Wanting to Remember, Trying to Forget (Meet the Shepards #1)

by Jacqueline Francis

  She took her time, enjoying the harmony of the waves crashing on the side of her, the feel of the wind whipping through her short hair. When she reached the rock, she lifted herself up a foot to sit on it and there beside her, she saw a small stone with a piece of paper underneath.

  The placement of it was odd enough to pique her interest. She pulled it out from under the stone and read it.

  How To Get a Girl Right Where You Want Her:

  Step 1: Ignore her

  Step 2: Wait for her to become edgy and irritated

  Step 3: Ask her to turn around

  Danny immediately spun around and her heart stopped. Max stood on the other side of the rock with beige pants that were rolled up to mid-calf and a pale yellow shirt, which he hadn’t bothered to tuck in. The late afternoon sun caressed the side of his face and lightened his brown eyes. Gorgeous. That was the only word that came to mind.

  “Happy birthday, Danny.”

  Those were the words she had been longing to hear from him all day and somehow hearing them made her feel like all her emotions were going to overflow.

  She slowly climbed off the boulder and walked around it to meet him. “Step one and two were entirely unnecessary.”

  “I had to get you here without spoiling the surprise.”

  “How did you know I would come here?”

  He smiled and looped his arms around her. “I told you, you haven’t changed. You always came to this very spot whenever you wanted to clear your head.”

  “I’m still mad at you.”

  He shrugged. “It won’t last long.”

  He led her a few feet down the beach to a secluded spot behind another boulder. A table draped in a red and white checkered table cloth from Rocko’s stood in front of her. Two place settings on either side and one large covered platter in the middle.

  “I decided to give you a day of your favorites,” he explained. “This is your favorite spot on the beach. Rocko’s is your favorite restaurant, but…” He lifted the lid of the platter. “…I used Mama’s kitchen to make chicken-a-la-king.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand, tears filling her eyes. “Max, this is perfect.”

  “I’m not done yet.”

  He walked around the table and lifted a weathered cardboard cut-out of the Beach Boys until it stood upright. It was faded, torn at the edges, and she could tell that it had seen better days.

  “Don’t judge. This was impossible to find and bear in mind that you’re the one who likes music that’s a hundred years old.” He knelt down and pulled a battery-operated radio from underneath the table. He pressed play and sound of Kokomo filled her ears.

  “I really do love this song,” she said, swaying her hips as it progressed. “Do you have the cast of Jerry Maguire under there, too?”

  He sighed. “Unfortunately not. Tom Cruise was busy today.”

  She walked towards him and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. “Thank you. It’s perfect; you’re perfect, but there’s one more favorite that I think you’ve forgotten.”

  His dimpled twitched, but he stopped a smile. “Nope. I think I got it all.”

  “You sure?” she asked, tilting her lips up to his.

  “Pretty sure. Maybe you need to remind me.”

  She kissed him then, her senses documenting everything. The mingled smells of salty sea air and Max’s cologne. The sight of the sunset on the horizon and mixture of colors in the sky. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore. The feel of his skin. The taste of his lips. It was her first birthday since the accident and she wanted to remember every perfect detail.

  He broke the kiss and pulled out a chair. “Let’s eat.”

  They sat down and Max plated their food. Before she lifted a forkful to her mouth, Max slid a blue suede box across the table.

  “One more thing,” he said.

  She stared at the box nervously. Her heart began to race. It was a jewelry box, but he couldn’t possibly be proposing. She loved him, yes, but she did not know how he felt about her and marriage was something she was not quite sure she was ready for. Four months was too little time to be a hundred percent sure. Or was it?

  She slowly reached over and took the box, taking a fair amount of time before she opened it. If it was possible to feel relief and disappointment at the same, then that’s how she felt.

  “Hair clips?” she asked with a laugh.

  “Yeah. I had them made.” He took one clip out of the box and ran his fingers over the butterflies at the end. The sun had almost disappeared now so he tilted it so she could see the brownish-colored stones that were embedded in the wings. “You won’t understand my connection to butterflies,” he said with a naughty grin, “but let me tell you about these stones. It’s called Sardonyx, it’s one of your birth stones. It’s the less common one and there’s actually a very interesting story behind it. So back in the day, Queen Elizabeth the first had a ring with this stone in it and she gave it to the Earl of Essex as a token of their friendship, a symbol that she would always be there when he needed her. It didn’t end very well for them because she…had him executed, but…I like what it means…and that’s why I’m giving it to you.”

  Her throat tightened and she tried to blink back her tears. The gift was thoughtful in so many ways. “This is the best birthday ever.”

  He smiled, seemingly shy, and he tried to cover up his sentimentality with modesty. “You’re just saying that because you don’t remember what I did for you two years ago.”

  “What did you do?” she asked before filling her mouth with chicken-a-la-king.

  “There’s this…guy, a singer. Rudolph…Rudolpho, I don’t know. Something like that. He’s not really famous or anything but you love him because you have crap taste in music.”

