“Just remember, this isn’t abnormal,” he said with a comforting glance as he double-checked her vital signs, then tested her reflexes. “Here, now hold on to my fingers and squeeze as hard as you can,” he said, holding up the index finger of each hand. She gripped for all she was worth. “Good, now release.” He made another note on her chart. “As for your memory, it should return. Your brain took quite a shock with the concussion and you’ve been comatose for a while.” He flashed her a grin. “But everything should come back to you.”
“When?” she demanded, desperate to know that she would be all right.
“Unfortunately, I can’t predict that.” He frowned and shook his bald head.
Well, it had better be soon, she thought, or I’ll go out of my mind—or at least what’s left of it.
“I wish I could.”
“You and me both.”
“You’ll have to be patient. Give yourself time to recover.”
“Why do I think I’m going to get tired of hearing that?” she asked and he shrugged.
“Maybe you know yourself better than you think.”
“That’s the trouble, doctor,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “I don’t know myself at all.”
True to her word, the nurse had bustled into Marla’s room, given her a quick sponge bath, and straightened the sheets. She’d just breezed out the door when Marla’s family arrived en masse. Smiles, hugs, kisses that seemed strained were rained upon her by strangers. All strangers. Marla forced a grin she didn’t feel and tried like crazy to remember these people, only to fail. Just as their voices had seemed foreign to her, their faces sparked no memory whatsoever.
“It’s so good to see you awake and have you back with us,” her mother-in-law said, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of a handkerchief. A petite woman with apricot-shaded hair and small even teeth, she wore high heels that matched her purse, a gray wool suit, pearl-colored silk blouse and a print scarf in tones of red and gold.
“Thanks.”
Eugenia cleared her throat. “That big old house has been empty without you.”
Marla’s heart melted.
Cissy, her daughter, planted an obligatory kiss on her cheek and backed away. She was tall for her age, slender, and dressed from head to toe in black. Her skin was somewhat tanned, sprinkled with a few pimples that her makeup didn’t quite hide and her eyes were rimmed in thick, black mascara. “Hi,” she offered up tentatively.
“Hi backatcha.” It was all Marla could do to wrap her lips around the words. This girl was her daughter? Why didn’t she feel something, have any inkling of a memory of . . . anything? Where was the motherly tug on her heartstrings—the lightning quick flashes of images of giving birth, or of diapering Cissy as an infant, or recollections of skinned knees, the loss of a baby tooth, or the heartache of watching her daughter suffer from her first adolescent crush? Surely all those events had happened, but Marla had no memory of her life at all. It was almost as if she was dead inside. And it was scary. Scary as hell.
“I knew you’d wake up!” Alex’s voice boomed across the room. She turned her head, bracing herself for another blank slate, but as she laid eyes upon her husband, she had a faint sense that she’d seen him before—an elusive image that nudged at her brain then scampered back to the dark netherworld that was her memory. “Oh, honey, it’s so good to see you again.” Dressed in a navy blue suit and an overcoat that was unbuttoned, the belt ends stuffed in his pockets, he was tall and strapping, with gray eyes and a smile as wide as his jaw. He reached over the bed rail and hugged her fiercely. “I . . . we’ve . . . we’ve missed you.” His voice was deep and he smelled of smoke and some kind of musky aftershave. Holding her firmly he planted a soft, fervent kiss upon her cheek.
She felt absolutely nothing for him.
Nothing.
Oh, God, she couldn’t be this hollow. This unfeeling. Tears burned in her eyes and blurred her vision. Reaching up, she held him close, wanting desperately to feel some twinge of tenderness, some sense of belonging, of loving him, but she could only hope that, soon, she would remember. It takes time, she told herself, but was frustrated at the thought. She wasn’t given to patience, Marla realized, and along with a smidgen of gladness for divining something of her personality, decided that it might not be such a good trait.
The phone rang sharply and every one of Alex’s muscles tightened. “I told the hospital that you weren’t to get any calls,” he said, extricating himself from her and reaching for the receiver. As Cissy sat braced against the air-conditioning unit under the window and Eugenia plucked some dead blossoms from a Christmas cactus, he picked up the receiver.
