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  Jack held his hands up in front of his face, shying away from a blow that didn’t come. ‘Don’t hit me, Brogan. You’ll fucking kill me with those fists!’

  ‘Hit him!’ Linda screamed over his shoulder and actually shoved Jack towards her husband.

  Jack stumbled sideways to avoid Dan. He looked at Linda incredulously. ‘Shut up, Linda!’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Linda shouted at Dan, her face contorted with fury. ‘Don’t you care?’

  Slowly uncurling his fists, Dan held his hands up, palms facing out. ‘You’re welcome to her,’ he said. Turning on his heel, he walked swiftly away.

  He was vaguely aware of the shocked audience of people gathered in the wide doorways leading into the house at the other end of the pool. All he wanted to do was to get away from Linda and her pathetic lover, to find a place where he could breathe fresh air.

  ‘You bastard!’ Linda screamed after him. ‘You bastard! You can’t just walk away from me!’ Then more shrilly, ‘Dan! Dan! Come back!’

  The next time Dan saw Linda was the following evening. She was lying in the resuss room in the Emergency Department at Auckland Hospital, her clothes lying in a tangle beneath her where they had been cut from her body. He’d chosen not to go home the night before, sleeping instead at the hospital in one of the rooms reserved for the registrars and house surgeons.

  Linda and Jack Millar had been involved in a car accident not far from the home Linda shared with Dan. She had never passed her driver’s licence and had been speeding. The young woman driving the other vehicle had been so badly injured that she’d died in the Emergency Department. Jack had escaped serious injury with only cuts, bruises and concussion. Linda had broken her right leg and sustained a head injury from hitting her head on the car windscreen because she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. She stopped breathing in the emergency room, and it took a while to stabilize her condition before she was transferred to the ICU.

  Dan watched the entire thing from the end of the bed, numb and disbelieving, so when one of the attending doctors told him that Linda had suffered a miscarriage he simply stared at the doctor blankly while he grappled with the implications of this latest bit of news.

  The swelling in Linda’s brain was severe enough for the ICU doctors to contemplate taking her to theatre to relieve the pressure. Instead she was placed on a ventilator and kept unconscious to allow the swelling to subside.

  It was while he sat beside Linda’s bed watching the rise and fall of her chest and hearing the swish swish of the ventilator that Dan thought about the miscarriage.

  It was like a physical blow. Dan knew the baby couldn’t be his, because he and Linda hadn’t made love in almost three months. The pain that the knowledge caused him was far worse than the sight of Linda in Jack’s arms. Dan was certain the pregnancy hadn’t been planned. Linda had always relegated the subject of children to later, until Dan had given up asking her to consider it.

  Dan felt like he was functioning on autopilot. He found himself regarding his wife as a patient, noting her injuries and applauding her progress, but his emotions were completely disengaged. At no point did he wish for her death. His mother, father and brother all offered to come, but Dan knew they would see through his act straight away and guess the true state of his marriage.

  He kept a lonely vigil by Linda’s bedside, talking to her and encouraging her to wake up. It was during these hours that he came to a decision. He would take care of Linda and get her back on her feet. Then he would let her return to the States and sue him for divorce. He didn’t really care any more, so long as he could finally have some peace in his life. He realized Linda would do her utmost to ruin him financially, but Dan was willing to take the risk. He comforted himself that at least there weren’t any children involved, because he would never have been able to hand them over to Linda, whose only mothering role model was Betty Mulholland. He knew she would have used any child they might have had as a way to get back at him.

  Dan considered himself beyond hurt. A part of him wondered where the funny, bright, tender girl he had married had gone, but he acknowledged that he’d made the mistake of thinking he could rescue her. He’d always been a sucker for underdogs. It had taken Dan eight years to realize that Linda couldn’t be rescued and that anybody who tried ran the risk of being destroyed in the process.

  But, as usual, Linda was not going to be so easy to put aside.

  It hadn’t surprised Dan when one of the doctors looking after Linda called to say she’d been lucid that morning and had promptly asked for a mirror.

  ‘When she saw her face she became hysterical, Mr Brogan,’ the doctor explained. ‘Absolutely hysterical. I had to sedate her. She’s sleeping now, but I thought you should know before you came for your usual visit tonight.’

