Reunited by Their Pregnancy Surprise

by Louisa Heaton

Asking Emily to marry him had been the icing on the cake. And she’d said yes. So he guessed now he’d be busy planning a wedding, too!

  They hadn’t been going out long. Six months? But there was something about her—something that had reached out and grabbed him. She’d seemed so…vulnerable when they’d first met, and he’d been cautious not to scare her with his desire to be by her side. He’d not been able to pinpoint the source of that vulnerability and, to be honest, they’d both been so busy at work, and setting up the Monterey, that it hadn’t seemed all that important after a while.

  Emily had blossomed by his side, driven on by their shared vision. She was everything he could have wished for and he loved her deeply. She cared for and loved delivering babies as much as he did.

  But today she looked exhausted. She must have been handling any last hiccups at the birth centre, working and having to deal with his accident and their families all by herself. No wonder she looked shattered. Had they put off the Grand Opening whilst they’d waited for him to recover?

  For a brief moment he just lay there and stared at her, his heart swelling with love for the woman at his side, but after a minute or so he couldn’t stand it any more and reached out to take her hand. Needing to touch her. To connect.

  She blinked herself awake in seconds. ‘Sam?’

  He smiled and lifted her hand to his lips, pressed a kiss upon it. ‘Sleeping Beauty.’

  She glanced at her watch in confusion. ‘I’ve been asleep for three hours!’ She rubbed at her eyes and then glanced at him with concern. ‘How are you? Are you in any pain?’

  ‘Just a headache.’

  ‘Should I call a nurse?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. It’s understandable, considering my head got bashed. I’m sure there’s some morphine being dripped in to me somewhere…’ He looked up at the various drips and then smiled at her. ‘I’ve missed you.’ He squeezed her fingers, wishing he could be holding her in his arms. Wishing he could get her to come and lie beside him upon the bed. He needed to feel her next to him.

  She looked a little apprehensive. ‘You’ve been in a coma.’

  ‘So you keep saying. But what about you? How are you doing? Any problems with Monterey I need to know about?’

  Emily frowned and shook her head. ‘No. It’s all going very well.’

  He let out a sigh. ‘That’s great news. How did Harry get on with the window treatments? Did he make the changes we asked him to?’

  His fiancée looked at him, lines furrowing her brow. ‘What?’

  ‘The curtains and sashing in The Nightingale Suite. We decided to change them to that lighter gold colour. Has he done it yet? If he hasn’t we need to get on that—the Grand Opening is only a few days away.’

  She continued to look at him with puzzlement. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The curtains were too dark. That suite is going to be our most prestigious—we want it right for the press tour. Think of the spread of pictures…’

  ‘Press tour? We haven’t had a press tour since…’ Her voice drifted away and she suddenly looked at him, her eyes searching his face as she sucked in a breath. ‘Sam, what day do you think it is?’

  He closed his eyes and thought about it. He’d proposed on Friday, he’d been in a coma for ten days, so today had to be… ‘Monday? Tuesday, maybe?’

  She shook her head, her choppy blonde locks shimmering around her shoulders. ‘No. I mean the month. The year.’

  Month and year? What was she talking about? He’d been out for ten days, they’d said! He told her the date and watched as what little colour there was leeched from her face. She turned away from him, her curtain of honey-blonde hair hiding her face from his as she pulled her hands free of his grasp.

  Her recoiling from him made him feel nervous. What didn’t he know? ‘Why are you asking? I’m not that much out of step, am I?’

  He heard her sniff. Watched as she reached into her bag and pulled out a small hankie, dabbing at her eyes before she turned back to face him, bracing herself to prepare to say something she clearly thought he wouldn’t be ready to hear.

  ‘Sam… We’ve been married for eighteen months. The Monterey has been open and running for just over a year now.’

  Sam stared at her hard. He swallowed painfully and his hands scrunched up the bedding as he made fists.

  Eighteen months?

