Trig ran a frustrated hand through his already dishevelled hair. ‘I don’t know what you don’t know. Right now, I don’t think either of us have a handle on what you do and don’t know. There’s stuff you’re repressing.’
‘The bad stuff?’
‘Yeah. And I don’t know how much of that to tell you right now, so I’m hedging, and waiting to see what does come back to you, and I’m stalling, for very good reasons, and hoping to hell that you’ll wake up tomorrow morning and try and break my jaw, because then I’ll know you’re back.’
‘Must’ve been some fight.’
‘We didn’t fight.’
‘Then why can’t I remember our wedding day? Why am I repressing that?’ She suddenly felt nervous. More than nervous. ‘Was it bad? For you? Was our wedding night a disaster?’
‘God help me.’
‘Tell me!’
‘No.’
‘No you won’t tell me or no it wasn’t a disaster?’
‘It wasn’t a disaster.’
‘Do we have pictures of our wedding day?’ Because she hadn’t seen any on his laptop.
‘I don’t know about any pictures. We left right after...the thing.’
‘The wedding.’
Trig nodded jerkily. ‘Lena, can’t you let it go? Just for now?’
‘I can’t.’ She couldn’t look at him any more. ‘I can’t remember our wedding day, or when you proposed to me or what we’re like when we’re together. Nothing, not even a flash, and of all the things I want to remember, it’s those. It feels...disrespectful that I can’t. Who forgets their own wedding?’
‘It’s not disrespectful.’ Her cool, calm husband was unravelling fast.
‘And we really are okay? We’re not on the verge of divorce after a week?’
‘No,’ he said gruffly. ‘No. Lena, I gotta get out of here for a bit. I’m going mad.’
‘Will you look for wedding rings while you’re out?’
‘What?’ The poor man looked positively hunted.
‘Wedding rings. You could go browsing. Haggling. Blood sport.’
‘I, uh, wasn’t planning to.’
‘Could you?’ Anxiousness made her fidget. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t mind.’ He’d told her to be clear about her fears. ‘It’d give me something solid to hold to when I can’t remember. Something real.’
She couldn’t read him, this husband of hers. His face was all shut down and he stood so very still.
‘You sure you wouldn’t rather wait until your memory comes back?’ She could barely hear him.
‘I don’t want to wait. I’d come with you—we can do it tomorrow if you’d rather not choose them on your own—but I don’t want to wait. I trust you to choose well.’
Trig ran a big hand over his face.
‘Trust you full stop,’ she said, hoping to reassure him.
And somehow made it worse.
‘I’ll look,’ he said hoarsely and handed over his laptop for her entertainment and fled as if the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels.
Lena let out a breath when the door snicked closed behind her husband. Damn, but she wished she could remember what had gone wrong between them. Because something had and she needed to know what so that she could fix it.
Restless, she turned to his computer and trawled through his music file, trying to find something she didn’t thoroughly approve of.
Maybe he’d downloaded his entire music collection from her.
She scrolled though the photo files next and found plenty of her and Trig or her and Jared, or Jared and Trig—most of them involving ropes and sails and water. She saw pictures of her and Poppy in an elegant apartment and felt relatively certain that the apartment in the picture belonged to her father. She saw a picture of Damon giving surfing lessons to a buxom redhead wearing a buzzy-bee headband and knew it had to be Ruby.
Her memory was returning. Maybe not all at once, maybe in fits and starts, but it was coming back.
She trolled through Trig’s video collection next. A couple of V8 car races that didn’t interest her at all. Some big wave surfing footage that did. The entire season three of a local cooking show. Huh. And a TV miniseries about a circus, a drifter and a whole bunch of supernatural goings-on.
The creepy circus show won hands down.
She was still watching it four hours later when Trig returned. Well, maybe not watching it intently. It was entirely possible that she’d drifted off to sleep at some point between the first episode and wherever they were up to now. Daylight had come and gone. Dusk ruled the sky now.
Trig looked at her, looked at the computer screen.
‘Relaxing,’ he said.
She did like a man with a crooked smile. ‘Doctor’s orders.’
‘You do know you’ve seen this before.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s all new. And if this is new, think what else could be an all-new experience. I’ve been re-virginised.’
‘Don’t even go there.’ Trig pointed a warning finger at her.
‘Think about it. I’ve barely been kissed. My breasts have never been tou—’
‘Lena!’
‘I love it when your voice gets all gruff and commanding.’ She lay back on the bed, all biddable and boneless. ‘Who knew?’
‘No sex. Doctor’s orders.’
‘Honeymoon,’ she reminded him.
‘You’re just bored.’
This was true. ‘So entertain me. What’s new in the land of out there?’
‘Well, the shopping here is still an experience to remember and I still pray for my life whenever I get into a taxi. The taxi driver’s name this time round was Boris.’
‘Did he know where to find the best wedding rings?’
‘Of course he did. What kind of question is that?’
‘And did you find any you liked?’
‘You want to see?’
Lena sat up fast. Of course she wanted to see. ‘What kind of question is that?’
He put his hand in his jeans pocket, pulled out a little velvet pouch and tossed it onto the bed.
Lena eyed the little pouch with extreme anticipation. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate the right-to-my-fingertips delivery but shouldn’t you be on bended knee?’
‘Couldn’t you just think of the turtles?’
‘I would if I could remember them. Bend. And give me the proposal speech.’
And wonder of wonders he went down on one knee and made Lena breathless.
‘Heaven help me,’ he said.
‘Keep talking.’
‘Okay.’ He cleared his throat and swallowed hard. ‘Okay, I can do this.’
‘Hang on.’ She smoothed back her hair and straightened her top, sat up straight, shoulders back and an imaginary book sitting on her head. No need for complacence just