Pinch Me [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations) Read online

  “Yeah. It’s okay.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing, I guess. Just a strange feeling.”

  Steve looked out the window but the customer had already driven away. “Why? Did you recognize him or something?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t act like he knew me. It was just strange.”

  “Don Kern. Don’t know the name.” He grabbed the phone book and thumbed through it. “No listing for him, either.”

  “He said he just moved into a new place. Besides, he’ll be here on Saturday morning for his refresher class. You’ll be teaching, so you don’t have to worry about the big, bad wolf.”

  “You think I’m going parental on you? Well excuse me, but anyone who expresses an interest in you at this point to me is a prime suspect.”

  Carol and Sarah had told Laura that men used to hit on her all the time in the shop. It was an occupational hazard, and both Sarah and Carol said she’d been confidently adept at turning away unwanted advances without causing offense.

  Before.

  Laura noticed when that happened now she usually blushed and got flustered and tried to pretend it didn’t happen, or she’d sputter that she was engaged.

  She wished she had that same self-confidence back now.

  The phone rang, giving her an excuse avoid the conversation. Steve stormed into the back room.

  It was Rob. “I saw your note this morning.”

  “Yeah, um, I thought maybe we could eat at your place tonight. Is that okay?”

  “Sure. What do you want?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever you think. Surprise me. I was just thinking I ought to spend more time over there, you know? Maybe it will help trigger something.”

  Rob paused. “Sure, honey. What time?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Is seven okay?”

  “That’s fine.” She paused. “Would you mind taking Doogie over there with you? Is it okay to have him there?”

  * * * *

  Rob gripped his phone tightly, trying to control his voice. “No, of course I don’t mind. You always brought him with you.”

  When they hung up, Rob stared at the phone. In fact, he and Doogie were already over at the house. He had a ton of chores to catch up on and wanted the dog’s company.

  He went outside and used the weed trimmer for an hour to get rid of some of his pent-up emotions.

  She felt she had to ask permission to bring Doogie with her?

  She was timid. She was shy. She jumped at noises and wasn’t much of a talker.

  The polar opposite of who she was.

  Before.

  * * * *

  Laura looked at the phone. She did want to spend time at Rob’s. At the same time, essentially, she had never lived by herself, that she could remember.

  Maybe I should.

  She fingered the solitaire on her right hand. Rob had been very good about not saying anything, even though she noticed him looking at it. It had to be difficult for him.

  The day crept by. When she finally called it quits at five she was more than ready to go home. Steve shooed her out the door, offering to lock up.

  After two wrong turns she finally found Rob’s driveway.

  She didn’t admit to him that she got lost.

  The house was filled with a wonderful garlicky aroma and he presented her with fresh shrimp scampi on angel hair pasta, broccoli au gratin, and homemade garlic knots. Everything tasted delicious, and they sat on the couch after dinner to talk.

  He played with the label on his bottle of beer. “I want to be honest with you. My life was all planned. Our lives were planned. We were getting married, I was happy, I thought you were happy. Then this all happened. I love you as much now, if not more, than I did before this happened. That hasn’t changed, it won’t change.”

  Doogie put his head in her lap and she petted him while carefully choosing her words. “I don’t even know who I am, who I was, what I wanted to be. I have no history other than what people tell me or I see in pictures or what little I read. I have no true idea of the future I’d pictured for myself or us. I don’t know how much I lost or how much I had to gain when I lost it.”

  She took a deep breath and forced the words out. “I think maybe I need to live by myself for a little while. Try to figure things out.”

  His face shifted into an unreadable mask. “You don’t want to see me anymore?”

  “I do want to see you. And that’s not what I meant.” She struggled to force the words out. “I need time to figure out what my next step is.”

  “Can’t you trust me when I tell you what we were to each other?”

  “That’s not fair.” She stood and walked over to the windows to stare out at the wetlands silhouetted against the setting sun. “I’m not saying I doubt you. It’s just I don’t know to what extent I used to let you influence my decisions. I still have to figure out who I am. Can’t you understand that?”

  He pointed to his head. “Up here, yes.” He pointed to his chest. “In here, it feels like someone’s ripped out my guts and stomped them. Every day I see you, I’m afraid to touch you, I’m afraid to say things to you that weeks ago I took for granted. I can still picture the last time we made love like it was yesterday, can still feel your fingers on my back, can still hear the sound of your voice, remember the way your hair smelled. That’s not going away anytime soon. You have a lifetime to remember. If I lose you, I have a lifetime to forget.”

  Laura wanted to cry. She was torn between what she wanted to do to make him feel better and what she had to do to continue her life. “I’d better go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She whistled for Doogie and was out the door before Rob could say anything.

  * * * *

  He spent the next couple of hours pacing the house, walking back and forth between standing at the wall with their picture on it and working on an email message to her that he’d never send.

  Was this truly the end? Should he just try to get on with his life and hope that she caught up with him, or should he keep trying to make something out of nothing and end up hurt anyway a few months or years down the road?

