“Beau Brummell. Nineteenth-century figure, known for his penchant for finery. Friend of the prince of Wales.”
She and Kevin exchanged looks, then turned to look at Luc, who appeared a little amazed himself. He had no idea where that had come from.
“Maybe you’re an encyclopedia salesman,” Kevin suggested, only half kidding.
Luc shrugged. “Right now, that sounds as right as anything.”
Like a child on his first trip away from home, he watched the scenery go by outside the car window. Trying to absorb everything. Feeling a little lost, a little uncertain.
Except in his case, Luc hadn’t a clue where home actually was. All he knew, and not even with any amount of certainty, was that it wasn’t here.
“You’re trying too hard.”
Her voice, soft, understanding, drew his attention back to the car he was in. And to her. “What?”
She’d noted his reflection in the window when they’d stopped at the last traffic light. Alison could have sworn she could see his eyes getting tread worn. Though she’d never experienced anything remotely like amnesia, she could well imagine how frustrating it had to be for him. To think and not remember. To exist and have absolutely no memory of it.
“You’re trying too hard. To remember,” she added after a moment. “Sometimes, things come when you least expect them.”
Luc turned around to face her. Something she’d said was nudging a piece of a thought in his mind. Setting it off.
But it was shimmering just out of reach, just out of focus. For all he knew, it could be animal, vegetable or mineral. For the time being, he left it alone. Not that he had much choice in the matter.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Maybe if he allowed his mind to remain a blank, the pieces would eventually turn up.
He saw her grin and felt something stir inside him in response. The grin was sensual, but innocent at the same time. More questions came to mind, but this time they had to do with her.
“I usually am.” And then Alison laughed. “Not that anyone in my family likes to admit it.”
Family. The word created ripples of a feeling that passed over him. Again it defied capture. He couldn’t quite make it his. Maybe if he kept her talking, the feeling would crystallize into something he could identify.
“How many are there in your family?”
“Four, counting me.” It had been four for a very long time. Her mother had died when she was eight, her father three years after that. For all intents and purposes, Kevin was as much her parent as he was her brother. “You met Kevin and Jimmy. Among the missing, but only for the moment, is Lily.” She grinned again. They were as different as night and day, she and her sister. Lily was the sophisticate. “Lily recently moved out to live over the restaurant she bought into.”
Lily had finally managed to buy out the other owners and rechristen the restaurant. There was no doubt in her mind that within the year, Lily’s would become the trendy place to go in Seattle. Lily wouldn’t have it any other way.
Alison glanced at Luc as she took a side street. It wasn’t far now. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re all eager little beavers in my family.”
“I noticed.” Except that he would have used the word enterprising, he thought, then wondered where the word had come from. “And you’re the youngest.”
She laughed and nodded. At times, it was more of a condition than a chronological position. “And they never let me forget it.” She hesitated, then decided to prod a little. Who knew? It might actually help. “Do you think you have any family?”
He’d been asking himself the same thing. With no results. “I don’t know, but I don’t think so, at least not in the traditional way.” He tried to make sense of it for himself as well as her. “There’s this vague feeling that there’s someone, but…not really.”
That didn’t make a hell of a whole lot of sense, did it, he thought. And yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been someone, someone important, who wasn’t there anymore. Had they died? A hollow feeling took hold of him as the realization sank in. Someone important to him could have died recently and he didn’t even know.
Without thinking, she slipped her hand over his in mute comfort, then replaced it on the steering wheel. “Sounds like a ghost.”
“That,” he agreed. “Or something that wasn’t.” The words drifted from his lips slowly, just as the thought had drifted in. It wasn’t the death of a person that he was feeling, but of something. What did that mean?
“I don’t follow you.”
That made two of them, he thought ruefully. “Sorry, it’s just something that seemed to pop into my head and then out again.” And he couldn’t make a damn bit of sense out of it.
She didn’t want him getting too frustrated, not when she thought he was still weak.
“Well, when it pops back in, try to hang on to it. Something tells me those missing pieces of your puzzle are doing their damnedest to try to show up again.” Pulling up to a compact, two-story house, she parked at the curb. They took turns using the garage. This week, Kevin’s car and Jimmy’s motorcycle got to stay out of Seattle’s daily mist. “In the meantime, this is where you can crash.”
“Crash?”
She shut off the engine and got out. “Set up your tent.” Walking ahead of him, she led the way to the detached garage. There was a wooden staircase on the side closer to the house. “Park your body. You know, stay.”
For the first time since he’d opened his eyes, amusement materialized. “Do you always use this many words?”
She took the wooden stairs two at a time. “I love the sound of words.” Reaching the landing, she unlocked the door. She turned around and waited for him to join her. “I was going to become an English teacher, but then I thought that wouldn’t make enough of a difference.” She let him walk in first.
The room was small, made smaller by the presence of a queen-size bed and a massive chest of drawers that had once occupied the master bedroom. “Does that mean a lot to you, making a difference?”
There was no way she could put into words just how much it did mean. No one really knew or understood. Sometimes, the feeling even left her a little mystified.
“When you’re the littlest and the youngest, you have a tendency to want to be the loudest just to be noticed. I want to make a difference, to know that because of me, someone feels better. Is better.” That’s why nursing had seemed so right to her. It allowed her the time to hold a patient’s hand, to offer comfort. In order to heal, the spirit had to be helped along as well as the body. Hearing herself, Alison stopped abruptly. “I’m talking too much.”
He didn’t want her to stop. “No, please, talk. Listening to you helps fill up the empty spaces in my head.”
For some reason, there wasn’t enough air in the room. She’d never noticed how small the room was. How tight the space around the bed seemed. There was no place to back up and suddenly she felt as if she needed to.
“You should be filling them up with your own thoughts.”
He smiled at the irony of her words. “I seem to have misplaced them. Temporarily I hope.”
“Do you think you’re married?” She had no idea where the question came from. Or why she wanted to know. Her curiosity didn’t feel idle, but active. It made her uneasy. Trying to move around Luc, Alison maneuvered toward the door and opened it.
“I don’t