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TANA
Friday dawns, and I’m up with the sun. I’ve spent the past two days borrowing Alec’s bike of all things to cruise around Battleboro, hoping something about the town will jog my memory, but nothing does. It’s like visiting a foreign country. Nothing about it is familiar.
It’s disheartening, but what did I expect? To have an epiphany the moment I got on my own? Ridiculous.
Now it’s time for Alec to take me to a place that’s important to him and before-me. I was up half the night trying to imagine what they could be. Our first date? The place he proposed? Where we got married? The hospital where the girls were born?
You’d think if I were going to remember anything, it would be here, at home, where I spent most of my time with my family, but so far, nada. Zilch. My brain may as well be filled with tumbleweeds.
If I don’t get out of bed right away, I’ll spend the morning moping, so I force myself to my feet and make the bed. That way, I’m not tempted to climb back in it. Alec has made breakfast for the past three days, and when I find the kitchen empty, I get to work making him and the girls breakfast. It’s the least I can do to repay them for being so kind and generous.
I found soft and comfy pajama pants in the drawers that I don’t change out of, along with the Battleboro Fire & Rescue T-shirt, as I whip together cheese-topped scrambled eggs and thick sausage with fat juicy grapes. Paisley and Gemma arrive just as I’m plating everything up.
“Good morning,” I say cheerfully, and they climb onto the seats at the island. It doesn’t escape my notice that we gather in this room more than anywhere else.
“Mornin’,” Paisley says with a wide yawn.
“Grapes!” Gemma cheers and stuffs her mouth full.
They sit in contented quiet and eat their breakfast. Alec joins at some point—shirtless and in a similar pair of pajama pants. I cover my look of surprise with a deep drink from my coffee mug. Don’t even go there, Tana. But my inner warning doesn’t stop me from sneaking a peek at a shirtless Alec.
He doesn’t notice as he gets his own mug and pours his own steaming cup. But I notice. I notice everything. His ab muscles—all eleven thousand of them—ripple then contract when he reaches up. I may not know a damn thing about myself, but I do know Alec Dorran is the sexiest man I’ve ever seen, and I can say that for a fact.
I manage not to drool, much, as Alec bundles the girls off to school. I’ve kept out of their way as they go about their daily routines. It’s important to me to keep the girls’ lives as normal as possible, and Alec seems to have everything well in hand for now. Gemma and Paisley wave goodbye as they get onto the bus, leaving Alec and me alone.
He turns to me—with a shirt on finally—and asks, “Well, are you ready for today?”
“Define ready?”
Alec gives me an easy smile. “Don’t worry, we’re going to start off easy. I thought we could go to the station so you could see where I work. Since I’ll be there for the weekend, I figured maybe I’d give you a tour. Let you meet the guys.”
I perk up. This feels fairly innocuous and low pressure, which is probably why he chose it. Plus, fire trucks and ambulances. “Really? Could I ride in the ambulance?”
He rocks on his heels. “Sure, we could take a ride around the block. You sure that won’t bother you? I know how much you hate hospitals at the moment.”
I shake my head and say, “No, this sounds like fun. I’ll go get ready.”
It makes me a little nervous to think of meeting the people Alec works with. I haven’t done much interacting with anyone else yet, but I have to break the ice sometime. It may as well be now. Besides, I’m exceedingly curious about how Alec is with others. Seeing how other people view him and if it’ll put my fears to rest or add to them.
After a shower, I agonize over what to wear and decide on a pair of jeans and a bright red T-shirt. It’s simple and comfortable. Besides, they were the ones who responded to my accident, I doubt they really care what I’m wearing.
I find Alec in the living room surfing on his phone. “Ready to go?” he asks.
“As I’ll ever be,” I answer.
He looks up from his phone and visibly stills. All my muscles tense as he studies me. Oh, God, is he staring at my scars? I’ve tried to cover them up with my hair, but he doesn’t say anything.
I follow him out to the truck, my nerves jangling. Maybe going to see his work isn’t the best idea. There will be a lot of people there, people who know me, know him. Get ahold of yourself, Tana.
The station is a short drive away from our little suburb, and we arrive all too soon. Certainly not long enough for me to get control of my nerves. It’s a small metal building with two roll-up doors on either side. One of them stands open with a fire truck facing out. Two guys are going through the compartments and marking things off clipboards. They look up when we pull to a stop.
The first is tall and lean with a swath of dark hair and intense eyes. I stiffen, waiting for some spark, reaction, or recognition, but nothing. Nada. No matter how many times it happens, it still surprises me. I really don’t remember anything or anyone.
