The Reckoning (2 page)

Violet handed him one of two cups of coffee she held. “We're all trying to grasp the fact that Ryan's gone.”

But Emmett, on the other hand, was going to do something about it. He couldn't bring the man back, of course, but he could follow through with the pledge he'd made to him. “Traumatic brain injury,” he prompted without more ado.

“I just love these little social niceties of yours, Emmett,” Violet said, grimacing. Then she seemed to take pity on him. “All right. I'll stop wasting your time. Traumatic brain injury.”

She sipped from her cup, then began. “Otherwise known as TBI, or head injury, it's simply damage to the brain caused by an external force. It's common in vehicle accidents, when impact can cause the brain to bounce back and forth against the skull. That causes bruising to the brain and, later, swelling. Head injuries are the number-one killer of Americans
under the age of forty-four. They kill more under the age of thirty-four than all diseases combined.”

Emmett absorbed the numbers, but at the moment only one person with a head injury mattered to him. “Do all people with a TBI go into a coma?”

“Serious injury can occur without a loss of consciousness, but in a TBI, usually the brain stem is injured and that produces a period of coma that may last for some time.”

“But in a coma for
years?
Is that usual, Violet?”

The good doctor hesitated, because, Emmett knew, they were getting into Linda Faraday-specific territory. She'd gone into a coma following the car accident. Then the doctors had discovered she was a couple of months pregnant. She'd given birth in that state and stayed in that state until a little over a year ago.

“What's more unusual, Emmett,” Violet finally said, “is for a patient to recover enough to make an independent life for herself after so long.”

“It's not like the movies, huh? Snoozing away until one day the patient awakes, refreshed and alert?”

Violet shook her head. “Maybe for Sleeping Beauty, but in the real world that doesn't happen. In the case of Linda—” She stopped herself. “Emmett, I don't feel right about this.”

He didn't waste his breath arguing with her. “Let's talk hypotheticals, then. If a hypothetical patient were in a coma…”

Violet was shaking her head again.

“She wasn't in a coma?”

“The technical definition of a coma is an altered state of consciousness in which the patient's eyes don't open and the patient doesn't react to pain or commands, or doesn't speak in recognizable words. So while the hypothetical patient might start out that way, once she can react, respond or speak,
then she's no longer in a coma, though she may not yet be returned to full consciousness. In that semiconscious state, patients can be fed, or feed themselves, and get some kinds of physical therapy to keep their muscles from atrophying. There are people who remain in that twilight state for the rest of their lives.”

“So what brought Linda out of—excuse me—what might bring a hypothetical patient out of that twilight and into full consciousness?”

Violet shrugged. “No one knows. After so many years, I suppose the best explanation is…a miracle.”

He frowned at that,
miracle
not being in the vocabulary of a been-there, seen-every-horror FBI agent. “Ryan seemed to think that Linda still needs some kind of help. I promised to provide that.”

Violet opened her mouth, closed it, then sighed. “All right. Linda. Let's talk about Linda. Ryan was right that she'll need help. Ten years have passed. The world isn't the same as Linda remembers.
She's
not the same as she remembers. She's been in a rehab facility for the past year, relearning old skills and acquiring new skills to cope with those ways in which she's changed, but it can't be easy.”

“Ryan said she was being released from rehab soon. He wanted me to…protect her.”

“That sounds like Ryan. But you'll have to find out from Linda if protection is what she wants—or will accept. From what I understand, she'll be going to the home of Nancy and Dean Armstrong, the couple who have taken care of Ricky since infancy.”

Emmett thought of the truculent Ricky and the ethereal Linda. “It doesn't matter what she wants. I promised Ryan. It's the least I can do for him.”

“There's that guilt again,” Violet said. “Any woman, even
one who has been in Linda's shoes, won't appreciate being an obligation to you.”

“She's not an obligation. She's a…” Compulsion. The light. Springtime. In his mind's eye, he saw her face turned up to the sunshine and again he felt that warm weight of Ryan's hand on his shoulder. She needed him, and he was being directed to take care of her. God, how could he explain it to Violet without her calling for the men in white coats with straitjackets? “She's just something I know I'm supposed to do right now.”

Violet toasted him with a little dip of her coffee cup. “Then good luck convincing her of that.”

