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eBook Category: Romance
eBook Description: An Iraq veteran wants to recover his 'golden boy' life when he returns from Iraq with bomb-caused amnesia. But he starts to fall for the sexy reporter who's helping him research his past. Only two things are certain--he really likes the reporter, and his real self won't appreciate it if this temporary personality messes up his relationship with his fiancee, a former Miss Missouri. Moderate sensuality.

eBook Publisher: BooksForABuck, Published: 2005
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2005

11 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.2 MB], eReader (PDB) [215 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [205 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [183 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [174 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [227 KB], hiebook (KML) [508 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [266 KB], iSilo (PDB) [168 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [211 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [247 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [267 KB]
Words: 62540
Reading time: 178-250 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"Robyn Anders has written a story that will be appealing to all those who love modern-day romance. 4 Coffee Cups."--CoffeeTime Romance.com

Russell Lyons, lately Lieutenant in the U.S. National Guard but now just an ordinary citizen, glared at the reporter.

She was cute, with short brown hair and puppy-dog-brown eyes gazing up at him through small rectangular glasses. She'd been snapping pictures of him getting ready for the parade.

He wanted her to go away.

"I really don't understand what possible interest an interview with me could have for your readers," he told her for maybe the tenth time.

"You're a hometown hero, back from the wars," she said. As if he needed reminding. "Of course people are interested in you, in your experiences, and in how the war changed you."

He would be interested in remembering his experiences and how he'd changed too. Since he had no memory of anything before he had awakened in an army hospital in Germany, he didn't think he had a lot to contribute.

"Even your readers might understand that I'm going to have a hard time explaining the ways I've changed since I can't remember anything about the way I was."

She pursed her lips. Strangely he found his gaze fixated on those lips.

"I saw you at the newspaper archives the other day," the reporter reminded him. "You must have come across your name once or twice. That should give you an idea of who you were. Now my readers would like to know who you've become."

Yeah, he'd spent some time at the newspaper office looking for his past. And yeah, he'd come across his name a time or two. Or a thousand times was more like it. He'd been captain of the football team, lead pitcher for the baseball team, point guard on the basketball team, voted most likely to succeed of all seniors at Shermann High School in central Missouri. The only thing was, none of the stories brought any memories with them. They might as well have been written about someone else. The roadside bomb had stripped him of his memory as completely as it had stripped the man riding with him of his life--a man he couldn't even remember.

He clenched his fists in frustration. The doctors said he would probably recover his memories eventually. With or without them, he intended to get that golden life back. No foreign freedom fighter was going to take that from him.

The reporter with the puppy-dog eyes was waiting and he decided to give her a quote.

"Tell your readers I'm happy to be home in the warm embrace of my family and friends, proud to have served my country, and ever-more-certain that Missouri is the best place in the world. If there are any other usual clichés you newspapermen use, throw those in too."

"Newspaper woman," she reminded him.

He'd known that. Known it and hadn't wanted to think about it. He was an engaged man.

"Do the doctors think your memory will return?"

"My doctors are completely clueless."

The ace reporter for the Shermann Advertiser-Dispatch, didn't even bother suppressing her wince. "Still have that Lyons arrogance, though, don't you?"

"I don't know. Do I?"

"Come on, honey." His fiancée, Heather Cochran, couldn't have been a more distinct contrast to the dark-haired reporter if she'd tried. Tall, slender, elegant, with hair so blond it was almost white, she seemed to dance rather than walk. "Hi Cynthia. Have you got what you needed?"

"No."

"Oh, Russell. Don't tell me you've been giving Cynthia a hard time. Anyway, there's a parade waiting on this hero and we don't want to make the people wait."

Heather brushed an invisible bit of lint off his uniform tunic, handed him his cap, and turned a thousand-watt smile on the reporter.

He admired the way Heather had of taking charge, of keeping everything organized and in its place, no matter how trying the circumstances. She'd organized this parade from the start, persuaded the Mayor to declare a town holiday, and then turned out the VFW, Indian Guides, Boy Scouts, and Shermann High marching band to participate.

"Right, Heather."

She started to bustle him out, but he stopped and turned back to look at the reporter. "I really don't know what else I could tell you, Cynthia. Writing an article about me would be like writing an article about a startup company before its management even conceived their product. I'm a blank slate."

Heather shook her head. "You don't have conscious memories, honey, but you're the same person underneath. I can feel it. You're going to have to trust me on this." She turned her considerable attention on the reporter. "Cynthia, you've written this story a thousand times. I sent you the official engagement report I wangled out of the army and photos of Russell's Purple Heart. Just make Russell look good. He deserves it."

"But--"

"Cynthia, we've really got to go. We'll do lunch some time. I've been wanting to talk to you about buying a bigger ad in the Advertiser since we're almost done with the expansion on dad's department store."

"Talk to Andrew about advertising, Heather. I'm a reporter, not management."

Heather flashed her most winning smile. "I didn't go to high school with the advertising department. I'm a 'person person.'"

"I'll do the best I can on the story," Cynthia said.

"I guess I'm as ready as I'm going to be." Russell stood, stretched his back where a few hunks of shrapnel remained as nagging reminders of the explosive device that had stolen his memories.

Cynthia had turned away, but she stopped suddenly. "Have you looked at the stories in the high school paper?"

He shrugged. "I tried. Everything was lost in the fire when the old high school burned down. Nobody thought to preserve copies anywhere else."

"I've got a set from when we were there."

"We were in high school together?" He would have guessed Cynthia was younger than he, at least as young as Heather who'd been a freshman when he'd been a senior.

"I skipped a couple of years of elementary school," she admitted. "I can bring the clippings by your office tomorrow and we can go over them. Could be it will stir up some memories, give you something to talk about in our interview."

He shrugged. "Maybe." Nothing else had dredged even a hint of memory. It was odd. He would have thought that he would have forgotten things like which fork to use at a formal dinner, how to knot a tie, how to tell a custom-made dress shirt from one bought off the rack. Instead, the amnesia had left him with a set of useless skills and no memory of who he was. He'd spent six weeks in an Army hospital in Germany trying to call up any memory of his background, his friends, the reason he'd joined the National Guard. He'd ended up with nothing except what he could deduce from the strange set of factoids and habits he retained.

Cynthia tossed him a reluctant smile. "Right. I'll bring them by your office tomorrow. Shall we say around ten?"

"Fine."

"Come on," Heather urged. "The band has already started to play."

"I've got to take some pictures of that. Everyone whose kid is in the band will buy a newspaper." Cynthia vanished out the door so quickly Russ almost missed it.

"How about after the parade, you take me to dinner and then I show you a little surprise?" Heather offered, her voice low and seductive.

He wasn't sure why he didn't take her up on her many offers. Heather was a beautiful woman. From the letters she'd sent him when he'd been in the hospital, it seemed that they had been a number since he'd been a senior in high school and she'd been the youngest cheerleader captain in school history.

Still, he couldn't remember her. Sex with a beautiful stranger might be a great fantasy, but Heather was his fiancée. And Russ figured he owed it to his fiancée to know her at least a little bit before confusing everything with sex.