The Way Home by Cindy Gerard

squeezed, and inexplicably, the darkness in his heart lifted. He didn’t think about it. He brought their linked hands to his mouth and kissed the back of her knuckles.
    The action was spontaneous and achingly intimate.
    Just as suddenly, it was over.
    She tugged her hand out of his. “I must prepare the morning meal.”
    Then she was gone, leaving him wondering what the hell he’d been thinking. Well, that was pretty damn clear. He hadn’t. He hadn’t thought at all. For an instant, neither had she. For once, she’d responded in a way that wasn’t an offer of comfort or aid. She’d touched him out of affection. He’d reacted in kind.
    And it had scared the hell out of her.
    Hell, it scared him, too. And, unexpectedly, aroused him.
    He stared at the ceiling, experiencing what it felt like to be a man responding physically to a woman and instinctively knowing he had not lived his life in a sexual vacuum. There had been women. Possibly one special woman. Was one waiting for him even now? Would he ever remember her if there was? And what would it matter if he never got out of this damn country and reclaimed his life?
    Frustrated, fighting defeat, he willed his thoughts away from the softness of Rabia’s body and the fullness of her lips. Thinking of her that way was one-hundred-percent out of line. Thinking of her that way would not happen again.
    But the house was small, the walls thin. There was no way to distance himself physically or mentally. For long moments, he listened to her speak softly to her father in the cooking room. For the first time in seven days, the smells coming from her kitchen didn’t nauseate him.
    And for the first time since he’d come to in that cave, he decided that it was time to see his own face.
    He stared at the wall beside his pallet and the small mirror that hung above the wooden table. Flat-out, unadulterated fearaccelerated his heart rate. What if he didn’t recognize his own face?
    What if he did?
    What if seeing his image triggered his memory and he didn’t like the man he’d been? What if who he’d been was so horrible that his mind had been protecting him with the amnesia?
    There was only one way to find out.
    He lay there a little longer, gathering his courage, then, moving slowly and carefully, struggled to sit up. Winded and weak, he gripped the table for support and eventually made it to his knees. Several steadying breaths later, when the vertigo hadn’t reared its ugly head, he managed to get one foot under his weight, then the other, while constantly repeating his mantra.
    No sudden movements.
    Do not dip your head.
    Do not turn your head.
    Do not look down.
    Still, the room started spinning wildly. He gripped the table for several seconds before the world righted itself again.
    Heart slamming, knees threatening to buckle, he drew several bracing breaths, then faced his nemesis in the wavy, mottled mirror—and experienced another loss so acute that it trumped all others.
    The eyes of a stranger stared back at him from a face half covered by beard and skin stained dark by the henna dye Rabia had applied to help disguise him in the event that he was spotted through a window.
    He’d been certain he’d at least recognize his own face, and in truth, he had put off looking for fear that he wouldn’t . . . and still he wasn’t prepared for the tears that suddenly clouded his vision at yet one more blow fate had seen fit to deal him.
    Shock and curiosity finally beat out despair, and he studied this man who was him and whom he didn’t know. The eyes looking back at him were brown, the skin drawn, the cheeks sunken; streaks of gray were threaded through the tangle of dark hair and beard.
    Despite the weakness, he had, for some reason, decided he was not an old man. He’d been certain he was in his thirties. Now he wasn’t so sure. The emaciated man staring back looked much older. Maybe it was his eyes. The eyes looked a hundred years old. Eerily empty. Because of