 

Linda consulted the notebook on her bedside table the moment she woke up. It was chubby, with a no-nonsense blue tagboard cover. Today's place was marked with a simple paper clip. She read the words she'd penciled in the evening before to aid her in those first, often confusing moments of awakening.

Tuesday, May 2. The date hadn't been a revelation, though the year might take her an instant or two to conjure up. She was even already aware that her room had moved. But she still kept up the habits that had gotten her through the first months at the rehabilitation facility, when blinking could cause her to lose her train of thought—or worse, a day or two of short-term memories.

She stretched, then climbed out of bed and took in the outfit she'd laid out for herself the night before. Yoga pants, T-shirt, running shoes. She had physical therapy scheduled for the late morning, which meant time on the elliptical machine and stretching on the mats. A year ago, she'd been learning to walk again; these days, she was itching to take a run on the sidewalk.

In a few days, she might do just that.

At the thought, anxiety tripped up her heart. She ignored the feeling, though, and continued into the bathroom. The rehab facility was a comfortable, comforting place, but her counselors assured her she was ready to move out into the big, bad world.

She wished they wouldn't refer to it like that. They meant it as a joke, of course, but she didn't find it all that funny.

In the big, bad world, she had to create a new life for herself. An independent life…well, as independent as a life could be that also contained the ten-year-old who was her son, Richard. Ricky.

She thought of him and the corners of her lips tipped up as she stepped under the shower spray. He might scare her to death—he
did
scare her to death—but he could still make her smile. Her fingers closed around the bar of oatmeal soap, and she brought it against her body.

And froze.

“Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered, slamming the bar back into place. Then she reached toward her knees and grasped the wet hem of her sopping nightshirt to pull it over her head. It landed in the bottom of the shower stall with a
splat.

The small mistake put her in lousy mood that the bright dining hall and the excellent breakfast menu couldn't dissipate. One of the rehab counselors noted it, apparently, because she came to sit beside Linda during her second cup of coffee.

“Bad dreams? Headache?” she asked.

Those were a couple of lingering ailments, but not today's problem. Linda felt heat warm her cheeks. “Showered in my nightgown.”

The counselor smiled. “Is that all?”

“Isn't that enough? What kind of grown woman steps under the spray of the shower wearing her clothes? It's bad enough that I have to have routines to remind myself to wash and rinse my hair. Now I'm forgetting to get naked first.”

The woman leaned closer. “Don't tell anyone, but once I came to work in my pink fuzzy slippers. When we have a lot on our minds, sometimes we let the simple things slip by.”

But how was she supposed to be independent, let alone a mother, if she couldn't remember the simple things?

The other woman must have read the question on her face. “You handled the situation, didn't you, Linda? You recognized the error, coped with it. That's all any of us can ask of ourselves.”

Linda had never been a whiner, but still… “It was a
shower,
” she muttered. “You'd think I could get that right.”

“Is there something else bothering you, Linda? Some worry? You know that can put you off your game.”

Linda drummed her fingertips against the tabletop. A few months back, she hadn't had the dexterity to do such a thing. The hours of drilling with computer games had paid off. “It's…it's a man,” she admitted.

“Ryan Fortune?” The counselor rubbed Linda's shoulder. “Grief is perfectly normal, too.”

Linda gave a vague nod. She
did
grieve for Ryan. He'd been a gentle friend to her, like a kindly uncle, and he'd given her a much-needed anchor in those first months after she came fully, miraculously conscious. It had been Ryan who had found this wonderful facility, and had paid for it. It had
been Ryan who, she learned a few days after his death, had set up trusts for both herself and her son that gave them financial security for the rest of their lives.

“But it's a different man I'm thinking of,” she told the counselor. Her hand automatically reached for her notebook and flipped it open to the most recent page. It was what she'd written after the breakfast reminder.

The Armstrongs were another miracle in her life. After Ricky's birth, Ryan had met the couple through the Mothers Against Drunk Driving organization. They'd lost their daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter to a drunk driver. Learning of what had befallen Linda, they'd opened their home to Ricky and their hearts to his mother, as well, even though for long years she hadn't been aware of their weekly visits or their prayers and hopes for her recovery. They were going to bring her to their house when she was released from rehab and assured her that she and Ricky had a place with them for as long as she liked. She knew they regarded her as a daughter and Ricky as their treasured grandson.

