by Jax Hunter
Julie was gone, plain and simple. A half-eaten muffin left on her plate. She must have taken off as soon as he’d turned on the water. Nic ran his hand through his still damp hair. Where could she have gone in her pajamas? On the table was the pad he’d written the police department address on.
“Damn it all!”
Nic skidded to a stop at the front desk, interrupting the desk clerk to ask if there were any messages. He wasn’t surprised when the clerk, with lips pursed, handed him a note.
Nic,
Thank you so much for everything. I will find a way to pay you back for the clothes. Sorry, I just can’t go to the police.
Julie
Nic crumpled the note in his hand and scanned the lobby. Where would she have bought… There. A small boutique. He strode that way.
“Excuse me,” he said to the store clerk, who had her nose buried in a magazine. “Did a pretty blonde girl come in here in her pajamas and buy some clothes?”
“Oh, yes, sir. She left about half an hour ago. I think she caught the courtesy bus.”
“What did she buy?”
“You must be Nic.”
“What?”
“Nic. You must be Nic. She told me about you.”
“Really.” Who cares? Just answer the question.
“Too bad about her losing her bags. It shouldn’t spoil your honeymoon though.”
“Our honeymoon... Right. No, it shouldn’t. But I do need to know what she bought, if you don’t mind.”
The girl, now a bit flustered, pulled out the receipt that she said had been charged to the room. “Jeans, a sweater, a jacket, and some boots. Here’s the receipt.”
Nic took a deep breath before looking at the bottom line. Places like this weren’t known for their discount clothing. Two hundred thirty-six dollars and some change.
Sheesh.
“She did select all sale items. I tried to talk her into the blue cashmere sweater. It would have accented her eyes.”
At what must have been a look of total bafflement, she babbled on.
“I’ve always thought light blue with brown eyes was gorgeous. But she didn’t want to spend much, said she just needed something to wear. She didn’t want to go out in pajamas. Guess she was lucky she had those in her carry-on.”
“Whatever. What color coat did she get?”
“Green, forest green,” she replied, walking to a near rack, “like this one, only green.”
“Thanks.” Nic bolted from the store, heading to the elevators before he stopped short. He turned around and instead, went to the lobby doors. No bus waiting. Damn. Again, he walked to the front desk. “Can you tell me where the courtesy bus runs?”
“Mostly anywhere in town, sir.”
“When will it be back?”
The clerk checked her watch. “Another fifteen minutes or so.”
“Thanks.” Nic didn’t want to waste time. But it would help to know where Julie’d been dropped off. Trust your instincts, Boyo. He felt his coat pocket. No keys. She’d gone to get the car. Nic sprinted to the elevator, taking it to the parking level. What had first been irritation at her behavior now turned to pure fear for her safety. But for the life of him, he couldn’t pinpoint why.
He had to find her and find her fast.
There she was. Sitting on a bench a half block from where her car had stopped last night. Her hair shone, despite the thick cloud cover, making her look almost angelic. No car though. Must have already been towed. Nic found the nearest parking place and pulled in.
“Hey.”
She hadn’t seen him coming. She wasn’t watching, just sitting there looking at her hands. Nic noted she didn’t buy gloves. He sat down beside her on the bench.
“The best laid plans...” she said.
“And if the car had still been here? What then?” He reached over and took her hand in his.
Silence.
He asked again.
“I’d have used the twenty bucks I took from your wallet for gas and... gone, well, somewhere else. Out of your hair, for one thing.”
Nic laughed, hoping to dislodge the guilt that settled in his stomach. He had wanted to get rid of her. Still did. But he’d hoped he hadn’t let her know that. Obviously he hadn’t been successful.
“Take off your shades.”
“What?”
“I can’t see your eyes.”
He slid his sunglasses up on top of his head.
Julie searched his eyes, her own serious, cautious.
“I’m not going to the police station, Nic.”
“No, you’re not.”
Her eyes widened at this.
“I changed my mind. We can give it some time, I guess.”
“Thank you.” She squeezed his hand.
He nodded and led her to the car.
They stopped at the store, and Nic bought groceries—canned soup, sandwich makings, whatever looked good. Then, he threw things for Julie into the cart—a toothbrush, mittens, a couple pairs of socks and a three pack of underwear. She tried to talk him out of it, blushing furiously the entire time.
“I don’t particularly want you washing out the same pair and letting it dry in my bathroom.”
Totally rude and he knew it. But at least it shut her up.
By the time they reached the hotel, the snow had started in earnest again. There wasn’t a parking place to be found in the garage, so they ended up walking a half block, carrying the grocery bags.
“God, I love the snow.” Julie laughed as she tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue.
She was so danged adorable, it was hard to stay irritated with her. Smiling at her antics on the outside, underneath, he cringed as the warmth of caring kindled inside him.
“I miss it,” she said
Nic stopped in his tracks.
“What?”
Julie stopped as well, giving him a curious look.
“Did you hear what you said?”
