“You took quite a bump to the head,” Wyatt said, stepping so close I could touch his clean-shaven face. “But I think you’re going to make it, Mrs. Thomas.” And then he winked.
Wyatt just winked at me and called me…Mrs. Thomas.
Visions of my conversation with the volunteer posing as Mrs. Claus came screaming back. “Who…who’s Mrs. Thomas?”
“That would be you.” Wyatt gave a strange frown. “Let’s recheck those vitals.”
“I want a do over,” I’d told the woman. “Why can’t life have a reset button?
“Santa’s in the toy business,” she’d said. “Sounds more like a wish for Mrs. Claus.”
Impossible. Absolutely, insanely, impossible.
“Let’s check your pulse ox.” Wyatt lifted my left hand and stuck my pointer finger in a small monitor.
And that’s when I saw it.
A diamond solitaire on my ring finger. Princess cut. Two carats. Antique gold setting.
I jerked my hand like it was on fire and held the ring to my face. “Is this…real?” Maybe one of those elf volunteers had slipped me a cookie laced with hallucinogenics. Probably that one I ate that was ruined with raisins.
“Wyatt, are you sure she’s okay?” Cordelia hovered around me and clucked like a mother hen.
“Is this my wedding ring?” The engagement ring sat beside a gold band encircled with diamonds. I slipped it off and felt the cold metal in my palm. Turning it over and inspecting, there seemed to be an inscription inside, and I read the small engraved words.
Forever Yours.
Oh, my gosh.
Maybe dreams did come true. What if that lady I’d poured my heart out to was the Mrs. Claus and she’d granted my fervent wish? “So…you guys are telling me I’m married.” My brain spasmed at the impossibility.
“Yes.” Wyatt continued his inventory of my faculties. “Now follow the path of my pen with your eyes.”
But I couldn’t take my focus off my rings. They were beautiful, totally like something I would’ve picked out. So not like the sleek, modern rings my ex Zachary had preferred.
“I’m Mrs. Thomas?” The name sounded like music off my tongue, like holy words that had been baptized in blessing and miracles. I lifted my gaze and let my hazel eyes take in every contour, every pore on Wyatt’s gorgeous face. This man was my husband! I’d hit the wishing jackpot! Maybe I’d wake up any minute and it would all be over, but for now, this was a dream come true. My do-over.
“Do you remember the wedding?” Wyatt asked, now gaining my attention with the movement of his pen.
“Not in the least.” I smiled, my head smarting from the movement. “But that’s okay. Because if you say it happened, then it happened.”
“Oh, boy.” Cordelia texted a furious note to someone, then regarded me with concern. “Can you tell us who’s president?”
“Sure.” I rattled off the name and was rewarded with a measure of relief from Cordelia.
Wyatt continued the line of questioning, and I aced every query. Did I know my phone number? Yes. Did I know my birthdate? You betcha. Did I know what day it was and could I recite my alphabet? Check and check. And was I married to Wyatt Phillip Thomas, my true love and no longer the one who I let slip away? Yes!
“Annie, you’ve taken a pretty good bump to the head.” Wyatt’s thigh brushed my knee. Clearly it was a warm-up to the hanky-panky we’d be throwing down tonight. “I’m a little concerned over some lapses in memory, but I’m not ready to order more tests. I want to monitor this, then we’ll refer you to a neurologist if your memory doesn’t fully return.”
“You’re taking very good care of me,” I said dreamily. “Wyatt, you’re so good at what you do.”
His hand lightly grazed my bruised temple. “I’m glad I was here when you came in. Though it’s hard to see loved ones in pain.”
I leaned closer. Would it be too forward to steal a kiss? “I’m too happy to be in pain.” I cupped his chin. “I can’t believe you’re my husband.”
“Oh, Lord.” Cordelia’s phone dropped with a clatter.
“I…” Wyatt took a step in retreat. “Annie, I’m not your husband.”
Horror flooded my every thought, and my heart began a thunderous rhythm in my chest. “You’re not?” My eyes dropped to my beautiful wedding rings, then back to Wyatt. “Then who is?”
A throat cleared behind us. “That would be me.”
Cordelia’s head was the first to turn, and her eyes went round.
Wyatt put his cocky grin back in place and gave a curt nod toward the door.
I did a slow rotation from the exam table, dread dragging my movement.
Because there in the doorway stood Holden Thomas. Cousin to Wyatt. Dark hair where Wyatt’s was blond, infuriating as Wyatt was sweet, in need of a membership to Wyatt’s razor-of-the-month club, and as unrefined as his cousin was polished.
Holden’s fiery gaze met mine, and the room shrank as he stepped inside. “Hello…wife.”
Mrs. Claus was so on my naughty list.
Chapter Five
“But I don’t want to get in the truck with that man.” I held an ice pack to my head and stood near a Black Toyota Tundra that looked too big to even be street legal.
Cordelia pulled my hood over my hair as small snowflakes peppered down. “Annie, we’ve gone over this a dozen times. That man is your husband, and because of the natural order of those sorts of things, you two live together.”
“You have to listen to me.” I grabbed her shoulders, giving zero cares that I sounded like someone seconds away from a psychotic break. “Tonight I was talking to Mrs. Claus in between shifts, and I poured out my heart and said I wished I could wake up and have a do-over. I told her I regretted not saying yes to the man I thought was my destiny.”
“Things just got really weird.”
“I said I wished I’d bump my head and, when I awoke, I’d be in the life I should’ve had if I’d chosen correctly—married to the one who got away.”
“You’re not talking about Wyatt, are you?”
“Who else would I be talking about?”
“Annie, you’re married to your soulmate. Emma and I threw your bachelorette party that your sister was supposed to help us with, in case you need that little memory nudge. I was one of your bridesmaids at the courthouse.”
“My mother would never let me get married there.”
“Well, you did. I stood in the rotunda and watched you make your grand entrance and say ‘I do’ to Holden.”
“This is like some horrible time loop that’s gone terribly wrong. One minute I’m discussing my life regrets with a fake Mrs. Claus, then I slipped on some ice, and next thing I know, I’m waking up in the ER married to the wrong cousin.”
“What you’ve woken up to is a weird fixation on the past and a blip in your memory caused by head trauma. Let me assure you, Wyatt Thomas is not for you. That ship has sailed. It’s out of the harbor. It’s so far offshore, you can’t even see it on the horizon.” She grabbed my hand and flopped it in the air. “Wave bon voyage. Then get in that truck and go home with your husband.”