Chapter Three

Brenna

The damn sympathetic staring. It was starting to make me feel uncomfortable.

“What’s going on?” I asked. Men in blue uniforms had me strapped down to a gurney, and they were carrying me away from a stadium. “What happened?”

A plain Jane type with mousy brown hair and a perky little nose leaned over me. “Brenna,” she said as if I were addled. “I told you – you got hit in the head.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said with a frown. “Although my head is aching.” I stared at her. The way she looked at me was making me feel even worse. As if something was wrong with me. “Who are you?”

The girl reared back in shock, like I’d suggested she run away and join the circus. “I’m Riley. Riley Buxton. Your favorite colleague.”

“My colleague?” I closed my eyes, feeling woozy. The sensation of being carried through the air turned my stomach over. A deep ache spread through my head. It slid down the back of my neck and spiderwebbed through my body with a cold, slow, accuracy that made me shiver. I felt watery, foggy – like I was swimming in a turbulent sea, except the sea was air. Waves of nausea caused me to clamp my eyes shut against the assault. The last thing I wanted to do was hurl in front of all these strangers. Pain knifing my gut twisted my stomach and intestines. I closed my mouth and swallowed, breathing through my nose in measured inhales.

“Yes,” Riley said. She sounded impatient and angry. “We’re journalists at Sport Taste. Don’t you remember?”

I groaned, closing my eyes. “I…” I trailed off. “I have to think for a while.”

“Brenna, I’m going to have to ask you to stop talking,” one of the men in uniform barked. “Please stay quiet.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I snapped. “I didn’t ask you to take me anywhere!”

The kind man ignored my wailing and just kept checking my vitals.

Riley groaned. “Brenna, please,” she said. “You were just injured. We were at Yankee Stadium, and someone whacked a ball into the press section. You fell right down. You must’ve been out for like three minutes.”

“I don’t remember any of that,” I said slowly. “Are you sure?”

Riley looked at me. “Would I lie to you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling exasperated. “We did just meet, after all.”

“You’re hopeless,” Riley said under her breath. I got the sudden feeling that I wasn’t supposed to have heard her. Why was she so annoyed with me?

The men in uniform gently set the stretcher down. The smells here were different than they had been a moment ago – no grass, no fresh air. Everything smelled dirty, like oil and grease and asphalt. I looked around, noticing a busy street. I knew that I should recognize this location, but I didn’t. Like I was seeing everything for the first time. As the men in uniform fumbled with bags, I realized that the gurney was on the sidewalk, next to an ambulance. The back doors flung open, and the lights flashed overhead, but no sirens blared.

A cold chill of fear wormed its way into my heart.

“What’s going on?”

“They’re taking you to the hospital,” Riley said. “Just to check you out. I’m sure everything’s going to be okay.”

I blinked. “I don’t need to go to the hospital.” Moments after I made the weak plea, a man jogged up. From where I lay on the ground, he looked enormous. He also looked vaguely familiar, but trying to remember where I’d seen him before made my head ache.

Through my nausea and pain induced haze, I still felt the sheer animal magnetism emanating from this man. Longish blond hair was pushed back from his forehead in tangles. Bright blue eyes contrasted sharply against his tan skin, and a wide, easy grin showed perfectly white teeth. And dimples. Damn dimples always did it for me. Something about him made my heart skip a beat – something not related to my supposed head injury.

“Hey,” the man said. “How’s it going, Brenna? You feeling okay?” He leaned over me, and I squirmed. He knows my name. He acts like he knows me. But I can’t remember him. At all. Why was he paying so much attention to me?

“Who are you?” I frowned. “I don’t know this man,” I told Riley. “What’s he doing here?”

Riley and the blond guy exchanged a glance over my head.

“He plays for the Yankees,” Riley admitted, sounding unsure about the information. I blinked and realized he was wearing some kind of uniform, so I guessed that made sense.

“Oh my god, not another celebrity.” The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Don’t be offended if I don’t ask for your autograph.”

Riley tittered, perhaps I was already known for my sarcasm because it had just flowed naturally from my lips. “Um, Brenna–”

“Hey,” the guy said again, cutting Riley off. “I just wanted to ask, do you feel okay? Are you in a lot of pain?” He glanced over my body. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I felt his eyes lingering on my heaving bustline. The intense scrutiny of his blue-eyed gaze caused a rush of heat to creep into my cheeks.

God, he’s cute. I wonder if I’ve met him before today.

“I think I’m okay,” I said, anxiety ratcheting up under the hot guy’s scrutiny. “I mean, they’re taking me to the hospital.” I tried to laugh. “So maybe I’m not.”

“You’ve got a big goose egg there,” the guy said in a casual, easy way. He loomed over me and pressed his hand to my temple. I winced, expecting it to hurt. But when our skin touched, a spark jumped between our bodies. He had gigantic hands, so his clumsy touch was surprisingly gentle. My heart flipped over as our eyes met again.

“I feel okay,” I squeaked. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

The guy grinned, and my heart melted. Smile perfection – crooked, lazy, showing off just a few of those amazing teeth. My finger itched to reach out and poke him in that charming dimple. I knew I was acting like a blithering idiot, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t think I’d ever had that visceral reaction to a man before…especially not a man as gorgeous as this. I knew I’d remember once I was allowed to rest. I had to remember.