  No! That’s ridiculous…

  ‘Why would you say that? Why would you even play a trick like that?’

  A tear dripped onto her cheek and with clear-cut pain in her voice she said, ‘I’m not lying to you.’

  ‘Emily…’

  ‘Sam, please, listen—’

  But he wasn’t listening. Not any more. Em was playing some cruel trick on him, and he didn’t know why, but the doctors would have to tell him the truth! The nurses would. He’d make them show him a newspaper or something. This was completely ridiculous. There was no way that he’d lost all that time. He’d know. There’d be signs!

  Sam stabbed at the button that would call a nurse to his bedside and kept doing so, ignoring Emily’s pleas, her cries. She was standing now, her hand covering her mouth, looking at him with those wide, tear-filled eyes…

  The door opened and a nurse he hadn’t seen before came in. She glanced at Emily in concern before turning to him. ‘Mr Saint?’

  ‘I need to see the doctor in charge of my care.’

  The nurse kept on looking between the two of them, not sure exactly what had happened. ‘Dr Waters has gone home for the evening. I can get—’

  ‘Get someone! Someone who knows what they’re talking about!’ He glared at Emily, angry at her, and watched as she snatched up her handbag and ran from the room.

  The nurse nodded and hurried out, and with both women gone he felt his anger deflate slightly.

  Married eighteen months? Emily was crazy. Perhaps she’d had the bump on the head and not him!

  He lay in the bed, fury surging through him, and waited for someone who knew what they were talking about to come and tell him the truth.

  There was no way he had lost that amount of time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  EMILY RAN FROM Sam’s room, throwing her bag to the floor and sagging against the wall opposite. She slid down it until she sat hunched on the floor, like a puppet without her strings.

  He couldn’t remember! He had no idea of how much time had passed! He thought…he thought that… She heard his words once again, spoken with such certainty, such concern. ‘How did Harry get on with the window treatments? Did he make the changes we asked him to?’

  Window treatments?

  I remember! It was a week before the Grand Opening. He’d proposed just the night before…

  The nurse who had followed her out of Sam’s room came over to her, hunched down and draped her arm softly around her shoulders. ‘Are you okay, Mrs Saint?’

  She could barely breathe…so, no, she wasn’t okay. But she managed to suck in a deep, steadying breath and struggle back to her feet. Another breath and she nodded that she was all right.

  ‘The doctor told me… Dr Waters…she told me that Sam had a little amnesia, but I thought that she meant that…that he’d forgotten the accident. Not two whole years of his life!’

  It was so much for her to take in. And she couldn’t imagine how he felt! Well, she didn’t have to, did she? He was furious at the idea. And she could understand why. Sam was a driven man, always pushing himself to fill every second of his life and enjoy it. The man didn’t sit still for a minute.

  And he’d forgotten it all. The opening of the birth centre. The massive celebrations…the parties. The first birth and all the births since. The amazing write-ups they’d received, the recommendations, the people who were attracted to the Monterey—celebrities, the rich… Royalty had even given birth there.

  And not just everything that had happened at work. If it were true—if he really didn’t remember—then he’d also forgotten their wedding. The prepar
ations, the wedding night, the honeymoon in Paris…

  The arguments… The fact that I told him I was going to leave him!

  Emily bit down hard on her lip and accepted a plastic cup of water from the nurse, who had hurried to the small self-service station in the corridor. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll page the on-call doctor.’

  Emily nodded. ‘Thank you.’ She smiled weakly at the nurse, noting the relief on her face, her name badge—Melanie. ‘And I think you’d better show him a webpage, or perhaps a newspaper. Prove the date to him. I’m not sure he believes me.’

  Melanie looked uncertain. ‘I think maybe the doctor ought to do that.’

  ‘Maybe. Or perhaps I ought to do it? Do you have a copy of today’s paper?’

  Not that she wanted to go in there and do that to him. Prove to him that all that she’d said was true. That he was a man out of time with everyone else.

