If Sydney lost her baby, he’d never forgive himself.
Why? It’s not your baby. She’s not your woman.
Lucas skidded around a bend on the gravel road. He forced himself to slow down, bringing the truck back under control.
He couldn’t answer his own question.
It wasn’t his kid. Sydney Blake wasn’t his woman, yet his heart pounded so hard he thought it might burst out of his chest. He felt like the biggest jerk in the world. If anything happened to her… If anything happened to Sydney and that baby it was on him. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know why, but he knew it was the truth.
How the hell did she get into my head, she and the other Wolf, the golden giant? It makes no sense. Not a damn bit of sense.
Lucas parked his truck, headed toward the entrance to the Emergency Room, and slammed into a fist.
“You son of a bitch.”
“What the hell?” Lucas tried to get up off the cement.
“Stay down, you bastard, or I’ll hit you again.”
Lucas sat back and stared up at the man who’d just decked him, a white-haired man wearing scrubs.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He rubbed his jaw. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Nothing. You didn’t do anything to me, asshole. That punch was for Sydney Blake. I’m her boss. What kind of scumbag are you? You make a woman fall in love with him and get her pregnant, but when you recover your memory you pretend you don’t know her. Why the hell are you sticking around here? What kind of con are you running?”
What on earth? “I’m not running any con and I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” Fists clenched, Lucas rose to his feet.
The man’s eyes went to his hands. “You plan on using those fists?”
Lucas took a second to think about that. “I don’t hit doctors.”
“Lucky for you because the way I feel right now I’d like the opportunity to beat some sense into your thick skull. Listen up, Wolf, or whatever your name is.”
“My name’s Lucas Jennings.”
“Good for you. I don’t care. What I do care about is Sydney Blake. She’s pregnant with your child. That’s a fact whether you remember or not, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.” The man scowled at him. “Now either you take responsibility or stay the hell away from her because I’ll be damned if I’m going to watch her pine away over some ass who doesn’t give a shit about her or his own baby.”
Lucas rubbed a hand over his jaw once more. He tried hard to keep his voice steady. “I don’t remember. I don’t know what everyone is talking about. I’ve never been near her, never touched her. The first time I laid eyes on Sydney Blake was a month ago.”
The doctor shook his head. “Then you must have a damn brain tumor, either that or you’re crazy. And I know you don’t have a brain tumor because I read your MRI myself.”
Lucas froze. A memory flitted past, cold, snow, headlights. He was naked. “What? What MRI?”
“When she brought you in here a few months back. You don’t remember?”
“Impossible.” Lucas shook his head. “I was in Nebraska. I wasn’t here. It wasn’t me.”
The man rubbed a hand over his eyes. He seemed weary. “Apparently I don’t understand any more than you do. Either you’re a liar or you have a twin. Which is it?”
“I’m sorry. It’s neither.” Lucas opened and closed his mouth a few times, testing. He knew he’d have a big bruise in about an hour. “What’s your name?”
“Ben. Ben Benoit.”
“Dr. Benoit, I don’t know what’s going on. Everyone out at the Triple Creek walks on eggshells around me. Sydney won’t talk to me, she just stares at me with those big eyes of hers, like she’s waiting for something, and the sheriff, your friend, Cass Weber, drops clues right and left leaving breadcrumbs for me to follow, except I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I wish I did. Somebody needs to be straight with me.” His eyes locked onto Dr. Benoit’s. “It may as well be you.”
The doctor blew out a breath. “I don’t know the whole story.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
“Sydney brought you in here to be evaluated. She was on her way home one night after a long shift in the middle of flu season when there was a lightning strike and you appeared right in front of her truck, buck naked, in a blizzard.”
Lightning. Snow. Lucas shoved both hands in his pockets so the doctor wouldn’t see them shake.
“The storm was too bad to bring you in and nobody could make it out to the ranch. Sydney kept you going that first night. She warmed you up, got fluids into you. When you woke up you didn’t remember a thing, not even your own name. Syd and the sheriff brought you in as soon as the storm cleared. I ran every test in the book. Far as I could tell, you were one hundred percent, not a scratch on you, just no memory. The most we could get out of you was a name and even that didn’t make sense.”
Zéev. Lucas heard the name in his head and he wondered if Dr. Benoit had hit him harder than he thought. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know but he asked anyway. “What name?”
“Zéev, or something. You thought the name meant Wolf. No last name.” The doctor paused for a second, cocking his head like a dog. “Funny thing… You had an accent. You don’t have it now.”
“You mean I had a foreign accent?”
“Yes.”
“I was born in Nebraska. I don’t have any accent.”
“I hear that. I don’t have an explanation other than to say head trauma can cause some strange symptoms.”
The two men faced off in the middle of the parking lot.
At last Lucas asked, “Why did you call me instead of the sheriff?”
“Because you’re what Syd needs, not the sheriff. She needs her baby’s father to show some interest. Syd’s not taking care of herself. She’s not sleeping, she’s not eating, she’s severely anemic, and if she’s not careful she’ll endanger the pregnancy. So, Wolf, either you’re part of the problem or you’re part of the solution. Which are you going to be?”
