Kisses to Remember

by Christine DePetrillo

  “Lancaster? I don’t know anyone named Holden Lancaster. My pilots are Zachary Jenner and Robert Mansfield. They’ve been with me for years. Perhaps it wasn’t a DE plane that went down,” Sabrina said.

  “The man I pulled out of the wrecked plane definitely had a white DE polo shirt on. As if it were his uniform.” Johanna stared at the logo on her computer screen. She wasn’t crazy. She’d seen that logo. So had Ted.

  “Hold on a second.” The DE commercial came on again, and Johanna stood. She paced the length of her small office, Kam’s dark eyes following her movements.

  “What’s she saying, Mom?”

  Johanna held a finger to her lips as the techno music cut off and Sabrina came back on the line.

  “Ms. Ware, I had my assistant check, and my pilots haven’t had a scheduled flight in a week and a half. DE’s corporate plane is safely in its hangar right now. I don’t have time for this nonsense.” The CEO’s curt manner caught Johanna by surprise.

  “Then why is there a DE plane in my field, Ms. Donovan?” She could be bitchy right on back.

  “I don’t know what you think you saw, but no one named Holden Lancaster works here. Now I have work to do. I’m running a huge corporation, not a little logo-making business. Maybe you have time to waste, but I certainly do not. Good day, Ms. Ware.”

  Sabrina hung up, and Johanna was jealous of the bang the CEO had achieved with her receiver. The finality was deafening. Johanna lowered the cordless phone from her ear, staring at it in disbelief.

  “What happened?” Kam slid off the filing cabinet and stood in front of Johanna.

  “I’m…I’m not sure.”

  Chapter Four

  Holden opened his eyes and winced at the bright overhead lights assaulting his retinas. He snapped his eyes shut, hoping to stop his brain from pulsating in his skull.

  Why do you feel like shit? his brain asked him.

  Don’t know, he replied.

  We should probably find out.

  Good idea.

  There’s a reason I’m in charge.

  Slightly worried about having a conversation with his brain, Holden opened his eyes again and scanned the room. The word hospital flashed into his head, and he immediately looked down at his body, fearing what had landed him in the uncomfortable bed.

  After a moment of study, he let out a breath. Nothing was missing that he could see. All his parts had answered his mental roll call. A couple of nasty gashes cut across his right forearm, black stitches puckering the skin, but they didn’t hurt. The only thing that throbbed was his head. Raising a hand, Holden felt around in his hair. When he got to the crown of his head, he pulled his fingers away at the small shaved patch he found there.

  “What the hell…”

  Holden’s attention darted to the door as it opened and a short man in a white coat walked in. He carried a slim laptop, a stethoscope draped around his neck like Christmas tree tinsel. His dark skin contrasted with the sterile white of his coat, and thick lenses magnified equally dark eyes.

  “You’re awake.” The man’s nametag said Dr. Abraham Sakala, Valley Falls Hospital.

  “Am I?” Holden’s fingers went back to examining his head while the words Valley Falls bounced around his mind. Where the hell was Valley Falls?

  “Don’t you feel awake?” Dr. Sakala approached the bed and set his laptop down beside Holden.

  “I thought I was awake, but…” Holden dropped his hand to his lap. “What am I doing here? Where is here?”

  “You were in an accident,” Dr. Sakala said. “Here is Valley Falls Hospital, north of Valentine, Nebraska.”

  “What am I doing in Nebraska?”

  “Where are you supposed to be?”

  Holden thought for a moment, but another place did not pop into his mind. “I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. Why is that?” He tried to sit up, but the doctor put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

  “I’ll adjust the bed.” Dr. Sakala hit a button on the controls, and the bed rose to support Holden in a sitting position.

  The room spun at first, and Holden was again forced to clamp his eyes shut. Don’t puke, don’t puke.

  “Give yourself a minute,” the doctor said. “You’ve suffered a blow to the head and have a concussion. Why don’t you tell me what you remember?”

  “I remember a field,” Holden said, rubbing his temples to alleviate his headache. “A big grassy field coming into view very quickly. Too quickly.”

