The doctor pursed her lips a moment. “Squashing your memories seems to be your favorite coping mechanism. Your subconscious will resist allowing you to remember anything that causes you pain.”
It hurt even without remembering.
He pressed his fingertips into his eyes. “I hate the idea of my son being tucked in at night by someone else. And it makes me crazy to think of a woman, who’s supposed to be mine, getting into bed with another man.”
“I suspect that, until you resolve those feelings, your subconscious is going to continue to block your memory. You need to let yourself experience the hurt and get past it. Either that, or work out your relationship with Abby so there isn’t any anguish for your conscious mind to avoid.”
He stared at her a moment, absorbing what she’d said.
“I also think you need to relax, Matt. I know after what you’ve been through you can’t help having a lot of morose thoughts, but try to stop brooding so much and laugh a little.”
“How about you, Doc? You happy being single with no kids?”
“I’m lonely.” She sighed. “As for kids....” She shook her head. “I’d like a houseful of them, but I work a lot of hours.”
He glanced down at her shapely legs, amazed she didn’t have men lining up to keep her company. “Don’t worry, I doubt you’ll be lonely for long.”
~~~
Her confrontation with Rob left Abby unable to concentrate on her sewing. She had to admit he really wasn’t being unreasonable in his objection to another man staying with her. But she still couldn’t bring herself to ask Mac to leave.
After years of envisioning Matt as a captive, for some reason, helping Mac gave her a sense of peace and made accepting her husband’s death easier.
She started sewing the wrong sides of the raw silk together for the second time and cringed. Too bad she couldn’t convince Mrs. Buchanan it would be chic for one half of her anniversary dress to be facing wrong side out.
She grabbed the seam ripper to pick out the stitches and glanced out the window for the hundredth time that morning. The torrential downpour didn’t concern her as much as the cold. The temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees, turning the rain frigid. And the VA hospital was an hour away.
Just before one o’clock, Mac finally slogged in the back door, soaked to the skin, shivering. She grabbed a towel out of the laundry room. His whole body vibrated while she dried him.
“Mac, you’re like an ice cube.” She tugged him toward the bedroom. “Come on, you’ve got to get out of those wet clothes, or you’ll catch pneumonia.”
“If I had a l-little meat on my damn body,” he swore past his chattering teeth, “I wouldn’t be so freaking c-cold. I feel like I spent the m-morning in the Arctic Circle.”
She didn’t doubt it after he spent so many years sweating in a hot, muggy climate.
His trembling fingers failed their attempt to unbutton his dripping wet shirt.
“Let me do it.” She brushed his icy hands away. “You’ll never get your clothes off at this rate.”
Abby opened his shirt and as he eased it off, she moved right to the snap on his drenched jeans. “I don’t know how you can move in these. They must have ten pounds of water in them.”
While she stripped the soggy denim down his legs, he kicked off his Converse sneakers and sank onto the bed to finish removing his pants. She pulled off his wet socks and gasped at the ring of ugly scars encircling both his ankles. Biting her lip, she traced her fingers over them. Had those animals chained him up?
Mac tipped her face up and stared into her eyes. “Please, Abby, the last thing I n-need I right now is questions.”
“What you need is a warm shower.”
“No. I just want to get dry.”
She nodded silently and gathered up his wet clothes to take to the laundry room. “Get into bed. I’ll bring you something hot to drink.”
“I’m okay.”
“Right. You’re shaking like one of those little wind-up toys.” She turned down the covers on the bed. “Now take off that wet underwear and get under those blankets.”
“You’re worse than a d-drill sergeant,” he muttered, grabbing his waistband. “T-turn around, already. It’s humiliating for a guy to be seen naked when he’s this c-cold.
Chuckling, Abby spun her back to him and waited a moment before turning to take his saturated briefs. Judging from what she’d seen the morning Tommy had left the bathroom door open, Mac had no reason to worry.
After dumping his soaked clothes in the laundry room, she brought him a cup of steaming coffee from the pot she’d brewed earlier.
“This should warm you up in no time.” She sat on the bed and handed it to him.
He shook violently, nearly spilling the mug. “I can think of a much qu-quicker way.”
She stared at him a moment, confused. When it dawned on her exactly what he was suggesting, her body flooded with so much heat she had no doubt she would have him sweating in seconds.
Teasing and embarrassing her had become a great source of entertainment to Mac. However, he didn’t display the usual overt signs of pleasure. Instead of smiling like the average person, he simply stared at her with an amused twinkle in his eyes.
She jerked her gaze away. “So how was your doctor’s appointment? Did they pronounce you physically fit and healthy?”
“It wasn’t that kind of doctor. I went to see a shrink.”
“O-kaaay. Did he declare you sane?” She folded her hands and gazed toward the ceiling. “Please tell me I haven’t got a lunatic staying in my home.”
“Not he. She. Dr. Grant is a pretty redhead who looks a little like Ginger from Gilligan’s Island.”
For some reason a stab of jealousy pricked Abby at hearing Mac’s admiration of the woman.
“Actually, the doc says I wouldn’t have my problem if I were truly crazy.”
“So which one of your neuroses was she referring to?”
