Queen of Hearts (Gambling on Love Series Book 4)

by M Andrews

  “Okay, maybe three.” I smile against his lips.

  “Now you are talking.” Hunter steals another kiss, then tells me he loves me before righting me back on my feet. He starts to follow Bailey out of the kitchen but quickly turns back and presses me against the fridge and takes my breath away with one final kiss.

  ****

  Three kids. Did I agree to have three kids with Hunter? I ask myself as I give myself a final once over in the mirror. Yes, I did, but he’s going to have a lot of persuading to do if he wants four, preferably done with his face between my legs. I push out my stomach and imagine being pregnant with Hunter’s baby, and that is an image I like. Maybe I’ll be like Brooke and proudly show off my bump. You’re getting ahead of yourself, Lucy. Get through tonight before you start picking out names, and maybe get Hunter to put a ring on it before you start popping out kids.

  I suck my stomach back in, slip in my shoes, and head downstairs to make myself a cup of coffee. I’d rather have Hunter’s kisses, but this will do for now. As I bring the cup to my lips for my first sip, the doorbell rings. Brooke is early for our morning walk. The door creeks open and my heart stops. The air in my lungs is sucked out of me. The world around me stands still. My grip on the cup in my hand slips and it slowly falls to the ground, but I don’t notice the shards of glass or hot coffee hitting my legs as my vision focuses on the face standing across the threshold.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Christian

  A Week Earlier

  “Kara, baby girl, come on, we gotta go,” I call out from the kitchen as I lock the lid on the cooler. Today is the kick off of the Charlotte Fire Department Baseball Tournament, and we can’t be fucking late. All the houses around the city will be competing over the next two days. I’m ready to play some ball and spend time with my girl. My time with Kara has been limited the past couple weeks. Between her working extra shifts at the diner, and me pulling doubles at the firehouse, we barely have time to kiss each other as we’re heading out the door.

  Kara saunters into the kitchen in her cut off shorts and one of my flannel shirts with the top two buttons left open. Her long chestnut hair is pulled back in a ponytail and no makeup on her face. I love it when she is like this, natural and perfect. She looks like an angel. My angel.

  Kara was the first friend I made when I returned from Afghanistan. I was still recovering from the injuries I sustained when our convoy was bombed. At the time, I had no memory of who I was. It was like someone had gone into my head and hit the restart button. I couldn’t remember my name or where I was from. All that I had to go on was what the doctors had in my record. My name was Christian Ryan, and I was a Sergeant in the Marine Corps Reconnaissance Battalion. I was a child of the Charlotte foster care system. No friends or family to speak of. I found myself alone and in a really dark place when I returned home to Charlotte. I didn’t know this place; the streets and the people were all foreign to me. I had no one. Alone and trying to remember who I was on top of dealing with the aftermath of the bombing was more than I could take. One late night, I was wandering the streets of Charlotte, drunk, and contemplating ending it all, when I stumbled into the diner Kara was working in. She saw the sadness and the desperation in my eyes. She offered me a cup of coffee and a listening ear. We talked, well I mostly talked, and she listened, and before I knew it, the sun was coming up and my urge to take my own life was gone. That night she saved my life.

  Her friendship helped me heal and find some semblance of myself. She helped me get through the fire training academy. Being a fire fighter seemed like a natural choice for me, and she encouraged me to follow that path. Kara has seen me at my worst, held me when the nightmares of the bombing kept me from closing my eyes, and she was in the front row when I graduated from the academy. She’s been there through it all. And that is why, after the game tonight, I am going to ask her to marry me. I bought a ring, and have it planned to ask her in the place we first met. The booth where we sat the night I was going to end it all. It was the place my life started over, and I want to spend every moment from here to eternity with Kara.

  Kara slings her arms around my neck and looks up at me with those big dark brown eyes. “What’s your hurry big guy, we have plenty of time.” She rises up on her toes and kisses the tip of my nose. She examines my face further and pouts when she sees the bags under my eyes. “Still not sleeping well?” she asks.

