“Who are you, Amelia? Why are you here?”

“Your parents—”

“They could have hired a nurse or a sitter for me. Why you?”

She shook her head gently.

“You’re carrying my baby, aren’t you?”

Her gaze met his and fell. She moved toward the window. He followed her, determined to know.

When she stopped and turned, he was right there by her side. She looked up into his eyes and said, “Yes.”

“Then why aren’t we married?”

She was silent again. He could see her trying to come up with answers he would like, and it irritated him. “Just tell me the truth, Amelia!”

“The truth? Is that what you really want?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, but suddenly he was filled with doubt.…

Dear Reader,

The year 2000 marks the twentieth anniversary of Silhouette Books! Ever since May 1980, Silhouette Books—and its flagship line, Silhouette Romance—has published the best in contemporary category romance fiction. And the year’s stellar lineups across all Silhouette series continue that tradition.

This month in Silhouette Romance, Susan Meier unveils her miniseries BREWSTER BABY BOOM, in which three brothers confront instant fatherhood after inheriting six-month-old triplets! First up is The Baby Bequest, in which Evan Brewster does diaper duty…and learns a thing or two about love from his much-younger, mommy-in-the-making assistant. In Teresa Southwick’s charming new Silhouette Romance novel, a tall, dark and handsome man decides to woo a jaded nurse With a Little T.L.C. The Sheik’s Solution is a green-card marriage to his efficient secretary in this lavish fairy tale from Barbara McMahon.

Elizabeth Harbison’s CINDERELLA BRIDES series continues with the magnificent Annie and the Prince. In Cara Colter’s dramatic A Babe in the Woods, a mystery man arrives on a reclusive woman’s doorstep with a babe on his back—and a gun in his backpack! Then we have a man without a memory who returns to his Prim, Proper…Pregnant former fiancée—this unique story by Alice Sharpe is a must-read for those who love twists and turns.

In coming months, look for special titles by longtime favorites Diana Palmer, Joan Hohl, Kasey Michaels, Dixie Browning, Phyllis Halldorson and Tracy Sinclair, as well as many newer but equally loved authors. It’s an exciting year for Silhouette Books, and we invite you to join the celebration!

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

Prim, Proper… Pregnant
Alice Sharpe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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This book is dedicated with love to Joyce Sharpe.

Books by Alice Sharpe

Silhouette Romance

Going to the Chapel #1137

Missing: One Bride #1212

Wife on His Doorstep #1304

Prim, Proper…Pregnant #1425

Silhouette Yours Truly

If Wishes Were Heroes

ALICE SHARPE

met her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing.

Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at P.O. Box 755 Brownsville, OR 97327. SASE for reply is appreciated.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

After ten minutes of furtive searching, Amelia Enderling was about to give up. She paused near an open door, hoping for a fortifying glance at the bay, and that was when she finally spotted him. He was standing near the rock wall that skirted the terrace of the Bayview Country Club, looking toward the sea.

She couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity. After all, he was alone. Now was the moment to rush forward, blurt out the truth, then disappear from Seaport, Oregon, forever. So why did she stand as still as one of the cement planters overflowing with lilac petunias and white alyssum, just staring?

It had been four months since she’d last seen him. Four months, two weeks, three days. He was still outrageously good-looking—slender, yet with broad shoulders and obvious strength beneath the fine fabric of the tuxedo he wore as best man at his older brother’s wedding. His hair was as dark as a moonless night, slightly wavy, brushed away from a high forehead. His lashes were long, his brown eyes deep pools, his nose and chin perfectly formed and absolutely masculine. Standing as he was, thoughtful and reposed, he looked aristocratic and yet sensual, like a seductive monarch in a fairy-tale land awaiting the arrival of a beautiful consort.

He was a lawyer.

Amelia glanced down at her cornflower blue dress, wishing suddenly she’d thought to wear a concealing sweater no matter how warm the July day promised to be. Too late. She was stalling.

It wasn’t until she felt his eyes on her that she looked up and met his gaze. Her breath caught in her throat. She’d always known she was physically attracted to him—it was one of the major reasons she’d put off this encounter for so long—but she’d assumed that after what he’d done to her, knowing what she knew of him, the effect would be minimal. Ha!

It was as though a million invisible wires pulsed between them, sending signals from his body to hers, reliving the past, speculating on the future. In that glance was the feel of his skin, the taste of his lips, the heat of his mouth, the desire. It was all she could do to make herself take a step in his direction when every fiber in her being urged her to turn around and run.

She told herself that Ryder was like a vase of cut flowers, all show, rootless, and over an extended period of time, sure to wilt. She told herself he was a mannequin, not a man, that he was selfish and if she allowed it, he would hurt her again and not even know it.

He smiled at her as though this was their first meeting, as though the past didn’t exist. No matter what Ryder the man was like, no matter how deceiving he could be, his smile seemed to spring like well water from the depths of the earth, pure and simple and damn near impossible to resist.

