ago and moved home to be nearer the family.”
“Have you always been close?”
Ryan nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “We fought like crazy when we were little, but we were always close.” He reached into another drawer and pulled out a paring knife. “Does your family live near you?”
Tess shook her head. “My dad’s dead. He died when I was twelve. I don’t have any sisters or brothers.”
She watched as Ryan took a clove of garlic out of a basket and started peeling it. “Your mom still alive?” Ryan asked.
Tess shook her head no, mesmerized by the flashing of the knife blade as he chopped the garlic with cheflike speed. “She died five years ago, shortly after I graduated from college.” She swallowed against the dryness in her throat, unable to tear her gaze away from the shine of the knife. “My dad, he would have been proud of me graduating from college.”
“Where did you go to school?” Ryan asked, his voice casual. He used one finger to sweep the tiny buds of garlic clinging to the blade onto the cutting board.
“I went to-”
The cuckoo clock in the living room crowed and Tess jumped. Startled, she stared up into the intense blue of Ryan’s eyes. He knew exactly what he was doing all the time.
“You did it again, didn’t you?” she whispered. “You got me to remember without me even realizing it.”
He shrugged those big shoulders. “No real trick to it, Tess. You were simply ready to tell me those things. You weren’t even aware you were saying them, and that made all the difference in the world. In your head, you were simply sharing a normal, everyday conversation with me.”
Tess leaned against the counter and watched as he drizzled a few drops of olive oil on top of the steak. He sprinkled the minced garlic over the meat and rubbed it all in. She liked watching his quick, self-assured movements. Somehow they infused her with a feeling of warmth and comfort.
“I still don’t understand,” she said.
“The ease with which you accessed the information is a good sign. It means your memories are intact, that they’re simply waiting for you to recover them.”
“Then why can’t I simply recover them?”
He smiled gently. “It isn’t as easy as all that. You have to give your brain time to recover-to mend itself. The memories will come when they’re ready.”
He reached over and turned on the hot water, and she watched as he washed his hands. Hands that had manipulated the knife just as brilliantly as his sharp mind had manipulated her brain. Wetting her suddenly dry lips, she watched him lather on the soap and then quickly rinse it off. Intriguing man, this Dr. Ryan Donovan.
He shut off the water and picked up the steak platter. “Now go change and take your swim. I’ll put the steak on in about five minutes. Dinner in twenty.”
Before Tess could answer, the phone rang.
Ryan picked it up. “Hello…? Hello?”
He frowned and checked the cord. “Hello, is anyone there?”
He leaned in and checked the caller ID screen. “That’s funny, they hung up. The caller ID says the call originated from the center.”
Tess wasn’t sure why, but the hair on the back of her neck shifted and stood on end.
Ryan shrugged and replaced the receiver. “Whatever it was, they’ll call back.” He gave her a reassuring nod. “Go change. I’ll get started on dinner.”
Tess nodded numbly and backed out of the kitchen as if going to change. But instead, she made her way down the short hall to the front of the house.
At the living-room window, she opened the curtain a crack and peered out. The late-afternoon sun drenched the front lawn, drying the already-brown blades and heating up the driveway macadam. Cicadas droned rhythmically and a deep heaviness seemed to hang in the air. Nothing out of sync. Maybe she was getting spooked.
She took a calming breath and allowed the curtain to fall back. But then, right when she was about to turn away, the soft purr of a car engine caught her attention. Her fingers, trembling slightly, parted the curtain again. A black sedan, its grillwork flashing silver in the sunlight, motored past. The passenger’s side window was down and a man in a dark suit sat with one arm hooked on the ledge.
He turned his head, and, despite the mirror lenses of his sunglasses, Tess knew he was staring directly up at her. She dropped the curtain and stepped away from the window. She knew without question it was one of the men who had watched her leave the center earlier.
Her heart thudded against her breastbone and she wiped her sweat-soaked palms down the sides of her pants. She didn’t believe in coincidences.
A FEW MINUTES LATER, Ryan looked up to see Tess slip through the open screen door and step out onto the patio. She had gathered all that luxurious hair into a knot at the top of her head, and even though she’d pulled it tight, silvery strands shimmering in the late-afternoon light had escaped to dance around her face, highlighting her exquisite features.
He fiddled with the lid of the grill, trying not to stare. The suit, a little too big in the hips and bust, should have done nothing for her figure. Instead, her graceful, streamlined body, with its smooth glide of finely toned muscles, caused a tightening in his groin. The kind of tightening that told him his body was going places it shouldn’t.
Tess tugged at the top of the suit and smiled self-consciously. “It’s a little big.” She held up a string. “I took the lace out of my sneaker. Do you mind tying the straps together. Otherwise I’m afraid I’ll swim right out of it.”
Ryan managed a nod. The thought of her streaking naked through the turquoise water of his pool was almost more than he could handle.
She turned around, flipping the string over one shoulder. It lay against her smooth satiny skin, the end trailing along the upper edge of her shoulder blade.
Ryan had never noticed that his sister’s suit had such a low back, cut just above the sweet curve of Tess’s backside. His gaze lingered for a moment on the smooth, rounded curve of her behind and then along the straight column of her spine, up to the graceful sweep of her neck.
He slipped the lace beneath the straps of the suit and tied them, his fingers lightly brushing the soft skin between her shoulder blades. Her skin was smooth, like fine satin.
Beneath the tips of his fingers, Tess shivered slightly, and her head dropped forward, revealing the soft downy spot at the nape of her neck. Until that moment, Ryan realized he’d never truly recognized the beauty in a woman’s neck. How inviting it was. How erotic. How deliciously vulnerable. His mouth went dry and he felt a sudden tightness in his groin.
He shook his head, trying to break the unsettling mood that had captured him. Man, he needed to get out more. This was ridiculous. The woman wanted him to tie the straps of her suit and he was getting hot, obsessing about her neck. Get a grip.
“Do people from the center drive out this way much?” she asked.
“No, this house and the one just down the road from me are the farthest ones out. Even though the road circles around back to the main gate, no one drives the long way around. So, it’s pretty quiet out here.” He looped the shoestring into a bow while trying desperately to concentrate on the act of tying it and not the feel of Tess’s skin beneath his fingers. He wasn’t too successful.
“Who lives in the house just beyond yours?”
“No one. Bloom keeps it for guests-big shots he’s courting to finance pet projects.”
“Is anyone staying out there right now?”
Ryan paused and then pulled the ends of the string into a perfect bow. He gently turned Tess around. “Okay, I can tell you’re worried about something? Want to tell me what it is?”
Her lashes dipped down to shield her eyes for a moment, as if she was considering how much she wanted to tell him.
Her caution worried him. How was he going to work successfully with her if she fought him at every junction? If she couldn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth?
But finally she glanced up again. “I know this is going to sound paranoid and a little crazy, but a few minutes ago, I saw one of the men from the center drive by the house.”
