by Alicia Scott
“A hundred and one,” she declared. “Better, but we have a ways to go.”
“The bus stop,” he said, the words gravelly and low as they rumbled across his cracked lips. Her eyes met his warily.
“Water?” she asked smoothly.
He closed his eyes and searched along the fire-seared edges of his mind. “Do you remember the bus stop?” he whispered, knowing only that he had to know. So many things eluded his memory, buried behind the impenetrable mist. But he could see Maddensfield clearly, the house he grew up in, the faces of his brothers and sister in turn. He remembered high school, remembered scoring the winning touchdown to advance the team to the state play-offs. And recalled the bus stop the night he’d left home.
“Come now, Garret, don’t waste your energy on words,” Suzanne said briskly, though her heart was already pounding in her chest. The strange tightness returned to her stomach, and she felt anger thread into the weave of anticipation coursing through her blood. She edged away from the bed, and began to tidy things on the table. “You should sleep,” she continued, proud of the steadiness of her voice.
“There are so many things I don’t remember,” he went on, his head rolling restlessly. “Last week, the weeks before that. The year before that. All I see is the mist in my head.” He looked up. “So why do I remember the bus stop? Why do I see it again and again in my mind?”
His gaze caught her this time, pinning her like a helpless butterfly while her hands fluttered uselessly over the tabletop. The anger and tension weaved tighter, her spine turning brittle and rigid. Why was he asking her these things? Why was he looking at her like that? “You’ve had a nasty bump on your head,” she grated out under the onslaught of his glittering eyes. “You need some rest, Garret. That’s all.”
He frowned, and at once, she could see the telltale creep of color under his darkly tanned skin. “Do you remember the bus stop?” he demanded again, the words hoarser and edged with feverish determination. The air around him began to crackle with the pent-up electricity of his need.
She set her jaw, her gaze approaching mutiny. But the intensity of his gaze refused to be denied. Damn feverish fool.
“Yes,” she admitted suddenly. Her hands unconsciously clenched the edge of the nightstand, while his eyes flared brighter.
“Do you remember what you said?” The fever flushed his cheeks, lacing the words with urgency and fire. This time, she managed to shake her head.
“You said you loved me,” he said abruptly, his body shifting with the restlessness of the encroaching flames. Hot again, he could feel the hint of the fire pressing against his mind, the heat just beginning to roll forward. Once more he fastened upon the picture of the bus stop, the rain cold and cleansing on his face, the tears slow and desolate on her cheeks. He could still see her lips soundlessly forming the words, while something strange and inexplicable wrenched his chest. He could still feel the phantom ache, and it drove him mad in his heat-sensitized mind.
His gaze latched onto hers even more fiercely, the glittering depths tortured and cornered and possessed. His bandaged fists began to slowly twist the sheets at his side.
“I was sixteen,” she managed to blurt out, the beat of her heart painful against her ribs as his eyes bore into her own. “And you were…” She faltered, hating the weakness and hating him for dragging her through his fever-ridden memories. Her lips thinned, and she stared him straight in the eyes. “And you were James Dean.”
He grinned suddenly, a slow cracking of his heat-parched skin that turned to a wince. James Dean. Of course, he’d been James Dean. But had James Dean’s head ever felt as if it had been stuck in a vat of boiling tar? Did James Dean remember nothing but the woman he was supposed to forget?
“And now?” he demanded urgently with a sickening lurch of his head, feeling at once lost and desperate. Flames leaped at the corners of his memory, his body bowing with rigid intensity. “And now?”
His gaze burned so dark, she felt a moment of panic. He was feverish, she realized dully. Sick and lost in his ravaged mind, saying words he didn’t even comprehend. The knowledge lent her strength, and gently, firmly, she laid her hands on his shoulders. With steady determination, she pressed him back down against the mattress.
“Fifteen years is fifteen years,” she said quietly, stroking her cool hand across his cheek. “Rest now, Garret. You need your strength so you can leave again.” There was a hint of irony and an edge of bitterness in her voice, but at least she knew she still understood the situation.
