by T. L. Hart
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Table of Contents
Cover
Synopsis
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Bella Books
Synopsis
Being rich makes coming back from the dead so much easier.
Dallas socialite Jennifer Strickland narrowly survives a harrowing car accident and returns to a home she doesn’t remember, friends she doesn’t recognize, and a husband she doesn’t like. Dreams of a mysterious raven-haired beauty send her to a psychiatrist who discovers Jennifer’s experience was nearer to death than she imagined.
Notorious gay rights activist Dr. Cotton Claymore was beaten and left for dead in an alleyway. Her body didn’t survive the trauma, but her spirit did—in the body of Jennifer Strickland.
Living as Jennifer, Cotton has to convince the two most important people in her life that she is back and find the person who murdered her—before they do it again.
Copyright © 2016 by T.L. Hart
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
First Bella Books Edition 2016
eBook released 2016
Editor: Medora MacDougall
Cover Illustration by Jared Primm
Cover Designer: Judith Fellows
ISBN: 978-1-59493-521-3
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
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Dedication
This is for all of you who have believed in me:
My friends and family, too many to list, who always had faith in me.
Jodi, who made me send my work out into the big, scary publishing world.
Jack and Jean, for my wonderful OED full of all the words I love so much.
My DFW Writers Workshop family, who pushed me and made me a better writer.
My person, Susan, who has loved and been there for me through good and hard times.
Conan and Jared, who always accepted their crazy mom was a writer and loved me anyway.
And to the Universe for whatever combination of providence and dumb luck that makes me have the compulsion to tell stories about my invisible worlds.
Chapter One
I think the peaches were the first thing I noticed that were wrong. They were in a bag in the refrigerator, a plain plastic produce bag, tied in a knot at the top just like all the others in the crisper. Peaches. Not nectarines, smooth and shiny, but three definitely fuzzy peaches.
I don’t like peaches.
It seemed a small thing at first, but it niggled at my mind. Why would I have peaches in my fridge? I moved things around, looking for any other strange vegetable kingdom materializations, but that was it. At first.
Gregory—that’s my husband—said not to worry. The doctors told us it would be some time before my brain was working normally. Closed head trauma, they call it—severe closed head trauma with concussion. Very scientific words to explain why my thoughts and memories are scrambled like eggs.
I like eggs.
God, I’ve been obsessed with food. I think it’s because it is such a simple, available clue to who and what I was. Am. What I am.
There is a method to my thinking. I call it Jennifer’s Scale of Order. Food is simpler than clothes. Clothes are simpler than work. Work is simpler than friends. I am simpler than I used to be.
I figured the scale out last week, scribbled it in my notebook in big, unfamiliar letters that crawled off the lines and up the page. Gregory frowned and said my penmanship would probably improve along with my memory. He was right; it’s a lot more even now, yet still not much like my old handwriting.
I don’t show my notebook to Gregory anymore. I’m beginning to think I don’t like him any better than I like the peaches.
It isn’t just the strange foods or the unfamiliar man in this house that make me realize how dense I’ve become. I remember things sometimes and am beginning to recognize people, but it’s sort of like an old movie I saw years ago: the plot is familiar and the actors have faces I know and names I almost recall, but the details are hazy and I’d really just as soon watch the commercials.
Doctor Carey, my psychiatrist, says, “Episodes of disorientation and emotional detachment aren’t rare with injuries like yours. It will take time for everything to resolve.” She really does sound that way. She says the fog will clear. Probably. “Ninety-five percent of head injuries like yours are back to normal within a year.”
That’s great. In the meantime, all I have to do is figure out how to fake everything until I get back to normal. Whatever that means. How will I know I’m back to normal if I can’t remember what normal feels like?
Is it normal to look at a man I’ve been married to for four years and wonder how the two of us managed to stay together for so long? I may still be a little dysfunctional a year from now, but I’m pretty sure Gregory will be as pompous and overbearing as he is now.
Did I always cringe every ti
me he so much as touched me in passing? Lord, I hope not. That would mean I’m either an idiot or a masochist. On the other hand, it’s more frightening to imagine making love to him and actually enjoying it. I think I’d rather be one of the walking wounded than get naked with that man. Wanting to be normal again is one thing, but there are limits.