“Hello . . . Hello? Is anyone there . . . shit!” He slammed the receiver down.
“Was no one there?” Eugenia asked and Marla felt a shiver of dread.
“Wrong number,” Cissy said with a bored expression.
“Not when the calls go through a switchboard.” Alex rubbed his jaw and his eyes darkened thoughtfully as Eugenia stopped plucking the brittle pink blooms. “I’ll check on that. Have there been any other calls?”
“No . . . well, not that I remember, but then I don’t remember too much.” She offered what she hoped would pass for a smile.
He sighed. “We heard. We talked to Phil . . . your doctor . . . Robertson before we came up to see you. He warned us that you might be amnesic for a while. The good news is that it should be temporary.”
“Should be,” she repeated on a note of sarcasm. “Let’s hope.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You just concentrate on getting better. Phil thinks you’ll be able to come home in a couple of days.”
She thought she’d go out of her mind if she spent another day lying around doing nothing. “No. I want to go home now.”
“Of course you do. But it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I think he wants to run a couple of routine tests. Your vital signs, that sort of thing. No big deal.”
“A big enough deal to keep me in here,” she snapped.
“You just woke up, honey,” he reminded her.
“But I want to go home,” she repeated. “Now.”
No one said a word. Alex glanced at Eugenia, who had moved from the Christmas cactus to a vase of flowers and was removing the dead roses and dropping them into a small wastebasket near the closet. Cissy suddenly found the parking lot interesting and stared out the window, avoiding eye contact with both her parents.
“Listen, dear,” Eugenia stepped closer to the bed. The woman who had been teary-eyed moments before was suddenly all steel and determination. “When you’re better, you’ll come home, of course you will, but right now you need to concentrate on getting well.” She touched Marla’s hand gently, but her eyes, behind her wire-rimmed glasses, silently commanded her not to say a word, as if there was some secret they all shared, a secret that didn’t dare be voiced, here, in the hospital, and Marla felt a new sense of dread.
“Where . . . where’s my baby?” Marla asked.
“At home. We couldn’t bring him here. The pediatrician’s orders,” her mother-in-law said and her gaze softened a bit. “You’ll see him as soon as you get home.”
“And when will that be?”
“Soon, honey. When the doctor releases you. He’s just as anxious for you to go home as you are to get there. We’ve known Phil and his wife for years.” Alex’s voice was meant to sound kind, but there was an undertone she thought she heard and she wondered if he was placating her; keeping the truth from her. There was something about him that just didn’t ring quite true.
Or maybe you’re just paranoid!
“We have? Then why did he introduce himself as Dr. Robertson?” she asked, trying not to feel paranoid, but beginning to sense that the entire world was against her. Dear God, maybe she was going crazy. Hadn’t she thought she’d sensed someone at her bedside, an evil presence . . . for the love of God, was she lo
sing her mind? Sweat dampened her palms and her nerves were jangled, yet she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Why didn’t he call himself Phil? Say something?”
“Who knows? Probably out of a sense of professionalism. He has to keep up a certain sense of decorum. He probably just puts on his—” Alex held up his hands, signing air quotes with his first and second fingers—“ ‘doctor face’ when he’s at the hospital.”
“It’s odd, if you ask me.”
“Maybe so, but there it is.”
This was getting her nowhere, and she was tired. Weary. Feeling as if she was running in circles on legs made of lead.
As if sensing her despair, Alex hugged her again. “I know this is confusing and exhausting and you still feel like hell,” he said and again she felt the sting of tears. “But slow down, give yourself time. You’re going to be fine,” he whispered into her ear and she wanted to believe him, to trust that. Oh, God, if only he was looking into a crystal ball and foretelling her future rather than offering her platitudes to ease her mind. Swallowing her anxiety, she wrapped her arms around his neck and looked over his shoulder to the doorway. The man she’d seen earlier, the outlaw, stood apart from the rest of the family, his jaw dark with a day’s growth of beard, one shoulder propped against the door frame.
