This Reminds Me of Us Page 2

  Love at first sight. Who would have predicted it of Oliver Wolfe? When the carnival shut down for the evening and he had changed back into dry clothes, he pulled from his pocket the receipt on which she had written her room number. Room 222. Was there some meaning in the symmetry of the numbers? Some fated destiny? He didn’t know. All he knew was that if he didn’t knock on that door, he would never see her again.

  So he had knocked. She opened the door, still dressed in the plaid shorts and wrinkled white shirt she’d had on at the carnival. Her feet were bare. That was the only difference, and he was surprised to see that her toenails were unpainted—bare shells on tiny tanned feet. At that moment, he had never wanted anything as much as he wanted to pick up her curvaceous body, carry her over to the plush hotel bed, and make those tiny toes curl with pleasure.

  But instead, he had said, “Care to go for a walk?”

  He took a deep breath and pushed down on the cold handle of the hospital door. Whatever lay on the other side had to be faced, and he might as well get it over with.

  She heard a door wheeze open on its hinges. Were there doors in heaven? Or hell, for that matter? Who was she to presume she’d gone to the better place? Hers had not been a terribly religious family and so Serena couldn’t say what to expect from either place. Hot as Hades. Her grandfather used to say that when she was a child. He’d been gone for many years now, though. Probably enjoying the heat in Hades, if Serena had to guess.

  She heard the soft thud of the door closing. It was an oddly familiar sound and suddenly she felt as though she’d been hearing it all the time.

  “Babe.”

  The word hung in the air like a hummingbird, not moving yet not still either. Babe. That was Ollie’s pet name for her, his favored term of endearment. But was that Ollie’s voice? The suddenness of the word’s arrival caught her off guard.

  “Say it again.” She felt her lips moving, but it was hard to tell whether any sound was coming out. Her jaw felt stiff—rigor mortis?

  “Babe.”

  Then she felt a strange rush of air being pushed toward her, and she forgot the need to keep her eyes shut against the white light. But she opened them too quickly and had to immediately close her lids again. There was too much light for her pupils to handle.

  “Serena. Baby.”

  It was Ollie. She was certain of it. Maybe she wasn’t dead after all?

  “Can you lower the lights?” she said softly.

  A moment later, his voice returned. “There. I turned it off. The only light now is from the window, but it’s not too bad.”

  She heard a scraping noise. A chair being dragged across a floor? Where was she? She became aware of a mattress beneath her body, a pillow cradling her head. She was in a bed. But why? She wasn’t at home. She could tell that. This place didn’t smell like home. Then something touched her forehead. Skin. A hand.

  “Here. I’ll shield your eyes while you open them so you can get used to the light.”

  Yes, it was definitely Oliver. Her husband. He was kind that way. Thoughtful. Wasn’t that what had attracted her to him in the first place? He’d given her a stuffed animal even though she sucked at that silly game. When he came to her hotel room later that night, he never even set foot inside. He invited her on a walk through the sultry summer night. They walked to the little beach and when she stripped off her clothes to skinny-dip, he still managed to be the perfect gentleman.

  She felt her lips curve into a smile. Wherever she was, Oliver was here with her so how bad could it be? She fluttered her eyelids open and his calloused palm was right there, blocking the light from her tender eyes. She blinked a few times to help them adjust, then moved his hand away with her own. Her arms were working!

  I think I’m still alive.

  But Ollie wasn’t looking so hot at the moment. Even in the dim light, she could see the shadows beneath his eyes. His hair badly needed a trim, which was completely unlike him, and his cheekbones seemed more pronounced.

  “You look like hell,” she said.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He smiled a wary smile. He’d rehearsed a thousand things to say for when this moment finally came and now he couldn’t remember a single damn one of them.

  She looked around at the room, taking it in. “I’m in a hospital,” she said. She locked eyes with him. “I didn’t lose the baby, did I?”

  Ah damn. He had hoped to avoid this particular conversation right off the bat.

  “Yes,” he answered quietly. “We did. But we can try again.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. When she reopened them, they were full of sadness. “But we’ll never have another chance at a honeymoon baby.”

  He threaded his fingers through hers, gave them a gentle reassuring squeeze. “Well, no.” He was puzzled by her comment. “But we already have our honeymoon baby.” Another reassuring squeeze.

  “I thought you just said that we lost the baby.”

  Oliver leaned toward the bed and brought their clasped hands to his lips. He kissed her knuckles, trying to collect his thoughts and arrange them into some order that made sense here.

  “We lost the new baby. But Mason and Cam weren’t in the car with you, sweetheart. They’re at home right now, safe and sound. Mattie is watching them.”

  “I’m not talking about those kids. I’m talking about our baby. We got pregnant on our honeymoon. Accidentally, but still …” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Don’t you remember?”

  He felt the earth begin to shift beneath him, the bottom starting to drop out of what was left of his life, of what he had come to regard as his normal life.

  He scooted the chair he was sitting in as close to the bed as he could get it. “You were in a car accident, love. Almost four months ago. You just woke up.”

