Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1)

by Donna S. Frelick

  God, he wanted it so bad. Not the drugs so much, though the pain was like being slowly crushed in a giant red-hot vise. He just wanted to stop moving, to have one minute of peace to process all that had happened—Ida and Asia and death and hope and love and heartache and behind it all a mystery he couldn’t fathom. He was so tired he couldn’t think anymore. He could barely breathe.

  With a sigh, he gave in. “Okay.”

  Asia smiled at him with an easy familiarity that made his heart leap in response. Her affection was a gift he couldn’t accept. Not now. He looked away.

  She considered him for a long moment. Then she left him and moved toward the door.

  “I’ll get your briefcase out of the car.”

  There was no use pretending he didn’t hear the hurt in her voice. His fault, like all the rest. Shit, his patients were better off without his help. Ida Mickens might still have been alive if it hadn’t been for him. And Asia? What an idiot he’d been to think he was going to protect her. She was in danger because of him.

  Asia and Ida had been his patients, and his patient records were the key. The realization came to him with sickening certainty—he’d been unable to contact any of the other former patients he’d tried to reach because whoever had attacked Ida and Asia had already gotten to them. Someone had pulled their names from his records and taken them, one by one.

  Who the hell were these guys? And what the fuck did they want?

  His mind sheered away from the thought of what might have happened if Asia hadn’t had that gun in her bag, if she hadn’t had the bag in the bathroom with her, if—damn it! Ethan couldn’t stand the thought of Asia being hurt. And yet he knew his own selfishness was hurting her. He’d allowed things to go too far between them because he’d needed it, he’d wanted it and, God help him, he still did.

  He stood unsteadily and made his way to the bathroom. He noted clinically that his urine was dark and tainted with blood. Strange that he didn’t remember the punch to his kidney, but the adrenaline had been pumping and there’d been the sedative right afterwards.

  He stumbled to the sink to wash up, staring in mild shock at the face in the mirror. His left cheek was badly bruised; his lips cut and swollen. But it wasn’t the bludgeoning that distorted his image and made his own face unrecognizable; it was the guilt. He’d once been able to trust the man who looked back at him. He’d been able to ask others to trust him. That was no longer possible.

  Asia came back in with his briefcase. Refusing to meet her eyes, Ethan took out his prescription pad and leaned over the table to write the script he needed. The effort was enough to set his ribs on fire. He dropped the pen and grabbed the nearest chair, trying to breathe through it, but the dizziness grew into a swirling black fog boiling up in front of his eyes. He lurched back toward the bed and sat down.

  “Lean back,” Asia ordered, tucking a pillow behind his back. She lifted his feet onto the bed and covered him with the blanket.

  He was shaking, and his head was pounding. “Dehydrated,” he said thickly.

  Asia nodded. “Told you.” She pressed him to take a long drink of water. Then she sat with him, forcing him to eat the applesauce he’d refused before. After a while, he felt a little better, though the ribs were aching with a deep, grinding persistence. There was no position he could find to ease the pain.

  She got up from the bed and grabbed the car keys. “I’m going for the meds. Do not move until I get back.”

  Ethan was in no mood to argue. He closed his eyes and, for an unknowable time, only opened them again when she was by his side with medicine or water or food.

  The bedside clock read 12:30 the next time Ethan came close to full consciousness. He had to think hard to assign some significance to the numbers. The room was full of light despite the drawn curtains, so it was obviously past noon. What day it was completely escaped him. He turned his head—a fairly successful maneuver—and saw that Asia was not in the room with him.

  There was a note on the bedside table. He rolled to one side and pushed himself up into a sitting position. The ribs protested, but did not scream. Progress had been made toward healing, though he recognized the dulling both of sensation and of thought meant he still had a full load of pain medication onboard.

  He reached for the note and read: “Went to get the car fixed. May take some time. If you need anything, call this number. Front Desk is standing by, too, if you want some real food or anything else. Be back as soon as I can. Love, Asia. P.S. You had two tabs at 8:00 a.m. in case you don’t remember!”

