CHAPTER NINE
Zane watched his nieces and nephews as they clustered together, the older ones playing with the younger. They, more than anything else, showed the lapse of time he’d forgotten. Seeing Layla and Peyton as teenagers had been shocking. And then there were the babies who hadn’t existed four years ago.
Along with Gareth and Aria’s daughter, Janessa and Will’s son, Liam, and Charli and Blake’s son, Micah, were also two that he didn’t remember. The three were already toddlers. All kids had grown up so much in the black hole years, as he was beginning to think of them.
Beyond his marriage to Kelsey, Zane had changed during those years, too.
In that time, he’d learned enough and gained enough experience that he’d been able to land the job in a top restaurant in Tampa.
He’d also abandoned his faith somewhere along the line.
And he’d apparently done something that had upset Sarah enough that she’d broken up with him. He wished he knew what that was.
It didn’t make him feel very good that not all of the changes in his life had been for the better.
A light touch on his shoulder drew his attention from the kids. Glancing up, he saw Rori standing beside him, a concerned look on her face.
“Have you seen Kelsey?”
It took a moment for him to switch gears. Kelsey was not uppermost in his mind when he wasn’t focused on her. He was still having a hard time believing she was his wife.
“No. I haven’t.” He glanced around. “The last time I saw her, she was carrying stuff out of the house.”
Rori nodded, but the concerned look didn’t ease from her face. “I can’t find her.”
“She’s not in the house?” he asked. “Or in her room?”
“No. I checked.” Her frown deepened. “She’s not here.”
Zane didn’t know Kelsey well enough to have any idea of where she might have gone. “Is her car here?”
“I didn’t check that.” Turning, she went to where Lee was talking with Blake and stood at his side, waiting for his attention.
Almost immediately, Lee slipped his arm around her and bent his head down. He listened for a moment, then the two of them made their way across the deck into the house.
Zane wondered if he should follow them to see if there was more he could do. He knew that as Kelsey’s husband, he should be concerned. His lack of feelings for Kelsey was a constant struggle. Knowing he had a wife, but not remembering her or their love, left him confused, so he tried not to dwell on it too much.
Grabbing his crutches, he pushed to his feet, then tucked them under his arms and made his way to the back door.
“Where are you going, sweetheart?” his mom asked as he passed where she sat on a lawn chair.
“Just need to talk to Lee and Rori.” He decided not to mention Kelsey to his mom. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Inside the kitchen, he found the pair in conversation. They turned to face him as he joined them. “So what’s up?”
“Her car’s here,” Rori said.
“So maybe she went for a walk.”
“Without eating?” Rori asked. “Why would she do that?”
“Because she’s not comfortable around us yet,” Lee said. He crossed his arms as he leaned back against the counter. After regarding Zane for a long moment, he sighed. “This isn’t going to work.”
“What isn’t?”
“The way you’re choosing to approach the fact that you’re married.”
Zane scowled at his brother as he rested his weight on the crutches. “How am I supposed to approach it? I don’t remember her.”
“You need to spend time with her,” Lee said. “You need to show that you care for her, if not as a wife, as a person who has lost someone very important to her. She’s missing you. It can’t be easy for her to see you every day—the man she loves—and for you not to act like that man.”
“And that’s my fault? She didn’t have to come here.”
Lee’s gaze narrowed. “The way you are acting is not the way the Zane I know would act.”
Zane felt his brother’s words like a stab to his heart. Lee was right, and if the roles had been reversed, he would have lectured his brother about his attitude as well.
Lifting a hand to massage his forehead, he wished he could rub away the dull ache he seemed to be constantly dealing with. That ever-present ache had him on edge, and Zane knew that his patience was in short supply, and his tolerance was low.
“I’m not saying you have to jump into a relationship with her,” Lee said. “But let her have some sort of role in your life while we wait to see what’s going to happen with your memory.”
“I think you’ll regret the current course you’re on if…when… you get your memory back,” Rori said.
Lee nodded. “The way you spoke about Kelsey in the months prior to the accident made it clear how much you loved her. How much you cared for her. That Zane would be absolutely livid over the way you’re treating her.”
Zane knew that Lee was right about that, too. He needed to change his mindset, even without his memories.
“Okay,” he said. “I get it.”
“I hope so,” Lee said. “I don’t want to have to keep having this discussion with you.”
“If you don’t even try, there may come a point where Kelsey just walks away and starts her life over,” Rori added. “And if you regain your memory after that happens, you’ll have lost something that was very important to you.”
Everything they said made sense, but he had a mental block where Kelsey was concerned. It was like he thought that if his memory didn’t come back, he’d get to reset his life to four years ago. The problem with that was that four years ago, he was planning to marry Sarah.
“I’m going to call her,” Rori said.
“Why didn’t you do that to start with?” Zane asked.
