Unforeseen Danger (4 page)

“What’s your husband’s name?”

“Jake Hawthorne.”
 
She glanced at Jake’s magic marker tattoo and grinned.
 
He smiled back.

“What’s your full name?”

“Martina Nicole Hawthorne.”

“What are your parents’ names?”

“I – I don’t remember,” she said.

“What’s your doctor’s name?”

Nikki stared at the ceiling.
 
She had just talked to him minutes ago and she couldn’t remember without looking at her bracelet.
 
This was driving her crazy.
 
Finally, she admitted she didn’t know.

“That’s okay, Nikki.
 
You did great!” Anna praised her.

After she left, Nikki’s gaze swung to Jake.

“What do I look like?” she asked.

***

Jake looked at her, stupefied.
 
The thought of not even knowing the face in the mirror was too bizarre to contemplate.
 
What a strange condition, where a person could remember how to ride a bike or tie their shoes, but couldn’t remember their own name or face.

“You’re beautiful,” he replied when he found his voice.
 
“Your eyes…your eyes are amazing.
 
Pale green, so pretty that they’re almost spooky, and – wait a minute.”
 
He jumped to his feet.
 
“I’ll be right back.”
 

Jake hurried down the hall to the nurses’ desk and borrowed a small makeup mirror from one of them.
 
He returned to Nikki’s bed and held it for her.
 
She touched her face wonderingly.
 
Jake thought of how incredible she looked on their wedding day.
 
Her lovely hair had been pinned up with a pearl clasp and her eyes had danced the day she married him, just two months after she predicted she would.
 
He had looked at her in that white silk gown and his heart had ached at her beauty.

“It’s cruel for a woman like you to have a face like that.”

Tired and stressed, Jake didn’t realize that he’d spoken aloud until she said tightly, “And just what kind of woman am I?”

“
Nik
, I’m so sorry!” he cried, horrified at
himself
.
 
“I didn’t mean to say—”

“Were we happy, once?” she asked.
 
A tear slipped down her cheek and Jake felt his guts knot at the sight of it.
 
He brushed it away with his thumb.

“Yes, we were…once,” he said hoarsely, unaccustomed to this fragility.

“What happened to us?”

“I think that we just had different expectations of what our marriage should be like.
 
Turns out, neither one of us got what we bargained for.”

He knew he was being vague, but his wounds were too new and too raw for him to discuss right now, especially with the woman who had given them to him.

Nikki must have sensed his reluctance, because she didn’t press the issue.

“Thank you for staying here today,” she said.
 
“Everything feels so strange, but I feel safe when you’re here.”
 

Jake turned away, embarrassed.
 
If Nikki had her memory back, he would be the last person she’d want to see.
 
It made him somehow feel deceptive that she felt safe with him.
  

The nurse saved Jake from replying when she brought in Nikki’s lunch tray.
 
He perched on the edge of her bed and awkwardly began to arrange her food.
 

“
Nik
, I’m going outside for a minute to try your parents again, okay?
 
I’ll be right back.”

Jake climbed on the elevator, grateful for the excuse to get out of there for a moment.
 
He couldn’t think around her.
 
He could barely breathe.

His thoughts returned to Nikki’s mystery passenger and he felt a vicious stab of satisfaction.
 
It had to be him.
 
Who else would she have been so desperate to meet with that morning?

He knew Sara’s hotel room number by heart now and punched it in as soon as he reached the parking lot.
 
He was surprised to hear her muffled hello.

“Sara?” he said a little loudly, struggling to hear over the static.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Jake.
 
I’m calling about Nikki.
 
She’s had an accident.”

“What?
 
Is Nicole hurt?”

He explained about her amnesia and what Luke Carver had said, and then asked if they could come home.

“Oh, dear!
 
I don’t know how we can possibly get back before Saturday.”

Jake frowned.
 
It was only Monday.
 

“Tell Nicole that I love her and that Mother will be there as—”

“You’re breaking up, Sara,” Jake lied, and then hung up the phone in disgust.
 

No wonder Nikki was the way she was.

According to Nikki, her parents had always been too busy to care for her, even when she was an infant.
 
That tedious duty had fallen to a dizzying array of nannies and housekeepers, one of whom was probably the woman Nikki recalled baking cookies with.
 
He would’ve bet his eye-teeth that Sara Davis had never taken the time to bake cookies with her young daughter.

Unless there was a reporter around to record it for posterity.

Nikki’s parents had always tried to make it up to her with money, lavishing her with pricey gifts to compensate for their absence.
 
Frankly, that was why Nikki was a twenty-five-year-old brat.
 
She had always gotten anything she wanted on a whim.

Even him, he realized.
 
Against his will, he thought back to that first day he saw her, standing out from the girls crowded around her like a rose among dandelions.
 
She’d taken his breath away.
 

Stop it!
he
commanded himself.
 
Jake wished for a moment that he was like Nikki.
 
He wished that he could access that little internal recorder in his brain and erase that memory and so many others from his head, leaving it empty of the thought of her.