“I want to see her.” He started for the entrance to the ER.
“Hold on a damn minute. If you aren’t willing to drive her back out to the ranch I need to find someone else. It’s not safe for her to drive right now.”
“I understand. I’ll get her back to the ranch. Let me talk to her. Please.”
“All right, follow me. Oh…” Dr. Benoit passed him, but turned around. “If you upset her it’s not just your jaw you’ll be nursing tonight.”
Syd was asleep. When he spotted the IV in her arm it hit him, it really hit him, just how pale she looked, how thin and worn out, how vulnerable. The contrast between right now and the way she’d looked just a month ago, the very first morning, the morning he’d pulled her and the bull calf out of the creek, was striking.
He remembered the look on her face when she’d awakened before the woodstove, how she’d radiated joy at the sight of him, how right she’d felt when she’d thrown herself into his arms.
He’d thought she was hallucinating because of her exposure to the cold. At first he’d humored her, treated it like a big joke, but when she’d persisted in her delusion he’d been scared to death. He’d pulled away from her.
He did his work, answered her questions with a “yes ma’am” and a “no ma’am,” and made plans to move on as soon as branding was done.
She wasn’t in this hospital bed because of the baby; she was here because of a broken heart.
Lucas turned to Dr. Benoit. “Can’t you give her some blood?” He kept his voice low.
Benoit shook his head. “I suggested. Syd refused. She needs good healthy food and she needs rest.” He crossed his arms; his eyes challenged Lucas. “I’d feel better about sending her home if I knew for sure she had someone to look after her.”
“You want me to look after her.”
Benoit rolled his eyes. “Why do you think I called you? Whether you realize it or not you
’re the best medicine for what ails her.”
I must be out of my freakin’ mind. “I’ll take care of her and the baby. I’ll take responsibility.”
“Why?” It was the first word Syd had spoken since they’d left the parking lot.
Lucas glanced over at her. She huddled against the doorframe, arms folded across her chest, sitting as far away from him as possible.
All kinds of answers filled his head, but not a one made any sense. “Because…”
“Because why?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
She made some inarticulate response and scrunched her body even closer to the door.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Syd. I’m not angry.”
“I’m not afraid of you. I just don’t want to be near you.”
Lucas cringed at her words. He risked another glance in her direction. “Did you say you don’t want to be near me?”
She nodded.
Once again he felt he should say something, anything to explain himself, but he didn’t know what to say. He turned off the highway onto the road to Triple Creek. “We’ll have to send Chuck and Ryan back for your truck.”
Lucas listened for a response. He didn’t hear a sound. Not even a grunt or a sniffle. What he deserved was a slap. He pulled off to the side of the road and threw the truck into park. “Let’s talk about this, about what happened to you.”
“Oh, right.” Syd’s eyes blazed with anger. “Now you care what happens to me or what happens to this baby? I don’t believe you.”
“I do care about you.”
She scowled at him. “You know what I think? I think Ben guilted you into bringing me home and the first chance you get you’ll bolt like a skittish colt.”
Lucas slammed his fists against the steering wheel. “What the hell do you want from me, woman? Tell me what you want.”
Tears filled her eyes and he knew he sounded like a boorish Neanderthal.
She opened her mouth, touched the tip of her pink tongue to those oh so perfect teeth. “I want you to remember me. That’s all. Is it so much to ask? I want you to remember.”
“I don’t remember you.” He spoke each word clearly. “I didn’t know you until a month ago.”
Syd looked straight into his eyes. “Yes you do. You know me.” Keeping her movements slow as if trying not to spook him, she reached a tentative hand toward his hair, threading her fingers through his curls. Her fingertips grazed his scalp. “Wolf, somewhere inside this thick skull of yours you retain memories of me and of what you were not so long ago.”
Her touch sent chills racing up and down his spine. Lucas closed his eyes. “It’s not possible. I was in Nebraska.”
“You don’t know it, but with you the impossible is possible. It’s true. I’ve seen it. So has Cass.” She trailed light fingers over his cheekbone. “Ask him, Wolf. Ask Cass to show you.”
Lucas opened his eyes. He saw the hope in hers. How he wanted to keep that hope alive. He forced his mouth to move. “Show me what?”
“He can show you where you touched him.”
“Where I did what?”
“Where you touched him,” she repeated. “You brought him back from the dead.”
Lucas didn’t want to do anything to make her move her hand away, but his mouth fell open. He closed it before he could issue a snort of derision and disbelief. Sydney’s eyes didn’t lie. She believed what she was saying. There was no doubt.
He gave a big sigh. “All right, I will. I’ll do that for you, although I can’t imagine what on earth he could show me that could possibly…”
Sydney put a finger over his lips. “Hush. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “What do you…?”
“Shut up and do what you’re dying to do.”
“And what is that?”
“Kiss me.”
Oh fuck. He did want to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her more than he’d wanted anything in his entire life. Lucas shoved the driver’s seat back. He flipped off his seatbelt and hers at the same time, giving him the room he needed to lift her over the console and into his arms. He was struck by the notion of rightness all over again. She felt good. No, she didn’t just feel good, she felt perfect.
