by Lucia Ashta
“I didn’t mean for her to fall, obviously,” Todd said. “I was trying to protect her. I take care of her. That’s what I do.”
I stalked toward Todd. I felt dangerous, like a loaded gun.
One glance at my face, and he tensed: “Rae, baby, are you all right? You’re scaring me. You don’t look like yourself right now. Maybe you need to lie down.”
“What I need is to kick you in the balls.”
“Rae,” Mom exclaimed on a breathy gasp. It didn’t matter that she’d witnessed Todd punching Dad; she was still willing to believe this was all some big misunderstanding. She was still on his side.
She wouldn’t be for long. Guaranteed.
“You pushed me,” I accused.
“Honey,” Mom said. “No, he didn’t. No one meant for you to fall. You got caught up in the scuffle. Which”—she rounded on Todd—“is inexcusable, by the way. My daughter’s in a fragile state right now. You can’t be taking those kinds of risks with her.”
“He won’t be doing anything with me. Not anymore,” I said.
“I’m so sorry, guys, really, I am…” Todd addressed Mom, and then Dad. But I didn’t miss the way his blue eyes had taken on a nervous edge, nor did I miss the way they kept flitting back and forth over me. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” He rubbed a hand over his face like he was distraught over everything. “I’m just trying to honor the wishes of the woman I know and love, the one who agreed to marry me.”
“The one who supposedly calls her family hillbillies,” I deadpanned.
Todd stepped around my family and approached me. Sam and Dad shadowed him. Dad still looked ready to throw down.
“Rae, you don’t remember now, but you’ve been working really hard, and I mean incredibly hard, to make a name for yourself. You’re building a new life. With me.”
“Because you have my interest at heart.”
“Of course.”
“And because I can trust you.”
He smiled gently like he was on the big screen, and I wondered how much of what he did was an act. “You can always trust me.” His hands reached toward me non-threateningly, as if I’d actually be crazy enough to take them.
Dad put a hand on his arms, pushing his hands down. “My daughter isn’t going anywhere with you tonight. Not after what you did. You need to calm down.”
“I am calm,” he snapped.
“So,” I started, moving closer, “you think that we should just continue on as if nothing happened. As if the accident never happened.”
“The best way to overcome trauma is to move on. So yes.”
“And you want me to marry you and be a good little lawyer wife.”
“Not a ‘good little lawyer wife.’ Partner of your firm, just as I am of mine. We’ll be a powerhouse couple.”
“And you see no reason, none at all, why I shouldn’t do any of this?”
He again reached toward me, stopping short of touching me. Dad inched closer, waiting to intervene.
I stared at Todd. His bright eyes pleaded with me to see reason so convincingly I knew that if I hadn’t remembered what he’d done to me, he would have fooled me forever.
“You pushed me,” I enunciated clearly, saying it aloud again for all to hear. “Not today. The day of the accident. You pushed me, and I fell into the wall. You’re the reason I hit my head. You’re the reason I lost twelve years of my life. You’re the reason I nearly died.”
“What?” Mom breathed.
Todd laughed like a hyena for a few brief seconds, before his glare snapped on me. “Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t do anything to you. Just because you feel stupid that you lost your balance in heels and fell and nearly died doesn’t mean you need to use me as a scapegoat. This is beneath you, Rae.”
“No, what I’m realizing is that you are beneath me.”
“How … how do you know this?” Mom asked in that same croaky voice. Dad was breathing heavily, like a bull about to charge.
My sister, I’d never seen her look so murderous, not even when she’d been enraged at me for accidentally ruining her favorite doll when we were younger and she’d tried to pummel my head into the floor. A lethal stillness shone from behind those slow blinks of her eyes.
Todd fidgeted with his shirt before seeming to notice he was doing it and dropping his hands to his sides.
“When Todd manhandled me—here in the yard, just now,” I added to make sure I was being fully clear—“it jolted loose a memory. Probably because he’d been manhandling me in that memory too.”