The Armstrongs didn't worry her.

Emmett Jamison. Now
he
worried her. Her finger nervously tapped the page beneath his name.

“Who's Emmett Jamison?” the counselor asked.

“
What
is more like it,” Linda said under her breath. FBI agent. Tough guy. So take-charge he had made her feel flustered, hot and confused with just one level look from those sear
ing green eyes of his. A woman who'd been half-asleep for so many years didn't have one technique on hand to cope with
him.

The day they'd met, he'd been adamant about who he was. “I'm the man who's going to be looking after you,” he'd said, then stalked off, leaving her staring. She would have dismissed him as a loony or some figment of her misfiring memory if Ricky hadn't discovered the intriguing FBI agent, tough-guy tidbits from some others attending Ryan's memorial. And then yesterday, Emmett had phoned to tell her he'd arranged to speak with her and the Armstrongs. She had no idea why. She was afraid to guess.

“Linda, who is this man?” the counselor prodded.

“Emmett Jamison is…” Her hand lifted. “Emmett Jamison is…”

“Early,” filled in a deep voice from the doorway of the dining room.

Linda shivered, because there he was, staring at her with those intense green eyes of his and looking dark and determined. A big, bad wolf from the big, bad world.

L
inda discovered that the hallways of the rehab facility weren't wide enough when Emmett Jamison was walking by her side. He seemed so big, so male, in his casual slacks and open-throated dress shirt. It wasn't as if he tried to crowd her, but he just seemed to be so close, so
there,
as she led the way toward her room.

He was loud, too. Not in the usual sense—as a matter of fact, he didn't even make an attempt at small talk—but the quiet way he moved, the confident aura attached to him made his very presence noisy. There was no way to ignore someone like that.

She couldn't wait to get rid of him.

“You didn't say why you wanted to meet with me,” she ventured. If she hadn't been so surprised and confused when he'd called the day before, she would have insisted on finding out the reason then.

“I didn't?” His expression remained unreadable as he
glanced into one of the rehab classrooms. Three of the center's clients sat at different tables, one working on a computer game, another inserting pegs in a pegboard, another putting together a simple puzzle. “Is that the kind of thing you've been doing the past year?” he asked.

“Yes,” Linda answered. There was no point in pretending otherwise. “Computer games and puzzles to improve dexterity and memory and focus. And then there have been sessions of physical therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy. In many respects—most, maybe—I was like a child when I came here. There was a lot I had to relearn.”

“But now you're… What would you call it? Up to speed? Cured?”

Anxiety washed over Linda again like a cold sweat. “I'll never be cured,” she admitted. It was the hard truth that the rehab center tried to make the head-injured understand. “I'm a different person now than I was before the car accident.”

But exactly who was that new person? The question was only exacerbated by the decade that she'd lost. With her past nearly as hazy as her future, she continued to struggle with developing her identity—even believing that she could. Leaving the rehab center, she worried, would only make that problem more overwhelming.

More frightening.

Finding Nancy and Dean Armstrong already waiting in the small sitting area of her room didn't ease the feeling. They were wonderful, generous people who had always cared for Ricky and her, including visiting her regularly during her rehab and taking her out on day trips around the area and to their San Antonio home. But seeing them today only served to remind her that soon, so soon, she would be moving into their household and she would be expected to not only begin making a life for herself, but begin making herself into a mother for her son.

“Nancy, Dean. It's good to see you.” Linda exchanged brief hugs with them.

“I brought more pictures.” Nancy pressed a packet of snapshots into her hand. “Soccer photos and some from the field trip I chaperoned last week.”

Linda's fingers tightened on the pictures. The Armstrongs were so conscientious about integrating her into Ricky's life. They shared photos and stories and the boy's company at every opportunity. It wasn't their fault she had trouble accepting herself as a mother.

Ducking the thought, she gestured toward her companion. “And do you two know Emmett Jamison?”

They apparently did, which puzzled Linda even more. So with everyone seated, she decided to get the situation straightened out. “Mr. Jamison—”

“Emmett,” he corrected.

