Missing You

One-2

“Would you like some soup and coffee?” he asked. “We need to get you warmed up, if you’re up to it.”

“I am hungry.” She sounded surprised. “Thank you.”

He left her for the kitchen, glad for the time away from her. He still felt a bit off balance by her resemblance to Rosemary, and, if he were honest with himself, her unexpected beauty. His body had taken in more input than his brain could process, but the main gist of it was basically, wow.

He put water in the coffeepot, started heat under it. Found a can of soup and dumped it in a pan. Maybe he should start dating again, just to let off some steam in his “wow” reflex.

He turned and found her standing in the doorway studying him with a seriousness that did nothing to relieve the pressure. She was taller than he’d expected from someone with so slight a build. She stood carefully, but with a grace and elegance that her discomfort couldn’t erase.

“Is there—” She stopped, color flooding her cheeks.

Luke found he could grin and felt better, more balanced and in control again. “Bathroom’s through there. Light’s on the right.”

It was odd, but kind of cute, that she was embarrassed to ask for the john. There was something a bit old-fashioned about her, despite her very modern clothes. He could see her behind a tea pot in a room full of antiques. In a dress that matched her eyes and had a bunch of white at the neck. Something like Katharine Hepburn would wear.

“Thank you.” She turned, wobbling a bit.

He fought back the urge to leap to her assistance. Partly because he didn’t want to scare her and mostly because he wasn’t sure he could leap. His body had surprised him a few times lately by not responding to his mental commands. A reminder that he wasn’t as young as he felt. Instead he asked, “Do you need help?”

She smiled. “Thank you, but no. I can manage. Stiffened up a bit while I was asleep.”

Her back straightened, her chin lifting as she made a determined beeline for the bathroom door.

Guts and beauty. Interesting. It wasn’t until Luke heard the door creak closed that he realized he still didn’t know her name. While he kept a watchful eye on the soup, he dug out the first aid kit and a flashlight. If she had a concussion, her eyes would show it. And if she did? Well, he’d deal with it then. He had his phone. He could call for advice.

The soup started to bubble. He lifted it off the heat, gave it a stir, and then poured it in a bowl. Grabbed some crackers and a cup of coffee and put it all on a tray. He heard the door creak open and found his thoughts bubbling like the soup. It was, he decided, like something out of a Raymond Chandler book. Snowed in with a mysterious woman, trapped in the mountains—with a woman who had probably missed her step, taken a tumble and then lost her way, he reminded himself. No mystery, just Mother Nature’s pointed reminder not to take her for granted.

She hadn’t just used the toilet, he saw. She’d washed the blood off her face and tidied her hair. Most of the bits of brush were gone and her hair was now pulled back into a sort of knotted ponytail that hung all the way down her back. Her face was white and she trembled from the effort. Luke jumped forward, surprised and pleased his body did as requested, and helped her back to the couch. He got her settled with a pillow behind her and blankets tucked around, then brought her the tray.

“Can you manage for yourself?” he asked.

She nodded, her smile grateful. She picked up the spoon using, Luke noted, her left hand. When it became apparent she wasn’t a southpaw, he folded back the blankets and found her right wrist swollen to twice its normal size. He probed it gently and heard her gasp.

“Sorry. Can you move your fingers?” She flexed them. “How about your wrist?”

She managed to bend at the wrist, but the effort drained more color out of her face.

“I don’t think it’s broken, but it should probably be strapped until it can be X-rayed. A hairline fracture and a sprain can both cause swelling.” He should know. He’d had both. He opened the first aid kit and rummaged through it until he’d found everything he needed.

“Are you a doctor?” A few bites of the soup put a slight flush in her cheeks.

“Actually, I’m a cop. And an all-too-frequent patient.” He grinned at her. “My mom claims most of her gray hairs are my fault, but my brothers did their share, believe me. Most of it from rock climbing.” While he talked, he helped her out of her jacket, a painful exercise, then applied a wrist splint and wrapped it with elastic bandage. When he was done, he touched the tips of her fingers. “Can you feel this?”

She nodded, relaxing back against the couch with a sigh of relief. “It feels a lot better.”

“Let me know if the tips of your fingers start to tingle and I’ll loosen it.” He frowned. “Normally I’d apply ice, but you’re still pretty chilled.”

“I feel wonderfully warm, but I’d rather avoid ice for now.” She ate most of her soup but only took one sip of the coffee. She stared into the cup, then looked at him. “I don’t think I drink coffee.” She looked startled. It did seem like something she should know about herself.

“I’ll get you some water, but first—” Luke set the tray aside, and picked up the flashlight.

“What now?” She sounded amused.

“Looks like you took a pretty nasty tumble, could have a mild concussion. I want to look at your pupils.” He tipped her head up and flashed the light in her eyes, watching her pupils react. “Did you lose consciousness?”

She smiled at the question. She'd lost more than consciousness. “Oh, yeah.”

“It’s not unusual for the noggin to be scrambled after a fall.”

He was a big man and strong, but his hands were warm and gentle cupping either side of her face. His face was close enough for her to see the texture of his skin as he probed her scalp for injuries. The words craggy and weather-beaten came to mind first. He looked like a man who lived much of his life outside. He wasn’t movie star handsome, but she felt an unexpected flicker of attraction flare where he touched her.

