The Love Triangle (BWWM Romance) (2 page)

He frowned. I leaned forward and put my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shoulder. I breathed in deeply, smelling sun and grass and male on his clothes.

“When I woke up and Elijah was here instead of you, I thought you might be in here too. Or worse.”

“Listen, Grace,” he said, peeling my arms from his neck. “Elijah is right outside and he isn’t happy to see me.”

“So? He’s never happy to see you. I’m just so glad you’re okay. Gosh, the nurses won’t leave me alone and my head is killing me. When are we going home?”

“I don’t know when you’re leaving, honey,” he said. “I’m sure Elijah will speak to the doctor and get you out of here as soon as he can. He’ll be anxious to have you home again.”

“Who?”  I asked.

Justin frowned. “Elijah.”

“What?”  I said. I pressed my fingers to my temples. A ringing sound was starting in my ears and my head felt like it weighed a ton. Justin hesitated, looked over his shoulder when a doctor, Doctor Stein I assumed, walked in.

“What’s going on?” he asked the doctor.

“She’s lost about six months. Ms. Davis has a form of amnesia that’s erased roughly the last six months.” The doctor looked at me. His eyes were soft and warm when he spoke and he had dark hair that had started graying above his ears. “With some luck you’re going to gain it back, but until then the best way to handle it is to keep moving forward.”

I looked back at Justin. He was standing now, and his face was a strange ashen color.

“Six months?” he said. He took a step to the side, like he’d lost his balance. “So she doesn’t remember...“

“Please,” the doctor interrupted him. “It’s best if you don’t say anything until she’s gotten used to the idea.”

“Justin?”  I asked. He started backing toward the door. “Please don’t leave,” I said, but he shook his head and walked out of the room. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath, looking at Doctor Stein.

“What’s going on with me?” I asked.

“Medically, it’s a simple form of amnesia. That’s all I can tell you, Ms. Davis. I don’t know what you’ve lost. All I can offer is the best medication we can give you, and I can try to help you comfortable during your healing process.”

He was telling me everything I wanted to hear as a patient. But he wasn’t telling me anything I needed to know as a person. What he wasn’t telling me was that in the past six months, something big had happened. And I couldn’t remember what that was. Justin and Elijah were both acting strange, and there was nothing about it I understood.

Tears suddenly burned behind my eyes and my chest felt tight.

“I’m struggling to breathe,” I whispered, my hand clutched my chest. Doctor Stein nodded and glanced at the machines, checking my vitals. He turned to a drawer in the bedroom and took out a syringe.

“I’m going to give you something that will help you relax, let you sleep. You need your rest. We can talk about this later.”

I nodded. Tears rolled over my cheeks, but it felt like my body was doing it and my mind wasn’t in on the deal. The tears down my face and a drop fell on my arm.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I asked.

The doctor shook his head. “You have a very light case. I’m almost hopeful that your memories will return. We’ve had much, much worse cases. With the severity of your condition, I’m relieved.”

I wasn’t talking about the memory loss, but I nodded and lay back on the pillow. He was injecting the medicine into my drip, and I already felt lightheaded and airy.

“What happened? How did I get here?”  I asked. My words were slurred. The doctor breathed in to answer me, but hesitated. And then everything went black, and I sunk into a warm darkness that took me far away from the hospital room. Elijah had gotten angry, Justin had left, all for reasons I didn’t understand.

Chapter 2 - Justin

I left the hospital. I left her behind, sobbing in that room. I left Elijah screaming in the corridor at whoever would listen. He hadn’t even glanced at me when I’d walked out, not like he’d glared at me when I’d arrived.

She’d clung to me like she’d been drowning and I was her only lifeline. Why me? Why now? I’d just started to move on. I’d just started to think that even though Alice wasn’t the best thing that had happened to me, she was still something. Someone.

Grace hadn’t wanted to throw herself into my arms when she’d had her chance, and now, when I’d finally come to terms with the fact that I would never really have her, she was doing this. She was tearing me up all over again. How was I supposed to be able to stay in that room after that?

Memory loss, the doctor had said. And then I’d run away like a coward. Should I have fought? I knew what fighting felt like. It was all good and well when you won, but when you lost you were the one left behind to pick up the pieces. My life with Grace was like that. A hurricane that scattered my existence, everything that I had a handle on, all around me. But when it came down to rescuing, I was left alone to save myself. I hadn’t been able to do it then. What made her think I would be able to do it now?

I had Alice now. Of course Grace wouldn’t know that. She hadn’t even known before she’d lost her memory because we hadn’t really spoken since she’d moved in with Elijah. I just had to keep focusing on Alice.

But if it was memory loss, she didn’t know she’d chosen Elijah before. She wasn’t turning my life upside down again, she was doing it for the first time. Again.

I got in my green pickup truck and drove out of the hospital parking lot. There were so many cars. In a town so small, how were there so many of them in the hospital?

Fort Atkinson was in the middle of Texas, a small town that had expanded over the years, upgraded and modernized until it was what it was today. It had started with the first settlers. It still had the original layout, but everyone drove cars and used cell phones in a mix of past and future. I parked in front of Tam’s Stationers, took off my hat and tossed it on the passenger seat, and got out.

The air conditioning above the shop door blew down my neck when I walked through. Evelyn stood behind the counter, ringing up a bunch of binders for a customer. I waited until the customer left before I walked up to the counter.

