by Jewel E. Ann
“And no one can guarantee that hypnosis will give us the missing piece of evidence to convict a man of a possible murder that happened over twenty-two years ago. But in the meantime, you risk remembering something that could haunt you forever, or you risk …”
Releasing the end of his sentence in a quick sigh, he rubs his lips together.
“Finish,” I say.
He stares off in the opposite direction.
“I need this, Griff.”
“Fine.” He stands and grabs his jacket from the back of the chair. “Whatever you need, Swayz.”
“Griff?”
“Let him go, Swayze.”
The click of the door behind him makes a tiny tear in my heart.
I hold my emotions intact, even with Dr. Albright’s empathetic expression. “Please tell me you understand me.”
“I do. But I also understand Griffin. He’s scared of losing you to Nate.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? Some people would see this story as fate. Nate loses his first love, and when he loses his second love, he finds you—again.”
“Fate?” I cough a laugh. “You think it’s fate for us to be together again?”
“No. I’m not some people. But it’s no more crazy than you believing you have memories from that life for reasons of fate. Maybe fate exists, maybe it doesn’t. I love the idea of fate, but it’s possible you’re not recognizing your true fate yet.”
“What’s my true fate?”
She sips the last of her tea and sets her cup down before sharing a hint of a smile. “I have no idea. But if it’s fate … you’ll find out.”
“I’d better get going. I should go see if I need to call for an Uber.” I stand. “If I don’t try the hypnosis, I fear I may always regret it. And I don’t want to marry Griffin with that kind of regret lingering.”
“It’s ultimately your choice, and yours alone. I’m here for you in whatever capacity you need me to be.”
“Thank you.”
Griffin’s not outside her door, and there’s no sign of him down the hallway toward the elevators. He left. The curse of Daisy has made me self-destructive.
I take the stairs to the first floor and turn left toward the entrance to the parking lot.
He’s there.
I stop.
I stare.
I admire.
I dream.
And then I start to hurt.
Hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans, and one leg bent with his foot on the wall, he pushes off and shoots me a sad smile.
I hurt more.
“You waited.”
“Of course.”
“But you’re mad.” I slow my pace the closer I get to him.
“Frustrated.”
“That’s code for mad.”
He holds out his hand. I take it.
“It’s not code for anything. Let’s just go home.”
I let him guide me to his truck. He even opens the door for me. Before he steps back to shut it, I clench his jacket and pull him closer.
“Let’s grab something for dinner.”
He nods, eyes searching my face. Dear God, I love him something fierce.
“And then let’s hide under the sheets and pause life for a few hours.”
Griff kisses one side of my mouth, then the other side, ending squarely on my lips while nodding ever so slightly.
At some point we won’t be able to press pause and hide from the world, but I’m going to do it for as long as I can—as long as he’s willing to love me back.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“You recognize it?” Nate asks as we pull in the driveway to the pale yellow two-story house.
There’s an actual picket fence around the yard, caging ornamental grass and day lilies that need to be cut back before it snows.
“Swayze?”
I nod. I didn’t know this was in my memory until now. The way I didn’t know I knew Nate until I saw him. Twenty-two years isn’t long enough to understand or even describe this feeling of knowing something—someone—so intimately, yet Swayze Samuels has never seen this house.
I swallow hard. “It’s like …” I shake my head. “It’s like opening a new door to a new world. The second I saw you, I didn’t just think there’s Nate Hunt. A flood of memories infiltrated every inch of my brain.
“She has blond hair and blue eyes. He has slightly darker blond hair and brown eyes like Daisy. He painted the fence gray; she hated it and made him repaint it white. In the spring red tulips bloom beneath the maple tree in the backyard. There’s also an old shed in the corner of the backyard. Handprints in the concrete slab just off the deck.”
Unbelievable … I shake my head and look over at Nate.
He smiles. “Your handprints.”
This is the part that hurts the most. More than the missing feelings—I don’t remember me.
“I want to feel this so badly. It’s like I can’t truly make sense of it if I can’t feel it. I’m going to do the hypnosis. I have to.”
Nate rests his hand on mine. He doesn’t hold it or rub it. This is the only part I feel. How the hell do I not remember myself as Daisy, but I remember his touch?
“I don’t need you to love me back … in this lifetime.” He smiles.
My eyes fill with tears. How can one sentence be so beautiful and so forlorn at the same time?
I don’t need you to love me back … in this lifetime.
Nate Hunt deserves to be loved back in every lifetime—especially this one.
“Maybe after today you’ll see enough to be able to let go.”
Narrowing my eyes, I slowly turn my hand so our palms are pressed together. Still, we’re not interlacing our fingers or holding onto anything more than the familiarity of his skin touching mine.
“Let go of what?”
“Anything that doesn’t serve the purpose of you finding happiness in this life.”
My gaze leaves our two hands in search of more meaning in his eyes. “Are you letting me go again?”
He flinches. “Swayze …”
My hand slides out from under his. I pump it into a fist a few times to shake off the lingering feeling of the boy I knew before the man. “I’m getting married. I have a great job. I think happiness has found me.”
