He shook his head after sitting on the couch and stretching his arms along the back of it. “Go right ahead.”
She had the clothes she’d worn here this morning behind the screen to her left, so she could change and be concealed from his view. Except she couldn’t get out of the dress alone. Awkward as it was to ask a stranger to undress her, she didn’t have much choice, she couldn’t breathe in this dress and if she called someone else in, she’d never get the chance to vet this man.
Going to him, she turned her back and pointed to the lace at her lower back. “Can you unlace me?”
Looking over her shoulder, she expected him to be shocked, but one corner of his mouth curled upward. “Sure,” he said and sat up to pull the lace at the bottom. “I’ll even do it without touching you… I expect points for that.”
But he was touching her, even if there was no skin-to-skin contact, she was still asking him to do something intimate and although her heart was pumping, her head was too overwhelmed to read too much into it. “There’s a hook under the satin and the lace is—”
“I know,” he said. “I took the first one off you. I remember how this shit works.”
Oh, right, that made sense if he was her husband. Course, he could be married to any woman, it didn’t have to mean he’d married her and taken her out of her dress. His gentleness surprised her, she’d have expected such a big guy to be more ham-fisted, but he was delicate about freeing her.
“Thank you,” she said when the bodice loosened.
“No worries,” he said and sat back again when she went to behind the screen to slip out of it.
After tucking it back into the dress bag, she bent to pull her clothes from the bag put there for her essentials. “You cut it a bit fine, didn’t you, Mr. Warren?” she asked. “When did you see the article?”
“It was published two days ago, but hit our system yesterday and I’ll be honest, Bit, this is further out than we’d expected you to be. You’re quite a way from home.”
Home, wherever that was. “Have you never heard of a phone?”
“The picture in the article was small, although we were sure it was you, we weren’t a hundred percent. And I know how pissed I’d have been if someone stopped my wedding day on a whim. Anyway, Calvin isn’t an easy guy to get on the phone and you’re not listed.”
“I live at the house with him and his mother, Diane,” she called out, zipping her strapless dress beneath her arm. “You’re right, it’s not listed. I don’t have a cell phone… who would call it?”
Coming around the screen, she tucked a ringlet behind her ear and when he saw her, he sat up, sat forward with a look on his face that suggested he’d forgotten how to breathe. “Damn, baby…”
So this simple short dress did more for him than the wedding dress and when she glanced down to try to see what he saw, she noticed the top of her garter belts peeking from beneath it. Here she was trying to be more conservative and normal to have a conversation with him and she’d just asked him to undress her then given him a glimpse of her lingerie.
Instead of being embarrassed, she laughed and it made her relax when he joined in. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re making it hard for me to keep my promise.”
“Your promise?” she asked, wondering if he’d made some promise to her while they were together.
“About keeping my dick in my pants.”
“Oh,” she said and suddenly wasn’t so amused anymore. “I’m not… I’m not comfortable talking about sex.”
He got serious as he sat back. “But I figured you didn’t ask to talk to me alone so we could discuss your phone number.”
Shaking her head, she went over to join him on the couch, luckily it was long enough that she could sit quite far from him. “This is awkward,” she whispered.
“Not awkward,” he said and moved a bit closer, but when she tensed, he stopped and held up his hands in apology. “Bit, there’s nothing you can ask me that I won’t answer. I’ll tell you anything it’s in my power to tell you. We don’t have to talk about sex, but if you want me to prove I am your husband… I can tell you that you have a freckle on your pussy, right at the edge of—”
Now she held up a finger, and her chin was down again. “That’s too much.”
“Ok, you tell me what you want to know… Anything personal, you won’t remember. Physically, I can tell you everything about your body… I can tell you that you make a little squeaking noise when you orgasm, is that easier?”
Much as she was mortified, a smile slipped to her lips and she let herself peek up at him though she couldn’t raise her chin. “Do you enjoy making me uncomfortable?”
Leaning in, he lowered his voice. “I love to see you blush.”
“I’m not blushing,” she argued, though knew it was true.
He held up his thumb and forefinger. “A little… just a tiny bit.”
Now she hitched up her chin and smiled to tease him. “You could’ve started with the freckles on my feet.”
“You don’t have freckles on your feet… and that only proves I’ve seen you in sandals.”
“What about my breasts?”
His eyes dropped and the interest in them made her bite her lip. “Sure, we can talk about those,” he said. “They’re perfect… what else is there to say?”
Ok, talking about them wasn’t any easier, but she was more relaxed now that they were pushing boundaries. Although he was interested in her figure, he wasn’t sitting close enough to make her feel intimidated or threatened and he wasn’t leering.
But they couldn’t make jokes all day. “My doctors told me my memories might come back one day,” she said. “They said I could talk about what I know, but… if anyone from my past came into my life, they said I shouldn’t… that I shouldn’t ask too many questions, or hear too many stories, because there was a risk of false memories.”
He didn’t argue her gear change, just listened. “So you can’t ask questions and I can’t offer information… doesn’t that make it hard for you to learn about where you came from?”
