Dirty, Reckless Love

by Lexi Ryan

  I freeze, fear making every muscle in my body contract.

  “Don’t worry. I sent them away.” She squeezes my shoulder and shakes her head. I recognize the look in her eyes. She’s transformed into the fierce mama bear who’s been walking around with her hackles raised ever since I was discharged. “You’re safe, El. I promise you.”

  Tears sting the back of my eyes. “What do you think they wanted?”

  Mom folds me into her chest. “Breathe, sweetie. They’re gone, but I don’t think they were here to hurt you.”

  I drag my bottom lip between my teeth. “You don’t know that.” What if they were here to scope out the house, to plan how they’ll break in later? What if they’re in contact with Colton and tell him where he can find me?

  My fears are irrational, and I know it. If Colton was looking for me, wouldn’t he check my mother’s house first? But I can’t help the terror that claws at me when I think of my life in Jackson Harbor.

  “It doesn’t matter. I sent them away.”

  I nod. “Thank you.” I know I sound weak, but in this one area, I’ve allowed myself to be.

  “I’m going to make some lunch,” she says. “Come downstairs when you’re ready.”

  I nod, grateful to return to the safe haven of my childhood bedroom.

  I’ve had two weeks back at home trying to come to terms with what everyone tells me: that I have three years of my life that I can’t remember. The doctors expect most of the memories will come back in their own time, but I haven’t even seen a hint of the missing pieces.

  I’m not sure I want to.

  Before, I would have imagined retrograde amnesia would feel like looking at a picture with a section blacked out. Instead, it’s more like someone cropped the picture, cutting away all signs of the last three years. If no one had told me, I wouldn’t have even known anything was missing.

  I have so many questions about the years I lost on the night of the incident. I had an entire life in a city I can’t remember. A house. A job. A fiancé. Some days it all feels like an elaborate joke. How could I have been planning to marry a man I can’t even remember meeting? The last I remember, I was working for an art dealer and traveling the world. My job was my everything, and my future looked so bright.

  But everything changed sometime during those missing years. By the time they found me, unconscious and barely breathing on my living room floor, I was a different person. I was a struggling real estate agent who’d exchanged a lavish life of art for piles of debt, and I was engaged to a drug addict who nearly beat me to death. How could things have changed so drastically?

  I have so many questions about the place I’m told I lived and the life I’m told I had, but I want nothing to do with any of it. I was given a second chance, and I’m not going to ruin it by chasing ghosts from a life that almost killed me.

  I walk to the window and frown when I see a blue Mustang parked in front of the house. A beautiful brunette leans against the passenger-side door, and a broad-shouldered man stands in front of her. Are they the ones who came to talk to me? The woman is thin—not frail but lithe, like a ballerina. She wraps her arms around herself, and the wet streaks on her face glisten in the sun.

  The man dips his head and presses a kiss to the top of her head. Are they together? Or maybe brother and sister? I can’t tell, but clearly she’s upset and he’s trying to comfort her.

  Friends of Colton. They don’t look like drug addicts, but can you tell that by looking at someone?

  The woman looks up and catches sight of me in the window. Her mouth opens, as if she’s gasping, or maybe as if I’ve hurt her—as if seeing me looking at her hurts her. How’s she connected to the man I was supposed to marry?

  The man turns, following the woman’s gaze, and when his eyes meet mine, the intensity on his face makes me gasp. I put my hand to my chest, pressing against the strange ache there, as if the hammering beat of my heart is code that can provide the answers I’m so afraid of.

  “The Young and the Restless is on, honey,” Mom calls from the kitchen. “Come watch with me while I get lunch ready?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” I call, but I can’t take my eyes off the man outside.

  He presses his fist to his chest, and I wonder if he feels it too—this unlikely pull I have toward him. He’s gorgeous. Dark hair and the scruff of his shortly trimmed beard. From here, his eyes look almost black, but I wonder what they’re like up close. Do those eyes know my secrets? Does he know what happened that night? Or why I fell in love with such a bad man?

