The Texan's Future Bride

Once he was seated, she eased away from him and closed the door. She got behind the wheel and reached for her cell phone. She called Mike Sanchez or “Doc” as he’d become known in these parts. He was at the ranch. She asked him to meet her at the main house and told him that she was bringing an injured man with her.

“The back of his head is bleeding.” She glanced at her passenger. He was staring out the window with those glazed eyes. She lowered her voice. “I don’t know much about these things, but I think he has some sort of concussion. I found him wandering along Flying B Road.”

“Don’t worry, Jenna,” Doc replied. “Just stay calm and get him here.”

“I’m on my way.” She ended the call, then started the engine and headed for her destination.

The cowboy turned to look at her. “Are we on a date?”

Yikes. Talk about befuddled. His condition was worse than she thought. “I’m taking you to see a doctor, remember?”

“Your hair is pretty.” He reached out as if he meant to grasp a loose tendril of her wavy gold locks.

Jenna’s heartbeat skittered. He didn’t make contact, but she could almost imagine how his tortured touch would feel.

Almost. She focused on the road.

“Very pretty,” he said.

She gripped the wheel, and to keep him from reaching for her hair again, she redirected his thoughts.

“What’s your name?” she asked, rephrasing her original “Who are you?” question.

He furrowed his brows. It wasn’t a trick question, but he didn’t appear capable of a response. He didn’t know his own name.

“It’s okay,” she said. “That’s why I’m taking you to see a doctor.” Besides, all they had to do was look at his ID to see who he was. Everyone carried identification with them. Still, not knowing something as simple as his name wasn’t a good sign.

He leaned against the window, then closed his eyes. She hoped that he wasn’t going to pass out. That wouldn’t be a good sign, either.

She increased her speed, bumping along the road, her truck flanked by green pastures and grazing cattle.

Finally, as the main house came into view, she breathed a sigh of “thank You, God” relief.

The dashing young doctor was waiting for her on the wraparound porch. Tammy, her equally fetching cousin, was there, too. Jenna had only met Tammy recently, when all of the inheritance whoopla had begun. None of the heirs had grown up on the Flying B or visited when they were kids because their families had been estranged from each other. So, when they’d gotten called to their ailing grandpa’s bedside, and when he’d died, they’d wept for a man they’d just begun to know.

She glanced at the cowboy beside her. Now wasn’t the time to think about men she barely knew. Or death. Or anything bad.

Jenna stopped the truck, and Doc opened the passenger side and escorted the patient into the house.

Once Jenna exited the vehicle, Tammy approached her, and they went inside, too.

Doc didn’t waste time. He was already examining the stranger, who sat on the edge of a sturdy leather sofa, looking as confused as ever.

Jenna stood back and frowned. “Do you recognize him?” she asked Tammy. “Do you know if he’s from around here?”

“No.”

“Me, either.” But dang if he didn’t make her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t get his tortured attempt to touch her out of her mind.

Just a few feet away, Doc was telling the patient that he was going to need a couple of stitches. In fact, Doc was preparing to patch him up. But the cut itself was incidental. What obviously concerned Doc were his other symptoms.

Apparently Jenna was right. Indeed, he had a concussion.

Thing was, his identity was still unknown. He wasn’t carrying any form of identification; Doc checked his person.

“What do you think is going to happen?” Jenna whispered to Tammy.

“I don’t know.”

Neither did Jenna. But it was clear from the examination that he had no recollection about himself or how he’d gotten hurt.

After his cut was sanitized and stitched, Doc made arrangements for him to be treated at the local hospital. He spoke gently to the patient, then explained the situation to Jenna.

“I’m going to order a CT scan,” he said. “At this point, it’s impossible to know the severity of his trauma.”

“What’s the worst-case scenario?” she asked, making sure the stranger was out of earshot.

“Bleeding in the brain.”

She shivered.

Doc concluded, “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s get a thorough diagnosis first.”

“I want to go to the hospital with him.” She was unable to bear the thought of abandoning him.

“That’s fine. A police report will have to be filed, too, since we don’t know who he is or what triggered the injury. He’ll be admitted as a John Doe.”

Jenna didn’t like the impersonal sound of that. But she didn’t like any of this. She preferred to have her ducks in a tidy yellow row, with carefully laid plans, no matter what aspect of her life it concerned. She’d even created a list of the type of qualities she wanted her future husband to have, a man who would be nothing like her father. She used to be disappointed in her dad, but these days she was downright ashamed of him. A humiliating skeleton in his closet had surfaced.

She glanced at the stranger. Did he have skeletons in his closet, too? Even if he did, it was none of her concern. She was going to see him through this injury and forget about him.

Doc and Tammy took him to the hospital, and Jenna followed them in her truck.

She sat in the waiting room while he underwent the CT scan. Was she going to be able to forget about him? Already she was feeling oddly attached, as if she was responsible for him somehow.

She glanced over at Tammy, who occupied the seat next to her. “Thanks for keeping me company.”

“It shouldn’t take long. Rather than wait for a written report, Mike is going to look at the scans himself, along with the radiologist, of course.”

“It’s nice having a doctor in the family.”

Tammy quirked a smile. “Very nice.” She stood up. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Sure.”

“How do you take it?”

“Cream and sugar.”