It was frustrating and confusing and exhausting. Her impulse was to run her hand through her hair so she could find a tendril to curl around her finger, but her wedding do was up and hair sprayed so much it was almost hard. So she brushed her hairline with her fingertips.
“I don’t know the rules here,” she said.
He came an inch closer. “Bit, you and me were never very good at playing by the rules.”
Reaching over, he took a ringlet from behind her ear and laid it over her finger like he knew she’d needed hair to play with. “Thank you,” she whispered, lost in his gaze.
“Giving you what you need,” he said. “It’s what I’m here for.”
The door opened and Calvin came back in with his mother and the others who’d been outside the room, but they all paused when they saw her and Shane on the couch. Although they were sitting close and his hand was suspended near hers, there was nothing untoward going on.
“What’s wrong with all your faces?” Shane asked, maybe pissed off, his tone was certainly abrupt.
Murphy grinned and Owen leaned in to say something, but it was Calvin who marched forward. “You took off your dress?”
Oh, that was why everyone was surprised, she smiled and stood up, trying to pull her dress down to cover her garter belts. “I changed behind the screen,” she said, pointing at it.
Diane approached behind her son, displeasure all over her expression. “You can’t get out of that dress alone.”
Murphy laughed. “I think you’re safe. Sex between them has never taken just the five minutes we were out of the room.”
“I don’t know,” Owen said, folding his arms. “It’s been sixteen months for him, at least, he probably went off like a rocket.”
The two men laughed and her cheeks were aflame now, this was embarrassing and terrifying. “I didn’t have sex,” she said to Calvin, appealing to him as Diane and Boyd glared.
“I promise you, I’m sorry I—”
“She’s not on trial here,” Shane said and although he was still tense and probably meant well, his coming to her defense didn’t help her now. “You trust your woman or you don’t.”
“And not to be blunt, but they’re married… he has seen her naked before. They have been intimate, were intimate for years,” Owen said. “Shane’s clocked more miles on my sister than you have.”
Wasn’t that a lovely analogy? Ginger cringed, but no one was looking at her anymore. “Yes, but she doesn’t remember it,” Diane said. “So it never happened.”
“Is that the rule around here?” Murphy asked. “You don’t remember, it didn’t happen? Is that why you never encouraged her to find out the truth about who she was?”
Everyone started to talk again. There were too many strong opinions in this room and it was overwhelming. She didn’t know what to do or how to handle this and there were still more complications she hadn’t even thought about yet.
Going to Calvin, she took his hand, which calmed him enough to stop arguing with the others. “We can’t stay in the church all day. Did you tell everyone to leave?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And the reception? What should we do about that?”
For once, no one had anything to say. “You paid for dinner for two hundred folk,” Owen eventually said. “I don’t think the staff would mind reducing that to a seven cover, right? We’re not going away. We sit down and have dinner like civilized folks, we can make a plan… We don’t want to turn this into a legal battle.”
“Custody over a grown woman,” Diane sneered. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Squeezing Calvin’s hand, Ginger wished she had him alone now too, he was always more pliable without his mother around. She just had to hope he was focused on her now. “Please,” Ginger said. “We can’t just forget this happened. Let’s have dinner with them. Dinner can’t hurt.”
2
Shane was at the bar with Owen and Murphy. They had reached the country club ahead of Ginger’s group. It was possible they were going to get stood up, but it didn’t matter, he’d found his wife and he didn’t intend to let her go. If he had to track her down again, it would be easier to do this time now that he had a narrower search area.
Calvin Bishop had called ahead, so the staff knew what to expect. It was weird being three people walking into a room set for three hundred. Turned out that more were invited to the dinner than the wedding. It was quite an anticipated event, but it wasn’t going to happen now.
They’d given staff permission to clean up the places that wouldn’t be used. So the employees were scurrying around the room putting silverware and linens away while he and his posse drank at the bar.
“What do we do if they disappear?” Owen asked. “They could take Ginny out of the country.”
“Then we leave the country,” Murphy said. “We did it. We found her. We know she’s alive. Do you think we would give up now?”
“No,” Owen said. “But they have the means to take her anywhere.”
“And we have the means to follow them,” Murphy said. “We know who has her now.”
Shane sipped his scotch and kept his eyes on the glass door. It opened onto a second-floor deck that acted as the main entrance to this function room. The Bishops and Ginger would have to park and ascend the stairs to the deck that wrapped around this upper floor before they came inside.
Owen and Murphy carried on their conversation. Shane was listening, he was just more interested in anticipating his wife’s arrival. “Has her?” Owen said. “You say that like they kidnapped her.”
“Didn’t they?” Murphy asked. “She’s been staying with them. This Calvin guy convinced her to marry him and she doesn’t even know who she is. Who does that? You think if you found a woman at the side of the road you’d lock her in your parent’s mansion and make her marry you?”
“You think he forced her?” Owen asked.
“I think he didn’t try to heal her, he should’ve helped her find out who she was.”
“At the side of the road,” Owen muttered. “I hate that… reading that article gave me chills. It can’t be right though, right? I mean how did she get from the ocean to a road two miles from shore? It makes no sense.”
