The Maverick's Christmas To Remember

“Hey, Caroline.” Josselyn squeezed Caroline’s hand, accidentally dislodging some little white wires and causing a shrill beep.

“Don’t worry. It’s just the oxygen reader,” the doctor offered, putting the plastic device back over Caroline’s pointer finger. “You up for answering some questions?”

“Sure,” Caroline said as she tried to sit up. She was relieved that the rest of her body cooperated and that her head was the only thing hurting.

“Do you know your name?” Dr. Robinson asked.

“Caroline Ruth.”

“And what day is it?”

She blinked a couple of times until it came back to her. “November 21.”

“Good.” The doctor’s bright white smile was reassuring. “And what did you have for breakfast today?”

Caroline’s stomach rumbled at the reminder. “Only a couple of bites of a protein bar. I should’ve gotten a breakfast sandwich at Daisy’s this morning but I didn’t want to be late for my appointment.”

“Oh? What kind of appointment?”

“I’m a wedding planner.”

The physician looked over to Josselyn, who nodded in agreement. The questions must be part of some kind of test and Caroline hoped she was passing.

Dr. Robinson lifted a finger in front of Caroline’s nose. “Do you know where you live?”

Caroline’s eyes followed the finger as she rattled off the address for the tiny guest house she’d rented in the heart of Rust Creek Falls several months ago. The sooner she answered everything and proved she was perfectly fine, the sooner she could get something to eat.

“What’s the last thing you remember before coming to the hospital?”

“I was talking to Josselyn about her wedding and I climbed up on a chair to get the binder with a brochure for a venue when...” Caroline trailed off as she couldn’t recall what had occurred after that. Lifting her fingers to stroke her forehead, she asked, “Is that how I fell?”

“Yes,” Josselyn said, sighing as though she’d been holding her breath up until this point. “You went face-first into one of the shelves on your way down and were out cold. We didn’t want to wait for an ambulance, so we brought you straight to the ER.”

“We?” Caroline asked and looked around the room. There was another man near the partitioned curtain of the exam room, but he’d been talking to a nurse outside and she’d assumed he was another doctor.

“That’s—” Josselyn started, but Dr. Robinson cut her off.

“Do you know the name of this man?”

“No idea,” Caroline replied, hoping her honesty wouldn’t mean that she couldn’t get a snack soon. When she’d been ten years old, her dad had to be rushed to the hospital near the faculty housing at Berkeley. He’d insisted that it was only heartburn and asked Caroline to go to the cafeteria and get him some vanilla soft serve to soothe the acid. Turned out it was a perforated gallbladder and because he’d eaten the ice cream, the anesthesiologist delayed the surgery until his stomach was empty. It had been a long ten hours of her dad doing his awful Oliver Twist impression by begging for more food and insisting he was starving.

“Technically, she hadn’t met me prior to her fall.” The man the doctor had just asked about stepped forward and placed an arm around Josselyn’s waist. “I’m Drew Strickland, by the way. You’re planning our wedding. We had just walked in the door and you’d turned to look at us. That’s when you got your foot twisted in the chair and fell.”

“We?” Caroline asked again, feeling like a parrot. Her eyelids were getting heavy again and all she wanted was a hot breakfast sandwich and a nap. “Who’s we?”

“Me and—” Drew was cut off by Dr. Robinson holding up a hand like a stop sign.

“Do you remember them walking in the door before you fell?” the emergency room physician asked.

Caroline focused on a bright red electric outlet on the wall in an effort to concentrate, trying to form an image in her mind. But nothing was coming to her. She replayed the events of the morning over and over again, and the weight of the silence in the room suggested that everyone else knew what two plus two equaled and were desperately waiting for her to shout out, “Four!”

However, she was drawing a complete blank. In fact, she was positive that there wasn’t anything else that happened after that. She was getting tired again, probably from concentrating so hard, and just wanted to fall asleep. Couldn’t they simply tell her what had happened and let her take a nap?

“Sorry, I don’t.” Caroline shrugged, then yawned. “The last thing I remember was reaching for that binder on the top shelf.”

It was then that a second man walked into the room and Caroline’s breath caught as he took off his cowboy hat and ran a golden hand through his black, close-cropped hair.

