Finding Christina (Wild Rose #2) Read Online Free Page B

eyes flicked open. A nurse was shaking her arm and looking down at her in alarm.
    “Christina! Why are you screaming?”
    Christina hadn’t even known she’d been screaming. “I remembered something.”
    “What did you remember?”
    “I remembered this man’s face, his name was Rand, and we were in a car. He pulled over on the side of the road and he was touching me. I...that’s all.” She shook her head as she struggled to remember more. Hunks of her blonde hair fell around her face and she pushed them back tiredly.
    “Write it down and I’ll let the doctor know. Do you think you remember enough that we could get an accurate description and maybe have a guy draw his face? I mean, that’s if you wanted to press charges?”
    Christina drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. Resting her chin on her knee cap, she nodded. “I want to press charges and I remember his face and first name.”
    Within a few hours, a police officer had come and taken down what information she could remember, which wasn’t a lot. The sketch artist had listened as she described the balding, heavy set man. His blue eyes were something she would never forget, small and beady, and the way his lip had curled as he shoved his hand in her panties would haunt the rest of her days. When the sketch artist showed her the drawing, her shakes became unbearable.
    “That’s him. I can’t forget that face.”
    The police officer standing at the end of the bed nodded sympathetically. “I understand, Christina, we’ll put this face and first name up on the news, and maybe someone who knows him will come forward.”
    “Thank you,” she managed to whisper between shivering lips. “I’m so cold.”
    A few moments after the police officer left, the nurse came in the room with a heated blanket and Christina gladly took it from her. Her energy felt completely sapped and she lay back against her pillows with a soft sigh. The medicines she had been taking were draining her, but as the doctor reminded her, pregnancy could do the same.
    She fell asleep and dozed restlessly the rest of the night. Early in the morning she woke and found it snowing. Christmas Eve had never been less festive than now, when she couldn’t remember who she was and she spent the day alone in the hospital. She spent the day doodling in her journal and pushing against her memories which were still hazy and distant. Waiting was draining, and she napped several times during the day, waking up only long enough to take bites of the food she was brought.
    Later that night she dozed and the dreams started again, fuzzy at first, then becoming clearer with each moment that passed. Sitting up in a panic, sweat broke out on her brow and she whispered, “I’m Christina Morgan. I was in that jeep going home to see my family. Why haven’t they been looking for me? Wait, I’m pregnant. Oh God, I’m twelve weeks pregnant.” She began counting on her fingers and nausea skittered up her throat as she put two and two together. “No…”
    Grasping the pale pink bucket on the table beside her, she dumped the cheap hospital toiletries out and retched into the bucket. Her shivers overtook her as she puked and with a quivering hand, she put the bucket back on the table. “I have AIDS,” she whispered again. “Where the hell did I get AIDS?” Her mind took her back to previous partners. The only time she had been without a condom was with husband number five. The baby daddy, whose name she couldn’t deal with thinking about just yet, had issues with a small penis and the condom staying put, so perhaps it leaked or fell off. Who knows! She groaned softly and dropped her head in her hands.
    Another thought hit her and it chilled her to the core. If I have AIDS, and I got it possibly from husband number five…then Mom has it. And maybe my baby sister too. Oh God.
    Grasping the pink bucket again, she jerked it under her mouth to catch the flow of bile coming up her