Chapter 15 Coco
Coco
My stomach plummets to the floor and explodes into a million pieces.
Pane has called Stone.
Stone knows he has a brother.
My ass is so cooked.
Lines etch across Stone’s brow as he studies the phone. His finger hovers over the screen briefly before he finally swipes and puts the device to his ear.
“Hey.” He shoots me a worried look that asks, Is hey something I say to answer calls?
I don’t answer, obviously. Instead, my gaze falls to my plate and the food I no longer have an appetite for.
This is it. Stone will tell Pane he can’t remember who he is.
Pane will listen, probably panic a little, and realize there’s no way in hell a hard hat fell from the ceiling, slapped Stone’s noggin, and caused him to forget his entire life.
I deflate because the hammer is about to drop—right on me.
“Excuse me.”
I head to the bathroom, as I can’t bear to be present for my own undoing. And I was just beginning to like this version of Stone, too. But let’s face it: When he told me to order for him because I “know” him, I died a little inside.
I don’t know him.
He doesn’t know me.
We don’t even like each other.
It’s clear now that my ask was too big. Fixing the resort while protecting the ley lines was too large a dream. I’m not a big dreamer. I’m a small person living a small life.
As if to confirm my own opinion of myself, blue sparks dance on my fingers. They smart, and I squeeze my hands closed.
“Go away,” I snap.
They fizzle and die.
For once.
I finish up in the bathroom, splash cold water on my face, and text Cristina to see if she’s discovered anything about the flower. What was it called again?
She doesn’t answer, which probably means she’s giving a massage. So there’s nothing to do but face my demise. Oh well, it was fun saving my town the whole five seconds it lasted.
As I head back out, my stomach performs an Olympic gymnastics floor routine. Stone is now off the phone, and the heaviness of doom blankets me.
It might be better to grab my purse and make a break for it rather than take the verbal beating that’s coming.
Stone sees me.
And smiles.
With genuine warmth.
A cozy feeling slowly bleeds over my chest. A feeling I quickly shake off.
There’s no time for that here.
“Hey,” he murmurs in a way you welcome someone who’s cherished, not hated with an ever-loving passion.
“Hey,” I squeak as I slide into the booth.
“How do they get it so gooey?”
“Sorry?”
He lifts a fork piled high with macaroni and cheese. Strings of cheddar stretch from his plate to the utensil. “The macaroni. How is it so gooey? And I mean that in the best way possible, of course.”
I’m thrown off-kilter. My world is supposed to be imploding and he’s talking about food? One thing I’ll say about this new Stone Maddox: He certainly keeps me on my toes.
“Extra cheese, maybe?” I inhale a deep breath and decide to go for it. It’s better to hear the truth from him now rather than wait until later. “So . . .”
He takes a bite of macaroni and moans. When he finishes chewing, he replies, “So . . . what?”
Is he serious? He’s really going to make me say it? “You have a brother! It’s amazing you remembered. What did he say when you told him?”
Stone sets his fork down. Emotions war in his eyes when he answers, “I didn’t tell him.”
My brain short-circuits. “What?”
“I have a brother named Pane. A sister named Natalie. But that’s all the pieces I have.
The blanks aren’t filled in more than that,” he growls.
Scratches his cheek. “Sorry. Pane asked how the construction’s going.
I said great and kept it short. I don’t remember how much he had to do with picking the building materials, and I didn’t want to get into it. ”
“Why not?”
His brows lift in surprise. “Because I’m changing it. All of it. And I didn’t want to tell him I can’t remember anything, because I assume he won’t let me touch the plans if he knows I can’t recall who I am. Besides, I don’t need him trusting my judgment.”
“You don’t?” The words slip out before I can stop them. “I mean, I can understand that. You’ll probably remember any minute now, anyway.”
“Yeah,” he mumbles, jaw working. “The plans as they are now don’t feel right. And for the sake of this town, I need to make them perfect.”
My mouth drops. I have no idea what to say other than, “Oh, okay.”
He stabs the macaroni with his fork. “I don’t even know who I’m working with on the site. Who’s the construction manager?”
A slow smile spreads across my face. “I know who your construction manager is.”
“Great. Because we’re gonna need him to start breaking up concrete. First thing tomorrow.”
I shouldn’t be happy about this. I should be worried, terrified, feeling that all this is wrong. But I don’t.
This is macaroni-and-cheese goodness, not the fallout I expected.
Which means today is the best day ever.
“I have bad news,” Cristina says when she calls me later.
After lunch, Stone and I returned to the construction site. He tried to get into his computer, but no luck. So instead, he made lists of building materials with the intention of heading to Mystic Meadows Hardware to order everything.
He’s finished the list and is now playing fetch with Hercules, who is a quick learner.
“Go long!” Stone yells as he tosses the tennis ball we found in the office.
“Baaaaaaa!”
The lambicorn barrels toward the ball. Stone glances over at me and grins. “He’s just getting down the basics right now. Don’t worry, in a few days he’ll be a pro.”
I nearly die laughing.
“Co, are you here?” Cristina says, sounding impatient.
“Yes. Sorry. I’m here. You were saying something about bad news?”
“Well”—the sound muffles as if she’s moving the phone from one ear to the other—“that lunaria bloom? I can’t find anything about it.”
