Wife With Amnesia (4 page)

Matt struggled with how much he should tell her. “You're an only child,” he finally replied, deciding it would probably be okay to tell her that much. As far as Claire had known, she'd had no siblings. And in that damning search that he had started, to locate her parents, the investigator hadn't turned up any siblings either.

“What about my parents? Why didn't they come to the hospital or call?”

“Claire, I don't think—”

“Am I estranged from them? Is that why they didn't come to the hospital?”

“No. You're not estranged.”

“Then why haven't they at least called to see how I am?”

He didn't want to tell her, didn't want to explain. After all, it had been his foolish attempt to find answers about the childhood that haunted her that had caused her to walk out on him in the first place.

“Please, Matt. I need to know. Where is
my
family? Has something happened to them?”

He took her hands, held them in his own. “You don't have any family. At least none that we know of.”

“But I don't understand. My parents—”

“You never knew who your parents were. You were an orphan.”

“A
n orphan,” Claire repeated. “You mean I don't have any family? No one at all?”

“You have me…and my family.”

Even as she tried to absorb this newest shock, more questions raced through Claire's mind. “But what about my parents? What happened to them?”

For a moment Matt remained silent and appeared to consider his words carefully before he said, “You were only a baby when…when you went to live at an orphanage.”

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I was given up for adoption?”

A pained expression flitted across Matt's features, and Claire's stomach tensed. “Not exactly.”

“What does ‘not exactly' mean?”

Matt stood. “I don't think this is a good idea…me telling you so much about yourself, about your past.
Maybe I should speak to Dr. Edmond first and see what she has to say before I say anything more.”

“Fine, call her. But I remember her instructions quite clearly,” Claire insisted. “She said that I shouldn't be force-fed any information about myself, about our life together or…or about the attack. That I should be told things when I ask about them, when I want to know. Well, I'm asking, Matt,” she said firmly. “I want to know what happened to my parents. I want to know why I was sent to live in an orphanage.”

Matt jammed a fist through his hair and paced in front of the chair where she sat. For a moment Claire thought he wasn't going to respond when he stopped and looked into her eyes. “There's really not a whole lot that I can tell you,” he began. “You never liked to talk about your childhood. When we started seeing each other, all you told me was that you had no family of your own and that you grew up in an orphanage and foster homes. You didn't know who your parents were—only that you had been three years old or so when a policeman found you abandoned in a church during a hurricane. The nuns named you Claire after that hurricane.”

“I didn't even know my name?” Claire asked, unsure of how she felt about the grim glimpse Matt had painted of her past.

“Apparently not.”

Claire frowned. “But if I was three, wouldn't I have at least been taught my name?”

Matt shrugged. “Evidently not.”

“And my parents? Did I ever try to find out who they were? I mean, I know it's fairly common now for adopted children to search out their biological parents. Did I?”

“No,” he told her, his voice solemn. “As I said, you didn't like talking about the past. You said that you pre
ferred spending your time and energy focusing on the present and the future.”

Why? Claire wondered. But from the shuttered expression on Matt's face, she doubted he would provide her with the answers—even if he had them. And she wasn't sure that he did.

“You feel up to taking that tour of the house now?”

Recognizing the change of subject for what it was, Claire tucked the questions into her ever-expanding file of things she didn't remember but needed to find out. “Sure,” she said. “But only if you allow me to walk.”

“Deal.”

The killer smile he flashed her went a long way to banishing her blues. And that kick to her pulse had nothing to do with the effort it took to position the crutches beneath her arms and everything to do with the feel of Matt's arm around her shoulders, she admitted.

He released her to stand on her own. “All set?”

“All set,” she replied. “Lead the way.”

“I thought we'd start off in the kitchen.”

Thirty minutes later, when they finished the tour downstairs and returned to the den, Claire felt as though she'd just run an obstacle course. Maneuvering herself around on the crutches, following several days of restricted activity, had left her exhausted. But mostly she was disappointed that seeing what should be the familiar surroundings of her home had failed to jar her memory.

“What do you say we save the upstairs tour for later?”

“I think that's a good idea,” she replied, grateful that Matt had picked up on her weariness.

“In the meantime, I'll go heat up the casserole Emma left us for dinner. Since you've been cooped up in the hospital for the past few days, I thought you might like to eat outside on the deck. How does that sound?”

