“Dr. Solomon’s experiments.”
“Yeah. I’m Jake.”
The others circled him and introduced themselves. He sorted them out and put them into couples. That part was pretty obvious because of the bond between them. Jake and Rachel. Stephanie and Craig. Matt and Elizabeth.
And he and Olivia. Was he like them now? He wasn’t sure.
Jake and Matt helped him off the boat and into a rental van.
Apparently, they’d made plans while he was asleep, because their next stop was a discount department store.
The couple, Craig and Stephanie, went to buy dry clothes for everyone who had been in the water, and some other necessities for Gabe and Olivia.
While they were in the store, Jake came back to him. “Do you know a small, out-of-the-way motel where we could spend the night and make some plans?”
Gabe realized that he did. “The Driftwood.”
Jake used his phone to check the location and then to make a reservation for the group.
Matt registered everybody and collected the keys. Gabe had a room to himself, and he was steady enough to take a shower on his own.
He had just finished combing his hair when he heard a knock at the door. When he opened it, he found Olivia standing there.
“Can I come in?”
He stepped aside, and she entered, carefully closing the door behind her.
He remembered on the boat, Travis saying that he would leave him alone, but now Gabe felt the other man again and felt his emotions. He found himself looking at Olivia with a hunger that he felt light up every cell of his body. It was an unexpected jolt. He’d been attracted to her, sure. But this new emotion was a shock to his soul. It was Travis’s hunger, and somehow it was his own as well, because he was as much Travis Carson as Gabe Bowman.
Still unable to focus on what that might mean on a personal level, he grabbed for a less fraught topic—Travis’s work. He had made his life on the water, and Gabe knew nothing about boats. Or did he?
Yes. Suddenly, it was all there. All the knowledge he had lacked. He knew all the working parts of a boat. All the things you had to do to maintain a safe and seaworthy vessel. The price of marine fuel. Navigational markers. What to do in a storm. How to prepare his boat for the winter.
He didn’t have to ask questions about the subject. The knowledge was justtherelike someone had dumped it all into his brain. Or to put it another way—like something he had always known.
His legs had gone wobbly, and he took a step to the side so that he could prop a shoulder against the wall.
Olivia stayed where she was, her gaze alert and worried. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” He dragged in a breath and let it out. Part of him wanted to reach for her. The other part wanted to be alone while he sorted out what he was now.
He looked down at his hand, a hand he recognized. Turning it slightly, he found the scar he’d gotten when he’d crashed into a brick wall on his skateboard. “I’m Gabe. And I’m also Travis,” he said in a shaky voice, testing the knowledge as he said the words aloud.
She silently nodded.
“And you know.”
“Yes.”
A piece of newly acquired knowledge tumbled out of him. “His father never forgave him for killing his mom when he was born.”
“Yes.”
“He was lonely all his life, until he met you.”
“I was just as lonely,” she answered.
The enormity of his situation started to kick in. He was himself—Gabe Bowman, the person he had always been. But he was also Travis Carson.
