As far as I know everyone is okay. I’m here on business.”
Looping her arm through his, his sister pulled him to one side of the wide corridor so as not to clog the pathway. “Oh, I hope it’s not a domestic battery,” she said quickly. “I hate to hear about those victims, much less see them in the hospital.”
Removing a gray Stetson from his head, Brady raked a hand through thick, tawny-colored waves. “Actually, I’m not sure what this woman is a victim of. Hank and I found her on a back mountain road a few miles from Picacho. The paramedics just brought her in a few minutes ago. She’s had sort of trauma to the head. And I was … hoping you’d take a look at her.”
His sister frowned. “Isn’t one of the emergency doctors dealing with her?”
Brady felt like an idiot. The hospital was full of competent doctors and no doubt Gray Eyes would get the best of care. That should be enough for any patient. So why was he trying to garner her more attention?
“Yes. She’s … being treating now. But I thought—well, I’d just feel better if you’d stop in and look at her.”
“Who is it?” Bridget quickly questioned. “A friend? Someone we know?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Never seen her before. She doesn’t know who she is.”
Bridget started to ask another question, but at that moment, a small group of people walking past them called greetings to his sister, momentarily distracting her from their conversation.
“Sorry, Brady,” she said, once the medical personnel had moved on down the corridor and away from them. “You were saying—”
“She’s blank, Brita. Not her name, where she was or why. Nothing. And no ID to tell us.”
A thoughtful frown crossed his sister’s face. “A head injury, you say?”
Brady nodded. “A bad gash near her temple.”
Suddenly she patted his forearm in a placating way. “I think Dr. Richmond is on emergency call this evening. He’s certainly capable of taking care of this type of injury.”
“I’m sure he is. But she’ll have to be handed over to the care of a permanent physician. And she doesn’t know anyone and—”
Sensing his urgency, she released a sigh of surrender. “Okay, Brady, okay. I’ll take a look. But mind you, when her family steps forward and requests another doctor, I’ll be gone. Understand?”
Smiling with relief, he clasped a loving arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Did you know that you’re my favorite sister?”
She shot him a tired look. “Yeah. Your favorite is the one you happen to be with at the moment. And do I need to remind you of the messes you’ve gotten me into? That time—”
“We don’t have time to go into my transgressions now, sis,” Brady interrupted as he urged his sister toward the nearest elevator. “I promise I’ll make everything up to you. Someday.”
The cubicle behind the plain beige curtain was cold and smelled faintly of disinfectant. Standing a few feet away, at the foot of the narrow, railed bed, a middle-aged doctor with dark blond hair and black rimmed glasses was scratching notes on a clipboard, while barking orders at the attending nurse.
Since arriving in the emergency unit, she’d been stripped of her boots and clothing, sponged clean and dressed in a blue cotton gown that tied at the back. The doctor had poked and prodded, asked her questions that she couldn’t answer and generally done little to assuage her fears.
Now that he’d ended his examination and was conversing with the nurse, her mind vacillated between sheer panic and a pit of total emptiness.
Scans. Sutures. Neurological tests. The medical words she managed to catch here and there made little to no sense to her.
Oh, God, who was she? Where was she? The questions pounded through her head, adding to the horrible throb in her right temple.
Thinking was like bouncing herself off a black wall where there was no door or crack of light to lead her either forward or backward. Other than waking up to see a deputy sheriff hovering over her, there was nothing in her mind, except icy, paralyzing fear.
She tried to push the terror back and keep from sobbing as the doctor exited the cubicle and the young nurse with a kind face bent over her. The name tag pinned to the left side of her chest said her name was Lilly.
“All right, miss,” she said warmly. “Let’s get some pain medication started and then we’ll see about taking you down to radiology. When that’s done someone will come around to put some stitches in your scalp.”
During the ambulance ride, the paramedics had started an intravenous drip. Now the nurse simply pushed a syringe full of medication into the tube already affixed to her hand.
“Why am I going to radiology?”
“To take pictures of your skull and brain,” the nurse replied. “Dr. Richmond needs to see if you have internal injuries.”
“Oh.” She didn’t want pictures or stitches, she wanted to scream. She wanted her memory back. “Will that take long? The tests?”
“No,” the nurse assured her. “They won’t hurt, either.”
She closed her eyes. “Um—the deputy who found me. Is he here?”
Lilly answered, “I saw Hank Ridell out in the corridor a few minutes ago. Is that who you mean?”
She opened her eyes to see the nurse was writing something on the chart the doctor had left behind.
“No. His name was Donovan, I think. He was tall and had on a gray hat and he had a little scar right here.” She touched a finger to a spot on her cheekbone near her eye.
Lilly suddenly smiled a knowing smile. “Oh. That’s Brady. He’s the chief deputy of Lincoln County. And considered quite a catch by most of the young women around here.”
The pain medication was beginning to course rapidly through her bloodstream, easing the pounding in her head. “Including you?” she asked the nurse.
Lilly blushed and laughed. “No. I have a boyfriend. Besides, I’m not in Brady Donovan’s league.” She placed the chart in a holder at the foot of the bed, then studied her more closely. “Did you need to talk with the deputy for some reason?”
There were a thousand things she wanted to ask the man, things that might help jar her memory. But that wasn’t entirely the reason she wanted to see the deputy again. He’d been nice and gentle. He’d held her with strong hands and soothed her with his low voice. At some point during their wait for the ambulance, he’d become her light in a heavy fog. She’d not wanted to leave him and now she fervently wished he was back by her side.
“I would like to speak with him. If you think that’s possible.”
Smiling, Lilly winked at her. “While you’re in radiology I’ll do my best to find him.”
The nurse quickly swished
