A Forever Christmas

Chapter Five

“So, according to the CT scan, there’s no damage?” Gabe asked Dr. Thom Holliman, the tall, imposing radiologist.

He and Angel had been at Pine Ridge Memorial Hospital for the better part of the day, during which time she’d been seen by a neurologist and had undergone several tests, the last of which had been a head CT scan.

As a favor to Dan, who had gone to medical school with the radiologist, Dr. Holliman had put a rush on the CT scan and had then personally interpreted the findings—or as it turned out, lack thereof.

Dr. Holliman shook his head, an action which caused his thick, dark brown hair to fall into his piercing dark blue eyes.

“No swelling, no indication of any bruising, or bleeding,” the physician replied matter-of-factly. “Just that bump she sustained when she hit her head on the steering wheel, was it?”

The last was a question, since Holliman had just skimmed over the details of the car accident. Gabe had been the one to fill in the description because Angel still had no recollection of what had happened just prior to her temporarily regaining consciousness in Gabe’s vehicle.

“Steering wheel,” Gabe confirmed. The air bag hadn’t deployed on impact, leaving Angel even more vulnerable. Luckily she hadn’t sustained any more damages than she did. “So that’s it?” he pressed the radiologist, repeating, “No damage?”

“You sound disappointed,” Dr. Holliman observed. “Most people see this as good news.”

Gabe didn’t want the doctor to misunderstand. “It is, but—”

Gabe got no further in his explanation. Angel spoke up, interrupting him.

“If there’s no sign of any injury to my brain, why can’t I remember anything?” she asked. “Why can’t I at least remember my own name?”

“You do remember some things,” Dr. Holliman pointed out.

How could he say that? Her mind was as blank as a white sheet of paper.

“Like what?” Angel asked.

“Like all those things that you do automatically and take for granted.” The skeptical look on her face had him elaborating. “How to walk, how to talk, how to dress yourself—those are all skills that, had you had a brain injury, you might not recall how to do. As for your recollection of who you are—”

She wanted the doctor to understand the full magnitude of the problem. It wasn’t just her name. “And where I came from. Who my parents are and the thousand and one other details that go into forming memories as well as filling up my life. I don’t remember any of that,” she stressed.

Dr. Holliman inclined his head indulgently. “As to that, it could all very well be a matter of hysterical amnesia.”

The assessment felt like a put-down to her. “I’m not hysterical,” she told him, doing her best to sound calm, although it was getting more and more difficult for her. There was a wall of panic just beyond her calm facade. “I’m just empty. Completely empty.”

The description was both a statement and a plea, the latter addressing the fact that she desperately needed something to help her find a way to regain what she had lost.

As Dr. Holliman stood regarding her thoughtfully, neither he nor Angel noticed that Gabe had taken a few steps back from them.

The next moment, Gabe called out, “Hey, Angel, catch.” As he voiced the instruction, he tossed a small ball of aluminum foil toward her. The foil came from the take-out lunch he’d gotten at Miss Joan’s diner and brought with him on the trip to the hospital. He hadn’t realized until a couple of minutes ago that after balling it up he’d shoved it into his pocket.

Reacting, Angel’s hand shot out to catch the small, shiny ball before it hit her or fell to the hospital floor. Still holding it in her hand, she looked at Gabe as if he’d lost his mind. Why was he throwing balled-up aluminum foil at her?

“What are you doing?” she asked, clearly surprised by his action. She threw the aluminum ball back to him.

He caught it easily. “Congratulations, you’re right-handed,” he told her, this time tossing the crushed aluminum ball into the wastebasket.

“What?” Angel looked at him, confused.

With a grin, he began to explain. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the doctor nodding in approval. The man obviously understood what he’d tried to do.

“When I tossed that ball at you, you reached for it with your right hand. You did it automatically, without thinking. That means you’re right-handed.” Gabe could see what she was thinking, that there was a whole host of things she wanted to know about herself before finding out which hand she used to pick up her fork. Gabe lifted his shoulders in a good-natured shrug. “Gotta start somewhere, right?”

Gabe was right and she was acting like a petulant child, Angel thought. God, she hoped she wasn’t one of those spoiled brats who expected to have everyone focusing their attention only on her, granting whatever wish she made.

The next moment, even that thought had her heartening just a little. The simple fact that she was aware of people like that meant that things were coming back to her, just not nearly as fast and furious as she would have liked. Still, baby steps were still steps.

“Right,” she acknowledged. “Gotta start somewhere,” she echoed.

“Well, I have more than half a dozen X-rays, MRIs and CT scans waiting for my attention,” Holliman announced, signaling an end to the meeting. “I hope this reassures you two a little,” he added, then reached into his left breast pocket and took out a card. “If you find you need something further, or if you experience any complications, feel free to give me a call.”

“Complications?” she echoed, looking down at the business card he had just handed her. The word sounded ominous to her. “What sort of complications?” she asked.

