won’t solve anything, but it might help you deal with it.” He winked. “On the count of three. Deep breath. Ready?”
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the futility of deep breathing exercises when her entire life was nothing more than a black hole, she drew a shuddering breath. He did the same, and they exhaled simultaneously.
“Well, at least now we know my lungs work.” But even as she made the remark, she realized the panic had released its vise grip on her chest.
“Better?”
“Yeah. Unfortunately it didn’t do a thing for my memory.” Another wave of panic threatened, but she forced air into her lungs and fought it back. “I don’t believe this is happening.”
“You’ve got a concussion. Disorientation isn’t unusual. Your memory will come back.”
She wasn’t so sure, but decided not to argue against something she wanted desperately to believe. “I remember you,” she said abruptly, a little desperately, because suddenly it was very important to her to remember something.
Images of the rescue flooded her mind. Snow. Cold. Blinding pain. A vague sense of terror she couldn’t shake even now as she lay safe and alive in this unfamiliar bed. But she clearly remembered this man with the incredible blue eyes and devil’s grin. He’d swooped down out of the sky and plucked her from the rocks and snow. As she took in his steady expression and canny gaze, she remembered vividly how safe she’d felt in his arms, the solid feel of his body against hers, the softness of his voice, the whisper of his breath against her cheek when he’d murmured gentle words and eased her terror.
“You saved my life,” she said. “Thank you.”
“I had a little help from the rest of the team.” He extended his hand. “Just a little. I’m John Maitland.”
She attempted to take his hand, but the bandages hindered her. Despite the anxiety clenching her chest, a helpless laugh squeezed from her throat. “I don’t think I’m going to be shaking hands anytime soon.”
Unfazed, he took her hand gently between his. “I’m a medic with Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue. You gave us quite a scare.”
His accent was distinctly northeastern—deep, clipped, with a hint of the streets etched into it. “I remember you. Of course I do. But I don’t seem to remember…anything else. Can you tell me what happened?”
“We got the call out yesterday morning and picked you up on Elk Ridge at about nine thousand feet. You were hypothermic.” He looked down at the bandages on her hands. “Frostbitten. We airlifted you here to Lake County Hospital.”
She remembered the rescue. But as the memory materialized, something dark and disturbing stirred in the back of her mind like the remnants of a nightmare. An acute feeling of unease. A sense of being pursued. The unmistakable aftertaste of terror.
“Where’s Elk Ridge?” she asked.
“Not far from Fairplay, about sixty miles west of Denver.”
She swallowed, realizing with a stark sense of dismay she hadn’t even known what state she was in. Oh, dear God, what had happened to her?
“What else can you tell me?” she asked, trying in vain to keep the desperation out of her voice.
His smile tightened into a grimace, and she got the distinct impression he was about to give her some bad news. But he didn’t. Instead he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a tattered piece of paper. “I thought this might be important. Buzz Malone, my team leader, found it in the pocket of the jeans you were wearing.”
An uncomfortable sense of vulnerability encompassed her when she remembered her clothes being cut away. She knew the men who’d saved her hadn’t had a choice; they were professionals and did that sort of thing on a daily basis. Still, the fact that she’d been so exposed left her disconcerted.
Hoping whatever was on the scrap of paper would help unscramble her memory, she reached for it, but the bandages on her hands stopped her.
“Sorry.” Unfolding the paper, John held it up for her.
Hannah, meet me at the shop at noon.
She stared at the words, waiting for a lightning bolt of memory, a flashback, anything that would tell her who she was.
“Ring a bell?” he asked.
“No.” The jab of disappointment cut her with the precision of a straight razor. Oh, how she wanted to remember. She needed to remember. She stared at the words in desperation, hoping against hope for a flare of recognition. Anything but the abyss of nothing her memory had become. “Do you think that’s my name? Hannah?”
“Could be.”
“Did I have identification when you found me?”
He shook his head. “No wallet. Not even a driver’s license. Just the clothes on your back, which were ruined—sorry—and that note in your pocket.”
Leaning forward, she pulled her knees to her chest. “This is nuts. I don’t remember…anything. How I got up on the mountain. Why I was there. Where I live. My entire life is just…blank.”
Her mind raced in circles, like a rat trapped in a maze with no destination, no way out. Swallowing the knot in her throat, she looked at John, wishing desperately he could tell her something, anything that would help her remember. “How can someone just forget their entire life?”
“It isn’t unheard of for head trauma to cause temporary memory loss.”
The word temporary took her panic down a notch. She clung to it with the desperation of a rock climber to a safety line. “How temporary?”
He shrugged. “I’m not an expert, but I’ve heard of cases where a head injury has caused amnesia.”
“Amnesia?” The sound that erupted from her throat was half laugh, half groan. “That sounds like something from a soap opera.”
“Last year we picked up a snowmobiler who’d gotten up close and personal with a blue spruce. He suffered a closed head injury. Took him two days to remember he was from Iowa. Missed his flight home and everything.”
“Two days?” she echoed hopefully.
“Look, Lake County may be a small hospital, but I did my training here. Doc Morgan is good. She’ll do what needs to be done to get you back on track, even if it means referring you to a specialist. But I’ll bet the farm your memory will return before you’re even released.”
It made sense, of course. Unfortunately not even cold, hard logic could make the situation less frightening. Sighing, she looked down at her hands. “What’s with the bandages?”
“You had some frostbite on your fingers and toes. There was some tissue damage, blisters mostly, but nothing severe. You’ve got some healing to do, but you won’t have permanent scarring.” Pulling the chair next to the bed, he straddled it and rested his chin on the back.
The scent of his aftershave drifted lazily through her brain, conjuring notions of piney forests and mountain air.
