Wife With Amnesia by Metsy Hingle Read Free Book Online

deceiving her about their relationship. Yet, he saw no alternative—not if he hoped to win Claire back.
    And win her back he would, Matt told himself a few minutes later when he returned to the den. “That was my sister Maggie. She was checking to see if you needed anything.”
    â€œYou have a big family,” she said, and the troubled look was back in her eyes.
    â€œ We have a big family,” he corrected.
    â€œBut they all seem to be your family, Matt. It was your sisters and your parents that came to the hospital to see me, and they’re the ones who’ve called. What about my family? Why haven’t my parents or my siblings come to see me?”
    Matt struggled with how much he should tell her. “You’re an only child,” he finally replied, deciding it would probably be okay to tell her that much. As far as Claire had known, she’d had no siblings. And in that damning search that he had started, to locate her parents, the investigator hadn’t turned up any siblings either.
    â€œWhat about my parents? Why didn’t they come to the hospital or call?”
    â€œClaire, I don’t think—”
    â€œAm I estranged from them? Is that why they didn’t come to the hospital?”
    â€œNo. You’re not estranged.”
    â€œThen why haven’t they at least called to see how I am?”
    He didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to explain. After all, it had been his foolish attempt to find answers about the childhood that haunted her that had caused her to walk out on him in the first place.
    â€œPlease, Matt. I need to know. Where is my family? Has something happened to them?”
    He took her hands, held them in his own. “You don’t have any family. At least none that we know of.”
    â€œBut I don’t understand. My parents—”
    â€œYou never knew who your parents were. You were an orphan.”

Three
    â€œA n orphan,” Claire repeated. “You mean I don’t have any family? No one at all?”
    â€œYou have me…and my family.”
    Even as she tried to absorb this newest shock, more questions raced through Claire’s mind. “But what about my parents? What happened to them?”
    For a moment Matt remained silent and appeared to consider his words carefully before he said, “You were only a baby when…when you went to live at an orphanage.”
    She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I was given up for adoption?”
    A pained expression flitted across Matt’s features, and Claire’s stomach tensed. “Not exactly.”
    â€œWhat does ‘not exactly’ mean?”
    Matt stood. “I don’t think this is a good idea…me telling you so much about yourself, about your past.Maybe I should speak to Dr. Edmond first and see what she has to say before I say anything more.”
    â€œFine, call her. But I remember her instructions quite clearly,” Claire insisted. “She said that I shouldn’t be force-fed any information about myself, about our life together or…or about the attack. That I should be told things when I ask about them, when I want to know. Well, I’m asking, Matt,” she said firmly. “I want to know what happened to my parents. I want to know why I was sent to live in an orphanage.”
    Matt jammed a fist through his hair and paced in front of the chair where she sat. For a moment Claire thought he wasn’t going to respond when he stopped and looked into her eyes. “There’s really not a whole lot that I can tell you,” he began. “You never liked to talk about your childhood. When we started seeing each other, all you told me was that you had no family of your own and that you grew up in an orphanage and foster homes. You didn’t know who your parents were—only that you had been three years old or so when a policeman found you abandoned in a church during a hurricane.