“Yeah, I said I miss the...” Julie paused, the realization of her words showing on her face, “snow.” Her expression darkened, the fun that had been there a moment before replaced with anger and frustration. “Argh.” The sound came out through clenched teeth. “Which way were we going?”
Nic lifted the bags he held in one hand to point the direction. That was weird. A fleeting doubt came and went. She’d have to be an Oscar-caliber actress to be faking it. He dismissed the thought with the admission that amnesia likely was weird like that, but took a moment to fervently hope she wasn’t an ax murderer. Nic made a mental note to ask Cruz the next time they spoke, to grab a paramedic book and look up the symptoms of amnesia. Or call the team’s doc. Or Google it.
Julie was quiet as Nic cleared out a drawer for her things. He left her to put stuff away, went to the living room and turned on the TV. When she hadn’t come out in fifteen minutes he went to check on her.
“You okay?” He had to ask twice before she looked over.
“I can’t do this.”
He started to make a joke about putting her stuff away, but stopped before it reached his lips. Instead, he went over, moved the bags to the floor and sat beside her on the bed. “I can’t believe that you’ll have to, kiddo. I don’t know much about amnesia. I’m a medic, not a psychiatrist. But, surely...”
“Surely what?” Her voice rose, edging toward explosion. “Tomorrow morning I’ll wake up and be cured? Or maybe I’ll fall off the balcony and hit my head and be cured. Or...”
She shot off the bed and out of the bedroom before he could stop her. He followed. She paced in front of the balcony window as if the room, not her brain, held her prisoner. He perched on the arm of the couch.
“Julie, don’t panic yet. As far as we know, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. Your memory will come back. Give it some time. I’d guess the harder you try to remember, the less likely you will. Out in the snow, it just came out of your mouth. Maybe it will again.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“I don’t know, babe.�
�� Things were just coming out of his mouth, too. It was disconcerting. He hardly knew this girl—didn’t know her at all—and he’s calling her babe. What the hell?
She stopped pacing and stared out the window.
“What happened to me, Nic? Who am I?”
Nic pushed himself to stand. He hated this inaction, this wondering. “C’mere,” he said, pointing to the table. “Let’s make a list of what we do know about you.”
“I’m hungry.” Julie turned around, smiling now.
Man, she changed gears faster than...
“You promised me a burger,” she said, leaving him wondering when he’d done that. Maybe he had amnesia too.
“Let’s make your silly list over lunch.” She walked to the door and grabbed her coat on the way out.
They sat in the back corner of the upscale burger joint, fries spread out on a napkin beside the hotel pad Nic stuck in his pocket before leaving the room.
“Okay, my first name is Julie,” she said. Popped a mustard-smothered fry in her mouth.
“And you put mustard on your fries.” Nic wrote that down.
“I like snow.”
“You catch snowflakes on your tongue and you don’t drink coffee.”
“Now we’re close to solving the mystery.” Julie again, pointedly this time, doused her fry in yellow.
“You say things like ‘no worries mate.’”
“Wow, I do? You’re very observant.”
Nic waggled his eyebrows at her. “I get paid the big bucks to be observant.”
“And you’re a paramedic from Boston.”
At some point, he’d have to clear up that small misunderstanding. “I know who I am.”
“Showoff.” Julie reached across the table, sloppy fry in hand. “Here, have one.”
Nic grabbed her hand before the food touched his lips. Her eyes danced with mischief.
Whoa.
“Cut it out.” Nic released her hand and looked back down at the paper.
“Sorry.”
She didn’t look sorry. Back to work. “Your car has California plates.”
“It does?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“What else?”
“Well, you’re not wearing a wedding ring.”
“Neither are you.”
“Get serious here.” He jabbed the pen down several times on the pad.
Julie looked out the window, her expression sobering. At last, she spoke. “If I get serious...” She slid out of the booth, taking her coat with her. “This is stupid anyway. Thank you for the food.” Without another word she jammed her arms into the jacket and stomped from the restaurant.
She was waiting at the car when he got there and got in without saying another word.
“I’m scared, Nic.”
She didn’t give him a chance to answer but forged ahead, words tumbling from her mouth. “I’m up and down and up and down, you know. I’m scrambled, and confused, and kinda dead inside.” She wrung her hands absently and her voice climbed as she continued. “Earlier, on the bench, I had the urge to charge out into traffic, to see if it would hurt to get hit by a car. I have impulses that overtake me from nowhere, impulses to do unimaginable things, things that make me wonder if that’s really the kind of person I am.”
She slammed her mouth shut, as if by doing so she could quell the emotion, the fear.
“What kind of things?” he asked.
No response.
Nic pulled into a parking place and shut off the car.
“What kind of things, Julie?”
Yanking the door open, she climbed out and led the way to his room.
They didn’t bring up her amnesia again. They played gin rummy, watched TV—sitting at opposite ends of the couch—and had soup for dinner. Without warning, Julie got up and stated flatly that she was going to bed.
“You think you’ll end up on the floor in the morning?”
