I can get on with my life. Can we try hypnosis?”
Dr. Weisensale studied her pensively. “Have you had anymore flashbacks?”
She’d called him about the shadowy remembrance of hanging baby clothes on a washline, how it had seemed like a memory, but yet unreal, too. Maybe something out of her imagination instead. “No, not since I phoned you.”
“Do you ever feel as if you might remember? As if your last name and where you’re from are teetering right on the edge of your consciousness?”
“Sometimes. Especially when I’m with the twins at the day-care center. That’s what’s so confusing. I know I can’t be a mother, but maybe I was a nanny. Maybe I watched over children in my job. Everything about taking care of them comes so naturally.”
Again he studied her. “Emma, I want you to think about something. Sometimes amnesia has a physical cause and sometimes it doesn’t.”
“You’ve mentioned that before.”
“Your tests all came back clean and I want you to consider something. Sometimes amnesia around a trauma is self-induced. It’s a possibility that you had a life you don’t want to remember.”
Emma’s dismay must have shown on her face.
“I’m not saying that’s the actuality,” he went on, “but it’s something to think about.”
“I do want to remember, doctor.”
His expression was kind. “You think you do, but your subconscious might think otherwise. Still, the fact that you’re having any flashbacks is positive. I’d rather you waited to try hypnosis at least another month or two. I know how frustrating this must be, but you must be patient. It truly is better if you remember on your own.”
“But what if I never remember? I need to have a life, and I can’t have a life without a Social Security number!” When she said it, she realized how preposterous that sounded. But in a way it was true. She couldn’t work without one. She didn’t even know if she could take a driving test without one.
“I’m sure you fall under some kind of special circumstances and that can be remedied if the amnesia lasts.”
“I don’t want to owe other people, doctor. First Aunt Gertie took me in, now Tucker. It’s embarrassing sometimes.”
“Something tells me, Emma, that you were a very independent woman, whoever you were before this bump on the head. I’ll tell you what. Give it one more month. If you don’t have any significant flashbacks, if nothing has changed, I’ll contact a psychologist I know who’s trained in hypnotherapy. Fair enough?”
Another month under Tucker’s roof…unless she remembered on her own, unless he found another lead to her identity. But there was really nothing else she could do right now. “All right, another month. But then I see a hypnotherapist.”
When Emma appeared in the waiting room, Tucker saw she was frowning, and after she went to the receptionist’s window and spoke with her, she looked upset. But there was a couple sitting in the waiting room now and he wanted to talk to her in private. She took her coat from the rack with a determined yank and didn’t wait for Tucker to help her with it. Then she was out the door and down the walk toward the truck before he zipped his jacket.
He caught up with her before she opened her door. “Emma, what’s wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s just hunky-dory. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I should live. I don’t even know my birth date. And on top of all that, Dr. Weisensale suggested again that maybe I don’t want to remember any of that. If I don’t want to remember my past, doesn’t that make you wonder what kind of past I have?”
“I’m sure your past is very respectable.” Tucker tried to be soothing.
“Respectable? I don’t feel as if my present is respectable. Aunt Gertie took me in. Now you’ve taken me in. And Dr. Weisensale told his receptionist there was no charge for today. He thinks I’m a charity case. I’m not, Tucker. I want to get a job. I want to work. I want to—” She bit her lower lip, and he could see her chin quiver.
Clasping her by the shoulders, he gazed into her beautiful green eyes that were shiny with tears. “I know this is frustrating for you. I wish I could do more to help.”
“I don’t want you to do more to help. I want to help myself. I asked about hypnotism, but Dr. Weisensale wants me to give it another month. A month, Tucker.”
“Is staying with me so bad?” he teased, thinking about her spending another month under his roof…in the bedroom beside his.
She let out a breath with a sigh and then gave him a weak smile. “No, of course not.”
He wanted to pull her into his arms and protect her. He wanted to set his lips on hers and taste her again. But instead, he lifted her chin with his thumb. “I think you need some perspective, time out of the house to enjoy yourself. Why don’t we go to the diner for a quick supper, then catch a movie?”
“A movie?”
“Yeah. I can’t remember the last time I went to a movie theater. And I know you can’t, either,” he said with a grin.
She looked startled for a moment, and then she laughed. “You’re right about that. All right, Sheriff Malone, you’re on. The blue-plate special and a movie. That should give me exactly the perspective I need.”
Her eyes were sparkling now, and her lips turned up in the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. Quickly he released her, then opened the door for her. When she climbed inside, he shut it, wondering what in the hell he’d just gotten himself into.
As usual, Vern’s Diner was bustling with a full capacity crowd. Tucker and Emma stood inside for a moment, searching for an empty table or booth. From a few feet away, Tucker felt glances on them.
A woman leaned over to the man who was with her and asked him, “Isn’t that the woman who doesn’t know who she is?”
Tucker could tell that Emma had overheard the comment, too. A shadow passed over her face, and he moved closer to her. “Maybe we should go to Chez Stork up the street. It would be quieter.”
Chez Stork wasn’t only quieter, but a lot more expensive and very elite. There was an aura of intimacy there that Tucker would rather avoid. But he didn’t want Emma to feel uncomfortable.
Emma gazed up at him, her green eyes serious. “Would you rather leave? Just because I’m the talk of the town doesn’t mean you should be.”
“Talk doesn’t bother me.”
Emma nodded to a booth that had just been vacated. “Then let’s get that table before somebody else does.”
Tucker had never met a woman quite like Emma. She was feminine in every sense of the word and yet there was a strength in her that he had to admire. She was so different from Denise. But he put that thought out of his head as they walked toward the booth.
Almost there, Tucker spotted Ben Crowe, his wife Gwen and the nine-year-old boy they were going to adopt, Nathan.
Emma
