The Coltons: Nick, Clay & Jericho. Marie Ferrarella

he straightened, looking impossibly tall. “What’s the matter?” He reached for her again, but something in her eyes must have shown him how seriously she wanted him to keep his hands off her. He fisted them at his sides.

      “You act as if you have some right to touch me,” she whispered. “Who am I?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

      “My wife,” he said. “Cate…Palmer.”

      “Why don’t I know you?” She darted a glance at the window. Low clouds hung above a sandstone building. It all looked completely unfamiliar. The glass offered a faint reflection, but she couldn’t see the details of her face. “Let me see what I look like. Maybe I’ll rememb—”

      Before she could finish, he whipped open the top of the table at her elbow. A mirror was mounted inside. With the man’s help, she twisted the table toward her, so she could see.

      Wild blue eyes stared at her from beneath a mass of dark red hair. She gasped. That other woman—the one who’d gone for a doctor. She had the same face.

      The mouth in the mirror opened, and a scream tore the air.

      “Cate.” His fear-drenched voice scared her, but he tucked her against his body, and she seemed to fit into the hard contours of his chest.

      She closed her eyes. Darkness and the man’s faint, spicy scent blotted out the mirror, the room, the world as far as she knew it. She didn’t want to see herself. She’d lost everything, her past, her sense of identity.

      Her life.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “ALAN, GO HOME. Get some sleep and have a shower.” Dr. Barton’s voice woke Cate.

      She opened her eyes. She’d hardly been out of the coma for a full day, but the doctor’s visits interested her. Unlike her family, he wanted nothing from her. She looked from him to the husband she didn’t know.

      Alan straightened in a metal-and-vinyl chair. “I don’t need sleep or a shower.”

      She lifted her hand to him, but he shook his head, obviously aware she was going to second Dr. Barton’s suggestion. She continued anyway. “You need to rest.” She shouldn’t have buried her face in his manly chest. Her momentary weakness had apparently convinced him she needed a bodyguard. “Nothing bad will happen to me if you leave my room.”

      He shot a wary glance at Dr. Barton, who nodded. Alan stood, but tension built as he hesitated. Cate didn’t know how to respond to him. His deep concern touched her. She found his stubbled chin attractive, his brooding green eyes appealing. She liked the way he smelled, but Alan expected more than the gratitude and simple attraction she felt.

      “Do you want me to come back?” he asked.

      She’d like to remember why he seemed as uncomfortable with her as she was with him. Had their marriage been happy? “After you rest, if you feel like coming back, I’ll be here.”

      He turned toward Dr. Barton, but his gaze lingered on her as he spoke. “You know where to reach me?”

      The doctor moved to Cate’s bed, an impresario, showing off his brightest talent. “Cate is awake and healthy and on the mend. We won’t need to dive into that pool of phone numbers you gave us.”

      With a wry expression, Alan trudged to the door, and most of the pressure left with him. Cate sank against her pillows. The gruff doctor shut her door and dragged a chair to her bed.

      “Let’s talk,” he said.

      His urgency alarmed her. “Did you find something in the tests?”

      “No—well, nothing new, but I’ve been trying to get you alone since you woke up yesterday. I have to tell you something I don’t believe you’ve told Alan.”

      She attempted a smile. “Another man came forward to claim me as his wife.”

      He gave a slight, anxious grin that put her on edge. “We only allow one family per amnesiac.” His gaze grew as intense as any of her family’s. “I wish I could prepare you for this news, but I must say it quickly before someone else comes in. You’re pregnant, and I’ve been unethical.” He patted her good leg. “What a relief to say it out loud at last.”

      Cate grabbed her bed rails as the world seemed to open up beneath her. “I’m pregnant?”

      “Just over sixteen weeks.” He went on, as if they should both be ready to talk facts. “You were spotting when you came in. By the time we could leave you to speak to Alan, he should already have asked us about the baby. When he didn’t, I began to worry you hadn’t told him and that you had a reason for not telling him. I asked Imogen for your gynecologist’s name.”

      Words escaped her at first. “How old am I again?”

      “Thirty-eight.”

      Pregnant, thirty-eight, with a son of eighteen, and she hadn’t told anyone about the new baby. Why?

      She slid her hands over her stomach. It was round all right. She hadn’t thought to ask why. An unexpected protectiveness caught her by surprise, and she accepted a new first priority. “Is the baby all right?”

      “Yes. Your bleeding was light, and you stopped within a few hours. I still would have told Alan if I hadn’t tracked down Dr. Davis.”

      “My obstetrician?”

      “Right. She said you’d decided not to tell Alan yet, so I followed your wishes. However, Dr. Davis needs to see you, so you have to decide how to tell Alan. She’ll never make it in here and out again without being ambushed, considering the way your family guards that door.”

      Cate’s large family overwhelmed her, too. She couldn’t see their constant, well-meant surveillance as a joke. “No one else asked about the baby? Not my sister or my aunt?”

      “I wish they had.”

      “Did Dr. Davis explain why I’ve kept the pregnancy a secret?”

      “She doesn’t know, and I can’t promise Imogen hasn’t talked to Alan since I asked her for your OB’s name.” Dr. Barton patted her forearm. “Try not to worry. I expect Alan would have exploded by now if Imogen had told him.”

      “I need to talk to Alan. What was wrong between us?”

      “I’m not sure anything was wrong.”

      Cate pushed her fingers through her hair. “Dr. Barton, tell me the truth.” She pressed her palms together, trying to look self-possessed. She didn’t want or need a gentle bedside manner. “Will I ever know these people again?”

      He hunched his shoulders beneath his wrinkled lab coat. “All I ever say to you or Alan is ‘I don’t know.’ And I don’t. Because shock, rather than a head injury, caused your amnesia, I’d say your memory will trickle back.” Grinning, he popped his glasses from the top of his head onto his face, where they magnified his weary eyes. “Trickle. That’s a technical term.”

      Cate tried to smile, but his nonanswer made her head ache. She lifted her hand between them, turning it from side to side. “I must have seen my fingers millions of times, but I don’t recognize them. I scared myself to death when I looked in a mirror and saw my sister’s face. My son makes me feel anxious, because he’s at an age where he won’t even say if he feels let down. I’m responsible for him, but I don’t feel that he’s my child, and I’m more comfortable talking to you than to my husband.”

      “These are the facts. You can’t balance them with what you feel, because all your emotions are tied up in your memory loss.” Dr. Barton folded her fingers between his weathered hands. “I don’t know why you’d hide a child from Alan, but he cares about you. He stood a vigil at your bedside no matter how many times I begged him to go home. I thought we might end up having to treat him. That man didn’t stay all this time because he felt it was his