Wife With Amnesia

by Metsy Hingle

  “Making sure you stay off that ankle,” he informed her as he strode toward the house.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I can walk.”

  “Humor me,” he teased as he climbed the stairs of the porch. “It makes me feel useful.”

  “But it’s foolish. I don’t need—”

  Matt cut off her protests with his mouth. The kiss had simply been a reflex, a means of preventing her from telling him what he already knew—that she didn’t need him. Claire had never needed him, not the way he had needed her.

  But he hadn’t counted on that kiss being so sweet or on lingering a moment longer to sip, to taste, to explore. He certainly hadn’t counted on Claire’s lips softening beneath his own and tempting him until all he could think about was losing himself in her, with her. Nor had he counted on lifting his head and seeing cinnamon-brown eyes filled with desire or on her lips parting invitingly until he couldn’t resist one more taste. And Matt positively hadn’t counted on having the door he was leaning against suddenly opening and nearly sending him sprawling on the floor with Claire in his arms.

  “Sweet heavens, Mr. Matthew,” Emma Dubois chided even as she provided him with a steadying hand. “What on earth is it you think you’re doing, mauling poor Miss Claire on the doorstep for all the world to see? And the poor dear just home from that wretched hospital?”

  “I wasn’t mauling her, Emma. I was kissing her,” Matt said to his housekeeper, not even bothering to point out that the so-called wretched hospital was one of the best medical facilities in the South.

  Emma huffed as she shut the door behind them. Folding her arms, she arched her brow imperiously. “And what would your sainted mother have to say if she was to hear you’d been putting on such a show for the neighbors, I wonder?”

  Matt sighed and wondered whether he should try explaining to Emma again that she worked for him now—not his mother. Of course since the half-Irish, half-French Emma was practically a fixture in his family, he would probably be wasting his breath. Still, he tried. “Since my mother is no saint—at least not judging by the earful she gave the staff at the hospital when they refused to let her see Claire in the emergency room—my guess is she’d say that she hoped I enjoyed myself.”

  “As if Mrs. G. would spout such nonsense,” Emma replied. She looked down her nose at him like he was still a boy—one who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  It amazed him how she still managed to pull off that particular trick, since the woman was a full foot shorter than his own six feet. No doubt the fact that she’d changed his diapers and paddled his bottom on more than one occasion had something to do with it, Matt conceded. “Tell you what, Emma. Why don’t I kiss Claire again and you can call my mother and ask her?”

  “Matt, please.”

  “Behave yourself,” Emma told him. “You’re embarrassing the poor girl.”

  Evidently Emma was right, Matt decided at the sight of the color flooding Claire’s cheeks. He kissed the tip of her nose. “Sorry.”

  “You can put me down now,” Claire told him.

  “He’ll do no such thing. You’ve a sprained ankle according to what Mrs. G. and Mr. Matthew told me and you shouldn’t be putting any weight on it, lamb.”

  “But I—”

  “Besides, Mr. Matthew, here, is as strong as an ox,” Emma replied, her expression going from stern to loving as she addressed Claire. “He can carry you into the den. I’ve set up a tray of coffee and some of those little chocolate cakes that you like so much.”

  “You heard her, Red. It’s best not to argue with Emma.”

  “But I don’t want either of you to go to all this trouble,” Claire protested.

  “As if it’s any trouble. Why, if you’d known how worried I was when I heard you’d been hurt…” Emma snatched a tissue from her apron and sniffed, then straightened her shoulders. “I’d better go see to the coffee.”

  “Who exactly is she?” Claire whispered as Matt followed Emma down the hall.

  “Believe it or not, she’s the housekeeper.”

  “The housekeeper?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “Hard to believe, considering she’s the one giving the orders around here.”

  “I heard that, Matthew Gallagher.”

  “I swear the woman’s got eyes and ears in the back of her head,” Matt complained.

  “A body certainly needed them with you around as a boy,” Emma informed him as she waited while he positioned Claire on the big overstuffed chair and propped her ankle up on the ottoman. “Don’t you pay him any mind, Miss Claire,” Emma told her as she shooed Matt out of the way so she could fit the breakfast tray table over Claire’s lap.

  When Matt reached for one of the chocolate cheesecake squares on the tray, Emma swatted his hand. “Those are for Miss Claire.”

  “What about me?”

  “There’s more in the kitchen if you want some.”

  “See what I mean?” Matt countered and was rewarded by a grin from Claire.

  He was treated to several more of Claire’s smiles during the next thirty minutes as Emma regaled her with stories of his youth. And while Emma fussed over her like a mother hen over her baby chick, he fielded call after call from his family, checking on Claire.

  By the time he had repeated Emma’s instructions on heating the casserole she’d prepared for their dinner and closed the door behind the housekeeper, the troubled look he’d noticed sneaking into Claire’s eyes several times during the afternoon was back. For the life of him, Matt couldn’t quite figure out what was behind it.

  Claiming a corner of the oversize chair beside her, he asked, “So how’s the head feeling?”