“You’re off work early,” she said to me, making a note in a book.

“I took the afternoon. I needed some personal time.”

She glanced up at me, eyes narrowed. “You don’t just take personal time. What happened?” I worked on a dude ranch outside of town, taking tourists out to wrangle cattle. There was no time off unless I forced it.

I looked down, fiddled with a box of shaped erasers, started reading the label on one of the chocolate bars Evelyn had put on display so kids would convince their parents to buy them.

“Justin,” Evelyn said and her eyes were hard when she looked at me. She was my eldest sister. She’d grown up raising half of us. I had two sisters older than me, another sister and two brothers younger than me. Growing up in a large family let you rely on other people than your parents.

Evelyn had always looked out for me. I was the first boy, and because of that, I looked out for her. Her husband had died in a car accident three years ago, leaving her alone with four children and no income. I jumped in whenever I could, even if it was just to serve as a role model for her kids who would grow up without a father.

“Grace’s in the hospital,” I finally said, still not looking at her. “She was in an accident.”

“Is she alright?” Evelyn asked. She didn’t sound like she was going to burst into tears about it, but caring was the right thing to do.

“She’s okay. Physically there’s nothing wrong with her.”

“But?”

“She has memory loss, apparently. She can’t remember the last six months.”

Evelyn didn’t answer me. She was quiet for so long that I glanced up at her. Her face was an expressionless mask, framed by curls the same color as my own hair, and her eyes were a deep blue, like the ocean.

“She doesn’t know,” I finally said. “She thinks we’re okay. She was upset that I was distant with her, and then left her. I just… I couldn’t stay.”

Evelyn shook her head. The store door opened and someone walked in. I stepped to the side so that Evelyn could do what she needed to do. She’d bought Tam’s Stationers after Graham had died. I’d helped her and we’d put money together. She did well with the shop, picked it up from what it used to be. She wanted to expand later. When the customer paid and left, she turned to me.

“You can’t go back to that,” she said. She knew me well enough to know what was on my mind. If Grace couldn’t remember, maybe there was a chance I could try again. A redo, almost.

“I’m not going back to anything,” I defended. Evelyn had a lot of disapproval on her face, and I understood why. Since Grace had arrived in town I’d been a mess. What made me think that it would be different this time? But it was different this time. “I have Alice, remember.” I’d added that at the end and spoken softly. But it was a point worth making.

Evelyn snorted. “The fact that you’re here talking about it means you’ve already thought about trying again. You may have this Alice you keep telling me about, but she’s not even in this town. She’s no reason for you to stop, and you know that as well as I do. You wouldn’t be here, looking like you’re about to do something wrong. Grace’s out of your life, you’re better off. Just let it go.”

But I couldn’t just let it go, because she wasn’t out of my life. Not even before her memory loss had she been out of my life. She’d hurt me in a lot of ways, but I couldn’t walk away from her. Not then, even when she’d made it clear what she wanted. Not after I’d found someone else in an attempt to replace her. And not now, when she obviously needed someone.

Someone who wasn’t Elijah.

“You’re making a mistake,” Evelyn said. “That girl has been trouble from the start. She works with Elijah Wilson. That’s already your first warning sign. You didn’t listen to it the first time. Don’t make that mistake again, Justin.”

Grace had come to Fort Atkinson as Elijah’s new lawyer at Magna Solutions. He’d needed someone to help him cover up his legal issues, make him look as pristine on the outside as his business needed. He was an oil tycoon, a billionaire and he’d given Grace everything she could ever ask for from day one.

I’d run into her, and I’d known that I had to fight him for her. She was that kind of person, the kind that made me want to spend the rest of my life fighting for a chance to hold her, to kiss her, to love her.

Evelyn had never liked her. Any woman that could fall in love with two men, and couldn’t decide which one to stay with, was trouble. She’d married Graham. He’d been her one and only. And she was right. Grace loved Elijah too. She worked with him. He was charming. He had all that money.

But she loved me. She’d told me so. And that had been worth it, worth all the heartache and pain of her not being able to decide between the two of us. We had both been running after her since she’d arrived. I should have walked away when I realized I wasn’t the only option. But Elijah hadn’t left when he’d found out, so I couldn’t. One of us had to win.

And now, after everything that had happened, we were back to that. Back to the place where neither of us had won. Because she couldn’t remember who she’d chosen.

And I hoped she never did. I didn’t think I could handle Elijah’s gloating a second time, or Evelyn’s “I told you so.”

I shook my head.

“Do you need some help with the kids tonight?” I asked Evelyn. She nodded.

“I’ve been leaving them with Carolyn the past week and I think the poor woman needs a break.”

I nodded and left the shop. I drove to Evelyn’s neighbor’s house and got out. I had to hammer the door down before anyone heard me, the television was so loud. Her youngest was four. The oldest was thirteen. They were a handful at best.

“I’ve come to take them off your hands,” I said to her. She smiled, relief bleeding through it.

“Thanks, Justin,” she said. I walked into the house. The moment the kids realized I was there they ran for me. I was tackled down and gasping for breath.

“Everyone out and back home,” I called, laughing. They scrambled off me and out of the door. Carolyn grinned when I got up and dusted myself off.

“Give Evelyn my best,” she said, handing me jackets and shoes. I nodded and followed the kids home.

I had them all cleaned and at the table eating sandwiches when Evelyn came home. She put her bag by the door.