Reeling with this, Zach jerked his chin toward the house. “Go get your things.”

CHAPTER 2

They’d been driving for a couple of minutes. Minutes Paige had spent stealing covert glances at the detective. Minutes she’d been inhaling the intensely masculine aroma of his intoxicating person and his leathery car. Minutes that felt like hours she spent suffering in baffled silence.

He’d been on the phone—first with someone at the lab, then with his lieutenant, who got a very thorough brief on the “situation.” The silence, when he hung up and simultaneously powered off the police radio, had her scrambling to speak.

“I’m sorry,” she began uncomfortably, facing the window as they passed a gas station. “I didn’t know who else to call and suddenly I felt …”

“That’s all right.”

Biting her lower lip, she chanced a look at him and fairly dissolved to putty in her seat. His shoulders were broad, his biceps bulging as he maneuvered the wheel, stretching his T-shirt to capacity. Awareness of him as an excruciatingly handsome man brought forth an awareness of herself—being a woman. Not dead. Not in a coma. Very much in her five senses.

All of which he stirred.

“I realize I grew up here,” she admitted. “I should have a friend to call.”

He shot her a sidelong glance, giving her a full view of that fantastically somber face for a heart-stopping second. “Again. It’s all right, Paige.”

His husky timbre had her suppressing a shiver. Who was he?

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and tried distracting herself with the buildings outside. None seemed familiar—not the modern glass structures, not the weathered brick office buildings—and her failure to recognize them increased her discomfort. Having a big black hole in your brain was incredibly frustrating.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

He sounded so ready to listen, Paige actually blinked. “Talk about … ?”

He shrugged his big shoulders. “You.” He gazed out the windshield. “Your life.”

An uninvited sadness crept into her voice. “I can’t remember most my life. I have frighteningly little to tell.”

She had never spoken about this openly. Not even with Mom. Paige had tried to stay cheerful and positive with the grieving woman, and kept to herself how unsettling her lack of memory was.

The detective hardly reacted to her powerful words. Still as a granite sculpture, he seemed to be waiting for her to offer more.

“Well,” she ventured sheepishly. “What would you like to hear?”

“I don’t know. That you’re happy.”

A rueful smile appeared. “Happy. What does that even mean?” Since he did not enlighten her, she lifted a challenging brow. “Are you?”

“We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you.”

“Aha! So you’re not happy, either.”

His teeth shone blinding white, his smile so charming it brought the light out in his eyes. A shaft of yearning pierced through her, and Paige dropped her head and drew circles on her thighs, biting her lower lip. Who was he? “I left the city several years ago with my mother,” she told her lap. “My father was, well, he was … um …”