She inhaled deeply, filling her lungs, and resisted.

He now looked puzzled. Well, in a few moments, she’d replace his expression with shock. Her step faltered as she approached him, but her resolve remained. It was now or never.

“Hello,” he said in his deep voice that still made her tingle, a knee-jerk reaction she thoroughly resented. His greeting was like a caress, intimate, somehow hinting that fate had designed this moment. Not for the first time, Amelia found herself thinking that Ryder had missed his calling—he should have been an actor.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

Despite her abrupt response, a smile lingered on his beautiful lips. Leaning against the rock wall, arms crossed over his chest, his eyes full of life, he said, “Of course.”

She stared at the white rosebud pinned to his lapel. Her mouth felt dry. “This is difficult,” she said.

He furrowed his brow, as though confused as to why she would find talking to him awkward.

“Remember last March?” she mumbled.

His elegant eyebrows inched up his forehead. Amelia, whose face was already hot from the memory of the passionate night the two of them had spent stormbound in his apartment, felt even more flushed as he said, “Last March? Hmm…let me think.”

The twinkle in his eye told her all she needed to know. He was teasing her, winking internally, letting her know his life was full of romantic interludes that involved fervent lovemaking and promises never meant to be taken seriously. There were just so many women last March, he seemed to say with that smile. Give me a second to sort through them all.

But she didn’t give him a second. She placed her hand on his arm, a mistake she tried at once to rectify but which he halted by firmly placing his hand over hers and gently squeezing. As in the past, in fact, even more profoundly now, the touch of his warm fingers resounded through her body like a shout in a closet, and she involuntarily trembled.

She said, “Please. Please, just let me say this.”

He nodded. “Go for it.”

The fancy rehearsed words were gone, lost in a maelstrom of anxiety. She heard herself stammer, “I’m…well, I’m pregnant.”

The relief! The words were finally out in the open air where they were free to sink or soar. She chanced a look at his face, expecting to see the beginnings of anger as her statement and all its implications struck home, but instead he looked wistful.

Wistful?

His gaze sweeping her fuller-than-ever bust and the bulge that was there in her midsection if you knew to look for it, he said, “Congratulations.”

“What!”

He shook his head ever so slightly. “Congratulations. Isn’t that what one says? You look radiant. Luminous.”

He finally let her reclaim her hand and she held it to her cheek, momentarily stunned by his reaction—or lack of it. “Congratulations?” she repeated.

“Sure.”

“You’re not…upset?”

“Disappointed perhaps, but upset, no. Why? Should I be?”

“Well, no. I mean, I thought you might be. You always said you never wanted children.” Relief flooded her overloaded emotional system and she babbled on, almost oblivious to his increasingly astounded eyes. “I thought you’d be shocked, that you’d think I had purposely let myself get pregnant. Let me assure you I didn’t. It was all a mistake, but now that it’s happened, now that I’m used to the idea and have felt the baby kick and the nausea isn’t so constant…well, now I’m happy about it. Excited. In awe…”

“I—”

“No, let me finish.” Biting her lip, attempting to put the past behind them, she added, “Whatever you and I had together died the night I discovered your marriage proposal was just part of an elaborate scheme. I’m not here to discuss the other women, I’m not here for more accusations. That’s in the past. We’re in the past. I’m not trying to get you to marry me. I wouldn’t, even if you asked again, even if you meant it this time.”

She stopped for a breath, her mind racing, wondering if that last part was true, hoping it was, afraid it wasn’t. For months, in her mind, she’d downplayed her attraction to him, and now here it was again, stronger than ever, scary and forbidden. She had to keep her head. The stakes were too high to fall back into temptation. She was thinking for two….

“You know my dad left me a little money,” she continued before he could interrupt. “If I’m careful, it should last me and the baby for a couple of years. I’m moving back to Nevada so my aunt and uncle can help. When I saw your mom yesterday, I realized I couldn’t leave without telling you about this, Ryder.”

She took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking.

He looked as though she’d finally made sense and she momentarily wondered what part of her disclosure had pierced his slick veneer. Actually, considering his disposition, it was something of a miracle that he was still standing there, that he hadn’t bolted.

“Are you finished?”

“Well…yes. Yes, I’m finished.”

He stared directly into her eyes, projecting a laser-like beam that seemed to melt everything in the path between her irises and her heart. He said, “I can see how hard this…revelation…was for you to make. I hate to have to tell you this, but I’m not Ryder.”

For a second, his declaration was like mud slung at a brick wall. Amelia stood transfixed, staring, unbelieving, and then it hit her. Memories came racing back, pictures on top of the television, family stories told by Mrs. Hogan of twins, one of whom Amelia had never met. Ryder’s brother, the one who practiced law in California…

“Oh my God. You’re Rob,” she said woodenly.

