by Jewel E. Ann
“Why?”
“Because I’m not.”
“I think it’s irresponsible to not at least have a plan.”
Fisher was hard and standoffish. That was why. The last thing he wanted was another pregnancy scare when he wasn’t ready to be a father or get married.
But things changed …
Rory and Reese said as much when they said Angie and Fisher had discussed kids. Three kids.
“It’s interesting that Angie told you everything about your past together, but not this.”
His head eased side to side. “I think it was too tragic for her. She got pretty emotional when I told her about my memory.”
After a long moment, I crossed the kitchen and wrapped my arms around him, resting my cheek against his chest so I could hear his heart. I never thought about Fisher’s memories coming back in tiny pieces. And I didn’t think about those tiny pieces cutting so deeply.
“I invited her over for dinner that night to tell her we needed to cancel the wedding.”
My gaze shot up to his as I released him. “What? Are you … are you serious?”
He frowned. “Then the memory came back. Then she started crying. And I couldn’t add more to her that night. So it turned into a total disaster because she had me backed into a corner. And while her eyes were still puffy, she asked me to go to her cousin’s wedding with her.”
I took another step backward.
“And she started crying again thinking about how her mom wouldn’t be there. So I told her I’d go with her.”
“Okay …” I drew out the word with caution. “So you go to a wedding with her. No big deal.”
“It’s in Costa Rica.”
Not okay. That was not okay.
“We’ll be gone for four days. It will be fine. Maybe it will be a good chance for me to really talk with her, express my feelings or lack thereof for her.”
It sounded logical coming from him. He presented it like it really wasn’t a big deal. But it felt like my bachelor was taking another woman to the fantasy suite instead of me. And they were just going to “talk.”
“Tell me you’re okay with this.”
I backed up another few steps and shook my head. “I’m just really tired. I don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to feel anything right now.”
“Reese …” He set his beer bottle on the counter and followed me to the back door.
“I’m going to crash. I’m over twenty-four hours with no sleep.”
“Then crash here.”
“It’s not a good idea.” I shoved my feet into my shoes and opened the door.
Fisher pressed his hand above my head to the door and shut it on me. “It’s the best idea I’ve ever had.”
I turned and shoved his chest.
He lifted an eyebrow and smirked. “You can shove me as much as you want, but it still doesn’t change what I want.”
I coughed a laugh. “What you want? What you want? What about what I—”
In a blink he was all over me.
Lips.
Tongue.
Hands.
A fisherman tornado.
My jacket … his hoodie … gone.
Three steps toward the hallway … shirts discarded.
Several more steps … the tie to my scrubs yanked undone while I made haste with the button and zipper to his jeans.
Several feet from the bedroom door, he pushed my back to the wall and kissed down my neck while shoving the straps of my bra down my arms, exposing my breasts.
“Fisher …” My fingers dove into his hair as he licked, sucked, and bit my nipples.
“Hello. Hello. Hello …”
Rory.
We froze, but there was no time to run or hide. No time to gather the trail of clothes from the door to our exact spot, which happened to be in plain sight of Rory and her unnaturally wide-eyed expression, hand cupped over her mouth.
I closed my eyes and cringed.
Fisher stood tall and buttoned and zipped his jeans before taking my shoulders and guiding me toward the bedroom and shutting me inside.
I fixed my bra and pressed my ear to the door, but it was hard to hear past my rapid breathing.
“Rory … ever heard of knocking?”
“What in GOD’S NAME is going on?”
I flinched. I couldn’t remember a time in my entire life when I heard my mom’s voice sound that angry.
“I love her.”
Dead. Fisher just slayed me. Lassoed my heart. And locked it up in his castle where it will take an army or an act of God to steal it from him.
“That is not an answer! That is my daughter. What the fuck are you doing with my daughter? She is ten years younger than you … and YOU ARE ENGAGED!”
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds.
Then Fisher spoke. Calm. Controlled. Matter-of-fact.
“I love her.”
Tears burned my eyes, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I opened the door.
“Stay in the bedroom, Reese,” Fisher said with his back to me as Rory stared me down.
My hero. Protecting me. Loving me …
Tying my scrub pants, I slowly shuffled my feet down the hallway.
Rory’s jaw clenched, readying for whatever she might have thought I was about to say.
Plead my case?
Apologize?
Beg for forgiveness?
None of the above. I came out of the bedroom for one reason and one reason only. Turning to face Fisher, I blinked and the tears fell in heavy streams as I lifted onto my toes, pressed my palms to his face, and whispered, “I love you, my lost fisherman,” before kissing him.
Soft and slow.
No regard for Rory and her audible gasp.
When the kiss ended, he smiled and wiped my cheeks, looking at me so adoringly like Rory wasn’t there. Like we were in our bubble.
Then I turned and gathered my shirt and jacket, slipping them on as I made my way to the garage door where I shoved my feet back into my shoes. “Let’s go home, Mom.”
Mom.
I rarely, if ever, called her that, but that day I was leaving Fisher’s house with a full heart, going home to tell my mom everything.
