One Night Scandal

Four (#ubdd54d39-9d0e-591e-8751-1677370f3200)

Was he serious?

Vaguely, she became aware of movement around her, the EMS crew laying a stretcher next to him before gently shuffling her aside to assess Brock’s condition.

Did Brock really not remember her?

She squeezed her temples, trying to figure out what that meant. Because while she’d started this day wishing she could have a chance at a do-over with Brock, she had never wanted him to be hurt.

Tension balled tight in her stomach as the EMS workers took his vitals and asked him questions, gathering information about the blow to his head. Hannah paced circles nearby, willing herself to think. To figure out what it meant that Brock didn’t recognize her.

He’d stared at her as if she was a total stranger. As if they hadn’t been naked together less than twenty-four hours ago.

Her gaze skittered toward him, her heart rate jumping at the sight of him. She couldn’t imagine forgetting their time together. Forgetting him. She watched as he tried to wave off the woman taking his blood pressure. Brock reached for his phone, insisting he would call his own physician.

A good sign, right? Except his movements seemed a bit stilted. And when the other EMS worker asked him what day it was, Brock seemed confused.

Worry twisted inside Hannah. For a moment, she considered walking away, before his memory returned. No one would be the wiser that she’d bailed on him.

Except she wasn’t that kind of woman. Besides, she should stay close to Brock in case he knew more about Antonio Ventura. Hannah’s mission to help her sister came first.

If Brock had forgotten about his night with Hannah, maybe she didn’t need to remind him of how far things had gone between them. She could have her chance at a do-over, only this time, she’d be his friend and not his lover.

There would be no expectation of more. No suspicions about why she’d backed away from a relationship so fast. And if a little voice inside her head warned her that it wasn’t going to be easy to pretend she wasn’t attracted to him?

She’d simply have to ignore it, along with the man’s red-hot appeal.

* * *

Brock just lay in a hospital bed, skull throbbing, hypoallergenic pillowcase crinkling as he shifted. Some of the pain he attributed to the knot on the back of his head. But the bigger ache came from not knowing how he landed in Cheyenne Regional Medical Center.

There’d been other times in the past he’d woken up to an EMS worker hovering over him. During his rodeo years, he’d broken enough bones and taken enough blows to the head that ER trips had been regular occurrences.

But in the past, he always remembered the fall.

Today? He didn’t have a clue what had happened to him. And it didn’t take a medical genius to know something was really wrong, considering all the docs who’d come through his exam room to ask him questions and frown over his chart. Where was his family? Not that he expected his older brothers to come running when he fell off a bull. Or his father either, for that matter. But his half sisters normally showed up for him. Maisie, Madeline and Scarlett had always been good to him.

This time, Maisie and Madeline had both texted him their regrets that they couldn’t be there because they needed to be by their mother’s side before “the scandal broke.” Whatever that meant. Scarlett’s response was even more puzzling, since she said Cheyenne was too far to drive, but she hoped he felt better soon.

Where in the hell was his youngest sister if not in Cheyenne? He wanted to look back over his texting history—to see if he could make sense of his world again, but he was having the damnedest time operating the cell phone, which was a different model than he remembered.

He stabbed at the touch screen, wondering where the home button had disappeared to.

The door to his room opened and one of his attending physicians entered—a tall, genial guy with a thick Eastern European accent. Brock slid his phone onto the bedside table, anxious to be released so he could get home and wait for his head to clear. The whole world felt off-kilter, but if there was some kind of scandal brewing that could hurt his family, Brock needed to be with his brothers and sisters, not sitting in a hospital bed.

Brock straightened, sliding his feet to the floor.

“Whoa, Mr. McNeill.” Dr. Kreshnik hurried closer, his clipboard clattering to the tile as he reached for Brock’s arm to steady him. “You’ve had head trauma. We don’t want you moving too quickly on your own.”

“I’m fine,” Brock protested, knowing he would feel better at home. “I don’t know who decided I needed the ER visit, but I’m definitely ready to be discharged.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr. McNeill.” The physician frowned as he retrieved the chart from the floor. “We want to evaluate you further.”

“I’ve been here for five hours.” Time might be fuzzy for him, but he’d messaged his sisters from the ambulance so he knew he’d been at the hospital that long. The room spun a bit, but then stopped. He was still wearing his street clothes and they’d already done a CT scan. He could have the results sent to his specialist.

“You’re exhibiting signs of amnesia...” The doctor continued speaking, rattling off words like “short-term episode” and “more tests.”

But Brock’s brain stuck on that word. Amnesia.

Was that why he couldn’t recall what was going on in his family? Why he didn’t remember the accident that brought him in here? But he knew his own name. Could remember his friends. His family.

His head throbbed harder.

While the medical expert spouted something about care plans, a soft knock sounded on the exam room door. One of his sisters, maybe?

“Come in,” Brock called, needing an ally to bust him out of the facility.

But the woman who stepped into the room juggling two steaming foam cups wasn’t a sister. And he thanked his lucky stars for that.

Her generous curves and platinum waves were the stuff fantasies were made of, although her outfit made her look like she’d just stepped off the prairie. Her long, flower-dotted skirt was something from another era and modest in the extreme. But the shirt she wore with it was another matter altogether, the stiff fabric as tight as a corset, nipping her waist and drawing the eye upward to her breasts.