by Susan Meier
“Hey, Jack, look. I’m Cleopatra.”
At Molly’s request, Jack turned to his right and saw that while he had been pondering, Molly had stretched out on a backless black fake fur sofa and was dangling a bunch of wax grapes above her mouth.
“Get off there,” he said, glancing around quickly to see if anyone was watching. When he realized there wasn’t another soul in sight, he shook his head. “You are really silly.”
“Of course, I am,” she agreed good-naturedly, and bounced from the sofa. Happily and completely without reserve, she brushed a soft kiss across his mouth. “That’s why you married me. I balance out your stuffiness.”
“I’m not stuffy,” he protested. As her arms went around his neck, he noticed how naturally and easily his hands drifted to the swell of her hips. He knew a stuffy person wouldn’t be so bold, then also recognized he wouldn’t be so bold if it weren’t for the fact that she genuinely believed they were married. “Am I stuffy?”
With an expression of mock distress, she nodded solemnly. “Oh, everybody thinks you’re fun-loving and wonderful, but I see something no one else sees. You take your duties seriously. You pamper your employees. If you could, I think you’d bear the weight of the world on your shoulders, if only because you don’t want anyone else to have to do it You’re unselfish, Jack Cavanaugh.”
“I’m not unselfish,” he said, and reluctantly took his hands from her hips and placed them on her wrists so he could remove her arms from around his neck. “I’m doing what I need to do to get everything done.”
“That’s exactly what you want everybody to believe. That you’re a carefree guy who has all the time in the world to slather his employees with attention and good deeds—all so they’ll be more productive. But I know the truth.”
Because she walked away without pushing the issue, Jack got the distinct impression that she did know the truth. But she couldn’t.
No one did.
At least not completely.
“Well, Mrs. I-Know-the-Truth,” Jack said, gripping her elbow to keep her from wandering too far, “you win. We’ll get the couch.”
“Realty!” Her eyes lit with joy, and something like a punch hit Jack in the stomach. Pleasing someone had never been so easy, or so much fun. Molly wasn’t childlike in her appreciation. That would have been easy to handle. No, Molly was very adult in her gratitude—which made it all the more perilous to his ego because he knew it meant something. Without even taking a breath, he felt his chest swell a good two inches.
“I’ll go get the clerk,” she volunteered enthusiastically.
Jack studied her as she walked away—the confident set of her back, the swing of her derriere, the long smooth length of leg—and he wondered if he’d had his head in a basket for the past four years. All this time, he’d been working with a gorgeous blonde, with a wonderful sense of humor, and a sixth sense about him that seemed to be right on the money. And he hadn’t noticed.
When she returned with the clerk, Molly continued to be bubbly with joy. So much so, that, as the young man wrote out the slip for their sofa. she easily twisted around and placed a happy kiss on Jack’s lips. Without thinking. Jack put both his hands on her shoulders to keep her from quickly twisting away again. He gazed into her sparkling hazel eyes and saw things he didn’t think he’d ever see again. Happiness. Enthusiasm. Hope. Tomorrow.
He actually saw tomorrow.
With the promise of tomorrow hovering in his subconscious, Jack bent his head and kissed Molly. It wasn’t a pretend kiss to keep her content and semiquiet. This time when he pressed his lips to hers, it was a conscious decision. It was an expression of emotion. It was a welcome home to joy.
Molly turned the rest of the way in his arms and looped her arms around his neck. As his lips toyed with hers, Jack allowed his hands to slide down her back and then up again, feeling the reality of her, a dam of emotion welling up inside him.
Molly pulled away. “Jack, I think the clerk wants you to sign the slip for the credit card.”
Mystified, mesmerized, Jack only stared at her.
“Mrs. Cavanaugh,” the clerk said, then nervously cleared his throat. “You could sign.”
But she couldn’t, Jack realized suddenly. She couldn’t sign anything “Molly Cavanaugh.”
“I’ll do that,” Jack said, and snatched the credit card slip before the clerk could hand it to Molly. They weren’t really married and she wasn’t fully aware of what they were doing. Oh, she might understand purchasing furniture, but she didn’t have a clue of what was happening with their kisses.
Even he didn’t understand what was happening with their kisses. But he did know one thing. Acting on his attraction to her was about the stupidest thing he could do right now. Second only to imagining that he might have even deeper, stronger feelings than attraction.
When the clerk left, it was Jack who nervously cleared his throat. “I guess it’s time to go.”
Not noticing anything was wrong, Molly took his hand. “Are yon trying to tell me we’ve exhausted the limit on your credit card?”
Jack laughed. Leave it to her to make him laugh. Again. How had he missed this for so many years?
“We haven’t exhausted the limits on my cards. But we will be getting one hell of a delivery next Thursday. In fact,” Jack said and glanced at his watch. “I should...”
“Molly? Molly is that you?”
Jack looked up in time to see a very stylish older couple almost running up the aisle to meet them.
“April? Don?” Molly said, sounding as confused as the pair who were striding toward her.
“Well, for Pete’s sake,” Don said, clutching Molly and enveloping her in a bear hug. “What the heck are you doing here?”
