by Jessie Evans
What if he’s lost the parts of him that made him unlike anyone I’ve ever met, the parts he was so afraid of losing, he chose to die rather than risk a surgery that might leave him profoundly changed?
The thought is so awful that, for a moment, it feels like Gabe has died all over again, only worse. Now, he is alive, but with a mind that believes he’s capable of hurting someone he loves, and a heart that could never love me the way I love him. Even if he recovers his memories, the man who made them might never return.
I take a step back, tears blurring my vision. I’m turning to run—somewhere, anywhere—when Gabe’s fingers wrap around my upper arms, holding me in place with that same tender strength I remember.
“Don’t go,” he says, voice hoarse and as pained as I feel. “I know this is hard, but you have to know how badly I want to remember. I want to remember everything about you, about us, but I don’t yet, no matter how hard I’ve tried.”
He pauses, tongue slipping out to dampen his lips, making me think of our kiss, and how it had felt like our old kisses. “But I remember that I loved you, and that you were the only person who ever made me feel worth a damn. And when I kissed you just now…I felt alive for the first time since I woke up with part of my brain gone and this feeling that something vital was missing.” He pins me with that look that always made me feel like he knew all my secrets. “That vital thing is you.”
“How can it be me?” I ask, tears filling my eyes. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know you,” he insists, with an intensity more consistent with the Gabe I knew at the end of last summer than the arrogant boy I first met. “If I were blind, I would know you. You’re the reason I’ve kept going, even when recovery threatened to kick my ass, and all I wanted to do was give up. I might have lost our past, Caitlin, but we don’t have to lose our future. We can get us back. I know we can.”
I stare deep into his eyes, seeing hope and that familiar Gabe passion, but something is missing, something I can’t ignore now that I’ve realized it’s not there.
“But you don’t love me,” I whisper, knowing I’ll start sobbing again if I say the words too loud.
“But I did,” he says, his grip loosening, becoming a caress as his fingers skim down my arms to capture my hands. “I remember I did.”
I pull my hands away. “Remembering you used to love someone, and loving them, isn’t the same thing.”
“Then I’ll just have to fall in love all over again,” he says, his words almost a perfect echo of what I said last summer.
As soon as I found out about the tumor, I’d begged Gabe to have the surgery, insisting that I would make him fall in love with me a second time if he came out on the other side not remembering who I was. But now I’m faced with the reality of a Gabe who doesn’t remember why we robbed people, or the rush we felt when we were dispensing our own brand of justice. This Gabe doesn’t remember the murder we committed, or the reasons he believed we had no choice but to kill the man who kidnapped me.
He doesn’t remember the way he made love to me that last night, fucking me until we were both bruised with pleasure, while promising to love me until men were fairy tales. He doesn’t remember the secrets we shared, or that he was my first, or that he saw the strength in me when no else did, or a hundred other things that are the reasons there will never be anyone in my heart but Gabe Alexander.
I don’t know how to start over with a new Gabe, when I’m still in love with the boy I knew before, but I have to try. This thing with him has never been easy, but it is the only thing worth having.
I knew that two days ago, when I broke up with Isaac before the kids and I got ready to fly to South Carolina. I told him we were going to the Big Island for a vacation with Sherry, and that he should take the ten days we were gone to move out. I knew if he learned that Chuck had died, he’d insist on coming to the funeral and I didn’t want Isaac stress on top of burying-my-father stress. And once I’d decided to break up, I couldn’t put it off. I’d finally admitted that friendship and sweet lovemaking were never going to be enough for me, and I didn’t want to settle for less for even a few more days.
I wanted passion and fire, I wanted to walk up to the edge of oblivion and stare into the chaos on the other side. I wanted Gabe, and now, miraculously, I have another shot with the man I thought I’d lost forever. I would be a weak, pathetic, coward to shy away from that, simply because our second chance is going to be difficult.
My entire life has been difficult. If I’m equipped for anything, it’s digging my heels in and getting through the hard shit.