He seemed to sigh, the tension escaping him with a whisper until he sank like a rag doll into the sheets. The muscles in his neck relaxed, his fists suddenly opening at his sides. His eyes closed, and he slipped away from her completely.
Her hands lingered on his cheeks, feeling the heat burn and ebb. Unconsciously, she brushed back the black strands of his hair and smoothed the sheet up around his neck. One hand retrieved the damp washcloth from the waiting basin and she gently stroked it down his face.
Her hands still trembled.
With a tightening of her lips, she forced her movements to become brisker. She wasn’t sixteen anymore, she reminded herself. Fifteen years was indeed fifteen years. And she didn’t lie in bed anymore, wondering if this would be the night he would magically return and save her from the dreariness of her own existence. She didn’t dream of his spark-filled grins, didn’t recall his somber gaze as he’d touched her cheek in the rain and whispered, “Someday.”
Now she was the thirty-two-year-old kindergarten teacher, community leader, churchgoer and volunteer. She tended children, cultivated a garden, worked in the community and maintained her legacy home. She was brisk and practical and efficient, and no one in this town ever commented about the hunch-shouldered girl she’d once been. And no one ever mentioned her mother.
Working now on the autopilot she knew so well, she picked up the basin in one hand and the pitcher in the other, and carried them both into the kitchen. She would fix a light breakfast, then see to her garden. Then there were the phone calls to make, the meetings to reschedule, Garret to check. If she had the time, the bathrooms needed to be cleaned, the linens washed. She should probably plan on a casserole for dinner for herself.
Plenty to do. Always plenty of things to do.
Cagney appeared promptly at eight a.m., his face tense and his question immediate. “How is he?”
“Better,” she assured him, hazel eyes compassionate. Knowing he wouldn’t be convinced until he saw Garret with his own eyes, she led him straight down the hall to the bedroom. “Fever’s down to 101, and I’ve gotten more liquids into him. I still don’t understand half of what he says, Cagney, but there’s something about a car and your folks.”
Cagney stiffened immediately in the doorway of the bedroom, and his lips thinned for a minute. Then with a forced sigh, he relaxed his stance. “I hate this not knowing,” he said low and even.
Suzanne placed a calming hand on his shoulder and offered him a reassuring smile. “Give him a day or two, and he’ll be able to talk. You’ve already taken care of Mitch and your folks. It will be all right.”
She didn’t mention Garret’s selective memory of their own interactions. No reason for anyone to know about that.
Cagney remained for an hour, hovering around the bedroom and the living room until she handed him a trowel and told him he could at least make himself useful if he was going to insist on hanging out. But just as he was about to give in and return to the sheriff’s office, Garret opened his eyes.
“Cagney,” he said immediately, the word thick. Well-trained by now, Suzanne automatically fetched another glass of water. “The car,” Garret rasped. When he was done drinking, his eyes focused on Cagney, leaving her in peace for a change. It was just as well. Her hands had started trembling the minute she realized he was conscious.
Cagney hunkered down beside the bed, the concern in his face evident as he stared at his brother. “What car?”
“I
n the woods,” Garret whispered. “I hid it. Rented to Robert Fulchino. No one must find it.”
“Why?” Cagney pressed. “Who are you running from, Garret? I need to know more.”
Garret frowned, and his bandaged hand groped aimlessly on the sheet as if he was looking for something he couldn’t find. “I don’t know,” he said at last, his head tossing restlessly once more. “I can see my team, and we’re diving. We’re training. I see Austin and the others. Parachuting, deep reconnaissance, it’s all there…until suddenly, the memories just disappear into the fog. I just see the flames. Beautiful old buildings consumed by the flames…and the sound of gunfire.” He shook his head at the confusion, then winced at the motion. A last whisper escaped from his lips. “Mrtavi…”
Cagney’s jaw tightened, his impatience barely restrainable. “What’s that, Garret? What’s…mchabi?”