He touched her arm. “If it’s any help, I’m delighted I’m going to be an uncle. I know I’ll be very good at it.”

“I can’t believe this. I’ve confessed to the wrong man!”

He nodded. For a moment, she wondered if Ryder was playing some elaborate ruse, but now that she reviewed this man’s reactions, she could see that he might look like Ryder, but he didn’t act like Ryder.

So what explained that intense sensual burst that had occurred between them? Had he felt it, too, or was it all in her head, a product of knowing she’d been intimate with him? Except she hadn’t. He wasn’t Ryder.

His voice gentle, he said, “What’s your name?”

“Amelia. Amelia Enderling.”

He offered her his hand and she realized he wanted to shake, as though this blundering encounter had been a formal introduction. The situation was so absurd and so embarrassing that all she wanted to do was vanish.

After they shook, he said, “I’m sorry I’m not Ryder.”

She rubbed her temples with fingers that were still trembling. “I can’t imagine anyone being sorry he isn’t Ryder,” she told him.

This earned her a startled blink. “But you must have…cared…for him once.” When her gaze flew to his face, Rob added, “I’m sorry. I just meant that if you’re pregnant with his child—”

“I know what you meant,” Amelia interrupted. She wanted to add that she’d been with Ryder only once, that she’d been stupid and naive but that would sound as though she was making excuses for herself. She said, “Look, I know he’s your brother, a twin brother at that. I don’t want to stand here and trash him.”

His stare penetrated her. “I’m afraid there’s little you could say about my charming brother that I don’t already know,” he finally said.

She nodded. Her hands fluttered near the life contained within her body and she added, “Merciful heavens, I’m going to have to do this whole thing over again.”

Looking over her head, he said, “Sooner than you think.”

Amelia turned to face the man she’d really come to address, Rob’s twin brother, Ryder.

Ryder. The father of her child. Ryder, with the same smile as his brother, the same flash in his eyes, the same midnight hair and refined features.

“Well, well,” Ryder said, his voice slightly slurred. Obviously, he’d been drinking. “Amelia? What are you doing here? I didn’t know you knew Rob.”

Standing nose to nose, the resemblance between the two brothers was absolutely incredible, from the cut of their hair to the way they walked and the sound of their voices. Only the fraternity ring on Ryder’s hand and their boutonnieres differed, Rob’s white, Ryder’s red. They eyed each other with suspicion and hostility which hinted at a lifetime of turmoil that went a long way toward explaining why Ryder had hardly ever talked about Rob.

“We just met,” Amelia said.

Ryder grinned as he said, “You two looked awfully cozy.”

“Knock it off,” Rob said.

“I came to see you,” Amelia said, glancing up at Ryder’s face.

Ryder unpinned the red rose from his lapel and drew it across Amelia’s cheek. His eyes, so like Rob’s, were full of feigned innocence. She knew they belied a fair-weather man who wasn’t interested in the long haul. He said, “Well, now, Amelia, I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses.”

She narrowed her eyes as she brushed the rose away. “My senses?”

“About our little misunderstanding last March.”

“Oh,” she said, her insides churning. “You mean the ‘misunderstanding’ we had when you asked me to marry you and then within a week slept with someone else.”

“Is that how you remember it?”

“That’s how it was,” she said.

“Funny, but I don’t remember it that way at all,” he continued. “Seems to me that you were the anxious one. Not that I minded, I assure you.”

Rob formed a fist which Amelia caught on the upswing and held. Though she felt the embarrassing sting of Ryder’s words clear down into the center of her heart, she knew that now wasn’t the time to acknowledge it. When Rob finally looked down at her, she said, “Please, let it go.”

As Rob slowly lowered his arm, Ryder hooked a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and toasted Amelia. “Here’s to you. Here’s to last March and all the Marches yet to come.”

Rob and Amelia exchanged a quick look. His eyes seemed to say, There’s your opening, go for it.

It was cruel that she should have to make this big confession twice in the same afternoon. Either the tension or her pregnancy or a combination of both made her feel wobbly. With a dreadful feeling of déjà vu, she looked at Ryder and said, “There’s something I have to tell you.”

She felt Rob try to disengage his hand, no doubt so he could beat a hasty retreat. However, as his hand was the only thing keeping Amelia on her feet, she held on tight.

Ryder drained his glass and called out to the waiter who was making another pass with the champagne. “Over here. Just leave the tray.”

“Sir—”

“Just leave the tray!” Ryder snapped in his courtroom voice.

As the waiter skittered off without his tray, Amelia took a deep breath and announced, “I might just as well say it, Ryder. I’m pregnant, and you’re the father.”

There was a long moment of silence that seemed to encompass the whole town of Seaport, maybe the entire state of Oregon. The only realities to Amelia were the feel of Rob’s hand and the look of stunned disbelief on Ryder’s face. Then Ryder dropped the flute. Heedless of the shards of glass at his feet and the puddle of fizzing wine on the toe of his shoe, he sputtered, “This is a joke, right?”