Todd put his hands up another time. “Come on now, Rae, I don’t manhandle you. I was trying to help you just now.”
“At the event the day of the accident … actually I don’t remember the event itself. All I remember is Todd calling me a bitch while yanking on my arm, and then when I didn’t do whatever it was he wanted, he pushed me. I tripped in my heels and fell. I hit my head and that’s all I remember. But I only fell because of him. Because he pushed me. I didn’t fall because I was clumsy. That never made any sense. I’m so coordinated.”
He scoffed. “A bit full of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Actually, no,” my dad said in a tone that had chills spreading along my bare forearms. “Rae’s a star athlete. She’s always been the best, or one of the best, on every sports team she’s ever been on. She’s highly coordinated.”
“Yes, but in heels?” Todd scrunched his brow into a come-on look. “Have you seen the stilettos she tries to walk in? No woman can be coordinated in those.”
But Dad’s nostrils were flaring enough that Mom placed a calming hand on his arm.
“I remember,” I told Todd. “You can’t talk your way out of it when I remember.”
“Your memory is highly volatile right now. It’s unreliable. You have no idea if you might be fabricating events.”
“I know,” I said.
“But you can’t be sure.”
“Of course I can.”
“No jury will believe that, not when you’ve had recent trauma to the head. You only remembered”—he did air quotes—“when you and I were having a little spat.”
I itched with the desire to knee him in the groin. One look at Sam suggested she might beat me to it.
“This is why you were on the scene so soon after the accident,” Mom said in a voice dripping with disbelief. “This is why you were able to call 911 right away. You were the one who pushed her!”
“I didn’t push her,” Todd said.
“Yes you did,” I snapped. “After all you did to me, can’t you at least own up to it, you … you coward!” I struggled to think of an insult good enough that I was willing to say in front of my parents. “You lied to me. Not only did you hurt me, but then you lied afterward, allowing my parents to think of you like you were some freaking hero.”
“For the record,” Sam cut in, “I always knew you were slime.”
“I might have married you.” My face twisted in disgust as the thought landed with the weight of the missing years of my life. I suddenly felt twenty-nine.
Hands still in front of him, he said, “Look, baby, things have gotten out of control. You’re not well yet. Let’s just give things some time.”
Dad growled—he legit growled—and muscled between Todd and me, facing him. “There’s no situation in which you marry my daughter. Leave now and maybe I won’t call the cops and have you charged with aggravated assault—and that’s only for hitting me. We’ll be looking into what kind of charges we file on a chicken-shit man who pushes the girl he’s set to marry and knocks her unconscious, and then lies about it to cover his ass.”
“That’s right,” Sam said. “We’ll be suing your ass. And then you’re going to jail. Pretty boys like you won’t fare so well in the slammer.”
My sister had clearly been watching too much TV. We didn’t personally know anyone who’d gone to the slammer. Shit. Maybe we did. Twelve years was a long time to forget.
Todd stepped back
, retreating toward his car. “You’re all out of your league. I’m a criminal defense attorney. You file against me and I’ll pound you into the ground so fast you won’t know what hit you.” With his key fob, he unlocked his car. Its lights blinked in the night.
I noticed a few curtains pulled aside on neighboring windows. As usual, what happened in Willow Sweep wasn’t private. In this case, I didn’t care. I wanted everyone to know what kind of scum bucket Todd was.
He opened the driver side door. “I want my ring back,” he told me.
“Yeah, and I want the last twelve years of my life back.” But the truth was, if I’d shared some of those with this jerk, I wasn’t sure I wanted them back. Based on what Sam had told me, they might be better off lost.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I paid more than ten grand for that thing.”
“I’m serious too,” I said. “Give me back what you took from me and I’ll give you back your precious ring.”
“Whatever. Play your games. You haven’t seen the last of me.” He folded himself into his car, slammed the door shut, and pulled out, laying rubber.
