Page 9 of Remember Me

When she had fled my office the week before, her face a mask of fury and hurt, I’d felt a moment of blind terror. The possibility of losing her...losing everything we’d built over the past year...well, it just wasn’t going to happen.

I wasn’t completely certain where to go from this point, though. Did I tell her what she’d walked in on, take the risk that she’d react the same way she initially had? She didn’t trust me to begin with — which hurt, but I understood. For all intents and purposes, she didn’t know me. What would happen if I came out and said, “yeah, it’s kind of my fault you’re in this fix. You walked in on a student making a move, assumed the worst, and sped away in horrible weather with me chasing after you.”

And then you crashed.

Call me crazy, but I didn’t think that would go over too well.

But what if she regained her memory before I found a good time to tell her? I would look guilty as sin. And there was a baby to think of…

No. I needed to find absolution before then. And I needed to bind her to me once again, make her love me so completely that she wouldn’t consider leaving.

And if I couldn’t? My fingers clenched around the steering wheel. I guess I’d just cross that bridge when I got there.

¦Birdie

FROM WHEREISAT ON MY BED,IHEARD THE KNOCK FALL UPON THE FRONT DOOR, BRISK AND NO-NONSENSE.Mom’s voice followed, floating up the steps as she greeted the visitor, and then his deeper, low-pitched reply.

It sent shivers down my spine, made my girl parts sit up and take notice. I’d noticed that the first time he spoke to me in the hospital. I’d been in a fog, and then his voice pierced right through, an anchor devouring the depths I was sinking in. He’d said my name, his slight southern accent doing things to the simple word that instinctively —

“Birdie.”

With a start, I realized he was in the doorway of my bedroom, all six feet plus of his wide frame filling the narrow space. My eyes drank him in, unable to fathom how it was possible this fine man was mine, if everyone was to be believed. It didn’t make sense.

Hayes wasthatguy, the one even the teachers probably lusted after in high school. During my stay in the hospital, he’d told me that he was formerly a pitcher for our university’s baseball team and was now their pitching coach and a math professor. He was tall and solid, with perpetual stubble covering his jaw and hazel eyes that dipped the tiniest bit at the corners. Sleepy eyes, my father used to call them.

When the silence between us had stretched to awkward proportions, I spoke. “Hayes. Come in, sit.” I patted the bed beside me, aware it was the only place in my small room to sit.

Hayes set a duffel bag down just inside the door and, huffing out a strained chuckle when his weight made the mattress dip, sending me sprawling against him. He righted me quickly, and if his hands lingered on my rib cage a skosh longer than was necessary, well...I pretended not to notice.

“How’re you feeling?”he asked in that low rumble. “I brought some of your things over. Thought they might help you feel more at home.”

“Thank you.” I lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “And I’m as well as can be expected, I guess.” His eyes studied me, asking without words for more, and I struggled to explain the mess of confusion everything was. How my head hurt constantly and how isolated I felt. “It’s just weird. I have a constant headache. And there’s this feeling like there’s something I need to do. Somewhere I need to go. But ...”

“I wish I could help you, baby.” I startled at the endearment, but then realized it was likely habitual.

I tried to decide if I liked it. I didn’t dislike it. There was just… nothing. No emotional attachment to it, no expectation of anything to go with it, no immediate response to return it.

I picked at a string on my quilt. “It’ll get better. It has to, right? In the meantime, I guess there’s not but so much we can do, other than follow doctor’s orders.”

Dr. Chen had advised Hayes and others around me to refrain from trying to tell me everything about myself, and to instead allow my memory to return organically. If it was going to return, I guess that would work. A constant low buzz of anxiety nagged at me, though, with the thought that it might not return. What then? When should I start asking for answers, pieces of the puzzle that was previous me?

I took a deep breath and met Hayes’ eyes for the first time since he’d sat beside me. “We need to talk about the baby. I’m taking from your reaction in the hospital that I hadn’t already told you. I’m sorry. I don’t know if I knew and just hadn’t done it yet, or if I didn’t know —”

His hand covered mine, where it was choking the life out of a stuffed llama. “It’s okay.”

“What are we going to do?” For a moment there was complete silence. He searched my eyes, for the joke, maybe? It felt like a joke, all of this. “I know it’s unexpected,” I hastened to add. “It’s okay if it’s not what you signed on for. If it’s yours, I mean, I’m assuming it’s yours. Haven’t had any other guys showing up, so —”

Hayes’ hand covered my mouth, and when I looked at him in surprise, I saw a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. “Birdie, I love you. I know you don’t know that the way you did once...like you knew the sun was going to rise every morning. But it’s just facts. I love you, and I’ll love that baby. And damn straight it’s mine.” There was a proprietary tone in his voice as his gaze dropped to my belly. “You tell me how old it is, and I could probably tell you exactly when it was conceived.”

I felt my cheeks heat. “Er...approximately six weeks according to Dr. Chen. I have a doctor’s appointment Friday to get everything checked out.”

“Will they tell us the sex?”

Us?“Not this early.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed, which made me smile.

“Do you want to know?”

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