It was one thing to hear someone tell you they love you. It was something entirely different, infinitely more special to hear them say the words to someone else like it was a three-word explanation for their existence.
I love her.
I was the luckiest her in the world.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I made it home a few minutes before Rory. She might have stayed to give Fisher a few more pieces of her mind.
“Hey, you look exhausted,” Rose said as she glanced up from her computer at the kitchen table. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Have you been crying?”
I nodded, setting my bag on the floor by the hallway. “Rory will be here any minute. I need to talk with her alone. Can you work at a cafe or the library for a while?”
Rose kept her concerned expression for a few seconds before nodding. “Is it time?”
Feeling another round of tears, I simply nodded. “Past time,” I managed to eke out.
“She knows.”
I nodded.
Rose stood and closed her computer. “Oh boy … it’s going to be a rough weekend.” She slipped her computer in her messenger bag and hiked it onto her shoulder just as Rory entered the house.
They made eye contact. And it was like Rose coffered her part with one look.
Rory slowly shook her head and grimaced. “Un-fucking-believable.”
Rose stopped before going out the back door. “Remember forbidden love?” She leaned over to kiss Rory’s cheek, but Rory pulled away.
She wouldn’t make eye contact with Rose, let alone acknowledge her comment. Rose nodded several times in acceptance as she bowed her head and headed out the door, gently closing it behind her.
“What have you done?” Rory whispered.
“I moved to
Colorado to reunite with my mother after she got out of prison. Then she left me for a month. She left me alone in a new state, in a house with a stranger, and with complete trust in said stranger to watch out for me. And I did what you asked me to do. I trusted him. And then I fell in love with him.”
Rory slowly lifted her gaze, a map of confusion distorting her pretty face. “W-when …” It was like I’d knocked the air out of her lungs for a second time. “When did this start? Did this start then? Has this been going on for years?” She started to get worked up again.
“We haven’t been together for years. So, no. It hasn’t been going on for years. It wasn’t the right time for us then. So I left. I pursued my dreams. And I let him go. I never imagined coming back here to him this way. Him not remembering me, not remembering us. And I never imagined the side note to the tragedy would be him having a fiancée who he also doesn’t remember.”
“Jesus … Reese … were you … were the two of you …”
I shook my head. “Don’t. Don’t ask that. The answer isn’t so black and white. And the truth that you don’t want to hear is that whatever we did, we did as two consenting adults. He didn’t take advantage of me.”
She wiped her eyes before her tears fell. “Did he h-hurt you?”
I gave her a sad smile. “No. Well, just my heart. He hurt my heart, but only because I was too young and stupid to guard it a little better.”
“When did you tell him?” She made her way to the kitchen table and eased into a chair as I remained propped up against the wall by the fridge.
“Tell him what?”
“Well, he didn’t remember you. So when did you tell him about the two of you? About whatever went on between the two of you five years ago.”
On a tiny head shake, I murmured, “I haven’t told him.”
Rory squinted. “You haven’t told him anything?”
I shrugged. “I told him that I lived with you in his basement for a while. I told him I worked for him. I told him we were friends. When you were in California, we went to one of Arnie’s concerts. I met up with a friend from school and her boyfriend. Fisher went and took Angie because she was in town and his family insisted he take her to the concert. A triple date of sorts.”
“Who was your date?”
“Arnie.”
“Were you and Arnie also—”
“No.” I chuckled. “It was a front because Fisher and I couldn’t tell anyone because we knew nobody would understand or approve, least of all you.”
Rory started to say something, then she clamped her mouth shut. She knew I was right. She threatened something along the lines of castration if Fisher so much as looked at me the wrong way.
“And Rose?”
“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you look at it. She walked in and saw Fisher and I close. Maybe kissing. I honestly don’t remember. She gave me a huge lecture and told me to end it. And we agreed it would be best not to tell you … especially if there was no longer anything to tell. Unfortunately, she’s been caught in the middle yet again. And for that, I truly am sorry. I don’t want what’s happened between Fisher and me to affect your relationship.”
Rory ran her hands through her hair and blew out a long breath. “Reese … Fisher fell back in love with Angie during those five years you were gone. And they got engaged. Yes, he had an accident and has temporarily lost his memories of her, but that doesn’t mean he won’t get them back. And when he remembers her, I don’t know what it will mean for you.”
It was like she hadn’t just heard Fisher profess his love for me.
I love her.
He didn’t say, “I love her too,” like he loved Angie and me equally. No, he loved me.
But he was going to Costa Rica with Angie.
“He does remember her. He remembers her twenty-first birthday party. He remembers her telling him she was pregnant.”
Rory’s head jerked backward.
“And he remembers buying a ring to propose to her two weeks later. But she miscarried the baby. And he didn’t propose because he didn’t really want to marry her.”
And he didn’t want to have a baby with me and marry me five years ago either.
My mind did a spectacular job of building my hopes up … Fisher Mann, King of my Heart. Then it just as quickly tossed a grenade of doubt on everything.
Poof! Gone.
And once again, I was left in a rubble of confusion.
“He told you that?”