“You’re going to say yes,” Gabe says, his lips twisting to one side the way they do when he’s getting what he wants. “I can tell. I remember this face.”
I take a breath, and a tiny flame of hope flickers back to life inside me. “What else do you remember? I want to know everything.”
“Me too,” he says. “You want to get out of here? Go someplace private where we can be alone to talk?”
I meet his eyes and I can tell he isn’t thinking about talking, but no matter how much I’d love to let Gabe whisk me away to his father’s abandoned office, or the barn in his parents’ back forty, or some lonely gravel road so far from civilization no one would hear me scream his name, I don’t want sex to come first. Our sexual connection was amazing, but I don’t want to make love to Gabe again until I know we’re both emotionally invested. Making love to him, while he simply fucked me, would break my heart.
“We can go into the backyard,” I say. “This is Veronica’s house now, so I wouldn’t feel right going inside without knocking, and I think it’s best to let her sleep as long as possible. She left a couple of messages on my phone last night while we were in the air. Sounded like she’d had a few.”
“Is she going to notice we’re walking around outside?”
“I doubt it,” I say, leading the way across the grass. “And even if she does, she’ll be cool. She’s actually a pretty decent person.”
“Better than Chuck deserved?” Gabe asks in a wry tone.
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Maybe. I don’t know. My dad was better near the end. I sort of wish I’d made more of an effort with him.”
Gabe stops walking several feet from the picnic table under the shade tree. I turn, not liking the look on his face. “What?”
His brows draw together, reminding me that Gabe is beautiful, even when he’s frowning. “I don’t know if I should tell you on the day of your father’s wake.”
“Tell me,” I say. “If it’s about Chuck, not much could surprise me.”
Gabe studies me for a moment before he nods, evidently deciding to take me at my word. “I came here looking for you last January. Chuck answered the door.”
My features flinch, as if they can’t figure out what kind of face to make in response to the bomb Gabe’s just dropped. “Wh-what? Are you sure it was him?”
“I’m sure. I asked if he knew where you were, but he said you’d run off, and he hadn’t seen you since last summer. He said you’d left the kids alone, and he’d sent them to live with his sister in Florida not long after.”
Pain flashes through my chest as I struggle to wrap my head around this latest betrayal. How could Chuck do this? How could he keep something like Gabe being alive from me? How could even he be such a complete and utter bastard?
“I was wrong,” I say, fighting to breathe past the painful knot fisting in my chest. “I guess Chuck still has a few surprises left in him, after all.”
“Maybe he thought he was doing you a favor?” Gabe asks, pity in his eyes. “I remember he wasn’t a fan of you and me.”
I shake my head. “No, he knew how much I loved you, and how devastated I was when you died.” I shake my head again, a little harder. “When I thought you’d died.”
“I’m so sorry. No one should have to go through what you’ve been through.” Gabe steps closer, pulling me against him. I go willingly, wrapping my arms aroun
d his waist and pressing my face to his white polo shirt, inhaling the miraculous scent of him.
“Even thinking I might have lost you…” He takes in a breath and lets it out long and slow. “It was unthinkable. Especially knowing I might have been the one responsible.”
I lift my head, tilting my chin up until I can see his face. “But you had to know you would never hurt me. Never. I can’t even imagine it.”
He meets my gaze and the relief in his eyes is palpable. “I didn’t want to believe I would, but my parents said the tumor changed me. And I don’t remember why we did the things we did, the robberies and…all the rest of it. Especially the rest of it.”
I can tell by his tone he means the murder. “A man named Ned Pitt kidnapped me,” I begin softly, filling Gabe in on the events of the night Pitt lost his life and we burned his house to the ground. By the time I’m finished, Gabe doesn’t look relieved. He looks furious, merciless, the way he did when he was standing next to the mattress where we’d dumped Pitt’s body, preparing to set it on fire.
