Page 91 of Zane

“How much is mine?” she asked as she pulled her wallet out of her purse.

Zane frowned at her. “I’ll take care of the bill.”

“But—”

“No buts. I’m taking care of it.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Once the bill had been paid, they left the restaurant and got back in the car.

“Sorry I’m lousy company,” Zane said after they’d been driving in silence for several minutes. “My head is hurting again.”

“Feel free to close your eyes and rest,” Kelsey told him. “You don’t need to entertain me.”

“I think I’ll take you up on that.”

Zane reclined the seat a bit, then settled back, closing his eyes. Kelsey wished he didn’t get the headaches, not just because Zane was in pain, but because it made her think that his brain wasn’t healing as fast as they would have liked.

His breathing slowly evened out, and for the remainder of the drive, Kelsey allowed herself to just appreciate being in the moment. Zane might not have his memories of her and their marriage, but he was still alive, and there was still an ember of hope that things would work out between them.

When she pulled to a stop in front of the house, Zane groggily straightened in his seat and looked around.

“Go on into the house,” Kelsey said. “I’ll bring the boxes in.”

Zane frowned. “I wish I could help you with that.”

“It’s fine. They aren’t that heavy.”

“Still,” he grumped. “I can’t wait until this cast is off.”

They got out of the car, then Zane went ahead to open the front door. Kelsey wrangled each of the boxes out of the car and carried them into the house. She took the totes right up to Zane’s bedroom, along with the box of his stuff from their apartment in Tampa. The boxes that contained his knives and other cooking tools, she left in the kitchen, then she set the winter clothes box at the bottom of the stairs to take to her room to sort later.

“Did you want to go through these boxes?” Kelsey asked, gesturing to the ones sitting on the floor in the kitchen.

“Sure. Might as well see what I had.”

Kelsey ended up being the one to unpack the boxes, taking out each of the items and setting them on the counter for Zane to look over.

“I guess I bought myself a new set of knives,” he said as he unrolled the bag containing them.

“I bought those for you as a wedding gift,” she told him.

He looked at her with raised brows. “Really? These are great knives. How did you know what to get?”

“I talked to the head chef at the restaurant where we both worked. He told me what knives you’d like.”

Zane ran his hand over the knives. “These are beautiful. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Zane’s reaction to the knives this time was much lower key than when she’d given them to him following their wedding.

“What did I get you?”

The reality was, Zane hadn’t given her anything on the day of the wedding. It had hurt at the time, but she’d shoved that hurt down, knowing that he’d had a lot of things going on around thattime. He couldn’t be blamed for not thinking about a gift for her for their wedding. Plus, he’d spent money on her rings, so she chose to consider them her wedding gift from him.

“Did I not get you anything?” Zane asked when she didn’t answer right away.

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