Free Lost in Your Arms by Christina Dodd Page A

“But is he telling the truth?”
    “Yes. I mean, I think so. He has given me no reason to think otherwise.” She came to MacLean’s side, lifted his head and gave him another drink of water. “He’s right. He could have had you killed at any time.”
    “If I’ve discovered information he wants, and the information exists only within my mind, then Throckmorton would wish to keep me alive until I’ve given up that information. When he has the information, then he can kill me.”
    “Oh.” She hadn’t thought of it that way. “I never excelled at logic.”
    “That’s what you have me for.” MacLean’s eyelids drooped and his voice became slurred. “Throckmorton might not be an ally. He might well be my executioner.”
    “So you really don’t remember.”
    Smiling, he shook his head.
    But she began to comprehend the labyrinth of distrust and skepticism through which they wandered. “But I work for Mr. Throckmorton, and you don’t remember that I’m your wife.”
    “Not so awful at logic, after all.” He smiled at her with that cruel, sharp smile. “You could be my executioner, too.” His eyelids slid shut. “And there isn’t a damn thing I could do about it.” He was asleep.
    She stood looking down at him. The swelling on his face had subsided, leaving the harsh bone structure unsoftened by a padding of healthy flesh. Instead his skin was slashed and scarred, his blade of a nose hooked where it had been broken, his beard was scraggly and colored blond and auburn with sprinkles of gray. Hislips . . . when she’d first come, they’d been cracked with fever. She’d rubbed them with ointment, bringing them to a state of wide, pale smoothness. Truth to tell, she’d fallen a little in love with his lips. Not that she’d gone so far as to imagine another kiss, but she had found pleasure in their shape, their velvety texture, the way they might feel if they brushed her neck, her chest, her . . . well, she found pleasure in their velvety texture.
    She still didn’t recognize Stephen MacLean, but as each day passed and she concentrated solely on the man in the bed, the old memories faded. He would never again resemble the man she’d married, but perhaps that was a good thing, for he gave every appearance of wanting . . . things she wasn’t ready to give.
    He’d kissed her. More important, she’d kissed him back. That kiss had succeeded because MacLean had caught her by surprise. Yes, that was it. He’d caught her unawares, and her response had been a reaction more to years of deprivation than to real passion. She needed to remember who he was. What he had done. To her. To others, too. Stephen MacLean had never been too concerned with telling the truth or allowing others to retain what was theirs. They’d fought about that, and many a time he’d taunted her, called her an orphan who didn’t understand how her betters lived.
    When this man’s memory returned, his old, feckless personality would return. She knew it. No man changed as MacLean had changed. She needed to remember that because . . . because if he stayed the man he had been for this brief hour, she could develop a passion for him.
    She’d suffered through infatuation once, and the resultshad almost brought her to her knees. The thought of springing that trap again frightened her as she hadn’t been frightened for eight long years. Her gaze fixed on the unconscious man, she freed her fingers from his and retreated from the bed.
    Plagued by sleep terrors, he jumped. He groaned. His eyes fluttered open and glanced wildly about him. His gaze found her, and he sighed. “Stay with me.”
    She heard the undercurrent of desperation in his voice. She didn’t want to feel sorry for him. She didn’t want to make promises.
    He tried to struggle up on his elbows. “Stay,” he insisted.
    “I’ll be here when you wake.”
    He extended his hand.
    Helpless to resist, she returned.
    He grasped her fingers. “I need you.”
    Surely there