“Emmett, then. What can I—” she looked at the older couple “—what can
we
do for you?”

On the love seat across from the straight chairs that she and Emmett were seated upon, Nancy and Dean exchanged glances. The big, bad wolf kept his gaze trained on her. “It's what I can do for you.”

She did
not
like the way he said the words. She did not. “But I don't need anything.”

Emmett's gaze flicked toward Nancy and Dean. “You'll be leaving the rehab facility shortly. I want to be a help to you.”

Was he offering his services as a mover? That was the only thing that made any sense. “I'm going to be living at the Armstrongs' house, and I have very little to bring with me there from here. Some clothes, a few books, that's all.”

He didn't answer right away, leaving a silence to well in the room. Her stomach gave a nervous jump, and she with
drew the photos from their envelope to give her fingers something to do. The glossy images fanned across her lap.

“I promised Ryan,” the man said.

She frowned. “Promised him what?”

“That I'd look after you. That I'd do what I could to make things easier for you.” He finally looked away from her face. “I've made a couple of promises, and I intend to keep them.”

Oh-kay.
“That was very…nice of Ryan, and typical of him to be worried about me, but I don't need to be looked after. I don't need anyone to make things easier.” Well, of course she did, but she doubted there was a person in the universe who could make her feel like a real mother and a complete woman instead of the jumble of unconnected puzzle pieces she regarded as herself.

“More convenient then,” he put in. “I could make things more convenient for you.”

Uncertain how to reject his offer, she looked over at the Armstrongs in mute appeal. It was then she read the worried expression on Nancy's face. “What is it?” she asked. “What aren't you telling me?”

The older woman sighed. “I think we're all confusing you, Linda, and we certainly don't mean to do that. It's just that we came up with a new plan that we thought might work out better for you.”

“A new plan? A new plan that involves
him?
” She pointed at Emmett. “Now I really am confused.”

Dean cleared his throat. “When Emmett contacted us about his promise to Ryan, we thought his offer was a timely one. It presents an opportunity for you to gain a greater degree of independence than you could find if you simply moved into our home. You know your counselors weren't sure that was such a good idea.”

Linda swallowed. She knew full well that the counselors
at the rehab facility weren't one hundred percent behind her move to the Armstrongs'. The couple had household help—a housekeeper, a cook. With all that available assistance, there was a worry that Linda might not get enough practice at the life skills she'd been working so hard on during the past year.

“You think I shouldn't move in with you?” Her voice came out almost a whisper. If the Armstrongs cut her loose, could she put the pieces of herself together? Could she take care of Ricky
and
forge together a Linda Faraday?

“No, no, Linda. We want you with us,” Nancy hastened to say. “What we're proposing is that you move into the guest house beyond the pool. It has three bedrooms, a bath-and-a-half, a full kitchen. There, you'd have the chance to take care of yourself, from grocery shopping to cooking. Emmett could stay in one of the other bedrooms, as a…a backup, say, for the first few weeks.”

Linda rubbed her forehead and the throbbing beginning to grow there. Changes—of plans, of routines, even of the faces that surrounded her—could throw her off. Adapting to new ideas and situations was one of those life skills that she was supposed to work on as she moved into her new life.

She looked down, her gaze landing on the photos in her lap. A dozen or so pictures of kids, one in particular. She was so disconcerted, it took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. Whom.

Ricky. Of course, Ricky. Moving down the soccer field. With his arm around two other boys. Pointing at some out-of-focus exhibit in a museum. Not just some anonymous little boy, but Ricky. Ricky, her son.

Dean must have noticed the direction of her gaze. “While you're getting your bearings in the guest house, he would remain in his own room in our home, Linda, but visit with you
as often as he likes, of course. It could be the best of both worlds.”

The best of both worlds.
The phrase stuck in her head. The best of both worlds. The best.

The best part of the whole idea of moving into the guest house, the most
tempting
part, was that it would allow her more distance and more time. More distance from her scariest fear. More time, she thought, shame and relief intertwining, to not be Ricky's mother.

Her mind made up, she didn't bother glancing over at Emmett again. It wasn't noble, it wasn't brave, but it was the truth. She would even put up with the big, bad wolf if he'd get between her and the big, bad world of being a mother to her child.

