J.T. crouched in front of her, resisting shining his flashlight when she shied away from him. An overhead light illuminated her red jacket, but a fuzzy-trimmed hood shadowed her face. With a violent shiver she pulled Deputy closer.
“Hi,” J.T. said.
She seemed to get smaller.
“That unfriendly pup in your arms is Deputy, and I’m the police chief, J.T. Ryker.”
“Oh.” She waved a hand toward the sign overhead, but she seemed to keep her focus directly on him. “Then you’re who I’ve been waiting for.”
Her teeth chattered, which was all he could see of her face. A muffler covered her chin.
“How long have you been here?” J.T. asked.
Her shoulders shifted in a decidedly uncasual shrug. She petted Deputy as he wriggled in her arms. “I used the phone, but there was no answer.”
Which meant she couldn’t have been waiting more than ten minutes. “Would you like to go inside?”
A few beats passed. “Do you have identification?” she asked.
He hesitated long enough that he could feel her withdraw. It had been almost three years since someone hadn’t taken his word at face value—since the day he’d taken the job. He pulled his leather badge holder from his pocket, then passed it to her. She turned it over and over in her gloved hands.
“There’s photo ID inside the wallet,” he said, sensing a more-than-average wariness. He wondered how old she was. A teenage runaway? A woman needing police protection? Or was she just lost—and rightfully suspicious of a man out walking at 3:00 a.m., even one claiming to be a police officer.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Seconds ticked by as he waited. Even the dog noticed the tension in the air and backed away from her, his head cocked. Finally she whispered, “I don’t know.”
J.T. strained to hear the words. “How’d you get here?”
“I guess my car skidded off the road and into a ditch. That’s where I was when I came to, anyway. I walked from there. About half a mile, according to a sign I saw along the way.”
“Were you in the driver’s seat?”
She nodded, then slid a hand along the inside of her hood. “Where am I?”
“Lost and Found.”
Her reaction was slow to come. “I’m…lost and found?”
“The name of the town. I know. It threw me for a loop the first time I heard it, too.”
“Is it in California?”
“Yes. You’re about three thousand feet up in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the north-central part of the state. The closest big city is Sacramento, and that’s an hour and a half’s drive. Come on, let’s get you inside so you can warm up.” He held out a hand to her.
“My head hurts.”
“I’ll call the doctor right away. You’re going to have to trust me,” he added.
“I’m also—” she reached for his hand “—pregnant.” She wobbled as she stood.
J.T. steadied her, his eyes zeroing in on her very pregnant belly unprotected by her jacket, obviously not designed as maternity wear. She’d walked half a mile in a snowstorm in her condition?
“I’m okay now,” she said, pulling her hand free.
His gaze slid up to her face. Shock lit an inferno inside him that spread fast and far. Sweat turned impossibly icy beneath the layers of his clothes.
He knew her. The very pregnant woman without a memory was Gina Banning, a part of his past that he’d almost laid to rest.
In their first conversation she’d tried to tease him into telling her what his initials stood for. In their last, she’d told him she hated him.
Then a week later she’d married his partner.
She didn’t know what to make of the man, J.T. Ryker. One minute he was all kindness and concern, the next he was staring at her with cold, hard eyes. He’d taken her directly to the clinic, a few doors down from his office, because the heat was always left on there, he said.
She burrowed into the blanket he’d wrapped around her as they waited for the doctor to arrive. The police chief paced.
Back and forth he walked, sending a glance her way now and then as if he was knotted up with questions but had lost his ability to speak. The more she watched him, the more her head hurt.
Who am I? The biggest question of all hung over her like a lead blanket, the weight of it almost unbearable.
To distract herself she focused on the man. Early to midthirties, she guessed. Old enough to have character in his face. Experience. Tall, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped; strong enough to subdue someone without drawing the gun at his side. He’d tossed his jacket and gloves into one of a dozen pink plastic chairs in the waiting room as soon as he’d cocooned her in the blanket, his sharp-jawed face almost terrifyingly fierce—at odds with a voice he kept gentle. His eyes were a golden-brown, shades lighter than his hair. His frown lines seemed a part of him.
She wished she knew why he’d turned angry.
So much confused her. Answers to endless questions floated just outside her ability to recall. Each time she tried to pluck one out of the turmoil in her mind, her head pounded. Worst of all, the baby hadn’t moved since…since she didn’t know when.
Yanking off her gloves, she spread her hands over her belly, then spotted a gold wedding band on her left hand. Someone must be missing her—her husband, the father of her baby. Surely he would track her down and fill in her memory gaps. She twisted the band around her finger again and again, not finding the comfort she thought it would bring.
The baby rolled.
“Oh!” The sound escaped her, surprise and relief.
“Did you remember something?” the chief asked, stopping in front of her. Deputy had been sleeping under a nearby chair. He lifted his head and seemed to be waiting, too.
“My baby moved.” Tears stung her eyes. “I’ve been so worried.”
His gaze settled on her belly, where her hands formed a protective shield. He touched her ring. “You’re married.”
“Well, of course I’m married,” she snapped back. “I’m pregnant.”
“One doesn’t necessarily rule out the other,” he said, a bit of a smile relaxing his features.
“It does with me.”
“How do you know that?”
She frowned. “I just do. Some things you don’t forget.”
He crouched in front of her. “What’s your name?”
His expression had turned all fierce again, his gaze drilling her. She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I don’t know.”
“This is no time for an interrogation, J.T.”
The voice came from a doorway leading from the waiting room into the inner offices. She opened her eyes and watched a man of about the chief’s age move silently into the room. Sympathetic eyes, hair a little on the shaggy side, whipcord lean body. He nudged the chief aside, then knelt in front of her. His hands weren’t soft as they clasped hers, but they soothed, anyway. She almost melted into the chair.
“I’m Dr. Max Hunter, and I’m going to take care of you.”
“Okay,” she whispered, her throat tightening. “Thank you.”
J.T.