  “That all?” Dr. Sakala tapped a few keys on his laptop.

  Holden tried to remember more, but his head hurt so much, and everything was foggy. “Yeah, that’s all. What happened?”

  The doctor pulled over the room’s only chair and sat with the groan of a man that had been working too long for one day.

  “Far as we can tell, you crash landed a small airplane in a field two days ago, banged your head on something thereby giving you a concussion, ripped up your arm pretty good, and I believe I can add traumatic amnesia to the list as well.” A few more keys got tapped while the doctor spoke.

  “Amnesia? But I remember who I am. I’m Holden Lancaster. My birthday is July 31st. I’m thirty-four years old.” Holden liked that he remembered those items. That had to mean he was okay, right?

  “The amnesia can be selective. Where do you live, Holden Lancaster?” Dr. Sakala leaned forward and adjusted his glasses.

  “I live in…in…” Dammit, why can’t I remember something so simple?

  “Texas?” the doctor offered.

  “Texas, yes. That’s right.” Only it didn’t feel right.

  Dr. Sakala slid a hand into the deep pocket of his coat and extracted a wallet. He opened it and pulled out a card. “This looks like you.” He handed the card to Holden.

  Holden squinted at the card, his headache making his vision less than perfect. The guy on the driver’s license certainly did look like him. Dark hair, blue eyes, square jaw. His name and date of birth were correct as well. Texas was emblazoned on the top, left corner of the card.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “But you don’t remember living in Texas, do you?” The doctor’s stocky fingers hovered over the laptop keyboard.

  Holden shook his head then regretted the movement. “No.”

  “How about flying planes? Does that ring a bell?”

  Holden studied the stitches on his arm. Flying, flying. A guy should remember a thing like flying, shouldn’t he? “No. I don’t remember flying planes. Is that what I do for a living? Who do I work for?” His heart was clunking against his ribs now. How could he have forgotten where he lived, where he worked?

  “Now that’s a good question, son.” Dr. Sakala turned the laptop around so Holden could see a small globe with an antennae sticking out from the top filling the screen. “Do you recognize this logo?”

  “Why are all my answers to your questions no, Doctor?” Holden’s jaw clenched in frustration. He felt like a complete idiot.

  “It would be easier if the answers were yes, but nothing we can do about that.” Dr. Sakala shrugged, and the indifferent attitude sent a spark of anger through Holden.

  “Well, what can we do then?” Although his head drummed, he didn’t feel hurt enough to be stuck in a hospital bed. The sooner he got out, the sooner he could get reorganized, or refocused, or…something.

  “For starters, we can assume this amnesia is of the retrograde variety, meaning you can’t remember events and information prior to your traumatic episode.” Dr. Sakala stood and put the earpieces of the stethoscope into his ears. He pressed the stethoscope end to Holden’s chest. As he listened, he continued, “Usually, after some rest, the forgotten memories come back.”

  “How long?” Holden followed the beam of light the doctor shined in his eyes.

  “Difficult to say. Conditions like this are unique to the individual. It could take you a few days, a few weeks, months…”

  What happened to the times when doctors reassured their patients? D
r. Sakala’s blatant honesty was doing nothing to alleviate Holden’s uneasiness.

  “When can I leave?” Leaving the hospital seemed like a solid first step to getting on with things, to falling into that Everything’s Going to Be Okay stage.

  “Technically, you don’t need to be here right now.” The doctor slung the stethoscope around his neck again and snapped his laptop closed. “Trouble is, you shouldn’t be on your own either. Not with a concussion and amnesia. We usually only release patients with those conditions to family members who can keep a close watch. We couldn’t find any family members for you, Mr. Lancaster, and we called this company, Donovan Electronics.” He picked up a polo shirt hung over the back of the chair. It was less than white and…Jesus, were those blood stains? The same logo the doctor had shown him on the laptop was on the shirt. “But the person I spoke to there, an assistant to Ms. Sabrina Donovan, said no one by the name of Holden Lancaster was in her employ.”