“That explains how angry I am in those memories,” Gabe says. “All I can think about is how much I want to kill whoever I’ve got my hands on. I swear I can taste blood in my mouth, but I can’t get a clear picture of the person’s face.”
“You were in a lot of pain,” I say. “You were blacking out. That’s how I found out about the tumor.”
Gabe’s eyes open wider and his lips tighten. He doesn’t say a word, but I can still read him as well as I could before.
“You didn’t remember that you didn’t tell me.” I don’t wait for Gabe to confirm my suspicion. “It’s okay. I wasn’t angry. I understood.”
He’s quiet for a moment before he says, “How could you?”
“Neither of us planned on falling in love,” I say with a shrug. “We made a promise to each other that we wouldn’t. We were only supposed to be together for the summer. Just one wild summer.”
“But we fell in love anyway,” Gabe says, meeting my eyes with a hopeful look. “Should be easy to fall in love again if we’re actually trying.”
As long as ghosts don’t get in our way, I think. Aloud I say—
“You want to come to the wake with me? I would rather not let you out of my sight, if that’s okay with you.”
He nods. “That’s perfect. Should I go home and change?”
I shake my head. “Shorts and tee shirts are fine. The Cooneys don’t stand on ceremony. Besides, I think it’s better if we keep us a secret, at least until we figure out why your parents lied.”
“And your dad, too,” Gabe reminds me, eyes narrowing as he glances toward the house. “You don’t think they were in on it together, do you?”
I frown. “I don’t see how. I doubt Chuck ever met your parents. They didn’t exactly run in the same social circles.”
“No, they didn’t.” Gabe nods, but I can tell he isn’t ready to let this go. “Still, we shouldn’t rule it out. We should start a file and keep all the information we collect together. Sooner or later, we’ll figure out what happened, and who’s responsible.”
“And then what?” I ask, excitement making my belly flutter. He sounds like the old Gabe, when we were putting together a plan for a new job.
“Then we make it clear to my parents, and anyone else involved, that they aren’t allowed to interfere in our lives ever again,” he says, a dangerous note in his voice that makes my heart join in the fluttering.
Maybe the old Gabe and the new Gabe aren’t so different, after all.
Chapter Thirteen
Gabe
“When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”
-Shakespeare
The day passes with infinite slowness. I call my mother and apologize for missing our lunch date. I tell her I’m too tired from my ride to get cleaned up, ignore her obvious irritation, and settle into my first Irish-Catholic wake.
It involves a lot more drinking than any funeral-type event I’ve been to before, but it’s not a bad scene. Aside from the body in the back room that Caitlin views for only a few moments before carefully keeping the rest of the kids away from their embalmed father, it’s a fairly festive event.
Chuck’s girlfriend is welcoming, and I’m happy to see the kids—especially Emmie, who gives me a hug as soon as she walks in the door, though I can’t believe she remembers me—but tipping my glass to a man who lied to keep me and Caitlin apart isn’t the way I want to spend my first day back with the woman I’ve been dreaming about every night for the past six months. I want to be alone with her. I want to kiss every inch of her body, and make her come calling my name. I want to hold her close afterward, and whisper whatever it takes to banish the doubt and fear in her eyes. I’m different than I was, and it’s obvious she sees that, but I know I can be the man she loved again.
Every doctor I’ve met with since the surgery has said the same thing—even if the memories are intact, it will take time for the brain to form new neural pathways to access old information—but right now I feel like I could slash my way through the overgrown jungle of my mind in a single night, if I could just get Caitlin alone…
But we are surrounded by Chuck’s girlfriend’s friends, a dozen of Chuck’s drinking buddies from the local dive, who have come for the free beer, and a shifting stream of people from the neighborhood, dropping by out of respect for the family. Caitlin is kept busy greeting visitors and helping Veronica hand out beer and snacks, but even in her few moments of downtime, there’s not much of a chance for us to talk. Caitlin holds my hand, or threads her arm through mine, but her attention has been captured by her sister, newly returned from God knows where.
