by Jewel E. Ann
“Yeah, Rose and I told her to take the job, but Fisher’s family isn’t so sure. They think her job should be getting Fisher to fall in love with her again. But unrequited love is very hard on the heart.”
I nodded to myself. “Yes. It is.”
“Call me after you talk to Holly. That’s the midwife. Holly Dillon.”
“I will. And thanks. It does sound like the perfect opportunity, even if I’m not looking forward to moving again.”
“I know. Talk soon, sweetie.”
The phone interview with Holly went well. Perfect, in fact. Breaking my year lease wasn’t the ideal way to manage my money, but I took the loss, rented a small U-Haul trailer to pull behind my car, and drove to Denver over the course of three days and two nights.
What I didn’t expect to find was Rory, Rose, and Fisher sitting on Rory’s and Rose’s front porch when I arrived around dinnertime. My nerves did stupid things along with my heart and the butterflies in my tummy. He didn’t remember me. Why did I act like a naked student on the first day of school?
“She’s home!” Rory set her wine aside and ran toward me.
“Hi.” I hugged her when she did her attempted tackle move on me.
“How was the drive?”
I sighed, blowing my hair out of my face. “Long.”
“Hungry?”
“Starving,” I said.
“Let’s eat first then we’ll unload your stuff. I made chili and cornbread muffins.”
“Sounds amazing.” I followed her toward the porch.
“Hey, girlie girl.” Rose stood and hugged me. “So good to see you.”
“You too.”
“I’m just going to pop the muffins back in the oven for a bit to warm up.” Rory opened the front door.
“I’ll get the table set.” Rose followed her.
The door shut, then it was just us.
“Hi.” I smiled. It was difficult to approximate the proper size of a smile to give Fisher. Nothing too exuberant. Nothing too pitiful like I felt bad that he was in a cast and suffering from anxiety … maybe even on the verge of alcoholism as his favorite coping mechanism.
“Welcome home. And congratulations on your new job.”
“Thanks. I hear you’re recovering well.”
He grunted a laugh before taking a pull of his beer. “Who told you that?”
“Rory.”
“I’m recovering. Well? Not so sure about that.”
“Where’s Angie?”
“My fiancée?”
On a nervous laugh, I nodded. “Um … yeah.”
He shrugged. “Not sure. I said something to piss her off again. So she left. She’ll return. She always does.”
“Well…” I leaned against the corner pillar of the porch “…you sound like a bundle of joy. I can’t imagine why she’d leave your cheeriness.”
That brought a tiny grin to his face, and he slowly shook his head before scratching the back of his neck. “She’s fine. Really. A beautiful stranger. I was clearly a lucky man.”
“Was? You survived a pretty intense accident on your motorcycle. I’d say you’re still lucky. And you still have a fiancée. What’s the problem? Are you having erectile dysfunction issues? It’s not uncommon after accidents.”
He choked on his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What the fuck? No. Why would you ask me that?”
I took his beer and helped myself to a long swig. A little mixing of saliva.
He raised a single eyebrow.
Yeah, Fisher … I’m not the deer-in-the-headlights girl you don’t remember. I swap saliva. Drink beer. And have sex. Sometimes I even touch myself because it feels “good.”
“I’m a nurse. It’s strictly a medical question. It can be hard on relationships when accidents impair sexual function. And sometimes it’s not a physical disability as much as it’s an emotional issue.”
“My dick works just fine.”
“Maybe you should do something that takes your mind off your situation.”
“What’s my situation?” He grabbed the beer bottle back from me and frowned when he noticed it was empty.
“Your arm is still in a cast. I’m sure your family is still coddling you. And you’re living with a stranger who wants you to get fitted for a tux so she can take your name and have your babies.”
His lips twisted. After a few seconds, he nodded several times. “That’s not entirely inaccurate. So what distraction do you suggest?”
“I could give you some of my crossword puzzles to work on.”
There it was again. That look. The one I missed as a nervous eighteen-year-old girl with an insane crush on the naked fisherman. The one I didn’t miss when we took dinner to his house after he came home from the hospital and I told him about my hobby.
“Why do you keep mentioning puzzles? I’m not sure I even like crossword puzzles.”
“No?” I did his signature head cock. “Huh … I thought I felt a vibe. Must not have.”
“A crossword puzzle vibe?”
“Something like that.” My lips pressed together to conceal my grin.
“Dinner’s ready,” Rory said as she opened the door.
Fisher’s gaze stayed glued to me, just where I liked it. Where it belonged.
“Need help standing?” I pushed off the pillar and held out my hand.
Shaking his head, he leaned forward and stood on his own while mumbling, “I don’t need help getting anything up.”
“Believing you can is half the battle,” I murmured back to him as I headed into the house.
It was just a whisper, but I felt pretty certain he said, “Smart ass,” as he followed me into the house.
“Let’s get your stuff unloaded,” Rose suggested right after dinner.
“I don’t have a lot. I sold the big pieces because I knew you wouldn’t have room for them, and I didn’t want to store them.” I headed out to the driveway.
“Fisher, do you want a ride home?” Rory asked as she set the dinner dishes by the sink.
