“I don’t understand,” she said.
“With traumatic memory loss, you haven’t actually lost memories. All the events of those three days are stored in your brain. Right now, you’re just unable to retrieve them.”
“But?”
“Sometimes, with an injury like this, the brain fails to make a memory.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“That you can’t retrieve what’s not there,” Logan offered, eyebrows drawn together in thought.
“Exactly. You may never remember the accident, the moments before or after.”
“Never,” she repeated, a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.
“It’s a possibility. If your brain didn’t lay those memories down.”
Henry was dead. Somebody shot him.
She had to remember.
Bailey frowned slightly, the queasy feeling from earlier returning.
“What, baby?”
She glanced up at Logan. “Nothing.”
He held her gaze a moment; she saw doubt in his. Concern.
He turned his attention to the doctor. “What now?”
“I want her to stay one more night. For observation. And rest. No stress.” The doctor smiled reassuringly at her. “You’re going to be fine, Mrs. Abbott. Don’t try to force the memories. Let your brain heal, there’s no rush.”
But there was, Bailey thought as she watched him leave the room. She felt the urgency to the very core of her being.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Saturday, April 19
4:25 P.M.
Bailey spent the day drifting in and out of sleep. She had insisted Logan check in at the farm and his office; other than the nurses and activity outside her room, it had been quiet. Each time she’d awakened, she had gone over and over the days leading up to her accident, hoping something would jog her memory. All she had to show for it was a splitting headache.
“Bailey, baby, are you awake?”
Logan. In the doorway. Looking freshly showered and changed. An arrangement of delicate yellow roses in his hands. Tears stung her eyes. A part of her wished she could pull the covers up over her head and shut him and everything else out. Hide until her memory returned.
But then what?
“I’m awake.” She forced a wan smile. “The flowers are beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful.”
He crossed to the bed, set the vase on the table beside it, bent over and kissed her. “Did you get some rest?”
“A little.”
He seemed so tall, standing there beside the bed looking down at her. And she felt so small. So vulnerable. He tilted his head, eyebrows coming together with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I have a headache.”
“I’ll call the nurse.”
“Don’t. She’ll just give me something that’ll make me feel cotton-headed. I don’t want to feel that way anymore.”
He pulled the chair over and sat. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“About True.”
He frowned. “No, Bailey, why would you— About us. You and me.” He took her hand. “Our dreams.”
Their dreams. She couldn’t remember them, she realized. If she and Logan had them, they were now residing beside her nightmares.
He leaned closer; there were tears in his eyes. “It’s something wonderful.”
“Wonderful?” she repeated, heart in her throat.
“We’re having a baby.”
She stared at him. “What did you—”
“A baby.” He covered her hand with one of his, lacing their fingers. “We’re pregnant. It’s a miracle you didn’t lose it. That fall—” His throat seemed to close over the words; he cleared it. “We could have lost it.” He bent and gently rested his cheek against her belly.
She gazed down at his head, thoughts spinning. A baby? She was having a baby?
“But how … I mean, I didn’t know before the accident. Did I?”
He lifted his head, met her eyes. “Neither of us did.”
“Then how—”
“The hospital did a pregnancy test, protocol when women of childbearing age are admitted.”
She struggled with that. “And it was … positive?”
“You’re five weeks along, Bailey.”
Worries over what she remembered and what she didn’t lost their power. Her confusion melted away, replaced by a wonder, a sense of purpose like she had never known.
She met his eyes. “This is really happening?”
“It is.”
“We’re having a baby,” she said. She brought her hands to her abdomen. She imagined the life there, a part of her and this man. Logan. Her husband.
A family. What she’d always wanted.
What she’d never had.
Until now.
A wave of protectiveness rose up in her, fierce, primal. This was everything. Bailey reached up, cupped his cheek, liking the just-shaved feel against her palm.
She smiled. As it broke across her face, she realized it was the first time she’d smiled since awaking. “I’m going to be a mother. We’re going to be parents.”
“We are.” He bent and kissed her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
The words passed her lips, bringing emotional clarity. With it, a full, all-senses, to-her-core memory of loving him. As if she had only now emerged from her coma.
Everything else she had been feeling was inconsequential. Logan was her husband. They were going to be parents, raise a child together. If she should trust anyone, it was him.
A nurse came in with her cart. “Time to check your vitals, Mrs. Abbott.” She busied herself, making small talk as she checked Bailey’s temperature, blood pressure and pulse, not seeming to notice she and Logan only had eyes for each other.
When she’d finished and reached the door, she stopped. “By the way, there’s a policeman here to speak with you, Mrs. Abbott. A Chief Williams, from the Wholesome Police Department.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Saturday, April 19
4:30 P.M.
Billy Ray waited outside room 410. Inside, Bailey Abbott was awake and communicating. Finally. The moment he’d gotten word, he’d hightailed it over here.
He flat out didn’t like hospitals. He was a lawman, admittedly small town, but he still dealt with some seriously unpleasant shit. Accident victims. Fights. Drunks lying in a pool of their own vomit.