Aoife holds court at the kitchen table, laughing with old friends excited to see her back in town, while she helps Emmie make rubber band friendship bracelets with a kit Caitlin brought to keep the kids entertained. The nearly four-year-old’s slender arm is already half covered with bracelets, but she can’t seem to get enough. She stays on Aoife’s lap for almost an hour, during which I’m pretty sure Caitlin is going to grind her teeth to nubs.
“Relax,” I whisper. “She’s a novelty. The thrill will wear off.”
“Aoife’s up to something,” Caitlin whispers back. “I don’t know what, but she wouldn’t come back just for Chuck’s funeral. She hated him.”
“So did you,” I remind her.
She sighs as she turns away from the cozy scene to stare out the curtains into the front yard, where the boys are playing horseshoes with a few of Chuck’s friends from the bar. “I just wish I knew why he lied.”
“I’d like to know that, too. I’ll search my mother’s and father’s home offices tonight. See if I can find a Chuck connection, or make sense of the ashes you found.”
“They were a prop,” Caitlin says bitterly. “Part of the lie.”
I make a considering sound. Caitlin’s mind is made up, but I don’t understand why my parents would go to such drastic lengths. It’s not as if they knew Caitlin was going to break into Darby Hill. Caitlin assured me no one but Ned Pitt knew about our illegal activities, and we made sure he didn’t have the chance to share the news with anyone.
I don’t know how to feel about the fact that Caitlin and I killed a man together. Or, more accurately, I don’t know how to feel about the fact that I’m glad the man is dead. Learning the truth put my mind at ease for the first time in weeks. I didn’t murder an innocent; I helped take out an abomination who would have been spending his life in jail if my father didn’t excel at defending criminals.
I’m supposed to go back to school in the fall to finish my pre-law degree, then head to law school, and eventually end up back in Giffney, where I’ll join the practice my father and grandfather built. It’s all planned out, my entire life stretching out before me like a freshly paved road. But now I’m starting to see the cracks in the shiny surface and the tempting places to turn off that would allow me to head i
n a completely different direction.
“Caitlin, can I put on my swimsuit?” comes a high, sweet voice from near the couch.
Caitlin and I turn from the window to find Emmie bouncing up and down on her bare feet, a giddy expression on her face. “Mama says she’ll put up the Slip 'N Slide in the back yard. Can I have my suit on now?”
I glance sideways, not surprised to see Caitlin’s face draining of color and her lips pressing into a thin, angry line. When Aoife rises from her chair at the dining table and crosses the room, I half expect Caitlin to lift her small fists and start swinging.
Instead, she smiles and lifts a brow. “Mama?”
“She was having a hard time saying my name,” Aoife explains, resting her hands on Emmie’s thin shoulders. “I thought ‘mama’ would be easier.”
“It’s Ee Fuh, Emmie,” Caitlin says, her gaze not leaving Aoife’s face. “Ee, like in street, and Fuh like Fuh-ged-about-it.” She does the last part in an accent that makes Emmie laugh.
“Fuh-ged-about-it,” Emmie repeats, giggling again. “Ee Fuh-ged-about-it.”
“Perfect!” Caitlin bends down, grinning as she tickles Emmie’s ribs.
Emmie laughs hard enough to send her shoulders sliding out from under her mother’s hands. The moment she’s free, Caitlin swoops Emmie into her arms and kisses her flushed cheek.
“And I have a better idea than the Slip 'N Slide.” Caitlin rests her forehead on Emmie’s. “How about we go check into our hotel and try out the pool? You and Sean can show Gabe what good swimmers you are now.”
Emmie’s eyes light up. “Pool! Yay, pool!”
“Get your sandals on, and go let the boys know,” Caitlin says, setting Emmie back on her feet. “Tell them we’re leaving in five minutes.”
Aoife looks less than pleased with the sudden departure, but she doesn’t say a word until Emmie is out of earshot, the front door slamming closed behind her.