  He takes his phone from his pocket, dials, and looks at me as he puts it to his ear. When he pulls it away, he holds it up and shakes it gently. Call me. The words are on his lips. Mouthed or said, I don’t know. But I feel them. Then he’s saying something else. I miss you.

  Is that what he said? I can’t tell.

  That doesn’t make sense. I don’t know this man. I know he’s not Colton. Not Colton, who almost killed me, but his friend. He’s someone from Jackson Harbor begging me to call him and telling me he misses me.

  Does he miss me as a friend or something more? It couldn’t be more if I was supposed to marry Colton, so why does it feel like more? Why is he looking at me like he’d knock down the walls of this house to get to me? Does he know I don’t remember? Does he know I almost died?

  Does he know how much I’ve lost?

  I put my hand to my stomach—to the womb that cradled the child I’ll never meet, to the space that failed to protect the only piece of my old life I want to hold on to.

  The man turns away and opens the car door for his companion, and a shiver rushes through me. He goes around to his side and climbs in.

  When the car pulls away, I open the top drawer of my dresser and take out my cell phone. Are there answers on there? Messages from the life that’s nothing more than a ghost haunting my days? I stare at the black screen with shaking hands, but I can’t make myself turn it on.

  Levi

  “It’s my fault.” Ava sinks onto the couch at the little house we rented for the night.

  “You can’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.” I pace the tidy living room, already itching to leave. Ellie is safe. That’s all that matters. She’s alive, and she’s safe. And she doesn’t want to talk to me.

  “It is if Colton did that to her.”

  I shake my head. “You don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t want to,” she whispers. “But where is he?”

  So many fucking questions. Where is Colton? What happened to his father? Who tried to kill Ellie, and why? And fuck it—despite what the police seem to think, none of the questions matter but the last. I can’t stand feeling like she might still be in danger.

  At least I got to see her for myself—even if it was through a dusty window. But I can’t stop thinking about the confusion on her face when she looked at me. It was as if she didn’t understand why I’d be there. As if she didn’t even recognize me.

  I stop pacing and turn to my brother’s fiancée. “We should leave. Let’s just go home. She doesn’t want us here anyway.”

  “Not yet.” Ava shakes her head, then takes her phone from her purse. I know from the way she taps the screen that she’s calling Ellie. If she were calling Jake, she’d act with more confidence, but knowing your best friend is shutting you out completely hurts, and it’s hard to keep trying when you’re rejected again and again. She shakes her head and ends the call. “Voicemail.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t have her phone.”

  “Ben said the police returned it to her sister. She has it.”

  I drag a hand through my hair. I’m antsy as hell and need to get out of here, and I want to press the issue, but Ava looks exhausted. I nod toward the bedroom. “Go get some rest. I’m going to head out for a drink.” She blinks back tears, and I pull her to standing and wrap her in my arms. “We’ll figure this out, sis. I promise.”

  She laughs against my chest. “You called me sis.�
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  “You will be soon enough. Just one week.” I step back and fold my arms across my chest. “Now go rest before my brother has my ass for not taking care of his two favorite people.”

  Her hand goes to her stomach again, and she nods. “Thanks, Levi.”

  “For what?”

  She shrugs. “For making this trip. For staying the night when I know you want to go home.” Her voice goes thick with tears, and she looks at the floor. “For believing in my brother when no one else does.”

  It’s the last part that makes my gut twist. The way I see it, Colton is either guilty of something inconceivable and in hiding, or he’s innocent and dead. I don’t like either scenario, nor am I interested in discussing those possibilities with his protective big sister. “Rest,” I say. “I’ll bring you back some dinner.”

  “Thanks.” She disappears into the bedroom, leaving her purse on the sofa.

