Excerpt of Miracle Lane by Edie Ramer

The thin man wearing the tan constable uniform at Nia Beaudine's front door was a liar.

People told Nia she'd been a liar in her old life. Those memories had been lost along with pieces of her skull and brain matter. Her new self couldn't understand why people lied. Truths were hard enough to remember.

Why would this man – any man – want to pretend he was a constable in this village of only 629? Most of them odd. A place she should fit right in.

This man...he didn't look odd, but she knew he must be very odd. Not dangerous, though. For one second she considered closing the door on him, but every instinct told her she could trust this man.

Instead, she said, "I think my cat is trying to talk to me."

Her words seemed to hang in the air like bubbles. She studied his face, waiting for his reaction. Ready for anything.

He studied her back. Just watching.

Yesterday Nia had learned the word cryptic while doing a crossword puzzle in an exercise to expand her word skills.

Her cat was cryptic. A cryptic, talking cat.

The man blinked. Not talkative like her cat. Perhaps even more cryptic. The silence stretched out between them. Nina heard the birds chatter and small rustles of leaves. Probably a squirrel or animal running across the wooded lawn of the house her mother's aunt had bequeathed to her.

"Why do you think that?" he finally said.

Nia's arms prickled. She was sensitive to sound – as if to compensate her for losing twenty–five years of memories – and his resonating baritone made her skin itch from the inside out.

"Because I understand what she's saying," she said.

He nodded, his expression serious.

Better than she'd expected when the words tumbled out of her mouth. Any other person would frown, a conviction of her insanity stamped on their disbelieving face, and step back, as if fearful that crazy was catching.

She always wanted to tell them it was catching only if someone was trying to run them over in a car.

And to make sure it worked, that someone would back up and run them over again.

But instead of giving her the loco look, this man stared at her steadily. His full lips closed and pressed into thinness, his eyes steady on her face. Mournful brown eyes that matched his nut–brown hair.

He made her think of a tree. Solid but not broad. One that would bend but not break. And his face... Like his body, his face was long and lean. Deep lines of pain scored each side of his mouth, though she guessed he wasn't more than thirty. He couldn't be much older. Not with his skin clinging tightly to his bones. His nose was blade–like, half a triangle. His jaw resolute. His eyebrows and hair thick.

He was a man's man, making up for his few words with an excess of testosterone.

Pheromones shot straight at her. She could smell them. They twirled around her like invisible dust motes, capturing and captivating her, putting a magical spell on her, bringing to life senses that had been sleeping since she woke up in the hospital bed, the world fuzzy, her mouth dry, and no thoughts in her mind.

But her mind hadn't been silent, not with a scream shrieking through it that no one could hear but her.

Later, she recognized the scream must have been her own voice. Even later, she realized that must have been the last sound she made as the car ran over her.

She shivered, the memories upsetting, but not as upsetting as the way he made her feel.

This was not the kind of help she'd hoped for when she'd called the constable's number.

Maybe this was the trouble her cat had been warning her about.

If only Bast had been more specific.