Chapter Seventeen
Grace
The heater hums in the corner, a low sound that makes my head ache under the bandages. The pain is constant, but I’ve learned not to try to rub it away.
My hand shakes as I tuck a few strands of hair behind my right ear. The doctor’s words play on a loop.
“Your name is Grace. Grace Stone.”
The kind nurse, Lourdes, tried two dozen names with me yesterday. Every time she checked on me, she picked a different one. Jane. Gina. Susan. Jill. Christy. Melissa. Jennifer. Brandi. Brooke. Diana. Katherine. I think she looked up American names and made herself a list.
But none of them felt like me.
I’m not sure Grace does either.
“How can you be sure?” I ask, my gaze shifting from the doctor to the blanket covering my legs.
Dr. Reyes glances behind him, then returns his full focus to me.
“I found news reports on your disappearance. Photos that look exactly like you. And the website your husband set up when there were no leads. He—AJ—is a captain in the Texas Rangers. He never stopped looking for you. I called him late last night, and he was able to tell me about the tattoo on your left ankle. That was a detail the police never released. And…” Reyes offers me a warm smile, “he is here. Just outside. Would it be okay if he came in?”
My heart lodges itself firmly in my throat. I have a husband? And he came for me?
The doctor’s smile fades. “If you are not ready—”
Shit.
“I—I am. Yes.”
“AJ, you can come in now.” The doctor turns the wheelchair toward the archway, but I struggle to focus on anything more than a few feet in front of me—a side effect of the head injury. So, I hear his firm, steady footsteps before I can see his face.
And then he’s in front of me. Frozen. Like I’ll simply disappear if he breathes wrong.
My stomach twists into a knot. There’s an intensity to his blue eyes that hits me like a punch, but not a single memory floats to the surface.
His dark brown hair is cut short, with threads of silver at his temples. Thick stubble rasps against the palm of his hand as he rubs his mouth.
“Grace.” His voice breaks on the word. “It’s really you. I…I never stopped lookin’, darlin’. Not for a single day.”
My eyes burn. Shouldn’t he be familiar? Seeing him should trigger something, right?
Every moment I don’t respond, a bit of the hope fades from his deep blue eyes.
“Grace?”
The first tears tumble down my cheeks. “I d-don’t…know you.”
He nods like he expected it, but his jaw flexes, and his eyes—those deep, desperate eyes—shine with something that looks a lot like grief.
“I’m…uh…AJ. I’m your husband. For eighteen years…now.”
Husband.
The word detonates inside my chest, but there’s nothing behind it. No memories. Nothing familiar. Just a growing ache and hollow panic curling around my ribs and squeezing. Hard.
“I brought pictures. Maybe they’ll help?” AJ pulls out his phone, taps it a couple of times, and turns the screen toward me. But it’s too small—too fuzzy—for my tired brain to make sense of.
His voice is kind. Gentle. I should be safe with him. So why can’t I ask him to come closer? I want—I need—to know if the vague shapes in the picture really are…us.
Just say something. Anything.
I dig the fingers of my right hand into my thigh under the blanket and find the tiniest bit of courage. “I can’t see…from here.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry, darlin’. Can I…uh…sit with you?” He’s so serious, his voice soft and almost…hesitant. I may not remember him, but I know the man in front of me is never this unsure of himself.
I think he’s trying not to scare me. Does he know I’m scared all the time?
“Okay.” The word is nothing but a whisper, yet it settles me in a way I can’t explain. As does AJ’s warmth at my side when he drags a polished wood chair over and sinks down next to me.
Dr. Reyes clears his throat. “Grace, I think you and AJ should have some time alone. But if you want me to stay, I will.”
I shake my head softly, and my brain doesn’t immediately zap itself sideways at the motion. Maybe it’s a sign. I want to trust AJ. I need to trust him. I just don’t know if I should.
He scoots a little closer, the phone cradled in his hands, and I catch a hint of his scent. Leather and something fresh and clean. It’s comforting.