A hunger pang gnawing its way from my stomach to my backbone provides perspective. I’m hungry, and I have no intention of eating fuzzy fruit. I shut the refrigerator and decide to explore the pantry. Popcorn—a huge box of extra buttery.
This is more like it! I throw a bag in the microwave—this side up—and punch five minutes. I do remember how to cook popcorn. What more could a woman ask? A Diet Coke and popcorn. Breakfast of…breakfast of…something. I know I should know how that saying goes, but no matter.
Life is good. Wait for the beep.
Beep. Beeeeeep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
“We’re losing her!”
“She almost bled out before they got her here. Hang two more units!”
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
“Call a code. Get a crash cart in here. Stat!”
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
The long, flat sound of the monitor muffles the voices of the doctors and nurses. The fog blurs the sight of them bending over the still, blood-drenched woman lying on the narrow bed, erases their frantic efforts as I watch from some uncertain vantage point.
Fog rising like magician’s smoke, filling the room, wrapping me in a blanket and carrying me away. No more headache. No more pain. No more day after day of day after day. Freedom after a long time of doing time. Just rising with the fog.
Not a cold lonely fog, but a warm living mist. Filled with comings and goings. Busy ones, going back. Tired ones, in for a rest. Communication without conversation.
I’m ready to rest now, for a while, ready to break the faint, silvery thread still connected to that body back somewhere in a frantic, crowded hospital room.
“Wait.” A voice from somewhere, someone. “Wait for me.”
Someone going, wanting to follow the thread back. Secrets told. Bargains made. Presto chango! The thread passes and I settle into the enveloping fog.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Beeeeeep. Beep. Beep.
“We’ve got her! We’ve got sinus rhythm. Good work! She’s back.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The persistent timer signals the job is done. The microwave stops and the smell of popcorn fills my nose. I rip open the bag and rescue a hot kernel from the steaming interior and pop it into my mouth. Salt and warm butter melt into my taste buds.
Aah, yes. This I remember. This is living.
Chapter Two
Gregory went back to work today, thank God. He’s in the market—make that The Market—stocks, not groceries. He’s been at my side since the accident, him and his laptop and cell phone. He has been considerate, though, I’ll give him that. The phone is on vibrate, not ring. And he moves a few feet away and speaks very softly so as not to disturb me.
It’s all right with me. I’ve learned to block out all the low, urgent talk of buy and sell and margins to the point that it has become background noise. Sort of a rumbling, high-tech, semi-human Muzak—familiar, bland and vaguely annoying. His return to the safety of his steel and glass safe room in downtown Dallas has turned the volume to “off” for a few hours.
The silence is blissful. I revel in the lack of noise. It gives me time to wander barefoot over cool Saltillo tiles and try to find anything of myself in these impeccably decorated rooms. I must have had some say in choosing this furniture, must have agreed to so much leather and wood and beige. I swear I don’t see myself as a beige person, but this house makes it hard to argue the point.
My closet is full of clothes in colors that run the gamut from basic black through a range of screaming neutrals—ivory in shades from eggshell to candlelight, a riot of taupe, and whites so pure they could star in laundry soap commercials. I wonder what would happen if a red T-shirt made an appearance here? Would there be chaos? An alarm summoning the fashion police? What is the penalty for standing out from the antique white walls? I shudder to think.
Even my underwear drawer has neatly arranged rows of pristine white bras and matching panties, discreet nude satin sets for a bit of variety. And for those nights of wild abandon, a champagne and cognac-colored lace teddy and robe. For once, I’m glad my memory fails me.
This memory thing is a lot more complicated than I realized at first. From the way Dr. Carey explained it, things will come back bit by bit, with pieces missing for a while or maybe forever. She didn’t mention that things would come back that didn’t seem to fit anywhere—certainly not in this elegant test tube of a house. Things are coming back, popping into my head like disjointed flashes from God knows where.
I remember blue jeans. I remember plaid shirts with a Gap label. I remember a woman with black hair and piercing eyes and a fireplace with ashes left over from an actual log. There are smells I knew that I’ve never known here. Spice and incense, like a church, but without the holy feel; some kind of cedar, old and a little damp; the odor of animals—a dog, a cat? Hell, it could be a muskrat for all I know.
But the strangely familiar, totally out of place flash fades and here I am in my perfectly perfect home, lost as a loon. What is a loon, exactly? I certainly don’t remember loons.
