“Thank God you’re all right—but a mild TBI? That’s still a concussion, right?”
“Yes. And do not get out of bed, Mom. Do not come to the hospital.”
“But are you sure that you’re...?”
“A little battered and very relieved to be all in one piece. That’s where I am on this. They’re keeping me overnight, but only for observation. It’s nothing serious and I’ll be home with you in the morning.”
After another unhappy silence, Cat promised to stay put. “Your father and your brothers will be there soon,” she said. “Give me the number there in your room.”
Aly rattled it off.
“I love you, Alyssa Siobhan.”
“I love you, Mom.” She said goodbye.
Twenty minutes later, her dad appeared. He kissed her carefully on her forehead and called her Bella, the way he always did. She reassured him that she was doing fine.
Within the next half hour, her four brothers filed in. They surrounded her, a wall of Italian-Irish-American testosterone, their thick, dark eyebrows scrunched up with worry for her. She reassured them that it looked worse than it was and the doctors were only keeping her till tomorrow to be on the safe side.
Her dad announced that he and the boys would be staying at the hospital with her. The nurses brought extra chairs and the men settled in to keep her company. They took turns visiting the cafeteria and the beverage machines in the waiting area for refreshments. Her head was aching a little and she started to feel really tired.
“Go to sleep,” urged her dad, his warm, rough hand gently squeezing her arm. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Dad, really. You guys don’t need to stay.”
He patted her hand. “Just rest. Close your eyes and let it all go...”
She followed his whispered instructions. But before she could drift off, a nurse came in and shooed the men out to take her blood pressure and her temperature, to test her pupil reaction and ask her about her level of pain, which was minimal.
When the nurse left, her dad and her brother Marco returned to sit with her. They talked a little. Marco reported that he’d enjoyed his first year at OU. Her dad reassured her that her mom was safe at home, tucked into bed per doctor’s orders, with her brother Pascal’s wife, Sandy, looking after her.
Aly’s eyes drifted closed again and her father’s deep voice faded to a low drone in the background...
* * *
She woke late in the night, with no idea where she was. Startled, she popped up straight in the strange bed and sent a bewildered glance around the dark room.
She saw her oldest brother, Dante, slumped down asleep in the bedside chair. Something must have happened to her...
She glanced across the room and saw the institutional clock on the wall. There was a bed tray and rollers next to her bed—a hospital bed.
An accident. I’ve been in an accident—haven’t I?
Her knee throbbed dully, her cheeks and forehead burned and she had a mild headache. Every time she took a breath, her chest hurt—from the seat belt, most likely.
She must have made a noise, because as she sagged back to the pillow again, Dante flinched and opened his eyes. “Hey, little sis.” He’d always called her that, even though she was second oldest, after him. “How you feelin’?”
“Everything aches,” she grumbled. “But I’ll live.” Longing flooded her, for the comfort of her husband’s strong arms. She needed him near. He would soothe all her pains and ease her weird, formless fears. “Where’s Connor gotten off to?”
Dante’s mouth fell half-open, as though in bafflement at her question. “Connor?”
He looked so befuddled, she couldn’t help chuckling a little, even though laughing made her chest and ribs hurt. “Yeah. Connor. You know, that guy I married nine years ago—my husband, your brother-in-law?”
Dante sat up. He also continued to gape at her like she was a few screwdrivers short of a full tool kit. “Uh, what’s going on? You think you’re funny?”
“Funny? Because I want my husband?” She bounced back up to a sitting position. “What, exactly, is happening here? I mean it, Dante. Be straight with me. Where’s Connor?”
Now Dante sat very still, as though he feared the slightest movement might set her off, make her do something dangerous.
And she felt dangerous. A scream of fear and longing crawled up her throat. She swallowed it down and demanded, “I want Connor. Go get him and tell him I need him. Now.” Her headache was worse, pounding so hard, a merciless hammer inside her head.
Dante patted the air between them, trying to soothe her, to settle her down. “Aly, you have to—”
“Connor!” She practically shouted. “Get me my husband, Dante. Bring him in here to me. Now.”
“Okay.” Dante leaped to his feet. “Take a deep breath and try to relax. I’ll be right back...” He raced out the door.
She pressed a hand to the sore spot on her head as it throbbed all the harder. “Connor,” she whispered, shutting her eyes, willing him to come to her. Connor, I need you. I need you so much...
A nurse bustled in, Dante close on her heels. “What can I get for you, Alyssa?”
“My husband,” she demanded. “I want you to get my husband in here now.”
Chapter Two
Wednesday morning, just as Connor Bravo was about to leave for work, the doorbell rang.
Connor dropped his briefcase on the floor by the stairs leading down to the garage and went to answer, half expecting it to be Mrs. Garber from next door looking for Maurice. The lean, black cat was always getting out. He would strut around the neighborhood, his skinny tail held high, like he owned every house on Sandpiper Lane—and the people in them, too.
But it wasn’t Mrs. Garber.
