“And?”
“I thought I seemed kind of average,” he shrugged. “And I have some serious hair issues. Do you suppose this is on purpose?” He pointed at the thick shock of black hair that almost always partially covered his right eye. She laughed at that, which made him smile. “You have the best laugh,” he told her. “It’s my new goal to make you laugh more often.”
“It’s actually been a while,” she admitted. “There hasn’t really been a lot to laugh about. Not lately.” Her voice wavered on the last part as memories of the last few months rushed to the surface, shoving aside the happiness that had begun taking root in her just a moment before.
She turned her back to him again, this time looking out the window at the postcard-perfect winter scene before her. The storm had cleared during the night, and now the snow sparkled brilliantly in the bright sunlight.
Alastair came up behind her and asked gently, “What’s wrong?”
“It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to hear about my problems right now,” Lu told him as she turned to the cupboards and tugged one open. “You have plenty of your own to deal with.”
“You’ve been such a tremendous help to me, Lu. I’m sure you literally saved my life, I would have frozen to death if you hadn’t let me stay here. Won’t you let me repay at least a little of that kindness by telling me what’s wrong?” His voice was soft as a caress.
“I can’t really talk about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“If I try to talk about it I’ll just start crying again, which I’ve already been doing for months,” Lu said. “I’ll be a total wreck. And you really don’t want to deal with me when I’m like that.”
“Why not? You dealt with me when I was at my absolute worst, little more than a miserable stray that showed up wet and muddy in your living room.” A little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “At least, I hope that was my worst. I’d hate to think that was actually some kind of high point compared to my usual wretched state of affairs.”
She couldn’t help but grin as she turned to face him. “I’m sure your life is normally fabulous. Judging by the fact that you’re currently about five thousand miles from your country of origin, you’re probably a world traveler who spends all his time jetting from one fabulous exotic location to another.”
He playfully raised an eyebrow. “Then what on Earth am I doing here? I mean, no offense, but we’re clearly in the middle of absolutely nowhere.”
Lu put her hands on her hips and pretended to be indignant. “We are not! Well, ok, we kind of are in the middle of nowhere. But there are plenty of reasons someone would come to Ashland, like world-class theaters and a great university. Just as two examples.”
He said, “I wonder if I live in town.”
“You don’t.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s a small town, and I would have noticed you,” she told him.
“How small?”
“Just under twenty thousand people.”
“That’s not that small. It’s quite possible you never noticed me.”
“No. Totally impossible,” Lu insisted.
“Why?”
“Because, Alastair, I would have noticed you.”
He got what she was saying then and smiled as he told her, “I’m glad you find me attractive.”
“You’re glad about that? Why?”
“Because Lu,” he said, “it would be rather depressing if you thought I was hideous while I in turn find you incredibly beautiful. It would mean I never had a chance with you.”
She raised her brows at him, a smile playing around her lips. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Maybe a little.” His eyes sparkled.
“You shouldn’t. For all you know, you already have a girlfriend.”
“I don’t. I’m sure of it.”
“Also, you’ve recently suffered some kind of trauma. You may not be thinking clearly.”
He smiled at that. “Regardless of what I’ve been through, I still know beauty when I see it. And I certainly know when I’m attracted to someone.” Alastair came and stood beside her, leaning against the kitchen counter like she was, their arms lightly touching. A moment passed between them, a spark, possibility flaring. Lu felt herself relaxing, letting some of the unhappiness of the past few months start to recede again.
After a few moments, Alastair cocked his head to the side and asked, “What’s that sound?”
“What sound?” She strained to hear, but all was silent.
“You don’t hear that? The low rumbling, coming from outside?”
Lu shook her head and kept listening. It was a good minute before she heard it, too. She went into the living room and stuck her feet into a pair of snow boots, then opened the front door and crossed the covered porch to the front steps. Alastair started to follow but hesitated, hanging back inside the living room and blinking at the glare of the sunlight reflecting off the snow.
A huge pickup truck with a plow mounted to the front of it appeared at the base of Lu’s driveway, pushing a mountain of snow out of its way. The engine cut off and a tall, familiar form jumped out of the cab, grabbed a snow shovel from the bed of the pickup and started walking up to the house. When he saw Lu, he stopped in his tracks.
“Seriously?” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.
It had been a while since Lu had seen her ex-boyfriend. The last time had been three months ago, when he and his parents had shown up uninvited at her Aunt Claire’s funeral. Ignoring Ted had been easy then, when she’d been completely consumed with sorrow.
But of course, of course he would show up now, right at the very moment she was just starting to connect with someone else.
“Hi Lu.” He looked and sounded the same as always. In fact, he’d changed very little in the five years she’d known him. Ted was tall and lanky, his dark blonde hair in need of a haircut as usual, his flannel shirt, t-shirt and jeans looking like they’d spent last night on his bedroom floor -- which they probably had.
