A Stranger She Can Trust. Regan Black

returned with a blanket and Carson draped it over the woman’s narrow shoulders, tucking it around her and pulling it down as far as it would go to cover her legs. Her feet were likely still chilled, but it was the best they could do at the moment. She needed real medical attention at a hospital. Was she afraid of one particular hospital or all hospitals?

      “Do you have a wallet or purse with you?” Grant asked, settling behind his desk this time rather than on it.

      Fat tears spiked her dark lashes and rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t think so. I can’t remember anything.” She clutched the ice pack in her lap again.

      “Only the matchbook,” Carson answered, showing it to Grant. Every instinct hammered at him to make this better, but he didn’t know how.

      “Hmm.” Grant was doing something on his computer, likely checking for any breaking reports involving a woman of her description. “No missing persons,” he murmured almost to himself. “I could run prints.”

      “She’s been through something,” Carson said. “If she doesn’t want to talk about it...” He left the implication hanging out there. He wished there was a woman around who could ask if she’d been raped. He wasn’t comfortable with those questions in this particular setting. “She doesn’t know what day it is, not the year or season.”

      “What is the last thing you do remember?”

      Grant’s query was met with another fat tear trailing the others. “I remember getting out of the cab. Seeing you.” She turned that good eye to Carson again.

      He knew concussions could mess up a person’s memory, but she didn’t have symptoms of that problem. This sounded more as if there had been significantly more emotional trauma involved. Without a battery of tests, there was no way to know the validity, cause or even prognosis of her amnesia.

      He reached out and took her hand. “You need to be seen by a doctor.”

      “Please. No. I...” She struggled with something and gave up. “I don’t know why. I just know I can’t do that. No doctors, no hospitals. Whatever you’ve done for me is enough. I’ll be okay.”

      Carson disagreed. The stark terror in her good eye at the mention of more comprehensive medical care worried him. Had she been attacked at a hospital or possibly escaped a psych ward?

      “How about this?” Grant said with infinite calm and patience. “Carson can keep an eye on you for a few hours. Just until morning.”

      Carson gawked at his boss. “You can’t be serious. I’m no doctor.”

      “A point in your favor based on the patient’s preference. You can handle the observation through the night, right?”

      “Anyone here can do that.” Someone else, anyone else, should have done that. Grant’s wife, Katie, had been at the club earlier, and rumor was she always waited up for Grant to get home. The two of them would be a better team to help this woman through the night than Carson.

      “You’re the most qualified. You know what symptoms require her to go to the ER.” Grant held up a hand as the woman protested. “Whether you want that or not, I’m not taking a chance you’ll get worse after coming to us for help. Carson is the best person to watch over you tonight.”

      She sighed, her lips tight.

      “I understand it’s uncomfortable, and I’m open to another option. Would you like us to take you home or call a friend or family member for you?”

      * * *

      A fresh bolt of panic shot through her like white-hot lightning streaking through a dark sky. The sensation left her gasping. She knew what they were asking. She knew what it meant to call someone. She just couldn’t remember the numbers or names that would connect her to someone familiar. The concept of family made her feel marginally better and a thousand times worse, though the word didn’t induce quite as much dread the way friend did. Alexander was the name on the matchbook, and Grant and Carson were here and had been kind to her. Those three names were the extent of her world.

      She fought against the tremors of fear skipping through her body. She wanted answers as much as the men asking the questions.

      “No. I guess not.” She studied the man named Grant sitting behind his desk, struggling against the idea that she should know him. The hard jaw and thick build gave off an air of no-nonsense toughness, but his warm brown gaze didn’t induce any fear, and the gray hair salting his temples added a trust factor.

      Dropping her gaze to the floor again, she said, “I can’t tell you where I live. I mean, I don’t know the answer.” She fisted her hands in frustration, and her short fingernails bit into her palms. “I don’t know who to call. The names...” Her breath rattled in and out of her chest. How could her head feel so full and empty at the same time? “The names are just gone,” she finished in a hoarse whisper.

      The man who’d cleaned the blood from her face scooted closer. “Pushing to remember won’t help. You need to let your brain rest and give your body time to recover.”

      Carson. His name was Carson. She clung to the new detail as she tried to find something familiar. She didn’t recognize the silver band on her thumb or the soft floral fabric of her skirt skimming her knees. Wiggling her toes inside her scuffed blue ballet flats, she wondered why her feet felt so sore and achy.

      They’d asked for her name and information about her circumstances, and she wanted to cooperate. At least she thought she should cooperate. But where the information should have been, she had only a dark, blank canvas.

      “I don’t remember getting into the cab. Before that is just a blank.” What the hell had happened to her? “I remember getting out, feeling woozy. The matchbook,” she said, her gaze locking onto the item at the edge of the desk. Something nudged at her mind, like light seeping around the edges of a door. “I don’t think it’s mine. I don’t know why I have it or who gave it to me.”

      She pressed the heel of a hand to her temple near her good eye. Her head felt caught in a vise while her pulse throbbed in her lip and over her battered eye. Her raw throat resisted every word she spoke.

      Carson’s palm covered her other hand, peeling her fingers off the arm of the chair. “Relax. Don’t fight for it. You’ve clearly been through an ordeal.” He sounded so sure and steady, and his gentle touch calmed her.

      “My brain feels like oatmeal.” She could see a pot of oatmeal in her mind, and she could almost smell the homey scent of the dish blended with cinnamon and chunks of warm apples. “How do I know oatmeal and not my own name?”

      “There are several things that can cause this situation.” He cleared his throat, his gaze sliding away for a moment. “I’m confident your memory will return soon...” he said, looking her in the eye.

      She heard the hesitation where he would have used her name if either of them had known it. “You’re confident?”

      “Would you like a second opinion?” he asked with an eager spark in his hazel eyes. “You’d learn more from a full CT scan and workup.”

      Her heart kicked against her ribs at the thought of a hospital. “Your opinion will do,” she said. “No hospitals.” Her feet shifted. Every instinct she had told her to run, but where would she go? Her body ached from head to toe. She’d never outrun the able-bodied people here even if she could think of a direction. “Please, don’t make me go.” She was probably only making a bad situation worse, and she was definitely taking advantage of strangers who had better things to do, but she didn’t have another option.

      “Take it easy.” Carson encouraged her to have more water.

      She drank deeply, washing away the dry-cotton feeling in her mouth.

      The older man, Grant, made several notes on a card, then wrote a few more lines on a second card and slid that one across the desk to her. “You can trust Carson to take care of you tonight. Why