I stood there staring at his taillights until they disappeared. Shock weighed heavily on me, and I started trembling.
“Rae, honey, are you all right?” Mom asked, clearly alarmed.
I nodded, my teeth chattering all of a sudden. “I’m okay. Just … can’t believe it.”
“Get her inside, honey,” Dad told her, and Mom started to steer me into the house. “I’ll be right behind you.”
But Dad stayed outside with Sam for a long while before they followed, and when they did, they weren’t alone.
Chapter Ten
~ Jace ~
I was out in one of the bays of my garage when my cousin Luke sauntered in wearing his fancy cop uniform with all the fixings. Looking up from the Kawasaki W800 I was working on, I chuckled. “Man, I’ll never get used to seeing you in that.”
I’d had a taste for trouble. When we were teens Luke and I had gotten into enough of it together for the local police to learn our names. Now, he was a part of that same force we’d run from dozens of times—and outrun almost every time.
“Well, you’re gonna have to,” Luke said, grinning. “It looks like I’m up for a promotion soon. There’s talk of making me sergeant.”
I whistled, wiping my hands on the nearest rag. “Sergeant, huh? Good for you, man.”
“Took them long enough to consider me.” Like me, Luke had dark hair. When he smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkled.
“You’ve been on the force for, what, seven years?”
“Eight. I’m good at my job, and I’d be great at sergeant.”
“Then I’m sure you’ve got the promotion in the bag.” I went to slap him on the back but he side-eyed my hand. I dropped it.
“Not the uniform, man. What are you doing working on bikes anyway? I thought you were leaving that to your mechanics now that the shop’s doing so well?”
I shrugged, wiping my hands on the rag some more. “This bike’s one of my regular’s. He insists I work on it and he pays well for the favor. Besides, what would I do with myself if I’m not working on bikes?”
His grin spread. “I don’t know. Kick back, drink some beers, entertain the ladies.”
I snorted. “Maybe I’ll do that.” I eyed him up and down. “You on duty?”
“Yeah.” The grin dropped from his face.
“Am I in trouble for something?” I had no idea what I might’ve done to get the police looking at me, but experience had taught me they liked to look whether I’d done it or not. I’d calmed my wild ways over the last several years, but the cops didn’t seem to catch on. I might have a reputable business now, but I was still an easy target.
Luke shook his head. “I’m on duty, but not here on official business. Anyway, you’ve been keeping your nose clean, right?”
“The cleanest. I wouldn’t dream of going back to my wild ways when my cousin’s in uniform.”
“Yeah, right. Trouble’s in your blood.”
“In that case, it’s in yours too.”
Luke looked away, taking in the bustle of several mechanics, each working on a different bike in the large, open space. “Can we talk somewhere else?”
I eyed him. “That bad, huh?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I just don’t like feeding the rumor mill, ya know?”
“My guys won’t talk, not if I tell them not to,” I said, but Luke still hesitated. “Come on then. I could use a bite anyway.”
I led him through the office, where the shop manager jumped to her feet when she saw Luke. She’d had a thing for him since high school.
“Hey there, Luke.” She smiled warmly, sucking her stomach in and pushing her tits out in her tight t-shirt. “How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been good. How about you, Judy? How are the kids?”
“They’re great. Tommy just turned eleven, if you can believe that. And Maisy’s sweet as pie.”
Judy had gotten knocked up in our senior year of high school. Dwayne, who’d also been in our class, had done the honorable thing and they’d gotten married right after graduation, three months before Judy popped out little Tommy. Mom and Aunt Vina hadn’t stopped talking about the “scandal” for several months after.
Dwayne had since gone soft in the middle and his hair was starting to thin, but Judy usually seemed happy enough … until she saw Luke. Then her eyes grew dreamy like she was considering what might have happened if she and Dwayne hadn’t skipped the condoms all those years ago.
