dream.
It seemed romantic somehow. Like a transposed fairy tale, where the princess awakens the handsome stranger with a warm, sensual kiss.
âWhy am I so confused?â He pushed the oatmeal away. âI donât like being bumble-brained.â
âCáco says it will pass. Itâs part of the concussion. Your head injury,â she clarified.
He went after the peaches again, ignoring the oatmeal heâd discarded. He ate carefully, inserting the spoon in the side of his mouth that wasnât swollen. âYour name is Lourdes, and youâre not from France.â
âThatâs right. Whatâs your name?â she asked, wondering why she hadnât inquired before now.
He gave her a panicked stare.
Dear God, she thought. Dear, sweet God. He didnât know. He couldnât remember. âItâs okay.â
âNo, it isnât.â He dropped his spoon, and it bounced against the tray, making a metallic hum. âI donât know who the hell I am. Not my name. Where I live. Where Iâm from.â
âItâll come back to you.â
âWhen?â
A few days? A few weeks? She had no idea. âIâll ask Cáco. She understands more about head injuries than I do.â
âWhereâs my driverâs license?â
âWe think it was stolen. With your wallet.â
âI donât have a name. What kind of person doesnât have a name?â
She reached for his hand to stop the quaking. She would be afraid if sheâd lost her identity, too. âIâll give you one.â
His chest rose and fell. He was a handsome stranger, she thought. A disoriented John Doe.
John?
No, that was too obvious. âJuan,â she said.
âJuan,â he repeated, accepting her choice. âJuan what? I need a last name. People have last names.â
A handsome stranger.
âGuapo,â Lourdes decided.
He merely blinked.
âIs that all right?â she asked.
Was it? he wondered. He knew what Guapo meant. Handsome in Spanish.
Had she chosen that name purposely? Did she like the way he looked?
How could she? Heâd caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. Heâd seen the swelling and the bruising, the gash across his mouth.
What was ugly in Spanish?
Feo.
Maybe she should have called him Juan Feo instead.
âIs the name I gave you all right?â she asked again.
A little embarrassed, he nodded. If the pretty woman in his dream thought he was handsome, what could he do?
He cocked his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. This wasnât a dream. She kept telling him that. This was real.
But how was that possible? She seemed like an angel, with the honey-colored streaks in her hair and the gilded light in her chocolate-brown eyes.
Angels only existed in dreams.
A French angel who spoke Spanish. Surely, he was confused.
He didnât stop to think of why he spoke Spanish, too. He just knew that he did. Or that he understood enough of the language to get by.
âIâm not very hungry anymore,â he said. His head hurt from all the confusion, and his eyelids had grown heavy.
She took the tray away and placed it on top of a simple oak dresser. âYou look sleepy.â
âI am.â He wanted to ask her to lie down with him, but decided that wouldnât be a very gentlemanly thing to do. Then he remembered that heâd already asked her, and sheâd refused. Of course, sheâd refused. They were strangers. And she had children with another man.
âWhereâs your husband, Lourdes?â
She turned and fussed with the collar on her shirt. She was dressed like a cowgirl, with varying shades of denim hugging her curvaceous body. âI donât have a husband. He died before I could divorce him.â
He thought that was an odd thing for her to say, but he was glad she wasnât married. He didnât want her cuddling up to someone else at night.
He had a right to covet his