“None of this makes sense,” Murphy said and hit Shane’s shoulder. “What did she say when you were alone?”
Shane couldn’t take his eyes from the door, he was desperate to see her again. It felt odd to leave her with another man, to drive away from the church and wait here without her. He’d always taken care of her, until that night on the boat when he’d let her down. He’d always promised if he found her again, he’d never let her out of his sight.
But Ginger was adamant about him going ahead from the church without her. She said they would meet here and he believed she meant it. She’d fought for this dinner, but from her anxiety and the way she avoided looking at him, he felt like she was hiding something, but he couldn’t begin to guess what it was.
“I love her,” Shane muttered.
“Did you think you didn’t?” Owen asked.
Still, he was watching the door, waiting for her to come to him. She was all he thought about, he couldn’t lose her again and it was painful to be apart from her. “I’ve always loved her,” he said. “But today… I don’t care who this Calvin guy is, I’m not leaving her.”
“We wouldn’t expect you to,” Murphy said, patting his back in a consoling gesture.
A car engine closed in and although they couldn’t see the car, he closed his eyes, listening for it going off and a second later there were footsteps coming up the stairs and then he saw her.
The bar in this back corner had a lower ceiling than the rest of the space and the lighting was low, so although Calvin and the Boyd guy looked around inside, they didn’t seem to notice the trio at the bar.
Outside, Calvin stopped his group to address his mother and Boyd, leaving Ginger alone a few feet behind him.
“You see the way he turns his back to her,” Shane muttered. “He shouldn’t keep her out in the cold, they should’ve strategized in the car.”
Owen and Murphy were enjoying their own drinks, but came into his periphery, a sign they were as intent on those outside deck as he was. “She looks nervous,” Owen said. “Look at the way she’s twisting her own wrist.”
“You think he makes her nervous?” Murphy asked.
“I think this whole thing makes her nervous. Remember, we’re being discreet, we’re not going to overwhelm her,” Shane said, watching how isolated Ginger looked. “He should be comforting her, he shouldn’t leave her standing there on her own.”
She was at the corner of the deck, three feet away from the huddled group, her eyes darting around as she curled her hand around her wrist and shifted her feet. She was cold. She was anxious. And she was alone.
“She looks small,” Owen said.
She did and it pissed Shane off as much as it hurt him. “She said she doesn’t like to be touched.”
Murphy scoffed. “You two never used to keep your hands off each other.”
“But have you noticed he doesn’t touch her? They hold hands, but he doesn’t put an arm around her, doesn’t touch her arm, or her body,” Shane said, analyzing what he was witnessing.
“Are you complaining?” Murphy asked. “You used to hate any guy touching her, even me or Owen, you were always selfish with her.”
He was and there was no reason to change that now. Throwing the rest of his liquor into his throat, he slammed the glass onto the bar and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m going to get her.”
Owen caught his arm and his attention. “They’ll argue she’s not yours to get.”
But that made him angry and he whirled around to aim that rage at the wrong person. “If he was doing his job, I wouldn’t have to do it for him!” he said. Owen was stunned. Damn, he shouldn’t be taking out his stress on his friend. Shane pulled his
arm away then slapped a hand on Owen’s shoulder to lean down and look his brother-in-law in his eye. “I looked you in the eye like this on the day I married your sister and I told you I would never let anything bad happen to her. I promised you. Remember?”
“Yeah.”
“I failed… it doesn’t matter how many times I say I’m sorry, it means shit. I’m going to spend my life making it up to her… and to you… Until she tells me to get to fuck I’m gonna be on her… I’d give my life for hers, you know that, right?”
Owen nodded and Murphy nudged them both. “My brother the romantic… who knew?”
“Ginny knew,” Owen said, but Shane barely heard him because he was heading for the door. Except before he got there, Calvin came inside with everyone else in his wake.
“Ok, we’re going to sit down and talk,” Calvin said.
“Yeah,” Shane said, noticing how Ginger kept her head down, but kept stealing glances at him. She had to be curious. He couldn’t imagine how terrifying it was not to have a clue who you were or what you’d been through and here he was, stomping into her life with her brother and his, telling her he was her lover. “That’s why we’re here.”
“We’ve called a specialist doctor for Claire,” Calvin said. “He’s the best. He’s going to meet us at his offices tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Shane said and chose to look at his wife instead of the guy trying to keep her in the background. “Bit, if you want docs here now, I’ll get you docs here now.”
“You can talk to me,” Calvin said. “And stop calling her Bit, she’s not your Bit anymore.”
It was habit and Shane would stop as soon as Ginny told him to, not a minute before. “Ginger, do you want medical help?”
“I said you should talk to me,” Calvin said, crowding in closer.
Shane wasn’t known for holding onto his cool and he’d had a tougher time holding onto his temper since he’d been without Ginger, who always knew how to calm him down. This guy was standing between him and the woman he loved, Shane had never let anyone do that. No one ever dared stand between him and Ginger, it just never happened, and he didn’t like that he might have to get used to it.
Remember When... Page 2