  I wait until the door closes before opening Ava’s purse and retrieving the envelope with Ellie’s name on the front. I wouldn’t trust Ellie’s family to give this to her, but I’ve dug through her old social media posts enough to know what places were her favorites when she visited home. If I can’t trust her family, I’ll have to give the invitation to the barista at her favorite coffee shop and hope she still goes there.

  Ellie

  “How are you sleeping?” Dr. Cummings asks with a gentle smile. She was my doctor in high school and took over my care when I was transferred home. Her office has lamps and couches in every patient room, making the space feel warmer than a typical beige office with fluorescent lighting.

  “A little better,” I say. “Still not great.”

  “The pain pills are there for a reason.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t need them.” I’ve resisted medication since I was conscious enough to do so. At first I didn’t know why I was so against the idea of taking narcotics, but something in my gut told me they were dangerous. I had a visceral repulsion every time I saw the bottles they sent home with me. Now I think this was a little piece of my missing past that stayed with me. Colton was addicted to pain meds. Or that’s what they tell me.

  “What about the nightmares?”

  I wince. I don’t like to think about the nightmares. They’re violent, and random, and leave me feeling confused and helpless. “They’re not as bad.”

  “You need to sleep, Ellie.” She taps on her keyboard, shaking her head. “I’m sending a script to your pharmacy for antianxiety meds and sleeping pills.” She holds up a hand before I can speak. “I know you don’t want to take them, but you’ve been through something terribly traumatic. If you use them for nothing else, use them to help you sleep.”

  “I’ll think about it.” I pause a beat, fighting the shame I feel over the question I’ve been biting back since she walked in the room. “What about my memories? Is it normal that those haven’t come back?”

  My mother and sister try to protect me from my other life and the years I don’t remember. Before that man showed up at Mom’s house, I was grateful for that. I had questions, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers. Since he drove away a few hours ago, I’ve felt like a flower in a glass dome—suffocated and trapped. I don’t have any explanation for what’s changed in me to make me suddenly want to find these missing pieces. Before, knowing about the life that almost got me killed seemed dangerous. Now, not knowing feels stifling.

  “There is no normal in cases like these, Ellie. Everyone is different. Have you remembered anything new since we spoke last week?”

  I look away. This is only my second appointment since I was released from the hospital, but I’m already beginning to hate them. It feels like a test I’m failing. I’m in pain. I can’t sleep. No memories. “Not yet.”

  She hesitates a beat, and I hate the sympathy in her eyes. “It’s okay. These things take time. I still want to refer you to a psychiatrist. Would you prefer someone in the area, or will you be heading back to Jackson Harbor?”

  I stiffen. “Why would I go back there?”

  “Your job, your friends. Your whole life?” She studies me. “If you went back—maybe with someone you trust by your side—it might trigger some memories. That can happen sometimes.”

  “Do I want to remember a life with an addict who knocked me up and almost killed me?” Before today, I didn’t. But now? Ignorance can’t protect me, and clinging to it out of fear is no way to live.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” She gives me the sympathetic head tilt everyone has used on me since I woke up. The one I’ve come to hate. “Abusers tend to hide their true colors until it’s too late.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want anything to do with that life. I want answers, but I don’t want to go back to find them.”

  “That’s understandable.” She nods, then returns to her computer. “I’ll see about getting you in with a colleague in Chicago.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper. Maybe I can talk my sister into going with me. Or I could brave it on my own. I went to college in Chicago, and it was my favorite place in the world. Going alone might help me prove to myself that I’m getting stronger. That’s why I insist on coming to my doctor’s appointments and PT visits without my mom, though she would prefer to be with me. Every day is an opportunity to prove to myself that I can function despite my fears. My sister brought my car home after I was released from the hospital, so there’s no reason for them to bus me around town like I’m some kid who can’t drive.

  “In the meantime,” Dr. Cummings says, “be patient with yourself, and take your meds when you need them.” She wraps up my appointment, reminding me to pick up my prescriptions and telling me that her staff will call Mom’s with information about the referral.