“Not if I can help it.”
She left the door open halfway and soon turned off the light.
Much later, he heard her, but didn’t let on, as she dragged her pillow and blanket into the living room and took her place on the floor in front of the couch.
It was a struggle not to reach down and touch her.
When Christmas morning came, Nic once again stepped over Julie. Leaving her asleep in the still-darkened room, he went to shower.
With the water running, he wasn’t sure he’d actually heard the door open, then close. Before he could utter the question on his lips, Julie stepped into the shower.
“What the hell?”
“I’m here to wash your back.”
“Uh, Julie. I don’t think...”
“Good, don’t think.” Her gaze never left his face as she moved under the water, pressed up against him, reaching around him to run her hands down his back. Her lips were warm on his neck.
There was no way to hide his body’s reaction to her. When her hands reached his shoulders, she drew back. “What’s this?”
His body followed the command of her hands as she turned him away from her. “What happened?” Her fingers lightly traced the scar that ran from just below his left shoulder to the top of his rib cage.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
She wrapped her arms around him, her hands hot on his belly, her body, wet and warm on his back. His eyes closed. Explosions went off inside him.
With all the willpower he could muster, he turned around, taking her shoulders and moving her back a step.
“Julie, stop.” It was almost a croak. “I can’t.”
Julie smiled, her eyes scanning down his body, and back up to lock with his.
“Yes, you can.” She moved closer, pressing against him. “I want to feel alive, Nic.”
Again, he moved away from her. “You are alive, Julie. And I’m going to make sure you stay alive. But I can’t do this, tempting as it is. It’s not... I can’t.” He swept the shower curtain back, stepped out, grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist. She didn’t follow, thank God. He wasn’t sure he could have refused again. Everything in him screamed. He moved to the sink, his hands on the counter, as he caught his breath.
When Julie came out of the bedroom she wore her one pair of new jeans and his light-blue sweatshirt. It nearly swallowed her, making her look even smaller, even more vulnerable.
“Through tattered clothes, small vices do appear. Robes and furred gowns hide all,” she said.
“What?”
She cast him a blank look. Then, she shrugged and sat down at the table, absently, shuffling the cards that lay there.
“Nothing. Thanks for letting me wear this.”
Not pouting, exactly, but not talking either. She spent the next half hour playing solitaire while Nic, dying from boredom, alternated between channel surfing the limited selection of stations on the hotel TV and staring out the window at the slopes.
“Why don’t we go skiing?” he said.
Julie didn’t even look up. “Why don’t you go skiing and leave me alone?” She turned over another three cards. “If you’re afraid I’ll leave, I can assure you I won’t.” She stood and threw the remaining cards at the table. “Or maybe you could just lock me in my room.” She spat the words at him, strode into the bedroom and slammed the door.
“Fine,” he said, more to himself than to the closed door, “I’m outta here.”
Nic yanked his swim gear from the bag in the closet and headed to the pool. He needed to move. And move some more. Sitting made him bitchy.
The first mile in the pool clicked off some of his frustration.
By the fifth mile he felt better.
And when he hit mile ten, he was ready to face the rest of the day cooped up with Julie.
Before he went back upstairs, though, he stopped and called Cruz. Not for the first time, he wished he hadn’t been so adamant about spending this “vacation” disconnected from technology. Maybe he should pick up a burner phone. But, in and out of the mo
untains, the service was spotty and…
“Cruz.”
“Tell me about amnesia.” As anticipated, Cruz was ready with the medical facts.
“Since there’s no evidence of head injury, I’d guess it falls into the dissociative disorder category. Symptoms include,” Cruz was obviously reading now, “extreme mood swings from dull and restrained to impulsive and uninhibited, especially sexually. Patients exhibit the inability to make decisions or perform simple tasks such as getting dressed. See any of these in your girl?”
“Um, yeah.”
Cruz laughed. “Could be good for you, dude. Uninhibited sexually and inability to dress herself...”
Typical Cruz comment.
“Shut up.”
“Sorry.” Now his tone changed. “Actually, most of the symptoms are not serious and should abate once the memory comes back. But, there are instances of suicidal behavior, so watch her, man.”
When he got back to the room, Julie was asleep on the bed, the shirt he’d left on the back of a chair clutched to her chest like a life preserver. Her red nose and puffy eyes gave away that she’d been crying. She must feel so alone.
He knew the feeling. But through the last few grim weeks, his family had stood by him. The team was with him in spirit, sharing his grief. Julie only had him, though. The sight of her, so recently angry and now, small and defenseless, tugged him over to sit on the bed beside her.
Without hesitation, he stacked the extra pillows, stretched out, and pulled her to rest against him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice slow with sleep, “for being so snippy.”
“It’s okay.” Nic reached for the remote, shifting her slightly. “Go back to sleep.”
With a Christmas truce in effect, Nic and Julie spent a quiet evening watching TV and playing cards. Neither of them felt like going out to find a restaurant that was open. So, Nic fixed tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.
Chapter Four