Jake knew that he wasn’t being exactly fair with his assessment of her at the moment, but he was powerless against the pain and anger that surged within him.
 

It hurt to wonder how many times she had lain in his bed thinking of another man.

Jake tried to shut his thoughts down.
 
He didn’t want to feel sorry for Nikki and he didn’t want to understand her.
 
Not now.
 
Forcing
himself
to think of her parents, he tried to fuel his anger against them.
 
Nikki had remarked one time that they only had her to balance out their Christmas card photo.
 
She joked that there was something suspicious about politicians with no children, so Sara had been forced to keep up appearances.
 
Jake realized sadly that she might’ve been right.
 
He wished that he’d had the presence of mind to mention Nikki’s mystery passenger to Sara.

That would’ve set all of her alarm bells off.
 
The merest hint of a scandal would’ve brought Sara back to the States as fast as her broom would carry her.

Jake sighed, knowing he couldn’t shuffle Nikki off on them, even if by some slim chance they offered to take her in.
 
As vulnerable as Nikki was right now, it would be heartless of him.
 
He hoped that she’d get her memory back soon, so they could get the divorce and get on with their lives.

Separately.

His stomach rumbled and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything except for a couple of candy bars.
 
As Jake headed back to the elevators, he caught a glimpse of a familiar redhead stepping inside.

“Elaine, hold up!” he called.
 
Immediately she stuck out a manicured hand to stop the door.

He jogged to catch up and slipped inside the elevator.
 
His stepsister was struggling with a huge pot of yellow mums, and Jake took them from her.

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and a worried look.
 
“Hey, guy.
 
How are you holding up?”

“I’m okay,” Jake said.
 
“But I’m starving.”

“Let’s go get something to eat, then.”
 
Elaine reached to push the lobby button, but Jake caught her hand.

“I have to tell Nikki where I’m going.”
 
He nodded at the flowers.
 
“Nice of you, considering…”

“Yeah, well, I’m really here for you.”
 
She gave Jake a
skeptical
look.
 
“So is it true, she doesn’t remember
anything
?”

“Nope.
 
Nothing.”

Elaine tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and grinned.
 
“Well, God knows, she hates me enough that seeing my face might bring it all back to her.”

Jake chuckled.
 
“As entertaining as that might be, I don’t think so.
 
Believe it or not, I think I might’ve bumped you from Nikki’s most hated list just before the accident.
 
If seeing me didn’t bring back our last fight—”

“What happened?”
 

“I told Nikki that I wanted a divorce.
 
We had a big
blowout
and she admitted she cheated on me.”

“Oh, Jake!”
 
Elaine hugged him.
 
When she leaned back, her brown eyes were hard with anger.
 
“Nikki’s a selfish little witch.
 
I can’t believe she would do that to you.
 
I never thought that she was right for you, but I always thought she loved you, as much as Nikki was capable of loving anyone—”

“Elaine—” Jake interrupted, but she cut him off with a sharp look.

“No, Jake.
 
You’ve always defended her, no matter how much she’s hurt you, but she doesn’t deserve you.
 
I’m sorry that it had to come to this, but now you can divorce her.”

Jake hesitated and she gasped, “Oh, Jake!
 
Please tell me you’re going to divorce her.
 
Don’t let your sympathy get you hurt even worse.”

“I’m all she has right now, Elaine.
 
I can’t just walk away from her.”

“She’s taking advantage of you.”

“You don’t understand how she is now.
 
She’s a different person than she was before the accident.
 
She’s so fragile, so vulnerable—”

“For how long?”
Elaine interrupted.
 
“I know you love her, but I love you, and it hurts me to see you like this.
 
I wish she
would
change, but it’s not going to happen.
 
It’s just like my situation with
Brandon
—”

“This is nothing like you and Brandon!” Jake said.
 
“He hurt you—”

“And Nikki’s hurt you.
 
Does it matter that it was with her actions and not with her fists?
 
Sometimes, it’s hard to see how bad things
are when it’s your own relationship
.
 
Please, I’m begging you, just—” The doors slid open to Nikki’s floor.
 
“—be careful,” Elaine finished.

Jake opened the door to Nikki’s room and was surprised to find it empty.
 
He sat Elaine’s mums on the nightstand and hurried to the nurses’ station.

“My wife—”

“More tests.”
 
The nurse smiled.
 
“They’ll bring her back in about half an hour.”

Jake turned back to Elaine.
 
She looked relieved.

“Let’s do lunch,” she said.

***

When they wheeled Nikki back to her room, she wondered where Jake was.
 
She noticed the huge vase of mums and figured that Catherine was back.
 
Maybe she was making him eat something.

A soft rap sounded on her door and she called, “Come in.”

Instead of Catherine or Jake, she was surprised when a handsome blonde man stepped inside.

He scanned the room.
 
“Where’s Jake?”

“I don’t know.
 
He went outside to call my mother, and then they wheeled me out for tests.
 
Haven’t seen him since.”

“Oh.”
 
The man shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted, looking very ill at ease.
 
“So…how are you doing,
Nik
?”