Charlotte Douglas - Montana Mail-Order Wife

Wade scrutinized Rachel, quiescent and pale, so slight her body barely mounded the hospital blanket above the mattress. Her tranquil face fired his interest in a disturbing way. High, sculpted cheekbones as ashen as her pillow were framed by thick blond hair that reminded him of his prize palomino in the sunlight. She had the kind of hair a man liked to run his fingers through.

The surprising sweetness of her bow-shaped mouth and the gracefulness of feathery brows arching across her smooth, high forehead were details her letters had omitted.

Her chatty correspondence had left him unmoved, so he’d been unprepared for the tightening in his gut and the heat surging through his blood at seeing her for the first time.

And every time he’d looked at her since.

Gritting his teeth until his jaw ached, he ignored the unwelcome hankering and squelched his preoccupation with her stunning face.

He’d need a whole bucket of coffee to purge the sentiment cluttering his mind—and the hormones tormenting his body.

He was overreacting to the woman because he was bone-tired, he assured himself. What he felt was only sympathy, same as he’d feel for anybody banged up as she’d been in the train accident. Once she was on her feet again and he’d had a good night’s rest, his emotional balance would return. Then he could handle the demands of the ranch he’d let slide since Sheriff Howard had called to say he was needed at the county hospital.

“You okay, Mr. Garrett?” the nurse asked.

She’d caught him gawking at Rachel like he was plumb weak north of his ears. He’d been under too much stress lately, what with Jordan’s troubles and the extra workload at the ranch, and his moonstruck behavior proved it.

“Call me if there’s any change.” Striding from the room, he ignored the impulse for one last glance.

He halted at the pay phone in the hall and dialed home. Ursula’s gravelly voice greeted him. “How is she?”

“Doc says she should be okay, but she hasn’t regained consciousness yet.” He massaged a crick in his neck. “Is Jordan staying out of trouble?”

The old housekeeper’s initial hesitation told him more than her words. “He’s fine. Just keeps asking when his daddy’s coming home.”

A mixture of guilt and frustration scoured through him, and he cursed silently. After all, the boy was the reason he was here. “I’ll be home tonight.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

He pretended not to understand. “About the train wreck?”

Ursula’s ironic expletive burst in his ear. “You know what I mean.”

“I’ll tell him. Eventually.”

He hung up the receiver and rammed his hands in his pockets. Trouble always came in threes. First Jordan’s rebellion, then the train derailment. God only knew what was next. The disturbing speculation accompanied him all the way to the cafeteria.

SHE NOTICED THE SOUNDS first. The clanking of an ice machine across the hall, the whir of rubberized wheels on a linoleum floor, hushed voices outside the door. And a strange, unrelenting pounding.

She lay quiet, eyes closed, absorbing the unfamiliar noises. The other sounds diminished, but the pounding persisted as blood rushed through her veins and her temples throbbed. She struggled against a consuming weakness and opened her eyes.

Directly above, a metal track etched the white ceiling. Her gaze followed it to the wall, where a muslin curtain was gathered back beside the bed. Beside her, a plastic bag hung from an aluminum stand, and clear tubing filled with fluid snaked from it to her wrist. When she flexed her left hand, a needle pinched her vein.

She was in a hospital.

She gazed through a wide window across from the bed at a broad, boulder-filled river, frothy with whitewater tinted pink by the sun’s slanting rays. Beyond the river, a stand of towering evergreens formed an impenetrable barricade. She knotted her forehead in concentration, but try as she might, she couldn’t identify where she was or whether the sun was rising or setting.

Her next discovery banished all thoughts of time or place. A thirty-something man sprawled in the chair beside the window, sound asleep. Who was he?

Her doctor?

He was dressed more like a cowboy, in well-worn jeans that enveloped long legs, a chambray shirt stretched taut over powerful muscles, and tooled leather boots that could stand a good polish. The sun streaks in his mahogany-colored hair and the tanned, rugged planes of his attractive face suggested someone who worked outdoors.

She flushed when she realized he’d awakened during her scrutiny and was staring back with eyes as serene and brown as the river boulders outside the window.

“Welcome back.” His agreeable voice rolled through the room, a rich baritone.

“Back?” She attempted to draw herself to a sitting position, but the effort exhausted her and she collapsed against the pillows.

“You’ve been unconscious almost three days.” He shoved himself to his feet in a graceful movement and approached her bed with the rolling gait of a man more comfortable on a horse than on his feet.

Giddiness and disorientation washed over her. “What happened?”

He hooked his thumbs in the back pockets of his jeans and lifted dark eyebrows with a look so galvanizing she averted her eyes. “You don’t remember?”

“No.” She fidgeted beneath his piercing inspection and wished she was wearing something more substantial than a thin hospital gown.

“I’d better get the doctor.” His probing expression relaxed as if he was pleased by an excuse to bolt.

Loneliness and an unnamed yearning overwhelmed her. Between the pounding in her head and the weakness of her body, she couldn’t pinpoint who—or what—she longed for. All she knew was that she didn’t want to be alone.

“Please, don’t go,” she begged.

The skin around his eyes crinkled in appealing lines and his mouth angled in a reassuring smile. He reached above her pillow and depressed a call button.

“Nurses’ station,” a chirpy voice responded.

“Tell Dr. Sinclair Miss O’Riley is awake,” he said.

“That’s good news,” the voice said. “I’ll page the doctor.”

When he started to move away, she grasped his sleeve. “Who’s Miss O’Riley?”

He frowned before composing his face into a neutral expression. “Don’t you know?”

Her misgivings multiplied by the second. She concentrated on the tenacious squareness of his jaw, the dark hair tumbling across his broad forehead, a tiny scar across one dark eyebrow—anything to block the other questions that assaulted her.

The one about O’Riley terrified her enough.

She gathered her courage with a deep breath. “Who is Miss O’Riley?”

His widened eyes conveyed his surprise. “You are.”

The answer stunned her, and the questions she’d tried to evade converged until she slipped again toward the black void from which she’d just emerged. In a futile attempt to conquer confusion, she thrashed her aching head from side to side on the pillow.

“Whoa, hold still.” The stranger cupped her cheeks with firm but gentle hands. “You’ve had a bad concussion. You don’t want to aggravate it.”

Closing her eyes to avoid his warm, searching gaze, she relaxed against the soothing pressure of his palms. “You don’t understand.”

“Try me.”

His simple, direct proposal inspired her trust. When she opened her eyes, tears misted her vision, and she observed the stranger through a watery haze.

“I don’t know who I am.” She choked back panic. “I can’t remember anything.”

“Nothing?” he asked, as if disbelieving.

Her throat tightened with anxiety, and she clasped his hands as if they were a lifeline. “Not even my own name.”