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She swallowed as another wave of helpless fear swamped her. “I don’t know.”
His eyes, which seemed unusually light for such dark skin, narrowed with suspicion. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Surely you know where you live?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated.
Maggie Fortune said, “Wyatt, I think Gabrielle has hurt her head.”
He stepped closer, and Gabrielle had to force herself to stand her ground and endure a closer scrutiny of his unnerving gaze.
“Yes, that’s quite a cut you’ve got there. Let me grab my first aid kit.” He sprinted back to his truck and came back with the kit. “I’m no doctor, but I do know a little something about cuts and scrapes. Here’s some gauze with some antiseptic. It’ll do for now, but I definitely think you’ll have to go to the hospital.”
Maggie was grateful for his help, more grateful for the distraction from his rapid-fire questions. How come he kept looking at her like he didn’t believe she truly couldn’t remember anything? Why would she lie?
“So, Gabrielle, do you have any identification on you?”
Identification! She glanced down at her somewhat faded jeans, then quickly jammed her hands in all the pockets, searching for any scrap of paper. There was nothing. No coins or tissues or lipstick. Nothing.
She lifted shocked eyes back to his face. “No. I suppose my purse was in the car. Oh, and now it’s burnt!”
The young woman appeared to be genuinely distraught, Wyatt thought. But anyone would be after the jolt she must have taken when her car slammed into the oak. She was not a Texan. At first glance her appearance had told him that much; her voice had proved it. There was no wedding band, no rings of any sort on her fingers. In fact, the only jewelry she was wearing were slender gold hoops in her ears.
“Maggie, were the Fortunes expecting any visitors from out of state?” he asked.
The other woman shook her head at his question. “Not that I’m aware of. But then, people are always dropping in unannounced. You know that, Wyatt.”
He looked back at Gabrielle Carter. He’d been friends with the Fortune family for years, and he’d never heard the name Carter mentioned. And if he’d ever seen Gabrielle, he would have remembered. She was not a woman any man would likely forget. He was struck by her beauty, even in this disheveled state.
Her long brown hair was naturally streaked with gold from the sun. The silky strands waved about her shoulders and framed an oval face that was dominated by huge hazel-green eyes fringed with thick dark lashes. Full pink lips quivered as she glanced from him to the smoldering car. Her skin—and he could see plenty of it with the skimpy top she was wearing—was smooth and tanned to a deep golden brown. He tried not to think about the luscious curves beneath the jeans and ribbed knit blouse.
“Well, I think right now, Miss Carter, you’d better let me drive you to the hospital. We’ll deal with your identity later.”
Gabrielle stared wildly at him, then turned a helpless look on the Fortune woman. “I’m not sure I want to go to the hospital with him! I don’t know where I am! I don’t have any money—”
Wyatt held up a hand to halt her protest, while beside her the woman said gently, “Please let him take you. In my panic, I didn’t even think to call an ambulance. And don’t worry about the hospital bill, Gabrielle. The ranch’s insurance will certainly cover it. Especially with me being the cause of the accident. I really feel just awful.”
“You don’t have any choice in the matter, Miss Carter,” Wyatt Grayhawk informed her none too gently. “As sheriff, I’m required to see you get medical attention. It’s the law.”
Her heart pounded as she searched his dark, stern face. Something told her there was very little, if any, compassion behind his roughly hewn features. This man didn’t care if she was lost or terrified. In fact, the skeptical expression on his face said he’d doubted her story from the start.
“I guess there’s little else I can do then, is there?” she said quietly.
“Nothing else,” he agreed, then reached for her arm.
Gabrielle wanted to jerk away from him. But she didn’t have the strength. And he was the sheriff, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t help her cause to have him riled at her.
“Everything will be all right, Gabrielle,” the woman assured her as the three of them walked to Wyatt’s pickup.
“Wyatt will take good care of you.”
Gabrielle didn’t want to think about being under the sheriff’s care. He was harder to deal with than the pain in her head.
“Do you need a lift back to the ranch?” Wyatt asked the woman.
“No. I’m going to walk back,” she told him. “Maybe I’ll find my horse on the way. You will let us know about Gabrielle?”
“I’ll call the ranch and let you know something as soon as I can. In the meantime, you might let your father-in-law, Ryan, know what’s happened.”
“I will.” The woman waved and headed down the road in the opposite direction from the charred car.
Gabrielle suddenly felt even more lost and alone without her rescuer. At least with the Fortune woman, she’d felt she had someone on her side. With Sheriff Grayhawk she felt anything but safe.
