Chapter 19
NINETEEN
PRESENT DAY
Madeline
The man’s eyes widen, his expression transforming from detached concern into one that must mirror my own. The look of someone who’s seen a ghost.
I lean into his solid frame, closing my eyes, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against my cheek as he takes another breath.
My thoughts veer in all directions as I sift through a thousand memories of my adolescence, of being in Adam’s arms, of this place that feels like home.
Could this be him? Am I really back here again? “Adam,” I repeat.
Abruptly, he lets go of me and takes two full steps backward. A cool breeze blows off the ocean, through my soaking dress, and without his warmth, I shiver.
“Who is Adam?” He stares at me with absolutely no emotion, and for a moment, I wonder if I imagined the shock and recognition I saw on his face a moment ago.
“I… You’re…” I step closer. “You’re Adam. You must be.”
He steps back. “Sorry. I don’t know anyone named Adam. My name is Garrett.” He squints, tilting his head as if he’s a doctor examining me for a head injury. “You really got tossed around in those waves. Should I call a paramedic?”
What is happening right now? I wave my hand as if that will clear his words from the air.
“No. No, you’re…” Adam. Is he? I stare at the man in front of me.
He’s a decade older—yes. But he looks so much like Adam.
His shoulders are broader, but he’s close to thirty now.
His face is tanner… but of course it would be.
The last time I saw him it was winter, and now we’re standing on the beach in the sunshine.
But those eyes. Those blue eyes, the depth of them, the intensity.
He can’t smooth out the intensity of his eyes like he smoothed out the shock of seeing me.
“Miss?” he prompts.
“No, I don’t need a paramedic.” Why is he calling me Miss ? Why is he pretending he doesn’t know me? Why is he calling himself Garrett ?
He rubs his hands across his forehead, as if a headache is forming. “What about a friend? Do you want me to call someone to come and get you?”
“I don’t need you to call anyone. I need you to tell me your real name.” I take a step toward him, and unbelievably, he takes another step back.
“Uhhh… my name is Garrett. Are you sure you’re okay?” He looks so confused and concerned now that for a moment, I hesitate.
Is it possible he’s not Adam? I shake my head. No, he must be Adam. There is no way that there is a man in this world who looks this similar. Especially one standing on the beach where I grew up.
“I…” Weirdly, I find myself looking to him for reassurance, the way I used to look to Adam all those years ago. “You look so much like him. ”
He blinks slowly. “I look like this Adam person?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s…” He waves a hand like he’s waiting for more information.
“Someone I used to know.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “And why don’t you still know him?”
“He died.” My voice wavers and tears spring to my eyes. “He died tragically, a long time ago.”
The lines around his eyes deepen, and for a moment, a pained expression crosses his face.
He raises his arms slightly, as if he’s going to reach for me.
But then his hands ball into fists, and he drops them to his sides.
“That sucks about your friend.” He shrugs, cold, detached again.
“But sorry to say that I’m not him, risen from the dead. ”
It occurs to me how unhinged I sound right now. If the man in front of me isn’t Adam, what does he think of me? Except he must be Adam. He’s so familiar.
“You look exactly like him.”
He gives a half-laugh. “They say we all have a doppelg?nger or two somewhere in the world. I guess you just ran into your friend Andy’s.” He rakes a hand through his hair, just like Adam used to.
“It’s Adam.”
He reaches up to grasp a strap hanging from his wetsuit, unzipping it down to his navel.
My gaze flies to the expanse of tan chest and then slides lower, taking in his flat abs and the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his wetsuit.
A shiver comes over me that has nothing to do with the wet, clinging dress I’m wearing.
I probably pictured what Adam might have grown up to look like about a thousand times, but my imagination didn’t even come close to doing him justice.
He clears his throat, and I drag my gaze from his abs to find him watching me with one eyebrow raised, his expression so like the way Adam used to look when he found me amusing that it nearly steals the breath from my lungs.
“If you’re not Adam, then why did you look so surprised when you saw me earlier?”
“Only because you were acting so strangely.” His shoulders lift in a shrug.
“And if you’re sure you’re okay from your battle with the waves back there, and you don’t need me to call anyone, I should be going.
” And with that, he turns and heads toward a surfboard abandoned a few feet away in the sand.
I take a step to follow him, and a sharp pain shoots through my heel. That seashell I stepped on must have cut my foot. He grabs the surfboard and hurries toward the dunes.
I limp after him. “Wait,” I call. “Can we just talk for a minute?”
He swings around to look at me but doesn’t stop walking. “Sorry, I have to go.” He turns back and picks up his pace.
I break into a jog, wincing as the sand grinds into my injured foot, but I can’t let him get away. “Please? You saved me back there. I just want to thank you properly.”
“I don’t need to be thanked,” he calls, not even bothering to turn around this time.
I need to stall him, just for a few more minutes.
He heads up the path over the dunes and disappears over the other side.
I’m running to catch up now. The path is packed down with sand, rougher than near the water, and my foot burns, but I make it to the top.
On the other side, I spot him loading the surfboard into the back of a black Jeep.
I run down the slope, trying to stay off my injured heel, and about halfway, I stumble and fall.
