More Than Memories (19 page)

“So, when are you coming home?”

“Soon, I hope. I don’t know. There’s so much to
sort through, figure out.”
It’s such a mess here.
“You’re so lucky. I
mean that in a good way, I’m so happy for you.”

“What about you? You and Trent were made for each
other.”

Molly felt tears spring up and run down her face.
Maybe they were, but what if they were and they couldn’t be together? She still
didn’t know why she lost her memory. What horrible event could do that? Now
that she’d found her old life, she didn’t want to lose it all over again.

Inside the local precinct, Trent met Harry Quinn,
the detective Mark had spoken with, and followed the shorter man toward his
desk to brief him on the case. Harry Quinn had a hard face and a round gut, but
he didn’t waste time.

“Mark Stone didn’t find a Justin Atwood at that
address. We have three
‘Atwoods’ to check into
though. I think Miss Anderson’s neighbor must be using an alias.”

Trent pulled a zip lock bag containing a pair of
sunglasses out of his shirt pocket. “I’m fairly certain Justin left these on
Molly’s porch when he came to greet us. It looks like a good print on the
lens.”

Quinn took the bag. “We’ll run the prints.”

“What about extra patrols?”

“We started yesterday after speaking with Stone,”
Quinn said. “This case has had a funny feel to it all along, but we didn’t have
any reason to keep investigating. A dead couple, a girl with no memory. So I
appreciate your notes and information.” Quinn handed him a packet of paper.
“This is your fax, what Stone came up with for Kenneth Webb. I’m also keeping a
copy here in our file. We didn’t have any suspects before, or any reason to
think the accident was foul play. Now we have two persons with some
connection.”

“Thank you, sir, and thanks for your time.” Trent
shook Quinn’s hand, agreed to keep in contact, and headed back to the car to
look over the information. So far all of his leads had produced more questions.
Why did the Andersons run? Why did they keep Molly’s past from her? There
couldn’t be any way for them to cause her amnesia, but they sure did everything
they could to keep her in the dark. So he knew they hid things from her and
kept her here, maybe for her own protection from Kenneth Webb.

He waited till he was sitting inside the car to
open the file and instantly saw the resemblance to Molly in the bone structure
of her birth father’s face. He didn’t like calling Kenneth Webb her father. It
felt disrespectful to Arnold.

“Kenneth Webb, who are you?” He muttered under his
breath and started reading. Two pages later he closed his eyes, wishing he
could throw the paper away, make the information it held disappear forever. He
wanted to protect Molly, but he knew how she felt about his protection. As hard
as things had been on her, she didn’t want him hiding anything. Sighing, he
turned the key and started back to her house in the late afternoon light.

He called her on his cell, wanting to prepare her.

“Trent?” she sounded happier now, excited even. “I
was going through the photo albums again and it’s starting to make sense.”

“What is?”

“My life, you know. It’s starting to get in order.
My childhood.”

“Good, good. Remember how Karen said that would
come back first? Maybe the rest will follow soon. And we’ll get to the bottom
of this.” He felt light and suddenly determined, not so lost in all these
endless facts that didn’t answer anything. She didn’t say anything. “Mol?”

“It might. It might come back, who knows.”

Getting her meaning, he decided to back off. “No
pressure. It’ll happen when you’re ready.” That’s where he paused and had to
force himself to speak. “I have that fax. That’s why I called. It’s got a lot
to go over. We can wait if you like.”

“No.” Her answer came quick. “We need to work on
this.”

“Alright, I’ll be there in a min.” Their goodbye
felt tense. How could he prepare her for this? Kenneth Webb had been in and out
of mental institutions ever since his divorce to Ellen. She had a restraining
order against him, so that explained why Molly hadn’t known him. He assumed she
didn’t, since she never mentioned Kenneth Webb to Alicia or him before she
disappeared.

Kenneth’s last release date had been a year before
Molly disappeared, and after that he didn’t check into another hospital or
leave any trace at all. He seemed to disappear like Molly. Or with her?