“It’s not a joke,” Rob said.

Ryder stabbed a finger in the air at his brother. “You keep out of this!”

“Then you calm down.”

“It’s not a joke,” Amelia said.

Ryder stared at her, shaking his head, speechless. She found herself wishing she’d found a better way to tell him, a way that would have given him a chance to assimilate the news without anyone watching.

Quietly, calmly, she repeated her plans, stressing that she wasn’t asking for a marriage proposal. She had a feeling he would assume she was trying to put some kind of squeeze on him because that was the way his mind worked. Maybe in his line of work, where people tended to reinvent the past to suit their purpose, it was only natural. None of her explanations seemed to sink in, though. He just kept shaking his head.

“I felt you had to know,” she said, “so you can decide what part you want to have in your child’s life. You have to tell your folks they’re going to be grandparents.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Ryder said firmly. He looked over her head for a moment, then back, his eyes suddenly cold and calculating. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said. “You’re trying to use my family to trap me. I’m warning you right now…it won’t work.”

Rob took a step forward. “Ryder, just listen to her.”

Ryder pushed his brother’s arm away and gulped more champagne. Amelia wanted to tell him that drinking wasn’t going to help, but she suddenly felt a burning desire to escape. She said, “Whether or not you want to be part of your child’s life is up to you, Ryder, but I can’t believe you would deprive your parents of knowing their first grandchild. Tell them. It’s the only decent thing to do.” With an apologetic glance at Rob, she released his hand and escaped the Hogan twins.

The tears started in the ladies’ room and continued for five minutes. After Amelia finally stopped crying, she became violently ill and lost every bite of lunch. By the time she’d mopped up her face and washed out her mouth, almost a half hour had passed. Her only desire now was to get out of the building without encountering Nina and Jack Hogan, Ryder’s parents. With any luck at all, they would never even know she’d been there.

Long ago, she’d decided to protect them from the Ryder she knew. Sometimes she wondered how they could have raised him and not understood what a manipulator he was. She’d taken the heat for their breakup, blaming a change of mind, hiding the fact that Ryder had slept with her after a phony marriage proposal and then blithely skipped off to the bed of another woman. It was too late now to change game plans, especially at their eldest son’s wedding.

Besides, she knew Jack Hogan’s heart condition was serious and she wouldn’t dream of doing anything that might make it worse. She loved Nina and Jack—it was that simple, and that hard.

She was unlocking the door of her car when a commotion at the front of the country club caught her attention.

“Ryder, don’t be a fool. You can’t drive in your condition,” Rob said as he tried to keep Ryder from entering a red sports car pulled up to the curb.

“Mind your own damn business!” Ryder snarled.

“You haven’t changed a bit since college, you know that?”

Ryder held up his fists. “You want to put your muscle where your mouth is?”

“This isn’t the time or place for these kind of antics,” Rob said. “Use your head. Philip just got married.”

Ryder shoved Rob’s shoulder so hard that Rob stumbled backward. Ryder said, “What’s wrong, brother? Chicken?”

Rob, apparently pushed to his limit, tore off his jacket and threw it on the grass. Ryder did the same. As the two of them squared off, Amelia murmured a silent apology to her unborn child. Some gene pool she’d chosen.

Before a punch was delivered, Ryder did a quick double step, and with his usual cunning and agility, bolted back to the car and got behind the wheel. Amelia watched as Rob sprinted to the passenger door and tore it open, still arguing with his belligerent brother, begging him not to drive. The engine started with a roar, the car lurched forward, and Rob flung himself into the empty seat.

The car barreled past Amelia who was stunned speechless and motionless at what she’d witnessed. Neither man seemed to notice her, but she would never forget the sight of the two of them, father and uncle-to-be, speeding away from the country club, away from her, away from her child.

Amelia spent the night on the sofa, encased in a sleeping bag. It was her last night in the apartment she had rented furnished for the past three years, and as the morning light stole into the room via the big window over the table, she looked around. The place seemed bare and lonely without her personal belongings, most of which she’d packed in the car the day before. All that remained to be done was to roll up her sleeping bag and throw a few last-minute items into a suitcase.

She snuggled deeper in the folds of flannel, reluctant to get up and begin the long drive to Nevada. She hadn’t been back since burying her father the year before. But now that her student teaching job was over and she’d earned her teaching certificate, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to return to her dad’s old house and have her baby with her favorite aunt and uncle to help. This was not how she had dreamed of starting a family, but she was determined to make the best of the situation.

A little kick deep within her body brought a smile to Amelia’s lips and an overwhelming feeling of contentment. The pregnancy was unplanned, sure, but that didn’t mean the baby was unwanted. “Kick away, little one,” she murmured. The baby complied.

