“I couldn’t,” I sigh. “Even if I wanted to.”
“I’ve been in Plainview for a month already, and while you’re at work and I have twelve whole hours to fill, sometimes I read books about traumatic brain injuries.” She smirks. “You have a bunch of textbooks in this house, by the way. Like, way more than any one student should have. Could you not pick a specialty?”
“I knew I was coming back to this dumb town,” I pout, “and that I wouldn’t have the luxury of a specialty. I’d need to know everything and treat everyone. Stop changing the subject.”
“A month,” she quips. “Mostpatients with similar injuries recovered their memories within a few days. Some, a couple of weeks.”
“You can’t compa?—”
“There will be others,” she presses on. “Outliers, who maybe needed a few months. But the textbooks are fairly clear on the matter: those of us still floundering a whole month or two out… we’re likely to fall into the category of people who simply never get their memories back.”
“We still have time?—”
She reaches up and covers my mouth with her hand, carefully pinching my lips closed. “For the first time since I woke in Plainview, I’ve decided I don’t care anymore. I don’t care who I was before, or where I came from, or who I knew. I don’t care what job I had or what dreams made me hopeful. No one has come looking for me.” She stops and swallows, searching my eyes. “No one. Which means no one from that life deserves to be remembered anyway.” She shifts her hand across and cups my jaw. “I don’twantto remember anymore. I just want to stay right here, do my time, and reach a point where we can say for sure it’s all gone. Then I’ll start over again. Get a new ID. Get a job. Move out of my doctor’s house.”
My heart aches.
“Drop hints and make you ask me out properly, so I can act coy and shy and pretend to be a lady. But don’t worry, because I fully intend to end up back here in your bed on the first date anyway.”
And there it is, all better again.
“If this is my life now, I’m totally okay with that. And though a part of me, an annoying little voice in the back of my head, says the joke is on me,because you were probably angling for something nasty and quick and you don’t want me to stay anyway, your hesitation in telling me about Darcy says you want me, too. That voice is a liar, because you don’t want me to leave.”
“I don’t want you to leave.” I wrap her close and taste her lips. Her tongue. Her. “Never.”
“Exactly. So here we are.” Her eyes glitter with emotion. Determination. “I don’t regret what we did last night, and I’m especially glad you spoke up about Darcy. Because if he mattered, I would feel something. If I mattered to him, he would’ve come for me by now. How long until we can call it?”
“Call what?”
“The point of no return. How long must I be this patient with no memories before I can just be Rosaline, a woman wanting to get on with her life? And did you notice I made you breakfast? Because you’re letting it get cold.”
I cough out a laugh and pray it covers my exhale of relief. “I saw, and I was so preoccupied with the Darcy stuff, I didn’t even worry you’d burn my kitchen down.” I draw her closer and kiss her lips. “Three months.”
She leans into my arm, trusting me to hold her up. “Three?”
“Mmhm. Ninety days.ThenI’ll stop watching you like a patient and start objectifying you like a regular, pig bastard leering at a disgustingly sexy woman every time he catches a whiff of her shampoo. But I’m not ready for you to move out yet, so if you could hold off on those plans a little while longer, I’d appreciate your patience.”
Her eyes dance with a devious playfulness that makes my cock harden and ache.
“Got any more jobs around the house I could work on?” She peeks toward the sliding glass back doors. “The deck is basically finished, and I feel kinda bad for being a freeloader.”
“How’s that olive plant going in my living room? I noticed the leaves are still dull.”
She rolls her eyes and, with a noisy grunt, rocks forward, setting her feet back on the floor. “It’s still fake.” Turning to the counter, she leans across—I do the leering thing—and hooks her hand around a bowl of oats. Bringing it closer, she places it in front of me. “Eat. Twelve hours is a long time to work without a proper breakfast in your belly.” She drags out her stool and plops down with her bowl. “Also, do you ever stop andreallythink about the fact you’re in charge of people’s lives?” She snags her spoon and digs in, tucking her hair back to keep it out of the way. “The things you do, or don’t do, could mean someone lives or dies. Does the pressure ever get to you?”
All the fucking time.
I pick up my spoon and set my foot on the bar at the bottom of her stool. “People have died on my watch. People who really matter.” I scoop a little porridge into my mouth and search her eyes. “And the people left behind…” I shrug. “They don’t forgive easily. I try not to think about it too much. Turning it over in my head makes me second-guess myself, and when I second-guess myself, more people die.”
“Have you ever fallen in love with a patient before?”
I search her dancing, mischievous eyes and gulp.You mean, besides you? “No. But I’ve had to treat people I love before. It’s a small hospital, and sometimes your dad turns up in an ambulance, EMT pumping his heart for him, ‘cos it gave out while he was playing pickleball with his friends.”
Surprised, she lays her hand over mine. “That would’ve been really scary. Is he okay?”
“Triple bypass and some shiny new nuts and bolts.” I have fifteen minutes, at the most, before I have to get up and haul ass out of here. But I take what we have and flip my hand over, clasping hers in my fingers and bringing it up until I can taste her skin. Until I can feel her pulse under my tongue. “He’s okay now. Had to retire from the force after that, and now he spends his time gossiping with the nattering old women around town.”
She uses her left hand to scoop oats onto her spoon. “And your mom?”
