A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,18

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.