  Dan thanked her and forced himself to ask, ‘Did she ask about the baby?’

  The doctor sounded sympathetic, assuming he was a grieving father. ‘No, Mr Brogan,’ she replied quietly. ‘She hasn’t mentioned it.’

  Of course Linda’s first request had been for a mirror, he thought. Her appearance meant the world to her. As for the baby, there was always the possibility she’d forgotten she was pregnant. Linda had always had a great capacity to ignore what didn’t suit her.

  Dan had been convinced that all his feelings had died where his wife was concerned, but against his will he’d been moved by the woman he had seen that night, with her strange accent and sad, puzzled eyes. This Linda hadn’t seemed to care that her hair was greasy and her skin was pasty. She hadn’t noticed that her nails were a mess and that the leg not in a plaster cast was covered in dark fuzz.

  She just looked lost.

  Dan forced himself to toughen up. He wouldn’t abandon Linda, if for no other reason than she had nobody else. As a doctor, he recognized the best way for her to regain her memory, if she had truly lost it, was to be around familiar people and things.

  I’ll treat her like a patient, he decided as he headed towards the hospital car park.

  It was the best he could offer.

  5

  Nancy wouldn’t take no for an answer when Lisa tried to get out of having her hair washed the next day. ‘It must feel awful!’ she insisted.

  Lisa shrugged, sunk in despair at the hopelessness of her situation. ‘Who cares?’ she replied apathetically. ‘It’s only hair.’

  Nancy eyed her knowingly. The entire nursing team had been given the latest developments in Linda Brogan’s case. They’d all been told that she had lost her memory, that she didn’t recognize her husband, the rather scrumptious American orthopaedic surgeon who worked at the children’s hospital, and that she wanted to be called ‘Lisa’.

  ‘I’d lie,’ Chris, one of the other nurses, insisted after the morning handover from the night staff. ‘If I woke up and found out that he was my husband, I’d say yes, he’s mine, I’m his and when are we going home?’

  ‘Thank you, Chris,’ the charge nurse observed dryly. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind any of you about patient confidentiality? Particularly when the patient happens to be married to a senior member of the paediatric surgical staff.’

  Nancy thought Linda Brogan looked depressed, which concerned her. It had been decided to let the same group of nurses care for her so that she became used to seeing familiar faces. An appointment had been made for a psychiatrist to see her, and a CAT scan had been ordered for later in the day to check for any new bleeding in her brain.

  ‘Well, do it for me then,’ Nancy continued, pulling back the covers on the bed and pushing a wheelchair closer. ‘You’re making the place look untidy.’

  Grumbling, Lisa allowed herself to be pushed along to the shower. Nancy impressed Lisa by somehow managing to wash most of her body without getting the plaster cast wet. She’d put Lisa in a white plastic chair with holes in the bottom and hosed her down with the showerhead.

  ‘You’re brilliant, Nancy,’ Lisa admitted grudgingly. ‘You didn’t even put a plas
tic bag over my cast. When I’ve had plasters in the past, the nurses always put a plastic bag on.’

  ‘When have you had a plaster cast on before?’ Nancy asked curiously.

  ‘When I was a kid,’ Lisa replied as Nancy draped a towel over her to keep her warm while she washed Lisa’s hair. ‘I was born with a club foot. I had loads of operations and plaster casts to correct it when I was a baby.’

  Lisa’s voice trailed away. That was her history. Not Linda Brogan’s. She risked a look at Nancy, but the nurse was busy pulling white plastic bottles from a collection of plastic bags she’d carted down to the shower on Lisa’s lap.

  ‘What’s all that?’ Lisa asked, anxious to change the subject.

  Nancy shook her head, peering at the back of the bottles. ‘Well, this one says it’s a Pre-Rinse and this one says it’s a Shine Application.’

  Lisa frowned. ‘Can’t you find one called shampoo and one called conditioner?’

  ‘Probably, but not with those names.’ Nancy gave the bulging plastic bag by the wall a nudge with her toe. ‘I’m afraid I don’t go in for all this expensive stuff. I’m more of a supermarket-special girl myself.’