For an instant, Amelia thought about Rob and the disturbing physical reaction she’d had to a man who turned out to be a virtual stranger. That was the way it had started with Ryder, too. She’d met him after her father died and she needed legal advice. Later she learned that Ryder was an up-and-coming star at his firm, way too hot to handle her measly problems, but he was pinch-hitting that day for a co-worker. At first, she’d thought it was fate that threw them together.

In the beginning, he had seemed like the answer to her prayers—he’d been warm, kind, loving. It took far too long to realize that his behavior was self-serving.

Underneath the good looks and the compassionate words, down in his core, was Rob like Ryder? Did he start out irresistible and slowly turn selfish?

What did it matter? In a couple of days, she would be miles away. Ryder was history…and Rob? No doubt he was another smooth-talking Hogan intent on looking out for number one.

As she tried unsuccessfully to button slacks that had fit a few days before and were now too tight in the waist, the phone rang. For several seconds, she stared at it in surprise. She’d been under the impression the phone service had been turned off the night before. She could think of no one she wanted to talk to, but the darn thing was persistent.

“Thank God you’re home,” Nina Hogan’s voice cried.

Amelia slid a hand through her shaggy, blond hair, brushing the long bangs off her face. As much as she cared for Nina, she didn’t want to talk to her, not now, not until Ryder had had a chance to do it himself. Or maybe he already had! Maybe that was why Nina’s voice sounded so distraught.

Amelia steeled herself. “I’m sorry, I was just leaving—”

“You’ve got to come, Amelia. Say you’ll come.”

Amelia felt a stir of alarm. “Come where, Nina? What’s wrong?”

“We’re at the hospital.”

Amelia’s first thought was of Ryder’s dad. She sank down on a kitchen chair. “Is it Jack? Is it his heart?”

“No,” Nina cried. “Oh, Amelia, it’s Ryder. He’s been in a terrible automobile accident. Please say you’ll come—”

Amelia found she was standing again. She mumbled, “Ryder?”

“I saw you and him talking at the reception. I know you two were trying to patch things up.”

“Well, Nina, actually—”

But Nina interrupted with a swallowed sob. “Philip is off on his honeymoon, and Jack looks so awful he’s scaring me half to death. I don’t know who else to call—”

“Where’s Rob?” Amelia said automatically, though she was already shrugging on her blouse and searching the room with her eyes for her purse. Of course, she’d go, if not for Ryder, then for Nina and Jack.

Nina gasped. “Oh, Amelia, that’s…that’s the worst part. Ryder and Rob left the reception together. Ryder was driving…there was an accident way out of town…the car ended up in a ravine and no one found them for hours and hours and even then no one could figure out who they were because neither one of them had his wallet. They took the boys to a small clinic while they traced the car back to Ryder’s firm. Ryder is unconscious but his brother…our Robby…oh, dear God in heaven, Amelia, Rob is dead.”

Amelia stood, stunned, frozen. The image of Ryder and Rob speeding away from the reception together was so clear in her head that she could almost reach out and touch it.

And then a profound ache pierced her heart. Ryder was badly hurt. Rob was dead.

“I’m on my way,” she whispered.

“Good Samaritan Hospital. ICU. Hurry.”

“I’m on my way.”

Chapter Two

The hospital corridor was long and straight. In her haste, Amelia had run across the grass outside, grass which was wet from a sprinkler, and now the soles of her shoes squeaked against the spotless linoleum. She stopped at the nurses’ desk to ask the way to the ICU, but before she could form the question, she caught sight of Jack Hogan leaning against a wall at the far end of the hallway. She started toward him.

He looked up when she was within twenty feet. Amelia’s pace faltered; the change in Jack’s appearance from a few weeks before when she’d bumped into him at the grocery store just about broke her heart.

He was tall like his sons, but stooped today, his skin, always pale, now waxen and dull. He stared at her with the brown eyes he’d passed along to his children, eyes he might very well have passed down to the child Amelia carried inside her. Those eyes were now blurred by unshed tears.

She took his hands and they stared at each other without speaking. His grief was so tangible, it seemed to seep through her skin. She was afraid to ask about Ryder. After a long pause, she finally whispered, “I’m so sorry about Rob.”

He nodded as the tears rolled down the creases in his cheeks. She cried along with him.

Nina came through the opaque glass doors, closing them quietly behind her. When she saw Amelia, her composure cracked. “I knew you’d come!” she sobbed as she threw her slight frame into Amelia’s arms.

Amelia mumbled, “Ryder. Is he…”

Nina pushed herself away and regarded Amelia with red-rimmed eyes. Her salt and pepper curls looked wilted, defeated, and her mouth was a trembling line of sorrow as she whispered, “He’s still in a coma.”

“He’ll be okay,” Amelia said with as much confidence as she could muster.

Nina bit at her lip. “The doctor says he’ll come out of it, but she doesn’t know when. You’ll stay here with him, won’t you? I already cleared it with the nurses. They say a fiancée is the same as family. I know having you by his side will make all the difference in the world.”

