A Wyoming Christmas To Remember. Melissa Senate

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       Chapter One

      “You’re my husband?” Maddie Wolfe asked.

      She tried to latch on to the word, for something, anything, to associate husband with the total stranger sitting at her bedside. The stranger holding her hand in both of his and looking at her with worried green eyes.

      “My name is Sawyer Wolfe,” he said. “We’ve been married for seven years.”

      “Sawyer Wolfe. Seven years,” she repeated. “And I’m Maddie Wolfe?” She hadn’t even known that until he’d told her when she’d woken up just a couple minutes ago with no idea who she was, where she was or who he was. Her mind, where her identity and memories should be, was a big blank nothing.

      She glanced from him to what was beside her bed—quietly beeping hospital machines, an IV pole. A television mounted on the beige-yellow wall. A long, wide window. A miniature Christmas tree decorated with garland and ornaments on the windowsill and so many poinsettia plants—pink, red, white—she couldn’t even count them. There were even more bouquets of flowers.

      I’m in a hospital, she realized, reaching up to the goose egg on her forehead and the deep scratch beside it. That would explain why her head felt so woozy and achy. And maybe why her mind was so blank. I’m...she thought, trying to come up with her name on her own. Maddie Wolfe? Didn’t ring a bell. She tried for her age. Nothing. Where she lived. But there was just that nothingness again.

      Sawyer Wolfe nodded, his eyes shimmering with tears, relief, concern. When her own eyes had fluttered open, the first thing she saw was him. He’d jumped up, shouted, “Maddie’s awake! My wife is awake!” and then grabbed a white call button attached to her bed and pressed it three times before sitting back down and taking her hand, kissing the back of it over and over.

      “Your wife?” she’d asked.

      He’d glanced up from the kissing of her hand, clearly confused. “Maddie?”

      “Maddie?” she’d repeated, more confused.

      He’d sat up very straight. “Maddie, do you know who you are? Who I am?”

      She’d looked at him long and hard, and believe you me, he was something to behold. But nothing about this man was familiar.

      She’d shaken her head, which had her reaching up to the goose egg, the deep scratch beside it.

      “Your name is Maddie Wolfe,” he’d told her. “I’m Sawyer Wolfe, your husband. You were in a car crash—it was snowing hard and you hit a guardrail.”

      Now, before she could ask him anything else, two women came rushing in, one in blue scrubs, the other in a white lab coat with a name tag: Dr. Louisa Addison.

      The nurse began taking her vitals: temperature, blood pressure.

      “Maddie doesn’t seem to know her name or who I am,” Sawyer said to the doctor.

      Dr. Addison asked her a bunch of questions she didn’t know the answers to. What is your name? What year is it? Who is the president of the United States?

      As the doctor jotted things down on her chart, Maddie wondered how she knew what a chart was if she didn’t know what year it was. She glanced at the four pink poinsettias on the windowsill, clearly knowing what those were. Her gaze moved to the little Christmas tree. There were two Woodstock ornaments—the little yellow bird from Peanuts, Snoopy’s buddy. Why would she know that but not even know it was Christmastime if the tree hadn’t clued her in?

      Ow, my head, she thought, letting the questions, the confusing buzz go. The blankness came back, and she instantly felt better.

      She glanced at the man—six-two, maybe six-three, dark hair, a scar above his left eyebrow. If she thought he looked worried before, it didn’t come close to the concern on his face now.

      “My mind is blank,” she said to both of them. “Why is my mind blank?” She tried to think what day it was, but as she ran through the days of the week, none registered as the right one. She bolted upright. “Why don’t I know my name? Sawyer said I was in a car crash?”

      Dr. Addison nodded. “You’ve sustained a head injury that seems to have affected your memory. But rest assured, you’re in good hands. You are Maddie Wolfe, thirty-two years old. Your husband, Sawyer Wolfe, is right here—he’s the chief of police in Wedlock Creek. You’re in Brewer County Hospital in Wyoming, transferred here from the Wedlock Creek Clinic.”

      No memory: amnesia. She knew what that was. It explained why her mind was full of holes. She grasped on to what she was told. My name is Maddie Wolfe. My husband is Sawyer Wolfe. Police chief. Wedlock Creek.

      Nothing. Her own name was unfamiliar. Her husband was a stranger.

      She СКАЧАТЬ