The Best Man in Texas

“It makes perfect sense,” he assured her. “Your ankle isn’t your only injury. You obviously took a hit to the head, and X rays showed you have a small crack in one of your ribs in addition to—”

“You said I was in an accident?” she interrupted him.

He nodded. “You were hit by a car. But that isn’t what cracked your rib or caused most of the lacerations and hematomas to your face.”

“What?”

“Doctor talk for cuts and bruises. My guess is they’re two to three days old.”

“I was in a fight and a car accident? What kind of person am I?”

“Probably a very decent one,” he hypothesized. “If it was a fight, it was one-sided. No offensive or defensive wounds on your knuckles. Most likely, you were the victim of a crime or—”

“Or what?”

“Domestic violence. Which, by the way, is a crime.”

“Am I married?” She asked the question with abject horror in her tone.

He shrugged. “No wedding ring. No pictures in your wallet. You don’t have to be married to someone to get beaten, Molly.”

She rubbed her face with her hands. “I think I would have preferred it if you’d said I was in a barroom brawl.”

He chuckled. Obviously this woman had maintained her sense of humor under horrific circumstances. It galled him to think of a man abusing any woman, particularly this one. She wasn’t short, just petite. Fragile. What kind of animal would attack someone so physically defenseless? And why did he have an urge to scoop her into his arms?

Sobering, he said, “I should tell you the circumstances surrounding the accident.”

“It gets worse?” she asked in a defeated voice.

“Pretty much. There were no witnesses, according to Sheriff Younger, and no skid marks at the scene.”

“Meaning?”

“The driver who hit you was either seriously distracted or...”

“Or?”

“Or aiming for you.”

* * *

MOLLY SPENT the following few minutes trying in vain to recall something—anything—but her memory had been erased like a chalkboard. It was too weird. She had no problem remembering who was president of the United States or how to format and configure a computer’s hard drive, but everything personal had been selectively deleted.

Frustrated, she found herself searching the clinic for Dr. Dale, the one and only face that was familiar. He had gone to mix some plaster to make her cast. The clinic was small and rather homey looking—she counted six beds in her immediate area, someone had painted aquatic murals on two of the walls.

Molly pulled herself up to rest on her elbows in order to get a better view of the place. Peering around the curtain, she spotted an attractive brunette leaning over a crib. She could hear the woman singing softly and see small, chubby legs in the crib. The infant’s bed was shrouded in some sort of plastic and a nearby machine made rhythmic whooshing sounds.

The woman turned then and caught Molly staring at her. It might have been awkward, but she simply reached inside the plastic cover, touched the baby and walked over to Molly.

“Hi. I’m Julie,” she said upon arrival.

The woman looked on the verge of total exhaustion but her warm smile seemed genuine.

“I’m Molly Porter—um—Parker. Molly Parker.” The name still felt foreign on her tongue.

Julie rubbed her neck and rolled her head as she apparently worked out some stiffness.

“Is that your baby?” Molly asked.

Julie nodded. “Thomas. He’s finally turning the corner. I would have lost him to pneumonia if it hadn’t been for Justin.”

“Aside from miracles, I can also walk on water,” Dr. Dale quipped with an easy grin as he brought a small basin and rolls of fiberglass tape to set her ankle.

Molly didn’t recognize her own name but she sure recognized the pang of jealousy she felt when Julie gave the gorgeous doctor a familiar, playful shove. Maybe Molly had suffered brain damage after all. That was the only plausible explanation for feeling such an intimate emotion about a total stranger.

“This could be uncomfortable, but I’m reluctant to give you any pain medication that might cause drowsiness because of the concussion,” he explained.

When his palm gently slid beneath her calf, Molly was pretty sure no sedative could have dulled the flood of sensation. His long, tapered fingers were warm where they gripped her flesh. She felt oddly flushed and was glad she was no longer connected to the blood-pressure monitor. Surely it would have registered her inappropriate and humiliating reaction to his touch.