I don’t know how long I can keep on fooling everyone. Every day I meet people who ask how I am, how I’m feeling, can they do anything to help? They seem to be truly concerned, nice folks. I nod and smile and make remarks I hope are appropriate to whatever relationship we shared in my distant and dim-witted past, the life I must have had before the crash with the big red thing.
That’s all I can find of anything before the accident. Not my life. Not my friends. Most assuredly not my husband. Just a flash of something big and red and fast heading straight for me—then the hospital.
They said it was a truck. I believe it. I was sore enough to have been hit by a truck. My ribs still ache and my head is numb when I scratch the skin underneath my hair. Everyone says it’s for the best that I can’t recall the accident or all the pain I was in, but they’re wrong. I’d take all the pain for one clear day of my past.
Weren’t there memories strong enough to penetrate this dullness? Didn’t I have a day so glorious that it refuses to be stifled? My wedding? Falling in love with the stranger I live with? I’d like to remember a dark and rainy day when my dog got run over if it would come in clear-edged and certain.
I think I had a dog once. Sometime—I’m pretty sure I had a dog.
Looking around me, Rover or Spot must have come before Gregory. I can’t imagine any self-respecting dog living in this house.
What I need is someone to talk to. Someone real. Someone not Gregory. Not my shrink. Just somebody besides myself. There have been calls from friends who offer to do anything to help. I think I’ll just call and ask for help. Not that I can phrase it that way, can I? That would sound lonely and desperate and a little crazy, right?
Lunch would be a better idea. I’ll just look in my handy, well-organized desktop file and ask…Let’s see—Joanie, Kelli, Marybeth? Oh, I remember Marybeth. She came to the hospital and brought balloons and brushed my hair. Yes, I’ll do lunch with Marybeth, if she can make it.
Less than an hour later Marybeth picked me up in her pewter Jaguar convertible.
“I’m so glad you called me today,” she assured me. “My bridge group is on a break right now and I was really in no mood to stay and watch the maid cleaning the windows.”
“Wow, I really rate. More fun than watching the maid,” I said. And there I sat, feeling unimportant.
“Now, Jennifer. You know I didn’t mean it that way.” Marybeth pulled her gaze from the flow of traffic and looked at me as if she had farted in public. “I’ve been dying for us to get together. It’s just that I didn’t know if you were up for it yet.”
“A joke, Marybeth. I was making a joke.”
“Of course you were.” She smiled politely in my direction. “You were never much of a joker before…Before, you know. It took me kind of by surprise.”
“I’m more clever now that my brain is rearranged?”
“It’s not that you weren’t smart—just not the joking type. Know what I mean?” She checked the rearview mirror as she changed lanes, then looked again, pressing her lips together in a tiny, satisfied moue. “Do you like this lipstick? It’s called Poppy Kiss. The girl at Neiman’s said it was perfect for my skin.”
“It is perfect.” No way I’d question the Neiman’s girl. Right now, trying to figure out the intricacies of cosmetics was as out of reach as quantum physics. “Very, uh, floral,” I improvised.
“Exactly.” Marybeth breathed a contented sigh. “You always were so perceptive. Not everyone realizes that floral has completely replaced berries. I can’t wait ’til you get well enough to shop again. I sure have missed your advice.”
“I gave you advice? On shopping?” This was one of those moments when my head injury made me aware I’d lost more than my mind. I’d lost my fashion sense, which I was beginning to learn was a crucial part of my erstwhile charm. “I’m a good shopper?”
“World class! The stores in the Galleria have noticed that you’ve been out of commission.” She giggled, a witchy peal one note shy of fingernails on a chalkboard. “Their commissions are tied to yours. Get it?”
“Uh-huh.” My stomach was starting to hurt. “It seems I’m not the only witty one today.”
Marybeth looked pleased by the compliment and said, as if bestowing a reward, “After lunch, if you feel up to it, we could go by the mall for a little while and pick up a few things. Maybe just run into Nordstrom.”
“Maybe. Could we go to the Gap? I think I need some new jeans.”
“Oh, Jennifer, you are funny today.” The tinkling laugh rankled my nerves again as she turned into the restaurant parking lot. “The thought of you in the Gap. It’s great to have you back.”
