Forgotten Memories

by Theresa Stillwagon

  “Well, if you’d placed it against the wall right the first time, it wouldn’t have given way.”

  Mark stopped and stared at him, angry disbelief flashing hot in his flushed face.

  “If you knew how to properly brace up a temporary wall,” Adam continued, “you wouldn’t need to replace it when somebody leans against it.”

  “If I…” Mark stepped toward Adam and poked his finger into his upper arm. “You punched the damn post with your fist.”

  “I didn’t hit it hard.”

  “Like hell!”

  Mark was right to be skeptical, if the sharp aching pain screaming through the surface of his hand was any indication.

  But Adam wasn’t hearing it.

  All the damned woman ever wanted from a man was sex. He could still hear her words clearly in his mind. That’s all she wanted from the bastard. It was all she wanted from him.

  Perfect, he thought. All he’d wanted from women since his wife left him over a year ago had been sex. It should be perfect.

  Then why was he pounding the hell out of an innocent two-by-four?

  Why was he standing here glaring at his brother like he was a dumb ass?

  Because you want more than just sex with this particular woman, the sensible side of his brain said. You want what you almost had with Debbie. You want a home and family, children. You want it all.

  “And all she wants is mind-numbing sex,” he muttered softly as the anger left him, leaving him drained and weak. “Man.”

  “Did you say something about sex?” Mark’s temper hadn’t chilled. “Maybe you should go get you some.”

  “Yeah, maybe I should.”

  Mark didn’t respond to him.

  His feelings under control now, Adam lifted up the pole from the ground and set it in its place against the wall. Gazing at this brother, he said, “Here, I’ll hold it for you.”

  Mark studied him in an odd way. “You had a date with Erin about a week ago, why did you cancel it?”

  “I…just did.”

  “Why?” Mark grabbed the hammer and placed the piercing end of a long nail against the wood. “Maybe you should call her.”

  Adam didn’t look at him. “We called things off.”

  “Oh.” He raised the hammer and gazed hard at him again. “Does this mean you’ve found someone else?”

  “Yeah.” Adam secured the board as his brother hammered the nail into the beam. “It’s something like that.”

  Mark stared at him a bit longer before pulling another nail from his pocket. “I’m sorry, Adam.”

  No more words were spoken between them as they fixed the temporary wall on three sides of the large structure. On the fourth side, a waterproof tarp hung down from the sturdy roof. The museum had hired a special contractor to fix up the rest of the building, to make it safe to store the historic stagecoach.

  “I think that should do it for now,” Mark said. “Tomorrow the contractor should be here to finish the job. Wyatt’s getting antsy about starting on the replica of the stagecoach. Should be interesting.”

  “Wyatt’s good with his hands.”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, I’m sorry for getting so pissed at you.” Adam stepped in front of him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have taken my frustrations out on you like that.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m just upset because of something I heard from someone.”

  Mark raised his eyebrows in a questioning way.

  “It’s something Jen said,” Adam added.

  “Your history professor, you mean?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She could be mine, physically.”

  “What?”

  “Everything Erin was for me—” Adam swept off his hat and slammed it to the post. “—is the only thing Jen wants to be.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “So am I. After Debbie left, I told myself I’d never let a woman get close to me emotionally again. Jen’s attitude should be perfect for me.”

  Pity burned in his brother’s face. “And you want more than just…sex?”

  “Weird, isn’t it?”

  “Some women have a way of doing that to a man.”

  Adam didn’t say anything to his comment.

  “You know,” Mark added, “I got married because I thought Karen loved me. And I knew I loved her. She was a major whore, yet I thought my love could change her, and for a while it did.”

  “Debbie was a good woman,” Adam said easily. “I guess she must have thought she could change me the way you wanted to change Karen. Sometimes people just aren’t capable of changing.”

  “Yet you did change, Adam.”

  “No.” He turned toward the billowing tarp, staring at it with unseeing eyes. “If I’d changed I wouldn’t have gone to the bar a week after the divorce was final and meet up with Erin. I would have stayed home and suffered.”

  “You suffered.”

  Adam didn’t agree with his brother. “Now I have Jen acting like all she wants from me is sex.”

  “Well, who said you had to give it to her?”

  Adam looked hard at his brother. “Don’t get me wrong, Mark. I would love to go to bed with her, but… I don’t know.”

  “You want it all, right?” Mark looked down at his clamped hands. “I’ve been feeling strange lately too. If I met the right woman, I’d be doing everything in my power to show her how much I loved her.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Damn right, I would.”

  Adam looked up when his brother’s hand clamped around his shoulder.

  “Maybe a little wine and roses would help,” his brother said lightly. “And a lot of sweet words. You need to make the woman see things in a different light.”

  “She was engaged once.” Adam tried to remember the details. “I think she caught her ex with another woman.”

  “So she’s scared then,” Mark said. “Just like you when Debbie walked out. Sex is the easy part, man. Anyone can fuck a woman, but it takes a lot of fortitude to love one for life.”

  Mark’s word rang true to him.

  For life.

  Yes, Adam could see himself with her in the future.

