Chapter 31 #2
He waited for an acknowledgment and, after a moment, received a weak nod. Only then did he move to the fireplace, where he crouched, worked the embers with the poker, and added kindling and a couple of dry logs. It caught, the flames licking up and taking hold.
Good.
Next, he ducked into the mudroom off the kitchen, grabbed a long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of sweats from the clean laundry stacked on the dryer, then returned and crouched in front of the stranger. “Lift your arms.”
He guided him through getting dressed, working quickly but carefully while checking him for injuries.
Purple and crimson bruises spread across his ribs and shoulders, and minor cuts covered his limbs and face from rocks or debris in the surf, but nothing looked life-threatening.
No obvious fractures. No heavy bleeding.
Still, the guy needed a doctor.
Brett glanced toward the kitchen counter, where the dead landline sat beside his cell phone, both useless tonight.
Hurricane Ruth had knocked service out hours ago.
Since calling for an ambulance wasn’t an option, he would’ve driven straight into town if his truck hadn’t been sitting at the auto repair garage waiting on a new alternator.
Which meant, for tonight at least, they were stuck here.
Brett pulled the blanket back over the man and rose to his feet. The heat from the fire was finally starting to reach farther into the room.
Straightening, he returned to the mudroom and stripped out of his rain-soaked clothes before pulling on a dry shirt and jeans with little thought. He then loaded both sets of discarded garments into the washing machine and turned it on.
The kettle went on next. Coffee grounds, water—routine, automatic—while his attention kept shifting back to the man sitting on the couch.
Still conscious. Still upright. Still there.
The aroma of coffee cut through the damp air and wood smoke. He poured a mug and then carried it over.
“Careful,” he said, pressing it into the man’s hands. “Sip it.”
Brett watched as he took a cautious drink, both hands wrapped around the mug like he needed the heat as much as the coffee itself. The shaking hadn’t stopped, but it had eased.
The ocean had almost taken him.
Almost.
Brett dropped into the recliner beside the couch, forearms braced on his knees, ready to move if the man took a turn for the worse. “You with me?” When he didn’t get an answer, he added, “I’m Brett Larkin. What’s your name?”
The stranger on the couch blinked at him, then opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His brow furrowed, confusion flickering across his face as he tried again. “I… don’t know.”
Brett didn’t react right away, taking a longer look this time, his focus shifting beyond the obvious signs of exhaustion and shock. Something about the man tugged at his instincts in a way Brett didn’t understand. A faint unease moved through him before he pushed it aside.
“You don’t know your name?”
The man’s throat worked before he answered. “No. I don’t.” He shook his head. “I don’t know who I am… Where I’m from… Or how I ended up in the ocean.”
Brett’s gaze searched for any sign that the guy had been drugged, was concussed, or was lying. He saw none of it. Just exhaustion, lingering shock, and something disturbingly genuine in the admission.
Jeez.
He’d found an injured amnesiac on the beach in the middle of a storm. Now what?
Rubbing a hand over his jaw, he tried to organize thoughts that refused to line up.
One problem at a time.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
The fire crackled while rain rattled against the windows hard enough to shake the old glass.
Normally, the storm would’ve settled into the background by now, familiar as breathing.
Tonight, Brett couldn’t stop noticing the way the ocean still pressed at him beneath it all, restless in a way that refused to ease.
The man looked around, taking in the cabin. “Where am I?
“Driftwood Pointe, Massachusetts.”
Something close to recognition—but not quite—flickered across the man’s face before his fingers tightened around the mug.
“That sounds familiar,” he murmured, frustration creeping into his voice. “I just… don’t know why.”
Brett observed him. He’d never seen this man before, but something beneath the surface insisted otherwise.
The feeling moved through him the same way the tides did before a storm shift—quiet, certain, impossible to explain.
No answer came to mind, only the unsettling certainty that somehow, he knew him.
The man’s gaze met his. “Have we met before?”
Brett went still.
So he senses it too.
“No,” he answered after a beat, though certainty failed him before the word left his mouth. “I don’t think so?”
Why that came out as a question, he didn’t know.
A slight furrow appeared between the man’s brows. “What does that mean?”
Exhaling, Brett dragged a hand across the back of his neck, irritated by his own inability to explain it. This strange mutual awareness between them refused to settle into anything logical, yet it lingered all the same, persistent enough to keep scraping at the edge of his thoughts.
“It means…” He searched for words that didn’t sound insane. “You… um… feel familiar.”
The man tilted his head and scowled. “I feel familiar? What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Well, that’s… not helpful.”
Despite everything, the corner of Brett’s mouth twitched. “I didn’t say it was.”
The brief conversation seemed to take more out of the man than it should have. His grip on the mug loosened, his head tipping back against the couch. His soft brown eyes blinked once, twice, then again—slower each time.
Brett sensed the shift. The man was fading fast.
“Hey.” He reached forward, grabbing the mug before it fell and setting it aside. “That’s enough. Come on.”
There wasn’t much resistance left. Brett guided him down, easing him to his side before settling him onto his back along the couch.
When the man’s eyes closed again, Brett pulled out his cell phone, gently lifted each eyelid, and flashed the light over each one. A faint wince followed, but his pupils reacted as they should.
That was something, at least.
The fire had provided much-needed warmth, but the stranger’s body still released an occasional shiver. Brett layered another blanket over him and tucked it into place. His hand lingered at the man’s shoulder for a moment, caught again by that strange sense of familiarity he still couldn’t explain.
He drew his hand back and let the man sleep, though he stayed close. Until Brett was sure there wasn’t anything life-threatening beneath the cold, bruises, and exhaustion, he’d keep watch—wake him every hour, check his pupils, and ask what he could remember.
Which might not be much, considering the guy didn’t know his own name or where he was.
The man’s breathing deepened, the tension draining away piece by piece until only a heavy, unguarded sleep remained.
Brett straightened and stepped back, dragging a hand over his face before crossing to the recliner near the hearth. He dropped into it, flipped the footrest up, and got comfortable as he kept his gaze on the man stretched out on his couch.
A dark streak darted across the floor, and a moment later, Orion jumped into his lap.
The black cat, marked only by a splash of white on the tip of one ear, had been his constant companion for years.
Orion had appeared one day and decided the cottage belonged to him.
Brett had been living by the cat’s rules ever since.
Somehow—and he still couldn’t explain it—the white marking occasionally shifted from one ear to the other.
He’d never seen it happen and, for months, had assumed there were two almost identical cats wandering around the lighthouse grounds until he put a blue collar with Orion’s name on him and realized they were one and the same.
Over time, he’d accepted the simpler explanation that strange things just happened in Driftwood Pointe, and this was one of them.
Outside, a bolt of lightning struck closer to shore, illuminating the room for a split second. At the same instant, a name surfaced in his mind with unsettling clarity—Julian Price.
The man sleeping on his couch might not remember his own name, but somehow Brett did. His pulse kicked harder as a flood of unexpected desire hit him—instinctive and impossible to explain. It was as though recognition lived somewhere deeper than memory.
As the wind and rain battered the cottage while Orion purred beneath his hand, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the storm and tides had shifted the course of both their lives in ways neither of them yet understood.