“The truth?” Nikki asked, blinking.
“Nothing but,” Trent said.
“Like I was ground up into hamburger.”
Padillo’s eyebrows shot up and he removed his glasses. “¿Cómo?”
Trent said something in quick Spanish and the doctor smiled as he polished the lenses of his wire-rims with the corner of his lab coat. He slid his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose. “So you have not lost your sense of humor, eh?”
“Just my memory.”
“Is this right?” he asked Trent and Nikki was more than a little rankled. It wasn’t Trent’s memory that was missing, it was hers, and she resented the two men discussing her.
“Yes, it’s right,” she said a little angrily.
Scowling, Padillo checked her other eye, clicked off his light and glanced at Trent, who had shoved himself upright and was standing in her line of vision. His features were stern and the air of impatience about him hadn’t disappeared. Dr. Padillo rubbed his chin. “You are a very lucky woman, Señora McKenzie. We were all worried about you. Especially your husband.”
“Worried sick,” Trent added, and Nikki thought she heard a trace of mockery in his voice. His cool gaze flicked to her before returning to the doctor.
Shifting on the bed, she grimaced against a sudden pain in her leg. “I feel like I broke every bone in my body.”
Padillo smiled a bit, not certain that she was joking. “The bones—they are fine. And except for your—” he glanced at Trent “—tobillo.”
“Your ankle. It’s sprained but not broken,” Trent told her, though she would rather have heard the news from the doctor himself. The thought of Trent and Padillo discussing her injuries or anything else about her made her stomach begin to knot in dread.
“Sí. The ankle, it is swollen, but lucky not to be broken.”
She supposed she should believe him, but lying in the hospital bed, her body aching, Trent acting as her husband or jailer, she felt anything but lucky.
“Your muscles are sore and you have the cuts and scrapes—contusions. Lacerations. You will be—” he hesitated.
“Black and blue?” Trent supplied.
Doctor Padillo grinned. “Sí. Bruised. But you will live, I think.” His dark eyes twinkled as he touched her lightly on the arms and neck, lifting her hospital gown to expose more of her skin as he eyed the abrasions she could feel on her abdomen and back. “This must be kept clean and covered with antibiotic cream so that she heals and does not get the infection,” he told Trent. To underscore his meaning, he pointed at a scrape that ran beneath her right arm and the side of her ribs, and the air touched the side of her breast.
A tide of embarrassment washed up her face and neck, which was ridiculous if Trent really was her husband. Surely he’d seen her dressed in much less than the hospital gown. Her breasts weren’t something new to him. Yet she was grateful when the thin cotton dropped over her side and afforded her a little bit of modesty.
The headache that had been with her most of the time she was awake started thundering again and hurt all over. Her entire right side was sore and she was conscious of the throbbing in her ankle. Padillo listened to her heartbeat through a stethoscope and asked her to show him that she could make a fist and sit up. She did as she was bid, then hazarded a glance in Trent’s direction, hoping that he had the decency to stare out the window, but his eyes were trained on her as if he had every right to watch as the doctor examined her.
“Ooh!” she cried when Padillo touched her right foot.
The doctor frowned slightly. “Tiene dolor aquí.”
“What?”
“He says you have a pain there—in your foot.”
“Mucho pain,” she said, gritting her teeth.
“Sí.” Padillo placed the sheet and woven blanket over her body again. “It will be...tender for a few days, but should be able to carry your weight by the end of the week.” Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his coat, he added, “We were wondering if you were ever going to wake up.”
“How long was I—?”
“You were in a coma for six days,” Trent said, and from the looks of his jaw he hadn’t shaved the entire time she’d been under. She supposed that it was testament to his undying love that he’d spent the better part of a week keeping his vigil, and yet there was something about him that seemed almost predatory.
Again she looked at his harsh features, trying to find some hint in her memory of the rugged planes of his face. Surely if she’d married him, loved him, slept in the same bed with him, she would recall something about him. She bit down on her lip as he returned her stare, his eyes an opaque blue that gave no hint of his emotions. Desperation put a stranglehold on her heart.
“The nurse will give you medication for the pain,” Dr. Padillo said, making notes on her chart before resting his hip on her bed. “Tell me about the—Dios,” he muttered, snapping his fingers.
“Amnesia,” Trent supplied.
“Sí. Have you any memory?”
Nikki glanced from the doctor to Trent and back again. She needed time alone with the doctor and yet Trent wasn’t about to leave. “Can we speak privately?” she asked, and Padillo’s brows drew together.
“We are alone....” He glanced up at Trent, his furrowed expression showing concern.
“Please.”
“But your husband—”
“Please, Doctor. It’s important!” She wrapped her fingers into the starched fabric of his white jacket.
“It’s probably a good idea,” Trent said with a nonchalant shrug. As if he had nothing to hide. “She’s a little confused right now. Maybe you can straighten things out for her and help her remember.”
I’m not confused about you, she thought, but bit hard on her tongue, because the truth was, she didn’t know a thing about herself.
Trent let his fingers slide along the bottom rail of the hospital bed. “I’ll be in the hall if you need me.” As he left the room, his bootheels ringing softly, he closed the door behind him, and Nikki let out a long sigh.
“That man is not my husband,” she asserted as firmly as she could.
“He’s not?” The doctor’s eyebrows raised skeptically, and he eyed Nikki as if she’d truly lost her mind.
“I—I’m sure of it.”
“Your memory. It has come back?”
“No, but...” Oh, this was hopeless! She clenched a fist in frustration, and pain shot up her arm. “I would remember him. I know it!” Unbidden, hot, wet tears touched the back of her eyelids, but she refused to cry.
Dr. Padillo patted her shoulder. “These things, they take time.”
“But I would remember the man I married.”
“As you remember the rest of your family?”
She didn’t answer. The haze that was her past refused to crystallize and she was left with dark shadows and vague feelings, nothing solid.
“Your home? A pet? Your job? You remember any of these things?”
She closed her eyes and fought the tears building behind her swollen lids. She remembered so little and yet she felt like she was trapped, like an