If he’s trying to hide his concern, he forgot to tell the line between his eyebrows.
I nod toward the house. “So you said they’re excited to meet Morgan. How are you going to explain the nanny tagging along?”
“They know you’re coming too. They know you’re Morgan’s nanny. I said you’re a friend of the family and have been like a kid sister to me for years. You’ve heard all the stories about Daisy and you wanted to meet them.”
My lips twist to the side. “I suppose it will work.”
Nate opens his door. “It will work as long as you don’t get too creepy about your knowledge of them or their house.”
I climb out of the vehicle while he gets Morgan from the backseat. “I think calling me creepy is a bit excessive.”
“It’s really not.” His lips wrinkle to hide his smirk as he shuts the door.
Cue the music as I enter the Twilight Zone. When she opens the door, a tidal wave of memories weakens my knees. It’s like I’m seeing a ghost, but she isn’t a ghost. This house isn’t a ghost.
I’m the ghost.
“Nate!” Daisy’s mom holds out her arms for a hug.
“Claudia. It’s good to see you.” He sets Morgan’s car seat on the entry floor and hugs Daisy’s mom.
My mom?
“Claudia, I’d like you to meet Swayze.” Nate smiles at me like, You’re up. Don’t be creepy.
“Nice to meet you, Swayze. What a unique name. I like it a lot.”
It’s no shocker that Claudia, who gave her daughter the middle name Daisy, would like my name.
“Thank you. Nice to meet you too.”
She quilts and makes scrapbooks. Cooking isn’t her
strong suit, but she can follow directions with anything that’s a simple add-water-and-mix. The house is neat but not obsessively clean. I don’t have to run my finger along the banister or a coffee table to figure this out. I just know it.
“Oh, Nate … she’s adorable.” Claudia presses her hand to her chest, peering down at Morgan in her seat. I think she might cry. “We felt terrible for missing the funeral, but we were in Europe and just couldn’t make it back in time. We’re incredibly sorry for your loss.” She shakes her head. “I’ve wanted to come see you or call you a million times, but …”
Nate gives her a comforting smile. “It’s fine. I understand.”
Of course she’s emotional. Claudia lost her only two children.
“Come in, please.” She shuts the door behind us and leads us to a formal living room. “Dennis should be back soon. He ran to pick up a few things from the store.”
We take a seat on the sofa, and Claudia sits in the chair next to it. Nate pulls Morgan out of her car seat and hands her to Claudia.
She bounces her as Morgan springs her legs because she loves jumping. “Look at you, sweetie. So much energy. Such big smiles.”
Nate shoots me a look. I feel his joy and his grief.
“What did you name this beautiful little girl?”
Oh … fuck …
Seriously? Daisy’s parents don’t know that Nate named his daughter Morgan?
“Her name is Morgan.”
Claudia freezes, even with Morgan’s hyper legs demanding more bouncing. Way to make Claudia cry, Nate. I bet Jenna would have sent out birth announcements so this kind of surprise would have happened via snail mail instead of special delivery.
She gasps and several seconds later she releases that breath in what sounds like a hollow oh.
I grab Morgan before she drops her. Claudia’s fist covers her heart as tears stream down her face.
“Why don’t we give you two a few minutes?” I hug Morgan to me. “We’re just going to … snoop around.” I say the last two words quietly. But I know all that Claudia hears is Her name is Morgan.
We go upstairs. There are three bedrooms and a hall bathroom. Yep. Just like I remember. “So …” I stand at the entrance to Daisy’s bedroom. “This was my room, huh?”
Morgan doesn’t answer me. She’s too busy playing patty-cake with my cheeks. I recognize everything in this room. Holy heartbreaking hell! They haven’t touched her room since she died.
I feel bad for every time I’ve told my mom she needs to move on from grieving my dad. He hasn’t been dead all that long in comparison to the over two decades that Daisy has been dead.
Wouldn’t it be something if they knew that part of their daughter resides in me? Maybe like that heartbreaking yet inspired emotion that surely accompanies knowing that a loved one’s organs saved lives. That lingering physical connection.
But this is more. I carry something greater than flesh and blood. I have her memory. And on days like this, I wish I had her emotions too. I’m so numb to the familiarity around me. Sometimes empathy seeps in and disguises itself as something I think belonged to Daisy, but it’s not.
“There you are.”
I turn to Nate’s voice and a puffy-eyed Claudia behind him. Her gaze darts to the room. I haven’t left the threshold. It feels like I need permission for that.
A noise from downstairs distracts her. “That must be Dennis. Let me take Morgan.” She trips on her name, blinking back more tears.
I hand her Morgan.
“Go on in.” She smiles at Nate and nods toward Daisy’s room. “I know it seems crazy, but I’ve left her room the same. All these years later, I just like to go in there and talk to her. She was and always will be my daughter. I don’t want to forget her.” Claudia shrugs like it’s no big deal.
My twenty-two-year-old self with little true life experience would find Claudia a bit cuckoo. I think obsessed was the word I used with my mom. But after all summer and these first months of fall with Nate, I no longer feel qualified to judge anyone.