Julie excused herself and returned to baby Thomas while Molly forced herself to stare at the ceiling. Looking at the doctor wasn’t an option. Though she’d lost her memory, she was fairly sure that applying a cast was not supposed to be a turn-on. Lord, maybe she was some sort of slut!

No, she reasoned. If she were, she wouldn’t be feeling the full weight of guilt seizing her chest.

Despite her best efforts to resist, she noticed that he was well toned. Not muscle-bound, just incredibly fit. Her mind went into fantasyland when she postulated that beneath his soft shirt were broad shoulders, a tapered waist and sculpted abdominals. Her gaze darted to his legs for an instant, long enough to fuel her musings. His jeans were faded, well-worn, and she could clearly see the outline of defined thigh muscles.

The room seemed to be getting warmer by the second.

Carefully, he slipped some sort of cotton, open-toed, sock-thing over her foot. It went up her leg about five inches. It felt as if he spent a long weekend adjusting and readjusting the fabric. Molly no longer felt pain from the fracture. Instead, her mind was totally focused on the electric sensation of his determined and well-trained fingers. Each place his skin brushed hers, a tingle lingered.

She felt her face grow hot.

“Is this uncomfortable?” the doctor asked.

Big-time. But probably not in the way you mean. “Nope, not at all.”

“You look flushed. This isn’t supposed to be a test of your fortitude. I can give you something for the pain, if it’s too bad,” he suggested.

She simply shook her head, afraid if she tried to speak, her wayward thoughts would be betrayed in her tone. Besides, what she wasn’t feeling was pain. It was a thrill, a rush of excitement ricocheting around in her stomach. She wasn’t a doctor, but she was sure that her symptoms had nothing to do with any injury.

Obviously satisfied with the first step, he scooted the stool around and braced her injured left foot against his chest.

“This might be uncomfortable,” he warned casually.

But there was nothing casual about the feel of his solid chest beneath her foot. She was aware of its systematic rising and falling as he breathed steadily, in and out. Conversely, her breath was were coming in shallow near gasps.

With slow deliberation, Dr. Dale began to wrap her foot and ankle in cool, wet fiberglass. Every time he stroked and smoothed the wrap, her heart fluttered. Molly was awash in conflicting emotions and a sense of self-loathing.

He was merely doing his job and she was mentally turning it into some sort of torrid moment. Her eyes were riveted to his handsome profile. The man’s face was an attractive combination of sharp angles and expressive compassion. Deep lines formed at the corners of his chocolate eyes as he continued his task.

Molly tried to redirect her thinking by glancing over at Julie and her baby. Apparently the baby was sleeping because Julie was seated, reading The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas.

Depressing reading, Molly thought. At the same instant, she heard selected passages of Thomas in her head. That meant she was either educated or well-read.

“Is that frown due to pain?” the doctor asked, startling her.

Molly shook her head. “I know Thomas.”

“The baby?” he asked, crooking his head toward the sleeping infant.

“The poet.”

Justin dazzled her with a wry smile. The flash of perfectly straight white teeth was accompanied by a glimpse of his very sexy dimple.

Molly struggled to keep her thoughts on task. “If I know poetry, that must mean something.”

“Yeah,” he said as he applied the final touches to her cast. “It means, unlike me, you have the ability to understand poems that don’t rhyme.”

She found herself smiling. “It is something, isn’t it?”

Justin met her eyes and held them. “Yes, it’s a good sign. It most likely means that your amnesia is a temporary reaction to the trauma you suffered. You should expect to get snippets of memory, then most things will come back in time.”

“In time? And what do you mean, ‘most things’?”

He patted her hand. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you never regain a clear memory of the accident. It’s your brain’s way of protecting you.”

Molly stared, stunned. “How am I supposed to know what happened to me?”

He shrugged. “You’ll probably never know unless they find the driver or a witness.”

“Great! I’d really like to know if someone was just irresponsible or trying to hurt me.”

“My educated guess is the latter. I don’t think it’s coincidence that you were beaten and hit by a car in the same week.”

“You have no idea how not comforting that is.”

