now. As I told you a few minutes ago, the fall dazed her.”
When did she fall? Where?
“I’ll be right there.”
Feeling like he’d been kicked in the gut, he raced out of the house. Disobeying the speed limit, he drove his Saab to the hospital in record time.
He swallowed hard when he spotted her white Buick parked halfway up the block. Its presence confirmed that she had indeed driven to the hospital earlier that morning. She’d only been gone from the house a little more than an hour.
What in the hell had happened in that amount of time? The mention of a baby made no sense at all.
“I’m Mr. Rawlins,” he said the second he reached the admission desk outside the emergency room doors. “I’d like to see my wife, Diana.”
“Take a seat over there and someone will be right with you.”
With his adrenaline pumping, Cal preferred to remain standing. He would just as soon not have to look at all the anxious people who filled the reception area.
Thankfully the person who’d called the house had reassured him Diana’s condition wasn’t serious.
“Mr. Rawlins? I’m Dr. Farr, the one who first examined your wife. Come on in here and we’ll talk.”
Relieved to get some answers at last, Cal followed the short, wiry doctor through another set of doors to an empty examination room. He thought of course the other man would take him straight to Diana. The fact that he didn’t, served to deepen the pit in Cal’s stomach.
“Is my wife all right? That’s all I want to know.”
Dr. Farr looked up at Cal. “When she fell, she hit the back of her head hard enough to break the skin and form a small lump. The X ray didn’t reveal anything abnormal, but her concussion has left her disoriented. I’ve asked Dr. Harkness, a neurosurgeon on staff at the hospital, to come down and examine her. He should be here shortly.”
When the significance of his words sank in, Cal’s head reared back. “How bad is her disorientation?”
The other man eyed Cal compassionately. “A couple of ambulance attendants found her outside the emergency room entrance. She was sitting on the pavement in a dazed condition, clutching her baby.
“She couldn’t remember her name, where she lived, or what she was doing there. They had to look inside her purse for identification so they could call you.”
Good Lord.
Cal’s body broke out in a cold sweat. “Did someone see her fall? How do you know she wasn’t attacked?”
“We assume she slipped on the cement. The path is on an incline, so she probably fell backward. There was blood where her head hit, and the backs of her elbows are skinned. The baby didn’t appear to suffer any injury, but as you were told earlier, his bilirubin count is too high. To treat him for the jaundice, the pediatrician has put him under the lights.”
Cal shook his head in disbelief. “I have no idea whose baby it is.”
“A friend’s perhaps?”
“Possibly, though I can’t think of anyone close to us. Maybe Diana offered to baby-sit someone’s child and forgot to tell me. But I don’t see how that could be when she was on her way to work.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be too long before your wife starts to recall what happened.”
“I hope you’re right. Can I see her now?”
“Of course. Come with me. Please don’t be unduly concerned by her condition, Mr. Rawlins. Memory loss is a fairly common occurrence with some head injury patients.”
Memory loss was another word for amnesia. Just the word made Cal cringe.
“In the majority of cases, it’s temporary. She’ll probably be back to her normal self within twelve hours or so. I just wanted you to be prepared in case you went in to see her and she didn’t recognize you right away.”
Not recognize me?
Cal scoffed at the notion. She might be dazed, but there was no way in this world she wouldn’t know her own husband. They’d been soul mates from the moment they’d met.
Your soul could never forget an integral part of itself, he reasoned inwardly.
“She’s right in there. When you need to talk to me, I’ll be at the front desk.”
Nodding to the doctor Cal headed for the cubicle, his heart revving like a race engine. As he stepped inside the curtain, he couldn’t wait to embrace his wife who’d only been gone from his arms a short while.
He found Diana lying on her right side, facing him. From this angle he couldn’t tell that she’d sustained an injury to the back of her head.
Instead of the leaf-green shirtwaist dress which had molded her gorgeous figure earlier, she was wearing a hospital gown and appeared to be asleep. Her shoulder-length hair fanned out on the pillow, exactly as she’d worn it when she’d gotten ready for work.
Except for the smudges beneath her eyes where the dark lashes rested against her pale cheeks, she looked vulnerable as hell, but perfectly normal to him. Thank God.
Hopefully he’d be able to take her home within the next couple of hours.
One arm lay on top of the sheet covering her body. He leaned over to examine her elbow with his fingertip. The skin around the bandage showed definite signs of having been scraped. At the slight contact, her lips made an unfamiliar moue, then her eyelids fluttered open.
“Diana?” he cried in relief to see she was awake. In an instinctive move, he covered her mouth with his own, needing a repeat demonstration of the physical love they’d shared that morning before she’d left the house.
When she wouldn’t allow him to deepen their kiss, he tried gently to coax her lips apart to provoke the response he craved.
“No—” she begged in alarm. “Please don’t.” She pushed her free hand against his shoulder.
Never once in their lives had she rejected him. Bewildered by her behavior, he raised his head to look down at her. The green eyes staring back at him showed no sign of recognition. Only anxiety.
Lord.
She really doesn’t know who I arm.
That’s impossible!
“Diana, it’s me, Cal. Your husband. For the love of God, darling—Say something!”
He waited for her to cry out the words he needed to hear.
“I’m sorry,” she finally whispered, “but I have no idea who you are. Can I please talk to the doctor?”
Terror seized Cal’s heart so that he was slow to hear her plea.
The tall, broad-shouldered stranger at her bedside
