A Forever Christmas. Marie Ferrarella

for something to come to her.

      Anything. A scrap.

      But nothing did.

      Not so much as a fragment, not the smallest of pieces occurred to her.

      Nothing but darkness and formless shadows.

      The terror in her sky-blue eyes grew as she turned them on him. She wet her lips before speaking. It didn’t help. The dryness went down several layers, into her very soul.

      “No, I can’t,” she repeated hoarsely.

      This job would take more patience than he’d initially thought. Patience and skill. It certainly was different from what he’d imagined.

      He owed Alma an apology, Gabe decided, for saying that being a deputy in this county was a very slow-paced, boring job.

      So much for that, he thought sarcastically.

      “We’ll protect you,” he told the woman again, but he could see that no matter how he said it, it made no difference to her. Her expression—confused, frightened—didn’t change. Obviously his assurance had no effect on her. He peeled back another layer, approaching the problem from another direction. “And why can’t you tell me your name?”

      “Because,” she began, then stopped herself. She could feel bars going up, safeguards rising out of nowhere, intended to keep this man out.

      Why?

      Was she like that with everyone, or was it just him? And was he really a good Samaritan who’d been passing by, at the right time, in the right place, just in time to “rescue” her, or was that a story he’d made up to lull her into a false sense of security?

      And why would he do that?

      Exactly who was he to her?

      More importantly, who was she to her?

      She felt suddenly hollow and incredibly empty with no clue how to remedy either.

      “Because—” Her voice broke. Taking a deep breath, she pushed on again and this time finished her sentence. “Because I don’t know who I am.” Anger and frustration echoing in her voice.

      She was kidding, right? Gabe thought. When she said nothing more, he pressed, “You’re serious? This isn’t some kind of a joke you’re playing?”

      When she made no answer, he spared her a glance, thinking to coax the answer from her, or at least search her face for a clue as to whether or not she was actually telling the truth—although, when it came to reading people, Joe Lone Wolf, the sheriff’s other deputy and coincidentally also his brother-in-law, was a lot better at that than he was.

      One glance at the blonde told Gabriel he wasn’t about to coax anything out of her, or discern anything from her expression, either.

      She was unconscious again.

      Chapter Three

      His first thought was to stop driving and just pull over to the side. But then what? It wasn’t as if he knew what to do—he didn’t. And neither, he was fairly certain, did his sister. As for the mechanic who was behind them towing in the burned remains of the woman’s sedan, if it didn’t have an engine in it, Mick had no clue what to do or not do, so he’d be less than no help in this situation, either.

      No, the best thing that he could do for this mystery woman was just to drive and get her to the doctor as fast as possible. At least Dan could cauterize her wound and patch it up. And maybe the former New York surgeon knew how to tell whether or not the blonde was telling the truth when she claimed not to know who she was.

      It began to rain heavier.

      Squaring his shoulders, Gabe pressed down on the accelerator and sped up. Having lived here all his life, he knew the terrain in and around Forever like the back of his hand. If need be, he could drive to town with his eyes shut, so the threat of more obscuring rain had absolutely no effect on him.

      But, in an odd sort of way, the woman in the passenger seat did.

      What was it like not knowing who you were?

      If this woman was actually telling the truth and not just being evasive for some reason, he imagined that it had to be pretty damn scary, not knowing your own name. When life got tough, a person was supposed to be able to rely on himself or herself. But if you didn’t even know who you were, how were you supposed to depend on yourself?

      “Who are you?” Gabe asked softly as he spared the unconscious blonde a long glance. “Is there someone somewhere worrying about you? Wondering why you didn’t come home, or call, or even…?”

      His voice trailed off as more and more questions popped up in his head. Questions that would have to go unanswered for the time being. With any luck, most of them would be addressed when the woman regained her consciousness again.

      For all he knew, there might be a missing-persons file on her waiting for them by the time he got into the office.

      “I know I’d be looking for you if you were mine,” he murmured under his breath.

      Even disheveled, with her light blond hair plastered against her face, he could see that she was beautiful. Genuinely beautiful, not one of those women whose looks came out of jars and containers and the clever application of makeup.

      He put the windshield wipers on high and drove a tad faster.

      * * *

      WITH HIS WINTER COAT thrown carelessly over his shoulders to impede the bone-freezing weather from getting to him, Dr. Dan Davenport stood outside his single-story clinic, waiting for the patient that Alma had called him about. The November chill was creeping into his bones when he finally saw the three-vehicle caravan approaching.

      Finally, he thought, moving to meet them.

      “Slow day at the clinic, Doc?” Gabe called out as he jumped out of the cab of his truck and rounded the hood, crossing over to the passenger’s side.

      “Everyone’s healthy at the same time for a change,” Dan answered.

      Which, as far as he was concerned, was a good thing. It balanced out the days when it seemed as if his waiting room was stuffed with patients from first light to way beyond the last.

      Reaching the vehicle, the doctor opened the passenger door before Gabriel had a chance to. He frowned as he peered into the truck, then looked at Gabe. “She hasn’t regained consciousness yet?”

      “No, she did,” Gabriel said. He was unaware that he had elbowed the doctor out of his way to get to the woman, but Alma noticed as she came to join them. In the background, Mick was driving on to his garage, the barbecued sedan in tow behind him. “For about two, three minutes,” Gabe qualified, “and then she lost consciousness again.”

      “Did she tell you her name while she was still conscious?” Alma asked.

      Gabe backed out of the truck’s cab slowly, gently holding the woman he’d just lifted out of the seat. Earlier, when he ran carrying her in his arms, he’d been much too intent on making sure they survived to notice just how light she actually felt in his arms.

      It was as if she barely weighed anything at all.

      The trite saying “light as a feather” seemed rather appropriate in this case. Light as an unconscious feather, he added ruefully.

      “No,” Gabe said aloud, following the doctor back into the clinic. “She doesn’t know her name.”

      The answer stopped Alma in her tracks. “Doesn’t know her name?” she repeated, puzzled. “What do you mean, she doesn’t know her name?”

      “Just what I said,” Gabe told her. He didn’t turn around, but continued to follow Dan once they were inside the clinic. “She said she didn’t know her name. Looked a little panicked when she said it, too.”

      Dan led them straight to