“To be honest,” Gretchen said, “I doubt Carl would be ready to meet someone new right now anyway. Maybe we both just need some time to get over each other. If we even can.”
“Eventually you will,” Desi said. “And as for John, I think it’s just a lot for him to take in right now. Just imagine what it will be like if Jake ever asks me to marry him. That man is probably going to spend the whole engagement with a blank look on his face as he tries to figure out what he’s gotten himself into.”
Gretchen smiled at that comment. She was probably right about Jake, but Gretchen still wasn't convinced Desi was right about John. Something was bothering him. She just wished he would tell her what it was. She couldn’t imagine a single thing they couldn’t work out together.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Advice
Another two weeks of wedding plans and John was about to go insane. It was getting almost impossible to avoid the memories. After spending the weekend addressing invitations, his hand was cramped and his brain was numb. He could tell Gretchen knew something was up. She probably thought he was getting cold feet. Allowing her to think he regretted proposing to her wasn’t something John was happy about, but it was better than the alternative. Four more weeks. He just had to last four more weeks. It sounded simple, but John wasn't sure he could hold out. Would Gretchen really call things off if she found out about the memories?
Relaxing was what he would have liked to have done with no jobs that weekend to plan for, but relaxing was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment. Pacing back and forth in the living room was only making things worse. Gretchen had left for work a few moments ago and John knew he only had seconds before Carl did the same thing.
Carl. What was he thinking? It was by far the stupidest idea John had ever come up with. Unfortunately, it was also the only one that had a chance of helping him. Marching into the kitchen, he grabbed his cell phone off the table and dialed Carl. A flash of annoyance crossed John’s mind at the fact that Carl’s number was still in his phone from his help with the front yard, but he shoved it away. He needed Carl’s help.
“Hey, Gretchen. You misplace your phone again?” Carl said cheerfully, grating on John’s already fried nerves.
“Actually, this is John,” he said.
He could hear his sigh. “Oh. What did you need, John?”
John was really going to do this. He had to. “Carl, I know you’re getting ready for work, but could I come over for a few minutes?”
“Why?”
“I need your help with something,” he said. “It’s about Gretchen.”
Silence. “Fine. I’ll wait.” Then the line went dead.
John walked over to Carl’s house, feeling as though he were willingly walking to his death. Carl was in love with his fiancée, which, of course, made John really dislike him, but also made him the perfect person to tell him what to do. It was risky, though. He could tell Gretchen everything. He could ruin John’s life.
Raising his hand to knock, Carl opened the door before he could. “What’s this about?” he asked.
“Can I come in? I’d rather not talk about this on the front porch.”
Carl grunted but moved aside.
Stalking into the living room, Carl dropped into his recliner, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at John as if he were contemplating stabbing him. Maybe he was. No, Carl was too nice for that. John hoped.
“You’re not leaving her, are you?” Carl asked.
“What? No,” John said quickly.
Carl relaxed, somewhat. “Good.”
“Really? I would think you’d be thrilled at that prospect,” John said. He knew he would be if the roles were reversed.
“She loves you. You leaving would hurt her, and I don’t want to see that happen,” Carl said. The sharp snap of his voice was incredibly intimidating, but his words also assured John that Carl was the right person to be talking to. “So what’s the problem then?” Carl asked.
“I’ve, uh…been keeping something from Gretchen,” John admitted.
Carl bristled again. “If you’re cheating on her, you won’t make it out of this house to do it again.”
John totally believed him. “It’s nothing like that, Carl. I promise.”
“Then what is it?” he demanded.
“I’m remembering things.”
Carl stared at John as he sank back into his chair. He seemed to immediately know the implications of what John was saying. He didn’t smile like John thought he might, thinking it was his chance to steal Gretchen back. He sat there frowning as he thought.
“What kind of things are you remembering?” he asked.
“A woman.”
Carl nodded as if he expected the answer.
“I keep seeing her face. And when I see her, I know she loves me, and that I loved her,” John said. Carl listened quietly. “At first, it was just a few flashes here and there, but lately…it’s been happening a lot more. Every time the wedding comes up, I see her.”
“What are the memories about?” Carl asked.
That was the real lynchpin. Remembering things might be one thing, but what John was about to say next would determine whether Carl punched him in the face or tried to help him. John honestly had no idea which way it would go. The fact that he was willing to take the chance showed how desperate he was. He needed advice.
“The first couple times I saw her it was just random things like standing together or lying on a couch with her. Things Gretchen and I were doing at the time,” John said. “With the wedding plans, I see her picking out dresses and napkins and flowers, standing in a reception hall holding a bouquet.”
Running his hand through his hair, Carl looked up at the ceiling and shook his head slowly. John wanted to do the same thing. Instead, he said the hardest words he’d ever had to say.
“I think I was, or am, married to this other woman.”
Carl groaned and slammed his fist into the armrest of his recliner, startling John. He just sat there for a few moments, staring at the floor. John’s knee shook as he waited for Carl to respond to him. Every second felt like another dagger in John’s heart. What was he going to say?
