The Wife He Couldn't Forget Read online

  Before she left the room, though, she lifted the photo from Xander’s desk and shoved it in a drawer. It hurt to shut her baby away like that, but if she had to come back here again, she couldn’t bear to see the stark reminder of all they’d lost.

  Thankfully traffic through the city to the harbor bridge approach was lighter than usual and she made the trip home in good time. She dragged the suitcase up the flight of stairs and into the guest bedroom, and quickly unpacked and hung up Xander’s shirts and trousers and a few suits, still in their drycleaner bags, in the closet and shoved his underwear, socks and T-shirts into the small chest of drawers. She put his toiletries in the bathroom across the hall. It wouldn’t be a lie to tell him she’d moved his things in there so he could recuperate in his own space. She just wouldn’t mention that she’d moved them from across town rather than from down the hall.

  Before leaving the house again, she folded a set of clothes and a belt into a small overnight bag for him and then flew out the door. She was jittery with emotional exhaustion and lack of food by the time she got back to the hospital. Xander was standing at the window when, slightly out of breath, she finally arrived.

  “I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind about taking me home,” he said lightly when she approached him.

  Even though his words were teasing, she could hear the underlying censure beneath them. And she understood it; really she did. Under normal circumstances she would have been back here much earlier. But their circumstances were far from normal, even though he didn’t know that yet.

  “Traffic was a bitch,” she said as breezily as she could. “So, are we good to go? I have some clothes for you here, although I’m thinking you’ll find everything on the big side for you now. We might need to get you a whole new wardrobe.”

  Her attempt at deflection seemed to work. “And I know how much you love shopping,” he said with a laugh.

  She felt her heart skip a beat. He’d always teased her about her shopping style. While she liked getting new things, she hated crowded stores. She had the tendency to decide what she wanted before she left the house and, with no dillydallying, get in, get the product and get right back out again as quickly as possible. No window-shopping or store browsing for her. Unless it was an art supply store, that was.

  Olivia told herself it was ridiculous to be surprised that he’d remember that. After all, he hadn’t lost all his memory, just the past six years. She forced a laugh and handed him the bag of his things.

  “Here you go. Will you need a hand to get dressed?”

  He’d had issues with balance and coordination since awakening from his coma. Physical therapy was helping him regain his equilibrium and motor skills, but he still had some way to go.

  “I think I can manage,” he said with the quiet dignity she had always loved so much about him.

  “Just call me if you need me.”

  Xander looked her straight in the eye and gave her a half smile. “Sure.”

  She smiled back, feeling a pang deep inside. She knew he wouldn’t call her. He was nothing if not independent—and stubborn. Yes, there’d been a time, early in their marriage, when they’d each been the center of the other’s world. But that had all changed.

  He was so lucky he didn’t remember, she thought fiercely. Lucky that he was still locked in the best of their marriage and couldn’t remember the worst of them both.

  * * *

  Xander took the bag through to the shared bathroom and closed the door behind him. A tremor ran through his body as he allowed the relief he’d felt when he’d seen Olivia return run through him. Ever since she’d left earlier today he’d been tense and uncomfortable, so much so the nurse preparing his discharge papers had remarked on the spike in his blood pressure.

  He couldn’t understand it. Olivia was his wife. So why had he suddenly developed this deeply unsettled sensation that things weren’t what they should be between them? He shoved off his pajamas and stepped into the shower stall, hissing a little as the water warmed up to a decent temperature. He couldn’t wait to be out of here. Even with Olivia’s daily visits to break the monotony of sleep, eat, therapy, eat, sleep, over and over again, he wanted to be home.

  Xander roughly toweled himself off, swearing under his breath as he lost his balance and had to put a hand on the wall to steady himself. His body’s slow response to recovery was another thing driving him crazy. It was as if the messages just weren’t getting through from his brain to his muscles.

  He looked down at his body. Muscles? Well, he remembered having muscles. Now his build was definitely leaner, another thing he needed to work on. He pulled on his clothing and cinched his belt in tight. Olivia had been right. His clothes looked as if they belonged to another man entirely. He couldn’t remember buying them, so they had to be something from his lost years, as he now called them.

  A light tap at the door caught his attention.

  “Xander? Are you okay in there?” Olivia asked from outside.

  “Sure, I’ll be right out.”

  He looked at his reflection in the small mirror and rubbed his hand around his jaw, ruffling the beard that had grown during his stay here. He looked like a stranger to himself. Maybe that was part of Olivia’s reticence. The beard would have to go when he got home. Xander gathered his things off the floor and shoved them in the bag Olivia had brought and opened the bathroom door.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “Let’s go then,” she answered with that beautiful smile of hers that always did crazy things to his equilibrium.

  Had he ever told her how much he loved her smile, or how much he loved to hear her laugh? He couldn’t quite remember. Another thing he would have to address in due course.

