Damaged

by R. R. Banks

  It was brief, but that moment had stuck with me. There was something so incredible about her, something that I couldn't define, but also couldn't deny. That game I felt like I was playing for her. But when I glanced back toward her at the end, she wasn't there. Now I was looking at her again and for a second it felt like I was looking back through the years and seeing her youthful, quiet face again. She was still young, but her face had changed. She was a woman now, the years having brought definition to her beauty and taking away some of the doubts from her eyes.

  "Other than your head hurting, how are you feeling?"

  "Fine, I guess."

  "Are you dizzy?"

  "No. Physically, I feel fine. I'm just confused. I don't feel like I'm injured enough to justify having no memory. I just wish I knew what happened."

  "Sometimes even mild concussions can cause memory loss. I'm sure it's scary, but it's usually temporary."

  "Usually?" she asked.

  "There are never any guarantees."

  About anything.

  Part of me expected for her to dissolve, to panic, to be terrified, but she wasn't. Instead, Charlotte drew herself up with a deep breath and nodded as if to reassure herself as much as to reassure me. It looked like she was resigning herself to the fate of never regaining her memory, as though something in the past that she couldn't remember still had its hold on her, convincing her that if there were possibilities, it was most likely that she was going to experience the worst. I wondered what this must have meant for what she had gone through before ending up smashed against that tree, and in the years between the moment that I saw her in those stadium stands and when I found her.

  "My phone doesn't have any service," she told me, reaching into her pocket and holding the phone out to me as if she felt she needed to prove what she was saying was true. She glanced down at it before putting it back in her pocket. "Even if it did, I wouldn't know who to call. "

  "I'm sure that you have contacts listed in there," I said.

  I meant it as a joke, hoping to take away some of the tension in her expression, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. She reached for her phone again and touched her finger to the back, opening the screen.

  "I guess I could call…"

  "No," I said, "it's alright. Most of the time there isn't much phone service up here if there's a storm."

  "It's pretty serious out there, isn't it?" she asked.

  "It is," I said, nodding. "The forecast best predicts that it's just going to keep going at least through tonight and likely tomorrow. It doesn't look like you're going to be able to go anywhere for a while."

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't mean to impose on you."

  "You're not imposing. I don't mind if you stay here for a while." I noticed an expression of uncertainty cross her eyes and I realize that the offer might be coming across as more intimidating than reassuring or hospitable. "There's another house on the property. It was the original home up here on the mountain and I stayed there while the lodge was being built. It's not too far from here. If you would rather, I can take you there and you can stay as long as you need to."

  She looked at Scout and shook her head.

  "No," she said. "If it's alright with you, I would rather stay here where the dog is."

  I tried not to laugh. I didn't want her to feel as though I was making fun of her, but it seems to me that that was a funny way to make a decision about where to stay. Scout gave her hand a long, lazy lick and looked at her with those big eyes and I immediately changed my mind. If I had the option, I would probably want to stay where he was, too.

  "Of course," I told her. "You're welcome to stay here with me, and Scout, until the storm blows over."

  "Thank you," she said. "I don't feel like that's enough."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I don't feel like just saying thank you is enough. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't found me."

  I didn't know what to say. The longer that I looked at her, the tighter my stomach clenched and the stronger I felt drawn to her. She still had that something. She still had that inexplicable, beyond definition quality that she had had in high school. I hadn't had time for her then. I barely even acknowledged her, even when I hadn't been able to stop thinking about her. She had been too quiet, too withdrawn. It didn't fit in with the popularity that I had so carefully constructed. Now I felt like I was getting another chance. I had another opportunity to be close to Charlotte and maybe get to know her. But she didn't know who I was. She didn't even know who she was. I felt a powerful pull to her and a desire to protect her and guard her, not just from what was happening now but from what had led her into the storm.

  "What have you been cooking up?"

  It was all that I could manage, but I looked at the food that she had piled onto the counter, so I could look fully invested in her nocturnal culinary adventure.

  Charlotte laughed and stood up from her chair, walking over to me and surveying the food.

  "I don't even really know," she said. "I woke up starving and all of this looked good. I didn't really think it all the way through."

  I laughed, relieved to hear a hint of lightness in her voice. I looked through everything and pulled out a few things, putting them aside, and then put the rest away.

  "How about this?" I asked.

  Charlotte looked at the eggs, bacon, bread, and butter that I had kept out, her mouth twisted to one side as she scrutinized it carefully, making a show of putting her finger to her chin and considering the options. Finally, she nodded.

  "Looks like a plan," she said.

  "Perfect."

  I noticed her looking around the kitchen and realized that she hadn't gotten as far as finding the pots and pans, so I gestured toward one of the cabinets. She opened it and pulled out a cast iron skillet. There was a brief moment when it seemed a bit touch-and-go, as though the heavy metal pan was going to get the best of her small frame, but she rallied and placed it on the stove. We were silent for a few moments, falling into what almost felt like a comfortable pattern of preparing the food. She opened the package of bacon and spread several strips in the pan, then turned to look at me.