“It’s three blocks. I think I can manage. Besides, I should help unload Reese’s things from the trailer.”
“No.” I turned just as I stepped outside. “Your arm is in a cast.”
“So?”
“So we’ve got it.”
“I have one good arm.” He stepped outside, forcing me to take a step backward.
“Save it. We’ve got this. You know my arms are freakishly long.” I said it, and I couldn’t unsay it. For a second, I let myself forget that Fisher didn’t remember me or anything about me.
“They are?”
I nodded slowly before turning and making quick strides to the trailer. “That’s what some jerk told me once.” Opening the trailer, I grabbed one box while Rose took another box.
Fisher grabbed a box too and wedged it between his arm and chest, following us into the house, into my bedroom.
Rose set her box down and headed back outside. I set my box on the bed and started to brush past Fisher as he set his box next to mine.
“Was I the some jerk?”
I stopped in the doorway with my back to him. After a few seconds to figure out an honest answer, I glanced over my shoulder. “You were my favorite jerk.” I shot him an exaggerated smile, using fake humor to hide the depths of my emotions. “But yes … you made fun of my long arms.” Without waiting for his response, I strode outside again.
Rory joined us, and the four of us had everything unloaded in less than ten minutes.
“Thank you, Fisher.” Rory thanked him before I got the chance to do it. “You sure you don’t want a ride?”
“No ride. Thanks for dinner.”
“Night, Fish,” Rose called from the kitchen as she started washing dishes.
“I’m going to lock the trailer and my car,” I said to Rory as I followed Fisher out the door.
“Okay.”
We said nothing while strolling down the driveway. I veered off to the left to lock the
trailer.
Fisher stopped, sliding his good hand into his back jeans pocket. “I don’t really think I’m going to care for them, but if you want to drop off some puzzles … just…” he shrugged “…whenever. I’ll give them a try. No rush. It’s really … no big deal.”
I locked the trailer and leaned my back against it, crossing my arms over my chest. “Okay. I’ll drop some off tomorrow.”
“There’s no rush.” He tried so hard to be nonchalant with me.
“Okay.” I nodded several times. “So … I’ll drop them off tomorrow.”
He fought his grin, but it won.
I won.
“I guess tomorrow is fine.”
I didn’t know who Angie got when they were together. I didn’t know the anxiety ridden Fisher my mom had told me about.
My Fisher was still in his skin. Too cool for his own good.
A streak of crudeness.
And a little extra.
“I was uh…” he tipped his chin to his chest “…looking through pictures on my phone. And I came across some of you and one of us. We were in the mountains. Your hair was longer. But other than that, you looked the same. Do you remember that?” Fisher forced his gaze up to meet mine. Confusion ate into his face along his brow and at the corners of his eyes.
I smiled. “Yes. My memory is fine.”
“And … what were we doing? Was Rory there too? She wasn’t in any of the pictures.”
“No. It was just us. Rory was in California for work. I had never been in the mountains, and I really wanted to go. But both you and Rory had a little fit over me driving there by myself. So you took me. On your motorcycle. We stopped at that lookout point and snapped a few pictures. Then we ate pizza at Beau Jo’s pizza on our way home. It …”
My grin swelled. “It was a good day. A great day, really. My first time in the Rockies. My first time on the back of a motorcycle. My first time dipping thick wheat pizza crust in honey.”
He nodded slowly. “So we did stuff outside of work?”
“Sometimes. We went on a double … well … triple date once. Arnie invited me to one of his concerts. You and Angie were there, and my friend and her boyfriend joined us as well. I was underage; therefore, I was the DD that night.”
“Huh …” He inched his head side to side. “It’s so weird. Like Angie showing me a million photos and videos from our time together, and nothing is familiar. I don’t remember the trip to the mountains or the concert.”
On an easy smile, I stood straight and uncrossed my arms. “Well, I remember for the both of us.”
“You don’t appear bothered that I don’t remember. Angie seems on the edge of going nuclear after we’ve spent hours trying to jog my memory with the photos and videos.”
I nodded slowly. “I think love—the good kind—holds an equal mix of wonder and familiarity. That feeling like you know someone, yet you also know parts of them are still a mystery that you can’t wait to slowly discover. If there’s no wonder, I think the love can die. If there’s no familiarity, I think the love already feels dead. If I were the one marrying you, I would be bothered more than I am. But you chose her.”
Oh … my … sweet … lord …
That was not the right choice of words. And as much as I hoped and prayed Fisher would let my word choice slip by without a second thought, it didn’t happen.
“I chose her?”
FUCK!
Yes, I adopted that word into my vocabulary, like a favorite tool in a toolbox that I used only on a need-to basis.
“Gosh…” I twisted my lips and rolled my eyes dramatically “…that sounded really weird, didn’t it?” For good measure, I threw in an awkward laugh. “I’m so freaking tired from long days of driving. I meant proposed.” I shook my head. “Yeah, that’s what I meant. You proposed to her. Just her. Not like you had a choice between her and someone else. At least … not that I know of. And definitely not me, of course, because until your accident, I hadn’t seen you in five years. Gah …” I covered my face with my hands. “Please just tell me to shut up.”
