “Your name is Nina Dennison,” he told her gently. “This bag is yours. It has your identification in it. Does that name sound familiar?”

  She clutched the bag to her; its soft leather felt cold to her touch. She mouthed the syllables of the name—her name—several times. “No. It doesn’t. What’s wrong with me?”

  “Well, Nina, as I told you, you have a minor head injury. You’re perfectly all right physically—we’ve taken X rays already and there’s no damage. But sometimes these injuries can cause memory loss.”

  “Amnesia,” Nina said. She felt stunned. The word seemed so—so dramatic. Not the sort of thing you ever expected to happen to you. But then you never expected to get shot, either.

  “Exactly. You appear to be suffering some form of amnesia. There’s no need to panic, but let’s find out how serious this is. What’s the first thing you can remember?”

  “Waking up just now—no, wait, I remember waking up once before. I was lying on the ground. They were taking me to the hospital, I think,” she said slowly. “Yes, and someone laughed.”

  Novalis cleared his throat. “That was me, I’m afraid.” He leaned forward. “I was first on the scene when the shooting was called in.”

  “And you laughed at me?” she said indignantly.

  “No, not at you.” He seemed uncomfortable. “It was—well, you said something funny.”

  “What?” Then she remembered. Joking about her underwear, of all things. She must have been in shock. “Oh, never mind,” she said hastily. Novalis grinned as he leaned back against the wall, and she all but gaped in surprise. His grin was a minor miracle; it transfigured his face, making his stern features look almost boyish. One thick, dark brow angled playfully, and light sparkled in the blue depths of his eyes. She found herself smiling back at him as though they’d just shared a secret.

  At that moment Nina remembered something else from her first awakening. An impression of strength and security: a hand touching her face and a voice comforting her. An unexpectedly intimate voice. A voice, she now recognized, that belonged to Detective Lieutenant Novalis. She looked searchingly at him, but he was no longer smiling. Once again he was aloof and unfathomable.

  The doctor said, “So you remember being brought here. Do you remember, oh, what you had for dinner last night?”

  Nina shook her head.

  “Going to work yesterday?”

  She could only shake her head again, filled with blank dismay. Work? She didn’t even know what she did for a living.

  “How old am I?” she asked.

  “According to your driver’s license, you’re twenty-seven years old. Let’s see...how about your family? Any names, or images that come to mind?”

  “No.” Her voice was almost a whisper. She felt utterly alone. But she must have a family of some sort; perhaps the bag would give her a clue. She glanced at her ringless left hand. Apparently she wasn’t married. The hand seemed alien to her, like a piece of statuary, and she studied it for a moment, taking in the long fingers with short oval nails, the clear polish. When she flexed her fingers, she felt taut thighs under the blanket. She gazed curiously at the outline of her legs. All at once she was overwhelmed by a frightening sense of facelessness. She didn’t even know what she looked like. Panicked, she surged up from the bed—too quickly. Her head spun and she staggered.

  A strong arm slipped around her shoulders, supporting her, and she was pressed against a solid masculine chest. “Take it easy,” Novalis murmured in her ear. She looked up, startled. He must have crossed the room in a flash to reach her before the doctor or nurse could react.

  “Thanks,” she gasped.

  “Don’t try to move too fast,” he advised her. “You’ve had a bad shock on top of some painkillers. Take a moment to get your bearings.” He was still holding her tightly with one hard-muscled arm. His jacket was open, and she felt the steady beat of his heart, the heat of his body through the thin cotton of his shirt. His warmth, his strength, touched the cold knot of fear inside her. She relaxed against him, wanting to feel his other arm around her, too, pulling her even clo
ser to his heat....

  Suddenly Nina was embarrassingly aware of what she was thinking. She stiffened and pulled away from him. I must still be in shock, she told herself. No matter that she’d thought she sensed some kind of bond between them earlier—this man was a stranger, just doing his job. Then Nina became belatedly aware of a current of cool air on her backside. She realized that she was wearing only a loose hospital gown and, glancing over her shoulder, she saw to her horror that it was gaping wide open at the back.

  She clutched the gown shut behind her. Novalis took a robe from a wall hook and draped it over her shoulders. He met her accusing stare blandly, but his left eyelid flickered as though he had repressed a wink. Undoubtedly, she thought, he had had himself a good long look. She felt herself blushing.

  “Is there a mirror?” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

  Novalis ushered Nina into the bathroom. “You okay?” he inquired, and when she nodded he flipped up the light switch and closed the door. Alone in the tiny cubicle, Nina turned to the mirror. In the unflattering glare of fluorescent light she solemnly surveyed herself.

  The face in the mirror was pale and strained, with dark shadows under the greenish hazel eyes. Wonderingly, she touched her cheek. Her skin was smooth. She smiled experimentally. A few fine lines formed at the corners of her eyes, but her teeth were even and white. Her features, while not classically beautiful, were interesting: broad high cheekbones, a firm chin and a wide mouth. Not bad, she decided.

  A bandage slanted rakishly across her forehead like a pirate’s head scarf. Long, tumbled red-brown bangs fell over the bandage; thick, tousled hair grazed her shoulders. So I’m a redhead.... Hmm, hope it’s natural. She wore small, plain silver hoops in pierced ears. She was tall and seemed well built.

  Nina looked at the mirror for a moment and then slipped out of the baggy robe and drew the gown over her head. She appraised her body like that of a stranger: the full, firm breasts with dark nipples puckered tight against the sudden chill, the gentle curves of belly and hips, the faded scar on one knee. How had she gotten that scar? Falling off a child’s bike, maybe, or tripping in her first pair of too-high heels? She searched for an answering memory. Nothing. She touched the scar gently and wondered how many other secrets this body held. My body, she reminded herself.