Free Lost in Your Arms by Christina Dodd

can’t shake the suspicion that you remember everything but fear I may have betrayed you. Yet if I’d had anything to do with the explosion, you’d be dead now. You’re on my land; it would have been no problem at all to have had your life snuffed out.”
    “I may have information you need,” MacLean said flatly.
    “You do.”
    Enid shrank from their intensity.
    Mr. Throckmorton said, “We believe—we hope—you have some knowledge of who set that bomb, killed our man and injured you. If I didn’t want that information known, I could have had you killed. Knowing this, I have to ask you again—is it true you remember nothing?”
    Enid found herself holding her breath.
    “Nothing,” he whispered, as if grieved, and his eyelids drooped. “I remember nothing.”
    “Very well,” Mr. Throckmorton said. “I believe you. I have no choice.”
    “Where . . .” MacLean seemed to be struggling to stay awake. “Where are my things?”
    Enid was startled. “Your things?”
    “I must have something that is mine. If I could see and touch and smell the pieces of my past, perhaps I could remember . . .”
    “You came away from the bombing with only your kilt and your sporran.”
    “My sporran. Yes. I want my sporran.” As quickly as MacLean had awoken, he slumped on the pillows.
    In a panic, Enid leaned close to his face. His breath dusted her cheek. She placed her fingers on the pulse of his neck. His heart beat strongly beneath her touch. Easing away, she answered Mr. Throckmorton’s unasked question. “He’s fine. Just exhausted.”
    “He’ll wake again?”
    “There are no absolutes in human health—but yes, I think so.”
    Mr. Throckmorton sighed. Walking to the window, he stared out at the garden. “How long will this loss of memory last?”
    “I don’t know. I have no experience with riddles of the mind.” She put the mug on the tray and noted that her hand trembled. “I’ve heard of patients claiming they didn’t remember anything, but I always thought it was silly, a story concocted by the guilty or the insane.”
    Mr. Throckmorton faced her. In a voice of displeasure, he said, “MacLean has no reason to feel guilty.”
    “I hope not.” No recent reason, anyway.
    “And he’s not insane.”
    “Heavens, no!” She shook her head with a little more calm. “No, he is not.”
    “All right.” Mr. Throckmorton took her hands. “Feed him. Make him better. When his body is healthy, his mind will heal, too.”
    “I hope so.” Although she liked this enfeebled husbandbetter than the physically whole one she’d had before. “I think so.”
    “I’ll send Mrs. Brown to you.” Mr. Throckmorton went to the trapdoor and opened it. “Lock this behind me, and open it only to one you know.”
    Enid stared after him, then hurried to obey him. The sturdy bolt slid into place with a click. The quagmire in which she found herself grew deeper and more perilous by the moment. She feared she would be sucked below the surface. More than that, she feared, despite Mr. Throckmorton’s assurances, that MacLean might be in danger, and she knew herself only too well. While he was helpless, she would do anything, even risk her own life, to save him.
    She would do the same for any patient, she assured herself. She would; nothing about MacLean and that kiss could remove the sting of eight years of poverty and debt.
    “What is your impression of Throckmorton?”
    At the gravelly sound of MacLean’s voice, Enid almost jumped out of her skin. She faced him and saw how he struggled to keep his eyes open, how his skin had bleached to the shade of parchment, how he remained awake only through the exercise of his will. “You need sleep,” she said. “You haven’t the strength for this kind of exertion.”
    “What do you think of Throckmorton?”
    Weak as a lamb, stubborn as a mule! MacLean wouldn’t stop asking until she’d given her opinion, and so she said, “I like him.”
    MacLean wheezed with laughter.