He opened the door of the vehicle and helped Gabrielle up on the bench seat, then skirted around the hood and slid behind the wheel.
“Buckle up,” he ordered as he started the engine.
She pulled the straps of the seat belt across her lap, but her fingers were shaking so badly that she couldn’t make the two ends catch.
Suddenly two dark-brown hands were pushing her fumbling fingers aside. “Here, let me do it, or we’ll never get where we’re going,” he said gruffly.
She bit down on her lip and turned her face toward the window, but his closeness couldn’t be ignored. She could smell the faint scent of his cologne and feel the brush of his warm hands as he latched the seat belt against her.
He was a forceful man in looks and presence. And though her past was a blank, she had a feeling she’d never encountered anyone like him before.
“Thank you,” she murmured, once he’d straightened away from her and set the pickup in motion.
He didn’t acknowledge her words. Instead, he turned the pickup around and headed back toward what was left of her burned car. The flames and smoke had finally been doused, and the firemen were rolling up their hoses.
Wyatt stopped the pickup. “I’m going to talk to the firemen. I’ll be right back,” he said without glancing her way.
Through a blur of pain Gabrielle watched the tall, dark sheriff walk over to the two firemen. After a brief moment of conversation he returned to the truck.
“Is there anything left inside the car?” she asked hopefully.
“The metal is still too hot to search through the thing. I’ll come back later and see what I can find. Unless you want to tell me what all this is about right now?”
At the question, she snapped her head around, causing even more pain to crush the middle of her forehead. She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
His brows arched and then he rubbed a hand over his face. “So, you’re still determined to play innocent with me. I thought once we got away from Maggie you might decide to come clean.”
Gabrielle realized she was in a partial state of shock from the accident, but try as she might she couldn’t unravel the strange things this man was saying to her.
“Come clean? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned slightly toward him, her expression desperate. “Do you know who I am? If you do, why don’t you tell me?”
Her voice was rising as though she were very near to hysteria. If she was faking this whole thing she was doing a damn good job, Wyatt thought. But hell, most women were good actresses. Lying to a man came as naturally to them as breathing.
“Calm down, lady. If you’ve got a concussion, it won’t do you any good to get all excited.”
Gabrielle’s lips parted as she stared at him in stunned fascination. “Excited! How would you feel if your head was cracking and you didn’t know who you were or where you were? Oh, I’m sure a big strong man like you would take it all in stride,” she sneered. “It would probably be just another day in the life of a Texas sheriff.”
His nostrils flared as his eyes left the highway long enough to glance at her. “That ache in your head doesn’t seem to be affecting your tongue.”
She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I don’t like being accused. And you were trying to accuse me of something!”
Except for a faint lift of his brows, his features became deceptively passive. “If you don’t know who you are, how can you be certain you aren’t guilty?”
She opened her mouth to defend herself, but then a slow, sickening realization struck her. She might be a criminal. She might be anything. She just didn’t know!
“You’re right. I can’t be certain of anything,” she said wretchedly, then dropped her head in her hands.
Behind the wheel, Wyatt tried not to let the despair on her face soften him. She was a hell of a looker, but she could very well be up to no good. In his work he had to be suspicious of everyone. Personally, as a man, there was no woman he trusted. And he was doubly on his guard because of all the trouble the Fortunes had encountered lately.
“You have no idea what you were doing on the road to the Double Crown Ranch?”
Gabrielle strained to remember, but all that came to her mind was waking up with the floorboard of the car pressed against her face and the smell of gasoline choking her.
“No. The name means nothing to me.”
“Does the name Fortune register with you?”
She looked at him hopelessly. “If I’ve ever heard of it, I don’t know it now. Who are these people? Could I have been going there to do a job?”
His lips thinned to a grim line. “That’s what I’m wondering.”
The sarcasm in his voice stung her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he said bluntly. “We’ll talk about it later. After you’ve seen a doctor.”
That was fine with her. She was more than a little tired of his innuendos. The pain in her head was making her nauseated, and thinking more than ten minutes into the future was terrifying. She simply wanted to close her eyes and forget the laconic sheriff beside her. She didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that she knew nothing about Gabrielle Carter.
A few moments later, his deep voice jerked her out of her jumbled thoughts. “I wouldn’t go to sleep if I were you.”
She opened her eyes, but didn’t bother to lift her head from the back of the seat. “Why?”
“If you’ve got a concussion you shouldn’t sleep.”
“I thought you said you were no doctor.”
“I’m not. I’m just a lawman.”
Her gaze lingered on his rigid profile. “Grayhawk,” she repeated. “Is that a Native American name?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Finally he said, “My father was Cherokee.”
