Hunter had left the room the way he’d found it except for the wet shower curtain and the damp towels and washcloth. Leah’s gaze landed on the small trash basket in the corner. And except for the scrubs he’d been wearing. He’d shoved those into the trash.
She walked over to the basket, pulled out the scrubs, and carefully examined them. “Yes,” she whispered when she finally found what she’d been looking for. Most hospitals stamped their names on the scrubs that they provided to their surgery doctors and nurses. Just as she’d suspected and hoped for, inside the neck of the shirt, stamped with permanent ink, was the name of the hospital, Orlando Memorial. Knowing the name of the hospital would save her a lot of time and trouble, not to mention the cost of making a bunch of long-distance calls.
“Now, that’s strange,” she murmured, noticing, for the first time, the square lump in the pocket of the pants. The lump turned out to be a black billfold, made of plastic that was supposed to resemble leather.
But Hunter’s billfold had been burned in the wreck, so where had this one come from? And why would Hunter have thrown it away? she wondered as she searched through the different compartments.
Leah frowned. Empty. The billfold was empty. Well, duh, what did you expect? Why else would he have thrown it away?
Still perplexed and more wary than ever, she stuffed the scrubs and the billfold back into the trash basket. The answer had to be that he’d stolen it. He’d needed money, and with no available resources, he’d resorted to taking what he needed. But from whom? And what had happened to the person he’d stolen the billfold from? A shiver ran up her spine. Just one more reason to proceed with caution, she decided.
From experience, Leah knew that it usually took about thirty to forty minutes for her to brush her teeth, shower, wash and dry her hair, and dress. By the time she’d dried her hair and was pulling on clean underwear and the jeans, she figured that she’d given Hunter plenty of time to fall asleep. There was just one problem, she thought as she glared down at the front of the jeans. She couldn’t snap the jeans and still breathe.
With an oh-well shrug, she zipped up the jeans as far as they would go and left the snap undone. Once she pulled on the T-shirt, she gave a soft sigh. The T-shirt was midhip length, just long enough to cover the unsnapped, half-zipped jeans.
She glanced at her profile in the full-length mirror attached to the back of the bathroom door, and sighed again. Due to her body build and in spite of her slightly swollen abdomen, with loose clothes on, she didn’t look pregnant yet. Even so, her clothes were getting a bit too snug for comfort, and it wouldn’t be long before she would have to buy maternity wear.
The only way that Hunter would know that she was pregnant was if he saw her naked. Even then, he might think she was simply out of shape or a little overweight.
Just the thought of Hunter seeing her naked sent a wave of both apprehension and desire rushing through her. Lying to him about their relationship was bad enough, but how would he react once he realized she was pregnant?
Leah turned away from the mirror. Best not to think about it for now. There was no point. Until she knew more about what had happened to him, she didn’t intend to get that close. No matter how much her body wanted him.
Once Leah had straightened the bathroom, she stepped into the hallway and stared at the door leading to her bedroom. Hunter had closed the door, but was he asleep yet? Only one way to make sure.
For the most part, her bare feet were noiseless on the wooden floor, but the house was old, and there were places where the floor creaked. Though she tried to avoid those spots, completely avoiding them was impossible. Each time the floor creaked, she froze, her ears straining for the slightest sound coming from the bedroom. When she finally reached the bedroom door, she held her breath, slowly turned the doorknob then eased the door open just far enough to see inside.
Only when she saw that Hunter was indeed asleep did she dare breathe again. He was on his back with his arms thrown out to the side, his chest bare, and he was breathing deeply and evenly. As her gaze settled on his bare chest then moved lower to where the sheet just barely covered his hips, a quiver surged through her veins and her mind burned with the memory of the last time they had made love. Knowing that he was naked in her bed sent another familiar ache of desire surging through her.
Momentarily paralyzed by the depth of her feeling, Leah eased the door shut again. But even with the door shut, the old adage “out of sight, out of mind” didn’t work, and it was several moments before she could finally force her limbs to do her bidding.
Back in the kitchen, she went straight to the telephone, called directory assistance and asked for the phone number of the Orlando Memorial Hospital. The sooner she found out what she needed to know, the sooner she would know for sure exactly what had happened to Hunter.
Once she’d scribbled down the number and disconnected the call, she hesitated long enough to come up with a plan of action. As a nurse, she knew that getting any information about a patient without that patient’s privately assigned patient number was out of the question, a long shot at best, because of HIPA, the Hospital Informational Privacy Act.
Long shot or not, she had to try. Taking a deep breath, she punched out the number. “Admissions, please,” she told the woman who finally answered her call. After several moments she was finally connected.
“Admissions,” a woman’s voice answered. “Virginia Cole speaking. How may I help you?”
At least Ms. Cole sounded friendly enough, which would make her inquiry easier than it might have been.
“Yes—hello, Ms. Cole. Any help you could give me would certainly be appreciated. My name is Leah Johnson, and I’m with Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. We’ve just admitted an amnesia patient who claims that he was recently a patient at your hospital. We’d like to start procedures to have a copy of his medical records transferred.”
“What’s the patient’s name and his patient number?”
“He says his name is Hunter Davis,” Leah told the woman. “But he doesn’t remember his patient number, and of course there’s no way we would know it. He said he had been at your hospital a number of months. He was a victim of an automobile accident and he also says that he was in a coma for a couple of weeks.”
“I’m sure you realize that I really can’t give out patient information without the number or proper authorization.”
Leah drummed her fingertips against the kitchen countertop. “Yes, I do realize that, but these are special circumstances. The man has amnesia.”
“Well, I suppose I could check with my supervisor. Can you hold a minute?”
“Yes, I’ll hold.”
While Leah waited, she kept her ears tuned to any noise that would indicate that Hunter had awakened.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, the phone clicked in her ear. “Ah—Ms. Johnson? You still there?”
“Yes,” Leah answered.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Johnson,” the woman said. “But we can’t help you.”
Leah’s fingers stilled. Though it was just a gut feeling, there was something in the carefully controlled tone of Virginia Cole’s voice that set off warning bells, a guarded reticence that hadn’t been present when Leah had first asked about Hunter.
“Are
