Unlocking Melodies (Oakwood Grove #3)

4. What Remains

Chapter 4

What Remains

C lara's Place was exactly what you'd expect from a small-town inn - floral wallpaper that had seen better decades, creaking floorboards that made stealth impossible, and an antique writing desk that had probably witnessed a century of travelers' stories. The “best suite” felt worlds away from my usual luxury hotels, but right now, that seemed fitting. Everything about this town felt like stepping into an alternate universe where simple things like coffee shops and dive bars held more weight than board rooms and corporate towers.

I forced myself to stop pacing. Thirteen steps from door to window. I'd counted them fifty times in the last hour, as if somehow the number would change, as if anything in this town would give me the control I desperately needed.

My coffee-stained suit jacket hung over the chair like an accusation. The logical thing would have been to send it to be cleaned immediately - there was probably still time to save the Italian wool. But I couldn't bring myself to erase the evidence of that moment, that collision, that look of perfect non-recognition in eyes I'd spent eight years trying to forget.

I'd prepared for everything. Anger. Hatred. A door slammed in my face. I'd written mental scripts for every possible scenario except the one that actually happened - Jimmy looking at me like I was a stranger. Just another clumsy patron who'd ruined his shirt.

My hands shook as I poured myself a drink. The local bourbon tasted nothing like my usual single malt, but the burn felt right. Felt like penance.

My laptop chimed with Mia's signature efficiency:

“Board meeting rescheduled for next week. Reuben handling the integration presentation. And I've moved all non-essential meetings. PR team prepped to cite personal emergency if needed. Try to sleep.”

Sleep. Right. Because that was going to happen.

I opened my emails, letting myself fall into familiar territory. Numbers. Plans. Action items. Things I could control. The quarterly reports needed review, acquisition proposals needed responses, the Beijing team needed decisions. Normal problems with clear solutions.

My cursor hovered over the police report file. I couldn't open it. Not yet. Not until I talked to Liam, who was probably already planning seventeen different ways to make me regret coming back.

The bourbon wasn't helping. Neither was the pacing. Or the way my eyes kept drifting to that coffee stain, remembering how for just a second, I'd forgotten all my careful plans. Forgotten everything except how it felt to be that close to him again, to breathe in that familiar mix of coffee and whatever random drugstore shampoo he still used, to see those blue-gray eyes up close and find no trace of recognition in them.

No trace of hurt either. No betrayal. No hint of that last day at Rosewood Academy, when I'd walked away from everything that mattered because I thought I was protecting him. At least that Jimmy had known me.

This Jimmy? This Jimmy just smiled politely and apologized for a collision that was entirely my fault.

My phone mocked me with its dark screen. I'd drafted and deleted six text messages before finally sending that formal, corporate sponsorship offer. As if money could fix this. As if anything could fix this.

Sleep was a lost cause. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him.

Early morning, I found myself deep in medical journals, reading about retrograde amnesia until the words blurred together. Terms like “traumatic memory loss” and “recovery rates” and “cognitive rehabilitation” swam across my screen. I drafted emails to every neurologist in Cole's medical research division, deleted them all, drafted them again.

My laptop chimed again:

“It's 3:17 AM and your login shows you're researching amnesia. Go to sleep. - Mia”

I ignored it, just like I ignored the next three messages:

Mia

Seriously, boss. Sleep.

Watching you read medical journals remotely is sad.

You can't fix this with science or money. Also, I'm billing you overtime for this.

She was right. I knew she was right. But knowing something and accepting it were very different things. I'd built an empire on the principle that every problem had a solution if you just worked hard enough, thought smart enough, controlled enough variables.

But there was no algorithm for this. No business strategy for handling the fact that the person you'd spent eight years trying to protect didn't even remember you existed. No spreadsheet could quantify the way my chest ached every time I remembered his polite, distant smile.

Dawn painted the town in watercolors, turning even the most mundane scenes into something worthy of a small-town tourism brochure. Early workers trudged toward Sarah's Diner, their breath visible in the morning chill. A life so far removed from board rooms and billion-dollar deals that it might as well have been another planet.

Eight years ago, I'd convinced myself that leaving was the only way to protect Jimmy. From my father's interference, from my world's expectations, from everything that came with the Cole name. Now here I was, watching strangers get their morning coffee while the man I'd left didn't even remember he needed protecting.

If there was a god of irony, they were probably laughing their ass off right now.

My phone lit up.

Liam

Grove trail. 7 AM. You need to know what happened.