  Sabrina Donovan? The name meant nothing to Holden, nor did Donovan Electronics. He looked up to the tiled ceiling and fought to come up with a face, a name, a phone number of someone he knew. The only thing that filled his mind, however, was that damn grassy field.

  And a woman’s voice.

  C’mon. Show me those beautiful eyes again, mister.

  Her remembered voice was soothing and once Holden locked onto it, the tension in his body slipped away.

  “There was a woman…” He cleared his throat and peered at the doctor. “In the field.”

  “Ah, yes.” Dr. Sakala nodded. “Ms. Johanna Ware. She pulled you from the burning plane and her son called 911. She’s not a relation, just a Good Samaritan. Although…”

  “Although what?”

  Dr. Sakala rubbed his smooth chin. “She’s been calling the hospital wanting to know your status. We haven’t told her anything because she’s not a relation, but there isn’t anyone else.”

  Holden closed his eyes, trying to sharpen the fuzzy image of the woman’s face—of Johanna Ware’s face. Red hair. He could see tendrils of it resting on her cheeks, but that was it. Nothing else would focus.

  “Would you like to speak with her, Mr. Lancaster? If you give permission, we can get her in here.” Dr. Sakala touched Holden’s arm to get his attention.

  Slowly, Holden opened his eyes. “Yes, tell her to come.”

  He didn’t know this Johanna Ware, but it sounded as if she’d saved his life. A life he couldn’t quite remember, but still he was breathing because of her. That had to count for something. He at least owed her a personal thank you.

  ****

  “Amnesia?” Sabrina rolled her eyes as Aaron waited in front of her desk.

  “That’s what this doctor in Nebraska said.”

  “And Vaughn is dead? You’re sure?” She got up from her chair and faced the south windows. She loved looking down on the nearby buildings. She loved looking down on everyone beneath her.

  “Yes, the doctor also asked about him, wanting family to release the body to.” Aaron sat in the chair opposite Sabrina’s desk and crossed his legs.

  “So the crash only did half the job.” Disapproval hummed in Sabrina’s throat. Like always, she’d eventually have to take care of this herself. Skilled minions were so hard to find nowadays, although she couldn’t fault her worker bees. How were they to know Holden would be so difficult to terminate?

  “You want me to send someone out to Nebraska to finish up?” Aaron pulled out his phone, his fingers hovering over the touch pad.

  “Just retrieve the plane. As long as Holden has a memory problem, he’s no danger to us. We have more important things to address right now. This is a critical time. Our plans can’t be interrupted to chase a pilot who doesn’t even have any proof.”

  Sabrina held up the invoice Vaughn had given her. She stuck it in the paper shredder by her desk and watched it get reduced to thin strips. She’d only kept the sheet should she have to play the innocent card with the authorities. Her name wasn’t on it anywhere, but her associates were listed in bold black ink. She’d have no trouble throwing them to the wolves to save DE. With Vaughn dead and Holden without his memory, however, she believed there was no need to stop her plans.

  Not now anyway. Holden could fumble around in Nebraska until she had the time and manpower to properly deal with him. She had to focus all her efforts on catapulting Donovan Electronics to the top, and she’d do that anyway she could.

  ****

  “Mom! Phone!” Kam’s voice screeched down the hallway to Johanna’s office where she tried, unsuccessfully, to get some work done. That damn pilot kept flashing into her mind making her unable to focus on anything else. She tossed around the idea of going to the back field and investigating the wrecked plane, but she couldn’t quite make herself go.

  I’ll ask Ted to handle getting rid of it. He was good at practical things.

  “I’ll pick it up in here, Kam,” she yelled back. After this call, she was so getting down to business. No more wondering about the pilot. She didn’t know the guy. She’d done what she could for him. Gotten him help. End of story. Back to real life.

  Johanna picked up the phone in her office. “Hello?”

  “Is this Johanna Ware?” an unfamiliar male voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Hello. I’m Dr. Abraham Sakala over at Valley Falls Hospital. You’ve been calling about—”

  “The pilot, Holden Lancaster.” Johanna sat up straighter in her chair. “How is he?” She sounded like an overeager idiot. So much for not caring.

