Mind Lies (4 page)

Chapter Five

Cooper and Portia went home for the evening, leaving me to a restless night.

The next morning was not welcome.

I have more questions than answers. No matter how hard I push to remember the answers, the only thing I receive is a pounding headache in my forgetful brain.

“That’s incredibly normal for this type of trauma,” the Doctor assured me. Not the same man who was originally in my room when I woke up, but the Doctor who specializes in head trauma and memory loss. Nice woman. Late forties, I would guess. She’s dressed casually in black slacks, a pale-purple blouse, and chunky jewelry. 

“Do people in my position ever remember?” I had asked her.

She gave me a kind smile. Not a sympathetic one I would have hated, but one that said,
I’m here to answer your questions, and there is no such thing as a stupid question.

“I truly hope you do regain your memory, Jerri. And it is absolutely possible. Why don’t I explain some cases to you? I can tell you that memory loss is different for everyone. It very much is. But I don’t think that’s the answer that you’re looking for.”

I shake my head. “No, it’s not.”

Crossing her legs, she moves forward. “I’ll give you some past examples: One of my patient’s brain had swollen so badly that a portion of the skull needed to be removed in order to compensate for the amount of swelling. He’d been in a coma for months and had broken half the bones in his body. And when he opened his eyes to see his wife of two years, he had no idea who she was.”

“That’s terrible.”

Nodding, she confirms, “It is. But as soon as that man saw his brother, his parents, and his best friend, he knew who all of them were—just not his wife.”

I squint at the familiar pull. “I think I’ve heard a similar story to that. It sounds familiar.”

She smiles, and I can’t help but smile back. “You’re right,” she says. “There is a movie about something similar, but we’re talking a true story, in this case. And in this story, the reason the man didn’t remember his wife was because she was the one he was trying to forget in the first place.”

I wave her on to continue.

“He found her cheating on him. So he went on a bender and crashed his car,” she said.

I nod as it comes together. “So he didn’t remember her because he didn’t want to. Whether he knew it or not.”

“Exactly.”

“So, because I remember nothing, really, are you saying maybe I don’t want to remember at all?” I ask. That would be awful, and after meeting Portia and Cooper, two incredibly kind people, I can’t see that being the case.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Let’s go with story number two. Patient was in a work accident. She was a quiet gal who kept to herself. But when she woke up, she knew nothing—not even her name. She didn’t remember a movie, like you may have just remembered. She didn’t have visions or memories of a man, like you do. She had absolutely nothing.

“Turned out, her life was more traumatic than her head injury. She’d been abused her entire life in ways neither of us want to imagine. There were no signs of permanent damage to her brain, and although we still discover new things about the brain and memory loss every day, I don’t think there was anything physically wrong with her. I think her brain was just filled with so much horror that it wouldn’t let her remember, more or less.” She pauses to take a breath. “I could be wrong; we all mistreat and misdiagnose. But I’ve been doing this for twenty years, and sometimes I think there’s a reason the brain keeps us from remembering.”

“Do you think that’s what my brain could be doing? Blocking me from remembering something?”

Folding her notebook, she shrugs. “I don’t know, Jerri. It sounds like the past ten years of your life haven’t been too bad. You have great friends and a sound business. And you’re an attractive thirty-two-year-old single woman. The only thing we don’t know is what happened in your first twenty-two years. Portia said you didn’t talk about them much. I could be wrong, off my rocker, out in left field. But maybe, just maybe, there’s something in there that’s keeping a wall up. I also think it’s too soon for us to make assumptions.”

She could be right, and I’m no expert. So I’m not about to argue with her. “What should I do?”

Throwing her Kate Spade bag over her shoulder, she says, “I’d see what you can find out at home. Live in it. Try to make yourself comfortable in the space, and look through whatever you can get your hands on. Your home is what you made it. Start there and see if you can find any clues, something that will spark a memory. Maybe it will come. Maybe it won’t. You have my card. Call me and we’ll go over things again when you get settled.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“No problem, Jerri.”

* * *

“Jerri?” the barista shouts from the end of the counter. Locklin squeezes my hip before getting our order as I claim the love seat by the window. It’s a beautiful spring day outside. The sun is shining, trees are in bloom, and the man I am absolutely infatuated with is spending the day with me.

Bliss.

“Here, babe.” I eagerly accept my latte and settle in so I can enjoy the view. Not the scenery, not the cafe, but the view beside me. His face is shadowed, giving me little to remember him by. But that’s how dreams go, right? They give you so much and yet nothing at all.

