Free Bridal Reconnaissance by LISA CHILDS Page A

she was.
    And Evan trusted him. Amanda doubted many people earned his trust. From looking into the intensity of his dark eyes, she wondered if she ever would. If she’d had it once, it seemed she’d destroyed whatever chance she’d had of keeping it. Of keeping him.
    What was she thinking? She wanted nothing from him but his protection.
    His taste lingered yet on her lips. Rich and dark like her favorite chocolate. But there’d been nothing sweet about the way he’d grabbed her, taking…what had once been his. What still was unless he’d divorced her on grounds of desertion.
    Had she deserted him? If so, why? Or had she known then, with her memory intact, that they had nothing in common? He was so dark and intense, and she… She had no idea what she’d once been, but now she was afraid of the dark.
    Evan hadn’t spoken to her since he’d given his consent for her to come along. His hands gripped the steering wheel of his powerful sports car, the engine rumbling with such quiet intensity that she felt the vibrations. Or was that still the passion that had hummed through her veins when he’d so briefly held her in his arms?
    Amanda had to shake off the memory of that kiss, had to banish it to the dark abyss where the rest ofher memories of this man resided. But had something surfaced with his kiss? Some familiarity? She refused to dwell on it. Trying to remember never accomplished anything but a debilitating headache.
    Although the calendar declared it spring, the weather didn’t know it. Winter gloom lingered, prematurely darkening the afternoon. Night still fell too soon and in a couple of short hours, total darkness would reign.
    She shuddered.
    “Change your mind?” he asked, missing nothing although he hadn’t taken his gaze from the road.
    “No. I really believe he won’t talk to you.” She could hardly bring herself to talk to Evan, and a marriage license called this dark intimidating man her husband. “I can remind him of what he said, that he has a daughter my age, that he would protect her. There’s a better chance that I can get him to talk to the police.”
    She prayed she could. Christopher’s future—and hers—depended on it for more than safety.
    For sanity.
    Amanda feared going to Winter Falls with this man. Although it might be the only way to ensure her physical survival, she doubted she would survive emotionally, since just a kiss had made her so weak-kneed, she’d almost fainted in his arms. Again.
    “I wasn’t talking about seeing Snake,” Evan said, interrupting her thoughts. With the care of an expert, he rounded a corner at a speed she would have considered too great. The van would have rolled. But then this expensive machine was not her dilapidatedold van. And she didn’t have an ounce of the confidence this man displayed.
    Was he really that confident?
    “You were talking about Christopher and I going with you to Winter Falls?”
    She studied his chiseled profile and noted the flare of his nostrils as he inhaled deeply, like the deep-breathing maneuver taught to her by a psychiatrist.
    “Did you change your mind?” he asked.
    She pretended to consider his question although she already knew she had.
    “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he said.
    She waited for an apology, not sure what she’d do with it. Had she regretted the kiss? It had been so long since she’d been touched. And since her attack—in all the time she could remember—she’d never been kissed at all, let alone with such passion.
    Consumed. He had consumed her but she’d responded. She’d clutched him to her and returned the passion. Her body hummed with it yet. Although her mind had forgotten him, her body had not. “If you thought it’d make me remember you…”
    “I failed.” His voice deepened to a husky murmur with the admission.
    For a moment, she wondered if he was talking about only the kiss?
    “That kiss doesn’t matter anymore.” She winced over the lie. “Once this man talks to