  How did you get your head around something like that?

  ‘I’d like whoever’s on call to talk to both of us. I need to know what this means. Why it’s happened. What we should be doing…’ Her thoughts drifted off onto some nightmarish plane where Sam never regained those two years and she had to fill him in on everything. The long hours he’d put in, his absences from home, the arguments…

  And somehow I need to tell him I’m pregnant too!

  She felt sick. The weight of all this duty pressed down upon her. A thick ball of nausea sat low and curdled in her stomach and she could taste bile in the back of her throat, despite the drink of cool, refreshing water from the cup. Was there an easy way to tell a man that you were married, but that the two of you had been arguing constantly and that just under two weeks ago you’d told that same man you were going to leave him?

  Because you refused to have a child with me and, oh, by the way, I’m actually pregnant! I found out after the accident. They did tests.

  Yes, she really couldn’t see that nugget of information going down very well with him.

  It was all going wrong. Everything.

  She tried to rack her brains for what she knew about amnesia, but apart from the general knowledge that it meant you couldn’t remember things, she wasn’t sure what else she knew about it. It wasn’t something she’d specialised in. She was a certified nurse-midwife. She looked after labouring women.

  She knew that there were different types of amnesia—some amnesia was permanent and some temporary. Dr Waters had said it might be so. If Sam’s was temporary then he would regain his memories on his own and everything would be back to the way it was before…

  But I was leaving him before.

  She swallowed hard, seeing in her mind’s eye that day she’d laid the suitcase upon the bed and stared at it. Then she’d lain a hand on her abdomen. This wasn’t just about her and Sam any more. There was a baby to consider, and there was no way she was going to let her child be rejected by its father before it was even born. She knew what it felt like to be left behind and unwanted. It hurt. Left you bewildered. Made you question yourself. Your own value. She would not put her own child through that.

  Emily swallowed the last of the water and crumpled the plastic cup. She put it into a trash can and walked back over to Sam’s door, put her hand on it, waiting, taking a deep breath.

  She was about to go back in when Melanie reappeared.

  ‘I have a paper for you.’

  She looked down. Saw the day’s headlines. The date. ‘Thank you.’ Her mouth felt dry. There was a strange, tinny sort of taste in her mouth and she wondered if she were going to be sick.

  ‘And the doctor will come down as soon as he’s finished with a patient on the next floor. Ten minutes?’

  Emily nodded, swallowing hard. ‘Brilliant. Thanks.’

  She watched as Melanie headed back to answer a ringing telephone and then with one final inhalation she pushed open Sam’s door and stepped inside.

  Their gazes met across the room.

  If I’m going to get through this then I need to be strong.

  ‘I’ve brought you something.’

  ‘An apology?’ He sounded bitter. Hurt.

  ‘No. I don’t need to give you one. But I will give you this.’ She walked across the room and handed him the newspaper before stepping back. As if imagining that the second he confirmed the date for himself he would somehow explode. ‘Look at the date.’

  At first she didn’t think he would look at it, but he finally lifted the paper and scanned the first page for the date.

  She knew the exact second his gaze fell upon it. He seemed to stiffen, the muscle in his jaw flickering, the focus in his eyes intensifying before he flipped through, checking that all the other pages stated the same date, too. Then he went back to the beginning, scanned the headlines.

  Sam dropped the paper as if it were contaminated, closing his eyes briefly as it all sank in.

  ‘Two years? I’ve lost two years?’

  He sounded so broken. So hurt. It made her heart ache. Made her feel like she needed to cross the room to him and take him in her arms and hug him better. She didn’t want him to be hurting. She never had.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sam. But it’s true. We’ve been married eighteen months now. We honeymooned in Paris. We were very happy.’

  He instantly looked up, met her gaze, pinning her with his normally soft blue eyes. ‘Were?’

  She tried not to cry. She seemed to be so emotional since finding out she was pregnant. She struggled to keep control of her voice. ‘We’re having one or two…problems.’