  “It’s my birthday so you can’t be mean to me.”

  “Okay, well, anyway, he was doing a concert and I tried to get you tickets but they were all sold out so after the show, I managed to get past security and talk to him. I convinced him to go to your apartment and serenade you.”

  Her eyes grew with fascination. “That’s insane! How did you get him to agree?”

  He shrugged. “It didn’t take much to convince him. He’s a hopeless romantic, I guess.”

  “Like you.”

  There was a part of her that was saddened by the story, because it was another moment of awesomeness that she could not remember yet it intrigued her even more. “What did you do for me last year?”

  Silence. Balled fists and then more silence.

  “Max?” she urged.

  “Nothing,” he said softly. “You made other plans last year.”

  They were entering a no-go zone again and although she was almost fearful of his reaction, she decided to probe further because she wanted all the details of her past, whether they were good or bad. “Will you tell me what happened?”

  His jaw tightened, another sign that his temper was flaring.

  “Please.”

  The usual Drop it, Danny didn’t leave his lips. Instead, he simply shook his head. “Tell me.”

  “Let’s not go down this road, Danny.”

  The warning signs to back off were all there yet still she continued. Fueled by the need to fill in the blanks, she persisted, feeling that it was unnecessary to be protected from her own past. “Just tell me.”

  He snapped. “Richard, alright! You made plans with Richard. He stood you up. You spent the rest of the night locked in your apartment, crying your eyes out, and refused to talk to me. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  He stood up so fast that his chair toppled over in the sand. He marched a few feet down the beach and stopped, clasping his hands behind his head.

  She stood up too and approached him cautiously. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t want to ruin this perfect day and now I have. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “You wanna be with me, don’t you, Danny? I mean…this is real for you too
, right?”

  “Max, how can you even ask me something like that?”

  His eyes locked on hers and she understood then his reluctance to tell her. He had not been trying to protect her from her past. He had been trying to protect himself. Questions filled her head and she wanted to know more. She wanted to know why he was asking questions like that. What had happened that made him so angry? Richard had become Voldemort, the name she could not mention. Lauren and Amber reacted the same way every time she brought him up.

  As she looked at Max now, she realized that she would have to accept that Richard was one thing in her past that she would never know about unless she regained her memory.

  “I just wanna know,” he said. “You don’t remember how you felt about him. If…if Richard had to walk back into your life, who—”

  “Hey.” She cupped his face in both hands. “Don’t even think like that. I could never feel about anyone the way I feel about you. I don’t need my memory to figure that out. I gave you me and you gave me you and I won’t ever let you go.”

  He pulled her towards him and kissed her, possessive and unyielding. “You’re mine now,” he whispered.

  September

  Max stood in front of the magazine rack in the supermarket and groaned. Danny had asked him to pick up a few magazines on his way home and as his eyes surveyed the variety, dread built inside him. There were so many to choose from. She wanted a few bridal magazines for a wedding she had been asked to plan and a few on décor but she also asked for a few lifestyle and celeb magazines. He hated celeb gossip and when his eyes caught sight of yet another picture of another Kardashian, he wanted to throw up.

  How could people read this junk?

  He took one of every magazine, dropped it into his shopping basket and headed for the check-out counter. As he handed the magazines to the cashier one by one, a picture in the corner of one of them grabbed his attention. His eyebrows creased together as he quickly grabbed it back and studied it in more detail.

  “You gotta be kidding me!” he said to himself.

  He immediately pulled out his cell phone.

  Max: Why is there a picture of you and your BOSS making out on the cover of Hot Gossip???

  Jordan: He tripped and fell on my face

  Max: I thought he said that you guys DON’T have that boss-accountant sort of relationship.

  Jordan: I know right! He told me the same thing

  Jordan: Yet still he fell on my face

  Max: Give Tyler a message for me, will ya?

  Max: Balls and shears

  Jordan: Don’t know what that means but sure. I’ll tell him.

  * * *

  Danny sat in front of a laptop, transforming the design in her head into electronic pictures. Max had downloaded a program where she could manipulate a basic picture of an open room into something that was fully decorated.

  September had flown by at a phenomenal speed. She had secured four other corporate events and her first wedding and her free time was diminishing with every passing day. She had not even gone to the spa with Lauren and Amber this month.

  She loved it, though. It wasn’t just a way to pass the time. Planning events was daunting and challenging and it kept her on her toes. The wedding, however, was freaking her out more than she had anticipated. A wedding wasn’t like a themed dinner. It couldn’t merely look pretty. It required her to capture a feeling, an aura and she had spent hours on this particular design trying to do just that.

  Max was equally busy. He had taken on a big client earlier this month and every time he came up with a decent design for their website, the board changed their mind about what they wanted. She understood his frustration. Her last client had been the same and there was nothing more aggravating than someone who didn’t know what they wanted.

  She had barely seen him since he had taken it on. The project demanded late nights and early mornings, but he had left the office earlier today and she knew why.

  She added white drapes to the ceiling of her electronic design and gasped when she saw the time. “Shit!”