  That explains it. His head felt like a balloon, and he could barely track the meaning of the note. What was wrong with the car? He couldn’t remember her telling him anything about it. He lay back and tried to think about it, got nowhere and decided to call the number she had left him.

  “Ray’s Texaco.”

  “Hi, uh, I’m trying to reach Asia Burdette. She’s having a car worked on?”

  “Oh, yeah. Hold on, she’s sitting right here. Ma’am, it’s your husband.”

  Husband?

  “Hi, honey!”

  “Asia?”

  “You feeling better?”

  “A little. What’s going on? What’s wrong with the car?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No.”

  “Water pump gave out. I had no choice.”

  Ethan’s heart sank. “Are you sure?”

  “The temperature gauge shot up like a freaking rocket. I was lucky to make it here before the damn engine exploded. The man ripped the old pump out and showed it to me.” Her voice got very quiet. “And if you ask me do I know the difference between a water pump and a radiator I’m really going to get pissed off.”

  Even in his stupor, Ethan picked up her warning. “Okay. They can fix it?”

  “Had to get the part from a junkyard in the next county, but they’re putting it in now. Should be done in a couple of hours. Are you okay there alone?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be all right. I might even be a little hungry.”

  “Oh, that’s good, babe. You sound a lot better.”

  “Yeah. See you later.”

  “Yeah. Hey.”

  “What?”

  “Welcome back. I’ve missed you.”

  For a split-second, Ethan was ready to give her the answer any lover would have expected. He’d missed her, too. He missed her now, wished she were there so he could touch her face, kiss her lips, hold her. But he was no longer certain he could ask for those things, no longer sure she should give them to him if he did presume to ask.

  “See you soon,” was all he said. And hated himself for it.

  I thought a lot about that telephone conversation with Ethan while I was sitting in Ray’s Texaco waiting for the boys to finish up on the BMW. I had a lot of time to think about that and the way things had gone between us since we’d left Ida’s place. Maybe I had too much time, because what I was thinking wasn’t pretty.

  I was telling myself that it’s natural for a man to want to pull back a little when he’s let his vulnerability show. A guy has his pride, after all, and any woman who doesn’t recognize that risks a familiar label. The night we’d spent together would have been test enough for most men. What I’d felt from him had been more than just physical passion, and he had all but admitted it was more than that.

  In the few hours after that night, I saw Ethan go through every emotion a human being can experience. Happiness, fear, anger, grief, sadness, regret—you name it, I saw it, raw and unfiltered. He’d been hurt, and drugged, and hurt again in a crueler way. He was still in pain, and the drugs he was taking now could only touch the physical part of that pain.

  It should have been no surprise that he seemed a little unresponsive, even cold, on the phone. Or that he’d avoided looking me in the eye that first morning. Give him time, he’ll get over it, I told myself. But I couldn’t shake a sense of dread as I drove back to the motel in the newly restored Beemer. Maybe I’d already lost him. Maybe the
night we’d shared had only been a glimpse of something I could never have.

  I shoved those thoughts in the back of my mind and slapped a smile on my face as I went in the room. Ethan looked up at me from an armchair. He’d had a shower and a shave and almost seemed his old self.

  “Hey. The car all good to go?”

  “Good as new, according to Ray and the boys.” I stripped off my jacket and threw it on the bed. I knelt by the chair, wanting to kiss him, but something held me back. I touched his arm instead. “You’re looking a lot better. How do you feel?”

  “Still a little sore, but I cut down on the meds.” Again, he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  C’mon, Ethan. Relax, honey. “Are you hungry? Do you feel like going over to the restaurant, or should I go pick something up for us to eat here?”

  “I don’t know. I just ate a little while ago.”

  “Oh, okay.” I was starving. “I might go get myself something and bring it back then. Think I’ll take a shower first, though.” I stood up, trying not to show my disappointment. I kicked off my shoes and pulled my sweater over my head. “After four hours in that place, I smell like gasoline and cigarette smoke.”