  You and me both, Lisa thought wryly. Linda Brogan must have had to book a whole day out of her diary to get that lot on her bonce. It had obviously been an event.

  They eventually settled the dilemma by implementing their ‘eeny-meenie-miny-mo’ problem-solving skills.

  While Nancy towelled Lisa’s hair dry, Lisa took a good, long look at Linda Brogan’s body. Linda had been blessed with one of those bodies that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Sports Illustrated calendar. She had mile-long legs, gently curving hips and a surprisingly generous set of knockers for such a slim woman. She couldn’t have been more different from Lisa, who had had a chest which could have doubled as an ironing board.

  Lisa looked at Linda’s boobs curiously. ‘Do you think these are real, Nancy?’

  Nancy peered over Lisa’s shoulder. ‘Are what real?’

  Lisa nodded at Linda’s breasts. ‘These.’

  Nancy appeared startled. ‘Your—?’ She gestured. ‘Your boobs?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lisa lifted one with a forefinger and searched beneath it. ‘Can’t see any scars.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean they’re not fake,’ Nancy replied once she’d overcome her surprise. ‘They use a new technique where they thread the prosthesis up through the umbilicus so there are no scars.’

  Lisa was shocked. ‘ What? You mean they insert them through your belly button?’

  Nancy nodded and began to towel her back.

  ‘I don’t believe you!’ Lisa protested. ‘How would they fit?’

  ‘They put them in empty and fill them up when they’re in place.’

  Lisa thought about this for several moments. ‘Bit like inflating a car tyre.’

  Nancy snorted with laughter. ‘You can only really tell by feeling.’ She stepped in front of Lisa and peered at her breasts. ‘No, I think they’re real.’ She smirked. ‘You could always ask your husband—he’d know.’

  Lisa tugged the towel over herself, feeling hot blood fill her cheeks. As if she’d ask a complete stranger about her boobs. Or at least, about his wife’s boobs. She could just imagine the expression on Dan Brogan’s face.

  Something else occurred to her. ‘Nancy, do you know if I’ve…er…if I’ve had a…period since I’ve been in hospital?’

  Nancy was busy shaking out another one of Linda’s thin, narrow-strapped nightdresses. Lisa eyed it with distaste. She would have much preferred the comfort of the oversized T-shirts she always wore to bed.

  Nancy eyed her keenly. ‘No, you haven’t had a period since you’ve been in hospital, Lisa.’ She paused. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Lisa shook her head and shrugged, feeling the tension uncoil in her belly. ‘Nothing.’

  Perhaps there was a silver lining to this particular cloud. She had suffered with endometriosis for many long, hellish years and dreaded her periods when they came. Hopefully, when Linda’s body finally had one it would be the same as most other women’s and nothing like the agony Lisa suffered each month. She was vaguely surprised that Nancy was so emphatic that Linda hadn’t had a period, but put it down to the intimacy of the nurse-patient relationship. Hell, at the moment the nurses and doctors knew far more about this body’s functions than she did.

  Dan Brogan made a brief appearance when the physiotherapist was putting Lisa through her paces on her crutches. She was sweating profusely after only half a dozen steps; her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth, a habit she had when she was concentrating hard. She didn’t see the amusement on Dan’s face at her intent expression and the careless way she had knotted the sash around her pale-pink silk robe so that it trailed on the floor behind her. She kept blowing irritably at her fringe, which hung in her eyes. Her hair was spread across her shoulders, shining and clean from her shower.

  Dan nodded a greeting at Lucy the physiotherapist and crouched to pick up the trailing sash. When Lisa made a clumsy turn to go back towards her room she found him standing there with the sash of the robe held in his hand like a leash. ‘I’m telling you now,’ she panted, ‘I don’t fetch sticks or chase balls.’

  He laughed and, winding the sash into a ball, pushed it into one of the big square pockets on the front of the robe, his hand brushing against her thigh through the thin material. ‘You’re doing real well.’

  Lisa was startled by the casual intimacy of the gesture. She stared up at Dan and reminded herself that he was Linda Brogan’s husband; he’d done a hell of a lot more than innocently touch her thigh in the past.

