by Anne Ha
He flinched. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
“You treated me like a child!”
“Samantha, I’m sorry.”
She put a hand to her temple. Her head throbbed. She thought of Warren’s death, of the quick sequence of events. “Did he know?” she asked. “Did Warren know about the baby?”
Silence. Then, “No.” His tone held a wealth of meaning, but she couldn’t decipher it.
“Why not? There was time, wasn’t there?”
“Yes, there was time.”
“But I didn’t tell him?”
“No.”
“How come?” She didn’t know why she cared, or why this issue felt so earthshakingly important.
“Because we decided to raise the child as if it were ours. No one needed to know.”
“Not even Warren? He was the father.”
Garrick’s expression hardened. “He’d abandoned you. It wasn’t any of his business.”
She swallowed. “So no one else knows?”
“Jenny guessed. And I think Beth and Hugh did, too.” He laughed bitterly. “They all knew I’d never have gotten you pregnant without marrying you first. It had to be Warren.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know quite what it meant. Reaching for the door, she let herself in and started across the front hall. “I should have told him right away. It might have made a difference.”
Garrick stopped in his tracks a few feet behind her. “What did you say?”
Her mouth seemed to speak of its own accord. “It might have made a difference—might even have saved his life!” She spun around to glare at her husband. “If he’d known, then maybe he wouldn’t have been so reckless.”
Garrick’s face had gone pale. “Sam…”
Suddenly feeling claustrophobic, she struggled out of her wrap.
He reached out to lift it off her shoulders, his fingers brushing her skin. “Sweetheart…”
She froze.
She recognized the endearment and the tone of his voice. What was more, she recognized the whole situation. It had happened before, one week ago. Right before her accident. She and Garrick had gone out to dinner, and they’d come home arguing over Warren and the baby. She’d said the same things she’d said tonight. Then she’d let him take her wrap, and his hands had brushed her shoulders, just as they’d done right now.
She remembered it so clearly.
And, she realized with a shock, she remembered everything else, too.
Everything.
Chapter Eleven
Garrick watched her, his expression shuttered. “You’ve had a memory, haven’t you?”
Samantha shook her head, looking at her husband with new vision. “No. Not just a memory.”
“What, then?”
“All my memories.”
Garrick closed his eyes as if the news was painful. “Really?”
Samantha didn’t answer. She stood there in the front hall of the Randall family home, remembering every detail of her twenty-five years of life.
Garrick opened his eyes again. Her husband, whom she’d married in a judge’s chambers during their lunch hour.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She didn’t answer for a long moment. “No, I’m not all right,” she said. The cascade of memories through her brain made it difficult to think clearly. But she knew she was upset.
Because she really had thought she loved Warren all those years. Warren, who’d possessed an outrageous charisma that won over almost everyone.
She remembered how he’d always stolen the limelight from Garrick, despite the fact that Garrick was the only one with any substance, the only one doing anything worthwhile with his life. Even their father, she knew, had ignored Warren’s irresponsible lifestyle. He’d seen only the dazzling, golden-boy image on the outside.
And she’d been taken in, too. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so affected if she’d met Warren a few years earlier, or a few years later, once she’d had more experience with men. But she’d met him at a vulnerable time. She’d fallen for him that first afternoon, and she’d stayed fallen.
With all his glamorous jet-setting, Warren had been around the house just enough for her to see him as an unattainable, mysterious older man, but not quite enough for her to see the real man underneath.
She’d been stupid and naive. And now she felt even more stupid.
Garrick had tricked her. He’d concealed her past from her this past week, pretending the baby was his, pretending they’d married because sexual desire had trapped them with a child. And none of it made any sense.
“We need to talk,” she told him.
“I know.” His voice was gentle and comforting.
All at once she felt like crying. “Everything’s wrong,” she mumbled. “Nothing’s like I thought it was.” She felt embarrassed and exposed. She’d told him countless times this week that she loved him, but he’d never said the same thing back.
Garrick drew her into his arms, there in the front hall with the door still open. She slumped against him because she really did love him, taking what comfort she could even though she was upset with him. She remembered what he’d said to her in the hospital: Love isn’t always the most important thing, Sam… Sometimes friendship can be enough. And now she knew he’d said those same words before, the day they’d agreed to get married.
She’d told him the plan was crazy, that she didn’t love him, that they didn’t love each other. And he had sat there and told her a marriage based on friendship could be strong enough.
But she didn’t know anymore. Was it strong enough? Was it strong enough that she could forgive him for hiding the truth from her? Could she ever forgive him for letting her fall in love with him?
She was vulnerable now, open to being hurt. After Warren’s callous treatment, she’d sworn she wouldn’t fall in love again. Being in love was dangerous. It had made her do stupid things, had blinded her to Warren’s real nature.
She never would have accepted Garrick’s offer of marriage if she’d thought love had anything to do with it. She’d married him so her child would have a stable home, so it wouldn’t have to grow up with just one parent, without any other family.