“Jack and I are getting some new furniture,” Molly said as the big man released her. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We’re decorating our den,” the woman, April, said, as she eyed Jack critically. “Who is this?”
“Oh, oh,” Molly said as if they’d caught her off guard. “This is Jack. Jack, these are my parents’ oldest and dearest friends, April and Don Jenkins.”
As he shook hands with Don Jenkins, Jack felt little beads of perspiration forming on his upper lip. He wasn’t sure why he was worried. Molly had only introduced him as “Jack.” She’d offered no further explanation. Still, the calculating expression in April’s pale blue eyes clearly told Jack that this woman was scouring for more.
As if on cue, April said, “And Jack is...”
“Her boss...”
“My husband...”
April’s eyebrows shot skyward. Good old Don looked as if he’d swallowed something that didn’t agree with him.
“You’re married?” April managed in an incredulous voice.
“Six weeks,” Molly proudly reported.
“You ran away,” April reasoned dejectedly.
Molly shook her head. “No, we had the biggest wedding this side of the Mississippi.”
At first, April only stared at Molly, then she said, “Oh,” her voice small and confused. “Congratulations.”
Jack had never felt so miserable in his life. He knew why this conversation was flying over Molly’s head. If she’d imagined they had a big wedding, in her mind her parents’ best friends would have been at that wedding—or at least they would have been invited. In reality, neither had happened.
Don recovered first. “Come on, April, we’d better get shopping or it will be next August before we get that den finished.” He took April’s arm and moved her in the direction of bookcases and entertainment units. Politely, but distantly, he nodded to Jack. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure was mine,” Jack said quietly, and watched them walk away. There wasn’t anything he could do right this second, but after he engaged Molly in another shopping project and after enough time had passed that she wouldn’t be suspicious, he would have to find the Jenkinses and come up with some sort of reasonable story.
“You know what?” he said, pulling away after the Jenkinses’ departure. “I think you should pick out a bedroom set before we leave.”
Molly gasped in alarm. “Absolutely, no!”
“Why not? We have three empty bedrooms. We’ll make one of them into a guest room.”
Molly sighed heavily, and when she faced him, Jack could see the lines of exhaustion etched in her face and knew what she was going to say even before she said it. “We might have three empty bedrooms, but if we don’t soon leave, I’ll drop where I stand.”
“Are you sick?” Jack asked, and hastily seized her arm.
“No, just dizzy—tired.”
For some odd reason, Jack didn’t believe her. Maybe his own sixth sense was beginning to kick in. Or maybe he knew that because Molly wasn’t the complaining kind, she wouldn’t tell him when she was feeling sick or in pain, she’d simply snatch the easy excuse—being tired—and run with it. “I’m calling Dr. Tim when we get to the house.”
Molly smiled wickedly and began to walk away. “Good, then I’ll ask him when we can sleep together again.”
Jack scrambled after her. “Is that blackmail?”
“No. But it is a logical question. If you call the doctor, I’m asking the obvious.”
Chapter Seven
“I want you to consider it a personal favor.”
Dr. Tim grinned. His green eyes danced with devilment “Let’s see,” he said, holding out his hands as if they were scales. “Grant you a personal favor which makes me feel reasonably benevolent.” He indicated his right hand as if placing that statement in its palm, then he nodded to his left hand. “Or use my power and authority to have one hell of a good laugh at your expense by telling your lovely wife there is no more reason the two of you can’t sleep together.”
Tim alternately raised and lowered each hand as if weighing the decision. “Gee, Jack, there’s not much of a dilemma here.”
“I’m going to give you a dilemma,” Jack said, his temper snapping. “That woman in there is not my wife,” he said, thrusting his thumb in the direction of the master bedroom. “When she gets her memory back and realizes that, she’s going to be horribly embarrassed. You’ve had many a good laugh at my personal expense. And I’m going to admit I’ve had many a good laugh at yours. But this time it’s not merely me you’re potentially hurting. Molly’s a nice girl, a sweet girl. It will downright humiliate her if we don’t keep this situation in tine.”
Tim immediately sobered. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just that it’s been so long—five years—” he clarified carefully, obviously gauging Jack’s reaction before he continued, “since you’ve been a part of the human race. I know what you’ve been doing. Trying to keep your life uncomplicated and perfect so you don’t get hurt again, but Jack...”
Jack stopped him with one raised finger. “Don’t play therapist. I’m fine. I’ve always been fine. And you’re not here to see me, you’re here to see Molly. She had a dizzy spell at the furniture store. To be perfectly honest with you,” Jack said, pulling Tim a little farther down the upstairs hall and away from the bedroom door, “I think she was on the verge of getting her memory back.”
It had taken him until they pulled into the driveway before Jack realized that seeing her parents’ friends had jolted her memory and maybe even made her anxious, which was why she’d become pale. She hadn’t been sick. She hadn’t been in pain. She’d been so confused, it had weakened her.
“We’d run into friends of her parents after we signed the papers to buy a new sofa, and as they were walking away she got dizzy.”
“So what makes you think she was getting her memory back?”
