Passion (In Wilde Country 2)

There was only one clerk on duty at the reception desk. She smothered a yawn as he approached.

“My name is Matteo Bellini. I had a call from Dr. Charles Stafford. He told me you admitted a woman who’d been in a vehicular accident.”

“Yes sir. We’ve been expecting you. Room 314. Dr. Stafford will meet you there.”

“Thanks.”

Matteo headed for the elevator, decided that might take too long and took the fire stairs instead.

The place had the nighttime silence all hospitals seemed to have, broken only by the soft ping and whoosh of machines, and occasional moans of discomfort.

The second floor seemed to be all offices. He passed closed door after closed door. Room 308 Radiology. Room 309, Neurology. Room 310, Staff Only. Room 311, Supplies.

Room 314 was facing him at the end of the hall. This would be Stafford’s office. Did he knock, or did he turn the knob and walk in?

A better question was, what was he doing here? Why was he passing himself off as a man who knew Ariel Pastore? As a man who could act and speak on her behalf? It wasn’t logical. He hardly knew the woman…

All she had was an envelope filled with cash and your business card.

Matteo ran his hands through his hair, went through a little mental dress rehearsal in which he’d explain he was a close family friend and Stafford must have misunderstood him because no, he was not a legally authorized party, and reached for the door knob.

The door opened not on an office but on a dimly lit hospital room. A bed stood near the window perhaps a dozen feet away. A woman lay in it, motionless, her eyes closed, her gold hair spread over the pillow.

“Ariel?” he said softly.

He moved forward quickly, saw the slow, steady rise and fall of her breasts beneath the white hospital blanket and exhaled in relief.

And, yes, it was Ariel.

He bit back a groan at what he saw.

A line snaked from a plastic bag filled with colorless liquid to a vein on the back of her right hand. There was a cast on her left wrist. Her eye sockets were an angry black and blue. A neat line of stitches angled over one high cheekbone.

The physical damage the accident had inflicted was bad enough, but the rest of it—how small and fragile and lost she appeared—tore at his gut.

He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her.

Instead, he cleared his throat.

“Ariel. It’s Matteo Bellini.”

Her lashes fluttered. Her eyes opened. She stared at the ceiling. He spoke her name again and she turned her head and stared at him. Her expression was blank. Disappointment swept through him. Obviously, she didn’t recognize him, but why would she? They’d spent, what, half an hour together.

And she had amnesia.

He felt foolish. Unbearably foolish. Sure, she’d had his card in her pocket, but so what? For all he knew, she’d simply forgotten to toss it out…

“Matteo?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Matteo. Is it really you?”

“Yes. It’s me.” That she knew him, remembered him when she remembered nothing else, gave him a strange feeling. A good feeling. He moved nearer. “Are you all right?”

A hesitant smile lifted the corners of her mouth. She nodded.

‘I will be,” she whispered. “Now that you’re here.”

What did that mean? He was about to ask when he heard the door open, then close behind him. He turned and saw a tall, thin, white-haired man walking toward him.

“Mr. Bellini? I’m Charles Stafford.” They shook hands. “You made good time, sir.” Stafford looked past him. “Ah. Ms. Bennett. You’re awake. That’s good.”

“Is that my name? Bennett?”

“Mr. Bellini says so. Does the name mean anything to you?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. Her voice trembled. “It doesn’t.”

“Well, don’t worry about it,” Stafford said pleasantly. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. My head still hurts, but not as much. And my wrist aches.”

“I’m sure it does. We’ll get you something for the pain.”

“No!” The word was explosive. Her gaze swept from one man to the other. “No pills!”

Stafford lifted her hand and checked her pulse. “Any particular reason?

“I don’t know. I just—I don’t want anything, Doctor. The pain isn’t bad. I can handle it.”

“That’s fine.” Stafford let go of her hand, gently cupped her face and turned it from side to side. “I know these cuts and bruises must seem awful, but they’ll all heal.” He drew back and his tone gentled. “How’s the memory?”

“She remembered me,” Matteo said.

Ariel looked at him. The expression on her face said something else. It took him a second to get it. She didn’t remember him. He’d told her his name, and she’d repeated it. He could tell that to the doctor, or he could keep the information to himself.

