The Millionaire's Secret Wish by Leanne Banks Page B

three o’clock,” she said, remembering their standing appointment.
    He gave a thumbs-up and nodded. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
    “Me, too,” she said, and felt somewhat lighter. The world suddenly made a little more sense to her.
     
    Dylan counted to ten, then twenty, then one hundred when he couldn’t find Alisa at her apartment at their agreed-upon meeting time. There was no reason to call the police, he told himself even as he felt a trickle of perspiration stream down his back.
    He doubted he would ever get that call from the hospital out of his head. They hadn’t been sure she would make it and even though Alisa couldn’t stand him, he didn’t want to imagine a world without her. He’d never been much for praying, but he’d spent the next several days in long conversation with the Almighty.
    He checked his watch again and racked his brain for where she might have gone. He spied a taxi round the corner and pull into the parking lot and exhaled in relief as Alisa exited the cab and looked for him. He tightened his hands around the steering wheel several times to relieve his tension, then got out of the car.
    “There you are,” she called, and walked toward him. Her face was shining with such joy that hecouldn’t call her attention to the time. “I remember,” she said, and hugged him.
    Confused, Dylan felt a mixture of happiness and foreboding. He automatically closed his arms around her. She couldn’t possibly remember everything, could she?
    “I remember Mrs. Henderson at Granger’s and I remember Robbie is a little boy I’ve been helping with reading. And I remember the total layout of the Granger campus.” She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “I remembered Mrs. Henderson’s name before she told me, and I even remembered the name of the book Robbie and I were reading together.”
    Her joy was contagious. He’d watched her struggle from the very beginning. “What do you want to do now?”
    “I want to make chocolate chip cookies,” she said with a knowing glance. “My mother’s recipe,” she added with determination. “And I want to see if I can do it from memory.”
    His heart contracted. “What do you remember about your mother’s cookies?”
    “I used to snitch a few and give them to some of the guys.”
    “You were the cookie girl, and everyone always wanted your cookies.”
    She paused for a moment, then looked up at him from the veil of her eyelashes. “Did you always want my cookies?”

Five
    “T hey’re still missing something,” Alisa said with a frown after the third batch.
    “Taste great to me,” he said, having eaten entirely too many cookies. “At this rate we won’t have any room for the barbecue at Michael’s house tonight.”
    She glanced at him and winced. “I forgot. Since Michael and Justin were Granger boys, too, maybe they can tell me what’s wrong with them.”
    “Nothing is wrong with these cookies,” Dylan said emphatically.
    “I still think there’s something missing.” She glanced at the clock. “What time do we need to leave?”
    “Fifteen minutes,” he said, not all that eager to goto the barbecue tonight. Who knew what she would remember next? “We don’t have to go if you’re too tired or too full,” he casually offered.
    She shook her head. “Oh, no. I want to see what else I remember. This could be fun.”
    Yes, he thought. Or not.
    Thirty minutes later he drew near the turnoff for Michael’s home. Alisa glanced at him. “My cookies didn’t make you sick, did they? You’ve been very quiet.”
    “No. I’ve just got a few things on my mind.”
    He seemed so distant, Alisa thought, and wished things were different. She wished a lot of things that made her heart hurt. She had the strongest yearning to be the one he felt he could turn to, but she knew she wasn’t. The knowledge hurt a tender spot deep inside her.
    He pulled to a stop, and she covered his hand with hers. “I hope all those things work out,”