“So Rae’s strategy worked. You’re bonded.” Max beamed at her, his brown eyes bright and triumphant.
“Yes.” Kellen realized she sounded disgusted, possibly not the response he was looking for, and hastily she added, “I know it’s a good thing. But I have so many regrets for what I’ve missed, and I can see so much pain ahead.”
He waved away her concerns. “Don’t worry about what you’ve missed. With a little prompting, my mother will give you the whole Rae-from-birth-to-first-grade-graduation slide show.”
“How long will that take?”
“How many weeks do you have?”
Kellen narrowed her eyes at him. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Mom never deletes a picture,” he informed her.
“Yippee.”
“I wouldn’t mind so much, but since I’m the tallest she always cuts off the top of my head.”
Kellen chuckled.
“Do you remember my family in Pennsylvania at all?” He had a way of making her laugh, relax and then—wham! He slapped her with a question or a memory.
Kellen opened her mouth and shut it, squinted and tried to explain. “I remember some things very well. I remember being on the streets and seeing that man dragging that screaming, crying little girl.”
“My niece, Annabella, in the hands of her father, Ettore Fontina. That worthless bastard.” Max’s mouth was set in an unusual cruel crescent. “Did I tell you he hung himself? When he found out that this time, not even his wealthy Italian mama could get him out of prison, he hung himself in his cell.”
“Hung himself in prison? Good. That’s good. I can never forgive him for that shot that stole—”
“Memory, love, a year of your life? More than we can even say?”
Max’s anger hung on the air between them. In a placid tone, she said, “He taught me the value of time.”
“I should have killed him when he tried to kidnap Annabella.”
“You’d still be serving your sentence.”
“I’d get off for good behavior.” He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “What else do you remember?”
“Your sister.” Kellen had spoken with her once on the phone since regaining her memories, but there had been no family visits yet. Kellen suspected Max had insisted the new family have time alone. “She was so grateful to me for saving her daughter. She kissed me on both cheeks. I remember thinking she was a little nuts. Then I remember realizing everyone in your family thought I was more than crazy, or on drugs.”
“I didn’t think that.”
“I know. You always believed I was just—”
“—hurt.”
She swallowed and nodded. “I remember your mother. She liked me a lot more in Pennsylvania than she does now. I remember—” Kellen was squinting again, trying to see through the fog of amnesia to those winter days eight and a half years ago “—Christmas! Your family! So many of them. I don’t know that I could have remembered them even if... Even that spring if I hadn’t been shot in the head.” She touched the round scar on her forehead and looked at him. “Mostly I remember you. I remember how kind you were to me, as if I was fragile.”
“You were fragile. I was afraid at any moment you were going to break and run.”
“I did break and run.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” he muttered.
He sounded so wretched she was at last able to say, “I panicked when I realized you snooped into my papers.”
“Was that so awful?” Immediately, he answered his own question. “Okay, yes, I know it was. You had vigilantly not said your real name or confided your past. I had no right. I told myself it would help our relationship if I knew. I lied to myself. I apologize.”
Nothing about this was easy. Everything was guilt and confusion. “I was a coward, and I guess I got what I deserved.”
“You made a mistake. No one deserves to spend a year in a coma for a mistake.” Max knew what he thought, what he believed. He slipped from the bed to a place on the floor. He knelt before her, naked and on one knee. “Kellen Adams, will you marry me?”
She stared in horror at him.
He said, “You just turned pale. You look like you’re going to throw up. You’re upset because there’s no ring? No flowers?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t speak.
Max had proposed to Kellen Adams.
My name is Kellen Adams—and that’s only half the truth.
But that was the real problem. She could confess who she was, and Max would understand her evasions. Might understand. She hoped. But that revelation was only the beginning. “I can’t. Max, I can’t.”
“There’s no reason to be frightened.” Slowly, he reached for her fingers. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I know that. I would never think that you...” He was right. She felt queasy and sweaty. “I trust you,” she said, but she pulled her hand from his grasp.
“Can you tell me why you won’t marry me?” he asked.
“I can’t.” Not without telling you all my secrets.
I’ve got the scar of a gunshot on my forehead.