A Forever Christmas Read online

  It was Dan, not Gabe, who answered.

  “Very possibly,” the doctor allowed. “She took a pretty good blow to the head,” he judged, sizing up the head wound on her forehead just above her right eye. “That can really shake a person up.”

  “But she’s going to snap out of it, right?” Gabe asked. “It’ll all come back to her, won’t it? I mean, she’ll remember her name and why she wound up tottering on that ledge the way she did. Right?”

  Dan raised his shoulders in a wide shrug. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve heard of some amnesia cases going on for years, with the patient not any closer to getting any answers than they’d been at the very beginning. With other patients, it’s only a matter of a few hours. There’s really no telling how long it could actually take.”

  Years?

  The single word echoed in his head as Gabe looked at the still, unconscious face. The very idea sent a chill down his spine. He couldn’t picture enduring something like that himself. It was like a virtual prison sentence that extended to eternity.

  Gabe turned to the doctor. “So what do we do?” he asked.

  Dan could only give him the most general of terms. Everyone was different and healed at their own pace—if they healed at all.

  “We go slow,” he counseled. “Give her some space and make sure that she doesn’t feel pressured, just secure. Sometimes, the harder you try, the less progress you actually make.” Shrugging out of his coat and switching to a clean lab jacket, Dan paused to wash his hands. “Now, if you two don’t mind, I need you to leave me alone with my patient so I can attend to her wounds.”

  As Gabe reluctantly began to leave, Dan raised his voice and called after him. “Stick around, though. After I get done, I think it would be a good idea to take this woman to the hospital in Pine Ridge and get a CT scan of her head to make sure that everything’s all right.” Drying his hands, he looked from one deputy to the other. “I’ll need one of you to drive her over there.”

  Gabe surprised Alma by speaking up first. “I’ll do it.

  “Who do you think she is?” Gabe asked her once they were in the waiting room. For now, the room appeared to be empty.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Alma told him. “We could try going through the county’s recent missing-persons files posted on the internet. If there’s no match for her, I can widen the search. With any luck, she’ll probably get her memory back before then.”

  “What makes you say that?” he asked, curious.

  “Well, I’d say that having a car blow up a couple of seconds after you escape out of it can be pretty traumatizing. That kind of thing can cause temporary amnesia because the person isn’t able to deal with it right when it happened. It’s the brain’s way of protecting you,” she added by way of an explanation. Alma abruptly stopped talking when she saw the quizzical way her brother was staring at her. “What?”

  Gabe shook his head, clearly impressed. “I never realized you knew so much.”

  “I’m not quite sure whether to be flattered that you’re impressed, or insulted because you thought I was dumb.”

  “Not dumb,” he quickly corrected, and then lost some steam as he added, “just, well, my little sister.”

  “And consequently, dumb,” she concluded. Alma gave him a reproving look. “You might recall that I took college courses online and that I do have a degree in criminology.”

  Going to college online had been the only way she could have gotten her degree and still worked to help pay off her father’s huge pile of bills. Both causes were equally important to her.

  “Must’ve slipped my mind,” Gabe confessed, then focused on what she’d said. “So you really think she’ll remember who she is?”

  “If you mean is she suddenly going to pop up like toast and have total recall, probably not right away,” Alma judged, “but in time, I think it will all come back to her.”

  “And in the meantime?” he asked, sounding rather eager.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Gabe,” Alma cautioned. “Just take one step at a time.”

  “You’re the one who always said to be prepared,” he reminded her. “What if she never remembers who she is? Or it takes her a long time before she does? What if no one’s out there looking for her, or they didn’t have enough sense to file a missing-persons report? What’ll we do with her until then?” he asked. “There’s no motel or boardinghouse to put her up in.”

  “Forever’s a nice, friendly town,” Alma pointed out and then went on to assure her brother that, “We’ll think of something. But first things first. The doc said to have her checked out at the Pine Ridge hospital once he’s finished. So we need to get her there.” Ever the protective one, especially now that her mother was gone, Alma said, “I know you volunteered, but if you’re having second thoughts, I can take her to the hospital.”

  That might mean that she wouldn’t be back until morning. A newlywed, his sister belonged home at night.

  Gabe laughed, turning down her offer. “And have that lawyer husband of yours with his hundred-dollar words come looking for me? No, thanks. I’ll take the mystery woman to the hospital.”

  Alma’s protective streak instantly rose to defend her husband. “He only uses those words when he’s in court. You’re family.”

  “And I’d like to keep on being family,” Gabe informed her. “So I’ll be the one taking her to Pine Ridge.” When he saw Alma smiling at him knowingly, it was his turn to ask, “What?”

  “You’re really taken with her, aren’t you?” she asked, pleased.

  Gabe stared at her. In his opinion, his sister had just made one hell of a leap—and it led to nowhere. “She’s the first person I ever rescued from a car that was about to go over the side of a ravine, and then it burst into flames, so if that’s what you mean by ‘taken,’ then, yeah, I guess I’m ‘taken’ with her.”