“At first, I thought she’d just gone to her room, and I didn’t want to make her feel like I was keeping track of her,” Rori said. “But I’m worried. She’s clearly left the house and has been gone for awhile. She also didn’t eat anything before she left.”
Rori looked at Lee, who nodded. She picked up her phone and tapped the screen, then held it in front of her. When he heard it ringing, Zane realized she’d put it on speakerphone.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Kelsey. It’s Rori. Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine,” Kelsey said, and from the sound of her voice, Zane thought she was telling the truth. “I just decided to go for a walk.”
“Where did you walk to?”
“I’m at a park.”
Rori frowned. “A big park?”
“It seems like a big one. I’m currently sitting on a stone bench in a garden surrounded by lots of flowers.”
“You’ve walked quite a ways.”
Kelsey gave a soft laugh. “My feet definitely feel like I have.”
“Let me come and get you so you don’t have to walk all the way back.”
“I’m not ready to leave the park just yet,” Kelsey said.
“That’s fine. Give me a call when you’re ready.”
There was a moment of silence before she said, “I don’t want to interrupt the dinner.”
“You won’t be. It’s not that formal of a thing.”
“Okay. I’ll call in a little bit.”
“Sounds good.”
“One thing,” Kelsey said. “Could you bring me a bottle of water when you come? I’m parched.”
Rori laughed. “Sure thing. I can do that.”
After she hung up, she leaned into Lee, and he wrapped his arms around her, placing a kiss on the top of her head. Zane had to look away. Any time he saw the closeness of the couples in his family, his mind would go one of two places. He’d think about how he and Sarah had been as a couple. Or he’d wonder how he and Kelsey had interacted.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lee and Rori leave the kitchen, leaving him alone. Staring at the icon for the app that would open his pictures, he knew he just had to pull the trigger.
Perhaps looking at the photos he’d taken would give him a glimpse of how he’d felt about Kelsey before the accident. He’d already considered doing that, but it had been easier to just procrastinate.
Maybe this was the push he needed to view the situation with Kelsey differently.
There was a shaking deep inside him that made Zane want to put his phone away. But if he was going to take the step forward that he’d told Lee he would, this was a good place to start. The pictures might give him a glimpse into who he’d been before the car accident that had robbed him of his memories.
He took a deep breath, then focused on the picture on the screen of his phone. It was the last picture he’d taken before his accident, just a couple of hours prior, according to the photo info, had been of food. Not a real surprise. Food had been his life, and it seemed that was still true.
Scrolling back, he found three more pictures of food. Finally, he found one that wasn’t food. It was a picture of him and Kelsey laying together. She was kissing his cheek as he smiled at the camera. Their shoulders were bare, though they were covered by a blanket, giving it a very intimate feel. He looked… happy.
The next picture was of Kelsey sitting across the table from him. She had a forkful of pasta and was beaming at him. Was he smiling back at her with the same expression of love?
Zane soon discovered that his photo roll was filled with pictures of food, but more than that he had plenty of photos of Kelsey by herself, Kelsey with him, Kelsey eating. Every expression she wore was underpinned by the love in her eyes. There was no doubt that Kelsey had been important to him. And that he’d been important to her.
When he got to pictures of their wedding, he slowed, pausing on each one. Zooming in on his face. Zooming in on hers. Looking for something that might trigger a memory.
But there was nothing there. No memory, at least.
What he’d gained, however, was a curiosity. He’d clearly loved Kelsey. Zane could see that in his expression in the pictures. However, it was like he was looking at two strangers, one of whom looked like him. He couldn’t reconcile the emotion he saw on his face for Kelsey with how he currently felt about Sarah.
His ribs gave a pulse of pain, reminding him that he was standing in the middle of the kitchen on his crutches. Tucking his phone into his pocket, he maneuvered himself over to the breakfast nook and sat down.
Alongside his photo app, the other things he hadn’t opened on his phone were his social media accounts and text messages. Since he was alone in the kitchen, he tapped on the icon of the social media he remembered using the most.
It took a couple of minutes to sort out the password situation, but soon he had access to his account. He was slowly working his way through the levels of connection. The last thing he’d check would be the messages he and Kelsey had shared back and forth.
He’d put off doing all of that, and not just because of Kelsey. He had hoped that his memory would return on its own, especially the ones about his marriage. It was why he hadn’t asked Kelsey for many details.
But after thinking it over, he’d realized that there was an innate connection to the memories he had that was lacking in what he was being told. So he’d know whether something in his mind was a real memory or one someone had told him.
Now, he just wanted to get his memory back however he could, and maybe the pictures and messages would help with that. He’d also put off looking through them because there was a fear that if he went through everything and it didn’t trigger any memories, there would be nothing else to help him.
So he’d resisted taking that step, wanting to have it if all else failed. But now he was doing it for the sake of a woman and a relationship he couldn’t remember.
After logging into one of his social media accounts, he scrolled through his posts. He’d posted something once every couple of days, and once again, a lot of the posts were of food. But then he saw one that was written a few days after their wedding.