Silence echoed in the room for several seconds before he asked hesitantly, “You mean you think I have more than one?”
Abby laughed and enumerated on her fingers. “Besides the panic attacks, nightmares, extreme introspection, obsessive behavior, nonexistent self-esteem, inability to express your feelings, and your grim outlook?” She waved her hand at him, curving her mouth in a facetious grin. “Naah—you don’t have any problems.”
Mac stared at her wordlessly for a moment. “Is that how you see me?”
Evidently he didn’t possess a thick enough skin to handle her teasing. Her observations probably held too much truth for him to find any humor in her sarcasm. She’d hoped, if she gave Mac a dose of honesty, he might open up to her a little.
“Well, uhh—yes.” She chewed on her lip. “I hear you crying out and thrashing in bed, and you’re an ice pop right now because you were too proud to borrow my car. You zone out for long periods of time, and it becomes nearly impossible to get your attention. I thought you were going to freak out the night Pete lit his cigarette.”
Drawing in a deep breath, she continued, “You haven’t let me throw a bite of food away since you’ve been here, and you refuse to share anything about yourself or what happened to you. You get an amused look sometimes, but you hold back your smiles almost as if you think you’re going to run out of them.”
He sipped the coffee and placed the mug on the nightstand. “So in other words I’m one screwed up puppy?”
“Not so much that anyone who didn’t know you would notice.”
He gazed intently at her. “And you think you know me?”
“As well as you’ll let me.”
“Abby, I don’t know myself. How can I let you know someone I’m not even familiar with?”
“Do any of us truly know ourselves? Sometimes other people can view our lives more clearly than we can.”
“No, you don’t understand. I don’t have a life to see clearly. I have no memory of my past prior to my capture.”
“What?
” She did a double take and stared at him. “You mean you have amnesia?”
“That’s right.” He looked away and murmured, “I don’t remember anything from my life before I woke up in that prison cell over six years ago.”
“I thought that only happens in movies. Did you have a head injury or something?”
“That’s why I’m seeing a shrink. They diagnosed it as psychological. The doctor thinks I experienced more distress than I could cope with, and my subconscious buried my previous life as a means of mental survival.”
“Does she think—”
“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to shut you out, but I’ve had enough today. I don’t want to talk about this.”
Mac lay back against the pillows and stared at the sheet, retreating again. He had no trouble relating to her as long as they didn’t discuss him or his life. She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. “I really want to know you.”
Closing his eyes, he leaned forward and enfolded her in his arms. “I can’t share with you what I don’t know.”
His virile scent teased her senses and stirred the emptiness in her belly. She swept her palms over his back. Feeling one raised welt after another, she froze. He’d said he had scars all over him. As she pulled back from him, she held his chin and forced him to meet her gaze. “Let me see.”
“No, please. I don’t want—”
“I need to see.” She increased her pressure on his shoulder until he finally bent over, revealing more than a dozen white, crisscrossed lines. She covered her mouth to stifle her cry.
Mac sat back up and turned to her, his chest shuddering. “That’s why I didn’t want you to look. I knew my back would disgust you.”
“I’m not disgusted,” she whispered past the tightness in her throat.
“You don’t have to sugarcoat your reaction.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I know it’s repulsive.”
Sinking down beside him, she took his hand. “I’m outraged that another human being could do something like that to you.”
“There’s your mistake. You’re assuming they were human.” Gathering her into his arms, he buried his face in her neck and squeezed her tightly, moving his hands over her. “Abby, you smell so good.”
She drew back slightly and gazed deep into his eyes, surprised again by how much they resembled Matt’s. Her husband had been more classically handsome than Mac and had regular, flawless features except for a few slightly crooked teeth.
Mac’s teeth, however, were so white and perfectly straight he would have a movie star smile if he ever revealed them. His left cheekbone was a little more prominent than the right, and one of his eyebrows sat a little higher than the other, giving his face the same sardonic expression that’d made Clark Gable famous.
As much as her husband’s good looks had made girls take a second glance and sigh, Mac’s rugged sex appeal and intense gaze were more likely to inspire a case of shivers in a woman.
Pulling her closer, he kissed her neck and nibbled a trail across her collarbone, wringing a soft moan from her. She let her head fall back, and her heart hammered in her chest. His mouth moved ravenously over her skin, licking and sucking.
She gasped and a tiny whimper escaped her. Intense heat flared between her legs. Why didn’t Rob ever make her feel this way? She wanted Mac’s hard, scarred body, flesh to flesh with hers, making her squirm with pleasure.
Dear, God, she couldn’t let him touch her. She was engaged.
As he brushed his lips over hers, she pressed her hand against his chest and jerked back, gulping in a deep breath. “Please, I can’t do this.” She slid her hand down his heaving abdomen, lingering on it. Closing her eyes, she turned away and headed for the door. “I’d better go make lunch.”
“Right.” He sputtered. “Lunch is just what I want right now.”
~~~
Matt slid out of bed and pulled on clean clothing. Evidently Abby didn’t have the physical immunity to him he’d originally thought she had.