Garret frowned again, and Suzanne could see his growing agitation. Immediately, she placed a reassuring hand on his bare shoulder, where the sheet had slipped down. “It’s okay, Garret, sweetheart,” she said evenly, her eyes boring pointedly into Cagney’s. “There’s no reason to rush it. It will all come back with a little rest.”
Cagney’s eyes narrowed but he got her message. “The language, then?” He tried one last time. “Can you tell me the language, Garret? Where you’ve been?”
Garret’s dark face twisted, and darting among the burned ruins of his memory, he could see pictures, one and one hundred. Flames and guns and shell-pocked buildings. Sniper fire and people darting quickly across the streets. And the searing heat of the wall of flames rising before him as he yelled out commands to the faceless men beside him hefting the ax in his hands. Gunshots, fire, ax. Again, only one word filled his mind.
“Mrtavi,” he whispered. He felt pain, he felt rage, and once more he knew the ax rested in his soot-covered arms.
“What is mchabi?” Cagney roared, ignoring Suzanne’s warning look with the force of his worry. “Tell me what the hell is going on, Garret!”
“The dead,” his brother whispered, and his eyes filled with flame and fire and loss. “The dead.”
Cagney’s face went pale, and Suzanne felt her own spine tingle with the hushed power of the word. Slowly, she drew the sheet up, patting it around Garret’s neck, and feeling his cheeks for fever. “That’s enough now, Garret,” she said,
her voice remarkably level. “You go back to sleep. Cagney will take care of your car. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
Cagney nodded, his gray eyes regaining their steadiness even if his face remained pale. Taking his hand, Suzanne led him from the room.
She spared one last glance at Garret, but he finally seemed to have fallen asleep, his face still drawn against the sheets. Outside the room, Cagney muttered a few choice words about the situation.
“I don’t know where Mitch is anymore. I don’t know what to do about Mom and Dad,” he grumbled low with frustration. “I don’t know where Garret’s been and I don’t know who’s safe to ask. I don’t know a damn thing.”
Nodding reassuringly, Suzanne placed a comforting hand on his arm. “It’ll all work out,” she drawled, hating to see the usually calm Cagney worked up. He turned, and looked at her with his darkening gray gaze.
“We don’t know that,” he said flatly. “Hell, Suzanne, you could be in danger right now for helping him. I’m family, but you shouldn’t be dragged into this.”
Lips thinning, she shook her head with determination. “Your parents have always been more than kind to me Cagney. You think Garret is safe here, so that’s all that matters. We’ll just take it one day at a time.”
Cagney sighed, his face still troubled. “Where the hell do you think he’s been, Suzanne? And what in the world is he talking about.”
Her own gaze faltered, her hazel eyes soft with worry. “He’ll heal,” she said at last, “and then he’ll remember, and you and he can take care of it. Just wait and see.”
The following days, however, proved her wrong.
Cagney returned the car to the airport, and Garret’s fever came down while the strange words disappeared completely from his mutterings. Dr. Jacobs grew more satisfied with his general health although he was still concerned about the persistent loss of memory. But after several days of probing and prodding, they concluded that Garret could recall most of his more distant past, and certainly had no trouble retaining new memories since he’d arrived at Suzanne’s. On the other hand, he couldn’t recollect events of the past two years, only images of fire and bullets. Dr. Jacobs finally diagnosed it as a traumatic memory loss. Hopefully, the memories would return as he became able to deal with them.
In the meantime, the IV disappeared, and Garret slipped into long days of sleeping, sleeping and sleeping.
Suzanne grew used to those days. With Dr. Jacobs’s help, she tended to him, his sleeping form passive and characterless. From time to time, she had to fend off earnest offers from friends to come assist her with her own supposed illhealth, but lies seemed to come more readily to her tongue nowadays.
By the fourth day, she didn’t give the situation much thought anymore. Until she walked into the guest bedroom with a fresh pitcher of water, and found Garret standing naked in the middle of the room.
He swayed slightly where he stood, his body pale but impressive with his feet planted on her old hardwood floor. Her eyes flew open, the color draining from her face. And in her shock, she couldn’t quite avert her gaze.
