Alastair leaned down to claim her lips, his heart pounding with devotion, desire, certainty?—
And suddenly, she was gone.
He gasped and shot upright, his chest heaving, fingers clutching at empty air.
Darkness surrounded him, save for the faint sliver of light seeping beneath the door.
His pulse roared in his ears, the dream clinging to him like mist. But was it only a dream? Or something else?
Something real?
His hands fisted in the blanket around his waist as he struggled to slow his breathing.
It had felt real. More than a dream, more than mere fantasy—it was as though he had been there, in that meadow, holding her, knowing her, loving her.
His mind had not conjured that from nothing.
Had it?
His Daisy.
But no. The woman from his dreams was Daisy, but not.
She was younger, untouched by the weight of the world, by hardship, by the sorrow he sometimes glimpsed in her eyes now.
Yet in his dream, she had been his.
Beloved.
A shuddering breath escaped him, and he pressed a hand to his forehead, his temples pounding as fragments of the past taunted him, just out of reach.
Sucking in air, he inhaled hints of cedar and rose—Daisy’s soap. The scent grounded him, bringing him back to the present, to the warmth of the blanket, to the quiet of the pantry.
To the memory of gentle fingertips on his face the night before, as she shaved away the last traces of the man he’d become in his captivity.
Alastair ran a hand over his jaw, where Daisy’s palms had smoothed fragrant oil into his skin the night before. She hadtouched him so carefully, deliberately—her hands gliding over his face as she worked, steady and sure.
The woman was damn near irresistible.
More than once, he’d been tempted to take the razor from her hands, to capture her mouth and kiss her senseless. But she had kissed him first.
And he’d done nothing to stop it.
Dear Lord in heaven, if he never recovered his memories, if he never found the life he’d lost, he could almost—almost—be content living out his days with Daisy Montgomery by his side. In her home. In her bed.
Almost.
But that wasn’t who he was.
He was a man of purpose. A man with a past. And until he reclaimed it—his history, his legacy—he couldn’t afford to dream of a future with her.
Why it mattered so much, he couldn’t say. But it did.
With a quiet groan, Alastair pushed himself upright. He rolled his shoulders, testing the sore muscles, and stepped to the doorway, peering into the kitchen.
Sunlight streamed through the window, bright and accusing. Gilbert would already be off to school, and Daisy had likely left for her deliveries.
God, he was a pitiful excuse for a man. His head ached from the strain of trying to summon something useful—anything at all—and every bruise on his body made itself known as he moved. Still, he refused to sit idle. He had no name, no past, and nothing to offer—but he could at least make himself useful.