Gently, Amelia said, “But we’re not engaged anymore—”

“I know you were only engaged a few days before you broke it off,” Nina said, “but I also know you two will work things out.”

Amelia searched for a diplomatic way to say that she would stay out in the hall with Nina and Jack for as long as they needed or wanted her to, only please, not in Ryder’s room. She kept hearing him say that she was using his family to trap him, and she knew her presence in the room would accomplish nothing. Maybe she should tell them the truth….

But Nina opened her hand just then. Nestled in her palm, like a treasure, was the red rose boutonniere Amelia had last seen when Ryder swept it across her cheek.

“They found it in Ryder’s pocket,” Nina said, new tears filling her eyes. “Oh, dear God, I don’t know what we’ll do if we lose him, too.”

As Jack comforted his wife, Amelia stared at the bruised flower which had dropped to the floor. In some fuzzy way, it loomed like a sign of her complicity in this tragedy. If only she’d waited to tell Ryder about the baby in private, without alcohol around, how different things might now be.

She knew she would do what Nina and Jack wanted until Ryder awoke and asked her to do differently.

And inside her heart, she, too, mourned for Rob.

He opened his eyes slowly. His lips felt dry. One shaky hand touched the left side of his face. Rough gauze—a bandage?

Where am I?

The room was white, spare, clean…a hospital room. An IV dripped into his arm. The drapes were open and gray skies showed through the glass. Pain throbbed in his temples.

He’d been awake, briefly, once before. Half awake, half a man.

Questions filled his head like loud music, reverberating off the empty spaces in his skull. He felt cold beads of sweat pop out on his forehead and he groaned.

Cool hands touched his arm, and he turned to find a woman staring down at him with eyes as gray as the sky outside.

“It’s okay, Ryder,” she said softly. “You’re going to be fine.”

He licked his lips.

“Do you want a drink?”

He managed to nod. She gently held the back of his head as he took a sip of water from the glass she offered. He had seen her once before, when he woke the first time. She’d been asleep in the chair beside his bed then, her chin tilted toward her chest. With a jolt, he realized she must know him which meant he should know her.

But he didn’t. He’d never seen her before. Never.

She was quite lovely. Her skin was fine-textured and smooth, her eyes huge, her nose and mouth delicate. Honey-blond hair that looked as though she’d raked it with her hand a dozen times capped her head. She was wearing a roomy, dark blue shirt, the neck open, the sleeves rolled up…a man’s shirt that did nothing to detract from her bounding femininity. He was positive she wasn’t a nurse. He was just as positive that she wasn’t the kind of woman he would forget.

“I’m going to go find your folks,” she said.

His folks. Panic began to creep into his brain. He had no memory of parents. He swallowed his heart.

She frowned at him, biting her lip. Then she said, “Don’t worry, Ryder, I won’t come back now that you’re okay.”

He caught her hand as she turned away, managing to force out a single word. “Stay.”

Her eyes shifted uneasily, but at last she nodded. As his eyelids closed, he concentrated on the feel of her hand in his, the warmth of human flesh in a sea of bleached cotton, a link to the world that was quickly slipping away from him again.

Who was Ryder?

Amelia stood with her hand clasped in Ryder’s hand. As far as she knew, this was the first time he’d opened his eyes in three long weeks, and she was dying to call the doctor, to run out into the hall and find Jack and Nina and share the good news.

She didn’t move. There was an implied trust in her agreeing to stay and she wouldn’t break it. Nor could she force herself to release his hand. Hooking the leg of the chair with a toe, she dragged it closer and perched on the edge.

This was crazy. She needed to alert people. And she needed to prepare herself for Ryder’s true awakening when he was clear-headed enough to realize he didn’t want to rely on her of all people.

And yet she stayed. For weeks she’d been sitting by this bed, spelling Jack and Nina and Philip after he returned from his honeymoon. She’d been here when they attended Rob’s funeral and when they dragged themselves home to try to sleep. She’d been here on days when the sun shined in the window and days when the rain outside echoed the sadness inside. And all the while, she’d told herself she would vanish the second Ryder opened his eyes, that she was anxious to get on the road and set up house in Nevada, to get ready for her baby, that she was here only to help his family.

Now she realized that was only a partial truth. She was here for herself as well, for herself and for their baby. Just the night before, hoping to give Nina and Jack a ray of hope to cling to and knowing it was a miracle her condition had gone unnoticed this long, she had confided that she was carrying Ryder’s child. Her news had been met with unqualified joy.

Had she done the right thing in telling them? Should she have kept it to herself? Had she told them because she was afraid Ryder would never wake up and claim his child? And now that the worst was seemingly over and it was time for her to leave, would it break their hearts?

Well, soon Ryder would discover what she’d done and he would feel that she’d backed him into a corner, just as he’d predicted she would.

