you feeling?”
That voice. It was her first memory of anything and she clung to it like a child with a blanket. “Lousy. But better.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Hopefully, you’ll be right as rain real soon.”
She swallowed as hopeless emotions thickened her throat. “Doctor Donovan was very positive about that. She … told me that she’s your sister.”
His smile deepened. “That’s right. We’re from a big family. We all live together in a big ranch house.”
Family. Parents. Siblings. Did she have any? And if she did, where were they? Nearby? Far away? Maybe she had no one. Oh, God, let her remember, she prayed.
Her gaze fell from his face and settled on the folds of her blue hospital gown. “No one here at the hospital seems to recognize me. I … don’t know if I have any … family.”
His hand was suddenly touching her shoulder and the warmth from it spread through her, easing the chill that she couldn’t seem to shake in spite of the extra blankets the nurses had spread over her.
“If you do, we’ll find them. Trust me on that.”
He sounded so confident, so firm in his conviction, that she had to believe him. Her gaze fluttered back to his face. “I can’t remember anything about the place where you found me. Was it near a house or anything?”
“No. The road is a back road that leads into the mountains. Ranchers use it to move their sheep and cattle from one range to another and hunters travel it during open season. That’s about all. The nearest house to where we found you is probably six or seven miles away.”
She shook her head with dismay. “What could I have been doing there? Was there a car? Anything?”
“Not that we’ve found yet. We’ll be examining your clothes and scouring the area in the morning. If you left anything behind, we’ll find it.”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out. She was exhausted and her body was screaming for sleep, yet she fought the fogginess settling over her. She wanted to be with this man a little longer, absorb the security he lent her.
“If I—don’t remember, is there much you can do to find out who I am?”
His fingers tightened reassuringly on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about that tonight. Everything is going to be all right. I promise.”
He was trying to make her feel better and oddly enough, he was. “I don’t even have a name for you to call me,” she said, then tried to laugh at the ridiculousness of her situation. “I guess I’m a Jane Doe, aren’t I? But please don’t call me that. I never liked the name Jane that much.”
His brows arched. “How do you know something like that without remembering?”
“I—well, I don’t know why I dislike the name. I just know that I do,” she said with faint surprise. “But I guess you’re right. Subconsciously I must be remembering something.”
Brady had never wanted to take anyone in his arms more than he did this woman at this very moment. She looked lost and wounded and utterly beautiful. And everything inside him wanted to make her better.
“See,” he said gently, “your memory will all come back and then you can tell me your real name. But for now let’s give you another one. What would you like to be called?”
One hand lifted, then fell helplessly back to the bed covers. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It must have,” he said with an easy chuckle. “You didn’t want to be called Jane.”
A tiny smile curved her lips and he felt instantly better.
“Well. That’s different,” she said. “I don’t want to be a Jane. I want to be someone real.”
“All right. Then I’m going to call you …” He thought for a moment, then smiled with satisfaction. “Lass.”
Even though her gray eyes were full of sleep, he could see surprise flicker in their drowsy debts.
“Lass,” she repeated as though testing the name on her tongue. “Why?”
Brady couldn’t stop his fingers from moving to her forehead and gently pushing a strand of shiny black hair away from the bruised flesh near her eye. Did this woman have a husband somewhere, he wondered? A husband that often touched her this very same way?
During the time the two of them had spent waiting for the ambulance to arrive, Brady had studied her hands. From a professional standpoint, he’d wanted to see if there had been defensive wounds on her hands or traces of flesh or hair beneath her fingernails from fighting off an attacker. From a personal position, he’d wanted to see if she was wearing a wedding band or engagement ring.
Except for a bit of grime on her palms, her hands had been clean. But that might not mean she was single. Her ring could have been stolen or she could have simply not been wearing it when she’d left home. Or not had one on for very long—not long enough to get a tan line or callus.
“Well, Lassie got lost lots of times,” he reasoned, “and she always found her way back home to her family. Then everyone was happy again. That’s the way it’s going to be with you, Lass.”
She reached for his hand and as her fingers curled loosely around his, her eyelids drifted downward
“Lass,” she repeated sleepily. “That’s very pretty. Thank you, Deputy.”
Brady was about to tell her that no thanks were needed, but at that moment the muscles in her face went lax and the fingers wrapped around his lost their grip and dropped to the white sheet covering her body.
She’d fallen asleep and it was time for him to go, he realized. Yet he lingered beside the bed, unable to tear his gaze away from the woman.
She was smaller than he’d first estimated, but her arms appeared toned and muscled. No doubt the rest of her was as fit, he thought. This told him she wasn’t someone who sat around all day. She either worked at something that required manual labor or she made frequent visits to the gym. Her hair was shiny and well cared for, the straight ends trimmed to blunt precision. Pale pink polish covered her short, well-manicured nails and her satiny smooth skin looked as though it had been pampered since birth.
She definitely wasn’t blue collar, he thought. Along with her grooming habits, there were also the earrings attached to her lobes. If he was a betting man, he’d wager the glittering stones circling the chunks of turquoise were real diamonds. A fact that only added to her strange circumstance.
If someone had whacked her in the head to rob her, why hadn’t the thief taken the pricey jewelry? No, something else had gone down with this little, lost lassie and he was going to do his damnedest to find out.
His thoughts were interrupted by a faint knock on the door and Brady turned from the bed just as his sister stepped into the room.
“I think she’s gone to sleep,” Brady said, hoping he didn’t look as sheepish as he felt. “And I … was just about to leave.”
Bridget peered