  Could he spend the rest of his life in a vanilla relationship?

  Then his words to her in the restaurant came back to him. He caressed her image in a photo.

  He’d made a promise to her, as her Master, to always protect her, to take care of her.

  If this was how she needed him to care for her, he’d do it. He wouldn’t back out on a promise just because she couldn’t remember it.

  “No, Laura. I won’t chicken out on you. No matter how long it takes for you to make up your mind, I won’t give up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Thursday morning dawned grey and cloudy, perfectly matching Laura’s mood. She didn’t bother making coffee, instead getting one at a gas station on the way to the shop.

  She was alone, so why make a full pot?

  It was a bittersweet thought.

  She missed having Rob at the condo. It felt wrong without him there.

  Maybe I made the wrong decision.

  She brought Doogie to work with her and took some comfort in his quiet presence.

  Steve arrived at the dive shop at seven, marveling in her early arrival. “Two days in a row. Are we working on a record?”

  “What?”

  “You are not a morning person.”

  “I’m not the girl I used to be.”

  Steve grimaced. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know, but I’m getting tired of people telling me how I was and wasn’t, how I should and shouldn’t, and you know what? I’m beginning to wonder if this wasn’t such a bad thing that happened to me after all.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Maybe I do.” She defiantly glared at him until he shook his head.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s real smart, Laur. You used to be pretty bright, but now you’re saying getting beat
en to a bloody pulp and left for dead on your living room floor was manna from heaven? Screw your head on straight. And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ve known you long enough that I have the right to tell you when you’ve got your head stuck so far and firmly up your ass that you need a pry bar to remove it.”

  He stormed out the back door, slamming it so hard the glass rattled. She reddened, feeling stupid and chastised. Ten minutes later she gathered enough guts to follow him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t look up from the bait tank where he was fishing dead shrimp out with a net and tossing them to waiting pelicans in the water.

  “Yeah, well I’m sorry this happened to you, but we’re all doing the best we can. We didn’t take the physical beating you did, but it hurt us like hell seeing you like that and then having to get used to this new you.”

  He returned the net to its hook. “I’m not trying to say we’re suffering more than you. That’s not what I mean. You have got to be the bravest person I know, and I respect you for it. You just can’t take your fear out on us because you’ve changed and we haven’t. I know you don’t know what we used to be like. We only want what’s best for you, and we wouldn’t lie to you.”

  She broke down as he held her, letting her cry on his shoulder as if she was ten years old again. After a few minutes she stepped away and wiped her face with her hands. “I’m sorry, Steve. It’s just that I’m so scared.”

  “We all are, honey. It’s not just your life that’s lost. We’re all kind of adrift here, too. You are a big part of all of our lives, and it hurts us to see you like this.” He kissed her on the forehead and walked inside to ring up a customer.

  She stood on the dock for a few more minutes, watching boats in the Intracoastal heading toward the Boca causeway bridge. This was one of the few things that felt familiar. She must have spent hours in this very place doing the same thing. The phone rang and after a moment, Steve opened the door and called her in.

  “Who is it?”

  He shrugged and she picked the receiver up. “Hello?”

  “Hi, is this Laura?” The man’s voice sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Yes? Who’s speaking please?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. This is Don Kern. I was in yesterday.”

  She thought back and it clicked. Those green eyes. “Oh, yes. Hi.”

  He cleared his throat. “Listen, I feel kind of stupid asking this, and you’re probably going to say no, but before I totally lose my nerve would you mind having lunch with me today?”

  It caught her totally unprepared.

  So did her answer. “Sure.”

  They agreed on a restaurant in town and she said she’d meet him there at one. She hung up the phone before Steve returned, and when he asked who it was she said it was just a question about Saturday’s class. He returned to the workroom and didn’t notice how preoccupied she was.

  She didn’t know why she lied. And while it probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do, having lunch with a stranger, it was in a public place.

  There was something about Don Kern. Like her mind was working on a puzzle and didn’t want to let go. She hadn’t felt this way about anyone since the attack, and instinctively she felt she had to meet him, talk with him.

  If it wasn’t for customers she wouldn’t have got any work done. The mysterious Don Kern clouded her mind. She didn’t know if the troubling aspect was because she knew him or because she didn’t.

  He hadn’t acted like he knew her, but she couldn’t be sure. Her story was well-known around town. People came up to her in public and introduced themselves. Some of them people she’d known for years or went to school with, or who were friends of her parents, or customers. From their reaction, she guessed her shop was a fixture in the area.

  At twelve thirty she hollered she was going out and left before Steve could question her. She made it to the restaurant with a few minutes to spare and grabbed a table. Don Kern showed up on time. He spotted her and smiled, and she watched him as he walked over.

  She didn’t feel the same emotions she had when she first met Rob in the hospital. And now she regretted this meeting.

  Just…something she couldn’t put her finger on.

  “Hi.” He sat at the table. “I can’t believe you said yes.”

