His Marriage to Remember - By Kathie DeNosky Page 0,5

left the room, Sam pinned her with his piercing blue gaze. “Are you doing all right? You didn’t get too upset, did you?”

Confused, she had no idea why he was asking about her welfare. He was the one who had the accident. “I’m doing okay. But why do you ask?”

“We’ve been trying to have a baby and when I called you from the bull riding up in Oklahoma the other night you told me you were going to get one of those early home-pregnancy tests at the drugstore,” Sam said, looking hopeful as he gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Were we successful, sweetheart? Are you pregnant?”

A cold sinking feeling settled in the pit of her stomach at his mention of their trying to start a family. He didn’t remember that she had not only become pregnant, she had miscarried in her seventh week. That had been almost six months ago and had ended up being the last straw in making her decision to file for divorce. Something was definitely wrong if he had no recollection of the past several months’ tumultuous events.

“No, I’m not pregnant,” she said, determined to talk to the neurologist as soon as possible. “Now, get some rest and I’ll be in a little later to check on you.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Sam said, smiling. “We haven’t been trying that long. I’m sure you’ll be pregnant within another month or so.”

Unsure if she could respond without bursting into tears or reminding him that he would have had to be home more for her to become pregnant again, she simply nodded and turned to leave.

“Aren’t you going to give me a good-night kiss, sweetheart?” he asked, still holding her hand.

“I…uh… They won’t let me take down the bed rail,” she said, thinking fast. Kissing the tip of her index finger, she pressed it to his lips. “You need to get some rest so they’ll let you out of here soon. Try to get some sleep, Sam.”

He gave her a grin that never failed to cause her heart to skip a beat. “It’s going to be damn hard to do without you here beside me.”

She once again had to bite her tongue to keep from pointing out that sleeping without her hadn’t seemed to be a problem for him when he was traveling from one rodeo to another with his livestock-contracting company. But as she stared down at his handsome face, she decided that now wasn’t the time to get into how lonely she had been without him, how many times she had asked him to cut back on the travel or to remind him that some time ago, he had reached his goal of being independently wealthy and didn’t need to work if he didn’t want to. His smile was playing havoc with her resolve and she needed to put distance between them in order to regain her perspective.

“Good night, Sam.”

Some things never changed, she thought as she walked down the hall to the waiting area. The sun rose in the east each morning. The ocean rushed to shore. And Sam Rafferty could make her knees wobble with nothing more than his sexy-as-sin smile.

* * *

“I really don’t see any other way around it, Bria,” Nate insisted, shaking his head. “You’re going to have to move back into the ranch house with Sam until he regains his memory.”

After finally getting a chance to talk to the doctor the day after the accident, Sam’s brothers and Bria had decided to get a good night’s sleep, then meet in the hospital cafeteria this morning for coffee as they discussed how best to handle Sam’s recovery.

Dr. Bailey had informed them that after staying in the hospital for observation the past forty-eight hours, Sam had been cleared to go home, but that he was suffering from post-concussion syndrome. That was the reason he had forgotten everything that had happened during the past six months. The doctor had assured them that the condition was most likely temporary and would clear up on its own in a few weeks with Sam recovering most, if not all, of his memory. But until then he might suffer with headaches and spells of dizziness and shouldn’t become overly stressed or worried. And that was what brought them together to discuss the current dilemma. It was imperative that someone be with him at all times until he was fully recovered.

“Can’t one of you stay with him?” she asked, looking at each man in turn. “Or maybe hire someone