  The past couple of weeks I’ve been having these strange dreams. They’re not like the dreams I had after coming home. I find myself in a house with a baby in my arms, and I am rocking her to sleep. I look up and a woman walks in. She has a warm, familiar smile on her face as she walks toward me. I feel like I know her, and this is our baby, and this is our house. When I wake up there are tears streaked down my face and massive void in my chest. I’m haunted by an overwhelming sense of loss. Every time I close my eyes I see her and that baby.

  “I’m still having those dreams,” I admit.

  “The ones with the baby and the woman?” I can see the worry in her eyes. PTSD dreams she can handle, but dreams about another woman are hard for her to swallow.

  “I can’t shake the feeling that I know them.”

  “Maybe she was one of the kids you met in foster care, and maybe before you were deployed you visited her to see her new baby.” Her reasoning seems far-fetched considering when I came home I didn’t have any friends welcoming me with open arms.

  “Let’s not worry about my weird dreams, and focus on us…and the fact that we have a full forty-eight hours together.” I shift the conversation to ease both our minds.

  “Do you think we could skip the tournament and just spend the next two days in bed instead?” She wiggles her eyebrows at me and gives me a sly grin.

  “Tempting, but you know the boys can’t win this thing without me.”

  “Okay.” She fakes a pout. “But you owe me big time.”

  I think what I have in store for her tonight will more than make up for it.

  ****

  It’s the bottom of the ninth, we are two runs down, and the bases are loaded. I swear Ladder 12 hired ringers for this tournament. I have never, in the eight years I’ve been playing in this tournament, seen them play this damn good. But if I get this hit, we win this game. It all rests on me. The pitcher stares down at the catcher, he nods his approval then rears back and launches the ball in my direction. I start to swing, but the ball goes too far left, and the next thing I know the world goes black.

  ****

  The bright lights blind me as my eyelids begin to crack open. My eyes focus on the florescent lights above me. There is an intense pain radiating through my head, it feels like I’ve been hit by a freight train. Images of my wife, Lucy, flood through my mind like a movie on fast forward. “Lucy,” I mumble, glancing around the room and realizing I’m in the hospital. How did I get here? I call out for Lucy again but only get silence and the sound of beeping machines in return.

  “Mr. Ryan, it’s good to see you awake.” A nurse in blue scrubs appears at my bedside and starts to examine me.

  “Where is my wife? I need to see Lucy.”

  The nurse looks down at me with a confused expression. “Mr. Ryan, I think you must be confused. Do you want me to go fetch your girlfriend Kara?” she asks.

  The nurse is the one that is fucking confused. “Maybe you are in the wrong room. I’m Colton Bishop and my wife is Lucy Bishop. She’s a short brunette with big blue eyes.” The confusion on the nurse’s face turns to shock. Probably because she just realized she’s in the wrong patient’s room.

  “I’m going to go get the doctor, Mr. Ryan.” She calls me by that name again. What the fuck is the matter with her.

  “Will you please stop calling me that. My name is Colton Bishop,’ I snarl with frustration.

  She takes a few steps back then hurries out the door. I can hear a frantic call for a doctor, then I hear another woman’s worried voice asking what is going on. Through the doorway, th
e nurse is struggling to keep a young woman from entering my room, but she fails, and the woman comes stumbling through the door. “Miss, please, I need you to wait in the hallway until the doctor completes his examination.” The nurse protests, but it does nothing, the woman fights her off again then walks over to the side of my bed. I feel like I know this woman, but I can’t think of from where. My head is spinning with so many images fast forwarding through my mind, it’s making the pain feel worse.

  “Christian, are you okay?” she asks, sliding a chair next to my bed. She sits down and takes my hand, but I quickly pull it away.

  “Who are you?” I ask still confused by what is going on. Two people now keep calling me by a different name.