“We’ll be downstairs. Take your time.”
“Thanks,” Nate says.
When Claudia is out of earshot, Nate pushes me into the room and shuts the door behind us. My eyes shoot open wide. Holy crap! What is he doing?
“Finally.” He gives me a devilish look. I haven’t seen this look from adult Nate. However, I recognize that mischief in his eyes from my memory of him beneath me, when he said what are you going to do with me?
Gulp!
“I was never allowed in your room.”
“D-Daisy’s room,” I stutter as he gives me a predatory look.
He takes a step toward me. I take a step back.
“If I even looked in the direction of the stairs, your dad would clear his throat and scowl at me.”
“Her dad,” I say just above a whisper because I can’t breathe.
“Twenty-two years ago I would have thrown you on the bed and made out with you until you were …” He grins while biting his lower lip and shaking his head.
I take another step back until my legs hit the bed, and I stumble, landing with my ass on the edge. My hands fist the quilt.
Until I was what? I don’t want him to finish.
Shit! Yes I do.
He kneels on the floor in front of me, resting his hands on my legs. It’s giving me third-degree burns.
“Do you remember this room or are we both seeing it together for the first time?”
His hands require constant supervision. I can’t take my eyes off them. “Uh …” I swallow hard. “I remember it.”
“And?” He squeezes my legs a fraction.
I wish I were as numb to his touch as I am to the emotions of Daisy’s life, but I’m not. It’s not just that Nate is this incredibly sexy man touching me—I’m engaged to the sexiest man alive. It’s that my body lights up to his touch like seeing an old friend for the first time in two decades. The familiarity is the drug. Like I was once a Nate Hunt addict, and after years of sobriety, I’m getting a hit again and it sends my senses spiraling into an oblivion of need.
“Do you remember you?”
“Not me. Daisy.” I still don’t let my gaze drift an inch from his hands. “And no. I have this picture in my head of her life, you, this house, her parents … literally everything and everyone but her. It’s as if she’s been erased. And I hate not having feelings to put with the things I see.”
My breath catches as his hand moves from my leg to my chin, tipping it so I look at him.
“Do you want to remember what it felt like to be Daisy?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make sense of the things in my mind.”
“What if it means you feel what she felt when she died?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“What if it makes it hard for you to ignore the two people downstairs? If your love for them comes back to life, what would that do to your relationship with your mom?”
Swallowing, I shake my head ever so slightly.
“Do you want to feel that love for them?”
It’s love. Can love be a bad thing? Can we ever love too many people?
“Maybe,” I say, feeling the heat from his body scorching mine.
“Do you want to feel our love again?” His hand slides along my neck until the pad of his thumb brushes the spot below my ear where he used to kiss me.
Yes. I want to feel it. I want to close my eyes and go back twenty-two years in my mind and let him kiss me there. I want that for him. I want that for me. Then I want to open my eyes and go on with my life like it never happened, bury the moment in the grave with my old body and never think of it again.
“I still feel you everywhere.” His eyes close. The hand on my leg squeezes and his thumb on my neck presses a little harder.
Control. He’s fighting for every single breath of it. If I let him kiss me, would it give him closure? The kiss goodbye that he never got. Or would it feed an ins
atiable hunger? Where would the kiss stop? Where would his hands stop?
More than any of that … how far would I let him go?
“Are you going to kiss me?” I whisper because I have to know before my heart explodes.
Nate opens his eyes, sharing a weightless gaze and soft smile. “No, I’m not going to kiss you.” He’s unhurried with his words as his hold on me relaxes. “You’re not mine to kiss.”
“But you think I’m yours to love.”
“Part of you.” His grin swells. “Yes.” He stands. “I’m going to leave the physical part of loving you to your real boyfriend.”
Real boyfriend …
I don’t have to remember how Daisy felt emotionally to understand why she fell for Nate Hunt. Even now, at thirty-seven, that boyish grin and mischievous glimmer in his eyes disarm me with absolutely no effort.
He purses his lips, studying me for a few seconds. “Were you going to kiss me?”
“Don’t be arrogant.” My eyes narrow at him.
“You asked me first. Does that make you arrogant?”
“You were touching me.”
“You were letting me touch you. So let me rephrase … were you going to let me kiss you?”
I stand, chin up while drawing in an angry breath. “I’m engaged to another man.”
“It was a yes or no question.”
“What do you think?” My chin inches up a little higher.
Some women go their entire life without seeing a man look at them with complete adoration. I already have two men who look at me like I’m something pretty damn special. Why? Well, who knows?
“No. You would never let me kiss you like you were mine. You would never agree to marry a man who you didn’t love with every fiber of your being.”
All fight drains from my body, shoulders relax, chin dips down, and my glare softens.
“And I know this because part of you once loved me like that.”
I don’t think. My arms fly around his neck, hugging him to me. After a few seconds, his reciprocate. “Thank you,” I whisper in his ear.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Nathaniel
What if the purpose of my life is to make sure my best friend finds happiness?
