Of course, he’d have to update Frederick on the protocol. He didn’t want the man to throw Beryl out of the shop if she stopped by. Mind you, that was putting the cart before the horse. He hadn’t even asked the intriguing woman out yet. He planned to remedy that as soon as he was able. Before that happened, he had a bracket to craft.
For the first time since waking in the hospital with his memories gone, Jake felt happy and hopeful, and that was all down to Beryl. In fact, he felt great about possibly adding love into his life, if that meant Beryl was going to be his romantic interest.
Clearly, they hadn’t known each other before his accident or whatever it was. She would have said something if they had. The Incident, as he thought of it, remained a huge mystery. He hadn’t been driving; when he left the hospital, his truck wasparked in the driveway of what he was told was his home. He’d been found more than ten miles away from both his home and his shop.
Either someone had driven him out of town or he’d gone on a very long walk before stumbling into the middle of a country road.
So far, no one he’d met since waking in the hospital had confessed to being with him the night of The Incident.
He’d had a few other injuries. There’d been some speculation that he’d been in a fight or taken a tumble down a steep hill. Vehicular injury had been ruled out. The van didn’t have any dents—well, not the kind it would have had if the bros had mowed Jake down—and he didn’t have any broken bones. In fact, several of the abrasions on his hands could be explained by his profession, working with metal and tools day to day.
The Incident and its aftermath had been frustrating in many ways.
The doctors had hoped he would eventually remember his life and the people in it as he saw familiar things, but that had been frustratingly untrue. He remembered absolutely no one, not even Frederick, though there was a picture of the two of them mounted on the wall behind the cash register. The date listed on it was almost six months ago.
Frederick had been filled with guilt that it had taken so long for him to realize his boss was missing.
“There have been times when I didn’t see you for several days while you were working on a project, but a week was far too long. I should have realized.” The look on Frederick’s face when he’d seen Jake in the hospital had been filled with nothing but relief. Jake had a strong gut feeling that he could trust his office manager.
He just wished he had a clue as to why he’d been where he was found. He had no doubt that he’d figure it out. Eventually.
None of the law enforcement agencies in the tri-cities seemed to be any closer to an answer. He thought they had made every effort to solve the puzzle and regularly gave him updates on their progress, even if they didn’t have much to share.
It seemed he was relatively new to the area and hadn’t become close with anyone since arriving in Alienn. None of the people he’d met since waking had known about his activities outside his workshop or admitted to being with him on the day in question. It had been very frustrating, made more so because the gut that told him to trust Frederick seemed to be working overtime when it came to his distrust of pretty much everyone else.
At least until Beryl Ashcraft stepped into his life. His gutreallyliked her. Especially her coppery red hair and green eyes. His gut, shockingly, trusted her at first sight. It was like an instant approval from his soul, which was a new feeling for him. Or at least he thought it was.
Waking in the hospital all alone a couple weeks back made him feel urgently freaked out and afraid, which was another alien concept for him. Fear. He sensed he wasn’t usually afraid of anything. Odd, because how could he know that? Well, he couldn’t.
He lived in a town named Alienn that was filled with alien lore and science fiction advertisements nearly everywhere one looked.
And he kept thinking that being fearful seemed, well…undeniablyaliento his gut.
Jake breezed through the sliding doors and set his toolbox down beside the raucous ice machine. He flipped his toolbox open and got to work, carefully noting the measurements of the bracket Beryl needed for her ice machine, highly conscious of her eyes on him. He snapped a few pictures with his phone—another frustrating and useless object that hadn’t helped himwith any memories beyond the six months that he’d lived in Alienn.
He must have been into hiking, because the only pictures he’d taken besides ones of his metal and leather crafts were of generic wooded areas unidentifiable in any possible way. He truly did love all the trees in and around Alienn. Frederick confirmed that, saying pre-hospital Jake had a penchant for taking pictures of random wooded areas. Frederick found it amusing, telling Jake he must have lived in a desert before moving to town.
Jake figured he was very private because no one seemed to know where he’d lived before coming to Alienn and buying Dark Matter Metal & Leather. Someone mentioned that the former owner said the new owner had come from someplace up north. Useless, as far as specific information that might help Jake recover any memories from Alienn, let alone before he’d arrived six months ago.
The deputy investigating what had happened to Jake had run his fingerprints though the system, but he hadn’t shown up in any national criminal databases. He guessed he had that going for him. He also hadn’t shown up in any other online databases the police could access. The deputy thought that was unusual, but Jake wouldn’t be the only person who preferred to keep their digital footprint as small as possible. At least folks in Alienn knew he was a craftsman who worked with metal and leather. Evenheknew that.
It didn’t get him any closer to learning more about his past.
“That should do it,” Jake said to Beryl once he’d finished taking his measurements and pictures. He even managed to get a partial picture of pretty Beryl in one of the frames. Totally by accident. “After I get my groceries, I’ll head back to my shop and get started right away.”
“Thank you very much,” Beryl said, her gaze focused on him. He liked it. “Let me give you my phone number and you can call me when it’s finished. I’ll come pick it up.”
“Great.” Jake was elated to get her phone number without having to figure out a way to ask for it.
They exchanged numbers as Deputy Sam Brody looked on with unconcealed disenchantment.
Jake wondered why he was still hanging around. He figured it out one second later when the other man asked Beryl, “Are you sure you can’t go to lunch with me today?”
She looked up sharply from her phone, as if she was going to say something harsh, but quickly seemed to school her features to a mellower tone. “Sorry. I’ve got to deal with this ice machine today.”
“Tomorrow maybe?” he asked, hope dimming in his expression.
“No. I don’t think so, Sam.” Beryl turned away from the deputy. She stared at the ice machine that still made awful grinding noises. At least the repetition of the sound had slowed and it wasn’t as loud as when Jake had arrived. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. His custom bracket might just be putting lipstick on a pig, but he was still going to do it.
