apologetic shrug that was inexplicably familiar. “My brother Tim saw your picture in the newspaper. He’s a truck driver and he stops in L.A. sometimes.”
Hugh and Andrew had been photographed at a recent medical conference. That didn’t explain why this woman would come to see him.
He glanced at the chart. “You live in Mercy Canyon. Where’s that?”
“San Diego County,” she said. “It’s amazing. You look exactly like him. You talk like him, too.”
An uncomfortable suspicion sprang up inside Hugh. “Like who?”
Although the recent photo caption didn’t mention his earlier disappearance, the newspapers had written it up at the time. The unfortunate result had been several attempts to defraud him.
One man claimed he was owed a large gambling debt, and a couple contended they were due hundreds of dollars in back rent. None of them could produce witnesses or signed documents, and the threat of a police investigation had put an end to their claims.
Now this woman contended she had known someone exactly like him. Maybe she’d stumbled across the information on the Internet and decided to try to squeeze out some money.
Yet she didn’t strike Hugh as the manipulative type. Perhaps someone else had put her up to it.
Meg swallowed hard and picked up her daughter. “You can’t have forgotten Dana. You delivered her yourself.”
“I haven’t delivered babies since my internship.” Hugh kept his tone level.
“The paramedics said you were as good as a doctor, and I couldn’t figure it out because you didn’t even have a high school education. You worked at a cafe, like me.” Now that she’d started talking, the words spilled out. “Then you vanished with my car. You left us at a gas station. Doesn’t this ring a bell?”
“Mrs. Avery, you’re clearly distressed,” Hugh said gently. “But I’ve never seen you before.”
“The longer I talk to you, the more sure I am that you’re my husband!”
“Your husband?”
She shifted her daughter against her shoulder. “It’s so hard…you have to remember, Joe. Wait! I can prove it.”
She set the little girl on a chair and fumbled in her purse. From the doorway, Andrew peered in and frowned. “What’s going on?”
“He’s my husband!” Meg said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for him.”
“You believe my brother is your husband?” Andrew lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
Hugh felt awkward for the woman. She spoke so sincerely and so urgently. And the little girl did resemble him, especially those unusual green eyes.
“Look!” Meg Avery thrust a photograph into his hand.
It was a candid shot of her and a man, both beaming at the camera. The man was the spitting image of Hugh.
“He does resemble me.” He passed the picture to Andrew.
His brother glanced at it. “Photographs can be altered. Besides, you can’t tell me you married a man without knowing who he was.”
“I did know, or I thought I did,” Meg said. “Joe was from Tennessee. Right after he got to California, he fell off a pier in Oceanside and nearly drowned, and he lost his memory. He had ID but…” She stopped in confusion.
“What?” Hugh asked.
“Well…” She spoke hesitantly. “After he vanished, I remembered little things. Like that the picture on his driver’s license was a poor resemblance. And it had his height wrong, too.”
Andrew regarded the woman scornfully. “Let me see if I get this right. You think my brother—a respected pediatrician—stole someone’s ID, married you and then fled? Oh, sure. It happens all the time.”
“Wait a minute,” Hugh said. “Neither of us knows what I did while I had amnesia. I was missing for quite a while.”
“When?” Meg asked.
“I turned up two years ago.”
“That’s when Joe left me!” she said. “I can show you the police report.”
Her story wasn’t as far-fetched as it might seem, Hugh had to admit. He’d disappeared at sea in the accident that killed his friend Rick. Could he have washed up and been mistaken for another accident victim?
On the other hand, if someone had invented this tale, he or she had cleverly woven in the well-publicized details. And chosen a child the right age to fit the timing.
“You’re saying that this is my daughter?” Now Hugh understood why the little girl had called him Daddy. If she’d been deliberately lied to as part of a scheme, it had been a cruel thing to do.
“She is yours,” Meg said. “Can’t you see she’s got your eyes?”
“How do we even know she belongs to you?” Andrew said. “You could have borrowed her to pull a scam.”
Hugh wanted to kick his brother. Whatever Andrew’s opinion of the woman, he shouldn’t speak so harshly in front of the little girl. “The whole question can be resolved by a DNA test,” he said quietly.
This was the point at which he expected Meg to feign outrage. With her unruly hair and flashing amber eyes, she could make a great show of being offended.
Of course, she’d never really had a chance of conning him. A doctor wouldn’t buy a story like hers without proof, but this woman and whoever had encouraged her might be too unsophisticated to realize that.
She visibly fought to subdue the anger smoldering in her gaze. “All right. What do you need? A blood sample?”
Her agreement startled Hugh. Maybe she honestly believed him to be her missing husband.
“That would suffice.” He turned to Andrew. “Would you draw blood for us?”
“You’re joking, right?” said his brother. “You’re not going to dignify this nonsense by submitting to a test!”
Hugh supposed it was insulting to have to go to such lengths to defend himself. He might have withdrawn his offer, except for the tears trembling on the little girl’s lashes.
The grown-ups’ arguing clearly had upset her. He’d always been empathetic toward children, and this girl’s wistfulness touched him deeply.
“What harm can it do? And it will resolve the matter completely.” To Meg, he said, “It’ll take about a week to get the results.”
“I can wait.” While Andrew went to find syringes, Hugh rolled up his sleeve and swabbed his arm with alcohol. He did the same for Dana, while explaining gently that it would hurt a little but was for a good cause.
She believed him instantly. As he leaned close, he inhaled her
