The Heiress and the Sheriff

His nostrils flared as his eyes left the highway long enough to glance at her. “That ache in your head doesn’t seem to be affecting your tongue.”

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I don’t like being accused. And you were trying to accuse me of something!”

Except for a faint lift of his brows, his features became deceptively passive. “If you don’t know who you are, how can you be certain you aren’t guilty?”

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but then a slow, sickening realization struck her. She might be a criminal. She might be anything. She just didn’t know!

“You’re right. I can’t be certain of anything,” she said wretchedly, then dropped her head in her hands.

Behind the wheel, Wyatt tried not to let the despair on her face soften him. She was a hell of a looker, but she could very well be up to no good. In his work he had to be suspicious of everyone. Personally, as a man, there was no woman he trusted. And he was doubly on his guard because of all the trouble the Fortunes had encountered lately.

“You have no idea what you were doing on the road to the Double Crown Ranch?”

Gabrielle strained to remember, but all that came to her mind was waking up with the floorboard of the car pressed against her face and the smell of gasoline choking her.

“No. The name means nothing to me.”

“Does the name Fortune register with you?”

She looked at him hopelessly. “If I’ve ever heard of it, I don’t know it now. Who are these people? Could I have been going there to do a job?”

His lips thinned to a grim line. “That’s what I’m wondering.”

The sarcasm in his voice stung her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he said bluntly. “We’ll talk about it later. After you’ve seen a doctor.”

That was fine with her. She was more than a little tired of his innuendos. The pain in her head was making her nauseated, and thinking more than ten minutes into the future was terrifying. She simply wanted to close her eyes and forget the laconic sheriff beside her. She didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that she knew nothing about Gabrielle Carter.

A few moments later, his deep voice jerked her out of her jumbled thoughts. “I wouldn’t go to sleep if I were you.”

She opened her eyes, but didn’t bother to lift her head from the back of the seat. “Why?”

“If you’ve got a concussion you shouldn’t sleep.”

“I thought you said you were no doctor.”

“I’m not. I’m just a lawman.”

Her gaze lingered on his rigid profile. “Grayhawk,” she repeated. “Is that a Native American name?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Finally he said, “My father was Cherokee.”

“And your mother?”

“White. Like you.”

Even through the haze of her pain, Gabrielle picked up a sharp bitterness in his words. She wondered why, then just as quickly told herself it didn’t matter to her if he hated white people, or women, or even her. He was just one man in a big world. Once her memory returned, Sheriff Wyatt Grayhawk would be well and truly out of her life.

Two

The remainder of the trip passed in silence. At the hospital Wyatt escorted Gabrielle into the emergency unit and grabbed the attention of the first nurse he came upon.

“Can he come with me?” Gabrielle asked as the nurse helped her into a wheelchair. She didn’t know why she wanted the sheriff to remain at her side. Only minutes ago, she had wished him out of her sight. Yet he was the only familiar face around her, and even if he was unfeeling about her plight, his presence was steadying.

The nurse glanced at Wyatt. “Is he your husband?” she asked Gabrielle.

“No. But—”

“Then it would be better if he didn’t. If he’s needed, I’ll come after him.”

He cast Gabrielle a dry glance. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

Even though the tone of his words was far from gentle, his promise calmed her somewhat. She nodded jerkily at him, and then the nurse wheeled her away.

Wyatt watched her disappear down the hallway, then through a door on the left. For a brief second he almost followed and told the nurse he was going to stay with Gabrielle whether she liked it or not.

Hell, Wyatt, what are you thinking? he asked himself. The woman doesn’t need you. Yet, just for a moment, when she’d looked at him with those big pleading eyes, she’d reminded him of a little lost lamb about to go to slaughter.

With another silent curse, he turned and headed to a busy nurses’ station across the room. He showed them his badge and asked one of the nurses to page Dr. Matthew Fortune.

She quickly complied and he thanked her, then headed to the waiting area. Even though he didn’t want to go there. The frightened look on Gabrielle’s face when the nurse had taken her away was lingering in his mind, and oddly enough he was still fighting the urge to go back to the examining room and make sure she was all right.

Forget it, Grayhawk, he muttered to himself. She wasn’t a child. Although she was young, he figured she was at least twenty-one or two. And for all he knew that frightened look could have been an act. Just like the loss of memory.

With a tired sigh, he went over to the coffee machine and filled a cup. The strong burnt smell assured him it had been made hours ago, but he took a sip of it anyway. He’d been going since three o’clock this morning—he needed something to fortify him.

Ignoring the vinyl chairs and couch where several people sat flipping through worn magazines, he walked over to a plate-glass window and stared out at the parking area stretching away to the city street. It wasn’t often Wyatt personally hauled someone to the hospital. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the accident happening on Fortune land, he would have sent a deputy out to handle the investigation.

But the Fortune boys had been his closest friends since childhood. They had stood behind him when others had shunned him for being a half-breed. Without their solid support, he never would have been elected sheriff. And now that trouble had fallen on the family, he was personally checking out every movement on or near the Double Crown Ranch.

In the background, he could hear the nurse on the intercom paging Matthew to come to Emergency. He was still sipping on the bitter coffee when the doctor’s voice sounded behind him.

“Wyatt! What are you doing here? Has something happened to Claudia or Taylor? Have you heard something about Bryan?”

Wyatt turned to see the tall, dark-haired doctor hurrying into the waiting room. Wyatt desperately wished he could tell the oldest of the Fortune brothers that he’d located his missing son. But the sad truth was that he was no closer to finding the baby now than he had been six months ago.

Matthew’s baby, Bryan, had been taken from his crib during his christening party at the Double Crown nearly a year ago. A special FBI agent had been sent in to handle the case and he’d recovered a baby and the ransom money. But when he’d gotten the child home, everyone was shocked to discover the baby wasn’t Bryan. They’d kept the other baby though, since a blood test showed he had the rare Fortune blood, and had named him Taylor.

Wyatt tossed the cup in a nearby trash bin and crossed the small area of the waiting room to greet the other man. “Don’t get upset, Matthew. This isn’t about Claudia or Bryan or Taylor. Or at least I don’t think it is. Do you have a few moments?”

Matthew gestured toward the double doors leading out to the parking lot. “Of course. Let’s go outside.”

The two men walked out into the heat and took refuge under the shade of a sycamore.

“The reason I’m here, Matthew, is that I brought a young lady into Emergency a few minutes ago. She’s had a wreck on the Double Crown. Her car burned, and she has no idea who she is. Or so she claims.”

Matthew’s finely chiseled features were suddenly frozen with shock. “Oh, my Lord! Was she hurt badly?”