  But the question was, would she be able to see him?

  * * * *

  Jen would rather be anywhere else than in this restaurant. Her father’s disappointed stare burned into her skin, and she clasped her sweating hands tight under the table. Her meal untouched, her coffee cup emptied for the third time, she could sense his annoyance. Even her choice of liquids seemed to irritate him.

  But then what else should she have expected?

  Since birth, this was the way it’d always been between them.

  “Jennifer Ann, please be reasonable.”

  When her father used her entire name, she knew she was in for trouble.

  “Dad’s right, Jen,” her brother said quietly. “I think you need to reconsider.”

  She turned to her brother. “Granddad is no problem for me, Ed.”

  “Maybe not now,” her brother said. “But you have to admit, he’s not his usual self.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Jennifer,” her father interrupted. “I’ve noticed a change in him.”

  He leaned into the table, lifting his hand toward her. He didn’t touch her.

  Her father rarely touched her.

  “I’m not denying he’s getting sicker.” She spoke to her brother, ignoring her father’s truthful statement. “I just think it’s too soon to make him go into a nursing home.”

  “Now you’re being unreasonable.” Her father did touch her this time. A brief light touch fluttered over her upper arm like a hint of a butterfly’s wing. “Your grandfather isn’t going into a nursing home.”

  “Assisted living?” she said a bit too loudly. “Nursing home? What difference does it make? People go to those types of places to die.”

  “Everyone dies, Jen.”

  The softness of her
father’s voice and the unusual use of her nickname forced her gaze to his face. Sadness lingered behind his eyes, grief. And for the first time, Jen realized how hard her grandfather’s illness was on her father.

  The man had been his father-in-law for almost twenty years, one of only two good things from her mother’s side of the family. Her grandmother being the second.

  She didn’t know what to say.

  “Jen?” Her brother decided to speak finally. “All Dad and I want you to do is tour the facility Granddad picked out. No final decision needs to be made yet.”

  “You know why I’m having a hard time with this, Ed.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then I wish one of you would tell me.” Her father’s momentary weakness gone, the older man looked from her to her brother, settling his wide questioning eyes back onto her face. “Jennifer?”

  “Dad,” Ed said. “I think you should just let the past go.”

  “If you have something you need to say to me,” he said, ignoring her brother’s peacemaking attempt, “I want to hear it.”

  Anger slid hot over the edges of her nerves, ending in a burning sensation deep in her tight throat. “I doubt it, Dad.”

  “Jen, I don’t think now is the right time for this,” Ed said.

  “Oh, really?” Turning glaring eyes toward her brother, Jen said, “I think thirty-two years is plenty of time.”

  “Thirty-two years?” Her father’s puzzled look went from her brother to her, settling on her brother this time. Ed only shrugged his shoulders. Her father turned his bewildered gaze back on her and said, “That’s your entire life, Jen.”

  “You remembered my age,” she said. “That’s freaking amazing.”

  “Of course I remember your age, you’re my daughter.”

  “I never felt like your daughter.”

  “What?”

  Jen stood and faced him, her hands clenched at her sides. “You had Ed, Mom had Kimberley, I had no one.”

  “You’re making a scene.” Her father latched onto her hand and pulled her back down to her seat. When she tried to pull away from his grip, he wouldn’t let go. “There is no need to announce my failure to the entire restaurant.”

  “Your failure?” Jen asked.

  “Dad,” Ed said, looking startled by his statement. “You weren’t a failure.”

  She relaxed her hand on the cool table, under the heat of her father’s trembling one.

  “I may not have failed you, Ed,” her father admitted. “But I do believe I failed your sisters. Especially Jennifer.”

  “Are you all right, Dad?” She may have felt less than a part of the family, yet she’d always loved her father. In his own way, her father had loved her. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”

  “To tell the truth is never wrong.”

  “It is when it’s said in anger,” she said, wrapping her fingers around his hand. “When it’s said out of pain.”

  “Was I such a bad father?”

  She glanced at him, wondering if he truly wanted to hear her answer. She needed to tell him. “Yes, both of you were bad to me. Both you and Mom. And Kimberley. I think Kimberley was the worst.”

  “If I’d known how you felt, Jen, I would’ve changed my ways. I’ve always loved you. I’ve always been so proud of you and Ed.”

  Jen opened her heart up to him, opened the part of her mind capable of reading a person’s deepest emotions. Her father’s angst was real.

  But still— “I wish you would’ve told me how you felt when I was growing up.”

  “I regret not being more…loving.”

  She could’ve said something nasty to him then, but she held her tongue. His affairs were none of her business. He had to live with his mistakes.

  “I hope it’s not too late,” her father whispered. “I don’t like the way things are between us now. I hope there’s a chance we can talk things over, settle things.”

  A tear fell from her eyes at his hope-filled expression. She didn’t need to open up her mind to read the truth of his words now; his face said it all.

  “No, it’s not too late,” she said. A hint of a smile played around his mouth, and an answering warmth spread in her heart. But she wasn’t ready yet to let him see it. “We can work on it.”