“It sounds terrific,” Claire told him, and allowed Matt to help her navigate her way through the patio doors that led to a wooden deck overlooking the gardens and swimming pool.

After propping up her ankle with a pillow and making sure she was comfortable in the lounge chair, Matt dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Sit tight. I'll be back in a minute with some tea.”

Claire sank into the padded cushions and gazed out at the gardens. Dozens of rosebushes were heavy with blooms in varying shades of pink and white. Yellow flowers with lily-like petals stood majestically on long stems. White daisies with thick green foliage and assorted plants added to the colorful mix. The towering oaks and magnolia trees dotted the landscape like sentries, and the cobblestone path that led to the pool made her think of magical roads and ruby slippers.

It was lovely, Claire thought. Enchanting. Everything about the house was beautiful—from the understated but elegant furnishings to the carefully tended flower beds. And everything about the house, the gardens and even Matt screamed the words
class, privilege, wealth.
The realization didn't surprise Claire nearly as much as it disturbed her.

She had surmised that Matt was someone of importance long before she'd left the hospital. It had had little to do with the quality of his clothing or even the detective's comment about his family's businesses. There had been an aura of command about him, an innate power in the way he carried himself, in the way the hospital staff had responded to him that had made her suspect he was wealthy. Only, now she realized that he was probably a great deal more wealthy than she had initially suspected. Which was what bothered her. How on earth did a man
of Matt's obvious means and family background wind up married to a woman without both?

“Here you go,” Matt said as he returned to the deck. He placed a tray containing a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses on the table. “Dinner should be ready in just a few minutes. Looks like Emma fixed one of your favorites—shrimp casserole.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking the glass of tea he offered, but her thoughts remained fixed on these new questions about herself, about the type of woman she was.

“Do you need some more lemon?”

Claire blinked. “I'm sorry. What did you say?”

“You were frowning, and I thought maybe I didn't bring you enough lemon wedges for the tea.”

Claire looked down at the three lemon slices in the glass she was holding and realized she hadn't even been aware of adding the lemons or of actually tasting the tea. “No, it's fine,” she told him and took another sip to be sure.

“So, why the long face?”

“I was wondering about us,” she admitted. “Matt, how did we meet?”

“Over a piece of smuggled cheesecake.”

Claire eyed him skeptically. “Smuggled cheesecake?”

“I swear, it's true,” he said, laughing. “Gallagher's On The Avenue had lost their pastry chef, and you were trying to expand your wholesale pastry business—”

“I have a pastry business?”

“Sure do. Desserts Only. You produce some of the best pastries in the city to some of the top restaurants. And since I've got this big sweet tooth, the moment I discovered you were not only beautiful and smart, but could bake, too, I knew I had to marry you,” he said, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Is that right?”

“Absolutely,” he told her.

“We'll definitely get back to that in a moment,” she promised, but her eagerness to hear about her and Matt's first meeting outweighed this newest piece to the puzzle of who she was. “Go on. Tell me how we met. You were saying that you needed a pastry chef…”

“That's right. Evidently you'd been trying for more than a week to get an appointment to see me so you could pitch the idea of letting your company supply the dessert items to the restaurant instead of hiring a new chef. But you kept hitting a brick wall because my assistant wouldn't give you an appointment.”

“But I finally managed to get one?”

“No. Callie knew I would have had her head. I wasn't interested in a supplier. I wanted a pastry chef.”

“Then how—”

“You bribed one of the valets to let you know when I was at the restaurant. Then you came over and bluffed your way into the kitchen by saying you were a food inspector and demanded to see me.”

“What happened?” she asked, both surprised and curious about this aggressive person Matt described.

“You confessed who you really were and said that if I was half as good a businessman as people said I was that I would at least listen to what you had to say. I listened, but I wasn't interested in having a company supply the desserts to Gallagher's. I offered to hire you as the pastry chef.”

“Obviously, I didn't take the job.”

He grinned. “You turned me down flat, then challenged me to at least taste your white chocolate cheesecake. If I didn't agree that it was better than anything that came out of the restaurant before, you would work
in the restaurant as my pastry chef free of charge for one full month until I could hire someone else.”

“And?”