  “I was out … for … four months?”

  He nodded.

  “But we haven’t been married much longer than that.”

  “We’ve been married eight years. Mason is seven and Cam was born five years ago.”

  She shook her head back and forth on the wrinkled pillow. “No. That’s not—”

  “They can’t wait to come see you. They miss you. I’ve missed you, too.”

  In her dark eyes, he saw a spark of fear ignite. It matched the spark of fear in his gut. She just woke up. That’s all. She’s a little disoriented.

  “Four months ago?” She shook her head. “I don’t remember being here that long … I don’t remember being here at all.” The fear in her eyes was more than a spark now.

  “You’ve been in a coma all this time.” Oliver stood over the bed and gently cupped her face in his palms. “Baby, I am so glad you’re awake.” I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen.

  He leaned down and kissed her, tentatively at first but then deeper, fueled by the desperation and fear that should have disappeared with her waking. He forced himself to break the kiss before the desperation and fear became obvious. He looked into her eyes. Months in the hospital had not been kind to her. She was thinner than he’d ever seen her. Her glossy black hair was dull and matted about her head. But she was beautiful to him. Their life together had been beautiful. Their family together was beautiful. Until the day of the accident, Oliver Wolfe had nary a complaint in the world.

  Chapter 3

  Oliver waited in the hall while the doctor and nurses tended to Serena. He checked his phone for messages, then called Matt.

  “How are the boys?” he asked.

  “Asleep. At last,” Matt answered, chuckling. “All in one bed, too.”

  “Yeah, Cam usually ends up in Mason’s bed these days. I’m hoping that’ll stop when Serena gets home.”

  “How is she?”

  “Groggy, but awake. The doctor is in with her now.” Groggy, that was it. Who wouldn’t be groggy after almost four months in a coma? “I’m not sure when I’ll be home. What’s your schedule like tomorrow?”

  “Evening shift.”

  “Okay. I
’ll call around to find someone to relieve you if I’m not home by noon. Does that work?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Ollie. I’m sure I can get Jack or Becca or someone to come over for a few hours.”

  Oliver ended the call, then stared at his phone as a light bulb lit up in his brain. He thumb-tapped the photo icon and swiped until he found a photo of the boys. Seeing them will jog her memory.

  He anxiously paced the hospital’s squeaky linoleum floor until the doctor emerged from Serena’s room ten minutes later.

  “How is she?” he asked. The doctor was at least as old as Oliver’s father, with a bushy grey mustache.

  “She’s doing well. Physically, she’s in good shape these days. Which we knew, of course.”

  “She seems a little confused.” Groggy.

  The doctor nodded. “Perfectly normal in these situations. That will likely settle down in the coming days.”

  “Is there any chance she’ll slip back …” Oliver couldn’t bring himself to even say the words.

  “I don’t think so. We’ve been seeing signs that she was waking for the past several days. We didn’t want to notify you until we were more certain.”

  If Oliver had learned anything these past months it was that doctors and nurses weren’t perfectly transparent—in the name of sparing patients’ families from disappointment or worry. As a certified EMT, Oliver understood the impulse. How many times had he sugarcoated what was speeding away in an ambulance? Losing your shit never helped any situation.

  Oliver had totally lost his shit at the scene of Serena’s accident. It had taken three people—his father and both brothers—to restrain him. Thank god the boys weren’t in the car with her. He didn’t know what he would have done in that event.

  “Can I go back in?” he asked the doctor.

  “For a few minutes, son. She needs her rest. It’s best not to overwhelm her with everything she’s missed in the past months. Plenty of time for that later.”

  Oliver nodded his understanding. She had missed a lot since the accident. His mother passing away. The whole situation with his brother and Becca Trevor. No one saw that coming.

  The doctor clapped a big hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “I think we’re out of the woods now.”

  Oliver slowly pushed open the door to her room and was greeted with a smile from his wife. Well, at least she remembers me. If she hadn’t … there was no one else for her to go home with. Her parents hadn’t spoken to her since before their wedding.

  “Hey there,” he said, dropping into the chair next to her bed. He patted the cold metal arm of the chair. “I’m not sure I can sleep in a bed anymore,” he joked.

  “I love you, Ollie.”

  The look on her face was soft and open, making her look like the old Serena despite the weight loss. He reached out and clasped her small hand in his, threading his fingers between hers.

  “I love you too, Serena.”

  He pulled back his hand and retrieved his phone from his pants pocket. He tapped the photo icon and turned the screen around for her to see. “That’s Mason on the left and Cam on the right.”

  She lifted the phone from his hand to put it more directly in her line of vision. He held his breath while she studied the pictures, but there was no flash of recognition in her eyes. She wiggled her thumb in front of the screen.

  “May I?”

  He nodded and watched as she scrolled through the photos. At last, she stopped at one and stared at it for a good three minutes before speaking.

  “This is us.” She turned the phone around for him to see. It was a picture of the four of them on the boat, over a year ago now.

