The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection

by Joanne Bischof

  Jonas chuckled, and by the time they were back in their room, he was genuinely surprised to spot a stack of fresh towels on one of the newly made beds. The maid. The towels…

  The little bottle thief. Why hadn’t he realized sooner?

  Maybe he should check his drawers. Just to be sure she didn’t steal anything else of his.

  “What’s that?” Oliver asked.

  “What’s what?” Jonas turned in the direction his cousin was looking.

  “That.”

  His eyes found the bottle on the table beneath the window. Jonas stepped closer. With the young maid’s face flashing across his mind, he picked the metal vessel up and turned it over. It was clean and dry. While certainly weathered and corroded, she’d taken some care with the metal that he now realized was bronze. He touched the cork top. It was wedged snug in a way that said she hadn’t opened it. The cork, though sealing things well, seemed out of place. Not fitting the age of the rest of the antique, as if someone had forced it into the opening out of necessity. He tipped the bottle toward the light to check the inscription again. S–P–E… what looked like an R trailed by an O, or maybe it was a Q. Jonas squinted and turned it ever so slightly. No he’d had it right the first time. Spero.

  Hope.

  He knew the word from a banner hanging in a corridor of the Stanford library. It was one he couldn’t forget. His very life summed up in three words: Dum Spiro Spero. “While I breathe, I hope.”

  Resting where the bottle had sat was a small square of card stock that bore the hotel’s logo. Jonas picked it up and read the two words that couldn’t have been anyone else’s but hers: I’m sorry.

  Chapter Three

  Rosie ran the feather duster along the length of the windowsill in room 3345. She looked out the glass panes to the beach below. There, the family from this suite was settling in for a day of sea breezes in several lounge chairs. The father struggled with angling a hotel-issued umbrella just right, while the wife held up the hem of her dark skirt and chased their toddler girl along the edge of the water.

  Smiling, Rosie watched the scene. She glanced back to the father’s antics, the way his older children were gathered around to help him. For a single, pinging moment, she envied what it would be like to know one’s father and mother.

  To remember one’s early childhood.

  Focusing back to her work, Rosie wiped toddler-sized fingerprints from all the windows, emptied the waste bin, and then left to begin the next room. The clock in the lobby chimed one, which meant the next room would have to wait. She pushed the housekeeping cart into the storage closet then started down the corridor for her meeting on the first floor. Mrs. Kline, the head housekeeper, gave her the half hour off twice a week—doctor’s orders.

  Their meetings used to be monthly, but with Rosie’s increasing headaches and the doctor’s increased research, he’d upped the frequency, hopeful they were near a breakthrough.

  Just outside of a ladies’ powder room, Rosie stepped aside for a trail of hotel patrons then let herself into a small storage room where she always met with Dr. Brooke. The silver-haired gentleman looked up from his notebook and smiled. Pen in hand, he stood next to an abandoned pool table where she always sat during the exams. Well respected throughout San Diego, Dr. Brooke had been her friend since she was ten years old. Since the night Rosie had been found in the water in front of where this very hotel now stood and was then taken to the hospital inland. Now, eight years later, they were perhaps a few steps closer to understanding what her time in the water and the loss of oxygen to her brain had rendered irreversible. Rosie glimpsed the top page of notes in the doctor’s book. The one that listed her original symptoms:

  Loss of memory

  Lack of proper function in right hand and right leg

  Fear of the sea

  Headaches

  Headaches she could endure. She’d even come to grips with being afraid of the bay, but to not remember precious years spent with her adoptive grandparents—Abner and Esther Graham—it was all she could do to not give into tears afresh.

  Now in this room, with afternoon light streaming through an upper window and banquet chairs stacked along one wall, Rosie walked over to the doctor smoothly and easily—a product of years of therapy. She sat on the edge of the pool table, liking this hour because the sun shone through the windows, making a discarded chandelier glitter, and because Dr. Brooke was always so kind to her.