“Wow, eleven,” Luke was saying. “That’s pretty crazy. It seems like we were in high school not that long ago.”
Judy laughed. “Maybe to you. Raising kids is hard work. I feel like I haven’t been as carefree as I was in high school in ages.”
There wasn’t much to say about that. Judy and Dwayne had definitely chosen a more difficult path than we had.
“Well,” I said, “Luke and I are going up to my apartment for a bit. If anyone calls, tell them I’ll call them back.”
“You got it, boss. And if any women call for you, I’ll tell them you’re free on Friday night.”
“Uh, yeah, don’t do that.”
“Damn. It was worth a try.” She and Luke chuckled as I pushed open the door nestled in the far wall of the office.
When Luke pulled it shut and started up the stairs behind me, he said, “I see she hasn’t stopped trying to set you up.”
“She’s relentless. I’m pretty over it, actually.”
“But you’re not seeing anyone, are you?”
“No one in particular.”
“You haven’t had a girlfriend since Frankie, then.”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
I stomped up the last few steps, opened the door to my apartment, and walked straight to the sink. “What’s up with the twenty questions? You don’t usually care who I’m sleeping with.”
“Not usually, no.”
I watched him as I scrubbed. “And now? Why the hell do you care? Did you and Annabelle break up or something?”
“No, we’re still good.” He sank into my favorite armchair. “I saw Rae last night.”
Oh. Rae.
It was like the whole bloody town was waiting for her to come back to me. Only I wasn’t having her back. Not ever. She’d made it damn clear I wasn’t good enough for her.
I turned my back to Luke, rifling through the fridge. “Want something?”
“Nah, I’m meeting Annabelle for lunch in a bit. But listen, you heard about what happened to Rae, right?”
“She hit her head and almost died. Aunt Vina told me. She okay now?”
“Sort of. You heard about that douche she was engaged to?”
“Was engaged to?”
“Yep, from what I hear, she about cut off his balls last night, and Jack and Sam looked ready to feed them to him.”
I pulled out some deli meats, ch
eese, mustard, and bread, mostly to keep my hands busy. I wasn’t even sure I’d been hungry in the first place.
“Get this,” Luke said. “The guy’s apparently the one who pushed her into the wall. He’s the one who hurt her.”
“You’re saying it like it’s some surprise.”
“It is. Rae didn’t know. Nobody did.”
I twisted the tie off the bread bag a little too forcefully, whipping out two slices of sourdough. “How could she not know who pushed her?” I slapped the bread onto a plate.
“She didn’t remember.”
“That’s weird.”
“Wait. Aunt Vina didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“That Rae got amnesia.”
I dropped the knife in the mustard. “What the hell do you mean, amnesia?”
“Amnesia’s when someone forgets—”
“I know what amnesia is, you asshole. What do you mean Rae got amnesia?”
“She forgot everything from the time she was seventeen on.”
My jaw went slack. “Are you serious? ‘Cause if you’re messing with me right now, I’m going to kick your ass.”
“No, man, I swear. Rae thinks she’s still seventeen. Well, not exactly. She knows she’s not seventeen anymore, she gets that, but she’s lost all her memories since then. She lost the last twelve years. She still feels like she’s seventeen.”
“So that’s why…” I trailed off, turning to stare out the window over the sink. It looked down over the parking lot of the shop.
“That’s why what?”
“Robby ran into Rae and Sam the other night, and he said Rae asked him to apologize to me. Something about not meaning it.”
Luke brought his palms together with a clap and slid to the edge of his seat. “Holy shit. In her mind, you guys are still together!”
“Obviously not. She knows she’s got a fiancé.”
“Had a fiancé, and according to her, she’s hated his guts since she woke up from her coma.”
“Coma?” I set the knife down midway through slicing my sandwich in half. “No one told me anything about a coma.”
“Not even Aunt Polly?”
“My mom didn’t tell me a word about Rae’s accident.”