“Yes,” Ariel said, “that’s right. I remembered him.”

Her gaze pleaded for him to go along with the lie. He almost laughed. They were both liars now, and he still didn’t understand the game.

“Excellent,” the doctor said. “That’s very good news.”

Matteo cleared his throat.

“Doctor? Could we step outside?”

Stafford nodded, smiled at Ariel and patted her hand. His smile faded a little when he and Matteo stepped out of the room.

“You want to know how she’s really doing,” he said bluntly.

“Yes.”

“Well, as I said, the bruises and cuts are healing. She has other bruises on her back. Nothing major, just ugly and a little painful. The wrist… Did I mention that when we spoke? In technical terms, it’s a fracture of the ulna, and it’s a simple break. No surgery was required, just that cast.” Stafford offered a quick smile. “Physically, she’ll be fine.”

“And…” Matteo cleared his throat. “And mentally?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, is she—is she mentally sound?”

“If you mean is her intellect sound, it is. She can converse normally. She can read, count, and she knows the alphabet. She was fully able to comprehend the details of her injuries. She understands where she is and that we’re all trying to help her. Concussion doesn’t diminish mental capacity unless it damages centers of cognition, and that hasn’t happened here.” Stafford folded his arms over his chest. “The brain is a delicate organ. Shake it up, bounce it around, and the result can be any of a variety of things. The worst would be bleeding or swelling, and I’m happy to assure you that neither of those have occurred. “

“So, she’s fine… Except she doesn’t know who she is. Is that what you’re saying?”

Stafford sighed.

“It’s an oversimplification, but yes, that’s what I’m saying. Ariel experienced some of the most common results of brain trauma. Dizziness. Nausea. Disorientation. Those have mostly passed, but she still has no recollection of the past or of the accident. Whatever details we have were provided by the police. That she doesn’t remember the accident is not unusual. In fact, it’s very common. Many people injured in accidents never do recall the specifics.”

“What about the rest of her memory loss? How long until she remembers things about herself and her life?”

“I wish I could tell you. Amnesia is tricky. In Ariel’s case, the degree of amnesia is significant. She doesn’t know her name. Her address. Her telephone number. We use a fairly standardized set of questions to determine the extent of memory loss. She knows the day and date. The month. The name of the president.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”

“It is—except for the fact that she knows nothing about herself—although she did recognize you.”

Matteo was pr

etty sure she hadn’t, but why mention it now?

“And how long will this last?”

“I can’t tell you that, either. The workings of the brain are still largely unknown. Perhaps it’s because of the specific area that suffered the most stress, or perhaps there’s some emotional trauma keeping her from recovering her personal memories.” The doctor paused. “Would you know if that could be the case?”

The answer was yes, but Matteo couldn’t tell Stafford that, not without telling him everything.

“I’d like to answer your question, Doctor, but I can’t.”

Stafford nodded, glanced down at his suit jacket and plucked a non-existent piece of fluff from the fabric.

“Why do I suspect that’s a lawyer’s answer?”

“It’s an accurate answer,”

“As I said, a lawyer’s answer. Here’s the bottom line, Mr. Bellini. Ms. Bennett needs time to recuperate. The odds are excellent that her memory, her memory of her life, will return, but there’s no way of knowing how long it might take. A day. A week. A month.” Stafford paused. “In some rare instances, longer than that.”

“Is there any treatment that works? Medication?”

“No. Not really. Therapy with a good psychologist can be helpful, but that’s mostly for the patient’s emotional support. As you can imagine, not knowing anything about yourself can be very distressing.”

Matteo’s head was reeling. The woman Tony Pastore wanted out of his life might not even know who she was for weeks or months. What would Pastore do with her if that were the situation? He’d been worried enough about how the public would view her. Now, if it saw her as a woman whose history was a blank slate…

“The best treatment is for the patient to return to familiar surroundings. To live at home, in a normal setting. That doesn’t always happen, of course. It depends upon the circumstances. If the patient lives alone, that can be a problem. If the patient has family, but the family can’t accept the reality of the disability, that’s a problem, too.”

“And the solution to the problem?”

“Well, there are long-term care facilities that can handle amnesia cases.”

“Are you talking about an asylum?”

Stafford’s eyebrows rose. “We no longer have asylums, sir.”