He smirked just like the Fisher I knew five years earlier. Like the Fisher who didn’t choose me. The Fisher who was finally willing to take my virginity with the understanding that my husband (not him) would thank him someday.
“I find your rambling too entertaining to tell you to shut up.”
“Go home and find your fiancée entertaining.”
Something between a grunt and laugh left this chest. “I’ll do my best.”
“Night, Fisher. Thanks for your help.”
He turned and headed down the sidewalk. “Anytime.”
Chapter Seven
I played it cool the next day for a full three hours after waking before I walked the crossword puzzles over to Fisher’s house. Rory and Rose were at work, and I didn’t start my job until the following week, so no one was keeping tabs on me.
I knocked on the door several times.
No answer.
I rang the doorbell.
No answer.
As I gave up and started to retreat down the sidewalk, Fisher opened the door.
Just my luck …
He was wet and holding a towel around his waist. The past replayed itself. I liked the idea of a redo with Fisher.
“I’m running late, babe!” Angie appeared in the doorway in a pantsuit and her handbag dangling from one arm. She lifted onto her toes and kissed him on the lips. He kissed her back.
It wasn’t a long kiss, but it wasn’t one sided either.
“Morning, Reese. Can’t stay and chat. Byeee!” She waved to me with her left hand, big diamond, and manicured nails, just before hopping into her car.
I mumbled a barely audible “hi” and turned my attention to the resurrected naked fisherman. As I made my way to the front porch, he watched Angie back out of the driveway before shifting his attention to me.
“Good morning.”
My gaze struggled to stay on his face.
“Not pretty, huh?” he said.
I shook my head as if I hadn’t been staring at his road rash that was healing fairly well. “You’re alive. I think the prettiness of your skin should be an afterthought.”
He retreated into the house, leaving the door open—which I took as an invitation to go inside.
“Angie seemed in a good mood. You must have done something right for once.”
He continued down the hallway toward his (their) bedroom. “Apparently she just needed to get laid. Had I known, I could have obliged her sooner.” He shut the door behind him.
That was a pretty hard hit. It took a good pep talk to get my emotions in check before he reemerged from the bedroom.
He proposed to her.
She said yes.
Even if he didn’t remember her, it didn’t mean they couldn’t have sex. Sex didn’t have to involve emotions. Men paid for sex with prostitutes—not that Angie was a prostitute or Fisher was the kind of guy who would pay for sex. I needed a way to wrap my brain around it before the disappointment sent me spiraling out of control.
I took a seat at the island in the kitchen. A few minutes later, he came into the room in jeans and a white tee. Hair still wet. “My dick works, Nurse Capshaw. In case you’re still concerned.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and dropped two slices of bread into the toaster.
My breakfast was a mini vomit in my mouth that I swallowed back down. “Still so crude.”
“Crude?” He turned and leaned his butt against the counter, sipping his coffee. “Was I crude to you?”
Did he want the truth?
“Had my mom not been living in your basement, I’m pretty sure I could have won a sexual harassment lawsuit against you and your crudeness.” I might have been feeling a bit feral and defensive after confirmation that he screwed Angie the previous night.
How dare he have sex with his fiancée. (Internal eye roll at myself).
“Are you…” he squinted at me “…serious? I was inappropri
ate with you?”
Wow! It seemed to really bother him.
I gave my answer some thought. Of course, my knee-jerk response would have been, “You zip-tied me to a stool and ate me out.” That response gave away too much information. I wasn’t actively trying to break up his engagement. Not consciously, anyway.
“You had a gift for making me blush. That’s all.”
He kept his mouth hidden behind his coffee mug. Was he grinning?
“Do tell. What kinds of things did I do to make you blush?”
“I …” I laughed. “I’m not going to tell you. I’m sure most of it was because I was young. I’d spent the previous three years in a Christian academy, and Rory was gone, so I think you were bored. Embarrassing me became your favorite pastime.”
After another sip of his coffee, he set his mug on the counter. “Well, I’m sorry.” He seemed serious.
The long moment of silence conveyed a level of genuineness. Then a case of untimely giggles hit me. I just … started laughing, and I couldn’t stop.
Even with my hand cupped at my mouth, my laughter continued. “I’m … I’m sorry. I just don’t believe you.”
“What don’t you believe?”
“That …” I took a deep breath to control my laughter. “That you’re sorry. You told me your dick still works.”
“Only because yesterday you asked me if it worked.”
“As a nurse. I asked you in a professional way.”
“But you’re not my nurse, so it made you look like my friend’s daughter simply asking about my dick.” He retrieved the butter from the fridge.
“No peanut butter? You can’t possibly be out of peanut butter.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that. Everyone tells me I love peanut butter. Rory made peanut butter cookies. I mean, it’s all right, but I don’t feel a big love for it.”
“I hate it.”
“Really? That’s interesting. I don’t know what I hate. Or I don’t remember what I hate. It’s weird how some things are clear and other things just don’t exist. Not like I don’t remember them well, it’s that they are not there at all.”
I nodded. “The brain is a mysterious place. For everything we do know about it, there seems to be so much we still don’t know and may never fully understand. Don’t stress over it.”