A man in uniform stepped into the clinic just then. He greeted Julie in passing as he came over to where Molly was still stuck on her paper-covered bed.

Tipping the brim of his hat to her, he first addressed the doctor. “How’s the patient?”

“Um...forgetful?” he suggested with a sheepish wink in Molly’s direction.

“Sheriff Alec Younger,” he introduced. “I need to get some information, if you’re up to it, ma’am.”

“You won’t need a pencil,” Molly quipped.

Her joke was lost on the sheriff. “Ma’am?”

She looked at Justin, silently conveying that she would prefer him to supply an explanation for her strange circumstance.

He picked up on her unspoken need immediately. “Physically, I’ve done everything possible, but there’s a hitch.”

“Hitch?” the sheriff asked.

“There’s been a slight, probably short-term complication from the concussion she suffered.”

“You moving her to Fort Worth?”

Justin shook his head. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

The sheriff rubbed the shadow of a beard on his chin. “So what exactly is this hitch?”

“Memory disruption.”

“Come again?” Sheriff Younger pressed.

“More commonly known as amnesia.”

The sheriff’s dark brows drew together. “Is this a joke, Justin? I’m not really in the mood for games. I was late getting here because of a suicide in Pinto.”

“You don’t have jurisdiction in Pinto,” Justin said.

“The Pinto suicide is related to this investigation,” Sheriff Younger explained. “I got a call from the Harrisons.”

“How are Kathy and David?” Justin asked.

Molly felt as if she were watching a Ping-Pong match. Couldn’t these guys stick to one topic of conversation?

“Bummed,” the sheriff answered. “They had a runner last night, then woke up this morning to find their latest guest had committed suicide.”

“I hope you aren’t talking about a hotel,” Molly said.

“The Harrisons run a shelter,” Justin explained, but his attention remained fixed on the sheriff. “So what does the suicide have to do with Molly getting hit by a car?”

“I’ll get to that,” the sheriff answered. He moved slightly closer to Molly and his piercing black eyes met hers. “I ran your name through our computer.”

Molly stilled, curious, anxious and panicked all at the same instant. “Am I in trouble?”

He shrugged. “Nothing came back. Not in this county, at least. Where are you from?”

“I don’t know.”

The sheriff looked annoyed. “This is serious, young lady. This isn’t a time for faking.”

“I’m not faking!” Molly insisted rather haughtily. “I honestly can’t remember.”

Sheriff Younger turned to Justin. “This is a pretty big hitch.”

“Yep.”

“Great. Well, you had a Texas license, Austin address. I’ll run a check there.” The sheriff turned as if to leave.

“Wait!” Molly grabbed his sleeve. “I think I need help.”

“She’s right,” Justin added. “I found some old injuries.” He went on to detail the results of his physical examination.

The sheriff took some time absorbing the information, then said, “Well, that might fit with what I learned at the Harrisons.”

“Which was?” Justin queried.

“That Ms. Parker is their runner. But there’s a problem.”

“Problem?” Molly repeated.

“Yep. The woman who committed suicide at the shelter last night was a woman named Sara Pierce.”

“What does that have to do with Molly?” Justin pressed.

“She killed herself with an overdose of prescription drugs.”

“Unfortunately a common means of ending one’s life,” Justin offered.

“Sure,” the sheriff said, speaking directly to Molly, “but the prescription belonged to you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“SO, AM I like a suspect or something?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Depends on the results of the Pierce woman’s autopsy.”

Molly felt an odd sensation. It was like a flashbulb going off in her mind. It was so quick she couldn’t hold the image.

“Are you okay?” Justin asked as he took her hand in his. In one fluid motion he had managed to shove the sheriff off to the side to give her his full attention.

“Y-yes.” Molly rubbed her palm across her forehead. “I just blanked for a minute.”

Justin turned to the sheriff and said, “Alec, maybe now isn’t a good time for this.”

“I’ll be back.”

The sheriff’s proclamation did little to calm Molly’s frazzled state. Who were the Harrisons? Who was Sara Pierce and what did any of them have to do with her?