Could the information in this file mean anything
to her? And now she’d pieced together her childhood, maybe she was ready to get
past that final block. Fear of something had kept those last memories locked
away. He almost didn’t want to unlock that door.

He drove slowly and felt heavy as he pulled up to
the garage, and found her alone in the kitchen, waiting. Molly’s eyes gazed
into his an
d he felt sure she
saw what he was
trying to hide.

“Maybe you should sit down to read this.” He held
out his hand and she took it before they walked into the living room together.

They sat on the couch where he handed the papers
to her. Trent had purposely put the page containing the picture on the bottom.
He watched her eyes as she read thoughtfully. He hoped she wouldn’t think
anything she read reflected on her or made her different. Most of the pages
listed dates Kenneth had checked into, then out of, different mental
institutions, painting a sad picture. Plus there was the restraining order
against him.

Near the bottom of the stack,
he saw her eyebrows rise as she pulled in a deep breath and
turned the page.

“Oh my gosh.” While
staring at the picture, her eyes went hazy. “That’s him,” she whispered.

“
You knew
Kenneth?”

“No, he’s that man.”

“But that’s Kenneth Webb.”

“The man at the house.”

“Your house in Ridge City or here? Where, Molly?”

She reached up to her head and mumbled about
fighting downstairs. She seemed to be watching the scene unfold before her,
happening all over again. A second later she gasped.

“Molly?” They sat in a silence that rolled
painfully on and on except for Molly’s shallow and rapid breathing. Her eyes
darted around and he swore he could tell her memories were flooding back.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, he gently
touched her arm. Her head jerked up to look at him, like she had forgotten he
was in the room with her.

With a sharp scream, she was on her feet and
rushing from the room. She ran up the stairs, leaving him staring after her.
The bedroom door shut loudly before he could jump up and follow.

“Molly?” Trent knocked, waited, knocked, and
finally opened the door. She was stretched out stomach down on her bed, her
face buried in her pillow. She raised it enough to say, “I just want to be by
myself.”

He didn’t like it and didn’t leave. No, she wasn’t
sending him away now. Instead of leaving, he crossed the room to her bed
saying, “I don’t want you to go through this alone.”

Softly he sat next to her and put a hand on her
back. “Damn it all, I love you and I’m going to be right here with you.”

Molly didn’t move or respond.

“Did you hear me, Molly Anderson? I love you. I’ve
loved you since the second grade and it’s grown stronger every day.”

He felt her shake. Saw her shoulders rise and fall
as she tried to gasp for breath. “Shouldn’t you say Molly Williams?”

He almost laughed. Good old Molly. He knew better
than to remind her they hadn’t legally changed her name yet. That wasn’t the
point. She was Molly Avery Williams, his wife, the only woman he’d ever loved.
The only woman he would ever love. Heck, the only woman he’d ever even kissed.
She was it for him, all he ever needed.

Trent leaned down on his side, his arm around her
small waist, but he didn’t try to get to her talk. Wanting to comfort her, he
ran his fingers through her hair, remembering all the times he’d done so.

She cried for a long time before she turned to him
and nuzzled her face into his chest.

“Are you going to tell me what made you scream
like that?” he asked.

“Yes, but not tonight. I need to think on it a
while.”

He could live with that because he trusted her,
but one question he couldn’t wait to ask. “Do you think you’re in danger from
Webb?”

“No,” she whispered. “He’s dead.”

“The only thing keeping me alive the last four
years was the thought that I might find you.” Trent broke the long silence as
the daylight outside faded. He brought his face down to the crook of Molly’s
neck and nestled there.

Molly thought maybe she should stay mad about the
marriage and him not telling her, but things between them were so long
standing, connected, and strong. She remembered their childhood teasing and
growing friendship. The awkward times in junior high as they dealt with their
growing attraction. The first time they danced in the seventh grade, how she’d
been the same height as him. She reached to him, thinking of their hungry
kisses in high school. They’d been completely consumed by each other. She
wanted to have tha
t love ag
ain. She felt it
but she also felt tentative because they’d been apart.

