His Lost and Found Family. Sarah M. Anderson

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       Two

      “What’s wrong with her?”

      Both the doctor and his research assistant looked at Jake with raised eyebrows. Okay, maybe that had been a little gruff—but seriously?

      She was different. Or rather, she was the same as she’d once been—but not the same woman she’d been the last time he’d seen her. Skye hadn’t looked at him with that kind of adoration in a long time. And when was the last time she’d wanted sex? When was the last time she’d wanted him?

      Jake had only taken one job in New York. And that had been two years ago. It’d been a small job, but it’d led to bigger and better things.

      Two years ago. That’d been the last time things had been good between them. After Jake had started getting those bigger and better jobs, things had begun to fall apart.

      “Skye had a traumatic brain injury,” the doctor explained. “I’m her surgeon. Dr. Lucas Wakefield,” he added, sticking out his hand.

      Jake shook it. “But what does that mean?”

      “It means that, as near as we can tell, Skye was driving into Royal when the tornado hit. We suspect her car was picked up and tossed around.”

      “And?” Jake demanded. Julie’s eyebrows went up again, but Jake was past caring.

      Skye had driven into a damn tornado. Why? That wasn’t like her. She was more careful than that. She knew how Texas weather could be. She would have taken shelter or gotten off the road or something.

      “Think of it as a concussion—only the most extreme kind. We kept her under for a few months to allow her brain to heal and it took her some time to wake up after we cut back on the drugs we were using to induce the coma. Her memory is...compromised.”

      “And what does that mean?” Jake demanded. What was it going to take to get a straight answer out of the man?

      “She’s got what the layperson might call amnesia,” Dr. Wakefield explained. “She doesn’t seem to have the last two years, although her long-term memory is mostly intact. Anything that happened right before the accident is probably gone for good.”

      For the second time that day, Jake had to lean on something to keep his legs underneath him. “Will she—will she get those two years back?” Would she remember how things had broken between them? Would she remember the fight? The divorce papers?

      When he’d seen her just now, she hadn’t had her ring on. She hadn’t had her earrings in, either—the big diamond studs he’d bought her just as things had started to go south on them. He wondered where they were—lost in the storm or left behind on purpose?

      “Hard to say. The brain is an amazing organ. For now, we recommend keeping any shocks to the system to a bare minimum. Obviously, she knows about your daughter.”

      Grace. His daughter, Grace.

      “But,” Dr. Wakefield went on as if Jake weren’t on the verge of collapse, “if there were...other surprises, I’d keep those close to the vest.”

      “You want me to, what—lie to her?”

      Julie said, “Not lie, no. Think of it as glossing over. She’s going to be confused for some time. Too much too soon would be a severe shock to her system. We don’t want her to have a setback.”

      Jake shook his head, hoping to get the world to stop spinning. None of this was right. None of it.

      Skye didn’t remember how they’d broken up. Why they’d broken up.

      And he couldn’t tell her.

      God, СКАЧАТЬ