I see his hair, its usual raven color showing burnt-copper highlights in the sun. I see his jaw. Strong, masculine, with full lips.

I see his build. Broad shoulders, muscular thighs. Hands resting on them that show signs of use. Small calluses and a few scrapes.

Working hands.

His smell. It’s clean and woodsy with notes of leather and spice.

It smells like home.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asks.

I quirk a brow. “Just a penny?”

Moving his hand from his thigh to my arm, he traces it lightly with his fingers all the way up until it rests on the back of my neck. Pulling me forward until his lips are touching mine, he tells me, “A monetary value cannot be placed on a woman like yourself. Because you, Lass, are priceless.”

I whisper back against his lips, “Smooth talker.”

He grins before pressing his lips firmly to mine. Reaching out with the hand not holding my morning brew, I grab hold of his leather jacket to keep him close. If we weren’t in a public place, I would already be in his lap, and his tongue would have invaded my mouth—perhaps other parts of me as well.

Breaking the kiss, reluctantly, we settle in to a comfortable silence for a while. He rarely takes his eyes off of me. But when I turn to stare back, his face is blank, blurry, as if a fog keeps me from seeing exactly who he is.

“How’s the shop doing?” he asks.

Twining my fingers through his, I tell him, “I’m sure you already know the answer to that, but I’ll humor you by saying it’s doing well.”

He casually runs his thumb over the palm of my hand, back and forth, back and forth. It’s hypnotic, and I close my eyes to absorb the feel of him beside me; if I can’t see his face, I’ll take the most of his presence and inhale as much of his scent as I can.

He is truly a beautiful man, both inside and out. Sometimes I think he’s just lost his way. Or maybe he’s stubbornly set in his own way. Locklin is a mystery that you can’t help but want to decode. But regardless of how little time we get to spend together, I do my best to enjoy and savor the moments we have.

Like this one in the cafe.

I shift on the sofa, cringing lightly at the soreness between my legs. He smirks at me in a way that says, “You will still be feeling me for days, Jerri girl.”

One thing: Locklin is not is a selfish lover. He consumes you, owns you, and makes you crave every bit of contact he gifts you. I watch his hands. Strong fingers that are capable of such wonderfully depraved things caress my own.

“Have you thought anymore about what I asked you?” I ask.

His thumb stops its movement.

“You know I can’t,” he firmly replies.

Frustrated and disappointed, I tell him, “You won’t. You can, but you won’t.”

Giving my hand a squeeze, he then pulls me up off the love seat and tosses our empty java cups in the trash on his way out of the café. “I’m not the man you think I am.”

I shake my head at him. In defeat? In disappointment? I don’t know. “And apparently I’m not the priceless woman you make me out to be.”

Slamming his hand against a nearby news stand, he shouts, “Dammit, you know I can’t change anything now. I care for you, Lass, deeply. You know I do. But this changes nothing. It can’t.”

Passing me my helmet, he mounts his motorcycle. After I’ve fastened it, I reluctantly take his hand to get on behind him. The engine revs and rumbles beneath us as he maneuvers the streets on our way out of town. I rest my cheek on his back, tighten my hands around his waist, and pray that my desperate whisper is taken with the wind.

“Stay.”

The wind took nothing, because he answer’s back. “I can’t.”

Chapter Six

“We already know she can wipe her own ass, Doc. That’s not what we’re asking.”

I laugh. It’s been a long three days, but they’ve been made shorter by Portia’s antics. How she makes me laugh, I don’t know. But I am incredibly grateful to have had someone like her by my side. She’s arguing with the doctor, in my defense of course, to get me the hell out of here and into the comfort of my own home, since I’m able to wipe my own ass.

Embarrassment—albeit very little—aside, she has a point. I’ve done some walking, and the swelling in my brain is pretty much non-existent. Other than my useless left arm, everything is functional. Agonizing, but functional.

There is more blue on my body than skin tone. The seat belt bruising. My bruised, swollen legs from their impact with the dash. Cuts, scrapes, and stitches mark around the blue. Small cuts all over my arms from glass. The stitches in the side of my head from its impact with the window. Lacerations to my neck from a tree branch. Thankfully, it didn’t hit a main artery.

But I’m alive.

Apparently, I wrote off my SUV.

“What we worry about in these situations is basically an overload in the sensory department. You’re still in the fragile faze, Ms. Sloane. And although I can’t necessarily keep you any longer, I hope that if you experience any of the symptoms I mentioned that you will get yourself to a hospital immediately.”

Portia gives him what looks like a scout’s honor symbol. “I’ll be on top of it, Doc. You can count on me.”

