Magic & Memory (3 page)

“Well, because you’re British. And lots of people in the UK drink tea.”

“I’m British?”

“Yeah. Don’t you hear your accent?”

He shrugged. “I don’t notice it.”

“Seriously?”

“Do you notice
your
accent?”

“I don’t have an accent,” Lu told him. “No one from this part of the U.S. does.”

“Sure you do,” he insisted. “A very strong American one.”

 “News to me, but ok.”

“What state are we in now?” he asked.

“Oregon. You’re in the mountains above Ashland, at the southern end of the state. We’re about twenty miles north of the California border.”

 “Ah.” He took another sip of tea, then asked, “So what else do you notice about me, besides the fact that I’m British?”

She studied him. “Well, you’re probably around seventeen or eighteen.”
And you’re ridiculously gorgeous
, she added to herself. “But beyond that, I can’t tell much about you.” His dark blue eyes remained fixed on her.

She colored slightly, nervous under his gaze as she dumped the remaining soup into a cup, then sat at the opposite end of the sofa and took a cautious sip from the steaming mug.

They ate in silence for a while. Eventually he glanced at the falling snow through the bank of windows across the room and asked, “Will your family be able to make it home in this weather?”

“Actually,” she admitted, “I live here by myself.”

“But aren’t you a little young to be on your own?”

She just shrugged.

“Where are your parents?” he asked.

Her jaw clenched. “They’re gone. And in case you’re about to ask, my legal guardian is in Chicago.”

“I’m sorry about your parents.”

“They’re not dead. Just gone. And I don’t want to talk about it.” She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped an arm around them.

He said gently, “So we’re both alone. It’s good we found each other then.”

“You’re not really alone,” she pointed out. “You just can’t remember anyone right now. You probably have all kinds of people looking for you, parents, friends, brothers and sisters, a girlfriend….” her voice trailed off.

“But I feel alone,” he insisted. “Apart from you, I feel like I have no one.”

“Once it stops snowing we’ll go into town and check at the police station, and I’m sure we’ll find that your family’s filed a missing persons report on you,” she said. “I would call the police station now. But my cell phone needs to be charged, which I can’t do with the power out. I’m sorry about that. Your family is probably so worried.”

My family.
He thought about that, turning the words over in his mind. He tried to feel hopeful at the prospect of finding his parents, people who cared about him. But the word ‘family’ kindled nothing but intense sadness in him. At that moment, he realized he could recall emotions from the life he’d forgotten – though not the memories that accompanied these emotions.

 And what he felt was more than a little troubling.

He shuddered slightly as disembodied feelings from a dark, lonely, miserable existence stirred in him. There was so much pain and suffering, so much fear, though the cause remained hidden. And now that he’d tapped into these emotions they rose up and overwhelmed him, panicking him as he thought, w
hat the hell have I forgotten?

Lu, still in nurse mode, mistook his shudder as a shiver and grabbed a nearby blanket, draping it over him. He caught her hand and held it like a lifeline.

Her brow creased in concern as she asked, “Are you ok?” His eyes locked with hers and she could plainly see fear in them. “Alastair, what’s wrong?”

His breathing was ragged as he tried to concentrate only on Lu. He focused on the clear blue of her eyes for a long moment and this more than anything helped calm him and root him in the present.

Eventually he regained control enough to whisper, “I’m alright. I guess…I guess I had a panic attack or something. Will you please keep holding on to me for just a little longer?”

“Of course,” she said gently.

Still holding her hand, he curled up against her, and Lu put a protective arm around him. She could feel the tension slowly draining from his body as his shoulders relaxed, his breathing leveled out. Eventually he said, “I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.” His voice was thin, and he made no move to let go of her.

“There’s no need to apologize.”

“I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met you, Lu,” he said after a while. “I would be so lost were it not for you.”

She kept holding him, taking comfort in his soothing presence as much as he was taking comfort in hers. And both marveled at how natural it felt to be in each other’s arms like this, as if this was where they belonged.

When Lu awoke on the sofa the next morning her first thought was of Alastair, and she sat up quickly. He was leaning against the opposite arm of the couch, watching her.

“Good morning,” he said with a shy smile. The room was warm, the fire burning brightly. He leaned forward and used a thin piece of firewood to hook the handle of the tea kettle, pulling it back from the flames. Then he used the big oven mitt to pour hot water into a couple waiting mugs. Teabags bobbed to the surface.

          “How do you feel?” she asked by way of greeting.

          “About the same.”

          “Have you remembered anything?”

          He forced himself not to shudder as he thought of the emotions that had assaulted him the night before, and replied, “Nothing concrete,” as he set a cup of tea in front of her. She thanked him, reaching for the mug.

          “I’m really sorry about that panic attack, or whatever it was last night,” he said embarrassedly. “You must be so tired of all my drama.”

          “You don’t have to apologize,” Lu told him. “I know you’re dealing with a lot right now.” 

          He leaned back against the arm of the sofa, holding a mug in his lap and idly submerging the teabag again and again with his fingertip. After a while he said, “Can I ask you something?”

          “Sure.”

“Why don’t you go by Luna?”

          She grinned. “That’s random. But ok, it’s because I really don’t like my name.” She fished out her teabag, depositing it on a nearby saucer.

          “Why not?”

“I guess because it was a hard name to grow up with. Other kids loved to make fun of it. They’d call me
Luna
tic, among other things. I learned to hate it.”

          “I can see how that would be annoying. But I quite like your name. It’s beautiful, and in that regard it suits you,” Alastair told her.

