As her shambling steps carried her forward, her torn shoes resembled toothless mouths. They made dull fwapping sounds as she walked. People moved out of her way on the sidewalk, the streetlights reflecting their hostile stares. Shayna knew she looked like hell, but she didn’t care. Her only focus was finding a place to lie down before she fell. Every blister pierced her feet like hot irons. Even walking on the sides of her arches no longer helped.

The blisters broke. A weak whimper escaped her lips, but she continued walking. The pain in her feet was preferable to the agony of her memories; in fact, she welcomed it. Unfortunately, her body’s ability to cooperate dwindled with every throbbing step. She needed to rest and maybe decide what to do.

As if the skies mocked her predicament, it began to rain again. So much for sunny California.

The ground suddenly pulsed under her feet, sending fresh jolts of pain from her toes to her skull. At first, Shayna thought it was an earthquake, but then her head cleared, and she heard faint music. There must be a concert going on in the stadium up ahead. As she drew nearer, the music was more audible, calling her like the Pied Piper’s flute. Shayna avoided the parking lot and headed toward the rear of the building, keeping an eye out for security guards who would no doubt run her off if she got too close.

She found a dark alcove shielded from the rain. There she sat down, her feet screaming as she rested her head against the concrete wall. She could hear the crowd cheering as a new song began, and the music was enticingly familiar. She’d heard the song before, a long time ago. In another lifetime. And the singer… God, his voice was beautiful. Shayna closed her eyes and gave herself over to aching nostalgia and bittersweet dreams.

When she woke, the music had stopped. Shayna thought it was the silence that roused her, but then a pair of dark shadows fell over her.

“Want some company, lady?” a drunken voice slurred.

Shayna’s eyes snapped open, and her soon-to-be attackers vanished into the light of the hospital room.

Hospital?

A nurse leaned over her and smiled, speaking words that Shayna only partially understood. Fatigue, dehydration, something about her feet… Confusion, a side effect. But a side effect of what?

Hoping she sounded coherent, Shayna struggled to ask how she’d gotten here. The nurse beamed and explained that a man had rescued her. Slowly, Shayna understood more of what was being said. Did Shayna want to thank the man?

Reflexively, she nodded. Her mother always said to express gratitude.

A shadowy figure filled the doorway, and a tremor of trepidation shimmied down Shayna’s spine. Suddenly, the idea of thanking her rescuer didn’t seem like a good one. The world still blurred in and out of focus. Who was he? What did he want? What if she made a fool of herself?

“Hello, Shayna,” the man said. “How are you feeling?”

His voice warmed her more than the thin hospital blanket. Shayna struggled to sit up, wincing as an IV dug into her arm. It took all of her willpower to get her eyes to focus on her visitor, but she managed. With his long black hair and chain-bedecked leather outfit, he should look dangerous, but he didn’t. If anything, he was handsome. Too damn handsome. Dark curls framed a chiseled face that reminded her of a movie star’s. Bright, friendly blue eyes with only a trace of laugh lines glimmered in harmony with a smile that made her belly flutter.

He was of medium height and slim, yet his presence felt larger. There was also something familiar about him, but that was probably her memory of his rescue trying to surface.

“I’m alright, considering.” Her voice came out groggy and cracked, but at least it was intelligible. “They said you paid my copay and offered to cover everything that the insurance won’t. I can’t thank you enough. I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the man said, obviously not believing she was capable of handling her debt.

The amusement in his eyes gave her a twinge of annoyance. She was half tempted to explain that she had a few thousand dollars of book royalties put away, but it seemed ridiculous to claim she was an author when she didn’t know if she could ever bring herself to write again.

“Really,” she protested, desperate to assert she wasn’t completely helpless. “When I get out of here—”

“About that,” the man interrupted, plopping down in the chair by the bed. “I’ve decided that you’re coming home with me.”