  “Christian, it’s me Kara, your girlfriend.” The concern in her eyes deepens.

  “My name is Colton. How many times do I have to keep telling you people my name is Colton Bishop before you finally get it.” The frustration bubbles up in my chest. Why won’t these people listen to a word I’m saying?

  Panic spreads across Kara’s face. The chair screeches against the linoleum floor as she gets up. “I’m going to go see where the hell the doctor is.” From over her shoulder I can see the doctor walking in. She rushes over to him in a panic. “Doctor Lewis, he thinks he’s someone else. Do you think his amnesia could have been triggered with this head injury?” Her voice is frantic. Head injury, amnesia, what the hell is going on?

  The doctor calms Kara down and tells her she needs to go wait in the hall with the nurse, so he can perform his examination. The nurse escorts Kara out of the room. A part of me feels sorry for her when I see the tears streaming down her face. I still can’t shake the feeling that I know her. Once they are gone, the doctor turns his attention to me.

  “First off, I am Dr. Lewis. I’m the attending neurologist here at St. Luke’s. Let’s start with a basic question. What is your name?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Colton

  “My name is Colton Bishop. I’m a First Sergeant in the Marine Corps Recon Battalion. My parents’ names are Joan and Andy Bishop. I was born in Charleston, West Virginia. My wife’s name is Lucy Bishop, and we have a daughter named Bailey. The last thing I remember is driving back to the base when our convoy was hit. That should answer your next line of questions. Now, will you please tell me what the hell is going on?” I demand. This hospital is full of fucking morons.

  “Your answers have confirmed my suspicions. Mr. Bishop, according to the medical records we received from the VA, your convoy was hit ten years ago.”

  “Ten years. That can’t be possible. This has to be a mistake,” I interrupt. This can’t be happening. Ten years, ten years of my life gone? No, this can’t be. I remember everything like it was yesterday. Shock and confusion rip through me, making my head spin a million miles a second. Lucy comes to the forefront of my mind; does she even know what happened? Does she think I’m dead?

  “Mr. Bishop, why don’t you get dressed, and we can discuss your condition in further detail in my office.”

  ****

  My foot taps nervously against the floor in the doctor’s office. The doctor is on the phone with the VA hospital getting the information from my file. Sitting in the chair next to me is Kara. She hasn’t been able to stop crying since she walked in the door. I didn’t recognize her when I first woke up, but through the fog of pain killers and my concussion, the memories of Kara and the life we have lived together have swirled in with the memories of Lucy and my daughter Bailey. I feel like I have been frozen in time and woken up to find out the rest of the world has moved forward and someone else was using my body to live a different life.

  The doctor hangs up the phone, and his chair swivels around back to us. There is a look of shock and disbelief on his face. “Sergeant Bishop, I’m going to try and explain this as best as I can, even though I am still trying to wrap my head around it myself.” He takes in a deep breath, letting it out with a sigh. “It appears during the chaos of the events that took place in Afghanistan, your records were switch with Sergeant Christian Ryan’s. Having looked at his file, I can see where they may have gotten confused. You do hold a striking resemblance with him.”

  I remember Sergeant Ryan, he was a quiet kid who kept to himself. There were jokes that we could have been twins. That explains why I was on my own after I was released from the hospital. The kid had no one, both his parents died in a car crash when he was four, and he bounced around the system until he was eighteen and joined the Marines. I guess, in a way, he got to live on through me and get a chance to have someone in his life that cared about him. Unfortunately, that came at a cost for my own family. For ten years they have believed I was dead. They buried me and said their goodbyes. They moved on while I stood still.

  “Due to your retrograde amnesia, they just assumed that was why you couldn’t remember that you were Sergeant Ryan. If you hadn’t taken that hit in the head with the baseball, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Had someone done their job right ten years ago, this wouldn’t be happening at all.” That is the understatement of the century. Some moron switches files and destroys the lives of so many people. My wife and family all think I’m dead, and now Kara’s life is turned upside down, finding out the man she has been living with is someone else. Everything I had in my life is gone. Part of me wants to hunt whoever did this down and choke the life out of them, but the other part of me just wants to see my Lucy.