He adjusted and readjusted the wire frames of his glasses, which she knew meant he was nervous. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, and when she didn’t he stammered, “I was worried about you getting stuck up here in all this snow, so I borrowed the plow from my uncle, the one that lives out by Gold Hill? I know the city never makes it up this high to clear the roads, so I thought, you know….” he was rambling, obviously flustered.
Her arms were still crossed over her chest, her breath forming a little cloud in the cold air as she asked, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you bother? It’s not like you care what happens to me.”
Ted’s brown eyes went wide. “Is that what you think? That I don’t care about you?”
She knit her brows. “No,” she said, turning the dial up to maximum sarcasm, “I think you totally care about me, Ted. That’s why you dumped me when I needed you most, because you care so much.”
“When you needed me most?” Ted’s voice rose. “Yeah, right!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lu’s voice rose to meet his.
“It means you’ve never needed me! When Aunt Claire got sick you practically shoved me aside, that’s how much you needed me. I don’t even know why I bothered to do this,” he waved his arm toward the plowed road. “You’re the only person I know that gets insulted when someone tries to help them!"
“It’s not like I meant to shove you aside!” Lu exclaimed. “Don’t you get the state I was in this past summer? Do you have any idea what that was like for me, functioning on so little sleep, trying to take care of my aunt while watching cancer take a little more of her away from me every single day?” Lu’s voice broke, and she struggled to hold the tears at bay.
“I know it was hard. I do. I just don’t know why you had to be so angry at me all the time,” Ted muttered.
“I was angry, but it didn’t have anything to do with you. I was angry because it was so incredibl
y frustrating, knowing she was going to die, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it!” Her voice wavered again, and she fought with everything she had to keep herself from crying. “God Ted, you know better than anyone else what Aunt Claire meant to me.”
“I know she was like a mom to you. And I know how awful her cancer was, Lulu. I do.” Ted’s voice was rough, as if he too was struggling to hold back some strong emotions.
Lu took a deep breath and tucked her hair behind her ears, willing herself to calm down. After a minute she asked quietly, “Why did you come here today Teddy, after staying away for months?”
“I’d been looking for an excuse to see you,” he admitted. “I knew you’d be snowed in up here, so I thought this would be a good time to come. I figured by now you’d had lots of time to mourn Aunt Claire’s passing, and maybe you were done being mad at me. And maybe, I don’t know….”
“What? We’d just pick up where we left off before my aunt got sick, like nothing ever happened?”
“Well, no. I knew it wouldn’t be that simple. But we were best friends long before we ever started dating. So I thought maybe we could start by being friends again and, I don’t know, just like hang out or something.”
“Yeah, because I’ve really been wanting to hang out with the guy who dumped me.” Lu’s voice rose sharply.
“Is that all I am now? Just some guy who dumped you?”
Lu just shrugged, too upset to answer.
Ted shifted the shovel from one hand to the other and blurted out, “Look, Lulu--”
But she cut him off. “Stop calling me Lulu! You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
“Fine, Lu.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I know I hurt you. I know I totally bailed. You think I’m proud of that? I’m not, ok? But it was just too much, you know? I couldn’t handle any of it, your aunt being so sick, you being so angry….”
Lu stared at her ex for a long moment before saying, “I never meant to vent my frustration at you. I apologize for that.”
He looked at the ground, his voice full of remorse. “I know you weren’t doing it on purpose. And I know I was a total ass for bailing like that. I’m so sorry. You don’t even know how ashamed I am for doing that to you.” He pressed his eyes shut and said quietly, “But it was just so awful. Watching Aunt Claire dying, watching you try to deal with everything on your own, feeling so useless because you never let me help you….”
“I know, Teddy.”
He looked up at her then, hope in his eyes. But abruptly his expression darkened. “But you never did need me, did you?” Ted’s voice shook with anger. “And obviously you still don’t.” He threw the shovel on the ground and stormed back to the truck, gunned the engine, and barreled back toward town.
For a moment Lu was dumbfounded.
Then she heard Alastair clear his throat somewhere behind her on the covered porch. “I apologize,” he said. “I should have stayed in the house. I just got concerned when you both started yelling, so I came out to see if you required assistance.”
She turned to look at her houseguest. He was still dressed only in the pajama pants, which rode a bit low on his narrow hips. His bare upper body was all smooth skin and strong, lean muscle, his hair tousled like he’d just rolled out of bed (though it always looked like that). He was absolutely beautiful. And it could not have been clearer that this hot guy had spent the night here with her.
No wonder Ted had gone speeding off.
Lu sighed and went back into the house as Alastair trailed behind her and said, “I’m sorry about your aunt.”
“Thanks.” She took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
“Was that your boyfriend?”