“Hello, Connor.” Dante Santangelo, dressed in Valentine Bay PD blues, stuck his fists in his pockets and gave Conner a barely perceptible nod.
“Dante.” What was he doing here? Once, they’d been best friends. But for the past seven years, they’d both taken pains to steer clear of each other.
Alyssa? The name ricocheted in his brain, a boomerang with sharp edges.
Had something happened to her? Just the thought had him widening his stance to keep from staggering where he stood. “What?” he heard himself ask, the single word ragged, overloaded with equal parts fear and regret—fear for whatever could be so bad it had brought her brother to his door again.
And regret for all the ways that he, Connor, had messed up. He’d been a complete ass and he knew it, a selfish kid who’d screwed up his marriage to the most amazing woman in the world—and then refused to even try to fix what he’d broken.
How many times had he wished he could have another shot?
Too many.
But he didn’t deserve another shot. He’d thrown away what he wanted most. And when he’d finally admitted to himself what an idiot he’d been, it was a long way past too late.
The hard fact was that the best thing he could do for Aly was to leave her the hell alone, let her live the life she loved in New York City and find a better guy than him.
Dante’s expression gave him nothing. “We need to talk.”
His heart in his throat and his gut twisted into a double knot, Connor stepped back and gestured his ex-best friend inside.
Dante refused Connor’s stilted offer of coffee. In the living room, Aly’s brother stood by the slate fireplace and flatly recited the scary facts. “Four days ago, driving home from Portland International, reportedly in an effort to avoid an oncoming car, Aly swerved and ran into a tree. She wasn’t speeding, but she was going fast enough that her rental car was totaled.”
Connor’s heart, still stuck in his throat, seemed to have turned to a block of solid ice. “What are you telling me? My God, is she...?”
“She’s
alive, but she’s pretty banged up. And she had a concussion. She was knocked unconscious, though not for that long.”
Connor’s heart slid down into his chest again and recommenced beating—too fast. “So then, you’re saying she’s okay?”
“Not exactly...”
Connor shoved his hands in his own pockets to keep from grabbing Dante and shaking more information from him—or worse, punching him a few times until he finally explained what had happened to Aly. “Is she okay or not?”
“At first, we thought she was going to be fine.”
“But...?”
“She woke up before dawn the morning after the wreck, and asked for you.”
For a split second, he was the happiest man on the planet—until reality hit him. “She hates me. Why would she ask for me?”
Dante looked at him kind of warily. “Look, man. Maybe you ought to sit down, you know?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Suit yourself. It’s, well, it’s some kind of weird amnesia.”
“What? Wait. Amnesia? What are you telling me? You’re making no sense.”
Dante glared. “I’m trying. But you need to shut up long enough for me to explain.”
Connor winced. “Sorry.” He forked his fingers back through his hair. “I’ll keep my mouth shut. Go on.”
Dante eyed him with skepticism, but then laid it right out there. “My sister is firmly convinced that the two of you are still married.”
Still married. Him and Aly? “That’s crazy.”
“Now you’re getting the picture.” Dante’s expression was bleak. “We’ve tried everything—arguing, reasoning, begging, pacifying. Nothing seems to get her past it. She will not accept that you two have been divorced for years.”
“But...her doctors, they must have some idea of what to do, how to handle this.”
“They’ve tried. There have been CT scans and MRIs, long visits with a therapist—and with Father Francis, too.”
Father Francis. The name brought back memories. Of the little Catholic church on Ocean Road where all the Santangelos had been baptized. Of Aly, a vision in white, coming down the aisle to him. Their wedding had been small, just the families, and put together quickly because they wanted to be married more than they’d wanted all the trappings of a big ceremony and a fancy reception. Father Francis had led them through their wedding vows.
Dante continued, “The brain imaging tests revealed nothing out of the normal range. Father Francis keeps reminding us that God will find a way. The doctors predict that over time she will remember she’s not married anymore and hasn’t been for years. Her real life will come back to her.”
“But...what about right now? How is she now?”
“She’s suffering.” Dante’s dark eyes accused him. “She keeps demanding to see you. At first, she cried and carried on, refusing to listen when we told her that you’d divorced her years ago. Now, she just quietly insists that she doesn’t believe us and she needs to talk to you. We’re kind of out of options at this point. And she’s only getting calmer—and at the same time, more scarily insistent. She says that if you won’t come to her, she’ll hunt you down and demand to know what’s going on, why you’ve suddenly deserted her.”
Connor swore low and sank to the fireplace seat.
Dante went on, “It got worse this morning. She’s started to think that something bad must have happened to you. She’s staying at my folks’ house. Mom called me a half an hour ago to tell me that at breakfast Aly called Dad a liar right to his face. About broke the old man’s heart. I mean, she is his favorite. She told Dad she needed him to tell her why we were all keeping the awful truth from her. My mother’s pregnant, on bed rest. She doesn’t need the extra stress of worrying that Aly’s going to climb out a window and run off in search of you.”
“Of course not.” Connor had always liked Aly’s mom. “Cat’s having another baby?” She had to be almost fifty.