“Complicated ones” was all Holliman had time to answer before hurrying back through the swinging doors that separated the people in the waiting room from the actual area where the tests were performed.

Gabe could see that she was disappointed. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. She wanted a solution, a clear-cut reason why she had lost her memory. And then, she wanted to do whatever was necessary to fix that and get her memory back.

Except it wasn’t that easy.

Which in turn had to be very frustrating to her.

“Focus on the positive side,” he advised as he opened the door that led out into the long corridor and held it for her. “There’s no brain damage, no abscess or lesion, nothing ruptured.”

That all sounded well and good—except for the fact that she was still very much in the dark. “No rupture,” she repeated. “The screen just went blank.” There was a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

That was one way of putting it, he supposed. “Right. But since there’s no problem with the wiring, the picture’ll come back on. You just have to give it time.”

She nodded, knowing he was right. Still, that didn’t make waiting any less difficult. “It would be a lot easier to do if I knew how much time I have to give it.”

“That’s simple,” he said cheerfully. When she looked at him quizzically, he added, “You have to give it until the picture comes back.”

“Very funny,” she retorted in a tone that said the exact opposite.

“Just trying to lighten things up a little,” he told her. And so far, I’m not doing all that well, he thought. “Did you know that doctors believe that laughter really is the best medicine?”

She laughed shortly as they walked through the maze of hospital corridors, heading toward the main entrance/exit. The parking lot where he’d left his truck was just beyond that.

“Bet the pharmaceutical companies don’t want that getting around or else they’d be out of business. What?” Angel asked when she saw the satisfied expression on his face.

“See? Something else you know.”

Had she missed something? What was he referring to? “What do I know?” she asked.

“You know about pharmaceutical companies enough to form an opinion.”

And more than just in passing, would be his guess. Most people said “drug companies.” Referring to them as “pharmaceutical companies” could mean that she had some sort of connection to that field. She could be a researcher or even a sales rep for one of companies, or know someone who was. It might give them a starting point to begin their search for her name.

Angel opened the truck’s passenger door and got in. She slanted a glance in his direction as she pulled out the seat belt. “That’s really reaching.”

“Maybe not as much as you think,” Gabe countered as he got in on his side.

She supposed he had a point. Leaning back in her seat, she secured the seat belt and then let out a long breath. Gabe started up the truck.

“Now what?” she asked.

That was simple enough. “Now we drive back to Forever.”

For a second, she looked at him, confused by his answer. And then she remembered. “That’s the town’s name, right?”

“Right,” Gabe answered with a grin.

“Forever,” Angel repeated, rolling the name along her tongue. “Is there some kind of legend that goes along with that name?”

In no time at all, they’d reached Pine Ridge’s town limits. Gabe thought for a moment. “I think the original founder fell in love with the countryside and said to his wife that he hoped that it would stay like this forever, that civilization with its progress and its grimy fingerprints would just bypass them.”

That sounded incredibly hokey even to someone with no memory, Angel couldn’t help thinking.

“Seriously?” she pressed. And then she saw that the corners of Gabe’s mouth were curving ever so slightly. He was pulling her leg. “You just made that up, didn’t you?” she accused.

“See?” he pointed out. “And now you remember how to read people.”

She didn’t see it that way. “Not people,” Angel corrected. “You.”

Despite her protest, Gabe saw no contradiction. “Well, the last I checked, I do fall into that category,” he told her.

“But you’re not typical,” she protested with feeling that surprised her.

They were traveling at a steady speed now and the road was wide open before them. Gabe looked at her pointedly for a brief moment.

“And you would know that how?” he prodded.

“Because…”

Her voice trailed off, losing its steam. She realized that she had no explanation, no way to answer his question. All she had, she became aware, was just the faintest glimmer of a feeling that this deputy, who had come to her rescue, who was even now putting himself out to help her regain her memory, was not like other men.

At least, not like other men who she knew…

What men did she know? Angel couldn’t help wondering as frustration continued to mount within her.

No names came to her, no faces. Nothing except some half-gelled, prickly feeling that refused to take on a recognizable form.

For all she knew, her reaction was based on just a guess on her part.

A frustrated sigh escaped her lips.

Without being fully aware of it, she fisted her hands in her lap. An overwhelming feeling of being trapped within this wall-less world with no other inhabitants save for her all but cut off her air and threatened to strangle her.

“Just because,” Angel finally told him helplessly.

To her surprise, Gabe laughed softly.

Almost immediately she felt her back going up. Okay, something else to know about herself. She didn’t like being laughed at.

“What’s so funny?” she challenged.

“‘Just because,’” he said her words back to her. “You answered with the exact same argument that my sister uses when she can’t come up with something concrete to use.”

He had a sister. Why did she feel she was supposed to know that? Had he already mentioned her? Or had she seen her?