  "How long have you lived here?" she asked.

  "A few years," I said.

  She nodded.

  "Do you live alone?"

  Her voice had the tone of being forced casual, like she didn't want me to think that there was anything more to the inquiry than just simple curiosity. I knew, though, that if the situation was reversed and I had found myself in her house, I would have asked the same thing. I would have wanted to confirm that I wasn't going to be surprised by a boyfriend or husband trudging his way home through the snow. I nodded.

  "Yes," I said. "Always have."

  "It's a big house for you to be living here all by yourself," she said. "Why did you come up here to the middle of nowhere?"

  I felt myself bristle involuntarily.

  This was why. So that people wouldn't be around to question me or my motives.

  I fought against the angry response, telling myself that Charlotte had nothing to do with what had happened. She wasn't a part of it. Even if she hadn't lost her memory, she likely wouldn't know what I had gone through or what had motivated me to come up this far. She didn't strike me as the type of woman who devoted herself to college football or who would have given a second thought to the news about a player's leg being crushed by a drunk driver smashing into the back of his car and sending it spiraling into a retaining wall. The news outlets were eager to latch onto the story, to sensationalize it and emphasize the tragedy of my destroyed career. I couldn't even count the number of times that I heard that my crushed leg had crushed my dreams. This was only the beginning. The stories had faded by the time that my world completely fell apart.

  "I made my money in software and technology," I said, falling back on the reasoning that I had used so many times before. "I made enough from the sale of my company and the programs that I had been w
orking on that I invested and now have more than enough to keep me going for far longer than I'm going to survive. I didn't really see much point in continuing to work a job that didn't give me any satisfaction for more money that I didn't need. So, I built this lodge, came up here, got Scout, and…"

  "The rest is history?"

  "Well, not yet. But it will be."

  I was surprised at how candid I was able to be with her. Since the last moment that I saw Helen, I wasn't one to open up to or trust anyone. She had torn that out of me. It was only a matter of a few weeks later that I watched the last flickers of life disappear from my mother, removing from me any remaining traces of desire to be around people. Cold and angry, I wanted nothing more than to be alone.

  Now, though, that had changed. In an instant, I felt myself drawn to a person like I hadn't been in so many years. If I was honest, it was more than I had ever been. Even Helen, the woman I thought would one day be my wife, hadn't been able to crack fully through the walls that protected me, that guarded me from the darkest moments of my past, moments that continued to linger on even years after I was out of danger. I didn't want to let myself feel it. Charlotte was only here for a few days, if that. When the storm was gone, she would be, too.

  Charlotte opened two drawers and then found a fork in the third. She used it to pull the cooked bacon out of the pan and rest it on a folded paper towel. I saw her notice the jar that I kept sitting beside the kitchen sink and she picked it up. I started to explain what it was to her, but she picked up the skillet and poured most of the grease into the jar. She settled the skillet back onto the stove and glanced over her shoulder at me.

  "I wish I knew why I did that. It was just automatic."

  I shrugged.

  "Whoever taught you to cook must save bacon grease. That's what my mama always did, so that's what I do."

  She cocked her hip slightly and looked off into the distance, then shook her head.

  "I don't ever remember cooking before, so I don't know." She sighed and reached for the bowl of eggs that I had beaten. "That's seriously going to take some getting used to."

  "What?"

  "Not knowing anything. Well, knowing things, apparently, but not knowing what it is that I know."

  She stopped, her expression showing that she realized just how confusing she sounded and had decided that she was going to stop while she was ahead. The eggs sizzled in the remnants of the bacon grease still in the skillet and she stirred them until they pulled together into fluffy scrambled eggs.

  "Well, hopefully you won't have to get too used to it. Your memories could come back any time."

  We filled plates with the eggs and bacon and I popped a fresh hot piece of toast on each before we went back to the table and settled into chairs. We fell back into the strangely comfortable silence for a few more seconds before Charlotte lifted her head at me again. She opened her mouth to say something, but then looked back down at her plate and poked at the eggs with the tines of her fork.

  "What?" I asked.

  She shook her head slightly and then looked at me, an indecipherable emotion in her eyes.

  "Do you think that anyone's looking for me?" she asked.

  The question landed with a dull pain in my chest. I could feel the worry and hesitation coming off of her.

  "Do you want them to be?" I asked.

  She took a bite of bacon and chewed it slowly as she thought about the question.

  "I don't know," she admitted. "I was running. Does anyone who's running really want someone looking for them?"

  The question hung in the air and it seemed we both tried to ignore it.

  "So," I said, pushing the conversation forward, "this would usually be where I would start asking you questions about yourself, but since you wouldn't be able to answer them, do you want to just make things up?"

  Charlotte picked up her toast and took a bite out of the corner.

  "Yes," she said.

  "What's your middle name?"

  "Esmerelda."

  "What do you do for a living?"

  "Traveling gypsy fortune teller for weddings and bar mitzvahs. Clearly."

  I chuckled.

  "And do you have any pets?"

  "A zebra named Fruit Stripe."