Dante sneered at him. “Didn’t I just say that?”
Connor put up a hand. “Can you dial back the hostility a notch or two, maybe? It’s not helping.”
“Yeah, well. Let’s just be honest here. I don’t trust you. You bring out the worst in me.”
“What do you want me to do, Dante?”
Aly’s brother shook his head. “I hate it. I don’t want you anywhere near her. But she really needs to see you. She needs to hear the truth from you.”
“No problem.” He’d deserted her once. This time, he would be there when she needed him. “I’ll go to her. You said she’s at your parents’ house?”
“Yeah. They discharged her from Memorial day before yesterday.”
“I’ll go over to your folks’ house right now.” He stood.
“You’ll talk to her new shrink first,” growled Dante. “And you’ll do what the doctor tells you to do.”
Connor put up both hands in complete surrender. “However it has to be, I’m in. Where do I go to see the psychiatrist?”
“You don’t go anywhere. I’ll drive you there.”
“Why?”
“The family won’t have you taking this over, trying to run this show. You’re not her husband anymore. You’ve got no claim on her and if you want to help, you’ll do it our way.”
A spike of adrenaline had Connor on the verge of saying something he would almost certainly regret. But he wasn’t the same hotheaded, self-centered kid he’d been when he’d ruined his marriage to Aly. This wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about Dante. It wasn’t about their lifelong friendship that had been tested more than once and ended up turning into something hard and dark and ready to explode.
This was about Aly. Connor would remember that. “Fine. I’ll ride with you.” He took his cell from his pocket. “Let me just call Daniel.” The oldest of Connor’s siblings, Daniel ran the family company, Valentine Logging. Connor was CFO.
Dante eyed him with furious suspicion. “We don’t need the family business on the street. What’s your brother got to do with this?”
“For God’s sake, chill. I need to let Daniel know I won’t be in today.”
* * *
Dr. Serena Warbury had her office in Valentine Bay’s downtown historic district. She’d taken a room on the second floor of a rambling two-story Craftsman-style house repurposed for professional use. Connor and Dante sat in the downstairs waiting room until Dr. Warbury was ready for them.
Dante didn’t even try to make conversation. He sat with his elbows on the chair arms, fingers laced together between them, and never once even glanced in Connor’s direction.
Connor thumbed through a dog-eared Sports Illustrated. When that got old, he stared out the window and tried not to worry too much about Aly. Eventually, the therapist came down the stairs and led them up to the second floor.
Right off, Connor liked Dr. Warbury. She was smart and direct. It took her no time at all to figure out that Dante’s hostility toward his ex-brother-in-law wouldn’t help the situation. She sent Dante back downstairs to wait. He wasn’t happy about it, but he went.
Connor refused a cup of herbal tea. He took a chair by a window with a partial view of the Pacific a few blocks away. The therapist repeated what Dante had already told him about Aly’s condition and how it would most likely fade over time on its own.
She went on to explain, “Right now, we want her to take it easy. That’s unlikely to happen until we can reduce the anguish and confusion she’s suffering, with her brain telling her one thing and everyone else insisting otherwise. She needs a lot of rest and as little excitement and stress as possible.”
“I get all that. But what can I do?”
“To help her, you will have to be patient and kind—and honest, too. The whole point is to reassure Alyssa that everything will work out, while at the same time never giving her any less than the truth. You can�
��t ‘humor’ her or go along when she insists something’s true that isn’t. You have to be frank. You are divorced and have been for several years. If she tries to insist otherwise, you must quietly and firmly tell her that’s not true.”
“No lies. I can do that.”
“And you mustn’t indulge your own emotions, either. You have to be calm and steady. Let her lead the conversation. And no matter what she says, you must not become defensive or angry. This is not about you, not an opportunity for you to justify your past actions, whatever they might have been. I’m not privy to the details of your divorce, but I understand from what members of her family have said that it was not amicable.”
“They’re right. I was a dick, okay?”
“Well.” Dr. Warbury seemed to be hiding a smile. “Don’t be overly hard on yourself, either.”
“I get it. I honestly do.”
“If you’re going to become upset, you will upset Alyssa.”
“I won’t upset her,” he vowed, and wondered at himself to promise such a thing. Anything could happen. She might take one look at him and realize he really just pissed her the hell off, no matter how bland and even-tempered he managed to be.
Dr. Warbury smoothed her yellow skirt. “I believe it could be helpful to her, to see you and reassure herself that you are all right, to hear it from you that you two are divorced. But if you don’t think you can keep control of your emotions, please say so now and I will recommend to you and to her family that you stay away.”
By then, he was seriously considering backing out. If seeing him ended up only making it worse for her, he would never forgive himself.
But at the same time, he really wanted to help—and he needed to see her, to find out for himself just how bad off she was, to do whatever he could to make things more bearable for her. She’d always been so strong and focused, so totally in charge of herself and her life. It must be killing her to have her own mind betraying her, to have everyone telling her that reality was not as she believed it to be.
A Husband She Couldn't Forget Page 2