Was it ever going to get any clearer, or at least less obscure? Or was she always going to have this haze inside her brain?

“Your sister?” she asked, hoping he’d offer a little enlightenment without her having to play more word games. His cheerful approach was beginning to grate on her nerves.

Or maybe her nerves were in a state because she found herself depending on this man and she didn’t like that feeling.

Dependence led to entrapment, or disappointment. Or both.

How did she know that?

There were no answers, just more and more questions, it seemed.

Gabe nodded, his manner neither condescending nor impatient. “You met her earlier. She was the other deputy who came with Mick, the mechanic who towed away your car,” he added when he saw that the man’s name meant nothing to her.

“My car,” she repeated, waiting for some sort of image to occur to her.

It felt as if she was straining her brain, but she continued to focus, trying to summon the image up, to have something come to her that at least felt as if it was vaguely familiar.

With a sigh, Angel surrendered with a shake of the head. Pointless. Gabe could have been talking about an old Roman chariot for all the difference it made.

Okay, she needed help here, Angel decided. She forced herself to ask, “What did it look like?”

“Like a piece of charcoal last I saw it.”

Gabe knew that wasn’t being very helpful, but he had to confess that before the explosion that had reduced Angel’s vehicle to a charcoal briquette, he’d been so focused on getting her out of the precariously perched car that he hadn’t noticed any actual details about the vehicle.

He thought back to the scene now, doing his best to remember when he’d first glimpsed the tottering sedan. “White—I think,” he qualified. “Does that do anything for you?”

Angel shut her eyes, thinking that might help. It didn’t.

Opening her eyes again, she looked at him and shook her head. The sigh came on its own accord. She was sighing more and more today, she thought. But who could blame her?

“Nothing,” she told him.

“Why don’t you try again later?” he advised. “A lot of times people remember things when they stop trying so hard to remember them. It’ll come to you, probably in the middle of the night, or something equally as inconvenient.”

Angel doubted that she was ever going to remember anything. It caused her to shrug helplessly in response to his advice.

“I guess I don’t have a choice,” she told him, resigning herself to this life in limbo that was staring her in the face.

“You always have a choice,” Gabe contradicted. “Just sometimes it doesn’t jump up, waving flags and grabbing your attention, that’s all.”

She settled back in her seat. Dusk was beginning to creep up, coloring the scenery in darkening hues. “So it’s back to…Forever?” she asked, remembering what he’d just said in response to her question about their next step.

“Unless you have another suggestion,” he told her, letting her know that he was perfectly open to anything she might have in mind.

Angel shook her head in response. That was the problem. Try as she might, no other destination came to her. No town, no shop, no person. It was as if her mind had been sent into solitary confinement.

And her fate was entirely in this man’s hands. A man she hadn’t even known early this morning.

“And what happens when I get to Forever?” she asked him.

He pretended to think it over before saying in a perfectly serious voice, “Well, we sell you into bondage and you have to work for Mick for the rest of your life.” That was as long as he could maintain a straight face. Then he asked her, “What do you mean, what happens when you reach Forever?”

“I mean, well, where am I going to stay?’ she asked, tripping over her own tongue. “I don’t have any money to pay for the motel room.”

She didn’t understand why he laughed at that until he told her, “That’s not exactly a problem since we don’t have a motel in Forever.”

Every place had motels—didn’t they? Just where was she and why had she come here? It didn’t seem like a place she’d choose.

Oh, right, she mocked herself. And your tastes run to what? Palaces?

“What do you have?” she asked gamely.

“Tourists who pass through on their way to somewhere else.” Which was true. Outside of Miss Joan’s cooking, the town boasted of nothing special.

So, they did have people passing through the town. “Where do visitors stay?” she asked gamely.

“Usually with whoever they’re visiting,” Gabe told her.

She looked at him sharply, but he wasn’t saying that to tease her. “You’re kidding.”

“On occasion,” he allowed, then qualified, “but not this time. Why?”

Didn’t he see the problem? “Well, where am I going to stay?”

“I’ve got a pup tent we can set up in the backyard,” he quipped. And then he smiled at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll work something out.”

Suspicion rose in her eyes before she was even aware of it forming. “And by ‘we’ you mean…?” She left the end of the sentence open for him to fill in.

“You, the sheriff, my sister. Maybe Miss Joan.” Although since the woman had gotten married, she wasn’t nearly as available to put people up the way she had previously been. The doctor’s wife, Tina, had stayed with Miss Joan for quite a while before Dan had come into town and promptly fallen for her. “Me,” he added in case she thought he was distancing himself from her.

Her eyes darted toward him. “Oh,” Angel murmured.

He didn’t know if the information comforted her or agitated her. He couldn’t tell by the single-word response. For now, though, maybe it was for the best to leave the matter alone. Angel had enough to deal with without his quizzing her.

Turning on the radio to combat the silence before it became overpowering, Gabe kept on driving.