Loving Lies

by Linda Kage

  Jonah did not want that shot. Managing to wiggle his arm that was bound up in a cast free from its captor, he slapped the syringe away. As it flew across the room, pretty much every person holding him down groaned and cursed.

  They recaptured his arm, using so much force this time the pain actually paralyzed him. His mouth opened in a silent scream as another needle was filled.

  When someone else filled the doorway, he jerked his attention that way, to tell whoever it was to fuck off. He didn’t have another body part left for a new tormentor to restrain anyway. But when he saw who had arrived, the fight instantly drained out of him.

  It must’ve startled his captors into thinking they’d killed him or something because as soon as his body went limp, about fifty hands jerked off him as if refusing to take culpability for his death.

  Sinking deeper into the bed with his newfound freedom, he stared at the redhead frozen, petrified in the doorway, her blue eyes wide with shock as she gaped at him over the hands she held against her mouth.

  “You came back,” he croaked, his voice so hoarse it barely cleared the air. Then a sob seized him, and it didn’t matter how much he blinked, he couldn’t see her through all the wetness clouding his vision. But he knew she was there.

  She was here. Nothing else mattered. He needed her to draw him back away from all the fear.

  He mopped at his face with trembling fingers. “You came back.”

  She dropped her hands and took a hesitant step forward. “Of course I came back.” Her gaze skipped to the nurse with the half-filled syringe. “What’s going on?”

  The nurse’s lips pinched thin with disapproval. “Who’re you? Are you family?”

  “Yes,” Jonah rasped before Tess could answer. His hand trembled as he reached for her. “Yes. She’s family.”

  As if sensing his need, she rushed the last few feet and gripped his fingers. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, was even too afraid to blink for fear she’d disappear if he closed his lashes for even half a second. She was like his angel, showing up just in time to save him from the very brink of despair.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, worry lining her beautiful eyes. “What happened?”

  “I just wanted to walk,” he confessed. And, damn it, his eyes were no longer just moist. Now they were streaming, and his burning hot cheeks were flooded.

  “He’s not allowed to try that yet until his physical therapist comes in on Wednesday,” Needle Nurse announced haughtily while the others in the room made a mass exodus for the door.

  Tess wiped his tears away with her bare fingers before she glanced at the nurse. “What do you mean try? Isn’t he capable of walking?”

  Jonah glanced at the nurse, wondering that himself. He’d never come right out and asked because he’d been afraid of hearing the answer. And his orderlies had never been very forthcoming with updates because he wasn’t the most model patient.

  In his opinion, the woman still wasn’t being very helpful when she answered, “The bullet that hit his thigh broke his right femur. And since it took so long for a medical team to get into the area after the shooting, and then transport him to a hospital, and then work on his more life-threatening injuries first, it didn’t get set properly. He has two pins holding it together.”

  Jesus Christ. Did that mean he was going to be able to walk or not?

  “Dear God.” Tess turned back to him, and damn, it looked like she was going to cry any second too. A heavy ache bloomed in his chest as she tightened her grip on his hand—which helped keep him from having a panic attack—only to frown and lift their bound fingers with a gasp. “He’s bleeding.”

  The nurse glanced over and grumbled something under her breath. “He must’ve jerked his IV free when he was fighting us.” Sniffing with disdain, she sent Jonah a dirty look. “Are you going to behave and let us patch that up?”

  “Wow,” Tess said, not sounding impressed in the least as she raised her eyebrows at the bitchy nurse. “Really? Don’t you think you could give him a little leeway here and not treat him like a criminal? I mean, he’s only been awake from his coma for a few days, has no idea what his own name is or who his friends are, has three bullet holes in his body, and now he doesn’t know if he’ll walk again. I’m sorry, but excuse us if he isn’t the cheerful ball of optimism you think he should be.”

  Though his face was still wet from bawling, Jonah felt like laughing. As sweet and passive as she’d been yesterday, he never would’ve thought this blue-eyed, redheaded angel would have the backbone in her to get so defensive on his behalf. But there she stood, defending him like a pro.

  So very glad she’d come back, he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it gratefully. He might not know the first thing about her, but he was going to cherish every second of her company.

  Chapter Six

  TESS WAS PLEASED when Jonah’s nurse transferred her glare from him to her. He didn’t need to be glared and bickered at right now. He just needed a little tender loving care, proof taken from the way he kissed her hand in thanks, stirring a warm tingle inside her.

  The nurse narrowed her eyes ominously before muttering, “I’ll be right back with the supplies,” before she spun away and stalked from the room.

  Tess waited until Nurse Ratchet was gone before she turned her attention to the boy on the bed with the silent tears streaming down his cheeks. She blew out a breath and forced a smile. “Well, she’s certainly pleasant.”

  Jonah didn’t smile at her joke. His chest still heaved from the nervous breakdown she was sure he’d just adverted himself from having. But at least his breaths were coming more easily now. And no new tears welled in his eyes.

  “None of them like me. I think I’m the worst patient in the entire hospital.”

  He sounded so apologetic and regretful about that fact that her heart went out to him. She began to reach for his hair to soothe him, but he lifted his face to look at her. Feeling caught in the act, she dropped her fingers unobtrusively.