“This was us on New Year’s Eve five years ago. We splurged on tickets to the big bash at the Four Seasons.”
He looks so…happy. Clean shaven, in a black suit, his smile wide as he leans in to kiss the woman in his arms.
She’s…me, but not. Her blue-green eyes aren’t haunted and bruised.
Her smile isn’t forced. Her hair is shorter.
She’s not skin and bones. Her red dress clings to her curves, and a blue topaz ring glitters on the hand pressed to AJ’s chest. This woman is confident.
She wouldn’t be afraid to take this man’s phone—her husband’s phone—and look at some damn pictures.
Our fingers brush as he hands me the device. I can’t control my flinch. But it’s the anguish in his eyes that destroys me.
“I never gave up,” he says, his voice rough and gritty, like he’s trying to stop his tears before they fall. “I knew I’d find you. But this… You really don’t remember me at all?”
My fingers flutter over the bandage around my head. With all my heart, I want something—anything—to come back to me. A laugh, a smell, a touch. But there’s only a gaping maw where a life should be.
“I’m sorry.” Will he get angry now? My shoulders curl inward, and I try to make myself as small as possible.
“No, darlin’. No. This isn’t your fault. Not at all. You’re alive. That’s all that matters. We’ll figure out the rest. No matter how long it takes, I’ll stay with you. If you’ll let me. There are hundreds of pictures on there. You can swipe through to see more of them.”
Tears sting my eyes, unexpected and sudden. For what I’ve lost. For the pain etched on AJ’s face. For the strange fluttering in my belly of something I ache to remember.
I look at him—really look. There’s a softness around his eyes, lines made deeper by worry and time. But there’s also love. So much of it, I can almost feel it filling the space between us.
He needs me to say something, but I can’t, so I focus on the phone in my hands. The next photo is a candid one of me in a room with a dozen easels.
AJ narrates as I swipe. “You taught art classes at Austin Community College. Oil painting, beginner drawing, watercolors… All your students loved you. And my God. You’re so damn talented, Grace.”
Next, we’re at dinner. Margaritas in front of us. Laughing again.
“That was at a steakhouse on Sixth Street. We were celebrating my birthday.”
I’m working up the courage to ask him when his birthday is—and when my birthday is—as I swipe to the next photo.
Oh, my God.
I’m sitting on a wooden deck in a light blue dress and boots, laughing. A golden brown and gray puppy with striking blue eyes has her paws on my shoulder.
The phone falls to my lap. A single sob escapes my lips before I cover my mouth with my hand.
“Grace, do you remember her?” AJ asks. All that hope is back in his eyes. And a whole lot more. But this time, I feel it too.
“Tinker Bell?” I whisper.
“Yes, darlin’. Yes. But we started calling her Belle once the vet told us how big she was gonna be. She’s almost eighty pounds now. When you…disappeared—” he swallows so hard, I can hear it “—she spent months sittin’ by the door all day, every day, waitin’ for you to come home.”
The idea of that sweet puppy, my puppy, thinking I left her is too much to bear.
It doesn’t even matter that I remember her. Only fragments. Snatches. Her bark. The way her fur felt under my fingers. Tiny moments of joy. I lose the battle with my emotions and start crying so hard, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop.
“Fuck. I’m a dumbass. I shouldn’t have told you that…” AJ balls his hands into fists on his thighs so hard his knuckles crack. “Can I hold you? Shit. You’re not ready—”
But I am. I need him to, even if I still don’t remember a thing about him. Before I find the words, he plucks the phone from my lap and swipes to another picture.
“Take a look at this one.”
He’s trying to distract me, and I’m so damn grateful for it.
With the sleeve of the hospital robe, I swipe at my tears until the screen comes into focus.
We’re younger. So much so, the picture is a little grainy.
But the joy on our faces is clear enough.
AJ is in a black tuxedo. I’m wearing a strapless white gown and a single strand of pearls.
“That was our wedding. Almost eighteen years ago. September twenty-third. But our anniversary’s the twenty-first. We wanted to get married on the first day of fall, but that was a Thursday, and the minister almost laughed us out of his office.