I'd been avoiding this conversation since I arrived, but some reckonings couldn't be postponed forever.

I changed into what passed for casual in my world - designer jeans that had never seen actual work, a cashmere sweater that cost more than most monthly rent payments here. The locals would clock every expensive stitch as further proof that I didn't belong. They wouldn't be wrong.

The grove trail wound behind Rolling Hill Ranch like a postcard come to life, morning mist clinging to the trees like they were auditioning for a movie scene. Everything looked soft, peaceful, completely at odds with the storm in my chest.

Liam waited at an old fallen log, and for a moment, the sight hit like a physical blow. He looked older, more settled into himself, but his expression when he saw me was pure steel.

“Before I tell you anything,” he said as I approached, “I just want to say thank you for coming. This means more than anything to all of us.”

“Because it's Jimmy, I’ll do anything for him.” I said simply.

The words hung in the morning air, more honest than anything I'd said in eight years. Liam studied me for a long moment, then something in his posture shifted.

“Sit,” he gestured to the log. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks. The bags under my eyes cost extra.”

“Still deflecting when things get real, I see.”

“Still calling me out on my bullshit, I see.”

He almost smiled. Almost. “Someone has to. Though these days it's probably some very expensive therapist?”

“Please. I sublimate my feelings into corporate acquisitions like a normal billionaire.”

This time he did smile, but it faded quickly. “You saw him yesterday.”

It wasn't a question. “He doesn't remember me.”

“He doesn't remember anything.”

“Maybe that's better.” The words tasted like ash. “Clean slate and all that.”

“Bullshit.” Liam's voice cut through the morning quiet. “You don't believe that any more than I do.”

He was right. Of course he was right. Eight years of carefully constructed walls, of telling myself I'd done the right thing, and all it took was one blank look from Jimmy to bring it all crashing down.

“What happened to him, Liam?”

The morning mist swirled around us, turning the world soft and strange. But Liam's voice was hard when he answered.

“It was a normal night at first,” Liam started, his words cutting through the morning mist. “Jimmy was working late at the bar. Books and bookings - you know how he gets when he's focused.”

I did know. The way his forehead would crease slightly, how he'd bite his lower lip in concentration. Eight years hadn't erased those details.

“Deputy Ramirez came in. He'd been around a lot lately, asking questions about the town, about local dealings. We trusted him.” Liam's laugh held no humor. “That's the thing about small towns. You trust your police.”

My hands found my knees, gripping until my knuckles went white. Some part of me knew what was coming, but I couldn't stop it, couldn't look away.

“The attack...” Liam's voice caught. “It was vicious. Personal. Ramirez wasn't just corrupt - he was sending a message. Used Jimmy as bait, but whatever he was waiting for never came.”

The morning air felt too thick to breathe. “How did he-“

“He walked himself here.” Liam's voice broke on the words. “To the ranch. Bleeding, barely conscious, but he made it to our gates.”

In my head, I saw it too clearly though I wish I hadn’t. Jimmy had been alone, hurting, seeking sanctuary in the one place he felt safe. While I'd been what? Reviewing quarterly projections? Adding to my empire of empty achievements?

“Ramirez is in custody now,” Liam continued, his voice hard. “But the damage...” He gestured vaguely, encompassing everything - Jimmy's lost memories, our shared past, eight years of careful distance shattered by violence.

“You know what the worst part is?” His tone shifted, bitter coffee and old wounds. “The day before, he was finally talking about you. About Rosewood. Said he felt like something big was about to change. Like the universe was shifting.”

A laugh that might have been a sob tore from my chest. “Eight years.” The words came out raw, stripped of corporate polish. “I stayed away for eight years to protect him, and I couldn't even-“

I couldn't finish. Didn't need to. Eight years of carefully constructed walls crumbled in the morning mist, leaving me exposed in a way I hadn't allowed since that last night at Rosewood.

“Your father.” It wasn't a question. Liam had always been too perceptive for his own good.

I nodded, not trusting my voice. Understanding passed between us - not forgiveness, not yet, but something closer to recognition. The weight of choices made under pressure, of love twisted by fear and power.

“He threatened to ruin Jimmy's career.” The words fell like stones in the quiet morning. “Said he'd make sure no one in the industry would touch him. That the Cole name could open doors or close them forever.”

“And you believed him.”

“I believed in his power to destroy things. I'd seen him do it before.” My laugh held no humor. “Turns out I didn't need his help ruining Jimmy's life.”

“Hey.” Liam's voice turned sharp. “You didn't do this. Ramirez did.”