  "All very good information." She smiled at me, but her smile faded into a yawn and her long, thick lashes drooped. "You should probably get some more rest," I said.

  "Um...would you mind if I took a shower?" she asked.

  "No. Go ahead."

  She stood up and carried our plates to the sink, glancing at me as she headed for the entrance to the kitchen.

  "Do you want to take one first? I wouldn't want to take all of your hot water."

  I shook my head.

  "It'll be fine. Go ahead. The closet in the bathroom attached to the guest room should have everything you need. I put your suitcase by the dresser if you didn't see it."

  "My suitcase?" she asked.

  I nodded.

  "It was the only thing that I could find when I went back to the car after bringing you here. It didn't look like there was anything else in there with you. Except for the back half of the car."

  "Thank you, again."

  I nodded, going to the sink to rinse the dishes and tuck them into the dishwasher. Maybe I'd actually have a whole load to wash tomorrow.

  Chapter Seven

  Charlotte

  I followed the same path back through the house to the guest room and found a suitcase sitting beside the dresser just like Micah had described that it would be.

  My suitcase.

  I had to try to remember that. These were my things, even if I had no memory of them or personal attachment to them. They were the connection that I had to the life that had taken an apparent detour when I crashed into the tree. I thought about that as I picked up my suitcase and brought it over to the bed to open it. The storm outside was severe and I couldn't imagine that it had gotten that intense in just the brief time that I had been in the house since Micah found me. That meant that it was probably already storming when I was driving down that road and ended up against the tree. Why would I have done that? What could possibly have been so bad that I would have run away from it into a raging snow storm?

  I opened the suitcase to reveal a hastily thrown together pile of clothing. Either I had packed my things as quickly and haphazardly as I had apparently driven down the road, or I had just uncovered an interesting and not necessarily desirable character trait. Digging through, I found what would pass as the most appropriate pajamas considering I was in the home of a stranger.

  A gorgeous male stranger who I might not be able to trust myself with if wearing anything less appropriate.

  As I stepped into the bathroom attached to the guest room, I was stunned by how beautiful the room was. Micah was sexy in a rugged, almost wild way and I wouldn't have expected such luxury from him. I ran my fingertips along the marble countertop and remembered what he had told me about the money he made with his software programs. I was impressed by my surroundings and eager for the promise of a shower. I felt somewhat grimy, and a soreness I could only imagine caused by the crash was starting to settle into my joints and muscles. I turned on the shower, delighted to see several streams of water spring from the walls to create a surrounding rainforest effect, and stepped in. The hot water poured down my skin, relaxing my muscles and soothing a chill that I hadn't even been aware of before it slipped away. I had found a toiletry bag in my suitcase and I used the sweet-smelling body wash and shampoo to wash away the grimy feeling. As my hands ran across my skin, I couldn't get my thoughts away from Micah and the shiver that rippled through my body each time I felt his eyes on me. My eyes drifted closed and for a few seconds I imagined that it was Micah's hands that were on me, gliding across my skin, stroking my body.

  My eyes snapped open and I rushed through the rest of my shower, hastily getting out and drying with one of the plush towels that I took from the closet. I got into my pajam
as and swept my wet hair up and onto the top of my head to keep the chill from the back of my neck and shoulders. I walked back out into the lodge, but found it still and quiet again, just as it had been when I first emerged from the bedroom after waking. I followed the same path that I had the first time I explored the house, but noticed something that caught my eye as I moved through the great room. A curtain that had been hanging over what I had assumed was another large window was moved slightly to the side, revealing that it had actually been blocking a door. I walked toward it, wondering if Micah had maybe gone outside with Scout and worrying that they could be in danger in the storm.

  I paused just outside the curtain, hesitating before I took hold of the side and moved the curtain the rest of the way open. The door led to a short slate walkway that crossed a deck and led to what looked like a small glass building. The glass walls were steamed so much that I could barely see through them, but the wall to the front was only partial, a gap of a few feet allowing me to glance inside. My breath caught in my throat as Micah stepped out from behind part of the wall. The building was an outdoor shower, the stream created by the hot water pouring from a shower head positioned on the far wall. The snow had lessened but was still swirling through the air, surrounding the shower. Despite the flakes that glittered in the glow coming from a light positioned on the eaves of the house and the moon, Micah was standing in the shower, his delectable body naked beneath the water. I felt my body tense, a spark settling between my thighs, and my mouth watered. Micah had been sexy while dressed, but now that I saw what had been hiding beneath his jeans and long-sleeved thermal shirt, he was irresistible.

  Micah had been standing sideways, but now turned his back to me, leaning back slightly and running his hands down his chest. My eyes trailed along the muscles of his back and onto his strong thighs. I wanted to stand there and watch him, but couldn't let him catch me staring at him. It hadn't been an accident that he chose the isolation and solitude of the outdoor shower rather than any other that I was sure was inside the lodge. I doubted that he would be happy to find me staring at him from behind a curtain. I stepped back into the great room and let the curtain fall back into place. I turned around and saw Scout standing in the doorway to the room, looking at me as if he knew exactly what I had been doing.