Her entire body eased back onto the bed and she smiled in relief, everything finally making sense. “Oh, there you are.”

“So you know him?” the doctor asked, jerking a thumb to the newcomer.

“Of course,” Caroline said, then blinked slowly as the pillow cradled her head. “That’s my fiancé.”

* * *

Her fiancé?

Craig’s head whipped around to the hallway behind him. But nobody else was there. He opened his mouth to tell the doctor that he’d never even met this woman, but nothing came out. The air had been sucked out of his lungs, and probably out of the entire room, judging by the equally confused expressions on everyone else’s faces.

Caroline’s head injury must be more serious than they’d originally thought if she was babbling incoherent randomness. Scratch that. Her statement had been clear and articulate, but it made absolutely no sense. Nor did the way she was looking at him, her doe-shaped brown eyes all dreamy and her wide lips parted in a hazy smile as though he was the only one in the room, or at least the only person who mattered. It was the same look Tina had given him before she’d died, and the comparison made his blood go cold.

Caroline looked nothing like his high school sweetheart, but Craig’s memory had already been triggered, and that rush of helplessness filled his veins the same way it had all those years ago when they’d been trapped on the highway, waiting for the rescue workers to pry them out of the wreckage. He would’ve looked to Drew or Josselyn for an answer, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Caroline.

Logically, he knew he wasn’t reliving that awful night nearly fifteen years ago, but when Caroline’s eyes finally drifted closed, Craig raced to her bedside and grabbed her hand as though he alone could will her back to consciousness.

“She’ll be fine,” the ER doctor told him with a gentle pat on the shoulder, a move likely designed to reassure loved ones. No doubt, it had worked for the doc countless times in the past. The only difference in this situation was that Craig didn’t know the current patient, let alone love her.

“But I’m not—” Craig started and Dr. Robinson interrupted him.

“Let’s step into the hallway where we can talk.” The physician’s reassuring pat turned into a firm nudge as she steered him toward the nurses’ station.

Craig turned back toward his friends, who were slowly following them. Josselyn’s mouth was slightly open and there were a few squiggly creases between her eyebrows while Drew simply stared in concern as though Craig had been the one to hit his head and get the sense knocked out of him.

Not that Craig could blame the guy. There might be plenty of reasons why Caroline accidentally called him her fiancé, but there was absolutely no explanation for his intense emotional reaction to someone who was a total stranger.

While it was already embarrassing that the others saw him respond like that, it would be even more confusing and downright mortifying to explain what prompted him to run to her side and clutch her hand as though she was dying.

Despite the couple approaching, Dr. Robinson faced Craig and directed most of the information his way. Something about a concussion and needing consent for a CT scan to rule out any long-term damage. “My recommendation is to run a few more tests and then have her stay overnight for observation. Does your fiancée have any other family members we should notify or can you authorize consent?”

“She’s not my fiancée.” The words finally tumbled out of Craig’s mouth in a rush as he tugged on the collar of his work shirt. “In fact, I’ve never met her before.”

“Well, she certainly lit up when you came in the room,” Dr. Robinson replied, one hand on her hip as though she wasn’t buying Craig’s version of the situation. “I didn’t even need to shine my light in her eyes when I was examining her because her pupils contracted and focused on you like you were the be-all and end-all.”

“I promise I’ve never seen her before today. Right?” Craig shot a pleading look toward Drew for confirmation. “I have no idea why she would think we knew each other, let alone that we’re engaged. Maybe I resemble her real fiancé and the concussion just has her brain rattled?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s single.” Josselyn finally spoke up and Craig felt the oxygen slowly return to his lungs. “We’ve only talked a handful of times, but she’s never mentioned a significant other. Plus, she doesn’t have an engagement ring.”

At first Craig was filled with a sort of vindication from the proof that he wasn’t her fiancé. However, that was soon replaced by utter bafflement. “Then why would she imagine herself being in a serious relationship at all?”

“Maybe she has amnesia?” Josselyn suggested.

“I suppose that’s possible.” Drew turned down one corner of his mouth, his expression suggesting that it wasn’t possible at all. “However, she had full recollection of all the events leading up to her fall.”

