The Amnesiac Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  “I think that I’m going to have fun finding out about me.”

  If this were the old Whitney talking, he knew he would be in for trouble. But it wasn’t, so maybe he’d have some slack cut him. Heaven knew he was going to need it.

  “It’ll be an experience,” he promised. Zane dusted off his hands on the back of his jeans and rose. “Well, I’ve had my fill.” She was still working her way through her plate. And would probably have seconds, he guessed. “You finish up. I’m going to take a shower and then we’re going to see that doctor.”

  Whitney watched him walk out of the room. She couldn’t shake the impression that though it was subtly done, he was rushing her. But why? They were on their honeymoon. Weren’t honeymoons supposed to be leisurely?

  Shrugging, she finished off what was left on her plate. She supposed that he just wanted to get her to the doctor to have her checked out. Maybe he was hoping the doctor could offer an explanation and some sort of course of action to bring her memory back.

  God, she hoped so. She hated this feeling of not knowing anything. Of being only vaguely aware that she had had a life before this morning.

  Whitney looked down at her left hand and then toward the closed bathroom door. From the looks of it, and him, it must have been some life at that.

  Feeling pleasantly full, she pushed the cart back and rose, then crossed to the closet. She had to find something to wear.

  Sliding the hangers along the pole as she took inventory, she noticed that she seemed to favor feminine-looking things. Somehow that didn’t feel right, but it obviously had to be, since that was all there was on her side of the closet.

  She would have rather worn jeans. Faded ones like Zane’s.

  Sighing, she selected a straight white skirt and a cherry red pullover. Listlessly, she tossed them on the bed.

  Whitney glanced toward the bathroom. The water in the shower was still running. An entire battalion of questions was running through her head. A few were inching their way forward to the top of the list.

  One in particular.

  If she hesitated, it was only for a second. Since she had no past to fall back on, there was no time like the present. Opening the door, Whitney stood on the threshold for a moment.

  The thought that she was standing on the threshold in more ways than one whispered in her mind.

  An unfamiliar anticipation began to drum through her as she looked at the stall. A light, foggy haze had risen, partially obscuring the frosted glass and the man within. It was just enough to mute the details of Zane’s outline. Mute them, but not erase them entirely. And certainly in no way negate the effect they had on Whitney.

  Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she moved toward the shower stall.

  He sensed he wasn’t alone a second before the shower door opened. Turning, Zane raised his hand defensively. It dropped to his side as surprise paralyzed him. Whitney was standing there, looking almost as surprised as he was. And she was staring at him. Staring and smiling.

  He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen that smile on her face before. And didn’t have a single idea how to interpret it. Belated reflexes had him pulling the door out of her hand and shutting it.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  She thought that was rather obvious. What wasn’t exactly obvious, at least not to her, was what had prompted her into the bathroom in the first place. But she was certainly glad she’d come. “Looking at my husband. I was just, um, curious.”

  Oh, boy. Zane turned up the hot water. The steam wasn’t forming nearly fast enough to satisfy him. He attempted to sound nonchalant. “I’ve got all the working parts, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Zane, are you being shy?” It didn’t seem possible, not with a body like that. Not when they were married. Yet he had definitely seemed uncomfortable to her.

  She wasn’t leaving. Giving up, Zane dragged the bath towel from the side of the stall, shutting off the water simultaneously. He quickly wrapped the towel around his middle and secured it.

  “I’m being in a hurry,” he corrected, stepping out onto the mat. “Emergency rooms are notorious for long waits. I want to get there as soon as possible. You don’t want to waste the whole day sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair, do you?”

  “No.” Fascinated, she watched drops of water negotiate a path down the lightly haired expanse of his chest. Several had already made it down, pooling in his navel. She felt a pleasant sensation wash over her.

  There was no logical reason why she suddenly felt that things were going to be all right, but she did.

  Raising her eyes from his waist and the towel settled snuggly along his hipline, she began to back out of the steamy enclosure.

  “I guess I’d better get dressed,” she murmured. His clothes, she noticed, were hanging behind the door.

  “Good idea.” He urged her out. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “Sure.” She found herself facing a closed door. There was a click on the other side, telling her that he had flipped the lock.

  Who would have thought that someone like Zane would be shy? Maybe they hadn’t slept together before they’d gotten married, after all.

  And maybe the wedding night had set off fireworks for her. That would explain why she felt her body humming at the sight of his, fleeting though it had been. Her body had a memory, even if she didn’t.

  Whitney searched through the bureau drawers until she found the one with her undergarments. Preoccupied, she got dressed. She wished there was some instruction booklet she could turn to, something that could make this easier for her somehow. She felt as if she was groping around in the dark.

  Of course, she had to admit, from what she’d seen, groping might not be so bad.

  Despite the dark side of the situation she found herself in, Whitney felt a smile creeping over her lips as she finished getting dressed.

  After all, things could be worse.

  The emergency-room waiting area of Community General was crowded with people waiting to be seen by the resident on call. Though he didn’t say anything, she could feel Zane’s impatience as he took in the scene.

  Whitney caught Zane’s arm. “Maybe we should come back later,” she suggested.

