My Secret Wife

Frowning too, she added a little more water to the napkin, leaned over and pressed the damp cloth to the orange stain on his trousers. Saw it dim somewhat, as she carefully dampened and blotted, and knew that one more good effort on her part would probably keep his pants from being ruined forever.

She was just about to take care of it when Gabe turned suddenly into a church’s vacant parking lot, brought his sports car to a quick stop, and caught her wrist in his hand. “Stop,” he commanded fiercely.

And looking down, Maggie saw why.

NOT EXACTLY the way he’d thought he would get aroused on his wedding night, Gabe thought. But here he was, with a hard-on to rival any he had ever had. And Maggie sitting beside him, looking as pale and stricken as any virgin bride about to be led to the bedchambers of a husband she barely knew.

Only they weren’t going to consummate their marriage.

Not the usual way.

And her touching him this way was only reminding him of that.

A riot of pink color flooding into her cheeks, Maggie snatched back her hand. “Oh, Gabe, I’m sorry,” she said in a low, trembling voice.

So was Gabe. Because now he knew, if he hadn’t before, just how much he desired her. And always had. Even as he saw how truly innocent she was at heart. She might have been engaged to his brother—the magazine editor and authority on modern men and their lives and desires and problems—but Maggie didn’t know a damn thing about him and his needs. And given the exceedingly stricken way she was staring at him, probably never would, Gabe thought, his spirits sinking even more.

“Forget it,” Gabe said, doing his best to mask his disappointment as he thrust his sports car back into gear and headed back onto the coastal highway.

“I never—”

“I said forget it!” Gabe commanded gruffly as two things happened simultaneously: the outskirts of Charleston came into view, and the cell phone on his dash began to ring.

Glad for the diversion, Gabe took the call, then turned to Maggie as soon as it ended. “I’ve got to go straight to the hospital,” he told her. “I don’t have time to drop you first.”

“No problem,” Maggie said. She offered him a stiff smile. “I can get a cab.”

“Or just come with me,” Gabe said on impulse, finding he wasn’t as anxious to have their time together end as he’d initially thought. “And see if you can help me find out who Jane Doe is, now that she’s awake and talking once again.”

TO MAGGIE’S RELIEF, Gabe’s mood brightened as he parked in the hospital lot and went from secret-new-husband mode to doctor. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything he could do about the drying stain on his slacks, but Gabe rebuttoned the top of his shirt, fixed his tie and slipped his navy sport coat back on. Determined to look as little like a bride as possible, Maggie removed the flower from her hair and tied the pale blue cardigan sweater she’d brought along just in case it got too cool in the car around her neck. Nevertheless, as she and Gabe made their way through the hospital corridors up to the fourth floor, Maggie caught a few curious glances from some of the nurses. She wasn’t sure whether they recognized her as the woman who had once been engaged to Chase Deveraux before getting briefly involved with Gabe, or simply thought she and Gabe were about to go out for the evening. But interest in them was high just the same. And it was speculation, Maggie thought to herself, as they entered the hospital room where Jane Doe was, she could well have done without. She didn’t want or need to know how quickly the people who worked with Gabe predicted his relationship with her would be over. Because everyone knew Gabe only hung around until the damsel in distress was no longer in trouble.

Gabe took Maggie’s elbow as they neared the room. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I’m really interested in your assessment of my patient,” he said.

Maggie tingled at the warmth of his breath against the side of her face. “I’m no expert.” She had no medical background whatsoever.

“But you’re a woman,” Gabe said, coming even closer. “And a very easy to talk to woman at that.” His eyes caressed her face. “I think our Jane Doe might really warm to you.”

Maggie had to admit she would like to help someone in need of assistance herself. She also noted immediately upon entering the corner room that the eighty-something patient was a lovely lady, even in a hospital-issue gown. Her long white hair had been caught in an elegant bun at the back of her neck. She had a delicate, aristocratic bone structure, a petite slender frame and exquisitely manicured hands that—Maggie was willing to bet—had never seen a dishpan or a toilet-bowl brush.

She was sitting up in bed, her faded sea-blue eyes open wide, her cheeks flushed with fever.

“He’s coming to get me, you know,” Jane Doe told Gabe and Maggie the moment they walked in the room.

“Who’s coming?” Gabe asked, as he took her chart off the holder on the wall next to the door.

Jane Doe smiled serenely and clasped her hands in front of her. “Why, my sweetheart, of course.”

“What’s his name?” Gabe asked gently, as he discreetly checked her chart.

“Oh, I can’t tell you that,” Jane Doe said vehemently, as Gabe set the chart down on the end of her hospital bed.

“Why not?” Maggie asked, moving to the opposite side of the bed, so she could be close to the woman and yet out of Gabe’s way.

“Because our love is very private,” she said seriously, as she looked up at Maggie. “And I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it. Besides, I don’t really think my mama and papa would approve if they knew what I was doing.”

Gabe took the stethoscope out of his pocket and put it in his ears. “How old are you?” Gabe asked, as he listened to the woman’s chest.

Jane Doe gave him a reproachful look as Gabe moved from her front to her back. “A lady never tells her age.”

Gabe listened to each of her lungs. “Do you know what day it is?”

“Saturday,” Jane Doe claimed triumphantly.

Maggie and Gabe exchanged worried glances over Jane Doe’s head. It was Tuesday.

“And the year?” Gabe persisted, as he put his stethoscope away and picked up her chart once again.

“I wish you people would stop asking me that,” Jane Doe complained, sighing loudly. “It’s 1938, of course.”

Gabe nodded agreeably and wrote something on her chart.

“Is my driver coming for me soon?”

Gabe looked up with a charming smile. “We’d love to call him for you, if you would just give us his number,” Gabe said.

“No.” Jane Doe clammed up again. “I can’t do that.”

“All right. You just rest now.” Gabe patted her arm. “And call the nurses if you need anything.”

“All right, doctor.” Jane Doe settled back against the pillows and closed her eyes.

“Is she okay?” Maggie asked as soon as she and Gabe slipped from the room.

Gabe frowned as he headed for the nurses’ station at the other end of the hall. “I don’t like the sound of her lungs. I’m going to order a chest X-ray. She might have pneumonia.”

Even Maggie had been able to tell Jane Doe was running a fever. “Would that make her confused?”

“It could. The combination of fever and illness can do that, especially to older people. I just wish we could find her family—they must be worried sick about her.”

Maggie nodded. “What are you going to do?”

“The only thing I can do,” Gabe sighed wearily. “Contact the media. I hope they’ll come out and do a story on her in time for the eleven o’clock news.”

“SO WHAT’S WRONG with this Jane Doe?” Lane Stringfield asked Gabe as the two of them met in the reception room of Gabe’s office some twenty minutes later. The local TV station manager had arrived ahead of his camera crew and reporter. And Gabe had an idea why. He hadn’t come for the story—Lane had staff to do that for him—he had come to talk to Gabe. Probably about his estranged wife.

“She definitely has a sprained ankle. She fell on the sidewalk in the historic district late last night. Someone on Gathering Street found her around four this morning. It looked as if she had been there for some time. She was confused and dehydrated, in considerable pain and shock—and she also seemed to be running a little fever, which may have been what caused her to lose her balance and fall in the first place. We were hoping a day in the hospital and a little sleep would make her lucid, but when she woke up a little while ago she was as confused as ever and has stayed that way. I was brought in to evaluate her. I think she may be developing pneumonia—I’ve ordered a chest X-ray and other tests to help us make the diagnosis.”

“Is she senile?” Lane Stringfield asked, still making notes on the small leatherbound pad he had taken out of his coat pocket.