Secrets Read Free

didn’t want to answer his horrid questions. “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “I don’t think so.”
    He stared at her, then fired the next question with the precision of an army marksman. “What do you mean, you don’t think so?”
    Regina cried out. “Please! Stop it!”
    His hands closed on her shoulders, hard but not hurtful. “This isn’t a pretty private school for young ladies! This isn’t a London tea party! This is the goddamn real world! That train limped into town, everyone hysterical, a half a dozen people hurt, including a woman, and you weren’t on it! A dozen passengers saw you jump off the train and land hard. If you don’t want to tell me what happened, you can tell the sheriff or the doctor when we get to Templeton!”
    â€œI don’t know what happened!” she shouted back. And then, the moment she said the words, she was horrified, because she realized that they were true.
    He stared.
    She whimpered as the vast, horrible implications of what she had said sank in.
    â€œWhat did you say?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she whispered, closing her eyes and gripping the hard ground. She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything about a train or about a robbery, she didn’t know why her gloves were torn and her hands abraded, and she didn’t know why she was stranded alone in the middle of the vast deserted rangeland. She didn’t know anything about jumping off a train. She whimpered again.
    â€œYou don’t remember what happened?”
    She still didn’t open her eyes. It was worse than that, but she was afraid to acknowledge, even to herself, how much worse it was, so she sat there, trying not to hear him and trying not to think.
    â€œDammit, Elizabeth,” he growled. “You don’t remember what happened?”
    She was going to cry. She knew he had crouched down beside her again, and she knew he wasn’t goingto leave her alone, she knew he was going to persist in his questions until she revealed all of the horrible truth. Her eyes flew open. In that moment, she hated him. “No! Go away from me, please go away!”
    He rose abruptly, towering over her again. His body cast a long, misshapen shadow as the sun again slid free of the clouds. “Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe it’s for the best that you don’t remember what happened.”
    â€œI don’t remember anything,” she told him desperately.
    â€œ What? ”
    â€œYou called me Elizabeth,” she cried.
    His gaze was black, wide, incredulous.
    â€œAm I Elizabeth?”
    He stared, frozen.
    â€œAm I Elizabeth?”
    â€œ You lost your memory? ”
    His dark gaze was filled with disbelief. She clasped her face in her hands. The pounding at the back of her skull had increased. And with it, the feeling of confusion, and the feeling of despair. It was overwhelming. The truth was inescapable. Her mind was a blank. She didn’t know what had happened; more importantly, she didn’t know who she was—she didn’t know her own name.
    â€œDammit,” cursed the man called Slade.
    She looked up at his dark face. Her tormentor could now become her savior. She desperately needed salvation; in a flash of understanding, she was aware of desperately needing him. “ Please. Am I Elizabeth? ”
    He didn’t answer.
    Torn between hope and fear, she lurched to her knees, clasping her hands tightly to her breasts. She swayed precariously close to his thighs. “ Am I Elizabeth? ”
    His gaze slid over her. The vein in his temple throbbed visibly; he had removed his hat. “There was only one woman missing from that train when it arrived in Templeton—Elizabeth Sinclair.”
    â€œElizabeth Sinclair?” She fought for a memory, any memory. She fought to pierce the vast nothingness inher mind. But she failed. Not even a glimmer of recognition came when she rolled