Without dropping her hand, Justin pulled his stool to the edge of her bed and lowered his more than six-foot frame onto it. “Don’t make yourself crazy, Molly. Just relax and things will probably fall into place.”

She felt herself frown. “Probably?”

Justin treated her to a handsome grin. “Worrying won’t alter the outcome,” he said.

She watched, transfixed, as his gaze dropped to their entwined hands. Once realization struck, he snatched his hand away, then all but tucked it behind his sizeable frame.

“I’ve got to check on the baby before Mrs. Beasley comes in.”

Abruptly, Justin walked away. Molly said nothing. She was occupied taking in the sight of his broad back, incredible tush and slight swagger. It seemed more likely than not that Justin was perplexed. And she didn’t think it was because of her condition. Had he been feeling the same energy that heated the pit of her stomach?

“The same energy?” Molly groused softly as she threw her arm over her face. “Is lust a form of energy?”

“It can be.”

Molly shot upright when she heard the response to her very rhetorical and very private question.

Julie was standing next to the bed with a pitcher, a glass and a lecherous smile. “Justin thought you might be thirsty.” She placed the beverage on the side table and pulled the stool over. “If you’re going to lust after Justin, be prepared to stand in line.”

Molly felt her cheeks burn. “I hardly know him, I—I—”

“Wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t notice he’s gorgeous, smart, kind, compassionate and sexy as hell,” Julie finished in a conspiratorial tone.

Molly thought for a second, then said, “Have I just stepped on your toes?”

Tossing her head back, Julie laughed softly. “Me? The only man in my life is Thomas.”

“His father?” Molly asked.

“Has never even seen him. If I have anything to say about it, my husband won’t ever be a part of Thomas’s life.”

“I guess that gives us something in common,” Molly sighed. “Whatever man I was involved with beat me up, too, according to Justin.”

“My husband never hit me,” Julie corrected, an intense sadness creeping into her eyes. It was a pained, haunted expression.

“I didn’t mean to jump to conclusions,” Molly said. “Besides, it really isn’t any of my business.”

Julie shrugged. “You’re the first person I’ve talked to like this in months. It helps.”

“Feel free to use me as a sounding board. Lord knows my board is empty.”

Julie laughed. “You’re pretty funny, Molly. I’m amazed you can still laugh given what’s happened to you.”

“It helps not to be able to remember a bloody thing.”

“I wish I could do that,” Julie mused. “Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and change the past. If only I hadn’t walked in on my husband when I did.”

“With another woman?”

She shook her head. “That I could have accepted.”

“Another man?”

Julie gave an ironic smile. “Believe it or not, even that would have been better than what I heard and saw.”

“Is your husband near here?” Molly asked.

“No.”

Upon hearing the abrupt response, Molly said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You aren’t prying,” Julie insisted. “It’s just a lot safer for us and for you if you know as little possible about me.”

“Knowing as little as possible seems to be my forte right about now,” Molly quipped.

“Sorry. It must be frustrating for you.”

“Very,” Molly agreed. “But in a weird way, it’s also kind of...interesting.”

“How?”

“It’s as if I’ve had my slate wiped clean. I can be anyone or anything I want. It’s sort of liberating. Except not knowing about my past also complicates things.”

“Like what?”

Molly let out a slow breath. “Some woman killed herself using pills that were prescribed for me. The sheriff sounded as if he thinks I might have been some sort of accomplice in her death.”

“I heard. Trust me, Molly. Unless they find some sign that you force-fed her those pills, you are not responsible for some woman’s poor choice.”

“Maybe. But what about the beating and the car running me down? I must have a pretty screwed-up life for those two things to have happened.”

Julie sat pensively for a minute, then suggested, “Maybe you were getting your act together. A guy beat you up, you got away from him. The sheriff said you weren’t from around here. I’d bet my last dollar that you were trying to get yourself out of a lousy situation.”

“I didn’t get very far,” Molly pointed out.