“It could be confabulation.” Dr. Robinson now spoke to Drew, her voice lowered as she threw out phrases such as memory production and cognitive distortion and something else Craig couldn’t quite make out.

“Hmm.” Drew nodded. “I’ve read case studies, but have never seen it manifested in a patient.”

Craig rolled his eyes. “Do you think you guys could use some layman terms for us nondoctors?”

“Confabulation is similar to amnesia in that it’s a memory disturbance. It can happen when there is some type of damage to the brain. Caroline seems to remember almost everything leading up to her injury, but to fill in the gaps on what she doesn’t know, her mind has invented a story to explain it.”

Oh, boy. He should’ve stayed in Thunder Canyon this week. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Craig asked, “But why would she need to make up a lie about being engaged?”

“It’s not a lie.” Dr. Robinson shook her head. “To her, it’s very real.”

“Okay, so then we just tell her that she doesn’t know me and that she doesn’t have a fiancé and she’s good to go.” He slapped his palms together as though it were that simple. And it would’ve been if Craig had been speaking to the vet out on the ranch. Cows and horses never had issues like this.

Dr. Robinson shared another look with Drew before answering. “In theory, we would always recommend telling a patient the truth. But in this case, she hit her forehead, where the frontal lobe is encased, and that makes it hard for her to retrieve and evaluate memories. So in instances of confabulation, it doesn’t matter what you say. Her brain is in a fragile state right now and will only be able to understand what her frontal lobe is telling her.”

“How long does this last?” Craig folded his arms across his chest and looked longingly toward the ER exit doors. “I mean, do I actually have to pretend to be her fiancé?”

“I’m sure Dr. Robinson doesn’t want you to pretend to be anything,” Drew offered, looking at his watch.

“No, of course not. I’m simply recommending that we don’t upset the patient until all the tests come back and we know more about what’s going on.”

“So when will that happen?”

“As soon as her fiancé gives us consent?”

“But I’m not—”

Dr. Robinson held up her palm. “I was kidding. When she wakes up again, we can get her verbal consent. But is there anybody else we should notify in the meantime? Anyone else who can give us a better medical history?”

All eyes turned toward Josselyn again. “I looked through her purse, but I couldn’t find her cell phone. I heard back from Vivienne earlier, and she confirmed that Caroline’s parents are out of the country right now on some sort of teaching sabbatical and she doesn’t remember her mentioning any friends or family nearby. I would hate to leave her here all alone. What if she wakes up and is confused again?”

“Obviously, we can’t leave her here alone,” Craig said.

Drew looked at his watch a second time. “I have to get back to Rust Creek Falls before my son gets out of school.”

“I’d stay, but I have to speak at the city council meeting this evening to ask for extra funding for the elementary school library. If I miss it, I’ll have to wait another month to get my proposal approved.”

“Maybe I’ll call Ben and ask...” Drew started.

“No way,” Craig said, shaking his head before his friend could even finish the thought. “I can stick around.”

Chapter Three

The words had flown out of Craig’s mouth before they’d had a chance to logically form in his brain. Not because his skin itched with jealousy at the mention of another man staying with Caroline when she was this vulnerable, but because Craig hadn’t been able to shake this sense of responsibility for her since he’d seen her slipping off that chair. If he tried to explain this impulse, it wouldn’t make sense to his friends. Hell, it didn’t even make sense to him.

“I mean, if I’m her... I...uh...mean...if Caroline thinks I’m her fiancé, then obviously she’ll be expecting me to be here when she wakes up. I wouldn’t want to make things worse. And it’s not like it’s a big deal,” Craig added, more for his own benefit than to convince his friends. “I’m not really doing anything else today.”

It was true. The late fall season was the slowest time on his family’s ranch because they’d already sent their latest herds to market and didn’t plan to start breeding the new calves until after the new year. He was in Rust Creek Falls to visit two of his brothers and to check in with some of the other local ranchers for what his dad referred to as “old-fashioned market research.”

Josselyn frowned. “I’m not sure if it would be in Caroline’s best interest to let her continue thinking that you two are really engaged. After all, she’ll get her memory back eventually, won’t she?”

