A Time to Remember. Lois Richer
sensed there was something else the man—her husband—wanted to say. But he clamped his lips together and thrust his hands into the pockets of his worn blue jeans.
The doctor was puzzled. He glanced from her to him, then shrugged.
“How are you feeling, Marissa?”
“She’s got a headache. And she doesn’t remember anything.”
Marissa glared at Gray. Did he have to say it like that, tacked on at the end as if she’d deliberately done it to spite him? Why did he always…what? The memory eluded her.
“I can speak for myself,” she muttered, fighting to retain her composure.
Again that careless shrug, the slumping pose, the thrust of that granite chin. “So do it.”
“Thank you. I will. If you’ll let me.” She wanted it clear up front that she wasn’t going to turn into some kind of shrinking violet, no matter what she’d been like before.
The doctor ignored their verbal battle, eyes concerned as he swung his flashlight across her pupils, took her pulse, checked her reactions.
“What specifically don’t you remember?” he asked gently, frowning at her tear-filled eyes. “Do you remember me? Luc Lawrence? I moved here just after Dr. Darling had his accident. Joshua Darling.”
He could have been speaking Hindi for all she understood. Marissa frowned, waited for something. Nothing. No flash of comprehension, no lightning stroke of memory. Nothing.
“I’m married to Dani. You and Gray live next door to her ranch. Gray’s renting the land.”
“Oh.” She leaned back against the pillow and wished it would all go away. It hurt too much to think. “How did I get here?” she asked a moment later.
“We were hoping you could tell us.” Gray pushed away from the wall, his attention riveted on her, his eyes searching for—what? “You and Cody disappeared over five months ago. No one’s been able to find out where you went or what you’ve been doing. Then last night Cody showed up in the church parking lot. He was bruised, a little roughed up. But he’s fine.” He stopped, watched her. “Except that he won’t talk.”
“Why?” She felt sorry for the little boy, then realized she was thinking about her own son. “I mean, what do you think happened?”
“We were hoping you could explain.” Gray looked at the doctor. Something unspoken passed between them.
“Marissa, you were found about a mile down a very steep ravine, about half a mile away from where police think Cody crawled up. Do you recall that?” The doctor’s eyes were gentle, caring. They didn’t demand answers, not like Gray’s.
She frowned, closed her eyes, tried to imagine what she would have been doing in a ravine. Like a quilt, fear settled on her shoulders in a shroud she couldn’t shake. Swirls of nebulous memories that couldn’t be defined wavered behind her eyes. Only one word came to mind.
Run!
“Marissa! Marissa, it’s okay. You’re safe. Nothing will hurt you here.” Dr. Luc’s fingers squeezed her arms and at once the memories faded, the fear lifted. “What just happened?” Gray looked from the doctor to her, confusion evident.
“I think you had a flashback, didn’t you?” Luc murmured, holding her wrist as he measured her pulse. “Can you tell us what you saw?”
“Not—not really.” She shrank against the pillows at the sparks that lit Gray’s eyes. “I can’t! It was just shadows and whispers, nothing I could explain. And fear. I felt fear. I had to run.” She shivered, and her voice died away at the cold black terror of it.
“It’s okay. You’re safe.” Gray’s fingers, warm and strong, closed around hers. “Anything else you can remember? Anything at all? A house, flowers? Did you follow a road? Anything?”
Because he looked so sad, she closed her eyes and waited for the black shroud to drown her. When it didn’t, she sighed, felt his thumb rubbing against her wrist in a soothing caress that allowed her to relax and stop fighting the hammer in her head. A picture wavered before her mind.
“There’s a river,” she whispered. “I’m swimming in a river.” Then the picture was gone and she couldn’t remember when or why or how she came to be in that river.
“That might not be a recent memory, Gray,” she heard the doctor whisper. “There’s no way of knowing just where her mind selected that from. She might have been a child.”
“I wasn’t a child,” she insisted, eyes wide open, slightly insulted that they thought they could speak in front of her, as if she were deaf. “I was like I am now.” She frowned. “No, wait a minute.” Something wasn’t right.
“It wasn’t exactly swimming,” she murmured, confused by the impressions she was feeling. “But I was in the water up to my neck. It was cold, but it felt good.”
“Was Cody there? Can you picture Cody?”
She cast about, trying to home in on a picture of a little boy, but nothing came.
“I don’t think so.” Marissa opened her eyes, shrugged. “I can’t remember.”
Gray sighed, the light in his eyes fading. She saw Luc reach out, touch his shoulder.
“Maybe it’s a nightmare, Luc,” her husband offered. “Marissa never swims. She’s afraid of the water. You wouldn’t believe the lectures she’s given me about water safety. When I took Cody fishing last year—”
She felt his hands tighten against hers before he drew them away, the sentence dying on his lips just as the hope flickered out of his eyes.
“Bubbles.” The word popped out of her without any conscious thought.
“What?”
Both men stared at her as if she were insane. Then Gray looked to Luc for direction. But the doctor was intent on his own thoughts.
“Bubbles,” she repeated, trying to understand what had prompted her to say it.
“You were washing.” Luc looked from Gray to Marissa, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “Don’t you see? Soap. Bubbles. You were washing in the water.”
“Washing clothes?” she asked doubtfully, searching for the thread of a memory that eluded her.
Luc shook his head.
“Yourself. You said you were up to your neck. You wouldn’t go that deep to wash clothes, but you would if you were taking a bath.”
Gray stared at him, nodded. “So wherever you were staying, it was beside water. And you were confined.” He pointed to the marks on her wrists.
Marissa hadn’t noticed them before, but now the blue-tinged rings held her in a grip of fear. Get away. Get away from here.
The pain was suddenly excruciating and she whimpered as it flooded over her. Just from the corner of her eye she saw Gray glare at Luc, his eyes asking a question. Luc shook his head.
She closed her eyes, almost passing out as a new wave sucked her strength.
“Oh, please help me.” The hand with the IV in it felt too heavy to lift, but she did it anyway, rubbing one finger against her forehead to ease the stabbing pressure.
“What’s wrong, Marissa?”
“My head,” she whispered. “Please give me something to stop my head from hurting.”
“I’ll help you, I promise,” Luc murmured, checking her pupils again. “You can go to sleep soon. But I want you to think for just one minute more.”
The pinpricks of light from his flashlight sent waves of nausea over her body, but Marissa fought back, sucked in deep breaths of air and forced herself to relax.