  “Tender,” she replied, and ran a finger along the edge of the bandage affixed to her temple. “I was hoping that coming here would help me to remember.”

  “Has it?”

  She shook her head and lifted her gaze to his. “I can’t believe I don’t remember Emma.”

  Matt grinned. “She is a hard one to forget.”

  “She really loves you and your family a great deal.”

  “And you,” Matt amended. Giving in to the need, he reached for her hand. “She loves you, too, Red. All of my family does—and me most of all.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she told him, averting her eyes.

  Sighing, Matt released her hand. “There I go pushing again. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said, touching his arm when he started to rise. “I’m the one who’s sorry. You’ve been wonderful, Matt. You, your family, everyone. I just…I just wish I could remember.”

  The disappointment etched across her face ripped at him. “Don’t be so tough on yourself. You heard what the doctor said. You just need to give yourself time.”

  The smile she gave him was soft. Slow. Warm. “You’re a nice man, Matthew Gallagher.”

  Matt winced. “Nice? Whatever you do, please don’t say that I’m sweet. If you do, you’re liable to find out that I’m not nice at all.”

  “But you are sweet…and kind…and patient…”

  “Stop!”

  She chuckled at his protest. “It wasn’t meant to be an insult. Those are all good qualities.”

  “Trust me, Red,” he said, his voice gruff. “No man wants to hear a woman describe him as though he were some kind of saint.”

  Her lips twitched. “Somehow I doubt that anyone would mistake you for a saint.”

  “Thank heaven for that.”

  “So, what descriptive terms does a man want to hear a woman use to describe him?”

  “Oh, the usual ones,” he told her, his mouth kicking up at the corners. “Sexy…virile…stud…”

  “I get the picture,” she said dryly, a flush climbing her cheeks.

  “Sorry. I just couldn’t resist teasing—not when you blush so prettily.”

  He watched her struggle to regain her composure. When she did, the lighthearted moment had passed. “It all seems so strange. Not knowin
g anything about myself, about you, about us.”

  Matt hesitated. “The doctor said to let your memories come back on their own.”

  “I know, but it’s frustrating not remembering even simple things. Things like…like how long we’ve been married.”

  “We were married two years last month.” And their wedding anniversary had been one of the most miserable days of his life, because they hadn’t celebrated it together or even been living under the same roof.

  “Two years,” she repeated as though trying to grasp the concept.

  “I’d better get that,” he said at the sound of the phone, grateful for the excuse to drop the topic of their marriage. He couldn’t help feeling guilty for deceiving her about their relationship. Yet, he saw no alternative—not if he hoped to win Claire back.

  And win her back he would, Matt told himself a few minutes later when he returned to the den. “That was my sister Maggie. She was checking to see if you needed anything.”

  “You have a big family,” she said, and the troubled look was back in her eyes.

  “We have a big family,” he corrected.

  “But they all seem to be your family, Matt. It was your sisters and your parents that came to the hospital to see me, and they’re the ones who’ve called. What about my family? Why haven’t my parents or my siblings come to see me?”

  Matt struggled with how much he should tell her. “You’re an only child,” he finally replied, deciding it would probably be okay to tell her that much. As far as Claire had known, she’d had no siblings. And in that damning search that he had started, to locate her parents, the investigator hadn’t turned up any siblings either.

  “What about my parents? Why didn’t they come to the hospital or call?”

  “Claire, I don’t think—”

  “Am I estranged from them? Is that why they didn’t come to the hospital?”

  “No. You’re not estranged.”

  “Then why haven’t they at least called to see how I am?”

  He didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to explain. After all, it had been his foolish attempt to find answers about the childhood that haunted her that had caused her to walk out on him in the first place.

  “Please, Matt. I need to know. Where is my family? Has something happened to them?”

  He took her hands, held them in his own. “You don’t have any family. At least none that we know of.”

  “But I don’t understand. My parents—”

  “You never knew who your parents were. You were an orphan.”

  Three

  “An orphan,” Claire repeated. “You mean I don’t have any family? No one at all?”

  “You have me…and my family.”

  Even as she tried to absorb this newest shock, more questions raced through Claire’s mind. “But what about my parents? What happened to them?”

  For a moment Matt remained silent and appeared to consider his words carefully before he said, “You were only a baby when…when you went to live at an orphanage.”

  She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I was given up for adoption?”

  A pained expression flitted across Matt’s features, and Claire’s stomach tensed. “Not exactly.”

  “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

  Matt stood. “I don’t think this is a good idea…me telling you so much about yourself, about your past. Maybe I should speak to Dr. Edmond first and see what she has to say before I say anything more.”

  “Fine, call her. But I remember her instructions quite clearly,” Claire insisted. “She said that I shouldn’t be force-fed any information about myself, about our life together or…or about the attack. That I should be told things when I ask about them, when I want to know. Well, I’m asking, Matt,” she said firmly. “I want to know what happened to my parents. I want to know why I was sent to live in an orphanage.”