Beneath black eyebrows that had slammed together, Nick stared at her.
He didn’t so much as smile, didn’t offer any words of encouragement. Instead, he folded his arms over his chest, his leather jacket creaking and stretching as he observed the tender scene between husband and wife through his narrowed, jaded eyes. What was it he witnessed? What caused his square jaw to clench so hard?
Suddenly she had to know what she looked like, how everyone else saw her. Was it what had happened between them, or her appearance now? She yanked her gaze from his and silently called herself a dozen kinds of fool. “Is there a mirror over there anywhere?” she asked.
For a second, no one said a word.
“Don’t either of you two have one?” Marla’s gaze moved from her mother-in-law to Cissy.
“A hand mirror?” Eugenia shook her head, apricot curls unmoving under the overhead light. “Well, only in my compact.”
“Could I see it?”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea . . .” Eugenia was nervous and Marla realized she must look worse than she imagined.
“Is it that bad?”
“No, dear, but—”
“Give her the mirror,” Nick cut in.
She glanced his way again, saw an emotion akin to anger dart through his gray-blue eyes. “Yes, get it. Because if you don’t, I swear I’ll climb over the rail of this damned bed and crawl to the sink and its mirror if I have to.” She flung a hand toward the cabinet mounted above the basin, then pushed the button that elevated the head of the bed even higher.
“But your IV and, well, you’re still . . .” Alex gestured to the bed and she realized that he was probably indicating her catheter and urine bag hidden discreetly under the sheets.
Heat washed up her cheeks and she groaned inwardly, then squared her shoulders. “I don’t care.”
“Give it to her.” Nick’s lips were blade thin.
Eugenia swallowed hard. “Well, I suppose it’s only a matter of time before you’re able to get up anyway, but remember, you’re still healing and soon you’ll look much better and . . .” She started riffling through her little purse. “Oh . . . here we go.” She withdrew a shiny gold compact and handed it to Marla.
Cissy winced.
Eugenia stiffened her shoulders.
Alex turned away.
Only Nick’s posture didn’t change. He continued to watch her as, with trembling fingers, Marla snapped the compact open and stared into the tiny mirror.
Oh, God, she thought, sucking in air through teeth wired shut. It was worse than she’d imagined. Not only was she bruised and swollen, discolored in shades of yellow-green and pale purple, but the face staring back at her was that of a stranger.
Chapter Four
Watching Marla, Nick gritted his teeth. With the hand not attached to an IV, she gently touched her face, her fingers tracing the bruises and scabs, even the stubble over the part of her head that had been shaved. To her credit, she put on a brave show, not giving in to tears that he suspected were just beneath the surface. She swallowed hard and tenderly fingered a row of stitches that showed through the fuzzy growth of new hair. “Oh, God,” she whispered, blinking several times before finding some grit and visibly stiffening her spine. “I . . . I don’t think I’d even pass as the Bride of Frankenstein . . . you know what they say, always a bridesmaid, never a . . .” Her words were mumbled, said with difficulty. She tried to smile, but failed and her chin trembled ever so slightly.
Nick could barely watch this woman he’d sworn to hate, the one who had used him, betrayed him, and ended up his brother’s wife.
“It’ll be all right,” Alex said, taking the compact from her hand and snapping the gold case shut. “Just give yourself time.”
“That’s right. In a couple of months, you’ll be yourself and you’ll laugh . . . well, at least put this behind you,” Eugenia forced a grin that showed a hint of gold fillings. “We all will.”
“I will never laugh about this,” Marla shot back.
“None of us will.” Alex shot his mother a warning look.
Nick silently agreed. In his estimation, the truth was better than false hope and the facts spoke for themselves: Marla Amhurst Cahill had nearly died and right now she looked and probably felt like hell. The road to her recovery was bound to be long and bumpy.