  Ethan watched me with a strange look on his face. In that look was a desire so deep it took my breath away, but it was guarded with so much sadness, so much regret. My heart reacted with a heavy plodding thud against the walls of my chest. I went to him and knelt by the chair again.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.” It was the wrong thing to say.

  His face went hard. “I didn’t ask you to help me.”

  “No, I guess you didn’t.” I was getting angry now, my own hurt coming to the surface. I stood up and walked away from him before I said too much.

  “You should have waited to take the car.” His voice held an edge sharp enough to draw blood. “We should have gone together. Those guys are still out there. You put yourself in danger, Asia.”

  I turned on him. “For chrissake, Ethan, I’m not made of glass. And I’m not stupid, either.” I started to say he wasn’t in much shape to play bodyguard, but I figured it wasn’t quite right to kick a man in the nuts when he was down. “I had the gun with me, and I kept my eyes open. And, look, here I am, safe and sound. Now, if it’s all right with you, I’m going to take that shower.”

  I took my things into the bathroom and shut the door. I might even have slammed the door. I think I heard him say my name before I turned on the shower, but I didn’t answer him. Fuck you, Ethan Roberts! was what I was thinking. It wouldn’t have taken much for me to say it out loud.

  Two hours later I was nursing my hurt feelings and a dirty martini at the motel bar. I’d gone out intending just to get dinner, but the pine-paneled restaurant did double-duty after nine o’clock and the thought of going back to the room to face Ethan’s cold, brooding ghost was breaking my heart. I didn’t know what to do. Push him? Leave him alone? Talk to him? Don’t talk to him?

  I missed the man I had come to know over the weeks since we’d met. I missed his smile. I missed the comfort of his voice. And most of all, now that I’d had him, God, I wanted him again so badly. I wanted to feel his arms around me. I wanted to feel his naked skin on mine. I wanted his tongue in my mouth, his hard length inside me. Being near him without that was torture. It was as if he’d brought me out of a coma only to feel a lifetime of unbearable pain. I almost wished he’d left me unconscious and numb.

  Tears began to blur my view of the 3-D waterfall advertisement behind the bar, making me feel ridiculous. I squirmed miserably on the barstool while the jukebox whined country-style.

  “Set you up again, sweetie?” The bartender looked like she had hired on when the place was built and had lingered long past retirement age. The smile she bestowed on me was a sad little sympathetic one. “You know he ain’t worth all that anyway.”

  I pushed the empty glass in her direction. “Yeah, give me another one”—I squinted at her nametag—“Dottie. I might as well get good and plastered. I sure as hell ain’t gonna get lucky tonight.”

  Dottie served me up, then leaned across the bar. “Be careful what you ask for. There’s plenty in here would be glad to oblige.” She nodded at one of the local boys—broad shoulders, curly hair and a wide grin he’d been trying on every girl in the room. “Take him, for instance. He’s married. Got three little kids at home.”

  “Of course. Don’t they always? Jerk.”

  “Same thing wrong with yours?”

  I laughed without humor and drank some more. “If only it were that simple.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, honey.”

  She wasn’t getting an attitude. She was giving me a choice. I needed to talk, I just didn’t know how.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Okay, so what is it? Lemme guess. He’s on drugs. He drinks. He can’t keep a job.”

  “No. None of that.”

  “Another woman.”

  I shook my head.

  Her eyebrows shot up and she leaned closer. “Not another man!”

  I laughed out loud. I didn’t know much about Ethan, but I was pretty sure I could be confident he wasn’t a closet homosexual.

  “No,” I said firmly.

  Dottie straightened back from the bar. “Honey, it don’t sound like you have much of a problem at all. He ain’t dying is he?”

  “Jesus! No! Okay—he just won’t talk to me. We were really close, something bad happened, and now he acts like he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. Except to order me around, of course.”

  “Does he blame you for what happened?”

  “I don’t think so.” How could he?

  “Then he probably blames himself.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I didn’t say it made sense.”