I hear him swear, and a moment later, he’s hauling me to my feet for the second time today. I’m an equal mix of completely humiliated that I keep needing to be rescued and relieved that he didn’t just take off.
“What’s wrong with your foot?”
“I think I cut it on a seashell.”
“Okay, come on.”
A bare arm slides around me, and I realize that at some point between the beach and the car, he’s yanked the top half of the wetsuit down, and now it’s riding low on his hips, his chest completely bare.
I lean into his side, and my skin ignites.
I’m not sure if it’s from exertion, embarrassment, or the fact that I’m ridiculously attracted to this man who looks like my dead boyfriend.
Maybe that’s a sign. I used to feel this way about Adam, too.
Or maybe it just means I really did get tossed around in the waves out there.
We approach the road, and he helps me get settled on a bench.
“Wait here.” He heads back toward the Jeep, and my heart clenches. What if he takes off? But instead, he reaches in the back seat and grabs a first aid kit, which he carries over to where I’m sitting. He crouches in front of me, and a warm hand wraps around my ankle as he gently cradles my foot.
“Are you a lifeguard?” I ask as he examines the small gash on my heel.
“What makes you think that?” he murmurs as he reaches into the first aid kit to grab a cleaning wipe. With one hand still cradling my foot, he tears the packaging open in his teeth.
“You seem to be really good at saving people.”
His head jerks up to look at me.
“I saw a video of you the other day.”
“There’s a video?” He swears under his breath when I nod. “And that’s why you’re here? You saw the video, you thought I looked like your dead friend Andy, and you came here to find me?”
“Adam.”
“Whatever.”
“It’s not whatever .”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you wasted your time driving”—he hesitates, waving the cleaning wipe absently—“or flying here from wherever it is that you’re from. My name is Garrett, and I’m not who you think I am.”
He wipes my foot, and I suck in a breath at the stabbing pain.
“Sorry. It will sting for a minute but it’s better than getting an infection.”
I watch as he pulls more supplies from the first aid kit—Band-Aids, antibiotic cream, Q-tips—and lines them up on the bench next to my thigh. His movements are confident, like he’s done this before.
“You seem very good at this. If you’re not a lifeguard, what do you do?”
“Carpenter,” he murmurs. “I’m used to cuts and scrapes.” He holds up a hand, and the skin on his palm is rough, calloused, with several scars crisscrossing his palm.
Scars.
Adam had a scar on his upper arm from the time in sixth grade when he and Jason collided on their bikes. I used to run my finger along it when we lay next to each other in the back of his Bronco.
He reaches for a Band-Aid, and I lean in closer to study his bicep. I was so busy staring at his face that I hadn’t noticed his arms are covered in tattoos.
Did he get them to cover up the scar? I lean closer, my gaze tracing the lines of a bird landing on a tree branch. My fingers ache to gently touch his skin. Would the texture reveal his secret? I’m about to reach out when I realize he’s stopped cleaning my wounded foot and is staring up at me.
His gaze roams over me. Is it because he’s equally in shock to see me after all these years?
He clears his throat, his eyes stopping below my collarbone, and suddenly, I know why he’s staring.
I’m soaking wet, my dress is a pale cream color, and let’s just say the flower pattern isn’t quite covering all the places I’d like it to be covering.
I am wearing a bra, but it’s lace, and also cream-colored.
I wasn’t exactly expecting to go swimming in this outfit.
I’m embarrassed, but the more I stare at that face—those eyes—the more I’m sure he must be Adam, and I’m hit with a wave of defiance, too. I pull the wet, clinging fabric away from my chest. “If you’re the guy I think you are, you’ve already seen it all.”
If this weren’t the weirdest moment of my life, I’d laugh at his mortified expression.
His face flushes, and he quickly slaps a Band-Aid on my heel and practically lunges to his feet.
“You’re all set.” He picks up the first aid kit gingerly, as if he’s trying not to accidentally brush a hand against my thigh.
“Try to stay off it. No more chasing strangers through the sand.”
“I absolutely won’t,” I agree readily. “Chase strangers , that is.”
He shakes his head as if I’m an exasperating toddler.
“I really need to go.” And before I can react, he’s heading back toward the Jeep, tossing the first aid kit in next to his surfboard, and climbing in the driver’s seat.
He’s leaving this time, and I have no idea how to find him again.
If he really is Adam, and he doesn’t want to talk to me, he probably won’t come strolling along this beach again tomorrow evening.
My head spins. If he is Adam, why wouldn’t he want to talk to me?
Is it possible he doesn’t remember me? The idea that he has amnesia seemed ridiculous a couple of days ago, like something that happens in the movies, not in real life.
But now that I’ve looked into those blue eyes and felt that pull of attraction for this man, nothing seems impossible.
The car engine revs and all I can do is stare at the Jeep’s tailgate as he presses the gas and zooms down the street.
He has Jersey plates , I think absently.
And then my gaze shifts left to the sticker on his bumper.
Hudson’s Bar. I remember that place. It’s a divey bar on the bay side where the locals used to hang out.
It must still be there all these years later.
And if this guy cares enough about the place to put a bumper sticker on his car, then it looks like I know my next stop.