“Didn't I?” I looked at my hands - manicured, soft, useless. “I left him. Made him think- God, the last thing he remembered of me was betrayal. And now he doesn't even have that.”

Silence stretched between us, heavy with eight years of might-have-beens.

“He kept your piano pieces,” Liam said finally. “Every single one. Hidden in a box he thought no one knew about. Even after everything.”

Something in my chest cracked open - hope or pain or both. “Does he still...?”

“I don’t really know if he still does.” Liam's voice was gentle but firm. “But he does remember music. It's the only thing that stayed. Maybe that means something.”

“I don't know how to fix this,” I admitted. Eight years of running multibillion-dollar companies, and I had no solution for the one thing that mattered.

“Maybe,” Liam said carefully, “you don't fix it. Maybe you just... be here. For once.”

The words hung in the morning air, a challenge and an olive branch all at once. Behind us, the ranch was waking up - horses nickering, doors opening, another day starting in a world I'd walked away from.

I told myself I had legitimate reasons for going back to The Watering Hole. Work to do. Emails to send. Perfectly logical explanations that had nothing to do with the fact that Jimmy's first shift back had started at six.

I waited until seven, because showing up the moment he started would have been obvious. Pathetic. Another fifteen minutes because the parking lot was too full - a lie I told myself while gripping my steering wheel, trying to remember how to breathe normally.

At seven-twenty, I finally walked in, laptop bag a shield against the curious looks from locals. Nina's eyes tracked me as I moved through the crowd, her expression caught between hostility and something that might have been pity.

The corner booth at The Watering Hole offered a perfect view of everything - strategic positioning was apparently a habit I couldn't break even here. My laptop screen cast a corporate glow in the dim bar light, but I hadn't typed a word in twenty minutes.

Not when Jimmy was right there.

He moved through the space like someone trying to remember a dance they'd once known by heart. Each gesture was a little too careful, each smile a little too practiced. When regulars called out greetings, he responded with that new polite distance that felt like a knife to my chest.

Nina hovered nearby, jumping in whenever Jimmy hesitated too long over a drink order or forgotten regular's name. The care she took made me simultaneously grateful and jealous - she'd been there for him when I wasn't. Still was.

Every time he passed close to my booth, my entire body tensed like a tuning fork being struck. The scent of his coffee (still the same cheap brand he'd always loved, despite running a bar) mixed with the ambient sounds of glasses clinking and casual conversation. A scene I'd imagined a thousand times over eight years, but never like this.

“Can I get you anything else?”

It took everything I had not to flinch at his voice - polite, professional, empty of all the warmth and humor that used to fill it when he spoke to me.

“I'm fine.” The words came out rougher than I meant them to. “Thank you.”

He nodded and moved on, already focusing on his next task. No lingering glance. No flash of recognition. Nothing.

My fingers found my keyboard again. I stared at the screen, memories flooding back unprompted.

Gary Reed. Jimmy's father. The man who'd disappeared after his wife's funeral, leaving twenty-two-year-old Jimmy to handle the medical bills and mounting gambling debts alone. I remembered the night Jimmy had told me about it, curled up in my lap, his voice steady but his hands shaking on the piano keys. How he'd worked three jobs that summer to keep the debt collectors away. How his father would show up occasionally, full of promises and excuses, only to vanish again with whatever cash Jimmy had managed to save.

I just knew that this had his fingerprints all over it. My fingers hovered over the keys, remembering every detail Jimmy had trusted me with during those midnight confessions. Details his current self had lost, but I would never forget.

Watching him try so hard to be the Jimmy everyone remembered while I remembered every version of him: the boy who played piano at midnight, the man who looked at me like I'd broken everything, and now this stranger wearing his face.

Jimmy fumbled a glass, catching it before it fell. The motion was pure him that. For a split second, his real smile broke through - bright and surprised and so achingly familiar.

Then it was gone, replaced by that careful mask of polite competence.

I wrote an email to Mia:

Mia - Make sure Ramirez's case gets the most aggressive prosecutor in the state. Whatever it costs.

The evening crowd picked up, filling the bar with the kind of casual energy that used to make Jimmy come alive. Now he navigated it like a puzzle to be solved, each interaction a test he had to pass.

I could fix this part, at least. Make sure no one else ever hurt him. Build walls with my influence instead of my absence. Even if he never remembered why I cared, even if that polite stranger's smile was all I ever got from him again.

Some kinds of love didn't need recognition to keep burning. They just needed to keep you warm enough to do what needed to be done.