Loe raamatut: «Her Holiday Secret»

One

White. When she opened her eyes, everything around her seemed bewilderingly white. White noise, white pain, white walls, white sheets.

The last thing she remembered was an explosion of vivid color. Vague pictures flashed in her mind from just before that. She was pretty sure she’d been driving. Alone. It had been snowing like a banshee, on a night blacker than a witch’s soul. And then suddenly metal screeched on metal with the screaming sound of a crash, and all those jeweled colors had exploded in her head. Then nothing.

Really nothing. She swiftly realized she was lying in a hospital bed—and her body was creaking and groaning in too many places to worry that her brain wasn’t functioning. She hadn’t lost her mind. Just her memory. Her name, who she was, refused to come to her. There seemed nothing in her head but all that white fuzz... and a sick, terrible feeling that something bad had happened—something that she was responsible for.

“Well, now. You’re finally waking up for us, huh?” The nurse who charged in had a round face framed by bustling, bouncing brown curls. The smile was sweet, but the eyes were all business. “Now don’t try getting ambitious, honey, you just lie there. I’m going to take your pulse and get your blood pressure—”

Her throat was dry, her voice so thick that she had trouble getting the words out. “Something happened. An accident, I think—”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was responsible? I caused it, didn’t I? Oh God, was anyone hurt?”

“Well, I didn’t hear much—no one ever tells us anything up here—but when Bertha wheeled you up from the ER, she said something about you being hit head-on. Didn’t sound like your fault in any way to me.” The nurse pried open her eyes, shot in a harsh spear of light, then flicked it off. “Feeling a little confused and disoriented, are we?”

“I can’t seem to remember anything about it—”

“That’s not at all unusual, hon. Just be patient and give yourself a little time. An accident’s always a shock to the system, and after the body pumps up all that adrenaline, sometimes the mind just seems to shut down and take a little rest right after.” The nurse squeezed two fingers on her pulse, then strapped a cuff on her upper arm. She seemed to have five hands, and when they weren’t busy, she was talking.

“You don’t need to worry about a thing. Not real likely you’re going to win a beauty contest for a couple of days, but there were no broken bones, no internal injuries. I’ll bet it feels like you tangled with the Marines, though, huh? You’ve got a prizewinning lump on your head and some Olympic-sized bruises, but you’ll be perfectly fine and healed up before you know it. Doc Howard’ll be in 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 memories tumbling into her mind. “But I don’t want you to contact her. I’ll call her. She’d just panic if a policeman called, and I’m fine—”

“So the doc said—and that he wasn’t letting you out until tomorrow, earliest—but you’re going to need someone to drive you home then. And some clothes. And I think she’d probably want to know something like this had happened to you—?”

“She would, but I just don’t want to upset her.” Her sister was fragile right now, but trying to explain Joanna’s circumstances was none of the stranger’s business and just took too much energy to even try. Maggie left it.

“Well, maybe there’s someone else? Husband, boyfriend—?” There was just a spark of the devil in his eyes again, making Maggie feel like the question implied more than a fill-in-the-blank on his police form.

“No. Friends, of course...but it’s the middle of the night. I can’t see waking someone up and scaring them for no reason. And I’ll call my sister in the morning.” She swallowed hard. “As far as the accident, I keep trying to remember what happened, but it just won’t come. I have this terrible feeling that I was to blame. The nurse—Gert—didn’t think so, but I don’t know if she was telling me the truth. Oh, God. Please tell me there wasn’t a child involved—”

“Hey, take it easy there.” Andy leaned forward, his notebook form forgotten. “A drunk driver swerved in your lane. Hit you head-on. There was no way you could have avoided him.”

“You’re sure?”

“I didn’t actually see it, didn’t get there until about ten minutes after it happened. But it was right on Main Street, and four witnesses saw the accident. They all gave me the same story, and the skid marks, condition of the cars—all the evidence—pointed in the same direction. In fact, my coming in here at all was just policy, to complete the report. But there was no doubt about how the accident occurred. You were not responsible.”

Maggie searched his face. People fibbed for so many reasons—some of them well-meaning, like the doc and nurse who could have shaded the truth to reassure her. Yet she saw the character lines etched on his brow, the way Andy met her gaze like an unflinching straight shooter. She just sensed a man who’d never soft-soap the truth. And that was great. She believed him. Except that if she hadn’t caused the accident, she felt even more confused why that anxious, guilty feeling was still haunting her conscience. “The man who smashed into me, the drunk driver—is he all right?”

“He won’t be, after I get finished slapping charges on him and he sees Judge Farley,” Andy said dryly. “But as far as injuries—he’s less beat-up than you are. And you haven’t asked, but there’s no way to pretty up the news about your car. I’m afraid it’s totalled. Not that I have a mechanic’s judgment, but the front end was crushed like an accordion—when I first saw it, I was afraid we weren’t getting you out in one piece.”