“I want to go back to Ridge City, to that little
pond with cattails and black birds.”

“You miss our little town?” Trent slowly drew the
back of his knuckles down the soft skin of her cheek.

“Yeah, I do.” Verbalizing it felt good. She
reached around his neck and pulled him closer to kiss him softly and then
harder, asking, meeting him tongue to tongue, and that started a train in
motion that didn’t have a brake.

He mumbled at first in surprise, and when he freed
his mouth, asked, “You forgive me?”

“I’m reserving the right to be mad.” She pulled
his mouth against hers again, arching to feel her body pressed to his.

He kissed her back, hard, then pulled away. “I’m
confused, Molly.”

“You turned me down because you said I wanted to
wait. Well, we’re married, and, darn it, I’m not waiting. I’ve been alone for
too long.”

He met her halfway in a frenzied kiss that brought
back the memory of their wedding night in Reno. He’d gone through high school
waiting for that moment, and being with h
er now fulf
illed
a lifetime of need.

The few days they spent together after their
wedding night poured into Molly’s mind.
They’d
forgotten the world and everything outside of each other, spending their time
in bed expressing their need and love.
She
needed this and needed Trent, and she wasn’t too
proud to admit that, at least not to herself.

Time had played some funny tricks on her before,
maybe because her amnesia kicked events out of order. Now time cycled around.
This felt like their wedding night as she pulled his shirt
up over his head and he pulled her clothing off. They
could have those honeymoon days back, have them again. Touch, explore, and
please each other.

“I need you!” she rasped as they pulled and tugged
clothes off, running their hands all over each other.

She was suddenly in ecstasy. Nothing else
mattered. Them, together, this is what her heart wanted. Her arms felt so right
wrapped around him. Their bodies were made to go together. He moved slow and
sweet at first as if to treasure the moment, like she was. She liked making
this new memory, one that took them into the future but also connected them to
their past.

“You are worth waiting for, Molly Williams.” He
kissed her and loved her and showed her how he felt. Trent filled her mind,
offering a pleasant escape and amazing adventure at the same time.

When they lay spent, wrapped up in each other, he
murmured into her ear, “I love you, I love you.”

Strands of her hair lay across her face but she
couldn’t move to brush them away. She couldn’t move at all, actually, thinking
about how he’d put her way up on a pedestal and expected her to be the same as
before. What if she couldn’t be his old Molly?

A minute passed before she realized he was waiting
for a response. “Trent, I-” She couldn’t say it. Strange emotions held the
words in. Instead, she listened to her breathing, to his, to the light wind
playing against the house.

She couldn’t believe how much she loved him
either, but she felt this crazy pressure and didn’t know why. She felt so right
with him but scared senseless at the same time. Had she really fixed things by
regaining her memory? She’d reached the prize she’d been chasing these last
four years, yet didn’t know what to do now. She couldn’t panic again. Taking a
deep breath, she realized she just needed space to adjust.

“Trent.” His name was just a breath. “I have to
tell you, this was more about need than anything else.”

“What?” His head lifted. She felt guilty at seeing
the confusion in his eyes.

“I need you, I’ll admit it, but I have so much to
think about. I might still be mad at you.”

“Funny way of showing it.”

“Didn’t I say that before we ...?”

He didn’t speak and she couldn’t hear him breathe.
Panic squeezed her as she thought he must be mad at her.

“Why, Mol?”

“I’m sorry. After all this, I feel—” She didn’t
have the right words to describe everything that had just ran through her head,
but
she said,
“Unstable. I think I might say things I don’t actually mean. Caught up in the
moment.”

“I don’t think we’re in a moment.” He kept his
voice quiet.

“I want you to stay here tonight. Stay with me.
I’m just saying don’t expect your old Molly back instantly.”

“You’re scared? It’s okay.”

She exhaled and realized she’d been holding her
breath.