Dr. Robinson lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Like I said, we’ll know more after her tests. I’d feel better holding off on any treatment plan or official diagnosis just yet, but if it is confabulation strictly caused by a brain injury and not caused by a mental health issue or dementia, then this memory setback likely won’t last too long. With all that being said, while I wouldn’t advocate lying to a patient, I don’t necessarily see any harm in letting them believe in whatever is going to give them a sense of peace for the time being. Our biggest goal right now is to keep Caroline as calm and relaxed as possible.”

Drew looked at his watch again. “Are you sure you want to stay, Craig?”

“I don’t want to,” Craig clarified, more for himself than for anyone else listening. “But if it’s the easiest solution and it will keep Caroline calm so that she can heal, then I’ll do it.”

There, that sounded plausible enough, even to his own ears. After several more rounds of “Are you sure?” followed by Craig’s growing insistence, he eventually found himself sitting on the miserable plastic chair beside her bed in the exam room, drinking cold coffee and scrolling on his smartphone for the latest feed and grain reports. It wasn’t the same as getting out to the other ranches and talking directly to his fellow cattlemen, but he couldn’t just blow off all his work duties to sit around playing nurse.

Normally, he rarely used the device except for making calls and often told his brothers that any cattleman worth his salt didn’t rely on fancy gadgets that could easily get busted working on the ranch. If Craig was in the field and needed information off the internet, he usually just asked his brother Rob or waited until he could use the computer at the house. However, now that their father had been bitten with the technology bug and insisted on sending group texts with links to online articles, Craig found himself a reluctant user.

“Do you think I could have one of your Life Savers?” Caroline’s soft voice was so unexpected that Craig dropped his phone, its reinforced hard-shell case preventing the screen from cracking on the tile floor.

“Huh?” Craig asked, then wanted to kick himself for sounding like such a dope.

“One of your Life Savers.” Caroline pointed to the front pocket of his shirt, where he always stashed a roll of his favorite cherry-flavored candy.

His chin dropped toward the empty pocket. Okay, now that was weird. He’d had less than half a roll when he’d left his brother’s house this morning and then had nervously plowed through the rest of them by the time Caroline had undergone her MRI. Since she’d never been conscious during any of the times he’d popped one into his mouth, there was no way for her to be aware of his little sugar habit.

“How do you know about my Life Savers?” he asked, trying his best not to completely disregard the doctor’s instructions about keeping Caroline calm.

“You always have them,” she replied, her smile all dreamy again and his insides responding the same way they had the last time she’d woken up and grinned at him. “Plus, you smell like cherries.”

Craig let out the breath he’d been holding, mildly relieved with the second part of her explanation. “Do you know who I am?”

Caroline’s smooth forehead pinched into several lines as she studied him. Thinking that maybe she’d lost a pair of glasses in the fall and couldn’t see his face clearly, Craig leaned closer as intense concentration took over her expression. She opened her pouty bow-shaped lips several times before defeat filled her eyes. “I don’t know why I can’t think of your name.”

“It’s Craig,” he replied, wanting to pump his fist in celebration. Not that he should be basking in her confusion, but if she didn’t know his name, then she’d finally realized that he was actually a complete stranger. That meant that her amnesia spell or confabulation—or whatever it was—had finally passed and she no longer needed him to take care of her. He extended his hand as he introduced himself. “I’m Craig Clifton.”

Caroline inhaled deeply through her nose as she nodded. But instead of taking his proffered handshake, she laced her fingers through his. “Of course you are. I must’ve hit my head pretty hard to forget my own fiancé’s name.”

* * *

Poor Craig looked about as confused as Caroline felt. It must be difficult for him to see the woman he loved like this. But then again, at least he wasn’t the one who’d completely forgotten most of the specifics about the person he was supposed to be marrying. Hopefully, it wasn’t a bad omen for their relationship if she could perfectly recall every other detail of her life except for the one that was arguably the most important.

She squeezed her eyes closed as though it might help paint a more accurate picture of the man in her mind. Caroline remembered the hook-shaped scar on his neck, she remembered he liked cherry-flavored candy and... And that was where all the details stopped.

