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He had a wife? Odd, he didn’t feel married.
“—isn’t that right, Jedidiah?” The nurse threw him a saccharine-sweet smile.
Jedidiah. What kind of a mother would stick her son with a name like that? “Oh, sure,” he said brightly. “A wife.”
“Good,” the doctor said. “Now take it easy for the next few days. You’ve had a nasty knock. No drinking, no driving. And stay quiet. Take a break from work.”
“Sure.” Work? Did he work? Or was he perhaps a dilettante playboy? Surreptitiously, hopefully, he turned over his hands and stole a glance at his palms—
Hey, would you look at those calluses! Those were not the hands of a man who lived a life of glitz and glamour.
But they were the hands of a man who didn’t ask for directions when he was lost. That much he knew, and the knowledge was innate. It probably went all the way back to caveman days, when no caveman worth his salt would have asked another caveman where the best buffalo were roaming.
“Any questions?” The doctor stood poised to leave.
“Nope.”
“Remember anything of the accident?”
Jedidiah shook his head. And winced as pain sliced through it.
“It might come back, but probably won’t. Most people find that because of the trauma it’s blocked out of their minds permanently. You may also find that the swelling around your brain will have caused further memory loss. As the swelling subsides, those memories—your personal memories—should eventually return.” The doctor was halfway to the door. “Any problems, just give me a call.”
“Will do. And thanks.”
After the doctor left, the nurse said, “You’ll find all your clothes in that locker by your bed.” She headed for the door.
Jedidiah said, “Hold on a minute.”
She turned.
“Has my…wife called this morning?”
“She called first thing and then she called again, just after ten. I told her I’d phone back after the doctor had seen you. I’ll call her now and tell her she can come pick you up.”
“Call me a cab instead.”
“But your wife—”
“I want to surprise her.”
The nurse beamed. “I’ll call you that cab. And I’ll come back shortly to wheel you downstairs.”
As the sound of the nurse’s brisk footsteps faded along the corridor, Jedidiah swung his legs off the bed, then paused as a wave of giddiness assailed him. When he finally stood, the floor seemed to tilt. He grasped the bed rail, and once he felt steadier, he moved to his locker.
When he looked at his clothes, they were unfamiliar to him. Blue jeans, denim shirt, navy jacket. It was as if he’d never seen them before.
Yet he knew what they were called; and when he withdrew his black leather wallet from his hip pocket, he knew it was called a wallet. Odd how his mind had retained that kind of information, yet all his personal memories seemed lost.
He unfolded the wallet and riffled curiously through its contents. He found over seventy dollars in bills; a few credit cards; a receipt for gas. And his driver’s license. He noted his address—Morgan’s Hope, Whispering Mountain, B.C. He checked his birth date against the date on the gas receipt and figured he was almost thirty-five. Looking at his photo was like looking at the face of a stranger—a stranger with dark hair and an even darker scowl.
He searched further, hoping to find a picture of his wife, but no luck. He slid the wallet back into the pocket, his mind swirling with questions.
When he got home, he’d get his wife to answer them.
He scraped a rueful hand through his hair. His wife.
He couldn’t wait to see what she looked like!
“Mom, how come you’re unloading all that stuff from the car and bringing it into our uncle’s house?”
Over the bulky bag in her arms, Sarah peeked at Emma and Jamie, who were zooming Jamie’s Tonka trucks over the foyer carpet. “When I called the nurse she said that when your uncle gets home, he’d need taking care of for a few days. I plan to look after him.”
Even if he didn’t want her to, Sarah reflected as nervousness churned her stomach. But she hoped he wouldn’t be up to arguing. In fact, she was counting on it. She desperately needed time to regroup, time to decide where to go when she left Morgan’s Hope.
“When are we going to the hospital?” Jamie asked.
“The nurse promised to phone me after the doctor had made his rounds. I’m surprised she hasn’t called yet.”
“It’ll be a lovely surprise for our uncle,” Emma said happily, “to find that we’ve moved ourselves in!” “Need a hand, buddy?” The cabdriver squinted against the sun as he peered up through his open window at Jedidiah, who was tucking his wallet away. “You seemed a bit unsteady on your pins, back there at the hospital.”
“Thanks, I’m okay.”
“Nice place you got here.”
“Mmm.” Jedidiah’s attention was fixed on the rusty blue Cutlass parked by the front door. His wife’s? How come she drove a dilapidated old vehicle when apparently his own vehicle had been a latemodel Range Rover?
The cabbie gestured toward Max, who had also been a passenger in his cab but was now standing by his master. “Amazing that your dog was hanging around waiting for you in the hospital grounds. He must’ve followed the ambulance all the way to town yesterday. Lucky you had a name tag on him, prove he was yours. Sure are faithful, those mutts.”
“Yeah.” Jedidiah set a hand on Max’s head and the animal looked up at him adoringly.
“Better’n a woman any day!” With a quick grin, the cabbie put his vehicle in gear and drove away.
Jedidiah’s eyes were thoughtful as he walked with an unsteady gait to the house. Inside waited his wife. Her name was Sarah, according to a remark dropped by the redheaded nurse when she’d wheeled him down to the entrance. And Sarah had visited him yesterday, the nurse had confided, though he’d been too out of it to know it.
