by Caro Carson
“Don’t you see?” he said over her lips, letting her go, touching her again, sliding his hands back in her hair and cupping her face. “I am alone. I’ve been alone for ten years.” He kissed his way down her throat, pressing his hands into her back. “I want you. I want this, I want this so bad, but I don’t get to keep it.”
She tried to hold him steady as she smoothed his hair off his forehead. “You can keep me. You’ve got me.”
“I forgot our conversation. God, I lost a moment with you today. What if I forget you? There are people I forget entirely.”
Her heart broke for him as he took her mouth and whispered her name. He kissed her again and again, saying her name between each kiss.
“Trey,” she said firmly, but he didn’t hear her. The muscles of his shoulders flexed as his hands roamed over every part of her he could reach.
“Trey, can I help you remember?”
When he bent to kiss her, she put one hand on the back of his head and pressed her forehead to his, wanting him to slow down. “If you forgot me, could I help you remember? Is there anything I could do to help you remember?”
The frantic pace slowed as he became more focused on her. The sleet pelted the roof and a horse shifted in her stall, but Rebecca still heard only silence when she wanted to hear his voice.
She tried once more. “When you forget someone, do you ever remember them again?”
“Sometimes, but only sometimes. In the helicopter, when Zach Bishop said his name, I remembered him. Before that, I didn’t know who the hell he was.”
“Then I’ll tell you that I’m Rebecca Burgess.” She kissed him on the cheek. “But you might remember me as Rebecca Cargill.” She kissed his other cheek. “You can call me anything you like, as long as you call me yours.”
She wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could, and she held him as the shudders racked his body, until he was cold and lonely no more.
* * *
Rebecca Burgess Cargill stood at the top of the ladder and reached to the top of the Christmas tree to take the angel down. She looked like an angel herself.
Trey was the selfish bastard who wanted to keep her.
She came halfway down the ladder and handed him the angel. “I’m going to get these high ornaments while I’m up here, okay?”
He’d stand here all day at the bottom of the ladder, holding it steady and keeping her safe. It seemed to be the one thing he could offer her with confidence. He could keep her safe. But the rest...
For ten years, he’d worried about himself. When the world got too noisy or busy or dizzying, he’d escaped to make himself more comfortable, leaving parties and stores and any other situation that challenged him. He hadn’t thought about what the party’s host or hostess felt. He hadn’t cared that a store employee would find his half-full shopping cart and have to painstakingly put back everything. When Trey had blurted out impolite truths, he’d hated his own embarrassment. If he’d noticed that he’d caused someone else embarrassment, he’d only been angry because it increased his own tenfold.
He’d ended up building a life that fit him, and only him.
Rebecca came halfway down the ladder again to hand him a cluster of shiny baubles. “Sorry, there are a bunch of fragile ones in there.” Back up the ladder she went.
His life was limited because it had to be. Where would that leave Rebecca?
Confined to a ranch because her husband felt disoriented everywhere else. Forced to attend parties without him, or to leave suddenly and early as they had at Christmas. Required to watch movies on a television set, because the big screen gave him headaches.
Jeez, he’d forgotten that last one. This morning, with her unique combination of deference and determination, Rebecca had gotten Trey to describe his problems. She’d noticed the numbers, the spontaneous comments and that he’d forgotten their conversation, of course. He’d added some difficulty putting faces with names. Finding a new address.
“I’m going to drop all of these if I even wiggle a finger. Let me just carry this bunch all the way down, so you can take them from me.” She kissed him before she went back up the ladder.
He’d forgotten to mention the movie screen thing. He’d downplayed everything this morning. He thought his life was straightforward, but he’d made so many accommodations over the years, he didn’t think about them anymore. He didn’t know how different he was—but Rebecca would find out the hard way.
If he married her, he’d bring her down. As surely as she kept coming halfway down this ladder, she’d always be the one lowering herself to his damaged level. Potential was a terrible thing to lose. If she gave up hers voluntarily, it might haunt them both.
“Don’t come down again. You’re wearing yourself out with all these trips to hand me things.”
She sat on the top step of the ladder. “How do you propose we undecorate the rest of this tree, then?”
“Drop them. I’ll catch them.”
“They’ll break when they hit your hands.”
“No, they won’t. I have it on good authority that I’ve got soft hands.”
She made a face at him like he was crazy. “I don’t know who told you that, cowboy, but between the ranch and the landscaping, your hands are not soft. I love to have them on me, precisely because they aren’t soft. My hands are soft.”
“It’s a football term. It means—you know, forget all that. Drop an ornament, and I’ll catch it without breaking it.”
It became a little game, once he caught the first few and she realized he didn’t miss. She started dropping them in rapid succession, or dropping two at once. He caught them all, right-handed or left-handed, without moving far from the base of the ladder. Had it wobbled, he would have caught that first.
