Chapter Two

With the evidence scattered across the floor and my question ringing in the air, the whole hallway seemed to freeze.

Eileen pressed a hand to her cheek, a flash of panic in her eyes. But she was a seasoned player of mind games, and in a heartbeat she set her jaw and transformed herself into the wounded victim.

"Ms. Jane, Captain Arthur barely survived. His memory is severely damaged, and he's desperately insecure right now!" Her eyes reddened as she raised her voice in self-defense. "I changed the designation as part of an 'emotional substitution desensitization therapy' for his PTSD! It's all part of a clinical intervention!"

She flipped the blame onto me with practiced ease, jabbing a finger in my direction. "You're the one who took the money and signed the waiver, and now that he's alive, you've come back to bleed him dry! Where is security? Get this crazy woman out of here!"

A few hulking security guards closed in at once, grabbed my arms, and started hauling me toward the door.

"Let go! Don't touch me!"

In the shoving and pulling, my foot skidded out from under me, and my lower back slammed hard into the door frame. A sharp, stabbing cramp tore through my belly, and cold sweat soaked through the back of my shirt.

Mommy! Mommy, are you okay?

My son's little voice was cracking with tears.

The dragging pain in my belly, the humiliation of being thrown out in front of everyone—the instant I heard him, all of it hardened into something reckless and fierce.

From somewhere I found a burst of raw strength, wrenched free of the guards' grip, and pointed at the file on the floor with a cold laugh.

"Desensitization therapy? What a lovely, high-minded excuse!" I stared into Eileen's ashen face and kept pressing, every word a blow. "If this is legitimate treatment, why go out of your way to hide the fact that he's married? Is this about treating him—or about some dirty little fantasy of yours? Swooping in while he's vulnerable to grab yourself a senior officer of the Federal Emergency Response Corps?"

The moment the words left my mouth, the faces of the medical staff watching changed. The trust they'd shown Eileen curdled, fast, into shock and contempt.

"What are you standing around for? Throw her out!" Eileen had completely lost it now, shrieking in fury.

One of the guards hesitated, then reached for me again.

But before his hand could so much as brush my sleeve, another hand clamped around his wrist like an iron vise.

Arthur.

He hadn't even put on shoes. He stood barefoot in front of me, a terrifying darkness gathering over his pale, hollow face, his broad back shielding me completely. He couldn't make a sound, but the look he fixed on that guard was pure animal danger—a wolf guarding what was his.

Looking at his back, too thin and utterly unyielding, I felt my eyes sting, and most of the hurt I'd been carrying simply melted away.

The center's director, who had come running at the commotion, took in the scene, shot Eileen a thunderous look, and sent the guards packing. Then he turned to his staff with an apologetic smile. "This is ridiculous! She's family—how could we possibly throw her out? Get Ms. Jane set up in one of the VIP family suites right away!"

The family suite at the rehab center was quiet.

All the way over from the medical building, Arthur had trailed one step behind me like a silent bodyguard, his eyes glued to me as though I might vanish into thin air the moment he looked away.

Once we were inside, the atmosphere turned a little strange.

He didn't sit down. Instead, he paced the room restlessly, those hawk-sharp eyes sweeping every corner as if he were clearing a minefield.

Before long, he'd tracked down some medical tape and a few old cardboard boxes, crouched on the floor, and started cutting the cardboard into pieces. I was still wondering what he was up to when he began, with painstaking care, to wrap every sharp corner in the room—the coffee table, the TV stand, the nightstand—layer by layer.

His voice was gone, so this was the only way he had: clumsy, almost obsessive, silently getting rid of anything in the room that might trip me or bruise me.

Waaah. Daddy may have lost his memory, but protecting Mommy is written in his bones!

My son's voice went all soft and mushy:

Last time, when I never got born, Daddy did this too. He stayed up all night by himself padding every corner of every piece of furniture in the house, crying the whole time. Look, Mommy—he won't even put his heels down when he walks. He's scared his footsteps will bother you.

I watched Arthur's back as he knelt on the floor, and the nerves I'd kept wound tight all day quietly began to loosen.

When he'd finished the last corner, he got up, poured a glass of warm water, and brought it over.

His dark eyes held mine. His Adam's apple bobbed with effort, as if he were straining with everything he had to tell me something. But in the end, his damaged vocal cords let out nothing more than a breath.

Frustration creased his brow. The tips of his ears went suspiciously pink, and he pushed the glass stiffly into my hand.

I sipped the water with my head bowed while he stood beside me, ramrod straight, keeping watch.

It was too bad that this peace was only the brief lull before the storm.