Page 3 of If She Only Knew (The Cahills 1)

Yes, yes, I can hear you, but my name isn’t Mrs. Cahill, I’m not married and I’m dying from this pain. For God’s sake, someone help me! If this is a hospital, surely you have codeine or morphine or . . . or even an aspirin. The fog closed in around her and she wanted to give in to it, to feel nothing again.

“Marla? It’s Alex.” His deep baritone voice was much closer. Louder. As if he were standing only inches from her. She felt a new pressure on her arm as he touched her, and she wanted to let him know she could hear him, but she couldn’t move, not at all. The smell of cologne assailed her, and she instinctively sensed it was expensive. But how would she know? The fingertips on her skin were smooth, soft . . . Alex’s hands. Her husband’s hands.

Oh, God, why couldn’t she remember?

She tried to recall his face, the color of his hair, the width of his shoulders, the size of his shoes, any little trait, but failed. His voice brought back no images. There was a faint smell of smoke that clung to him as his sleeve brushed her wrist and she felt the scratch of wool from his jacket, but that was it.

“Honey, please wake up. I miss you, the children—” His voice cracked, emotion strangling him.

Children?

No! There was just no way she had kids and didn’t know it. Or was there?

That was the kind of thing a woman, even a woman lying drugged and half-comatose in a hospital bed would immediately realize. Certainly her intuition, the female animal in her would sense that she was a mother. Trapped motionless in this blackness she knew nothing. If only she could open her eyes . . . and yet the cozying warmth of unconsciousness was so seductive . . . Soon she would remember . . . It was just a matter of time . . .

Cold horror crept up her spine as she realized she couldn’t conjure up one single instant in the years that were her life. It was as if she had never existed.

This is a nightmare. That’s the only explanation.

“Marla, please, come back to me. To us,” Alex whispered gruffly, and deep in her heart she wished she felt something, one smidgen of emotion for this faceless stranger claiming to be her life partner. His smooth fingers linked through hers and she felt pressure on the back of her hand, the pull of an IV needle stuck into her arm. Dear God, this was pathetic, a scene from a schmaltzy World War II movie. “Cissy misses you and little James . . .” Again his voice cracked, and she tried to drag up some tiny thread of tenderness from her subconscious, a tiny bit of love for this man she couldn’t see and didn’t remember. The void that was her past gave her no hint as to what Alex Cahill looked like, what he did for a living, or how he made love to her . . . surely she would remember that. And what about her children? Cissy? James? No images of cherubic toddlers with runny noses and flushed cheeks or gangly adolescents fighting the ravages of acne flashed through her mind, but then she was sinking. Maybe they’d finally put something in her IV as she felt herself detaching from her body . . . floating away . . . She had to focus.

“How long?” he asked, dragging his hand away from hers. “How long is this going to last?”

“No one can tell you that. These things take time,” the nurse replied and her voice sounded far away, as if through a tunnel. “Comas sometimes last only a few hours or . . . well, sometimes a lot longer. Days. Weeks. No one can predict. It could be even longer—”

“Don’t even go there,” he said, cutting her off. “That’s not going to happen. She will come around.” His voice was like steel. He was a man used to giving orders. “Marla?” He must’ve turned to face the bed again as his voice was louder once more. Impatient. “For Christ’s sake, can’t you hear me?”

With every ounce of effort, she tried to move. Couldn’t. It was as if she were strapped down, weighted to the mattress with its crisp, uncomfortable sheets. She could not even raise one finger, and yet it didn’t matter . . .

“I want to talk to the doctor.” Alex was forceful. His words clipped. “I don’t see any reason why she can’t be taken home and cared for there. I’ll hire all the people she needs. Nurses. Aides. Attendants. Whatever. We’ve got more than enough room for round the clock, live-in help in the house.”

There was a long pause and she sensed unspoken disapproval on the nurse’s part . . . well, she assumed the woman was a nurse . . . as she struggled to force her eyes open, to move a part of her body to indicate that she could hear through the pain.

“I’ll let Dr. Robertson know that you want to see him,” the nurse said, her voice no longer coddling and patient. Now she was firm. Professional. “I’m not sure he’s in the hospital now, but I’ll see that he gets the message.”

“Do that.”

Marla drifted off again, lost seconds, maybe minutes. Her sluggish consciousness discerned voices again, voices that interrupted her sleep.

“I think Mrs. Cahill should rest now,” the nurse was saying.

“We’ll leave in just a minute.” Another voice. Elderly. Refined. It floated in on footsteps that were clipped and solid, at odds with the age of the woman’s voice. “We’re family and I’d like a few moments alone with my son and daughter-in-law.”

“Fine. But please, for Mrs. Cahill’s sake, make it brief.”

“We will, dear,” the older woman agreed and Marla felt the touch of cool, dry skin on the back of her hand. “Come on, Marla, wake up. Cissy and little James, they miss you, they need you.” A deep chuckle. “Though I hate to admit it, Nana isn’t quite the same as their mother.”

Nana? Grandma? Mother-in-law?

There was a rustle of clothing, the sound of soft soles padding across the floor and a door opening as, presumably, the nurse left.

“Sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever wake up,” Alex grumbled. “God, I need a cigarette.”

“Just be patient, son. Marla was in a horrible accident, and then suffered through the surgeries. She’s healing.” God, why couldn’t she remember? There was another long, serious sigh and a kindly pat of fingers on the back of her hand. A waft of perfume . . . a scent she recognized but couldn’t name.

Why was she in the hospital? What kind of accident were they talking about? Marla tried to concentrate, to think, but the effort brought only an ache that throbbed through her head.

“I just hope there won’t be much disfigurement,” the old woman said again.

---