Her Holiday Secret. Jennifer Greene
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shortly. We’ve just been waiting for you to wake up. And the sheriff’s waiting to see you, too—you know Andy Gautier? He’s a sweetheart. If you feel up to it, he’s got some questions about the accident—”
“I don’t know what help I could be. I don’t remember.” Her voice was coming stronger, the whole hospital room sharpening in focus. The only thing still muzzy was her stupid mind. “Darn it. I really can’t seem to remember. Anything—”
“Now just take it easy. If you’re that worried about it, let’s just try you out on some basics, okay? Do you know your name?”
To her relief, it came. “Maggie. Maggie Fletcher.”
“There now. You aced that one. And your driver’s license claims that you’re twenty-nine, brown hair, green eyes, 110 pounds. That sound like you?”
Maggie would have nodded, except that any movement made her head feel like someone was crushing shards of glass in her skull. Wryly she admitted, “I think I lied about the weight.”
The nurse chuckled. “Don’t we all, dear. How about your address? You know that?”
“302 River Creek Road.”
“Another ace. But we’ll try a couple tougher ones. You know what day it is? Where you are?”
“Yeah. It’s Friday—the Friday night after Thanksgiving. And I haven’t been here before, but this has to be the hospital at White Branch.” The concerned frown on the nurse’s face was swiftly disappearing, and Maggie told herself she should be feeling equally reassured. It was all there. As if someone flicked the light switch on her memory, all the details of her life were relighting up. She could picture her cabin in her mind, knew what her job was, knew that she’d had Thanksgiving dinner at her sister’s the day before. She hadn’t lost...herself. Everything really was okay.
Except that she still couldn’t remember a single detail after going to her sister’s for the holiday dinner. The twenty-four hours before the accident were simply a blank. And that wouldn’t particularly matter—except that she couldn’t shake the anxious feeling that she’d done something seriously wrong.
The nurse obviously considered her ability to answer those questions as a sign there was nothing to worry about. “See now? What’d I tell you? You’re starting to remember just fine. You just had a big jolt to your system, perfectly normal to feel fuzzy for a bit, and you’ve got a concussion to boot.”
“But there’s still this whole gap. I don’t know where I was going, anything I did that whole day, why I was driving anywhere at night, the accident... you’re not lying to me, are you? About someone else being hurt? About it being my fault?”
“If I knew more about the accident, I’d tell you. The truth is, I just don’t But—I’ll make you a deal. You close your eyes and just rest for a few minutes. Now there’s an IV in your arm—just glucose—but I don’t want you getting out of bed without calling me. I’m just going to leave you alone and go get the doc. And if he okays it after seeing you, I’ll let Andy in here for a couple minutes, and you can ask him more about the accident. Does that sound like a plan?”
The nurse left. Then Dr. Howard came and went. The two of them were a matched set. They both poked where it hurt, bossed her around, and went through identical litanies about “You’re fine” and “nothing to worry about” and “a little temporary memory loss is common after a traumatic accident.”
Once they both left, Maggie sank back against the pillow, exhausted from all this being taken care of. Outside the door, she heard the clattered wheels of a cart, phones ringing, voices echoing down the hall. Her only sojourn in a hospital before this was a few hours as an outpatient when she’d had her tonsils out at age six. She liked it even less now. The bed was too hard, the whole room so sterile and alien, and she’d never liked being fussed over.
She wanted to be home. Now, immediately. Her head burned like fire; her ribs ached; bruises were announcing themselves all over her body. If she were just home, in her own bed, everything would be better. She could rest. She could think. Maggie squeezed her eyes closed, disturbingly aware that that strange knife of guilt was still stabbing her conscience. There had to be a reason for it. She just had to make herself concentrate....
“Maggie Fletcher? Maggie?”
Her eyes shot open again. She’d forgotten about the sheriff. One look at the guy standing in the doorway, and Maggie doubted she’d make that mistake twice.
There were times she wouldn’t mind meeting an attractive man. Tonight definitely wasn’t one of them. She was feeling way too battered and beat up to conceivably have a functioning female hormone...but it seemed a couple stubborn ones perked up. The wayward thought skimmed through her mind that the stranger could probably arouse a woman from a coma without half trying.
“Maggie, I’m the sheriff, Andrew Gautier...Andy.” He ambled toward the bed and stuck out his hand. The handshake barely lasted two seconds, no more than a polite greeting, carefully gentle. But his palm was warm and strong, his grip as straightforward as he seemed to be.
“I got a mixed review on whether it was okay to talk with you,” he said wryly. “We can do this another time if you’re not up for it. The consensus seemed to be if I’m real good and don’t get y’all riled up, I can stay for a few minutes. There’s always paperwork to fill out after an accident—not my favorite thing, but I was in the hospital, anyway, and I tend to procrastinate if I don’t get it done. And Gert seemed to think you might feel reassured if I filled in some blanks for you on the accident as well.”
“Yeah, that’d be fine. I’d appreciate it, in fact.”
“Okay...”
He pulled up a chair, yanked a small spiral notebook from an inside pocket, and stretched out his long, lanky legs. He really was darling, Maggie mused. Not Mel Gibson, but he sure had the eyes.
He wasn’t wearing any sheriff’s uniform, dressed more like he’d been called from home and had to hustle out into the night. A beat-up leather jacket showcased linebacker shoulders, and both his charcoal sweatshirt and jeans looked like old, worn friends. His hair was cut short, starling-black, but it was thick and rumpled and still had a glisten from the damp snowy night. She thought he must have some Indian blood from the ruddy warmth of his skin tone and the sharp high cheekbones.
He was striking—so striking he could give any woman that nice, edgy aware feeling—but the eyes looked like trouble to her. Deep, dark, spicy. If he was the law, he sure wasn’t looking her over in any lawful way. Those dark, exotic eyes prowled her face with more blunt masculine interest than she’d been treated to in quite a while.
Maggie mentally sighed. Obviously she was crazy, unhinged by the accident, imagining things. He surely wasn’t really communicating interest, and she had serious stuff on her mind—nothing related to hormones. Yet the first thing that blurted out of her mouth was an inane “Cripes, I have to look like something a cat dragged home from an alley.”
He didn’t miss a beat, but she caught just the edge of a sneaky grin. “Yeah, I see some bumps and bruises, but let’s put it this way. If my cat’d dragged you home, he’d be in tuna for the rest of his life.” He patted his inside pocket. “Hell. I’ve lost my pen again. I swear, if I buy a dozen, I lose twenty-four.” He vaulted out of the chair, wagged a long finger in front of her nose. “Just stay here, okay? No leaping tall buildings in a single bound until I get back. I’ll just go steal another pen from Gert—she’s used to it.”
He was only gone a minute, came back, and stretched out again with his notebook. “Okay, first thing I need to ask you is who you want me to contact? We got your basic stats and medical insurance information from your wallet, but there was nothing in there about next of kin, and I didn’t find any other Fletchers in the phone book...”
“I have a sister living here. Joanna Marks. We don’t have the same last name because she was married—widowed now.” Even mentioning her sister’s name brought shadowed, troubling