by Sakwa, Kim
She smiled then. “Well, since it’s Saturday,” she said, “probably not.”
He swore under his breath; this was perhaps the first time in his life he’d actually lost track of the days. And considering his life the past year, which included two different centuries, that was saying a lot. “Amanda, I don’t know what to do. How to—”
“Can we just go have coffee and breakfast? Like most other mornings?”
“Yeah, that sounds like a great start,” he said, feeling his shoulders relax. He followed her into the kitchen where Rosa was getting breakfast together and poured coffee. The boys, including Stephen and Gregor, had taken up residence in the sitting area adjacent to the kitchen. When he turned to hand her a mug, Amanda was just staring blankly. He softly called her name, but she didn’t respond. He tried again, reaching out to grasp her arm. “Hey, where’d you go?”
She blinked, looking as if she’d just come out of a stupor. “Where did I go?” she repeated. “Where did you go, Alex?”
And so they’d continue. And not in private, either, apparently. “I didn’t go anywhere, Amanda.” He shook his head. “For the longest time I couldn’t go anywhere.”
“I don’t understand, Alex.”
“Until you remember, sweetheart, you won’t be able to.”
She shook her head, a look in her eye that Alexander knew well. She wasn’t going to let this go. “Uh-uh, no, not good enough. I still don’t know really what happened. You said I let go, which means you didn’t intend to leave me, right? Bu—”
His head snapped back as if he’d been slapped, unsure he’d heard her correctly, he pulled her in closer. “Excuse me?” he said. Bloody hell, he liked her closer. She smelled so good, and her gorgeous blue eyes sparkled from the sun blasting through the kitchen windows, even as they narrowed at him.
“I said, I don’t think you meant to lea—”
Jesus. “I heard you,” he ground out. It sounded just as bad the second time. “I would have never left you, Amanda.” Didn’t she know, couldn’t she feel what was between them? He felt the sting of tears. Fuck. Now was not the time. “I never would have left you and Callie alone if it could have been helped,” he said evenly, forcing his voice to steady.
“I don’t know what that means, Alex!” she said, clearly exasperated. “If what could have been helped?”
Bloody hell, the way she looked at him, he just wanted to tell her everything. But what? “Gee, Amanda, you see you and Callie fell hundreds of feet from the side of a cliff and traveled through time and well, um, then after me and the guys also time traveled here to be with you.” Evan would love that. He sighed, hating that she couldn’t yet know everything. “It means at the time it was impossible for me or my men to get to you. And by the time we could, you were under the protection of JDL.”
Her brows drew together as she considered God only knew what else, but then she nodded, satisfied at least for now. “Did you know I was pregnant?” she asked, her voice smaller than before.
He breathed a sigh of relief. This one he could handle. “I’m not sure even you knew then. We were moving.” Fleeing, actually. “The entire household was upside down that night, Amanda. It had been for days.”
“Wait.” She shook her head. “What household?”
“Abersoch.” Come on, sweetheart, you’ve got this, he thought, hoping something, anything he might say would trigger her memory return.
She wrapped her hand around his forearm, nodding slowly. “Do you think going back there would help?”
“It might,” he told her. Bloody hell, what if going to Great Britain was the key? What if seeing the estate again brought her memory back in a flash? But Alexander never wanted to set foot on British soil again. It was a different place now than it had been then, he knew that, it was just the principle of the matter. “But we’re not going back.”
“I don’t mean right now,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Duh, not like this second, bu—”
“We won’t be returning to Britain, Amanda,” he said firmly, feeling surer of that than anything right now.
“I meant at some point in the near future.”
Bloody hell, when his wife became stuck on something, very little could change her mind. “We won’t return to Britain, Amanda,” he repeated slowly, evenly.
“Ever?”
“Ever.” He could never go back to a place that had once put a price on his head for simply believing in the right to freedom, no matter how much time had passed since then.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Whatever happened, Alex, I know it must have been bad. I believe you. I’ve been having mixed feelings about Abersoch, too, though I haven’t known why. I used to love it there. Maybe this is part of it. But what if Callie wants to go to Oxford? Or Cambridge? Or LSE one day? It’s part of her heritage, Alex—it’s not unreasonable she’d want to explore it.”
“She won’t,” he said, though he hadn’t thought of that.
“You can’t know tha—”
“Bloody hell, Amanda, ten months ago we were hellbent on leaving Britain. For good.”
“I know that,” she said, “but why? You keep telling me we’re not going back, but what happened, Alex?” She clutched his shirt. “I used to love it there, so what was so awful that I have such strange feelings about it now?” He could only meet her stare, unsure of what to say. “Help me, please,” she pleaded.
“It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
“Jesus, Amanda.” The gravity of his actions hit him then. For the first time he realized that everything, all of it, was his fault. He’d been the one to rebel, to join the other side. Why couldn’t he just have been happy with the status quo? They could have lived their lives and been okay. Of course, he may have died anyway once the war broke out. He wiped his eyes.
“Just tell me already,” she pleaded.
He thought of how best to put it. “There was a price on my head.”
