“Hmm?”
“I don’t want them to take me away from you.”
Her brows lifted. “I . . .” She gestured. “I was behind you on the road. I came around the bend just in time to see your car go off the edge. I pulled over and dialed 9-1-1.”
“How long was I out?”
“Just a few minutes. Is there anything I can do for you?”
He extended his right hand to her. “Hold my hand?”
“Of course.” She wrapped both of her hands around his. The heat of her touch had the same effect on him as her voice and appearance.
He suspected he’d cracked his head on his side window, which had knocked him out and likely given him a severe concussion.
“Would it help if I unfastened your seat belt?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He was capable of freeing it using his left hand. But if she was offering to do it for him, he wasn’t about to say no.
She let go of his hand to accomplish the task, and he cursed himself for making a tactical error. But then she braced one hand against the center console and reached across him, bringing her hair within a few inches of his nose. He drew air in and registered the scent of lavender.
Dark satisfaction curved his lips. He hadn’t made a tactical error. His brainpower remained intact, and he was going to be just fine. The constriction of his seat belt released.
She arched back and resumed her earlier position.
He extended his hand.
She took it. “Better?”
“Much.”
The sound of sirens reached him. In response, resistance sharpened inside him. He didn’t want to be parted from her.
Twice before in his life, he hadn’t wanted to be parted from people. When he was eight. When he was thirteen. Both times, his desires hadn’t mattered.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked. “I’d be happy to call someone.”
“No. I’m not the type . . . to alarm people . . . before I have solid facts.” He paused for a moment to gather his strength. The pinpricks still wouldn’t go away.
The sirens drew nearer. Louder.
He rested the back of his skull against his headrest but kept his face turned fully to the right, his concentration trained on her. “After I speak with the doctors . . . I’ll make calls. To tell people what’s happened.”
“Okay.”
The sirens grew so loud that they made conversation impossible.
She craned her neck to look toward the road.
Idiot sirens. Violently, he wished he could take back her 9-1-1 call.
He had to remember that he was a stranger to her. He couldn’t expect her to feel about him the way he felt about her. She hadn’t been in a crash. Her head was clear.
The noise of the ambulance cut away. Its lights continued to revolve, sending rays of red and blue against her face. She gave him a small, encouraging smile. “They’ll be here in just a second.”
He gripped her hand more tightly, holding her with him. He memorized the curves and lines of her forehead, cheeks, hair, neck, arms.
Men’s voices neared.
She moved to exit his car.
He didn’t release her hand. “Don’t go,” he said.
She leveled a bemused look on him. “I need to get out of their way. It’s all right. They’re going to take great care of you.” Gently, she slipped her hand from his and scooted away.
All he could think was, No. Don’t go. But he’d already said that, and it hadn’t worked. He couldn’t force her to remain with him.
“You’re going to be just fine,” she said.
He was not going to be just fine without her.
Two men in EMT uniforms filled the passenger-side doorway. They were leaning in, talking to him.
Sebastian had twisted, trying to keep sight of her, but in an instant, the fog had stolen her from view.
The book and movie character Jason Bourne had been hit on the head, woken up with amnesia, realized he was extremely talented at killing people, and gone on a series of high-adrenaline adventures.
Sebastian had been hit on the head, experienced short-term amnesia, and been so out of it when he’d come to that it hadn’t occurred to him to ask for the woman’s name.
He’d gotten only one thing right on the morning of his accident. He’d correctly understood that he was not going to be fine without her.
Instead of high-adrenaline adventures, his world had been muted and dull since his concussion. It was like he’d been walking through time in a space suit that kept out joy.Which he didn’t understand, because he’d finally achieved the goal he’d been chasing for years. He’d become a pediatric heart surgeon, and his job was supposed to have righted the wrong that had happened to him when he was a kid. It was supposed to have brought him security, fulfillment, happiness.
To be fair, his job did bring him some of that. But not enough to free him from the space suit. Which made him mad.
Also, Jason Bourne sucked.
Sebastian jerked off his sunglasses and pushed them into the chest pocket of his lightweight gray-and-white-checked button-down. He wore the shirt untucked over jeans, the sleeves rolled up.
He saw all ages and shapes of people. But not her.
For weeks after his encounter with her, he’d racked his brain, trying to think how he could learn her identity. He’d never seen her car. She’d been wearing nothing distinctive that would have allowed him to track her down. She’d left no trace behind.
He’d contacted Misty River’s 9-1-1 dispatcher and the EMTs to ask who she was. Neither had been willing to share her name. Privacy, they’d said. He’d hunted the social media feeds of his Misty River friends for a photo that included her. No success. He’d looked through old high school yearbooks, trying to find her picture in one of Misty River High’s graduating classes. No success.
After a month of making himself crazy with frustration, he’d forced himself to quit searching. He’d told himself she could not be as appealing in real life as he’d made her in his imagination.
Unfortunately, his brain hadn’t listened. His body might have stopped the search, but he’d continued to brood over her for the past six months.
To his left, he registered movement at one of the stalls. He glanced toward it in time to see a blond head rise from behind buckets of flowers on risers. The woman extended a hand and poured change into a customer’s palm.
He could only see her profile, but that was enough.
It was the woman from the day of the crash.
His breath left him.
Finally. Amazingly, there she was.
His awareness centered on her, he moved forward. She turned to chat with the two acne-prone teenagers helping her sell flowers. A piece of butcher paper reading Support the Misty River High Math Club! hung in front of their folding table.
He’d been wrong when he’d decided she could not be as appealing in real life as he’d made her in his imagination. She was ridiculously appealing. More so than he’d remembered.
She had on a bright pink short-sleeved sweater. The rounded collar of the snowy white shirt underneath folded over the neckline. Her jeans were beige. No wedding ring. Very little makeup. Hardly any jewelry at all, just tiny earrings and a classic metal watch.
He stopped at her booth. She looked in his direction, and their eyes met.