Protecting Her Royal Baby

Hunter winced. He should have led with a disclaimer. “I’m fine! Really. But I witnessed a car accident, and I rode in the ambulance to the E.R. with the woman whose car flipped.”

“Aw, skunk.” Grant mumbled the kid-safe curse he and his wife had invented when their oldest started repeating everything she heard. “Is the woman okay?”

“She hit her head pretty hard and has no memory of who she is at the moment. That’s why I’m here. She was pretty scared, but she and the baby are okay other than that, I think.”

“She had a baby with her?” Grant’s tone ratcheted up a degree on the worry scale.

Hunter raked his fingers through his sweaty hair. He really needed a shower, but wouldn’t leave the hospital until he knew Brianna was all right. “She was in labor. She just had the baby a few minutes ago.”

“Skunk,” Grant repeated. “No wonder you stayed with her. So...when do you think you’ll get back here?”

“No telling. Go on and eat dinner without me. I may swing by my apartment for a shower later, but I doubt I’ll make it back out to your place today.” He remembered then that his truck was sitting in Grant’s driveway. “Wait, my truck’s out there, and I need it.” He winced, hating to beg a favor from Grant, who had two small kids to deal with. Maybe his parents could bring him a vehicle. “Are Mom and Dad still there? Could one of them bring my truck to the hospital when they head back into town?”

“I think we can work something out between the three of us.” He heard Grant sigh. “So this woman has no idea who she is? There was nothing with her that identified her? A wallet or cell phone or piece of mail?”

“Not that I found with my preliminary search, but I plan to go back out to the car and look again.” Hunter glanced up to see Brianna being wheeled out of the radiology department. “Text me when you get here with my truck, okay? I gotta go.”

“Sure. Love ya, bro.”

“Back atcha.” Hunter tugged a sad grin, wanting to tease his brother about unmanly professions of feelings. But knowing why his brother had started telling him he loved him at the end of phone calls and visits made teasing impossible. The suddenness of Tracy’s death had shaken the whole family. Factor into that the third Mansfield brother, Connor, returning to WitSec with his wife and daughter, and the family had plenty of reasons to be particularly mindful of family bonds. They all hugged more, said frequent “I love yous” and didn’t take their time together for granted.

As the hospital aides rolled Brianna’s stretcher closer, he couldn’t help but wonder about her family. Did she have anyone looking for her? Was someone, even now, pacing the floor and waiting for her to call? A pang of sympathy prodded him and fired a sense of urgency inside him to find out who she was and where she lived.

Her eyes found his as she neared him, and he sent her an encouraging smile. “They took your son upstairs to be checked more thoroughly by the staff pediatrician. And they’re getting a room ready for you on the maternity floor.”

She nodded, then winced, her hand lifting to her temple, where her head had a new bandage.

“Any news from the CT scan?” he asked.

“Not yet.” Her sky-blue eyes clouded with worry. “The doctor is reading it now.”

* * *

“The CT scan and MRI both show what we suspected,” the staff neurologist said, his hands shoved in the pockets of his white lab coat. “You have a significant concussion, which has caused swelling in the brain. That swelling is what has caused the memory loss. I have every reason to believe that as the swelling goes down, you should get most, if not all, of your memory back.”

“Most?” Brianna gaped at the silver-haired doctor, stricken cold by the idea of losing any part of her history to permanent brain damage.

When she’d finished in radiology, Hunter had followed her up to the room where she’d been admitted to the maternity ward. He sat beside her bed now, leaning forward in the chair, eagerly taking in every word the doctor shared about her condition. As any good husband would. Except he wasn’t her husband. Before today, he hadn’t even been an acquaintance. Why was he so willing to help her, to pretend they had a relationship? Was it just so that she didn’t face her amnesia alone?

Hunter frowned. “Do you mean some of her memory loss could be permanent?”

“It is possible. The brain is a tricky and mysterious thing. But I wouldn’t worry too much about that. All indicators are you’ll be good as new in a couple of weeks.”

A couple of weeks? She swallowed the dismay that choked her. Even if two or more weeks without her memory seemed like an eternity, she needed to count her blessings. She had a healthy son, the hope of recovering her past, her identity...and Hunter. She had Hunter to help her through the scariness of amnesia. But how long would he stay? She couldn’t ask him to give up his life, his commitments, in order to babysit her. He’d already gone way above and beyond the call of duty, pretending to be her husband in order to stay beside her, allay her fears, give her moral support. All too soon she’d have to face the void of her unknown life alone. That thought brought back the chill, the prickling sense that someone wanted to hurt her. What had put her on that road where her car flipped today? Who was after her, and why?