She’d told him she couldn’t do it, but she hadn’t uttered a single word about not wanting to. Her abandoned response said she would’ve liked to—very much.
In the kitchen, Matt found she’d made homemade chicken soup that morning and was preparing grilled cheese sandwiches. When he stepped close behind her, she turned, smiling up at him. “I figured you’d need warming up when you got home.”
“You already took care of that.”
Her face turned scarlet. She spun her back to him.
He stepped around her and tipped her chin up. “Seems I’m not the only one who retreats when things get uncomfortable. I don’t suppose you want to talk about what happened in the bedroom?”
“No, I don’t.” She swiveled her back toward him, again.
“Okay, fine. I’ll talk, you listen. I don’t think you’re disturbed by anything we did.” He stepped around her and peered into her face. “Admit it, Abby. It’s what you felt that’s the problem. You didn’t want me to stop, did you?”
“What’s your payoff in getting me to admit you managed to turn me on? Are you on some kind of macho ego trip?”
“You think that’s all this is for me? Ego?”
“No. But what’re you trying to accomplish by rubbing my face in the fact you made me want you?”
His gaze dropped to her trembling lips. “I want to make you rethink your engagement. If you were truly in love with Robert, you wouldn’t have become so unhinged from me nibbling on your neck. You’d have pushed me away long before it ever got that far.” He trailed his fingers down her throat, drawing little circles at the base. “But you didn’t. You let me have quite a feast.”
She shoved his hand away from her. “So what if I did? Why do you care about my relationship with Rob?”
As she moved past him to flip the sandwiches, Matt stepped behind her and murmured in her ear, “Because I don’t want you to marry him. I don’t believe you’re really in love.”
She spun around and her body brushed against his, her breasts smashing against his chest. “What difference does it make to you whom I marry? You’re not in love with me, are you?”
What could he tell her? That he didn’t have an inkling how he felt? That she enchanted him, and he simply didn’t want anyone else to have her? He gazed into her eyes and whispered, “I want you like crazy.”
“So you’d like me to give up a secure future with a man who loves me and wants to marry me to have a wild fling with you simply because we strike sparks off each other?”
He couldn’t argue with her logic. It was exactly what he wanted. Time to find out if the sparks between them were capable of starting a bonfire that could burn for the next fifty years.
“I don’t know what I’m saying. I just know that I like and admire you. And I ache for you. I want a chance to see if there’s potential for more than that.”
Abby pursed her lips and scooped the sandwiches from the griddle. “You’ve heard the expression—a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? Robert loves me, and you’re asking me to give that up on the off chance you might feel something for me.” She tossed up her hands. “Heck, Mac, you just admitted you’re not even in the doggone bush.”
He didn’t know what to say in response.
She slid the plate of sandwiches onto the table. “I know this may sound stupid, but I don’t think this attraction has anything to do with you personally. I suspect the fact you were a prisoner and went through all the horror I imagined my husband could have experienced has just made me identify you with him. Even your name is similar.”
Abby’s obsession with the man he’d once been suggested she wouldn’t go through with her wedding if Matt revealed his identity. However, he didn’t want to be a surrogate for the man she really loved. The man he could never be again.
He took two bowls and plates down from the cupboard for their lunch. “I’m sorry. Forget I ever brought it up.”
Silently, he ate his chicken soup and polished off two sandwiches,
mulling over his situation. She waved her hand in front of him, and he flinched.
“Mac? Where are you? You’re off in la-la land again.”
Not more than two hours ago, Dr. Grant had told him to try to stop brooding. So what did he persist in doing? “I’m sorry. What’d you say?”
“Didn’t the Army give you any information about yourself?”
“Not much. All they could tell me was my vital statistics.”
“What about your parents? Are they still alive?”
Great, now what? He didn’t want to lie to her.
“Uhhh—yeah, but I’d like to find out who I was before I commit to filling my old shoes again.” He changed the subject to stave off any more questions. “Is there anything you’d like me to do inside today?”
“Inside?” Her forehead furrowed a moment. “Uhh, yes, the door on the master bathroom doesn’t close right. There should be a wood plane in my dad’s workroom downstairs.”
At the bottom of the basement steps, Matt found what Abby understated as the workroom. Her father had been into woodworking and owned every tool imaginable, from a lathe and router, right down to dozens of different chisels and tools for carving.
Matt found the plane and took it upstairs with a hammer and screwdriver to remove the door from its hinges. Abby held the door for him while he shaved its edge.
“Your dad had quite a collection of tools. Would you mind if I bought some lumber and fooled around with them?”
“No, be my guest.”
Once Matt finished the job, he paced the house while Abby made phone calls and lists for her wedding.
He ended up in the living room and sank down at the piano. As he brushed his fingers over the smooth keyboard, it shocked him how natural his hands felt on the ivory. He played through the scales a few times, and then closed his eyes while Leonard Bernstein’s Tonight from West Side Story rolled off his fingers.
Not only did he know how to play—he was actually pretty good. He moved right into Beethoven’s Für Elise, then to Brahms’ Waltz in A Major and ended with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Finally, his hands stilled on the keys.
Abby applauded behind him from the archway. “You play beautifully.”
The Memory of You Page 15