Garrick was a safe man to have as a husband. He was a close friend, but nothing more. They understood each other, and there wasn’t any danger they would fall in love.
Or so she’d told herself.
What had happened?
Slowly she became aware of Garrick easing her out of his arms. She stood numbly watching as he closed the front door and set her wrap and his keys on the hall table. Returning to her side, he guided her to the family room.
Samantha’s eyes wavered as they crossed to the couch. Her gaze fell on the nearly finished jigsaw puzzle and then on the framed photo she’d found the other night.
The photo of Warren.
She turned her back and sat down as revulsion swept through her. She wondered how she’d ever found the man attractive. He and Garrick might have shared similar features and the same dark good looks, but Garrick was the more handsome. At least, she could see that now. Obviously she’d been awed by Warren’s flashy charm.
She skimmed her memory, focusing on the various stages of her crush until she reached the night, three months ago, when Warren had pressured her into sex. He’d told her he’d always loved her, that they’d be together forever. Like a silly, lovesick fool she’d thought he meant to marry her, but once he’d gotten what he wanted, he’d left without looking back.
Most ironic of all, their time together hadn’t been the culmination of all her dreams. Warren had been an inconsiderate, unimaginative lover. She’d suspected it at the time, and now that she could compare him to Garrick, she knew it with total certainty.
And she also knew the feelings she’d harbored for Warren had disappeared when he’d taken her virginity so selfishly.
She’d tried to tell that all to Garrick. She’d tried…
“B
ut you didn’t believe it,” she murmured.
Garrick sat on the couch next to her. “Didn’t believe what?” he asked.
“Didn’t believe I was over him. The night of the accident I tried to tell you.” That was what had made her so mad, made her drive off in her car.
Samantha remembered how guilty she’d felt when they’d learned of Warren’s death. She’d regretted her decision not to tell him, but she hadn’t broached the subject to Garrick until that night a week ago.
She hadn’t understood his response. He’d gotten so angry and resentful. They’d argued back and forth before he’d finally asked her how she could still be in love with Warren after all he’d done.
“You thought I wished he hadn’t died because I still wanted to be with him,” she said, amazed. By then all she’d felt was compassion for Warren. Certainly nothing romantic. “Why, Garrick? What were you thinking?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, Sam.”
But she didn’t need his answer, she realized. All his life, Garrick had witnessed people’s fascination with his brother. Their blind adoration of him no matter how badly he behaved. It was Garrick’s Achilles’ heel—the one thing that clouded his judgment.
“You should have known me better than that,” she said. “I might have had a ten-year crush, but once he—” She broke off as Jenny stuck her head through the doorway.
“Hi, guys,” she said. “Hugh and I are making brownies. Didn’t hear you come in, but then we heard voices. Do you want some? They’re almost…” She trailed off and looked from one to the other of them.
“Hello, Jenny,” Garrick said.
She smiled weakly. “Oh, hi. You guys are having a private moment, right?”
“Well, yes,” Garrick answered. “Actually, Samantha just got her memory back—”
Jenny gave a yelp of surprise. “You did?”
Samantha nodded and watched the play of emotions on her friend’s face. Excitement and sheepish trepidation.
True to form, excitement won out.
Jenny bounded over and hugged her. “Oh, Sam. I’m so glad you’re okay!”
Samantha thought of how Jenny had acted when she’d first come home with amnesia—she’d been up to her ears in mischief. Samantha gave her a chastening look. “You’re in a lot of trouble, girl.”
Jenny grimaced. “I know. I know. You can drag me through hot coals anytime you want, okay? But you still love Garrick, right?”
Before she could answer, Garrick said, “We’re working on that.” He got up and led her to the door. “Go have a brownie.”
“They’re not ready yet.”
“Go, Jenny.”
“All right I’m going.” But she stopped in the doorway. “Don’t worry, Sam. It’ll all work out. Garrick will look after you, just like he promised at the wedding.” She disappeared down the hall.
Samantha latched on to her friend’s parting statement Garrick would look after her.
Yes, she thought, he was good at that. Too good. Was that why he’d allowed her to fall in love with him, because he thought it would make her feel better?
It made a crazy kind of sense. It would have been difficult for her to come home from the hospital and be told her marriage was a loveless arrangement, one they’d entered into for the sake of some other man’s baby. Even if that was the truth.
It was all out of pity; she realized. Garrick hadn’t had the heart to tell her the truth. He’d coddled her.
And the sex part was easy enough to explain. Physical desire, plain and simple. Even if in the past she’d never acknowledged her attraction to Garrick, he was an attractive man. Very attractive, though it had taken her a decade to notice.
All his talk about not being able to resist her had been laying it on a bit thick, of course, but he probably hadn’t had much trouble performing. Men were like that, weren’t they? They didn’t need to be in love to make love. All they needed was an urge. And if there was a little pity thrown in there, so much the better.
God, but she was mad at him.