His thin-lipped smile says otherwise as he mumbles about getting paperwork on his way out the door.

“He’s such a dink.”

I sputter, “A dink. Really? I may not remember anything, but for some reason I think you would use more colorful language than that.”

She puts her hands up in defense. “Hey, I’m all about the colorful. And on the plus side, since you don’t remember, I’ll get back to using all my colorful language while I’m around you. Just not in front of Cooper. We have a bet going. He doesn’t think I can tone down my sassy swear words before he knocks me up.”

“What’s the bet?”

“I have a weak stomach. If I can go a month without swearing, he has to change shitty diapers for the first month after the baby’s born.”

“Will he not have to work?” I ask.

“Pfft. Oh he’ll work alright, but he’ll do it from home. Cooper runs his own software company, so he can pretty much work from anywhere and change shitty diapers while he does it.”

I nod. “And what happens when he’s not around?”

She smirks. “You’re my neighbor. You live above the shop, which would take about a five second walk for you to come help me with the little spawn.”

“And before you object, you already offered!” she hurriedly throws in.

“I’m guessing I enjoyed the idea of you having a child?”

She shrugs. “Of course you did. You’ll be Aunt Jerri. We’re family, and although it sounds depressing that I’m your only family, we’ve had a good run. No complaints from me. And as far as I’m concerned, you haven’t had any either.”

That’s something else I learned. I met Portia in my early twenties when we were both taking the same night class at a local community college. Apparently I had no family. I bounced from foster home to foster home because my family died when I was young. At least that’s what I told her, but she hinted that I left out a lot. Just as well. It’s not something I liked to talk about.

She said she’d asked me about the foster families, and although I had a few kind words about them, I never really said much more than that. I asked if it bothered her, and she told me that, in a way, it did, but if I didn’t want to talk about it, she wasn’t going to push. We continued being friends in our business class and met a few times to study over a coffee. And as they say, the rest was history.

We’ve been running
Eclectic Isle
for close to six years now, and it’s practically a landmark in the area. Business is great, and she says I have an eye for all things unique.

A nurse bustles into the room with a wheelchair and tells me that when I’m ready, I can sign forms at the desk and pick up prescriptions. I want to avoid the wheelchair and walk out on my own. But after dressing in the thin cotton pants and button-up shirt Portia brought me, I’ve about maxed out my energy for the day.

The nurse helps me get settled in the wheelchair before pushing me to the release desk. As I sign the release forms, Portia assures me that all the financial stuff has been taken care of, courtesy of Cooper’s credit card. Insisting that I could have paid the bill myself, I argue with her as we leave the desk and head to the elevator. In truth, I don’t know if I would have had the money.

“Do I not have money? Is that why Cooper has already paid?” I ask.

Portia shakes her head and replies, “You’ve got money, babe. But I have no idea where your purse is. I have to call the police station and ask if they have found it in your car. I cancelled the company Visa, since that’s what you usually shop with. Your debit card is with the same bank, so I told them to cancel that too. We’ll pick up a new one this week.”

“Do we not have health insurance?”

“No, Jer. I’m covered with Cooper. You’ve rarely ever had a cold and probably wouldn’t go to the hospital unless you were dying. If you did, you’d pay cash.”

Figuring that’s enough—and deciding that when I go to the bank, I’ll look into my financial situation—we head out of the hospital. Cooper is waiting in the drop-off point with an SUV.

“Ready to get the hell out of here?” he asks.

I smile, thankful. “You have no idea.”

* * *

I take in the sights and smells.

The street is busy but quaint.

The building is clean and not too tall or overwhelming.

Cooper guides the vehicle into a parking spot in front of a cozy, modern-looking shop with large display windows. The sign above it reads,
Iclectic Isle
in a weathered font, and I press closer to the window to take in as much as I can without actually moving from the vehicle.

“This is it babe. We’ll tour later after we get you settled in,” Portia says.

It’s beautiful. It looks light and airy but warm and cozy at the same time, like some place you would wander into to find treasures and lose yourself for an hour or two.

“It’s lovely.”

She spins in her seat. “It’s your pride and joy, Jer. You spend more time in that shop than you do sleeping.”

I give her a small smile, happy that I have so much passion for something. At the same time, I feel sad because I wonder what else I’d do with my life if the majority of it is spent behind those windows. It sounds like a hobby and a passion, but it also sounds empty and alone.

Much like I feel at the moment.

Empty.

Blank canvas.

Cooper continues and points across the street. “We live there, Jerri. On the top floor.”