  “He’s awake.”

  She puffed out a breath. “Well, thanks. That’s all I wanted to know. I don’t see why your staff had to be so…so…” She searched around for a nice way to say what she wanted.

  “Difficult?” the doctor suggested.

  “Difficult, yeah, okay. We can go with that.” Johanna rocked back in her desk chair. “Can you tell me anything else, Doctor?”

  “Actually, I can have Mr. Lancaster tell you. We have a small situation, and we’d like you to come to the hospital if you’re able.”

  “Situation? I thought you said the pilot was awake. Is he not okay?” Johanna swiveled her chair to face away from her laptop.

  “He’s healthy,” Dr. Sakala said. “Minor concussion, a few stitches on his arm and head, but he’s got amnesia. Can’t remember some events from before the accident. More troubling is that we can’t locate someone to claim him.”

  “Claim him?” What is he, a lost puppy? Johanna stood and paced her small office. She couldn’t imagine not remembering events from her past, although there were a few she wouldn’t mind forgetting.

  “He’s physically stable so he can leave the hospital, but he shouldn’t be alone. We’ve got his Texas address on his license, but traveling with recent head trauma isn’t recommended. He needs a few days to rest and be observed, but we can’t locate family and the company he supposedly works for—”

  “Says he doesn’t.”

  “Yes. You checked as well?”

  “I did.” Johanna rubbed her temples.

  “The company said they don’t know the other pilot either,” Dr. Sakala said.

  Weird. “So you want me to provide a place for that rest and observation?” This was crazy, and yet, she could tell she was going to say yes to the request. She was a sucker for lost puppies, dammit.

  “You’re the only person he’s had contact with post-accident aside from hospital staff.”

  “Have you told him about the other pilot? The one who…didn’t make it?” Johanna stopped pacing and stared out the window. Ted and Miles were rounding up the handful of cows they owned. The dog ran in speedy circles, forcing the cattle into a neat bunch. Above them, the clouds were darkening. Nebraska summer storms could be a bitch, and it looked as if a nasty one was headed their way.

  “No. I think it’s best if Mr. Lancaster has a couple days to rest before we tell him about the other pilot. Give him a chance to regain his memory. Right n
ow, he doesn’t even remember flying a plane,” Dr. Sakala said.

  “Does he remember crashing a plane?”

  “Nope. He remembers a grassy field. Your grassy field. And you.”

  Something inside Johanna melted at that bit of information. “He remembers me?”

  “Your voice and red hair, I’m told.” Dr. Sakala paused. “Listen, Ms. Ware, I’ve got to see to other patients. Can you come for Mr. Lancaster? I can have the release forms ready when you arrive.”

  “He can just come with me? What about your high-level, no-access-except-for-family standard procedure? The nurses I’ve been badgering with phone calls were unmovable mountains about the standard procedure.”

  “Now that Mr. Lancaster is awake, he can authorize his release to you.”

  “Ah, the loophole. I see.” Johanna paced again. Going to the hospital to pick up a man you didn’t know was ridiculous, but she couldn’t leave the poor guy there. She couldn’t. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Ware.” Dr. Sakala hung up before Johanna could ask any more questions.

  She shut off her phone and ran her hands through her hair. Her red hair that Holden Lancaster remembered.

  “Storm’s coming. Cows are in the barn.” Ted’s voice made Johanna jump. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He stepped deeper into the room, Miles slipping in behind him.

  “Not your fault.” Johanna put a hand to her chest, trying to quiet her beating heart. She kneeled down and gave Miles a vigorous scratching until he rolled around on his back in doggy bliss. “Are you going to be around for a while?”

  “Aren’t I always around?” Ted raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, and I thank the heavens for it.” With her own parents gone and Alex in jail, Ted and Kam were her only family. She thought about not being able to remember them, and a shiver rippled through her body.

  When she stood, Ted hugged her, then held her at arm’s length. “What’s wrong?”