  Matt jammed a fist through his hair and paced in front of the chair where she sat. For a moment Claire thought he wasn’t going to respond when he stopped and looked into her eyes. “There’s really not a whole lot that I can tell you,” he began. “You never liked to talk about your childhood. When we started seeing each other, all you told me was that you had no family of your own and that you grew up in an orphanage and foster homes. You didn’t know who your parents were—only that you had been three years old or so when a policeman found you abandoned in a church during a hurricane. The nuns named you Claire after that hurricane.”

  “I didn’t even know my name?” Claire asked, unsure of how she felt about the grim glimpse Matt had painted of her past.

  “Apparently not.”

  Claire frowned. “But if I was three, wouldn’t I have at least been taught my name?”

  Matt shrugged. “Evidently not.”

  “And my parents? Did I ever try to find out who they were? I mean, I know it’s fairly common now for adopted children to search out their biological parents. Did I?”

  “No,” he told her, his voice solemn. “As I said, you didn’t like talking about the past. You said that you preferred spending your time and energy focusing on the present and the future.”

  Why? Claire wondered. But from the shuttered expression on Matt’s face, she doubted he would provide her with the answers—even if he had them. And she wasn’t sure that he did.

  “You feel up to taking that tour of the house now?”

  Recognizing the change of subject for what it was, Claire tucked the questions into her ever-expanding file of things she didn’t remember but needed to find out. “Sure,” she said. “But only if you allow me to walk.”

  “Deal.”

  The killer smile he flashed her went a long way to banishing her blues. And that kick to her pulse had nothing to do with the effort it took to position the crutches beneath her arms and everything to do with the feel of Matt’s arm around her shoulders, she admitted.

  He released her to stand on her own. “All set?”

  “All set,” she replied. “Lead the way.”

  “I thought we’d start off in the kitchen.”

  Thirty minutes later, when they finished the tour downstairs and returned to the den, Claire felt as though she’d just run an obstacle course. Maneuvering herself around on the crutches, following several days of restricted activity, had left her exhausted. But mostly she was disappointed that seeing what should be the familiar surroundings of her home had failed to jar her memory.

  “What do you say we save the upstairs tour for later?”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” she replied, grateful that Matt had picked up on her weariness.

  “In the meantime, I’ll go heat up the casserole Emma left us for dinner. Since you’ve been cooped up in the hospital for the past few days, I thought you might like to eat outside on the deck. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds terrific,” Claire told him, and allowed Matt to help her navigate her way through the patio doors that led to a wooden deck overlooking the gardens and swimming pool.

  After propping up her ankle with a pillow and making sure she was comfortable in the lounge chair, Matt dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Sit tight. I’ll be back in a minute with some tea.”

  Claire sank into the padded cushions and gazed out at the gardens. Dozens of rosebushes were heavy with blooms in varying shades of pink and white. Yellow flowers with lily-like petals stood majestically on long stems. White daisies with thick green foliage and assorted plants added to the colorful mix. The towering oaks and magnolia trees dotted the landscape like sentries, and the cobblestone path that led to the pool made her think of magical roads and ruby slippers.

  It was lovely, Claire thought. Enchanting. Everything about the house was beautiful—from the understated but elegant furnishings to the carefully tended flower beds. And everything about the house, the gardens and even Matt screamed the words class, privilege, wealth. The realization didn’t surprise Claire nearly as much as it disturbed her.

  She h
ad surmised that Matt was someone of importance long before she’d left the hospital. It had had little to do with the quality of his clothing or even the detective’s comment about his family’s businesses. There had been an aura of command about him, an innate power in the way he carried himself, in the way the hospital staff had responded to him that had made her suspect he was wealthy. Only, now she realized that he was probably a great deal more wealthy than she had initially suspected. Which was what bothered her. How on earth did a man of Matt’s obvious means and family background wind up married to a woman without both?

  “Here you go,” Matt said as he returned to the deck. He placed a tray containing a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses on the table. “Dinner should be ready in just a few minutes. Looks like Emma fixed one of your favorites—shrimp casserole.”

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the glass of tea he offered, but her thoughts remained fixed on these new questions about herself, about the type of woman she was.

  “Do you need some more lemon?”

  Claire blinked. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “You were frowning, and I thought maybe I didn’t bring you enough lemon wedges for the tea.”

  Claire looked down at the three lemon slices in the glass she was holding and realized she hadn’t even been aware of adding the lemons or of actually tasting the tea. “No, it’s fine,” she told him and took another sip to be sure.

  “So, why the long face?”

  “I was wondering about us,” she admitted. “Matt, how did we meet?”

  “Over a piece of smuggled cheesecake.”

  Claire eyed him skeptically. “Smuggled cheesecake?”

  “I swear, it’s true,” he said, laughing. “Gallagher’s On The Avenue had lost their pastry chef, and you were trying to expand your wholesale pastry business—”

  “I have a pastry business?”

  “Sure do. Desserts Only. You produce some of the best pastries in the city to some of the top restaurants. And since I’ve got this big sweet tooth, the moment I discovered you were not only beautiful and smart, but could bake, too, I knew I had to marry you,” he said, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.