I nodded.
“And Angie knows he remembered that?”
Another nod.
“That must have dug up some painful memories for her as well.”
Yes, Angie had been dealt a few bad hands in her life. She lost a baby and lost her parents. Her fiancé was in an accident and couldn’t remember her. Did that have to mean that she deserved Fisher more than I did?
“And the night he remembered that, Angie was having dinner with him, and he was going to tell her that the wedding’s off.”
Rory frowned. “He didn’t …”
I rolled my eyes. “No. He didn’t because she was too emotional. But he was going to, which means he will when the time is right.”
“Rose said Fisher and Angie are going to her cousin’s wedding in Costa Rica.”
Averting my gaze for a few seconds, I nodded. “He told me that too.”
“And you’re okay with the guy you supposedly love going to Costa Rica for a week with the woman he agreed to marry? You realize they’ll be staying at a hotel in the same room, probably with one bed, right?”
“I don’t know what the sleeping arrangements will be, but I trust Fisher.”
She didn’t have to tell me that. I hadn’t let my brain go there yet. Now it was there.
He could sleep in the same bed as her without having sex. They’d done it before, except for that one time they did have sex.
She bounced out the door that day, skipping on clouds and sliding down rainbows. And he kissed her back. It wasn’t a one-sided peck. He kissed her back.
Because he enjoyed the kiss.
Because he probably enjoyed the sex.
Of course he enjoyed the sex! It was sex!
My mind lurched into action, a malfunctioning amusement park ride, flinging riders into the air plummeting to their deaths.
“If you trust Fisher, why is he still engaged to Angie? Is he stringing her along? Stringing you along? Having his cake and eating it too?”
“I think if anyone is to blame for this situation, it’s me and Angie. We know the details, even if we’ve chosen to not share all of them with him. We know he essentially met us for—in his mind—the first time just months ago. So for either one of us to play the victim here, it’s laughable. You and I cringe at what I’m doing because we see the big picture. I’m involved with an engaged man who’s been ‘in love’ with his fiancée for nearly thirty years. That sounds terrible. And if or when Angie finds out, she’ll play the devastated fiancée role, and everyone will feel sorry for her.
“But in Fisher’s mind, it’s not like that. In his mind, he met us both a few months ago, and he fell in love with me. And everyone told him he was in love with Angie. It would be like me grabbing some stranger off the street, bringing them here, and telling you that you love them … now act accordingly. Is that all it takes? Would you just embrace that stranger? Love them? What if I said you love this person more than Rose? Would you fall in line? Would you trust me and just … love this stranger? Commit to forever with this stranger because I said, ‘Trust me. You love her.’ No. You wouldn’t because it sounds utterly preposterous because it is utterly preposterous! And the fact that Fisher has fallen in love with me twice, all on his own, without any recollection of our past or anyone telling him he should love me … that means something. No—” I shook my head. “That means everything.”
Rory nodded several times, lines of deep thought trenched into her forehead. “It’s a good speech, Reese. Very pers
uasive. But it doesn’t change reality. Fisher isn’t with you. To ninety-nine percent of the world, he’s with Angie. Engaged to Angie. Childhood sweethearts who are destined to be together. And he hasn’t done anything to change that. Why is that? Is it because he hasn’t really made his decision?”
“No. It’s because he does remember his family. He does remember his friends Rory and Rose. And that does mean something to him. It means he trusts all of you. So when you tell him how much he loved Angie, it makes him question himself. It makes him fearful of what might come from his memories if he does get them back. And he’s not a monster, despite what you might think now. Even if he doesn’t remember his life with Angie, he accepts that it happened and that it meant a lot to a lot of people, maybe even him. Clearly him too since he agreed to marry her. So it’s not about stringing anyone along. He’s not having his cake and eating it too.
“This isn’t some party or game for him. He’s simply in love with me. He wants to be with me because that’s what his heart tells him. But his brain won’t let him be anything but beholden to his past until he gets his memory back or at least enough of his memories to properly explain to Angie and everyone else why he doesn’t love her the way he loves me. And it’s cruel for anyone to judge him for living in real time, for having feelings in real time.
“He could have been injured worse. He could have been confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and nobody would have told him to just get his ass up out of the chair and pretend to walk simply because he used to be able to do it. It would make all of us feel better if he would just be the exact same person he used to be. We have to accept that his mind and his heart may never feel or love the same way as before the accident.”
There. I drew my own sword and fought for Fisher the way he did for me. Only I had to use way more than three words, and I still wasn’t sure Rory was ready to surrender.
“Why doesn’t he tell Angie?”
“Because she will be devastated. He’s getting pieces of his memory back. And if I were to take a guess, I think he wants to end it with her, having some true recollection of how he felt about her. I think he needs to feel a little emotional pain too.” My voice broke and tears burned my eyes. I was living in real time, not only convincing Rory of everything, but also convincing myself. “I’d imagine it’s like losing someone and having no body, not true proof of death, but having a funeral anyway. There’s not the same kind of closure. I think Fisher doesn’t merely want to end things; I think he wants closure.”