  “Do you remember that day?” he asked.

  She was quiet as she studied the picture. Then she shook her head. “Is that our boat?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you said Cam is the older one?”

  “No, Cam is five and Mason is seven.”

  “What month are we in?”

  “November.”

  “So Cam just started kindergarten.”

  Hope flickered in his chest. She was starting to remember.

  “Is Cam short for ‘Cameron?’”

  Or maybe not.

  “Are those family names? Cameron and Mason?”

  “No. We just liked them. We were going to name Mason ‘Austin’ but then two days before you went into labor, we changed our minds.”

  She nodded and handed the phone back to him. “Either name would have been nice.”

  The tiny flicker of hope was now an icicle, short and sharp as a dagger, and aiming in an uppercut straight for his heart. He held his breath, sitting on the edge of the hard hospital chair. This can’t be happening.

  “Serena,” he whispered.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I can see that we’re a family. I just don’t remember it.”

  She had never seen fear in Oliver’s eyes before, but that was unmistakably what she was seeing now. That rattled her almost as much as the discovery that she had a life, large chunks of which she apparently couldn’t remember.

  She had children.

  She was older than she realized.

  She’d been in a car accident.

  How could she not remember any of that?

  “How old are we now?” she asked him.

  “We both turned thirty this year.”

  Thirty! How’d we get so old? But she kept that thought to herself.

  “March eleventh. That’s my birthday, right?”

  He nodded.

  “And yours is July seventh?”

  He nodded again, but the fear remained stuck in his eyes. “You were my older woman.”

  She appreciated his attempt at humor and mustered a smile for him.

  “Mason’s birthday is July seventh, too.”

  “Really?”

  His lips broke into a small smile. “I don’t know how you pulled that off. But thank you.”

  “And Cam’s?”

  “March twenty-fourth.”

  “What are their favorite flavors of ice cream?” Ice cream might seem like a trivial matter at the moment, but if she could make Oliver feel useful—feel in control—it might chase away some of the fear in his eyes. Ollie hated being out of control and if she had been in a coma these past several months … she couldn’t even imagine how he had coped.

  “Cam is cookies and cream all the way. He’s a one-flavor man. Mason, on the other hand, likes everything. Cam is usually finished with his cone by the time Mason whittles his choices down to three or four.”

  “I’m sorry, Ollie,” she whispered.

  He shook his head slowly, sadly. “It’s not your fault, sweetheart.”

  “What caused the accident?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “So it might have been my fault.”

  “You’re a careful driver,” he countered.

  “The boys weren’t in the car?”

  “No. You dropped them off with Charlotte Trevor, for some reason.”

  For some reason. Maybe she was imagining it, but she thought she heard a note of accusation in those words.

  “I’m guessing Charlotte’s not a teenager anymore.”

  “You remember her?”

  “Yes, vaguely.” From the expression on his face, she could tell that he wanted to ask her to tell him everything she remembered. But just then, the door to her room opened and a woman’s head appeared. A nurse.

  “Mrs. Wolfe? It’s time for your physical therapy.”

  She wiggled her legs beneath the hospital’s scratchy sheet. “I feel pretty weak.”

  The nurse pushed the door aside and completely entered the room. “Well, that’s what we’re going to ascertain today. The PT has been working with you every day but now that you’re awake, we can better gauge where you are.”

  She could tell Oliver wanted to stay, but she didn’t want him to see her fall flat on her face. Or ass.

  “Go talk to the doctor,” she said to him. “
Ask him how long my … problem will last.”

  Chapter 4

  Oliver knew he was dreaming. He had always been one of those people who swore he never remembered his dreams. Probably because, as a firefighter, he never let himself fully fall asleep. His brain was always ready for the phone call, the alarm, the heavy clatter of boots on the station floor, the dispatcher’s steady voice. Even as a child, he had slept with one ear open for the sounds of his father getting up in the wee hours of the morning to respond to a call.

  By the age of four, he knew his mother was Santa Claus.

  But his father put him on leave from the St. Caroline fire department the day of Serena’s accident. Since then, he had been sleeping like the proverbial baby. And dreaming—in vivid Technicolor-Imax-Surround Sound detail. In fact, he had an entire catalog of dreams he could practically revisit at will, and he was having exactly the dream he wanted to be having tonight. The one where he and Serena had gone skinny-dipping the night they met.

  The minute the lights went down on the carnival, he had hopped in his truck and headed for the Chesapeake Inn. He strode right through the lobby, past the front desk and the girl working there—a girl he’d gone to high school with—and skipped the elevator for the short flight of stairs to the second floor. He figured there’d be gossip the next morning (Ollie Wolfe was at the Inn late—and not at the bar, either!) but he didn’t care. All he could think of was seeing that woman again, a woman whose name he hadn’t even thought to ask for. If he stopped, even for a moment, to worry about gossip or that she might have fallen asleep already or would just plain ignore his knock, the normal Oliver Wolfe would catch up to him and put a stop to this crazy idea.