“What?” She stepped back. “You mean…” She came back in and whispered, “Like a hit? A contract?” She looked around as if there still might be danger. Her guess was close enough, so he nodded. “Who?” she asked.
It was easy to stick to the truth here. “The Crown.”
She gasped, Zander stirring as she clutched him tighter. “Your own government! What—did you steal state secrets? Were you a rogue spy or—” Bloody hell, she started gasping for air.
“Amanda!” He led her to the table, sat her down, and knelt in front of her. “Breathe, sweetheart.” He placed a hand over her chest. “Shh…shh…” he whispered, cupping her head with his other hand. “That’s it, breathe.” She shuddered and clutched his hand.
“That’s been happening to me a lot lately,” she said between shaky breaths. “These flashes of memory and they just…take over. Just now, I remembered a document. It was in a leather-bound ledger of some sort. Like some kind of legal accounting.”
“Do you remember what was on it?” Alexander asked, every one of his senses alert.
She shook her head, but something in her look said she was holding back.
“Amanda, I wasn’t—I wasn’t executed.” Though he shuddered now at the thought. “I’m alive and well. As are you and our children.”
“Can you take him?” she asked as she started to stand. Then he watched again like an idiot as she thumped her forehead with her hands.
“Stop.”
Callie padded into the kitchen then, latching on to Amanda’s leg, and joined right in. “Papa, are you going to leave a lot again?”
“I have a new business and responsibilities, angel.”
“Are you still an admiral in the navy?”
Amanda’s eyes darted right to his. “No, angel.”
“Are you still a spy?” she said, twirling her hair and examining it intently as she did so.
He kept his eyes on Amanda as he answered this question too. “No, Callie.”
“Did those bad men take me and Mama ’cause they found out?”
“Wait, what bad men?” Amanda jumped in, wrapping an arm around Callie.
“The men who took us from the house, Mama,” Callie told her, then went back to twirling. “You killed them, right, Papa?” Callie said absently.
“The bad men are gone, angel. I killed them,” he said evenly, praying his daughter wouldn’t say anything more. Not now.
“Papa?”
“Callie?”
“I have to tell you something.”
“I’m listening.”
“When…that night…” She looked down, worrying her little hands together again and again. “I was hiding under your desk.”
“I know you were, I helped you get there.” He gently moved her chin up to look into her eyes. “It’s not your fault, angel.”
“Do you remember what you told Mama when she came in?”
“Bloody hell,” he whispered as he scrubbed his hand over his face. “I remember.” He took a deep breath and gave Callie his full attention again. Knowing she would continue pressing unless he got the story exactly right, he tried not to look at Amanda as he continued. “First, Mama came in and said she had a bad feeling. And I said—”
“You said, really?” Callie interrupted, giggling. Alexander gave her an indulgent smile. “’Cause that’s what Mama always said to you when you told her something she already knew.”
“That’s exactly why I said it,” he replied, suddenly feeling very heavy. They’d excelled at being a family, and remembering the easy closeness they’d once had killed him.
“Do you remember what you said after that?” Callie asked.
He didn’t take his eyes off her as he reenacted the scene, which was branded in his brain—the last hours he’d spent with his family before everything shattered. “I said, ‘Twenty minutes, Amanda. That ship—’”
“Did you point to it, Papa?” Callie interrupted again. “I couldn’t see from beneath the desk.”
“I did…I said, ‘Twenty minutes, Amanda.’” He lifted his right arm as he had that same night and pointed as if it were still there. “‘That ship. We’re on it. So if there’s something you can’t live without, you’d better fetch it now.’” Amanda looked horror stricken. Jesus, I know, sweetheart. It’s a living, recurring nightmare in my head that never goes away.
“Do you know what it was she couldn’t live without?” Callie asked eagerly.
“I didn’t know at the time,” he said, shaking his head, “but I’m guessing it was you, Callie.”
“So it is my fault,” she said, dropping her head dejectedly. The sight broke Alexander’s heart. If he’d known this was where the inquiry was leading, he’d never have taken her there.
“No,” he said at the same time as Amanda. “You were still hiding when Mama came back, weren’t you?”
Callie nodded.
“Then you know that when Mama said she had to talk to me, I told her it had to wait.”
“But she didn’t think it could.”
“She didn’t say that, angel.” Alexander shook his head.
“But, Papa, that’s what she meant,” Callie said, her voice getting more and more distraught. “I remember how she said it. That’s why I went after her.” She looked at Amanda. “Mama?”
“Oh, sweetie, I wish I could help you,” Amanda said, hugging her. She looked at him then, shrugging her shoulders helplessly. Something about the gesture changed the dynamic, warmed his heart too. Amanda was trying to help him help their daughter.
When her mother couldn’t add to the story, Callie continued. “By the time I caught up to you, it was too late,” she told Amanda. “Do you remember how you roared, Papa? When you found us on the ledge?”
He swore under his breath then answered, “I do, Callie.”
“And when I fell and then Mama let go of you…you roared again. I thought the first roar was fierce, Papa…but I’ll never forget that last one. You roared like that ’cause you thought we were gone forever, didn’t you?”
