Page 21 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

Glancing at her, he sent her a thoughtful smile. “Thank you. Even though it was a wasted trip, thank you for what you did. Thank you for trying. I don’t…I have a feeling not a lot of people would’ve gone to that much trouble for me.”

Her smile was soft. “It was my pleasure.” In the span of a few seconds, but very significant seconds, they stared at each other as he ran his fingers along hers. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, that reminds me. I printed some pages off the internet, hoping maybe one of them might help jog your memory.”

Jonah crinkled his brow. “What kind of pages?”

She shrugged. “Oh, just things about you. Mostly football stuff. Stats and numbers. Things like that.”

“Football?”

Lifting her eyes, she gave him a full grin. “Yeah. You’re a football player. Does that help you remember anything?”

A brief, haunted expression filled his face before he glanced away. “No.”

“Well, you are. And a damn good one too. Best tight end in the division,” she announced before giving a small frown. “Not that I know what a tight end does, exactly.”

An amused smile flickered over his lips as he turned back. “He does whatever he needs to do from blocking, catching a pass, or protecting the quarterback.”

Her eyes widened. “You remember that?”

His gaze went just as wide. Then he blinked. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, I guess I do remember that.”

She smiled her bright, joy-filled smile again. “That’s great. Here. Maybe this will help some more.”

When she thrust a stack of papers at him, he accepted, even though he looked a little overwhelmed by the quantity. What he read from the headline on the first page made his eyebrows arch.

“Wow. I’m not half bad, am I?”

“I know.” Excited to share all his glowing accomplishments with him, Tess perched herself on the edge of the bed to sit by his hip. “You’ve broken two state records and are working toward the national level. And some NFL scouts have even come to a couple of your games to watch you, even though you don’t graduate until next year. Isn’t that exciting?”

“Yeah,” he muttered, his eyes flickering with bitter regret. “Unless I never walk again.”

Tess winced and bit her lip as she sliced her gaze to his leg. “Right,” she said. “I forgot about that.”

Well, crap. His entire future was on the line now. She’d come here, hoping to reassure him and let him know he had a life beyond these four sterile walls. But instead, she’d only added to his misery and layered on something else for him to worry about.

“What’s this?” He lifted a sheet near the back of the pile.

When she glanced over, her eyes widened. “Oh, I wasn’t going to show you that.” She went to reach for it, but he pulled it back, keeping it in his possession.

“What is it?”

“It’s—” She cleared her throat. “It’s a fatality list of all the people who died in the massacre. Kind of a memorial.”

His hand holding the paper began to tremble and a bead of sweat slid down his temple. “Who do I know?”

Tess reached for the list again with no success as he pulled it away from her. “Maybe you should wait until you have your memory back before you look at it. It’s not going to mean anything to you right now anyway.”

He ignored her and focused on the list, his fingers curling tighter around the edges of the sheet the longer he scanned it. She had no idea what thoughts filtered through his brain as his gaze shifted over each obituary, but his jaw was tense and his eyes bright. When he stopped dead three-fourths of the way down, his throat worked and his expression froze, but otherwise he didn’t react.

“What?” Tess asked, moving to the head of his bed so she could see the list over his shoulder. “Do you recognize a name?” God, she hoped this wasn’t how he got his memory back. Focusing in on the area where he was centering his attention, she murmured, “Sean Thompson?” Tess turned to study his face. “Did you know him?”

He set the page down and stopped looking at it to rub his eyes. “This is giving me a headache.”

“I’m sorry.” She slipped the sheet out of his hand and folded it quietly before tucking it into her purse, out of sight. “I didn’t mean to overload you. I just thought I could help you remember.”

He didn’t respond, but his lips trembled before they opened as if he was going to say something. Then he shut them and dropped his hands to his waist, squeezing his eyes shut one last time before opening his lashes to look at her.

“Can we—” He paused and glanced away, sucking in a deep breath.

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