by S. L. Scott
“Thank you,” she replied, a small smile appearing just for him, but still holding back the self-hate she felt. “I probably shouldn’t tell you everything I’m feeling, but there’s something between us that makes me want to open up when I’m around you.” Their fingers caressed over the console. “Did I have a good life?”
“You had a very good life, Grace.” Even calling her Grace rather than Jane wasn’t feeling so dire. He smiled at her as he stepped out of the car. When he came around he took her hand, and they walked toward the elevator together. She felt safe. Despite what Hunter had said about him being potentially dangerous, she felt safe enough to move closer, the length of their arms touching. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Five minutes later, they stood in the middle of his living room. She held her tongue but she was positive her surprise was written all over her face. The apartment was soulless, cold with no life. It was opposite of Ben in every way. The crowded city view outside emphasized the sparse insides. “Did you just move in?” she asked, curious as she looked around.
“No, I’ve lived here for a few years. I, um, work a lot.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and his chin dipped low, but his eyes looked up under a furrowed brow. “I’m sorry. I’m a bad host. I don’t host much. Would you like something to drink or eat? I don’t have much in the fridge, but I could probably make sandwiches.”
“No, thank you. I had a snack before I left today.” It was times like this that the closeness she felt to him started to evaporate, causing her to question what she was doing. “I really only have another hour . . . maybe we should . . .” She didn’t finish, hoping he would pick up on the unsubtle hint.
He looked uneasy as his eyes glanced toward the desk. “I have everything on my computer.”
Her heartbeat quickened when she saw the computer. “Okay.”
Following him to the desk, he sat down and logged on. The sound of the buttons clicking drew her attention, and she was curious what password someone like Ben would choose—an animal, a made-up word, a name, a food. It could be anything, but she felt it would be something meaningful to him. I wonder what mattered to him? By the lack of stuff, it wasn’t decorating. When she turned back to the desk, a silver frame next to the monitor caught her attention. Her gaze rolled over the five happy faces, but landed on one—her own.
She didn’t mean to gasp, but when she did it startled him. He stood up and their eyes connected for a brief moment as he blocked the framed photo from her view. “I should have warned you. I’m sorry. I’m so used to it being there that I didn’t think about it—”
“It’s okay. Is it—is that . . .” She reached around as he sat back down and picked it up. “May I?”
“Of course.” Anxiety rolled off him and right onto her. He said, “That’s my family. You were very close to them.”
He pointed out who was who, but stopped at the two of them. Her eyes shifted between herself and Ben, taking in every detail—his smile, his eyes, his happiness, her face, and her love for him. Love that was so obvious.
Without calculating a more careful response, she said, “I loved you. I can see how much I loved you in this picture.” Not a question, but a statement of fact. She needed time to process this information.
From his silence, thankfully, he was willing to give her that time.
Jane set the frame back down in the spot where she found it. She didn’t want to, not ready to part with it, but she noticed the photos he mentioned earlier were open on his computer. He stood back up and offered her the chair. She sat down quietly, her hand moving to cover the mouse. “Do you mind me clicking through?” It was foolish to ask since that’s why they were here, but she did because everything, every breath she took, every movement she made around him was laden with an immense unknown. Who was she? Who was he? Who were they together? Internally, she was struggling to navigate the line between what he knows of their past and what she’s holding on to in the present. But here they were, alone, with hundreds of pictures of a life she didn’t recollect.
“Take your time,” he said, moving to sit on the couch.
He was giving her space, but she wasn’t sure she needed it. She kind of liked him close.
She spent about ten minutes looking through the photos before she asked, “Do you have pictures of my family?”
“Yes.” Getting up from the couch, he walked back to the desk and leaned over her. She felt his breath on her neck and briefly closed her eyes, wishing she could remember anything from before the accident. I loved this man.
His hand covered hers, which was resting on the mouse, then he clicked on a file. When the file was open, he double-clicked on the first picture.
Unprepared for the emotions that would strike, tears filled her eyes as she stared. Her parents. Her. A high school graduation she had no memory of. Ben walked away, but she continued to stare—eyes like her mother’s, a mouth like her father’s. She was the sum total of two people she didn’t know, two people who lost a daughter three years earlier.
An ache filled her chest over the pain they must have felt when she disappeared, and the loss they still felt today. A box of tissues was set down and Ben handed her one to catch the tear working its way down her cheek. “What are their names?” she asked, her voice a reflection of her devastation for them.
“Pamela and John Stevens. They’ve been married thirty years next month?”
She turned around and the question flew from her mouth, “In June?”
“Yes.”
“Which day?”
“The seventeenth. The seventeenth of June.”
She stood and rushed for the door, her feet trying to escape something that just can’t be. No. It can’t be true.
“Grace?” Ben called to her, the name stopping her in her tracks. Trying to compose herself, she dabbed around her eyes so he wouldn’t see her falling apart.