“Why are you telling me this?” Carl asked. It wasn't a demanding question, but more of a plea. No doubt he wanted to use this against John, run and tell Gretchen, convince her to leave him, but Carl also loved Gretchen deeply and wouldn’t want to see her hurt. If he thought she would be hurt either way, would he go with the path that led Gretchen back into his arms?
“I’m telling you this because I don’t know what to do. I know you’re in love with her, Carl, so I’m asking you to tell me what you would do, because I know you would never hurt her,” John said. “I’ve been hiding this from Gretchen so far, but it’s getting harder to do. Should I just tell her?”
Closing his eyes, Carl pressed himself into his chair. The corner of his mouth twitched and his right hand trembled so slightly it was almost imperceptible. John began to worry about whether or not he was in Carl’s direct line of sight in case he decided to tackle him.
“This woman in your memories,” Carl said quietly, “do you know her name? Or has she said yours? Anything that tells you who you used to be?”
“No.” Thankfully. “I don’t know why, but I only see the memories. There’s no sound. She’s never spoken to me. I have no idea who the woman is, or who I used to be before the accident.”
“Do you think you’ll figure it out before the wedding?” Carl asked.
John shook his head. “The first really vague memory happened only a couple weeks after the accident. There’s never been any sound and I don’t think there ever will be. Plus, the memories are always pretty short and vague, and don’t give me any clues about time or location. Besides, if this woman were going to find me, I think she would have done it by now. Maybe we weren’t together anymore before the accident, or maybe she isn’t even alive. Either way, she’s not going to find me. It’s been too
long.”
“You realize what you’re giving up, right?” he asked.
John knew all too clearly what he was giving up. There might not be any sound in the memories he’d recovered, but the passion and emotion they carried with them were too potent to ignore. “Yes, I know what I’m giving up, but I’ll give it up willingly for Gretchen.”
Carl struggled with himself. Gripping the edges of his chair, he took a deep breath and let it out. When he opened his eyes, John could see the torture in them. He clearly hated John for coming to him, but John thought he understood why he had. They were two men who loved the same woman, and despite hating each other for that very reason, they forced themselves to put it aside to protect Gretchen.
“Don’t tell Gretchen any of this,” he whispered. “She won’t be able to forget it. She’ll postpone the wedding and want you to figure out who this woman is, because it will tear her apart to know that she might be taking you away from someone else. She’s too kind to think of herself first.”
John nodded. That was exactly what he had thought, but he’d worried he only thought that out of selfishness. Hearing Carl, a man who had nothing to gain from John’s happiness, agree with his own thoughts, lifted a huge weight from his shoulders. Telling Gretchen wouldn’t do any good. She would postpone the wedding, for what? For another couple months of John seeing the woman but getting no closer to finding out the truth of his past? There was no point.
“You won’t tell Gretchen about this, right?” John asked. Carl was still in love with Gretchen. Good man or not, it was hard to trust him that much.
For some strange reason Carl grinned that horrible grin of his. John stood up warily and Carl followed. “Of course I won’t tell her, John,” he said. He was still smiling. Walking to his front door, John had no choice but to follow him. Carl opened the door for him, but John didn’t leave yet.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because,” Carl said, “I feel like I owe you one.”
That was news to John. “Why would you owe me anything?”
His smile doubled as he grabbed John’s shoulder and pushed him out onto the porch.
“Because I kissed your fiancée and told her I was in love with her. That’s why.”
Then he shut the door in John’s face.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The Right Choice
Searching the table for the keys, John spotted them next to his cell phone as it began to ring. He picked up the keys and moved to answer it.
“Just let it go to voicemail,” Gretchen said as she rushed past him to the door.
They had dinner reservations in half an hour.
“Give me a minute, Gretchen. It might be the Fields. They were supposed to call as soon as they got the final count for their company dinner.”
Gretchen put on her best pout, but stood still to wait for him. John threw her a thankful look and answered the call. “This is John,” he said.
“John,” a woman’s voice replied, “this is Melinda Velasquez, from Channel Four News. I interviewed you last year after your accident.”
“Melinda, of course. How are you doing?” he asked, wondering how she had gotten his number. Gretchen gave him a questioning look. John shrugged. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, I was looking through some of the pieces I did last year and realized it’s almost been a year since your accident and I was wondering if I could come back down and do a follow up,” she said. “Some of our viewers have written us emails asking about what happened to you.”
“We’re doing really well, Melinda. Gretchen and I are actually getting married next month,” he said.
Melinda laughed. “You’re kidding! I told Hal you two were going to hook up. He owes me twenty bucks,” she said. Apparently Hal was in the same room because she yelled the news to him. “So, John, how about another interview? The viewers will love this.”
“Just a minute, Melinda, let me talk to Gretchen,” he said. She told him to go ahead and John muted the phone.
