The Heiress and the Sheriff Read Free Page B

Gabrielle whether she liked it or not.
    Hell, Wyatt, what are you thinking? he asked himself. The woman doesn’t need you. Yet, just for a moment, whenshe’d looked at him with those big pleading eyes, she’d reminded him of a little lost lamb about to go to slaughter.
    With another silent curse, he turned and headed to a busy nurses’ station across the room. He showed them his badge and asked one of the nurses to page Dr. Matthew Fortune.
    She quickly complied and he thanked her, then headed to the waiting area. Even though he didn’t want to go there. The frightened look on Gabrielle’s face when the nurse had taken her away was lingering in his mind, and oddly enough he was still fighting the urge to go back to the examining room and make sure she was all right.
    Forget it, Grayhawk, he muttered to himself. She wasn’t a child. Although she was young, he figured she was at least twenty-one or two. And for all he knew that frightened look could have been an act. Just like the loss of memory.
    With a tired sigh, he went over to the coffee machine and filled a cup. The strong burnt smell assured him it had been made hours ago, but he took a sip of it anyway. He’d been going since three o’clock this morning—he needed something to fortify him.
    Ignoring the vinyl chairs and couch where several people sat flipping through worn magazines, he walked over to a plate-glass window and stared out at the parking area stretching away to the city street. It wasn’t often Wyatt personally hauled someone to the hospital. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the accident happening on Fortune land, he would have sent a deputy out to handle the investigation.
    But the Fortune boys had been his closest friends since childhood. They had stood behind him when others had shunned him for being a half-breed. Without their solid support, he never would have been elected sheriff. And now that trouble had fallen on the family, he was personally checking out every movement on or near the Double Crown Ranch.
    In the background, he could hear the nurse on the intercom paging Matthew to come to Emergency. He was still sipping on the bitter coffee when the doctor’s voice sounded behind him.
    â€œWyatt! What are you doing here? Has something happened to Claudia or Taylor? Have you heard something about Bryan?”
    Wyatt turned to see the tall, dark-haired doctor hurrying into the waiting room. Wyatt desperately wished he could tell the oldest of the Fortune brothers that he’d located his missing son. But the sad truth was that he was no closer to finding the baby now than he had been six months ago.
    Matthew’s baby, Bryan, had been taken from his crib during his christening party at the Double Crown nearly a year ago. A special FBI agent had been sent in to handle the case and he’d recovered a baby and the ransom money. But when he’d gotten the child home, everyone was shocked to discover the baby wasn’t Bryan. They’d kept the other baby though, since a blood test showed he had the rare Fortune blood, and had named him Taylor.
    Wyatt tossed the cup in a nearby trash bin and crossed the small area of the waiting room to greet the other man. “Don’t get upset, Matthew. This isn’t about Claudia or Bryan or Taylor. Or at least I don’t think it is. Do you have a few moments?”
    Matthew gestured toward the double doors leading out to the parking lot. “Of course. Let’s go outside.”
    The two men walked out into the heat and took refuge under the shade of a sycamore.
    â€œThe reason I’m here, Matthew, is that I brought a young lady into Emergency a few minutes ago. She’s had a wreck on the Double Crown. Her car burned, and she has no idea who she is. Or so she claims.”
    Matthew’s finely chiseled features were suddenly frozen with shock. “Oh, my Lord! Was she hurt badly?”
    â€œI don’t think so. There was a