Ben stood behind her, his body so close to hers that guilt came back. She stepped closer to the door, taking hold of the knob. “I should go.”
“I want you to stay.”
“I can’t.”
“Are you all right?”
Her gentle sniffles were the only sound in the room. He stayed a respectful distance this time when all she wanted to do was touch him and have him touch her in ways that weren’t respectful. She didn’t look at him, but she spoke, “I’m doing this behind Hunter’s back. I lied to him last night about seeing you and here I am today after promising him I wouldn’t.” She pursed her lips as she bit the inside of her cheek.
Caught between two worlds, she hurt in ways she’d thought she had buried. “I don’t care about him, Grace. I’m sorry. I don’t. I only care about you.”
“That’s our wedding date,” she stated.
“You remember?” he asked with what felt like anticipation. His chest pressed solidly to her back as his hands took hold of her arms. Ben’s heart thumped rapidly, matching hers. “You remembered.” Turning her around, he cupped her face. “You remember.”
The smile on his face was infectious, making her want to say anything that would keep it there, but she couldn’t in her confusion. “What?”
He embraced her against his chest, holding her as tight as he could, his love pouring into her through a kiss to the head and warm arms that secured her to him. “I can’t believe you remember our wedding date.”
7
Jane Parker
Our wedding date?
“We were engaged?”
“We were going to be married.”
Jane struggled to get free from Ben. “This is too much.” Her mind was racing and she felt like she was suffocating. Yet, he held her as she drowned in her conflicting emotions. Our wedding date?
Our wedding date.
No.
No.
No.
Pushing harder, she demanded her freedom. “Let go of me.”
“No,” he replied, fighting back against her anger.
With her fists, she hit him on
the chest until his grip loosened and she could escape. “Don’t. Don’t,” she shouted, tears streaming uncontrollably down her cheeks. “Don’t touch me!” Her back hit the door, and she felt trapped. “Please,” she begged, cowering down until her bottom hit the floor. She couldn’t bear to witness his soul shattering because of her, the look of horror on his face already haunting her. So she tucked her face into the small space between her knees and chest and cried.
His body seemed paralyzed in front of her. He dropped to his knees before her as confusion clouded his eyes.
Jane wanted to disappear, to stop the war raging inside her. She didn’t know what to do, but dared to look up again, this time their eyes locked together. He didn’t reach out to her. It wouldn’t have done any good. She knew that. So he sat there and gave into the gentle rocking back and forth motion his body was involuntarily seeking to comfort itself.
“Grace?” he said no louder than a whisper.
He seemed a stranger again as her heart darkened and she stared into his unfamiliar eyes. “My name is Jane.” She rose to her feet and straightened her pants, cold and distant. She knew she had to get control of herself. She had slipped into someone he wanted her to be, not knowing if she could, even if she wanted. Too much life had happened prior to their paths crossing again. Too much of everything stood in their way. She needed to protect herself. Reaching for her purse, she stood next to the coffee table with no magazines or photos, water ring marks, or anything that would give her a sense of the man he was.
“Grace?”
Jane cringed as she heard the name given to her from a life she didn’t know. It felt wrong. His voice was low and uncaring and yet so pained as if it pained him to say her name. He was broken. She had broken him and that broke her. She shouldn’t care. Why did she? She didn’t know him. She didn’t owe him anything. He was a stranger to the life she lived now, an invader to the peace she thought she had found. These were lies, lies she told her mind to comfort her heart, but he was right. What her head didn’t know, her heart already did.
She set her purse back down and both of them audibly sighed as relief filled the room. She turned back around needing to know more and knowing she had to rely on Ben to get those answers. They stood their ground, confined in the mess of what they left behind and what was left unsaid.
She hated hurting him, but this happened to her. He was caught in the crossfire, but it was her who lost everyone, and everything. “I’m marrying Hunter on June seventeenth. That’s our wedding day.” Her words were firm and unapologetic, leaving little room for hope. She heard Ben’s gulp, as he looked down in defeat. She held her stance needing to get this out. It was time they dealt with facts, and faced reality. “I can’t hurt him, Ben. I see how you look at me.” She paused unsure of her next words, but they came out anyway. “I feel something for you, but I can’t hurt him. He saved me. When I had nothing, he saved me. Hunter is a good man. He’s been patient with me and kind. He’s supported me as I rebuilt my life. He has been there every step of the way—”
“He kept you from your life, Jane. Don’t you see? You had everything. You had m—”
“I don’t remember that. I only remember the last three years and Hunter was the one by my side, not you.”
Ben refused to look at her, and then went to the window. His forehead pressed against the glass, and she watched his pain grow.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she watched and waited.
Ben turned and matched his body language with hers, staring directly into her eyes. “I can take you to meet your parents. Wouldn’t you want to have your parents at your wedding if you could?”
Hardball. He was playing hardball with her. He already knew the answer, so he dangled the carrot he knew would get him to his endgame. She just wished she knew what his endgame was. “I know their names. I can find them myself.”