  Kara sobs into her hands. I can’t imagine what she is feeling right now. After everything we have gone through together, I want to comfort her. I might not be Christian anymore, but it still breaks my heart to see her like this.

  “Dr. Lewis, would you mind giving us a moment.”

  “Take as much time as you need.” Dr. Lewis gets up from his desk and steps out of the office.

  I take one of the tissues from the box and hand it to Kara. She wipes the tears from her eyes and cheeks. She can’t bring herself to look at me.

  “This feels like scene out of a Lifetime movie, where the woman finds out the man she is married to has another family in a different state. Except in this story, you didn’t remember you had a family.” She half cries and laughs.

  “Kara, I am so, so sorry. I can’t even imagine what you must be feeling right now.” I start to reach for her hand, but I pull away. This is so hard. I just want to pull her into my arms and stop the tears.

  “I’m angry for you because of what happened, and I am angry for your family because they lost you. I’m sad for myself, because now I am the one who is going to lose you, well, I’m losing some version of you.” She breaks down again, and this time I get up from my seat and pull her into my arms. The tears start to stream down my face.

  I may not have had the right name or knew who I really was, but I fell in love with this woman. We had an entire relationship, built a home, and a life together. I was going to ask her to marry me tonight. This is as big of a loss to me as it is to her. I don’t know what is going to happen with Lucy or with any of this, and I won’t be able to lean on the person who has been there for me for the past ten years. And that is incredibly painful to think about, Kara is more than a girlfriend…she is my best friend. She got me through the hardest, darkest point in my life. It’s going to be hard to imagine my life without her.

  “I guess we know now who the woman in your dreams was. Kinda wish it was my friend scenario.” She giggles against my chest. “I’m also slightly mad that I couldn’t persuade you to stay home from the tournament.” Leave it to Kara to find the humor in any situation. One of the things I love about her.

  “I might be kicking myself for that one.” I chuckle. “But I think one way or another, this was going to happen.” The dreams were coming more frequently, and I was starting to get flashes of Lucy when I was awake. My memories were going to come back. I guess it’s better now than a couple years from now when we are married with a child.

  “You’re right. We weren’t really meant to be
together. I think I was just supposed to come into your life to help you after you came home. Now, it’s time for you to be with your family.” She hugs me a little tighter.

  “I will never forget what you did for me Kara. I never would have made it this far without you. You saved me, and I will always love you for that.” We stand in the middle of the office holding each other. Tears streaming down both of our faces. I want to hold her for as long as I can, because after this, I may never get the chance to feel her in my arms again.

  “Will you promise me two things?” She breaks the silence first.

  “Anything you want.”

  “Promise me you will stay away from baseballs, and promise me you will let me know how it goes with your wife.” I know the last part was hard for her to say, but I know Kara and her big heart, she truly wants to know that I will be okay.

  “I promise.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Colton

  Today, I saw my father cry for the first time in my life. General Andrew Bishop is an old school, tough as nails, didn’t shed a tear when he took a bullet through the chest, kind of man. When I came walking through baggage claim in the Yeager Airport, I saw tears streaming down his face. It took me by surprise. Growing up, the only emotions my father expressed were anger and disappointment, mainly aimed at me. Needless to say, I liked to push my father’s buttons. But what really shocked me was when he hugged me. My mom is the hugger in my family. Everyone who walked through our door got a hug, and she would just randomly hug you when you least expected it. The closest to human contact my father got was a hand shake. I don’t know what happened over the past ten years, but my father is a completely different person.

  It took three phone calls to my mother, all of which she hung up on me when I announced I was her son, and one long, tearful Skype call for my parents to believe I was really alive. I would have had the same reaction if someone called me claiming to be my dead son. The following day I was on a plane back home to Charleston.