The few lines in her notebook cut through the anxiety of awakening in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. Her mind easy again, she watched the play of sunlight over the yellow-and-violet wallpapered walls. She'd moved her belongings into the pretty little room the afternoon before, and then, worn out by the excitement and the change of scenery, had put on her nightwear, stretched out on the bed and promptly fallen asleep. Luckily, she'd remembered to pencil in the next day's pertinent info before heading for dreamland at the early hour of 6:00 p.m.

Her stomach growled, a reminder that she hadn't eaten since yesterday's lunch. Food would wait, though.

If it's morning, get up, shower, dress.

 

She found it simpler to follow the instructions in her notebook. Improvisation could lead to disaster, like the time she'd ignored the direction to dress before her morning appointment. She'd showed up for a meeting with one of Ryan Fortune's attorneys in baby doll pajamas. Lucky for her, it had been in a conference room at the rehab center, rather than a downtown San Antonio law office.

Climbing out of bed, she noted she was wearing those very same baby dolls. Nancy had picked them out, as she'd picked out most of Linda's limited wardrobe. These were a pale peach, thin cotton. Little shorts barely covered her rear, while the top was sleeveless, with tiny pintucks on the bodice. She made a face at her reflected image in the mirror over the dresser on the other side of the room. Her body was still too thin, and the childish pajamas made her look twelve instead of thirty-three.

In addition to having the figure of a preteen, the years she'd been semiconscious didn't show on her skin. She had the complexion of a twenty-something, and she supposed she should be grateful for that.

Her stomach growled again.

Shower, dress,
she reminded herself again.
Bathroom is across the hall.

As she pushed open the bedroom door, the door across the hall—the bathroom door—opened.

A man stood before her.

Her mouth dropped, but no sound came out. He was big. Big and naked, except for a pale green towel wrapped low on his hips. Damp, curling hair was scattered across his wide chest and more of the stuff created a thin line between rippling abdominal muscles. As she stared, steam curled out
from behind him. He looked like an erotic genie emerging from a bathroom-size bottle.

Too late, she crossed her arms over the thin cotton that covered her breasts.

Not that he was looking at them. Instead, he was studying her face, his body perfectly still, as if she were a wild animal he was trying not to startle.

“Good morning,” he said softly. “I thought you were still asleep.”

She took a step back.

He went even stiller, if that was possible. “I'm Emmett, do you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” she scoffed, taking another step back into the bedroom. Then she slammed the door shut between them.

She
did
remember who he was. But in the confusion of the move, she'd forgotten something else. She reached for her pencil and her notebook and sat down on the edge of the mattress. There, she scratched out some lines she'd written and wrote some new ones.

Her turn in the shower gave her time to reabsorb the fact that she had a housemate. The small tiled enclosure retained a masculine scent that she found not unpleasant, and she was
happy to see that he hadn't rearranged the various bottles that she'd set upon the high window ledge.

After adjusting the spray and getting inside—making sure she was properly naked—she removed the red cap of the shampoo, the blue cap of the conditioner and the yellow cap of the finishing rinse. As she completed using each one, she'd replace the cap. That way, by the shower's end, she'd be certain she'd completed her hair routine and not emerge with a head of soapsuds as she'd done a time or two before.

The little ritual freed her concentration to focus on Emmett again. He was going to act as her net for her first four weeks of living in the Armstrongs' guest house. If she “fell” in any way, he was supposed to be there to catch her. To that end, she'd given him permission to talk to her rehab counselors about what to expect during this transition period. It was embarrassing, but she'd had plenty of practice dealing with embarrassment in the last months.

It wasn't as if he was really a man. Not to her, anyway. To her he was a tool, that was all. While they lived together, she'd consider him like…another appliance. Blow-dryer, toaster, Emmett Jamison. An appliance that appeared incredibly sexy when he was half-naked, sure, but an appliance all the same.

It wasn't as if he appeared impressed with, or even aware of, her femaleness, which only made it simpler to overlook the fact that he was a living, breathing, very attractive male specimen. It made it easier to face him, too, when she found him in the kitchen after she'd finished her shower and changed into a pair of jeans, T-shirt and running shoes.