A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,11

a wide shrug. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve heard of some amnesia cases going on for years, with the patient not any closer to getting any answers than they’d been at the very beginning. With other patients, it’s only a matter of a few hours. There’s really no telling how long it could actually take.”

Years?

The single word echoed in his head as Gabe looked at the still, unconscious face. The very idea sent a chill down his spine. He couldn’t picture enduring something like that himself. It was like a virtual prison sentence that extended to eternity.

Gabe turned to the doctor. “So what do we do?” he asked.

Dan could only give him the most general of terms. Everyone was different and healed at their own pace—if they healed at all.

“We go slow,” he counseled. “Give her some space and make sure that she doesn’t feel pressured, just secure. Sometimes, the harder you try, the less progress you actually make.” Shrugging out of his coat and switching to a clean lab jacket, Dan paused to wash his hands. “Now, if you two don’t mind, I need you to leave me alone with my patient so I can attend to her wounds.”

As Gabe reluctantly began to leave, Dan raised his voice and called after him. “Stick around, though. After I get done, I think it would be a good idea to take this woman to the hospital in Pine Ridge and get a CT scan of her head to make sure that everything’s all right.” Drying his hands, he looked from one deputy to the other. “I’ll need one of you to drive her over there.”

Gabe surprised Alma by speaking up first. “I’ll do it.

“Who do you think she is?” Gabe asked her once they were in the waiting room. For now, the room appeared to be empty.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Alma told him. “We could try going through the county’s recent missing-persons files posted on the internet. If there’s no match for her, I can widen the search. With any luck, she’ll probably get her memory back before then.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked, curious.

“Well, I’d say that having a car blow up a couple of seconds after you escape out of it can be pretty traumatizing. That kind of thing can cause temporary amnesia because the person isn’t able to deal with it right when it happened. It’s the brain’s way of protecting you,” she added by way of an explanation. Alma abruptly stopped talking when she saw the quizzical way her brother was staring at her. “What?”

Gabe shook his head, clearly impressed. “I never realized you knew so much.”

“I’m not quite sure whether to be flattered that you’re impressed, or insulted because you thought I was dumb.”

“Not dumb,” he quickly corrected, and then lost some steam as he added, “just, well, my little sister.”

“And consequently, dumb,” she concluded. Alma gave him a reproving look. “You might recall that I took college courses online and that I do have a degree in criminology.”

Going to college online had been the only way she could have gotten her degree and still worked to help pay off her father’s huge pile of bills. Both causes were equally important to her.

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Gabe confessed, then focused on what she’d said. “So you really think she’ll remember who she is?”

“If you mean is she suddenly going to pop up like toast and have total recall, probably not right away,” Alma judged, “but in time, I think it will all come back to her.”

“And in the meantime?” he asked, sounding rather eager.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Gabe,” Alma cautioned. “Just take one step at a time.”

“You’re the one who always said to be prepared,” he reminded her. “What if she never remembers who she is? Or it takes her a long time before she does? What if no one’s out there looking for her, or they didn’t have enough sense to file a missing-persons report? What’ll we do with her until then?” he asked. “There’s no motel or boardinghouse to put her up in.”

“Forever’s a nice, friendly town,” Alma pointed out and then went on to assure her brother that, “We’ll think of something. But first things first. The doc said to have her checked out at the Pine Ridge hospital once he’s finished. So we need to get her there.” Ever the protective one, especially now that her mother was gone, Alma said, “I know you