  His eyes narrowed as he reminded her of an important point. “You were the one who thought that I should get involved in this—and by ‘this,’” he clarified, knowing how prone Alma could be to misinterpreting things if it suited her purposes, “I mean the sheriff’s department.”

  “I did and I still do,” Alma was quick to agree. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. You don’t usually pay attention to anything I say.”

  “That’s because, up until now,” Gabe deadpanned, “you weren’t saying anything really worthwhile listening to or going along with.”

  “According to you,” she qualified.

  “According to me,” he agreed with the most unreadable expression he could muster.

  Alma glanced at her watch and rose to her feet.

  “I’m going to go and update Rick about what’s going on with our mystery woman and then I’ll be back. If you decide that you’ve changed your mind about going to Pine Ridge—”

  He cut her off. “I won’t,” Gabe assured her.

  “Then never mind,” Alma said cheerfully. “Call me if something comes up,” she instructed just before she left the clinic.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he called after her.

  “That’s ‘Deputy Ma’am’ to you,” she tossed over her shoulder with a laugh. And then the front door closed after her.

  * * *

  DAN FINISHED HIS examination as well as stitching up the gash on the blonde’s forehead. His patient had remained unconscious through it all. For the time being, it was better that way for her. He was sufficiently certain that she would come around by-and-by.

  Stripping off his rubber gloves and tossing them into the wastebasket, he came out into the waiting room to fill Gabe in on his findings.

  “As far as I can tell, other than that gash on her forehead I had to stitch up, everything else seems all right. But I still think, just to be safe, she should get a CT scan of her head, make sure that there’s no internal bleeding that we’re overlooking.”

  “Wouldn’t there be other signs if there was internal bleeding?” Gabe asked. It seemed to h
im that there should be, but then, that was only a guess on his part.

  “Yes, but not always,” Dan told him. “Like that old saying goes, better to be safe than sorry.”

  Gabe shrugged. “I’m not going to argue that, but if she doesn’t know who she is and she has no ID, she sure as hell doesn’t have any medical insurance—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got this covered,” he assured the town’s newest deputy.

  Gabe only accepted so much on faith, the rest he questioned. “How?”

  Dan smiled. The man wasn’t very trusting. He could relate to that. He’d been the same way before he came to Forever, holding everything suspect until proven otherwise. It was an exhausting way to live.

  “I pulled a few strings. Turns out the head of the radiology department graduated in my class the same year I did. We even threw back a few together at a handful of parties.” He saw Gabe’s frown and guessed what the man was probably thinking. “Don’t worry, this job keeps you sober.”

  Gabe took the man’s word for it. “Did she wake up at all?” he asked.

  Dan shook his head. “She’s still unconscious, I’m afraid.”

  Gabe would have thought that the doctor would have looked a bit more concerned about that. “Shouldn’t we be worried by now?” Gabe asked.

  “Not necessarily, she’s had—”

  Whatever reassuring sentiment he was going to express was drowned out by the scream that pierced the air. It came from inside the exam room that Dan had just left.

  “Maybe we should start worrying now,” Gabe commented as both he and Dan rushed back into the exam room.

  They found the woman standing unsteadily before a mirror, her hands braced on either side of it to keep from falling to the floor. The expression reflected back appeared absolutely horrified.

  Seeing the men coming in behind her, the woman turned to face them. The movement was just a tad too sudden and it threw her equilibrium—still wobbly—off. She looked as if she was about to fall, but Gabe reached her first, catching hold of her and helping her remain vertical.

  Her eyes were wild as they went from the man holding on to her, to the slightly shorter man in the white lab coat. It was obvious that she was trying to place them—and couldn’t.

  “Why did you scream? What’s wrong?” Gabe asked her sharply.

  He’d come very close to drawing his service revolver. He had a feeling that would have frightened the blonde even more. She needed to trust him if they were ever going to get to the bottom of this.

  In response to his question, the woman pointed at the image in the mirror as if she was pointing at someone she didn’t know. There was uncertainty in her voice as she asked, “That’s me, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Dan answered, his tone calm, low.

  She continued staring as disbelief sank in. “I look like hell.”

  “That’s because you’ve been through hell,” Gabe replied.

  A shaky sigh escaped her lips. Then, unable to stand what she saw, the blonde turned away and looked at the two men who’d burst into the room, searching their faces. “What happened to me?”

  “You were in a car accident,” Gabe said gently, mimicking the voice his brother Eli used when he was training the quarter horses he sold. “When I found you, your car was on the verge of going over into a ravine. You’re a very lucky woman,” he concluded.

  She didn’t know about that. Tears stung her eyes, but her rising anger kept them back.

  “If I’m so lucky, why can’t I remember anything?” she demanded. “Why don’t I even know my own name or who I am?”

  “Hysterical amnesia,” Dan told her. Her eyes shifted toward him, waiting—hoping—for answers. Any answers. The desperation inside her needed something to hold on to. “It happens after an accident sometimes. Victims block things out until they can handle processing them.”

  “Victims,” she repeated.

  Was that what she was? A victim? Did she feel like a victim? she wondered, trying to examine her feelings. Nothing came to her. She honestly didn’t know. What did victims feel like?

  “Am I all right?” she asked the man in the white lab jacket.