  Rosie folded her hands in her lap.

  His mustache lifted in a smile. “Good afternoon, Miss Rosie.”

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Brooke.”

  He exchanged a few pleasantries with her then flipped forward in his notes and leaned closer to her.

  Pressing his thumb to her left brow, he peered carefully into that eye, and then the other. “How are your headaches?”

  “Worse in the mornings, or when I’m out by the water. I’m afraid one made me irritable this morning.”

  “Irritable? That’s not like you. Let’s revisit that before we finish today.” He jotted something down then read his past notes in silence. Finally he looked up at her. “Can you tell me the first city you remember living in?” His questions were always different.

  “The first I remember is living on the Point Loma peninsula, just across the bay.”

  “Can you tell me the name of your parents?”

  “I’ve never known that, Dr. Brooke.”

  “I’m sorry, Rosie, but these questions are important to circle back to. Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

  He was so kind, so gentle with her that at the impossibility of the question, she had to fight a smile as she pressed her hands between her knees. “I don’t know. Do I?”

  The doctor angled his book away and gently touched her arm. “Will you close your eyes for me?”

  She did as he asked, and he was quiet for several moments.

  “If you think back…try to go as far back as you can…what is the first memory you recall? What comes to mind?”

  “Seeing your face for the first time.” It was nothing but the truth. She opened her eyes. “I also recall an old man.”

  “Yes, he was there at the hospital. But use his name, since you know it. And since he and his wife raised you almost your entire life.”

  “Abner Graham. Keeper of the lighthouse out on the point.” And the dearest soul he was. Her attention veered to Dr. Brooke’s hands as he shuffled through small bottles of medicine. She hoped none were for her this week. “How is your book coming along?” she asked.

  “Fresh off the press and I got word from the publisher that they were shipped last week.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. I’ll be the first to buy a copy. What title did you come up with?”

  “Um…” He paused in his search, looking flustered, likely not as used to questions as she was. “Well, I decided upon The Western American Journal of Psychology.” When she scrunched her nose, he looked genuinely concerned. “No good?”

  “It’s rather boring.”

  He chuckled. “That tends to be the way with medical journals.”

  “I think A Brief History into the Mind of Rosemund Graham would have been so much more romantic.”

  “That does have a nice ring to it. Except your name is Rosie.”

  Yes, but she was just trying another on for size to see if it triggered something. She said as much, and he laughed. Then she assured him that she truly was grateful for the name the Grahams had given her when she was two and they had adopted her. When she was too young and frightened to give them any name of her own.

  After listening to her heartbeat, Dr. Brooke slid his stethoscope around his neck and felt the glands just below her jaw. “Anything new that you want to tell me?”

  “I learned how to carry a tray with ten glasses on it.”

  “That’s quite an accomplishment.”

  “I’m rather proud of it. But girls aren’t allowed to work in the dining room. Only men can be waiters.” She opene
d her mouth farther when he held a tiny wooden paddle to her tongue. “I’m not thick,” she mumbled around it.

  “You never are, my dear. You’re fit as a fiddle. I still need to be thorough, though.” Taking her by the wrist, he quietly took her pulse. Rosie let her gaze drift to the window where people walked past, no doubt heading for the front entrance and check-in desks. Porters hustled bags and trunks to and from carriages.

  “How often are you using headache powders?” he asked.

  “As little as possible. Once a week at most.”

  He touched the lower right side of her skull. “And the pain is still often here?”

  “Always there. Sometimes there’s also pain right behind my eyes.” Still perched on the edge of the pool table, she swung her legs gently. “But maybe I just need glasses.”

  He glanced to his notes, looking doubtful. Then he smirked and studied her swinging feet. “And your age, Rosie Graham?”

  “Same as it was last time. Eighteen.”

  “Then why the schoolgirl wiggles?” His brown eyes twinkled.