  There didn’t seem to be much of a reason to wait around, anyway. She’d actually come more to see if something looked familiar to her from the other night than to be examined again. She had a sinking feeling the doctor wasn’t going to be able to do anything for her.

  Zane wasn’t about to leave. “Later’s no good. We’re here now,” he added before she could ask him why later presented a problem. Zane nodded toward one of the last available chairs. “Sit down over there. I’ll be right back.”

  Leaving her, Zane crossed to the woman at the outpatient desk. From where she sat, Whitney could see that the woman was busy with another patient. Zane leaned over the desk and whispered something into the woman’s ear. The receptionist’s response was short and terse. The discussion ended there.

  Turning from the desk, Zane waved for Whitney to join him. She crossed to him, wondering if the receptionist was going to ask her for some information she wouldn’t be able to provide.

  Zane took her arm and ushered her to the side. He lowered his voice. “The doctor’ll see us in a couple of minutes.”

  As he said it, an orderly came out to bring them to a small room off to the side of the admission desk that was reserved for private consultations.

  Whitney stared at Zane. They had just gone ahead of a roomful of people.

  “What did you say to her?”

  Zane ran his hand along the back of his neck. His damp hair was just beginning to dry. It curled at the nape of his neck. He wished the itchy feeling would go away, but it persisted. It probably would until this was all over, he guessed.

  He grinned as he spared her a glance. “You’d be surprised how many doors the words ‘malpractice suit’ can open.”

  Her eyes wide
ned. “You threatened them?”

  Zane frowned. When he did, she noticed that all his charm turned into glinting steel. “It’s not a threat, it’s more like thinking out loud. A definite possibility to consider. The doctor told me that you’d be fine. That you were fine. Not remembering your own name isn’t fine in my book.”

  The momentary anger she saw rise in his eyes held her at bay. There was an aura of danger about him she hadn’t detected before. She began to suspect that Zane Russell was not a man to trifle with.

  The physician on call, Dr. Kellerman, a harried-looking man in his late forties, tugged at the stethoscope that was slung around his neck. It was a habitual gesture, born of frustration and a sense of impotence. He’d been unable to answer the questions posed to him to anyone’s satisfaction, least of all his own.

  Kellerman shook his head. When he looked at Whitney, his eyes were full of genuine sympathy.

  “We’re stumbling around in the dark with amnesia, if you forgive the comparison.” He was relieved when Whitney nodded. “There’s no certainty when it comes to amnesia.” He avoided looking at the man on his left. “Its selectivity isn’t something we can even explain. You could remember everything tomorrow—or not.”

  Whitney didn’t like the sound of that. “When you say ‘or not,’ just how long a period of time are we talking about?”

  Dr. Kellerman spread his hands helplessly. They weren’t dealing with an exact science here. “Any length of time.”

  Whitney could feel the air backing up in her lungs. Having Zane to occupy her mind with, she’d temporarily pushed the severity of the situation aside. It glared at her now like a cold, cruel specter. She hazarded a guess. “Like a year?”

  Kellerman inclined his head. It would be cruel to let her think there was some predictable end in sight. “Or—”

  Zane jumped on the word. “Or forever?”

  He knew before he asked what the answer would be and silently cursed it. There was no one to blame but himself, he thought. Even if he couldn’t have foreseen this, he was still to blame. He should have found a way to make her stay in the hotel room. It had been necessary for only one of them to go. Damn Whitney and her competitiveness.

  The question made Kellerman uneasy, but he had to be honest. A doctor owed a patient that.

  “Yes.” He saw the color drain out of the woman’s face. “But the odds are against it,” Kellerman added hurriedly.

  “Odds. I guess this is the city for it,” Zane muttered. A bitter taste rose up in his throat. He swallowed it back.

  Kellerman brightened at what he took to be a shred of optimism.

  “That it is.” He enveloped Whitney’s hand in pawlike hands that had precluded his ever picking up a surgical scalpel. They might not be skilled at surgery, but they could offer comfort. “And your wife appears to be very healthy in all other respects.”

  There was a knock on the door, cutting him short. He knew other patients were waiting to see him. Kellerman leaned on the doorknob.

  “I’m sure that this will eventually pass.” His eyes shifted to Zane’s face. “Just try to be reassuring and supportive. Talk about things that are familiar to her. I’m afraid that it’s a wait-and-see situation.”

  Zane hated playing waiting games. He’d never been very good at them, even when the stakes were high, but there was obviously nothing else he could do except wait.

  He stopped the doctor as he was leaving. “Why did it happen like this? I mean, why didn’t she lose her memory when she hit her head instead of this morning when she woke up?”

  Kellerman shook his head. “Damned if I know.” He saw the way the man and woman exchanged glances. The answer didn’t satisfy them. They weren’t the only ones. “We’ve made an awful lot of strides in the past few decades, but there’s a lot about the brain that is still a mystery to us.” He pulled several business cards out of his deep pockets and flipped through them until he found the one he wanted. He offered it to Zane. “I could refer you to a neurologist here, but he’ll probably tell you the same thing I did. You just have to wait.”