  “Hey, Dottie! Can we get a beer over here?”

  She left to attend to a rapidly growing crowd of drinkers, and I felt my head beginning to spin. How could he possibly blame himself for anything that had happened? Ida Mickens and I shared something—an experience, an ability, a past life, God knows what—and someone wanted access to it. Whoever it was could have been watching us for years—in Ida’s case, since she was a little girl. Ethan was only caught in the middle, trying to help us.

  And if he did blame himself, why would that make him so unreachable? We were stuck with each other—we couldn’t go home, we couldn’t go back to our stupid, pitiful, lonely lives (and his looked to be just as bad as mine) even if we wanted to. We couldn’t do anything until we figured out who was trying to get to us and why. He didn’t think this was something we could talk about?

  The damn, thick-headed, pea-brained, close-mouthed, stubborn son-of-a-bitch!

  The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. The angrier I got, the faster I drank. Seemed like the liquor just wasn’t hitting me like I wanted it to, though the glass in front of me was quickly just a damp memory of vodka and olive juice. Dottie filled it up again with a sideways glance, but she didn’t have time to say anything. Things were getting busy.

  I had worked myself into a proper funk, so I didn’t notice Ethan until he sat down on the barstool next to me. His eyes shifted from me to the empty glasses on the bar and back again and a frown took over his face.

  “I got worried when you didn’t come back after a while.” His jaw clenched. “You didn’t answer your cell.”

  “My cell?” It had never occurred to me that he would try to call. I’d bought two burner phones at the CVS when I’d gone for his meds. I’d set them up and forgotten them. I pulled the phone out and looked at it like it was some foreign object. Sure enough, the display indicated several missed calls. “Guess I didn’t hear it. I had some thinking to do.”

  He made a point of looking around the noisy bar. “You used to do a lot of this kind of thinking, Asia. It wasn’t particularly h
ealthy.”

  An unreasoning rage rose in me. “Yeah, well, there for a while I had someone to talk to instead.” I reached into my purse and threw a few bills on the bar. “Thanks, Dottie.”

  She inclined her head in Ethan’s direction and mouthed, “You okay?” I lifted my chin and turned to go.

  Ethan made the mistake of trying to take my arm. I shook him off. And that’s when Curly from down at the end of the bar decided to intervene.

  “Is there a problem here, ma’am?” He was maybe 6’3” and had thirty pounds of muscle on Ethan. Even if my boy had not been recovering from cracked ribs and God knows what else, a run-in with this guy would have been bad news. “Do you need some help?”

  “I’m fine.” I put a hand up to stop him, but no one was looking at me.

  Ethan bristled. “I’m not sure this is any of your business.”

  “I could make it my business, buddy.”

  I stepped between the warring males. “This is not the time or place for a pissing contest. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thanks. Let’s go home, Ethan.” I took him by the arm and pulled. I thought for half a second that he might shake me off, but he just gave my would-be rescuer a final glare and came away with me.

  We made it back to the room before we started in on each other, but as soon as the door slammed behind us, the battle was on.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Ethan paced like a panther in the cluttered confines of the hotel room.

  “Me? You’re the one who busted up in there and almost started a riot. I was just having a drink.”

  “A drink? Looked to me more like half a dozen.”

  “So what if it was? Maybe I deserved to cut loose a little bit. It’s not like you’ve been a lot of fun lately.”

  “Oh, so you were just bored,” Ethan shot back. “And this was your idea of fun—drinking alone in a bar?”

  Hot tears sprang into my eyes; hot fury exploded in my gut. My voice shook when I spoke, betraying me. I clamped down on it hard.

  “That’s right. I was drinking all by myself for hours, thinking about how pissed I was at you tonight. I had nowhere else to go. Second, what business is it of yours how I choose to pass my time? You obviously weren’t interested in spending any time with me. We’re not married. You’re no longer my doctor. My daddy’s been dead a long time, and I’m not looking for a new one. So where do you get off telling me what to do?”