  “I’m sorry.” She stilled her feet, linking her ankles demurely. As the doctor occasionally reminded her, just because she lost her memory at ten did not mean she was meant to stay ten. She didn’t mean to, but certain qualities, certain things a young lady was taught, often felt snagged and stuck. As if rules and remembrances were sometimes buried under a mound of fisherman’s netting and she was still struggling to untangle it.

  “You’re doing well,” he said. “And all the social graces you’ve been working on, you’re growing into them steadily. I’m very proud of you.” He paused to make a notation in his notebook.

  “Are you writing down that I was wiggling?”

  He nodded softly. Rosie shot a breath, and his amused eyes landed on her. He had her best interest in mind, that she knew, but did he have to document everything she did?

  “What will you be doing to help that along?” he asked.

  She slid her gaze back to the abandoned chandelier, knowing the simple lesson by heart, so often he’d been teaching it to her. “Observe those around me. That will help me understand the rules, restrictions and polite-ities of society.”

  He smiled at her made-up word. “Very good. And…?”

  Rosie bit her lip. Her mind suddenly felt like a long hallway with no doors. She could run her hand along the walls, but nothing existed other than flat, smooth, emptiness. “Brush my teeth?”

  With a chuckle, the doctor snapped his bag closed. “No. Though hygiene is always encouraged.”

  “I can’t remember, then.”

  “To enjoy the life that you’ve been given. Exactly as it is.” He took her hand and patted it. “We’ve only got one turn at this life, and while you’re waiting for your past to return to you, and for certain perceptions and understandings to redevelop, be sure and enjoy the very special future that’s ahead of you.”

  “Why are you so nice to me?” Rosie pulled her small notebook from her apron pocket, followed by the little pencil she always toted alongside it.

  The doctor’s mustache bowed upward. “Because it’s not every day that a mermaid washes ashore. And that I get to be her friend.” He tipped her chin like a father would.

  Peering down, she turned her black shoes from side to side.

  “Yes, no fin, Rosie. That was a metaphor.”

  She winked and he chuckled.

  Sobering, she watched the doctor add a few more notations to his journal, and while he did, she made a note to enjoy life in her notebook. The place she jotted down all the things she aimed to remember. But there was something she wished to forget. “He acted as if I was insane.”

  “Who?”

  “The young man I met this morning. When I was irritable.”

  “And what do you think of that?”

  “I’m not insane.” Mr. McIntosh’s handsome face and steady gaze flashed through her mind, and Rosie tried to blink it away because it only reminded her of her behavior toward him—something she sorely regretted.

  “I think you’re remarkable,” Dr. Brooke said kindly.

  “But you also believe that I won’t ever fully recover.”

  Slowly, he sighed. “You’re making great strides in so many areas. But recovery in the fullest textbook sense may not be what we’re aiming for now.”

  A cool brush of sadness spread over her.

  “For your memory loss, brain trauma has been the only explanation, Rosie. Amnesia is highly unlikely. That lasts days, not years. Your head showed no kind of physical injury, and because you were found unconscious and in a state of not breathing, the lack of oxygen to your brain for those minutes is the best explanation for the changes you’ve experienced. But look at what you’ve accomplished.” He tossed his pen to her, aiming for the right side, and she caught it.

  The doctor grinned and Rosie joined him.

  “You couldn’t do that a few years ago.”

  “No.” And he’d helped her every step of the way. “Do you think I’ll ever be as I should? That I’ll behave as a young lady ought to? Maybe even remember things from when I was smaller?”

  “We’re going to take it one day at a time.”

  “But you believe me. That I’m doing my best.”

  “I’ve always believed you, and I’ll continue to.” Dr. Brooke pulled something from his satchel. A small piece of driftwood carved in the shape of a coiling shell.

  Rosie gasped. “Did you make this?”

  He nodded.

  She fingered it carefully. “You’re getting better and better.”

  “Thank you for encouraging me to keep practicing.”

  “I’ll put this with all the others.”

  “I’d be honored.”

