HER HEELS CLICK-CLACKED down the hospital corridor, a hurried, tense staccato, as Emily headed for the familiar room that Sam had been moved to after his short stay in the ICU.
She cut a striking figure in her stylish clothes, her long honey-blonde locks held back by sunglasses on her head and her large expensive bag swinging from the crook of her elbow. Her face, beautiful without the aid of make-up, was today showing strain. Lines and dark circles framed her eyes. And those who saw her noted the way her fingers twisted and fidgeted at her wedding band.
The Beverly West Hospital was the biggest and most prestigious hospital in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California. Sam’s care here had been amazing. From the second he’d been scooped from their crumpled, steaming vehicle and blue-lighted to its doors, Emily had not doubted for one second the level of care they had both received. Apart from that split second when she’d first received her pregnancy test results...
Outside Sam’s room she could see Dr Waters and her team, standing discussing something in low voices, with the occasional glance at Sam’s notes on a clipboard. They looked serious. Concerned. But why? Hadn’t they just rung her with the news that he was starting to wake up? That was good, right?
Dr Waters looked up as she became aware of Emily’s approach and, meeting her by the door to the room, pasted a polite smile onto her face. ‘Mrs Saint—’
‘Is he awake?’ She bit her lip and again twisted the wedding ring on her finger.
This was it. Now or never. She would go inside her husband’s room and either find a man who was happy to be alive and willing to work on any problem, or the bear of a husband she’d been used to over the last few difficult months.
‘He is. He’s tired, and occasionally lapses back into sleep—which is normal considering the trauma his brain has been through. Coma patients usually take a day or two to wake properly.’
‘I can go in and see him? Talk to him?’
The call from Dr Waters had come in the early hours of the morning. The phone ringing had not woken her. She’d already been awake. Lying in her very empty bed, staring at the ceiling and trying—still—to decide what was best to do.
Leave Sam? Or stay and fight for their marriage?
She’d even pulled a suitcase out and laid it on the bed one day, stood staring at it in numb indecision. Her heart wavering. It had all seemed so very clear-cut before the car crash. But now...? Knowing that he was sick...knowing that she was pregnant?
She had returned the suitcase to its storage spot and closed the doors on it. Her mind ran back to the times when Sam had refused to talk to her about having children, clamming up the second she raised it. Why had he done that? Over and over again? What hadn’t he been telling her? There had to be something, but his refusal even to talk to her about it had been hurtful. They’d got to a point when they had barely been speaking to one another.
Her brain had almost torn itself in two, trying to figure out his secret. Thinking of one scenario and then another. None had seemed likely, and she’d begun to believe that maybe he just didn’t want to have a child with her.
Emily had stared at the closed closet doors, knowing that she would do what was right. And the right thing here was to give Sam time to recover and then let him know about the baby. Because then there was a small chance—a tiny, infinitesimal chance—that now the baby was no longer hypothetical but real and here he might change his mind.
She couldn’t leave him without him knowing the truth. And if he heard the news about the pregnancy and still didn’t want to be there for her and their child then she would go. Step out into the world on her own, even though doing so would break her heart. She didn’t want to leave Sam, but he’d made life unbearable—had backed her into a corner.
Dr Waters shifted, looking at her colleagues, who all understood the implicit suggestion that perhaps they should leave, allow her to talk to Mrs Saint alone. They gave her sympathetic smiles and scurried away.
‘Of course, but before you go in there’s something you need to know.’
Her blood ran cold. Was there a problem? Brain injury? Dr Waters had mentioned that there might be the possibility of something like that once before. But Sam had recovered so quickly! His coma had been short, the ICP had dropped to normal levels incredibly quickly...
‘What is it?’
Sam could have anything wrong. Be blind. Deaf. Find it difficult to talk or maybe swallow.
‘We spoke once before about the damage that might have occurred to Sam’s brain because of the injury to his head, and after a quick examination of your husband we believe that there seems to be some sort of memory deficit—mainly amnesia. It could be temporary, of course. He might remember everything after he’s had another good sleep. But right now Sam seems...confused about his own timeline.’
Emily let out a long, slow, measured breath. Amnesia? She’d been fearing the worst! Temporary amnesia they could deal with.
‘Is that all?’
Dr Waters frowned. ‘Amnesia is a significant condition. I’m not sure you understand the full—’
‘I’m going in to see him.’ She cut off the doctor and stepped into Sam’s room. She’d been waiting long enough for this moment. Ten long days. Nothing more could keep them apart.
Ten days. It had seemed like a lifetime.
Sometimes in those ten days she’d held his hand in hers, taking advantage of the fact that he was unconscious, remembering the happier times when they’d been close, pretending it was still that way. Sometimes she’d read to him from that day’s newspaper, hoping that the sound of her voice would bring him back. And sometimes she’d just sat and stared at him, mulling everything over in her head, thinking of where they’d gone wrong and how she could fix it. Imagining the day he would wake—the day his eyelids would flutter open and he would see her, sitting by his bedside like a sentinel. How he would smile and say her name, reach out slowly for her hand and kiss her fingertips...
Okay, so maybe she lived in a fantasy land at times, but surely a touch of escapism had never hurt anyone.
‘Sam?’ So much hope, so much need was in the pitch of her voice.
Her husband lay in bed, his face pale and relaxed against pure white starched hospital pillows, his blue eyes slowly opening, wincing at the light in the room before fixing his gaze upon her.
And smiling!
It’s been too long since you smiled at me like that...
It was like when they’d first been going out. The way he would look at her as if he was already in love with her. As if she was pure joy for him. Had no faults. Had not driven him crazy yet with endless requests to start a family. Okay, maybe not crazy, but she had tried to start that conversation lots of times. In the end even she had refused to talk. It had been too hard. Their conversations would always somehow end in arguments, and it had been easier just not to talk at all. She’d feared what would happen if they did.
Perhaps that had been a bad thing to do. Shutting down their communication. But she’d been trying to protect their relationship. She hadn’t wanted it to end.
Sucking in a breath, she rushed to his side, dropping her bag on the floor, not caring as she reached for his outstretched hand, stooping down to kiss him, feeling