  Zane. took the card, pocketing it. He could tell by the look on Whitney’s face that she wasn’t eager to see another doctor, not if it meant being told the same thing. He couldn’t say that he blamed her.

  Kellerman crossed the threshold, then paused, as if suddenly remembering.

  He hesitated. “About that lawsuit...”

  There was no point in making the man twist in the wind. “There won’t be one,” Whitney told him.

  Zane looked at her, surprised. Well, that hadn’t changed. Whitney always liked to take charge of things. That was her problem. And right now, it became his, as well.

  “We’ll be in touch,” he told the doctor, negating her assurance. When Whitney opened her mouth to protest, he placed his arm around her and ushered her through the waiting area. “You never know, we might need to come back here,” he whispered firmly, stilling the question on the tip of her tongue. “This’ll give us an edge, so that we don’t have to wait forever.”

  She supposed he knew best. Right now, he was the only one who knew anything, she thought darkly. With a sigh, she walked out through the electronic doors ahead of him.

  Outside, she looked up at the sky. There wasn’t a single cloud to be seen. It was crystal clear, with a sky so blue, it made her soul ache.

  For now, she supposed that she should be content just to be alive and married to a man who looked to be a twelve on anyone’s one-to-ten scale.

  Making the best of it, Whitney surprised Zane by threading her arm through his. “All right, now what?”

  He brought her over to the car. “Now we get back to the hotel.” Zane opened the passenger door and held it as she got in.

  That didn’t sound very romantic, or very interesting. She waited until Zane got in on his side and started up the car. “Isn’t there someplace else we could go?”

  Zane inserted the token that the woman at the desk had given him into the slot at the gate. The striped security barrier rose to let them pass.

  “Like where?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged, feeling restless. “It seems so lovely out, and I thought that maybe we could go somewhere and just talk.”

  He guided the car into the moderate traffic. “We can talk at the hotel. Besides, we’re meeting Richard Quinton at one.” Zane glanced at the digital numbers on the dashboard. It was just past noon.

  “Our breakfast benefactor,” she recalled. It wasn’t difficult to remember that when there wasn’t much in the way of thoughts in her mind.

  Zane nodded without looking at her. “That’s the one.”

  She shifted in her seat to look at him. “I know that I’m kind of new at this, at everything, actually, but shouldn’t newlyweds be alone?”

  Was she going to give him trouble after all? “This isn’t the town for being alone. Besides, we have lots of time to be alone later.” Glancing in her direction, Zane was unable to read the look on her face. “Anyway, the more people there are around you, the more chances that something someone says might bring back your memory, or at least jog it.”

  “I suppose.”

  She sounded unconvinced. He didn’t have the time to argue about this. Since there wasn’t anything they could do about her memory, he was going to keep her in the dark for now. And hope that the light didn’t come on at the wrong time.

  He changed the topic. “How do you feel?”

  “You mean other than the fact that my mind feels like this huge shapeless snowbank?”

  It had to be hell for her. “Yeah, other than that.”

  She shrugged, thinking. “Fine. Nothing seems to hurt. Even the headache’s gone.”

  “Good.”

  They were talking like strangers. It was time they communicated more like a husband and wife. “Listen, I’ve got a lot of questions—”

  “Fire away.” Zane braced himself as he took a corner. Her headache might have abated, but he had a feeling tha
t his was just beginning.

  Chapter 3

  There were so many questions buzzing through her mind, swarming like bees at the entrance of a hive. Whitney didn’t know where to start. Maybe the beginning would be a good place.

  “How did we meet?”

  Amid gunfire.

  Instantly, the image rose up in Zane’s mind, crystal clear and sharp, allowing him to relive the first time that he had ever laid eyes on her face.

  A smile tugged on his lips. Strictly speaking, that wasn’t exactly an accurate description. The first thing he got a glimpse of was not her face but her rear end. She’d backed into him to get out of the way of a spray of bullets. As he recalled, even in all the excitement, he’d been struck by just what a nice tight little butt it was. The rest of her hadn’t turned out to be a disappointment, either.

  He stopped as three elderly women began making their way across the street in the center of the block. They walked in small, leisurely steps, as if secure in the fact that since they had lived this long, nothing was about to change that. Probably on their way to play the slot machines, he thought.

  “Through mutual friends,” he finally told her.

  The answer was deliberately vague. The mutual friends they had he couldn’t talk about at the moment. He had to keep this simple. To lead her through the maze that actually existed in hopes that she would remember something might place everything he’d worked for in jeopardy.

  He wasn’t exactly a font of information, Whitney thought. Maybe they’d met a long time ago and he couldn’t remember.

  “What were their names?” she prodded.

  Names, she wanted names. Glancing around the long boulevard, he saw a billboard announcing a headlining act that was opening at one of the hotels on the first of the month. She was looking at him and not the road. He took a chance.

  “Cassidy. Joe and Aimee Cassidy,” he elaborated. Zane prayed she wouldn’t quiz him on this later. He wasn’t all that good at names unless his life depended on it. And even then, he’d been known to slip. “They were giving a New Year’s Eve party.” Taking his foot off the brake as the last of the women reached the opposite curb, Zane got into his story and embellished. “I kissed you to ring in the new year.”