“You’re like a juggler.” As she stood to get more ornaments, she said, “Soft hands is a football term, huh? You know, I read an article once about football players. About a lot of different sports, actually, that could cause head trauma.”
Trey knew what question was coming. “Yes, that was it.”
“So, what are you doing about it?” She pulled an ornament off and dropped it without looking at him.
“Whoa.” He caught it, anyway. “There’s nothing to do about it. I forgot to tell you, movies are tough, and— Whoa. You might want to give me a heads-up before you drop things on me.”
She sat on the top step again. “That’s what the doctors say? There’s nothing to do about it?”
“Doctors.” He wished he could spit tobacco juice like Gus every time he said the word.
“Lana called about an hour ago, while you were at the paddock. She’d really like to see you this afternoon.”
Nothing. He’d never heard the name Lana before.
“Did she now?” The generic reply usually bought him time. If the conversation carried on and he listened hard enough, he might figure out who was being talked about.
“Well, she wouldn’t see you personally, of course.”
He looked up at Rebecca with his face carefully neutral, and kept listening.
“Because the baby’s only four weeks old.”
And kept listening.
“Oh, Trey, I’m so sorry.”
She knew. She saw right through him when he could fool other people.
“Lana is Braden MacDowell’s wife, the one with the brand-new baby.”
Rebecca waited, and Trey remembered. He nodded, once.
“Dr. Lana MacDowell is in charge of research at the hospital, and she called this morning because they’re running a study you could be part of. It includes a memory clinic. It’s some kind of rehab program where they try to strengthen memories.”
He’d given up on getting better a long time ago. Rebecca’s enthusiasm was youthful and probably naive, but it was also conta
gious.
“Your MacDowell friends have got some serious connections with that hospital, because they could get you in this afternoon for an evaluation. I have to turn in that rental car, so I thought we could go into Austin together and make a day of it.”
Trey wanted Rebecca as intensely this morning as he had wanted her in the barn last night. There were no guarantees that he could keep her. His disability and her pity could tear them apart. As she sat so hopefully at the top of the ladder like an angel, he remembered when she’d looked as white as porcelain with pale blue lips. He’d been determined not to lose her then. He had to try to keep her now.
“This afternoon, then. We’ll see what the doctors have to say.”
Rebecca came flying down the ladder and nearly threw herself into his arms.
She was easy to catch. Trey was only afraid she’d be hard to hold on to.
Chapter Nineteen
The doctors loved Trey.
He did not love them.
Ten years ago, he’d learned to hate the word unremarkable. Every test had been unremarkable in its results. He’d been accused of taking drugs as an explanation for his symptoms.
Now, he was an interesting case.
Hours of testing had cataloged and quantified all his shortcomings. The rehab had started the next day. Even ten years after the damage had been done, the medical staff seemed confident that his brain could form new connections and improve its function—but modestly. The way they emphasized modestly, Trey didn’t know whether to have hope or not.
The math and the disorientation and the rest were all issues that had their own specialists. This clinic focused on memory, and that was fine with Trey. The reason he was there was Rebecca. His one, overriding fear was that he would forget her.
Memory was a tricky thing, and in this, he was an interesting case, as well. Memories prior to his college days were still intact. The rhythms of the ranch, from the cycle of calving and culling to the seasonal demands of the weather, came easily to him because he’d learned it since birth.
The way he accessed those memories, like meeting Zach had opened all his high school football memories, made for an interesting case.
New information was harder to retain, like a new landscaping client’s address—or a new person. He’d eventually remembered Aunt June, because she was an old memory. A new person, however, he could forget. Like Lana MacDowell.
Like Rebecca.
The key to putting new info into his memory, they said, included repetition. Had he met Rebecca at a party, he might have forgotten the next day that there was a woman he’d like to take out on a second date. But he’d met her in extreme circumstances, which made her more memorable, and they hadn’t been apart since.
During their first day, they’d only been apart a few minutes, and they’d not only talked but touched. He’d learned the feel of her skin and the sound of her voice, without what they called environmental distractions, like phones or even other people passing them on a sidewalk.
If he and Rebecca hadn’t liked one another, he would have stored the memory of an unpleasant person just as firmly.
Because sleep also impacted memory, the doctors told Trey that falling asleep with Rebecca every night and seeing her face every morning was exactly how they’d advise him to improve his memory of her, if it was needed.
They didn’t think it was needed. His case was so very interesting. Given the unusual circumstances, they were certain she was in his memory now, just as the ranch and his parents and brother were. He’d never lost them, even if his brain hadn’t transferred every conversation into long-term storage. He wouldn’t lose Rebecca.
For that, Trey was grateful. If he returned to Oklahoma alone, he wanted to know exactly what his heart was missing.
For everything else, the doctors could go to hell. Their tests and their rehab were making everything worse, not better.
* * *
New Year’s Eve was full of promise that the next year would be better, not worse.