And yet, she stayed, his hand loosely wrapped around her own. His summer tan had faded at an accelerated rate in the hospital, but she could still discern the faint whitish line across his ring finger. She leaned over and kissed his hand, not realizing until her lips touched his skin what a foolish act it was.

But she had loved him once and he needed her now and he’d asked her to stay. Why?

The door creaked and she turned her head as a stranger entered the room. He was a tall man in his late forties with a graying flattop and piercing black eyes. He wore a charcoal suit over his lanky frame and black shoes that needed polishing. The smile he gave Amelia looked forced and anything but friendly. There was an unmistakable air of officialdom about him.

“May I help you?” she asked, thinking he must have entered the wrong room.

“I’m looking for Ryder T. Hogan,” he said, his voice raspy. Gesturing at Ryder like he was a slab of meat, he added, “That him?”

Unexpectedly, Amelia felt a surge of protective ardor. She positioned herself between the man and Ryder. “May I ask who you are?”

He flipped aside his jacket. Fastened to the pocket on his pants was a metal badge. “Detective Hill,” he said. “Seaport Police.”

“Ryder has been in a coma for two weeks,” she said, deciding on the spot to omit mentioning the fact that he’d been awake less than five minutes before. “Obviously, he can’t talk to you or anyone else.”

“I’m investigating the death of Robert Hogan,” he said sternly. “I have questions that need answering.”

She felt a piercing stab of fear burn its way through the lining of her stomach. She’d been waiting for this, she realized with a start. Ever since the accident, she’d been anticipating police involvement. Surely blood tests had been taken at the clinic where the brothers were taken after the accident. Surely the results of those blood tests would show that Ryder had been intoxicated.

“When he wakes up, we’ll call you,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky and her knees felt wobbly. Why didn’t he leave? She added, “If you don’t believe me, ask his doctors. They’ll tell you he’s in no shape to talk to anyone.”

“I spoke with his doctors,” he said. “I wanted to see for myself.”

“And now you’ve seen,” she said, praying that Ryder wouldn’t choose that minute to open his eyes again.

The detective looked at her closely. She had the feeling there were few secrets kept from his prying gaze and she could feel the heat suffuse her cheeks as she fought to keep hers. He finally said, “Who are you?”

“Amelia Enderling. I’m…I’m Ryder’s fiancée.”

He nodded as though he’d heard her name before. “Aren’t you more of an ex-fiancée?”

“Where did you hear that?”

Glancing at Ryder’s still face, he said, “I’ve talked to some of his friends.”

“We made up. I guess his friends don’t know about it.”

“I guess not. Well, Miss Enderling, are you aware that your boyfriend had been drinking when he took off with his brother on the night of the…accident?”

There was a telling pause before the word “accident” that sent a chill through Amelia. She bit her lip and kept silent.

“It’s common knowledge,” he added.

She squared her shoulders. Her initial mistrust of him was becoming more and more pronounced. She finally said, “If you insist on holding a conversation despite what I’ve told you, maybe we should go out in the hall.”

“Why?” he said, a smug smile lifting one corner of his mouth. “He’s in a coma, right? He can’t hear us.”

“How do you know what he can or can’t hear?” she snapped. “Just because he’s in a coma doesn’t mean he’s not aware of his environment. Numerous studies have proved—”

Hill interrupted. “It’s not you I want to talk to, it’s him.”

She remained silent.

“I’ll check back in a couple of days,” he said at last, delivering the message like a warning.

Amelia sank down on the chair as the door closed behind Detective Hill, and she looked at Ryder’s face, so recently familiar again.

What would happen to him when he discovered he was responsible for his brother’s death and that the police wanted to talk with him about it? The guilt alone would be devastating, for she earnestly believed that beneath Ryder’s selfishness was a decent core struggling to get out. And if he was convicted, there would go his life as he knew it.

It wasn’t her problem. He would neither expect or desire her involvement, but in his current vulnerable state, it was hard to feel callous. And, too, there was Nina and Jack to consider—they’d lost Rob because Ryder had been irresponsible and reckless. What would happen if they now lost Ryder to the legal system?

Rob. His death conjured so many emotions. Guilt that she’d told Ryder the big news about the baby when he had access to both liquor and a car. Anger that Ryder had survived a crash he was responsible for. More guilt for the anger because Ryder had not escaped without injury himself. And added to the mix, sadness that Rob, or at least what little she had known of him, would never be the uncle her baby needed, that she would never open the door and find him standing there with a stuffed bear in his arms.

A noise at the door cut short her painful musings. She turned, expecting another go-round with Hill. Instead, she found herself facing Jack and Nina Hogan.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” she said with relief.

Nina crossed the room quickly, pausing to pat Amelia on the shoulder. “How’s our little mother feeling?” she asked, the thrill of Amelia’s pregnancy still lighting her eyes.

“Just fine.” On the spur of the moment, Amelia decided to delay mentioning the police. Instead, she would share the good news.

Watching their faces closely, she said, “He woke up.”