  Max would be home in less than twenty minutes. Okay. It could still be done. She had a surprise for him on this special day that could still maybe be pulled together in twenty measly minutes.

  She raced to the bathroom, trying to brush her teeth and shave her legs at the same time, but the circular motion of the hand brushing her teeth was confusing the up motion of the hand shaving her legs. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, white foam all over her mouth and legs. One thing at a time, she resolved. She finished her teeth, then finished her legs then hopped into the shower.

  Sliding out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, she grabbed the green and black plaid skirt and a tight white shirt, the same outfit she had worn for her flash-mob dance. She pulled it on over her bare body before pushing her feet into a pair of black heels. She left the shirt unbuttoned half-way, exposing the scar that she now flaunted proudly. Make-up was unnecessary for what she had planned, but she did accessorize with two of the butterfly clips he had given her for her birthday. There. Perfect!

  Her pace slowed now and she walked calmly back to the front of the apartment and sat down on the dining table. The door opened a few minutes later.

  “You have a good day, Sugarpie?”

  The packet full of magazines dropped from his hands. So did the big bouquet of flowers. She watched as his eyes devoured every inch of her.

  “Better now,” he replied in an awe-struck whisper.

  “See what I found at the back of my closet,” she said, sliding her hands up her thighs to toy with the edges of the skirt.

  “I’m seeing, alright. The gift that keeps on giving.”

  He walked up to her so fast that she barely had time to brace herself for the overpowering kiss she had been expecting. He moved his hips between her legs and urged her down until her back was flat against the table. His eyes skimmed over her, a mixture of hunger and appreciation, before his fingers began exploring.

  Starting at the scar and trailing down all the way to her ankles. He hooked her heels up on the edge of the table and nipped her inner thigh.

  “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fantasized about you in this skirt.”

  She smiled and bit her lower lip. “Let’s make it a reality.”

  After he had taken her in every position known to man, Danny was pretty sure that they had fulfilled every one of his erotic fantasies of her in that skirt. She let out an exhausted sigh of satisfaction and got off the sofa, her legs feeling strangely numb. She couldn’t remember how they got there, but she knew it had something to do with rug-burn.

  “That was so dirty,” she said with a smile, “I think I need another shower.”

  All she got in return was a dismissive nod and a tired grin.

  Fifteen minutes later, she returned and picked up the packet of magazines and the bouquet of flowers.

  “Those were for you, by the way.”

  “And to what do I owe this pleasure?” she teased as she sat down beside him at the table.

  He shrugged. “It’s just flowers.”

  “But why am I getting flowers? Is it perhaps because it’s September twenty-second? Is it perhaps that this is the day we met seven years ago?”

  He rolled his eyes and walked to the kitchen.

  “You’re so sentimental, Max.” She began unpacking the magazines from the plastic packet. “There’s pizza in there,” she called out.

  “Good. I’m starving.” He returned a few minutes later. “A man needs sustenance with a woman like you.”

  “Did you call Shane for his birthday?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I called him at the office.”

  She looked down at the cover of one magazine and noticed someone familiar, a face she recognized from the videos. “Hey, is this…isn’t this Jordan?” she asked as he sat down beside her with a hot plate of pizza.

  “Yeah.”

  “Who is she kissing?”


  “Her boss!” he grumbled.

  “Gee, talk about accountants gone wild.”

  He groaned his disgust. “She’s my sister, Danny!” he said through a mouthful of salami and cheese. “I don’t wanna think about it, okay?”

  She giggled and changed the topic, indulging in the playful banter that she had grown to miss in the last few weeks. As he chuckled and nudged her when she told a stupid joke, she felt like everything was falling into place, like the world was beginning to make sense again. The emptiness was filling with her sheer love of life. A great career, great friends and a great man sitting beside her. What more could a girl ask for?

  October

  How was it possible that she could never get ready on time? Then again, it was a Saturday and everyone slept in a little too long on a Saturday. Well, everyone except Max.

  Danny raced out of the bathroom and pulled on a short tight-fitting beige skirt. She couldn’t be late. Not today. Her client was pedantic and would not tolerate tardiness.

  “Max,” she called, “have you seen my—”

  She stopped when she saw the straps of her brown sandals hanging off his finger.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking it from his hand. “And do you know where I left my—”

  Her butterfly hair clips were placed in her other hand. She smiled and hurried to the mirror to slide them on. Blouse on. Matching beige blazer on. Just breathe, she told herself.

  She still had a few minutes to spare before she needed to leave, but in her rush she could not remember where she had left half her things. She tossed the pillows off her bed, looking for her cell phone and when she couldn’t find it, she ran back to the bedroom door. “Where’s—” Her cell phone was placed in her hand. “And—” followed by her car keys. “You’re a blessing!” she said, standing on her tip toes to give him a quick kiss.

  She went back in and sat on the edge of the bed to strap on her sandals. She was exhausted. She had been up half the night trying to finalize the design for this client and all she wanted was a creamy cup of—