How on earth were they going to go back to their previous arrangement? She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t fallen in love with him. Before her amnesia they’d been good friends who planned to raise a small, accidental family. Now were they going to be good friends who slept together?
“I don’t want you to look after me,” she blurted out. She wanted him to love her back.
Garrick stood in the middle of the room, looking exhausted. His dinner jacket was all rumpled from holding her.
“Look,” she said, getting up from the couch. “I need some time to think.” She walked past him, all the way to the front hall. She needed to be alone, she realized, to come to grips with how the past few days had affected her life.
“Sam, wait.”
She turned to face him, not caring what she said. “Why? So you can give me more pity? I don’t want to be coddled. I’m having your dead brother’s baby! You tricked me into loving you! You hated Warren and you’re going to hate his child!”
Before Garrick could speak, she grabbed his keys off the table and darted outside, slamming the heavy door closed behind her. She ran to his car and slipped behind the wheel, locking the doors before he got there.
She would drive somewhere quiet—maybe to her old apartment or to a hotel—and think things through. She had to know what to do next.
Garrick pounded on the windows. “Sam, come on,” he said. “Come back inside.”
She rolled down the window a crack, just enough so she could talk without yelling, but not enough so he could get his hand in and unlock the door. “Garrick, I need some space.”
“Fine. Just don’t take it in a car. Or don’t you remember what happened the last time you drove away from here?”
She remembered. She’d been confused, hurt and crying. She hadn’t been able to see the road, and she’d been driving too fast. A sickening feeling filled her as she remembered the moment she’d known the car was skidding out of control. She’d seen the tree coming toward her, known she was going to hit it, known she was probably going to die. And all she’d been able to think about was getting back to Garrick. Getting back to Garrick so she could tell him she’d just realized she loved him.
Oh, God. She had loved him before her accident. Tears misted her eyes, and suddenly racking sobs overtook her body as she struggled to come to grips with this knowledge. She slumped against the wheel, letting the confusion wash over her.
Slowly her mind cleared and she saw it all laid out in front of her. She’d been falling in love with him for years. Their friendship had grown and developed into something else, but she’d never noticed. She thought back to the water fight with Garrick, knowing all sides of it now. She hadn’t thought about that moment in years, until she’d remembered it during her amnesia, and she’d never, ever, interpreted her feelings as desire for Garrick. She’d blamed those odd sensations on wishing Garrick had been Warren. Obviously a distant, unreachable crush had seemed preferable to a mixed-up relationship with her second-best friend.
Garrick had his fingers through the window of the car, as if he could touch her if he just tried hard enough. “Sam, open the door. Please.”
She reached blindly for the lock button and flipped it up. Garrick swept the door open and lifted her out of the car, holding her against his chest. “It’s okay, Sam. Everything’s okay.”
She sniffled, hating feeling out of control. “Put me down, please.”
He did, but he still held her against him. “Are you okay, Sam? I’m worried about you. And about the baby.”
“Warren’s baby,” she muttered.
“Your baby,” he corrected, his voice firm. “Our baby.”
“Okay then. The baby and I are both fine.” She paused, swallowing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He was silent for a long time before answering. “I wanted you to have a clean slate. I wanted you to fall in love with me.”
“You wanted me to f
all in love with you?”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t just…just being nice out of pity?”
Garrick shook his head emphatically. “No, Sam. Pity is the last thing I feel for you. I want to have a real marriage. That’s what I’ve always wanted.”
Her heart hammered. She could barely breathe. “What do you mean, always?”
“From the first time I saw you.”
She remembered back to that moment. For some reason the idea of it annoyed her. They’d wasted so much time. “Garrick, I was fifteen!”
“I’m well aware of that. It was the exact opposite of what you thought in the hospital. It always has been. I’ve been madly in love with you the whole time, but you never saw me as anything but a friend.”
“So…so is that why you married me?”
He nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, Sam. I wanted to give your child a safe home and two loving parents, just like I told you. But I also hoped that living with me, sharing the responsibility of raising a child, would make you slowly fall in love with me. I was prepared to wait years. But when you woke up in the hospital and thought we were already in love, I couldn’t bring myself to contradict you. I took a shortcut, and I’m sorry.”
“But—but it was true, Garrick. We were already in love.” She told him about the moment right before her crash, how she’d realized she loved him as her car spun off the road.
His arms tightened around her. “Oh, Sam, if I’d lost you…”
“I think that’s why our fight upset me so much. I had all these escalating feelings for you, and all you could talk about were my supposed feelings for Warren.”
“I’m sorry. I was just so jealous, and our marriage had made me possessive. I was a real bear that night.”
“It’s okay, Garrick. I love you. And as long as you love me, too, I think I could forgive almost anything.”
He kissed her forehead. “Should we go reassure Jenny and Hugh that everything’s okay?”
“Only if we can go straight upstairs afterward. I want to be alone with you.”
“Deal.”
“Do you think they know the crazy way we fell in love?”