Both of them stared at her as though she’d just delivered a statement in Swahili. “Ryder opened his eyes,” she elaborated. “He spoke to me!”

Nina clasped her hands together and squealed.

“What did he say?” Jack demanded.

“Not much. He seemed…confused.” At their furrowed expressions, she added, “He was only awake for a minute or two.”

“Do the doctors know?”

“I haven’t had a chance to tell anyone but you two.”

Jack nodded briskly and went back out into the hall, presumably to alert the medical staff. Nina crossed to Ryder’s other side and smoothed a lock of dark hair back from his forehead before kissing him.

Amelia looked down at her hands. It was time to leave. She had rehearsed the way she would explain her departure, but now that the time had come, her mouth felt dry and the words were gone.

Jack burst back into the room, Dr. Solomon in tow. She was a middle-aged woman with kinky gray hair and kind eyes. A pair of glasses bobbed on a chain against her ample chest. Amelia had met her on numerous occasions and liked her.

“He was conscious?” the doctor asked as she took Amelia’s place by the head of the bed.

“Yes. I gave him a sip of water.”

Dr. Solomon shined a small flashlight into Ryder’s eyes and called his name softly. Amelia was startled to see Ryder’s lids flutter open.

The doctor looked up at Jack and Nina and smiled. Then she looked back at Ryder who was gazing at her with a puzzled expression on his face. “How are you feeling, Ryder?”

He licked his lips. “My head aches,” he murmured at last.

“Understandable. You have a concussion. You’re doing fine,” she said, adding as she stepped out of the way, “there are some people here who want to see you, young man.”

Nina, all smiles, said, “Hello, darling.”

Ryder’s baffled expression deepened. Slowly, he looked from his mother to his father, who stood beaming at the end of the bed, and then to Amelia. When he saw her, he said, “You…”

Amelia heard it as an accusation. She took a step back, toward the door. She’d been expecting this, but now that it was upon her, she felt awkward and embarrassed.

He smiled at her. It was the smile she had loved first, the smile that lit his brown eyes and warmed the room. It also stopped her in her tracks. He said, “You, I know.”

“Of course—”

“You were here earlier.”

“Yes.”

He nodded, wincing slightly as though the motion caused him discomfort. His gaze traveled back to Nina and then to Jack. “I don’t know you people,” he said.

Jack chuckled. “That’s my boy, always with the jokes.”

But Nina leaned closer and stared right into her son’s eyes. Then she looked over her shoulder at her husband and said, “I don’t think Ryder is making a joke.”

The doctor said, “These are your parents. Are you saying you don’t know them?”

Licking his lips again, Ryder said, “The girl was here earlier when I woke up, but I’ve never seen any of the rest of you before in my life.”

Nina’s hands flew to cover her mouth and she gasped. The doctor said, “Do you know who you are?”

He stared hard at her. Amelia could see him trying to search his mind for answers. He finally said, “You keep calling me Ryder. I’m afraid the name doesn’t ring a bell.”

Jack’s face was as bleached as the sheets. He finally said, “You don’t know who I am, son?”

Ryder looked contrite as he murmured, “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.” He struggled to sit up a little in the bed. The doctor helped him with pillows.

“Do you remember the car accident that sent you here in the first place?” she asked gently.

Again he seemed to search his memory bank which apparently he found empty. Narrowing his eyes, his fists clenched, he finally said, “Damn it, doctor, I don’t remember a thing. Not a thing.”

“Calm down,” she cautioned. “It’s not unusual for a head injury to cause temporary amnesia.”

“Amnesia,” Jack mumbled.

Nina, her hands crossed on her chest as though trying to keep her heart in place, said, “You remember nothing about the accident, Ryder? Nothing?”

The doctor flashed her a warning glance. Nina’s gaze shifted to Amelia. Her expression seemed to say, He doesn’t remember his own brother! What now? Haven’t we been through enough?

Amelia grabbed hold of the one hopeful word and said it out loud. “Temporary?”

“Almost certainly,” the doctor said brightly. “Give him a day or two.” With another meaningful look directed at all three of them, she added, “And don’t swamp him with details of the accident, not now.”

In other words, thought Amelia, don’t tell him he was driving drunk and his brother is dead because of it.

Nina blinked a couple of tears from her eyes. “So you’re saying that in a couple of days he’ll know who we all are? He’ll be himself again?”

The doctor answered with a brisk nod. “Meanwhile, I’ll send Doctor Bass in to see you.” She patted Ryder’s knee and added, “He’s the staff psychologist. You’ll like him.”

Ryder nodded. He looked at Amelia and she realized with a jolt that to him she was a familiar face, even though that familiarity was only hours old. It left her in an odd position. Did she give him the support he was obviously looking for, or did she protect herself from the man he would be in a few days when his memory returned, when he no longer wanted anything to do with her or their baby?

Unsure, she smiled back.

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