She saw muscle-bound, darkly haired legs with zigzagging scars down one side. She saw a black-furrowed chest with a narrow line darting through a washboard stomach to areas that made her eyes grow even wider. For a moment, the pure shock made her sway on her own feet.
“I want clothes,” Garret snarled.
Her wide hazel eyes riveted up, the heat of her cheeks more searing than his fever had ever been. “Wh-what?” she sounded out breathlessly. But he just stood there as if his nakedness meant nothing, and pinned her with his dark, glittering eyes.
“Clothes, damn it,” he repeated impatiently. “I want my clothes back.”
She recovered enough to set the pitcher down on a side table, her hands shaking enough to make it a small feat. Her pulse still pounded in her neck, but she forced her scattered thoughts together. Efficient and practical, Suzanne. Remember?
But all of sudden, she was feeling lips on hers in the rain, her young body pressed against the solid, muscled mass, before he whispered, “Someday.”
“Come on, damn it, I need my clothes.”
He took a step forward with his scarred leg, and that spurred her thoughts back together. She stiffened her spine and forced herself to meet his burning eyes even as her cheeks flushed darker.
“We threw away your clothes,” she said simply, her chin unconsciously setting.
He scowled, the expression dangerous and disconcerting in his unshaven face. “I need clothes,” he growled again. His eyes bore into her own, as if from sheer force of will he could make the desired garments appear in her hands.
It took effort for her even to swallow. “I have a few skirts that are a tad on the large side,” she returned squarely. “Perhaps you’d like to give them a try.” He scowled even more, but she simply shrugged defiantly. “I’m telling you, we threw away your clothes. They were blood-soaked and filthy.”
His face set, and underneath the thick covers of his whiskers, she could see his skin pale. He took another step, and this time wavered perceptibly. The damn fool was most likely going to faint on her floor. And naked no less.
“Back into bed,” she announced briskly, using her best kindergarten teacher’s voice. To prove her point, she walked sternly forward, looking at him with thin, determined lips. He, however, did not back away.
“I have to leave,” he grated, though some of the heat had gone from his voice, and the strain was becoming more noticeable in his face.
“All in good time,” she assured him. She’d reached his side now, but sti
ll he didn’t step back. And all of a sudden, she was aware of how close she was to his naked length. She could feel the heat roll out over her, intense and beguiling.
Once, she’d felt those arms wrap around her, strong and solid and fierce. She’d pressed herself against that body, feeling his muscled contours against her own soft frame, calling his lips down onto her own. And she could still feel the warmth of that kiss, caressing her skin through the cool spring rain. She’d never forgotten how he’d held her in those last few moments. Offering her something no one else ever had. And she’d never forget how he’d boarded the bus right after and never looked back.
“Get into bed,” she said stiffly, her face unconsciously shuttered and hard. “You’re sick and you’re weak. You want to leave, then do it when you’re not going to pass out on my bedroom floor.”
He grinned suddenly, the smile unexpected and spinetingling in his unshaven face. Without warning, he reached out a finger and lightly touched her cheek. She flinched noticeably.
“You sound like a kindergarten teacher,” he said softly, switching tactics. He’d learned long ago that where force sometimes failed, charm could still prevail.
She glared at him mutinously, nevertheless, her shoulders more set than he’d remembered. She’d come a long way in fifteen years, he thought abruptly. She wasn’t a scrawny kid anymore. Now she was nicely rounded in all the right places, her long hair pinned up in one of those knots that made a man wonder how many pins he could slide out before it all came tumbling down. Not his type at all.
He generally went for slender and athletic types, women who could take care of themselves and who understood a week meant a week and a night meant a night. Suzanne, however, in her cream lace tank top and long, crinkled blue skirt, looked feminine and provincial, all the things he avoided in a woman. She looked like the kind of woman who might walk a guy to the bus stop in the rain. The kind of woman who might cry in the rain and make a man remember long after he’d sworn to forget.
“Back into bed,” she reiterated sternly, pointing at the rumpled pile of sheets.