  They stopped at the nurses’ station to say goodbye and collect his discharge papers, and then they began the walk down the corridor toward the elevator. It irked him that Olivia had to slow her steps to match his. It bothered him even more that by the time they reached her car he was exhausted. He dropped into the passenger seat with an audible sigh of relief.

  “I’m sorry—I should have gotten you to wait at the front entrance and driven round to get you,” Olivia apologized as she got in beside him.

  “It’s okay. I’ve had plenty of time to rest. Now it’s time to really get better.”

  “You say that like you haven’t been working hard already.” She sighed and rested one hand on his thigh. The warmth of her skin penetrated the fabric of his trousers, and he felt her hand as if it were an imprint on him. “Xander, you’ve come a long way in a very short time. You’ve had to relearn some things that you took for granted before. Cut yourself some slack, huh? It’s going to take time.”

  He grunted in response. Time. Seemed he had all too much of it. He put his head back against the headrest as Olivia drove them home, taking solace in the things he recognized and ignoring his surprise at the things that had changed from what he remembered. Auckland was a busy, ever-changing, ever-growing city, but it still disturbed him to see the occasional gaping hole where, in his mind at least, a building used to stand.

  “Did the school mind about you taking time off to spend with me?” he asked.

  “I don’t work at the school anymore,” Olivia replied. “I stopped before—”

  “Before what?” he prompted.

  “Before they drove me completely mad,” she said with a laugh that came out a bit forced. “Seriously, I quit there just over five years ago, but I’ve been doing really well with my paintings since. You’d be proud. I’ve had several shows, and I’m actually doing quite well out of it.”

  “But it was never about the money, right?” he said, parroting something Olivia had frequently said to him whenever he’d teased her about not producing a more commercial style of work.

  “Of course not,” she answered, and this tim
e her smile was genuine.

  By the time they arrived at the house he felt about a hundred years old, not that he’d admit it to Olivia, who, to his chagrin, had to help him from the car and up the front stairs to the house.

  As she inserted a key into the lock and swung the door open he couldn’t help but twist his lips into a rueful smile.

  “Seems like not that long ago I was carrying you across that threshold. Now you’re more likely to have to carry me.”

  He regretted his attempt at humor the moment he saw the concern and fear on her face.

  “Are you okay?” she said, slipping an arm around his back and tucking herself under his arm so she supported his weight. “You should rest downstairs for a while before tackling the stairs to the bedroom. Or maybe I should just get a bed set up down here for you until you’re stronger.”

  “No,” he said with grim determination as they entered the hall. “I’m sleeping upstairs tonight. I’ll manage okay.”

  She guided him into the sitting room and onto one of the sofas.

  “Cup of coffee?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  While she was gone he looked around, taking in the changes from what he remembered. French doors opened out onto a wooden veranda—they were new, he noted. There’d been a sash window there before and—he looked down at the highly polished floorboards—there’d been some ancient and hideous floral carpet tacked onto the floor. Seems they’d done quite a bit of work around the place.

  Xander levered himself to his feet and walked around the room, trailing his hand over the furniture and the top of the ornate mantel over the fireplace, which was flanked by wingback chairs. Had they sat here on a winter’s evening, enjoying the warmth of the fire? He shook his head in frustration. He didn’t know. He sat in one of the chairs to see if it triggered anything, but his mind remained an impenetrable blank.

  “Here you are,” Olivia said brightly as she came back into the room. “Oh, you’ve found your chair. Would you like the papers?”

  “No, thanks. Just the coffee.”

  “Still struggling with concentration?”

  He nodded and accepted the mug she handed him. His fingers curled around the handle with familiarity and he stared for a while at the mug. This, he knew. He’d bought it at the Pearl Harbor memorial when they went to Hawaii for their honeymoon. He took a sip and leaned back in the chair.

  “That’s good—so much better than the stuff they serve in the hospital.” He sighed happily and looked around the room again. “I guess we did it all, huh? Our plans for the house?”

  Olivia nodded. “It wasn’t easy, but we completed it in just over a year. We...um...we got impatient to finish and hired contractors to handle a lot of it. I wish you could remember haggling for those French doors. It was a sight worth seeing.”

  He must have pulled a face because she was on her knees at his side in a minute. She reached up to cup his cheek with one hand and turned his face to hers.

  “Xander, don’t worry. It’ll come back in its own good time. And if it doesn’t, then we’ll fill that clever mind of yours with new memories, okay?”

  Was it his imagination or did she sound more emphatic about the new memories than him remembering his old ones? No, he was just being oversensitive. And overtired, he thought as he felt another wave of exhaustion sweep through him. It was one thing to feel relatively strong while in the hospital, when there were so many people in worse condition he could compare himself with. Quite another to feel the same in your home environment, where you were used to being strong and capable.

  He turned his face into her palm and kissed her hand. “Thanks,” he said simply.

  She pulled away, a worried frown creasing her brow. “We’ll get through this, Xander.”

  “I know we will.”

  She got up and smoothed her hands down her jeans. “I’ll go and start dinner for us, okay? We should probably eat early tonight.”