  “I can’t believe you came back,” he said, his voice full of awe.

  “I said I would.” She tried to stay upbeat, but with the tragic way he stared at her as if she was the only thing keeping him together, she had to bite her lip and glance away again. “I didn’t mean to get here so late, but I drove to Bristol and…” Her voice trailed off as she peeked at his face for any sign of recognition. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

  He squinted as if running the word through his head. “Bristol?” he repeated. When she nodded, he shook his head. “No. Is it a town?”

  She nodded again. “Yes. It’s your hometown. I found your parents and went to tell them what happened to you.” Wincing, she glanced away. “And now I know why you never talked about them.”

  His eyes widened with panic. “Why?”

  Tess blew out a breath. Man, this was going to be hard to report. But she wanted him to know. “The permanent home address you have in the school directory is false, so obviously you didn’t want to be tied to these people in any way. Except I found them in a phonebook once I reached Bristol. They live in a trailer park called Whispering Pines.” She paused to study his face. “Does that ring any bells?”

  Jonah blinked once, then twice, before he slowly shook his head.

  She shrugged, not really expecting him to have a bright flash of clarity but kind of hoping he might. “Well, that’s where they live. Ted and Phyllis. Those are their names.”

  He puffed out a sudden, harsh breath. “You talked to them?”

  After a pregnant pause, she sighed. “Yes, I did.”

  His face paled as if he already knew he wasn’t going to like what she had to say, but he asked anyway. “And?”

  “Well…” She eased into the chair beside him. After tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, she dropped the bomb. “They didn’t…” Oh man, how was she going to word this? “Apparently, you had a big falling out with them years ago or something. I’m not sure. But it was probably before you
were eighteen, because I don’t…Well, your dad said something to make it sound as if he hadn’t seen you since you’d become a legal adult. Anyway…” She fluttered out a hand as if it wasn’t an important detail. “I don’t think they’re going to make it down to see you.”

  The air exhaled from his lungs. He stared at the wall over Tess’s shoulder. “Okay.”

  She bit her lip again. “I’m so sorry.” When she covered his hand, he turned his over so they lay palm to palm and their fingers interlaced.

  “So, both of them want nothing to do with me?” he asked. “My dad and my mom?”

  She wrinkled her face into a look of indecision. “Well, mostly. Your dad was the biggest jerk, telling me…Well, anyway, I have a feeling if I’d caught your mom by herself, she might’ve responded differently.”

  He glanced at her, hope flaring in the depth of his intent gaze. “How’s that?”

  “She…” Tess shook her head. “I don’t know how to say this, but I think…I think maybe he beats her. Her eye was bruised, and she just acted…you know, submissive. Abused. She looked concerned about you until he showed up in the doorway. And then she just…shut down and went blank.”

  Jonah stared for the longest time before he blinked and glanced away. “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

  Her fingers tightened around his. “It’s okay. Without your memories, these people don’t mean anything to you. I can only imagine how hard it is for you to learn…well, what you just learned.”

  He nodded, his face still vacant of emotion. “I wonder if I still love them.”

  “Of course you do.” She rose up so she could kiss his forehead. “All children love their parents, even if they’re crappy, awful parents that don’t deserve it. They gave us life; we just can’t help it.”

  Glancing at her, he sent her a thoughtful smile. “Thank you. Even though it was a wasted trip, thank you for what you did. Thank you for trying. I don’t…I have a feeling not a lot of people would’ve gone to that much trouble for me.”

  Her smile was soft. “It was my pleasure.” In the span of a few seconds, but very significant seconds, they stared at each other as he ran his fingers along hers. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, that reminds me. I printed some pages off the internet, hoping maybe one of them might help jog your memory.”

  Jonah crinkled his brow. “What kind of pages?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, just things about you. Mostly football stuff. Stats and numbers. Things like that.”

  “Football?”

  Lifting her eyes, she gave him a full grin. “Yeah. You’re a football player. Does that help you remember anything?”

  A brief, haunted expression filled his face before he glanced away. “No.”

  “Well, you are. And a damn good one too. Best tight end in the division,” she announced before giving a small frown. “Not that I know what a tight end does, exactly.”

  An amused smile flickered over his lips as he turned back. “He does whatever he needs to do from blocking, catching a pass, or protecting the quarterback.”

  Her eyes widened. “You remember that?”

  His gaze went just as wide. Then he blinked. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, I guess I do remember that.”

  She smiled her bright, joy-filled smile again. “That’s great. Here. Maybe this will help some more.”

  When she thrust a stack of papers at him, he accepted, even though he looked a little overwhelmed by the quantity. What he read from the headline on the first page made his eyebrows arch.

  “Wow. I’m not half bad, am I?”

  “I know.” Excited to share all his glowing accomplishments with him, Tess perched herself on the edge of the bed to sit by his hip. “You’ve broken two state records and are working toward the national level. And some NFL scouts have even come to a couple of your games to watch you, even though you don’t graduate until next year. Isn’t that exciting?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, his eyes flickering with bitter regret. “Unless I never walk again.”

