Montana Mail-Order Wife. Charlotte Douglas
She would have protested further, but without his support, her legs would have buckled.
With Wade’s help, she shuffled into the hallway. He nodded toward the exit at the end of the hall. “The hospital garden’s just past those doors.”
She traversed the hall, aware of the searing heat of Wade’s strong hip pressed against her torso. She forced weak muscles to carry her forward, and Wade matched his pace to hers. When she stepped from beneath the entrance portico, morning sunlight toasted her face, banishing the chill of air conditioning.
If only it could unlock her memories as well.
She glanced up at the stranger at her side, hoping he held the key to who she was. If he did, he exhibited no haste to reveal it. A shiver joined the trembling in her legs. Maybe he was hiding something, something she wouldn’t want to hear.
She chastised herself for her fears. Surely nothing could be worse than not knowing. She’d make him tell. The sooner the better.
Bolstered by Wade’s strong arm, she ambled along the brick path through elliptical pools of shade cast by tall Douglas firs. Intent on the enigmatic man at her side, she spared only a cursory glance for the deep purple petunias and mounds of white alyssum that bordered the walk.
When they reached a concrete bench set back from the path under a small maple, he steadied her as she sat, then stepped away.
She drew the cotton robe around her and confronted him. “Isn’t it time you answered my questions?”
Seemingly unperturbed by her abruptness, he dropped to the ground with a natural gracefulness, leaned back against the bench and stared across the garden. She couldn’t see his eyes, only the angle of his cheek and the silky texture of sun-bleached hair that brushed the top of his collar. A twitching muscle in his jaw betrayed his calm.
“What do you want to know?” Something in his even tone hinted at emotions held firmly in check.
She looked around in confusion at the pine-covered hills rising beyond the river toward a range of snow-capped mountains in the distance. “Where am I?”
“You’re just outside Libby.”
“Where’s that?”
“Northwest Montana.”
“Do I live here?”
“You were traveling to your new home at Longhorn Lake, less than an hour west of here.”
Montana didn’t seem familiar, but then nothing else did, either. Her most pressing question concerned her identity. She leaned forward until she could watch his expression. “Who am I?”
His eyes glowed briefly with a curious longing before he looked away. “You’re Rachel O’Riley.”
“That’s only a name. Who am I?”
He shifted toward her, grasped her fists clenched on her lap and smoothed her fingers open with a gentleness unexpected in such a big man. “You’re coiled tighter than a spring. Dr. Sinclair says you mustn’t get worked up over this.”
“How can I not—”
“Shh.” He lifted his index finger to her lips, creating an unaccustomed tingle along the sensitive skin. “If you promise to relax, I promise to answer any questions I can.”
His composure irritated her, but his unyielding expression convinced her to follow his instructions. She inhaled, drawing in the resinous scent of evergreens and the fragrance of unfamiliar flowers on the cool mountain air. Slowly, her tension eased.
“That’s better.” He released her hands with a nod of satisfaction, but his eyes held a burning, distant look, as if he wished he was anywhere but there.
She resisted the urge to grab his hand again, yearning for his touch to drive away her lack of connection to anyone or anything. “Please, tell me about myself, my family, what I’m doing here.”
“You’re twenty-eight years old. You grew up in Missouri.” With a calm she envied, he ticked off the facts on long, capable fingers with clean, square nails. “You’re an only child. Both your parents died years ago in an automobile accident.”
His words generated no response.
No memories.
No pain.
He scanned her face as if looking for signs of the recognition she longed for, but she couldn’t reveal what wasn’t there. For all the impact his words had, he could have been talking about a total stranger.
“And after my parents died?” she prodded.
“A few years ago you sold your home in Missouri and moved to Atlanta.”
The breeze changed direction, gusting across Wade, carrying a pleasantly masculine scent of leather and soap and lifting his hair to expose a high, wide forehead, slightly less tanned than his cheeks.
Had she lost her mind as well as her memories? She should be concentrating on the missing facts of her life, not the all-too-fascinating man before her.
“Did I have a job in Atlanta?” She silently cursed the breathlessness in her voice.
Wade didn’t seem to notice, but if he did, she hoped he blamed it on curiosity. “You worked as a paralegal in a firm that practiced corporate law.”
Corporate law? When she drew another blank at the term, her frustration grew, and she had to force herself to relax again. “What about the rest of my family?”
He shook his head and compassion glittered in his eyes. “There’s nobody. The hospital’s had the authorities searching for next of kin ever since you were brought here. After the accident.”
As if uneasy, he shifted and assessed her with a wary eye, but again she experienced nothing except curiosity in reaction to his words. “What accident?”
“Your train derailed west of Kalispell. You were airlifted to the hospital here.”
So far, he’d given her only fragments of her life, certainly not enough for her to piece together her identity, but too much for a total stranger to know. “How do you know so much about me?”
He shrugged, and the compassion in his face gave way to discomfort. “I learned most of it from your letters.”
“Letters? Like the one you showed me yesterday?”
He nodded, then sat unmoving, almost as if holding his breath.
She studied his face with more care than before, seeing past the composed veneer to a restless energy beneath. “Do I know you?”
“We’ve never met.”
Confusion made her head ache. “Then why was I writing to you?”
“Maybe the rest can wait.” He avoided her eyes.
His evasiveness alarmed her and made her pulse quicken. The rest had been dry facts, meaningless, but she could tell from the tension in his posture that this answer was crucial. “Tell me now. Why was I writing to someone I’ve never met?”
He raised his head and caught her in the powerful gaze of eyes so deep and murky she could have drowned in them.
“Because you were going to marry me.”
WADE SCRAMBLED to his feet and caught the fainting Rachel before she slid off the bench. As he jogged back toward the building with her in his arms, her thick lashes brushed cheeks gone pale, and her warm, supple body bounced, featherlight, against his chest. A fierce protectiveness flared deep in his gut, white-hot with forgotten longing.
You scared her to death, you dadburned fool. Maybe her promise to marry you is something she doesn’t want to remember.
The automatic door glided open at his approach. He rushed past the nurses’ station to her room and laid her on the bed. Drawing the covers to hide her long, sculpted legs, slender