  Sam bristled. ‘What kind of problems?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘We can talk about those later. The doctor’s coming to talk to you now. About the amnesia.’

  ‘Are there problems at work? Is the Monterey failing?’

  She could hear the fear in his voice. The concern. ‘No. It’s doing very well. The launch was amazing and we’ve had almost full capacity from day one. You haven’t stopped working—working all hours to make it a success.’

  At that moment the door opened and a new doctor came in, holding Sam’s case notes in his hands.

  Emily snapped to attention and crossed her arms, stepping back out of the doctor’s way.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Saint? I’m Dr Elijah Penn—how can I be of assistance?’

  She managed a weak smile and went over to shake Dr Penn’s hand. ‘Hello, Doctor. My husband has just learned that he’s lost two years of his memory after his head injury. We were in a car crash together ten days ago. We were wondering if you could tell us some more about what to expect, and what we can do to help him regain his memory.’

  Dr Penn frowned. ‘I’ve only had a brief read-through of your notes, Mr Saint, and without giving you a thorough examination and questioning you myself over what you remember I can’t be precise here. There are many different types of amnesia caused by traumatic head injury and right now it would be hard to be specific.’

  ‘Can you tell us what you do know?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to guess, as I’m not your husband’s physician and I wouldn’t want to tell you anything erroneous. But if you’ll give me a moment or two with your husband then I’ll tell you what I can.’

  Emily nodded. Okay. That sounded sensible. She left Sam’s room once again and went and sat outside. From her purse she pulled out her cell phone and felt drawn to the photo album. Opening it, she began flicking through. Perhaps there was something here that might help Sam? Perhaps if he looked at their moments together that might provoke some kind of memory?

  There were lots to go through. Many of the photographs were from work. Mothers-to-be whom she’d become great friends with, bouquets that she’d been sent as thanks. There were some pictures of the house after they’d had some work done on it. Other people’s babies.

  Why weren’t there any pictures of her and Sam together? She had a few selfies. One or two of Sam in scrubs about to go into a Caesarean section, and then one of him relaxing at the house, reading a work journal.
In neither of them was he smiling that beautiful smile she hadn’t seen for such a long time. When had he last smiled at her? Apart from today? Because that didn’t count any more, did it? He was of the mind-set that she’d just accepted his proposal. He thought they were happy.

  If only…

  She scrolled furiously through the rest of the photos. Nothing of them together except for one right at the beginning, when she’d first got the phone, of her and Sam, heads together, smiling at the camera.

  When had that been? She checked the date stamp. It had been just after the Monterey had opened. Of course they’d been happy then. Work had been enthralling. They’d been busy. Passing like ships in the night, sometimes, but planning their wedding.

  She felt the tears threaten once again and stood up abruptly, shaking them off. What on earth was she going to do? And how was Sam feeling? Thinking they were blissfully happy only to learn that he couldn’t remember his own wedding and had no idea that over the last eighteen months he had slowly been distancing himself from her.

  The doctor came to the door. ‘Would you like to come in?’

  Emily shoved the phone back in her jacket pocket and hurried through, glancing at Sam. He looked glum, but reached out his hand.

  Puzzled, but hopeful, she went over to him and took his hand in hers, her heart pounding in her chest because he’d reached out to her. Needed her. He hadn’t done that for such a long time.

  ‘Bad news?’

  Dr Penn held his clipboard against his chest. ‘I’ve had a chance to chat with your husband. Ask him a few questions. See what he understands of his situation. You’ve both been very lucky in that you escaped the car accident with a minimum amount of injuries. But from my understanding from this limited examination I would presume to say that Sam is suffering from a retrograde amnesia.’

  Emily squeezed his fingers and looked at him. ‘Which is…?’

  ‘It can be caused by various conditions including head trauma, which Sam has gone through. Retrograde amnesia means that Sam’s most recent memories are less likely to be recalled, but his long-term memories are easier for him to remember.’