He couldn’t acknowledge that particular question. Wouldn’t. “I found you, though, didn’t I?”
“I gotta tell you something else, Papa.”
Jesus. “Still listening.”
“I know why Mama can’t remember anymore.”
“Oh, angel. She got real sad in the hospital after Zander was born and her memory is taking a little break. You know that.”
“Nuh-uh.” Callie shook her head. “Mama thought you were gone forever, too. I remember. We were living in our big house in New York.” She smiled then and looked at Amanda. “I liked it there, Mama.” Amanda smiled back, mouthed me too, and started running her fingers through Callie’s hair. “Mama used to light a candle for you every single night, Papa. Then when she thought I had gone to bed, she’d play the piano.” She looked at Amanda again for reassurance. “You play the prettiest music, Mama.” She turned back to him after Amanda gave her an indulgent smile, which masked the expectant tension in her eyes. “But Mama would always cry after, Papa, and then she’d stand in front of the window, like right in front with her head and hands pressed against the glass, and tell you to come home to us. I remember ’cause she did it every single night.”
“I did?” Amanda barely got the words out, her head was whirling, and she felt like a five-hundred-pound weight lay on her heart. She couldn’t remember that, or so many other things. Poor little Callie, holding all these memories without her mother to take some of the burden. Well, there was that flash of the ledger, but nothing else. She remembered their home in New York, of course, and now that she was thinking about it, she was surprised they’d moved. She thought she’d loved it there, and from what she could remember, the things she could remember, they’d had a great summer. She’d seen pictures, thanks to Stan and the newspaper and magazine articles he’d shown her. “I loved our home in New York too, baby,” she said again.
“But not after you saw that book.”
“What book, sweetie?”
“The one that made you scream, Mama. I found it after Aunt Sam and Mr. Finch took you upstairs. Mr. Finch had to carry you.”
Alex looked at her then. But she shook her head. She didn’t know what Callie was talking about.
“What did it say, Callie?” Amanda asked gently, a bit petrified and baffled.
“It was open to a page that had Papa’s name on it,” she told her emphatically, nodding her head. Then Callie looked at Alex. “It said you were guilty, Papa, of reason. And you had to write a sentence about death. It took me a long time to sound that sentence out, Papa, but I repeated it a bunch of times, so that I would never forget it.”
Amanda spent the rest of the morning vacillating between wanting to know more and just letting sleeping dogs lie for the moment. It was frigging exhausting. Evan was out of town for the weekend, but she had called him about it. It was one thing to have all these random memories, flashes, or whatever they were, but when she tried to place them in context, it was like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle locking together. And the picture was sometimes terrifying. After Callie’s last declaration, Alex’s phone had gone off. He’d looked ridiculously relieved, probably grateful for an emergency. The circus, minus Stephen, had piled out the front doors and hadn’t returned for a few hours. She still had so many questions—more now than before—but for the moment, Amanda was happy for the reprieve. There was only so much a person could take in one frigging sitting.
When the crew returned, Alex and the boys took up residence in the living room. Later, she passed him in the hall, both going in different directions to and from the kitchen, and Alex reached out to touch her. For the first time that day, he gave her one of those looks that she used to love, where she could see how much he worri
ed about her wellbeing. She nodded and smiled, telling him, “I’m okay,” before she reached out to keep hold of him. “You?”
“Yeah,” he said as she was absently rubbing the material of his shirt between her fingers. “Soft enough?” he asked.
She smiled. “Considering the fortune you spend on your clothes, I’d expect soft, but your clothes are the softest I’ve ever felt.”
“You always had a thing for my clothes,” he chuckled.
“I did?” she asked, a second before Rosa popped in and handed him a stack of freshly pressed slacks. “I may be one sandwich short of a picnic, but I’m telling you now, I would notice if you moved in, Montgomery,” she teased, knowing Rosa loved indulging Alex and the guys. And God it felt so nice right now to just be with him; she missed the easy rapport they used to have.
“You? One sandwich short?” He shook his head. “You happen to be a ridiculously intelligent woman. And you’re not crazy, sweetheart,” he said, touching her again, this time to tuck an errant wisp of hair behind her ear. “You’re suffering from psychogenic amnesia.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment, Alex, but what I have is psychogenic amnesia, caused by my suffering.”
“You just proved my point, clever girl.”
The next hour she spent pacing the house. She’d been up and down the stairs and through the foyer what seemed like fifty times. On each pass, she stopped to look at him. Then thought better of it and walked away. Finally, Alex put his laptop on the table, threw his phone next to it, and started after her. Heart racing, she ran. He caught her in the hallway just before the kitchen and pulled her back against him. “What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, a bit out of breath, fully in his embrace. It was a first, at least that she could remember. She was engulfed by warmth, and the most powerful set of arms. Something about it felt amazing.
“About what?”
Amanda turned in his arms. He had her so close there wasn’t a lot of room between them at all. “About this.” She wagged her finger back and forth. “About us.”