His body relaxed, and he tried to pull off casual. It wasn’t working. It was obvious that casual wasn’t a concept that existed between them. “Yes, that’s true,” Ben said, as he walked into the kitchen and got a beer out of the fridge. “But . . .” He took two long pulls, dragging this out. She suspected on purpose. He leaned against the counter and crossed his legs at the ankles while playing with the label on the bottle. Shifting with a huff, she impatiently waited for him to continue. “Would that be wise? Your dad has had some medical issues in recent years.” He looked at her. “So wouldn’t it be better to have someone help, you know, break them in with the news first? Someone they trust. Someone they care about? I mean for them and you.”
Ben walked by her barely nudging her shoulder with his as he passed and sat on the couch. He propped his feet up on the coffee table while swigging more of the beer. “Oh, but I forgot, it’s only you who has been affected by your disappearance. Not all of us. So, since you know what’s best, all my inside information is useless here, like me having their email, phone number, and address. That would be of absolutely no use to you, so go ahead, Jane. Go reunite. Close the door on your way out.” He waved his hand flippantly in the air in front of him. “Or maybe sit back and let another three years pass.”
Jane pursed her lips in frustration. “I didn’t let it pass.”
“You stopped looking. That’s the same thing.”
She had searched. Somehow, Ben knew that. But when her searching made Hunter upset, she set her search aside. It wasn’t going to be forever, just until Hunter would be okay. She didn’t expect two years to pass though. Why had Hunter not wanted her to find out more about herself though? Surely he would want her to have answers to her past? To the dark holes where her history was trapped. But, she couldn’t think about Hunter at this moment. She agreed with Ben that Grace would want to have her parents at the wedding. “Surely their information is online.” Surely . . . Shoot. She wasn’t sure at all. Her eyes narrowed, daggers hitting him. The smug bastard! He was right and she knew it. The worst part? He knew he was right.
She didn’t want to hurt Pamela and John Stevens even if they were technically strangers to her at this point. This had already been so hard on her, and she was only three days in. It would be wise to have help, and he had a point. If John Stevens had been ill, she couldn’t just show up out of the blue and risk him having a heart attack or worse, dying. So maybe it would be good to have someone who knew them, someone they felt comfortable around, to break the news and reintroduce them. Ben could support her and them during this process.
The only other alternative was to go to Hunter with the information and ask him to help her find them. A twisting took hold of her gut, making her realize that wasn’t an option. With the demands of his job and the plans with the wedding, he wouldn’t like anything else, especially something like this dumped on his plate. No, she couldn’t go to him. And deep down, more than she cared to admit, she wanted Ben when it came to something so sensitive, so big, so life changing like this.
She watched as Ben lounged back with his arms across the back of the couch looking relaxed, a little too cocky, and much too gorgeous.
“You have one month, Jane. One month to decide what you’re doing with the rest of your life. I’m sure, like me, you realize marriage is for life not just for now. It shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
“What are you saying, Ben?”
Ben sat forward and set his beer on the table in front of him. “Can you honestly marry Hunter when you have just discovered this new information? Information, I should remind you, that he doesn’t want you to have.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? Why doesn’t he want you to know?”
Jane huffed and shook her head. “Listen, I know what you’re doing here—”
“What am I doing?” Ben asked, leaning back again with his eyes latched on hers. “Tell me what I’m doing, Jane.”
She should have walked out, just to prove him wrong, but she couldn’t, so she turned her back to him. Closing her eyes, she needed to think clearly, logi
cally. She never heard him coming, but he was there, pressed to her back, his lips to her ear, whispering, “Grace. My beautiful, beautiful, Grace.”
Her legs swayed under her, but his grip on her waist held her steady. Turning in his hold, she kept her eyes closed, but moved her hands up his chest until she was fisting the front of his shirt. One deep breath was followed by an equal exhale. Another breath and she slowly opened her eyes, silently challenging him.
Swear words were heard from under his breath, his smugness seeming to soften while his body hardened under her touch. “You’re so beautiful.”
When his eyes closed and he leaned in, she was so tempted by the lips that enticed her in more ways than one, but her hands went up, firm against his chest. His eyes reopened and he said, “I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t apologize.” Although she shouldn’t, she kept her hands on his chest. “I’m trying to accept that my accident wasn’t only about me. I’d just started accepting that I may never know who I was, Ben. I’ve been dealing with this hollowness on my own for three years now.”
“What about Barnes?”
Jane heard the way Ben spit Hunter’s name in disgust. Her defenses went up, but then she realized he had a right to his feelings, just like she did. They’d been engaged to be married. Had she not been in an accident, she would have been married to Ben for three years on June 17th. He was dealing with something, like her, that bonded them in a way she couldn’t yet describe. Her eyes dropped to her hands. She dragged her fingers lightly down his chest before removing them altogether. “He has, but he’s a doctor. He works long hours.”