“Maybe you did,” Julie countered. “Remember, the driver who hit you could have just been distracted—fooling with a cell phone, looking at a map—and then fled in fear. There are endless possibilities beyond just thinking he or she intended to hurt you.”

“Let’s hope,” Molly replied, stifling a yawn.

Julie ran her fingers through her cropped dark hair. Molly saw the beginnings of lighter roots and realized that Julie’s color wasn’t natural.

“I’d offer to let you rest, but Justin sent me over here with strict instructions,” Julie said. “He wants you ‘awake and responsive’ for at least four more hours.”

“Awake is a problem. Responsive seems to be on autopilot whenever he gets within ten feet of me.”

Julie laughed. “He is definitely hot.”

“Definitely. So what’s his deal? Why is he out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“How dare you disparage Cactus Creek,” Julie teased. “Population two hundred and eleven. It’s actually a nice town. Nice people.”

“Forget the other two-hundred and ten, what’s with the doctor?”

“Justin is a good old-fashioned country doctor.”

Julie’s words echoed in Molly’s head but it wasn’t Julie’s voice she heard saying them. It was a female voice, older and with a more pronounced Texas drawl.

“Molly?”

She blinked back to the present.

“Are you okay?” Julie asked, her face a palette of concern.

Molly nodded. “Just a little mental trip down a blue highway.”

“Blue highway?” Julie repeated.

“On a map,” Molly explained. “The smaller, off-the-beaten-path routes that few people take. They’re usually colored blue on maps.”

“Did you remember something?”

Molly shook her head. “Not really. I heard a voice.”

“As in you remembered the sound of a person’s voice? Or was it a totally psychotic experience?”

“A sixty-forty blend,” Molly decided. “What you said about Justin—the country doctor thing—it was like I had heard those words before.”

“It’s a common expression.”

“You’re right, I’m sure it was just what’s left of my mind playing tricks on me.”

“It’s good you can joke about it. I think I’d be in a full panic if I was in your shoes.”

“You mean in my cast—no shoes for me for a while,” Molly teased. “I was panicked. I still am on a lot of levels. I think I did denial and anger, now I’m moving into acceptance.”

Julie was staring at her as if she’d just recited the Constitution verbatim.

“What?”

“That sounded...clinical. Maybe you’re some sort of doctor or therapist.”

“A battered doctor? I don’t think so.”

“It happens,” Julie assured her. “Trust me when I tell you that education and social status can’t protect you from bad things.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Firsthand,” Julie acknowledged guardedly. “But back to Justin. He went to medical school back East but came home to practice. He owns this clinic, the adjoining house and property and flies his own helicopter.”

“If he also wanted to eliminate hunger and prayed for world peace, could be a Playmate of the Month.”

“Funny, but very close to the truth. The man definitely doesn’t lack in the looks department.”

Molly agreed. “Doctors should be old, white-haired and paternalistic,” she commented. “Then patients wouldn’t get...distracted during examinations.”

“They do more than get distracted,” Julie whispered, drawing her head closer. “A lot of the women around here throw themselves at Justin faster and harder than major league pitches.”

“So he isn’t wanting for female companionship?”

“That’s the strange part,” Julie softly replied. “In the time I’ve been here, he’s had exactly one date, and then he was only gone for a short while.”

“Is he gay?” Molly asked.

“Nope. Once he mentioned a fiancée.”

“What happened?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Didn’t say what?” Justin asked, walking up to the two women.

“Why you wanted Molly to stay awake,” Julie lied.

Molly was impressed. Julie was quick on her feet. Yet somehow, Julie didn’t impress her as someone who would lie often. What had happened to make her add those skills to repertoire?

Justin looked at Molly as he pressed his fingertips to her wrist to check her pulse.

All Molly could do was silently pray that her heart wouldn’t race merely because he was touching her.

“It’s a little fast,” Justin commented, then replaced her arm at her side. “Because you lost consciousness, I want to keep tabs on your neurological responses for a while. I need you awake in order to do that.”

I’m awake now, Molly thought, still feeling a tingle from the ghost of his touch.

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