Rebecca had looked forward to it every year for as long as she could remember. She’d hoped, year after year, that this would be the year she’d stay in one school. This would be the year her mother would let her choose her back-to-school outfit. This would be the year she’d meet a boy. It hadn’t turned out that way, of course, but this was the year that would prove she’d been right to stay hopeful.
This was the year she’d begin a new life with Trey Waterson. He’d said so in the barn, five nights ago, on a rainy night full of raw emotion.
Kind of.
Every day since then, Trey had been at the hospital, throwing himself into rehab. It was all card games and puzzles, according to him, but Rebecca could see it made him tired in a way that ranch work did not. During their time together, he’d been too exhausted for much talking. During their time apart, Rebecca had started reliving those moments in the barn.
He’d said he wanted her. He’d also said he couldn’t have her. When she’d said call me yours, he hadn’t said anything at all.
She rubbed her arms against the chill as Trey drove them back to the ranch in his pickup truck.
“Thank you for taking me out.” Her voice was husky after shouting over the music. The honky-tonk they’d just left had been a new experience in loudness. She’d never heard anything like it at her mother’s clubs.
The bar was the closest one to the ranch, and it had seemed like everyone remembered Trey from ten years ago. He’d been shaking hands with men and been kissed on the cheek by women practically nonstop. He’d gestured toward her and shouted Rebecca Burgess to introduce her to every person. People had shouted their own names back at her. The band had played on.
In other words, it had been a nightmare. No fun for her, because she knew it must have been a misery for him. Still, he’d stayed, looking great in his black shirt, blue jeans and black boots, every cowgirl’s dream. She’d had to insist that she was ready to leave before midnight.
She wondered what he’d been trying to prove. She was afraid she was about to find out.
Trey parked in front of the house and turned off the engine. The dashboard clock gave them fifteen minutes before the new year was about to begin.
Trey spoke first. “We can get inside and put the television on for the official countdown.”
“I’d rather stay in the truck, if it’s okay with you. You’re going to tell me something awful, and I’d like to get it over with.”
It had just been a guess on her part, but his silence was an awful answer in itself.
She kept her chin up. “You’re not the only one who can be blunt, you know.”
He chuckled at that. “Fair enough, but you were blunt on purpose. There’s a difference.”
Rebecca waited. If he wanted to tell her why they couldn’t be together, she wasn’t going to help him out any further.
“Today was only a half day at the hospital, because of New Year’s Eve.”
She hadn’t expected to hear that. She waited a little longer.
“I didn’t make it home early, because I got lost. I drove for almost an hour, until I hit Sixth Street. The restaurants and bars were already getting full with the early-out work crowd. I recognized some of the buildings, and then I was able to get back to the ranch from there, because I’d done it so many times as a teenager.”
“That was a clever solution.”
“No, it was an accident. I got out of a jam this time, but I’m guaranteed to have that kind of thing happen again. I took you to the bar tonight because I thought you’d enjoy it, but also because I wanted to see how much I could handle. I haven’t pushed myself out of my comfort zone in a long time. How did I do?”
“I don’t think you recognized half of those people, but I don’t think they realized it.”
“I
did all right, then. That’s good, because I got bad news at the clinic today.”
She couldn’t stay cool at that announcement and turned toward him anxiously. “Like what?”
He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. “I’m fine, first of all. Please don’t go all pale on me like that. They thought it was good news at the hospital. I’ve been doing this intensive training, and after eighteen total hours of work, they told me my test score had improved.”
“How is that not good news?”
“Out of a possible ten points, my score went from five to five-point-three. That was it. Three-tenths of a point. They call that a victory, but it was a reality check for me. There won’t be any big leaps at this stage of the game.”
“And because you’re damaged, you don’t want to marry me, do you? That’s what you said in the barn. I just didn’t want to hear it.”
“Rebecca.” Trey put his head back on the seat and rubbed his chest, as if she’d caused him some pain there. “That was prize-winningly blunt.”
“Damaged was your word. I would never describe you as damaged. It’s the last thing I think of around you.”
“All right, let’s cut to the chase. I want the best for you. If you were married to me, don’t you see how it would be? You’d see a new place to eat in Austin. You’d call and say, ‘Honey, meet me after work.’ There’s a good chance I wouldn’t be able to find it. I’d be lost in town. You might have to leave your friends and come to find me. What kind of husband can’t meet his wife after work?”
This was it, then. He was telling her that she would always have to deal with his brain injury. It wasn’t going to improve dramatically, and he thought that made him a bad husband. She chose her words with care.
“You’re asking the wrong question. My question is, why do you think I’d be such a terrible wife? Why would I ask you to find a new place you’d never been to before? Instead of telling you to meet me at a restaurant, I’d say, ‘Tell one of the hands to feed the horses tonight. I’ll be home soon, and I want you to go with me to a great new place everyone at work is raving about.’”