He opened the door of the vehicle and helped Gabrielle up on the bench seat, then skirted around the hood and slid behind the wheel.
“Buckle up,” he ordered as he started the engine.
She pulled the straps of the seat belt across her lap, but her fingers were shaking so badly that she couldn’t make the two ends catch.
Suddenly two dark-brown hands were pushing her fumbling fingers aside. “Here, let me do it, or we’ll never get where we’re going,” he said gruffly.
She bit down on her lip and turned her face toward the window, but his closeness couldn’t be ignored. She could smell the faint scent of his cologne and feel the brush of his warm hands as he latched the seat belt against her.
He was a forceful man in looks and presence. And though her past was a blank, she had a feeling she’d never encountered anyone like him before.
“Thank you,” she murmured, once he’d straightened away from her and set the pickup in motion.
He didn’t acknowledge her words. Instead, he turned the pickup around and headed back toward what was left of her burned car. The flames and smoke had finally been doused, and the firemen were rolling up their hoses.
Wyatt stopped the pickup. “I’m going to talk to the firemen. I’ll be right back,” he said without glancing her way.
Through a blur of pain Gabrielle watched the tall, dark sheriff walk over to the two firemen. After a brief moment of conversation he returned to the truck.
“Is there anything left inside the car?” she asked hopefully.
“The metal is still too hot to search through the thing. I’ll come back later and see what I can find. Unless you want to tell me what all this is about right now?”
At the question, she snapped her head around, causing even more pain to crush the middle of her forehead. She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
His brows arched and then he rubbed a hand over his face. “So, you’re still determined to play innocent with me. I thought once we got away from Maggie you might decide to come clean.”
Gabrielle realized she was in a partial state of shock from the accident, but try as she might she couldn’t unravel the strange things this man was saying to her.
“Come clean? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned slightly toward him, her expression desperate. “Do you know who I am? If you do, why don’t you tell me?”
Her voice was rising as though she were very near to hysteria. If she was faking this whole thing she was doing a damn good job, Wyatt thought. But hell, most women were good actresses. Lying to a man came as naturally to them as breathing.
“Calm down, lady. If you’ve got a concussion, it won’t do you any good to get all excited.”
Gabrielle’s lips parted as she stared at him in stunned fascination. “Excited! How would you feel if your head was cracking and you didn’t know who you were or where you were? Oh, I’m sure a big strong man like you would take it all in stride,” she sneered. “It would probably be just another day in the life of a Texas sheriff.”
His nostrils flared as his eyes left the highway long enough to glance at her. “That ache in your head doesn’t seem to be affecting your tongue.”
She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I don’t like being accused. And you were trying to accuse me of something!”
Except for a faint lift of his brows, his features became deceptively passive. “If you don’t know who you are, how can you be certain you aren’t guilty?”
She opened her mouth to defend herself, but then a slow, sickening realization struck her. She might be a criminal. She might be anything. She just didn’t know!
“You’re right. I can’t be certain of anything,” she said wretchedly, then dropped her head in her hands.
Behind the wheel, Wyatt tried not to let the despair on her face soften him. She was a hell of a looker, but she could very well be up to no good. In his work he had to be suspicious of everyone. Personally, as a man, there was no woman he trusted. And he was doubly on his guard because of all the trouble the Fortunes had encountered lately.
“You have no idea what you were doing on the road to the Double Crown Ranch?”
Gabrielle strained to remember, but all that came to her mind was waking up with the floorboard of the car pressed against her face and the smell of gasoline choking her.
“No. The name means nothing to me.”
“Does the name Fortune register with you?”
She looked at him hopelessly. “If I’ve ever heard of it, I don’t know it now. Who are these people? Could I have been going there to do a job?”
His lips thinned to a grim line. “That’s what I’m wondering.”
The sarcasm in his voice stung her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he said bluntly. “We’ll talk about it later. After you’ve seen a doctor.”
That was fine with her. She was more than a little tired of his innuendos. The pain in her head was making her nauseated, and thinking more than ten minutes into the future was terrifying. She simply wanted to close her eyes and forget the laconic sheriff beside her. She didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that she knew nothing about Gabrielle Carter.
A few moments later, his deep voice jerked her out of her jumbled thoughts. “I wouldn’t go to sleep if I were you.”
She opened her eyes, but didn’t bother to lift her head from the back of the seat. “Why?”
“If you’ve got a concussion you shouldn’t sleep.”
“I thought you said you were no doctor.”
“I’m not. I’m just a lawman.”
Her gaze lingered on his rigid profile. “Grayhawk,” she repeated. “Is that a Native American name?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Finally he said, “My father was Cherokee.”
“And your mother?”
“White. Like you.”
Even through the haze of her pain, Gabrielle picked up a sharp bitterness in his words. She wondered why, then just as quickly told herself it didn’t matter to her if he hated white people, or women, or even her. He was just one man in a big world. Once her memory returned, Sheriff Wyatt Grayhawk would be well and truly out of her life.
Two
The remainder of the trip passed in silence. At the hospital Wyatt escorted Gabrielle into the emergency unit and grabbed the attention of the first nurse he came upon.
“Can he come with me?” Gabrielle asked as