“Are you in pain?” Craig asked. “Should I call for a nurse?”

“Oh, no.” Caroline’s lids popped open. “I was just trying really hard to recall something more concrete about us, like how long we’ve been together or where we first met or where you live and work. But I’m drawing a complete blank, and to be honest, it’s making me a little nervous.”

“Don’t be nervous,” he said quickly, then rolled his lips inward, causing him look like a child who was trying to bite back a secret. The expression didn’t exactly alleviate her fears. Her growing anxiety must have been obvious because he added, “The doctor said that when you hit your head, it might have caused a few problems with your memory.”

Panic clawed at her throat, and she could feel the cold, dry air hitting her eyes as they grew wider than normal. “Like amnesia?”

“Not exactly.” Craig rubbed the scarred area of his neck. “The doctor called it something else, but it’s similar. She can probably explain it to you way better than I can.”

Craig stood up, and his cowboy boots clicked against the floor as he strode over to the open curtain and waved down a hospital employee in surgical scrubs. Caroline couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his thumb gestured her way and her gaze traveled from his hand down his tan, muscular forearms to where his red plaid work shirt was rolled to the elbows. Because of the way he was standing, Caroline could only study him from a side angle, but as she took in his well-rounded shoulders and flat abs and long, strong legs encased in faded denim, she couldn’t help but wonder how in the world she could possibly have forgotten a perfect form like his.

When he pivoted to walk back toward Caroline, her tummy dropped and she got light-headed again. The view from the front was just as good as the one from the side. Heat flooded her cheeks and she asked, “Do you think I could possibly have a drink of water?”

“I asked the doctor about you being able to eat or drink when you woke up and she said only a sip of water until after your CT scan. She doesn’t anticipate you needing any sort of surgery, but they haven’t ruled it out yet.”

The mention of surgery should’ve had her concerned. Instead, a sense of relief blossomed inside her chest. It was reassuring that her fiancé knew her well enough to understand that she’d be worried about eating and drinking and obviously had taken steps to provide answers for her. Maybe she’d even told him the story about her dad’s gallbladder surgery and the soft-serve ice cream. It was crazy to think that this man beside her was probably privy to all of her secrets and all of her needs. Now if only she could recall some of his preferences—besides candy, obviously—then they’d be on equal footing.

Craig picked up a water bottle from the bedside tray table and unscrewed the plastic cap before gently holding it to her lips. “Not too much, now.”

As she drank, she made the mistake of lifting her eyes to his face and was hit with such an intense attraction that she swallowed way too quickly and began coughing. Craig used the back of his hand to wipe the water that had dribbled down her chin. It was such an intimate gesture, not necessarily in a sexual way but in the way someone would take care of a loved one.

Something warm spread through Caroline’s body. She was loved. By this man. While the feeling wasn’t entirely familiar to her, it was certainly exciting. And very welcome. After all, Caroline had known that she wanted to be a wife and a mother since kindergarten, when she and five-year-old Scott Sullivan had staged a mock wedding during recess. Unfortunately, they’d barely gotten through the first-grade minister’s line of “You may kiss the bride,” before the teacher had put a stop to things and called Caroline’s and Scott’s parents to inform them that students needed to keep their hands—and their lips—to themselves at school. When her mother asked why she’d wanted to marry Scott Sullivan, Caroline had told her that he was the only boy who wasn’t playing handball that day. After that, Rita Rodriguez, department chair for Women and Gender Studies at Wellesley College, had made her daughter promise that she would never settle for a man.

And Caroline never did again. In fact, she hadn’t so much as had a boyfriend because every guy she’d ever gone out with hadn’t felt like “the one.”

So, while she couldn’t remember a thing about the handsomely rugged cowboy before her, Caroline had every confidence that she belonged with him. Unlike her recess-length courtship with the first available kindergartner, there was a powerful emotional connection between Caroline and Craig. Because of her absent memory, she didn’t understand it right that second but she felt it deep in her core. In twenty-three years, her instincts had never led her astray, and even her normally evidence-based mother had to admit that when Caroline felt something, she really felt it. In fact, after her college graduation, Caroline’s father had given her a framed quote by Charles Dickens that read “A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”