Forbidden Stranger Read online

  “Odd, how?” Ewan poured himself a mug of coffee.

  Aggie shrugged. “Quiet. She wasn’t smiling the way she normally does.”

  “Do you think we need to worry? Should we go find her?” Ewan put the coffee mug down with a thump on the kitchen counter.

  Aggie shook her head. “No, and I’m sorry to make you fret. I think, perhaps, she’s simply feeling the effects of the damage that’s been done to her. It’s not as though we can really expect her to not have any bad days, you know. How would you feel if you couldn’t remember anything from day to day?”

  “I don’t know. Bad, I’d imagine.” Ewan frowned. “I’ll talk to her.”

  Aggie leaned against the counter with her own mug, although she was probably drinking tea. “Also, I hesitate to be a tattletale about this, but . . . She’s not been taking her meds. I found the bottles in her bathroom. All full.”

  “Scratch it! How long has that been going on?”

  Aggie held up a hand. “Don’t you go confronting her about it. She’s a grown woman, and she’s capable of deciding for herself what she puts into her body, no matter how we might wish to make those choices for her. If she feels she wants to handle the pain without drugs, Mr. Donahue, that’s her choice, and we ought to respect it.”

  “It’s not her choice,” Ewan said harshly. “She needs to take the meds to help keep her—”

  “To keep her mind fuzzy,” Aggie interrupted. “To keep her calm. Complacent. Under control. She’s complained of it already, being groggy. She’s well aware it’s the meds that do it to her.”

  “That’s not what they’re for. They’re to protect her from catastrophically remembering things that will make her try to throw herself off a cliff again,” Ewan snapped.

  Aggie said nothing.

  Ewan took up his mug and sipped angrily, not caring that he burned his tongue. “I’m going out to find her.”

  “Mr. Donahue, I understand you’re worried about her, but you can’t treat her like a child.” Aggie gave her head a solemn shake. “I’m sorry if it seems I’m overstepping myself, but you hired me to do a job, and part of it is keeping that girl safe. Do you think I’m not doing my job?”

  “No,” he said. “Of course I don’t.”

  Still, he looked yearningly toward the back door, his stomach twisting with tension at the idea that Nina was out there, running, possibly too close to the edges of the cliffs. “What if the programming is activated, and we don’t know it?”

  “You put a tracking chip in her that also acts as a negative feedback deterrent,” Aggie told him flatly. “She’s not going to throw herself off the cliffs again, Mr. Donahue, because you’ve made it impossible for her to even get close enough to do it.”

  Ewan stood, his fingers curling lightly into fists at his sides. “That was on the advice of her medical team. You’re making it sound like she’s a dog I put a shock collar on.”

  Again, Aggie said nothing.

  Ewan scowled. “I want to keep her safe.”

  In silence, Aggie turned to the sink and began scrubbing the baking sheets. Ewan wanted to demand she turn around and face him, but he stopped himself just in time from acting like a total sphincter. That was the man he’d become after Nina. One who didn’t automatically berate his employees. He took a couple deep breaths, instead. Chose his words carefully.

  “I want to keep her safe, Aggie. That’s all. I’m willing to do whatever it takes. So right now, I’m going to find her and make sure she’s all right. You don’t have to like it or approve of it.”

  “I’m aware of that, Mr. Donahue,” she said stiffly without looking at him.

  Ewan went out the back door into the garden beyond. It was a rare clear day, the sky the color of a summer vacation. Too late, he’d forgotten he wasn’t dressed for jogging, so instead he set off at a brisk walk as he pulled his personal comm from his pocket. A few swipes brought up the small tracking screen, the green dot indicating Nina’s location. He headed in that direction, making sure to put the comm securely back in his pocket.

  He took the stairs to the beach two at a time, pausing when Nina came into view. She stood on one of the big boulders, the ocean roiling and seething around it and occasionally splashing her calves. The wind had blown her hair out of the ponytail she usually wore. She faced the water’s wide expanse as the wind tugged the hem of her lightweight jacket. As he watched, she lifted her arms, palms to the sky, and leaned into the wind off the sea.

  Like she was trying to fly.

  Ewan’s heart pounded as his love for her surged higher and stronger than the waves ever could. He hadn’t said her name or anything at all, but she must have sensed him because she twisted to look at him. She smiled and raised a hand in greeting.

  “Ewan! Hi. How did you know I was here?”

  Guilt flooded him as he thought of the tracker. She had no idea her every movement was monitored or that she was constantly influenced about where she went. “Lucky guess.”

  Nina hopped off the boulder and headed toward him. “I was going to go for a run, but I stopped here to admire the ocean. I can’t remember the last time we had such a gorgeous clear sky.”

  She paused.

  “It might have been yesterday, for all I know.”

  Then she laughed, the sound light and humorous and beautiful, and all he could do was join her. Hope, he reminded himself of what he’d said to her. Without it, what was the use of anything? Nina’s laughter sounded like hope to him, and he was going to keep holding onto it as long as he could.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Boxes and boxes of files and documents, none of them dated more recently than fifteen years ago. Nina knew that because she knew what year it was currently, and she knew that because she’d been asked if she knew it, repeatedly, by the med team in the first days of her recovery. At first, her name and the date. A bit later, her location. The names of Ewan, Aggie, and Jerome, as well as the med team docs. Nina had the feeling she had not remembered anything close to all of that at first, but she was certain she did now.

  Today it had only taken her half the usual time to finish up the work she’d allotted to herself. She’d portioned it carefully so she wouldn’t run out of material before the end of the week, since the airtranspo would not have returned with its monthly supplies until then. If she finished before the next delivery, she wouldn’t have anything left to do. Ewan wouldn’t be worried about that, but Nina already struggled to keep herself fully occupied. Running out of work, even if it was only busywork, meant she needed to find other ways to occupy herself and that had turned into too much time to think. She wanted to avoid more of that, if she could. Thinking too much led to uncomfortable feelings of melancholy and despair.

  Still, she could only type so slowly and go over the data so many times before she had to concede that she’d finished every task to perfection. She’d reached the final paper in the files for this morning. Stretching, she went to the attic window to check the weather. Dim, but not gloomy. This morning the sky was a pale pearl, silvery clouds covering the sun, which was trying valiantly to break through.

  She did not know what season it was, Nina realized with a sudden twisting stab someplace between her ribs. Come to think of it, she hadn’t noticed much in the way of changing seasons at all, and she’d been here . . . she tallied the days on her fingers, trying to figure it out. Months, but how many? Certainly there ought to have been some noticeable change in the weather, right? Something to indicate the passing of time?

  Where exactly was this island, anyway?

  It felt different when she knew she didn’t remember something versus never having had the knowledge to begin with. When her mind was trying to pluck out information from wherever it had been stored and was no longer accessible, she often felt a phantom sort of burning, or a more specific pain in her temples or the backs of her eyes. Now, when Nina blinked hard, not much hurt. That meant she hadn’t forgotten the island’s location. She’d never known it in the first pl