“Maybe we don’t need it.”
“Great! His memory’s returned?”
“Not exactly.”
“Coco,” she warns.
I ignore her foreboding tone of voice. “You remember how I had such a hard time with Stone? How he was so awful?”
“Remember? I saw it firsthand when he yelled at you.”
“Right. Well, that seems to have disappeared and he’s still kind of nice, like he was this morning.”
There’s a beat before she says, “It won’t last.”
My insides collapse as if she’s right, but part of me wants to think maybe this will last—at least a little longer.
“Coco.” Cristina’s voice is stern. “He needs the antidote. What if he never remembers? Ever? Even if no one finds out what we did, this is still bad.” She sighs. “I’m not even sure how it happened.”
I am. I’m sure how and why. Because the same power that’s stoking the land somehow stoked something inside me. So if my secret gets out—which, once Stone remembers who he is, it will because he’ll keep his promise and tell everyone about me—I’m done for.
“He has remembered some. Pane called.”
“No! What happened?”
“Stone didn’t tell him about his memory. He doesn’t want anyone to know.”
There’s a long pause as my friend considers this new information. “All this does is buy us time. It doesn’t change anything. We still need the flower. I mean, how would you sleep at night if he never got his memory back?”
“And I got to keep this version of him?”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are. Yeah, I’d feel awful. I couldn’t do that.”
And I can’t. Even though I love that he wants to change the resort, Stone Maddox needs his memory.
With any luck, it’ll return when he’s so far into the new construction there’s no way to back out.
He’ll be a hero. Once he sees how people love that he respected the ley lines and the town, how could he be angry with me?
He’ll be pleased. In fact, I bet he’ll wind up thanking me for giving him temporary amnesia.
And maybe piggycorns will learn to fly.
Yeah, it’s pretty much a long shot.
“Run, Hercules,” Stone calls to the lambicorn, who kicks his body sideways as he leaps toward the tennis ball.
“I’ve got to go,” I tell my friend. “But I’ll see if I can find out anything about the flower, too. What’s it called again?”
Cristina tells me and I make a mental note about the spelling. Then we hang up and I turn to Stone. He’s scooped Hercules under one arm and is making his way over to me.
“Little Hercules is picking up fetch quickly.” I scratch the lambi behind the ear, but he leans away from my touch, clearly annoyed that I’m petting him. Could he be mad at me?
Don’t be ridiculous, Coco. He’s a baby. He’s not mad that you hurt his daddy.
Probably.
“Looks like you’re gonna have a wide receiver on your hands in no time.”
Stone laughs and then snaps his fingers. “Football. I like football.”
He beams, focusing on me in a way that suggests I’m the most important thing in this moment. Instead of the attention making me feel big, it does the reverse and makes me feel small.
I look off as he says, “I know what a wide receiver is.”
“Just like you know how to read blueprints. Everything about you is trapped in here.” I tap my temple. “We’ve just got to get it out.”
Hercules squirms and Stone puts him down. The lambicorn runs off, finds a patch of grass, and begins munching on it.
Stone’s gaze flicks to the trailer. “I guess that’s where I sleep. There’s a shower in the bathroom, and I’m thinking the couch folds out into a bed.”
He sounds uneasy. The man just lost his memory. Should he be alone? No, probably not.
Here is where I jump into a situation that I shouldn’t. My mouth leaps before the rest of me, guilt and more guilt racking my body because, really, all of this is my fault.
But before I can stop my stupid brain, I spit out, “You can stay at my place—if you want. You probably shouldn’t be by yourself in case . . . you remember something.”
He looks over my shoulder, and emotions flash across his face. Worry. Uncertainty. Then he looks back at me and says, “Yeah, it’s probably best you keep an eye on me. I’m trusting you to keep me out of jail. Besides”—he touches his cheeks—“I’m really not crazy about this.”
“Your scruff?”
“Yeah. I’d like to shave it off. See what I look like underneath, because there’s no way I’m keeping this beautiful face from the world.”
It’s so surprising—he’s so surprising—that I laugh, a full-force, stomach-muscles-hurting kind of laugh. After a minute, I manage, “Yeah, you can’t starve the world of that beauty.”
“I know.”
Our gazes hold for several beats before I glance down, rubbing my arm. “I’ve got a pretty comfortable couch. If you can handle lace doilies and old-lady furniture.”
Stone grins again. “For some reason, I think lace doilies and old-lady furniture might be my favorite things on earth.”
“Except for Hercules.”
“Obviously. How can you even think I’d leave him out of the equation?”
I chuckle and walk toward my car. “You can follow me over. I’m sure you’ll want to leave early in the morning to get here and get started.”
“Yeah. I need the names of the guys and their numbers. I also need a different phone, one I can make calls from.”
“We’ll pick it up on the way.”
“Fantastic.”
As we load up in our respective vehicles and are about to head out, Stone rolls down his window and motions for me to do the same.
“Everything okay?”
He drapes an arm over the steering wheel. “I just wanted to thank you. If you hadn’t been here this morning to help me, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I’m really grateful to you.”
I nod and grin tightly, pretending my stomach isn’t burning as if fire ants were biting me from the inside.
I wonder how grateful Stone will be when he discovers the truth.