Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Mental Clime

Max.

Short, simple. Not sweet.

So was the name Mike. And it had a faint, familiar ring too. Could a man have two names? Maybe first and middle. Max. Michael . . . whatever.

He wondered how much he could trust Garry Randolph, pleasant as the man was.

He knew he couldn’t trust Revienne Schneider. She came into his room the next day wearing a cleverly cut pink wool suit with a long, belted jacket over the short skirt, still as leggy as a runway model.

He’d done thirty chin-ups on the shower rod that morning. His joints were aching, but the glow the pink suit gave her complexion was a nice liniment. What wounded man didn’t enjoy a delicious nurse? One whose faltering memory was hers for the plundering, if he didn’t watch it.

“You look remarkably well this morning, Mr. Randolph,” she commented.

“And you.”

“I haven’t fallen off a mountain, merely come up one to stay a while.”

“You’re living at the facility now?”

“I could hardly meet with you daily if I wasn’t.”

“Daily. Somebody with deep pockets likes me.”

“Deep pockets?”

He rubbed his fingers together. They ached, but were more flexible than yesterday. “Gelt.”

She nodded. “Mr. Randolph . . . senior . . . spares no expense on your account.”

He eyed her mouth. “He’s a discerning old gentleman.”

“You Americans! You’re such serious flirters.”

“Flirts,” he corrected. Her response to colloquialisms was totally European.

“Flirts. You have a seriously bruised spine; two pins in your fractured legs underneath those casts; a concussion at the back of your skull; a skinned cheek. And a memory as solid as a, a . . .”

“Sieve,” he suggested.

“A seine, I was about to say. A fishing net.”

“A sieve is for flour. It’s finer.”

“You can be quite the pessimist.”

“Realist.”

“Really, Mr. Randolph. You need to get serious and help me to help you. Has anything about the accident come to mind?”

He checked the internal data bank. “Nothing. Except—”

“Except.”

“I hit a cliff. A high, solid cliff.”

It was true. He’d just had a flash of that dark looming wall. Yet a mountain cliff ought to be white. And the object of his mental impact was black. And reflective. Black ice.

“That’s good.” She was leaning forward, watching him intently. “Something has come back.”

The tremor of excitement in her voice echoed in his chest. If only he could trust her. He needed a coach, a passionate partner in his recovery. No. Not trustworthy. No one here was, except for Garry. Garry. Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana . . . it was some silly song. Garry. The name was all right, but he remembered the man by something else. A nickname? Ga . . . Gan . . . Ga! The memory search was painful.

She was removing his hand from his forehead, her face very close. European women wore perfume like mink wore pheromones, as an alluring personal miasma, touched at all the pulse points. His senses were spinning between pain and pleasure.

“Don’t think too hard. Your brain can’t take it yet. Let the memories flow. Don’t even say them aloud yet.”

Not self-serving advice for an undercover interrogator, if she indeed was one.

But a ring of pressure around his brow was pounding. Thinking had become a painful process. Jerky. Unreliable. He sensed that he had once moved like coiled steel, had thought as hot and fast as sheet lightning. Not now. Not . . . yet.

She’d put his suddenly trembling hand on her knee, covered in silky, opaque hose, her other hand atop it.

Was she seducing him, or saving him? And did he care which?

He loved the game of wondering, he understood almost at once. A worthy opponent. He loved the edge of fighting his own mind and body for supremacy. Or dueling a sexy, dangerous woman.

Maybe he was inventing a sinister history for her. Or himself. She was too obviously attractive to trust. Apparently, he distrusted fair surfaces most of all. Why?

“You can’t expect to climb the wall of your mind in one day,” she was saying.

It was an apt metaphor. He had a long climb back ahead of him.

His fingers flexed in the sandwiched warmth of her knee and hand.

“You hurt,” she said. “All over. Everything. It’s to be expected from an accident so severe. Better?’

He flexed his fingers again. He could feel her thigh muscles tense under them. Smooth, strong. As he would be again.

Ministering angel, detached professional, enemy in his weakest moments?

“Not . . . yet.”

Her lips made a small moue, that subtly French expression. A French twist of the lips.

He felt a sudden pang. Mental not physical. He knew it was a warning from deep in his unremembered past.

Was it . . . worry? Danger? Or . . . guilt?