If he had seen her, would he have recognized her? He doubted he would….
He remembered nothing of her. Nothing of his past.
Remembered nothing of this house.
“Nice place,” the cabbie had remarked, and he’d been right. It was a very nice place indeed, with clean lines and an attractive symmetry to it. He liked the pink brick walls, the white trim, the indigo-blue door. And he liked the arrangement of potted shrubs set around the entrance.
Everywhere he looked, he saw order.
And money.
He glanced at his palms again, and frowned. Those calluses. What the heck kind of work did he do that he could afford such a place?
Squaring his shoulders, he said, “C’mon, Max. Let’s go inside and find out.”
But Max had loped away into the forest.
The front door was unlocked.
Jedidiah opened it. Closed it. Took off his shoes. Stepped forward into the foyer.
And that’s when he saw them.
Two children, a boy of around three and a girl maybe a couple of years older, sitting on the carpet over by the staircase, playing with blocks. They were so intent on what they were doing they didn’t notice him.
He stood, watching. Fascinated.
The boy was slightly built, with a sweep of ash-blond hair. He was wearing jeans and a red sweater. The girl was sturdier, but her hair was equally blond and styled in a long braid. She, too, was wearing jeans, but her sweater was blue with a pattern of snowflakes.
He cleared his throat.
The little girl looked up.
She stared at him for a long moment, her beautiful gray eyes startled, and then she cried, “Daddy!”
The boy turned sharply. His eyes were as gray as the girl’s, and at sight of him, they lit up.
“Da-da!” He scrambled to his feet, and for a moment the two children stood rooted to the spot. Then the girl threw out her arms and with a shriek of joy ran toward him. The boy followed suit.
What could he do but swing them up and hug them? How were they to know he didn’t recognize them? How were they to know he felt as if they were strangers to him?
He swung them around and then swung them down again.
The little girl ran to the stairs and yelled, “Mom! Mom! Daddy’s come back!”
Jedidiah followed, his heart beating in slow, heavy thuds as he waited for this woman who was his wife.
Her voice preceded her. “Honey, what are you…?”
And then she appeared, hurrying out onto the landing.
She glanced down, frowning.
And stopped dead at the sight of him.
She looked stunned; more stunned even than her daughter had been.
And every vestige of color seeped from her face.
“Oh, hi.” Her voice was flat. “It’s you.”
CHAPTER THREE
WOW, that was some warm welcome!
Jedidiah grasped the knob of the newel post for support as shock hurtled his giddiness to new heights. And added to his shock was jaw-dropping awe: this woman was gorgeous.
Not only was she gorgeous, she was the vision who’d appeared at his hospital bedside. No angel, but his wife.
He gaped at her as she started slowly down the stairs.
Sarah Morgan was a fragile blonde, with smooth, silky hair parted on the left. It curved out bell-like around her heart-shaped face, ending in a loose wave that brought the tips in to brush against her neck then flip out again. Her skin was clear, her nose was straight…and her gray eyes were fixed on him warily.
“I was going to drive to the hospital and pick you up.” Her voice was low and melodic, with a husky timbre.
He found it incredibly sexy.
Something stirred deep inside him.
“The nurse said she’d call me.” She trailed her left hand down the railing as she descended. A delicate gold band glinted on her ring finger. “After the doctor had checked you out.”
She was straight shouldered and leggy, fine boned and elegant. And though the voluminous shirt billow ing out over her jeans concealed her shape, he had no problem envisioning a curvy little figure under the crisp white cotton.
She’d reached the last step and was only an arm’s span away. To his astonishment, he saw she was trembling.
He reached out and took possession of her left hand. She started. Tried to tug it free. As she did, her perfume drifted to him, sweet roses spiced with carnation. Feminine and tantalizing. He tightened his grip.
“Well, hi, Mrs. Morgan,” he said softly, caressing her wedding band with the pad of his thumb. “How about a ‘Welcome home’ kiss for the injured warrior?”
Her lips parted in a gasp.
Her eyes sparked with indignation.
Her body language screamed rejection.
He did a mental double take. Had they quarreled before the accident? If so, whose fault had it been?
His, apparently!
Oh, what the heck—whoever had been at fault, it was time to make up. And the making up, he figured with a sense of pleasurable anticipation, would be fun.
Keeping her wrist trapped with one hand, he slid the fingers of the other through her hair to cup her head. And before she could catch her breath, he leaned forward and claimed her parted pink lips with his own.
From a foggy distance, he heard a child’s giggle.
“Jamie,” his daughter whispered, “Daddy’s kissing Mommie.”
But Mommie, Jedidiah realized with an uneasy jolt, wasn’t kissing Daddy back. And he’d enjoyed only a brief taste of satin-soft, heavenly sweet lips when she wrenched herself away from him.
Her next move stunned him: she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. And what stunned him even more than her undisguised disgust was the rage in her glare.
“That was inexcusable!” she hissed. “I know you want to get rid of me, but that’s a despicable way to go about it—taking advantage of me. Especially in front of the children!”