  “I’m glad the two of you finally settled that,” Ed said with a smile. “I’m tired of relaying messages back and forth between you. Now if only you would call Mom and Kimberley.”

  “I agree with you, son.”

  Not a chance. “I’d rather work on one relationship at a time.”

  “But it can wait until another day,” her father added, smiling at her comment. “Now we need to discuss a good time to tour your grandfather’s choice for his retirement.”

  “I’m not ready yet.”

  “Jennifer, be reasonable.” Her father slid his hand from under hers and touched her cheek. “I’m only asking you to tour the place with us and your grandfather. Like your brother said, no final decisions need to be made until a later date.”

  “Granddad wants to leave…” Her grandfather had always been her sturdy supporter, the one and only person she could always count on to be there for her. She wasn’t ready to give up his support. “I can’t go with you.”

  A sudden image flooded her mind, throwing her out of her conversation with the two men. A vague, unfocused image of a lean, hard-bodied cowboy, dressed in a fancy suit and a new dark-colored Stetson, flowed past the reality of her father.

  Adam’s image, she sensed. He was nearby.

  What the hell was going on? Why was she sensing him now?

  “I’ll set up an appointment for a day next week,” her father continued, unaware of the new focus of her thoughts. “You can decide then.”

  The cowboy was up to something, the psyche part of her brain screamed, something completely out of character for him.

  “Will you at least think about it?”

  She looked up at her father. “Yes, I’ll think about it.”

  “Good,” he said with a sideways grin. “That’s all I’m asking you to do.”

  Jen had always liked his grin.

  Almost as much as she liked the grin on the cowboy now standing at the entrance of the four-star restaurant.

  “What is he doing here?”

  “Jen?” Her father turned to the front, and frowned. “Do you know him?”

  “His name is Adam Craine.”

  So he wasn’t a figment of her imagination. The sexy, well-dressed cowboy was really standing in the doorway of this fancy restaurant, holding a large, colorful bouquet of flowers.

  What are you up to now, cowboy?

  * * * *

  “I don’t think your dad likes me.” Adam turned off the ignition of his F450 truck near the entrance to the liberal arts building on campus an hour later. “When the girl in your office told me you’d gone out to eat, I assumed you’d be alone. You know, the way everyone seems to be treating you around here…”

  “I thought it was sweet.” Jen sniffed the red, pink and white flowers, hiding the smile lingering on her lips. “But you’re right. My dad wasn’t too impressed.”

  Adam stared at her for a long moment before reaching toward the flowers and pushing the bundle down to her lap, then raising his hand to trace rough fingers along her cheekbone. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t trying to impress him.”

  “Why weren’t you?” She snaked her hands up the sheepskin material of his coat to grab tight to both ends of its collar, and frowned. “He is my father, and I only date the men he approves of.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said lightly. “I can tell that by your voice.”

  Obviously he didn’t believe her.

  His fingertips smoothed over her skin, tracing a fiery line of heat along her chin. “But the real question is—did I impress you?”

  “You’re up to something.”

  He only smiled

  Soft feminine giggles mixing with the harsher sounds of male laughter and cutti
ng words brought her mind back to the early evening parking lot. She looked past Adam to the small group of students milling around the large lot.

  “We’ve got an audience.”

  “Good.” Blunt, loud, he continued to caress fire into her frozen chin and neck. Damn, but she liked his touch. “Let them look. What do they think is going to happen in the middle of the parking lot anyway?”

  “Please stop. Let’s not give them something else to talk about.”

  He curved his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her within a breath of his lips, a coffee scented breeze moved gingerly over her trembling mouth. “Maybe I should kiss you senseless. Maybe I should release your damned hairclip and let all that gorgeous, silky hair fall around my hands. Maybe I should—”

  “No,” she said firmly. Another rush of laughter and crude words brought her hands up to her face. She gently pulled at his fingers, bringing his hand down to the seat between them. He held tight to her hand. “Look, all this will be over in a few weeks. Things will get back to normal for me then. Sometimes it’s nice to wait.”

  He squeezed her chilled fingers. “And then what?”

  “Whatever you’re thinking about doing to me right now,” Jen whispered. “We’ll do.”

  His eyes burned her now. “I’ll need a lifetime to do all the things I want to do to you, lady.”

  “You’ll be amazed, cowboy.”

  Jen sensed that something wasn’t right. The sexual need deep in the man burned hot, but she sensed another need just as strong forming at the edge of his mind. A pastel haze surrounded the red of his desire, filling her mind with softer images. Bodies entangled together, her legs wrapped around his waist, his hands tucked under her bottom, as his cock pounded in and out of her. Yet it wasn’t only lust she sensed in Adam now.

  And this second emotion scared her.

  Lust she could handle.

  But love?

  “No,” Jen whispered. “No.”

  “Don’t say no, beautiful.” His smile warmed the teasing words. “I want to be amazed by you.”

  He misunderstood her negative, but it was too hard for her to explain, so she let it go.

  “My parents are celebrating their thirty-seventh wedding anniversary at the end of November.” Adam leaned into her, bringing his warm lips once again within kissing distance. “I want you to be my date for the party.”