“And I tasted the sample you had smuggled in the bag you were carrying and I agreed with you. It was the best cheesecake I'd ever tasted, bar none. So I ordered a dozen for the three restaurants and asked you out to dinner.”

“And I went.”

“Not easily. It took a bit of persuading on my part, but I'd already made up my mind that I was going to marry you.”

Claire laughed. “You don't honestly expect me to believe that, do you?”

“I don't see why not. It's true. The minute you walked through the doors of that kitchen I wanted you. Inside of five minutes I was falling in love with you, and by the time I brought you home after dinner I knew I wanted to marry you.”

“It all sounds very romantic. But somehow I find the idea of you succumbing to love at first sight a bit hard to swallow.”

“Believe me, it wasn't an easy concept for me to swallow, either,” he said, his expression suddenly serious. “But you don't live in a city like New Orleans all of your life and not find yourself at least a little superstitious. I'd been to a party earlier that year, where they had a fortune teller reading Tarot cards as part of the entertainment. She told me before the summer was over I was going to meet the woman of my dreams, the person who was my soul mate. I knew
you
were that woman the moment I set eyes on you.”

Claire didn't know what to say. It all sounded so lovely, so romantic. And looking at Matt's handsome face, remembering how incredibly kind and patient he
had been with her, she imagined falling in love with him wouldn't have been difficult. But had she fallen in love with him? Or had she married him because of his money?

She didn't realize she had voiced the question aloud until Matt roared with laughter. “Trust me, Red. My money was definitely not a plus where you were concerned.”

Flushing at her slip, Claire chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “I'm glad you find this amusing. But how am I supposed to know what kind of person I am? From what you've told me about my background and after seeing this house and hearing about your family's prominence, I thought it might be a possibility.”

Matt removed the glass of tea from her fingers, placed it on the table and then claimed a corner of the lounge chair, which caused him to brush against her hip. He caught her hands, held them in his own and stared into her eyes. “Listen to me, Claire Gallagher, the idea of marrying me for my money never entered your mind.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you're one of the most down-to-earth and honest people I know. Money has never been a key motivator for you to do anything—in your business or your personal life. In fact, when I didn't want a prenuptial agreement before the wedding, you were the one who insisted on it. You said you wouldn't marry me unless I signed the thing.”

Relief flooded through Claire. “Thank you,” she whispered, not realizing until that moment how very worried she had been about her own depth of character.

“I'm the one who should be thanking you…for coming into my life, for being my wife.” His expression still serious, Matt turned over her hands and pressed a kiss to first one palm and then the next.

Claire shivered at the intimacy, at the warmth of his lips against her skin. Enthralled, she could scarcely breathe as she stared at his dark head bent over her hands. She had the most ridiculous urge to pull her hands free and run her fingers through that thick dark hair, then tip his beautiful face up to hers.

As though he could read her thoughts, Matt lifted his head. Desire burned in the piercing blue-gray eyes, and Claire could feel an answering need humming in her veins.

“I love you,” he murmured.

She wanted to give him the words back. He deserved them, she reasoned. Matt was her husband, the person she had vowed to love and cherish until death. And even though she was attracted to him, she just couldn't lie to either one of them by returning the sentiment. “I'm sorry. I…I don't know what to say. I don't remember and—”

Matt pressed his fingers against her lips. “I don't expect you to say anything—not unless you feel it. Which you don't. I mean, how could you? You don't even remember me.” He washed a hand down his face, sighed. “I'm sorry. I'm making a mess of this. I didn't tell you that to try to pressure you. It's just that I've missed you so much and I—I'm glad that you're home.”

“So am I,” she said, and realized it was true. She'd hated those nights in the hospital and, although returning home hadn't sparked her memory as she had hoped it would, she felt more comfortable here. Or maybe it was simply the fact that she was more comfortable because she was with Matt. She still didn't remember him or the life they had shared. Yet, it felt as though they were starting over together somehow. Which was actually a crazy notion since they were already man and wife. She couldn't help it. The distress in his eyes tugged at her
heartstrings. “Matt, I…” She reached out, cupped his jaw. The innocent gesture sent awareness shooting through her like a lightning bolt, and she dropped her hand, but not before she saw the answering fire leap into his eyes. “You haven't made a mess of things and you haven't made me feel pressured.”