“It’s Melinda Velasquez, that reporter who interviewed us after the accident,” he said. Gretchen nodded in understanding. “She wants to come back for another interview, tell the viewers what’s happened to me since the last time they saw me. What do you think?”
Smiling, Gretchen said, “Sure. That would be fun, as long as we do it before the wedding. It will be too crazy afterward.”
“Melinda?” John asked. She said she was still there and he continued. “We’d love to do the interview as long as we can do it before the wedding. We’re leaving on our honeymoon right after and then we both have to get back to work as soon as we return.”
“When’s the wedding?” Melinda asked.
“April third.”
John could hear some indistinct mumbling as Melinda tapped away on her keyboard. “Okay, I’m in Las Cruses next weekend, Santa Fe two weekends from now, and I’m working a big political event here in Albuquerque on the twentieth, but I could do the Friday before that. That would be March nineteenth.”
“March nineteenth?” John asked Gretchen.
She mentally checked her calendar then nodded. “I can get a sub for that day,” she said.
“That sounds great, Melinda.”
“Wonderful. I’ll call you next week with the details, okay?” she asked.
“We look forward to hearing from you,” John said before ending the call.
Gretchen grabbed John’s hand and started pulling him toward the door.
“That was unexpected,” he said.
Gretchen nodded as they walked to the car. “I’m surprised she even remembered us.”
“Yeah, me too. Even during the interview last year she didn’t seem all that interested in our story,” John said.
“I had such high hopes after the interview that we’d find someone who knew who you were,” Gretchen said.
John opened her car door for her and closed it once she was in. As he walked over to the driver’s side he remembered how angry he’d felt when the interview hadn’t worked. Now he had a completely different emotion. Fear. It lasted only a moment. If no one in New Mexico knew who he was the previous year, why would they know who he was now? John was still struggling with the returning memories on a daily basis, but he passed off the idea that the interview would complicate things for him. At least they only covered New Mexico. Any more area and he might be in trouble.
***
With the wedding only two and a half weeks away it was getting close to crunch time for John. He had just finished his last catering job before the wedding over the weekend and was putting all his effort into finalizing the menu for his own reception and planning some practice sessions for Ethan and Melissa just to make sure they could make all the dishes themselves. John had hired another server to help them and Jeremy was coming home during his spring break to head up the crew. The interview coming up in two days only added to his stress.
Gretchen was just as busy. It seemed she spent more time at the seamstress getting fitted for her wedding dress than she did with John. He wasn't sure why she needed to be measured and pinned so many times, but he knew better than to complain. When Gretchen wasn't running back and forth between appointments, she was on the phone with Desi coordinating people and deliveries. When they had the chance to breathe, they usually ended up collapsing on the couch to do it.
Which was what they were doing at the moment.
Something was playing on TV, but John wasn't paying attention. Gretchen dozed on his shoulder as he flipped through a book she’d left on the coffee table. The novel turned out to be too much of a romance for his taste, so he set it back on the coffee table without disturbing Gretchen.
Turning his attention to his favorite subject instead, John shifted so Gretchen was lying on his lap, and brushed her hair away from her face. Her lips curled into a brief smile as his fingers trailed across her skin. He watched the slight expressions that flitted across her face as she slept and wondered what she w
as dreaming about. He hoped it wasn't Carl.
His parting comment the day John had talked to him about the memories irked him every time he thought about it. It had been almost painful not to demand Gretchen explain why she hadn’t told him about Carl kissing her the moment it happened, but he knew without a doubt that Carl had been the one to initiate it. Gretchen was likely embarrassed and didn’t want to make John dislike him more than he already did. Besides, he was hardly the one to judge her for keeping something from him. John had been lying to her about the memories almost from the beginning of their relationship.
Harsh ringing from one of their phones left in the kitchen ended the moment of watching Gretchen sleep. It was probably another reminder about something for the wedding. John wanted to let it go to voicemail, but Gretchen was startled by the noise and pulled herself up off his lap. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and looked toward the kitchen.
“Lay back down,” John said. “I’ll get it.”
Gretchen smiled and trailed her fingers along his leg as he stood. John walked to the kitchen, annoyed at the interruption, and picked up the phone. “This is John.”
“John, this is Melinda,” she said. “There’s been a change of plans with the interview on Friday.”
Great. Changes in their carefully laid plans were the last thing they needed. “What kind of changes?” he asked.
“Time, location, and the person doing the interview,” she said.
Wasn't that everything? “You’re not doing the interview anymore?” he asked her.
“No. It kind of got away from me,” she said. “I told my boss about the interview after I talked to you and apparently he mentioned it to the station manager, who got really excited about it, and somehow your story kept getting passed up the ladder until it reached the top.”
“The top?” he asked. “What does that mean?”
“It means the Today show, John.” Melinda laughed into the phone. “You and Gretchen are going to be on the Today show Friday morning. One of the hosts heard your story and just had to have you. They’re going to call you any second to set up your travel itinerary so I should let you go. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”
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