The Interpreter. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ for the life of her figure out why she was so drowsy suddenly but her eyelids seemed to weigh five stone each.

      The urge to close them was overwhelming. Perhaps only for a moment, just long enough to ease the strain a bit….

      She must have drifted to sleep. Her dreams were full of fear that tasted like bile in her mouth and the rapid pulse of blood through her veins. She needed to run, to get away. From what?

      A sudden cessation of sound and movement finally awakened her, to her vast relief. She opened her eyes and found her escort had parked before a small single-story building of pale-red brick. A carved wooden sign out front proclaimed the structure to contain the Moose Springs Medical Clinic. Below it was the name Dr. Lauren Maxwell.

      “She is awake, I think,” the boy pointed out, peering around his sister to be sure.

      “Yes. I’m awake. I’m sorry I fell asleep.”

      “It would really make my day if you could tell me you woke with crystal-clear memory of who you are and what you were doing in the Uintas,” Mason Keller said.

      She poked around in her mind again but found it empty beyond that moment earlier when she had opened her eyes and found him staring down at her. That beastly panic returned to gnaw at her control. “No,” she whispered, her head still pounding.

      He blew out a resigned breath. “Yeah, I figured that’s what you’d say. Let’s go see if Lauren can fix you up.”

      “The doctor is nice,” Charlie confided in Tagalog. “She gives candy if you do not cry.”

      She had to smile at the little boy, despite the nerves fluttering in her stomach. “I’ll try not to cry, then,” she responded.

      The something-like-that cowboy climbed out of the truck then moved around to her side to open the door. He reached a hand inside to help her out and she had to admit she was grateful. Without his assistance she would have stumbled on knees that seemed as wobbly as a bowl of pudding.

      The medical clinic was airy and bright, painted a cheerful yellow. The reception area seemed empty of patients but two women stood talking behind a desk, a matronly brunette who looked to be in her fifties and one at least a couple of decades younger, wearing jeans and a casual T-shirt.

      She would have guessed the older woman to be the doctor but soon learned her error. The young woman’s features lit up when she saw Mason and the children, and she came out into the reception area through a door to the left of the desk.

      She smiled at the children, touching Miriam gently on the shoulder. “Hey, kids. Great to see you again!”

      The girl gave her a tiny smile in return, but Charlie turned suddenly shy, hiding behind the tall cowboy.

      “Who’s your friend, Mase?” the woman asked.

      “Hey, Lauren.” He stepped forward and kissed the lovely young woman on the cheek. “I brought you a little business. Jane Doe. The kids and I found her up in the Uintas. Damnedest thing. She was just lying in the middle of the logging road up near Whitney Reservoir. Claims she doesn’t remember who she is or how she got there.”

      Beside him, her spine stiffened at his choice of words and the inherent suspicion in them. “I don’t remember! Why on earth would I lie?”

      He ignored her heated defense of herself as if she were an annoying little bug. “I did a little triage on the scene. Looks like she cut herself somehow on her face—a while ago, I’d guess, judging by the dried blood—and she’s got a heck of a goose egg on the back of her head.”

      “But no ID?”

      “Nothing. No car, no purse, no nothing, at least not that I could see. I didn’t reconnoiter the whole area, though. I’m wondering if she might have taken a wrong turn up there somewhere, then had an accident and wandered away from the scene.”

      “What a mystery.” The doctor gave her a curious look that made her feel a bit like a primate in a zoo exhibit.

      “She seems to think little green men in a spaceship dropped her off,” Mason said.

      “I do not!” she exclaimed. “I was merely responding to your suspicions with sarcasm.”

      For some reason, that seemed to amuse him. A corner of his mouth lifted then he turned back to Dr. Lauren Maxwell. “On the way out of the mountains I put in a call to Daniel, since mysterious Brits with head injuries are his territory. He should be here any minute. I figured maybe you could check her out in the meantime, see if anything’s permanently busted.”

      “Of course.” The physician gave her a friendly smile that was undoubtedly meant to be reassuring. “I’m sure everything will be just fine. Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?”

      She studied the other woman, but she couldn’t seem to make herself move, reluctant suddenly to leave Mason Keller’s side.

      How perfectly ridiculous. She didn’t even know the man and what she did know, she didn’t particularly care for. He was dictatorial to the children and had treated her with nothing but harsh suspicion since stumbling upon her.

      She knew she was being silly to cling to him but he and his Tagalog-speaking children were the only relatively known commodity in her world right now and she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his side. What if he left her here?

      When she couldn’t seem to make her legs cooperate to follow the young physician, Mason turned to her. For the first time since he’d found her, his gray eyes softened and his expression seemed to relax slightly. She blinked at him, disoriented. Why did he suddenly look so familiar?

      “Go on,” he urged quietly. “We’ll wait out here until you’re done.”

      “Promise?” She despised the slight quaver in her voice but couldn’t seem to help it.

      “Stick a needle in my eye.”

      Slightly reassured, she followed the young doctor down a hallway to a small examination room painted in a soothing blue and decorated with dried flowers and a pile of magazines stored in what looked to be a large antique washbasin. There was a mirror in the room above the sink and she had the disconcerting realization that she had no idea what kind of reflection she would encounter there.

      The doctor gave her a friendly smile and pulled a hospital gown from a drawer built into the examination table. “So you have no memory of your name or anything?”

      She shook her head, embarrassed and afraid all over again.

      “Mason called you Jane Doe. Do you mind if I call you Jane until we find out your real name? It’s better than ‘hey, you’ and that way I’ll have something to put on your chart.”

      The name didn’t seem wrong, exactly, so she nodded. In an odd way, it actually felt good to have a name to hang on to, even if it wasn’t the correct one. “Jane is fine,” she murmured.

      “Good. And you can call me Lauren, all right?”

      She nodded.

      “Okay, Jane,” the doctor said. “Let me wash my hands then we’ll get started. Have a seat.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