His blue eyes light up with the memory, and I wish I could share it with him.
“Grace, you’ve been my best friend for more than twenty years. My wife for eighteen of them.” He’s crying now, his hands balled into fists on his thighs. “And for the past three, I’ve started and ended every fucking day praying you’d find your way back to me.”
Chapter Nineteen
Grace
I reach for AJ’s hand, desperate to soothe a fraction of his pain.
It starts slowly—the light flickering in the corner of my eye, the window curtain swaying when there’s no breeze. Then the entire room—the floor, the bed…me—lurches like I’m adrift on open water in the middle of a storm.
I’m helpless to stop it. To stop myself from falling.
Strong arms wrap around me.
AJ.
He moved so fast—like he knew. Now I’m cradled against his chest, my cheek pressed to the soft cotton of his Henley and the frantic beat of his heart.
“Grace!” His voice is rough. Desperate. “I’ve got you, darlin’. Are you okay? Lourdes! Fuck. Where is that damn nurse when I need her?”
He’s trembling. Holding me like I’m so fragile, I’ll shatter into pieces if he lets go.
It was just vertigo. My battered brain hasn’t yet figured out how to make sense of the world around me—or so Dr. Reyes says. I know I’m okay. Or…as okay as one can be with a fractured skull and no memories of her life.
AJ doesn’t. And he looks utterly wrecked.
I think…if I don’t say something—if I can’t say something—it might break him completely. But when I try, my throat locks and panic squeezes my chest.
Say it. Just…say it.
The first tear rolls down my cheek. AJ’s fingers thread through my hair, cupping the back of my head so gently, I believe with everything I am that he’ll never hurt me. It would destroy him.
“Please,” he whispers. “Please don’t leave me again.”
“Just…dizzy.” The words catch in my throat, raw and shaky. “That’s all.”
“You’re sure?” Three years of pain deepen the blue of his eyes. “You’re okay?”
“Y-yes.” My heart pounds so hard he must be able to feel it, but the panic fades with each second he holds me. I ached to know what it would be like to have his arms around me. Now I do.
It’s like coming home.
It doesn’t matter that I can’t remember what—or where—home is. This is what it feels like. It’s the only thing I’m sure of.
His arms tighten around me. “You’re okay,” he says again, like he’s trying to convince himself and not me. “I’ve got you, Grace. I’ve got you.”
Closing my eyes, I let myself melt against him. For the first time since I woke up in this unfamiliar, broken world, I feel safe. Even if I don’t know who I was before, maybe I can find out who I am now.
We don’t move for several minutes. He sits on the floor, my legs draped over his thighs and my right hand pressed to his heart. The steady thump under my fingers and the slow rise and fall of his chest lull me closer and closer toward sleep.
Until I start to shiver.
“Shit. Let’s get you back into bed.”
AJ starts to guide my arms around his neck, but bed is the last place I want to be. “N-no,” I stammer. “Not yet.”
Emotion churns in his eyes, turning them the color of storm clouds over the prairie. A line deepens between his brows. “You’re freezing. And you just fell. Please, Grace. Lie down and rest.”