  She suddenly noticed his clothes. He was wearing charcoalgrey dress trousers, a pale-green shirt and a dark-grey jacket which made him look even taller than usual and his grey eyes darker. He would have seemed imposing if it weren’t for the grey tie he wore with a big yellow Tweetie Bird on the front.

  Grinning, Lisa gave the end of his tie a gentle tug. ‘Like the tie.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Nancy and Chris had mentioned he was known as ‘Dr Dan’ at the children’s hospital instead of ‘Mr Brogan’ as befitted his surgeon status. Nancy and Chris had said the kids loved him. Lisa guessed the cartoon ties were a big hit and that Dan had a wardrobe full of them.

  ‘The kids aren’t the only ones who love him,’ Chris had muttered.

  ‘Chris!’ Nancy barked, rolling her eyes meaningfully in Lisa’s direction.

  ‘It’s OK, Nancy,’ Lisa smiled wryly. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my eyes; I can imagine who else might love Dan Brogan.’

  Chris bit her lip. ‘Sorry, Lisa.’

  ‘Honestly, it’s OK,’ Lisa reassured her. ‘He’s a bit of a hunk, isn’t he?’

  Chris snorted. ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘Chris!’ Nancy snapped.

  ‘Sorry, Lisa.’

  The tart humour of the nurses helped keep Lisa sane and distract her from the enormity of her situation. ‘Shame I can’t remember him then, isn’t it?’ she said mischievously and then burst out laughing with Chris.

  ‘Don’t encourage her!’ Nancy exclaimed, fighting a smile.

  Oblivious of his pin-up status among the female staff, Dan followed Linda as she slowly made her way back towards her room with Lucy in close attendance. He’d known the instant he’d touched her thigh that he’d made her uncomfortable. Her big blue eyes had widened and she’d blinked up at him like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. He wanted to kick himself for succumbing to the puckish charm and offbeat sense of humour that Linda had been displaying since she’d woken up. He needed to remember that she was still Linda, equipped with a deadly arsenal of weapons she could unleash at any moment. But, more importantly, if she was to be believed, right now she saw him as a total stranger and didn’t appreciate being touched.

  Promising he’d visit later on that night, Dan went ahead into her room to collect the bag of dirty laundry the nurses always left for him in the
bottom of the locker. As he crouched in front of the locker, he recalled the sound of Linda’s voice from just before. Her vowels were even flatter than when she first woke up. Dan was perplexed that his Californian-born wife was beginning to sound more and more like a Kiwi. He wondered if it was the exposure to the New Zealand nursing staff. At any rate, Linda did not sound like Linda any more.

  Dan knew he shouldn’t be fooled by the odd accent and the strange sense of humour Linda had displayed since she’d woken up. She’d laughed a lot and made jokes when he’d first known her, but generally not at her own expense, having been ridiculed so much as a child. However, Dan was disturbed by what the nurse looking after Linda had said when he went to ask how she’d been this morning. He was positive she had never had a club foot as a child. More importantly, if she had, she’d have scars on her foot from the surgery. He knew exactly what to look for, as it was the type of corrective surgery he performed down the hill at the children’s hospital.

  Why would Linda lie about that?

  Nancy, the nurse, had also said that Linda had asked if she’d menstruated since she’d been in hospital. Dan wondered grimly if Linda was not nearly as amnesiac as she liked to pretend. Had she remembered that she was pregnant when she had had her accident? The nurse said she hadn’t asked about the baby.

  It was a timely reminder that the woman he had married still existed somewhere inside the woman recovering from her injuries.

  Linda’s husband came to visit again that night, bringing some fashion magazines and a fresh set of skimpy nightclothes. This time he was wearing a dark-green T-shirt with some kind of a bird on the front, faded blue jeans which hugged his long legs and rode low on his hips, and a battered brown leather jacket. He looked good enough to eat, with a strand of his dark hair flopping across his brow despite his repeated attempts to brush it back with his fingers.

  Lisa didn’t want to appear ungrateful, but she had woken up from a long afternoon sleep feeling depressed and desperately wanting her mother and father. She was haunted by the thought that they would be at home grieving for her, and she wondered how her parents and brother and sister were coping. They were a close family and Lisa knew her death would have devastated them.