  When I leave her office, I stop by the pharmacy to pick up the prescriptions she ordered, but they’re not ready, so I walk across the street to the brewpub I used to frequent when home from college on semester breaks.

  When I cross the street, I see a Mustang parked in the lot south of the bar. My feet stop moving. Is that the car that was in front of my house earlier today?

  I almost turn around. I can wait in my car or just go home until my meds are ready.

  But I think of the look on the man’s face when he met my eyes—I miss you—and it’s no longer about being brave enough to go in. I want to.

  The moment I walk in the doors, I spot him. He’s impossible to miss with those big shoulders and the sleeve of ink down his left arm. He has a half-empty beer in his hand and a bag of carryout boxes beside him. Did his girlfriend send him to pick up dinner? Are they staying the night?

  I’m surprised when I catch myself walking toward him. What do I think I’m going to say? How do I even start this conversation? How are you? How do you know me? Can you tell me what happened?

  What if Mom’s wrong and he is here to hurt me? To finish what Colton McKinley started?

  The question flits away like a bit of nothing from my mind. I’ve been out of the hospital for two weeks and put off a trip to Jackson Harbor to collect my things because I’m scared of what I don’t remember. Yet here I am, walking deliberately toward a man who was a part of that life. But this man doesn’t mean me any harm. I feel that as surely as I feel my own heartbeat. If anything, the constant fear I’ve lived with since waking up in the hospital propels me toward him. He wants to protect me. I believe it. I know it.

  Nathan, an old friend from high school, is working behind the bar tonight, and calls for me when he spots me walking toward him. “Ellie!”

  “Hey, Nate!”

  The dark-haired man spins around, and the intensity in his eyes hits me harder than it did this morning. Like a belly flop into an ice-cold pool. “El?” His voice is soft, and it tugs at my chest, unlocks something in my mind.

  “You have no idea how much I want to kiss you right now.”

  The words are a blip—gone the moment they appear. I want to grab on to them—examine them from every angle, analyze the tone
and the shimmer of butterflies they let loose in my belly—but they evaporate before I can grasp them, and now they feel more like fantasy than memory.

  His eyes search my face before dipping lower. He scans my body as if he’s looking for evidence of my injuries. I stand still under his appraisal—too curious to leave, too scared to move forward.

  No. Not scared. Nothing about this large man scares me—even if it should. I’m not scared. I’m unsure—of him, of myself . . . of us.

  He doesn’t move toward me, and I don’t move toward him. We just stare at each other, the space between us charged with my questions and his dark intensity.

  “Want me to start a new pot of coffee for you?” Nate asks from behind the bar. I’ve come here with my sister a few times since being released from the hospital. He knows I don’t drink much. I’m too worried about the consequences of mixing alcohol with the pain meds I don’t take.

  I shake my head. “No, it’s late. I’ll never sleep.” And sleep is hard enough to come by as is.

  “Club soda with lime?” he asks with an arched brow. He waves me closer. “Come on, El. Stay a while.”

  I force a smile, trying and failing to ignore the way the dark-haired man is looking at me. “That would be great, thank you, Nate.” I walk to the counter and lean my elbows against it, leaving one barstool between myself and my stranger.

  “Are you going to act like you don’t know me?” he asks softly.

  “Sorry,” I say, then take a leap and add, “Jackson Harbor just feels like another lifetime at this point.” Not a lie.

  His jaw hardens. “Right.”

  I’m not sure why I don’t tell him the truth—that I don’t remember him—but I tuck it away. I’m missing years from my life, and if he knows that, he might feed me lies. I can’t risk that from this man. Not when those eyes make me want to climb into his arms. If pretending I remember means I’ll get the truth, then that’s what I’ll do.

  He cuts his gaze to his beer. “That’s why you didn’t return my calls?”

  “I don’t use that phone anymore.” The police seized my phone at the scene but returned it after they were satisfied they’d gotten everything off it they might need. I haven’t turned it on since. Just one more tie to the life that almost killed me.