Without any hesitation his lips met hers. She was so soft and yielding. Lucas could swear she melted right into him. In that searing kiss he knew Sydney Blake held the promise of everything he’d ever dreamed of. She held it all in the palm of her ranch-roughened hand.
She belonged with him for all eternity.
But I’ll be damned if I know how I know that.
Lucas felt as if he’d caught fire; flames licked at him from the top of his head to the ends of his toes. He recognized the desperate hunger in her kiss because it mirrored his own.
He tried lying—It’s just because she’s a beautiful woman. It’s because you haven’t been with anyone since you moved up here.
But it wasn’t because she was beautiful. It was because his heart belonged to her. Lucas buried his hands in her hair and tilted her head back to deepen the kiss. He wanted her now, right now in the pickup truck. He couldn’t remember wanting any woman the way he wanted Sydney Blake.
With a groan, he pushed his seat back even farther, making enough room to slip his hand beneath her jacket and her shirt and caress her silky skin.
From out of nowhere, Lucas was struck by a blinding pain behind his eyes. Confused, he tore his mouth from Syd’s.
Images smacked against the inside of his skull. He remembered Syd’s innocent face turned up to his, snowflakes caught in her curls, melting on her cheeks. An ice cold wind chilled him. It was deep dark night and he stood outdoors beneath a tree, naked in the snow. He recognized the tree. It was the willow that grew halfway to the ridge along the creek. Snow… I remember snow. He tasted it on his tongue. He felt the ice crystals melt in the heat of his mouth.
His ears, his real ears, heard Syd make a sound of alarm. “Lucas? Lucas, look at me.” Her voice trembled.
The headache vanished as quickly as it had come. He opened his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean…” He rubbed his brow. “My head, I got this sudden headache. It’s gone now.”
Damn. What the hell was that all about?
“Let me see your eyes.”
He shook his head. “I’m fine, Syd. Like I said, it’s gone.” So was the mood. He’d ruined it. Lucas shifted in his seat, trying to make more room in his jeans, lifting her up and off a certain uncomfortable portion of his anatomy.
“Let me see your eyes,” Syd repeated. She brushed the hair from his face.
Lucas allowed her to look. He took the opportunity to look back. The tip of her pink tongue touched her teeth again and he was tempted to kiss her once more, to pick up right where they’d left off; taste her so he’d forget all about the taste of snow.
“Wolf, you remembered something.”
He grunted, refusing to acknowledge her statement. “One of these days you’re going to have to call me by my name. It’s Lucas.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Syd said. “I don’t care what your name is. You remembered something. I can see it in your face. There was a light shining from, well, from you. When you kissed me I felt the warmth against my face.” She drew a finger over his jaw, stopping at the bruise. “What did you remember?”
Lucas turned away from her scrutiny. He rubbed a tight fist over the moisture on the window, frustrated as all hell. What did he remember and why did it matter so much? Syd poked him in the chest. He refused to look at her.
“Snow, I remember snow,” he said. I remember standing beneath that willow halfway to the ridge. It was night. I held you in my arms and I tasted snow.”
Syd placed a hand on either side of his face, forcing him to turn his head in her direction. “Yes,” she said, “That’s what happened when I brought you here. It happened the first night.”
Lucas wanted to tell her to quit talking about it, but he
couldn’t. He loved the sound of her voice even when her words drove him insane. It was as if she was a magnet and he was a helpless piece of iron. No matter how hard he tried to pretend otherwise, he was drawn to her.
His brain might not remember her, but his body sure as hell did. Goddamn it.
He wrapped his arms around her again and pulled her closer, close enough that she could feel every single iron-hard inch. He slid a hand along the nape of her neck, guiding her mouth back to his.
“Hey, what’s the hold up? I’ve been stuck behind you for five minutes.” The voice came from outside the pickup.
Syd jerked in his arms. She tried to wipe the condensation from the window. “Look what you did. You steamed up the windows.”
“Uh, I think it was a shared endeavor.”
Cass tapped his knuckles on the glass. “Get moving you two. I’ve got something for you.”
Despite his reluctance to let her go, Lucas helped Syd back into her seat. “I have a calf to feed anyway,” he said.
Stay
ass, can this wait? I want to change clothes and get out to the barn to help Wolf. One of the young cows had triplets this morning, two bull calves and a heifer. He’s got the heifer in a stall.”
The sheriff shook his head. He walked around to the bed of his truck. “The university returned this. It’s yours.” He lifted a strand of the gold-covered barbed wire.
“Shit.” She turned away and stared off toward the ridge. “I don’t want it. Tell them to keep it.”
“Use your brain, Syd. Think of the bills you and your father can pay off. Besides, this belongs to you whether you want it or not.”
“Not if I give it to the university, as a donation.” Syd spun back around way too fast. Dizzy, she grabbed for the side of the sheriff’s truck and held on with all her strength. “I don’t want it. Get it out of my sight.”
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