Wife With Amnesia. Metsy Hingle
by the scenario the detective had just outlined.
“I’ve had about enough of your theories, Delvecchio. All you’re doing is upsetting my wife, so I’d appreciate it if you would leave and go find the man who attacked her,” Matt said, his voice clipped, his expression deadly.
The detective didn’t argue. After exchanging a look with Matt, he nodded and left the room.
“Hey, it’s all right,” Matt soothed as he sat on the bed beside her. He caught her by the shoulders. “Look at me, Red.”
Claire tipped up her chin, stared into those compelling gray eyes filled with concern, with worry.
“Listen to me. Even if Delvecchio’s cockamamie theory about an attempted kidnapping is right, and I’m not at all sure that it is, nothing is going to happen to you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you ever again. All right?”
Claire nodded, but inside she had this sick, uneasy feeling. Was it possible that someone had actually tried to kidnap her? Suppose they decided to try again? Panic paralyzed her for long seconds as she realized that if someone did try to kidnap her, she wouldn’t even know what number to call to let someone know she was being held for ransom.
“Claire.” Matt gave her a gentle shake. “Sweetheart, I know how hard this must be for you. You don’t remember me, the love that we shared. But I do love you. More than you can possibly imagine. All I’m asking is that you trust me. Give me a chance. Give us a chance. Will you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, drew his finger gently along her cheek. “That’s all I can ask.”
But it wasn’t all that he wanted. Desire still shimmered in his eyes as he caressed her jaw, stared at her mouth. A flutter of feminine heat flickered, spilled slowly through her system. While she might not remember Matt or her life with him, on some level her body remembered him.
“Trust me,” he murmured, and pressed his lips gently against her own. He drew back a fraction, looked her in the eyes. “I know this is difficult for you, but promise me you won’t dwell on anything Delvecchio said.” When she nodded, he continued, “That’s my girl. I want you to just concentrate on getting better. Tomorrow, when I take you home, everything won’t seem so unsettling as it does now.”
But how did she tell the man she was married to that it wasn’t just the detective’s kidnapping theory that had the nerves knotting in her stomach? It was the prospect of going home with a husband who was for all intents and purposes a stranger to her.
He was walking a thin line, Matt conceded as he turned the wheel of the Mercedes and headed down the street toward home. And that fine line he’d been treading since he’d made the decision not to tell Claire that they were separated seemed to be growing even finer now that he was bringing her home. He’d managed to move back into their home the majority of her clothing and essentials out of the apartment she’d lived in during the past six months. For all intents and purposes, it looked as though she’d never been gone.
And he felt as guilty as sin for the deception.
His intentions weren’t all self-serving, he reasoned in an effort to lessen the foul taste that deceit left in his mouth. If Claire knew the truth, she never would have agreed to come home with him today. Memory or no memory, she was still the same maddeningly independent person she had always been. She would rather walk through fire than ever admit she actually needed anyone’s help. Matt sighed as he recalled what a problem that had proven to be for him in their marriage. Growing up in a close-knit and loving family, he’d always known he could turn to his family for help—be it financial, physical or emotional. After all, that’s what family was all about, sharing good times and bad. It had taken him a long time to understand that Claire’s refusal to share her burdens with him had been born out of her fear of being rejected and not out of distrust.
Claire needed him now, he told himself. Someone had to take care of her, and the fact remained that she had no one else. Who better to fill the job than her husband? Because despite their separation, he was still her husband—at least for the time being. Taking care of her was his responsibility. But more than that, it was what he wanted to do, what he needed to do. He wanted to be there for Claire. To show her that he wasn’t like everyone else she’d cared about in her life—ready to abandon her and forget her. Most of all he wanted to prove to her that she could count on him, that they could make their marriage work because they belonged together.
And when her memory comes back? What then, Gallagher? Suppose this little plan of yours blows up in your face and she walks out on you for good?
There was the distinct possibility she would do just that—walk out on him—because she would be furious when she found out what he had done. No question about it. But it was a risk he had to take, Matt decided as he drove the car to a stop in front of their house. Because unless he could win Claire’s love and trust again, he didn’t have a prayer of winning her forgiveness and a second chance.
“This is where I live?”
Matt snapped his attention back to Claire. Wide-eyed, she stared at the house as though she were seeing it for the first time. Giving himself a swift mental kick, he reminded himself that in a sense she was seeing it for the first time. If she didn’t remember him, she probably didn’t remember the house, either. “This is where we live,” Matt told her, and felt the prick to his conscience at the half-truth.
“It’s so beautiful.”
“That’s what you said the first time I brought you here,” he told her. And it was true. Nestled between ancient oaks, the old Southern charmer of stuccoed brick had been painted to look like sandstone block, and the front porch had been done in a shade of soft white. The lush green lawn sprawled from the front door to the sidewalk. And the carefully tended gardens were bursting with the yellow day lilies and white roses Claire had insisted on planting when she’d moved in after their marriage. He’d fallen in love with the old house when he’d first seen it five years ago and had taken great care to restore it. But it had been Claire who had made the place a home. He decided against parking in the garage for now, so that Claire had the benefit of entering the house through the front entrance. Exiting the car, he came around to the passenger side and opened her door. “Trust me, it didn’t look nearly this good when I bought it.”
“The gardens are lovely.”
“Thanks to your green thumb,” he told her.
“I did the gardens?”
“Sure did. And you oversaw restoration of the courtyard.”
“There’s a courtyard?”
“Right over there,” he said, pointing to what looked at first like a second entryway.
“Oh, I can’t wait to see it.”
“Why don’t we get you settled first, and then I’ll give you the grand tour?”
“I’d like that,” she said with the first real enthusiasm he’d seen her exhibit since he’d arrived at the hospital to take her home. Carefully swinging her legs around to the side, Claire started to get out of the car when Matt scooped her up into his arms. “What are you doing?” she demanded, her body stiff even as her arms circled his neck.
“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