“I forgot your name.”

“Dixon Noble. I’m the sheriff of Maestro.”

“Maestro. What a strange name, charming, but strange.”

“I prefer it to Tulip, Montana.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t a simple smile, there were remnants of pain in her eyes. He knew that look when he saw it, knew it to his bones. And he could practically feel her controlling her sense of panic. “You want some aspirin?”

“No, it isn’t bad. I heard the nurses talking about me earlier. They wondered what the doctors were going to do with me.”

“Not a problem,” Dix said. “I’m taking you home with me.”

THE HOSPITAL INSISTED she ride in a wheelchair to the front door. Once she was seat-belted inside the Range Rover, she turned to watch the sheriff as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. Then she stared out the window to watch the bright morning sun glisten off the snow. “It’s beautiful, and it feels familiar down to my bones, so I guess I’m not from Arizona.”

“Now that’s interesting. Some deep part of you feels at one with this atrocious weather.”

“Kind of sad, actually.”

“My boys looked in the woods where I found you, but there was nothing there. More snow’s forecasted for this afternoon, but it’s beginning to look like the weather guys are wrong again. Emory’s coming to the house later to take some photos. We’ll show them all over the area. Someone had to have seen you, someone will remember you.”

“I don’t live around here, I’m pretty sure of that, so that means I had to have a room somewhere. I like your Range Rover,” she said, surprising him. “They’re really good off-road, but I think they make me nauseous when I’m a passenger and there are too many bumps.”

“What do you own?”

“A BMW—oh, nice how you did that—but I’m not sure, sorry. BMW popped into my mind, so maybe. I sure hope you find my car, whatever it is, soon. You can find out who I am in about two seconds flat.”

“How?”

“From the VIN, not to mention the license plate.”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said. “I’ve got people out looking for your car. If the person who struck you tried to hide it, he’s in luck. With all this snow it could be well camouflaged.”

She cleared her throat. “Seems like someone tried to obliterate me, and sort of has.”

“You’ll be okay,” he said matter-of-factly. “But I am wondering how you got to my house.”

“Maybe the woods were just handy?” She didn’t sound upset, and that was surely strange for a civilian. She sounded curious, not at all scared, like she had a problem to solve.

“Or maybe you managed to walk into my woods.”

“Who knows?” She laughed, actually laughed. “Here I am as useless as a lifeguard who can’t swim. What could I have been doing here to make someone go to all this trouble?”

“I can see your eyes nearly crossing. Stop straining. Relax. Stuff is coming back really fast now. It won’t be much longer. Do you think your Beemer is one of those SUVs?”

“It’s not an SUV, it’s an SAV. It’s not a pedestrian utility vehicle, it’s an activity vehicle.” She started laughing again. “Oh goodness, can you believe that?”

“Dr. Crocker told me, probably told you, too, that bits and pieces of things may float back to you, but some big chunks might stay out of sight for a while. Like I said, stop straining. When we find your wuss SAV, maybe you’ll recognize it.”

“Your wife must be a very tolerant woman.”

“She was.”

She didn’t say anything to that. Her head was pounding again. To her surprise, before she could say anything, the sheriff handed her a thermos. “You’re hurting. Take one of those pain pills they gave you.”

She nodded, took two, drank them down with coffee, and leaned her head back against the seat.

She heard the loud barking as soon as she opened the car door.

“That’s Brewster. He’s quite a watchdog. Be careful he doesn’t pee on you.”

Brewster didn’t pee on her, but within three minutes of her lying on the sofa, he was cuddled next to her, licking her chin. The sheriff pulled two handmade afghans over her. She wanted to sleep on this wonderful soft sofa for at least a day.

She awoke when she heard the sheriff saying, “Keep it down, boys. We have a guest.”

“The lady you found last night, Dad?”