You didn’t want anything fancy, but your mama had her heart set on a big, formal shindig.
I think she’d been planning it since the day you were born.
So we went down to city hall on the twenty-first and had the justice of the peace marry us.
“We kept it a secret from everyone. Until I done fucked up on our ten-year anniversary. I got you a crystal picture frame with our wedding date etched on it. The twenty-first, not the twenty-third. I’d just made lieutenant.
I’d faced down murderers, drug dealers, even helped the FBI with a couple of terrorism cases, but I was positive your dad was still gonna beat my ass. ”
The right corner of my mouth twitches slightly at his tone. Almost half a smile. But it fades too quickly. “I don’t remember that either.”
AJ rubs his hand over his chin, the stubble rasping against his palm. “You will, darlin’. I know you will.”
He spends hours talking to me. Telling me about…us. But only thin wisps of memories flit through my mind. I can’t hold onto them for more than a second before they’re gone again.
I wish I could work up the courage to ask him what happened to me—why he spent the last three years looking for me—but all I can manage are the softest acknowledgements when I know he expects them.
When I saw our wedding photo, I thought I heard him say, “I do.” Just a distant memory. But was it real? Or wishful thinking?
My body seems to know him. I find myself leaning toward him, wanting his arms around me. His energy—the way he moves—is familiar in a way nothing else has been since I woke up in this clinic three days ago.
But now, I’m so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open. Lourdes comes in to offer us lunch, and gasps when she sees me.
With a flick of her hand, she tries to shoo AJ out of the room. “You. Move. She needs rest.”
I don’t want to sleep. What if I forget him all over again by the time I wake up? “Don’t go,” I whisper, reaching for AJ’s hand before he can get out of the nurse’s way.
My words surprise him. Understandable since they surprise me too.
His fingers are warm and strong. Not soft, but not rough either as he curls them around mine. “I ain’t leavin’ you, Grace. I promise.” He sets his shoulders and turns his gaze to Lourdes. “I can take her back to her room.”
With a huff, she shakes her head. “Okay. But you will let her sleep.”
The loss of his touch as he guides the wheelchair back to my little room hits me harder than I expect. I don’t think anyone besides Lourdes and Dr. Reyes has touched me—at least not kindly—in a very long time.
The beige walls almost glow this time of day, and the sun kisses the roses in the garden just outside the window. Marta—another one of the nurses—has picked me a single flower every day. Five of them now. The first is losing its petals. I feel like I am too.
AJ parks the wheelchair next to the bed, then pulls back the sheet and blanket. “Is it okay if I help you?”
I’ve ached to know what it’s like to have him hold me, but until now, wasn’t sure how to ask.
“I’d…like that.”
AJ leans down so I can drape my arms around his neck. He’s all firm muscles and long, lean lines. The room spins, the world’s worst tilt-a-whirl, but I’m not worried I’m going to fall. Not with his hands on my hips.
Too quickly, he lowers me onto the bed. But as soon as he helps me off with the thin hospital bathrobe, he freezes, his gaze fixed on the thick scars around my wrists.
Rage pours off of him in endless waves. “Fuck. Fuck!”
Fear steals my voice. I cower away from him, and Lourdes races into the room.
“Get out!” she snaps.
For a moment, I think he’ll leave, and that terrifies me more than his anger.
He even takes two steps toward the door, tears brimming in his eyes.
“Grace, I’m so sorry. For yelling, for not finding you sooner, for…
everything. I don’t know how you’ll ever forgive me.
You probably shouldn’t. But I’m gonna ask you anyway.
Every day if I have to. Please. Let me stay. ”
I wish I could tell him how I got those scars. Or that it wasn’t his fault. But the truth is…I don’t know.
The only thing I’m sure of right now is that I need him close. He makes me feel safe.
It takes me a full minute to find my voice. A full minute of him staring at me with tears carving shining trails down his cheeks and his trembling hands balled into fists.
When I do, the single word is strong and clear.
“Stay.”