“And your mother?”
“White. Like you.”
Even through the haze of her pain, Gabrielle picked up a sharp bitterness in his words. She wondered why, then just as quickly told herself it didn’t matter to her if he hated white people, or women, or even her. He was just one man in a big world. Once her memory returned, Sheriff Wyatt Grayhawk would be well and truly out of her life.
Two
The remainder of the trip passed in silence. At the hospital Wyatt escorted Gabrielle into the emergency unit and grabbed the attention of the first nurse he came upon.
“Can he come with me?” Gabrielle asked as the nurse helped her into a wheelchair. She didn’t know why she wanted the sheriff to remain at her side. Only minutes ago, she had wished him out of her sight. Yet he was the only familiar face around her, and even if he was unfeeling about her plight, his presence was steadying.
The nurse glanced at Wyatt. “Is he your husband?” she asked Gabrielle.
“No. But—”
“Then it would be better if he didn’t. If he’s needed, I’ll come after him.”
He cast Gabrielle a dry glance. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”
Even though the tone of his words was far from gentle, his promise calmed her somewhat. She nodded jerkily at him, and then the nurse wheeled her away.
Wyatt watched her disappear down the hallway, then through a door on the left. For a brief second he almost followed and told the nurse he was going to stay with Gabrielle whether she liked it or not.
Hell, Wyatt, what are you thinking? he asked himself. The woman doesn’t need you. Yet, just for a moment, when she’d looked at him with those big pleading eyes, she’d reminded him of a little lost lamb about to go to slaughter.
With another silent curse, he turned and headed to a busy nurses’ station across the room. He showed them his badge and asked one of the nurses to page Dr. Matthew Fortune.
She quickly complied and he thanked her, then headed to the waiting area. Even though he didn’t want to go there. The frightened look on Gabrielle’s face when the nurse had taken her away was lingering in his mind, and oddly enough he was still fighting the urge to go back to the examining room and make sure she was all right.
Forget it, Grayhawk, he muttered to himself. She wasn’t a child. Although she was young, he figured she was at least twenty-one or two. And for all he knew that frightened look could have been an act. Just like the loss of memory.
With a tired sigh, he went over to the coffee machine and filled a cup. The strong burnt smell assured him it had been made hours ago, but he took a sip of it anyway. He’d been going since three o’clock this morning—he needed something to fortify him.
Ignoring the vinyl chairs and couch where several people sat flipping through worn magazines, he walked over to a plate-glass window and stared out at the parking area stretching away to the city street. It wasn’t often Wyatt personally hauled someone to the hospital. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the accident happening on Fortune land, he would have sent a deputy out to handle the investigation.
But the Fortune boys had been his closest friends since childhood. They had stood behind him when others had shunned him for being a half-breed. Without their solid support, he never would have been elected sheriff. And now that trouble had fallen on the family, he was personally checking out every movement on or near the Double Crown Ranch.
In the background, he could hear the nurse on the intercom paging Matthew to come to Emergency. He was still sipping on the bitter coffee when the doctor’s voice sounded behind him.
“Wyatt! What are you doing here? Has something happened to Claudia or Taylor? Have you heard something about Bryan?”
Wyatt turned to see the tall, dark-haired doctor hurrying into the waiting room. Wyatt desperately wished he could tell the oldest of the Fortune brothers that he’d located his missing son. But the sad truth was that he was no closer to finding the baby now than he had been six months ago.
Matthew’s baby, Bryan, had been taken from his crib during his christening party at the Double Crown nearly a year ago. A special FBI agent had been sent in to handle the case and he’d recovered a baby and the ransom money. But when he’d gotten the child home, everyone was shocked to discover the baby wasn’t Bryan. They’d kept the other baby though, since a blood test showed he had the rare Fortune blood, and had named him Taylor.
Wyatt tossed the cup in a nearby trash bin and crossed the small area of the waiting room to greet the other man. “Don’t get upset, Matthew. This isn’t about Claudia or Bryan or Taylor. Or at least I don’t think it is. Do you have a few moments?”
Matthew gestured toward the double doors leading out to the parking lot. “Of course. Let’s go outside.”
The two men walked out into the heat and took refuge under the shade of a sycamore.
“The reason I’m here, Matthew, is that I brought a young lady into Emergency a few minutes ago. She’s had a wreck on the Double Crown. Her car burned, and she has no idea who she is. Or so she claims.”
Matthew’s finely chiseled features were suddenly frozen with shock. “Oh, my Lord! Was she hurt badly?”