  He must have fallen asleep when she left the room because before he knew it he was awoken with another of those featherlight kisses on his forehead.

  “I made spaghetti Bolognese, your favorite.”

  She helped him stand and they walked arm in arm into the dining room. It looked vastly different from the drop-cloth-covered space he remembered. He looked up at the antique painted glass and polished brass library lamp that was suspended from the ceiling.

  “I see you got your way on the prisms,” he commented as he took his seat.

  “Not without a battle. I had to concede to the ugliest partner desk in all history for the study upstairs to get this,” she said with a laugh.

  He smiled in response. There it was. The laugh he felt had been missing from his life for so long. Odd, when it had only been nine weeks since his accident. It felt so much longer.

  After dinner Xander propped himself against the kitchen counter while Olivia cleaned up. He tried to help, but after a plate slipped from his fingers and shattered on the tile floor, he retreated in exasperation to the sidelines to watch.

  “Stop pushing yourself,” Olivia admonished as she swept up the last of the splinters of china on the floor with a dustpan and brush.

  “I can’t help it. I want to be my old self again.”

  She straightened up from depositing the mess in the kitchen trash bin. “You are your old self—don’t worry so much.”

  “With Swiss cheese for brains,” he grumbled.

  “Like I said before, we can plug those holes with new memories, Xander. We don’t have to live in the past.”

  Her words had a poignant ring to them, and he felt as if she wanted to say more. Instead, she continued tidying up. When she was done, she looked at him with a weary smile. Instantly he felt guilty. She’d been doing a lot of driving back and forth from here to the hospital and helping when she could with his physical therapy. And he knew that when she was painting, she’d often work late into the night without eating or taking a break. Why hadn’t he noticed the bluish bruises of exhaustion under her eyes? Silently he cursed his weakness and his part in putting those marks there.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for an early night,” Olivia said with a barely stifled yawn.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he teased.

  Together, they ascended to the next floor, too slowly for Xander’s liking but an unfortunate necessity as his tiredness played havoc with his coordination.

  “Did we change bedrooms?” he asked as Olivia led him to the guest room at the top of the stairs.

  “No,” she answered, a little breathlessly. “I thought you’d be more comfortable in here. I’ve become a restless sleeper, and I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “Livvy, I’ve been sleeping too long without you already. I’m home now. We’re sleeping in the same bed.”

  Four

  Sleep in the same bed?

  Olivia froze in the doorway of the guest bedroom and watched as Xander made his way carefully down the hall to the master suite. She followed, then halted again as she watched Xander strip off his clothes and tumble, naked, into the side of the bed that had always been his. He was asleep in seconds. She watched him for a full five minutes, unsure of what to do. In the end, she grabbed her nightgown from under her pillow and slipped into the en suite bathroom to get ready for bed. By the time she’d washed her face and brushed her teeth her heart was pounding a million miles a minute.

  He’d done so many things automatically in the few short hours since they’d returned to the house. It had been reassuring and frightening at the same time. It showed the damage from his injury hadn’t destroyed everything in his mind, but it certainly raised questions, for her at least, about how long she’d have before he might remember everything.

  Olivia gingerly slid under the bedsheets, trying not to disturb Xander
, and rolled onto her side—taking care to stay well clear of him—so she could watch him sleep. She listened to one long deep breath after another, finding it hard to believe he was actually here. His breathing pattern changed, and he suddenly rolled over to face her.

  “What are you doing all the way over there on the edge? I’ve missed you next to me long enough already.” His voice was thick with sleep; he reached an arm around her to pull her toward him and snuggled her into his bare chest. “You can touch me. I’m not made of spun glass, you know.”

  And with that, he was asleep again.

  Olivia could barely draw a breath. Every cell in her body urged her to allow her body to sink into his, to let herself soak up his warmth, his comfort. He felt so familiar and yet different at the same time. But the steady heartbeat beneath her ear was the same. And, right now, that heart beat for her. How could she not simply relish the moment, take pleasure in it, accept it for what it was worth?

  Gold. Spun gold. Jewels beyond compare.

  How many achingly lonely nights had she lain here in this very bed since he left her? Made futile wish after wish that they could lie here together, just like this, again? Far, far too many. And now, here he was. All her dreams come true, on the surface at least.

  They said you couldn’t turn back time, but isn’t that effectively what his accident had done?

  She sighed and relaxed a little. The moment she did so her mind began to work overtime. If his memory came back, would he forgive her this deception? Could he? She’d basically kidnapped him from the life he’d been leading before the accident. Brought him here to resume a life he’d chosen to leave behind.

  She’d never been a deceitful person, and now it felt as if a giant weight hovered above her, held back by nothing more than a slowly fraying thread. One wrong step and she would be crushed; she knew it. Doing this, bringing him home, acting as if nothing bad had ever happened to them? It was all a lie. She felt it was worth telling—would he feel the same way? Only time would tell.