Free Lost in Your Arms by Christina Dodd Page B

could be no harm in promising such a simple thing. “I won’t leave.”
    On that assurance, he was asleep. Really asleep this time. But even in slumber, he clung to her.
    Sighing, she hooked her foot around the straight-backed chair and brought it around so she could sit. “I want you to understand something,” she told the sleeping man. “I’m not promising forever.”

Chapter 7
    MacLean opened his eyes to candlelight. He knew where he was immediately. In an attic room in Suffolk, his body torn by an explosion, his mind blank and still—and the woman who called herself his wife hovering close over him like a restless spirit. “What is wrong, woman?” he snapped.
    Enid straightened and backed up a long, slow step, her spine stiff with displeasure. “You’ve slept long, ten hours since this morning. We feared you wouldn’t again wake.”
    “You’ll not be so lucky again.” His leg hurt, his butt ached. He groped for another pillow to put under his shoulders.
    Enid sprang to his assistance. “You’re a more pleasant man when you’re unconscious.”
    The village woman he’d met earlier—Mrs. Brown, her name was—stood at the foot of the bed, and she gave her unwanted opinion. “Most men are. Most babes, too.”
    Enid’s smile came as suddenly as a spark to flint. “I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned there.”
    For all that he wanted to nip at her for her insolence, he was so stricken by the dimple in her chin, the lilt in her voice, the sparkle of her teeth, that he could do no more than stare. Gads, when she was happy everything about her shouted her joy.
    She hadn’t smiled at him before. Not once. Not ever.
    He couldn’t have forgotten her.
    Damn it. Damn it! His name. His home. His mother, his father, his kin. What had this explosion done to him? He’d forgotten all. Oppressed by lucid despair, he pressed his hands to his forehead.
    Gently, Enid pushed them away and looked into his eyes. “Do you have a headache?”
    She wasn’t staring at him with romantic interest; she was watching his pupils, checking to see if they were normal. His wife. She had claimed to be his wife, yet—how had his wife become this woman of cool blue eyes and steady voice? She said they were estranged; did she cherish no sweet memories of their mating?
    Mrs. Brown handed her a steaming cup, and the rich scent smelled of parsley and beef.
    His mouth watered, and he found himself reaching out.
    Enid steadied the mug.
    He swallowed so quickly that it burned the roof of his mouth, and the broth tasted salty and rich on his tongue.
    “Do you have a headache?” Enid asked again.
    He glanced at Mrs. Brown. She stood across the room, folding linens at the table, too far away to hearhim speak, so in a low tone he admitted, “More of a heartache. I don’t know who I am.” Then he cursed himself for showing Enid his soft underbelly. Women scorned a weak man.
    But Enid didn’t show her contempt. She answered just as softly, “I’ll take care of you until you know who you are.”
    She still wore the dark green gown, a little more wrinkled than before, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. The candlelight caressed her, but tiredness ringed her eyes and curling wisps of hair straggled from the snood that bound her locks. He caught her hand. “And after,” he demanded rather than asked.
    “If you want me.” Her tone made it clear she doubted that.
    Again a memory slipped from the mists of his mind. Enid, leaning over him, her wrap loose about her shoulders, golden candlelight gleaming on the upper swells of her breasts.
    Why couldn’t he remember what happened after? Just that wisp of memory brought his member stirring to life, and he needed to remember everything about her more than he needed to remember all the rest of his life.
    He wanted to press a kiss on her fingers, slip an arm around her waist, carry her off to some private place and love her until that tight expression of concern and control slipped and