“You know,” he said, sliding his glance back to her. “He looks very familiar, now that I can see his face.”
Ari’s rich voice filled the back of the cab. “I have that kind of face,” he said in perfect English, and Fran almost sagged in relief. Then he pushed open his own door and stepped into the night.
Ryker stretchedhis neck as he held the door for Francesca, allowing her a few more moments to soothe away the cabbie’s questions. He couldn’t remember how he got in the cab, let alone all the way home, but he felt like he’d run a marathon.
Francesca joined him on the sidewalk and pushed the cab door closed, then they both stood in silence for a long moment as the taxi pulled away. He sensed her concern, and he cursed himself for his clumsiness. He didn’t know what he’d done to upset her, but he suspected it had something to do with the unremembered cab ride.
“Should we go upstairs?” she asked cautiously, and he considered that, then glanced down the street. The night life was starting to stir in the city, and he could not bear to be cooped up. Not when he’d already missed so much, and not when so much anxiety tightened his gut, refusing to let him be.
“Would you wait for me there?” he asked, pointing at a corner café with tables, some of which were already filled. “I’d like to change clothes to match you, but I don’t want to have you—”
“No,” Francesca said, her vehemence startling him. “I left you alone once tonight, I’ll not do it again. If you want to change I understand that,” she gestured to his tool belt, now sagging from his waist. “But I won’t leave you.”
Her tone was fierce, and Ryker found he didn’t want to argue with her. He couldn’t ask her what he’d done, not yet, but he had no desire to cause her any more pain.
Instead he nodded. “Then if you would escort me upstairs and wait while I change?” he asked, offering his arm.
She took it, but her manner was too fraught for his liking, and they didn’t speak as they mounted the stairs to their room and stepped inside the bedchamber. The shower was down the hallway, and he grabbed both clothes and supplies before Francesca could come up with a reason for him not to bathe. At least she didn’t insist on standing with him in a public shower, for all that sounded enticing.
As water sluiced over him, Ryker took stock of his mind again, as he’d tried to do since coming back to his senses first at the side of the airstrip, then in the cab. There was a chunk of time he could not account for, from the moment he’d left Francesca and rounded the metal security building to the moment he’d awakened at the side of the road. Intellectually, he knew he’d gone to the airport to walk the strip and see the planes. He’d dressed as a mechanic to fit in, though he’d known he’d have no planes there.
And yet, he did have a plane there. He’d flown it.
A piece of memory slid into place, weighing down everything beneath it, like a house of cards about to fall. The plane—it was the one with the Garronia royal seal on it. That’s what he’d flown. His earlier suspicion had to be true…he was a pilot for the royal family. He could not picture them, but perhaps if he saw their photos, met them—perhaps then he would gain some clarity.
It shouldn’t be that difficult to find images of what had to be the most famous family in the city. Yet another reason to go out tonight with Francesca.
Francesca. He stepped out of the shower and picked up his razor, soaping his skin and drawing the blade over his beard with quick, sure strokes. He’d lived for too long as a ragged prisoner and now—it felt like it was time to be someone else. Perhaps the someone he really was? That he didn’t know. But certainly someone who shaved.
By the time he re-entered the room, it was full dark, but Francesca sat at the window without even a lit candle to see by. She started as he opened the door.
“Oh!” she said. “I—I didn’t want anyone to know we were here. In case there were watchers.”
His heart twisted a little, and he held out his hand to her. “If there are watchers,” he said, “let them watch.”
She laughed, but it was a sad sound as she stood and crossed to him. “You’re hungry?”
“Ravenous. And I need the fresh air while you tell me what we experienced over the past hour.”
Her surprise kept her silent for the short walk downstairs, but it wasn’t until they got to the lobby that she truly looked at him. Her dismay was barely a flash, quickly banked, but he seized on it. “You prefer me bearded?”
“No, but—you said you were clean shaven before your accident,” she said, her voice once more careful, cautious. “If you were trying to hide…”
“Perhaps I no longer have any appetite for hiding.”
That was yet again the wrong answer, but Francesca said nothing more as they stepped into the balmy evening. Ryker’s shirt was loose, his sleeves rolled up, but the quality of the cloth was fine and he felt better than he expected to. Silently, Francesca tucked her hand in his and they walked, not stopping at the corner café but continuing deeper into the city. They didn’t speak for a long while, and he let the silence wrap around them, unwilling to break the spell quite yet.
It was Francesca who finally spoke first.
“What do you remember?” she asked, glancing up at him. In the mix of streetlights and shadows, it was impossible to clearly see her face.
“I remember sending you inside, then rounding the building, setting out among the planes,” he replied. “Then I remember…pain, actually.” His brows went up as that new detail crystalized in his mind.
“The kind of pain you get when a memory is triggered.”
“Stronger than that, even. This was clear and present, and it strengthened as I got closer to the royal family’s airplane.”
Beside him, Francesca squeezed his hand. “We can take this slow,” she said. “Your hand is shaking.”