Chapter 3

Hunter turned to her with that knock-’em-dead smile of his, pulling her out of her worrisome musings, and gave her wrist a squeeze. “That’s great news, huh? That you should recover all your memories, given time?”

Threading the sheet of her hospital bed through her fingers, she worked up a smile for him. “Yeah. Great news.”

“So how will it work?” Hunter asked. “Is there something I can do to help prod her memories?”

“Generally, no. The swelling needs to go down before the process of memory recall can happen. When it does happen, it won’t be a sudden info dump. Things will return slowly, a piece at a time. Prepare yourself to feel frustrated by the puzzlelike feel of the bits and pieces coming together, but try not to stress too much over the seemingly scattershot return of the memories.”

“So photos and bits of memorabilia won’t trigger recall?” she asked, disappointment weighting her chest. Her head chose that moment to give an almost symbolic throb. She’d refused the painkiller they’d offered her, knowing she’d be nursing her baby boy soon.

“They might serve as a prompt. But not before the swelling has decreased sufficiently. The key is going to be patience. Give your focus where it belongs. Building new, precious memories with that baby of yours.”

Thoughts of her son brought a genuine smile to Brianna’s lips. “Thank you, Doctor.”

The neurologist pulled a pen from his pocket and signed a chart that he stuck in the file holder on her door. “Now get some rest, and I’ll check in on you again at the end of my rounds.”

The doctor pulled her door almost closed to give her and Hunter privacy, and being alone with her rescuer suddenly became awkward. She glanced at him as he shifted to a more comfortable position in the bedside chair. He flicked a smile at her and drew a deep breath.

“So...” he said.

“Hunter...” she said at the same time.

His grin stretched, and he waved a hand toward her. “Go on.”

“What were you—” she said on top of him again. Now she chuckled stiffly. “Sorry.”

He shook his head. “No. Ladies first.”

She took a slow breath and untangled her fingers from the knots she’d been winding in the sheets. “You don’t have to stay. I know I asked you not to leave before, but...I was scared and hurting and—”

His warm hand wrapped around her cool fingers, and her gaze darted up to his. His dark blue eyes were full of compassion and crinkled slightly as he grinned. “I’m not going anywhere. I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it.”

She squeezed his fingers, relishing the connection to him. Not only did his warm grip feel good around her chilly hands, but his loyalty and friendship touched a place deep inside her that she had an odd sense had been empty and cold for a long time. “I release you from that promise. I have no right to hold you here. You don’t know me. You have no responsibility for me. You’ve already done so much, and I’ll always be grateful. But I don’t want you to feel obligated to me.”

He gave her a dismissive raspberry. “I’m your husband, remember? Of course I’ll stay.”

Brianna sighed and shook her head. “We both know you’re not. That’s just the lie you told the EMT so you could ride with me when I was panicking.”

His brow furrowed, and when he stroked her knuckles with his thumb, a pleasant tingle spun through her. “Yeah, well...maybe I’m getting into the role. Maybe I want to hang around for a while to make sure you’re okay.” He cocked his head. “Would that be okay? I could help you start figuring out who you are and if you have family somewhere that should be called.”

Her heart pattered. She wanted desperately to accept his offer, but how could she impose on his kindness that way? “You heard the doctor. It could be weeks before I remember everything.” She frowned and dropped her gaze to her lap. “If I remember.”

He untangled his fingers from hers and nudged her chin up. “Hey, stay positive.” His palm cupped her cheek, and she couldn’t help but lean into his touch, his buoying comfort and encouragement. “I was thinking I might do a little investigative work. I can go back to your car and see what, if anything, I can find that would help us solve some of the mystery surrounding you.”

She raised her chin, hope lifting her spirits. “Good idea.”

“For starters, I’ll take down your license-plate number and see if the DMV will tell me who the number is registered to.”

She nodded, feeling a surge of energy in light of Hunter’s idea and optimism. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?”

He shot her a wickedly handsome lopsided grin. “You were a little preoccupied having the world’s cutest little boy.”