head. “Just saying.”
“That’s it. I’m calling for an ambulance.”
Everything in him rejected the option of being delivered to the hospital.
“Wait.” He opened his eyes. She stood over him, hands on shapely hips, a scowl pinched between her stormy blue eyes. Clenching his teeth against the need to scream like a girl, he shifted to sit, and then pushed to his feet. Holding his shoulders back, he forced himself to meet her poppy blue eyes without flinching.
“Satisfied?”
She ran those cop eyes over him, assessing him from top to bottom. She nodded once as if satisfied by what she saw. It took all his strength not to sag in relief. But he wasn’t out of hot water yet.
She cocked a trim black eyebrow. “And your first name?”
He was tempted to lie, to toss her any old name. But that felt wrong. Too easy. The falsehood didn’t bother him—being predictable did. She expected him to blow her off. It was what he’d been doing since she’d entered the cell.
Forget that. Now he’d made the effort to get on his feet, he saw the value in getting a doctor’s opinion. And some serious meds.
He met her stare-for-stare and confessed. “I can’t remember.”
* * *
“I can’t remember.” The words seemed to echo through the cell.
Grace blinked up at him. A rare enough occurrence—at five-nine she didn’t often have to tip her head back to look a man in the face—but standing at his full height of six-three JD required her to do just that to assess his truthfulness.
Amnesia?
It seemed a stretch. Still, he had a sizable bump on his head and displayed signs of a concussion. It would explain his disorientation and his unwillingness to talk about himself.
Then again it was a tad convenient. Except why bother? He’d been told he’d be free to go in the morning.
“You don’t remember your name?” She needed to determine the extent of his missing information.
“No.”
“Do you know what year it is?”
He answered correctly.
“How about the President of the United States?”
Another correct response. He swayed on his feet, reminding her that, regardless of the state of his mind, his pain was all too real. She decided to let the doctor sort him out.
“Let’s go.” She led him to her desk, where she handed him his jacket. “I already made a call for Parker to come drive you. He should be here any minute.”
“Oh, joy.”
“At least he’s familiar to you.”
“I’m not dim-witted, you know.” He sprawled in her desk chair with his jacket in his lap. “Just memory-challenged.”
The corner of her mouth twitched at his show of humor. “All the more reason to stick with what you know until you’ve seen the doctor.”
“I know you, and you smell better.”
Now, why did that send a rush of heat to her cheeks? “I’d take you, but my duty is up in thirty minutes.”
Probably a good thing. JD had managed to shake her up more than a little over the course of a mere hour.
“Check that.” A deep voice announced. She recognized one of her other patrol officers. She stood to see him escorting a happy prisoner toward the back. “Brubaker, the new sheriff, has been monitoring the radio calls. Since I was bringing someone in, he told Parker to stay in the field. He wants you to take John Doe to see the doctor, and I’m to cover the rest of your duty here.”
“Who will replace me at the hospital?”
The officer shrugged. “I’m sure Brubaker will send someone.”
Right. She clenched her hands at having her control yanked away early. Brubaker had no authority to usurp her orders before midnight. But there was no use arguing.
“Okay,” she said to JD. “Let’s go.” She’d already put her box of personal items in her SUV, so she grabbed her backpack and slipped into her hip-length leather coat.
The effort it took JD to gain his feet showed as it had in the cell, but he managed it and donned his jacket without uttering a sound. He stayed silent on their trip to her hybrid Escape.
In the vehicle he braced his head on a raised fist. “So I’m a John Doe.”
“You’re familiar with the term?”
“An unidentified person or body. I watch TV, the movies. I guess that means you didn’t get a hit on my prints or you’d have a name for me.”
“Right on both points.” She stopped at a light on Main Street and three women in party hats, winter jackets and heels laughed and joked as they crossed in front of them. The light changed and she pulled forward.
“What happens if I don’t get my memory back right away?” He slowly turned his head to pin her with a pain filled gaze. “How do you figure out who I am?”
HOW WOULD THEY identify him? Good question. Woodpark was a small town with limited resources. They’d have to reach out to a larger city, or perhaps the feds. Grace didn’t have the heart to remind him it wouldn’t be up to her.
“Let’s see what the doctor has to say before we worry about that.”
A grunt was her answer.
A few minutes later she pulled into the hospital parking lot. Like the sheriff’s office, the emergency center did a brisk business on New Year’s Eve. Grace walked to the front of the line.
“Sheriff,” the clerk acknowledged her and then glanced at JD. “We’re very busy tonight.”
“So I see. You’re going to have to make room for one more. I have a prisoner with a head wound.”
“Take a seat and I’ll let the doctors know.”
“Of course. Please let them know I’m quite concerned.”
She found him a seat in the crowded waiting room. He looked about to protest at taking the last chair, but he sat instead. Whatever his background, he’d learned some manners. That he ignored them was testament to the extent of his injury.
“You sounded worried,” he drawled.
“Head wounds are dangerous.” She leaned against the wall next to him. “We already know of one complication.”
“So
