a friend or family member to fly in?”
“I … really don’t know.” It was possible, though. She couldn’t remember anything after leaving Arizona, but she remembered everything prior to that. Remembered all her friends who’d promised to come for a visit.
Maybe one of them had.
Thoughts swirled and whirled, images flying through her brain too quickly to grasp.
Darkness.
Bright light.
Fear.
The accident?
“It’s possible, but if I’d picked someone up at the airport, wouldn’t he or she have been with me in the car?”
“Maybe you didn’t make it to the airport. The police think you lost control going around a curve in the road. The pavement was covered with a sheet of ice, so it’s impossible to know which direction you were heading.”
“Then whoever was waiting would have called to find out why I wasn’t there, right?”
“For someone with a concussion, you’re thinking fast. Want to check your cell phone?” He smiled, handing her a familiar black purse.
Finally, something she remembered.
Of course, she’d had it for a couple of years, so that wasn’t such good news after all.
She pulled out her cell phone, scrolled through her call history. “The last call came in at five last evening. It’s not a number I know.”
“That would have been a few minutes before your meeting. How about we call and see who it is?”
“Okay.” But concentrating on the numbers made her head spin, and she handed him the phone and leaned back against the couch cushions.
“You’re done in. Tomorrow will be soon enough. I’m going to write down the number, though. I have a friend in the police department who might be able to trace it for us. I’ll give him a call and see what he can come up with.”
“It would be a lot easier if I could just remember.”
“Memories or not, we’ll figure out what happened.”
“We?” She looked into his eyes, felt a quicksilver moment of awareness, knew that she’d looked into his eyes before, been drawn into his gaze.
“Why not?”
Because she had a feeling spending time with Chance could be dangerous. Because she could get lost looking into his eyes and forget all the reasons why relationships weren’t for her. Because she had three rules—three perfectly good rules—for heart-healthy living, and there was no way she planned to break any of them.
“I … don’t know.”
“Then how about we just go with it for now?” He patted her knee, the warmth of his palm seeping through her slacks and into her chilled flesh.
The rules, Rayne. Don’t forget about the rules.
But they were hard to remember with her head pounding and her stomach churning. Hard to remember when she was looking into Chance’s eyes, feeling the warmth of his touch. She wanted to lean on him. She really did. And that terrified her.
“Since I’m too tired to argue, I guess we will.” She tried to smile, knew it fell flat. She needed him to leave before she threw herself into his arms and begged for him to stay.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Chance asked, and she nodded, because she had no choice. Emma depended on her.
A welcome responsibility, even if it was a heavy one.
A responsibility Michael hadn’t wanted.
His response to Emma had taught Rayne just how careful she needed to be with her heart. Not just because she didn’t want it broken again, but because she couldn’t risk Emma attaching to a man who would turn his back and walk away when things got tough.
Rayne closed her eyes, wishing she could block out pain and worry as easily as she could block out the sight of Chance.
“Good night.” Fingers brushed her cheek, there and gone so quickly she wondered if she’d imagined them. A door opened, cold air whipping into the room before it clicked shut again.
And then she was alone.
Just Rayne and her thoughts.
Fun.
She shifted so she was lying down, her head on a throw pillow, the blanket clutched around her shoulders.
She’d wanted her new life to be fun, exciting and filled with adventure, but a car accident, a concussion and amnesia were more of an adventure than she’d bargained for.
“You could cut me a break, Lord,” she whispered, then became aware of the muted sound of a woman singing drifting into the room.
Lila singing Emma to sleep?
It had to be.
The knowledge warmed her.
Perhaps her prayer had been answered before she’d even uttered it.
Rayne had fallen far before she’d moved to Spokane, her once-charmed life crumbling around her. But as she listened to Lila’s quiet singing, felt the comforting warmth of the old farmhouse settling around her, she couldn’t help thinking that in the midst of all the falling, God had found her a very soft place to land.
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