Free Mac's Angels : Sinner and Saint. a Loveswept Classic Romance (9780345541659) by Sandra Chastain Page B

imagination. For now she’d focus on what she knew. She’d had a telephone call six days before that had traumatized her completely.
    Then she’d been injured. “How?”
    â€œI’m sorry. How what?”
    â€œHow was I injured?”
    â€œYou stepped in front of a cab. It slammed your head into the concrete. You were unconscious for five days.”
    â€œYou were there?”
    â€œNot in the beginning. Only since early yesterday morning. What do you remember about the accident?”
    â€œNothing. I remember only your voice. You told me that we are—that you and I know each other. Do we?”
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    â€œI’m not sure. It’s all a muddle in my mind. I seem to have some memory of you in the past. You make me feel things I …” She couldn’t put what she felt into words. If she said that she’d known him in a dream, he’d think she was crazy. She wasn’t entirely certain she could argue that point.
    The one thing she could be sure of was that she had been in a hospital. When he’d taken her away she wore a blue hospital-issued cotton gown. And until she washed her hair, there’d been an unmistakable crisp, medicinal smell about her.
    She’d breathed it often enough.
    But why was she familiar with the smell of antiseptics and the sight of bandages? No, not bandages, Band-Aids.
    â€œTell me about Slade Island,” she said, reaching for something that wouldn’t force her to remember what had happened.
    â€œIt really is an island. The only way to get there isby boat. That’s why we have to stop for clothes. You’d turn into an icicle dressed the way you are now.”
    She didn’t feel cold. The Bronco heater churned out warm air that fogged the windshield and blurred the lights of the traffic beyond. She felt as if she were in the middle of some muted watercolor. “Where is it?”
    â€œIn the middle of the Hudson River, about two hours driving time, north of the city.”
    â€œTell me about, about when—we were there,” she said, her voice softer.
    â€œWe were never—” he began, then broke off. Why not continue the fantasy if it made her feel better. “We were never able to go as often as we wanted. In fact”—he swerved to miss a pothole and cut in front of the driver beside him—“we’ve never been in the winter.”
    She let out a light sigh. “I didn’t think so. I couldn’t remember the winter.”
    It hadn’t been winter the last time he was there. It had been in the middle of an August heat wave, when everybody had left the city in search of a breath of cool air. Even the island had been warm.
    But perhaps it had been the reason for the gathering that had generated the heat. The official reason for the clan’s assembly was his father’s retirement as leader. A future king would be chosen and his training would begin. And his father actually had the wild idea that the title might be passed on to him—Nikolai Sandor.
    Niko had refused in no uncertain terms. Hewouldn’t be king and he wouldn’t come to Slade Island.
    Niko still couldn’t believe how naive he’d been, how easily manipulated. When his fourteen-year-old sister had called later, frightened out of her mind and crying uncontrollably, he’d thought the old tyrant had finally died.
    â€œCome and help me, Niko,” she’d pleaded. “He’s selling me to a man I don’t even know, for ten thousand dollars. You’ve got to make him stop!”
    Niko still remembered his sister’s terror. He’d been in his second year of psychiatric residency then, and he had no choice but to leave the hospital to take care of her. He’d told his professor that it was a matter of life and death, but the man hadn’t understood. He was too angry to listen to nonsense about a Gypsy girl being sold into marriage. If