Four days ago, I married the woman of my dreams. Kels, I knew pretty early on in our relationship that you were the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Our wedding marked the start of our life together. It was a beautiful day. And you were beautiful, too.
Kelsey, thank you for taking a chance on me… on us… I am so thankful for you and can’t wait to see where life takes us. I love you. Always and forever.
Zane’s curiosity grew exponentially as he read the post and looked through the attached photos. They were the same ones he’d seen in the photo app, but he still paused on each one.
“Zane? Are you okay?”
Zane looked up from his phone as his mom slid into the seat across from him, concern on her face. It was a familiar sight since he’d woken up after the accident.
“I’m fine,” he said, setting his phone down on the table. “Just looking through my phone and coming to some realizations.”
“Oh? What are those?”
He hesitated, not sure how his mom was going to respond. “I need to spend some time with Kelsey. I need to learn more about her and our relationship.”
The concern on his mom’s face did not ease at his words. “I know that your relationship with her has been a stress.”
“Well, I have to say that I don’t believe it was stressful to me prior to the accident,” he said. “I loved her very much.” Picking his phone up, he found one of the pictures from the wedding and turned his phone to face his mom. “Look how happy we were.”
His mom’s gaze flooded with tears as she looked at the pictures. “I wish I knew why you didn’t invite us to your wedding.”
“Is that what all this is about?” he asked. “You’re upset because we didn’t invite you to the wedding?”
“It’s not just that,” she said. “But you know that weddings are a big deal in our family. We should have been there with you.”
“And you think Kelsey’s the reason you weren’t invited?”
His mom shrugged. “I tried asking you, but you just said that it was what both of you had decided worked best. You didn’t give any more details.”
“I don’t know my reasoning, but I know that I always questioned the need for big fancy weddings. When Charli and Blake had a fast engagement and a small wedding, I do remember thinking that made so much more sense.”
“I didn’t know you felt that way,” his mom said, still staring at the picture on his phone.
“So you assumed that Kelsey was the one keeping everyone away?”
“Yeah. I guess I did. I thought for sure you’d want your family with you for such an important occasion.”
“Maybe I’ll be able to tell you more than that one day,” Zane said. “But for now, just know that even if it was Kelsey’s idea, I probably didn’t object.”
“Was her family there?”
“I don’t remember,” Zane said, reminding her that his memory was impaired. “But from looking at the pictures, I think only a couple of people were with us, and I don’t think either of them were Kelsey’s family.”
“So, what are you going to do about your marriage?”
“I’m going to hope my memory comes back,” Zane said. “And while I wait, I’m going to spend time with Kelsey.”
“Make a go of the marriage?”
Zane shrugged. “I’m not committing to anything just yet. I feel like all I can do is take it a step at a time.”
His mom nodded, the concern on her face having been exchanged for resignation. She might be accepting his relationship with Kelsey, but she still wasn’t happy about it.
As Zane reached for his phone, the back door opened and Rori stepped into the kitchen. She headed for the door that led to the garage, then paused when she saw them sitting at the table.
“Kelsey called to say she was ready to come home,” Rori said.
“Don’t forget she wanted a bottle of water,” Zane reminded her.
“Oh, right.” Rori turned toward the fridge and got a bottle of water. “I’ll be back in a few.”
“Where’s Kelsey?” his mom asked.
“At the park. She went for a walk.”
“To the park? That’s a bit of a walk.”
“It is,” Zane agreed. “That’s why Rori offered to go pick her up.”
They sat in silence for a moment, then his mom said, “I’d better get back outside. I think some were getting ready to leave.”
The ones with young kids, most likely.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before there was a steady stream of people bringing dishes into the kitchen, then heading for the front door. Janessa and Will paused to talk for a few minutes, then left with their little guy.
His mom helped Lee put food away and load dishes into the dishwasher. They’d used paper plates and plastic ware, so there wasn’t a lot to clean up.
They had just finished cleaning when he heard the garage door rumble. His stomach tightened at the thought of seeing Kelsey so soon after he’d made the decision to at least acknowledge what she was to him. What they had.
She followed Rori into the kitchen, pausing when she saw them all there. It was like a shutter dropped down over her face because her expression went completely blank.
Zane didn’t blame her for wanting to keep a wall between herself and everyone there. Given how she’d been treated, it made sense.
Now that he’d made up his mind to focus more on her, Zane hoped that the atmosphere for Kelsey would change, and that it would become easier for her to be around them all.
No doubt the man he’d been when he married her would want to protect Kelsey and try to make things easier for her. So he’d try to do that as well, as much for Kelsey as for the man he’d been before the accident. Whether he’d ever be that man again or not, only time would tell. Right then, all he had was time.
At least until it was confirmed that his memory wasn’t likely to return. Then he’d have to decide how he was going to move forward in his life.