Page 87 of What Doesn't Kill Her

“Memory, love, a year of your life? More than we can even say?”

Max’s anger hung on the air between them. In a placid tone, she said, “He taught me the value of time.”

“I should have killed him when he tried to kidnap Annabella.”

“You’d still be serving your sentence.”

“I’d get off for good behavior.” He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “What else do you remember?”

“Your sister.” Kellen had spoken with her once on the phone since regaining her memories, but there had been no family visits yet. Kellen suspected Max had insisted the new family have time alone. “She was so grateful to me for saving her daughter. She kissed me on both cheeks. I remember thinking she was a little nuts. Then I remember realizing everyone in your family thought I was more than crazy, or on drugs.”

“I didn’t think that.”

“I know. You always believed I was just—”

“—hurt.”

She swallowed and nodded. “I remember your mother. She liked me a lot more in Pennsylvania than she does now. I remember—” Kellen was squinting again, trying to see through the fog of amnesia to those winter days eight and a half years ago “—Christmas! Your family! So many of them. I don’t know that I could have remembered them even if... Even that spring if I hadn’t been shot in the head.” She touched the round scar on her forehead and looked at him. “Mostly I remember you. I remember how kind you were to me, as if I was fragile.”

“You were fragile. I was afraid at any moment you were going to break and run.”

“I did break and run.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me?” he muttered.

He sounded so wretched she was at last able to say, “I panicked when I realized you snooped into my papers.”

“Was that so awful?” Immediately, he answered his own question. “Okay, yes, I know it was. You had vigilantly not said your real name or confided your past. I had no right. I told myself it would help our relationship if I knew. I lied to myself. I apologize.”

Nothing about this was easy. Everything was guilt and confusion. “I was a coward, and I guess I got what I deserved.”

“You made a mistake. No one deserves to spend a year in a coma for a mistake.” Max knew what he thought, what he believed. He slipped from the bed to a place on the floor. He knelt before her, naked and on one knee. “Kellen Adams, will you marry me?”

She stared in horror at him.

He said, “You just turned pale. You look like you’re going to throw up. You’re upset because there’s no ring? No flowers?”

She shook her head. She couldn’t speak.

Max had proposed to Kellen Adams.

My name is Kellen Adams—and that’s only half the truth.

But that was the real problem. She could confess who she was, and Max would understand her evasions. Might understand. She hoped. But that revelation was only the beginning. “I can’t. Max, I can’t.”

“There’s no reason to be frightened.” Slowly, he reached for her fingers. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know that. I would never think that you...” He was right. She felt queasy and sweaty. “I trust you,” she said, but she pulled her hand from his grasp.

“Can you tell me why you won’t marry me?” he asked.

“I can’t.”Not without telling you all my secrets.

I’ve got the scar of a gunshot on my forehead.

35

He limped down the mountain to the lot where he’d parked his Lexus NX Hybrid.

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