  His green eyes transfixed her. They were a supernatural intensity. She wondered if the color was natural or contacts. Regardless, there was something there, some feeling.

  She couldn’t say it was bad, but the longer she sat in his presence, she definitely wouldn’t label it good.

  “Well, I figured no harm, no foul,” Laura lied. The waitress came and took their order and brought them water. “Dutch okay?”

  “I asked you,” he said, “so it’s my treat.”

  “No offense, but I feel better paying my share.”

  He didn’t argue the point and they spent the next few minutes chatting.

  “Listen, I have to tell you something,” Laura said. “I get the feeling that I know you, but to be quite honest, you’re not going to believe this.”

  “What’s that?”

  She related an abbreviated version of the story, and he looked shocked in the appropriate places. So far, so good. His hands didn’t appear to be scarred, but this many weeks after the attack, that was a useless barometer.

  “That’s horrible. God, you’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Sometimes I wonder.”

  He looked sheepish. “Okay, I have to admit, I do know you.”

  She tensed, feeling the comforting weight of the gun pressing into the small of her back against the chair. “Aha.”

  “We took a class together in college. USF, in Tampa.”

  She relaxed a little. “Go on.”

  “You sat in front of me in the lecture hall, three rows down, and I spent the entire semester looking at the back of your neck and too scared to ask you for your phone number.”

  Her tension levels dropped a little. “Why’s that?”

  “You were dating my Psych professor. I was afraid I’d get flunked if I hit on you. When I walked into the shop yesterday, I wasn’t sure it was you. Then I realized it was, and it’s been eating at me ever since. I figured I wasn’t in college anymore and it was time to grow a set, you know?”

  Whew. That explained a lot and made sense. She remembered reading something in the journals, reminiscing about dating a guy in college. “So tell me about yourself.”

  He expounded on the divorce story. He was a pharmaceutical company rep, based in Pt. Charlotte. Travelled on the road a lot, but the pay was good. He came home early one day and caught his ex in bed with someone else. When he asked for a divorce, she took all of his stuff and sold it or gave it away while he was out of town on business.

  “So now I’m starting out all over again.” He looked at her. “Well, okay, not in the same way you are. I guess I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself, should I?”

  “Actually, I don’t feel too sorry for myself. I’m alive. I have people in my life who love me very much. I have a good job and financial security. I just have to create a new identity for myself if my old one doesn’t return.”

  “What did the doctors say about that anyway?” He seemed hesitant to ask, but then again, so did most people who asked her that. “Will you get your memory back?”

  “They say that the longer it takes the less likely it is it will.”

  “That sucks.”

  They finished about an hour later. When he asked her if he could take her out to dinner the next night, she fibbed and told him she already had plans, but they could talk after Saturday’s class. He wrote his private cell number on his business card and handed it to her.

  “Needless to say, you’d probably never catch me at home. You can always call me on my cell.”

  They settled the bill and he walked her to her car. “So, I guess I’ll see you at class?”

  She nodded. “Yep.”

  He extended his hand and she
took it, briefly. His grip felt delicate, dry and soft, like shaking hands with a mannequin with balsa wood fingers. “Thanks for a wonderful lunch, Laura.”

  He closed her door for her. She drove back to the shop feeling strange, like a play had occurred in front of her and she had a central role in it but didn’t know a single one of her lines.

  And no one had cared.

  She felt out of control. Nothing was going the way she thought it should, and why in heck was she even having lunch with this guy when she already told Rob she’d date him exclusively? Not to mention Kern was a total stranger to her.

  It wasn’t a date though. Just lunch.

  Yes, just lunch. So why had she hid it from Steve? Did she used to cheat on Rob?

  That scared her. She pulled over before getting to the shop and sat tightly gripping the steering wheel. Maybe there was a good reason why her memory wouldn’t come back. Maybe there were parts of her life she didn’t want to recall. Stuff she never even told Shayla.

  Maybe there were parts of her personality best left undisturbed in the dark abyss of her missing mind.

  Something like that, she couldn’t imagine she’d even confide in Shayla about it had it happened.

  What if her mind refused to release her past because it wasn’t a very good past? What if she’d led some sort of dark double life?

  Do I even deserve Rob’s love?

  If only she could find those journals.

  Then again, maybe she was better off if she didn’t.

  Laura continued on to the shop and managed to make it through the rest of the day despite her knotted stomach. Then she had a thought.

  She’d forgotten about going to the warehouse. Forgot since Rob told her about it, that was.

  She went to Steve. “Do you have a key or whatever to get into the warehouse?”

  “No, but you have it on your key ring.” She brought it to him and he showed her which ones. “You feeling up to doing it?”

  “Yeah. My ribs are fine. I need to find those journals.”

  “You want me to take you over there?”

  “Please.”

  They left Sarah to close up the shop. Laura followed Steve in her truck. The warehouse complex was buried on a side street near Rotonda, a huge wagon wheel-shaped subdivision that looked deceptively easy to maneuver through on a map until you were actually inside it. He drove to the last building where the largest storage units were and took her key ring from her.