“I don’t care about the stupid car.” She backpedalled swiftly. “Well, of course I care. I’d rather eat clams than go car shopping, and I’m allergic to clams. But the car’s insured. And it just doesn’t matter, not compared to somebody being seriously injured. Just tell me one more time, okay? That no one else was hurt?”

“You were not responsible. And no one else was hurt.” When she still studied his face suspiciously, he scratched his chin. “Still having a hard time believing it, huh? Didn’t anyone ever tell you it was okay to trust the law?”

Well, he made her smile. “You think I should trust a guy I don’t know from Adam?”

“Hell, no. Just me. Honest to Pete, I’m trustworthy as a Boy Scout.”

“Uh-huh. Well, the truth is, sheriff...” Maggie hesitated. “Did I hear that ‘sheriff’ right? Or was it supposed to be lieutenant or deputy? Not that I haven’t had tons and tons of run-ins with the law, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to call you—”

“Andy will do fine.”

She saw the dance of humor in his eyes—he didn’t seem too worried by her vast claims of previous run-ins with the law. And she told herself there was no reason not to skip the formalities and move to first names...his job pinned him as a good guy, and his face was darn near an atlas of integrity lines. Even without knowing him, Maggie instinctively sensed he was hard-core honest. It was just that other factor.

The man-woman thing. Any man who could arouse a rapscallion set of female hormones in a battered woman defined dangerous to Maggie. Interestingly dangerous. Maybe darn-near fascinatingly dangerous—especially since she hadn’t felt that tug for a guy in a blue moon. But she was all too aware that her judgment was temporarily and annoyingly goofy. To assume he meant something by that eye connection and those slow, lazy smiles seemed foolish.

Cripes, she was just trying to sit up and a dozen aches screamed distractingly at her, and her head pounded like hammers at a carpenters’ convention. Embarrassing her no end, her hands were even shaky. “Well, what I started to stay... Andy,... is that I bumped a fender when I was sixteen, but that’s the closest I’ve ever been to a real accident until tonight. This not being able to remember is driving me crazy. I just want to go home. I’m positive it’d all come back if I were just home, around my own stuff...”

He seemed to sense where she was leading, because he shook his head. “The way I heard it, Ms. Fletcher, there isn’t a chance in hell they’re letting you out before tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, I already tried arguing with them. But maybe if you’d consider using the power of the law on my side?”

“I’m real willing to use the power of the law. On their side. Trust me, Gert’ll watch over you better than a mom. I’m telling you, she’s ruthless. I’ve run across her before—with my job, you get some bumps and bruises now and then. She’ll drive you stark crazy with all the fussing.”

“But that’s exactly the problem. I hate people fussing over me.”

His mouth kicked in another grin. “Yeah, you kind of gave me that impression. Feeling helpless not exactly your favorite thing?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I’ll bet you can. But not tonight I’m pretty sure you won’t die from being spoiled for one night, will you?”

“Yes.”

Another grin—which definitely wasn’t every man’s response when Maggie got touchy on the subject of self-reliance. “I can’t figure out how come I haven’t met you before. In a small town like White Branch, I usually run into everyone sooner or later.”

“Well, I moved here about four years ago, but I don’t usually run around robbing banks or causing trouble—except in my free time, of course. And car accidents just haven’t been my thing. Until tonight, anyway. Darn it.” She lifted her hand to the incessantly throbbing bump on her head. “This not being able to remember is just so stupid. I’m not the type to get shook up in a crisis. The opposite is true. I do rescue work, for Pete’s sake. But the last twenty-four hours are just a total blank in my mind, and I can’t seem to make a single detail come back.”

“Maybe it’ll all come to you after a good night’s sleep.”

“Maybe it’d come to me if I were just home.”

The curly-haired nurse popped her head in the doorway. “Andy! You low-down skunk. I told you ten minutes, max, and you’re still in here!”

“I’m leaving, I’m leaving.” Andy grabbed his notebook and battered Stetson from the bedside table and lurched to his feet. He winked at Maggie before turning around. “Gert—just so you know, she was trying to talk me into springing her out of here.”

Maggie’s jaw dropped at his betrayal—for all the good it did. Gert turned on her faster than a ruffled hen. “Over my dead body. You don’t belong anywhere but right here, honey. A concussion is nothing to fool around with...” The nurse continued nonstop with impressive plans involving bedpans and ice chips and needles.

Maggie met Andy’s eyes from around Gert’s side and mouthed, “If we ever meet again, you’re dead meat.”

Andy murmured unrepentantly, “You go, Gert.” But he hesitated right when he reached the doorway. There was just a two-second window when Gert had to take a breath before expanding on her health lecture. Two seconds. Then his eyes prowled her face one last time, and he said, “You can take it to the bank, Maggie. We’ll meet again.”