“Oh. Well, thanks.” She felt the color rising in her cheeks at the offhand compliment. “I like your name, too,” she added, and immediately felt stupid for saying that.

“If that’s really my name,” he said.

Lu smiled. “It has to be yours. It’s so totally British.”

He smiled too, which lit up his eyes. “That doesn’t prove it’s my name. I could be called any one of a hundred names that are equally British. Nigel, for example. Or Bertram. Or…Hamish.”

“Hamish?” she laughed.

“Why not? Don’t I look like a Hamish?” He was still smiling.

“You look like an Alastair. And why can you recall several examples of British names when you can’t recall your own?”

He thought about that. “I have no idea. Do me a favor -- ask me a trivia question. Let’s see if I know the answer.”

“What’s the Queen of England’s name?”

“Elizabeth the second. Hmm, curious,” he mused. “Now why the hell do I know that and not my own name?”

“Because you’re a fine British citizen,” she joked, eliciting a chuckle from him.

“But it makes no bloody sense,” he said, and then added, “Ah, there, I just heard my accent. No Yank would describe something as bloody.”

“Unless it was, of course, bloody.”

“Indeed.”

“Nor would we call ourselves Yanks,” she pointed out.

“This is true.” He smiled, then studied her for a long moment before saying, “You have the most amazing affect on me, Lu. You make me feel like everything is going to be ok, even at a time when my life is an utter shambles. I’m so grateful for that.”

“It
is
going to be ok,” she told him.

“As long as you’re around, it will be.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” she murmured, looking closely at him -- his open, vulnerable expression, the dark blue depths of his eyes, the way his lips parted ever-so-slightly as he met her gaze.
God, he’s beautiful,
she thought. She was tempted to reach out and run a fingertip over the perfect curve of his upper lip.

And then she realized where her mind was wandering and felt ridiculous. To hide her embarrassment she abruptly jumped off the couch and headed to the kitchen, mumbling, “I think I have some honey to go with this tea.” And as she retreated she told herself,
Get a grip, Lu!

 He’d noticed and misinterpreted her sudden discomfort and followed her into the kitchen, saying, “I’m sorry, Lu. I know I make you nervous.” His voice was tinged with sadness as he stared at the worn linoleum floor. “It must be awful for you, having a stranger in your home, disrupting your life like this. And that I just broke in uninvited -- it’s no wonder I make you so uneasy. But I swear I mean you no harm. You don’t have to worry about your safety with me.” 

Lu turned to face him. “I know, Alastair. That’s not at all what makes me nervous around you.” Now it was her turn to study the linoleum.

“Then what is it? Please tell me what I’m doing to make you uneasy and I’ll stop it at once.”

She couldn’t help but grin at that.

“Well, now I’m confused,” he said as he watched her expression.

“You don’t make me nervous because I find you threatening, Alastair.” She looked him in the eye and decided to be honest. “You make me nervous because you’re…well, you’re really good looking.” What an understatement! She grinned again as his eyebrows shot toward his hair line. “And no way can you stop being hot, so I’ll just have to get used to it.”

Now it was his turn to grin. “You think I’m attractive?”

“
Anyone
would think you’re attractive. Have you not at any point looked in a mirror?”

He relaxed against the kitchen doorframe. “I have, actually.”

“And?”

 “I thought I seemed kind of average,” he shrugged. “And I have some serious hair issues. Do you suppose
this
is on purpose?” He pointed at the thick shock of black hair that almost always partially covered his right eye. She laughed at that, which made him smile. “You have the best laugh,” he told her. “It’s my new goal to make you laugh more often.”

“It’s actually been a while,” she admitted. “There hasn’t really been a lot to laugh about. Not lately.” Her voice wavered on the last part as memories of the last few months rushed to the surface, shoving aside the happiness that had begun taking root in her just a moment before.

She turned her back to him again, this time looking out the window at the postcard-perfect winter scene before her. The storm had cleared during the night, and now the snow sparkled brilliantly in the bright sunlight.

Alastair came up behind her and asked gently, “What’s wrong?”

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to hear about my problems right now,” Lu told him as she turned to the cupboards and tugged one open. “You have plenty of your own to deal with.”

“You’ve been such a tremendous help to me, Lu. I’m sure you literally saved my life, I would have frozen to death if you hadn’t let me stay here. Won’t you let me repay at least a little of that kindness by telling me what’s wrong?” His voice was soft as a caress.

“I can’t really talk about it.”

“Are you sure?”

“If I try to talk about it I’ll just start crying again, which I’ve already been doing for months,” Lu said. “I’ll be a total wreck. And you really don’t want to deal with me when I’m like that.”

“Why not? You dealt with me when I was at my absolute worst, little more than a miserable stray that showed up wet and muddy in your living room.” A little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “At least, I
hope
that was my worst. I’d hate to think that was actually some kind of high point compared to my usual wretched state of affairs.”

She couldn’t help but grin as she turned to face him. “I’m sure your life is normally fabulous. Judging by the fact that you’re currently about five thousand miles from your country of origin, you’re probably a world traveler who spends all his time jetting from one fabulous exotic location to another.”

He playfully raised an eyebrow. “Then what on Earth am I doing here? I mean, no offense, but we’re clearly in the middle of absolutely nowhere.”

Lu put her hands on her hips and pretended to be indignant. “We are not! Well, ok, we kind of
are
in the middle of nowhere. But there are plenty of reasons someone would come to Ashland, like world-class theaters and a great university. Just as two examples.”