  “So far,” he replied cautiously. “But Gabe is going to take you to the hospital, to make sure.”

  “Gabe?” she repeated. The name meant nothing to her. Should it have? “Who’s Gabe?”

  “That would be me.” Gabe raised his hand a little, drawing her attention to him as he gave her his most reassuring smile.

  Chapter Four

  She shifted her eyes from one man to the other and then back again, hoping for something. A glimmer of a memory, an elusive flash of recognition, anything.

  But there was nothing. Not so much as a hint of a hint.

  “When is my memory going to come back?” she asked the doctor.

  Right now, she felt like an empty vessel. She had no memories to access, no thoughts to fill her head. Nothing but a vast wasteland stretched before her, leading nowhere, involving nothing. The loneliness of that was almost unbearable.

  “That’s hard to say,” he told her honestly. “It varies from person to person. You could remember everything in a few hours, or—”

  “Or?” she prompted, battling back an ever-growing sense of desperation. Was it purely due to her wanting to remember?

  Or did it involve something she wanted to forget? She just didn’t know.

  “Or you could never remember. But that’s rather rare,” he added.

  “But it does happen,” she pressed, not wanting him to sugarcoat anything.

  She did her best to find a way to brace herself for never getting beyond this moment right now, and yet how could she since she had nothing to draw upon?

  “Rarely,” Gabe emphasized, speaking up. He noticed the look that Dan gave him. Probably wondering where I got my medical degree, Gabe thought. But he just couldn’t let that devastated expression on her face continue. “No point in dwelling on possible worst-case scenarios. If it turns out to be that way, you’ve gained nothing by making yourself miserable,” he explained. “And if it doesn’t, well, then you’ve wasted a lot of precious time anticipating something that turned out not to happen.”

  A pragmatic thought rose to the fore—was she like that at heart? Or did this reaction just naturally evolve from her form of resignation? Again, nothing answered her silent query.

  “From where I’m standing,” she told Gabe, “looks to me like I’ve got nothing but time to waste.”

  “You’re not going to be wasting time,” Gabe told the blonde cheerfully. “You’re coming with me, remember? To Pine Ridge Memorial to see what they have to say about all this.”

  It felt as if her head was spinning around in endless circles and she just wasn’t making any headway. Both Gabe and the doctor seemed to be nice, but were they? And why were they so willing to go out of their way for her like this?

  “Do I know either one of you?” she asked, looking from one face to another again.

  But her reaction to either man was just the same as it had been a moment earlier. Neither one looked the least bit familiar, woke up nothing in her depleted memory banks.

  “No, you don’t,” Dan answered for both of them.

  Even in her present limited state, she knew that just didn’t make any sense. “Then why are you doing this? Why are you taking me to a hospital in another town?”

  “Because there is no hospital here,” Dan replied matter-of-factly.

  “Because you need help,” Gabe told her almost at the same time.

  It still didn’t make sense to her. “And that’s enough?” she questioned, puzzled.

  Something told her that she wasn’t accustomed to selfless people. That everyone was always out for their own special interests.

  “It is for me,” Gabe told her. “And for the doc,” he added, nodding at the other man.

  Damn but the way this woman looked at him made him want to leap tall buildings in a single bound and change the cours
e of mighty rivers, just like the comic-book hero of long ago. The very thought worried him. And yet, he couldn’t quite make himself back off. Couldn’t just turn her over to either Alma or Joe.

  This woman was his responsibility. His to help.

  “Let’s go,” he urged the woman, putting his hand lightly to the small of her back. A thought occurred to him before they’d gone two steps. “Unless you’d like to get something to eat first?” he suddenly suggested. He looked over his shoulder at Dan to see if the doctor had any objections about the slight delay in getting to the hospital. “Would it make any difference if she got a bite to eat first before going to the hospital for those tests you ordered?”

  During his exam, Dan had already checked her eyes extensively, using a probing light to determine the condition of her optic nerves. As a result, he was satisfied that there was no imminent danger, no swelling as far as he could see.

  “I didn’t detect anything that needed immediate attention,” Dan told both of them.

  Gabe had his answer and was pleased Dan sided with him. “All right, then, why don’t we get you something to eat at Miss Joan’s and then we’ll be on our way.” It wasn’t a suggestion so much as a plan.

  “Miss Joan’s?” she repeated, confused. Everything sounded like a huge mystery, a question mark to her, and she’d already become weary of the blanks that she kept drawing.

  The older woman had always been known to one and all as “Miss Joan.” “Miss Joan owns the only diner in town. Best food you’ve ever had,” he promised her.

  “How would I know?” she answered, raising and lowering her shoulders in a vague, careless shrug. After all, she had nothing to compare it to. She might as well have lived in a cave these last—how old was she, anyway? Something else that she didn’t know, she thought, frustrated.

  “Trust me, it is,” Gabe easily assured her as he ushered the woman out the door. Turning, he called out, “Thanks, Doc.”

  She took her cue from that, turning her head as well and calling out, “Yes, thank you.”

  With a quick wave, Dan turned back to go inside the clinic just as he saw two of his patients heading toward the building.