“Ex boyfriend.” Lu kicked her boots off at the door before wandering over to the fireplace. She leaned forward with one hand on the mantel and stared into the flames as she said, “And since you heard all of that, now you know what’s been happening in my life over the last several months. I didn’t think I could talk about it, but apparently I can stand outside and yell about it.” Lu shook her head and continued to stare at the fire for a long moment. Her voice was almost a whisper when she said, “Aunt Claire was my family, all I had. She raised me from the time I was twelve, here in this house. I loved her so much. I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
She was quiet for a while before saying softly, “Losing Ted was really hard too. I mean, it doesn’t compare with losing my aunt, but it still hurt. He was a big part of my life for such a long time. He was my best friend, long before he was my boyfriend. It used to be that we couldn’t go twenty minutes without calling, texting….” Lu pressed her eyes shut. “It was a lot, losing both my aunt and my best friend. Too much for one year. I was left so alone.”
But then she stood up straight, and after a pause turned to Alastair and said, “Well anyway, the road’s clear. We can go into town now and find your family and get you medical attention. I’ll see if I can find some warm clothes for you, and then we can take off.”
She didn’t wait for a reply as she turned and bounded up the stairs.
Chapter Five
Lu was knee-deep in a pile of old clothes, pulling things out of the closet in the spare bedroom when she felt Alastair’s light touch on her shoulder. She turned to face him and he asked softly, “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine,” she mumbled.
“We don’t have to do this right now,” he said, gesturing at the clothes. “We can go into town later today. Tomorrow even. Or the next day.”
“We shouldn’t put it off. I’m sure people are worried about you. And you need medical attention.”
After a pause he said, “Lu, if you want to go right now because you want to get rid of me, I understand. But if I get a vote, what I want is to stay here with you.”
She stepped out of the clothes pile and looked up at him. “But your family has to be worried sick. They--”
“I don’t have a family. I know I don’t.”
“Ok, your girlfriend then.”
He shook his head.
“How do you know that if you say you can’t remember anything?” Lu asked.
“I may not be able to remember people or events,” he said, “but when I think about my life, I recall some really strong emotions. And it’s not love and happiness that I’m remembering, it’s loneliness and misery. That doesn’t fit with the idea that there’s a loving family out there looking for me.”
“You’re remembering emotions?”
He nodded. “It’s really disturbing, actually. And it makes me think that maybe I’m in no hurry to try to get back to that life.”
“But who knows what that is? Maybe you’re just reliving being burned and freezing and scared back at the creek or something.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, we still need to go into town. You need to be examined by a doctor,” Lu told him. “Both for your memory loss and for your hand.”
Alastair intently held Lu’s gaze. “When I think about seeing a doctor, every fiber of my being tells me not to go. I think I should probably listen to that little voice that’s screaming inside me.”
“You’re just not thinking clearly.”
“But I am. Just because my memories are gone doesn’t mean I’ve also lost the ability to think or feel.”
“So, you really won’t let me take you to the hospital?”
“No way.”
“Well, it’s your choice.” Lu knit her brows. “I think you’re dead wrong, but I can’t force you to get medical care. We still should to go to the police station and see if there’s a missing persons report on you though, despite these bad feelings you’re talking about.”
“Call the police station and ask. I’ll bet you anything no one is looking for me.”
“I can’t call, actually,” she said. “There’s no land line to the house. And like I said before, my cell phone’s dead until the power comes back and I can charge it. So we just need to drive into town.
”
He pushed his hair back from his eyes with his good hand and said, “If you still have feelings for that guy that was just here, or if you simply want me gone, ok. I’ll go without protest and I’ll let you dump me on the first convenient street corner. But if we’re going simply to find out that no one is looking for me, it hardly seems worth the effort.”
“I don’t want you gone,” she blurted, more emotion coming through than she’d intended.
“You don’t?”
She broke eye contact. “I really like having you here. But it’s not like I can just keep you for myself when there might be people worried about you.”
Alastair smiled and said, “I love the idea of you keeping me for yourself. Where can I sign up for that?”
She reached into the closet and pulled down an old white t-shirt. “Look, just humor me. It only takes a few minutes to drive into town. Let’s go check in with the police. Then maybe, just maybe, we’ll swing by my doctor’s office. She’s really nice, I promise, no matter what kind of medical phobia you’ve got going on. So how about you put this shirt on, and then we go for a little drive?”
“Ok. I’ll go. But only if you answer a question for me.”
“What is it?”
“Do you still have feelings for that guy?”
“No. God no! He’s all in the past,” Lu said.
“That didn’t really look like it’s all in the past,” Alastair ventured. “And if this flurry of activity is just to get your mind off him, well, maybe talking about it would be a better way to go.”
“You’re stalling for time. You don’t want to go into town so you’re trying to change the subject,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, the t-shirt still clutched in her palm.
“I’m not,” Alastair insisted. “I just want to give you a chance to talk. His visit was obviously really upsetting for you.”
“I can deal with it.”
“I know you can. But maybe talking about it is a way of dealing with it. And you can talk to me, Lu.”
“No.” She took a breath and said, “Look Alastair, I know you just want to help, but if I try to talk about any of this, I’m totally gonna lose it.”
Magic & Memory Page 3