Try saving but not closing the Word documents. Next time you open Word you may get a restoration pane. I seldom close Word to restart, I let the computer close it for me. This works for me in Word 2010 and 2013.

If that won't work, try pressing the space bar and then a backspace (not undo) after saving . That will dirty the document and give the restore facility something to work with if the first method didn't work.

Otherwise, there is the Recent Documents in backstage. I have mine set to recall 50 which works out to 25 documents and 25 folders/locations.