  He finished a few notations, asked her several final questions, and then promised to meet her again in a few days. He placed his hat on his head and tipped it to her. “Until then, Miss Graham.”

  “Good-bye, Dr. Brooke.” Rosie hopped down from the table and nabbed her feather duster. Time to go fetch her cart from storage and get back to work.

  Out in the hallway, she hurried past a stretch of windows and glanced briefly out to the glittering bay just beyond the lush hotel grounds. A late-afternoon sun made the water shimmer. Sailboats dotted the dock, bobbing gently with the current, and beyond that, a long, narrow boat holding four rowers skimmed across the open gray. Rosie peered closer, noting that two of the men had brown hair; the other two, red locks. Which meant they were the young men from 3323.

  She studied the rower in the third seat and decided that it was Jonas McIntosh. Something about his athletic build and determined strokes—both of which she’d noted earlier that morning before their colorful conversation when he wouldn’t have known she’d been watching him. And she not realizing that the young sportsman was the one with the plight that Mr. Babcock, one of the hotel owners, had taken an interest in.

  “Rosie, where have you been?”

  Rosie spun to see Mrs. Kline bustling past. “I’m so sorry. It was my afternoon to meet with the doctor. I’ll get back to work straightaway.”

  “The third floor is nearly done now, so either start in 3321 and make up the crib in there, or change out the pillowcases and sheets in this one.” She nudged a door open with her elbow. “Or just down the hall, I’ve left a pile of sheets that need to be gathered.”

  “I’ll do it all.” Rosie hurried down the hall and fetched the sheets out of the way. She tucked them into a canvas bag on the bottom of the cart. In the next room, she made quick work with the baby’s crib. Mrs. Kline had already made the other beds and freshened up soap and towels at the washstand. Rosie gathered and tucked the sheets carefully to keep the little one safe then folded a silky blue blanket that must have been brought from the family’s home. She draped it with care over the crib railing, tossed a scrap of paper into the waste bin, and then took quick note that the room was in tip-top shape.

  “Rosie!” came a hasty whisper.
r />   “Coming!” She slipped out, snatched up the pile of fresh pillowcases Mrs. Kline held out, and slipped into room 3323.

  She yanked off pillowcases and slid on new ones, piling everything to be taken to the laundry in the center of the room. Sheets went next and she swiftly creased folds and angles—making neat work of the linens just as the housekeeper had shown her over the year of working here.

  Finished, Rosie gathered up a discarded coat, hanging it on a chair. She was just turning away from the desk near the window when her gaze filtered across the bottle. The antique vessel looked just as she’d last seen it. Battered and unopened and sitting atop a note.

  A note?

  Written on the same type of card stock as her own. She leaned closer and read the masculine script without touching it.

  At the observatory—2100

  Chapter Four

  Grateful it was empty, Jonas strode through the grand ballroom and toward the stairs that curved up the wall to the overhead balconies. Beneath glistening chandeliers and a domed ceiling, he climbed several flights, tired legs sorer than ever as he passed the first catwalk and then the second—his sights not on the ballroom with its circular seating designed for plays and concerts, but on the narrow, winding stairs that would lead to the observatory. The tiny cap of lookout tower that was the highest point of the del.

  He knew how many flights he could go before his lungs gave him trouble, so it was on the last bend of creaking steps that he slowed and made himself draw easy, calming breaths.

  The twisting stairwell pinched in tighter and tighter, and he had to turn sideways as he reached the top. Though there were no windows to peer out just yet, he could feel how high up he was. It was a dizzying sensation, and combined with the tight space, one that spurred him to climb onward. Reaching the top landing of the lookout brought both relief and a burst of fresh air thanks to a window that rested ajar. Had he not been up here before, he would have been struck dumb by the scope of the 360-degree view.

  Nearly ten stories up now, Jonas paused to catch his breath even as he wondered if Rosie would have understood that the note he left was for her. Not wanting to pace or think through alternate scenarios, he settled down on one of the bench seats and simply watched the doorway.