“Yeah, like in vanished.” Sophia threw up her hand. “No one’s seen her since the night you were brought in here. Everyone says you two got into a huge fight, and then she disappeared.”

Again, a face appeared behind his eyes, the angry countenance of a woman yelling at him, accusing him of cheating . . .

“According to the news, no one’s seen or heard from her, and even her car is gone, can’t be located.”

This wasn’t making any sense. And yet bits and pieces of that night were poking at his brain, little shards of memory cutting through the fog.

“I figured the fight was about me,” Sophia whispered. “I mean, that’s what everybody thinks.”

“Who’s everybody?” he asked, trying to keep up while the memory of the woman, so furious she was nearly spitting, began again only to wither away. What had happened? What had he done?

“Well, you know. Everyone at the inn and the Christmas tree farm, they’re sure she’d found out about us and was pissed.”

He held up a hand, then winced with the effort. Damn it all. “How would you know?”

“You know.”

He didn’t.

With a disbelieving smack of her tongue, she said, “Because I work there.”

“You work for me?”

“Duh.” She flashed him that smile again, then added, “Okay, okay, I get it. So, technically, I work for Cahill Industries, but who are we kidding? You are Cahill Industries, so yeah, I work for you and have for the last six months.” She was nodding, encouraging him to remember. “And we were like . . .” She bit her lip. “We were an item, I guess.”

“We were seeing each other?” This wasn’t making a lot of sense.

“If that’s what you want to call it.” Her eyes twinkled with a naughty little spark, and she showed a dimple, her nose wrinkling. “I knew you’d remember.”

He didn’t, but let it pass as he tried like hell to piece his life, or at least his love life, together. “And Megan?”

“Oh. Well . . .” She pulled a face, then tilted her flattened hand from side to side. “You hadn’t quite broken it off with her.”

That had a ring of truth to it.

And spelled trouble.

Sophia admitted, “But she might have found out about us and . . .”

The implication was hard to miss. “. . . and she didn’t like it.”

A shrug, as if one thing would automatically lead to another. “So she found out about me, I think, and got pissed off. The way I figure it, she drove over to your house, and you got into a fight, and you ended up here.”

Again, the flash of a woman advancing upon him, tears burning her eyes, rage flushing her face, anger radiating from her in waves appeared behind his eyes. “And that’s when Megan went missing.”