“Good,” he said. “I’m counting on it.”

As he jogged away, I realized that he hadn’t offered his name. Jeez. What a weird day.

The EMTs loaded me into the ambulance and drove to the hospital, swerving through traffic and running lights. Riley rode in the back of the ambulance with me, scrolling through her phone.

“How are you feeling?”

“Not good,” I admitted. The nausea had come back, and the headache pounded with the force of a hundred hammers. The cacophony of the ambulance sirens blaring assaulted my ears. Even the tiniest flicker hurt my eyes. Every time I opened them, I felt like the ambulance wanted to kill me.

“You’ll be fine,” Riley said. She sounded both bored and confident. “We’re almost there. Remind me next time that you’re a high maintenance date. I might want to just stay at the office.”

Once the ambulance pulled into the bay of the ER, I was rushed into the emergency room with tremendous speed. After a nurse checked my vitals and triaged my injury, she left me alone. After a few minutes, Riley entered. She carried two tote bags and sat down in a wooden chair with fraying cushions. She pulled a laptop out of one of the bags and started to write.

“What are you doing?” I frowned. “Did something else happen?”

“I’ve got to finish this or Nina’s going to kill me,” Riley said without looking up. Her fingers flew over the keys. The sound of keys tapping felt like raindrops of concrete assaulting my forehead.

“Nina?” I asked. Nina, Nina, Nina…where do I know that name? I couldn’t deny it nagged at me, somewhat familiar. Trying to remember caused bright bursts of pain to shoot through my skull, but I continued to struggle, not wanting to give up. Closing my eyes, I strained against my own brain, ignoring the flashes of pain that flickered through my body. A figure appeared in my mind, but it wavered like a giant blob. Concentrating harder, I balled my hands into fists, and a woman’s face appeared.

“Our editor,” Riley said. She looked up from her laptop.

“Oh! I know her!” At least I thought I did.

Riley frowned. “But you didn’t know me?”

The pain in my head overwhelmed me, and I clamped my eyes shut. I had to stop concentrating. I felt like I’d burst a blood vessel in my eye.

“I think I know her,” I admitted. Really, I had no way of knowing if the womanly figure in my head was really Nina.

Just then, the doors burst open, and two men in white coats walked into the room. They weren’t smiling, and a touch of fear crept back into my gut.

“Brenna Sinclair?”

I nodded. It sounded like an odd name, but they’d all been calling me Brenna. It had to be right.

“Can you tell us what happened?”

“It’s no use,” Riley said, standing up. “She doesn’t remember.”

The doctor glared at her. “Please leave us, miss,” he clipped out. “We’ll take over from here.”

I giggled under the force of my rising anxiety. It wasn’t exactly funny, but the doctors were being so serious as Riley stomped out of the room.

“I really don’t think you have anything to worry about,” I said. “I just have a bump on the head, right?”

One of the doctors – his nametag read Dr. Merton, Neurologist – stepped closer and took a penlight from his pocket. “You definitely have a bump,” Dr. Merton said. “Do you remember how it happened?”

“No,” I admitted, licking my dry lips. “I just remember waking up with my head in that girl’s lap – the one who just left.”

Dr. Merton nodded. “You were hit with a baseball. Considering it was thrown by Rhett Bradshaw, it was probably going quite fast when the batter fouled it off into the press area.”

I blinked. “Rhett who?”

Dr. Merton and the other doctor exchanged a nervous glance.

“What?” I demanded. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

Dr. Merton chuckled, but the laughter trailed off when he pursed his lips together. “Well, if you don’t know who Rhett Bradshaw is…” he shrugged, “let’s just say he’s someone that most people in NYC would recognize by name alone. But don’t worry, Brenna. I’m sure your memory loss is temporary.”

Dr. Merton swallowed. His large Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat like a piece of bread. He smiled, kindness and patience radiating from his gaze.

“I’m a sports journalist,” I grumped. “And I’ve never heard of him before. At least…I think I’m a sports journalist.” I closed my eyes, feeling exhausted. The doctors got to work, going through all the head injury protocol. As I lay in the narrow bed being poked and prodded, my mind started to wander.

Am I really a writer? Or do I just think I am? And who is Nina? Oh, yeah, Riley said she’s our editor. So I must be a writer. Riley said I wrote for Sport Taste.

I struggled, trying to recall how I’d become a journalist there. Snatches and glimpses of memories started filtering through my brain. I remembered standing with a group of students at Columbia University, throwing our caps into the air. My alma mater. Straining harder, I remembered sitting at a desk until my ass ached, typing furiously on a small keyboard.

My career means a lot to me, I realized. I spent my whole life trying to get to where I am today. And if I’m a sports journalist, that must mean I’ve succeeded. Riley said she was the only other woman who worked with me. I guess that probably means that I had to deal with sexism, but I made it anyway.

“Ms. Sinclair?”

My eyes flew open. “Yes?”

“Could you please tell us how old you are?”

“Um,” I bit my lip. “I don’t know.”

Dr. Merton and Dr. Malloy exchanged a dark glance.

“We’re going to keep you overnight until we’re sure your memory loss is temporary and that you’ve suffered only a minor concussion,” Dr. Merton said slowly, like he was talking to a child. “Is there anyone we should call?”