The second—who I don’t recognize either—looks up as Alec comes around to help me down from the truck. He’s in Battleboro Fire & Rescue sweats and a T-shirt with the letters EMT over his left pec. He’s taller than the first guy and broad across the chest. His sandy blonde hair is trimmed in a tight, almost severe crop. The way he carries himself is precise and exacting. I bet he’s one of those guys who labels the food in his pantry and lines up his drinks in his fridge.
They straighten and move toward us. I immediately deduce the first guy is Alec’s partner. His eyes light up in friendly greeting, and he immediately moves to Alec to clap him around the back with a loud, slapping man hug.
The blonde in the back hangs back and observes instead of coming forward with Walker. He nods in greeting when Alec says hello. I guess I don’t get an antagonistic vibe from him, more the strong silent type.
“Tana,” says the dark-haired guy. “I’m Walker, Alec’s partner.”
I shake his hand, but he pulls me in for a hug. When we part, I start babbling. “I know this is weird. I’m sorry I don’t remember you, but I assume you know my name is Tana.”
“Shit, we’re just glad you’re okay. It was a gnarly accident.”
I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that he would have been there but of course. I learned enough about the accident to know Alec was one of the responders to it. Since Walker is his partner, it makes sense he’d be there too.
Wincing a little, I say, “Yeah, so I’ve been told.”
“Tana, this is Remington Davis, but we call him Remy.”
Remy gives another nod in my direction. I was definitely right about the strong, silent type. “Hello,” I say in as steady a voice as possible. He’s the sort who doesn’t have to say a word or do anything but can make you nervous from gravitas alone. I inch toward Alec without thinking. “Nice to meet you both. Again, I guess.” I give a little nervous laugh.
“Everyone else inside?” Alec asks, and we move to a door on the right side of the building.
“Nah, Zeke and Jax are running a call right now, but they should be back soon.”
The door opens to a nondescript hallway. There’s another door off to the left, and Alec says to me, “That’s Zeke’s office. He’s our captain.”
I nod and stick to Alec like a shadow. It was different when I was in the hospital bed, thinking about getting out and figuring out everything I didn’t know about my life. Now that I’m doing it, it feels overwhelming. Scary. I’m half-tempted to beg Alec to take me back to the house so I can hide under the covers in my bed and never come out. Even riding around town gave me distance from the people and things from before-me’s life. This? Meeting them—it makes everything all the more real.
Before I can get the words out, he’s moving through another doorway to the right. Now we’re in an open area that looks like a living room. Instead of the usual furniture, it’s filled with a half-dozen recliners and a wall of walkie-talkie radios. To my immediate left is an open kitchen space with an island and four, yes, four, refrigerators. There are pieces of computer paper with names and A Shift, B Shift, and C Shift on them, which makes sense once I think about it. If they have a bunch of different people rotating in and out, they’d want a place to store their food without anyone tampering with it.
Walker throws himself in a recliner, and Remy disappears down a hallway to the right of the kitchen and living space. I glance that way curiously but follow Alec as he walks me through the little cubby area to the left of the kitchen, where there’s a bank of computers softly humming.
“This is where we write all our reports,” he says. There’s an entire wall with laptops in protective cases and two desktop computers. He points to a door in the center. “That’s Zeke’s private bathroom and showers. This is the common space. Nothing too special about it, but we’re pretty proud of our coffee bar.” He and Walker share a significant look.
“Is there an inside joke about coffee I don’t need to know?” I tease, trying to squash my own nerves.
Walker grins. “Well, it’s just Alec was new here after the storm, like I was, and when you saw that our old station had been demolished and we were living in old, busted temporary trailers, you raised a stink until we were finally given this new place complete with a coffee bar.”
I glance between the two of them. “You’re kidding. I did that?”
“You started it when you saw that the subfloors were rotting out from underneath us, and we were working double shifts.” Walker sips from a mug of steaming coffee. “And we’re very grateful still.”
Swallowing hard, I try to give him a cheerful smile, but it feels forced. I don’t feel like the kind of woman who could spearhead a campaign of that magnitude. No wonder Alec had been so distraught about losing before-me. Great mother, loving wife, concerned citizen. Was there anything about her that hadn’t been perfect?
“Why don’t I give you the rest of the tour?” Alec suggests.
“Sure.” I give Walker a small awkward wave as Alec tugs me down the hallway where Remy disappeared.
Doors line either side, and Alec says, “These are our bunkrooms. We switch out with each shift, but we’re lucky enough to have our own room.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just make an appropriate sound of approval. Alec opens the door to a room at the end of the hallway, and I’m immediately assailed by his scent. It’s nothing fancy—a bed, a chair, a TV, and a good-sized closet. It’s empty, and the bed is bare. The closet is split down the middle with labels on each half. Dorran is on the right.