“Besides the bump on your temple, there’s another here, above your ear.”

“I’ve got one on the lower occipital, too,” she said, touching the base of her head with a wince. He looked surprised as he checked it out.

“That you do. I’d say you did a top over tail today.” He sat back, his hands dropping away.

To her annoyance, her skin felt cold, almost bereft without his touch. You know nothing about this man, she reminded herself. But that wasn’t the worst. She knew nothing about herself, except that she had an occipital. And a parietal, frontal and temporal. Very weird. It was as if she’d begun her existence when she opened her eyes a short time ago. She hadn’t even known what she looked like until she saw herself in the mirror. It was an odd feeling to meet herself for the first time. By most standards, even with the bumps and bruises, the face that had stared back at her would be considered beautiful. She’d felt no pride of ownership; no sense of I am a beautiful woman. No sense of herself at all. She’d fingered her clothes. They were of good fabric, but sturdy and serviceable, rather than glamorous. No perfume, cheap or expensive lingered on her skin. She’d sniffed herself twice and found soap. Just soap. And the smell of pine. Judging by the amount of pine needles she’d shaken out of her hair, the smell of pine was inevitable, rather than revealing.

Her hands, beneath the scratches, were cared for. Her fingers were long, the nails that weren’t torn were filed but unpolished. To her surprise, despite the signs she’d taken a very nasty tumble, she felt relieved, as if she’d laid down a burden. Beneath the uncertainty, she felt free. If she had no past, that left a future full of possibilities.

“What do you remember?” he asked.

A better question would be, what am I trying to forget? She shrugged, then wished she hadn’t. The movement upped the pain quota enough to make stars sashay across her view.

“Let’s start with something easy, like your name?”

Her name. Everyone had a name. She had an impulse to make one up. To write something onto the blank canvas in her head, but her mind refused to play. It didn’t cough up a single consonant, let alone a whole name. She pushed at the gray mist and it pushed back. It did open enough to let out a single emotion. Panic. It spilled through her like a tsunami, threatening to sweep her away. As if he sensed it, he grabbed her left hand, held it, a lifeline pulling her free of the dark undertow.

“You really did scramble your brains, didn’t you?” His voice was kind, as if not knowing her own name was no big deal. “How about I call you Goldie for now?”

“Goldie?” From the jumble of letters in her head, the name formed into a row. So she did know the alphabet, in addition to the parts of the head. That was something.

He curled a strand of her hair around his finger and held it up for her view.

To her surprise, she felt a slight, mischievous smile curve her mouth at the edges. “I wonder if it’s the real thing or out of a bottle?”

He chuckled, drawing her attention to his broad, well-constructed chest. When he went for the first aid kit, she’d noticed he filled out his jeans well, too. He walked with a relaxed but determined stride, and he had kind eyes, with a hint of sad lurking in their depths. He was taller than her and had an air of calm competence. She’d never trusted handsome men, though she had no idea why that was.

“Even if it’s not natural,” he said with a grin, “you reminded me of Goldilocks when I found you sleeping on my couch.”

“Are you one of the three bears?” He was big and woolly enough. His hair was dark and unruly, with the shadow of a heavy beard on the lower half of his craggy face. At the base of his throat, where the collar of his flannel shirt exposed the strong column of his neck, she could see a tuft of thick dark chest hair. No question the sum of his parts had a distinct teddy bear quality. A teddy bear packing a gun, she reminded herself.

“I growl a little in the morning,” he admitted.

“Goldie does seem to fit.” She examined the name and found she didn’t mind it. At least there was no big bad wolf in the story. “It’s nice to meet you, Luke.”

“Nice to meet you, Goldie.” He held out his hand.

Without thinking, she reached out with her injured right arm, but felt such a stab of pain from the movement, everything went black for a few seconds. From a distance, she heard Luke ask, “What’s wrong? Is the wrap too tight?”

“No. Higher up, I think.” A few deep breaths cleared the haze, but the pain stayed, clinging to her arm like a pit bull. She saw a tear in the dark fabric of her tee shirt. Around the tear, the material was stiff with dried blood and stuck to her skin. She saw Luke holding a pair of scissors and covered the spot protectively.

“Going to have to cut the sleeve of your shirt.”

His steady gaze reassured her. She nodded and lowered her hand. She wanted to look away when he inserted the blade of the scissors under the edge of her sleeve and began snipping, folding the soft cotton back as more and more of her arm was exposed, but she couldn’t. Whether she liked it or not, it was another piece in the puzzle of who she was. Up past the elbow he ran into the stuck-on material and, to her relief, stopped.

“You’ve bled a fair bit,” Luke said. “You must have sliced your arm when you fell. Hang on.”

He returned with a pan of warm water. He wet the material until he’d bared her arm to the shoulder, exposing an angry gash in the flesh of her upper arm. There was something not right about the wound, something that stole the warmth from her body, replacing it with the chill of fear. She looked at Luke, hoping he’d reassure her, but his face was grim and worried. A cop’s face, she realized. He picked up her discarded jacket and examined the tear that matched the wound in her arm. She saw him sniff it, the worry in his face deepening.