“It happened once before,” Jack admitted with a sigh. “This morning. I mentioned wanting to furnish my living room similar to her living room. She started to consider it and her eyes glazed over. Then she glanced around as if she were totally confused. But rather than get her memory back, she got dizzy.”
“Almost as if getting dizzy was the result of stopping her memory,” Dr. Tim speculated quietly.
Jack reluctantly agreed. “Almost. I couldn’t say for sure.”
“Well, I couldn’t say for sure, either. I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not even a neurologist. I’m just a simple country doctor.”
“I don’t think she needs a psychiatrist or a neurologist. Right at this minute, I think she needs someone to conform that her dizzy spell wasn’t from something other than confusion.”
“Jack, I don’t know,” Tim said, and caught Jack’s hand before he opened the bedroom door. “This falls so much out of my area of expertise that I’m getting uncomfortable. I know it’s only been three days, but if she doesn’t have her memory back by tomorrow afternoon I want you to let me make an appointment for her with a friend of mine—a specialist.”
Jack drew a long, resigned breath. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.” Tim cockily said, then pushed open the bedroom door.
With the covers primly folded over her lap, Molly sat braced against the headboard of Jack’s bed, wearing highcollared red satin pajamas. The minute she saw Jack behind Dr. Tim she smiled and held out her hand. “See, a little nap and I’m fine. I told you this was nothing to worry about.”
Jack automatically took the hand Molly extended and sat on the bed beside her, but Dr. Tim opened his black bag. “So, Jack tells me you’ve had these dizzy spells before,” Dr. Tim prodded casually.
She nodded. “Yes.”
Tim put the blood pressure cuff on her arm and pulled out his stethoscope. “They don’t seem to scare you.”
Molly shrugged. “They go away on their own. As quickly as they come, they’re gone. I don’t even have to sit down. All I have to do is focus on what I’m doing and they go. And once they’re gone, I’m not dizzy anymore.”
“What do you mean when you say focus on what you’re doing?” Dr. Tim persisted, attending to the blood pressure gauge.
Molly pursed her lips. “I know this is going to sound weird, but I sort of have to remind myself of who I am, where I am and what I’m doing.”
Tim peeked at Jack, then back at Molly. “And how often has this happened?”
She shrugged. “A few times, maybe four.”
Tim snapped his bag closed. “Okay. I’ve heard enough,” he said, and rose from her bed. “Molly, physically you’re fine. But though I’m not a neurologist, the fact that you have to remind yourself of who you are makes me think there’s a little more to this than meets the eye. So, Monday morning I’m going to make an appointment for you with a friend of mine.”
She looked at Jack. “Another doctor?”
“A specialist,” Jack said gently, not wanting to use the word psychiatrist, though he had a sneaky feeling that’s the kind of specialist to which Tim was referring. “You did hit your head....”
“And you think there’s something wrong?” Molly questioned fearfully, holding his gaze.
It was on the tip of Jack’s tongue to tell her the truth, that she had only a selective memory and currently they were living a lie. But in her fragile condition, he didn’t think that was the best thing to do. At the same time, he no longer felt comfortable withholding the whole truth from her, either. Particularly since it almost appeared she had a hand in keeping herself in this delusional state.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you,” he said, trying to reassure her. “But, like Dr. Tim, I also think it’s odd that you have to remind yourself of who you are.”
“Regardless of what happens, Molly, I’ll be by on Monday night,” Tim said. He squeezed her free hand once, then headed for the door.
Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead, and rose from his bed. “I’m going to see Dr. Tim out Why don’t you try to go back to sleep?”
Still preoccupied with Dr. Tim’s suggestion, Molly nodded absently.
Jack met Tim in the downstairs foyer.
“It’s
obvious to me,” Tim said as he snagged the front door handle, “that she doesn’t want to remember who she is. It could be because she doesn’t like who she is, or it could be—like her friends told you—this is who she wants to be.”
Jack raked his fingers through his hair. Tim’s assessment didn’t fill him with annoyance at the inconvenience to his life; he was more upset about Molly. Though he’d always been concerned about Molly, there was a new dimension, a new level of anxiety that he didn’t quite understand. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Well, if you want my opinion, because there is nothing physically wrong with her, and because she’s all but admitted she’s pushing back her real inemories, I think we could force her into remembering who she is—” Tim began, but Jack interrupted him.
“Absolutely not.”
“I know. You tried this once before and you couldn’t handle it But think about this, Jack,” Tim warned. “How is she going to handle it when she realizes you played along when you could have forced her back into reality?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said, and shoved his wayward hair off his forehead “I just know I don’t want to force her into anything. There’s a reason she refuses to get her memory back. I can feel it.”
“I’d have to say she likes being your wife.” Tim speculated knowingly. “Her parents are multimillionaires. She has a good job. She has plenty of friends. You yourself said she has a beautiful apartment She has everything a woman could want...”
“Except a husband?” Jack suggested carefully, feeling that analysis was way off base. “That’s far too simple, far too shallow a motive for Molly.”
“Don’t be so modest. You’re quite a catch, Jack,” Tim said, then pinched his cheek. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