“It’s nice,” I say. I imagine him sprawled out on the bed in only those sleep pants like he’d been this morning. He’d have one hand resting low on his stomach and the other under the pillow.
I jump when he starts talking again. “It’s not much, but I figured I’d show it to you so you could get to know me a little more.”
My face is flushed, but I hope he doesn’t pay too much attention. It’s only natural, I try to tell myself, and then push the image from my mind. “What do you do when you’re not at work?”
Okay, maybe I am a bit curious. Who wouldn’t I be? This is the man I was—am—married to. Part of me wants to know who he is and what drew me to him. I want to know the man before-me vowed to spend my life with. Maybe I owe it to him—to myself—and to the girls to be open-minded, give this at least a chance.
Alec points to the door, and I follow him back through the hallway. “We’ve got time. Why don’t I show you?”
“Sure, why not?”
We wave goodbye to Walker, who raises a hand, then get back in the truck. “How long have you been here?” I ask.
“We moved here from Tallahassee four years ago after the storm because we wanted to be closer to my family. They also desperately needed EMTs and medics.”
He drives the truck with an easy confidence, one hand on the wheel, the other propped on the window. It’s a confidence I envy. I’ve only known Alec a short while, but it’s been long enough to know that he’s a man secure in himself, capable. A man who knows what he wants.
It hits me then that he must want me.
Then I remember we were in the middle of a conversation. “Do you like it here? I imagine it’s quite a bit different from Tallahassee.”
He lifts a shoulder. “Not as much as you’d think other than Tallahassee has a hell of a lot more people. Besides, I think the pace here is much better, and we have a lot more room for the girls.”
“Was I a good mom?” I blurt. I can’t seem to wrap my head around the reality of it all. It seems to come natural to Alec, like he was built to be a dad.
His gaze darts to me. “Of course you were,” he says without hesitation. “You are a wonderful mother, Tana. Don’t ever doubt that.”
Thankfully, we pull to a stop because I’m embarrassed about asking the question. It’s not until we get out of the truck that I pay any attention to our surroundings. It’s some sort of park, based on the tall, somewhat bare trees and playground off in the distance. It’s scraped new like most of the landscape around Battleboro; the trees left standing are nearly bare, with just the slightest bit of regrowth on the limbs and downed trees everywhere. The fencing along the playground looks new, and so does some of the equipment.
To the right of the parking lot is a boat ramp, and the sound of trickling water fills my ears. What is it about running water that makes your muscles instantly loosen? I wonder if it’s the same for everyone else when Alec takes my hand and helps me down the steep slope to the riverbank.
The river is about a football field wide and still high and dark green from the spring rain, I’m assuming. Cypress and oak trees line either side, and I imagine before the hurricane, it was a beautiful sight. A sign at the edge of the bank says, “Little Florida River.”
“We spend a lot of time here,” Alec says and tucks his hands into his pockets. “Fishing a lot of the time. Both of the girls learned how to swim here. We go tubing in the summer. My parent’s place is just down a ways.”
“It’s beautiful here. Peaceful. I can see why you like it.”
“It’s also where we had our first kiss,” he says, and my eyes fly to his.
I want to express the shock that crashes over my system, but I can’t find the words to speak, so a strangled sound comes out instead.
“I’ve debated how I’d handle this for a long time, and I didn’t know for certain until now, seeing you here. This morning I thought it would be best to give you space to find your bearings, to heal and get acclimated.” He moves closer, and my body freezes. “Now, seeing you here, remembering the first time you let me have your mouth, I realize that would be fucking stupid. I’ve loved you most of my life. I imagined spending the rest of ours together so often I can’t picture a future without you. Like hell am I going to give you space to find a future without me in it.”
“Alec—” My heart leaps into my throat.
He turns to me, his hand coming out of his pocket to thread through my hair. I can’t move a muscle. I know the smart thing to do is to move away. To put back up the boundaries I’ve tried so hard to erect since I woke up in the hospital, but a voice inside my head is telling me to wait. Just wait. See if there is something still inside me that cares for him as much as he obviously cared about before-me.
Which is why, when he uses that hand cupping my head to bring me forward, I don’t resist. My hands fly to his chest, but only to ground myself against his solidity. Just one kiss. What could it hurt?
Oh.
His soft lips brush mine, and I instantly realize my mistake. Then my thoughts go quiet, and the sound of the river rushing by is all that fills my head. There is only the soft caress of his fingertips against my skin, the tender press of his mouth. A sigh shudders out of me, and I find my knees buckling. He takes my weight in stride, his arms going around me to hold us both up.
I make a sound of need against his lips, and my eyes pop open. Pulling away, I try to remember all the reasons this was a bad idea. But all I can think about is wanting to do it again.