“I . . . I don’t know if I’ll ever be myself.” Marla, still stricken, glanced at Nick, her gaze skating across his for only an instant, as if he alone understood. “I just don’t feel that I’m . . .” She let her voice trail off.
“You’re what?” Alex said.
She looked from one person to the other. When she met Nick’s gaze, a shadow of an emotion he couldn’t read chased across her eyes, only to quickly disappear. “I don’t know who I am.”
“Oh, brother,” Cissy intoned and was rewarded with a don’t-even-say-it look from her father.
“You’ll be fine,” Alex predicted.
Nick didn’t believe it. She’d never be fine. Never had been. Yet a needle of guilt pricked his conscience as he saw her bruised face. For years he’d shoved her out of his mind and when he had thought of her it had only been with jaded disregard. Now he witnessed her wan and battered and fighting for some grain of dignity.
Cissy pretended to be staring out the window as she ran her fingers absently over the vents of the air-conditioning unit, but Nick could almost see the gears grinding in the teenager’s mind. From the corner of her eye she was watching her mother. Something was definitely going on there.
“Don’t you worry, things are going to be just fine. Once you get back home, with the baby . . . and the rest of us. You’ll see.” Eugenia took the compact from her son and dropped it quickly into her purse.
Nick wanted to get the hell out. This was about as much family togetherness as he could take for one day.
“You were here before.” Marla was looking at him again.
He gave a cursory nod and held her gaze. “A few hours ago.”
“I remember.” She said it as if awed and then lines deepened on her forehead. “The outlaw.”
“That’s right.” Was it his imagination or was there a flicker of more than idle curiosity in her gaze?
“There was someone else here, too,” she said.
“With me?” Nick shook his head.
“No . . . no . . . I mean before you came in. At least . . . I think . . .” Her eyes clouded and she looked away, studied the folds of the blankets that were bunching at her waist. “Yes, I’m sure of it. Someone who didn’t say a word, he came in and . . . and stood right there by the bed . . . Oh, damn it, I know this sounds paranoid, but it . . . it seemed real.”
“Nonsense,” Eugenia said with a high-pitched, isn’t-that-a-silly-notion laugh. “It was probably a nurse.”
“No.” Marla was frustrated. Agitated. “Maybe I was dreaming. But I do remember, or . . . I think I do . . . that I actually heard all of you here . . .” Her eyebrows drew together over a face that had once been breathtakingly beautiful. “You were here another time . . . or was it twice before? Oh, God, I can’t remember.” She lifted a hand to shove the hair from her face and then stopped suddenly when her fingers encountered the bald spot above her left eye and the stitches in her scalp.
“Many,” Eugenia said kindly. “We were here many times.”
“And you sent Cissy down for soda. Sprite?”
“That’s right. We did once,” Alex agreed, smiling, though from Nick’s perspective, the grin seemed strained and out of place. “We thought you were in a coma, that you couldn’t hear us.”
Eugenia fiddled with the clasp of her purse, and before she offered up a cheery grin, the corners of her mouth turned down for just a second, just the way they did when she was perturbed. “So, you could hear us. Why didn’t you respond?”
“I tried. But it was impossible.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But I can’t remember anything else, not the accident, not . . . anything.” Still holding Alex’s hand, she turned to look at Cissy, who rolled her eyes theatrically. She sent her father a look that said more effectively than words, Can we just go now? Nick didn’t blame the kid.
Alex didn’t take the hint. He leaned closer to his wife and said, “Now, listen, honey, even if you can’t remember much—”
“No, it’s not that I can’t remember much, Alex,” Marla cut in, her tongue tripping over his name, “I don’t remember anything about my life, though other things—general things are fairly clear. But my parents, my birthday, if I have brothers and sisters, or—”
“You mean you don’t remember us?” Cissy asked, suddenly getting it.
Marla didn’t reply.
“This is temporary,” Alex cut in.
“It had better be.” Marla turned her eyes to her husband as if seeking answers, and Nick’s gut clenched. “I’m sorry about all this . . . trouble and Pam . . . oh, God, I feel awful that she died.”