I look at the historic building. The third floor is the top floor, and from what I’ve learned from Portia, they live on the entire floor; Cooper owns the building. Apparently, software development is a lucrative career.

Turning down an alley, we come to a stop at the rear of the building. There’s a large garage door, which they tell me is for deliveries, and a small overhang over a set of steps that leads to a door. Cooper pulls up so my door is closest and parks the vehicle.

“Home sweet home, Jer.” Portia tells me.

By the time I unbuckle my seat belt, Cooper is at my door to help me out. It’s slow moving, but eventually we manage to get my feet on the ground. Once that is accomplished, he guides me to where Portia is, holding open the door. I step into the landing and eye the large staircase ahead with misery.

“I’m gonna carry you up, Jer,” Cooper tells me.

I deflate in thanks, my legs already throbbing from the short trip from the hospital. Portia bounds ahead of us up the stairs as Cooper carefully lifts me. My broken arm is positioned away from him to avoid having it pushed against his chest as we ascend to my home.

The first thing I notice are the exposed beams along the fifteen-foot ceilings. The outer walls are made up of exposed brick and various colorful paintings on canvases that are much fuller than my own. A mismatch of furniture and large-screen television is pulled together by an abstract rug to make up the living space. To the right, a long island with blood-red stools sits in the middle of the kitchen, and adjacent sits an espresso-colored, heavy-wood table complete with high, leather-padded, ladder back chairs. The set looks like something from the Viking era .

There’s a set of patio doors off the kitchen that opens to a rooftop outdoor area, which I plan to explore later. Cooper sets me down between the living area and kitchen. Portia guides my good arm through hers. “This is it: the other half of your happy space. Anything look familiar?”

My eyes roam over the furniture, the art, and the stack of mail on the island.

“It’s beautiful, but unfortunately no.”

She nods, resolute in her words. “It’s okay. It’ll come. Let’s get you cozy.”

She walks us toward a door that slides on a track. It’s heavy and is made of old wood and metals. It’s industrial-looking but warm. It suits the space. On the other side is a bedroom, my bedroom. A low king-size bed sits against the only exposed brick wall in the room. The padded leather headboard of the bed sits tightly up against the brick wall, and a nude painting of a woman hangs above. It displays the slope of her neck, her back, and her hips. A large masculine hand rests on her left hip. It claims her, lets you know she is taken.

It’s possessive and beautiful.

The walls are a warm grey. Not too dark, not too light. Stylish lamps anchor the bed on dark nightstands. The bedding is a stark-white, fluffy contrast to the darkness of the room.

It’s edgy yet elegant.

Bold but feminine.

It’s
me.

There are two doors in the room: One leads to a modest but functional walk-in closet. I must have an affinity for high-heeled boots because there are many pairs of them. The other door, closest to the entry, leads to the ensuite. Inside, a sink sits below a large vanity, and the walls command a deep golden color that contrasts the dark-tiled walk-in shower. To the side sits a large antique soaker tub.

Portia points to a wooden bench in the shower. “Coop had Walker over to put the bench in. Walker’s a contractor friend of ours. I knew you’d hate one of those ridiculous plastic benches from the easy home store, so . . .” I let her trail off, understanding why Cooper had the bench put in: it’s to help make things a little easier for me when I shower. Apparently I must be picky about what goes into my space. The shower would have looked tacky with a plastic chair or bench; the teak one looks as if it belongs there.

“Thank you, Portia. It’s great.”

She smiles and moves to the vanity. “I put the bags and tape for your cast over here. Can’t get it wet when you shower.” Waving a hand in front of her face, she continues. “That’s all small stuff. I’m sure you’re tired and ready to lay down.”

I nod, wanting to explore. But as intrigued and curious as I am with the space, this is the most activity my body has endured in twenty-five days, twenty-two of which were spent in the coma—three awake in the hospital.

I follow her slowly back into the bedroom, where she already has pillows stacked against the headboard and the fluffy, white duvet pulled back. I sit on the bed and toe off the running shoes on my feet before laying back.

“This is so much more comfortable than the hospital bed,” I moan.

Portia smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Don’t I know it. We bunk in here when we get tipsy.”

Hoping to bring that brightness back to her eyes, I ask her, “Like a slumber party? What about Cooper?”

The mention of her husband’s name does the trick. “Cooper travels sometimes for work—”

“Which is code for, ‘I’m going to Jerri’s where I’ll drink copious amounts of bourbon and wine—not in that order—and drunk-dial her poor husband in the middle of the night while we snuggle in bed cackling like a couple of teenage girls,’” interrupts Cooper from the doorway.