flashed her a cocky grin. “Not so silly now, huh?”
Lifting one eyebrow, she wrote her name again, even faster. And again. “I’ll be darned.”
“Did it feel natural? Like muscle memory?”
She raised her head, and her face lit with wonder. “It did.” Taking a deep breath, she wrote her name again and again, filling the page with her loopy signature. She chuckled. “I know this. It feels right.”
“Some people learn better by hearing, others by sight, others by doing. It makes sense to me that maybe your memories will come back more with certain triggers than others. I learned that in high school. My grades were suffering, and my parents hired me a tutor. Turns out my teachers’ style of issuing reading assignments didn’t match my auditory learning style. I needed to hear it explained to me to make it stick.” Hunter walked around to the bassinet and set Ben down in the small bed. “I have something else we can try.”
Returning to the bedside chair, Hunter tapped on his laptop keys. He pulled up a satellite ground-level-view website and typed in the address Sergeant Wallace had given them. The picture of a small gray-siding-and-redbrick house with a neat yard came up. He moved the laptop so that Brianna could see the image.
“According to the address Wallace gave us, this is your house. Do you recognize it? Does it feel right?”
Brianna squinted at the screen, studying it. The eagerness and expectation in her eyes was heartbreaking, especially when that hope faded and moisture filled her eyes. “No. I don’t feel any tugs of recognition. Damn it!”
Hunter closed the top of the laptop, set it aside and moved to sit on the edge of her bed. “It was just an idea. Maybe seeing it for real will be different. Maybe seeing the inside, your furnishings and pictures, will be the trigger you need. And time.”
She nodded slowly, touching the bandage on her forehead. “Time for the swelling to recede.”
“Exactly.” He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers. “To me, the fact that your signature felt natural is a good sign. I bet you get all of your memories back real soon.”
She nibbled her bottom lip again. “Maybe. I... Hunter, what if the reason I can’t remember is because I’m blocking a bad event? I can’t get past the fact that there are bullet holes in the back of the car I was driving. The one thing I did sense or know after the accident was that I was in danger. What does that say?”
His grip on her hand tightened. “I haven’t forgotten that. I don’t know what it means, but I do know this—whoever shot at you isn’t going to get a second chance. I’ll make sure of that.”
* * ** * *
Hunter spent a long, restless night in the chair next to Brianna. Though the chair folded out into a bed of sorts, the contraption was the epitome of discomfort, and every noise from the hall woke him. His brain was wired to be on guard, to listen for intruders, to be alert to changes in his environment, even while resting. He’d served one tour in Afghanistan during his five years with the Army Reserves and learned the meaning of the term combat nap. That past spring, he’d helped guard his niece’s hospital room when men connected to organized crime had threatened his brother Connor and his family. Because of that experience, he considered himself qualified to guard Brianna and Ben.
Morning came early, as it did in a hospital, the maternity nurse waking Brianna to feed Ben at four forty-five. She gave him a groggy glance as Ben was settled in her arms, and Hunter took his cue.
“I’m going to rustle up some coffee. Is the cafeteria open?” he asked the nurse.
“It will be at five.”
Brianna sent him an appreciative smile. Her hair was mussed from sleep, and as she raked the gold wisps back with her fingers, Hunter’s pulse kicked. Brianna Coleman was the sexiest thing he’d seen in a long time, and she managed to be sexy without trying. Her natural, early-morning rumpled state charmed him. The glow that shone from her eyes and her smile as she greeted her son and settled him in her arms was more striking than any makeup she could ever put on.
Hunter swallowed hard. It was dangerous to have such strong feelings for her when they didn’t know yet whether Ben’s father was still in the picture. She could be married, damn it!
He gave his head a little shake as he shuffled out of the room. For probably the hundredth time in the past few weeks, he wished he could call Darby Kent, whose friendship and advice had always been spot-on. As much as he admired his older brothers and valued their input on business matters, Darby, with her female point of view and common sense, had always been the one he turned to for advice concerning matters of the heart. She would be able to put his fascination and obligation to Brianna in perspective. But Darby and her daughter, Hunter’s niece, had recently joined his brother Connor in Witness Security. He’d likely never talk to Darby or Connor ever again, and he felt the loss to his marrow.
With the morning staff making rounds, Hunter figured Brianna was safe enough until he came back with his breakfast. Just in case, though, he’d stopped at the nurses’ station and asked them to keep a watch out for strangers entering Brianna’s room.
That done, Hunter walked down the stairs and exited the hospital to get a breath of fresh air. The dark autumn morning still held a chilly nip, though he knew the Louisiana sun would quickly warm things up after daybreak. He started around the perimeter of the parking lot at a slow jog to work the kinks out of his muscles and get his blood pumping. Immediately his brain began to click through the same questions that had plagued him since the car accident.
How was he supposed to help Brianna figure out the source of the danger to her? Now that he had her name, home phone number and address, he could be more thorough with his quest for information. He could call the courthouse and see if there was a marriage certificate on file for her. He could stop by her house and see if anyone was home, if her purse was there. He heaved a deep sigh, feeling better for having an action plan for the day. He finished the circuit of the parking lot and reentered the hospital, heading straight for the cafeteria, which was just opening.
He bought himself a large coffee and an egg-and-bacon breakfast sandwich to take upstairs. It was still too early to call Grant or his parents and check in with them. He needed to let someone know he’d be taking the day off from work, though he’d make an effort to stop by the construction sites he was managing later in the day. Working for the family business had its perks, and a flexible schedule was one of the better benefits. He couldn’t ignore his responsibilities as site manager for Mansfield Construction, but his father and Grant would always cover for him when he needed personal time off. In fact, Grant, the accountant and business manager for the office, enjoyed having an excuse to get out of the office and be at the work sites every now and then.
When he got back to Brianna’s room with his breakfast, Brianna was still nursing Ben, with a baby blanket draped over her shoulder and the baby. The television played quietly from the mount on the wall, and her food sat uneaten on her tray table. She glanced up at him as he walked in, and her expression was an odd combination of concern and joy.
“I have a cat,” she said without preamble.
“Excuse me?”
“I was sitting here with Ben, thinking about what mornings would be like from here on, taking care of Ben and getting ready for work, whatever that job may be, and I had this overwhelming feeling that I was neglecting something important. Then it just came to me. I have a cat that I always feed in the