  Tess winced and bit her lip as she sliced her gaze to his leg. “Right,” she said. “I forgot about that.”

  Well, crap. His entire future was on the line now. She’d come here, hoping to reassure him and let him know he had a life beyond these four sterile walls. But instead, she’d only added to his misery and layered on something else for him to worry about.

  “What’s this?” He lifted a sheet near the back of the pile.

  When she glanced over, her eyes widened. “Oh, I wasn’t going to show you that.” She went to reach for it, but he pulled it back, keeping it in his possession.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s—” She cleared her throat. “It’s a fatality list of all the people who died in the massacre. Kind of a memorial.”

  His hand holding the paper began to tremble and a bead of sweat slid down his temple. “Who do I know?”

  Tess reached for the list again with no success as he pulled it away from her. “Maybe you should wait until you have your memory back before you look at it. It’s not going to mean anything to you right now anyway.”

  He ignored her and focused on the list, his fingers curling tighter around the edges of the sheet the longer he scanned it. She had no idea what thoughts filtered through his brain as his gaze shifted over each obituary, but his jaw was tense and his eyes bright. When he stopped dead three-fourths of the way down, his throat worked and his expression froze, but otherwise he didn’t react.

  “What?” Tess asked, moving to the head of his bed so she could see the list over his shoulder. “Do you recognize a name?” God, she hoped this wasn’t how he got his memory back. Focusing in on the area where he was centering his attention, she murmured, “Sean Thompson?” Tess turned to study his face. “Did you know him?”

  He set the page down and stopped looking at it to rub his eyes. “This is giving me a headache.”

  “I’m sorry.” She slipped the sheet out of his hand and folded it quietly before tucking it into her purse, out of sight. “I didn’t mean to overload you. I just thought I could help you remember.”

  He didn’t respond, but his lips trembled before they opened as if he was going to say something. Then he shut them and dropped his hands to his waist, squeezing his eyes shut one last time before opening his lashes to look at her.

  “Can we—” He paused and glanced away, sucking in a deep breath.

  She set her hand on his forearm, encouraging him to say whatever he wanted to say. “Can we what?”

  He blew out the breath and met her gaze once again, his brown eyes almost desperate. “I think pushing the memories to come like this is making it worse. I just…I was wondering if we could not force them tonight. Instead maybe we could try something different, like, I don’t know…” He pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth. “Maybe we could pretend we’ve never met before.” Rolling his eyes, he added, “Not that I’ll have to pretend there. But if we acted like we were meeting for the first time, I could…I could get to know you better.”

  Tess caught her gasp, not expecting this request. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Um…sure. Yes, definitely, we could do that. No problem. If that’s what you want.”

  He looked at her with such intensity that when he said, “I do.” She gulped from the impact of it.

  “Okay, then.” She eased into the chair at his bedside and folded her hands in her lap. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “You.”

  Her eyebrows shot up as alarm flooded her. “Me?”

  “Yeah. We can’t exactly talk about me since I don’t know anything about me. So…I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

  “Oh. Um…okay. Well…” She blushed and tucked another stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Let’s see. My name is Tess, as you already know.”

  The damnedest thing happened next. He grinned. Jonah the grumpy amnesiac from room 312 grinned at her. “No,” he teased. “Actually, I don’t. We ju
st now met.” Then, for the love of babies and cute, furry small animals everywhere, he winked. “Remember?”

  She gulped dry air. Overcome by the sheer magnetism of his amused smile and the twinkle in his brown, brown eyes, she gaped at him with awe.

  Oh, God. He was going to drag out her stupid gene again. Who knew what she was going to blurt out this time. Probably that his baby had just kicked inside her.

  “I’m really awkward around guys,” she said, rushing the words. “Around, like, really hot guys. Like your-level-of-hotness guys.”

  He laughed, and that only made him more attractive, because, oh man, the richness of his chuckle sounded amazing. An echo of it raced through her, thrilling every sensitive nerve ending inside her.

  “Okay,” he said, seemingly amused by her outburst. “I’d ask how we managed to hook up in the first place, then, but since I’d have to break the rules of this pretend first meeting to do that, I guess I’ll just leave that question for another day. But tell me more, Tess who is awkward around guys who are as hot as I am.”

  She flushed and glanced away, even though she couldn’t help but smile by the teasing inflection in his voice. He actually seemed to be enjoying how much of a complete fool she was making of herself.

  “I attend Granton University,” she said, trying to breathe through her nose to calm herself. “I’m a freshman. My major is…undecided. And I room with my best friend, Bailey, who is going to be an electrical engineer.”

  “Bailey,” he murmured the name as if trying to remember if it meant anything to him.

  Tess nodded. If there was one thing she could talk about with complete ease it was her best friend. “She and I can be complete opposites sometimes. She knows exactly what she wants out of life. I’m completely clueless. She’s brave. I’m a chicken. She is a total slob, and I’m a neat freak. She thinks with her brain while I think with my feelings. And she isn’t afraid to say whatever is on her mind whereas I always bite my tongue, worried I’ll say the wrong thing or accidentally offend someone…unless my stupid gene has been unleashed, in which case, I blurt out all kinds of asinine things.”